What Defines A Conservative Foreign Policy?
“Understanding the Hobbesian nature of international relations fundamentally grounds conservative foreign policy in reality.”
That quote is from John Bolton’s op-ed in today’s Washington Times.
Does Bolton’s description accurately characterize George W. Bush’s foreign policy? What about Dick Cheney’s? Hawkish policymakers like Cheney and Bolton certainly emphasize the Hobbesian nature of international relations. Yet there is a strong element of moral relativism in the Hobbesian approach that is at odds with Bush’s democracy-promoting idealism.
In a Hobbesian world, conflict is the inevitable result of clashing interests and aspirations. It has little to do with right and wrong. In contrast, Bush asserted that conflict is the result of evil and aggression.
Bolton writes that
Conservative foreign and national-security policies do not need remaking, rebranding or remessaging. They need not be escorted by prefixes or adjectives, nor do they need “moderating.”
I’m inclined to say that there is no consensus right now on what counts as a conservative foreign policy. And for as long as the economy is issue number one, leading conservatives may not even think much about where conservative foreign policy needs to go in the Age of Obama.
CLARIFICATION: The following sentence appeared at the end of this post when originally published:
“In particular, conservatives reject the idea that America’s actions are the foundation for most international discord, and that it is our deviation from international “norms” that must be ‘corrected’ for the natural state of harmony to return.”
That is a quote from the Bolton op-ed mentioned above, not my own words. Because of a faulty cut-and-paste on my part, it showed up in my post with no indication of where it came from.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
4 Responses to “What Defines A Conservative Foreign Policy?”
A large pile of dead brown bodies and a happy & wealthier Military-Industrial complex.
DA – The paleocons, libertarians of all stripes and realists from Bush 41 will all disagree with what you say. Larison is a good example…
Rudi, could you clarify which part of my post they would disagree with? There are a lot of points there. If the issue was my final sentence, please see correction above.
Sorry about that, I thought you were in the Bolton camp and didn't read the Bolton op-ed. The Cheney-Bolton camp lost power after the first W administration. But the damage from this group will last for years to come.