Foreign Foray Fatigue

With much of the discussion surrounding the 2016 election focusing on global trade, the threat of Islamic terrorism at home, and immigration from beyond the southern border, the 2016 election could be pivotal for the future of American foreign policy.

Like the issues of immigration and global trade, the country has Donald Trump to thank for bringing the foreign policy question to the fore, and much like those issues, his positions are largely in line with a majority of grassroots conservatives and Americans in general.

Trump is “tapping into what the American people will tolerate, and we are war-weary now” Peter Navarro, author of Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World,” said on “The Laura Ingraham Show” Monday morning.

[lz_table title=”Americans’ Views on U.S. Role in World” source=”Pew”]U.S. leadership role should be…
single world leader,12%
shared leadership role,72%
no leadership role,12%
|In terms of helping solve world problems the U.S. does…
too much,51%
too little,17%
right amount,28%
|U.S. should mind own business and let other countries get along best they can:
agree,52%
disagree,38%
|We should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our own national problems:
agree,80%
disagree,16%
|Keep U.S. as only military superpower:
agree,56%
disagree,32%
[/lz_table]

“He’s also tapping into this whole idea that it’s past time for us to be the world’s policeman. A.), because we can’t afford it, and B.), because these other countries need to invest themselves in national security better,” Navarro said.

“It costs us an enormous amount of money to project power into Asia” and “American taxpayers are paying much more than their fair share” for both involvement in Asia and NATO, said Navarro.

Indeed, the majority of the American people believe that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally,” a 2013 Pew poll found. The same study found that only 12 percent of Americans believed the U.S. should assume a role as the single world leader — and just as many said the U.S. should take no international role at all. A vast majority, however, said the U.S. should share a leadership role with other nations.

A 2014 Pew poll found that a majority of “steadfast conservatives” — which Pew describes as “staunch critics of government and the social safety net” who “are very socially conservative” — believed that America’s “efforts to solve world problems usually end up making things worse.”

Unsurprisingly so-called “business conservatives” — a pleasant sounding euphemism for Chamber of Commerce types and neoconservatives — overwhelmingly support foreign intervention.

But while Americans and Republicans who don’t stand to make gains in the stock market from increased globalization are weary of foreign engagement and the status of world policeman the nation assumed in the post-war world, they still value and support American military might.

The same 2013 Pew study which found only 12 percent of Americans supporting America’s unilateral role as world leader also found that over 50 percent of Americans believe the U.S. should maintain its role as sole military superpower. Clearly Americans are willing to support the military, just not willing to see it employed for the benefit of so-called allies who don’t contribute to their own defense.

“Trump’s coda is we won’t continue unless you’re paying your fair share,” Navarro said. “I think he understands that America can no longer be the first one to jump in with the combat boots. They know if they wait it out we’ll jump in.”

[lz_table title=”Republicans’ Views on U.S. Role in World” source=”Pew”]In terms of solving world problems US does…
Too much,52%
Too little,18%
Right amount,26%
|Yes U.S. efforts to solve world problems usually end up making things worse
Steadfast conservatives,55%
Business conservatives,20%
[/lz_table]

Perhaps the root cause of most Americans’ reluctance to commit to foreign intervention is our recent history in the Middle East. “We’ve been in an obsession with the Middle East for decades and decades and decades,” said Ingraham in her interview with Navarro, and noted that the region is “worse today than it was 20 years ago.”

Ingraham went on to criticize neoconservatives who are “not content unless America is churning out” soldiers to the Middle East. Indeed the “grand distraction” of the Middle East, said Navarro, caused the Bush administration to ignore security threats in Asia.

Writing in the National Review on Monday, neoconservative darling and eager Middle East interventionist Charles Krauthammer asserted that Trump’s foreign policy “lacks any geopolitical coherence.”

As Establishment politicians argue about the level of involvement necessary in defeating ISIS and the supposed threat posed by Russia, “we as american consumers are building up the Chinese war machine,” Navarro noted, creating a nuclear-armed superpower with an advanced military designed specifically to combat the U.S. military.

Trump’s foreign policy — like his positions on immigration and trade — is simple and in line with the silent majority: America and Americans first. That it took an over-the-top businessman with zero political experience to remind the Establishment of that is yet another indictment of just how far removed it is from the Americans who keep it in power with their votes and contributions.