Sheldon Richman Warns: Interventionism Is More Dangerous Than 'Isolationism'

White House

President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel are the latest to express concern that the American appetite for managing foreign conflicts is waning. In his West Point speech Wednesday, Obama said the military is the "backbone" of American leadership, even as he claimed that force is not the first answer to every problem. And Hagel recently told some foreign-policy wonks in Chicago that it would be "a mistake to view our global responsibilities as a burden or charity." But, Sheldon Richman notes, America's interventionist attitude has our put our country in more danger than any sort of claims of "isolationism."