Joseph S. Nye, Jr. in Project Syndicate:
American foreign policy tends to oscillate between inward and outward orientations. President George W. Bush was an interventionist; his successor, Barack Obama, less so. And Donald Trump was mostly non-interventionist. What should we expect from Joe Biden?
In 1821, John Quincy Adams famously stated that the United States “does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” But America also has a long interventionist tradition. Even a self-proclaimed realist like Teddy Roosevelt argued that in extreme cases of abuse of human rights, intervention “may be justifiable and proper.” John F. Kennedy called for Americans to ask not only what they could do for their country, but for the world.
Since the Cold War’s end, the US has been involved in seven wars and military interventions, none directly related to great power competition. George W. Bush’s 2006 National Security Strategy proclaimed a goal of freedom embodied in a global community of democracies.
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