The GOP’s Bush era flirtation with Wilsonian nation building is at an end. All the major Republican Candidates are Jacksonians. Rick Perry gave a speech to Veterans. He came out against military adventures. Perry also stated that when we go to war, we need a plan to win and commit all resources possible.
Texas Governor Rick Perry delved into foreign policy this morning as he addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in San Antonio, warning that the United States “cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multi-lateral debating societies.”
“I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism. We should only risk shedding American blood and spending American treasure when our vital interests are threatened and we should always look to build coalitions among the nations to protect the mutual interests of freedom loving people,” Perry told thousands of veterans today.
“It’s not our interest to go it alone. We respect our allies, and we must always seek to engage them in military missions. At the same time, we must be willing to act when it is time to act. We cannot concede the moral authority of our nation to multi-lateral debating societies, and when our interests are threatened American soldiers should be led by American commanders.”
Perry pointed to the lessons learned from the Vietnam War as helping leaders make more cautious decisions when engaging in combat.
“A president should never send our sons and daughters into war without a plan to win and the resources to make that possible,”
Rick Perry understands that America can’t go looking for demons abroad. He outlined a Jacksonian based foreign policy based on national interests. The era of nation building is over.
There is a shift in foreign policy going on in the GOP. Conservative voters have had it with wars for Muslim Democracy. It’s become apparent, they don’t want democracy in Islamic nations. They want Sharia law states. This nation is also broke and can’t afford these missions. Realizing the shift, every major Republican candidate rejected Wilsonianism and now embrace a cautious foreign policy. The Bush Doctrine based on nation building, is being rejected by Republicans.
As the Republican Party grapples with a broadening schism over the role of the U.S. military in the world, several of the GOP presidential contenders appear to be veering further away from the neo-conservative, nation-building wing of the party — a trend that could deepen as more candidates enter the race.
At last week’s debate in New Hampshire, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney best exemplified the extent to which party orthodoxy has evolved from the interventionist foreign policy notions that predominated in Bush’s post-9/11 presidency: The front-runner for the 2012 GOP nomination called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan “as soon as possible” and said of the current state of the nearly decade-long war there, “Our troops shouldn’t go off and try to fight a war of independence for another nation.”
[….]
“If you believe that politics is a marketplace of ideas, there was an under-served market of people wanting to get out of Afghanistan and not enough people selling that,” Chris Preble, the director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, told RCP. “When you ask the American people, ‘Do you want to be the world’s policeman?’ they say no. Rank-and-file Republicans hate nation-building.”
Though Preble’s views have to be considered with the understanding that he is a leading noninterventionist thinker, a growing pool of data appears to back up his conclusion that the Republican base has indeed shifted substantially on foreign policy from where it initially stood in the post-9/11 world.
America is broke and can’t afford these nation building project. The whole idea of spreading Democracy in the Islamic world was a Progressive concept anyway. What we need is a foreign policy based on national and economic interest. Spreading Democracy should not be our priorities. I would take 10 Pinochets over 100 Hamid Karzai. We should not care the nature of another nation’s government, only that they are allied with our interest. Realism is what a Conservative foreign policy should be base don.
The Bush doctrine has failed, it’s time to put it in the ash heap of failed Progressive ideas. We need the Reagan Doctrine of peace through strength.
John McCain recently used the isolationist smear against growing Republican calls to leave Afghanistan. Miss Lindsey Graham recently told Republicans in Congress to shut up in their opposition to Libya. Instead of cowering before these two, many Republicans are holding firm on their new skepticism of interventionism. It’s now becoming clear that Jacksonianism is becoming dominant in the GOP. The majority of Republicans voters are now against unlimited interventionism and prefer America deals with its own issues first. Many Republicans politicians are also reflecting the views of their constituents.
Liberal Republican Mitt Romney has now embraced the cautious foreign policy outlook by calling for withdrawal from Afghanistan. He said America can’t fight for others’ freedoms. I very rarely agree with Mitt, but he’s right. We have been in Afghanistan ten years and the Taliban are still around. Clearly a large segment of Afghans support them. This realization has led many Conservatives to realize that you can’t impose Democracy at the point of a gun.
