George Epstein: A foreign policy for the 21st century

The United States has not had a foreign policy since Lyndon Johnson was president. From Harry Truman till LBJ, America’s foreign policy could be summed up in two words – Contain Communism. For good (Marshall Plan, Berlin airlift) or ill (prompting coups, propping up dictators), we knew where we stood. Beginning with the amoral Henry Kissinger’s attempts to play the USSR against China in the Nixon administration, we lost our way. There was no good or evil, just the ally of the week.

Jimmy Carter had his “human rights” focus, which made him the nicest President of the 20th century, but resulted in him being ineffective and ultimately irrelevant. Ronald Reagan knew an Evil Empire when he saw it, and he spent (and borrowed) so many billions on weapons that he sped the collapse of the Soviet Union as they tried to match us dollar for dollar. Good job. But he sold rockets to Iran that were ideal for shooting down airliners. This was supposed to lead to Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terrorists freeing hostages. They didn’t. Then he took the money from Iran to prop up Nicaragua’s Contras in their failed attempt to re-assert a dictatorship. Not exactly a cogent foreign policy.