Woodrow Wilson

Renewed debates over history reveal the narratives that conservatives and progressives employ to justify or decry American history. One narrative insists on lionizing historical figures, the other on demonizing them—yet both distract from the ongoing pursuit of the American ideals of justice, liberty, and equality.

Charlie Laderman’s “Sharing the Burden” provides a thoroughly researched and highly compelling account of how the Armenian question acted as a catalyst for an emerging American-British geopolitical alliance and the United States’ rise as a predominant actor in the international arena.

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.

While much has been made of Abraham Kuyper’s Calvinistic contributions to domestic political theory, very little (in English) has been said of his foreign policy.

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

Eric Patterson contends in Just American Wars that the US is unique because of how it considers ethical and moral dilemmas when it fights. Particularly, the country’s democratic institutions force any politician who wishes to engage in a war to explain to voters, civil society, and other parts of the government why the war must be fought.

The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, was signed one hundred years ago this week. What is often forgotten is that this treaty—or better yet, set of treaties—did recognize and advance, albeit in a limited way, the religious freedom of average citizens.

Perhaps an insight from the character of Elrond in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, about the nature of our mortal lives, offers a measure of Christian realism in the face of Versailles: “And the Elves believed that evil was ended forever, and it was not so.”