{"id":27187,"date":"2016-06-17T12:30:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T02:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=27187"},"modified":"2016-06-20T14:49:24","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T04:49:24","slug":"trump-traditions-american-foreign-policy-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/trump-traditions-american-foreign-policy-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the traditions of American foreign policy (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/p>\n

In the wake of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump\u2019s address to the Center for the National Interest in Washington DC on 27 April, there has been much conflicting punditry either decrying or justifying the foreign policy program sketched by \u2018The Donald\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul Pillar dismissed it as a<\/span> \u2018bumper sticker speech\u2019<\/span><\/a>. The foreign policy enunciated, Pillar argued, was not only \u2018so general and vague as to be platitudinous\u2019 but also laced with \u2018blatant contradictions and inconsistencies\u2019 such as Trump\u2019s description of American Cold War foreign policy as \u2018a golden age\u2019 simultaneous with the dismissal of American \u2018participation in the type of international institutions that were a major and even indispensable part of US policy during those years\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s assertion that under his leadership the US would be \u2018getting out of the nation-building business to focus on creating stability in the world\u2019, led Daniel Larison of the <\/span>The American Conservative<\/span><\/i> to note<\/span><\/a> that while \u2018Many Americans will cheer the first part of this statement\u2026the second part potentially commits the US to a very ambitious and activist role in the world\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such sentiments of restraint and a narrower definition of American national interests have led still others to find policy coherence where arguably none exists. Crispin Rovere, for example, on the basis of<\/span> Trump\u2019s 27 March interview<\/span><\/a> with David Sanger and Maggie Haberman in the <\/span>New York Times<\/span><\/i> and his 27 July foreign policy speech, has claimed that Trump is a<\/span> \u2018Nixon-Kissinger realist\u2019<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

What has been missing from most of those reactions is an appreciation of the core well-springs of Trump\u2019s musings on foreign policy: the Jacksonian tradition of American foreign policy<\/span> detailed by Walter Russell Mead<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Robert J. Merry has come closest in that respect<\/span> when he noted<\/span><\/a> that the coming Trump\u2013Clinton presidential contest is shaping as contest (among other things) between whether \u2018nationalism\u2019 or \u2018globalism\u2019 will guide American foreign policy. Trump\u2019s \u2018America First\u2019 sloganeering places Trump in opposition not only to the group of neoconservatives that have had a stranglehold on GOP foreign policy debates in recent times but also to the broader post-Cold War consensus amongst Washington\u2019s foreign policy establishment that US national security is best served by the US remaining the \u2018indispensable nation\u2019, in former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright\u2019s oft quoted phrase, that brings <\/span>both <\/span><\/i>order and justice to the international system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Merry argues that the strain of nationalism that Trump has tapped is driven by a number of foreign policy-relevant core sentiments. Trumpian nationalists,<\/span> he argues<\/span><\/a>: \u2018don\u2019t care about dominating world events\u2019 but \u2018want their country to be powerful, with plenty of military reach\u2026to protect American national interests\u2019; they ask \u2018whether the national interest justifies the expenditure of American blood and treasure\u2019 when interventions abroad are proposed; and the \u2018fate of America\u2019 is their primary consideration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mead argued<\/span><\/a> that American foreign policy since the founding of the Republic has been defined by the evolution of four contrasting yet complementary traditions of foreign policy: the Hamiltonian (promotion of an \u2018Open Door\u2019 world), Jeffersonian (maintenance of a democratic system), Jacksonian (populist values, military strength), and Wilsonian (moral principle). A fundamental distinction amongst the four traditions is between those that <\/span>that seek to perfect and protect the virtues of the Republic (Jeffersonian and Jacksonian) and those that seek to remake the world in its image (Hamiltonian and Wilsonian).<\/span><\/p>\n

That concerns, in<\/span> Walter McDougall\u2019s memorable terms<\/span><\/a>, the historical debate as to whether the United States would be a \u2018promised land\u2019 or \u2018crusader state\u2019.<\/span> The history of American foreign policy since 1945 demonstrates that it has been the extroverted \u2018crusader state\u2019 Hamiltonian and Wilsonian traditions which have prevailed. However, the nascent nationalist\u2013globalist divide depicted by Merry points to the recrudescence of the Jacksonian tradition.<\/span><\/p>\n

That tradition is defined by a number of core characteristics that clearly resonate with Trump\u2019s rise as the GOP\u2019s standard bearer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Jacksonian tradition<\/span><\/a>\u2014named after the Republic\u2019s 7th (and in his time, just as controversial as Trump) President Andrew Jackson\u2014is based on what Mead terms a \u2018community of political feeling\u2019 defined by principles of populism, individualism, honour and courage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drawing on the work of David Hackett Fischer,<\/span> Mead identifies the basis of the populism<\/span><\/a> central to the Jacksonian tradition with the protestant \u2018Scotch-Irish\u2019 element of British colonisation of North America. The \u2018Scotch-Irish\u2019,<\/span> Mead argues<\/span><\/a>, shaped by centuries of conflict in Ireland, \u2018established a culture and outlook formed by centuries of bitter warfare before they came to the United States\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

That tradition,<\/span> according to Rogers M. Smith<\/span><\/a>, established by the mid-19th century something akin to an \u2018American creed\u2019 <\/span>whereby many Americans \u2018<\/span>identified membership in their political community not with freedom for personal liberal callings or republican self-governance\u2026but with a whole array of particular cultural origins and customs\u2019 strongly linked to North European ancestry, Protestantism, belief in the superiority of the \u2018white race\u2019, and patriarchal familial leadership.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to understand the importance of the Jacksonian tradition\u2019s influence on American foreign policy one must recognise its central engine:<\/span> Jacksonians<\/span><\/a> \u2018believe that government should do everything in its power to promote the well-being\u2014political, economic, and moral\u2014of the folk community. <\/span>Any<\/span><\/i> means are permissible in the services of this end, as long as they do not violate the moral feelings or infringe on the freedoms that Jacksonians believe are essential\u2019<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is that engine\u2014as we shall discuss in part two\u2014that has been driving Trump\u2019s emergent foreign policy narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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