Review Essay
to Anachronism
Trotskyism
The
Revolution
Neoconservative
John B. Judis
Intellectuals
ofNeoconservatism:
by
and
1945-1994.
Foreign Affairs,
eh RM an. New Haven: Yale
john
The Rise
University
Press,
1995, 256 pp. $27.50.
14 years, from the 1973 Jackson-Vanik
until the 1987 Intermediate
amendment
Forces Treaty, a group of
Nuclear
range
For
intellectuals
as neoconservatives
known
dominated,
shaped, and sometimes
wrote
American
foreign policy. They
Wall
Street
The
Journal,
Commentary,
for
and
Interest. They
acted
like
the
Commit
organizations
later The National
through
tee on the Present
Danger
and the Com
mittee for the FreeWorld. They held
in the afl-cio
lead
important positions
in the office of Senator Henry
ership and
M. Jackson,
then the most powerful
on the Senate Armed
Democrat
Services
Committee.
And
during
first
term, they occupied
in the State and Defense
George
Washington
rian John Ehrman
these intellectuals'
has
how
recounted
on
views
foreign pol
were ascen
once
and,
they
icy developed
is
well
His
book
written,
dant, changed.
some of his choices of
and, while
people
are eccentric, many of his comments
are
neoconservatives
about particular
Ehrman's
insightful.
is
skewed.
however,
describes
Ehrman
the fourth
phase
overall
history,
as
neoconservatism
in the development
of
liberal foreign policy. The first was Cold
War liberalism, which he identifies with
Jr.'s The Vital
Schlesinger,
Niebuhr's
Center, Reinhold
essays, and
hawkish
the Truman
administration's
M.
Arthur
nsc
report,
Security Council
in 1950 under the supervision
68, drafted
second was the left
of Paul Nitze. The
National
wing
revisionism
of the 1960s, which
he
Ronald
identifies chiefly with historian William
Appleman Williams and disciples like
Departments.
Richard
Reagan's
influential posts
University
histo
Bar net. The
third was
the
neoliberal synthesis by political scientists
is Senior Editor at The New Republic
B. Judis
John
Illusion: Critics and Champions of theAmerican Century.
and author
of Grand
[123]
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John B. Judis
Stanley Hoffmann
which
Brzezinski,
and interdependence
and Zbigniew
stressed world
liberalism. It
Schlesinger's
sense that the cen
in
the
only
ter of American
politics had shifted
over containment
arose
and polarization.
Neoconservatism
as a reaction
to both
revision
left-wing
and as a reaffirma
ism and neoliberalism
tion of Cold War
liberalism.
neo
The
writes
stood
conservatives,
Ehrman,
to the vital
"continued
adherence
idea of an activist
were
policy." They
who
searched
and found
anticommunist
Cold War
for a Truman
for
center
foreign
liberals
in the 1970s
recalls that of Com
history
in his
Podhoretz
editor Norman
this view
HEATING THE COLD WAR
One must begin by pulling apart the
different strands of Cold War liberalism
had an ulterior
motive.
were
the neoconservatives
Schlesinger,
munists
and Truman
takes
face value. This
version
arguments
of neoconserva
Niebuhr
"soft utopianism"
Schlesinger who
was
to
these
supporters
in 1948,
but they had very different views of the
warned
of liberals
against
like
the
that through a
of ideas, communism
believed
was wary of
foreign policy
a
crusade?
becoming
quasi-religio?s
whether
for freedom or communism.
a
realist
side by portraying
their own
Republican
as the true heir of Truman
doctrine
liber
alism. Ehrman
into one. Niebuhr,
were all anticom
Niebuhr
trying
to the
Democrats
discontented
weaves
and Nitze
long-term
struggle
would
crumble, and a kind of democratic
world government
would
emerge.
of the
economists
Just as conservative
time were trying to portray the Kemp
tax cuts as a
Roth
reprise of the Kennedy
tax cuts, Podhoretz
administration's
and
attract
to the
right.
markedly
Cold War.
Reagan.
But Pod
1980 book, The Present Danger.
horetz and other neoconservatives
who
took
centrist
that Ehrman
Ehrman's
mentary
to
resemblance
was
order
at
a
tive history mistakes
part, and a small
a
part at that, for more complex whole.
