A consensus shattered.

• Author: Chollet, Derek
• Position: Trust in government

WHEN THINKING about the new challenges we face, we must do more than look abroad. We have to take a closer look at ourselves--and ask the fundamental question of whether a strong national security policy can be conducted with a polity that is losing faith in its leaders and institutions.

Americans' trust in government has been declining steadily since the 1960s, and so far the first half-decade of the 21st century has done nothing to reverse this. If anything, it has gotten worse, especially when it comes to Americans' views of the making of national security policy. With the September 11 attacks and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they have witnessed two of the greatest intelligence failures in American history. The bloody occupation of Iraq and the inept response to last year's Hurricane Katrina disaster have cast alarming doubts about the government's competence to plan and implement policies. The revelations about domestic spying on Americans and the torture of detainees in U.S. custody have raised deep concerns about the growing power of government and the breakdown of congressional oversight over an unchecked executive branch. Add to all this the bitter partisanship and unrelenting drumbeat of scandal in Washington--from the Valerie Plame affair to the Jack Abramoff lobbying crimes--and the cynicism many have about government and its motives has only deepened.

The cumulative effect of all this? Many Americans' confidence is shaken, and their opinions of elites and the institutions they inhabit are even worse. In terms of national security policy, this means that there will be stronger resistance to taking on new challenges. There has been a resurgence Of isolationism and more ambivalence among many about whether the United States should maintain a posture of assertive global leadership. Fewer Americans seem willing to accept the costs that their leaders' ambitions might require. President George W. Bush seems to sense this--which helps explain his repeated warnings against isolationism in his 2006 State of the Union address.

Recent public opinion polls reveal these trends. In a survey done by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations last November, 42 percent polled said the United States should "mind its own business" internationally, a figure only matched during the past thirty years by two other low points of American foreign policy, the Vietnam hangover of the mid-1970s and Bill...