American Arguments Opposing the Libyan Intervention: Observations and
Implications
Abstract
Using as initial data submissions to electronic fora that opposed the US intervention in
Libya, this essay suggests that American understandings of foreign policy that are resistant to an
activist foreign policy agenda are more diverse and nuanced than are generally depicted. Failing
to grasp such diversity, I argue, may lead to a misunderstanding of the American public’s views
in the post-Cold War era. Scholars should examine closely the foreign policy arguments that the
public invokes, paying particular attention to the differences and variety among those arguments
and use such examinations to inform surveys and other studies of foreign policy opinion.
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Introduction
On March 16, 2011, after several weeks of discussion and the passage of UN resolutions
supporting international action, the US government announced that it would participate in a
multi-lateral military intervention in the ongoing crisis in Libya, where insurgents sought to
overthrow the government of Muammar Gaddafi. The debate in the US leading up to and in
response to this decision was surprisingly lively given Gaddafi’s general unpopularity in the US.
What might we learn from the arguments members of the American public utilized to oppose
that intervention? Based on a sample of those arguments, I argue that we uncover something
quite valuable—the complexity, variety and nuances of arguments the public uses to oppose
foreign ventures. Building on that initial argument, this essay further suggests that the most
popular academic understandings of foreign policy opinion, which tend to depict public opinions
in general, and “isolationist” arguments in particular, as exhaustively falling into a few broad
categories, may mask important differences in the ways the American public understands and
assesses foreign policy. I conclude by recommending that we push past those depictions by
further exploring the types of differences found here.
The Scholarship on the Public’s Foreign Policy Views
The predominant way of understanding opposition to foreign policy projects among the
American public is to locate that position structurally within a larger framework of foreign policy
views. At least since the end of the 1970s, most scholars have rejected the Lippmann, Almond
and Kennan contention that the general public’s views on foreign policy are incoherent, volatile
and amorphous in favor of a systematic conception.1 While differences among scholars exist
regarding the role elites play in leading public opinion on foreign affairs2 and on whether foreign
policy views have vertical coherence or horizontal connections with domestic policy
2
understandings,3 the generally accepted understanding is that the public’s views on foreign
policy are strongly patterned. Patterns are said to go beyond those created by partisan loyalties.4
An underlying system or logic that connects different positions and understandings, researchers
claim, allows us to group various arguments or views into amalgamated categories. The system
or logic that is said to underpin these categories varies among scholars.5 The results of many
these analyses are, however, similar in that they are reported by reference to an underlying
binary structure. That is, scholars analyze foreign policy views into a few sets of starkly
opposing propositions regarding ways of engaging with the world. The key to this type of
analysis is the identification of the most salient and decisive binaries, then their deployment as
the foundation for categorization or spatial location of positions or views.
While some recent studies attempt to complicate the structure in which foreign policy
views have historically been located,6 the influence of reductive models, particularly the model
established by Wittkopf, Holsti and Rosenau that is based on the attitudes towards Militant
Internationalism and Cooperative Internationalism is still strong. In that model, arguments that
resist activist policies are described negatively and structurally as opposition to Militant
Internationalism, opposition to Cooperative Internationalism, or opposition to both. Others
studies follow suit by referring to the ongoing determinative roles played by such binaries as
activism/isolationism, unilateral/multilateral and realism/liberal internationalism. At their most
reductive, such studies reference as few as two basic positions.7 Studies that specifically examine
arguments that oppose activist policies also generally follow this pattern. For example,
Nordlinger describes arguments that resist isolationism as only related to security issues, in the
form of accepting the position that “Going abroad to insure America’s security is unnecessary;
doing so regularly detracts from it.”8Johnstone holds that such arguments are made up
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exhaustively of preferences for either non-interventionism or unilateralism.9 Even Dumbrell,
who takes up the challenge of thinking pluralistically about oppositional arguments, identifies a
realist/idealist binary and uses it to construct a simple 2x2 typology.10
The contemporary focus on simple structures is puzzling. Even granted that the universe
of foreign policy views in the US was probably constricted considerably under the pressures of
the Cold War, is it safe to assume the same now? And while amalgamating positions appears to
make easier the task of thinking about sources of support for or opposition to particular policies,
does a simplified understanding of foreign policy opinion really serve well that practical function?
Is it not more reasonable to expect that the views expressed by the public are more varied and
complex in this post-Cold War era than previously and that they escape the confines of simple
structures?11 Are we not now running the risk of missing important insights by attempting to
understand the public’s views (particularly those that oppose activist policies) predominantly in
terms of the narrow and truncated menu of positions that we find when taking such studies
separately?
Besides this historical objection, a deeper and more theoretical reason for questioning the
accuracy and usefulness of such simple structures highlights the minimalist view of American
political culture such structures assume. For example, the dominant MI/CI scheme first
formulated by Wittkopf refers to a cultural foundation that is exhausted by a basic division of
Americans into followers of either realist or idealist worldviews. Dumbrell, as noted above, does
as well. For Monten, Pateman, Davis and Lynn-Jones and others, it is the presence and various
interpretations of exceptionalism that predominantly inform American understandings.12
However, the proposition that American political culture is completely captured by such simple
references is generally unsupported in the relevant literature. Not even scholars who view that
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culture in terms of a single liberal tradition understand it as an uncomplicated entity. Rather, they
hold it to be complex and creative.13 If we turn to the multiple traditions interpretation of
American political culture, we find an even richer description of the diversity of political views
that are extent in the US that contains references to the wide assortment of ways in which
liberalism, civic republicanism, Christianity, socialism and racist narratives portray the US and
the world and to the various political projects and agendas those traditions generate.14 Debates
over the meaning, potency, continuity and changes in various foreign policy traditions in
American history also point to a complex background of political culture and a correspondingly
vast array of foreign policy views and associated political goals, both domestic and foreign.15
These portrayals of American political culture as complex encourage us to view skeptically the
proposition that we most usefully grasp foreign policy views by reference to a simple structural
understandings.
We begin this discussion by examining arguments citizens themselves utilized to oppose
the Libyan Intervention, then go on to explore the implications for understanding oppositional
arguments that can be derived from their contents. I follow here Kegley’s implicit call to
examine and pay close attention to foreign policy arguments in order to avoid mistakenly
attributing to the public a structure of views that is actually a construct of survey instruments.16
While Kegley may have been most concerned by the possibility that the wrong structure was
identified, I am equally concerned by the possibility that an overly simplistic structure is
assumed.
Gathering and Analyzing Arguments
This project begins by investigating arguments over the Libyan Intervention derived from
a relatively novel source for investigating foreign policy opinion—the internet. The broader
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social sciences literature has identified the internet in general and online fora in particular as
important sources of data for political views and arguments. Scholars have used these sources,
for example, to study health policy debates among the public17 and to assess the possibilities for
deliberative democracy in modern conditions.18 Importantly for this project, the internet and
electronic fora have also been identified as spaces in which people potentially encounter and
contribute diverse views on a variety of political subjects, 19 but so far little has been done to
study those contributions when they touch on foreign policy issues.
The opportunity to construct a sufficiently large as well as random sample from internet
sources using one of the strategies found in the literature was limited for this project due to the
narrowness of the topic the public discussed and the debate’s short timeline. This sample was
constructed by entering search terms into Google (Libya, Libya and Arab Spring, Libyan
Conflict, Libyan Intervention) then visiting selected threads on the resulting list and gathering all
the substantive comments left on the relevant thread.20 These threads, chosen for their
prominence, promise of large numbers of participants and collective mix of political positions,
were hosted by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Fox News, The Daily Show, The
Orange County Register, CNN, Huffington Post.com, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago
Tribune, Yahoonews, USA Today, The Houston Chronicle, (Iowa) Press-Citizen, The Des
Moines Register, The Tennessean, The Nation and PennLive.com. The contributions gathered
were posted to these threads between March 5 and April 3, 2011. In all, 208 arguments were
collected from 170 separate contributors, of whom 34 favored and 136 opposed intervention.
