The Third Way of Neoconservatism: an Analysis of the Political

THE THIRD WAY OF NEOCONSERVATISM: AN ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, STRATEGIC, MORAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS TO NEOCONSERVATISM A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Daniel Dominique Léger ________________________________ Michael Zuckert, Director Department of Political Science Notre Dame, Indiana April 2009 THE THIRD WAY OF NEOCONSERVATISM: AN ANALYSIS OF THE POLITICAL, STRATEGIC, MORAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS TO NEOCONSERVATISM Abstract By Daniel Dominique Léger My thesis examines the public policy debates of the late 1960s to today involving arms control, détente and the War in Iraq in an effort to explain the essential strategic, political, and moral ingredients of a neoconservative foreign policy. In examining these policy debates, the objective of my thesis is not that of an historian but rather that of a political philosopher. I argue that there are two distinct lines of thought running through neoconservatism, the one strategic and the other political and moral. The two lines are married by Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and others into a unified approach to foreign policy. Taken together with a philosophical and epistemological foundation at variance with the orthodoxy of its academic counterparts, neoconservatism is rightly understood to belong alongside modern realism, neorealism and neoliberalism as a distinct tradition in the study of international relations. On matters ranging from the importance of morality in foreign policy to the relevance of common sense as the standard for judging the effectiveness of public policy, the gulf between neoconservatism and the more mainstream traditions is very wide. Neoconservatives are just as comfortable advocating the use of military strength in pursuit of the strategic aims of the United States as they are in writing and speaking in universal terms of right and wrong. They are, as a whole, unashamed of associating moral rightness with the cause of the United States and the West, in either its Cold War ideological battles with communism or, more recently, in its confrontation with radical Islam. They take as their starting point a broad understanding of human behavior and state action and, consequently, they reject the importance that modern realists place on the material interest of states and the structure of the international system as determinants of the behavior of states and statesmen. Neoconservatives find these concepts to be poorly defined and otherwise lacking in appreciation for history or for the every-day passions and motivations of individuals and states. They also find the emphasis that some of the more academic traditions like neorealism place on methodology and a stringent form of propositional logic ill prepared to capture the political and moral issues involved in crafting an effective foreign policy. As a result of these differences, neoconservatives and modern realists find themselves frequently in disagreement about matters of war and peace. The tension between these traditions goes beyond policy and highlights an obvious discomfort within neoconservatism for the more abstract and counterintuitive arguments employed by modern realists in favor of a more intuitive or common sense approach. It also exposes sharp differences in conceptual logic including a disagreement over the very meaning of knowledge and the relevance of common sense to theory making in the social sciences. In bolstering these claims, my thesis draws heavily upon the influence of a small cadre of thinkers on the development of neoconservatism, like the strategic theorist Albert Wohlstetter and the political philosopher Leo Strauss: Wohlstetter was instrumental in helping establish the strategic foundation for neoconservative thinking on US nuclear strategy and détente whereas Strauss provided a philosophical supplement to what was otherwise an intuitive reaction by neoconservatives to what they perceived as the pervasive relativism of Kissinger’s Realpolitik, liberal intellectuals, and the larger foreign policy establishment. CONTENTS Introduction: The Third Way of Neoconservatism ....................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: There Is No Rest: Albert Wohlstetter and the Strategic Basis of Neoconservatism ................................................................................................................................ 34 Chapter 2: Kissinger, Détente and the Moral and Political Ambition of Neoconservatism ... 72 Chapter 3: Strauss, Weber, Morgenthau and Neoconservatism: A Critique of Modern Social and Political Theory ......................................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 4: Kenneth Waltz, Neorealism and the Neopositive Response ................................. 154 Chapter 5: The War Over Iraq: Neoconservatism, Realism and the Matter of Prudence .... 194 References……………………………………………………………………………….261 ii INTRODUCTION THE THIRD WAY OF NEOCONSERVATISM In an article entitled World War IV that appeared in the magazine, Commentary, in 2004 Norman Podhoretz sketches an expansive moral and political rationale for the war on terror. It is a polemic written in the substantive and stylistic fashion of vintage neoconservatism: its aim is purposeful (the title itself points us in its intended direction) and its style is at once grandiloquent and attack-dog like. In it, Podhoretz justifies a robust US foreign policy built on the twin pillars of American exceptionalism and hard core power considerations in an effort to overcome “the many misconceptions, distortions, and outright falsifications”1 by critics, foreign and domestic, of the Bush Docrine. For Podhoretz, the current enemy of the United States is not some generic form of terrorism but rather a “truly malignant force in radical Islamism and (the) states breeding, sheltering, or financing its terrorists armory.” An effective defense against an existential threat of this magnitude cannot be found in the containment logic of the Cold War nor will it be found within the fallback mindset of the “Vietnam syndrome.” What is required in the global fight against radical Islam is a judicious blend of idealism and realism or principal and force. Podhoretz finds this particular blend present within the Bush Doctrine. The Doctrine’s emphasis on “taking the fight to the enemy,” combined with the will to reform and reconstitute failed regimes like Iraq whose instability makes it fertile territory for 1Norman Podhoretz, “World War IV: How it Started, What is Means, and Why We Have to Win,” Commentary, September, 2004, 17. 1 radicalism and virulent anti-Americanism, is what is required in the era of global terrorism.2 Anything less than such a comprehensive approach invites comparison for Podhoretz to the cut and run policies of the Reagan and Clinton Administrations or, worse, the moral defeatism of the Carter and Nixon administrations. A close reader of Podhoretz’s article will find that he advances the perspective that not only is the world a dangerous place, but that the world is a place that can only be made less dangerous if bullies are confronted quickly and decisively; if the role of morality is tethered tightly to the formation of US foreign policy; if the lessons of history regarding appeasement are remembered (e.g. from Reagan’s withdrawal of troops from Lebanon after a terrorist attack on US Marines to the Clinton Administration’s response to terrorist attacks in the 1990s); if the United States has the courage to move forward unilaterally when necessary; and, most importantly, if political conflict is not understood as a consequence of poor communication or ineffective marketing but rather as endemic to the nature of politics itself. This perspective, according to Podhoretz, distances himself from the neoisolationism on the Right and the pacifism on the Left, or, put differently, from those he calls the “unrealistic realists” who believe efforts to democratize Iraq are “utopian” and the “‘advanced’ thinkers” and “‘sophisticated’ commentators” who are outraged by the simplicity of the good vs. evil universe in which the Bush Doctrine operates.3 For the purposes of this study, we are right to ask to what extent does Podhoretz’s perspective capture the general principles of a definable school of thought? To what extent 2Ibid, 28. 3Ibid, 45. 2 does he express the essence of a neoconservative foreign policy? Could it be that Podhoretz’s article is merely a form of polemics, like previous ones authored by himself, Irving Kristol and other founders of neoconservatism over the last three decades? In other words, does Podhoretz’s strategic, moral and political rationale for the war on terror point to a substantive political philosophy or does he simply offer the reader an elegant blend of criticism and rationalization for policies that he happens to, for whatever reason, like or dislike? Thesis Outline: Neoconservatism as a Distinct Approach to International Relations Neoconservatives are just as comfortable advocating the use of military strength in pursuit of the strategic aims of the United States as they are in writing and speaking in universal terms of right and wrong. They are, as a whole, unashamed of associating moral rightness with the cause of the United States and the West, in either its Cold War ideological battles with communism or, more recently, in

Load more