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ISOLATIONIST REPUBLICANS VS. INTERVENTIONIST DEMOCRAT Ed Ross | Monday, June 27, 2011 Are Republicans returning to their isolationist roots while Democrats under President Barack Obama become more interventionist? Polling results and recent statements by Republican presidential hopefuls suggest that Republicans are becoming more isolationists. Conversely, while the far left remains staunchly anti-war and non-interventionist, President Barack Obama, in the mold of his post-World War II Democratic predecessors, appears to be leading Democrats, albeit unwillingly, toward greater interventionism. He seeks to maintain substantial U.S. forces in Iraq. He continues the war in Afghanistan. He’s intervened in Libya. And he is conducting not-so-secret wars in Pakistan and Yemen. A recent Pew Poll “found the proportion of conservative Republicans who support U.S. activism in world affairs has fallen by 19 points since 2004, with a majority of conservative Republicans now saying that America should ‘pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home.’” An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that most Republicans support a significant withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer. Only 28 percent of Republicans believe the war has contributed "a great deal" to long-term US security. These attitudes are reflected in statements by Republican presidential hopefuls. Most notable, in the GOP New Hampshire debate earlier this month, Mitt Romney said “our troops shouldn’t go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation.” Senator John McCain’s response in a subsequent interview on ABC News reinforced the new isolationist perception. “There’s always been an isolationist strain in the Republican Party, the Pat Buchanan wing of the party,” he said. “But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak.” Sarah Palin—not yet a declared candidate for the Republican nomination—also raised the specter of Republican isolationism. Responding to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s threat to take unilateral action against NATO forces that conduct air raids on houses, she said on Facebook, “If he actually follows through on his claim . . . that should result in the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the suspension of U.S. aid.” Is all this really a new Republican isolationism, or just war weariness, reflecting the perception that the greatest threats America currently faces are economic and that military over-extension only compounds them? And do President Obama’s actions represent a new post-Vietnam-War interventionist strain in the Democratic Party? More important are these even the right questions? Perhaps we should be asking if our strategies for intervention in the post 9/11 era are the right ones. Since 1945 and prior to 9/11, both Democratic and Republican presidents have routinely intervened militarily to assert U.S. interests, although Democrats are two to one on the non-intervention side. Harry Truman decided not to intervene in the Chinese Civil War. Dwight Eisenhower refrained from supporting the French in Indochina. And Bill Clinton abstained from intervening in Rwanda. On the Republican side Ronald Reagan sent a contingent of U.S. Marines to Lebanon and a small force to invade Grenada. George H.W. Bush invaded Panama and Kuwait, and intervened in Somalia. George W. Bush got us into Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 9/11, all U.S. interventions have been in countries that were or bordered on being failed states or with long-standing tribal, ethnic, and religious conflicts. In other words, places not amenable to pacification without the prolonged occupation of U.S. and allied troops. Nation building worked well in highly industrialized societies like Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and it may yet work out in Iraq; but it is highly doubtful it will work in Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya or a dozen other places U.S. forces could find themselves deployed stomping out the likes of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Also since 9/11, U.S. strategy has been to build “partnership capacity” so that supported countries' governments could expand their area of control to match their area of recognized sovereignty, depriving terrorists and insurgents of safe havens from which to attack them and other countries. That’s what General David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy is all about. Increasingly, however, it appears that we have neither the resources nor patience to see these strategies through to success. It takes decades, not years, to build democratic institutions and traditions. Only Iraq may prove the exception to this rule. It had infrastructure and its own institutions before the U.S. invaded, and it has the natural resources (oil) to fund development. It’s one thing to have a knee-jerk reaction to U.S. intervention overseas. That is isolationist. It’s another to ask if there isn’t a better model. Many have argued from the beginning, and some are arguing it after the fact, that a long-term military presence in Afghanistan was a bad idea and that America needs a new approach. Most often a counterterrorism strategy, targeted strikes against high-value terrorist and insurgent targets, is offered as the counterpoint to counterinsurgency, which requires boots on the ground to protect populations. Counterterrorism might work in places like Pakistan and Yemen where the presence of U.S. troops is not an option. But will it work in Afghanistan or other countries with no strong central government? Can counterterrorism strikes alone deprive terrorists and insurgents of the bases they need to organize, train, and launch attacks against the West? In the ongoing presidential campaign, it will be a tragedy if the two political parties throw around accusations of isolationism and interventionism. What’s needed is the development of a bipartisan approach to protecting U.S. friends, allies, and interests in those countries where partnership capacity and nation building just won’t work.
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Criticism of the War Eases, but Still a Majority In Shift From Bush Era More Conservatives Say 'Come Home America' John McCain Chastises 2012 Republican Field for Isolationism Republican Enthusiasm Ebbs on Afghan War U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan Palin: New Afghanistan Development Dangerous to NATO Interventionist Democrats Want NATO to be Center of the World
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