Biden's Middle East trip: Following in Trump's footsteps
WATCH: Biden looks poised to betray his campaign promise to sideline Saudi Arabia. Does this really serve America's interests?
Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top photo credit: A political cartoon portrays the disagreement between President William McKinley and Joseph Pulitzer, who worried the U.S. was growing too large through foreign conquests and land acquisitions. (Puck magazine/Creative Commons)
What does US ‘national interest’ really mean?
November 24, 2025
In foreign policy discourse, the phrase “the national interest” gets used with an almost ubiquitous frequency, which could lead one to assume it is a strongly defined and absolute term.
Most debates, particularly around changing course in diplomatic strategy or advocating for or against some kind of economic or military intervention, invoke the phrase as justification for their recommended path forward.
But what is the national interest, really?
It should come as no surprise that the term is actually as contestable as any other social science label. Different people will approach the question with perspectives that vary based on factors as different as what region they originate from or what their concept of the national government is. A person of a more conservative disposition might see it as ensuring the protection of a culture from outside influence, while a leftist could see it as one defined by class interests, with the National Interest itself being both defined and controlled by the ruling class of a given society for their own internal as well as external self-interest.
The liberal center, meanwhile, clearly sees it as a method to spread global markets and values.
In realism, the political philosophy that sees foreign affairs as effectively the art of seeking the practical path to survival and thriving in an anarchic world with a minimum of ideological attachments, the concept of a national interest is left almost intentionally vague — a recognition of the fact that domestic and international politics are two different fields that often diverge from society to society. This, however, does not mean that the concept should not be explored, especially for those in the United States and its allied nations who value a more restrained approach to the world after decades of ruinous interventionism.
In “The National Interest: Politics After Globalization”, University College London associated professor and author Philip Cunliffe argues that the very ambiguity of the concept is itself a strength. Drawing from the historical evolution of the kind of raison d’etat first popularized by figures like Machiavelli and Cardinal Richelieu, Cunliffe argues that the French Revolution and other events in the enlightenment, such as the various wars of independence in the Americas, saw a turn toward making the very concept of national interest a site of popular contestation.
Rather than state that this meant a singular solid conception of the term, Cunliffe contends that this very ambiguity is the key to restoring citizen control over sovereignty from an out of touch global elite. The nation itself determines what is the national interest by openly and publicly grappling with how best to pursue communal self-interest.
Not only is this process democratic and inclusive, it also understands the limits of human knowledge and capabilities. Quoting the famous Cold War era policy planner George Kennan favorably that “Modesty to admit our own national interest is all we are really capable of knowing or understanding,” Cunliffe makes the case that, rather than a pure exercise in selfishness, upholding National Interest is a humble exercise of a community collectively attempting to navigate an anarchic world with no overarching authority to appeal to.
By appealing to a set of issues that can be understood by the average citizen and centered around their local contexts, discussions on foreign policy can be accessible to the people of a society and not merely the plaything of a ruling elite that has become more divorced from being rooted in a specific place over the course of the era of post-Cold War globalization.
The loss of regional distinctions in conceptions of interest was not just due to technological change, but a specific ideological fad among many of the policymaking classes who were too eager to embrace a borderless future. To quote Cunliffe directly:
“All distributional conflicts would be happily away by the global tide of economic growth, and politics could finally be replaced by the promulgation of ethics, law and technical expertise. Globalization solved the conundrum of the national interest because as it turned out, our national interest was in fact the same as everyone else’s: global growth and integration. Therefore liberals could claim that citizen’s interests were being met without ever having to articulate a distinct national interest, without ever having to account for how such interests were generated, where they originated, or how they were served.”
What this supposed march of progress actually did was to remove the communal aspects of foreign policy discussion from the society-at-large, and concentrate its definition even more in the hands of a small and cosmopolitan-yet-intellectually provincial elite.
