Life often moves faster than we realize. Looking back at a week and not truly remembering what you actually did is an experience most of us can recognize. The constant churn of the current leaves us adrift from the chance to ask whether the direction we’re moving is the one we actually want. That is dangerous not only because our time is frustratingly finite, but because a wrongly chosen path can also be an irreversible one if tread for long enough. If I drop out of college today, I won’t feel the true consequence of that decision for years. The same is true for nations. The choices we make now pave tomorrow’s road, just as yesterday’s road has led us to where we are today—in a world hurtling toward war.
It is important to name where we are heading because it clarifies how we got here. We have a war in Eastern Europe without direction and with needless escalation. We see our supposed closest ally consistently defy American leadership and appeals for de-escalation, and in doing so slaughter a generation. Our largest adversary has gathered allies that contribute to its aims—while many of our own allies scheme about how America can continue to foot the bill with our sons and our dollars. The past three decades of American unipolar leadership have failed not because of a flaw in our country, but because of a flaw in our leaders: a belief that envisioning a perpetually unchallenged American dominance would somehow override material reality.
I return to the theme of failed foreign-policy leadership because I see few on the left willing to make sacrifices to stop the course we are on. The institutions that, for better or worse, protected the status quo of my childhood are being razed. The mechanisms of peace are being beaten back by the levers of war. We stand on a knife’s edge, as independent regions grow accustomed to the idea that bloodshed could arrive at any moment. This cannot be solved by the United States alone—but without America, we will not see a return to peace. As we have already seen with Israel–Iran and India–Pakistan, governments are increasingly comfortable with careless escalation to advance domestic goals.
Domestic politics and international affairs are always linked, but their resurgent symbiosis makes global action more fraught. Narendra Modi’s willingness to assert Indian supremacy over Pakistan, and Pakistani leadership’s refusal to be perceived as bending the knee, put the two nations closer to war than they have been in decades. This dynamic is playing out across the world and across ideologies. European leaders continue to peddle dangerous and impossible answers to a conflict in Ukraine that has, since its inception, remained resolvable. China, despite its bluster, is more interested in regional supremacy than in ideals of peace and communal well-being. And that is before considering a long list of regional actors who, in a changing climate and amid dwindling natural resources, will flex to protect their futures.
President Trump is not the man to lead America into a more peaceful future, but his administration has taken a few important steps toward laying that foundation. First, he has remained firm in the rational belief that Europe should take primary responsibility for Ukraine’s future. I won’t rehash arguments I’ve made before, but if Germany is not willing to deploy its sons to Kyiv, neither should we. The longer this war drags on, the more probable it becomes that Ukraine is abandoned—either by treating its children as a blood sacrifice for our ideals or by allowing Russia to dominate the region. The President understands that wars are rarely as simple as one side proclaims, not because he adores Moscow, but because he recognizes the sad record of American ventures abroad.
He has, however, failed miserably in the Middle East, both practically and morally. Israel has continued its genocide of Palestinians, targeted and murdered journalists, and defrauded the American security apparatus to support one politicians quest to avoid prison. This much can no longer be debated. Even as a tense peace holds between Tehran and Tel Aviv, the future of American interests in the region is fractured. The Abraham Accords—one of the biggest achievements of the first Trump administration—are in danger of crumbling in the face of Israel’s conquest. That would mean more perpetual war in a region already besieged by it, along with an inevitable surge of resources to protect our rogue ally led by a rogue leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. President Trump can still deliver a more peaceful Middle East, but only if he lives up to his promise to put American interests and American lives first.
Lastly, we must make the stakes of this moment clear to allies and adversaries alike. Our foremost competitors, China and Russia, need not be our ideological arch-enemies, and their success need not mean our defeat. That could begin with something as simple as a summit among President Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin that acknowledges the realities of our era. We can build fair, reliable trade and education exchanges among our three countries that protect our traditions while affirming our common humanity. We can negotiate an arms-control framework for our age, with real guardrails on artificial intelligence and nuclear nonproliferation. Part of the failure of the liberal international order is its disregard for the fact that there are multiple paths to a healthy, safe, and prosperous population. The ideals of America do not have to reach Moscow—but our need for a safe and prosperous world does.
If you disagree with me, which is certainly possible, ask where our current trajectory leads, and how more intervention would fix anything. Would American troops fighting Russian troops yield more peace? Would it make America safer or more prosperous, and if not, why is that sacrifice warranted? I, too, want a world in which Ukraine beats back Russia. I want a Middle East that can coexist despite its ideological idiosyncrasies. Most of all, I never want to return to a world where children everywhere know where to run when a nuclear siren is wailing. I want families building generational wealth, not bunkers in their backyards. The latter world is coming into view, and we should all ask if this path is the one we as a world truly want to walk.