I confine myself to a textual analysis of the 171 arguments in the sample opposing the
intervention. Besides this paper’s focus on understanding opposition to the intervention, other
obvious reasons for this approach are the nature of the sample and the sample size. First, these
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data are not drawn from a random sample of internet contributions, but gathered through a
deliberate selection of thread hosts chosen in accordance with the criteria listed above. Though it
was not by design, the particular sites from which arguments were gathered may collectively be
tilted to the liberal side of the political spectrum. Yet it is also the case that the host sites
themselves do not appear to have edited or winnowed these contributions other than for
conformity with community standards regarding abusive language,21 and self-identified
conservatives did make contributions on what are considered liberal sites. Second, rather than a
random sample of the public, those who authored these arguments are self-selected contributors
who probably resemble in their active character and possession of fixed political views the
readers of political blogs that Lawrence has described.22 Third, the sample size is obviously too
small to generate descriptive statistics applicable to the US population within normal error
margins.
Insofar as this project only makes preliminary claims, employs qualitative, textual
methods and seeks to point the way forward for further research, the use of this type of
convenience sample is appropriate.23 The conclusions this study draw do not depend on any
strictly representative character of the sample with regard to the general US population. We are
not attempting to derive from those arguments a rigorous, comprehensive and detailed profile of
the views of the general population, but rather to understand and explore in a preliminary fashion
the variety and nuances of the arguments that are used in public spaces in order to think about
further research directions. We want to know what types of arguments Americans24 employed in
this debate, the differences among those arguments, and whether established ways of describing
foreign policy opinion can account for the arguments we found. The data generated by gathering
a larger and more representative sample would probably provide us with additional examples of
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arguments that fall in more of the categories that have been identified in the existing literature,
and with more examples of arguments that lie outside those categories, but the absence of either
or both types of additional data does not affect the conclusions we draw regarding the variety and
types of the arguments we did find.
One possible objection to the use of this type of data as a starting point would hold that
electronic postings are inherently unreliable because people are less than truthful when stating
their arguments in such fora. In the literature, the most egregious example of this phenomenon
occurred in Hong Kong, where “professional writers” have appeared on internet fora to push
government views in the guise of ordinary citizens.25 There is no evidence that such official or
other types of interference took place in these discussions. Alternately, while Black provides
evidence that respondents in the US do sometimes intentionally lie to pollsters for a variety of
reasons, including a desire to escape from polling calls and the reluctance to express their true
beliefs, those motivations do not apply to these submissions.26
Another possible issue has to do with proportions of those who opposed and supported
the intervention in the sample in comparison with the general public. Contemporaneous polls
suggest that the general public was either evenly split or slightly favorable towards the
intervention during the time these arguments were posted.27 In contrast, 80% of the contributors
to this sample opposed the intervention. Yet, there is not much difference of attitude between
those who contributed these arguments and the general public on relevant underlying issues.
Those in this sample who opposed the intervention rejected, among other projects, the
proposition that the US should engage in a ground war and/or a long-term, nation-building
exercise. Likewise, large majorities among those who were polled also opposed sending ground
troops to Libya and rejected the proposition that the US should engage in democracy-building.
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For example, in the contemporaneous AP-GfK poll, 64% of those surveyed opposed the project
of democracy building and 78% opposed sending of troops to Libya; in the CNN poll, 70%
opposed the sending of ground troops; in the Fox poll, 68% opposed military involvement. On
those relevant issues, the contributors to this sample and the general public as described by
polling data appear to be in agreement. But aside from such overlap in views, it is even more
important to note that because this study focuses only on assessing the substance of the
arguments opposed to the intervention, the mix of supportive and oppositional viewpoints
contained in the sample is not relevant to its analysis.
Ways of Categorizing and Understanding Foreign Policy Arguments
The unit of analysis used here is an “argument,” i.e., a connected set of reasons
supporting a judgment or proposition, and the locus of attention is on the elements that make up
an argument. Each argument is subjected to an analytic and comparative examination focusing
on its important components (including depictions of the US and the world), differentiating
among arguments with dissimilar components that may support similar policies and identifying
arguments as similar only on the basis of their analogous components. While this use of an
analytic methodology to pay close attention to possible differences within arguments is widely
used in work in political theory and philosophy,28 it is not always the norm in the study of
foreign policy opinion. We wish to see whether such a close focus on arguments complicates the
results other methods generate.
Scholars have generally employed two other types of analyses. The first is the schematic
attempt to classify foreign policy positions as derived through polling and other survey
methodologies in which respondents are asked to state their attitudes regarding various policy
proposals and actors. Researchers then attempt to describe an underlying attitude that allows one
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to predict a class of respondents’ reactions to a policy proposal based on the cluster of features
that characterize the proposal. The most prevalent of these schemes is the MI/CI analysis.
Central to the original form of the MI/CI classification scheme is the proposition that Americans
assess foreign policy proposals by reference to either realist or idealist theories as revealed by the
positions they take on the activist/isolationist and militaristic/conciliatory binaries. These
positions are then conceptualized as orientations towards Militant Internationalism and
Cooperative Internationalism. This is a policy-oriented system of differentiation that
amalgamates the judgments specific arguments and their cultural, ideological or historical
backgrounds generate into larger policy stances. The result is the creation of large categories of
positions that encompass multiple arguments, as illustrated by Holsti and Rosenau’s
characterization of the Isolationist position as consisting of such sentiments as “concentrate more
on our own national problems, scale down our leadership role, the best hope for U.S. influence in
the Third World is to solve our own problems…. international commitments carry more costs
than benefits”.29
The second type of analysis is the attempt to identify and classify types of arguments.
Here, scholars use textual analyses of discussions of foreign policy to delve into the general
reasons why people take positions on classes of foreign policy proposals, and from those
investigations attempt to develop typologies of arguments reflecting both the nature of those
arguments and subsequent attitudes towards foreign policy issues. This methodology is often
historical in character, relying upon a discussion of arguments through time rather than on a
snapshot of opinion.
Typologies of Foreign Policy Arguments
It is on this level of analysis that we concentrate, using as examples the work of Mead,
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Dumbrell, Johnstone and Davis/Lynn-Jones. The purpose of gathering together this literature is
to grasp the variety and themes of arguments that have already been identified and to create a
guidepost for measuring the variety of arguments we actually find in our sample.
Mead’s influential contribution to the literature on foreign policy opinion holds that the
arguments American foreign policy elites and others deploy must be understood in terms of
particular indigenous political traditions. The categories Mead uses connect importantly with the
activist/isolationist binary the MI/CI schemes employ. However, those categories are more
substantive and narrower than those that make up the latter, and while Mead also identifies four
argument types, he thinks of them as independent rather than as part of a 2 x 2 matrix formed by
the crossing of two binaries.
Hamiltonians in Mead’s parlance place importance on defending America’s economic
interests and using power to promote trade and commerce. Thus, they would support agreements,
alliances, memberships and interventions that safeguard economic interests or promote trade,
oppose policies that would endanger trade and economic interests and display skepticism
towards ventures that do not have economic interests as their basis. Wilsonians favor the spread
of democracy and freedom and the use of multilateral means. They are in favor of building and
maintaining international institutions to help preserve order and peace. Thus, they would base
their judgment regarding intervention on its potential to promote a liberal international order and
its multilateral and internationalist character. Jeffersonians are skeptical of foreign involvement
in general because they deeply fear that republican institutions will be harmed by a turn towards
imperial ambitions. Jacksonians, who resemble the realists Drezner describes,30 are reluctant to
engage in foreign interventions unless US national security is directly involved, but then support
the full and unilateral unleashing of American military power if security interests are at risk.31
11
In contrast to Mead’s efforts, Dumbrell’s study concentrates on isolationism while
pointing to a realist/idealist binary.32 The result is a four-part typology of isolationist arguments,
in which Unilateralists emphasize interests, the safeguarding of American sovereignty and a
distrust of international organizations and allies; New Populist America Firsters focus on the
need to address American problems rather than engaging in foreign policy ventures, particularly
those involving foreign aid and other uses of American resources; Anti-Globalizationists resist
free trade agreements and decry the effects of globalization on the United States as a way of
defending American exceptionalism, and Anti-Imperialists resist the role of the US as a
hegemonic enforcer of post-Cold War peace and order. Thus, Dumbrell emphasizes that
isolationists stress interests and sovereignty, attention to domestic problems, the defense of
America against harm, and anti-imperialism.
