Mike Johnson details conservative vision for U.S. foreign policy

“The Republican Party,” he said, “is not one of nation builders or careless interventionists. We don’t believe we should be the world’s policemen. Nor are we idealists who think we can placate tyrants. We are realists. We don’t seek out a fight. But we know we have to be prepared. We have to be prepared to fight, and if we must fight, we fight with the gloves off.”

Monday’s event comes as European and other foreign leaders descend on Washington this week for the annual summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), whose member nations will be focused on efforts to safeguard the alliance from an increasingly aggressive Russia and further help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion. Russian missiles on Monday struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, killing dozens.

This is also a fraught moment is U.S. politics, as President Biden struggles to contain mounting concerns within the Democratic Party — and among foreign allies — about his physical and cognitive fitness to win a second term in November and lead the country for another four years.

“We’ve got a lot of instability in the Middle East, in Europe and in Asia,” Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow and defense policy expert at the Hudson Institute who moderated Monday’s conversation with Johnson, said ahead of the event. “And so I think there’s a real demand right now [to hear]: Does Speaker Johnson and the Republican Party, from his perspective, have an assessment, a handle, on the threats facing the country, and a way forward?”

There is a desire amid the domestic turmoil, Heinrichs said, to “see a steady hand at the helm” and a clear vision for U.S. foreign policy. “I think that this is one Republican leader who has great influence, and an ability to set a course.”

Johnson’s foreign policy views have been the subject of speculation since he assumed the House speakership in October. The four-term Republican was not widely known and had little formal foreign policy experience before moving into his leadership role.

Johnson has allied himself with Biden’s expected opponent in November, former president Donald Trump, who has contemplated withdrawing the United States from NATO. Johnson also joined Republican hard-liners in opposing aid to Ukraine, a stance he later reversed after delaying for months a House vote on billions of dollars in additional military support for the country.

Johnson, who has spoken about his support for the “peace through strength” foreign policy doctrine espoused by President Ronald Reagan, ultimately sided with Democrats and moderate Republicans to approve Ukraine aid as part of a larger emergency national security spending package. At the time, some characterized the move as an evolution in his thinking.

An aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Johnson’s thinking, said the speaker’s initial resistance to additional Ukraine funding stemmed from a desire to better understand how the Biden administration was conducting oversight of the vast amount of U.S. weaponry being shipped to the war zone. His “views on a ‘peace through strength’ posture were then what they are now,” the aide said.

Johnson’s office said he will host a reception Monday evening for visiting leaders who are attending the NATO summit and will hold separate meetings with several of them over the course of the week, including his Italian counterpart Lorenzo Fontana and, later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.