2025.03.20
Take nobody's word for it.
A society that could mobilize for total war was defined as one that could mobilize for social welfare. Thus it was the actual performance of the central government during the war that was crucial in the thrust toward a welfare state. In essence, the political elites gained the knowledge and the confidence that they could manage the welfare state.
The first problem with liberalism is that it wrongly assumes that humans are fundamentally solitary individuals, when in fact they are social beings at their core. This commitment to far-reaching individualism leads political liberals to downplay nationalism, which is an especially powerful political ideology with profound influence inside every country in the world. Liberalism's fate is therefore bound up with nationalism.
[For liberals] war is either a crime or a crusade. There is no half-way house.
No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Worst of all, these interventions were unnecessary. The domino theory did not describe any serious threat: it assumed that universalist ideologies like Marxism would dominate local identities and desire for self-determination. They do not. Proponents of the domino theory failed to understand that nationalism is a far more powerful ideology than communism, just as it is far more powerful than liberalism.
To make their case, restrainers should emphasize three points. First, the United States is the most secure great power in recorded history and thus does not need to interfere in the politics of every country on the planet. It is a hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, and it is separated from East Asia and Europe--the regions where other great powers have historically been located--by two giant moats, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It has thousands of nuclear weapons, and in the scenario we are considering here, it is the only great power in the international system.
Second, liberal hegemony simply does not work. It was tried for twenty-five years and left a legacy of futile wars, failed diplomacy, and diminished prestige.
Finally, liberal hegemony involves significant costs for the American people, in both lives and money.