Johnstone’s deconstruction of the concept of isolationism provides a different approach
to mapping arguments. Rejecting the label of isolationist as empty and pejorative, he instead
identifies two components of a general position opposing activism. Non-interventionism is
resistance to “political entanglements and military engagements”. Johnstone does not view this
component as completely opposed to involvement in foreign relations, but rather a position that
emphasizes “the threat and potentially negative impact of war on the United States”.
Unilateralism, in contrast, is resistance to becoming tied to alliances and bound by international
laws and treaties. Its focus is on freedom of action, a goal, Johnstone argues, connected with
positive conceptions of American exceptionalism. America’s unique character must be
safeguarded through the assertion of national sovereignty. Thus for Johnstone, resistance to
activism is connected either with shielding the US from harm caused by alliances and war, or
with preserving the autonomy the US is seen rightfully to possess due to its extraordinary nature.
12
The fourth typology of arguments we consider here is derived from the work of Davis
and Lynn-Jones.33 Davis and Lynn-Jones hypothesize that American foreign policy oscillates
between activist and isolationist stances associated with different understandings of the meaning
and implications of American exceptionalism. While not cited as extensively as the other
schemes discussed, this account importantly engages with conceptions of exceptionalism that
have been identified as playing an important role in foreign policy arguments.34 The authors hold
that even though various arguments agree that the U.S. is special and unusual, they demonstrate
that variations of those arguments draw different foreign policy conclusions. As such, this model
focuses on arguments in a more general and structural fashion than does Meade or Dumbrell.
In the original model, the Davis and Lynn-Jones identify one rendering of exceptionalism
as taking the US as a “city upon a hill” with a mission of spreading American values throughout
the world. Here, America’s perceived difference from the rest of the world informs a messianic
mindset that promotes activism. The world should be converted to American values through
American efforts. This understanding of Offensive Exceptionalism, so to speak, resembles the
description of an activist position described by Pateman and McCartney.35 In the contrary
rendering, understandings of what we might call Defensive Exceptionalism make Americans
wary of contamination by the rest of the world. In this understanding, the difference between the
US and the world in terms of cultural values creates anxieties lest that difference be lost through
contact with inferior ways of life and would resist most foreign interventions. Davis and Lynn
Jones also note a third form of difference discourse, in the guise of Vietnam-era arguments that
paint the US as uniquely aggressive in its interactions with the world (Malignant
Exceptionalism). This position would oppose foreign interventions on the grounds that American
motives in engaging in such activities are suspect for the harm they inflict on others, being the
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product of economic or political imperialism.
In critiquing and augmenting this model elsewhere, I have shown that various foreign
policy positions can be justified by positing a non-exceptionalist view. In such arguments, some
people will justify foreign endeavors on the assumption that problems in the world are
susceptible to the same policies and practices that have been successful at home because the US
and the world are ultimately similar, thus positing an Offensive Universalist understanding
supportive of activism. This position is quite similar to some neo-conservative justifications of
the G.W. Bush administration’s foreign policy stance36 and would support interventions in
support of democracy on the grounds that the US has an obligation to help others exercise and
realize common values by sharing its experiences and resources. In turn, non-activist arguments,
in the form of a Laissez-faire Universalism, can also be derived from understanding the world as
similar to the home country. In this type of argument, if the world is similar to the US, then there
is no need for an activist foreign policy to spread values and institutions. Other countries are just
as capable as the US of embracing and developing those good things without outside help or
interference.
Consolodated List of Arguments
We see from even this limited survey that scholars have put forward a variety of
arguments opposing activist policies, though they do identify some similar themes. After
consolidating overlapping categories and taking into account the fact that the Libyan intervention
involved military forces and was sanctioned by international bodies, we can combine the results
of these three analyses into a list of eight types of relevant arguments that opponents of the
Libyan intervention could potentially use:
Jacksonian: This argument could be used to oppose the intervention on the grounds that
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no vital US security interests are implicated. Unilateralist: This argument would be used to
oppose the intervention based on fear of entanglement with international organizations or
agreements that specify extensive international obligations. Non-interventionism: This argument
would oppose the intervention based on the fear that the US could become involved in a larger
war. Jeffersonian: This argument could be used to resist the intervention on the grounds of the
harm that would be inflicted on US institutions. Defensive Exceptionalist/Anti-Globalization:
This argument would oppose the intervention on the grounds that interaction with the world
poses dangers to a uniquely American way of life. Hamiltonian: This argument could be used to
oppose the Libyan intervention on economic grounds. Laissez-faire Universalist: This argument
would oppose this intervention on the grounds that the Libyans, being similar to Americans, can
sort out their own problems in the same way as could Americans. Malignant Exceptionalist/AntiImperialist: This argument would reject the intervention on the grounds that it represents another
episode of American imperialism and hegemony. America First: This argument would oppose
the intervention by arguing that it deflects attention and resources away from domestic problems.
What is the relationship between this set of arguments and those we found in this sample?
Can we locate all the arguments we find in this set, and how many of these arguments do we find
in the sample? We explore these questions below, and then consider the implications of those
findings.
Opposition to the US Intervention in Libya
As noted above, the debate over the proposed Libyan intervention on electronic fora was
surprisingly vigorous. In this particular sample, the reasons given for opposing this intervention
were quite varied. In all, eight types of arguments were found in addition to two variations of
argument types.37
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(1) America First
The first argument against intervention holds that the US should attend to its own
problems rather than intervene in Libya. To intervene means to divert essential time, energy and
expertise away from addressing domestic troubles. The problems described are often economic
in character, in the form of the financial crisis, federal and state budget deficits, long-term
national debt, the ongoing recession, and the failure of institutions to deal with them.
Some adherents of this argument employed it as part of an allegation that the Libyan
gambit is a diversionary tactic meant to distract the public from the failure of the Obama
administration to fix economic and fiscal problems. For these commenters, opposition to the
Iraqi venture is a way of critiquing from the left the administration’s perceived reluctance to
fundamentally reform the economy. However, most deployed a more straightforward contention
that the policy decision itself would result in the expenditure of resources (material and
administrative) better utilized to solve domestic problems and that attempting to address both
Libya and domestic issues will result in all-around failure. American institutions do not have the
capacity to address both.
These arguments appear to come mostly from the left, given their criticisms of
conservatives and arguments for attention to social programs, in contrast to historical versions
that have been employed by rightist isolationists. While they share with the latter a privileging of
American citizens, these arguments do so in the context of a practical assessment of institutions
or political figures rather than a complaint about the provision of goods to foreigners.
(2) Universal Realpolitik
This argument was used to oppose the Libyan intervention on the grounds that there is no
moral basis for the intervention. Libya is described as being in the midst of a military campaign to
16
defeat forces seeking to overthrow the government. That government inevitably uses its military
in ways that lead to bloodshed and does not have the luxury of protecting individual rights. While
regrettable, there is nothing wrong with such actions because they are necessary for survival. All
countries, including the US, operate according to the amoral rules of realpolitik that the Libyan
government is following. Sometimes this argument takes the form of explicitly equating the US
with Libya, as does a contributor to the New York Times when he argues that the US should not
interfere with Gaddafi’s military actions because the US government would likewise kill rebels
who attacked Chicago.38 Others make the point by critiquing attempts to demonize the Libyan
leadership, contending that the empirical basis for such a characterization is absent because the
US is necessarily no different in terms of its actions.
Both variations of this argument question US exceptionalism and moral superiority by
locating the US as part of a world dominated by Hobbesian humans. The world is unruly and
requires that governments forcibly impose order. The US should not condemn actions that are part
of this messy though normal course of politics, much less intervene militarily in such situations.
