Foreign policy is broken up into two very broad sides: the isolationist side and the interventionist side. For most of our country’s history, we have been isolationist, at least in the respect of directly involving our military in conflicts around the globe. Ever since the Cold War, the United States’ foreign policy could be characterized as interventionist. In order to combat the Soviet Union, we chose to intervene in other countries' affairs so we could spread the ideals of democracy. Our country’s foreign policy goals have not changed that much since the fall of the Soviet Union; we still adhere to a liberal view of spreading democracy to different parts of the world, most recently the Middle East. Neoconservatives, as well as other hawkish liberals, want to use military force to bring democracy to oppressed areas.
While I am all for intervening in countries abroad, it is not the United States’ job to serve as the world’s sole democratizing force. We should not focus on liberalism as our strategy when viewing the world’s problems. I am not arguing for less intervention inherently, I am arguing for smarter, more calculated intervention.
There is a distinct difference between the state of the world now versus during the Cold War. Liberalism was necessary during the Cold War because spreading ideals of democracy helped stop a nuclear war. Things were tense during this time period, and any upper hand that could be gained by either the United States or Soviet Union was necessary. Spreading democracy to different regions in the world often times gave us the upper hand and stopped an aggressive Soviet Union. With that being said, we are no longer fighting a war of ideals. There is no great struggle between communism and democracy. To continue to spread democracy to areas would be to almost return to an early 19th century, Imperial Era mindset.
During the Imperial Era, an argument often used to justify our actions was that we were bringing civilization and democracy to these “less civilized” areas. This belief was summed up in Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden.” While this isn’t explicitly stated as the justification today, it might as well be. Who are we to say that certain ways of life aren’t good enough? It is not our job to bring democracy to everywhere in the world and the idea that we should is arrogant. Realistically, democracy probably is the best form of government for the people, but it should not be forced on countries at gunpoint. We do not have the justification to intervene in a nation unless doing so would protect American interests.
While it sounds like I am writing from an isolationist’s point of view, that is truly not the case. America should have the power to intervene whenever it is in our interest. People always argue that intervention is the problem and that we often destabilize areas and often times they have the right idea. However, it is not intervention itself that destabilizes regions, it is liberalistic intervention that destabilizes regions. The goal should not be to limit our intervention as a nation, rather it should be to intervene in smarter, more responsible ways.
Looking back on the information we have now, most people would say that our nation’s intervention in Iraq was not justified and that it was an overreach of our military. Some have even called it the worst foreign policy mistake in the past couple of decades. Knowing what we do now, the intelligence gathering was not adequate and the report was released too quickly. However, hindsight is 20/20 and our focus should be to the future, not looking to the past. Again, it is not our job to bring democracy to areas and that we should not choose the government; getting rid of Saddam Hussein was not our job. However, that wasn’t even our biggest flaw with our policy approach. Our policy that eliminated the Ba’ath party was a complete overstretch and is what caused all of the insurgency that keeps us in Iraq until today. It was not our job to topple the dictator in Iraq, but it was even less of our job to eliminate Iraq’s leading political party and also the arm of their military. Our focus should have been on intelligence gathering instead of a strong willed policy involving military force.
Similarly, it is not our job to bring an end to an authoritarian regime in Syria. Many argue that there will not be stability in the region in the area until Assad is replaced and ISIL is destroyed. I would venture to say that there will never be peace in the Levant, and it is not our duty to ensure a false sense of peace. However, it is true that ISIL is a serious existential threat to American Security. We should intervene in the Middle East only to eliminate ISIL. That intervention should entail the strategic use of a moderate number of special operations forces to root out ISIL fighters and the full wrath of our Air Force’s superior firepower. Eliminating ISIL would not take long, and would not prove to be extremely challenging. A policy that focuses on containment to slowly choke out this terrorist group is not effective because they are not a true state and can operate in strained situations. Eliminating ISIL should be our military’s first focus as of now.
Only when there is a threat to our national interests and security should the United States intervene. This isn’t necessarily limiting the amount of intervention our country is involved with, because there are multiple threats to our interest. However, in the grand scheme of things smarter invention would ultimately limit the need for our intervention. Using smarter intervention, we would have been able to leave Iraq and Afghanistan after a few years in each country. There should have been absolutely no need to continue fighting in the region this long. If we focus more on threats to our interest in a laser-like way we would not only be safer as a nation, but not be seen as overreaching our authority as a nation. We can maintain our position of the strong leader of military affairs and foreign policy while intervening smarter.
