Monroe's Guidance for Today's Foreign Challenges

On March 11 I commented on Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis's argument that liberal historians underestimated the innovative nature of President Bush's foreign policy. Gaddis believes that Bush is one of only three presidents to institute a "grand strategy" in US foreign policy history. Christian D. Brose of The Public Interest reviews the book in which Gaddis advances his thesis, Surprise, Security and the American Experience, in today's WSJ (free).

Gaddis makes clear that Bush's response to 9-11, though innovative, did not signal a reckless disregard of America's historic foreign policy in times of crisis. In the aftermath of the War of 1812 and the burning of Washington, President James Monroe (guided by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams) established what became known 20 years after his death as the Monroe Doctrine, which declared America's right to act unilaterally in the Western hemisphere to protect the young nation (coast to coast) from encroachment by the European powers. After Pearl Harbor, America found its interests required the building of alliances -- first with the Allies to defeat Germany and Japan and then, to counter the Soviets, within NATO. These international organizations lent legitimacy to America's ideological standards during the Cold War.

The book concludes, says Brose, by arguing that Bush borrows more from the Monroe Doctrine than from FDR's or Truman's WWII or Cold War policies, and he's certainly correct. Once again we must rely upon our own willpower, military might, and clear thinking to combat an enemy that few others seem willing to engage. Once again, our homeland has been attacked and our mightiest buildings destroyed. And while charges that Bush's policies are unilateralist are patently false, surely unilateralism in the defense of one's homeland is no vice.