It is often lamented that "Civics" as a subject is not much taught in High School anymore. I agree with the sentiment but the Tea Party crowd seem to be unrepresentative of such a dearth of teaching in American government. In fact, they seem to have memorized a freshman Civics textbook, or, at least the one I remember being taught from. Their heads are filled with the mythology of the founding of the United States and the temporarily successful struggle to create a system in which the federal government was severely limited in its powers and blocked from growth by the states and an inability to inflict direct taxation on the citizenry. I am naturally sympathetic to their point of view. As a libertarian conservative, how coulld I not support that point of view?

Nevertheless, their ideas of "what should be done" are frightening. Even those among them who have some experience of the world outside their daily surroundings express the desire to wreck large parts of the federal government and the social "safety net" that has been created after much struggle for the purpose of protecting our poor and aged. They express a desire to wreck these systems from what appears to be a totally abstract point of view devoid of sympathy for those whom I will insist are God's Poor.

Joe Miller, up in Alaska, is an example. He was raised poor in Kansas. He says that his parents are still poor. He was educated at West Point at public expense. Now he says that Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance are un-constitutional and should be phased out at some point (when his parents no longer need these programs). When asked what will happen after that to the aforementioned poor, he glazes over and insists that such programs were not envisioned in the 18th Century and therefore are not legal. In other words, to hell with the poor and aged (once his parents no longer need such help). Well, Joe, someone like you would never have gone to West Point (founded cerca 1800) in the golden age that you would like to see "restored."

It seems clear that the people who hold these domestic "ideals" have similar thought about America's place in the world. They don't talk all that much about foreign affairs, but when they do, an obsession with power, a disdain for people who are "different," and a profound belief in American exceptionalism are the dominant themes. As in the case of domestic affairs, the Tea Party people do not seem to have any sense of the limits of "real world" action. Their thinking reflects the Platonic ideals of American nationalism, the images on the wall of the cave. If they achieve power, why should we not expect them to support the most aggressive elements in the military/industrial/media/political complex.

Jeff Foxworthy, the Southern comedian, likes to say that a Redneck can always be recognized by his "glorious absence of sophistication." He alway makes it clear when he says this that he is talking about his wife's family. I think he has it wrong. I know a lot of Rednecks who are quite worldly and sophisticated folk.

It is the Tea Party crowd who display an absence of sophistication.

This week's National Journal question - What impact would a Republican majority in the House, Senate or both have on President Obama's national security and foreign affairs agenda? - begs a couple of questions.

Should we see a Republican majority in the House and Senate, the presumption would be that Tea Party candidates would be included with the predictable formation of a Tea Party caucus. That caucus, not necessarily aligned with mainstream Republican Party thought, would need to be courted in order to achieve party objectives. That fact would compound the scene that Heather Hurlburt of National Security Network refers to as a subsurface "free-for-all among old-fashioned realists, neocons, paleocons, Tea Partiers and libertarians."

In other words, from a foreign policy perspective, the Republican Party will become still more fractured as they try to reconcile the various philosophies on budget management, defense spending and foreign policy. And they may yet recognize that there is a difference between bombast and policy.

While a nation's foreign policy really is the preserve of the Executive, Congress' control of the purse and the Senate's role to provide advice and consent on treaty obligations present at once opportunities and challenges to the President's execution of his most important function - to provide for the nation's security. President Obama may find himself in a better position to advance his foreign policy agenda with a fractured, undisciplined Republican Party, than he is today with the McConnell/Boehner monolith. And his first priority in the face of a new Republican Party landscape will in fact not be in the foreign policy arena, but that component of national power that supports a nation's defense and its foreign policy. Weak economies don't produce durable military power, robust foreign policy agendas or sturdy alliances. His challenge will be to stare down the obstructionist trend that has developed in this new Republican Party, so different from the party Dwight Eisenhower led six decades ago when he warned us of the impending rise of the military-industrial complex and its eventual influence on how America conducts itself on the international scene.

Recent policy wins with the Russia reset, a former belligerent chastened by the near catastrophic impact of the world recession's impact on its economy, illustrate the impact that a challenged economy has on its foreign policy. Rapprochement with the United States on issues from nuclear weapons reduction to Iran sanctions is a direct reflection of an intent to revitalize a formerly extraction based economy and to seek economic collaboration with wealthier countries. Our policies with respect to China, on the other hand, reveal our current vulnerability to China's ascendant economy. China's authoritarian capitalism is trouncing our current unregulated democratic governance/free market economy. In fact, there is room for alarm if other countries take notice and impose the Chinese philosophy on their economic agenda.

