Washington's Bipartisan Consensus Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Foreign Policy, my old traveling partner Jim Arkedis has an interesting article that seeks to dramatize the differences between liberal interventionists and neo-cons. It's a rejoinder to a blog post by Steve Walt who argues that "liberal interventionists are just 'kinder, gentler' neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionists on steroids." 

Arkedis's response is to argue that not only do liberal interventionists have more respect for international institutions (a point that Walt concedes); they are perhaps a tad less reliant on military solutions to serious international problems and also they are "ideological moderates rooted in classically liberal understandings of individual liberty and equality of opportunity -- at home and abroad -- who believe the world's problems should be solved through tough-minded diplomacy and negotiation, whenever possible."

Um, ok . . . but these sort of "our intentions are purer" defenses sound good on paper, but less so when they hit the light of day.

I will certainly grant Jim's point that neo-cons are more inclined to view US military power as a fundamental tool of statecraft (and as Jim rightly points out a Gore Administration would have almost certainly not invaded Iraq in 2003). I agree that liberals are more likely to embrace key elements of soft power and I concur that the reliance on international institutions is a worthwhile distinction (except of course when liberal interventionists ignore international institutions to go to war against Slobodan Milosevic).

These distinctions are important and worthy of note; but they don't tell the entire story.

For example, in the 1990s it wasn't the neo-cons agitating for military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo and shifting our mission in Somalia from humanitarian engagement to armed nation-building - it was liberal interventionists. Instead, neo-cons were pushing for regime change in Iraq (as a way of projecting American power); a goal they achieved in 2003 with almost universal support from liberal interventionists. Quick: how many prominent liberal/progressive foreign policy experts came out publicly against the Iraq war? And I must have missed it when the liberal interventionist wing of the Democratic Party joined me in condemning mission creep in Afghanistan in the summer and fall of 2009.

Jim acknowledges the Iraq "elephant in the room" but argues that liberal interventionists have "learned much in Iraq's wake" - ironic words as we are in the process of militarily intervening at this exact moment in yet another Muslim country. 

So I tend to agree with Jim that liberal interventionists have purer intentions when they advocate the use of force, but so what? In the end, we always seem to find ourselves in the same place, fetishizing the use of force and as Walt puts it believing that "it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world"  and getting "involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect."

Frankly, I think it's because liberal interventionists are more naive than malevolent, but until they stop defining US interests in limitless terms, stop constantly advocating for robust US leadership around the world, stop "supporting a strong military as the bedrock of America's foreign policy" and stop fetishizing the use of force as a crucial element of American power . . . well the distinctions between them and neo-cons won't mean as much as they'd like to think they do. 

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Frankly, I think it's because liberal interventionists are more naive than malevolent, but until they stop defining US interests in limitless terms, stop constantly advocating for robust US leadership around the world, stop "supporting a strong military as the bedrock of America's foreign policy" and stop fetishizing the use of force as a crucial element of American power . . . well the distinctions between them and neo-cons won't mean as much as they'd like to think they do.

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Mr. Arkedis is either being outrageously disingenuous or is in serious denial. He accuses neocons of "overspending" in hard power, yet defense budgets under Obama keep growing at an inordinate pace.

He says that neocons are alone in overestimating the effectiveness of military force and says that progressives view foreign policy as a holistic enterprise, but how is a no-fly zone holistic? The realist argument, clearly made by Prof. Walt, was not that the US should only intervene where there is material gain to be made, but instead that even the best and most altruistic intentions don't change the fact that forceful regime change or other forms of military intervention, unilateral or multilateral, don't work as advertised, and instead can amplify the suffering of those we were meant to be saving and, as an added bonus, have dangerous unintended consequences beyond the borders of the targeted area for intervention. When you act because you feel morally compelled to do so but don't take into account the consequences of your actions, you are still responsible for the damages you do.

For all this talk of smart power, being a beacon of democracy and not compromising your values, Obama has kept Guantanamo up and running, stepped up the use of targeted killings in Afghanistan and Pakistan (so much for due process eh?) and adopted a very interesting double standard in his support of popular uprisings in the Middle East. When standing by your values and not alienating your allies are found to be incompatible goals, such as in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, guess who wins? By the way, R2P up until now is only a convenient label, not a guide to action. Just compare the swift action on Libya and the almost total paralysis on the crisis in the Ivory Coast, not to mention again US allies in the Gulf.

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So I tend to agree with Jim that liberal interventionists have purer intentions when they advocate the use of force, but so what? In the end, we always seem to find ourselves in the same place, fetishizing the use of force and as Walt puts it believing that "it is America's right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world" and getting "involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect."
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Mr. Arkedis says that neocons are alone in overestimating the effectiveness of military force and says that progressives view foreign policy as a holistic enterprise, but how is a no-fly zone holistic? The realist argument, clearly made by Prof. Walt, was not that the US should only intervene where there is material gain to be made, but instead that even the best and most altruistic intentions don't change the fact that forceful regime change or other forms of military intervention, unilateral or multilateral, don't work as advertised, and instead can amplify the suffering of those we were meant to be saving and, as an added bonus, have dangerous unintended consequences beyond the borders of the targeted area for intervention. When you act because you feel morally compelled to do so but don't take into account the consequences of your actions, you are still responsible for the damages you do.

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