ARE WE ALL TAFTIANS NOW?

Old and in the Way: The American Street has sized up best the new paradoxes of foreign policy. (Victor Davis Hanson, June 27, 2003, National Review)

During this entire crisis tired voices of convention have misunderstood the nature of this war and the temporary presence of Americans in exotic places like the Asiatic provinces of the former Soviet Union, the Gulf, or Kurdistan. Instead of seeing such deployments in their proper context of ad hoc military efficacy and reaction to 9/11, they have instead shrilly alleged some sinister conspiracy to harness the world's oil through the use of permanent military deployment abroad and perpetual war.

Fools! The real danger is not that we are interventionists, but rather are on the verge of a weird insularity not seen since the 1920s - a paradox of still being engaged abroad but not in the usual manner of the past. The American Street is in a strangely revolutionary - read "fed-up" - mood. It is growing distant from Europe. It is angry with the Arab world especially, and it is tired with South Korea - and most whiny nations that either take billions of dollars in direct American aid or ankle-bite under the aegis of American arms.

The result is while hothouse analysts in Paris and spoiled teenagers in Seoul with Reeboks and football jerseys damn America the imperialist, the United States they knew is changing right before their eyes in ways that they might not like in the next decade - but that will in fact relieve most Americans. [...]

The real global story is not "anti-Americanism," but perhaps a growing American weariness with strident allies and the braggadocio of pathetic Middle Eastern despotisms. If I were a functionary of the European Union, I would either have an emergency meeting right now to explore ways of stemming a rising, grassroots tide of Middle America's anger against Europe or alternatively allot 400 or 500 billion Euros per annum for its own unilateral and collective defense. We in America are waiting for sober Europeans to question their current frightening leadership that came of age in 1968, but now shrug that the Schroeders, Fischers, and Villepins may not be so aberrant after all. The EU, remember, is now being asked by Mr. Abbas on the West Bank to stop subsidizing Hamas.

So in response, what should we do?

Keep quieter and carry a far bigger stick.

There's an amusing definition of insanity, that it consists of making the same mistake over and over again but expecting the outcome to change. One wonders if observers of America are insane, given that they seem incapable of accepting the fact that America only rouses itself from isolationism long enough to swat down annoyances, then withdraws back into itself. The tragedy of the Cold War was that we failed to swat and so stayed abroad far too long at far too high a cost. But there seems little inclination on the part of the Administration or the people to stay engaged in the world this time, a few more pummelings and we'll come back home. All this Empire nonsense will soon be forgotten...until next time.

MORE:
-Principles Without Program: Senator Robert A. Taft and American Foreign Policy (John Moser, September 2001, Dialogues)

What conclusions, then, may we reach regarding Taft's overall importance for the history of U.S. foreign relations? As the revisionists have pointed out, he was remarkably prescient on many of the problems inherent in a highly interventionist foreign policy: unprecedented accretion of power in the hands of the executive branch of government, curtailment of civil liberties at home, the charge of "imperialism" arising from American influence abroad, and most importantly the danger of what Paul Kennedy referred to as "imperial overstretch"-the extension of overseas commitments beyond the ability of a nation to meet them. Even his contemporary critics, such as John P. Armstrong, admitted that the senator played an important role as a check on the internationalism of the Truman administration, raising difficult questions about particular policies even if only to be voted down. Indeed, in the wake of the Vietnam War many liberals, including (most ironically) Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., proved willing to embrace many of Taft's positions on foreign affairs.

But while it certainly would not do to reject Taft's importance out of hand, it is equally erroneous to claim that he offered a coherent alternative paradigm for the conduct of foreign affairs. Republican party platforms in the late 1940s and early 1950s to a large extent echoed the interventionism of their Democratic counterparts. The reason for this was twofold: first of all, Taft never felt comfortable enough with the subject to put the sort of effort into foreign policy as he did into, say, domestic economic matters; and secondly his intense partisanship led him to view foreign affairs as little more than a stick with which to beat the Democrats. Thus to some he appeared as merely a mindless "isolationist," while others failed to recognize any consistent viewpoint whatsoever.

It is probably a mistake, however, to place all the blame for this on Taft. The late 1940s and early 1950s were, after all, a period of America Triumphant, a time when almost all Americans believed in the role of the United States as leader of the free world, and very few questioned the wisdom of extensive overseas commitments. Taft himself seemed to accept these premises in his book, A Foreign Policy for Americans (though in it he often hedged about how to best follow through on them). Therefore even if he had mapped out a clear and coherent plan for foreign affairs derived from his core principles, it is unlikely that he would have found much support for it. It was when he was being most consistent and true to his principles, such as when he opposed the North Atlantic Treaty, that he appeared to be the most out of step with the times. It was not, therefore, until the 1960s and the doubts raised by the Vietnam War that a serious reevaluation of Taft's foreign policy was possible. And indeed, as policymakers of the post-Cold War era struggle with the issue of foreign affairs, perhaps it is time for another such reconsideration.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 29, 2003 11:15 AM