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FORTRESS AMERICA
While making notes on how Republicans react to the rest of the world, I found myself amid a welter of slogans, pronouncements, and exhortations. Here are some.
| Isolationist | America First |
| The War Party | Fortress America |
| Make America Great Again | Collective Security |
| Nation Building | Beacon for the World |
| Containing Communism | Leader of the Free World |
| Über Alles | L’Amour de la Patrie |
| USA! USA! | Great Plains Pacifism |
| Boots on the Ground | Fire and Fury |
| City on a Hill | Flags in Lapels |
The Civil War, the nation’s bloodiest, and which was formally against another nation, occurred during the Republicans’ first administration. Yet it would be incorrect to say that the party started that conflict. Its impetus came early in 1861, when several Southern states seceded to form the Confederate States of America, a self-proclaimed sovereign nation. By now historians agree that war was bound to ensue. But that only commenced when Confederate troops lay siege to a Union fort in South Carolina. It was a provocation akin to Pearl Harbor. Once Southerners opened fire, the North had no choice but to reply in kind.
It was in 1898, a generation after the Civil War, that the GOP showed its spurs as a war party. The administration headed by William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt contrived pretexts to invade and commandeer the Spanish colony of Cuba. If that island was only ninety miles from Florida, combat soon crossed the Pacific to the Philippines. Easy victories brought these provinces and Puerto Rico under American dominion. For Republicans, it was a model.
So perhaps it was not surprising that when the Lusitania was torpedoed in 1917, joining a European war had broad Republican support. The next year saw hostilities ending and Republicans taking control of the Senate. It soon became evident that dealing with peace would be another matter. The Treaty of Versailles, essentially a postwar charter, was submitted to the upper chamber, where it was summarily rebuffed. The chief reason given was that the accord would require the United States to join an international body called the League of Nations. Republican senators voted 28–12 for rejection. (Democrats backed it, but only by two votes.)1 The GOP margin against a multinational undertaking portended a posture that remains strong today.
During the next two decades, Republicans embraced a position then called “isolationism.” Most simply, it called for curbing involvements with other countries. It was redolent of Thomas Jefferson’s paradigm:
I am for free commerce with all nations; political connections with none. I am opposed to a standing army and a navy, which by the eternal wars in which they will implicate us, will sink us underneath them.2
These principles were put in practice during the 1920s. Yet in the first year of the next decade, even Jefferson’s “free commerce” exception was jettisoned. A Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act by a crushing 244–12 vote. Both parties agreed to cut military budgets, even aware of bellicosity in Europe and the Far East. The view was that if others chose to fool with fire, we weren’t playing that game.
The 1930s were also the decade of redoubtable Republicans, like George Norris of Nebraska, William Borah of Idaho, and South Dakota’s Gerald Nye. Their isolationism was more than geopolitical, since it added a pacifist underpinning. Nye went further, contending that the munitions industry made its profits by fomenting slaughter. A sharp test came early in 1941, with World War II persisting in Europe, and Germany seeming likely to vanquish Great Britain. President Roosevelt asked Congress to approve sending military supplies to Britain. Republicans in the House of Representatives voted 135–24 against it. The party preferred to sit out that conflict.
The United States never formally decided to join World War II, but its entry was forced by Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Poignantly, it was not unlike Fort Sumter, eighty years earlier. Another similarity was that both the Confederates and the Japanese were confident they could defeat a larger industrial power.
When the United Nations was established at the war’s conclusion in 1945, Republican senators voted 23–6 to join. Four years later, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was put in place to face a looming Soviet Union. Republican senators signed on 33–11. What propelled the NATO alliance was Soviet expansion: a vast military threat, underscored by a militant ideology. These voting margins signaled an internationalist turning by the party. Or at least a variant termed “collective security,” conceding a need to collaborate with other countries. Left for the future would be how far the party would stay in pacts based on parity of partners.
Republican secretaries of state, from John Foster Dulles under Dwight Eisenhower to Richard Nixon’s Henry Kissinger, promoted an unalloyed internationalist stance. More than that, the United States was to be the preeminent player in alliances across the globe. By United Nations counts, most of the nations in the world would acknowledge the United States as the leader of the free world.
Nor was this a rotating position, with other countries having a turn. The era was to be the American Century.This epithet was coined by Henry Luce, the paramount media magnate of that time and an éminence grise of the GOP. It was to be a span starting in June 1944, on D-Day of World War II, and lasting at least to 2044, if not an infinite future. And leadership is not just heading the pack. It requires the concurrence of followers, ensuring a consensus in a common cause.
Republicans accepted this mantle through the administration of George H. W. Bush, who enlisted a mélange of allies for his first foray against Iraq.
