in treating any nation coolly and realistically as a given factnupon the world scene. Instead, any given nation is either angrave menace to American interests and world peace, or it isna champion of the “free world” headed by wise andnfarsighted statesmen. Sometimes, the country will shift fromnone to the other, in American eyes, in disconcertingly rapidnsuccession. But at the present time, while the book hasnscarcely been closed on the Cold War, indeed while we arenstill arming to the teeth to guard against a possibly lingeringnSoviet threat, the Soviet regime is being increasinglynregarded as a benign military force, if not quite yet a gallantnand heroic ally. Take, for example, the Bush administration’snattitude toward the sending of Soviet troops to troublednlands. After applauding the crucial Soviet adoption of then”Sinatra Doctrine” and its allowing East European Communistnregimes to collapse, the United States went so far asnto call upon the Soviets to send troops into Romania tonoverthrow the monster Ceausescu. The Soviets properlynreplied in some puzzlement that they had just condemnednthe Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, andnthat they had now repudiated the use of military force acrossnnational borders.nAmericans will choose correctly if onlynnoninterventionists can retake the moralnhigh ground that the global interventionistsnlong ago managed to seize.nBut this was not all. The Bush administration soon let itnbe known that the U.S. would not be too upset if the Sovietsnsent troops into Lithuania to keep her from leaving thenU.S.S.R., an action that Gorbachev has so far refused tontake. One almost sensed a sigh of relief in the Establishmentnwhen Gorbachev at last sent troops into Azerbaijan; perhapsnthe administration was getting fearful that Gorby had turnedninto some kind of crazed pacifist!nIt is not surprising that the collapse of the Soviet Empirenand the end of the Cold War has set off a profoundnrethinking and a foreign policy split among conservatives. Innparticular, the dominant foreign policy of conservatives, innthe Old Right that lasted from the New Deal until roughlynthe end of the Korean War and the founding of NationalnReview in 1955, was nonintervention in the affairs of othernnations, what has been much derided since as “isolationism.”nThe position oi National Review in those early daysnwas that libertarianism and isoladonism (the limited governmentnequivalent of nonintervenhon at home) was thenproper basic policy .for America, but that it had to benoverridden by the grave threat of international communismncontrolled by the Kremlin. On that happy day in the futurenwhen the Soviets were no longer a threat, Buckley and NRnpromised, libertarianism and isolationism could be taken outnof mothballs and restored to the conservative agenda. But ifnthe Cold War is over, why not isolationism now?nMitch Daniels, head of the Hudson Institute and formern18/CHRONICLESnnnpolitical director in the Reagan White House, recently put itnthis way in the Wall Street Journal. Since a “Taft-stylenisolationism was one tributary of what we thought of as anconservative coalition,” Daniels notes, “there are plenty ofnconservatives who always viewed defense at the levels wenreached as a very necessary evil but something not fornperpetuity.” Mr. Daniels seems to be lamenting this trend;nbut, in truth, why are militarisrii and global interventionnsupposed to be America’s lot, seemingly regardless of whatnthreats exist or if any exist at all, in short, “in perpetuity”?nOne of the most brilliant answers to this puzzle wasnprovided by the veteran Old Right journalist CaretnGarrett, in his perceptive and prophetic pamphlet The Risenof Empire, published in 1952 during the last great burst ofnisolationist thought during the Korean War.nLamenting the end of the old American Republic,nGarrett declared that “we have crossed the boundary thatnlies between Republic and Empire.” Garrett laid out thenhallmarks of empire, and gauged America’s course accordingly.nFirst, the dominance of the executive power, embodiednin President Truman’s unconstitutional act of going tonwar with North Korea without bothering to ask Congress forna declaration of war. A second hallmark is that “domesticnpolicy becomes subordinate to foreign policy,” so thatnforeign policy becomes an excuse for all manner of domesticnaggressions against the rights of person and property. This isnwhat happened to Rome and to the Bridsh Empire, Garrettnwarned: we like they had embarked, in effect, on a policy ofnperpetual war, resulting in a costly permanent garrison state.nAccordingly, a third brand of empire, for Garrett, is then”ascendancy of the military mind.” He went on to quote andevastating critique of the burgeoning garrison state bynGeneral Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur warned thatn”our country is now geared to an arms economy which wasnbred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria andnnurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.” Mac-nArthur noted prophetically that “while such an economynmay produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment,nit rests on an illusionary foundation . . . and renders amongnour political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than isntheir fear of war.”nGarrett’s final hallmark of empire cut straight to the heartnof its psychology: “a complex of vaunting and fear.” Thenfear we have already examined: all the various “threats,” realnor nonexistent, that may beset us; fear that leads the U.S. tonseek a system of dependent “satellite nations.”nBut the other side of the fear is the “vaunting”: thenassertion by interventionists of America’s historic duty tonexert worfd power. As Garet Garrett summed up theninterventionist vision four decades ago: “It is our turn. Ournturn to do what? Our turn to assume the responsibilities ofnmoral leadership in the world. Our turn to maintain anbalance of power against the forces of evil everywhere. . . .nOur turn to keep the peace of the world. Our turn to savencivilization. Our turn to serve mankind.” But, Garrettnwarned:nthis is the language of Empire. The Roman Empirennever doubted that it was the defender ofncivilization . . . The Spanish Empire addedn