When he returned home from a visit to the Soviet Union in 1981, Cato Institute co-founder Ed Crane wrote a classic essay (Fear and Loathing In the Soviet Union) in which he called into question the views of both left and right about the U.S.’s then-foremost enemy: To those on the left who felt communism a worthy, growth-infused alternative to capitalism and freedom, Crane calmly pointed out that the U.S.S.R. was desperately poor, with routinely bare store shelves picked over by miserable people. As for the members of the right convinced that a military buildup was necessary to beat the Soviet menace, Crane wisely pointed out that the Soviet Union presented no threat simply because it lacked any economy, and without an economy it lacked the means to go to war with the richest country on earth.
Crane’s thinking comes to mind now as members of the right and left denigrate so-called “isolationism” on the right in increasingly negative terms. This write-up is but one answer to the critics. The view here is that rather than rebutting real reasons for non-interventionism, critics are instead cherry-picking the worst arguments for avoiding global conflict; ones that non-interventionists don’t recognize as having much to do with their own reasoning. In other words, and without speaking for other non-interventionists, my strong lean against foreign adventurism has nothing to do with veneration of Donald Trump, disdain for Joe Biden, fear that the U.S. is too weak or too broke, and it certainly has nothing to do with wanting to save bullets, bombs and money for an eventual war with China over Taiwan.
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