The US is no shining “city on a hill” morally empowered to interfere in the internal affairs of
other nations because it cannot escape or change the conditions created by human nature. The US
is no different from other countries; all nations necessarily use force to quell disorder and put
down rebellions, just as is Libya. Intervention implies a moral superiority that is absent and a
perceived moral mission to make the world better that is misguided.
(3) Interventions Harm US Institutions
These arguments hold that military interventions generally erode Constitutional standards.
In particular, writers berated Obama for not obtaining explicit Congressional approval for
military activity. The ethos of some these arguments can sometimes be paranoid, with one
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contributor hinting darkly that this is part of a larger plot that would result in the cancellation of
the 2012 elections.39
While this argument has been used across the spectrum, these examples came mostly
from people who self-identified as on the right. The argument is that, in their eagerness to
involve the US in foreign affairs, presidents and members of Congress violate the Constitution
and corrupt the government. “This is the United States, not the Roman Empire,” argues one
commenter.40 The urge to acquire power internationally, so the argument goes, leads inevitably
to the project of centralizing power domestically for functional (empire building requires a
decision-making process uncomplicated by checks and balances) or psychological reasons (the
corrupting potential of power works its way from arenas of international policymaking to the
domestic front, with decision-makers increasingly acting like emperors).
(4) The World is a Jungle
Arguments here emphasize the problematic nature of the world while supplying several
complementary propositions. The first is that problems are all around us and will always be with
us. There are lots of bad people in the world and there is no way the US can resolve all the
problems they create. Second, arguments often point to problematic areas in which the US did
not or has not intervened in the past and assert that intervening in Libya will create a policy
precedent by which the US will be endlessly dragged into similar situations.
In one example, “Alley Oop” voices his complaint by remarking, “Does [Obama] really
think there are not already countless serious problems just about everywhere…does he not know
that following the implied principle here would require Americas' (sic) constant, disastrous
overcommitment to solving those problems?”41 This slippery slope logic fits with other
contentions that problems are unsolvable given the nature of the people in question, exemplified
18
in the argument of another contributor that “We cannot help people that don't want help to be
normal, tolerant and democratic”.42 These arguments collectively point to a different foundation
for reluctance to be involved in the world than previous arguments. The obstacle to action here is
not the lack of American moral superiority, harm to domestic institutions, or the limited capacity
of institutions, but the general nastiness of the world outside the US. This position reveals a
pragmatism whose critical focus is external rather than internal. Even if the US is different and
even if its institutions were strong, it still could not save the world because the world is far from
being salvageable. When it engages in such a task, it finds itself flailing helplessly in the thickets
of violence and hatred, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no justification for entering into an
activist policy given that no action will ever set the world right.
(5) Oil and Corporate Interests
These arguments hold that the main reason for the US intervention in Libya is the
presence of oil reserves and/or the influence of corporate interests. This judgment renders the
endeavor illegitimate. These arguments take two forms. Argument 5(a) holds that the US
government is the actor, pursuing a realist but immoral policy to secure energy supplies. For
“alance,” the explanation for the administration’s decision is simple: “Why did Obama decide to
invade Libya in the first place?... It was designed to discourage nations from advocating
nationalization of their oil industry. In the Middle East everyone knows we only invade nations
rich in oil”.43 Argument 5(b), in contrast, holds that the government is no more than a puppet of
Big Oil and other corporate entities. In one revealing example, military contractors as well as oil
companies are to blame, allegedly driving this initiative as part of a scheme to make money:
“Washington weapons lobbyists and their war profiteering clients…are pushing for more
aggressive support by the US. These people are primarily interested in making profits.... The
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kicker in this situation is the Libyan oil fields”.44
For all those who deploy these arguments, the correct answer to the question of
intervention is self-evident. If oil is involved, either as a strategic interest or as a commodity,
intervention is morally unjustifiable. These arguments again differ from previous rejections of
military intervention. It is not the case that the world is to blame due to its recalcitrant nature or
corrosive influence. American values and institutions are already corrupt and the object of
opposition is to prevent that corruption from further harming the world. The difference between
the two variations of this argument is the identification of the corrupt actor. In the first, it is the
state that is maneuvering to steal others’ natural resources. In the second, it is private
corporations who use their economic clout to colonize the state on the way to exploiting the rest
of the world. But in both, the operative concept is a moral one, that of corruption, and it is the
quest for material goods that is the origin of corruption
(6) Irony
Irony arguments hold that US intervention will produce results directly opposed to US
intentions. Again, there are two variants of this argument. The first variant (6a) holds that in
assisting the Libyan rebels, the US will not be furthering democracy and freedom, but arming
and placing into power Islamic terrorists who are hostile to US interests. This Blowback
argument is often tied to narratives in which US aid to the Afghan resistance in the 1980s is said
to have resulted in the triumph of the Taliban and the rise of Al Qaeda (“We arm them, support
them, assist them with money, then years later they are trained terrorists who kill thousands of us
as they did on 9-11”).45 This argument may have been reinforced by newspaper reports and talk
radio hosts who asserted that Islamic militants were involved in the Libyan resistance
movement.46 The second variant (6b) holds that military intervention in Libya is ironic because
20
such an intervention, if it is meant to save lives, will only result in the loss of more lives. Some
arguments make their point by simply asserting that using the military to kill people as a way of
saving lives makes no sense; others provide a more sophisticated analysis by referencing the
perils of dragging out a war in which the rebels are likely to lose.47
Irony plays out in different ways in these two variants. The first betrays a suspicion of
helping insurgents. The character of particular elements of the outside world does not make
intervention merely ineffective, but harmful to US security. As such, it is a beefed-up version of
the pragmatic The World is a Jungle argument and often deployed by those on the right. The
second variant is more critical of the impact of military operations than of insurgents, holding
that military intervention is a blunt instrument, the immediate and long-term effects of the use of
which are often unrecognized by the US and harmful to those on whose behalf the intervention is
mounted. This type of argument has been used by a variety of actors, including those on the left
as part of an anti-military campaign to discredit NATO’s intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s.
But it has also been used by the followers of Ron Paul, who regard the results of government
activism as generally productive of unintended and harmful consequences.
(7) The US is a Hegemon
Hegemon arguments hold that the Libyan intervention is part of a series of operations in
which the US pursues, consolidates and exercises its power as the world’s dominant power;
therefore, this action should be opposed. Many commenters point to the overall US dominance in
the world, and some explicitly portray the US as a colonial power. In keeping with the Corporate
and Oil arguments, the problem here is not the world but the US, as a reader makes clear in
responding to an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof, holding that “America sends in bombs and
troops only to gain or secure geopolitical advantage”.48
21
Where this argument differs from the Oil and Corporate arguments is its attribution to the
government of a comprehensive plan for world hegemony. It is not just oil, but geostrategic
superiority that the US government seeks. Interventions are part of a larger, coherent, imperialist
US strategy. But the argument is similarly moral. Any attempt at domination or colonization is a
harmful act that violates normative principles that the US must follow and its citizens must
defend.
(8) Intervene Only to Defend US Security
These arguments place US security as the sole criterion justifying intervention. “The only
condition I would support a war is if our country is attacked directly and our military has to fight
to defend us”.49 If an intervention is not directly connected with security, then the intervention is
not warranted and opposition to intervention is justifiable.
This minimalist argument, which in other circumstances could be the result of several
types of analysis, is here driven by a realist understanding of the need to conserve resources by
only deploying them to defend strategic, important interests. Any diversion to other missions
diminishes the nation’s strength. The objection to intervention is contextual because it depends
on interpretations of whether or not national security is at stake. Those who deploy this argument
could support other military interventions, and some who used the same reasoning did conclude
that national security was involved in Libya and justified the intervention.
Discussion
Libyan Arguments and the Literature on Foreign Policy Opinion
The table below maps these arguments onto the consolidated list of argument
classifications we earlier constructed:
[Table here]
22
This scheme accounts for eight of the ten arguments we found in this sample. In addition to
Jeffersonian, America First and Laissez-Faire Universalist arguments, two types of Jacksonian
and three types of “Malignant Exceptionalist” argument are present. The latter serve to
complicate their respective categories and contribute variety. In terms of overall variety, we find
that six of the nine argument types discussed in the literature are to be found, plus an additional
argument.
