BRING ON THE ELECTION :

The Real Foreign Policy Debate : It's not just Democrats versus Republicans. It's Locke versus Hobbes. (John B. Judis, American Prospect)

As had become apparent before 9-11, Bush has abandoned the internationalist perspective that shaped foreign policy in the first Bush and the Clinton administrations. Instead, Bush, influenced by his Pentagon rather than by his more internationalist State Department, has adopted a foreign policy based on a cramped view of American interests and a deeply pessimistic outlook on international relations.

Bush officials like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz envisage an America surrounded by adversaries and potential adversaries who must be deterred by our superior military power. (In 1992, Wolfowitz authored a Pentagon strategy that included Germany and Japan as potential enemies.) Bush officials do not reject coalitions per se, but they do reject any idea of collective security. They have opposed both arms control and environmental agreements. They favor overseas intervention, but only when it is tied to a narrow definition of U.S. national interest. They don't like committing America to "nation-building," whether in the Balkans, Afghanistan, or the West Bank. For them, the September 11 attacks confirmed their views that a Hobbesian state of nature stirs beneath the post-Cold War calm. They see the war on terrorism not as a collective effort to rid the world of al-Qaeda, but as an American effort, aided by other countries, to destroy worldwide enemies.

Most Democrats, whatever their stand on Israel or Iraq, disagree with this approach. Democrats have not merely favored coalitions, they have seen alliances and international treaties as an essential aspect of U.S. foreign policy. Democrats seek collective security in order to create the economic and political stability in which America, as well as other nations, can prosper. They do not see a U.S. military monopoly as a prerequisite for security, but rather as a waste of precious resources -- and an invitation to future conflict. They believe that September 11 demonstrated that such security cannot be achieved unilaterally. But they also see the outbreak of Islamic terrorism as an eruption that -- like that of Nazism -- can be overcome. Theirs is a Lockean view of international relations -- of a world that eventually can be governed by social contracts rather than by the threat of force.

John B. Judis has always been one of the fairest writers on the Left; he's even written a well-balanced biography of William F. Buckley Jr.. But this column represents a truly remarkable achievement. He defends the Democrats' foreign policy and differentiates it from the Republicans, yet with the exception of his dubious assertion that Joe Biden is a serious man, there's not a single word that a conservative need quarrel with here. I believe he's absolutely right about the differences between the parties and I'd be more than happy to see them go to the polls in November espousing these world views.

Mr. Judis apparently believes that the Democrats could make some headway arguing that they are the party that trusts other countries with our security interests and trusts the State Department instead of the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the GOP would proclaim itself the party that puts America first and believes the generals over the diplomats. Who do you think would win?

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2002 8:05 AM