More Americans have begun to question U.S. global engagement after nearly 15 years of inconclusive war in the Middle East, but the growing isolationism is empowering bad actors and making the world more dangerous, according to a new report.
The bipartisan report, “Why American Leadership Still Matters,” is intended to be a rebuke of isolationist impulses in U.S. politics. It was released Thursday and is a product of the American Enterprise Institute’s American Internationalism Project, which is led by two former senators: Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona and Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
“This report reflects the fundamental consensus of our project’s members that American global leadership is just as crucial to the security, prosperity, and freedom of the American people today as it was 70 years ago,” its authors said. “U.S. foreign policies must adapt to keep pace with the twisting dynamics of an ever-changing world but should be rooted in and united by a continued commitment to vigorous international engagement.”
The report recommends that U.S. leadership extend beyond a global military presence ensuring peace and stability to continuing to support a rules-based international economic order and promote U.S. values and ideals in the international arena.
Public fatigue from the pace of U.S. international involvement in wars and crisis over the past 15 years has affected the politics of both political parties, with Democrats struggling to defend President Obama’s reluctance to put the nation into a leadership role amid growing international crises, and Republicans trying to balance libertarian noninterventionism favored by many Tea Party supporters and the more robust global role being advocated by the president’s GOP critics in Washington such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a leading presidential contender.
Polling by Gallup since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that triggered a global U.S. war on Islamist extremism shows a dramatic plunge in the percentage of Americans satisfied with their country’s position in the world as that war has dragged on, from 71 percent in February 2002 to just 37 percent in February 2015.
But the report notes that recent events, such as the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic State, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting worsening of relationship with NATO and China’s renewed assertiveness in Asia, have opened an opportunity to remind Americans that “the benefits of being indispensable in the world for the American people far outweigh the costs.
“We hope that this report marks the beginning, not the end, of a conversation about how American leadership can support and enable a more secure, prosperous, and free nation and world,” the authors said. “We are confident that, in the course of these conversations, many will come to the same conclusion that we did during our project: for the benefit of both the world and the American people, America must lead.”
