New House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul Is a Standard Old-School Interventionist

For those who hoped the new Republican-led and Trump-approved House of Representatives under Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R–Calif.) might promote some of the better aspects of MAGA-ism, such as a foreign policy that recognized the mistakes of the past three decades, and charter a less bellicose and controlling path for the U.S. abroad, the ascension of Rep. Michael McCaul (R–Texas) to chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee should be unpleasant cold water.

While the Trumpian strain in the GOP is supposed to favor a radical rethink of the U.S. mission to find and combat foreign adversaries with every sort of intervention, involvement, and pressure even if short of direct troop deployment, McCaul retains an older sense of an abiding American mission to shape the world to our desires and “interests.”

McCaul:

• is an enthusiastic supporter of U.S. military aid to Ukraine and helping ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian leaders face war crimes tribunals;

• is fighting to raise the political costs of ending foreign interventions by an attack investigation on President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal (which was following through on Trump’s intentions) and insists the U.S. must even now “hold the Taliban accountable for their appalling actions”;

• wants to make sure the U.S. is optimally aggressive in supporting Taiwan against China, including “strategic, long-term security assistance well in advance of conflict in order to effectively deter, and, when necessary, to respond to, acts of aggression”;

• wants more U.S. pressure on Nicaragua;

• is angry that Biden “has backed away from the goal of North Korea’s complete denuclearization [and] failed to make the security commitments to the Indo-Pacific t