Should America Do Less?

The problem is that the world’s most compelling idea isn’t nationalism, democracy, or capitalism: It’s success. Winning generates power and credibility, and failure generates the opposite. This means there are real costs beyond mere wasted effort to not succeeding, as America’s recent history demonstrates. My own view is that the country’s failures in war- and peacemaking have contributed to a loss in America’s ability to command respect, fear, and admiration in places around the world. The direct costs of failed military interventions like Iraq can be counted in dollars and lives. The costs of failures like the Camp David Summit are harder to measure, but the unrealistic and unrealizable expectations generated by that effort played into the hands of extremists.