Power and purpose

In early April, American expatriate Claire Berlinski stood in line at the Bureau Des Étrangers in Paris with other expats and immigrants hoping to renew their visas. All were staring at their cell phones, at breaking news of a U.S. missile launch against the Syrian airfield that had served as a base for the latest gas attack by Bashar al-Assad. Quietly, the émigrés of various backgrounds began to ask each other, Qu’en pensez-vous? “What do you think?” Berlinski had to confess she didn’t know what to think: Such moral clarity was the last thing she expected from President Trump. Some of her companions were hopeful, others skeptical of the outcome: “Every time America gets involved, it gets worse!”

Recall the election of 2008. One of the most troubling aspects of candidate Obama was his habit, as an Illinois legislator and a U.S. senator, of voting “present” on controversial bills. He seldom committed to a position—not a strong recommendation for a would-be decision-maker. As president, he could be swift and determined on domestic matters like transgender bathrooms, but on foreign policy—well, look at the record.

When the Iranian government stole the country’s 2009 election and cracked down hard on democratic protesters, not a word of rebuke from the world’s oldest democracy. When Libya, encouraged by the State Department, deposed a dictator and fell into tribal chaos leading to the murder of four Americans, the United States retaliated by prosecuting a video producer. When Russian strongman Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine—nothing. When the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people—ditto. When Assad and Putin together laid waste to the Syrian city of Aleppo last fall, the president ordered an investigation of Russian interference in our own 2016 election.

After ‘leading from behind,’ have we entered a phase of ‘leading from the gut’?

The Obama State Department had a name for this kind of studied inaction: “leading from behind.” To be fair, our nation has always dithered over its place in the world. One hundred years ago we entered The Great War after swearing not to. In 1945 we emerged as the Last Man Standing from another devastating global conflict. In 1989 the United States found itself not just leader of the free world, but the entire world: an empire with no imperial ambitions, a leader with no wish to lead. Isolationism is one of the horses that Donald Trump rode into office, and until April 6 he was still riding it. But then he was moved to outrage by the sight of gassed children.

After leading from behind, have we entered a phase of leading from the gut? And what does leadership even mean? “I’ve decided,” said a friend, echoing Claire Berlinski’s fellow expat, “that we can’t do intervention. We always make it worse.”

But ask a Frenchman of 1918 or 1944, or a South Korean of 1955, if we made things worse. America has put its thumb on the global scale since 1917, and admittedly the results are mixed. But with all our raucous debate and foot-dragging, we dodge the real question: What is our calling?

For nations are called as well as individuals. God called not only Israel but also—as tools of punishment—both Assyria and Babylon. History suggests that He called Rome to pave the way for the spread of the gospel. Centuries later, missionaries went to the ends of the earth with the blessing and means of the British Empire. Today, providentially, the United States leads the world. Does great power come with great responsibility, or is that only a line for comic books?

Folks say, “We can’t be the world’s policeman.” But keeping order doesn’t necessarily mean full-scale invasion. It could mean establishing safe areas, maintaining no-fly zones and buffers, or supplying arms to the “good guys” (and telling them apart from the bad guys). Sometimes all it takes is a credible threat.

Mostly, though, prudent global policing requires the will to accept responsibility and apply it wisely, lest the world become a far worse place. Whoever is out front is the leader, and a leader can’t simply vote “present.”