Whither Thou Goest, American Empire?
“Beer don’t keep. Love’s not cheap. Trucks don’t wreck themselves.
Momma ain’t a shrink. Daddy ain’t a bank. God ain’t a wishing well.
Money ain’t rich. Everybody sins. Nobody wins in a fight.
And sometimes wrong is right.
Some of it, you learn the hard way.
Some of it, you read on a page.
Some of it, comes from heartbreak.
Most of it, comes with age and,
None of it, ever comes easy.
A bunch of it, you maybe can’t use.
I know I don’t probably know what I think I do.
But there’s something to,
Some of it.”
I am writing this on March 31, 2026. At this moment, I don’t know where the war in Iran is going. Neither do you. There is, of course, the oft repeated “fog of war”. Additionally however, neither side wants to tell their opponent what they are doing. Deception has always been a major part of war and in fact both sides may be publicly giving intentionally false information to confuse the enemy.
Democrat politicians believe they are very important and should be told exactly what is going on so they can broadcast it on CNN which means the Iranians will know it too. I’m sorry. Saving the lives of our fighting men and women is way more important than telling the truth of what is going on and what the plans are. Such is the nature of war.
But at some point, this conflict will end. Added to the Venezuelan operation, the future of communist Cuba, the war in Ukraine and the increasing threats to Taiwan from Communist China, I believe we are at an inflection point. Not just in U.S. foreign policy, but in what the American Empire will be in it’s next stage.
I use the term “empire” in spite of its negative connotations because the position that America has in the world right now is more similar to the British and Roman and various other empires than it is to just being a country.
The 250th “birthday” of the United States will be celebrated later this year. There have been major inflection points over those years. The first is obviously the war which created American Independence and the second is the Civil War which could have broken the country in two. Today, we may think that the outcome of those two conflicts was pre-ordained. That is not true. Either could easily have gone the other way but for a battle or two.
In 1907, Theodore Roosevelt sent “The Great White Fleet” around the world to show that America was aspiring to be the equal of the great nations of Europe and Japan. America emerged as a greater power than any of those after the two World Wars, which many believe should be characterized as one war with a 20 year truce in the middle. Then in 1989, the Cold War was won with the fall of the Soviet Union.
At that point, The United States was the sole superpower on earth. With territories and military bases around the globe, it was an empire for sure.
But what does America want to be next? In the 37 years since the wall fell, much has changed. China has emerged as a nuclear power and a rival both economically and militarily. The U.S. has been engaged in constant war against militaristic Islam in the Middle East and at home. Russia is smaller and weaker but still has nuclear weapons. Communism was thought to be vanquished with the Soviet Union’s collapse but that has not happened. Arguably, communism is on the rise. China, Cuba and various African, Asian and South American countries still embrace the principles of Marx, Lenin, Mao and Stalin, as do many politicians and electeds both in the United States and other western countries. The S word (socialism) and the C word (communism) were thought of as political death knells but both are embraced by many Democrats in America and leftists elsewhere.
To get to where America is today, well over 1 million soldiers, sailors and airmen gave their lives. That was seen as “the price of freedom.” But since World War II, Americans seem unwilling to pay that price as the benefits received don’t appear to have been worth it. Arguably, the American fighting man won in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. As an example, in Vietnam, it is estimated that 50 NVA (North Vietnamese Army) soldiers and Viet Cong were killed for every American that died. The 500,000 strong Viet Cong were basically eliminated. But in the end, the communists took over.
We win militarily but lose politically. Why?
Americans today are largely unwilling to pay the price, either in men, material, or public criticism to have total victory. William Tecumseh Sherman “made Georgia howl.” We completely decimated Dresden and Leipzig, including their civilian populations not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Without the complete commitment to unrelenting victory regardless of the losses on our side as well as for the enemy, those earlier victories could not have been achieved. I would argue that we are not willing to do that today.
Is that because the world has changed? Vietnam was the first war brought to the homefront on the nightly news. Now wars are minute-by-minute on social media. Is it because the stakes are not as great? The Japanese attacked our country and perhaps would have continued to do so. After conquering Europe, could Hitler have attacked the U.S.? But does that explain our involvement in World War I? Many in the north did not think war was worth it and Lincoln should have let the South secede. 600,000 lives would have been saved.
I bring up these lessons from history because the choices are never as clear in the moment as they appear in history books decades later. These days, it seems many Americans don’t see the benefit of dying in a war in the Middle East or Ukraine or Taiwan. Those places don’t seem as direct a threat as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or Imperial Japan.
