Rudy's Foreign Policy

It increasingly looks like the perils of a Rudy Giuliani administration are behind us, but nevertheless The American Conservative's cover story on Giuliani's foreign policy team by Michael Desch is pretty great nonetheless. The part about Steven Peter Rosen and hegemony is especially interesting. Desch quotes Rosen as saying "successful imperial governance must focus on maintaining and increasing, if possible, the initial advantage in the ability to generate military power." But he also has him going further, making an odd connection between hegemonism and his view of human nature, quoting a piece Rosen wrote years back rejecting Bush's call for a "humble" foreign policy:

Humility is always a virtue, but the dominant male atop any social hierarchy, human or otherwise, never managed to rule simply by being nice. Human evolutionary history has produced a species that both creates hierarchies and harbors the desire among subordinates to challenge its dominant member. Those challenges never disappear. The dominant member can never do everything that subordinates desire, and so it is blamed for what it does not do as much as for what it does.

Thus evolution shows that we have to rigorously ignore the views and interests of other countries. I guess. Maybe. Desch also persuasively argues that Charles Hill, often seen as a non-neocon member of the squad, has in fact moved over the years to a position very much in line with the rest of Team Rudy.

Comments

You're reading the AmCon now? You know Steve Sailer is their film critic.

Posted by Fred | January 2, 2008 12:00 PM

Let's see, The American Conservative with a cover story by Glenn Greenwald. Too funny. They really need to change the name to The American "Conservative".

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 12:02 PM

I think that magazine is dying. It has only about 1 page of advertising.

Posted by otto | January 2, 2008 12:26 PM

"It increasingly looks like the perils of a Rudy Giuliani administration are behind us, but nevertheless The American Conservative's cover story on Giuliani's foreign policy team by Michael Desch is pretty great nonetheless."

Giuliani remains at the top of national polls. He is still the post plausible winner of the big, less batty states a few weeks into the primaries. That is of course his strategy. I think it's a reasonable strategy.

Posted by Linus | January 2, 2008 12:32 PM

Rudy & his advisors reveal what is becoming the downfall of the American foreign policy. Its not about safety, its about control. The obsession is with imperium, dominance, and basically "ruling the world."

Leftists will hate my next conclusion: Such aggressive foreign policy is the next logical step for a political class that already controls most of the domestic economy and our personal behavior choices. Power is in itself a primary political motivator and since in the interest of "progress" we have given over power to control America to this political class. No megalomaniac ever stopped and said "That's enough power for me, I'm content" so we can not be surprised when people motivated by power (professional politicians in general) seek to extend this power beyond our borders and into our bedrooms and bank accounts.

Posted by independent | January 2, 2008 12:37 PM

Al:

Well, patterns of ideological history often follow "interesting" trajectories.

Take, for example, Alex Cockburn's outstanding Counterpunch.org website, arguably the most prominent "hard-left" media organ in America, with The Nation being its only serious rival.

Who are among the leading writers there, especially on foreign policy issues? Well, William Lind, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, the Christisons, and several others. Interestingly enough, I recently discovered that these exact same individuals were also among the leading writers for William F. Buckley's National Review during the 1970s and early 1980s, before the neocons took over and purged everyone. And as near as I can tell, few if any of their views have changed dramatically during that period of time.

Conclusion: William F. Buckley and National Review were leading promoters of hard-leftist ideology thorough several decades, and Buckley should be called a "conservative" rather than any sort of real conservative...

Posted by RKU | January 2, 2008 12:39 PM

Such aggressive foreign policy is the next logical step for a political class that already controls most of the domestic economy and our personal behavior choices.

That's why Sweden is invading Latvia.

Posted by otto | January 2, 2008 12:39 PM

Awesome cover art - even the neoconservatives would have to concede that. At first I thought it was disrespectful and made light of fascism. But when you think about it - Think of how many civil libery court cases Rudy lost when he was Mayor and recall most of them were due to his semi-fascistic view of dissent.

If the Jackboot stomps ...

If memory serves, he has the cops go after a political cartoonist (name escapes - maybe Lederman?) who made fun of him (by tacking on a Furher moustach) and he also City Hall park cleared for no good reason. Plus countless more typesof stories - Then Kerik came along and denounced political debate as inherently divisive.

Posted by Comment | January 2, 2008 12:42 PM

Giuliani remains at the top of national polls. He is still the post plausible winner of the big, less batty states a few weeks into the primaries. That is of course his strategy. I think it's a reasonable strategy.

The Corner published a 12/31 Giuliani "strategy memo" that expanded on how they look at things.

I also think it is a reasonable strategy. Because Rudy's not focusing on IA and NH, as the media is, he's lost recent national visibility. But if he still can pull out the big 2/5 primaries, I certainly still see him a viable long term candidate. It will be interesting to find out that strategy works, or whether the IA and NH strategy (which the other candidates are doing) is still the way to go.

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 12:45 PM

Humility is always a virtue, but the dominant male atop any social hierarchy, human or otherwise, never managed to rule simply by being nice. Human evolutionary history has produced a species that both creates hierarchies and harbors the desire among subordinates to challenge its dominant member. Those challenges never disappear. The dominant member can never do everything that subordinates desire, and so it is blamed for what it does not do as much as for what it does.

Why, that's exactly what Jesus said!