The Republican presidential candidates’ debate last week raised questions as to where the GOP is headed on foreign policy issues. When asked about pressing international matters such as Libya and Afghanistan, the candidates offered a range of answers striking in their variety. Of course, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) can always be counted upon to call for American strategic disengagement globally. But other candidates such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) also voiced noted skepticism regarding current U.S. military interventions overseas. Romney suggested that the United States cannot fight “a war of independence for another nation,” and offered a rather mixed statement on American efforts in Afghanistan. Bachmann, for her part, laid out a ringing condemnation of the current U.S. intervention in Libya. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, though absent that night, has said similar things about both Libya and Afghanistan in recent weeks. Of the leading candidates onstage in the debate, only former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty offered a clear defense of existing U.S. military engagements overseas. To be sure, the format was hardly one to allow for lengthy position statements, but what was said did raise a lot of eyebrows. The New York Times went so far as to declare that the debate indicated a “renewed streak of isolationism” within the GOP. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) raised similar concerns on Sunday morning about “an isolationist strain in the Republican Party.”
[…]
There has certainly been an adjustment in the foreign policy emphases of many congressional and/or grassroots Republicans and conservatives over the last couple of years. The shift has been away from a Wilsonian approach and toward a more hard-nosed, Jacksonian approach — toward a somewhat greater skepticism of foreign aid programs, nation-building concepts, and foreign interventions. In several cases there is a danger that this skepticism may be applied indiscriminately. But the vast majority of the congressional GOP today supports a foreign policy posture of American leadership, strong national defense, energetic counter-terrorism, and firm support for U.S. allies. The same is true of most Republicans nationwide, including fiscal conservatives as well as tea party supporters.
The Republican Party is going back towards its original foreign policy positions. Whether it is Reagan’s “peace through strength” or Teddy Roosevelt’s “speak softly and carry a big stick“, Conservatives are back to a real conservative view of international relations. One that is based on actual interest or real economic benefits. If the Afghan or Iraq wars had been carried out via Jacksonian principals, they would have ended long ago. American companies would be reaping the rewards of oil or mineral contracts. We would make sure our guys are in charge and won the elections. Our enemies would have been crushed without mercy.
Wilsoniansm is a naive world view. America is a unique experiment in human history. Its success can’t be replicated in all societies. Each nation must have the type of government that suits its culture. At the heart of Jacksonisim is reality. It doesn’t intend to change the world, just make sure America and its interest are respected. Republicans have realized this and are now adopting this approach.
John McCain and Miss Lindsey Graham are the true isolationists. They are isolating themselves from the rest of the Republican Party!
Update: Lindsey Graham tells Congress to shut up over Libya. He’s showing his totalitarian side.
Can you imagine in WWII, which was the last time America fought with all its might to crush an enemy, that we would catch and release German or Japanese fighters. Of Course not, America’s establishment back then still wasn’t as corrupted with Wilsonian or Tranzi ideology. Say what you want about FDR’s domestic policies but when it came to going after our enemies, he was a real war President unlike the current one or the previous one. As a history buff I often wonder if we had the current leadership (Republican or Democrat) would we have won WWII? I think not and this latest story about the US releasing Taliban suspects at the behest of the corrupt Karzai regime confirms my beliefs that our nation has weak leadership.
More than 500 suspected Taliban fighters detained by U.S. forces have been released from custody at the urging of Afghan government officials, angering both American troops and some Afghans who oppose the policy on the grounds that many of those released return to the battlefield to kill NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians.
And those numbers understate the problem, military officials say. They do not include suspected Taliban fighters held in small combat outposts or other forward operating bases throughout the region who are released before they ever become part of the official detainee population.
An Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that President Hamid Karzai’s government has personally sought the release of as many as 700 suspected Taliban fighters since July, including some mid-level leaders. “Corruption is not just based on the amount of money that is wasted but wasted lives when Taliban return only to kill more NATO forces and civilians,” said the official, who opposes what he considers corruption in the Karzai administration.
This is a disgrace and more proof that the Afghan war is a waste. We are propping up a vile pedophile regime to prevent another vile pedophile Islamist regime from taking power. In reality, we should level that place as Rome did Carthage to send a message to our enemies. We will not do this because our elites, who were educated at Ivy League schools, are Internationalists who believe that all humans and cultures are equal. This is nonsense that flies in the face of human reality.
Our brave and undermanned armed forces are doing all they can carrying out naive academic nation building theories to satisfy Ivy League geeks who view them as playthings. Until we get real leadership that is based on reality and national, not international/global interest, America will continue our slow bleed war, increasing debt and our adversaries will continue to get stronger. This catch and release of the Taliban is just another example of our weak elites. We need leaders who will formulate a Jacksonian based National interest foreign policy.
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