AMERICAN THINKER
by Lauri B. Regan
November 18, 2014

At a recent event in New York City, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and Wall Street Journal foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens was introduced to an audience of hundreds. As he introduced Stephens, the MC enthusiastically shared that the highlight of his week occurred on Tuesday mornings when he opened theJournal’s op-ed pages to read Stephens’ latest column and insights. Similarly, it was with great anticipation that I opened the pages of Stephens’ new book, America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder. And as I expected, he did not disappoint.

Stephens is an historian as well as a prolific writer and deep thinker, the combination of which has led to a thoughtful, well-researched and factually-supported manuscript. His book is a direct result of years of failed U.S. foreign policy:

Since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the political order of the Arab world has nearly unraveled. The economic order of the European world is under strain. The countries of the Pacific Rim are threatened by a China that is by turns assertive, reckless, and insecure. Despite its fundamental weaknesses, Russia seeks to dominate its “near-abroad” through a combination of local proxies, dirty tricks, and outright conquest. Another international order – the nuclear one – is being fundamentally challenged by the acquisition of nuclear capabilities by two uniquely dangerous states, Iran and North Korea, which in turn invites their nearest neighbors to consider their own nuclear options. Al Qaeda may be diminished in some corners of the Middle East, but it is metastasizing in others. The United States is more reluctant than it has been for decades to intervene abroad, judging that there is better security in inaction than action. Traditional allies of the United States, uncertain of its purposes, are beginning to explore their options in what they suspect is becoming a post-Pax Americana world, encouraging freelancing instincts which Washington has a diminishing ability to restrain.

How did America, the leader of the free world for a variety of reasons including its military strength, powerful international alliances, and unrivaled visionary leadership, come to a place at which scholars, journalists, enemies, and friends debate whether it is in decline or temporary retreat? This is a distinction with a difference that Stephens addresses early in his book as he optimistically concludes that America is not in decline — we still have a choice. In making the case that the dismal state of affairs can be reversed, he also develops a powerful argument for the next president to be a neocon who recognizes the imperative role of America as the world’s policeman……

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