The Right's saber rattling against China, its concern over the development of a blue water navy and airpower projection is in fact based upon traditional American national security strategy to prevent the emergence of a competitor. The extraordinary increases in the US defense budget over the last decade, a nearly 100% increase since 9/11, has been accomplished on our very shaky economic foundation and is not sustainable. But if we look at China's economic challenge to the US interests, the Tea Party small government approach will challenge ongoing efforts to bring some discipline to Wall Street and to frustrate the massive and self-interest based move by US industry to export jobs to cheaper labor markets, including China. The new Republican Party instincts will go to bolstering a military response when what America really needs is to bring coherence to an economy that, today, does not make sense.

But the new fractured Republican Party has some fiscal conservative threads that include defense spending management. Republicans Representative Walter Jones and Senator Tom Coburn represent a force to be courted to include the defense budget in efforts to reduce the deficit and get our economic house in order. And there is the real opportunity for the US President.

Pursuit of a viable economic revitalization, focused upon a Manhattan scale project to change our energy dynamic, with a strong alliance forged with some of the new Republican Party members is the President's real hope to frustrate obstructionism in Congress, and to repair the foundation upon which our diplomatic and military power are focused, the US economy.

It really is the economy, Sir.

Surveys of self-identified Tea Party members reveal that they are overwhelmingly conservative in their political leanings, but they are a particular type of conservative: people who believe in limited government and balanced budgets. Their views on foreign policy will be extensions of their convictions about domestic concerns, which means they will favor less spending, fewer commitments and a more practical pursuit of national interests. To the extent that Tea Party values drive Republican priorities after the midterm elections, it will probably be a good thing for both the party and the nation.

Under the leadership of people like Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the Republican Party has drifted away from its historical roots and electoral base in recent years. A party that traditionally favored protectionism became enamored of unfettered free trade. It irresponsibly embraced "supply-side" tax cuts that drove up the national debt while creating the illusion that there really is a free lunch. It embraced big government as a way of rewarding the party faithful and pursuing cherished social goals. To summarize, the Republican Party became a lot like the Democrats.

The Tea Party movement reflects a resurgence in support for earlier, more enduring conservative values -- values like thrift and hard work and accountability that were admirably distilled by Benjamin Franklin into a philosophy of life that balanced self-interest with obligation to the community. Like most Republicans before the Reagan era, Tea Party members want a government of limited powers that protects America in all senses of the term -- militarily, economically, culturally -- but is reluctant to get involved in other people's fights.

That tells me that Republicans will be less earger to support defense spending in the future. They will also be skeptical of multilateral efforts to accomplish any global goal, whether it be slowing climate change, preventing nuclear proliferation or expanding free trade. Countries like Israel and Afghanistan can expect less help (meaning money)) from Washington, and countries like China and France can expect more pressure concerning their unfair trading practices. And Republicans will distrust abstractions like globalization and transformation, preferring concrete, common-sense goals in foreign policy.

The Tea Party is a gift to Republican elites, if they have the good sense to embrace it. It promises to make the choice between conservatives and progressives much cleaer, and in a way that will generally favor the conservatives on election night. This return to traditional values may not be good news for Karl Rove of Hamid Karzai, but it is what the Republican Party needs to convince voters it still stands for something unique -- both at home and abroad.

The impact of a Republican majority on President Obama’s national security and foreign affairs agenda will depend upon whether Republicans return to their Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 41 heritage or reinforce the “party of no” politics of the last two years.

Under Eisenhower, Republicans took the lead on reducing defense spending to balance the budget and refused to become entangled in the Vietnam quagmire. President Eisenhower explained over 50 years ago that a nation’s security is directly tied to the health of its economy. He believed, correctly, that if military spending rose too high it would ultimately undermine U.S. security, which he saw as a product of both military and economic strength. He also consistently resisted calls from the Joint Chiefs and some Democratic members of Congress to outspend the USSR. Consequently, defense spending declined in real terms during his time in office.

