“We cannot shirk our responsibility as the leader of the Free World, because we’re the only one that can do it. And therefore, the burden of maintaining the peace falls on us. And to maintain that peace requires strength.”
Ronald Reagan’s words from the 1980 presidential debate capture a core belief that has shaped American foreign policy for generations: that U.S. leadership and strength are essential to global stability and that this has helped define our rise as the world’s leading superpower.
But this ideology is not just a product of Reagan. It spans generations of American thinking and did not follow strict party lines.
In 1947, Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously declared that “politics stops at the water’s edge,” backing Democratic President Harry Truman’s foreign policy at a pivotal moment in world history. His stance reflected a broader bipartisan understanding that America’s role in the world transcends partisan divides.
For decades, ideas like peace through strength, democratic leadership, and cross‑party unity on foreign policy have been essential to America’s rise as the world’s leading superpower.
And while not always perfect, this approach has defined us as a democratic superpower, led to more prosperity than ever before, and has helped contribute to a more stable international order.
Yet in recent years, a growing sentiment has emerged against this long-standing consensus. Isolationist impulses on the extremes of both political parties threaten to unravel the principles that have guided U.S. leadership for generations, risking global instability and diminishing American prosperity and influence.
In this article, we’ll discuss how the United States became a superpower, why our foreign policy and leadership role remain vital, and why this trend toward isolationism could threaten international relations and our superpower status.
A Superpowered Democracy
America did not begin as a superpower; it became one through years of economic growth, military expansion, world wars, and a bipartisan belief in global leadership.
In the early years, the United States was largely isolationist and avoided foreign entanglements. We were a new nation, and we needed to focus on our domestic issues and what our identity as a democratic country would be. Engaging in the wars and affairs of other nations might have damaged our country’s structure and distracted us from progressing domestically. Also, we didn’t necessarily have the power to oppose other nations, predominantly European countries, even if we wanted to.
However, the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 warned European powers against influencing affairs in the Western Hemisphere. Still, the European powers largely disregarded it because of our weaker military. Ultimately, we stayed out of the wars with Napoleon, and when we did participate in conflicts, they were issues that involved us directly and domestically and took place on American soil: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War.
But all this began to change in the 20th century.
After the victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898, the United States began to push to become a global power. Our expanding economy and acquisition of territories increased America’s global influence, and by Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, our global status was starting to come to fruition.
Roosevelt wanted to project our influence abroad, so he took several steps, including the creation of a powerful navy that included new battleships nicknamed the Great White Fleet. He believed we needed to protect our interests and grow the economy by becoming involved globally.
By World War I, the United States had become a world player. And while initially maintaining a more isolationist position, President Woodrow Wilson eventually proclaimed that we needed to “make the world safe for democracy”, marking the first time the U.S. became directly involved in a European war overseas.
Wilson was also a significant influence in the post-war agreements, as he tried to establish the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations. The U.S., however, never joined the League because isolationists in the Senate prevailed and prevented U.S. entry.
Then came World War II, which changed everything.
During the rise of fascism and totalitarianism in the 1930s, like the Nazis, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy, the United States was more focused on domestic issues as the Great Depression was ongoing. The attack on Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan, however, changed everything. And at the end of the war, the United States emerged for the first time as a global superpower, along with the Soviet Union.
The United States was the leader in post-war terms and led the creation of the United Nations and world economic institutions like the World Bank.
The Cold War followed, and as the two global superpowers avoided direct confrontation, the United States maintained a policy of containment and deterrence toward the communist Soviet Union.
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was established to bring the countries of Europe and the United States into an alliance, to deter the Soviet Union from expanding its influence.
This containment of communism usually meant providing aid to nations opposing communism, as well as direct involvement, which wasn’t always the right decision; the Vietnam War being the prime example.
By the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s policies renewed an assertive vision of U.S. global leadership, and by the early 1990s, the Soviet Union was dissolved. The United States became the world’s sole superpower and the first democratic sole superpower in the modern world.
Ultimately, our approach throughout our history, especially after World War II, was shaped by a bipartisan interventionist foreign policy, which became a foundational stance of the United States. The question was not whether America should intervene in global politics, but how it should do so.
And while interventionism can certainly have its extremes, the United States has ultimately taken an approach in line with Theodore Roosevelt’s and Woodrow Wilson’s beliefs: we need to protect our interests, expand our economy, and make the world more democratic and free. Whether through successful moments of leadership or costly misjudgments, presidents from both parties generally operated within this approach and believed the United States had a responsibility to remain deeply involved in global affairs.
This was because, as Arthur Vandenberg said, “politics stops at the water’s edge.” And while both parties may have disagreed on ideologies of involvement over the years, they all still believed in the foundational policy of interventionism.
For example, many Democrats have followed the ideology of liberal internationalism. This ideology advocates greater global diplomacy and the use of international institutions, such as the United Nations, as a vehicle for solving problems. While they will still advocate the use of force if necessary, liberal internationalists, first and foremost, prefer diplomacy and a multilateral approach in global affairs.