Some neoconservatives,
like former
He
national-interest
balance-of-power,
in the same tradition asWalter
Hans Morgenthau,
Lippmann,
F.
Kennan.
George
Although
and
Schlesinger
the struggle
with communism,
it quite
they interpreted
In
Vital
The
Center,
differently.
a view toward the inde
Schlesinger, with
and Nitze
pendent
Marshal
both
embraced
Yugoslavian
communist
Tito,
world
leader
commu
Humphrey
speechwriter Ben Wat
be called unrecon
could
indeed
tenberg,
structed Cold War
liberals. But most
portrayed
even hint
to
beginning
fragment,
at a future Sino-Soviet
in nsc-68,
ing
split;
as a Soviet-led
Nitze portrays communism
followed
monolith.
Hubert
nant
was
different trajectories.
strain of neoconservatism
amixture
of Nitze's
nism
domi
The
in the 1970s
militarism
of the geopolitical
nsc-68
and a kind of inverted
or socialist
internationalism.
less dominant
[124]
strain could be traced back
realism,
but it also bore
FOREIGN
was
Schlesinger
optimistic
about American
prospects of eventually
without
another
toppling communism
world war; Nitze described theUnited
It
Trotskyism
owed little to
Vital Center or
Schlesinger's
to memories
of the Truman
doctrine. A
to Niebuhr's
as
little
AFFAIRS-
as
in "mortal
danger" and "the
a
that
Soviet Union
deepest peril" from
was on the verge (even in
of
becom
1950)
saw the
ing militarily
superior. Schlesinger
in aworldwide
United
States engaged
States
being
Volume74N0.4
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Trotskyism
toAnachronism
influence on neo
important
was the
legacy of Trotksy
ism?a
and
point that other historians
neoconser
have
made
about
journalists
vatism but that eludes Ehrman. Many
of
conservatives
argued that if theUnited States permitted
else, it
anywhere
expansion
that no coali
raise the possibility
to confront
the Kremlin
tion adequate
communist
"would
could be assembled."
s
Schlesinger
other
The
communism;
as a real war. He
political
struggle against
saw the Cold War
Nitze
of neoconservatism,
the founders
includ
ing The Public Interest founder Irving
logic
led to theAlliance for Progress; Nitze s
Kristol
led to American
were
and Albert Wohlstetter,
ney Hook,
of or close to the Trotsky
either members
ist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
in Vietnam
intervention
and to periodic hysteria about missile
and windows
of vulnerability.
different
damentally
ism. nsc-68
also fun
did not envisage
spheres of
of power. It com
the United
Socialist
Party
Trotskyist Max
to a crusade
States
everywhere. Where
led to his own opposi
tion to the Vietnam War
and informed
against
Niebuhr
communism
conservatives
was
and Henry
by Richard Nixon
to achieve d?tente with
the
an
neoconservative
who,
important
along
scholar
V.
Rostow,
Eugene
legal
on the Present
the Committee
founded
or Niebuhr's
Schlesinger's
became
the dominant
servatism.
one faction under James
split, with
Burnham
and Max
Schachtman
declaring
ment
that
in neocon
itself opposed
equally
and Soviet communism.
(salt
ii), the
Treaty
as a real war,
of the Cold War
that the United
of being
States was
or had
already
bypassed by the Soviet Union
which
might,
neoconservatives
tion" ofWestern
would
called
the Nazi
aged
American
While
inmilitary
lead to what
the
the "Finlandiza
Nazism
the
became
and
a new
part of
class.
Burnham broke with the left and
an editor
Schachtman
The
as
envis
bureaucrats
and Soviet
managers
Bruno
atNational
Review,
remained.
neoconservatives
who went
through theTrotskyist and socialist
Europe.
FOREIGN
Under
of an Italian Trotskyist,
Burnham
and Schachtman
Rizzi,
on
been
to German
influence
Limitation
the verge
In 1939, as a result of the
move
pact, the Trotskyist
Nazi-Soviet
than
in the rejec
and the second Strategic
conception
the claim
concept of interna
believed
that Stalin,
Trotskyists
to build socialism
in one country
nationalists.
