Isolation Is Not an Option
Vice President JD Vance’s misadventures on the global stage of late have done much to discredit the isolationist wing of the “MAGA” movement. Last year, many of its adherents praised him for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an Oval Office meeting—only for Ukrainian defenders to turn the tide against the Russian invaders and from President Donald Trump in recent weeks. Similarly, the Vice President’s attempts to broker peace with the Islamic Republic of Iran have on that regime’s fanatic religious extremism; the present conflict shows no signs of concluding any time soon.
If Vance’s failed attempts to reshape American foreign policy have proven anything, it is that his preferred course of isolationism was never an option. Whatever valid concerns the so-called “restrainers” may express about military preparedness and overextension , their overarching theory has crumpled in the face of geopolitical reality. Threats against the American-led global order are mounting in every theater of the globe, and the only solution is for America to embrace that leadership once again.
America’s adversaries show no interest in confining themselves to their own regions. Last week, for example, the Iranian regime attacking Ukraine to support Russia—and since the war began, with the drones and missiles that have made the invasion so deadly. In exchange, Vladimir Putin’s espionage apparatus has on American positions across the Middle East. Iran is anything but a non-belligerent in the Ukraine war, let alone a neutral party.
The lesson the Trump administration ought to have learned by now is that Eastern Europe and the Middle East are two theaters of the same war, not separate conflicts. The regimes in Moscow and Tehran may have different ideological motivations, but they share the same ultimate goal: the degradation and eventual rollback of American influence. The same goes for the Asia-Pacific and the new imperialism of the Chinese Communist Party. What happens on one front affects what happens on another, and our strategy ought to be calculated first and foremost around that fact.
Read more in Civitas Outlook.
