The Bush Second-Term Agenda: Reconstruction of the International Order
If there’s one area where the Bush crowd has made no secret of their intentions, it’s in international affairs, where pre-emption, disregard for international organizations and alliances, and aggressive unilateralism have been the order of the day. Despite protests that this course was forced upon them by the “new post-9/11 world,” it’s clear that no one on the Bush foreign policy team, with the sad exception of Colin Powell, has ever had much affinity for internationalism or diplomacy. This is one significant place where “Movement Conservatives” differ from traditional Republicans, up to and including George H. W. Bush, who were able to accomplish a great deal through alliances and international coalitions. Should Bush be returned to office, we are likely to see accelerated efforts to unwind the existing framework of treaties and alliances and policies aimed at significantly discrediting the entire enterprise of internationalism.
The reasons why this is such a priority for MCs are numerous and fairly complex. First and most obviously, international agreements can bind the United States into a framework that constrains its ability to act in its opportunistic self-interest. Even when the United States decides to act alone, the very existence of a set of international norms and standards can serve as a way for weaker actors to question the legitimacy of American actions and challenge American prestige. As I’ve argued in previous posts, I believe that Movement Conservative ideology can best be boiled down to “might makes right.” The idea of any system that sets itself up as an arbiter of the will of US leadership – and specifically Bush’s leadership – cannot be tolerated as a matter of fundamental principle.
Second, internationalism has traditionally been a progressive ideal, and is always in historical opposition to conservative nationalism. Nationalism and patriotism serve an important role in rightist appeals to popular sentiment. External threats – real and imagined – stir aggression, fear and hostility, and distract the public from the activities of the domestic right-wing party as it dismantles government safeguards for the population and redistributes national wealth to its allies and backers.
Regrettably, internationalism itself carries some baggage from left-wing ideologies, and is often more compelling in theory than in practice. There’s a certain sentimental appeal to the concept of “world government,” but there are also practical problems too numerous to mention. So long as international organizations constrain their activities to the accomplishment of specific objectives in specific policy areas – e.g., trade, agricultural development, public health, propagation of standards, etc. – they can be both legitimate and effective. Security is more problematic. Experience shows that security issues are best handled by regional coalitions and treaty groups such as NATO, ANZAC, the British Commonwealth, and others, rather than by a plenary organization like the United Nations. Conservatives are absolutely correct when they point out that the legitimate interests of the United States and the world’s other democracies cannot be served by a body the majority of whose constituents are undemocratic.
There are two ways to approach this problem: try to improve international organizations, or reject them entirely. For fifty years, America has been united across party lines in an effort to do the former. We have recognized that our leadership and resources can be decisive in strengthening and legitimating international cooperation on a variety of fronts, laying the foundations for stronger formal institutions that can be effective in practice as well as in theory in serving our largest interests: security and global economic liberalization. If Movement Conservatives are triumphant, they have signaled that they will, for their own reasons, do the latter.
Perhaps the most significant difference between Movement Conservatism and traditional Republican conservatism is the degree to which ideological commitment guides policy in international relations. Traditional Republicans and centrist Democrats recognize that alliances are built on two bases: shared values and shared interests. Interest-based alliances are more instrumental; values-based alliances are more durable. Depending on your outlook, you will give more weight to one over the other. What’s important is to keep them in balance. If you unduly emphasize differences in values to the point where you fail to acknowledge commonalities of interest, you are prone to miss opportunities to accomplish your objectives. Worse, however, is to allow temporary disagreements based on conflicts of interest to erode long-standing relationships based on fundamentally-shared values.
In all cases, the goal of diplomacy is to get other actors to support your position – it’s never to gratuitously subordinate yourself to a set of restrictions. The way to do that is to frame issues in such a way that prospective allies can see the benefits of participation. This is much easier with countries that generally share values such as democracy and economic liberalism, so long as they believe you are acting in good faith. One way to show faith is to offer reciprocity: to make it clear that you are guided by principle rather than opportunism, and would do the same for the other country if the situations were reversed. This leads to formal commitments. Their purpose is to build trust, especially when there is a discrepancy in the power relationships between the partners. Less powerful partners are reassured that the more powerful actor is prepared to “play by the rules” and is not simply trying to roll over everyone. It makes sense: you are more likely to play if the game isn’t rigged.
For fifty years, America has calculated that the benefits of building a community of common values with Europe and other key allies was worth the costs of voluntarily committing to institutional frameworks that may slightly constrain its ability to act unilaterally. The MCs, with their high sensitivity to anything that constrains complete freedom of action by the divinely-inspired leadership of the United States, combined with their reflexive hostility to progressive internationalism, come to a different conclusion.
The benefit of this decision is that it saves them the hard work of articulating a consistent, principled and factually-legitimate American position, framing it in such a way as to drive international consensus, and, perhaps most importantly, having to compromise on points of interest (such as contracts and concessions) to recruit international allies for American-sponsored projects. The cost is that America has lost, perhaps permanently, the presumption of good faith resulting from fifty years of consistent, bi-partisan effort toward the creation and support of international institutions, with all the attendant benefits that strong international organizations could bring to the world.
2:00:52 PM 
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