It could be seen
tion of d?tente
Arms
outlook
strain
and younger neo
from their socialist
were rabid
the Trotskyists
communism,
internationalists
rather than realists and
Like other neoconservatives,
he
Danger.
was a harsh critic of
and
Carter
Jimmy
in
1980, later joining
supported Reagan
his rather
still a
in trying
rather than through world
had
revolution,
state instead
created a degenerate workers'
of a genuine dictatorship
of the prole
of international
tariat. In the framework
with
It was
absorbed
former
was
Schachtman
an idealistic
past
tionalism.
Kissinger
in nsc-68
outlook
Soviet Union,
Nitze's
to
neoconservative
underlay
opposition
was
In
the 1970s, Nitze
himself
d?tente.
his administration.
Sid
Glazer,
at a time when
commanding
figure.
What
both the older
s realism
the attempt
Nathan
neoconservatives,
including
Younger
and
Penn Kemble,
Joshua Muravchik,
came
Carl Gershman,
through the
s real
from Niebuhr
or a balance
influence
mitted
was
in nsc-68
vision
Nitze's
gaps
and coeditor
AFFAIRS
July/August199s
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
[125]
John B. Judis
came to see
as a United
States will have to choose
foreign policy
was
the
of
which
first
between
the surrender of vital interests
crusade,
goal
global
then social democracy,
and
and nuclear holocaust."
socialism,
never
democratic
finally
capitalism. They
THE KILLING OF DETENTE
saw
terms of national
foreign policy in
movements
or balance
interest
of power. Neoconser
a kind of inverted
Trotskyism,
to
in
sought
"export democracy,"
vatism was
which
Muravchik's
in the same way
words,
that
Trotsky
exporting
originally
envisaged
on the left
It saw its adversaries
socialism.
as members
representatives
new class.
sector-based
The
of a public
or
neoconservatives
conception
work from
to American
vatism
also got their
and political
their
past. They
did
policy? In
a corrective
clearly
the Soviet Union
the early 1970s,
to the illusions about
and Third World
new
of neoconser
foreign
itwas
revolution that the
left had promulgated
and that some
a
had accepted.
former
(As
liberals
member
of intellectual
socialist
is the contribution
What
for aDemocratic
of Students
attest to this
I can personally
neoconservative
point.)
foreign pol
on illusions of its own?about
rested
icy
Society,
But
not draw the kind of rigid distinction
the imminent
that many
theory and practice
academics
and politicians
do. Instead
dow of vulnerability thatwould open if
between
saw
they
combat
as a form of
theory
political
as an endeavor
and politics
that
should be informed by theory.They saw
as a cadre
themselves
in a cause
rather
than as strictly independent
intellectuals.
were
as a
to use
And
they
willing
theory
weapon.
the legacy
Together,
contributed
Trotskyism
of nsc-68
to a kind
and
of
reit
thinking. The constant
apocalyptic
eration and exaggeration
of the Soviet
to dramatize
threat was meant
and win
but
it also reflected
the dooms
that charac
mentality
day revolutionary
terized the old left. Even
the sober his
torian Walter
in 1974
Laqueur
predicted
the imminence
of a "major international
such as the world
upheaval
rienced
since World
Eugene
Rostow
War
(who was
has not expe
II." In 1979
named
after
socialist Eugene Debs) predicted that if
11were
salt
"We will
be taking
ratified,
step toward peace but a leap
a
toward the day when
of the
president
not
a
[l2?]
threat
and the win
States did not rapidly accel
its strategic weapons
development.
Neoconservatives
may also have played
role in postponing
rather than accelerat
the United
erate
ing the end of the Cold War, which
not
to be confused
Soviet Union
with
a
is
the end of the
itself.
