A Viable Realism and Revival Doctrine
Washington, Monroe, and Nixon equals America First.
Vivek Ramaswamy
In his inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson famously summarized the thought of George Washington in what is now known as the Washington Doctrine: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.” The last of the Founders to serve as president, James Monroe, formulated the Monroe Doctrine, in which he declared to the European powers that the Western Hemisphere would henceforth be the unique sphere of influence of the United States. Over a century later, with the United States having ascended to superpower status, Richard Nixon expanded the corpus of American foreign policy strategy with his own doctrine, which called for our allies to bear their own security burdens and provide the primary manpower for their own defense, with America serving as defender of last resort.
In the years since Nixon formulated his doctrine, our country has moved from being one of two superpowers to ascendancy as the world’s sole superpower after the fall of the USSR. We squandered our post-Cold War opportunity to preserve that position through a bipartisan embrace of “democratic capitalism” with Communist China, on the false premise that we could spread democracy through capitalism by creating mutual economic codependence with China. Our mistaken posture towards Communist China led us over the last three decades to a new uncomfortable equilibrium, where the United States tenuously remains the world’s great superpower but our two great power rivals—China and Russia—are now working together in a way that threatens us. We must admit our mistakes, recognize our time, and adopt a revised strategic vision for our day aligned with reality rather than wistfully wishing the immediate post-Cold War order back into existence.
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theamericanconservative.com
Fantastic!
Tom |