So, what path do we choose now? I do not want to act like I know the answer. I don’t. But there are a few choices.
One choice is the traditional Republican ‘NeoCon” path. America must protect freedom around the globe in order to keep us safe at home. We have been and will continue to police the world. It has worked for 100 years so let’s keep it going. That costs money and requires suffering casualties. There are two billion Muslims on earth. Will they ever be peaceful?
Another choice is the “Fortress America” option. Protect America and its, immediate neighborhood but leave Europe and Asia and Africa to themselves. If somebody bad rises up over there, we’ll be fine because we will be too strong to attack. At least in theory.
There are Republicans who support each of those two options and the internal debate about the best path rages. Of course, there is a middle ground which is a fortress America with a few places we won’t let get out of control.
An alternative, of course, is the foreign policy of the the Democratic Party. Except, just exactly what is that?
Looking at the positions outlined by the major likely Democratic candidates for president in 2028, there does seem to be a theme. It is about increased participation in international organizations and achieving stability through international agreements on, and organizations about climate change, the working class, gender equity and so forth. The military would be de-emphasized and largely dismantled as unnecessary in a world governed by harmonious agreements.
The Democratic position is neither about projecting power nor fortressing America but about “multilateralism and multiculturalism.” A fundamental difference between the Republican options and the Democratic position is whether the United States is “exceptional” and has a superior culture and system of governance than other countries. Republicans believe the answer to that is yes and therefore you need a military and strategy to maintain that exceptionalism from defeat or erosion.
The Democratic view is that not only is America not exceptional or superior, but deeply flawed and so there is nothing worth protecting. By engaging with and becoming more like other countries, we make American better while eliminating the need for any conflict.
We can argue this until we are blue in the face, but no one reading this is currently president nor is likely to become president in 2028. Let’s take a brief look at what may happen next.
My reading of President Trump is that he is firmly in the fortress America camp. Many of his supporters are worried that he is slipping into NeoCon territory with war in Iran. I don’t think so. I believe he wants to defang Iran and then let the Arabs and Israelis manage the Middle East from here. He is also making a lot of noises about how unhelpful NATO countries have been. He has never liked international organizations and I suspect he will want to pull out of NATO and leave Europe to the Europeans. I also doubt he would intervene if China made an assault on or otherwise started to take over Taiwan. The massive investment in chips in the US is intended to insulate us economically from a communist Taiwan. Let Japan and Korea deal with that.
So, I suspect Trump will move us in the Fortress America direction, perhaps with a few modifications, for the next 2 1/2 years.
Then what?
Obviously, the outcome of the 2028 election would be dispositive. If a Trump acolyte (Vance or Rubio) were to win in 2028, then this new foreign policy would likely be the next stage of the American experience for decades to come. However, should an AOC or Gavin Newsom win in 2028, they would likely do so on a platform of reversing everything Trump has done. If they were to have a Democratic Congress with them, They will repeal the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and dictate a very different future for America for coming decades. That could lead to our second set of states seceding, but that is for another time.
Other news:
Filibuster: I have long opposed the repeal of the filibuster. Requiring a supermajority in the Senate keeps the government from wildly swinging from left to right and back again as parliamentary systems do. So, I like it for the stability that it creates.
But it is clear that Democrats will repeal the filibuster the minute they have 51 votes to do so. They would have done it under Biden were it not for Sinema and Manchin.
If they are going to do it anyway, we might as well do it now and pass the Save America act to make it so illegal aliens don’t vote in elections which they do now in blue states.
That said, Republicans should have 56 seats in the Senate. That’s how many seats they would have if you give two seats to the Ds in any state that Kamala won by five points or more and two seats to Rs for any state that Trump won by five points or more and split the other states with one D and one R. But we don’t have that because of states like Georgia and Arizona where there are two hard left Democratic Senators. This happens because the Dems never campaign hard left but campaign as being center-right and have gobs of money to advertise. They have no problem governing in the opposite way that they campaigned.
California: Finally, I have to comment on the increasingly sad fate of the state of my birth. The leading candidate for governor is none other than Eric Swalwell. He just picked up the endorsement of the California Teacher’s Association, which means beaucoup bucks for his campaign. In addition to being a hard leftist, he actually slept with a Chinese Spy who did so to get classified information from him. Of course in California, that sort of thing doesn’t matter as much as your opinion on the ability to have the state “transition” your child into their preferred gender as directed by a union teacher.
My choice of the Eric Church song this week is because foreign policy is very hard stuff. You and I may think we have all the answers. We do, but only “some of it.”
Until next time, I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free