Autocracy in America Ep. 4: How American Power Should Be Deployed
US power, including hard power, was a force for good in the world. My latest Autocracy In America guest, Ambassador John Bolton, agrees.
For over a century, US power, including hard power, was a force for good in the world. Yes, I said it. My latest Autocracy In America guest, Ambassador John Bolton, also says it. And he has plenty of evidence to back it up: from Iran to Russia to Hamas and what Trump's isolationism gets wrong.
Ambassador Bolton still believes America can, and should, be a force for democracy in the world.
I do too. Growing up in the USSR with the rare privilege of traveling abroad thanks to chess, I had no doubt who the good guys were, and it wasn’t us. That’s not to say that the US and its myriad interventions were all pure of intent or outcome! But democracies standing up to dictators is good.
I believe it was AEI’s Kori Schake who once said, responding to well-deserved critiques of the disastrous second Iraq War and American occupation, that trying to do good and failing doesn’t mean you should stop trying to do good. Rather, it means that you should learn and do it better.
The bad guys aren’t going to quit if the Free World does. Dictatorships and terrorists move into any space ceded. Fighting for the expansion of democracy and personal freedom is required for our own security.
Please listen and share your thoughts.
More from The Next Move:
Let’s Debate: Palestine. To Recognize or Not to Recognize?
Are countries like France and Canada right to recognize a State of Palestine?