Rand Paul’s Tea Too Strong for the GOP? By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, March 7, 2013.
Mead:
Diligent
students of Meadism know that WRM divides the landscape of American foreign
policy thought into four camps, named for four famous US leaders: Alexander
Hamilton, Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. Each of these
four thinkers inspires a school of thought that still has followers today, but
since Sept. 11, Jacksonians have made the most noise, especially in the GOP.
Jacksonians are populists who want a muscular and realist foreign policy. They
are more into bad-guy bashing than into nation building, and if our enemies
break the laws of war they don’t think the US should be bound by Marquis of
Queensbury rules. When the Iraq War was about weapons of mass destruction, Jacksonians
backed it to the hilt. When it turned into an expensive and bloody exercise in
democracy building in a country far, far away, Jacksonians grew disenchanted,
but they stuck it out because the only thing they hate more than fighting
unnecessary wars is losing.
While
democracy promoting neoconservatives did most of the writing about Bush’s
foreign policy from the Republican side, Jacksonians did most of the voting
that kept him in the White House for eight years.
Flash
forward to 2013 and the landscape has changed. Liberated from the need to
defend the policies of a Republican president, and benefiting from the sense
that both Bush and Obama managed to reduce the direct threat to the United
States from Al Qaeda, some Republicans are taking another look at this whole
world policeman concept. Jacksonians only want to get involved overseas in
response to threats; Jeffersonians think we can reduce threats coming from
abroad by scaling down our overseas military presence. Put the two camps
together and a significant Republican and conservative movement for a less
aggressive, less global foreign policy starts to emerge.
Jeffersonians
follow our nation’s third President in wanting a small government at home,
limited entanglements abroad, and in hating and fearing the potential for abuse
inherent in the rise of a national-security state. World War Two, the Cold War
and then 9/11 pushed Jeffersonians into the background in American
politics. The world looked like such a
dangerous place that a certain amount of proactive global policy seemed
attractive, but with the death of Osama bin Laden the Jeffersonian worldview
has gained new support. Al Qaeda looks more like a nuisance than an existential
threat, China isn’t ready for prime time and Russia is over the hill. Maybe
it’s time for the Atlas of the West to take a break.
Meanwhile,
growing fears of an entitlement state fueled by infinitely extended budget
deficits an order of magnitude bigger than many Americans like have made
spending at home look more dangerous than bad guys abroad. Jeffersonian ideas,
in a slightly less crack-potty format than the one advanced by the elder Paul,
now begin to look like a compelling alternative to ambitious young politicians
in the GOP. The younger Paul, hoping to build on his father’s core of
supporters without some of the old man’s baggage, seems to see a path ahead.
