What does a foreign policy for the middle class look like? The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft partnered with the American Conservative to put on a conference to answer just that question.
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Inside the beltway, “realism and restraint” has become a common calling card among those who dissent from what many inside the beltway call “the blob.” Running through the center-right and center-left, the blob favors liberal internationalism and believes America must take an active role in promoting democracy across the globe.
Restrainers, by contrast, argue that “we should care first and foremost about our own national security,” as Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson succinctly put it. “If you look since the Cold War, to go a bigger view, America’s less free, less safe, and more burdened by debt. And so if you go since the war on terror, less free, less safe, more burdened by debt.”
Initially, something seems off about the whole notion. It’s a weird time for the natcons. As the conference’s location inside the Hart Senate Office Building testified, they’re not on the fringe anymore. But even as their influence continues to wax, they cannot be said to have taken over the GOP quite yet.
Every speaker was united over opposition to further aid to Ukraine. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, who spoke first, said that while he “certainly admire[s] the Ukrainians who are fighting against Russia,” he does “not think it’s in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine.” Vance further charged that America has not been insistent enough in demanding that its European allies pay their fair share of the burden of a war that ultimately is on their continent.
On this, his arguments have found a receptive argument with GOP voters. According to Pew Research Center, right after Putin invaded Ukraine in March 2022, 49 percent of Republicans felt the U.S. was not providing enough support for the eastern European country, while only 9 percent said we were providing too much. Just over two years later, 49 percent of Republicans said we’re providing too much for Ukraine, while just 13 percent say too little. Democratic feelings, by contrast, have been essentially static.
But while the arguments advanced by Vance have found success in winning over many Republican voters, they have been markedly less effective in winning over Republican politicians. Thus far, Congress has yet to see a Ukraine aid bill that it hasn’t liked. Particularly in the U.S. Senate, home to the GOP’s most senior politicians, old habits die hard. While Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt has noted that younger GOP Senators have been more receptive toward taking a more restrained approach aboard, the GOP establishment remains unmoved. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it his personal mission to fight for Ukraine aid, going so far as to describe it as “one of the most important issues” he’s faced during his time in office.
Republicans like McConnell who favor more interventionism abroad argue that if America retreats from the existing global order, it will embolden bad actors to take more and more until American core interests are directly threatened. The speakers were all skeptical of this notion, instead arguing that there were some parts of the world that matter more than others and that it becomes necessary to prioritize when resources are finite.
In spending those finite resources, there was some degree of disagreement about America’s relationship with Israel. Vance accounted himself a friend, arguing that America has more of an interest in Israel than in Ukraine both because of America’s Christian heritage, and because of Israel’s technological and military prowess. Israel’s strength allows it to be a regional counterweight to Iran when paired with the Sunni world. Given the strain that the Gaza war has put on Israeli-Muslim relations, it’s in America’s interest that the sooner Hamas is defeated, the better.
On the other side of that debate was former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who affirmed that he opposed aid to Israel for the principled reason that he opposed all foreign aid but suggested that he would have America give the Israelis diplomatic cover to prosecute their war against Hamas. Ramaswamy may well be right that American diplomatic support may be more valuable than American monetary support, but one still wonders about the coherence of his position. Our diplomatic backing is no more of an infinite resource than our money. Nor is it a reliable currency when presidential administrations change, as President Joe Biden is currently demonstrating.
Sen. Rand Paul also argued for a more consistently restrained approach. Perhaps the most consistent small-l libertarian in the U.S. Senate, Paul has always been opposed to foreign aid. In his view, the United States is under no obligation to give any foreign aid, and what aid we do give is not an obligation but a charity. It’s only fair, then, that we exercise some discretion around it. “Should aid be conditional? Well, of course it should be,” Paul said. “All aid should be conditional. Should there be a bare minimum standard? Of course there should be a bare minimum standard.” As an example, Paul noted how many of the key figures in the coup that brought the current Egyptian government to power were previously trained by the United States and called out the country’s repressive treatment of Christians.
The status of global Christian communities was a common theme. Vance noted in his speech that the Iraq war and subsequent regional disorder had shattered Iraq’s Christian communities. Only 250,000 of a 2003 population of 1.5 million were left as of 2019. Ramaswamy raised the issue of the Azerbaijan–Armenia wars that have culminated in the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians from the Artsakh region. (RELATED: Armenian Christians Undergo Ethnic Cleansing. DC Politicians Pocket the Change.)
One cannot accuse Paul of unfairly singling out Israel. But it seems as though it is the progressive Left that has been successful in turning the Democratic mainstream away from Israel, and for reasons completely unrelated to what is actually in America’s best interest. It cannot be accounted as any sort of victory for restrainers, no more than flimsy and bad faith protestations of “free speech” by pro-Palestinian campus demonstrators can be accounted as a blow against cancel culture.
Something that was absolutely clear was that realist arguments could no longer be ignored or evaded. “The [old] slogans don’t work anymore,” Vance said. While the interventionists have prevailed in the internecine foreign aid fights during the Biden years, it’s remarkable that there was ever any doubt that they would.
While calling for a more diplomatic and less punitive approach to world affairs, Paul said “Part of the problem with our foreign policy … is that you have to listen. You don’t have to agree with your enemies. You don’t have to agree with your adversaries. But you have to listen.” While solid advice on conducting foreign policy, Paul’s approach seems eerily applicable to our domestic conversation about foreign policy as well.