The Cold War lasted forty-five years. It began with Winston Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech at a Missouri college and ended with the Soviet Union’s implosion and dissolution in 1991. The chief protagonists were the US and the USSR, China also figuring on and off as an ally of the latter, since they shared Marxian antecedents. Yet the entire forty-five years never saw a physical skirmish between the two principal protagonists, let alone nuclear launches. Nor was this restraint fortuitous. Leaders on both sides, including successive Republicans, strove to keep communications and negotiations open.
Instead, the United States went to war with countries that were seen as Soviet allies. The most notable were North Korea and North Vietnam, the latter allied with informal forces in South Vietnam. Altogether, 94,736 Americans perished in these two incursions, which were orchestrated by administrations of both parties.
Even when Democrats were at the helm, Republicans gave these forays unalloyed support. Republican reasoning was simple. These wars were necessary to confront the menace of global communism. And if much of the Vietnam intervention occurred during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Republicans were its most stalwart supporters. Hence GOP disgust at anti-war sentiment, seen as disloyal when not cowardly, and which never emerged in its own ranks. Those with lukewarm feelings, or who opposed war altogether, were branded as short on national loyalty. Even now, with almost a half-century for reflection, few in the GOP cast Vietnam as a defeat or concede the incursion was a mistake.
Since at least September 11, 2001, Republicans have viewed some or most components of the Islamic world as analogous to the Soviet challenge. Even so, they are a wholly different kind of foe. Instead of deploying infantry divisions and nuclear arsenals, they use surprise suicide missions. Indeed, all that’s needed are a handful of zealots willing to die. Hence a tendency to call them terrorists. The dread they evoke is not of mass destruction by warheads. It is localized and seemingly random, as happened with the ending of 2,606 lives in New York City. Manchester, Paris, Nice, Madrid, and Nairobi have all had their turn. The aim is to demoralize, to keep millions of people perpetually anxious lest they be next. No one knows if or when or where a tower or theater or train will be targeted.
Republicans haven’t a common stance on these new kinds of combatants. As of this writing, none have spoken of overrunning Iran, as it was accepted as necessary in Iraq. At this point, few if any Republicans are happy about maintaining a military presence in Syria, Afghanistan, or Islamic regions in Africa. Still, contingencies can be surmised from the past. If overseas hostilities are commenced and American lives begin to be lost, Republicans will rally round to show loyalty to the troops on the ground. Doubters will be cast as disloyal, as will putative allies who decline to support the incursion. In all, the party of patriotism is rarely heard asserting an ongoing war is wrong.
Yet it’s also plain that Islamic enmity is not going to go away. Thus far, the most palpable Republican strategy is to prevent more Muslims from entering the country and keep a vigilant eye on those already here. In our adversaries’ own terms, they are engaged in a “holy war,” a cause dedicated to rooting out secular impurities and perversions.
Yet there’s a marked asymmetry here. The United States’ reactions to Islam have no hallowed foundations. In confronting the Soviet Union, capitalist and constitutional freedoms were seen to be at stake. The United States does not have an ideological animus toward Islam to match the fervor of jihadist sects. Even purblind patriots have no riposte to shouts of “Death to America!” heard in Middle Eastern streets. The chief response to terrorist acts is to keep them from recurring.
There’s more to the asymmetry. There’s also an imbalance at ground level. With drones and missiles now on the menu, uniformed personnel can be thousands of miles from enemy lines. Those seen as our foes can draw on millions of young people, ready to give their lives and often avid for that chance. As is all too evident, a single suicide warrior can inflict massive damage, by a repeating weapon, commandeering a vehicle, or wearing an explosives vest. Thus far the Republican response has been to provide arms to allies and have Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians do most of the fighting for us.
Democrats had always been more unabashedly internationalist. Most recently, they took this path by championing the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Paris Climate Accord. Donald Trump’s antipathy to such pacts was long clear for anyone who had been watching or cared. But his was a presidency no one ever expected to see. That noted, it was also evident by 2017 that a strong majority of Republicans were more than willing to support whatever stance he chose. Nor is it true to say that members of Congress were cowed by his bullying demeanor. They, and others who willingly joined the executive branch, had been ready to discard the courting and compromise inherent in multination compacts, or accepting allies as equals.
Instead, the party is reconceiving the rubrics of Fortress America and America First. Under these dicta, the nation can still be a global power, but on its own, without allies or alliances. It is a momentous undertaking, with the world watching to see how far this stance will secure the ends it seeks.
A war party? The record has been mixed. As the earlier recounting showed, World War I and World War II both began and ended under Democratic administrations. The Korean war started with an invasion from the collectivist Northern segment of that country. US forces, following a decision by Harry Truman, intervened to repel the incursion. This was in fact achieved, with no small loss of life, and was quickly concluded by Dwight Eisenhower. Vietnam had a not dissimilar North-South scenario. The United States had a lengthy history of militancy, from Eisenhower’s providing so-called advisers at the outset, to escalations by Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. It ended in an American defeat, albeit without a formal surrender. Some Republicans place the onus on disloyal protestors at home. Others have refused to call it that, intimating that the United States does not lose wars.
