america first policy meaning

He sidestepped that controversy by watering down the meaning of America First to a synonym for "Make America Great Again!" “Then of course you add the mental grind of constant exposure to [the] lethal threat of roadside bombs and sniper fire and hotter engagements. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it . In 1919, however, the Senate had rejected the idea of participating in such an organization. All Rights Reserved. Today, the US military similarly praises itself as the “world’s best,” even as it imagines itself surrounded by powerful threats (China, Russia, a nuclear North Korea, and global terrorism, to start a list). A lot of people feel that because we put America first, it means that we are heartless and don't care about suffering people in other countries. As an historian, I’ve spent much time studying the twentieth-century German military. Indeed, the Army (and so the American taxpayer) is being forced to compete with Xe, Triple Canopy, DynCorp International, and similar private security outfits for the services of experienced non-commissioned officers (NCOs). The result: tens of millions of dead across the planet and a total defeat that finally put an end to German designs for global dominance. Lose too many and you’re done for. I can’t help recalling old wargames I played as a kid in which deploying infantry brigades to faraway places was as simple as picking up a few cardboard counters, tossing the dice, and pinning my troops to a new spot on the map. © 2021 TIME USA, LLC. Prolonging a stalemated war will, in fact, only mean more hurt for both Afghans and Americans. Trillions of dollars are at stake. Subscribe for just 99¢. What if, upon returning to the American “homeland,” whether in 2012 or 2052, an exhausted, embittered, and demoralized army again judges us and finds us even more wanting? “I’m ‘America First.'”. Under the circumstances, when it comes to future global disaster, it’s not that hard to imagine that today’s Middle East could serve as the equivalent of the Balkans of World War I infamy. While both Mills and Eisenhower warned of such developments, even they might have been startled by the America of 2017. “[The committee] urges all those who have followed its lead to give their full support to the war effort of the nation, until peace is attained.”. Candidate Trump vowed he’d make the US military so strong that he wouldn’t have to use it, since no one would dare attack us — deterrence, in a word. As we bleed experienced officers and promote marginally qualified ones almost automatically, it’s sobering to consider another modern drain on the military — the vast pay disparities that exist between those serving in the All Volunteer Army and civilian contractors often operating beside them in the same combat zone. But you’d hardly have known this listening to the debate over President Obama’s decision to escalate yet again in Afghanistan. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Just after he called for a foreign policy to put America first … By sending up to 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan, we’re further stressing a military that, if not entirely “wasted,” is nevertheless showing serious signs of strain. Our Army, after all, isn’t made up of rootless, robotic “universal soldiers,” but men and women who are deeply rooted within our communities. Simultaneously, our troops are being tasked with training an Afghan army that, despite years of effort, exists more on paper than in the field. [The America First policy] is based upon the belief that the security of a nation lies in the strength and character of its own people. Sooner or later, however, such roots will be cut if we continue to send them on lost causes. We have weakened ourselves for many months, and still worse, we have divided our own people by this dabbling in Europe’s wars. That autumn, the America First Committee, as TIME put it in a cover story, “touched the pitch of anti-Semitism, and its fingers were tarred.” The story came after Lindbergh publicly revealed his views about Jewish people, whom he faulted for pushing the U.S. toward war and for manipulating the narrative through what he saw as their control of the media. By that December, the committee boasted 60,000 members. Unlike 501(c)(3)organizations, howe… Not dread of the enemy, but dread of the prison-like conditions of their service [overseas]. It’s this under-compensated, over-stressed Army that we’re sending into Afghanistan to accomplish what could only be termed a herculean task. Figuratively speaking, it’s the king of Capitol Hill. Follow us for first access to the latest news and analysis. It's not about ending war but exerting power and selling loads of weapons. As we roll the dice again in Central Asia, it’s clear that we’re pushing our Army and Marines too far. Its dominant position astride the government is nearly unchallengeable. Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post / Getty Images, Isolationist Robert E. Wood on the Oct. 6, 1941, cover of TIME. By signing up you are agreeing to our, Donald Trump Explains Why His Foreign Policy Is So Vague, How Black Filmmakers Are Reclaiming Their History Onscreen. The America First Committee was done for. If nothing else, he said plainly what many Americans believed, and what various multinational oil companies were essentially seeking to do. More broken bodies and shattered minds. Seemingly never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are an illustration of what happens when corporate interests merge with military imperatives. It’s different now. It is a vision that rejects the give-and-take of take of international agreements, the generosity of foreign aid and the conviction that … But whatever he meant, those words come with nearly a century’s worth of political baggage. In the years leading up to World War I, Germany was emerging as the superpower of its day, yet paradoxically it imagined itself as increasingly hemmed in by enemies, a nation surrounded and oppressed. The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations against a target in Syria while in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. As a start, forget the ancient label of “isolationism.” With the end of Trump’s first 100 days approaching, it looks more like a military-first policy aimed at achieving global hegemony, which means it’s a … As the Army attempts to entice enlistees with big-money bonuses and benefits, it’s also accepting more recruits who lack high school diplomas; the rate of new recruits with high school diplomas declined to 71% in 2008, a 25-year low. Within the officer ranks, the Army has been boosting the success rate of those promoted to major (a point at which weaker officers are typically winnowed out) to better than 95%. So let me be blunt: We’re wearing them out. America’s runaway military machine has little to do these days with deterrence and much to do with the continuation of a state of permanent war. We urgently need to do more to fight against the far right and its violence — while we still can. “The period of democratic debate on the issue of entering the war is over,” announced America First Committee chair Robert E. Wood. With its massive oil reserves, the Middle East remains a hotbed in the world’s ongoing resource wars, as well as its religious and ethnic conflicts, exacerbated by terrorism and the destabilizing attacks of the US military. It marches because experienced NCOs boot it in the butt and get it moving in the right direction. And often they’ve seen things they wish they’d never seen. In foreign policy speech, he tagged his approach "America First," a name used by isolationist, anti-Semitic group that once urged U.S. to appease Adolf Hitler. That’s why it’s vitally important to recognize that President Trump’s “America-first” policies are anything but isolationist in the old twentieth century meaning of the term; that his talk of finally winning again is a recipe for prolonging wars guaranteed to create more chaos and more failed states in the Greater Middle East and possibly beyond; and that an already dangerous Cold War policy of “deterrence,” whether against conventional or nuclear attacks, may now have become a machine for perpetual war that could, given Trump’s bellicosity, explode into some version of doomsday. One data point here: The US military alone guzzles more fossil fuel than the entire country of Sweden. The attack on Pearl Harbor of Dec. 7, 1941, removed the possibility of isolation. At its high water mark, the group included over 800,000 members. While we should have been concentrating on American defense we have been forced to argue over foreign quarrels. What does an “America-first” foreign policy look like under President Donald Trump? His secretary of state, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, may not be much of a diplomat. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Americans continue to enjoy a consumption-driven lifestyle that gobbles up roughly 25% of the world’s production of fossil fuels (while representing only 3% of the world’s population), the smart money in the White House is working feverishly to open ever more fuel taps globally. (Whatever that may mean, it’s not a reference to diplomacy.) By all appearances, that Afghan army is hollow. That narrative fails on several levels. Why do Trump’s “America-first” policies add up to military first ones? In the years that followed, it appeared to some that the isolationist instinct in the U.S. had been a good one. America was at war, like it or not. An epidemic of domestic violence and crime has been linked to returning veterans and to the difficulty of readjusting to “normal” life after months, or years, in combat zones. (Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Ford Williams / US Navy). NCOs are the backbone of any effective army. It’s not even past. The committee espoused the view that since Germany was unlikely to invade the U.S. directly, the best response to the war was for the U.S. to remain neutral in all respects, even if that meant doing business with the Nazis. Nearly 40 years ago, Carter urged Americans to scale back their appetites, start conserving energy, and free themselves from a crippling dependency on foreign oil and the unbridled consumption of material goods. Organizations that have been granted 501(c)(4) status by the Internal Revenue Service are exempt from federal income tax. To maintain its force structure, given these kinds of symptomatic pressures, the Army has taken several questionable