When Bret Stephens, foreign-policy columnist for the Wall Street Journal, penned the final words of America in Retreat in the spring of 2014, America’s world role seemed a low priority for most Americans. A Pew survey in the autumn of 2013 found that 52 percent of the public believed that the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own” — the highest percentage expressing such views since 1964 — and 51 percent said the U.S. did “too much in helping solve the world’s problems.” In a poll from April 2014, 62 percent opposed providing arms or supplies to the Ukrainians.
This isn’t to say Americans were exactly happy with President Obama’s adamant passivity either. Many expressed misgivings about his handling of Vladimir Putin, and majorities felt that America was less respected internationally than it had been. On balance, as Stephens was writing, Americans were feeling standoffish about the world. Pew’s July 2013 survey was titled “American International Engagement on the Rocks.”
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