Wilsonianism

Once again, public opinion polls have disappointed isolationists and others who want the United States to have a minimalist foreign policy. Almost overnight, a large swath of America now wants to counter Russia, and elected officials who want to keep their jobs have responded.

In his book “A World Safe for Democracy,” John Ikenberry writes an impassioned defense of liberal internationalism and the international order it helped to create.

After Japan’s surrender 75 years ago, McCulloch implored Christians and governments to affirm “the dignity of the human person as the image of God” because this principle could determine the world’s fate.

The fact that Americans have shifted their focus back to domestic concerns isn’t abnormal or un-American. It is the predictable resurgence of the two domestically focused schools of the American foreign policy tradition.

Formal religious adherence is declining, but America’s longtime religious self-identity as a lodestar of democratic responsibility in the world continues unabashed.