Who Is Lindsey Graham?

My VIP for this week is the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. As explained by Suzanne Bates in her article at the Deseret News, Graham was known as a hawk. His last official act was a visit to Ukraine and a visit to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

Among the Republicans in the US Senate, Graham was a champion for Ukraine and had a strong belief that the United States must support Ukraine against the Russian invasion. One of his last legislative actions was to lobby for more tariffs on countries that buy oil and gas from Russia. He also supported the decision to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He defends Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East.

With Graham’s death comes the continued attrition – through deaths and retirements – of Republican hawks, those who believe in a muscular foreign policy, including, when necessary, through military intervention.

The trio of Graham and the late Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut – all now passed away – reshaped U.S. foreign policy in the 2000s under the belief that the United States must assert itself as the lone superpower in order to maintain an uneasy peace in the world.

When the U.S. steps back from this role, it is inevitably pulled back in, hawks argue. Like after the 1990s, when Clinton was wary of foreign entanglements in a post-Cold War world. But the U.S. was reawakened to global threats on Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, D.C., killing thousands of Americans.

Or in 2015, when, after President Barack Obama tried to “reset” the U.S.’s relationship with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

And again in 2022, during the Biden administration, when Russia again invaded Ukraine, starting a protracted war between the two countries.

The long-term military campaigns in Afghanistan, which had almost universal support after 9/11, and in Iraq, which had less support, led to the recent weariness Americans feel when their leaders propose intervention.

Anti-interventionists in the Republican Party, those who support the “America First” movement, long criticized Graham for his hawkishness, turning “neocon” into a pejorative.

Now, without Graham, is there a Republican senator who will take up that mantle? Especially amid a new, increasingly unpopular war against Iran….

Is Trump a dove or a hawk?

Trump, with his “Peace through Strength,” foreign policy agenda, is far more interventionist than his America First supporters would like. Vice President JD Vance is the hero of those more populist Republicans, while hawkish Republicans typically back Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio, and Graham before his death, appear to be in a dwindling minority. Instead, the ascendant position in conservative circles is that it isn’t America’s job to police the world. Instead, we should protect our own.

No matter how powerful the United States is, or how big its economy, it cannot block itself from an anarchic world….

Graham believed in American strength, and its ability to be a force for good around the world. In a piece about the need to spend more on the Navy, Graham wrote: “There is no doubt that the costs of these investments are great and will require tradeoffs and significant political capital, but the cost of inaction will be far greater. History demonstrates that adversaries are emboldened by America’s hesitation and deterred by its resolve.”

Perhaps a successor to Graham will emerge among Republican senators. It’s hard to imagine he or she will possess his same wit or unique biography, but others with his skills seemed irreplaceable before.

In most foreign entanglements, including in Iran, the answer of intervention versus protectionism isn’t black and white. We need both doves and hawks to debate and argue over American foreign policy decisions.

But we need hawks like Graham to remind us that we ignore the world at our own peril.

Bates’ article reminded me of George Washington and his warning against foreign entanglements. He did not approve of any permanent alliances or attachments to foreign nations but thought that the United States should stand for neutrality and prudent engagement.

In his Farewell Address of 1796, Washington urged the United States to avoid permanent alliances with any foreign nation, but at the same time, honoring existing treaties. He desired the young nation to stand independent in foreign affairs. He thought that America should be friends with all and enemies to none but should always stand ready to defend America. Hence, peace through strength.