Steve B has convinced me that Michael Cohen of Democracy Arsenal is a pretty fascinating specimen. So let's drop him into the bell jar, if you please.
Glenn Greenwald has launched quite the missive about the Foreign Policy Community. My colleague, Shadi Hamid as well as Daniel Drezner have provided insightful critiques, but here are my two cents. Greenwald asserts:
The Foreign Policy Community -- a term which excludes those in primarily academic positions -- is not some apolitical pool of dispassionate experts examining objective evidence and engaging in academic debates. Rather, it is a highly ideological and politicized establishment, and its dominant bipartisan ideology is defined by extreme hawkishness, the casual use of military force as a foreign policy tool, the belief that war is justified not only in self-defense but for any "good result," and most of all, the view that the U.S. is inherently good and therefore ought to rule the world through superior military force.
Even though I am supposedly a member of the Very Serious People (VSP) Foreign Policy Community (FPC) I feel obliged to say that I don't agree with any of these sentiments (well except for the part about America being "inherently good.")
Stop the tape. Hold up. Wait. Did he really mean that "inherently good" part...?
I believe that America is inherently good. That goodness, if you will, comes from the basic values that I believe underpin this nation, from not only our founding documents and in particular the Bill of Rights, but from the ongoing efforts to ensure the spread of freedom and opportunity to all our citizens. If you think this sounds hackneyed that is your right - you have as much right to hate America as I do to love it, but I apologize to no one for my patriotism and basic faith in America and its people.
Good grief. You almost feel bad for the boy, watching him trot out the "hate America" line. How 2002. And what's up with the egregious flag-waving? It comes across like the rhetorical strategy of a candidate for Fifth Ward Assistant Alderman holding forth on the subject of global terrorism because he's desperately dodging questions about a minor garbageman scandal.
It's all very silly. But it does get us to the thing that really bugs my tits about the Foreign Policy Community or Clerisy or whatever. And that is what appears to be an overwhelming impulse to ascribe agency to abstract categorical concepts as opposed to specific actors. What I mean is, well, Goodness Inheres in America, in its Founding Documents, in Its Spirit... well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, and how could you tell either way anyway, but what the hell does that have to do with why American politicians do certain things at certain times?
It's the apparently obsessive drive towards abstract categorization that I object to, and I think is the actual cause of the Foreign Policy Community's inability to cope with the Bush administration. More on that later.
But for now:
If America is an empire, well then we're pretty damn benign empire. Compare us to the British Empire, the Roman Empire, the Soviet Union, hell even the Belgians put us to shame . . . frankly there is no comparison between the American Empire and those empires of the past. We're a heck of a lot better than those guys.
Well, hooray for us and may Santa blow coke off our asses.
Of course, on the other hand, accepting this "benign empire" stuff, it's worth observing that empires only get to be empires by being extremely nasty. A benign empire is, essentially, undemocratic democracy combined with overwhelming military force that could never actually be used to overwhelm anyone and keep them overwhelmed.
We're living in an oxymoron. Kinda sucks...