Who's the Greatest?

One noteworthy feature of the ideological divide in Washington is how immune the country’s foreign policy practitioners have been from the disfiguring aspects of hyper-partisanship. Take any random left-wing specialist in constitutional law and a counterpart from the Federalist Society, and odds are they will believe they have little to say to or learn from each other. Something similar holds on questions of inequality and the tax code, and on social issues, if any of those are left to argue about.

On foreign policy matters, this hasn't generally been true. It's not that the intensity of the party identification of those working in this arena is lacking. But Democrats and Republicans alike have to work in a world in which U.S. foreign policy is subject to external constraints in a way domestic policy is not. The constraints on domestic policy are mostly up for grabs; this intensifies partisan feelings. The constraints on foreign policy are not only beyond the reach of any American ability to dictate terms—even for the "sole superpower"—they are also dangerous and need to be understood. Both sides have to do business with the same world.

It doesn't mean they reach the same conclusions on the particulars. But they understand that the most dangerous threats to the United States come from abroad, not across the aisle. And when something isn't working, the first alternative to explore usually comes from interlocutors on the other side of the American debate. In the first Bill Clinton term in the 1990s, for example, Senate GOP leader Bob Dole was a huge spur to more effective action from the administration in the former Yugoslavia.

The disaster that is the 2016 presidential election seems to be disrupting this general pattern. It's going to take some time to sort out the new landscape in foreign policy. We will have to wait for the election results, then for the process of recrimination and the exaction of reprisals to work itself out. Twitter will face its greatest test as the premier medium of our times for deliberation and debate. Meanwhile, however, the dimensions of the problem are starting to come into relief.

Consider, for example, these statements by a senior foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign in response to a question about the United States imposing a no-fly zone to try to tamp down the violence in Syria: It's "off the table because of the implied military commitment that it would require in order to effectively enforce it. .  .  . It would be dangerous" and "would likely require a greater U.S. military commitment. And all of that would come at the expense of our ongoing efforts to focus on .  .  . destroying" the Islamic State.