Can these policies co-exist? 
By Dr. Larry Fedewa (July 14, 2019)
There has been a strain of missionary zeal in American foreign policy since the colonial days and it raises its head every once in a while even today. Perhaps it is the shadow of our Puritan heritage . On the one hand, the moral dilemma of slavery has poisoned our national conscience since the beginning and still haunts us today even after we suffered an estimated 650,000 casualties in the most costly war in our history in an effort to right this wrong. On the other hand, Americans have felt constrained to “save the world for democracy” through the foreign wars of the 20th century and the challenges of Islamic terrorism in our own time.
The belief that “America is the last, best hope for freedom”, as President Reagan put it, has formed one of the foundations of our foreign policy for the past 100 years. That belief carried us into two world wars and all the nearly constant stream of wars ever since, in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It has defined “America’s place in the world order” as the advocate and defender of personal freedom and at least some form of social justice. It has also established the USA as the underwriter of all these efforts in both blood and treasure.
