Funmurphys: the Blog

I Think It Needs A Better Name

Hoystory linked to Charles Krauthammer's foreign policy speech to the American Enterprise Institute. I just love the sound of Krauthammer - the th is not pronounced as in "the", but separately. The name sounds like it should have been the soubriquet of a French king (as in Louis the Krauthammer) or even Cardinal Richelieu.

In his speech, Krauthammer breaks foriegn policy into four "schools" - not the same ones as Walter Russell Mead, but more conventional ones. But where some would name Neoconservative, Charles has "Democratic Globalism."

"Yet they are the principal proponents today of what might be called democratic globalism, a foreign policy that defines the national interest not as power but as values, and that identifies one supreme value, what John Kennedy called “the success of liberty.” As President Bush put it in his speech at Whitehall last November: “The United States and Great Britain share a mission in the world beyond the balance of power or the simple pursuit of interest. We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings.”

Beyond power. Beyond interest. Beyond interest defined as power. That is the credo of democratic globalism. Which explains its political appeal: America is a nation uniquely built not on blood, race or consanguinity, but on a proposition--to which its sacred honor has been pledged for two centuries. This American exceptionalism explains why non-Americans find this foreign policy so difficult to credit; why Blair has had more difficulty garnering support for it in his country; and why Europe, in particular, finds this kind of value-driven foreign policy hopelessly and irritatingly moralistic.

Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom. And while it has been attacked as a dreamy, idealistic innovation, its inspiration comes from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Kennedy inaugural of 1961, and Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983. They all sought to recast a struggle for power between two geopolitical titans into a struggle between freedom and unfreedom, and yes, good and evil."

It's left as an excercise for the reader to determine which school Charles le Kraut Martel belongs to, but I'll tell you that according to his formulation, I'll stand up and be counted with the Democratic Globalists. Very good stuff from Mr. Krauthammer.

As long as I'm on foreign policy, it's always struck me that it generally plays a small roll in Presidential elections when it is an area where the President has the most freedom. In domestic matters, Congress (and the courts) can easily stalemate the President's programs, but not so in foreign affairs.