And that is due in large measure to the belief that the greater good is in America’s national interest-that a freer and more prosperous world is one in which the United States will flourish.Īfter the Second World War, the United States established “what we might call a global economic and security commons,” in the words of former Secretary of State George Shultz. Unique among dominant powers in world history, America intervenes in the world not merely to advance its own narrow interests but to forward a greater good. “boots on the ground” since 1950, I’ve discovered a stunning truth: In country after country, prosperity-in the form of economic growth and human development-has emerged where American boots have trod.

Having compared growth and development indicators across all countries of the world against a database of U.S. He is especially certain that American “boots on the ground” don’t do anyone any good-not us and not the countries to which they are deployed. He believes that a strong central government is a moral force inside the United States, but he does not believe that American power is a force for good outside our borders. Obama is actively uncomfortable exercising American power abroad, but he is entirely comfortable exercising centralized power at home. The animating ideas behind Obama’s policies have been called into question: the beliefs that “military solutions” are always inferior, that American troop deployments are tantamount to occupations, that multilateral compromise is more moral than decisive unilateral action, and that America’s enforcement of world order does more harm than good. His conviction that a retrenched United States would be better for Americans at home and for people around the globe has only invited aggression, from the Middle East to Europe to the Pacific. President Obama’s foreign policy of disengagement has been shattered by the events of the past year.

Peace through power kane