Many Republicans, on the other hand, have followed the ideologies of realism and neoconservatism.
Realists believe the United States should act more independently in global affairs and for national interests. They don’t trust the reliability of international institutions and international law because they think they can only be effective if the nations involved are reliable, which isn’t always the case. Regardless, realists may still support international institutions when they serve American interests, but they are more skeptical of relying on them or seeking their approval before acting.
Neoconservatives, conversely, focus heavily on foreign intervention for moral and ethical reasons. They are highly idealistic, believing that actively spreading democracy worldwide creates a safer, more prosperous global environment reflecting American values. To achieve this, they, like realists, are also more willing to act unilaterally if needed.
There are other variants of these ideologies as well, but they all share one commonality: they are interventionists and believe U.S. foreign policy should be one of involvement.
However, despite these ideologies having led to the creation of a superpower, the extreme wings of the parties are calling for greater isolationism, which could have profound consequences for the United States and global politics.
Over the Water’s Edge?
At the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy could have gone in multiple directions.
The Soviet Union had dissolved, and the need to counteract another major superpower was gone. This meant that the way in which we had conducted foreign policy for years might no longer be necessary.
But we were now also the world’s sole superpower, which put us in a unique position.
Both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton decided to continue a strong U.S. foreign policy in global politics, maintaining the ideologies and values of the 20th century while adding to them.
George H.W. Bush, in a speech given on September 11th, 1990, declared a new world order in response to how the world would, and did, handle Iraq in the Gulf War. In a pivotal part of that speech, Bush said, “a new world order can emerge: a new era freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.” He also added that “there is no substitute for American leadership. In the face of tyranny, let no one doubt American credibility and reliability.”
Bill Clinton continued this after his election to the presidency. He stated, “The United States, as the largest and strongest country in the world at this moment, has the unavoidable responsibility to lead in this increasingly interdependent world, to try to help meet the challenges of this new era.”
It’s important to note that these quotes, along with Ronald Reagan’s from the intro, all emphasize the same foundational principle: that the United States, as a democratic superpower, is responsible for maintaining peace and leading global politics.
This all began to change, however, with the emergence of more extreme right- and left-wing politicians, who have advocated for isolationist ideologies and challenged our long-standing foundations of foreign policy.
For example, Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, although framed as patriotic, was a deeper isolationist and populist agenda that favored disengagement from international institutions such as NATO, the World Trade Organization, and the United Nations. It was a shift away from global cooperation and leadership, all under the banner of prioritizing domestic interests over international responsibilities.
However, there is a fundamental problem with this approach. Withdrawing support from our allies and retreating from global leadership undermines the very foundation of our superpower status. It was interventionist policies in the 20th century that elevated the United States.
American prosperity has long been linked to global leadership. Alliances such as NATO amplify U.S. power rather than diminish it, and the major international institutions that guide global politics directly reflect American values and policies, as we played a central role in creating them. In truth, true “America First” policies would be about maintaining and strengthening our global status, and addressing domestic challenges does not require abandoning our engagement with the world.
Yet, it’s not just far-right ideologies that reflect this isolationism. Far-left politicians and political organizations, such as the Democratic Socialists of America, also reflect this. The Democratic Socialists of America and far-left ideologies have also called for the withdrawal from NATO, encourage the lifting of sanctions from enemy countries, and would like to see the closure of all our foreign military bases.
And yes, you read that correctly, both Donald Trump and far-left Democrats have called for withdrawal from NATO. It is the exact opposite of where we were at the end of the 20th century, when both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton valued strengthening and cultivating NATO and our other alliances.
And while, on the surface, these isolationist policies may make some sense, they are ultimately very short-sighted. Imagine what the world would be like if we had to share or lose our superpower status to China, without the alliance of NATO behind us.
If we choose to pull back our influence in global politics, China won’t hesitate to fill the void. With the United States pulling away from global affairs, China would expand its influence in many areas, and a world where China, or any other nation like Russia, becomes the sole superpower would create a seismic shift in the international and domestic landscape.
A new superpower would be able to shape the global political agenda, just as the United States has done for decades. This shift would fundamentally alter international institutions such as the United Nations and impact global energy, trade, technology, and security. Not to mention the entire state of the international economy.
This is why foreign policy, and our influence on it, is so important, because it can affect every other issue.
Remember the foundational philosophy that Theodore Roosevelt talked of: expanding our economy is a foreign policy issue. In this light, again, “America First” would be a strong interventionist view, not an isolationist one.
Ultimately, we must continue to double down on our decades of strong foreign policy, alliances, and international institutions, or risk losing our superpower status.
And while failures like the Vietnam War and the War in Iraq might cause us to reconsider this, we must remember that sometimes the person steering the ship may lead us off course, but that doesn’t mean we abandon ship. It just means we find a new captain to put the ship back on course.
A course that won’t lead us over the water’s edge.
