eiews
Fukuyama’s Second oughts
Francis Fukuyama Since the end of the cold war, no one America at the Crossroads: has made a greater name for himself— Democracy, Power and the save for Huntington himself—in Neo-Conservative Legacy sorting out the confusion than Yale University Press, 2006, Francis Fukuyama. In his famous National Interest essay, “e End of 226 pages. History?” (and in the subsequent book e End of History and the Last Reviewed by Jonah Goldberg Man), Fukuyama offered the first Big Explanation of Everything after hen Samuel P. Huntington, au- the Berlin Wall fell. Breathing new W thor of the famous “clash of life into Hegel—and by extension civilizations” thesis, was accused of Marx—Fukuyama argued that his- being too simplistic, he pled guilty tory is purposive, and that over time as charged. But, he countered, any the world must move in the direction serious attempt to explain complex of modernity and democracy, because phenomena—never mind the grand modernity and democracy are the sweep of world history—would systems best equipped to satisfy the have to be simplistic. “When people diverse longings of mankind. Fuku- think seriously,” he said, “they think yama has deflected some susbsequent abstractly; they conjure up simplified criticism by arguing that he was not pictures of reality called concepts, prescribing a blueprint for hastening theories, models, paradigms. Without the end of history, but rather saying such intellectual constructs, there is, that his thesis was misunderstood William James said, only ‘a bloomin’ by conservative “Leninists” seeking buzzin’ confusion.’” to accelerate history by imposing
• A / • eiews democratic norms on less advanced more than prosperity, and culture by societies. e End of History was about definition involves the bad and the modernization and materialism, he good sides of human nature. “It is insisted, not democracy and idealism. human to hate,” wrote Huntington. “What is initially universal,” he now “For self-definition and motivation, writes, “is not the desire for liberal people need enemies.” democracy but rather the desire to In his new book, America at the live in a modern society, with its Crossroads, Fukuyama now under- technology, high standards of living, takes not an analysis of the world health care, and access to the wider so much as an effort of self-redefi- world.” nition—and indeed, he does so by is is somewhat understandable, finding his own new enemies. is considering how unkind the post- requires some difficult juggling, since 9/11 world has been to his original he does not actually seem to disagree thesis. e rise of Islamism was hardly with them all that much. sudden, but America’s realization of the scope of its challenge was. In e ukuyama argues that neo- End of History, the Islamist threat was F conservatism, the school of at most an opponent to liberalism, thought with which he has been not a competitor, since Islamism, most closely associated, needs to be according to Fukuyama, could not of- saved from “the neocons,” by which fer an ideological challenge to liberal he means the younger generation democracy (an odd dismissal, by the of foreign policy hawks and demo- way, if idealism doesn’t matter). cratic idealists—people like William e September 11, 2001, attacks Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Paul seemed to refute his thesis, however, Wolfowitz—who generally go by and validate Huntington’s. e latter that label, as well as others who get argued that history was far from its called “neocons” whether they like it end, but that global conflicts would or not. According to Fukuyama, these continue so long as the world was neocons internalized the wrong les- divided into greater “civilizations” sons from the cold war and are now such as the West and Islam. After applying them to today’s world, in 9/11, this darker vision seemed to effect becoming right-wing Leninists sort out the new reality better than dedicated to speeding up the wheel did Fukuyama’s faith that all the great of history the way they did in hasten- arguments had been settled. Accord- ing the demise of the Soviet Union. ing to Huntington, culture matters While the original neo-conservatives
• A / • were defined by their skepticism concentrated middle-brow stupidity of utopian projects, he argues, the than virtually any other subject in new generation concluded from the recent memory. And, when served in West’s victory in the cold war that the poisoned chalice of anti-Bush po- sweeping social engineering can in lemic, these already heady brews form fact work. To support his point, he a grog so toxic that even recreational quotes Hoover Institution fellow Ken use usually ends in a kind of drool- Jowitt: “e Bush administration has ing paranoid dementia. Fukuyama concluded that Fukuyama’s historical correctly notes that most everything timetable is too laissez-faire and not written in recent years about neo- nearly attentive enough to the levers conservatism “is factually wrong, ani- of historical change. History, the Bush mated by ill will, and a deliberate dis- administration has concluded, needs tortion of the record of both the Bush deliberate organization, leadership, administration and its supporters.” and direction. In this irony of ironies, e story of the original neo- the Bush administration’s identifica- conservatives started with a handful tion of regime change as critical to of young, mostly Jewish, Trotsky- its anti-terrorist policy and integral ist intellectuals who gathered in to its desire for a democratic capitalist a U-shaped stall called Alcove 1 at world has led to an active ‘Leninist’ New York’s City University in the foreign policy in place of Fukuyama’s 1930s: Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, passive ‘Marxist’ social teleology.” To Seymour Lipset, and a handful of which Fukuyama adds: “I did not like others formed in opposition to the the original version of Leninism and much larger conclave of Moscow- was skeptical when the Bush admin- loyal Stalinists in Alcove 2 (whose istration turned Leninist.” membership included Julius Rosen- In order to make this case, Fuku- berg). e rift between Stalinists and yama rehearses the origins of the Trotskyists intensified until it was neo-conservatives, including their finally punctuated by an ice pick in relationship with the political phi- Trotsky’s skull in 1940. Over time, losopher Leo Strauss. And on this as one could only expect given the score, Fukuyama should be congratu- spectacular moral and economic lated for offering one of the most failure of communism, the ranks of thoughtful treatments of the subject disillusioned intellectuals swelled. In in recent years. Indeed, the twin the 1970s, the combined hangover serums of “Straussianism” and “neo- from the 1960s, the Vietnam war, conservatism” have generated more and the increasing tendency toward
• A / • accommodation and appeasement failing to recognize the limits of po- of the Soviets shook loose even more litical voluntarism.” former liberals and leftists, chief among them Norman Podhoretz n other words, neo-conservatism but also many non-Jewish intellectu- I was never fully an “-ism.” ese als such as William Bennett, Jeane were heterodox intellectuals making Kirkpatrick, Richard John Neuhaus, arguments that often contradicted James Q. Wilson, Glenn Loury, and those of other card-carrying neocons. Michael Novak. Nonetheless, Fukuyama identifies Contrary to those who believe that four basic unifying ideas or principles neo-conservatism is first and fore- fundamental to neo-conservatism: most a foreign policy doctrine best First, the aforementioned folly of summarized as Zionist warmonger- sweeping social engineering; second, ing, most of these intellectuals were the belief that America is a force for more likely to stand opposed to the good in the world, possibly uniquely domestic folly of campus radical- so, and thus American moral instincts ism and Great Society overreach as should not be constantly second- they were to communist aggression. guessed; third, that international Fukuyama rightly identifies this as institutions cannot be reflexively a crucial point. “If there is a single trusted to protect American interests overarching theme to the domestic or substituted for American action; social policy critiques carried out by and fourth, that the internal nature of those who wrote for e Public Inter- regimes has a bearing on their moral est,” he writes, “it is the limits of social stature, which in turn should inform engineering. Ambitious efforts to seek how America treats them. is last social justice, these writers argued, of- point was neo-conservatism’s rejec- ten left societies worse off than before tion of Nixonian realism. because they either required massive In Fukuyama’s telling, neo-con- state intervention that disrupted servatism arose as a cultural reac- organic social relations… or else pro- tion, first against Stalinism and later duced unanticipated consequences.” against domestic radicalism. e an- is, writes Fukuyama, is what linked swer to the question “Who are your the first wave of neo-conservatives to enemies?” in the 1970s was probably the later converts in the 1960s and a far better determinant of whether 1970s: “Both American liberals and you were a neo-conservative than the Soviet communists sought worthy answer to “What do you believe?” ends but undermined themselves by is continued to be the case when
• A / • the second generation of neocons for the most important conflict of emerged—those who had never mi- the previous half-century—the cold grated from Left to Right but had in- war—had been vindicated. And, as stead grown up within the movement. far as they were concerned, they were ey received important staff-level best suited to explain the post-cold- positions in the Reagan administra- war confusion as well. tion and served as some of the most So the great irony is this: In Fuku- effective shock troops for Reagan’s yama’s telling, the new neo-conserva- foreign and domestic policies. tism of Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan ese younger conservatives, emerges as in many respects the oppo- however, fell prey to their own suc- site of the old neo-conservatism of Ir- cess. “During much of the cold war,” ving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Fukuyama writes, “neo-conservatives is younger generation, which never became used to being a small, de- went through a disillusionment-mi- spised minority…. e foreign policy gration cycle from Left to Right, sim- establishment—the people who ran ply never internalized the lessons of the bureaucracies at the State Depart- being deeply wrong about something ment, the intelligence community, truly important. and the Pentagon, as well as the le- In the 1990s e Weekly Standard gions of advisers, think-tank special- embodied the new attitude. Its edito- ists, and academics—was largely dis- rials rattled sabers at China and Iraq. missive of them. Neo-conservatives It aggressively supported military were also used to having the Europe- intervention in the Balkans. And, ans look down on them as moralistic with David Brooks taking the lead, naïfs, reckless cowboys, or worse.” it championed something called “Na- But, he continues, “the sudden col- tional Greatness” conservatism, which lapse of communism vindicated turned the skepticism of the previous many of these ideas and made them generation on its head; the connec- appear mainstream and obvious after tion to foreign policy was made clear 1989. is naturally did a great deal in that the patron saint of National to bolster the self-confidence of those Greatness, according to Brooks, was who had held them, a self-confidence Teddy Roosevelt. As Fukuyama notes, that strongly reinforced the us-versus- “National Greatness inevitably mani- them solidarity that characterizes all fests itself through foreign policy, groups of like-minded people.” since foreign policy is always a public In short, Fukuyama is saying, the matter and involves issues of life and neocons got cocky. eir explanation death.” If the old neo-conservatism
