Steve Hochstadt: Fixing the World Not Our Responsibility
[Steve Hochstadt of Jacksonville is a professor of history at Illinois College. His column appears every Tuesday.]
When Franklin Roosevelt prepared to fight Japan in the Pacific, he had to wait until we were attacked first. There was just too strong a sentiment of isolationism in the U.S., powerful reservations about using American power to intervene in the politics and wars of other countries.
That all changed after World War II. We emerged from the war with the conviction that we should use our unprecedented “superpower” to make the world a better place. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, American advisers, arms, and troops were sent around the globe....
National attitudes and political strategies don’t last forever. Although those political leaders who favored the use of American military power across the globe were much quieter for the three decades at the end of the 20th century, they did not disappear. When our country was thrown into a crisis of fear nine years ago by the attacks of a terrorist group, the idea of vigorous use of American power was brought out again by Bush and Cheney and many others, including some Democrats....
Read entire article at Jacksonville Journal-Courier
When Franklin Roosevelt prepared to fight Japan in the Pacific, he had to wait until we were attacked first. There was just too strong a sentiment of isolationism in the U.S., powerful reservations about using American power to intervene in the politics and wars of other countries.
That all changed after World War II. We emerged from the war with the conviction that we should use our unprecedented “superpower” to make the world a better place. From the late 1940s through the 1960s, American advisers, arms, and troops were sent around the globe....
National attitudes and political strategies don’t last forever. Although those political leaders who favored the use of American military power across the globe were much quieter for the three decades at the end of the 20th century, they did not disappear. When our country was thrown into a crisis of fear nine years ago by the attacks of a terrorist group, the idea of vigorous use of American power was brought out again by Bush and Cheney and many others, including some Democrats....