Towards an America First Foreign Policy
We know what America First is against; it’s time to define what we’re for.
Almost everyone in the MAGA movement wants President Donald Trump to pursue an America First foreign policy. The only problem is that we haven’t even begun to define what that means. Diehard MAGA leaders and voters differ—often intensely—on what an America First policy should look like as applied to each major conflict zone across the globe.
At present America First is a completely reactive movement. We are united only by our opposition to neoconservative overreach. We’re unanimous in our commitment to never repeat the twin tragedies of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask any one of us and we’ll tell you the same cautionary tale: In a moment of geopolitical hubris, we paid a steep price in American blood and treasure to remake the Middle East, and we have nothing to show for it. The Taliban rules Afghanistan today just as it did before our invasion. Iraq has been transformed from a strong counterweight to Iranian ambition into a de facto Iranian ally.
Knowing what you’re against is a start. But to govern we must transform America First from a reaction to past events into a prescription for present policy. This will take hard work and extensive deliberation. Before we can even begin debating specific policies, we must first agree upon the core principles that should undergird these policies. There are four basic principles that should inform an America First foreign policy going forward.
First, American interests are the only consideration. There is one and only one criterion upon which to base American foreign policy: American interests. We must reject the abstract rationales that have been invoked to support prior interventions such as preserving of the rules-based international order, spreading democracy, and meeting our “responsibility to protect.” Such concepts may sometimes intersect with our direct national interests, but they do not define them. Simply put, any deployment of American troops or treasure abroad must pass the grieving mother test. Can you tell the mother of a fallen soldier that her child gave his/her life to keep their family safe and free? The more difficult it would be to make this case, the more likely the deployment is a mistake.
Second, America has interests beyond our borders.
Even if we narrowly limit our focus to American interests, we cannot disregard or disengage from the world beyond our borders. Yes, Washington and Jefferson urged us to avoid entangling foreign alliances and John Quincy Adams warned us not to go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” But such cautions against foreign overreach never stopped our Founders from casting a wary eye abroad. From the Quasi-War against France (1798) to the First and Second Barbary Wars against the pirates of Tripoli and Algiers (1801 and 1815) to the War of 1812 against Great Britain, our Founders did not hesitate to recognize and confront foreign threats. Just because these threats have been exaggerated in the past doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared in the present.
Third, America faces limits to its ability to project power abroad.
While we certainly have interests abroad, we have limited means with which to address them. An America First foreign policy requires pragmatism and prioritization.
Conservatives schooled in the thought of Edmund Burke have always been skeptical of crusades to spread democracy and build nations. Burke teaches us that the best governments are those which develop organically over generations. During the French Revolution, he predicted that replacing France’s centuries-old monarchy with a revolutionary government based on abstract ideals would spell disaster. He would have predicted the same for our failed efforts to transplant our system to the Middle East.
Even where our efforts could theoretically make a difference, we face practical limits on our ability to project power abroad. Our post-9/11 wars have contributed to our unprecedented national debt. Servicing that debt now costs more than our entire defense budget. Even if we had the funds, we no longer have the industrial capacity to produce advanced munitions quickly enough to provide them in the quantities we need and our allies seek. These limitations necessitate prioritization. Just because we have an interest abroad doesn’t mean we need to send our soldiers, our munitions or our money into the fight.
Finally, America must define alliance up. The cornerstone of an America First foreign policy must be that we stop bearing the burden of our security alone and find true allies willing to take the lead in their respective regions.
As we seek out allies, however, we must define alliance up. An ally is not a country willing to let us send our sons and daughters to fight shared enemies on their behalf. In an America First era, an ally is a nation willing to send their sons and daughters to fight our shared enemies on our behalf. Allies who do the heavy lifting in service of our shared interests deserve our moral and diplomatic support. They deserve the right to buy our military products and benefit from our military technology. In limited cases, they may even be worthy of our aid.
Right now, America First foreign policy is a pendulum swinging sharply away from neoconservative excess. These four principles can provide the grounding we need to stop the swing before we reach the other extreme. We must remember that neoconservatism itself was a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s. It began as an admirable revolt against the Democrats’ failure to recognize the moral and strategic stakes of the Cold War. But then victory birthed hubris. Correction became overreach. If we truly want to rectify prior errors, we must have the humility not to repeat past mistakes.
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