This led to a series of conflicts justified under the rubric of universal values or battling abstract concepts that had no set point of victory or defeat — which meant they could effectively drag out forever, at great lingering cost to the average person. In the United States, this trend would see the interests of the state conflated with that of the entirety of humanity itself, with the nation’s foreign policy classes seeing the fate of the species’ evolution as intrinsically tied to the ability of the Washington Consensus to export political, social, and economic norms abroad.
Meanwhile, the country selling itself as this fountainhead of progress was leaving more and more of its people behind as deindustrialization and withering investment in public infrastructure became part of the price of pursuing the project of financial and ideological globalization.
Other nations, particularly in Europe, have gone along with this in order to avoid having their own difficult discussions on their subordinate positions in the American-led order. To be junior partners in a grand project of humanitarian uplift is a more flattering self-conception than to simply be a satrapy of a global protection racket, after all.
But with Denmark being overtly threatened by a change in U.S. approach to the world, even after dutifully serving its NATO obligations in Afghanistan after 9/11, frank discussions on the national interest seem poised to make a comeback even in countries long accustomed to U.S. predominance.
By returning to locality and discussion within specific communities rather than bland universalism, the national interest becomes, in Cunliffe’s terms, something that breaks the monopoly of unelected bureaucracy and thus something that will “not lie” like the pleasing bromides of ideology when it comes to grappling with an uncertain future. Not because it contains certainty, but because it is ambiguous and must be contested out in the open by the general public in order to determine what it should be.
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Top Image Credit: VanderWolf Images/ Shutterstock
Osprey crash in Japan kills at least 1 US soldier
Military aircraft accidents are spiking
November 24, 2025
Military aviation accidents are spiking, driven by a perfect storm of flawed aircraft, inadequate pilot training, and over-involvement abroad.
As Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D- Mass.) office reported this week, the rate of severe accidents per 100,000 flight hours, was a staggering 55% higher than it was in 2020. Her office said mishaps cost the military $9.4 billion, killed 90 service members and DoD civilian employees, and destroyed 89 aircraft between 2020 to 2024. The Air Force lost 47 airmen to “preventable mishaps” in 2024 alone.
The U.S. continues to utilize aircraft with known safety issues or are otherwise prone to accidents, like the V-22 Osprey, whose gearbox and clutch failures can cause crashes. It is currently part of the ongoing military buildup near Venezuela.
Other mishap-prone aircraft include the Apache Helicopter (AH-64), which saw 4.5 times more accidents in 2024 than 2020, and the C-130 military transport aircraft, whose accident rate doubled in that same period. The MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopter was susceptible to crashes throughout its decades-long deployment, but was kept operational until early 2025.
Dan Grazier, director of the Stimson Center’s National Security Reform Program, told RS that the lack of flight crew experience is a problem. “The total number of flight hours U.S. military pilots receive has been abysmal for years. Pilots in all branches simply don't fly often enough to even maintain their flying skills, to say nothing of improving them,” he said.
To Grazier’s point, army pilots fly less these days: a September 2024 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report found that the average manned aircraft crew flew 198 flight hours in 2023, down from 302 hours flown in 2011.
This is often because aircraft are not ready to fly.
“One of the main reasons behind the lack of flying time, is the simple fact that modern military aircraft are excessively complex machines that don't work as often as the services need them to do,” Grazier told RS. He said that popular aircraft, like the F-35, often are not mission capable. “One of the best things Pentagon officials can do [to address this issue] is to insist on simpler aircraft with high readiness rates as a key performance parameter.”
William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, stressed Congress’ role in the crisis, where lawmakers often prioritize projects of interest over critical training and operations funds.
Lawmakers “often raid training funds to add weapons to the budget that the Pentagon hadn’t even asked for,” Hartung said. “Congress should make an honest assessment of the cause of the recent spate of accidents before blaming the victims of these terrible tragedies.”
Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, said that U.S. forces are overstretched by entanglements abroad.