In
partisan
converts,
Soviet
FOREIGN
the neoconservatives
of
describing
the 1970s, Ehrman
focuses on their oppo
sition to Senator George McGovern
and
but
ignores their opposi
was
as im
which
just
Kissinger,
as
a
to
their
portant
development
faction
and their impact on
political
American
foreign policy. Neoconserva
Carter
largely
tion to
tives scored
their first
important
triumph
and Kissinger's
real
challenging
was
ism. The Nixon-Kissinger
strategy
the Soviet Union
aimed at drawing
into a
Nixon
new
"structure
of peace" through the bal
and exchang
China
ance of power with
ing trade for diplomatic and military
cooperation.
conservatives
In 1973 Jackson and the neo
who worked with him, in
cludingWohlstetter
prot?g? Richard
AFFAIRS-Volume74N0.4
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toAnachronism
Trotskyism
Perle, began
concessions
a
to link trade
campaign
to
to the Soviet Union
and Soviet
and
of Trotsky
were
nsc-68,
prone to exag
they
saw the
the
dangers. They
gerating
of
Soviet buildup not as an expression
the Soviet military's
insatiable
appetite
Mideast,
Nitze's
on Jewish
explicit
Jackson, Perle, and other
emigration.
were concerned
about
neoconservatives
concessions
Soviet
but they were equally,
Jewish emigration,
not
to derail d?tente,
if
more, determined
was based on a false
which
they thought
the
and the Soviet
of
world
picture
for state funds, but as the quest for a
over the United
first-strike
superiority
States.
They
of American
realism
They
rejected Kissinger's
had
in the same spirit that Trotskyists
In
earlier rejected Stalin's nationalism.
Union.
the Soviet
their own,
The Soviets then balked at complying
neoconserva
in U.S.-Soviet
proof of their theories.
was a
self-fulfilling
After
that
it then
psychol
could have
put to rest
1985 summit
a decid
had
foreign
policy.
the neoconservatives
These
in
AFFAIRS
and the ini
accession
of serious
between
negotiations
the United States and the Soviet Union,
notes,
warning of the Soviet military buildup
FOREIGN
war
finally
conciliatory
Gorbachev's
tiation
to uncover
to.
and respond
the
Carter
administration,
During
were on firm
neoconservatives
ground
crip
THE FALL OF NEOCONSERVATISM
that the neoconserva
relations
dangerous
1980s, which
in all, the neoconservatives
effect on U.S.
edly mixed
prophecy. It helped precipitate the crisis
claimed
to a
by Reagan's
military buildup and expansion of its
later used
economy?
to the
things,
with Mikhail Gorbachev atGeneva. All
encour
the neoconservatives
d?tente,
to undertake
the
Union
Soviet
the
aged
tives
other
among
ogy in the early
led to disaster but was
But?Watergate
Neoconservatism
to the
but also contributed
contributed
aside?I would argue that by killing
as
of the
the decline
pling deficits of the 1980s.And they
and
for Nixon,
Kissinger,
impossible
Ford to carry out their end of a
Gerald
overseas
and at least partly unnec
arms
buildup, which
of the American
leading,
the
for its imperial aims. And
have
it
made
scandal
may
Watergate
influence
Patrick
administration's
essary American
may have accelerated
decline
as a
cover
strategy.
after one of
inept foreign policy. They laid the basis
for the massive
Soviet Union
In retrospect,
of course,
tives could argue that the Soviet Union
d?tente
the Carter
undercut
with
the Soviet
seek agreements
on
mutual
Union
based
interest, but it
could not pursue a general
strategy aimed
at
War.
the
Cold
ending
could
simply
even
economy,
Senator Daniel
Soviet behemoth, they did not simply
its terms, and d?tente,
from that
was dead. The United
States
moment,
d?tente
of Soviet
of its
had begun warning
Moynihan,
In making
their case for a
deterioration.
with
used
the importance
heavy landmissiles. And they ignored
the Soviets offered private con
but
cessions,
Jackson and the neoconser
vatives insisted on passing Jackson-Vanik.
have
the importance
and
superiority
downplayed
submarine
overplayed
response,
would
and the
into Africa
expansion
but as heirs
"a period
events
worldview
evolent
entered, Ehrman
confusion."
of increased
undermined
that assumed
Soviet Union
a
political
a "stable mal
that was
July/August199s
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
immune
[127]
John B. Judis
from
rise of the neoconservative
drastic
the result
describes
change." Ehrman
as a shift away from Commen
tary toward Owen
Interest and from
Harries'
Did
The National
of
generation
one led
to a younger
be an important
tive movement."
is a plausible way to understand
but
the last decade of neoconservatism,
not the most
I would
draw a
revealing.
between
the dominant
ugees
realist
strain
venerable
ideal
balance
military
for arguing
more
remembered
were
But
dictatorships.
the Soviet
conservatism?replacing
threat with
that of Iraq-style
"aggressive
seem to
nationalisms"?but
they also
have gravitated
she also
promise
transformation?whether
or Chile.
