... at its core, neoconservatism is a broad and powerful discourse which is closely underpinned by two widely held and enduring ideas about the United States and the world around it: American virtue and American power. What defines neoconservatism is a largely unchallenged belief that the United States is a virtuous nation with a moral entitlement to superior power for the global good. Thus defined, neoconservatism gave rise to the Bush Doctrine, but the doctrine, which for many epitomizes the very essence of neoconservatism, was not the definitive neoconservatism. Making this distinction helps explain the longer and more mundane lineage of the present neoconservatism. Emerging from the extreme events of 9/11, it was an extreme articulation of long-ingrained ideas about American virtue and power.The also call attention to Hillary's words in a speech aimed at veterans, in which she called the US "the greatest country that has ever been created on the face of the earth for all of history." This sounds like boilerplate talk in American politics now. Bizarrely immodest as it is. And it's in formulations like this where neocon cynicism meets the liberal "humanitarian hawk" interventionist inclination. A heavy dose of Reinhold Niebuhr's brand of realism would do our foreign policy a lot of good, I'm thinking.
Andrew Bacevich did an introduction to a new edition of Niebuhr's The Irony of American History a few years ago. He talks about Niebuhr in this lecture, Illusions of Managing History: The Enduring Relevance of Reinhold Niebuhr Bill Moyers Journal 08/15/2007:
... to read Niebuhr today to avail oneself to a prophetic voice, speaking from the past about the past, but offering truths of enormous relevance to the present. As prophet, Niebuhr warned that what he called "our dreams of managing history" — dreams borne out of a peculiar combination of arrogance, hypocrisy, and self-delusion — posed a large and potentially mortal threat to the United States. Today we ignore that warning at our peril.Luca Castellin looks at Niebuhr's legacy in Reinhold Niebuhr and the Irony of American History in and after the Cold War Telos 168 (Fall 2014):
As a prophet, Niebuhr thought deeply about the dilemmas confronting the United States as a consequence of its emergence as a global superpower. The truths he spoke are uncomfortable ones. They do not easily translate into sound-bites suitable for the Sunday morning talk shows. Nor do they offer material from which to weave the sort of stump speech likely to boost the poll numbers of your favorite candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire.
Four of those truths merit particular attention at present. They are the persistent sin of American Exceptionalism; the indecipherability of history; and the false allure of simple solutions ...
Niebuhr tried to judge reality and to offer sound criteria for political action. In the confrontation with the Soviet Union, it was once again “Christian realism” to engage in biting and constructive criticism of U.S. international politics and to manifest “patriotic dissent.”7 The main purpose that the protestant theologian wanted to achieve was to interpret the American position in the world from the point of view of Christian faith. ...
Although acceptable by all, an ironic interpretation of history — which always accompanies Niebuhr’s analysis on the international role of his country12—becomes crucial and “normative” in Christianity.13 And this, he claims, occurs for two main reasons. First, Christian faith recognizes both the creative power of human freedom and its misuse and corruption. Second, this faith affirms a source of meaning that is outside of history and can give it rationality.14 On the other hand, from Niebuhr’s perspective, Christianity and irony are closely knit, because both dwell upon the contradictions and the duplicities of human life and history. ...
As Niebuhr points out: “the more uncritically a civilization or culture, a nation or empire boasts of its disinterested virtue, the more certainly does it corrupt that virtue by self-delusion.” ...
The everlasting temptation to believe in a divine justification of a state’s behavior is considered by Niebuhr to be a kind of sin. ...
its original aspirations to global responsibilities and frustrations. It is particularly after World War II that the country is, in his view, even more dipped in irony, for the very reason that many of the dreams that America nurtured were cruelly deluded by history. If the ambition to practice a pure virtue fades into the responsibility that comes with the nuclear dilemma,26 then the feverish attempts to escape from a bitter reality through the constitution of an ideal world order cannot but prove to be useless in front of ever-increasing dangers and duties. ...
In Niebuhr’s political theory, irony has a clear and basic origin. It derives, as we have discussed, from human pretension, which corrupts the gift of freedom. The consequence of a misuse of freedom is the misrecognition of the limits of power, wisdom, and virtue. Hence, the meaning of irony lies in the necessary call
