In his 1994 book Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger wrote about the two dominant strains of American foreign policy: realism as practiced by President Theodore Roosevelt and crusading democratism as practiced by President Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt, Kissinger noted, “defined America’s world role … completely in terms of national interest [and] identified the national interest … with the balance of power.”
Wilson, on the other hand, proclaimed the universality of American values and committed the United States to spreading those values around the world. Kissinger described Roosevelt as the “warrior-statesman,” and Wilson as the “prophet-priest.” Since the 1920s, American foreign policy has straddled the line between realism and crusading democratism. (RELATED: Woodrow Wilson: A Madman, or Merely Misunderstood?)
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Israeli political commentator Amit Segal applauds President Donald Trump’s abandonment of Wilsonianism in favor of “imperial” realism. Trump’s realism, Segal writes, does not prioritize state sovereignty, but instead pursues policies that straddle realism and imperialism to advance U.S. interests. It is a world of “trade wars and terrorist organizations” that require responses that do not neatly fit into recognized foreign policy doctrines.
Some realists criticize Trump for promoting U.S. expansion into the Panama Canal Zone, Greenland, and Gaza, while democratists express outrage at Trump’s willingness to issue threats to obtain territory at the expense of others. Wilsonian self-determination plays no part in Trump’s worldview. The sovereign rights of others take a backseat to advancing U.S. interests. Segal notes that in the Middle East, democracy has led to leaders who planned and executed the atrocities of Oct. 7 and to the institutionalization of radical Islam in many parts of the region.
In Central America, the “democratic” government of Panama allowed Chinese companies to control the Canal Zone, endangering U.S. security interests. (RELATED: China Poses a Severe Threat in Panama and Leaves the US With No Choice.)
Trump’s pragmatic realism seeks to end China’s control of the Panama Canal, end Hamas’s ability to use Gaza as a base from which to wage war against our Israeli ally and advance the interests of Iran, and acquire Greenland to compete with China and Russia in the Arctic Ocean. The advancement of U.S. interests trump (if you’ll excuse the pun) the sovereign rights of Panamanians, Palestinians, and Greenlanders. (RELATED: Profile in Courage: Trump’s Gaza Proposal)
This ambitious imperial project will concern pure realists, upset Wilsonian democratists, and shake up the “international community” which has come to expect America to act selflessly on the international stage in accordance with the so-called “rules-based international order.”
There will be no Trump apology tours (à la Obama), no promotion of universal democracy (à la Bush 43), and no hapless, feeble multilateralism (à la Biden). The foreign policy establishment will look with horror and rage at Trump’s imperial realism. He’s not playing by their rules. He does not bow to the oracles of the World Economic Forum. He does not take advice from the esteemed members of the Council on Foreign Relations. He does not care what Thomas Friedman writes about him in the New York Times. (RELATED: Biden’s Foreign Policy Was a Colossal Failure — From Ukraine to China)
The title of Segal’s piece in the Wall Street Journal is “Trump Buries Wilsonian Foreign Policy.” That may be a bit premature. The Wilsonian strain of American foreign policy persists even in the Age of Trump. There are among our elites those who wish to ignore the wise counsel of John Quincy Adams and go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. It was not that long ago when a member of that foreign policy elite assured us that we were at the “end of history” where the triumph of the democratic idea was universal.
Henry Kissinger understood the staying power of Wilsonian democratism. He expressed the hope that its role would be “to provide the faith to sustain America through all the ambiguities of choice in an imperfect world” through a “thoughtful assessment of contemporary realities” that defines the national interest. Otherwise, he lamented, the search for Wilsonian goals will continue us on a “journey that has no end.”
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