Sky-rocketing gas prices just the start of the cost of your naive insistence that what happens in Ukraine is “none of our business.”

Who knows where we’re headed now that American isolationism has led to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to potentially catastrophic economic and military global consequences.

It took the shock of 9/11 to remind us that we don’t have a choice of retreating into our bunkers. Now comes another reminder in Madman Vladimir Putin’s campaign to wipe a sovereign nation off the map. We’re already seeing the impact, in the ballooning of energy prices.

More will come, just in terms of other galloping commodity prices, especially when layered on top of the supply chain crunch. More fundamentally, the world now faces questions about the future of Europe and western democracies, the balance of power and, ultimately, the possibility of nuclear war.

So, one can ask: How is the idea that America can and must extinguish its light as the guardian of the free world working out?

That role has ensured a degree of peace and stability for the decades following the Allied victory in World War II. It was a role that was assigned because America’s values of self-government, individual liberty and capitalism defeated the various 20th Century tyrannies of Hitler and Stalin. Quite rightly, the world looked to America to guarantee freedom of the seas and other necessities of prosperity, liberty and peace.

Enough short-sighted and naive Americans were worn down by that responsibility that opportunistic politicians moved in to advance their own careers. Donald Trump’s hands are dirty in this; he made isolationism a populist doctrine. Yes, yes, he correctly acted against unfair trade policies, demanded more from NATO nations and more. But undergirding it was the notion that what happens outside our borders is none of our business. The concept of maintaining spheres of influence as essential to our national security was junked. Neo-conservatives (“neocons”) were ridiculed and cancelled; isolationists blocked out the dire history of their principles.

But it wasn’t Trump alone. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laughably in a Neville Chamberlain-like parody literally handed a “reset” button to Russia, as if making nice to a despot will make him, well, nice. Former President Barack Obama mocked GOP presidential candidate Milt Romney for correctly identifying Russia as a major threat. Obama’s so-called “lethal” military assistance to Ukraine figuratively amounted to pitchforks against tanks.

President Joe Biden, however, is the grand master of reality avoidance.He apparently sensed a political advantage to riding in on Trump’s isolationism, and accelerated the ill-advised and bungled retreat from Afghanistan. Like his predecessors, his support of the sovereign nation of Ukraine was tepid at best.

Hey, Vladimir, come-on in.

Please don’t send your “policeman of the world” and “nation-building” complaints. Don’t remind me that Trump’s unpredictable craziness is the best antidote to Putin’s craziness. (Both their craziness scares the crap out of me.) There’s an optimal balance between involvement and reticence. It’s hard to see it, much less achieve it.

But total interference in other nations’ affairs and retreating into bunker America are dual formulas for disaster. We’re destined, it seems, to be reminded of that every 20 years–reminded that the Putins, Hitlers, Stalins, Castros exist.

Where will we, where can we, go from here?

To subscribe to The Barbershop, type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time.