Are Conservative Foreign Policy Minds Closed? Posted by David Shorr

Daniel Drezner wants to know whether the views of our conservative counterparts have ossified in the same way that domestic policy voices on the right have gotten trapped inside their own echo chamber? I'd go along with Drezner's view that the foreign policy wonks haven't shown the same pathology of epistemic closure. But that sets the bar pretty low. While our conservative friends have kept a basic openness to views and issues outside their tribal cosmology, their main arguments have become more rigid, not less so, over the last couple years.

Maybe the chance to gain domestic political advantage exerts an irresistible force. The effect, though, is that center of gravity in the foreign policy debate has not had the kind of corrective pendulum swing you'd expect after the failures of the Bush Administration (a problem I explored in greater depth in a recent article for Center for American Progress). As we've seen in the political realm, the opposition is held to a much lower standard of responsibility for presenting practical alternatives (strkingly low), but today's topic is the policy discourse, not the political one. So while I'm happy acknowledge conservative fellow wonks basic intellectual openness and the occasional glimmers of moderate-ism they've contributed, I don't think they have mainly been partners in a discourse that is moving forward.

What do I mean, more specifically. Gone are the days when America's international political legitimacy was treated as a valid consideration or concern. In the mid- to late-2000s, conservatives publicly admitted that diplomatic status and moral authority were a withering strategic asset of the United States. It is pretty clear from the critique of current policy that these concerns have been forgotten -- even worse, actually, they are once again roundly and widely disdained as catering to others rather than standing up for American interests. That's the only way I can interpret a critique that treats every US move to accomodate others' concerns or put money in the moral authority bank as craven. Prove me wrong. Please. I would love to see multiple examples where conservatives acknowledge any American accountability to the international community (not just closing Guantamo).

The implications for the Iran debate are quite significant. The current approach is based on the premise that a successful diplomatic approach depends on gaining the support of a strong international coalition. Having the pressure come not just from the United States will turn up the heat on Tehran much more than America as a lone voice. The price of building that support is everything we've seen the administration doing, and which the conservatives have been railing against. If they think this is a fool's errand, okay, then just come out and advocate a military attack. Not long ago, the need to engage Iran more intensively in pursuit of a diplomatic solution was a bipartisan consensus. From what conservatives have been saying, I'm not sure that's true today. Diplomatic soluions take time, effort, and sensitivity to other views; if you're resistant to what diplomacy entails, I don't know in what sense you're for diplomacy.

Even more specifically. Take this May 2008 speech on nuclear arms control by then-candidate John McCain, which notably expresses openness to ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Never mind whether McCain would still deliver it, would our friends still write it? If so, that side of them has been pretty quiet. So sure, I'm happy to affirm that our conservative counterparts aren't as rabid and unhinged as others in their movement. But we're sure not having the foreign policy debate I thought we'd be having in 2010.

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In the mid- to late-2000s, conservatives publicly admitted that diplomatic status and moral authority were a withering strategic asset of the United States.

You provide no evidence for this at all. I was alive in the mid-to-late 2000s and I don't remember any such thing. In fact, I remember the Bush democracy discourse which was supported by conservatives. Why is this not asserting "moral authority?"

The difference between conservatives and liberals (or "progressives") is not that the former have closed minds while the latter are open-minded. This is not "analysis." It is agitprop whose purpose is to make "progressives" feel good about themselves while it dehumanizes conservatives. People have open or closed minds no matter what their political ideology.

The difference is that conservatives believe in American exceptionalism and the progressives believe that this is a relic that must be retired in favor of multiculturalism, etc etc.

The most forceful expression of the conservative, American exceptionalism position is by Thomas Jefferson. He said that America was an "empire of liberty." Conservatives believe this. They believe that America a force for good. This is plainly "moral authority." Do you take exception to Jefferson's formulation? Is the US an "empire of liberty" or just an "empire?"

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There may be some misunderstanding here. I can see why my anguish comes across as loose generalization, but I'm writing on the basis of extensive interaction -- in some cases friendship -- with the people we're talking about. In other words, I'm not speaking across a great distance of unfamiliarity. A clue is in the table of contents of my co-edited book that I link to at the end of my post.

I can point to one very prominent and explicit example from the mid-2000s. Robert Kagan published an essay devoted to America's legitimacy problem in Foreign Affairs (2004, I think, possibly 2005). If I took time, I could find a lot of others, but I'm not making this stuff up. I have monitored this discourse full-time as a participant; believe me, it's there. For that matter, the McCain speech to which I link, was not the only time during the campaign that he pointed toward the need for the US to get in better synch with the rest of the world.

For the hard-core neocons like Bolton, Cheney, and Krauthammer, American moral authority is essentially inherent, a birthright. And indeed that's my problem; a presumption of legitimacy is no legitimacy at all. (BTW, I have my own version of exceptionalism that doesn't go over great with the left -- see POTUS speech at UN Gen Assem -- but that's another subject.) The point of what I've been saying is that there used to be much more light of day showing between neocon true believers and the numerous (not-thoroughly-neo)conservatives with whom I have enjoyed dialogue and exchange.

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