Powell's comments were followed by a video touting Biden's friendship with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another heavyweight GOP hawk. Meanwhile, there's a pro-Biden super PAC of George W. Bush administration alumni, and Biden has racked up support from a who's who of neoconservatives (Bill Kristol, Max Boot, David Frum, Jennifer Rubin), as commentators left and right have observed.

These alignments highlight an increasingly undeniable fact of American politics in 2020: The anti-war wing of both major parties is dead. Your presidential choice is between war and war. There's no faction of Republicans or Democrats which combines real power with a durable, principled interest in turning American foreign policy away from global empire.

That's not to say no one in major-party politics diverges from Washington's standard-issue military interventionism. There's Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) challenging Trump administration officials in Senate hearings and seeking to counter Trump's more hawkish influences on the links. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has pushed for the U.S. to exit Yemen's civil war and has slammed the administration's January dalliance with executive warfare against Iran. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tries every year to rein in abuses of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq, and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) has spent decades in lonely opposition to military adventurism. As a Democratic presidential candidate this past year, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was more interested in peace than the party establishment which has now twice rejected him as their standard-bearer.