Ruler of Her Spirit

Michael Scheuer (a.k.a. "Anonymous"), the author of Imperial Hubris, believes that America's strategy regarding the export of democracy to places like the Middle East is not based in a good understanding of American roots.

In an essay on antiwar.com, he professes that

[e]xporting freedom and democracy is not a Grand Strategy. It may be an ambition, an obsession, or – most likely – a hallucination. The idea that such exports are a "Grand Strategy" spotlights the ignorance about America of the men and women who today lead the country. Ditto for many of the 535 individuals in the Senate and House. America is not a nation meant to order others how to live and then push them at bayonet point into that lifestyle. The cost of such a policy, John Quincy Adams wrote, would be the loss of America's soul.

While many in today's (and yesterday's) political arena are quick place the badge of world policeman on America's chest or to grant knighthood to our country as the world's liberator, some of the nation's early leaders believed that we should be careful about foreign entanglements. (Remember Washington?)

John Quincy Adams wrote, in the essay Monsters to Destroy,

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

And for the business-minded, Thomas Paine wrote in his essay Common Sense that

"[m]uch hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world ... Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all Europe; because, it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders."

Certainly there are times and circumstances when America must stand and deliver militarily to preserve our own national interests. I'm unsure, though, when we went from trying to form our own "more perfect union" and decided that we are compelled to export our blessings to nations of our selection (... assuming that we are capable of doing so and after fairly selecting the countries upon whom we would bestow said blessings) .

As Adams warned, if America is not judicious in our use of the military in pursuit of foreign policy and if we decide that we should act in the interests of the people of other nation's, not primarily our own,

"[s]he might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."