Richard Nixon, who served as Eisenhower’s vice president for eight years, applied these lessons well when he became president in 1969. President Nixon reduced defense spending by 32 percent and military manpower by a similar amount between 1969 and 1974 in order to pay for the social programs he felt the country needed. Despite these reductions, our defense capability improved dramatically during this period as Nixon and his national security team reoriented U.S. forces and weapons programs on the primary threat—Soviet communist expansion. Many of the programs the Nixon administration initiated during this period of declining defense budgets—for example, the Trident submarine, and the F-15, F-14, F-16, and F/A-18—are still in the force today. In addition, Nixon reduced the threats to our security by going to China, concluding offensive and defensive arms agreements with the USSR, and withdrawing from Vietnam.

Even Ronald Reagan recognized the nation’s defense spending was a heavy weight on the economy. When his supply-side economics didn’t work as planned in his first term, he reduced defense spending by 12 percent in real terms in his second term as part of an arrangement with Congress (Graham-Rudman-Hollings) to help rein in the growing budget deficits. George H.W. Bush continued this trend in his first two years by slashing defense spending by another 11 percent, even before the Soviet Union’s collapse, to deal with expanding federal deficits.

Overall, Reagan and George H.W. Bush lowered defense spending by 23 percent without any harm to our national security or significant change in our national security strategy. Moreover, both Reagan and Bush increased U.S. security by concluding arms agreements with the Soviet Union, i.e. the INF and START I respectively, and Reagan had the courage to withdraw from Lebanon in 1983, and Bush obtained a U.N. mandate before evicting Saddam from Kuwait.

If the new Republicans take on the mantle of the “party of no” currently endorsed by their leaders, the results would be catastrophic for the U.S. and the world. For example, compare the ridiculous objections that many Republicans raised about New START with the 95-0 vote for the Moscow Treaty that George W. Bush negotiated with his good friend Vladamir Putin.

On the other hand, if the Republicans return to their Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, or Bush 41 roots, they would work with Obama to reduce defense spending, which has grown in real terms for 13 years and is now higher than at any time since World War II, as part of an overall deficit reduction package. In addition they would move New START and CTBT and climate change legislation through the Senate, thereby increasing the U.S.’s moral authority on the world scene. Finally, like Nixon getting out of Vietnam in 1973 and opening a dialogue with China, they would work with and encourage Obama to stick to his plan to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in July 2011 and negotiate with Iran.

If the Republicans do gain control of the Congress and continue to refuse to work with Obama (like now), they will bear some responsibility and will pay a price either in the 2012 elections or in the judgment of history.

I just got back from a conference in Oxford, England last week. It was the usual fair of academic experts examining and “profounding” on a number of different issues about which they knew much or little.

On one issue, however, they sputtered like an old car engine – the American Tea Party. So discombobulated were they, it was like watching the old Monty Python show sketch on how to confuse a cat. The Tea Party has these boys floored. And much fluffing went on about what it meant for American foreign policy.

I grew up out West in the suburbs and the countryside. The Tea Party folks represent what I heard growing up on Internet steroids. Tired of big government, tired of being ignored by Washington, tired of being tired. Seen it. Got it. Yes some members are eccentric and the liberal media is making much of that. Most are not and they deserved to be listened to agree or not.

As for their foreign policy, don’t be fooled. The rhetoric of the Tea Party is primarily domestic, not foreign. The foreign policy advisors at the head of this group – particularly with Sarah Palin – have been around for a while and are quite good at representing a strongly conservative viewpoint. This viewpoint is antithetical to the Obama Administration and will focus on strong unilateralism and a steady state with regards to military and foreign policy expenditures and assertion of American power.

From what I know of them, they will push to make sure the START treaty is a “good deal for America.” Understand that this is based on the same inherent distrust of the Russians that the early Bush II neo-cons brought to the table. For that, I can’t blame them. Putin is such a nice trustworthy guy – why look into his eyes sometimes and you can see hell on a clear day.

I also suspect you will seem them quickly set up a “loyal opposition” foreign policy group constantly offering alternatives to the White House view and proposing new initiatives. These strategies and tactics were developed and honed by these same people in the 1990’s in their wilderness years during the Clinton Administration.

What I think so confuses my European “cats” is how direct the message has been and how completely and loudly it has been delivered. They forget we no longer live in an age dominated by the Old Media. The Internet, with it web of blogs and instantaneous communication can rally people like never before.

The Tea Party is obviously a force to which attention must be paid. Their foreign policy will strongly differ from the current Administration. Welcome to America and her politics. We disagree here.

