The end of neocons?
Francis Fukuyama first introduced himself into the wider intellectual consciousness with the publication of his essay ‘The End of History’, which ended up blossoming in 1992 into his controversial book The End of History and the Last Man.
The end of the Cold War, Fukuyama argued, represented not only the defeat of Communism but “the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” The book ensured Fukuyama’s status amongst the American neoconservative movement, a group loosely categorized by a willingness to advocate military involvement as a means of spreading democracy.
Considering his history Fukuyama’s latest book After the Neocons: America at the Crossroads comes as a surprise, the preface declaring that neoconservatism and the Bush administration have changed to the extent that Fukuyama can no longer offer them his support.
After the Neocons focuses on the American response to the events of September 11th, proceedings that Fukuyama divides into ‘inevitable’ and ‘not obvious’ reactions, the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the deposition of the Taliban falling into the former bracket, the announcement of a ‘broad pre-emptive doctrine’ and the invasion of Iraq into the latter.
In person he qualifies this statement, shifting the focus from ideas of inevitability towards political and moral suitability. ‘I guess nothing was inevitable but it does seem to me that after September 11th going after the Taliban and Al Quadia in Afghanistan was, you know, broadly seen as an appropriate response, whereas the invasion of Iraq was really an optional war’.
That this war was able to take place at all was occasioned in Fukuyama’s eyes ‘by the change in public opinion that happened as a result of September 11th, an alteration ‘used fairly opportunistically’ as a means of implementing an interventionist foreign policy. Yet while he criticizes these responses Fukuyama does not entirely revoke the ideas and opinions that established him at the forefront of neoconservatism for a decade.
His disagreement with the American involvement in Iraq is less about the invasion itself and more to do with its handling, and the failure to anticipate an insurrection. He refuses to countenance ideas that the invasion was motivated by anything else than the result of ‘a sincere belief that there were weapons of mass destruction’ and is hard on those who identify other incentives.
‘As time has gone on people are more and more willing to buy in to these, what I would regard as conspiracy theories that the ostensible reasons were not the real reasons • it was just oil or the Bush family’s Saudi connection or Israel. I think that all these theories are basically wrong’.
While it is easy to remain cynical in regard to American motives in Iraq Fukuyama’s soft spoken sincerity is a telling reflection of the absolute moral conviction underlying much American foreign policy. Fukuyama feels that the war itself caused a polarization in America to the extent that ‘there isn’t a kind of centrist position any longer.’ While this makes his shift away from neoconservatism all the more telling he does not believe the division to ‘be a permanent condition.
If the war continues to go badly and then it’s generally seen to be a policy failure the deck will get reshuffled and a lot of the people that were in favour of it will now have to come up with a different position’ he remarks pointedly. However, he qualifies this by stating that Iraq could yet ‘go reasonably well and it could be seen as a vindication for the Bush administration.
Despite the vocal nature of his apparent political change of heart Fukuyama has drawn criticism for being unable to cast off the neoconservative traits that he professes to have abandoned.
It is understandable that he finds it difficult to reject a set of ideas he has been involved with over the course of his entire professional life yet his failure neither to entirely cast off his political past nor embrace completely his newly proclaimed status as a war sceptic leaves Fukuyama in a kind of intellectual limbo between two extremes of political thought.
It is unsurprising therefore that his ideal for the future governance of the United States represents a resurrection of the centrist position • ‘with the right leadership, I think you could try to reconstruct a centrist coalition that would want involvement in world affairs but just not this over militarisation that you saw in the first term in the Bush administration.’ There is unlikely to be any dramatic change in American foreign policy in the short term.
The structure of the political system precludes any dramatic change in administrative power ‘because of the way they’ve redistributed seats in the house there’s only like 25 of them out of 435 that can actually change parties because the districts are now so homogenous; so whereas 30 years ago you could have had 100 seats change place now you’re going to get very small shifts’.
His asessment of the current situation in Iraq is also bleak • ‘I can see Iraq spinning out of control completely’ although he is more positive about the results of the ‘inevitable’ war in Afghanistan. ‘On the whole I think the Afghans themselves have been much more welcoming of the American presence, the NATO presence now, than the Iraqis were.
Despite his advocation of international organisations as a means of resolving disagreements he is unwilling to attribute the difference in responses to foreign involvement entirely to the legitimizing powers of NATO, pointing instead to the differing histories of the two countries. Fukuyama’s solution is to push for the establishment of effective international organizations operating on a multilateral level that share between them the responsibility for the resolution of global problems.
While the United Nations holds that role within the current political world Fukuyama believes it to be too damaged ‘ever to be reformable to the point that it’s going to be the single source of collective action’ beyond a role in ‘nation building and peace keeping’. Instead he sees a series of ‘much more diverse multi lateral organisations’ ranging from the regional and ‘fairly informal’ to the globally structured.
Fukuyama takes his lead from his view of the global economy in which variously articulated forms of international cooperation allow distant companies ‘to develop corporate codes of conduct or to standardise internet domain names’ despite competing against each other.
In terms of translating this into a political situation Fukuyama points to Kosovo in 1999 as an example of the successful application of this idea • ‘you couldn’t get the security council to act on Kosovo because of the Russian veto; you simply move the venue to NATO and that was I think a good response.’ While his ideas remain provocative, his assurance and his arguments are shielded by their prophetic nature.
Only time can truly determine the accuracy of Fukuyama’s view on history, international politics, and the Iraq war. Until the point where these answers become apparent it is the triggering of debate around these issues that is of central importance.
20th Apr 2006