It would be too much to call the neoconservatives a cabal in Washington. They just made more convincing arguments than the realists and the doves at the time of 9/11. Their arguments on military power, American supremacy and the ‘evil’ that exists in the world are so well bought that it takes a bombastic President who makes fatuous comments like Trump to get oxygen into the foreign policy debate.
Almost all of the electorate can see
that the West and in particular America needs to reassess what its priorities
should be. Why is it attempting to build democracies in the Middle East when
its own airports and highways are in disrepair? Whether you’re left or right-leaning,
exporting democracy seems like
a fool’s game now. The Iraq war wasn’t an oil grab or a way to increase
Halliburton’s profit – it was ideological. It was a part of a morally inspired
‘total war’ on the Axis of Evil to show just how benign America’s power really
was. Trump clearly has no time for morally inspired wars.
The neoconservatives would love a new Cold War with Russia. They hate Trump
because he sees no interest in engaging in that – why should American blood be
shed in eastern Europe without trying to make a deal with Putin first? Putin
may not sign the deal or break his promise after, but is it so bad to try
diplomacy first? For the US to survive as the global leader it is going to have
to talk to people it doesn’t like. If Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan can only
prove one thing, it’s that hard military power doesn’t guarantee success or enhance
power and credibility. Putin’s military power is small compared to America’s –
its obvious he sees the American military as a threat. Russia is in a weak
position, its economy
runs poorly, it’s suffering demographically and it has few friends in the
world, and none which are that powerful. It is the
junior partner in the relationship with China. Russia is fond of cyber- and
hybrid-warfare which means that containment can’t be done through sheer hard
military power alone anyway.
Liberalism is in retreat in the West. Its model for economics has badly
affected those people it once tempted to help – the poor and the
disenfranchised. The cosmopolitan culture it fostered has failed too – it’s made
people feel as if they have lost their home. But the idea that Trump will end
the American-led world is an exaggeration. Trump cannot reinvent history – it
may not be the ‘liberal’ world order, but the core elements of it will still be
American-led. Current free trade deals will be reorganized to be fairer. Trump
will keep the hard military power but may use it more wisely. Ironically then,
it might mean that the seemingly thoughtless Trump will make Americans and the
West think longer and harder about the use of military intervention.
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