Interest Groups, NeoConservatism, and the Military Industrial Complex

Andrew Bacevich has a post at the American Conservative magazine website (not at all my usual reading) decrying the failure of the United State's foreign policy elites to comprehend the limitations of military force as a tool of foreign policy. As noted in the sub-title, "America has an impressive record of starting wars but a dismal one of ending them well." He faults the Obama administration for not breaking with the consensus in favor of the use of force. This is certainly not an unwelcome message for a semi-pacifist leftist such as my self, and the source is quite surprising from my point of view.

However, there is something missing from Bacevich's analysis. This is the role of interest group politics in determining America's foreign policy posture. Specifically, I refer to the NeoConservatives. This group emerged in the 1970s and 80s as a response to their perception that American resistance to Communism had been weakened by the (eventual) public rejection of the VietNam war. Whatever useful purpose they might have served in the waning days of the Cold War, it was pretty much mooted by the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

However, by the time of these events, neoconservatives had adopted a further function, that of front group for the interests of the Military Industrial Complex. The Neocons have the distinction of being the only interest group that is a recognized political faction without the stigma of being labeled an interest group.

The Neocons were initially triumphalist (consider Francis Fukuyama's (1992), The End of History. However, a problem soon presented itself, how to justify the continued massive weapons building industry and military establishments? The result was a chicken with its head cutoff scramble to find a suitable enemy to justify these wastefully deadly expenditures. First it was Saddam, then, in the early days of George the Second's reign, Communist China, then once again Saddam. None of these were very satisfying as an embodiment of evil. After all, we had handily beaten Saddam in the early post-Cold War days, and China was becoming an increasingly important trading partner.

Of course, the Neocons, neither individually nor collectively too bright, had to be bashed in the head with the perfect enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. It is no accident that the response to 9/11 and other acts of terror has been labeled the War on Terror. Only a full scale and unending war can justify the bloated war machine that the US now supports. One is reminded of George Orwell's 1984, where Oceania must be perpetually at war to justify the Oligarchal Collectivism. As better writers than I have recognized, you can have a war on a tactic. In any case, the most effective tactics for combating terrorism are good police and intelligence work, not military campaigns.