Age of Iron

This final chapter analyzes current geopolitical challenges, and offers US foreign policy recommendations. Leading reasons for existing discontent with the rules-based liberal international order are delineated, and a more realistic understanding proposed. Today’s geopolitical circumstances are outlined, region by region. Policy recommendations then follow, based upon the premise of regionally differentiated strategies of pressure. In sum, the chapter argues for a forward-leaning US foreign policy realism, based upon an understanding that the post–Cold War quarter-century and its competing optimisms are now officially over.

Global versus National

This chapter describes the efforts of various Republican presidents and congressional leaders to strike balances between nationalist and internationalist priorities between the 1960s and 2015. Barry Goldwater championed a hawkish Sunbelt conservatism that in the long run helped remake the Republican Party. President Nixon pursued a foreign policy based upon assumptions of great-power politics and realpolitik. President Reagan led an ideologically charged effort at anti-Communist rollback, although he was careful not to overextend the United States in any large-scale wars on the ground. Republicans during the Clinton presidency struggled to reformulate conservative foreign policy assumptions in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. George W. Bush remade conservative foreign policy into a war on terror, aiming at the democratization of the Greater Middle East. Finally, during the presidency of Barack Obama, Republican foreign policy factions once again splintered, paving the way for a conservative nationalist resurgence.

Populism, Foreign Policy, and the GOP

This chapter investigates the state of foreign policy opinion within the Republican Party today. Perhaps surprisingly, the basic distribution of voter opinion on foreign policy within the GOP has not changed that much since the early Obama era. However, Republican voters do support Trump, and not only because he is an incumbent president from the same party. The GOP has moved in a populist, culturally conservative, and white working-class direction over a period now spanning several decades. In this sense, Trump is as much an effect as a cause. He has broken open prior conservative orthodoxies. In certain ways, on a range of specific issues following his presidency, this leaves the future of Republican foreign policy wide open. But observers should understand that the conservative-leaning American nationalism he has championed is not about to disappear when he leaves the scene. In one form or another, it is here to stay.

National versus Global

In this chapter, a brief summary of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is provided, along with an assessment of its chief strengths and weaknesses. Donald Trump initially won the presidency arguing that US allies were essentially free-riders. Apparently many of his earliest supporters agreed. This triggered great concern as to what his worldwide policies would be, if elected. In practice, as president, Trump did in fact pull US foreign policy in a sharply nationalist direction. At the same time, he did not actually dismantle overall existing US alliances, military bases, or forward presence overseas. In effect his foreign policy amounted to a kind of pressure campaign, directed against allies and adversaries alike, on commercial as well as strategic grounds. The advantages and disadvantages of that pressure campaign are assessed.

Introduction: On Conservative Nationalism

This chapter summarizes the entire book. It argues that a kind of conservative American nationalism long predates the Trump presidency, and goes back to the American founding. Different aspects of conservative American nationalism have been incorporated into the Republican Party from its creation. Every Republican president since Theodore Roosevelt has tried to balance elements of this tradition with global US foreign policy priorities. Donald Trump was able to win his party’s nomination and rise to the presidency in part by challenging liberal internationalist assumptions. Yet in practice, he too has combined nationalist assumptions with global US foreign policy priorities. The long-term trend within the Republican party—predating Trump—is toward political populism, cultural conservatism, and white working-class voters, and this has international implications. Republican foreign policy nationalism is not about to disappear.

Global versus National

This chapter describes the efforts of various Republican presidents and congressional leaders to balance nationalist with global foreign policy priorities between 1901 and 1960. Theodore Roosevelt was quite effective in doing so, within the context of his time. GOP conservatives struggled to respond to Woodrow Wilson, splintering into factional disputes, but agreeing that Wilson’s League of Nations could not be supported unrevised. Republican presidents from Warren Harding to Herbert Hoover then tried to cultivate a pacified international system while promoting US national interests, but were unwilling to sustain the necessary costs. Fierce debates over foreign policy characterized internal GOP politics during 1939–1941. Finally, in the mid-1950s, President Eisenhower hit upon a reasonable balance of national and global priorities, internationalizing the Republican Party.

Nationalism, Internationalism, and American Conservatives

This chapter provides the framework for understanding American nationalism, liberal internationalism, and conservative foreign policy approaches in their various forms. The history, premises, and practices of American nationalism are recounted, from the American founding to the beginning of the twentieth century. Then the key elements of liberal internationalism are discussed, including their incorporation into American foreign policy beginning with Woodrow Wilson. Conservative American reactions to liberal internationalist policies are described and delineated into their own distinct categories as well. The context is thus set for a discussion of conservative American nationalism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.