The Return of the “Our Son of a Bitch” Doctrine
By Allen Gindler
For several decades after the Cold War, American foreign policy presented itself as a moral project. The United States, it was said, would no longer merely defend its interests abroad; it would help build democracy. Dictatorships would be replaced by representative governments, institutions would be strengthened, and societies would gradually move toward liberal norms. As Natan Sharansky argued in his book The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (2004), liberal democracies are less likely to go to war with one another, thus warranting prolonged peace. The policy sounded morally attractive. Unfortunately, it also proved enormously expensive and rarely successful.
![Map of Strait of Hormuz. Image by Pascal - This image is a derivative work of [1] from [2], which was created by the w:Central Intelligence Agency in 1980 and hence is PD-US-Gov, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79202](https://www.israpundit.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/500px-Strait_of_Hormuz.jpg)
![[1]](http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/hormuz_80.jpg){kind=link}