Tom Nichols on America's Global Influence

Tom Nichols is a staff writer at The Atlantic and an author of the Atlantic Daily newsletter. He is a professor emeritus of national-security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, where he taught for 25 years, and an instructor at the Harvard Extension School. He has served as a legislative aide in the Massachusetts House and the U.S. Senate. He writes about international security, nuclear weapons, Russia, and the challenges to democracy in the United States and around the world—along with occasional contrarian views on popular culture. His books include The Death of Expertise and Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy. He is also a five-time undefeated Jeopardy champion.

Transcript:

Michael Medved:
America's birthright is playing a leading role in the world, and none of the great leaders of our country have ever favored putting up big barriers that separate Americans and our interests from those of people elsewhere.

But how do you explain to people out there right now, many of whom are enthusiastic supporters of President Trump, who say, "Why should I care about what happens in Ukraine?" or "Why should I care about what happens in Taiwan? We have so many problems and challenges, and gas is too expensive here in the United States, and we can't buy a home, etc., etc." What is wrong with that argument of putting America first?

Tom Nichols:
Well, there is an answer to that rhetorical question. First, you know, I'm sorry that so many Americans have adopted this defeatist position of saying, "Well, you know, there's a lot of bullies in the world, and we ought to just get along with them and do what they say." Back in the '70s, ironically enough, "let's just stop contending with these guys and just get along with them" was a very liberal position. It was a very left-wing position that Trump has adopted as a way of saying, "You know, who cares? Let's spend this money at home."

There's a couple of things. First of all, the defense budget is almost entirely spent at home. The biggest part of the defense budget is salaries and pensions and healthcare for people in the service. The weapons that they use, the weapons that we sell to other countries, those are all made in the United States. If you really want to put this as a matter of self-interest, then all of those things are actually built here in this country.

The other thing to understand is that the world operates—and I mean operates economically and politically and in terms of just how things move around the world—according to rules that are basically made and guarded by Washington. So fine, if you don't want the United States to be the leading power in the world, then just understand that from now on, your standard of living will depend on the goodwill of the Chinese and of the Russians. The things that you care about that have to cross the oceans will only do so with Chinese permission. If you're good with that, fine. But that means that the kinds of supply bottlenecks that we experienced during COVID could happen to us any day, anytime the Chinese are pissed off and feel like making it happen by jamming up shipping around the world. They can't do that right now because the world runs on a web of alliances and agreements and cooperation that is led by the United States of America. If you want the world to run on Beijing's rules and Moscow's rules, just keep going the way you're going.