The Crisis of Diplomacy - II

1
The Crisis of Diplomacy - II

• Crisis at the Top, Challenge from Below

2
Split from Without

• The Indochina consensus was broken by outside
  pressures, i.e., peasant resistance student
  protest
• Which led to different re-evaluations of costs
  benefits
• More more members of the establishment decided
  policy must be changed
• But those closest to power resisted persisted

3
Split from Within

• Kissinger et al refused to listen to the voices
  of change from within the establishment
• Those cut off from the White House any
  influence sought other ways

4
New Institutions for Renewal

• So, the establishment went its own way
• went to the press (unheard of)
• created new forums for rebuilding consensus,
  e.g., (Foreign Policy magazine)
• created new organizations for maintaining
  cohesiveness of Western Alliance, e.g.,
  Trilateral Commission
• created by David Rockefeller Zbigniew
  Brzezinski in 1973
• member Jimmy Carter to relegitimate Presidency
  (new concern with human rights, etc.)

5
Return of the Right Wing

• Banned from the corridors of power after the
  McCarthy, China Lobby attacks on liberal
  internationalism
• The crisis in Keynesian Era, including that in
  the establishment created an opening for a
  rebirth
• Right Old conservatives New
  neo-conservatives
• Right wing set about building counter elite
  institutions and new coalitions around old themes
• e.g., free markets, monetarism, neoliberalism
• e.g., nationalism, anti-communism vs detente
  (Committee on the Present Danger) (Carters New
  Cold War gave official cachet)

6
Waiting in the Wings

• Right Wing Institutions for Policy
• Neoconservative journals Public Interest,
  Commentary
• American Enterprise Institute Neoliberal policy
  interventions
• Hoover Institute Cold War renewal
• Heritage Foundation Mandate for Leadership for
  Reagan
• National Association of Scholars attacks
  liberals in education
• Georgetown Center for Strategic International
  Studies
• Conservative studies conferences

7
Ronald Reagan the Counter-Establishment

• First Reagan Administration staffed with a few of
  old establishment, e.g., George Bush
• But, mainly with as many new, Right wing
  counter-establishment people as possible.
• In economics supply-side economics, tax cuts,
  deregulation, attack on social programs
• In politics Evil Empire, anti-big-govt rhetoric

8
Hughes Reversals

• Hughes of establishment Carnegie Endowment
• Four reversals in foreign policy with new Right
• from respect for international law to whatever
  it takes
• from using insternational institutions (UN,IMF)
  to nationalist antipathy towards them
• from detente (economic ties as means to avoid
  war) to roll-back
• from multi- to uni-lateralism distain for
  international cooperation

9
Liberal Establishments Revenge

• Excluded at last, the old liberal establishment
  turned its guns on the new administration
• for incompetence (e.g., arms control talks,
  Irangate)
• for putting ideology before pragmatism (rabid
  anti-Communism, Contras, etc.)
• Arthur Schlesingers critique of the substitution
  of dogmatic ideology for empirical/pragmatic
  approaches to foreign policy theory practice
• Public criticism in journals, Congress, talks
• Iran-Contra exposure attack (like Watergate)

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From Establishment to Professional Elites?

• Destler, Gelb Lake interpret all this as a
  replacement of old establishment by a new,
  professional elite
• But they extend this new elite backward to
  include people like Kissinger Brzezinski who
  worked within the old establishment
• As well as themselves -who participated in the
  takeover of the executive wing with Carter
• So, for them the Right-wing counter-establishment
  right side of the new professional elite

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Continuing Conflicts - I

• Conflicts within First Reagan Adminstration led
  to
• Quite different Second Reagan Administration
• less ideologically extreme
• more coherent in dealing with Soviet bloc
• but continued basic policy directions
• Contras, Grenada, Panama
• Bush Administration
• Continued 2nd Reagan directions including
  willingness to intervene militarily (Gulf War)

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Continuing Conflicts - II

• Bushs Gulf War led to coalescence of grassroots
  opposition that had developed in 80s around
• opposition to draft
• opposition to military intervention in Central
  America
• opposition to Grenada Panama invasions
• opposition to immigration policies
• Clinton Adminstration
• changed little from Bush policy directions
• continues NAFTA, support for foreign dictators,
  etc.

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