Be on the lookout for the culminating report of AEI’s American Internationalism Project this fall, written by former Senators Jon Kyl and Joseph Lieberman, which will make the case for American leadership in terms that are relevant to all Americans.
A strong, bipartisan commitment to global leadership has informed America’s foreign policy since it emerged from World War II. Today, however, the global architecture conceived, built and maintained by the United States is in jeopardy. Without American leadership, the myriad challenges to international security posed by rising powers and terrorist groups alike will threaten the security, prosperity, and freedom of the United States and its allies.
NORMANDY, France — President Barack Obama, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Canadian Prime Stephen Harper and President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, returns a salute to an honor guard of U.S. and allied service members during the 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day in the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, June 6, 2009.
At the same time, some Americans are questioning both our capacity to lead on the world stage and the wisdom of doing so. US engagement abroad, at its core, has always been about helping the American people and protecting US interests. But ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with an uneven economic recovery, have led some at home to reassess the costs and benefits of American global leadership.
The next president will face a choice between reaffirming America’s leadership role in the international arena and abdicating that responsibility to someone else. The space created by American disengagement would be filled— and there is no way to guarantee that rising powers would share America’s values or interests. The time has come to reaffirm the importance of American leadership in international affairs, and we should ask all presidential candidates if and how they plan to do it.
1.) What will you do to restore America’s leadership role in world affairs?
America’s leadership role in international affairs is recognized and valued throughout the world. In a worldwide poll conducted between 2007-2014, Gallup found that an average of slightly more than 43 percent of respondents approved of American leadership in global affairs; a higher level than that enjoyed by any other country. Yet the United States has been reluctant in recent years to seize the opportunity to influence outcomes across the world in ways that benefit its own people as well as its allies. What will you do to change this?
2.) How will you reassure the American people that they are better off when the US takes a strong leadership role in world affairs?
The American people no longer seem so sure that the economic, security, and human rights benefits of American leadership, to both them and the world, are worth the costs. The inconclusive results of more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan have left some to question the efficacy of America’s foreign policy approach, and growing economic inequality has created anxiety and pessimism about America’s role in the world. As recently as 2013, a majority of Americans thought that the United States should “mind its own business internationally.” How will you convince them otherwise?
3.) Rank in priority the importance of more funding for the American military or complying with sequestration levels of funding.
Despite the growing number and variety of threats faced by the United States and its allies, the American military is facing funding levels and cuts that undermine its effectiveness to provide for the common defense. The Budget Control Act, for example, has wreaked havoc on the readiness and modernization efforts that our military needs to remain the world’s most powerful fighting force, and the US Army recently announced personnel cuts that will bring its number troops down to the lowest levels since before World War II. Many of the initiatives currently underway to increase funding for defense also involve increasing discretionary spending to levels that would require raising the spending caps caused by sequestration. Is that a tradeoff that you are willing to make? Why or why not?
4.) What is the highest priority for American national security funding?
Strategic decision-making requires allocating limited resources in a manner that increases the likelihood that goals will be achieved. The next president must decide which challenges are more urgent than others, and which tools are the most appropriate to address those challenges. With Russia’s increasingly brazen behavior in Eastern Europe, China’s assertiveness along its periphery, a metastasizing Islamic State, and an Iran whose ability to wield influence in the Middle East will only grow with its economy if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is implemented, there is no shortage of threats to counter. How the next president plans to handle these challenges will tell us a lot about how he or she views America’s role in the world.
5.) How will you advocate the importance of international trade and free market capitalism to the American people?
The free trade system that America helped create after World War II has aided in bringing millions out of poverty across the world. It has also increased the vitality and dynamism of our own economy at home. Yet the consensus around the superiority of this economic system is eroding, both internationally and in the US. Abroad, other countries have used international economic institutions to their advantage, and alternative economic models, such as that of China, have gained popularity as alternatives to free market capitalism in some of the poorest regions of the planet. Here in the United States, the unequal distribution of gains from trade and the difficulty of retraining to remain competitive in a global economy have left some questioning the wisdom of not only of international trade, but also of free market capitalism. How will you explain the benefits of these systems to the American people, even though, in the short term, those benefits may not be apparent to all?
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