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 eptember
11 catapulted foreign policy right to the top of the American political
agenda — and as President Bush has repeatedly made clear, that's
where it will stay for some time to come. The era in which a Patients'
Bill of Rights could be considered Washington's top priority may
finally be over (campaign-finance reform notwithstanding).
For foreign-policy
hawks of all political stripes, our changed priorities offer a vital
opportunity to transform America's approach to the world. Neoconservatives
like Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and others have urged the Bush
administration to develop a "new internationalism," invoking
the spirit of Cold War containment to support an expanded effort
to fight evil abroad. Tough-minded liberals led by Sen. Joe Lieberman
have echoed the call. The time has come, they argue, to cast aside
the sterile realism, narrow isolationism, and starry-eyed multilateralism
that marked the varying approaches to U.S. foreign policy of the
1990s.
Instead, they
propose a bold and vigorous alternative. It centers on American
global leadership and a muscular commitment to promoting our values
abroad. In immediate terms, it calls for nation building in Afghanistan,
spreading democracy in the Middle East, and targeting rogue regimes
such as Iraq. Over the long haul, its aim will be to remove the
threat of hostile tyrannies armed with weapons of mass destruction
and to promote liberty and justice around the world. The task, as
Kristol wrote in the Washington Post, "will not be easy
or painless. But it is worthy of a great nation."
For such a
policy to succeed in the long run, it must command the strong support
of the American people. Early signs are encouraging. The liberation
of Afghanistan has been widely cheered at home, and surveys show
a majority of citizens willing to take on Saddam.
But the neocons
and their allies shouldn't celebrate quite yet. Already, public-opinion
polls show a nation more concerned with the flagging economy than
with the threat from abroad. Far from being the long-desired strategic
shift in America's approach to the world, the recent campaign in
Afghanistan might be nothing more than a quintessentially "Jacksonian"
response to the Sept. 11 attacks. So, though full of fury and quick
to avenge an outrage against the nation's honor, the reaction could
also be quick to subside.
That would
be a shame. There is a need for greater American leadership and
purpose in the world. But public support is an essential requirement
of any long-term shift in foreign policy. The lessons of the 1990s
are only too clear. Time and time again — in Haiti and Somalia,
in the fits-and-starts blocking action in Bosnia, in America's costly
decision to stay out of Rwanda, in ineffective missile strikes against
terrorist training camps, and in the constant fear of casualties
hindering efforts in Kosovo — Clinton administration officials
were paralyzed by the belief that Americans would not tolerate strong
and potentially dangerous action abroad.
The memory
of Sept. 11 will not guide opinion forever. And so the challenge
facing the internationalist hawks is to keep foreign policy at the
front of the public mind. Those hoping to enlarge the scope and
ambition of American involvement in the world must pay critical
attention to public opinion — not merely in the narrow sense
of polls and focus groups, but more deeply, in broader moral and
cultural terms.
The task is
especially important as it concerns future generations of American
voters and leaders, who will be entrusted with sustaining the "new
internationalism" in the years to come. As Harvard historian
Ernest May has argued, appreciating the context in which statesmen
grow up is essential to understanding the decisions they make while
in power. Thus the "lessons of Munich" prompted American
leaders to forge bold policies in the early Cold War, and lingering
memories of Vietnam influenced the Clinton administration's approach
to the world in the 1990s. Those urging a hawkish foreign policy
should pay close attention to the culture in which future leaders
are coming of age.
In post-Cold
War America, that culture has been defined, for the most part, by
peace and prosperity. The demise of the Soviet Union created a world
in which — it was easy enough to imagine — history had
ended and the United States no longer faced serious enemies abroad.
Strong economic growth and ever-increasing globalization also contributed
to the rosy outlook, leading younger Americans to embrace a global,
cosmopolitan outlook. To them, the Great Depression, World War II,
Vietnam, and the imminent threat of nuclear war are mere abstractions,
relics of a distant past. The world as they know it is a kinder,
gentler place. And in that world, America is not always the good
guy.
The nation's
educational system no longer devotes itself to building civic pride
and patriotism. Scant time is spent studying American history (in
a recent survey, only 60 percent of students at top colleges could
name the half-century in which the Civil War was fought), and teaching
is often mired in anti-Americanism. A study by Harvard researcher
Sarah Stotsky, for example, found that basic textbooks used in primary
and secondary schools across the country consistently trumpet what
she calls "victim theory — the belief that all women and
non-Western people have been nothing but victims of Western patriarchy
or cultural imperialism." The result, Stotsky writes, is to
"make white children feel ashamed of their country."
Higher education
is not much better. Conservatives have long decried the postmodernism,
multiculturalism, and moral relativism that haunt the halls of modern
academia. Few students graduate actually quoting Derrida or Foucault,
but they do absorb, if only by osmosis, a basic disdain for age-old
ways of thinking about right and wrong. The result is a pervasive
amorality that avoids making judgments — especially, of course,
with regard to other countries and cultures. As David Brooks documented
last year in an essay for The Atlantic, college students
today have lost the language of sin. "Evil," he observed,
"is seen as something that can be cured with better education,
or therapy, or Prozac." It's certainly not something to be
countered by force.
These attitudes
have serious implications for the future of American foreign policy.
They suggest that a rising generation of American citizens and leaders
will have grown up in a culture of self-satisfaction, irony, and
moral doubt — precisely the wrong qualities needed for exercising
bold leadership abroad. If all values are relative, such citizens
will wonder, then why encourage the spread of democracy, free speech,
or religious freedom abroad? Isn't that just a form of moral or
cultural "imperialism"?
Sustaining
an energized foreign policy will require an American public that
is confident in its ideals and willing to defend them around the
world. It will require a willingness to make sacrifices, even in
human life. Above all, it will require a tragic sense that, as President
Bush declared in his State of the Union address, "evil is real,
and it must be opposed."
For neocons
and their allies, therefore, instilling these values in the culture
at home must go hand in hand with a hawkish strategy abroad. Sept.
11 provided a powerful first push in that direction. The real work
still lies ahead.
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