Why most Americans are right about foreign policy, and David Brooks is wrong.
June 17, 2019
Foreign Policy
By Stephen M. Walt
This might be disturbing news to some readers, but the New York Times columnist David Brooks is very unhappy with the American people. Why? Because they don’t seem to be blindly following his views on foreign policy anymore. In fact, his latest column says their ideas about U.S. foreign policy “stink.”
To be specific, Brooks is troubled by some recent surveys of public opinion, which show declining public support for endless U.S. intervention overseas. He interprets these polls as evidence that Americans are abandoning traditional liberal internationalism and reverting to isolationism. This trend really bugs him because he believes U.S. leadership after World War II—and especially its promotion of the so-called liberal world order—was a selfless act of statesmanship that produced several generations of peace and prosperity. Now, alas, he thinks America is “withdrawing from the world,” and this trend is allowing “wolves” like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to “fill the void” and letting countries like Iran destabilize the Middle East.
Is he right? Are the American people as misguided as he says? Should we be very afraid?