President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump had a lot to say about America's place in the world at the debate last night. And very little of it was honest. Neither man wants to level with the public about the serious tradeoffs this country faces on the global stage.
Biden insisted that the United States can still dominate the entire world, fighting slow-burn proxy wars forever without any real cost to Americans. Trump offered the flip side of that vision, promising to end the wars on favorable terms without taking any risks or making any compromises with rival countries. Their attacks on each other were often incoherent and contradictory because neither one could offer a straightforward vision of foreign policy.
