Six Reasons Why Conservatives Should Support Non-Intervention

While liberals are doing more than their fair share at intervening in other country's affairs, conservatives have generally been the ones promoting a foreign policy of aggression and abrasiveness, all in the name of "national security". Conservatives tend to smear non-interventionism as "isolationism" that amounts to nothing more than "appeasement" and a "Neville Chamberlain"-style foreign policy. But why? As the following points show, foreign intervention is antithetical to everything conservatives claim to stand for.

Let's get started:

1. Non-intervention is good for national defense. Millions of Americans have finally started figuring out what more than a few Saudis and Afghans have been putting into practice for quite some time: you reap what you sow. The actions of terrorists against the United States did not come from nothing; instead they are the inevitable result of constant meddling by the United States in Middle Eastern affairs, such as...

1. Inadvertently spurring on the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iran
2. Provoking a Soviet attack on Afghanistan
3. Supporting Israel in its invasion of Lebanon
4. Dealing arms with Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war
5. Dealing arms with Iran in the Iraq-Iran war
6. Invading Iraq
7. Creating no-fly zones over Iraq
8. Slapping down massive, deadly sanctions on Iraq
9. Establishing ties with the oppressive Saudi regime
10. Invading and occupying Afghanistan
11. Invading and occupying Iraq again
12. Supporting an oppressive fundamentalist regime in Pakistan,
13. Launching drone strikes in Pakistan
14. Constantly threatening action as drastic as nuclear attack on nations that have committed no aggressive action against us.

And that's just in the last 30 years.

While this intervention in the outside world by no means absolves foreign aggressors of their actions, if policymakers are serious about protecting the lives of Americans, both military and civilian, they must strongly consider implementing non-interventionism.

2. Non-intervention keeps government small. "Never waste a good crisis," the saying goes, and it's a saying the government has taken to heart quite well. Whenever there is some great crisis that threatens to kill us all, such as global warming, swine flu, or war, government jumps at the opportunity to save the day, as long as you just give it a little bit more power in return.

If you don't believe this, just look at the aforementioned swine flu. People are panicking all around from the swine flu, despite the fact that it only kills just as many people as the regular flu. Yet despite this, the feds are seizing more power to stop the infection. "It'll only be temporary," they tell us. But there is truly nothing more permanent than a temporary government program.

War, of course, is the crisis of crises. Nothing mobilizes a citizenry toward support for its government like military action. Regardless of whether or not the war is actually in self-defense, it always provides both an excuse for the government to increase its authority, and a means for the people to accept it.

3. Non-intervention is pro-life. As seen from point number one, non-intervention does a good job of keeping American lives out of an early grave. But consider that if America stopped pushing its weight around the world, fewer foreigners would die as well. Take a look at the sanctions placed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 as an example. The purpose of those sanctions was ostensibly good, both for the U.S. and the people of Iraq; they were supposed to dislodge the power structure of Saddam Hussein's brutal Ba'ath government and prevent him from gaining more authority. But something went very, very wrong. Depending on which source you look at, civilian casualties directly resulting from those sanctions range from 170,000 to 227,000, to half a million (please note that these are not even the complete count of civilian casualties--these are the number of casualties of children under five alone). Want to call yourself truly pro-life? Ask your government to discontinue its aggressive foreign policy.

4. Non-intervention is Constitutional. This argument applies in two different contexts. The first is under the idea that it is America's responsibility to defend other nations from attack (see Kuwait) or brutal dictators/genocides (see Darfur). The opening lines of Article I, Section 8 of the United States constitution reads as follows: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." That last part means "it's none of our business what other countries do."

The second context is that of national security, and the defense against it comes from the same part of the Constitution. It must be absolutely clear that an action, military or otherwise, is for the defense of the American people. While this concept may seem simple, for centuries it has been tossed aside by leaders who essentially say "whatever--we'll find the proof later". However, according to the very Constitution that conservatives say they hold in such high regard, this is completely illegal.

5. Non-intervention is conservative. If you look for past supporters of non-intervention, you will find that they are almost overwhelmingly conservative. Who started the Vietnam War? John F. Kennedy, and his successor Lyndon B. Johnson escalated it. Who withdrew from Vietnam? Republican Richard Nixon. Let's go even further back. Who started the Korean War? Liberal Democrat Harry S. Truman. Who withdrew from Korea? Conservative Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was one of the last great Republicans, one who understood the dangers of an overbearing foreign policy. Yet he was no pot-smoking peacenik; he was the supreme commander of the Allied Forces, a decorated general, and a great hero in American history. Conservatism and non-intervention have a long story together, and it is a story I would rather keep alive.

6. Non-intervention is American.

"Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service."

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."

"Military glory--that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy..."

These quotes do not come from hippie musicians a la John Lennon or communists a la Noam Chomsky; these came from George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, respectively. The anti-war cause is not anti-American or unpatriotic, it is quite the opposite. Skepticism about the power of government abroad is truly in line with the intent of the founding fathers of American government.

These six qualities that I have just described are all ideas that resonate deeply with American conservatives. Unneeded war is the enemy of everything they believe in or think they believe in, yet they continually line up to give their support every time their government calls them to "duty" in the name of national defense or human rights. I can only hope this article persuades conservatives to rethink their ideas of the capabilities of government force and the military.