Don't you break my neoconservatism!

Remove all ads!

Well, that is how a recent article of Francis Fukuyama reads like. Fukuyama reacted in this article to an earlier rant from notorious demagogue (my view ) Charles Krauthammer titled Democratic Realism - An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World.

Fukuyama's rebuttal, titled The Neoconservative Moment, was, unfortunately in excerpt only, published in National Interest and is a harsh critique on Krauthammer.

As early as 1990, Krauthammer began propounding a doctrine of American “unipolarity” in the post-Cold War world as an alternative to the ideas of isolationist, realist, and liberal-internationalist thinkers. Fukuyama contends that he and other conservatives (“neo” and otherwise) around The National Interest tried to build another sort of approach based on the same critiques, but it was Krauthammer’s thinking that prevailed in the upper echelons of the George W. Bush administration.

Fukuyama says that the lack of reality in Krauthammer’s doctrine was evident in a speech he gave this past February championing democratic globalism, which Fuku­yama describes as “a kind of muscular Wilsonianism—minus international institutions.” While defining U.S. interests so narrowly “as to make the neoconservative position indistinguishable from realism,” as advocated by Henry Kissinger and others, Krauthammer’s strategy is “utterly unrealistic in its overestimation of U.S. power and our ability to control events around the world.” (Making “not the slightest nod” to such setbacks as the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, Krauthammer spoke as if the Iraq War were “an unqualified success.”)

In Krauthammer’s view, the United States should commit “blood and treasure” to democratic nation-building only in “places central to the larger war against the existential enemy.” But neither Iraq nor Al Qaeda ever threatened the existence of the United States, says Fukuyama. Strangest of all, he says, is the Krauthammerian “confidence that the United States could transform Iraq into a Western-style democracy, and go on from there to democratize the broader Middle East.” For decades, neoconservatives had warned of “the dangers of ambitious social engineering” at home. What made them think they could avoid those dangers abroad?

Fukuyama also writes that Krauthammer’s ideas about how the United States should deal with the Arab world are colored by the experience of Israel, which is surrounded by “implacable enemies.” But Arabs neither surround the United States nor implacably oppose it (though U.S. policies could solidify widespread hatred of America).

What now? Fukuyama thinks that Wash­ing­ton should continue to promote democracy, particularly in the Middle East, but that it must be more realistic about its ability to succeed at nation-building and needs to create a permanent U.S. organization to carry it out. And if existing international institutions aren’t able to meet today’s global challenges, U.S. leaders, like their post-World War II predecessors, must create new ones to do the job. That, says Fukuyama, should have been the neoconservative agenda from the beginning.

Fukuyama also points out one particular thing about his “democratic globalism” - and that is that when you need cooperation and one side has conditions, you better meet them if you're really out for cooperation. If you say: "My way or the highway!" and trample the interests of your friends you may get a way for the day but if you ask for help tomorrow you get the well deserved "go-screw-yourself" sort of reply.

That is the democracy part in globalism - other nations need to have a say too if you want them to cooperate. Not because of love for democracy but that is the only way it works. The US ain't all that lovely and great that the rest of the world always nods to whatever the US do.
Unlike Krauthammer Fukuyama exactly argues for cooperation, not because he believes in multilateralism as a cure for all ills, but because he understands that globally the US can't go and do alone and because he understands that Krauthammer and his Pentagon friends overestimate US power and don't understand it's limits. Fukuyama also strongly argues against the Krauthammerian view that simply adopts the hardline israeli position on the middle east for the US and he criticises it as damaging, hyperbole and inadequate to the US.

A summary on Fukuyama's article can be found here. To make it short, Fukuyama criticises about everything I loathe about the neocon foreign policy of the recent years It feels good to have such a formidable company.

These articles are a great chance to get first hand insight into the elitist worldview and the discussions in the very heterogenic group generally referred to as the neocons. IMO must reads if one wants to understand the whys of recent and future US foreign policy.

[ August 16, 2004, 09:48: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

And here I was under the impression that Fukuyama was somekind of neo-con guru? Has he re-evaluated his view or is it just me who know next to nothing?

 

He still is a neocon guru, he only argues that the Krauthammerian view on how to implement the neocon ideas is flawed.

The neocons, by no means, are homogenic, not at all. They only share a good deal of ideas and thinking. They become sometimes very heterogenic when it comes to how to do it.

And that is where his critique is: He criticises Krauthammer's neoconservatism, and with that the Bush crew neocons, because they in his view discredit what Fukuyama sees as necessary - neoconservatism in a way of what he dubs "democratic globalism".

Fukuyama still believes in a US mission I bet, and is probably convinced of US superior morality but he sharply dissents with the Krauthammerian disconnect from reality, something Krauthammer shares with Bush.
Fukuyama sees that it is about to bring shame in the movement and to discredit neoconservatism as a whole. To criticise Krauthammer constructively, and Fukuyama goes at great length to stress that, is a small price to re-establish the damaged legitimacy for neoconservatism.

Personally, I tink Fukuyama's view isn't that all new actually, but it is way more realistic and pramatic than Krauthammer's silly "unipolar world" ideas. Very much preferrable IMO and had practical neoconservatism been like Fukuyama sees it, I would have had much less of a problem with Bush's foreign policy. But alas, it wasn't so.

The ironic and amusing part is that the pro-GOP thugs on FOX or wherever else they are blindly pro-war & pro-Bush don't share the neocon school of thought. They are just the street thugs to do the intimidation and slandering.
Dudes like O'Reilly or Limbaugh and other rightwing morons are nothing compared to even a fool like Krauthammer, they are just anti-intellectual and reactioary wimps - violent groupies and claquers to the music someone else plays and writes. But that, however, doesn't affect their zeal.

 

This Krauthammer guy is funny. This first quote I atleast find rather amusing.

So whether or not preemption really is preemption and not plain aggressive war is not really a problem, in principle? Of course it is nice to know whether you are preempting something or if you are attacking but it really is not vital? I atleast would say that for preemption to be a rational policy it is vital that you really are preempting something.

This here is just silly.

So America is above the rest of the world? Morally pure? This is silly both because realpolitik have been the driving principle behind US foreign policy for most of its history and because Krauthammer himself spends most of the essay advocating realpolitik and calling the other ways naive and stupid.

I will now continue reading what he has to say I just found those two paragraphs to be outright stupid.

Finished the article and I find it perplexing that the author has the gall to call anyone a dreamer or naive. The pure realist school have its points, lots of them and I have no problem understanding it or even agreeing with it at times. I am however convinced that it is an outdated school aimed at explaining a world of many entities of roughly equal power competing for the same goals. This is not true in todays world as Krauthammer himself wrote the US stands supreme now, sole wielder of power. Realpolitik is only realistic in a world with a Soviet Union and a USA or the world we had before WW2. Today I see it as obsolete.

To then try to spice it up with moral and ethical rhetorics and re-naming it Democratic Globalism is for me quite frightening. Covering powerpolitics with a moralistic zeal which in my opinion changes realpolitik into fanaticism.

Also it bugs me how people like Krauthammer simplifies the philosophies of international politics and reduces them to three. Thus making it a one or the other choice. True these might be the biggest ones but especially in the world of today there are many other relevant theories. I myself am quite fond of the post-modern school with a dash of liberalism.

[ August 16, 2004, 10:55: Message edited by: joacqin ]