The recent reports that former senator Chuck Hagel is likely to be nominated as the next secretary of defense have caused a flurry of commentary from foreign-policy writers and analysts. Among the most brutal assessments comes from Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute. Interviewed by Kevin Baron, Rubin says:
I think his vision of foreign affairs and defense goes beyond naïve and actually is malign. . . . The man really does seem to be an isolationist.
What about Hagel could have prompted such an accusation? Rubin says that Hagel would abdicate “the idea of America being a power throughout the world.” But let’s take a look at what exactly this means in practice. The major criticisms made against Hagel have been that he might support shrinking the defense budget (or at least limiting further increases), that he opposes a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and that he would be averse to future humanitarian interventions or nation-building efforts.
But presumably, even if Hagel were a dictator and could set America’s foreign and defense policies by himself, the United States would retain by far the largest military in the world, maintain a global network of alliances, trade and engage diplomatically across the world, and go to war if any of its core national interests were truly threatened.
In short, by any definition, it is ludicrous to call Hagel an isolationist. Simply put, hawks and neoconservatives have reduced the term “isolationist” to meaninglessness by applying it to anyone who doesn’t reflexively support using military force to solve every problem around the world. The fact is that, as TNI’s Jacob Heilbrunn suggests over at Foreign Policy, Hagel is comfortably within the old-school Republican realist tradition. Whether he is a terrible pick or a brilliant one, it’s wrong to pretend that he would represent an enormous shift from the foreign-policy mainstream in any significant way.
Comments
I would caution against any subconscious falling into the trap of accepting the charge "isolationist" as evil by definition and thus worthy of no thought. Even if we agree to keep this very complicated issue simple, there are surely at least three (not two) categories meriting consideration: isolation, super-nationalism, AND leading by example. Isolation, whether you think it good or bad, is in practice unimaginable given our dependence on global trade and global finance, not to mention our vulnerability to the global environment. Our current super-nationalism, in which we demand a global military empire and the right to set the rules for everyone, constitutes an equivalent and opposite extreme to isolation. Over the long term, these two extremes are probably equally expensive and untenable. The third choice—the one that deserves careful public debate—is for the U.S. to return to leading by example, offering the world a morally superior choice of 1) strong domestic economy based on a solid educational system; 2) real democracy based on reliable civil rights, active citizen participation, and an honest media; 3) a foreign policy designed not to seek the naïve “security through force” but to implement the principles of good-neighborliness, compromise, and the search for positive-sum solutions. Only when the super-nationalists (perhaps more accurately termed the “war profiteers”) who brought us an unnecessary three trillion dollar adventure in Iraq are seen as just as extreme as some mythical return to isolation will we have any hope of restoring rational foreign policy that serves the long-term interests of the American people.—William deB. Mills
I like isolationists -- our founding fathers were isolationists.
Robert Golan-Vilella wrote:
The problem is not mere "ludicrousness" on the part of Rubin and the other Israeli-Firsters calling Hagel this. The problem is that calling names, engaging in character assassination, saying damn near anything about anyone and smearing people is what people of Rubin's ilk do. It's their stock-in-trade, their speciality, their raison d'etre. They don't give a rat's ass whether the names they call or what they say is "ludicrous" or not: The purpose doesn't have anything to do with reasonable debate, taken even to a harsh degree. The purpose is indeed to smear, to blackball, to render their target unemployable, or to get them to withdraw out of disgust at being the target of their smears and invective, and to instill fear in others. It is intellectual thuggery, and everyone knows it. So it shouldn't be treated as if it's just some unfortunate mis-reading or faulty analysis. It is using words purely and simply as weapons, as ruthlessly and dishonestly as necessary, in the service of a foreign power.