The two Iraq involvements were conceived by Republicans, both named George Bush. The first was limited and sagely enlisted allies. As such, it was a small exercise in collective security. The second Iraq incursion was essentially a solo act, which ended by devastating an entire region. It was the first fully Republican war since the Spanish-American foray. This seismic shift came with the advent of the second George Bush, who had neither grounding nor aptitude for foreign dealings. Two counselors, Richard Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, persuaded him to ignore putative allies and plunge into Iraq. This launched a go-it-alone posture for the GOP. It was not strictly isolationist, since American troops would be surging into the Middle East. But it was literally an isolated undertaking, in that not more than a token effort was made to enlist allies.
Donald Trump’s administration has preserved this posture. One of its first acts was to become the one nation out of 198 to reject the Paris Climate Accord. Not long after, perhaps to preserve that distinction, it was one of two dissents of 193 votes on a United Nations resolution condemning Cuba. (Only Israel pitched in to help.)
Nor were these simply the penchants of an idiosyncratic president. No Republican voices were heard disputing this kind of defiance, nor even chagrin about being out of step. In the nuclear arena, the administration acted alone in seeking to isolate Iran, in trying to parlay with North Korea, and in abrogating an arms agreement with Russia. Here again, a deep GOP silence signaled acquiescence on these and other fronts. Not least was going along with an aggressive tariff war, unlike any since Smoot-Hawley. Nor have elected officials posed alternatives to going solo. It may be that a party centered in Oklahoma and Idaho has little inherent interest in international matters. Either way, a hush is the party’s voice on foreign affairs.
Donald Trump’s “America First” may have started as a slogan, but it has become more than that. As he has averred, all independent nations give priority to their own interests. This also holds among those who usually turn to cooperation and collaboration. Even so, Republican views of sovereignty differ sharply from conceptions found elsewhere. (There was a facsimile in British voters who supported withdrawing from the European Union.) Still, “America First” lacks specificity. After all, Danes and Dutch people could argue that they serve their countries best by acting in concert with allies and neighbors.
Arguably, a better epithet for the emerging GOP would be “Fortress America,” a term long out of use, but which is nonetheless apposite. Once realized, here’s what it might entail. The nation would have a robust military, undergirded by state-of-the-art armaments. Despite Republican antipathy to taxes, they seldom scant that branch. In this, they would rally behind Alexander Hamilton: “I acknowledge my aversion to every project that is calculated to disarm the government of a single weapon which in any possible contingency might be usefully employed for the general defense and security.”3
These words could be in a Republican platform today, especially in a refusal to settle for anything short of an absolute pledge to defense and security. It invokes images of a continental citadel. Its hallmarks would be impenetrable borders and fortified coastlines, akin to castles of yore, with modern versions of rugged drawbridges and murky moats. A start would be to erect a high fortified wall, straddling the 1,993 miles of the US-Mexican border. As needs no recounting, such a project figured prominently in Trump’s 2016 campaign. (“And Mexico will pay for it!”) Once he was in office, it was given priority as a pledge to be filled. Nor was this simply one president’s cenotaph to himself. It became the party’s cause as well. When he unilaterally finessed funds for the fence, 227 of the party’s 252 lawmakers backed his arrogation. (That’s a round 90 percent.) Indeed, it could be seen as a first installment for the physical face of Fortress America. True, it was not an updated Maginot Line, designed to thwart enemy troops. Rather, its aim was to keep out menacing civilians from Mexico and Central and South America, plus terrorists posing as refugees. So along with preserving the nation’s racial balance, a wall was also an arm of foreign policy.
Equally crucial are airborne weapons, often in remote locations, capable of lashing out across the globe. Nations like North Korea and Iran would presumably flinch and cower, knowing they could be turned to ashes from afar. So this balustrade is not simply defensive. It will be ready to send assaults anywhere on the planet. Given the ambit of this scenario, the term “isolationist” hardly seems to apply. But whether fantasy or policy, it is a current GOP vision for American supremacy.
And who is to do the fighting? Since the most bellicose Republicans are at least middle-aged, it will fall to younger generations to face mutilation and death. (A survey of Republicans in Congress found just one with an offspring in uniform.) Conscription was ended following defeat in Vietnam, so the military now functions with volunteers. Officers have mainly gone to modest colleges; only a fifth attended the services’ academies. Enlisted personnel are almost wholly working class, with a disproportion of recruits from Republican strongholds. More precisely, states ranking highest in enlistments average eight points higher in GOP turnouts. It’s likely that most of these young warriors signed up with the approval of Republican parents.
