A Flawed Critique of Ron Paul's Foreign Policy From Doug Mataconis

by Liberty and Power

Over at Liberty Papers, Doug Mataconis challenges Ron Paul's call to implement a non-interventionist foreign policy as unrealistic in the"modern world."

While Mataconis deserves a more detailed answer, one of his starting premises does not bear scrutiny. He states that non-interventionism made more sense during the early republic because"the nearest threatening nation was weeks away by sailing ship."

Precisely the opposite was true. As Isabel Paterson once pointed out, the early United States was anything but"isolated" from powerful enemies or potential enemies. These powers encircled the new republic on all sides.

In 1803, for example, French Louisiana was directly on the southwestern border, Spanish Florida was to the south, and British Canada was to the north. While the French and Spanish threats soon disappeared, the British superpower continued to dominate the northern border for another century. As late as the 1890s, the two countries almost went to war.

By contrast in 2007, the nations on the southern and northern U.S. borders pose no credible military threat. Viewed from this angle, a policy of non-interventionism makes even more sense in the modern world than it did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

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John Robert Dewey - 10/14/2007

"I can't think of any intervention that was based on a legimate fear that the U.S. was threatened in any immediate way by ballistic missles."

Perhaps not, but we would have to intervene in North Korea if the threat grows.

David T. Beito - 10/12/2007

Since the Cold War, I can't think of any intervention that was based on a legimate fear that the U.S. was threatened in any immediate way by ballistic missles.

John Robert Dewey - 10/12/2007

Certainly the 18th and 19th century British, Spanish, and French represented a greater threat to the U.S. than 21st century Canada and Mexico. But geographic proximity is meaningless in today's ICBM world. Neither Napolean nor Santa Anna possessed ballistic missles capable of moving payloads to the U.S. heartland at 15,000 miles per hour.

David T. Beito - 10/9/2007

No, I'm not. I only said that they were an enemy or potential enemy, perhaps my phrasing could have been better. By using the term enemy, I don't mean to imply that they werethe guilty party in any particular power dispute.

David T. Beito - 10/9/2007

I am little hazy on the details but don't think it did. I believe it involved some trivial issue of a perceived insult. Interestingly, the great classical liberal, William Leggett, wrote an essay calling for war with France.

Mark Brady - 10/9/2007

"We did almost go to war with Britain on several occasions and came fairly close to war with France in the 1830s."

Agreed, with the caveat that I'm not persuaded that war between Britain and the U.S. was ever that close on those occasions. Did France threaten to take territory away from the U.S. in the 1830s?

Mark Brady - 10/9/2007

Oops! I forgot about the War of 1812. That said, when you think about it, the British never sought to reconquer the United States for the British empire, or are you suggesting they did?

David T. Beito - 10/9/2007

They didn't threaten our territoriaal integrity but then, of course, neither did the Soviet Union or Al Qaeda. We did almost go to war with Britain on several occasions and came fairly close to war with France in the 1830s.

Mark Brady - 10/9/2007

Surely neither France, Spain nor Britain ever threaten the territorial integrity of the United States after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. I realize there were disputes with Britain about the Canadian border, but are you suggesting that Britain ever threatened the internationally recognized boundaries of the U.S., and if so, when?