steps. As a foreign policy analyst, I find Trump’s “America First” vision has had three primary strands: disengaging the U.S. from global politics, disdaining allies and befriending autocratic leaders. Please attempt to sign up again. At first glance, we might interpret Trump's approach to foreign policy as simply an intensification of Obama's deliberate effort to rein in America's overseas interventionist impulse. Traumatic brain injuries from IEDs and other explosive shocks in our war zones, difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to treat, may already exceed 300,000, another health crisis exacerbated by a lack of treatment available to veterans. If Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian “Black Hand” terrorist operating in a war-torn and much-disputed region, could set the world aflame in 1914, why not an ISIS terrorist just over a century later? The group’s most prominent … Many of these new billets are likely to remain vacant, since it takes 10 years to develop the “Iron Majors,” who, along with mid-level NCOs, form the core of the Army. Put it all together and you have a formula for disaster. President Trump’s generals have begun to unleash that military in a manner the Obama administration, hardly shy about bombing or surging, deemed both excessive and risky to civilians. We must turn our eyes and our faith back to our own country before it is too late. Truthout is a nonprofit and depends on your financial support. With the post-9/11 addition of the Department of Homeland Security and ever more intelligence agencies (seventeen major ones at last count), the complex only continues to grow beyond all civilian control. Though the nation has a long history of vowing to stay out of the problems of other countries—George Washington’s farewell address famously warned against foreign entanglements in 1796—but it was after World War I, as the U.S. was in a position of power and wealth compared to its once-stronger allies, that the modern version of that sentiment came to the forefront. What’s the likelihood that enough of today’s recruits will develop the sophistication, the so-called “soft” yet decidedly hard-won “people skills” they need to succeed as strategic corporals? Who put America’s oil under all those Middle Eastern deserts? In 1927, the slogan got another boost when Chicago elected a headline-hungry mayor, William Hale Thompson, whose campaign anthem was “America First, Last and Always.” He pledged to support the establishment of America First Associations around the country, and said he would show English leaders who asked for economic help “where to get off.”. (The Pentagon won’t say how many, telling us instead to focus on “capabilities” rather than boots on the ground.) Check. Ignorant of the most basic military strategy, impulsive and bombastic, its present commander-in-chief is being enabled by bellicose advisers and the men he calls “my generals,” who dream of ever bigger budgets. Check. As we embrace policies and strategies that erode our army, we risk more than a weakened military; we risk breeding resentments and recriminations that could lead to a future domestic surge of militant nationalism of our very own, conceivably imperiling the foundations of our democracy. The administration’s resurrected “America first” rhetoric implies that the internationalism and “enlightened self-interest” that built the postwar order, and that was still recognizable in Obama’s foreign policy, was a gigantic mistake. So what, you may ask? Under such circumstances, a political temblor followed by a geo-political earthquake seems unbearably possible. This shouldn’t be surprising. As he saw it, England was losing the war and it was too late to fix that. “Imagine working without a break in your current job with no weekends… no social events, no wife, no bars, no permanent buildings, no funding. When I was on active duty in the military, an Army friend used to remind me: “Any day you’re not being shot at is a good Army day.” Today’s troops, especially if they’re “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t have enough good Army days. America First Policies is a 501 (c) (4) nonprofit devoted to promoting the agenda of President Donald Trump. “[W]e really don’t think that’s healthy,” concludes Aswell. Section 501(c) of the U.S. tax code has 29 sections listing specific conditions particular organizations must meet in order to be considered tax-exempt under the section. As a start, forget the ancient label of “isolationism.” With the end of Trump’s first 100 days approaching, it looks more like a military-first policy aimed at achieving global hegemony, which means it’s a potential doomsday machine. Or, to put the matter another way, consider this question: Is North Korea’s Kim Jong-un the only unstable leader with unhinged nuclear ambitions currently at work on the world stage? It has called for a “new approach” to North Korea and its nuclear weapons program. Making it solid and reliable in a few short years is truly a bridge too far for our trainers. Get daily news, in-depth reporting and critical analysis from the journalists, activists and thinkers who are working to improve our world.. To outside observers, Washington’s ambitions seem clear: global dominance, achieved and enforced by that “very, very strong” military that candidate Trump claimed he’d never have to use, but is already employing with gusto, if not abandon. “The [US] military order,” Mills wrote, “once a slim establishment [operating] in a context of civilian distrust, has become the largest and most expensive feature of government; behind smiling public relations, it has all the grim and clumsy efficiency of a great and sprawling bureaucracy. More than half a century ago, sociologist C. Wright Mills offered answers that still seem as fresh as this morning’s news. When it comes to energy consumption, our armed forces are truly second to none. Instead of a stable pyramid, then, think of an expanded yet still exhausted service taking on a more unstable, hourglass shape: heavy at the top with long-serving colonels and generals, heavy at the bottom with “green” privates and lieutenants, but corseted at its essential core due to shortages of experienced platoon sergeants and battle-hardened company and battalion commanders. What does an “America-first” foreign policy look like under President Donald Trump? America First Policies is a 501(c)(4) tax-exempt nonprofit organization. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's first serious foreign policy speech made clear that his approach will be based on the idea of putting "America First" in all his decisions. White supremacists, conspiracy theorists, and far right extremists have gone unchallenged long enough. That combination, he suggested, was degrading the ability of politicians to moderate and control corporate-military imperatives (assuming the latter even wanted to try). These continue to be waged without formal congressional declarations and with next to no congressional oversight. “America First” received its most sophisticated postwar interpretation in the fin de siècle campaigns of Pat Buchanan, whose themes, in coarse and erratic form… For them, it’s “Army Strong” or “Semper Fi”; only losers whine or bellyache. Further east, the never-ending war in Afghanistan is, in Pentagon-speak, “stalemated,” which means that the Taliban is actually gaining ground as a new Washington surge-to-nowhere looms. America First refers to a foreign policy in the United States that emphasizes U.S. nationalism and unilateralism. Divorce rates among active duty troops continue to climb. America First may refer to: . Candidate Trump may have complained about the US wasting trillions of dollars in its recent foreign conflicts, invasions, and occupations, but plenty of American corporations profited from those “regime changes.” After you flatten political states like Iraq, you can rearm them. The hurt to Afghans will undoubtedly be worse, for their homes are the battlefield, but our own hurt shouldn’t be underestimated. It is a policy that led this nation to success during the most trying years of our history, and it is a policy that will lead us to success again. Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania noted last month on Meet the Press that “our troops are tired and worn out. In the Greater Middle East, US-led efforts have produced a war-torn Iraq that’s splitting at the seams. I asked an Army battalion commander to put the plight of our troops and the challenge of COIN in terms the average American could understand. The committee claimed a membership of 800,000 and attracted such leaders as General Robert E. Wood, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye. Doubtless further military interventions and escalations across the Greater Middle East are on that classic “table” in Washington where “all options” are supposedly kept. America First (policy), a policy and slogan used by United States Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, and Donald Trump America First Committee, a group that opposed entry of the United States into World War II, founded 1940; America First Party (1943), an isolationist political party in the United States, founded in 1943 The on-the-ground (or in-the-air) reality is already far different. One can hardly overstate the mind-numbing fatigue suffered by troops fighting at high altitude. And as the summer ended and it was clear that the committee had failed in its mission to change the tide, Lindbergh’s views were widely protested as un-American—and worse. * Committed to economic and ideological hegemony via powerful banking and financial interests that seek to control world markets in the name of keeping them “free”? In his 1958 essay, “The Structure of Power in American Society,” he dissected the country’s “triangle of power.” It consisted, he explained, of corporate leaders, senior military men, and politicians working in concert, but also in a manner that merged corporate agendas with military designs. This is the policy of the America First Committee today. As Europe faltered and once-supreme nations struggled to recover, the U.S. seemed by contrast healthy and wealthy—a fact that at least some observers attributed to having left the rest of the world to fend for itself. The term America First is also equated with a group formed in 1940 called “The America First Committee.” The group urged the U.S. to stay out of WWll. The American people responded by electing Ronald Reagan anyway. In the course of an interview with the New York