On foreign policy, the GOP needs a new Eisenhower

In recent years, we have seen the resurgence of a Taft-style sentiment — call it anti-interventionist, neo-isolationist, or what you will — among some conservatives and libertarians. To be sure, the neo-isolationist faction is in the minority. But it is vocal and better organized than it has been for many years. It also fields a champion, in Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky,), who has a chance at winning the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Today’s anti-interventionists like to reference Eisenhower, but they more truly resemble his great opponent Taft. Like Taft, the strict anti-interventionists see American military power itself — rather than external challenges such as Russia, China, or the Islamic State — as the single greatest threat to American interests. And this conviction is sincere. But it is terribly wrong, and we must refute it energetically. Frustration with interventions of the past decade must not become an excuse to discard the Republican party’s commitment to a robust national-security policy that dates back to the 1950s.

Those of us who are reform conservatives on national-security issues respond to a different set of circumstances than did President George W. Bush more than ten years ago. We have cut our teeth on the debates of the past few years — not prior eras. We did not mastermind Bush’s war in Iraq. We do, however, respond to objective national-security trends as they have developed under President Obama. These trends include a loss of respect for American power, among both allies and adversaries abroad; a palpable feeling of American retreat; the withering of America’s defense capabilities relative to stated commitments; and a disturbing sense of presidential disengagement on one serious national-security challenge after another. It is unacceptable to respond to these trends by saying — as the anti-interventionists do — that fortress America is the best guarantor of our security, and that we need to retreat even further. There will be no safety for Americans in retreat. It will only be read as weakness. And it’s deeply delusional to think that authoritarian adversaries will not take advantage of this weakness.