Staking out a coherent foreign policy

In his Warsaw speech, President Donald Trump’s full-throated but prudent defense of “Western values” staked out as clearly as possible the principled grounds of a coherent and effective American foreign policy.

In his Warsaw speech, President Donald Trump staked out a coherent, effective American foreign policy.

Although Trump’s Warsaw speech was not perfect, it was about the best a president could do amid the profound imperfections that now mar the Western alliance.

One caveat, though: This speech was so different from what Trump said in Saudi Arabia that it may speak more to his desire to play to the crowd — or that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster won the struggle over the Saudi speech and political adviser Stephen Bannon won this one — than to any grand view of foreign policy.

Millions of confused and disillusioned people on both sides of the Atlantic no longer know who or what in politics to trust, and millions more who believe they know the truth are, in fact, unable to accurately envision or describe “the West” itself.

Without a grasp of who and what we are, as determined by our origins and past, they will falter in the face of today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

As President Trump himself noted at the outset of his remarks, Poland is an especially important place to frame the future of the West.

Although Russia is Western, too, in its way, Poland has stood repeatedly at the crossroads of the best and the worst of Western civilization — bearing the full brunt of the totalitarian aberrations against which the Western alliance has so sharply defined itself politically and culturally.

The Polish people are living proof that Western civilization is real and is worthy of real pride, despite the myriad ways in which it has been turned toward injustice.

So Trump rightly emphasized how the Poles restored their freedom by rising up to demand something more than wealth or privilege.

In some cases, it was God they cheered for, after groaning beneath communism’s enforced atheism; in others, it was individual freedoms they sought, after having their lives controlled by the Communist Party.

Today, too many Westerners, Americans included, have allowed a disenchanted perspective to distort their view of material benefits, some of which are vital and precious, but which alone cannot nourish our deepest longings or draw us out from egotism and into neighborliness, citizenship and solidarity.

Next, Trump made plain that radical Islamic terrorism will inflict intolerable damage to our most basic shared principles and way of life unless it is met firmly by the Western alliance — in close cooperation with its Muslim allies and partners.

Trump also spoke to Russia’s awkward and unhelpful positioning at the edge of Allied norms and values, urging Moscow to “join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself.”

Finally, he defined Western civilization in the most ecumenical and welcoming language imaginable, asserting, “above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are.”

But he also demanded accountability. “Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”

Evidently, some critics were uncomfortable that Trump dared not only to specify our shared identity, but also to question their will to defend it. But that very discomfort shows Trump has hit a nerve.

Those who can’t rally behind the West as Trump described it open themselves up to bigger problems than a presidential speech — perhaps even problems that have long been all too familiar to the Polish people.