Addressing the arguments that cannot be located on this consolidated list, The World is a
Jungle deploys a Hobbesian view of the world, but unlike the anti-exceptionalist arguments that
also employ such a view, it does not argue that either actions or interactions are harmful to the
US or to the world. Rather, the thrust is pragmatic, arguing that action is futile and endless in
terms of its putative goal. In emphasizing the world’s Hobbesian character by marking the failure
of governments to create order and portraying as hopeless the task of transforming the world in
the American image, it rebuts Offensive Exceptionalism and contains close affinities with the
critique that Fukuyama has supplied of contemporary neo-conservatives.50 Second, the Irony of
Military Intervention argument disputes the proposition that military ventures constitute a proper
foreign policy tool. Implicit is a condemnation of the government for employing military means.
There is some kinship here with anti-imperialist arguments that paint the US as the source of
problems, with the latter differing from this argument in their deeper critique. Given the inability
to account for these arguments, we see that this list misses some aspects of pragmatism
associated with a Hobbesian understanding of the world, as well as stand-alone critiques of
militarism.
With regard to variations within categories, different arguments can be found among
Malignant Exceptionalist/Anti-Imperialist arguments. The Corporate Interests argument is anti-
23
Hamiltonian. It condemns the attempt to defend and further trade and economic interests through
military action and sees the impetus for such projects as residing in the control commercial
entities exercise over political institutions. The Government Targets Oil and the Hegemon
arguments impute to American institutions the policy of imposing America’s political and
economic will on the rest of the world. They are neither as narrow as the Corporate Interest
variation, nor do they contain any hint that the government is weak or a puppet of other forces.
They instead identify the government as a powerful actor that poses a threat to other countries.
Thus, the malignancy these arguments identify is more deeply associated with the US as a whole
in terms of its population and political culture. Finally, the Universal Realpolitik argument is a
variation of the Laissez-faire Universalist argument. However, unlike the initial definition of the
latter presented here, the anti-exceptionalism of Universal Realpolitik does not involve the
judgment that the US and the world are the same in accepting desirable values, but that all
governments necessarily operate in accordance with the same amoral rules. It holds that political
life in general is not about spreading or recognizing similar values in other nations, but about
order and the necessary and messy means by which all governments create and keep order. The
US should refrain from interfering in that process no matter how disgusted its citizens feel when
witnessing it.
It is also important to note the difference between the Intervene Only to Protect the US
and Blowback arguments. Both contain realist elements that privilege national security; however,
as a Non-Interventionist argument that emphasizes unintended consequences and irony,
Blowback arguments do not condemn the venture because it is unrelated to national security, but
because it is negatively related. They make the vital interest case by holding that actions either
mistakenly benefit unfriendly forces or turn populations against the US, thus making the US less
24
rather than more safe. Thus, this argument combines a focus on action, the outside world and
unintended consequences, while the Jacksonian Intervene Only to Protect the US argument
focuses on the US and assumes a straightforward analysis of the impact of action or inaction on
national security.
Finally, a note about the America First argument given that it is quite numerous in this
sample and resembles several other types of argument as well as the Dumbell category. It
initially appears to be a kind of Defensive Exceptionalist argument, but it does not see the
outside world as an active source of threat, but rather as a troublesome source of competition for
attention and resources. As such, it resembles a Jeffersonian argument in that it puts emphasis on
the harm that results from action rather than that which comes from interaction. However, where
the Jeffersonian argument has it that action results in the perversion of institutions, America First
arguments tend to hold that action results in the overloading of institutions, thus positing a zerosum game among different issue areas that is framed by an assumption of limited capabilities and
resources. Their main point is that particular foreign ventures stretch American institutions
beyond their capacities, thus highlighting a functional rather than moral mismatch between those
institutions and interventionist policies.
Analysis
We have found a rich assortment of arguments that citizens used to oppose this foreign
policy project. Some arguments display fear of the harm that will come to the US; others believe
that the US will damage Libya. Some reject this project because they believe it will be
ineffective in furthering American goals, while others pose moral objections connected with
what they see as America’s imperial ambitions. Some mistrust the Libyans, while others mistrust
the US government or American corporations.
25
While these findings are only suggestive, the variety of arguments we find here appears
meaningful, derived as it is from a limited sample of the activist portion of the general
population addressing a particular topic. The types and nature of the diversity we found extend
beyond the boundaries of any particular categorizing scheme we examined. In particular, we see
that the nature of these arguments complicate current ways of accounting for foreign policy
views. The consolidated argument category list is much superior to any particular scheme, but
even it is unable to account for all arguments. More generally, the differences among arguments
that would be classified as holding the same position point to the original MI/CI scheme’s lack of
sensitivity to variety. In turn, the range of arguments leads us to recognize that the MI/CI scheme
and the studies that contributed to the consolidated list of arguments lack sufficient breadth when
taken individually. It is only when we combine the content of several typologies that we were
able to generate a list that accounted for most of the arguments found here.
The crucial question is whether these conclusions are significant. Does it matter that
arguments are either conflated or unrecognized by existing schemes? Are the types and range of
differences among these arguments important? Are the arguments in fact very diverse? Do we
miss something important by not recognizing their character and diversity? I suggest that the
answer to all these questions is yes. The arguments are importantly diverse, and the failure to
recognize and correctly describe arguments misleads us regarding the content of public opinion.
If we fail to appreciate the complexity and nuances of the arguments the public deploys in the
realm of foreign policy, we end up portraying that public as divided along a few basic lines in
terms of foreign policy and related matters when it appears it is really divided along many and
complex lines.
We can defend these answers in several ways. The first is to underline the nature of the
26
differences among the arguments found here. Note that in the attempt to account for these
arguments we added (through consultation with the literature) a number of additional dimensions
of difference to those found, for example, in the original MI/CI scheme. Such dimensions
include various understandings of exceptionalism, universalism, institutions, harm and antiimperialism. Thus in accounting for the America First and Intervention Harms American
Institutions arguments, the argument list injects an understanding of the importance of protecting
the US from the harm wrought by foreign policy activism among some members of the public. In
accounting for the Government Seeks Oil and the Corporate Interests arguments, the argument
list further brings to our attention various conceptions of American institutions and of the US in
general as agents of harm and the importance of recognizing the importance some attach to the
prospect of harm to non-US nationals. Likewise, the fact that The World is a Jungle argument
cannot be located in the argument list we constructed tells us about the shortcomings of studies
that informed that list. None can account for that argument because it combines a Hobbesian
view of the outside world with understandings of exceptionalism and universalism.
We can push this general point further by surveying comparatively the structures that
collectively inform these arguments, the variety of which are obscured by current studies.
Differences fall along at least six broad dimensions, most of which are not simply binary in
character:
a) With regard to harm: that which comes from actions versus that which comes from
interactions; that which the world inflicts on the US versus that which the US inflicts on the
world;
b) With regard to exceptionalism: as a quality that must be guarded by refusing
engagement with the world versus a quality that signals the incapacity of the US to recreate the
27
rest of the world in its image, versus a characteristic that makes the US unfit to engage with the
world, versus a mistaken understanding of America’s relationship with the world;
c) With regard to US institutions: as a set of good but endangered entities versus entities
with limited capacities, versus a set of institutions that are the puppets of large economic
interests, versus powerful, autonomous and sinister organizations;
d) With regard to Hobbesian violence: as a characteristic that marks the world as
unredeemable versus an environmental characteristic that every effective government must
ruthlessly confront, versus an undesirable characteristic of particular policies;
e) With regard to the primary focus of analysis: the US versus the outside world;
f) With regard to the type of objection: moral versus pragmatic.
Note not only the number of these dimensions, but also their content. They importantly involve
descriptions of actors and their qualities, environments, and frameworks for assessing policies.
The schemes we examined did not, for the most part, incorporate an analysis of these aspects of
foreign policy understandings in the construction of their positions, categories and typologies.
