Dr. Paul D. Miller, associate director of the Clements Center for National Security at The University of Texas at Austin, joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the future of conservative foreign policy, and his new book, “American Power and Liberal Order: A Conservative Internationalist Grand Strategy.”
Miller said the Obama Administration may have learned the wrong lessons from US history in the Middle East. “In the Obama Administration’s mind, we messed up in Iraq and Afghanistan and so the lesson is: don’t do that ever again,” he said. “I think the lesson is, when you have to do it, do better.”
Some conservatives have been cautious about saying that we ought to try to spread democracy around the world. “But in the long run, we have been doing it and doing it very successfully for a very long time,” Miller said. “Using our power to win Europe’s wars, WWI and II and the Cold War, was the event that catalyzed huge democratic transformation across the continent.”
Donald Trump has claimed that other nations are simply free riding off of US military protection. “Trump seems to go one step further and suggest the European allies should actually pay us for our defense… and that misunderstands the notion of international alliances,” Miller said.
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