John Bolton was always an odd fit for the Trump White House. Trump doesn't seem to get much credit for seeking out someone whose interventionist instincts ran so strongly counter to his own. Bolton must have known he was in for a rough ride.
Bolton is hailed as a torch-bearer for Reagan's foreign policy, but both the world and the U.S. have changed in profound ways since Reagan. America's appetite for muscular interventionist foreign policy is at a very low ebb. Americans are not unreasonable for feeling that way.
History is cumulative. One reason interventionism has fallen into such disrepute with large portions of both major parties is that we lived through the Cold War finale, the "end of history," 9/11, the Iraq war, the Arab Spring, on and on. We've seen the folly of nation-building.
We've learned there is cultural and ideological soil in this world where Western ideals will never take root, no matter how much blood we pour into that soil, no matter how much money we spend. We're so rich and powerful that we could afford to ignore a lot of painful lessons.
We've also learned that unconditional generosity doesn't buy you friendship or respect on the international scene. It nourishes a sense of entitlement and resentment. Nobody is so impressed by our generosity that they cheerfully give us what we want on their own initiative.
Trump's key insight was that letting everyone know you'll never walk away from the table gets you ripped off. You have to be willing to upset the existing arrangements before you get taken seriously. You have to be a little unpredictable. You have to make demands.
The old way of thinking made some sense during the Cold War, but that's over. The new struggle against totalitarian China will be different. China studied the Cold War carefully. Leaving the same pieces in place and running the old playbook against them would be suicidal.
The thing about China's foreign policy is that it's stuffed with lies, but it has very few illusions. China knows what it wants and makes blunt demands. It cheats and steals to get what it cannot bargain for. It builds leverage carefully and uses it ruthlessly.
You can't fight an opponent like that by wasting your money, influence, and troops on sideshow distractions or dead-end nation-building quagmires. You have to play the same game they do - be tough and honest about your priorities. Be inspirational, but not foolishly idealistic.
And we've got to use our economic and diplomatic leverage while we still have it. If we don't, it will be gone before we know it. We can't allow ourselves to be tied down with commitments while having no clear goals of our own, and no clear will to achieve them.
Trump's America First approach is similar to how airplane passengers are told to attend to their own oxygen mask before they help others. We have to secure our interests first and strengthen our practical commitment to our own ideology. We must become more American than ever.
When our strength is fully expressed through free-market capitalism and representative democracy, other nations will want to be our partners and follow our lead. This stuff sells itself. We just have to live it, and reforge a political class that fully believes in it.
Old-fashioned interventionism just doesn't work any more. We've had too many painful lessons in that over the past generation or two. We're never going to try nation-building again. With energy independence, we have fewer vital interests worth putting boots on the ground for.
Our priorities must be regaining our full economic strength and technological advantage, bringing capital home as fast as we can. Think of it as recovering the pieces from a Cold War game we won, and a nation-building game we didn't, to prepare for the new game ahead.
I don't think that's how Bolton sees it. One of his earliest policy disputes with Trump was over NATO. Trump was indisputably the winner of that argument. He was right about getting NATO partners to step up, and how difficult it would be to do so. The new game has begun. /end
