The case for isolationism

Why conservatives should oppose intervention in global affairs

By Alisa Farenzena
From the March 2005 Print Edition

The Republican Party stands for small government and for limiting spending, but the current administration’s far-reaching foreign policy as of late is not exactly in line with these principles. Billions of dollars have been spent so far, with no end in sight.

Republicans of a century ago, like Teddy Roosevelt, did favor big foreign policy. Since the end of World War I, however, the GOP has adopted a more isolationist stance while Democrats have favored meddling in world affairs. Picking up where Roosevelt left off, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson encouraged American intervention in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua. Wilson was also the one who pushed for tying up America in a League of Nations. His Republican successor, Warren Harding, then serving in the Senate, was part of the effort led by Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to oppose the League.

This successful push to prevent the United States from joining the League of Nations was echoed by the effort of Senator Robert Alphonso Taft and other Republicans against the United Nations, an organization which in recent years has demonstrated just how ineffectual it is. The Democrats, on the other hand, have time and again gotten America mixed up in world affairs, from the Vietnam War to Bill Clinton’s conveniently timed actions against Yugoslavia.

Now the tables have turned again, with Republicans taking the more outward view. Although what we have accomplished in Iraq is indeed a noble gift to Iraqi citizens, who used to live in constant fear of Saddam Hussein, there are many criminal regimes and rebel groups in the world that commit gross injustices against innocent human beings every day. Who are we to say that the suffering of one people takes precedence over the suffering of another?

Furthermore, however altruistic our motives may be, we cannot predict the consequences or our actions, especially when we decide to pick one unsavory regime over another, assuming that it’s the lesser of two evils. We have made major errors in the past, like helping put the Taliban in power in Afghanistan.

Our good intentions could backfire again. Currently, we are concerned about nuclear proliferation in Iran and Syria. These two dangerous nations normally would not be inclined to cooperate with one another, but it is possible that our actions in Iraq could result in pushing them closer together, thereby increasing their menace.

That is not to say that we should not have a strong military. Quite to the contrary, a strong defense is one of the cornerstones of Republican ideology. Our actions in Iraq, however, were not defensive — they were proactive. Iraq had not yet attacked the United States or our allies.

Such actions by the U.S. government may actually be harmful to the goal of maintaining a strong defense because they stretch our armed forces thin at a time when recruitment numbers are low. The notion of the pre-emptive strike makes our foreign policy somewhat arbitrary; there are other nations in the world, such as North Korea, that resent us immensely and could potentially attack. How do we choose which ones present the greatest threat? If countries we haven’t singled out do end up deciding to attack us, our defense against them is weaker than it would otherwise be.

Our foreign policy has also become too large in areas other than military campaigns. Purely humanitarian efforts, such as tsunami relief, have become a large part of our government spending, but it should not be the U.S. government’s job to give financial help in these situations. The effort should be left to private charities collecting donations from companies and citizens, who give because they want to do the right thing — not because the government has deemed a cause worthy. Charities have been extremely helpful with tsunami aid, donating more than the government of any nation in the world, including our own. A third of American households have contributed, according to a February 20 report on Fox News Sunday.

Our nation does not have unlimited resources. We cannot possibly fund every war or every humanitarian effort that we would like to. The money for this spending has to come from somewhere, and the Republican Party needs to be the one to stand up for fiscal responsibility — Democrats surely won’t. To prevent crippling rates of taxation in the future, our “conservative” government must step back and stop taking such an involved role in global affairs.

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