Summer 2008

Comments

An Exchange: Neocon Nation?

David Rieff, George Packer, Ronald Steel, Robert Kagan

In the spring issue of World Affairs, Robert Kagan tackled head-on the myths and misapprehensions that have become synonymous with “neoconservatism”—and with the war that, according to Kagan, it did not generate. “The first thing that could be said about this neoconservative worldview is that there is nothing very conservative about it. But a more important question is, how “neo” is it? A central contention of those who insist that neoconservatism explains the Iraq War is that the doctrine is not only new but outside the foreign policy traditions that have guided the United States throughout its history . . . The further implication is that once this alien worldview is exorcised, the United States can return to its traditional ways and avoid future Iraqs.” The full version of “Neocon Nation” is available at WorldAffairsJournal.org.

Three of the authors named in Kagan’s essay—David Rieff, George Packer, and Ronald Steel—respond below in short essays of their own. Kagan then replies ...

Full text article

Both Steel and Packer want to pin Kagan down to a single argument: that blame for the Iraq War should not be leveled at the neocons, that it was the nation and its traditions that created the war. They have a point to a limited extent--we should focus our analysis--our critique--on the decisions that led to war, not merely the philosophical musings that exist in most nations about greatness, destiny, etc. However, I think that by hitting Kagan on this point they miss a larger issue that Rieff finds more interesting, that there are existential questions that never get asked by any administration and, it seems, by the people in general about the purpose of the nation. However the way Kagan addresses this sense of mission also has problems. He writes: “I do believe this American sense of mission, it its broadest sense, played a role in the Iraq intervention, as it did in earlier interventions in Kosovo and Haiti, in Panama, and in the first Gulf War. Because Americans perceive themselves as the great defenders of their liberal principles in the world, they tend to see all their actions as fitting broadly within the context of the defense of freedom--whether they do or they don’t.” Okay, but how did the American people play a role in these and other interventions? Certainly not by voting for them. The sense of mission that Kagan correctly characterizes as both noble and self-deluding operates more as an interpretative lens through which Americans see and understand government operations. In short, Americans are loathe to believe that their nation can act thuggishly so they remake wars into crusades and in the process create another point of comparison for another flawed analogy. We see, as Rieff described in his earlier piece, "a theology of American Exceptionalism.” Perhaps America is a god that cannot be allowed to fail.

Posted by Raymond Haberski | July 9, 2008 11:10:55 PM EDT

Why are so many intellectuals eager to explain away America's tendency to proselytize as something "ingrained"? How about this arising from a bona fide and perhaps well founded conviction that the principles of the Founders are roughly right for people in general and that one main question should be how to show this fact to others around the globe? Is it so incredible that individuals have a right to their lives, liberty, etc.? Is that some kind of weird ideology (as Marx argued) or perhaps a truth that, albeit not self-evident (which was said for purposes of making a declaration, not an argument), could be valuable to apply in any human community. No, it doesn't follow from this that American military might ought to be deployed to get the idea around but neither does it follow from denying this latter notion that the ideas themselves are some kind of fantasy.

Posted by Tibor R. Machan | July 12, 2008 9:40:39 PM EDT

Oh boy, a bunch of elderly "thinkers" debating their legacies. I'd rather go to a veterans hospital and listen to real men tell their stories. They'd probably be able do it without ego, too.

Posted by Guy Franklin | July 14, 2008 9:17:07 PM EDT

These are all highly philosophical arguments. But the ideas they represent become vulgar when they finally trickle down out of Academe. The current situation in Georgia has shown me, perusing the right of center websites, That the political transformation of the Republican Party by the Neoconservatives is complete. No where did I find any word of caution about being involved in Eastern Europe, all I have seen is belligerence and the familiar justifications about protecting and spreading democracy. It is very depressing.

Posted by KyleN | August 20, 2008 6:19:09 PM EDT

Machan is, of course, correct to suggest that the principles of the US founders are universally inspirational, throughout history and around the globe. But what the current debate is about is not merely the soundness of those principles but the politicization of them. What do we do with them? What obligations, if any, do these principles place on those nations that champion them? There is a great deal of room for disaster between the promise of these principles and actions taken in their name. What seems to be at stake right now is how best to link the principles to action.

Posted by Raymond Haberski | August 23, 2008 12:01:44 PM EDT

Submit Your Comment