The GOP’s War Roots
Michael Lind urges Republicans to return to the “Republican wayof war” based on traditional Conservative principles:
Whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected in 2008, the time is ripe for a reassertion of the traditional Republican way of war in America. By that I mean the approach to foreign policy of pre-neo-conservative Republicans such as Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Colin Powell an approach that US President George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives have rejected in favour of a disastrous strategy inspired by cold war Democrats.
Neo-conservatives are far more likely to praise Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy than to quote Eisenhower or Nixon, and with good reason. Most are ex-Democrats, and their foreign policy tradition is based in the “cold war liberalism” of Truman, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. As big-government liberals, cold war Democrats assumed that the US economy could afford both welfare and warfare. They favoured outspending the Soviet bloc at all levels.
What is the Republican way of war?
Call it the Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan-Powell doctrine a capital-intensive strategy for the traditional American party of capital. The US will rely on superior technology, rather than attempt to match the military manpower of its enemies (Eisenhower). The US will provide alliesand clients with arms, intelligence and aid, but expect them to fight their own battles (Nixon). The US will support freedom fighters, but will not send its own soldiers to liberate them from their oppressors (Reagan). Only when all else fails will the US send its own troops (Powell).
What about President Bush and his plans, he is a Republican!
Nothing could be further from the neo-conservative Bush doctrine. Neo-conservatives reject the logic of the Eisenhower doctrine, arguing that the US should permanently fund the military at cold war levels. They reject the spirit of the Nixon doctrine, arguing that the US in the name of “reassurance” should volunteer to protect allies such as Japan against their enemies such as North Korea. While praising Reagan, the neocons reject his doctrine, holding instead that the US should liberate oppressed nations by means of “regime change” instead of by his less costly alternative of arming indigenous “freedom fighters”. And they reject the Powell doctrine, arguing that it raises the bar for US military intervention too high.
— Oak Leaf