The Vital Center Restored

What is becoming very clear is that far from pulling back from international responsibilities, the Obama administration will be internationally activist.

Those advocating a pull-back from international involvement include both those on the political left and the right. On the left, there are many who would advocate a dramatic shrinking of the American military arrayed abroad and of the Pentagon, because of the United States past imperial role, especially in the last eight years. Representing this view would be many at the magazine The Nation, and especially the website http://www.counterpunch.com/.

On the libertarian right, you have the same thinking at Antiwar.Com and Lewrockwell.Com. On the paleo-conservative right, there is interest in pulling back, represented by the American Conservative magazine, by Professor Andrew Bacevich of Boston University, and in a somewhat extreme form, by public policy intellectual Pat Buchanan such as in his book A Republic, Not An Empire.

All of these persons have stories to tell and arguments to make, some of which I find interesting, if not persuasive. But it is also a very risky direction to take, in that I am dubious that we can have a Fortress America in this very interconnected world of ours. So there are those making the case that we should continue to be involved around the world as a nation but that it should be done in a more constructive and diplomatic way, that is more acceptable to the nations of the world. This would be what, borrowing a phrase from Arthur Schlesinger's interpretation of the foreign policy of Franklin Roosevelt, I would call 'the Vital Center.'

This would seem to represent the current center of American foreign policy in our country, both neo-liberal (Democratic) and realist (Republican). This perspective would be represented by magazines and newspapers such as Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New Republic, and occasionally, the Nation. It represents the basic perspective of all Secretaries of State since World War II.

Most importantly, it also represents a repudiation of the current neo-conservative ideology that entered the White House and the Pentagon with the current administration and that led to our Iraqi debacle and the resentment of most of the world, represented by the Weekly Standard magazine, Commentary magazine, columnists like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, and to a slightly lesser extent, the National Review magazine.

I would argue that this is change that a large majority of Americans can believe in, and that it has the potential to lead to more constructive change around the world than any other.