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The Beacon of Liberty, Episode 1: Arthur Vandenberg’s “Speech Heard Round the World”

For the debut episode of our new video series “The Beacon of Liberty: 250 Years of American Foreign Policy,” we highlight a speech that changed the course of U.S. foreign policy: Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s “Speech Heard Round the World." As World War II neared its end, Senator Vandenberg articulated that America needed to assume a global leadership role consistent with the great power it was in order to advance our own enlightened self-interest. In contrast to his approach before World War II, Vandenberg argued we could not afford to retreat again within our borders and hope things worked out. Instead, we had to take an active role shaping the postwar world, in instances “consistent with legitimate American self-interest, with constitutional process and with collateral events which warrant it.” Vandenberg’s pragmatism, grasp of America’s enlightened self-interest, and insistence on forthrightness remain valuable guiding principles for U.S. foreign policy today. In this video, Hendrik Meijer, author of Arthur Vandenberg: The Man in the Middle of the American Century, and The Vandenberg Coalition’s Executive Director Carrie Filipetti discuss the speech and its enduring legacy.

You can watch this and future episodes as a video on YouTube and on our website.

New Vandenberg Coalition Poll: Hopes for 2026, and support for Absolute Resolve

Throughout our polling project, Americans First: Polling the People, we have found that Trump voters have strongly supported the president’s foreign policy achievements throughout 2025. From resolving the crisis at the southern border, to Operation Midnight Hammer, to brokering a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, to imposing additional sanctions on Russia, President Trump’s base has consistently praised his willingness to project American strength abroad and deliver results. And as the recent arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro shows, President Trump appears ready to do more of the same in 2026—and his voters are excited to see it.

For the final installment in our series, The Vandenberg Coalition and GOP polling firm TargetPoint surveyed 1,665 Trump voters from December 30, 2025, through January 2, 2026, about their views on President Trump’s accomplishments in 2025. An additional survey was conducted from January 3, 2026, through January 5, 2026, specifically asking 1,195 Trump voters how they assessed Operation Absolute Resolve and the future of American engagement with Venezuela. You can read about the poll on our website and in our newsletter.

Featured

The Problem With Trump’s Venezuela Plan

TVC Chairman Elliott Abrams | The Free Press | January 11, 2026

Bottom Line: The Trump administration seems blind, thus far, to the need to strengthen the democratic forces in Venezuela. President Trump’s bold and totally successful decision to seize Maduro has opened the door to freedom in Venezuela, but he seems reluctant to walk through it—although María Corina Machado’s visit to Washington in the coming week gives the administration a chance to make up for initial errors.

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Learning From Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s “Prudent Insulationism”

TVC Executive Director Carrie Filipetti & TVC Senior Policy Director Corban Teague | The National Interest | January 11, 2026

Bottom Line: What Vandenberg failed to understand prior to Pearl Harbor was how much modern circumstances had changed what was needed to insulate the United States effectively. Protecting America’s sovereign interests now required maintaining a strategic global presence that created additional layers of insulation between us and our adversaries—layers including American troops deployed abroad, functional security alliances, and productive economic partnerships.Vandenberg’s prudent insulationism was neither a mindless retreat inward nor a license for reckless intervention. Vandenberg recognized the most effective national security strategy is one that finds the “middle ground between those extremists at one end of the line who would cheerfully give America away and those extremists at the other end of the line who would attempt a total isolation which has come to be an impossibility.” Finding that principled, pragmatic “middle ground”—prudent insulationism—remains our task today. And given the existential threats facing our interests and freedoms, it is a task we must get right.

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MAGA Is With Trump on Venezuela

Matthew Continetti | The Wall Street Journal | January 9, 2026

Bottom Line: Maduro’s extraction and arrest prove once again that neither President Trump nor MAGA is isolationist. Seventy-two percent of Trump voters support the president’s actions in Venezuela. Equally important, 70 percent said the United States should help the Venezuelan people and their democratically elected leaders restore democracy. Mr. Trump and his voters want secure borders, tough defenses and deterred enemies. And they are willing to spend money and use power to achieve their goals.

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How Trump Could Help the People of Iran

TVC Governance Board Member Mark Dubowitz & Advisory Board Member Behnam Ben Taleblu | The Atlantic | January 9, 2026

Bottom Line: The overthrow of the Islamic Republic would rank among the most consequential foreign-policy achievements of the 21st century. A free Iran would transform the Middle East, dismantle the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and restore a proud, pro-American nation to its rightful place as a force for stability and prosperity. President Trump has a unique chance to act—but his window of opportunity is closing fast.

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Kyiv’s Citizens Aren’t Going Anywhere

Aidan Stretch | The Free Press | January 11, 2026

Bottom Line: Russian air strikes tend to intensify after productive summits between Ukraine and its foreign partners. With Ukraine-Russia negotiations deadlocked and U.S. sanctions on Russia tightening, Moscow is resorting to blunt warnings. But for the immediate targets of Russia’s attacks—the Ukrainian people—the limits of Moscow’s airborne coercion campaign are clearer. Moscow’s hope is that a cold winter and attacks on civilian centers across the country will gradually wear down the population’s resistance to a bad deal.

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