“The horrific massacre in Paris reminds us of the Achilles’ heel of American
foreign policy,” said Robert Samuelson. Since World War II, the U.S.
has spread its influence and values throughout the world largely by offering
to bring material progress, freedom, and democracy to other nations.
This approach has “paid large dividends,” transforming Japan and Germany
from enemies to prosperous allies, triumphing over communism,
and turning much of Asia into market economies and trading partners.
But today, we face foes who “repudiate our faith in the power of shared
prosperity.” Putin’s Russia has chosen aggressive nationalism over the
Pax Americana, despite great economic costs. Radical Islam, meanwhile,
emphatically rejects material progress and secular democracy, and promotes
a moral code and fanatical religious dogma that is utterly foreign
to Western values. ISIS and other Islamic radicals couldn’t care less about
giving their followers better material lives. Instead, they promise religious
purity and paradise, and glorify murder and martyrdom, disdaining
Western freedoms and material wealth as vulgar and evil. We’re fighting
people whose worldview is incomprehensible, and “the battlefield has
been selected by them.” That’s why this struggle is so “disorienting.”
