Walter Russell Mead, writing in Foreign Affairs, advocates a return to “Hamiltonian statecraft,” based on the geopolitical approach of Alexander Hamilton, our first Treasury Secretary and President George Washington’s most important adviser. Hamiltonian statecraft, according to Mead, “offers a grand strategy that actively promotes U.S. commerce, American patriotism, and enlightened realism in foreign affairs.” This goes for American businesses, too. Corporations that consider themselves “citizens of the world” …  are not patriots. Hamilton was first and foremost an unrepentant nationalist. His sole focus was on promoting America’s national interest. This manifested itself in President Washington’s neutrality proclamation in the midst of war between France, which helped us become a nation, and Great Britain, which tried to prevent us from becoming a nation. Sentiment and emotion counseled siding with France against our recent enemy. Realism and a commitment to our national interests counseled neutrality. Washington, taking Hamilton’s advice and rejecting the advice of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, chose neutrality. (READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: Biden Says Anti-Israeli Protesters ‘Have a Point’ at DNC) Later, in Washington’s Farewell Address, which Hamilton greatly contributed to, the president urged his countrymen to avoid permanent alliances, promote trade with all nations, eschew sentimental attachments to foreign powers, and build a strong national defense that would enable us to choose peace or war as dictated by our interests. Mead notes that Hamilton also understood that “economic policy is strategy, and vice versa.” There is, Mead writes, a “relationship between business and national security,” and U.S. foreign policy must incorporate economic diplomacy and national security. Hamiltonian statecraft, Mead explains, combines “pragmatism, financial prudence, strategic focus, and, when necessary, ruthlessness.” Mead places Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dean Acheson, and George Shultz in the Hamiltonian tradition. He could have added John Quincy Adams, whose approach to foreign policy mirrored Hamilton’s. And he could have added Donald Trump. Although Mead does not expressly place Trump in the tradition of Hamiltonian statecraft, he does favorably mention “America first.” Mead calls for a “more nation-centric foreign policy,” instead of the globalism that minimizes patriotism and criticizes nationalism. Hamilton, Mead writes, was above all a patriot. “Nationalism,” Mead argues, “is a moral necessity, not a moral failing” as the globalists contend. Americans, he writes, “have obligations to their fellow citizens that do not extend to all humankind.” There are echoes here of John Quincy Adams’ famous remark that America is the well-wisher of freedom to all, but the champion and vindicator only of her own. This goes for American businesses, too. Corporations that consider themselves “citizens of the world” as well as “leaders who feel no special obligation toward the American people” are not patriots. Mead decries what he describes as the “shift from national Hamiltonianism to globalism across much of the post-Cold War American elite.” Hamilton and Realism The third, and arguably most important, aspect of Hamilton’s legacy is his adherence to realism. Mead characterizes it as “enlightened realism,” but it is realism all the same. Hamilton had a dim view of human nature. “[H]e did not believe,” Mead notes, “that humanity was naturally good or naturally disposed to settle down in democratic and egalitarian societies, all harmoniously at peace with one another.” Just societies, honest governments, fair international orders were for Hamilton a chimera — the stuff of dreams. Hamilton distrusted appeals to international crusades. He didn’t see any merit in America attempting to promote democracy around the world. Realists understand that U.S. national interests may at times require us to make temporary alliances with murderous regimes — we did that when we allied with Stalin in World War II, and we did it again when we allied with Mao against the Soviets in the 1970s and 1980s. In this sense, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan were realists, though Roosevelt’s realism was quite temporary and Reagan’s realism was sometimes masked by ideological rhetoric. Realism at its essence means that as a leader you approach the world understanding that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is Donald Trump a Hamiltonian realist? British historian Niall Ferguson thinks so. In a recent column, Ferguson dismissed the notion that Trump is an isolationist, instead seeing him as returning the Republican Party back to the realism of Nixon and Reagan, and turning away from the neoconservatism that has plagued the GOP since George W. Bush’s presidency. (READ MORE: Another Little Known Great John Wayne Film) Trump, Ferguson writes, supports ending the conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, so the United States can focus on deterring China in the western Pacific. It was President Lincoln, after all, who in the midst of the Civil War when political leaders and even members of his own Cabinet were urging escalation with Great Britain over the so-called Trent Affair, who replied: “One war at a time.” The post Hamiltonian Statecraft is ‘America First’ appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.