Posted by marc h. | January 2, 2008 12:50 PM

Humility is always a virtue, but the dominant male atop any social hierarchy, human or otherwise, never managed to rule simply by being nice....

I don't know if it occurred to Rosen that his passage, excerpted above, can be used to justify any injustice committed by any regime, ever. (For example: the Spanish Inquisition also couldn't hope to "do everything that [its] subordinates desire[d].") It really is an amazingly stupid defense.

I wouldn't worry about the American Conservative going away. I believe that it, like similar magazines both left and right, is funded by deep-pocketed backers and not reliant on ad revenues for its existence.

Posted by James Gary | January 2, 2008 12:50 PM

Humility is always a virtue, but the dominant male atop any social hierarchy, human or otherwise, never managed to rule simply by being nice.

The presupposition here is that the role of the United States is to "rule."

This gets to the problem about conservatism... it never turns out to be about "preserving" and "conserving." It turns out to be about controlling and conforming.

Posted by Tyro | January 2, 2008 12:53 PM

That's why Sweden is invading Latvia.

Nah, they'll get Latvia through Brussels. Give the E.U. a continental army and a few generations to lose touch with their state/national identities and we'll see what happens.

Posted by independent | January 2, 2008 12:55 PM

I wouldn't worry about the American Conservative going away. I believe that it, like similar magazines both left and right, is funded by deep-pocketed backers and not reliant on ad revenues for its existence

Still, you'd think that, given Pat Buchanan's prominent place there, that Pat could have convinced some of his fellow bigots and anti-Semites to take out an ad or two. I mean, are Walt and Mearsheimer so cheap that they couldn't go for a half-page ad?

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 1:07 PM

re Spanish Inquisiion - A few years back a Catholic conseravtive from one of the Think Tanks was making the argument, in passing, that the Inquistion was not so bad , in part, because much of the torture was not really torture, but waterboarding etc - This view of torture - once odd and revisionist - has now become the default point of view for most Republicans - especially Team Rudy. So maybe Team Rudy is objectively palecon now and they don't even realize it.

Posted by Comment | January 2, 2008 1:09 PM

I'm pleased Al is honest enough to acknowledge that, to him, being pro-Constitution necessarily means being non-conservative.

Posted by 23456 | January 2, 2008 1:16 PM

Who said anything about the Constitution, 23456? There isn't anything on this thread about it.

Posted by Al | January 2, 2008 1:51 PM

I'm also pleased America hasn't deteriorated so far that Al feels he can't openly state his hatred for the Constitution.

Posted by 23456 | January 2, 2008 2:05 PM

"Human evolutionary history has produced a species that both creates hierarchies and harbors the desire among subordinates to challenge its dominant member."

Well, he's right about that. It's what I call chimpanzee behavior.

What he's not right about is that it's a good thing and should be encouraged by creating more hierarchies.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:44 AM

Vis-a-vis Counterpunch:

"Who are among the leading writers there, especially on foreign policy issues? Well, William Lind, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, the Christisons, and several others."

You're cherry picking here, at least a little. Most of these people you cite write for all sorts of blogs and sites. Counterpunch publishes them because they cover current FP issues well with a slant considerably less hawkish - or in the case of Lind, perhaps more technocratic (I'm not sure of his politics) - than the current conservative movement journals.

There's also a distinction between "paleo-conservatives" and current "conservatism". I think most of the people you cite would be found among the latter, if not liberals.

The same people you cite also publish on Antiwar.com, which is more "paleoconservative" or "Libertarian" than "conservative."

The point is Counterpunch still publishes plenty of more recognizable "leftists". I don't think anybody would consider Counterpunch to be "conservative".

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:52 AM

Taki is financing The American Conservative, so hopefully it will stay in business in spite of few ads. One should note that it was started explicitly to provide an antiwar, conservative voice in 2002

Richard Steven Hack, according to James Fallows William Lind used to have a poster of Mussolini in his office in Capitol Hill back in the 70s, so I guess that reveals his politics. His "On War" column is excellent though, and I would highly recommended it (located at d-n-i.net).

Posted by Norway | January 3, 2008 7:05 AM

"Who are among the leading writers there, especially on foreign policy issues? Well, William Lind, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, the Christisons, and several others."

You're cherry picking here, at least a little. Most of these people you cite write for all sorts of blogs and sites. Counterpunch publishes them because they cover current FP issues well with a slant considerably less hawkish - or in the case of Lind, perhaps more technocratic (I'm not sure of his politics) - than the current conservative movement journals.

Well, I admit I was being a little facetious...

It's just really funny that something like half of Counterpunch's leading foreign policy writers are people from National Review's stable, who were purged by the neocons for being "ultra-reactionary" or something.

I'm a little friendly with Cockburn, and when I discovered this, suggested that he should regard himself as being Buckley's true heir.

Incidentally, Lind may indeed be technocratic, but he's actually the most "Movement Conservative" of the group, being Director of Paul Weyrich's Center for Social Conservatism or something, Weyrich himself being one of DC's most prominent Christian Right leaders and co-founder of the Heritage Institute.

Posted by RKU | January 3, 2008 7:15 AM

Interesting about Lind. I follow his articles on 4th Gen War, mostly, haven't seen much about his own politics, that's why I termed him more "technocratic" rather than conservative. His articles on war seem to be politically neutral, except to point out how Israel and Bush are mostly idiots for doing what they do in Iraq and Lebanon.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 11:29 PM