Is America to Be First, Second — or What?

A wise foreign policy over the next four years would build on Trump’s strategic gains for the U.S. and the West.

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President-elect Joe Biden delivers a pre-Thanksgiving speech at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Del., November 25, 2020.

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

During this strange “transition,” it has been common now to assert that “multilateralism” is back — and with a vengeance. Joe Biden’s envisioned team allegedly will jettison the unilateralist idea of “America alone” and supposed soft neo-isolationism.

Instead, the U.S. will resume its historic but neglected role as the leader of the enlightened world. It will supposedly recultivate allies estranged by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo. It will now fix broken international organizations. It will eagerly reassume burdens that were neglected or repudiated during the Neanderthal Trump administration.

Victor Davis Hanson

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.

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