Woodrow Wilson

Dulles had a vision of American foreign policy that was animated by a strong sense of righteousness over tyranny and over injustice and unrighteous.

It is because we desire the good of concord that we fight for a decisive end to conflict, one that secures and allows the enforcement of a durable peace.

A century after the Great War’s end, we still have much to learn from its lessons and still wrestle with its consequences and leftovers.

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.