2016

Op-Ed: For U.S. foreign policy, it’s time to look again at the founding fathers’ ‘Great Rule’

BY ELIZABETH COBBS

JULY 4, 2016 4:51 AM PT

People who don’t get heard have a tendency to shout. Eventually they get mad. For too long, foreign policy experts have stuck their fingers in their ears when confronted by citizens ambivalent about playing global police officer.

Republican Donald Trump is channeling their voices through his electric bullhorn, whipping up the crowd and questioning the validity of institutions like NATO. Regardless of whether one likes the messenger, it’s time to listen as we honor the nation’s 240th birthday.

Trump is right when he claims that a policy that looks out for “America first” is based on a “timeless principle.” When George Washington penned his famous Farewell Address of 1796, he asked his Revolutionary War comrade Alexander Hamilton to edit the speech. Hamilton crystallized the president’s sentiment against foreign entanglements — then shared by most — into the “Great Rule.”

“Interweaving our destiny” with others, Washington and Hamilton argued, would “entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice.” America should therefore pursue economic integration with the world, but maintain strict neutrality in its feuds.

John Quincy Adams reiterated this principle on July 4, 1821, when he reminded Congress that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

At the start of the Cold War, President Harry Truman proposed a new great rule to replace the old. Like Washington, Truman had public opinion behind him. Following a vigorous debate, the U.S. Congress accepted Truman’s contention that it was imperative “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”

Citizens agreed that it was the United States’ job to defend the so-called Free World — alone, if necessary. Anything less was deemed un-American. Decision-makers stoked this sentiment to forestall isolationism. They encouraged Manichean thinking to “scare the hell out of the American people,” as Sen. Arthur Vandenberg put it.

Americans are sick of being told they must pay for policies they don't understand by elites whose explanations make less and less sense.

The Truman Doctrine meant global military assistance on a scale never before seen. Since 1947, America has fought more foreign wars than any other nation. It maintains large permanent bases throughout Europe and Asia. As a former secretary of State, Hillary Clinton knows the Truman Doctrine fostered a safer world. She advocates staying the course preferred by establishment Democrats and Republicans, arguing that change will result in “chaos.”

Yet the conditions that gave rise to the doctrine no longer exist, as citizens intuit. Europe and Asia have rebuilt, territorial invasions on a continental scale have vanished, physical conflict between nations has plummeted since 1947 and the United States is no longer the sole prosperous country in a world bankrupted by war. Meanwhile, Americans continue doing a grubby security job that leaves many feeling tired and dirty.

As a consequence, Washington’s advice feels relevant again. In 2011, Libertarian congressman Ron Paul called for closing all foreign bases. Fellow politicians derided him, but many voters found his arguments arresting. They also were drawn to Bernie Sanders, who said during the primaries that America “should not be policeman of the world.”

Hyper-conscious of economic insecurity since the Great Recession of 2008 and in hock for college tuition, millennials are perplexed at the 4-1 disparity between what America and most of its NATO partners spend on defense. Their parents, displaced in the workforce by globalization, don’t understand what the United States gets out of the trade agreements that government officials deem necessary. The persistence of terrorism despite 15 years of war makes young and old alike wonder whether we should accelerate military interventionism or end it.

In 2013, for the first time since the Pew organization began polling Americans on the question five decades earlier, the majority (52%) said the United States should “mind its own business” and allow other countries to get along on their own. Today, Pew finds, the number has risen to 57%.

The public is abandoning the Cold War consensus. Americans are sick of being told they must pay for policies they don’t understand by elites whose explanations make less and less sense and whose children rarely serve in the armed forces.

Persistent elitism triggers reactive populism. Voters turn to political outsiders when insiders won’t listen…

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-cobbs-global-policeman-20160704-snap-story.html

George Washington Farewell Address, 19 September 1796

…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that in place of them just & amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one Nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate envenomed and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill will & resentment sometimes impels to War the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition and other sinister & pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the Liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels & Wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification: It leads also to concessions to the favourite Nation of priviledges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions—by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained—& by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal priviledges are withheld: And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite Nation) facility to betray, or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great & powerful Nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause & confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop…

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0440-0002

>>19831871

…a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils.

…it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favourite Nation) facility to betray, or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity.