Condoleezza Rice recently wrote an article entitled “The Perils of Isolationism” in Foreign Affairs giving her thoughts on the United States’ place in the modern world. As the title implies, the article’s main theme is her fear that the United States will abandon its role as the global hegemon and turn inward. She claims a return to isolationism will result in Russia, China, and other tyrannical governments overrunning the world and oppressing its inhabitants.
Theoretically, this article should present a convincing argument. Rice served as national security advisor and secretary of state under George W. Bush, so she should be a foreign policy expert. Unfortunately, the biggest takeaway from the article is that Rice learned nothing from the failures of the Bush administration. She presents her case for more interventionism without meaningfully addressing the undeniable devastation caused by U.S. interventionist policies. The result is an article that reads like a fairy tale meant to comfort readers who wish to remain blissfully removed from reality.
Few passages demonstrate this lack of self-awareness more than Rice’s appraisal of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. When describing the benefits of the post-World War II global order, Rice displays what can only be described as denialism by writing, “As the United Kingdom and France stepped back from the Middle East after the 1956 Suez crisis, the United States became the guarantor of freedom of navigation in the region and, in time, its major stabilizing force.”
It is disturbing that any member of the Bush administration could describe the U.S. as a “major stabilizing force” in the Middle East. Decades of the American “stabilizing” the Middle East led to 9/11, the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history. The Bush administration’s answer to this attack was not to focus on bringing the attackers to justice but rather to topple the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States paid a hellish price in money and lives in a vain attempt to spread democracy, but the result was a less stable Middle East. The Barack Obama administration expanded the destabilization by bombing and blockading even more countries despite his campaign promise to end forever wars.
Rice seems to hope her readers are willing to forget or ignore these foreign policy disasters. I can think of no other reason she would expect anyone to believe the U.S. has been a “stabilizing force” in the Middle East. The U.S. has stabilized the Middle East about as well as ten shots of Tequila would stabilize the decision-making skills of a college freshman.
“The Perils of Isolationism” presents equally egregious views on the war in Ukraine. Rice makes it clear that deterring further Russian aggression is paramount, but she continues to show her complete lack of self-reflection by writing, “The question of postwar security arrangements for Ukraine hangs over the continent at this moment. The most straightforward answer would be to admit Ukraine to NATO and simultaneously to the European Union.”
This reasoning could seem plausible if we lived in a different timeline where the “Nyet Means Nyet” memo of 2008 was never leaked. CIA Director Williams Burns wrote this memo when he was the ambassador to Russia and sent it to Rice when she was secretary of state. In this memo, Burns says in no uncertain terms that further NATO expansion, especially to Ukraine, runs the risk of inciting a military reaction from Russia. After watching the events leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfold just as Burns had predicted they would, it is preposterous to think admitting Ukraine into NATO could be a path to security. But Rice, choosing denial over self-reflection, clings to the idea of NATO expansion.
It is a poetic irony that earlier in Rice’s article she laments that Vladimir Putin is able to rely on a “poorly informed population” when she obviously aims to benefit from her readers’ inability or unwillingness to question the regime-approved narratives.
When Rice looks at the global stage as a whole, she sees us standing on the brink of a Third World War. According to Rice, it would be a costly error for the United States to “turn inward” at this dire hour. But as I read her account of the international scene, I see the rising tension as an inevitable consequence of American meddling in the affairs of other nations.
Rice paints a picture of two emerging alliances on a path toward confrontation. On one side, there is Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. These four countries find themselves in an unlikely but growing partnership. Rice claims they are united by their shared desire to “undermine and replace the U.S.-led international system that they detest.” A viewpoint that is not slavishly devoted to portraying the U.S. as the savior of the world might say the sanctions put on these four nations have pushed them into each other’s arms. If the U.S. refuses to let them join the international order, we cannot be surprised when they unite to form their own order.
Facing this uneasy alliance, we have the United States and its allies, which according to Rice consist of “much of the rest of the world.” I agree that this seems eerily reminiscent of the initial steps toward the catastrophic mass murder sprees we euphemistically call world wars. The difference that should be most important to Americans is the role the United States government is playing in this potential prelude to war. The U.S. has cast itself in a part formerly played by the European powers of the twentieth century. Rather than taking an initial neutral stance, the U.S. is the one handing out promises of military protection and preparing to be among the first to send brave young men to their deaths. Rice seems to view this new role as a positive change. I, perhaps unsurprisingly, disagree with her assessment.
The European countries who felt the full brunt of World War II were crippled and forced to look to the U.S. for support at the war’s end. One of the reasons the U.S. was in a position to provide aid with the Marshall Plan was that it had stayed out of the early rounds of the fighting. By coming late to the war, the U.S. saved itself from some of the calamities faced by the European combatants. Who will be left to pick up the pieces after World War III if the United States immediately dives into the fires of violence at the start of the conflict?
In her closing paragraphs, Rice compares the modern-day United States with the nation it was after the conclusion of World War II. The American people entering the 1950s were optimistic, confident, and united by a shared purpose. In contrast, the citizens of the United States in 2024 are exhausted and have lost trust in their nation’s institutions.
I could not agree more with Rice’s assessment of current-day America, but my intelligence is insulted by her explanation for this change. She writes, “Years of divisive rhetoric, Internet echo chambers, and, even among the best-educated youth, ignorance of the complexity of history have left Americans with a tattered sense of shared values.” To give these reasons without mentioning the needless wars of choice the U.S. has launched in the first quarter of the twenty-first century is intellectually dishonest on a monstrous level. If Americans could look back on the last twenty-five years of foreign policy with even an ounce of pride, they might still feel optimistic about being a world leader. I will not presume to speak for an entire generation of Americans but learning that my taxes have been, and still are, used to kill innocent children has contributed more to my distrust of the U.S. government than any of the shallow talking points Rice uses as an explanation.
The ultimate lesson Rice wants us to learn from her article is that the future of the world will either be built by democratic nations or despotic regimes. She says, “There is simply no other option,” but this is a false choice. By attempting to create a better global future through force, America has become the despot of the world.
If a better future is truly our goal, we must learn the lessons of failed interventionism. We must learn from the endless wars where lives have been discarded like losing lottery tickets. We must realize that if we attempt to export freedom to the world at the point of a gun, not only will we fall short of this goal, we will inevitably stain our souls with innocent blood.
