America's role as world sheriff: Blatant proof of neoconservatism

Kim Sung-han, The Korea Herald, Asia News Network, Seoul

U.S. neoconservatism is grounded in a set of ideas encompassing a sense of moral superiority that American values should be preserved and propagated throughout the world. The ideological root of American neoconservatism can be traced back to Professor Leo Strauss (1899-1973) of the University of Chicago, who fled from Hitler's Holocaust and settled in the United States.

In his books On Tyranny(1948) and Natural Right and History(1953), Strauss, who was deeply influenced by Thomas Hobbes, emphasized the superiority of American democratic values. In The City and Man(1990), his posthumous essay collection on Aristotle, Plato and Thucydides, Strauss stressed that non- Western nations must be democratized and that "the only restraint in which the West can put some confidence is the tyrant's fear of the West's immense military power."

Neoconservatives, who thus hold a Hobbesian worldview, believe that war is a necessary evil inevitable for a civilized world. They argue that war is not necessarily unjust or immoral if it is conducted to smite evil and actualize the good.

While traditional conservatism and neoconservatism have similarities, they also have their differences. Even though the followers of the traditional school lay emphasis on preserving America's domestic order and values, they believe they should refrain from international intervention.

The new school, on the other hand, believes the nation, state and sovereignty could be misused as protective shields for harboring totalitarianism and dictatorships and that they should decisively transcend national borders and intervene if needed. The objective of proactive interventionism is, of course, to spread American values, particularly democracy and the market economy.

As the Iraq war of 2003 attests, the United States is highly likely to proactively intervene in situations stained with a combination of factors like terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and humanitarianism.

However, it remains to be seen whether Washington will proactively intervene in cases that have little to do with possible terrorism against Americans or WMD proliferation, for instance the civil wars in Africa or the Balkan situation, solely for the sake of promoting democracy through the deposition of despotic regimes.

Against this backdrop, the ultimate goal of neocons' security strategy is "Pax Americana," in other words, solidifying the U.S.-led unipolar world. This denotes the creation of an international security order that is conducive to U.S. principles and national interests.

Neocons wish to forestall the rise of a competitor capable of challenging U.S. hegemony by continuing to retain and consolidate America's military predominance. They have designated China as the likeliest candidate to threaten the American hegemony in the 21st century and contend that Washington must curb China's expansion.

The crux of neoconservatives' security strategy is for the United States to undertake the duty of maintaining global order, thereby building a stable international system that is clearly and irrefutably grounded in American hegemony, that is, achieving "hegemonic stability."

In his latest book, Paradise and Power (2003), Robert Kagan, a neoconservative strategist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues that the difference between the United States and Europe concerning international issues is essentially the difference between "a person holding a gun" and "a person holding a sword." In other words, there is "a power gap." For this reason, we must stop make-believing the two sides' world views are identical or that the two sides have the same strategic culture.

Kagan underscores his point that it is ultimately America alone that will have to undertake the mission of maintaining global order. Kagan's proposition is being tested in Iraq at the moment.

Traditional conservatives refuse to give America the role of the world's constable or sheriff and instead stress limited and selective intervention. Neoconservatives, to the contrary, volunteer for the sheriff role. They even stress that it should be the United States, not the United Nations, that exercises leadership in peacekeeping operations (PKO).

Moreover, neocons contend that the United States must strive for a mid- to long-term grand strategy aimed at hegemonic stability and that it must foster the ability to decisively win multiple simultaneous theater wars.

Neocons also claim that proactive counter-proliferation efforts must be made toward preempting pariah states and terrorist organizations from acquiring WMD in order to remove elements of threat before the threat is unleashed.

Neoconservatives cite verification systems' insufficiency for their skepticism about multilateral approaches, and thus they have a negative view toward beefing up the existing nonproliferation regimes like the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Missile Technology Control Regime and the Biological Weapons Convention.

For all these reasons, neocons believe retaining America's present "nuclear strategic superiority" is a more realistic means of countering rogue states' or terrorist groups' nuclear threats than is multilateral arms control.

Finally, neocons worship the "democratic peace" concept deriving from the hypothesis that "democratic countries do not fight amongst themselves," which can be called a product of liberalist strategic thought. Neocons prefer, by corollary, the strategy of securing and expanding "zones of democratic peace."

Neoconservatives apply the "democracy domino theory" to their Middle East policy and try to turn the Middle Eastern region into a zone of democratic peace.

Recalling that the U.S. military occupation of Germany and Japan in the immediate wake of their defeat in World War II achieved what had been considered impossible up to that point -- the inception of democracy in those two countries -- the neocons highlight the need to employ a similar tactic in Iraq: First breathe democracy into Iraq and then let it spread to other Middle Eastern countries.

The writer is a professor and director general for American studies at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.