If By Engagement You Mean War

Jodie Allen sees hints of nascent isolationism in America's reluctance to nation build in Afghanistan for more than a decade:

Resistance to military engagement in Afghanistan has risen despite that fact that in the same September survey a substantial majority of the public (76 percent) rates the possibility of the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan as a major threat to the well-being of the United States. As the survey report notes, nearly as many regard the return of Taliban control as a major threat as say the same about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons (82 percent).

This is not to say that Americans have become isolationists, at least not in principle. Overwhelming support for an active role in foreign affairs is evident in Pew Research surveys going back to the Cold War. Most recently, a May 2009 survey found fully 90 percent of the public agreeing that "it's best for our country to be active in world affairs," a proportion that has remained relatively constant over the past two decades. Moreover, the number of respondents completely agreeing with this statement bounced back to 51 percent from 42 percent two years ago.

Still, the U.S. public enthusiasm for global engagement has waned noticeably in recent years.

Indeed. Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of said engagement? The post Cold War tempo of military interventions once every eighteen months was bound to get a little stale, particularly when the last two have not gone as swimmingly as one would hope.

I think those polls tell us firmly that there is no constituency for "isolationism" but there is a healthy skepticism of open-ended, costly experiments in armed state building.