There were some on the left that thought they might enlist the Tea Parties in a call to gut defense and roll back on U.S. overseas commitments. So far, that has proven a fools errand. http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/06/hawking-the-tea-parties/ There are two reasons why that is so.

First, a lot of Tea Party partiers would feel comfortable reciting the old Reagan mantra “peace through strength.” Defense spending is not what has troubled the U.S. economy. They know that in reality, defense spending is near historic lows. All defense spending (military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq included) is about half what the U.S. spent on average each year (as a percentage of GDP) throughout the Cold War. Defense spending is less than one-fifth of the federal budget. Even huge cuts in the defense budget would not reign in federal spending or reduce the federal deficit. Entitlement spending and the sum of all other discretionary spending account for most of the budget. They are the last ones that will want to take axe to the defense budget or hunker down here at home and wait for the next 9/11. I spoke at a Tea Party event with the good folks of the First Coast Tea Party in Jacksonville, Florida a few weeks ago; they were more solid on these issues than most in Washington. Also, look at some of the Tea Party darlings from Sarah Palin to Jim DeMint and Michele Bachman—no shrinking defense violets there.http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/tea-party-must-tackle-defense-issues/ Tea Party advocates have also come out strong on issues like missile defense and expressing concerns about the New START nuclear agreement. http://dailycaller.com/2010/08/17/bait-and-switch-defense-for-new-start/

Second, while there are also tea totelers who would be happy to gut defense, kill overseas bases, and the like, they are not likely to use the Tea Party as the place to push that platform. The Tea Party, contrary to what the White House would have you believe, is a “big tent” for all kinds of conservatives. Tea Parties focus laser-like on two issues—limited government and fiscal responsibility—and that is what keeps folks with disparate agendas united. The Tea Parties are unlikely to splinter over national security and foreign policy issues.

It is very difficult indeed to make focused predictions with respect to U.S. politics and foreign policy beyond the November elections. And, as at least one other contributor has suggested concerning the Tea Party movement, its goals on specific issues are rather amorphous in many cases, in part because it derives its strength from a fairly diverse pool of discontent, frustration, and, in many cases, even considerable anger.

One scenario likely to emerge should the Republicans retake control of even one house of Congress, regardless of the inherent electoral strength of the Tea Party, is a shift toward stalemate many key domestic issues. Such a situation would not only be driven by electoral reality, but also by the intense levels of emotion now affecting much of American politics. And beyond emotion, there is a substantial ideological--even religious--strain that increasingly has colored political debate. In the presence of emotion and religious sentiment, rational political debate and inter-party compromise becomes even more elusive (and controversial within certain political constituencies).

And this shift toward domestic gridlock that appears to loom just over the political horizon must be considered as a backdrop to any discussion of the future of US foreign affairs. For one thing, the heated exchanges and lack of bipartisanship likely to characterize post-election American politics inevitably would spill over into the realm of foreign policy. Perhaps even more significantly, to the extent that greater political energy is consumed by domestic bickering, it would be drained away from the time and attention available to address issues abroad.

There are issues, such as immigration reform, that would surely run into an even greater wall of political flak in a scenario in which the Republicans gain just one house of Congress. Other issues related to the foreign arena, however, would likely remain driven more than many Americans would like to admit by drivers largely beyond Washington's control. For example, with a divided Palestinian leadership and perhaps the most hard-line Israeli leadership team yet seen, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process does not have great prospects for meaningful progress irrespective of the American contribution. Although not comparable in many respects to the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, the evolution of the situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan largely will remain heavily bound to the performance and fate of indigenous governance and profound societal divides and, in Afghanistan, the staying power of the Taliban. Consequently, in all three issues above, far too many Americans--and even some of the foreign players involved--persist in overestimating what US influence and, where relevant, US military power are capable of achieving in such challenging environments.

Even with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, I doubt we'd see a "Tea Party foreign policy" because establishment Republicans would predominate. A Republican congress would help the President hugely, though -- especially if he demonstrates a heretofore unseen ability to work across party lines.

Imagine how different the Obama Presidency would be viewed if he insisted any healthcare bill achieve 70 votes, or top Republican priorities were funded with stimulus money, or taken up Rep. Paul Ryan's roadmap for putting entitlements on fiscally sound footing, or kept Senator Graham engaged in climate change and immigration efforts. Moderate Republicans are winnable for the President, but the way the White House is going after Congressman Boehner suggests they're not planning a Clinton pivot.