Note as well that other dimensions of difference are contained in the arguments on the list not
found here, as well as among the arguments that support activism that are not the subject of this
study.
A final piece of evidence supporting to the importance of the diversity of arguments we
found has simply to do with the different trajectories of these arguments. It is not the case that
foreign policy views only indicate a judgment regarding a particular foreign policy venture, nor
even a general foreign policy position. Rather, they often reveal larger political agendas, some of
which (as Rathbun notes) are connected with domestic politics, and all of which are implicated in
broader aspects of American political culture. Thus, we find that those who argue that Military
28
Intervention Harms Institutions are happy with US institutions and wish to protect them, while
America Firsters are worried by institutional overstretch and wish to protect US citizens from its
consequences. Anti-Imperialists who draw upon radical arguments to hold that the US is a
Hegemon, that the Government is Pursuing Oil, or that the government is controlled by
Corporate Interests are attempting to protect other nations from the US, are unhappy with
American institutions and are communicating their normative desire to engage in fundamental
reform of the state and large economic players. That position is somewhat different from those
who draw upon the doctrine of unintended consequences to identify the Irony of Military
Intervention and Blowback and seek to change militaristic policies for moral or pragmatic
reasons. The latter also have on their agendas, respectively, the goal of protecting possible
victims of American action (implying the need to reign in and possibly reduce the American
military) and of protecting the US by not foolishly aiding its enemies. In turn, those who draw
upon Hobbesian and realist understandings to depict the World is a Jungle, point to Universal
Realpolitik and believe that the US Should Intervene Only to Protect Vital Interests have no
problems with the character of American institutions, but in highlighting what they believe is the
true nature of the world pragmatically strive to prevent those institutions from engaging in
Quixotic adventures. These agendas are as diverse as the arguments that support them and betray
a wide variety of fundamental political concerns.
Research Implications
We obviously require more data on the popularity of these arguments among the
members of both the active and general populations of non-elites. But we already have some
indications that their use is fairly widespread. The most important indication is that many of the
arguments have already identified in the literature. The problem is that their identification is
29
scattered throughout that literature, with individual researchers keying on only a few at any one
time. The emphasis here on collecting a list of arguments that have been identified and
demonstrating that a majority of those arguments are being used merely brings to the surface the
pluralist implications of those previous studies. Another indication is the presence of well-known
publications that press these arguments as responses to other foreign policy situations. For
example, a variety of publications have utilized the Blowback argument to discuss the events of
9/11,51 and the Intervention Harms American Institutions argument has been used for several
decades to oppose activist policies.52 And, as noted above, Fukuyama has employed a variant of
the World Is a Jungle argument. Finally, polling data exist that touch on some arguments. With
regard to the Libyan intervention, for example, several polling instruments asked whether
Obama’s failure to obtain Congress’s approval before committing the US to military action in
Libya was problematic, a question that touches on the Intervention Harms Institutions argument.
Responses in four polls ranged from 50% to 64% of respondents agreeing that it was
problematic.53 Likewise, in two polls questioning respondents regarding their confidence that
military intervention would lead to a stable, democratic government in Libya (a question related
to the pragmatic skepticism of the World is a Jungle argument), 54% and 59% respectively of
those polled were not too, or not at all, confident that such an outcome would result.54
Another more indirect source of data is support for Ron Paul during the Republican
presidential primaries during 2012. Paul, while not an isolationist, is skeptical of most
government activity in the realm of foreign affairs. He is closely identified with the “Blowback”
argument, using it both to condemn the Libyan intervention and later to comment on the origins
of the Libyan embassy attack on September 11, 2012.55 He also has employed the “Intervention
Harms American Institutions,” “The World is a Jungle” and “Hegemony” arguments to condemn
30
the Libyan intervention. Recent support for Paul in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries,
totaling more than two million votes, suggests that those who accept these arguments may be
more numerous than a small group of people who idiosyncratically comment on news stories.56
Moving to a consideration of the use of this study, one way of employing its results is to
use the arguments uncovered as part of either structured interviews or large-scale surveys to
probe the basis for resistance to activist foreign policies. While, as we saw above, some polling
instruments do touch on some of these arguments, their coverage of important arguments is not
necessarily comprehensive, nor do questions systematically cross the areas of difference
uncovered here. Awareness of these arguments and those areas of difference can be utilized to
supplement and improve the approach to creating polling instruments.
A particularly important example of the need for such awareness is a polling instrument
administered in response to the Libyan intervention that illustrates both the deficiencies of some
of those instruments and how we can recognize and remedy those deficiencies. In this case the
Pew Center, in recounting the results from a poll in which a question was asked regarding the
basis for the respondent’s opposition to military intervention in Libya, reported that a majority of
those polled (54%) opposed military action on the grounds that the military was already
overcommitted. While seemingly highly significant, this finding was in fact formulated on the
basis of responses to a closed-ended question: “Which of the following would be the best
argument for not using military force in Libya?...Our military forces are already overcommitted.
The opposition groups may be no better than the current government. Libya is not of vital
interest to the United States.” The rationale for including these particular arguments in the
question is not revealed in the relevant documentation, but these choices appear to be attempts at
articulating an argument skeptical of the nature of rebels and other disturbers of order
31
(opposition no better than government), an America-centered isolationist argument
(overcommitment) and a realist argument (vital interests), thus covering three important points of
view.57 But when examined in light of the study undertaken here, we recognize that this group of
choices is quite limited. Put in terms of the types of arguments found in this study, the “vital
interest” choice corresponds to Intervene only to Protect American Security (implicating a
pragmatic focus on American interests), while the other responses are suggestive of America
First (institutions are overstretched,) and The World is a Jungle (replacing Gaddafi with rebels is
no improvement). Note that other popular responses from our sample are not provided as
alternatives. In particular, Oil/Corporate Interests, Hegemon, and the Irony arguments that
reference moral concerns and civilian casualties are absent. In contrast, the arguments provided
in the same poll as possible grounds for supporting the intervention were to back democracy, to
win the support of Libyans and to discharge a moral responsibility to stop violence.58 Here the
focus is on benefits to Libya, pragmatic benefits to the US and a moral reason for the US to
intervene.
While both sets of options the poll provides only implicate a few of the dimensions of
difference discussed above, the list of possible objections is more limited than the list of possible
supportive arguments. Most importantly, the latter does not allow the choice of a moral reason
for objecting to the intervention, nor one that assesses the intervention by reference to an impact
on non-US actors. The failure to provide such options for opposing the intervention may have
generated a misleading depiction not only of the reasons why some opponents of that particular
intervention objected, but also of the broader understandings of foreign policy those objectors
possess. A focus on morality and on non-Americans as subjects of concern are important now
among some elements of both the left (who stress anti-imperialism) and the right (who stress a
32
small government and sometimes a pluralistic stance), and may become more important in the
future as Americans are exposed to the views and interests of non-US peoples through growing
contacts with foreign nationals and increasing access to foreign news, television programming
and other non-US political and cultural materials.59
In addition to using the results of this study to inform and supplement polling instruments
or to formulate direct questions assessing the degree to which particular arguments are accepted
by the public, they can also be used to inform survey instruments that probe more generally the
dimensions of differences in the ways people understand the landscape of foreign affairs. The
following are a sample of some root questions that could be used to help generate such
instruments:
a) Does an activist US foreign policy generally harm other nations? Does an activist
foreign policy tend to harm the US? Does contact with the outside world erode distinctive
American values, damage US institutions or harm other aspects of American life? Is the US in
general better off by not interacting with the world?
b) Is the US different from the rest of the world? Are its values and political system
superior to all others? Is it possible for all countries in the world to ultimately embrace American
values and understandings of government? Does the US live up to its domestic political ideals
when it operates in the international arena? Does it operate differently than other countries
domestically and in the international arena?
c) Do corporations and interest groups control American foreign policy? Are American
institutions powerful? Is the US government capable of effectively tending to domestic problems
and engaging actively on the world stage? Are American institutions trustworthy?
d) Is force the only way of keeping order within countries? Is the world generally a
33
disorderly and violent place? Do American actions in the form of military and other interventions
decrease or increase the amount of violence and disorder in the world?
e) Do American foreign policies generally make the world a better or worse place? Is the
US a hegemon? Should it act as a hegemon by enforcing order in the world? Is there a moral
obligation for the US to avoid policies that further American interests but harm innocents?
f) Should policies be assessed on the basis of their probability of success or on the
degree to which they conform to and advance American values? Should foreign policy be
subjected to moral scrutiny?