“The military is overstretched and doing too much. Constant deployments in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and now Latin America take a toll on readiness. They throw off training cycles, lead to burn-out and pilot error, and wear down equipment which can cause mechanical and technical issues,” Kavanagh told RS. “The White House and Pentagon should reconsider U.S. global commitments and find ways to reduce overseas deployments and entanglements.”
At the end of the day, some accidents are unavoidable.
“Usually, a U.S. military accident is caused by a ‘perfect storm’ where several things have to go wrong at the same time, or in a cascading chain, for disaster to strike,” Mark Thompson, a long-time military reporter and national security analyst at the Project On Government Oversight, told RS.
"Pumping more money into training, to keep pilots on their toes, and spare parts, to replace them before they break and cause an accident, generally help. But it won’t eliminate [accidents],” he said. “Perfect aviation safety is an illusion, but it is one we should never stop striving to reach.”
Sen. Warren’s office has asked the DoD to provide more information about aviation accidents over 2019 to 2025, and about how the military trains aircrews and maintenance staff.
“In the face of increasing rates of costly and deadly aviation mishaps, it is critical that Congress and DoD take all necessary action to address this problem,” Sen. Warren said.
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Top photo credit" Majorie Taylor Greene (Shutterstock/Consolidated News Service)
Marjorie Taylor Greene to resign: 'I refuse to be a battered wife'
November 22, 2025
Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia’s 14th district, who at one time was arguably the politician most associated with Donald Trump’s “MAGA” movement outside of the president himself, announced in a lengthy video Friday night that she would be retiring from Congress, with her last day being January 5.
Greene was an outspoken advocate for releasing the Epstein Files, which the Trump administration vehemently opposed until a quick reversal last week which led to the House and Senate quickly passing bills for the release which the president signed.
Rep. Greene has also been a staunch “America First” advocate, criticizing U.S. interventionism abroad, including the policies of President Trump.
She consistently and vocally opposed U.S. aid to Ukraine. Greene was also the first and perhaps only Republican member of Congress to call the U.S.-backed Israeli war in Gaza a “genocide.”
The congresswoman shared on X in late July: “It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct. 7 in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza.”
From RS in early August: “Rep. Greene or ‘MTG,’ has served as the tip of the spear in defining MAGA. Brash and controversial, she has been the embodiment of President Donald Trump’s movement on Capitol Hill and has had the president’s back at almost every turn.”
“Except, seemingly, where she perceives Trump might stray from MAGA principles. In June, Greene initially supported but then turned against the heavily Trump-promoted “Big Beautiful” spending bill. Earlier this month, she also opposed the president’s decision to continue sending aid and weapons to Ukraine.”
“She’s now come out swinging against Israel’s war in Gaza and U.S. support for it,” RS noted at the time.
“I can unequivocally say that what happened to innocent people in Israel on Oct 7th was horrific,’ Greene posted on X on July 27. “Just as I can unequivocally say that what has been happening to innocent people and children in Gaza is horrific.”
“This war and humanitarian crisis must end!’” she added.
As President Trump continued to support funding for Israel, Ukraine and has hinted at regime change in Venezuela, Greene publicly opposed all of it.
Eventually the president seemingly became frustrated with Greene’s opposition and began attacking her as a “traitor.” He recently unendorsed her and said he would back a primary challenger against Greene.
The Georgia mother admitted that this played a role in her stepping aside.
“I have too much self-respect and dignity… to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms,” she said.
“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious,” Greene continued. “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better. If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the donor elite class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.”
For realist and restrainers right, left and center, Greene went from being someone thought of as controversially confrontational or dabbling in conspiracy theories to a moral compass within her party on war and peace issues, particularly on Gaza.
Even out of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene has established herself as a prominent voice on the American right with likely high profile opportunities in the future. As Donald Trump’s GOP continues to figure out what a contemporary Republican foreign party looks like, she is someone that should be heard.
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