A small but significant Republican constituency is the professional officer corps. Not surprisingly, whether fledgling cadets or starred generals, they properly maintain political silence. One study found that most of those who vote don’t register with a party, which is what one would hope and expect. But of those who do, they sign up as Republican by a four-to-one margin.
This makes sense, if only because the GOP is the more martial party. There may be another cause: the military’s demographics. Rural America, especially the South and the Midwest, has long honored careers at arms. Most officers now come through ROTC programs at land-grant colleges, like Purdue and Texas A&M. Indeed, a commission usually brings upward mobility. Almost all our generals and admirals rose from modest origins.
There can be no doubt that Republicans want their nation to be great, with such stature ranking high in their catechism of desires. This standing is ordinarily construed in military and economic terms. (The party has scant interest in esteem allied with science or the arts.) Nor is it moral stature, as with societies known for treating people fairly or taking in refugees. Rather, its fulcrum is unrivaled power—military and economic—mighty enough to make the rest of the globe tremble. When Republicans travel abroad, they want to encounter deference, a grounded recognition of America’s renown. In a word, the “Great” on the campaign caps is meant to be read as “The Greatest.”
It’s not likely many Republicans would want their country to attain anything less than undisputed primacy. But if this is to be the goal of foreign relations, it remains to ask what measures will be required. In the economic sphere, the GOP answer is simple. If businesses are exempted from burdensome barriers and allowed to freely pursue profits, America will mount an economy unparalleled in the world.
As a corollary to patriotism, Republicans hold that the United States is by far the finest country on the globe, by whatever measures are employed or aggregated. They will argue that its people enjoy more personal and civic freedom, wider opportunity, and a higher living standard. Nor is this a debate to be cluttered with studies or statistics, let alone scholarly research. The party’s evidence is that so many people clamor to come here, by whatever means they can.
A kindred Republican penchant is to deny any notion that other nations may conduct their affairs more equitably or rationally than the United States. As in looking at how France provides health care, or Belgium curbs fossil fuels, or Australia addresses firearms. Or why Japan ranks low on homicides, Canada imprisons fewer of its residents, and Dutch teenagers seldom get pregnant. Findings like these never obscure Republican position papers. Since the United States stands first, it cannot admit it might learn from—let alone emulate or admire—the experience or attainments of others.
For many Republicans, foreign interventions are explained as unadorned realism. Two presidents named George Bush sent troops to the Middle East for the same reason that Ronald Reagan deployed them in Grenada and Lebanon. A power with global pretensions has interests on every continent. Therefore, threats to the nation’s security can arise anywhere. True, the Korean and Vietnam incursions were given an ideological dressing, since the adversaries held to collectivist tenets. But few argued that the United States intervened to bring those countries the blessings of free enterprise. More recently, conflicts with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have been conducted solely as military operations. No talk is heard about how the United States offers an alternative to Islam. True, too, there came murmurings about bringing democracy to Iraq. But as Britain showed the world in earlier times, honorable ambitions are preceded by gunboats.
This noted, there are still Republicans who believe that their country has a special calling. In their view, this nation has been chosen to act as a model for the world. Hence Alexander Hamilton’s exhortation to its fledgling citizens: “It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human race.”4 This dictum holds that all people everywhere need tutelage in American ways. For a while, this was called “nation building,”with the United States as the exemplar and architect. For a while, experts presumed adept in that sphere accompanied each incursion. Nor was this purblind arrogance. The templates were the rebuilding of Japan and Germany in the aftermath of World War II.
Currently, few elected Republicans feel obliged to remodel other nations. If Alexander Hamilton has modern heirs, they are managers of global corporations who seek amenable conditions for conducting their enterprises. Chief executive officers earnestly believe that what they produce will elevate the world. Taken together, Coca-Cola and Boeing, Disney and Google, Facebook and ExxonMobil infuse American ways across borders. That they are embraced voluntarily attests to their appeal, not imperialist duress. Even amid nativism and populism, corporate resources have a crucial role in maintaining Republican sway. Their quest for profits, increasingly earned abroad, will ensure an international thrust for the party.
The media overcovers the GOP and gives Democrats a free ride. (Virginia)
The GOP stands for pro-life, school choice, and less taxes. (Arizona)
I’m tired of the government poking holes in my ship to help raise others, when I’m doing all the work. (Alabama)
I like the Republican Party due to Abraham Lincoln, who was its founder. (Indiana)
Democrats are bad on First and Second Amendment rights. (Kentucky)
I cannot abide the constant march toward totalitarian socialism. (Kansas)
Republican policies lead to free market competition in health care. (Florida)
I don’t believe we can improve lives by yelling hate and adding more laws. (California)
I want government to stay out of my life. (Georgia)
The Republican Party is the party of Ronald Reagan. It cares more about ensuring that America and her values are protected and preserved. (Wisconsin)
I don’t agree with spreading the wealth to lazy assholes. (Oregon)