A populist backlash against globalization during 2016 brought a series of events culminating with Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the U.S. presidential election. The results marked a sharp break with a muscular form of liberal internationalism committed to spreading democracy and promoting human rights that guided policy since the 1990s.
The World America Unmade
Had Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan managed to win on November 6, Robert Kagan’s The World America Made would have taken on heightened significance. Even in the wake of the Republicans’ defeat, this hawkish historian’s advice to policymakers matters more than we might otherwise suppose. Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and co-founder with Irving Kristol of the Project for a New American Century, served on the Romney-Ryan team as a foreign policy adviser, but he also caught Barack Obama’s attention earlier this year. Back in January, President Obama reportedly expressed his admiration for an article Kagan had…
