Twilight Struggles and Benevolent Hegemony
Steven Menashi :: 12/11/2004

Reihan's position here reminds me of Tom West's essay on Strauss and foreign policy. West argues that foreign policy only secures the means, national security, for a government to carry out its "most important task," which is to help its citizens live the good life by promoting self-improvement through domestic policy. So "foreign policy is ministerial to domestic policy, because self-improvement or human excellence is the highest task of politics." In what West calls the "Socratic approach," foreign policy is amoral and moderate "because the needs of the city are limited, given the primacy of its concern for civic virtue and therefore domestic policy."

It's true that a "new 'twilight struggle' against the dark, shadowy forces at work in the world" won't do enough to promote civic virtue. Nationalist self-assertion is a far cry from human excellence. And I suppose that some neoconservatives, like the folks at the newly reestablished Committee on the Present Danger, suggest a foreign policy of twilight struggle. But if you look, say, at President Kennedy's speech about the "long twilight struggle," you'll note that his emphasis is on the limits of American power, our inability to reach a final victory:

In short we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient, that we are only 6 percent of the world's population, that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.

Of course that's still true, but it's not the defining characteristic of the present world order, especially from a neoconservative perspective. That would be American unipolarity. So Kristol and Kagan -- two neocons not in the new CPD -- advance a foreign policy not of "twilight struggle" but of "benevolent hegemony." And it seems to me that this view of foreign policy takes the domestic promotion of civic virtue to be a central concern:

Without a broader, more enlightened understanding of America's interests, conservatism will too easily degenerate into the pinched nationalism of Buchanan's "America First," where the appeal to narrow self-interest masks a deeper form of self-loathing. A true "conservatism of the heart" ought to emphasize both personal and national responsibility, relish the opportunity for national engagement, embrace the possibility of national greatness, and restore a sense of the heroic, which has been sorely lacking in American foreign policy -- and American conservatism in recent years.

They called this a "neo-Reaganite" foreign policy, but it's also neoconservative -- animated by the same concern for reinvigorating American republicanism that marked neoconservatism from the beginning: "Something is missing at conservatism's core," as the op-ed in question puts it. So I don't agree that "the project in question has been sublimated" to new foreign policy concerns. The foreign and domestic policy agendas are intended as parts of the same project: By spreading the democratic faith abroad, we shore up the democratic faith at home.

Whether this will work in the long term remains an open question. And it's fair to say that you do need a domestic agenda, too. The op-ed again:

American nationalism isn't narrow or parochial. It doesn't believe in closing our borders or fearing the global economy. It does believe in resisting group rights and multiculturalism and other tendencies that weaken our attachment to our common principles. It embraces a neo-Reaganite foreign policy of national strength and moral assertiveness abroad. It would use federal power to preserve and enhance our national patrimony -- the parks, buildings, and monuments that are the physical manifestations of our common heritage. And it insists that while government should be limited, it should also be energetic.

There's the neo-Reaganite foreign policy. But what about a new domestic agenda? Well, there's this:

Today this means policies that would bust the great public trusts of our time -- the education, health and Social Security monopolies. It means welfare programs that demand personal responsibility. It means education policies that promote high standards, challenge our best talents and promote scientific and national progress. It means taking seriously questions of public morality, while recognizing the limitations of legal sanctions. For example, in lieu of a consensus to outlaw abortion, it might mean a campaign to reduce the number of abortions year by year, via adoption and in other ways.

That's all good, but it sounds an awful lot like vanilla conservatism, the one with the empty core. As John O'Sullivan noted in a less-than-sympathetic piece about national-greatness conservatism at the time, "Its program is clearest in foreign policy... In domestic policy, the picture is somewhat murkier." But now there's this, too:

Conservatives know that any solution begins with culture. Successful families raise successful people... They raise people instilled with bourgeois values -- industry, responsibility, loyalty and decency. They are more likely to understand that they are responsible for their own choices, not victims of social forces. Most of all, they are more likely to have the sort of soft skills...that are absolutely essential in the marketplace. Progressive conservatives understand that while culture matters most, government can alter culture. It has done it in bad ways, and it can do it in good ways.

So it's about transforming societies abroad as well as at home. Reihan is right that there needs to be a domestic agenda to match the foreign one: "Think of it as giving Edmund Burke’s little platoons the guns and ammo they so richly deserve," as he says. But they're both part of the same project. Why is this called "progressive conservatism"? What ever happened to national greatness?