Since the Democratic Party’s decisive electoral victories in 2006 and 2008, the Tea Party movement has helped to re-energize conservatism.  The movement has focused largely on domestic politics, promoting limited government, fiscal responsibility, and individual liberty.  The reality is, however, that when it comes to foreign policy the conservative movement is being pulled in multiple, and often mutually exclusive, directions.  Some believe that democracy promotion should be the cornerstone of American foreign policy while others do not.  Quite simply, the conservative movement does not have a coherent foreign policy platform.  Going forward, it will be important for conservatives to articulate a clear foreign policy platform.  What is at stake is not the success of the conservative movement or a political party but the future health of the American state—its power, security, and way of life.  This is the first in a series of posts exploring conservatism and U.S. foreign policy.

Today there are at least four discrete foreign policy schools within the conservative movement alone.  These include:  Democratic Globalism (William Kristol and Robert Kagan), Democratic Realism (Charles Krauthammer), Traditional Realism (Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft), and Paleoconservatism (Patrick Buchanan and Ron Paul).  The “answers” to a number of basic policy questions should provide the framework for thinking about American foreign policy :

• Why does the United States engage in foreign affairs?
• What ought to be America’s role in the world?  Should America embrace non-interventionism, interventionism, or something in between?
• How broadly or narrowly should we define the national interest?
• What role should democracy promotion play in American foreign policy?
• Under what circumstances should the United States use military force?

Selecting one foreign policy school to build a conservative platform around would be too rigid and ignorant of the ways in which policy is actually generated.  The best elements of these four schools should guide conservatives as they think about foreign policy.

Paleoconservatives.  Typically, Paleoconservatives view military intervention abroad as costly and unnecessary.  They are generally skeptical of permanent alliances and getting involved in the affairs of other states and they don’t care if Country Blue is a liberal democracy or a dictatorship.  During the 2008 Republican primaries, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) ran on a Paleoconservative platform and found some impressive success.  The message “come home America” resonates with many Americans who view the campaign Iraq as unnecessary and only the latest example of Washington globetrotting.  This school’s manifesto is George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796.  This was the dominant school of American foreign policy throughout the history of the Republic until Woodrow Wilson laid the foundations of liberal internationalism, the dominant school of the Democratic Party.  Paleoconseratives emphasize the importance of the U.S. Constitution in thinking about all matters of public policy, including foreign policy.  This, in my opinion, is their greatest contribution to conservative foreign policy thought.

Traditional Realists.  This group is most closely identified with Henry Kissinger.  Traditional Realists think in terms of power politics, not ideology or normative value systems.  Hence, this school has come to be closely associated with Henry Kissinger who was an advocate of realpolitik during his time as national security adviser and later as secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations.  When crafting policy, democracy doesn’t matter all that much to realists.  They favor pragmatism over ideology.  They view alliances as inherently fragile but nonetheless use them to balance against their competitors.  Kissinger was the architect of détente which some conservatives opposed because it was “immoral” to cooperate with Red China and the Soviet Union.  States, according to realists, are inherently self-interested actors who seek to create security for themselves.  Power—more specifically military power—is the ultimate guarantor of security.  Cooperation is possible but never permanent.

Democratic Globalists and Democratic Realists.  As Charles Krauthammer explained in his 2004 article “In Defense of Democratic Realism,” the neoconservative paradigm offers two different foreign policy schools:  Democratic Globalism and Democratic Realism.  Both the Democratic Globalists and the Democratic Realists believe strongly in the moral element of formulating foreign policy.  They believe that democracy promotion is both a means and an end of American foreign policy–this is an important distinction, as other conservative schools view achieving security as the sole end of American foreign policy.  Democratic Globalists believe democracy promotion should be the focal point of American foreign policy—that the best way to create security for the American state is through democratization.  But Krauthammer, who describes himself as a Democratic Realist, believes this “bear any burden” attitude is overly idealistic.  He provides an axiom for democratic realism:

We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and    treasure only in places where there is strategic necessity–meaning, places       central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom.

Krauthammer’s formulation of Democratic Realism seeks to improve traditional realist theory by acknowledging democracy as an important consideration in formulating American foreign policy.  Krauthammer concludes that Democratic Globalism is overly ambitious.  Both schools, however, assert that democracy is a means and an end.

I do not believe that Republican Party is on the verge of losing its electoral advantage on matters of foreign policy and national security.  But the conservative movement and Republican Party cannot expect this advantage to last into perpetuity without offering new ideas based on Burkean conservatism.  There are some basic elements of conservative thought that should inform our foreign policy such as realism, economy, lessons of history, and, of course, the United States Constitution.  When the conservative movement fails to offer coherent policy alternatives to their liberal counterparts it is the American state that suffers.  Again, this is the first in a series of posts exploring conservatism and foreign policy.