The rigid pro-war ideology of the foreign policy community
Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
(updated below - updated again)
Gideon Rose is the Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs, one of the most serious positions in the foreign policy establishment, and on Friday he wrote that "the lefty blogosphere . . . has gotten itself all in a tizzy over the failings of the 'foreign policy community.'" Rose -- citing posts by Matt Yglesias, Atrios and myself -- then proceeded to "respond" largely through classic ad hominem fallacy, with his principal "argument" being that "the charges the bloggers are making now are very similar to those that the neocons made a few years ago" (and thus, presumably, the bloggers' criticisms are therefore wrong).
Rose's post has prompted much additional discussion of the criticisms expressed here and elsewhere of the Foreign Policy Community, and that is, at least in theory, a good thing. It really is striking how little disagreement there is in mainstream political discourse concerning the basic questions governing America's actions in the world (as but one example, compare how obviously consequential is this decision to how little debate and attention it received and how little debate would be permitted over it). Thus, more discussion of these questions -- and the role the Community plays in keeping the debate extremely narrow -- is inherently good.
....
The Foreign Policy Community -- a term which excludes those in primarily academic positions -- is not some apolitical pool of dispassionate experts examining objective evidence and engaging in academic debates. Rather, it is a highly ideological and politicized establishment, and its dominant bipartisan ideology is defined by extreme hawkishness, the casual use of military force as a foreign policy tool, the belief that war is justified not only in self-defense but for any "good result," and most of all, the view that the U.S. is inherently good and therefore ought to rule the world through superior military force.
That is why, contrary to Rose's misleading depiction of "necons v. the Community," neocons not only fit comfortably within the Community, but have come to dominate it. Rose's own Foreign Affairs was a virtual pro-Iraq-war Bible, and continuously publishes tracts by the most extremist neoconservatives, including Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, and all the various Kagans. When Fred Kagan, the the think tank version of Bill Kristol, wanted to unveil his AEI Surge plan in December, he did so at the Brookings Institution, where he was feted beforehand by Ken Pollack and praised afterwards by Michael O'Hanlon, who on that day gave Kagan's Surge his official blessing. Pollack began his reverent introduction of Kagan this way:
We are delighted that Fred Kagan of AEI was willing to come over here today and be the lead speaker in this series . . . It [the Surge Plan] is obviously a very important contribution to the debate because it is the first time that a group of serious people have sat down, worked out a plan by which they believe that both of these things. . . .
(Continued here.)
Salon.com
(updated below - updated again)
Gideon Rose is the Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs, one of the most serious positions in the foreign policy establishment, and on Friday he wrote that "the lefty blogosphere . . . has gotten itself all in a tizzy over the failings of the 'foreign policy community.'" Rose -- citing posts by Matt Yglesias, Atrios and myself -- then proceeded to "respond" largely through classic ad hominem fallacy, with his principal "argument" being that "the charges the bloggers are making now are very similar to those that the neocons made a few years ago" (and thus, presumably, the bloggers' criticisms are therefore wrong).
Rose's post has prompted much additional discussion of the criticisms expressed here and elsewhere of the Foreign Policy Community, and that is, at least in theory, a good thing. It really is striking how little disagreement there is in mainstream political discourse concerning the basic questions governing America's actions in the world (as but one example, compare how obviously consequential is this decision to how little debate and attention it received and how little debate would be permitted over it). Thus, more discussion of these questions -- and the role the Community plays in keeping the debate extremely narrow -- is inherently good.
....
The Foreign Policy Community -- a term which excludes those in primarily academic positions -- is not some apolitical pool of dispassionate experts examining objective evidence and engaging in academic debates. Rather, it is a highly ideological and politicized establishment, and its dominant bipartisan ideology is defined by extreme hawkishness, the casual use of military force as a foreign policy tool, the belief that war is justified not only in self-defense but for any "good result," and most of all, the view that the U.S. is inherently good and therefore ought to rule the world through superior military force.
That is why, contrary to Rose's misleading depiction of "necons v. the Community," neocons not only fit comfortably within the Community, but have come to dominate it. Rose's own Foreign Affairs was a virtual pro-Iraq-war Bible, and continuously publishes tracts by the most extremist neoconservatives, including Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, and all the various Kagans. When Fred Kagan, the the think tank version of Bill Kristol, wanted to unveil his AEI Surge plan in December, he did so at the Brookings Institution, where he was feted beforehand by Ken Pollack and praised afterwards by Michael O'Hanlon, who on that day gave Kagan's Surge his official blessing. Pollack began his reverent introduction of Kagan this way:
We are delighted that Fred Kagan of AEI was willing to come over here today and be the lead speaker in this series . . . It [the Surge Plan] is obviously a very important contribution to the debate because it is the first time that a group of serious people have sat down, worked out a plan by which they believe that both of these things. . . .
(Continued here.)
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