• A / • was defined by skepticism and trepi- of hubris, so were those at National dation, Fukuyama argues, the new Review. While Fukuyama claims to neo-conservatism flirted with hubris be debunking much of the “non- on a grand scale. sense” about neo-conservatism as Whatever its faults—and there are an elite Zionist cowboy cabal, he is many—this explanation provides far to a certain extent reinforcing it by more analytical heft than the run-of- treating neo-conservatives as a more the-mill nonsense we so often hear distinct and unified group than is re- about warmongers and Straussian ally the case. In other words, he is still cultists. Vice President Cheney was saying it was the neocons’ fault—just never a neocon. Nor was Donald not for the wacky and sometimes Rumsfeld, or most of the senior war anti-Semitic reasons we’ve heard planners. But they were most certainly from the paranoid, ignorant, and battle-scarred veterans of the Reagan hysterical. years and subscribers to what Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, has he failures of Fukuyama’s analy- called the “Reagan synthesis.” Rea- T sis, however, extend beyond gan’s success had many fathers and taxonomy. Much has been made of by no stretch of the imagination were Fukuyama’s alleged hypocrisy in at- they all neocons, but with the aid of tacking a school of thought of which a media and academic establishment he was, until recently, an important always eager to discredit traditional adherent. He signed the various let- conservatism, the storyline that the ters and petitions of the Project for humane and intellectual facets of the New American Century. He wrote Reaganism were “neo-conservative” op-eds affirming the “irrefutable stuck. Indeed, prior to 9/11 it was logic” of Bush’s Axis of Evil doctrine standard practice in academic writ- and he supported invading Iraq until ing to label all remotely legitimate very late in the game. Former kindred conservative ideas “neo-conservative” spirits such as Charles Krauthammer rather than simply “conservative,” have accused Fukuyama of being a because the latter had long since been fair-weather supporter of the war who spoiled as a synonym for the racist, only repudiated the effort when -pub sexist, and vaguely fascist. lic opinion turned against it. In this sense, Fukuyama’s criti- On this score, Krauthammer and cism of the neo-conservatives is others have a strong case. But this broader than he allows. If the folks has overshadowed an even more at e Weekly Standard were guilty important point: If Fukuyama’s
• A / • supposedly more authentic neo- programs. More importantly, he conservatism could not spot the folly claims that the war planners’ arro- in the new National Greatness “neo- gance led them to ignore warnings conservatism” until very recently, the about the war’s aftermath. But with differences between the two outlooks the possible exception of General cannot be that significant. Even if Shinseki’s admonition about the need Fukuyama’s criticisms are entirely in for more troops to occupy Iraq, such good faith and his critics are com- warnings were almost nonexistent— pletely wrong, the fact that he walked and were certainly not forthcoming out of the movie just minutes before from Fukuyama. Indeed, as Lowry the credits started to roll—and that and others have argued, the real intel- he does not admit to any kind of real ligence failure wasn’t the much-bal- revolution in his thinking—suggests lyhooed weapons of mass destruction that we are talking differences in foul-up, but the failure of the CIA degree, not in kind. is is reflected and other intelligence agencies to ap- in most of the discussion about his preciate the extent of Iraq’s social de- book, as even supporters of the ad- cay. Critics of the invasion essentially ministration’s policies tend to find his made the same mistake that advocates proposals sensible. “Neither his old of it made in assuming that Iraq was a arguments nor his new ones,” writes functioning nation, and some critics, a sympathetic Paul Berman, “offer after the fact, have gone so far as to much insight into this, the most im- claim that Iraq has been made even portant problem of all—the problem less functional by U.S. intervention. of murderous ideologies and how to e reality was that it was, to use combat them.” Kanan Makiya’s phrase, a Republic Indeed, Fukuyama’s specific criti- of Fear. When the United States cisms suggest that he has come up removed the fear, the whole place with his theory first and then- se imploded. But, again, this does not lected the facts necessary to support mean that what happened was widely it—precisely the criticism he levels at foreseen: e doom-and-gloom fore- the Bush administration. He berates casts from bureaucratic opponents of Vice President Cheney and his clique the war were, in the final analysis, at for ignoring contrary voices. But least as wrong as the “cakewalk” talk Fukuyama himself agreed that those on the other side—for example, what contrary voices were wrong regarding happened to the refugee crisis the in- the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons vasion was supposed to create?
