Indecision or Isolationism
Writing at the New York Times, Andrew Kohut reports on new Pew Center data that Americans, while voicing clear domestic priorities, are unsure about the direction foreign policy should take after Bush.
Opinion surveys show that American views about the world will not only challenge the presidential candidates of both parties in the general election, but will force the winner in November to deal with a citizenry that is downbeat about the world and fractured along partisan lines.
Disillusionment with the Iraq war has ushered in a rise in isolationist sentiment comparable to that of the mid-1970’s following the Vietnam war. Pew surveys have found as many as four in 10 Americans saying the United States “should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.”…
A rise in isolationism has signaled a diminished public appetite for the assertive national security policy of the Bush years and, in general, a less internationalist outlook.
Did Bush, inadvertently, bring about a new era of isolationism? As the economy looks to be on the verge of recession and the dollar at record-breaking lows, are Americans realizing the cost of the Iraq war–as the Economist writes, what economists like Joseph Stiglitz estimate to be 3 trillion dollars?
Great powers almost never pay for their wars up front. Even in America’s war of independence, the revolutionaries printed money to finance their campaign.
But the Pew figures point to a populace that is starting to experience the effects of the war expenditures. If the news continues to worsen, the candidates will have little choice but to draw upon isolationist sentiments. Whether the U.S. can afford such a lack of foreign policy remains an open question.