In the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, God gave us the institution of nations as a means of governing. The Bible mentions the words “nation” or “nations” some 677 times, sometimes further clarifying or subdividing nations by “tribe” or “language,” which could be argued to justify republics such as the United States, with lower levels of government such as states, counties, and cities. However, the Bible doesn’t call for global one-world governments, except during the Millennium when the whole world will be justly governed by Christ.
Some nations would find natural separations from others on the basis of language (as with the Tower of Babel), some on the basis of bloodline and faith (as with Israel), and others on things such as ethnicity, heritage, economy, etc. Once a nation was established, as separate from other nations, it was autonomous, and free to establish its own laws for governing its people–its own people. One nation’s laws might be considered to be unjust by another nation, but that’s OK–it’s sort of why we have different nations. The point is to allow each nation to govern its own people autonomously, regardless of how other nations feel about it. Each nation is to stay within its own border and not try to force its laws or morals on another nation. That other nation has its own governing for enforcing its laws.
Now, we don’t live in a perfect world. Sometimes one nation does decide to encroach upon another nation. Sometimes due to famine and/or over-population, they can no longer feed their own people, so they to invade another nation for its natural resources. Other times, a nation just gets selfish and wants to expand its territory, so they attack another nation. Sometimes they even try to justify their actions by claiming that the conquered people would be better off with their government, morals, etc. than they would be with the government and morals that they had chosen for themselves. When this happens, the attacking nation is considered the aggressor, and the right thing for the nation being attacked is to fight the aggressor back with all its might, winning a decisive victory by inflicting the greatest possible death and destruction upon the enemy while sustaining the minimal number of casualties.
Sometimes one nation might choose to temporarily become allies with another nation to help it resist an invader. Also, in times of need, one nation might have pity on another nation and choose to help in times of need, such as humanitarian crises. Then, when the crisis is averted, they go back to the way things were before, with each nation again governing itself. And many nations find it mutually advantageous to conduct free trade across international borders, such as when one nation has resources that another lacks.
During World War II, when Germany, Italy, and Japan joined forces to expand their territory toward the goal of ruling the world, thankfully the U.S. and its allies did the right thing to join forces to defeat the aggressors. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, a U.S. ally, the U.S. was perfectly within its rights to assist Kuwait in forcing Hussein’s withdrawal from Kuwait, and restoring freedom for that country. However, when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, justifying it on the basis of suspected WMDs and U.N. resolutions, we were the aggressor, and that was wrong. When we decided to be “nation builders,” and extend our form of government to Iraq and other nations, that was wrong.
So, by definition, what the Bible does not condone is anything resembling a one-world government, like the United Nations. We won’t have a global government until Christ returns.
So where does this leave us today?
– We should withdraw from the Middle East. It’s a place of never-ending warring factions and civil wars among extremist religious sects, and any casualty sustained by the U.S. in a war that we’re not willing to win is a travesty. I remember as a young child studying the Seven Years’ War in history class. I couldn’t imagine a war lasting that long. After all, we were in World War II for only about half that long. Now we’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for over 14 years. We’ve stopped winning wars and turned to “ending” them, only to start another one. We haven’t won a war since World War II. We “ended” the Korean War in a stalemate. President Ford “ended” the Vietnam War after wasting 57,000 lives for political means and we surrendered South Vietnam back to the North Vietnamese Army. We “ended” the war in Iraq and it’s in worse shape than when we got there. And the war in Afghanistan seems never-ending. I’ve got an idea: Let’s win a war–leave it all on the battle field.
– We should put no boots on the ground in Syria. However, it’s already starting–with “advisors,” like in Vietnam and other places. Before you know it, we’ll displace another one million troops and sustain hundreds of thousands of more casualties, most of them less than twenty years old, with sons and daughters, and moms, and dads back home who will wonder what their loved ones suffered for–and we’ll also spend another trillion dollars. Than what happens after that? After having sorted through the Shiites, the Sunnis, and the Shias, and switching enemies between Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS (there are about 200 known terrorist organizations), we’ll find ourselves in yet another war being killed with our own weapons again.
– Since we should not interfere with the affairs of other nations when we’re not wanted, we have no business telling Iran that it can’t have nuclear weapons. If Israel considers this a threat, then they can deal with it, and they’re pretty good at taking care of themselves. Now, if Iran, or any other nation, attacks us, with or without nuclear weapons, that’s when we can wipe them off the face of the earth, but not before.
– Don’t worry about coalitions. If we need to go to war to defend our freedom, then go to war quickly and decisively. If we really have the best military in the world, we can speedily bring about victory, using nuclear weapons if possible.
– Think of it this way: Suppose one nation had a law that everyone had to wear black clothing, and another nation had a law that everyone had to wear white clothing. Would either nation be justified in attacking the other one because they’re wearing the wrong color of clothes? Or suppose, in a more realistic scenario, there was a nation that had laws against killing unborn children. That’s fine. They have their laws, and we have ours. Would the U.S. think that the other nation was justified to invade us to stop abortion?
It’s not my way–it’s God’s way. If you want to call God an isolationist, that’s OK.