These questions are quite simple, would require both elaboration and focus in order to be
utilized in particular studies and would need significant supplementation to cover the ranges of
both of anti-activist arguments and pro-activist arguments. But collectively, they touch upon
important aspects of foreign policy opinion that are not recognized, or are not well developed, in
the studies we referenced here and thus provide the basis for exploring more thoroughly
American public opinion on foreign policy issues.
Conclusion
In examining this preliminary data, we find that the Libyan Intervention was opposed by
a wide variety of arguments focusing on different types of objections. Fitting these arguments
into existing categorizations of foreign policy arguments taken separately is difficult. Only when
several such category systems are combined can we account for most of the arguments. This
finding lends support to the initial hypothesis that schemes attempting to account for foreign
policy opinion by locating them in the context of a few binary positions conceal or ignore
importance differences among arguments as well as the larger policy positions those arguments
support.
34
These conclusions in turn suggest that further investigations into American public
opinion focused on arguments and the various dimensions of differentiation among arguments
are in order. As it stands, academic studies tend either to focus on an inappropriately high level
of generalization, or direct researchers to investigate limited rather than comprehensive lists of
arguments. Instruments administered by commercial polling organizations do touch on important
arguments and provide suggestive evidence of their broader use, but the content of those
instruments can also be narrow and arbitrary. This paper has provided several ways in which
these findings can be used to augment and guide further investigations, including a list of root
questions that can be used to in the creation of survey and interview instruments.
If we do find that these views are reflected more generally throughout the active non-elite
and general publics, the following might be implied. First and most obviously, that the nature of
foreign policy opinion in the US is more complex than previous depictions have held. There are
more understandings of environments, actors and frameworks of analysis, and generally more
arguments floating about than have hitherto been discussed as relevant in the post-Cold War era.
Second, that the many different arguments defending and promoting American activism have
found important, clearly articulated and potentially effective counter-arguments among the
public. Third, and related to the second point, that the future may witness increasing
complications for the project of selling a foreign policy venture to the American public. The
Libyan intervention is an apt illustration. Responses to that intervention reveal the wide variety
of arguments that appear to have been freed from the political constraints imposed by the Cold
War. These are now available to oppose the contemporary propensity of the US to engage in
overt military conflicts and an activist foreign policy in general.60
1
Ole Holsti, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the Almond-Lippmann
35
Consensus,” Mershon Series: Research Programs and Debates, International Studies
Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec. 1992) and Miroslav Nincic, “A Sensible Public: New
Perspectives on Popular Opinion and Foreign Policy,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.
36, No. 4 (Dec.1992), but also see Richard Clark and Kenneth Dautrich, ISP Forum and Debate:
“Who’s Really Misreading the Public? A Comment on Kull and Ramsay’s ‘Challenging U.S.
Policymakers’ Image of an Isolationist Public’,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 1, Issue
1 (2000).
2
E.g., Douglas Foyle, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Elite Beliefs as a Mediating
Variable,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 1 (March1997), and Garry Young and
William Perkins, “Presidential Rhetoric, the Public Agenda, and the End of Presidential
Television's “Golden Age,” Journal of Politics, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Oct. 2005).
3
E.g., Ole Holsti, Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy: Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1996 and Brian Rathbun, “Hierarchy and Community at Home and Abroad:
Evidence of a Common Structure of Domestic and Foreign Policy Beliefs in American Elites,”
The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 51, No. 3 (June 2007).
4
Though see Shoon Murray, ISP Forum and Debate: “Bringing the Majority Back In,”
International Studies Perspectives, No. 1 (2000).
5
Eugene Wittkopf, “On the Foreign Policy Beliefs of the American People: A Critique and
Some Evidence,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Dec.1986); Jon Hurwitz and
Mark Peffley, “How Are Foreign Policy Attitudes Structured? A Hierarchical Model,” The
American Political Science Review, Vol. 81, No. 4 (Dec.1987); Ole Holsti and James Rosenau.
“The Structure of Foreign Policy Attitudes among American Leaders,” The Journal of Politics,
Vol. 52, No. 1 (Feb.1990); 1990; Eugene Wittkopf, Faces of Internationalism: Public Opinion
36
and American Foreign Policy, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990; Daniel Drezner, “The
Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March
2008); Bruce Jentleson, “The Pretty Prudent Public: Post Post-Vietnam American Opinion on the
Use of Military Force,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1 (March1992); William
Chittick, Keith Billingsley and Rick Travis, “A Three-Dimensional Model of American Foreign
Policy Beliefs,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Sept.1995).
6
Walter Mead. Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003; Rathbun, “Hierarchy and Community at Home and Abroad”;
Christopher McKnight Nichols, Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011
7
Drezner, “The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion,” and Joseph Grieco, Christopher
Gelpi, Jason Reifler, J. and Peter Feaver,” Let’s Get a Second Opinion: International Institutions
and American Public Support for War,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 55 (May 2011).
8
Eric Nordlinger, Isolationism Reconfigured: American Foreign Policy for a New Century.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, 6.
9
Andrew Johnstone, “Isolationism and Internationalism in American Foreign Relations,”
Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Vol. 9, Issue 1 (2011).
J. Dumbrell, “Varieties of Post-Cold War American Isolationism,” Government and
Opposition, Vol. 34 (1999)
10
11
For a study that holds that the politics of foreign policy in general is now more complex, see
Charles Kupchan and Peter Trubowitz, “Dead Center: The Demise of Liberal Internationalism in
the United States,” International Security, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Fall 2007) as well as the exchange
between Kupchan and Trubowitz, “Illusion of Liberal Internationalism’s Revival,” International
37
Security, Vol. 35. No. 1 (Summer 2010) and Stephen Choudin, Helen Milner and Dustin Tingley,
“The Center Still Holds: Liberal Internationalism Survives,” International Security, Vol. 35, No.
1 (Summer 2010).
12
Jonathan Monten, “The Roots of the Bush Doctrine: Power, Nationalism, and Democracy
Promotion in U.S. Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Spring 2005); Robert
Pateman, “Globalisation, the New US Exceptionalism and the War on Terror,” Third World
Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 6 (2006); Tami Davis and Sean Lynn-Jones, “Citty Upon a Hill,”
Foreign Policy, No. 66 (Spring 1987).
13
Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American Thought Since
the Revolution, New York: Harcourt Brace 1955 and Philip Abbott, “Still Louis Hartz After All
These Years: A Defense of the Liberal Society Thesis,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 3, No. 1
(March 2005).
14
Rogers Smith, “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions in America,”
American Political Science Review, Vol. 87 Issue 3 (1993); Rodney Hero, “Multiple Theoretical
Traditions in American Politics and Racial Policy Inequality,” Political Research Quarterly vol.
56, no. 4 (December 2003) and Deborah Schildkraut, “Defining American Identity in the
Twenty-First Century: How Much ‘There’ is There?” Journal of Politics Volume 69, Issue 3
(August 2007)
15
For a useful overview, see Brendon O’Connor, “American Foreign Policy Traditions: A
Literature Review,” The United States Studies Centre at the University of Sidney Working
Papers (October 2009).
16
Charles Kegley, “Assumptions and Dilemmas in the Study of Americans' Foreign Policy
Beliefs: A Caveat,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Dec.1986). See also Philip
38
Powlick and Andrew Katz, “Defining the American Public Opinion/Foreign Policy Nexus,”
Mershon International Studies Review, Vol. 42, No. 1 (May 1998); Murray, “Bringing the
Majority Back In,” and Kull and Ramsay’s remarks in Richard Clark, et al., “Rereading the
Public: Isolationism and Internationalism Revisited,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 1,
Issue 2 (August 2000).
