The retreating spirit isn’t an easy fit for American leaders. “You pay the same price for doing something halfway as for doing it completely,” Nixon once observed. He fretted that the United States was in danger of going “down the drain as a great power” and did everything he could to maximize the country’s muscle. Yet Nixon’s vacillation over America’s role in the world embodied a theme of his presidency and a perpetual tension in American foreign policy — between the desire to dominate the world and the impulse to pull back when the costs and consequences rise.
Read Full Article »
