Over the past two weeks, the American foreign-policy debate has dramatically changed. The key to understanding why lies in a book. The book is called Special Providence. Published 13 years ago by Walter Russell Mead, it remains, for my money, the best analysis of American foreign policy written in our time. Mead argues that America has four foreign-policy traditions. He calls the first “Wilsonianism.” It represents America’s missionary desire to spread civilization across the globe. Once upon a time, spreading “civilization” meant spreading Christianity. Now it means spreading democracy and human rights. Samantha Power is a Wilsonian. The second …read more
Source: The Atlantic