• A / • Fukuyama criticizes the Standard simply hadn’t thought about it very for downplaying the importance of much. As the saying goes, when your civil society and culture to rebuilding only tool is a hammer, all problems Iraq, which is fair to a point. But he look like nails.” also notes that “e Weekly Standard But Fukuyama has this exactly has turned against Donald Rumsfeld backwards. e United States has a and called for his resignation, its chief lot of tools, the military being only criticism of him remains his failure one of many. He claims that America to provide enough troops to secure “has become steadily less generous” Iraq, rather than the multiple other and says that the U.S. ranks 21st out dimensions of nation-building where of 22 leading developed nations in U.S. policy fell short.” But is it really foreign giving. But as John Fonte has true that the Standard’s editors would pointed out, on this count Fukuyama oppose the “multiple other dimen- is simply wrong. e U.S. ranks 11th sions of nation-building” if Iraq were of 22 among leading donor coun- secure? On the contrary: ey call for tries, and government foreign aid has Rumsfeld to be replaced by Senator doubled between 2000 and 2004, John McCain, a bold Rooseveltian increasing as a percentage of gross type who would, in their view, “make national income as well. President the Pentagon a full partner in the Bush committed America to massive building of a stable, self-governing increases in spending on , for Iraq and… re-engage the American example, and has dedicated funds to people in the importance of the a host of soft-power measures. In real- pursuit.” ose who advocate more ity, the nations that have only a single troops do so with the sensible as- tool in their belts are our “allies” in sumption that a pacified Iraq would the “international community.” With allow the conditions in which build- the exception of Great Britain, the ing everything from courts to soccer European nations have virtually no fields becomes possible. ability to project military power Fukuyama writes that the new neo- abroad, and combined with their ten- conservatives learned the wrong les- dency to be seduced and corrupted sons from the cold war and are hence by the talky-talk of the UN and EU determined to use military might in and intimidated by large and restive circumstances ill-suited to force. “No Muslim minorities, it’s no wonder one was opposed in principle to the that every problem they see looks like use of soft power,” he writes, “they a job for diplomacy.
• A / • ukuyama is director of the Inter- in one moment will fail to do so in F national Development Program the next. But Francis Fukuyama, at the Paul H. Nitze School of Ad- the author of e End of History, is vanced International Studies at Johns a man constitutionally determined Hopkins University, and something to find the permanent theory of of an international academic celeb- everything. It seems, however, that rity. Perhaps thanks to this experience America at the Crossroads represents he is better suited to make sensible less a serious theoretical exegesis than suggestions about how to use the a momentary crisis of confidence by levers of diplomacy and aid instead one of the smartest observers around. of the hammer of military might. But It is a snapshot taken at a moment of his calls for a new era of “horizontal maximum neo-conservative despair accountability” and an “agenda of stemming from confusion over the multiple multilateralisms” seem to Iraq war and the nature of the Islam- suggest that he has become deeply en- ist threat. In a Huntington age, he is sconced in the world of transnational unwilling to relinquish the vision of a elites endlessly talking about talking Fukuyama world. As such, this book in places like Davos and Geneva. offers useful insights into the internal Fukuyama is certainly correct contradictions within and among that political and intellectual move- conservative policymakers, but ul- ments cannot be separated from their timately it creates more bloomin’ historical and geographic contexts. buzzin’ confusion than it dispels. Each age makes what it will of the confusion that is the world. And Jonah Goldberg is a Los Angeles Times it should be no surprise that what columnist and editor at large of National seems to explain things pretty well Review Online.
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