It looks to me as though the White House has realized the damage to the war effort of the President's timeline for reducing forces in Afghanistan; their personnel choices have become strategy choices (and a tip of the hat to Secretary Gates for that artistry). Afghanistan just isn't capable of producing security forces and governance on the timeline the President wants, and I don't see politically how the President draws down over the objections of Generals Mattis and Petraeus (who've both adroitly shifted the debate to a conditions-based timeline) to leave an Afghanistan that's a mess.

Where that will be problematic for the White House is spending; they're clearly banking on reduced operating costs for deficit reduction. But a Republican Congress will make reductions in the baseline defense budget less of a political liability for the White House, so they could conceivably make up there what supplemental spending will require.

On arms control, the White House would actually have to accede to concerns about verification and the vitality of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. That's what it will take to get a ratification now, but they've shown little willingness to win votes, so again it requires a change in the White House approach.

A Republican Congress would have little effect on trade policy, since the Obama Administration isn't investing any political capital in getting the Colombia and South Korea treaties ratified, much less advancing a free trade agenda so important to our economic recovery.

Immigration has the potential to split Republican ranks, but likewise Democratic. Still, a Republican Congress will protect the President from his own anti-war Democrats, and reduce spending, which would strengthen the Obama Presidency.

The tea party doesn’t appear to have anything like a coherent trade policy, but if Rand Paul is representative of at least some tea party thinking on the issue, the trade agenda could become even more complicated. Whereas in the recent past it was generally (but not always) Republicans who supported trade expansion agreements and generally (but not always) Democrats who did not, a more stridently populist Republican Party would further erode the support for trade agreements in Congress even if Republicans take back the House of Representatives November 2.

Even under the best of circumstances, it would take immense political capital for the White House to move the pending Korea, Colombia, and Panama trade agreements forward—to say nothing of prospects for additional trade expansion efforts. A Republican Party increasingly untethered to the free trade agenda would make passage of the agreements virtually impossible. But, while we are dithering over whether to expand trade with an economy the size of Panama’s, for example, we are being left in the dust by others including Canada, the EU, and China. We may well wake up shortly to find that the rules of the international trade game have changed and, since we are no longer leaders in setting those rules, we will be the ones most disadvantaged. The strategic implications of continuing to let the extremes of both parties dictate US trade policy are enormous.

The all-in mud wrestling that is now American politics makes forecasting impossible. It can yield anything – the bizarre is the new norm. Who or what will rise to the top after all this crazed flailing about is a matter of pure guesswork. For we have become an incoherent polity. Yet, in the midst of all this commotion, the directions of the nation’s foreign policy are readily discernible. There most certainly will be more of the same – ‘more’ in both senses. There are three reasons for this.

Most obviously, foreign policy is always the preserve of the Executive – especially whn it comes to security matters. Congress can make a racket when controlled by the opposition but it cannot dictate what a President does abroad. Second, this President has followed in the traces of his hardline, willful Republican predecessor. For all the fulminating by demagogues like Newt Gingrich and his ilk, they have little to disagree with. The open-ened global ‘war on terror,’ escalated prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, implacable hostility toward Iran that forecloses any serious diplomacy, building a network of bases across Southwestern and Central wherever suitable real estate can be found, expanding dramatically special force missions in Yemen – and elsewhere, unflagging devotion to the ultra Israeli government no matter what, Americanization of the Columbian ‘war on drugs,’ threatening intervention in Mexico’s narco mayhem, missile defense – these actions accord with the aims and doctrines of all but the crankiest hawks who thirst for an all-out bombardment of Iran and turning northwestern Pakistan into a free fire zone. Even on the domestic front, the Obama White House continues, and in some ways, intensifies the assault on American civil liberties in the name of freedom and protection of the super secrets that surround our brilliant operations/operatives. It now has arrogated to itself the right to issue ‘Dead or Alive’ posters for U.S. citizens who, in its arbitrary judgment, pose a threat to other Americans.