Nicaragua
This
redefining
post-Cold
in
latter point was
realism
that
it represented
and several other neoconser
Kirkpatrick,
them to appreciate
that
vatives,
allowing
a
new
was
that
and
Cold
War
the
ending
was necessary.
(Ehrman's
foreign policy
on this
in his
is
clear
confusion
point
on National
Interest co-editor
emphasis
is an important
for
Tucker, who
a realist who,
but
thinker
eign policy
cover story in
except for one notable
was never
to the
important
Commentary,
Robert
FOREIGN
a new
realism.
neoconservatism
War
period.
for the
Joshua
Muravchik and BenWattenberg have
argued that even with the Cold War over,
asserted itself in the thinking of Kristol,
[l28]
toward
Scattered individuals still see themselves
ignored in the formulation of policy and
in public debate. But by the mid-1980s,
the latent
ini
like Krauthammer
tially seemed engaged in updating neo
of an imminent
democratic
to a liberal or
alter
left-wing
to an idealism
that has no par
neoconservatives
made theNiebuhrian point thatAmeri
can foreign policy should not be based on
the difficult
as
ticular political label. Some younger
communist
in that essay,
and conservatism
of national
interest,
concepts
as well
of power, and economic
no
advantage. They
longer
opposition
native, but
that capitalist
to evolve
likely
than were
into democracies
liberalism
define their foreign policy primarily in
that ap
peared, but did not necessarily predomi
nate, in essays by Kristol and Jeane
Kirkpatrick. In "Dictatorship and Dou
ble Standards," which appeared in Com
mentary in January 1979,Kirkpatrick is
autocracies
from
who think that post-Cold War American
foreign policy has to be grounded in the
istic strain of neoconservatism,
expressed
in
and
the
Podhoretz
Rostow
1970s,
by
and a less visible
so. It is
realists. They
have become
Luttwak,
have allied themselves
with other ref
This
distinction
think
to say that many neocon
among others Kirkpatrick,
Chalmers Johnson, and Edward N.
of the conserva
part
I don't
movement.)
create a new
accurate
servatives,
"will
by Charles Krauthammer, which
and Harries
neoconservatism?
more
the older
neoconservatives
Kristol
AFFAIRS
the United
States
should
continue
sade for global democracy?what
a new "manifest
tenberg calls
a cru
Wat
destiny."
are
to the
largely irrelevant
pol
they
debate.
As
the
American
icy
public's
to Bosnia
reaction
Ameri
demonstrated,
But
over
taste for
intervening
seas when
not see a direct threat
they do
to their national
interest. Some neocon
cans have
little
servatives
have
also continued
to press
Frank
for
parts of the old agenda.
Jr., a former Defense
Depart
Gaffhey,
a minia
ment
aide to Perle, has founded
other
ture think tank, the Center for Security
Volume74N0.4
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
toAnachronism
Trotskyism
from defense
Policy, where, with funding
he has argued strenuously
for
contractors,
a
line
defense
and
hard
greater
spending
the
former
Soviet Union.
against
Gaffhey
FOREIGN
AFFAIRS
to in
actually got House
Republicans
clude increased funding for the strategic
in the "Contract With
initiative
defense
America," but they killed it once they had
to
its importance
weigh
against
the threat
of growing deficits.
None
of these
or not
whether
as such,
neoconservatives,
they still identify
them
continue
cadre.
on the Present
Committee
the Committee
Gaffhey
the 1990s
are
in
Chomsky
anachronisms
of
in the same way that Noam
and Richard
Barnet became
a decade
John Ehrman
neoconservatism
with
poli
and
Wattenberg,
anachronisms
political
the names
wants
before.
to maintain
is still thriving,
and publications
that
changed.
but it
done
better
in order
to frame his book
not as a
study of the rise of neoconservatism,
of its rise and inevitable fall.?
but
relations.
national
debates
to-head
and the
AFFAIRS
of For
issues
volume,
of inter
and head
Essays
between
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