Review of The Jungle Grows Back

Whether it takes the form of Barack Obama’s hands-off approach or Donald Trump’s transactional philosophy, the underlying fact remains: Fostering democracy around the world has fallen out of fashion in America. And understandably so. After the communist-fighting of Kennedy and Reagan and the Iraq adventures of George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, Americans have wearied of their role as the world’s policeman. But though stepping back may seem justified, the United States’s push toward isolationism is problematic, Robert Kagan argues in this essay-turned-short-book. Indeed, it puts the entire liberal world order at risk. According to Kagan, democracy is like a garden that requires constant tending in order to keep the weeds and vines of authoritarianism at bay. Without a robust, even bossy, America leading the charge, a geopolitical backslide is inevitable. His stance is unfashionable, and he might not win over the hard-line isolationists; nonetheless, Kagan offers an eloquent defense of past American interventionist policies and an impassioned plea for their continuance.