America First

The United States can protect its interests and promulgate its values at the same time. If we are to be exceptional, we must live in the tension that exceptionalism brings.

When it comes to democracy promotion, it seems the Obama-Trump era is the aberration.

The downward trend in foreign aid spending by the US government is not a function of the American people losing interest in foreign aid. After all, it has never been popular. More likely, it’s a function of presidents no longer defending foreign aid, explaining it, or connecting it to the national interest.

Recent passage of the BUILD Act, which aims to “facilitate market-based private sector development and inclusive economic growth in less developed countries,” presents an ideal opportunity to discuss the thorny issue of foreign aid.

The Trump foreign policy is like the administration’s domestic policy: a little irreverent, ambitious, and completely impervious to experts’ warnings.

The world still requires order, and that still requires sacrifice. Many now believe we can have world order, peace, stability, and prosperity on the cheap. We can coast merely on soft power (Democrats) or by promoting national interests (Republicans) without the hard work and heavy lifting required to actually maintain that order, whether through diplomacy or hard power.

Missing from Bp. Curry’s message during the royal wedding is an appreciation of sin, its persistence and its power to corrupt human relationships. His is a prophecy filled with hope, but lacking humility. And in this, he bears false witness to our fallen world.

This is an axiom, as true for foreign policy as it is for our faith. We may not be bound by history, but we are damned if we ignore it. The root of conservatism is the tendency to see value in traditions not as ends unto themselves but as visible reminders of the sacrifices of those who have gone before.

The purpose of a National Security Strategy (NSS) is to explain how each administration views the security challenges facing the United States—and how it plans to address them. Love it or hate it, President Donald Trump’s NSS does this with often-blunt language and an unapologetic defense of the “America First” approach that shaped his campaign and his first year in office.