American Interventionist Foreign Policy

"We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient– that we are only six percent of the world's population– that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind– that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity– and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem." -- John F. Kennedy



Since WWII, the United States has followed a foreign policy based on a notion that the United States has some special place in the world order that allows and even demands an American response to events occurring around the globe.  We have intervened by force of arms in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, to name but the most prominent of our military exercises.   It could be argued that only in Korea and Kosovo did our expensive and blood-drenched incursions result in any arguably positive outcomes.   It is widely agreed that Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were costly failures that produced few good results, either for ourselves or for the people of those countries.   We are now faced with a government seemingly bound and determined to intervene in Syria by way of a military attack.   Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the American public wants to stay out of the Syrian conflict, President Obama and many in Congress want to mount an attack as "punishment" for the Assad government's supposed use of chemical weapons on the Syrian population.   Once again, our government does not want to wait for the results of a U.N. Inspection Team's report on the incident.   Once again, we are told that we need to attack another country that has not first attacked us in order to prevent a wider war from developing later on.   We have heard all this before.   It is time to reexamine our nation's interventionist foreign policy.   President John F. Kennedy's wise position is quoted above.   We simply cannot control the entire world.   We cannot possibly prevent or right every wrong taking place over the entire globe.   It is not our obligation to do so.   It is not our right to do so.   We cannot financially afford to continue to try to do so.   We should not return to the isolationist policies of the early Twentieth Century, the world has grown too small and interrelated for that, but we should restrict our interventions internationally to supporting clear cut actions endorsed by the United Nations and other established world organizations, or at the very least by broad-based coalitions of nations.   It's time to come home and take care of our own country.   It's time to quit sticking our nose into every dispute that erupts around the world.   We need to pressure our politicians to do so.