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Make no mistake—a majority of Republicans in both the Senate and House still retain the same doltish mindset as Boehner. But then again, a majority of Republicans have never been conservative. This is nothing new. What is new is that the minority of Republicans who are beginning to rethink American foreign policy are almost exclusively conservatives. Kucinich bill supporter, Republican Rep. Jeff Flake perhaps had the greatest insight this week: “There’s been disquiet for a long time. Republicans have been too eager to support some military ventures abroad. And this, (getting out of Libya) I think, is perhaps a little more consistent with traditional conservatism.”
Flake is right. Perhaps more than he realizes.
Known as “Mr. Republican,” in the mid-twentieth century, Sen. Robert Taft led the conservative charge against the prevailing Democratic belief that it was America’s mission to “make the world safe for democracy,” as defined by Woodrow Wilson and promoted by Franklin Roosevelt. In 1946, Taft said that the US went to war to “maintain the freedom of our own people… Certainly, we did not go to war to reform the world.” In 1957, author Russell Kirk would write in his “Ten Canons of Conservative Thought:” “In the affairs of nations, the American conservative feels that his country ought to set an example to the world, but ought not to try to remake the world in its image.” Despite neoconservative assertions to the contrary, many historians have noted Ronald Reagan’s distaste for prolonged military conflict and that he had the least interventionist policy of any president in the last 50 years. Wrote Pat Buchanan of his former boss: “Reagan did not harbor some Wilsonian compulsion to remake the world in the image of Vermont.” At the end of his life, National Review founder William F. Buckley called the Iraq War a mistake and suggested that Bush should be impeached. So did Dennis Kucinich.
It is no mistake that many of the GOP’s most conservative members now more closely align themselves with what some might consider liberal antiwar positions, precisely because prudence in foreign affairs has always been the traditionally conservative position. This might become easier to see the more conservatives realize that Bush was this generation’s Wilson and Obama is now the new FDR—promoting big government at home and abroad with utopian rhetoric and reckless abandon.
Concerning foreign policy, traditional conservatives have always been concerned first with America’s interest, caution and restraint, and the rule of law—something Taft and Kirk always knew, Reagan and Buckley were old enough to remember and too many conservatives today have all but forgotten.
This week, more than a few Republicans proved that genuine American conservatism isn’t entirely dead yet—as a Democratic war president unintentionally jogs the Right’s historical memory and helps to revive conservatism’s traditionalist heart.
The traditional conservative foreign policy since the Civil War has been to protect American colonialism from local and/or foreign competition. We attacked the Barbary pirates to protect American shippers. We invaded any number of South American countries to protect United Fruit. We started the Spanish American war to gain secure fueling bases for our commercial fleet. We joined WW1 to gain a say in the post war oil negotiations in the Middle East. We got into WW2 to keep Japan away from the Eastern Oil fields and to keep Germany from ever becoming a real economic competitor. Everything since then has been to control access to oil or to protect the international petroleum business from competition.
This is the conservative foreign policy. It is also the liberal policy.
The traditional conservative foreign policy since the Civil War has been to protect American colonialism from local and/or foreign competition. We attacked the Barbary pirates to protect American shippers. We invaded any number of South American countries to protect United Fruit. We started the Spanish American war to gain secure fueling bases for our commercial fleet. We joined WW1 to gain a say in the post war oil negotiations in the Middle East. We got into WW2 to keep Japan away from the Eastern Oil fields and to keep Germany from ever becoming a real economic competitor. Everything since then has been to control access to oil or to protect the international petroleum business from competition.
This is the conservative foreign policy. It is also the liberal policy.
Wrong. The strongest critics to WWI and WWII were right wing conservatives. The GOP did not turn into the war and oil party until the neocons began to take over after WWII and all the real conservatives got kicked out. Now with the election of Republicans like Paul, Lee, and Amash to congress, the traditional conservatives are finally beginning to crawl back into the GOP. And none to soon, I say.
Well there is still not enough. Kucinich's bill to remove ourselves from Libya immediately did not pass.
The irony here is that the Republicans are now on record for voting NOT to end U.S. military involvement in Libya.
Why?
If the Republicans actually voted for a resolution to end U.S. military involvement and it passed if that military involvement ended and there was a massacare the Republican would be poltically liable. They KNOW this which is why so many voted against the bill.
If the Republicans actually voted for a resolution to end U.S. military involvement and it passed if that military involvement ended and there was a massacre the Republican would be politically liable. They KNOW this which is why so many voted against the bill.
So it's somehow America's and the American people's fault if people over in another country halfway around the world massacre each other? That's some backwards thinking.
I think we are way past a traditional conservative foreign policy. We may be able to move toward a more non-interventionist foreign policy, but the kind of conservative policy espoused by Taft simply isn't realistic today. Do we withdraw all manpower from the military installations located around the world and abandon those installations? If we do so, we have to consider who will take over those installations, and how that impacts ourselves and our allies. Do we withdraw our support from Israel? While Israel has exemplary military and intelligence capabilities, we have been the big stick that gives them the ability to walk softly, to breathe softly, to exist. And many Israelis are also Americans. What about Japan and S Korea? N Korea has a history of aggression. China is as close to a friend that N Korea has. Japan, even post-earthquake and tsunami, is a technological powerhouse that China might one day threaten. Is that a future we can afford to contemplate?
We can move toward a more conservative foreign policy, and frankly, I think the less interference we run with the rest of the world, the fewer mistakes we commit. But the goal should be about balance. We need a thoughtful foreign policy that balances our interests and security against the constantly changing world around us.
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