To an American who has spent years living abroad, Fareed Zakaria perfectly laid out in his July 15 op-ed, “The old consensus on U.S. foreign policy is dead,” the practical risks of the Republican Party’s increasingly isolationist approach to foreign policy. But more should be said about the moral implications of the GOP turning its back on the rules-based international order.
Those not standing with Ukraine in the face of a genocidal attack by Russian President Vladimir Putin are the moral equivalent of those in the late 1930s and early 1940s who opposed the “lend-lease” program and whose isolationist “it’s not our problem” agenda provided aid and comfort to the Nazis until the United States finally joined the war. That values — not just interests — play an active role in U.S. foreign policy is, if not unique, at least rare. The idea that the United States, at minimum, tries to be on the right side of history in the post-World War II era is central to who we are as modern Americans. It’s also important to the way we are viewed abroad, particularly by our allies, and to our soft power more broadly.
The increasing isolationism among Republicans isn’t just a danger to the international order; it’s a betrayal of the very idea of what the United States stands for in the modern era.
Oliver Kendall, Barcelona