17
Jennifer Keelan et al., “An analysis of the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine debate on
MySpace blogs,” Vaccine, Vol. 28, Issue 6 (February 2010)
18
Liza Tsaliki, “Online Forums and the Enlargement of Public Space: Research Findings from a
European Project,” The Public, Vol. 9, No. 2. (2002).
19
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, “Diversity of Political Conversation on the Internet: Users’
Perspectives,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 8, No. 3 (2003); Peter
Dahlgren, “The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and
Deliberation,” Political Communication, Vol. 22 (2005); Tamara Witschge, “Examining Online
Public Discourse in Context: A Mixed Methods Approach,” The Public, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2008).
20
See Christopher Weare and Wan-Ying Lin, “Content Analysis of the World Wide Web:
Opportunities and Challenges,” Social Science Computer Review, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Fall 2000).
21
For related issues, see Witschge, “Examining Online Public Discourse in Context”.
22
Eric Lawrence, et al.,“Self-Segregation or Deliberation? Blog Readership, Participation, and
Polarization in American Politics,” Perspectives in Politics, Vol. 8, No.1 (March 2010).
23
See Scott Gartner, “The Multiple Effects of Casualties on Public Support for War: An
Experimental Approach,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 102, Issue 1 (2008) for
the use of a convenience sample for preliminary purposes.
24
The assumption in the literature is that contributors to websites within a country are nationals
39
unless they otherwise self-identify. See Tsaliki, “Online Forums and the Enlargement of Public
Space”.
25
Anthony Fung, “One city, two systems: Democracy in an electronic chat room in Hong Kong,”
The Public, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2002).
26
Joan Black, “Presidential Address: Trashing the Polls,” Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 55,
No. 3 (1991)
27
AP-GfK Poll, Pew Research Center, March 30-April 3, 2011; USA Today/Gallup Poll, March
25-27, 2011; CBS News Poll, March 2011; CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, March 1820, 2011; Fox News Poll conducted by Anderson Robbins Research and Shaw & Company
Research, March 14-16, 2011.
28
See, for example, A. Hirschmann, The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
29
Holsti and Rosenau, “The Structure of Foreign Policy Attitudes,” 118-9
30
See Drezner, “The Realist Tradition in American Public Opinion”.
31
Mead also discusses realism as a tradition Americans have employed, as well as in passing
socialist, Marxist and other traditions.
32
Dumbrell, “Varieties of Post-Cold War American Isolationism”.
33
Davis and Lynn-Jones, “Citty Upon a Hill”.
34
Hurwitz and Peffley, “How are Foreign Policy Attitudes Structured,” also employs a type of
exceptional/non-exceptional factor in their model, as does Dumbrell.
35
Robert Pateman, “Globalisation, the New US Exceptionalism and the War on Terror,” Third
World Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 6 (2006); Paul McCartney, “American Nationalism and U.S.
Foreign Policy from September 11 to the Iraq War,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 119, No. 3
40
(Fall 2004)
36
See Michael Desch, “America’s Liberal Illiberalism: The Ideological Origins of Overreaction
in U.S. Foreign Policy,” International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter 2008).
37
The following lists the oppositional arguments deployed in terms of raw numbers: America
First (30), Universal Realpolitik (10), Interventions Harm US Institutions (10), The World is a
Jungle (28), Oil and Corporate Interests (32), Irony (44), US a Hegemon (10) and Intervene Only
to Defend US Security (7).
38
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/reader-comments-on-my-libya-column/ (accessed
April 8, 2011).
39
dianatx, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/05/qaddafi-ready-discuss-govt-changes-
rebels-advance/#comment (accessed April 6, 2011)
40
41
http://letters.ocregister.com/category/international/ (accessed March 23, 2011).
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/world/africa/29prexy
.html (accessed March 29, 2011).
42
Jeff Gabel, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/04/05/qaddafi-ready-discuss-govt-changes-
rebels-advance/#comment (accessed April 6, 2011).
43
“alance,”http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/does-the-us-really-want-to-own-
libya/2011/03/30/AFV4QA5B_allComments.html#comments (accessed March 31, 2011).
44
mlkwek,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/does-the-us-really-want-to-own-
libya/2011/03/30/AFV4QA5B_allComments.html#comments (accessed March 31, 2011).
45
“tommy thek50”, http://discussions.latimes.com/20/lanews/la-naw-obama-analysis-
20110329/10 (accessed March 29, 2011)
46
Rush Limbaugh, “Regime Credits Obama's Words for Inspiring Middle East Uprisings,”
41
radio program transcript (March 29, 2011), and “Barack Obama, Citizen of World, is Undoing
American Sovereignty,” radio program transcript (March 29, 2011). See also David Barker, and
Kathleen Knight, “Political Talk Radio and Public Opinion,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol.
64, No. 2 (Summer 2000).
47
“TXCOL47,” March 31, 2011 http://www.chron.com/disp/discuss.mpl/nation/7498627.html
(accessed April 6, 2011)
48
“D,” April 3, 2011, http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/reader-comments-on-my-
libya-column/ (accessed April 8, 2011)
49
“Zell,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/scarborough-libya-
hypocrisy_n_842034.html (accessed March 30, 2011)
50
See Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neo-
Conservative Legacy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
51
For example, Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American
Empire (Holt Paperbacks, 2004)
52
For example, see Patrick Buchanan, A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America’s Destiny
(Regnery, 2002).
53
Quinnipiac University Poll, July 5-11, 2011. N=2,311 registered voters nationwide. Margin of
error ± 2, 62%. CBS News/New York Times Poll. June 24-28, 2011. N=979 adults nationwide.
Margin of error ± 3, 61%. Time Poll conducted by Abt SRBI. June 20-21, 2011. N=1,003 adults
nationwide. Margin of error ± 3, 50%. CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 24-26,
2011. N=1,007 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3, 55%.
42
54
CNN/ORC Poll. Aug. 24-25, 2011. N=1,017 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 3. AP-GfK
Poll conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. March 24-28, 2011.
N=1,001 adults nationwide. Margin of error ± 4.2.
55
For his discussion of the Libyan Intervention, see
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1906&Itemid=69
(retrieved Oct. 4, 2012); for his comment on the Libyan embassy attack see
http://www.dailypaul.com/254934/dr-ron-pauls-thehill-op-ed-the-libya-fiasco-and-the-folly-ofintervention-sept-14-2012 (retrieved Oct. 4, 2012)
56
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries/candidates/302 (retrieved Oct. 4, 2012).
57
The public, however, probably viewed the overcommittment response as a safe pragmatic
argument that did not require them to draw on any particular worldview, thus making it the most
popular choice.
58
“Public Wary of Military Intervention in Libya,” Pew Research Center, March 14, 2011, report
of poll conducted from March 10-13, 2011, Questions 7 and 8 http://www.peoplepress.org/question-search/?qid=1781920&pid=51&ccid=51#top (retrieved October 3, 2012).
59
See, for example, Kimberly Meltzer, "The U.S. launch of Al Jazeera English in Washington,
DC: An analysis of American media coverage." Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism (June,
2012), and Douglas Bicket and Melissa Wall, “BBC News in the United States: a `superalternative' news medium emerges,” Media Culture & Society vol. 31, no. 3 (May 2009).
60
See Robert Jervis, “Force in Our Times,” International Relations, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Dec. 2011).
This problem is also touched on in Stephen Walt, “How Do You Sustain Public Support for
Wars of Choice?” Foreign Policy, Oct. 11, 2012,
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/11/a_strategic_conundrum (retrieved Oct. 12, 2012).
43
Types of Arguments and Anti-Libyan Arguments
Argument
Type
Jacksonian
Jeffersonian
Argument
Argument
Type
8
Unilateralist
3
Hamiltonian
Argument
Defensive
New Populist
Exceptionalist/ America First
AntiGlobalizationist
1
Laissez-faire
Malignant
Universalist
Exceptionalist
/AntiImperialist
2
5(a), (b), 7
44
NonInterventionist
6(a)
Other
Arguments
46(b)