Times, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had his foreign policy boiled down to two words: “America First.” In an exchange prompted by the Times‘ David E. Sanger, who was the first to use the phrase in the course of the interview, Trump said that he was “not isolationist” but that he was, in fact, “America First.”, “I like the expression,” the candidate said. That incredibly risky and costly war, sparked in the Balkans, failed disastrously and yet it would only be repeated on an even more horrific level 25 years later. To many outsiders, US leaders seem like the world’s leading armed meddlers (and arms merchants), a perception supported by soaring military action and sinking diplomacy under Trump. His reply was sobering: “Dread is the term most soldiers apply to their emotions in the six months leading to deployment. Naturally, our troops, notably the brass, will deny this. Consider our latest “surge”: What will happen to our Army if its augmented presence only alienates Afghans further? (Possible future headline: Trump destroys Syria in order to save it.) Not only are Americans increasingly isolated from “their” warfighter military, but from America’s wars as well. Several of Trump’s campaign aides have even used the phraseto christen a new group, “America First Policies,” to advocate on behalf of their new populist vision. Now, think of hauling yourself and 100 pounds of gear up goat paths at altitudes exceeding 10,000 feet. [Add to that] the separation from family, the enforced celibacy and enforced sobriety and uncorrectable disruption of social lives. WASHINGTON — With the angry departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, the United States and its shaken allies are about to discover the true meaning of “America First.”. To paraphrase William Faulkner on history’s relationship to the past: Even when war is officially declared over, it’s not dead. Meanwhile, US weapons are to be sold to Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf with less concern than ever for human rights abuses, and the Saudis will be provided with yet more of the support they demand for their devastating war on civilians in Yemen. Small wonder that, on becoming president, Trump acted quickly to speed the building of new pipelines delayed or nixed by President Obama while ripping up environmental protections related to fossil fuel production. The armed rampage at the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6th was not the end of their attacks on democracy. “The cost of winning an insurgency is staying at it for years, decades. And if not an ISIS temblor followed by major quake in the Middle East, there’s no shortage of other possible global fault lines in an increasingly edgy world — from saber-rattling contests with North Korea to jousting over Chinese-built artificial islands in the South China Sea. Trump’s national security adviser and his secretaries of defense and homeland security are all either serving generals or recently retired ones. If you were Chinese or Russian or Shia Muslim, how might US military activities appear to you? Syria remains a humanitarian disaster, torn by war even as additional US troops are deployed there. Our soldiers typically carry nearly 100 pounds of equipment, including body armor, weaponry, helmet, ammunition, water, radio, extra batteries, night vision goggles, GPS receiver — the list goes on. Today’s planet is, if anything, over-endowed with potential doomsday machines — from those nukes to the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. It’s not only supposed to defeat the Taliban insurgency by force of arms — something its troops are, at least, trained for — but build a nation by negotiating a complex “human terrain.” That’s Army jargon for the reality that roughly 80% of so-called nation-building operations basically add up to armed social work. At the war’s close, President Wilson had urged the nation to join the new League of Nations, to ensure peace through international cooperation in the precursor to the United Nations. That “America First” attitude would be put to the test soon enough. Recall here that the Trump administration has reaffirmed America’s quest for overwhelming nuclear supremacy. These are just five of the better documented signs of an Army that’s struggling to cope with wars of unprecedented length and still uncertain outcomes. Please join us in our fury and help us amplify the voices of the authors and activists fighting for our future. He believed the U.S. shouldn’t fight a war it couldn’t win, helping England was depleting America’s defenses, and the U.S. was better off alone: [The America First policy] is based upon the belief that the security of a nation lies in the strength and character of its own people. Its tone was remarkably antiseptic. Decades more: So much for an 18-month timeline for our latest Afghan surge and withdrawal. Looking west and south, Africa is the latest playground for the US military’s special ops community as the Trump administration prepares, among other things, to ramp up operations in Somalia. Write to Lily Rothman at lily.rothman@time.com. Inside a Program Helping Pregnant Asylum-Seekers, The Long History Behind Donald Trump's 'America First' Foreign Policy.

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