Finally, the Obama people’s muscular policies are cast in the certainties and self-righteousness that has become the theme music to all that we do. The volume grows in proportion to the steady decline in our ability to accomplish anything of value in the world. Whistling past the graveyard of our failures, we obsessively return to the tunes that we sang with lusty, and more innocent, self-confidence as a younger nation. We are a republic born in a state of original virtue; we have a Providential mission to lead the world along the path of enlightenment; we are on the side of the angels; we are therefore the indispensable nation. No surprise that Hillary Clinton made the discovery at the Council on Foreign Relations last week that we are at another ‘American moment.’ The world needs and wants us to provide essential leadership. It could be no other way – every moment until the end of time will be an American moment. For our foreign policy elite have not the mind, the mentality or the skills to imagine it otherwise. The challenge of instituting with patience a genuine multilateral collaboration for addressing an agenda that features global warming and regulating runaway finance rather than ‘terrorism’ has no allure. A United States that isn’t out in front, at the head of the table, pointing the way, giving the commands, bossing its auxiliaries, leading the charge - and still the moral beacon for humankind - isn’t an America that our leaders could live with. That elite is primed to rule and direct, not to cultivate and manage. We are not in the realm of strategy; we are in the realm of behavioral psychology– national and individual, normal and at times abnormal.

These dispositions and compulsions will be all the stronger after November 2. The upwelling of nativist atavisms, the angry frustrations of our people who know in their marrow that the best days are behind us, and a cynical and thoughtless Republican establishment will press upon a weak and confused President. Mr Obama is clearly unable to generate the will and to apply the intelligence needed to perform the duties of leadership in doing other than accommodate them. Accommodation is not only his universal fall-back mode. On current policy issues, it also pretty much conforms to his instinctive orientation – as noted above. Indeed, just by maintaining a modicum of sanity and reasonableness he will slip into his natural, well cultivated role of selfless, caring mediator – above the fray and dedicated to serving the greater good – and, in the process, the not quite coincidental good of Barack Obama.

The by now familiar portrait of Obama in inaction was sketched for us once again on Friday in The New York Times report of his dependency on General David Petraeus in the travesty that is the America intervention in Afghanistan. For more than an hour, “Mr. Obama largely listened, asking a few questions, and two hours later the White House send an e-mail to reporters using language that echoed the general’s.” Obama evidently sat mesmerized before the screen while Petraeus spun comforting fairy tales. (Some already have been proven fabrications: e.g. the rate of IEDs reported by civilians has gone down – not up; the number of Taliban accepting the amnesty offer similarly has dropped by half rather than increased as Petraeus has claimed). This from a President who has yet to feel the full political force of what awaits him.

The irony of our deeply troubled, financially strapped nation presuming to arrange the affairs of everybody else on the planet escapes him - and the rest of our political class.

What exactly can we expect in the way of consequences for America’s engagements and interests in the world? God only knows – and He may not be a confidant of Obama’s team of six hand-picked spiritual advisers.

We live in ironic times. The Obama national security strategy is basically a kinder, gentler version of the Bush strategy, while the Republicans are torn between those often mislabeled "neoconservatives" who favor global activism with a strong military emphasis and a nascent group represented by people like Andrew Bacevich and Christopher Preble who advocate a more narrow focus on tangible American national interests and security.

Other than this still-minor rumbling, though, neither Republicans nor Democrats have yet asked fundamental questions about the Obama version of the Bush strategy: Can or should the United States manage the global security system? Even if the current strategy in Afghanistan is successful, is it worth the strategic cost in terms of making America safer? Can the United States afford the massive defense establishment required to manage the global security system in a time of huge budge deficits, an aging population, and a decaying national infrastructure? Can the United States sustain a global strategy based on building partnerships with Islamic states and mobilizing support from Islamic populations at the same time that hostility toward Islam is spreading in America and being embraced by popular politicians and pundits? Can the United States expand or even maintain its support in the Islamic world while sustaining its relationship with Israel?

It is difficult to figure out the Tea Party movement's position on all this. As P.J. O'Rourke put it in the September/October issue of World Affairs, "The Tea Party has a political attitude rather than a political ideology." On national security policy (as on most other things), it angrily knows what it is against but not so much what it is for, at least in terms of practical policies.

With no clear Republican alternative to the Obama strategy, it is hard to imagine what will happen if the GOP regains control of Congress. The fiercest fights are likely to be over symbolism rather than content. No more bowing to Saudi royalty (at least with cameras present)!

So this is where we are. The United States faces a fork in the road in its global strategy. Yet we are following Yogi Berra's advice: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." We steadfastly avoid debate on the really big (and really difficult) issues while obsessing on trivia. This cannot last. Eventually we will be forced to grapple with the issues in some serious way.

The Tea Party movement can contribute little to this. But whether it will defer to political leaders more versed in the complexities of statecraft and strategy remains to be seen. After all, deference is not a big part of its attitude.