There’s an interesting blogospheric dialogue taking place between blog-friend and ally, Ali Eteraz, and Matthew Yglesias. In his post at Democracy Arsenal Ali calls for a Democratic foreign policy based on what he characterizes as “Trumanist” principles which he contrasts with those of the “Isolationist Left”:
Today’s Isolationist Leftist shares almost nothing with a Truman Democrat in terms of foreign policy. Here are the six foreign policy “principles” that define a Truman Democrat: American exceptionalism, the use of force, American hegemony, the world community, liberal-mindedness, and helping the least well off. Today’s Isolationist Left rejects the first three of those without a thought (because they are presumed to be solely belonging to the Neo-Cons). The other three are accepted as long as they do not require having to affirm any of the first three principles.
In his reply Matthew Yglesias makes a number of very interesting points, several by inference. For example, he equates isolationism and pacifism:
The implication that non-Trumanites are all blanket pacifists (name one: Al Gore? Carl Levin?) is unworthy of serious debate
I’m not certain that’s correct. Perhaps “interventionist” vs. “non-interventionist”, as suggested in the comments to the post at Democracy Arsenal, would be a fairer characterization. I didn’t see Ali criticizing mainstream Democrats of the sort that MY notes (viz. Al Gore, Carl Levin) so much as the posters at Daily Kos. Are the positions held there now identical with those of Al Gore and Carl Levin?
MY goes on to attempt a definition of a liberal foreign policy with somewhat the tone of someone attempting to explain the difference between consubstantiation and transubstantiation. Since in his characterization of a Trumanesque foreign policy, Ali takes pains to include the world community by which I take it to mean he means support for international institutions I’m at something of a loss to understand the source of MY’s disagreement.  Here’s how MY characterizes Truman’s foreign policy:
Faced with a Soviet Union aiming at world domination, Truman naturally chose to resist those efforts. Within the broad swathe of the world not already subjected to Soviet domination, however, Truman did not seek to simply implement American domination. Rather, he constructed an alternative vision of a liberal community of nations featuring complex forms of cooperation between states within the framework of liberal institutions like NATO and the EU.
Was the EU part of Truman’s vision? And is NATO a liberal institution or is it an illiberal organization of liberal states?
I would find a practical example of how these differing approaches might function very helpful in clearing things up. Rather than a retrospective examination of, say, Iraq (which inevitably leads to fault-finding) why not look forward to dealing with the challenges provided by Iran? In particular how will working within the framework of NATO, the EU, and, presumably the UN result in an outcome that’s beneficial to the US, the West, or the world at large?
And I must admit I found this puzzling:
The collapse of the Soviet Union creates, in essence, a fork in the road. The United States can either seek to fill the void with unipolar hegemony, or else it can seek to expand the scope of the miniature liberal order created during the Cold War.
It seems to me that one of the lessons of Iraq is that there are quite some number of people who, while wanting the fruits of the “liberal order” have not the slightest interest in a liberal order itself.
Early forms of the EU were active during Truman’s time, though the EU as we know it today was not. The idea for working with the EU would not be out of line for Truman to consider in his time, due to the fact that the EU of his time was a very basic economic union to clarify rules and unify economies in Europe in key areas of industry (Steel and coal). Immediately after WW II, this was not an unwelcome proposal, to be sure; the thought was that nations in the ECSC (the first version of the EU – dedicated to considering only Steel and Coal in trade) would be less likely to fight amongst each other due to the harm that would result to their own enmeshed economies.
Thanks for the links, Dave. Very interesting stuff. My theory is that, in the post-McGovern era, there are around 127 Truman Democrats left, basically through attrition, death and flight.
My last comment wasn’t carefully edited but you get my point- there’s very few Truman Dems left. Overwhelming non-interventionism best describes Democratic foreign policy. Sometimes, it’s a wise policy (Vietnam; Iraq). Sometimes, it’s not.
I also think it’s possible to be de facto isolationist. Sort of the Jud Fry test. In theory one might be non-isolationist but, somehow, the conditions in which to intervene mysteriously never can materialize.
For what it’s worth, your practical suggestion (using Iran as an example) really helped clarify an abstract discussion.
This has been a pretty interesting discussion (kudos for Mr. Eteraz for responding substantively to criticism). A few minor quibbles.
First the “pacifism” isn’t conjured out of thin air by Yglesias – Eteraz explicitly stated that the “Isolationist Left rejects [the use of force] without a thought.” Second, to the extent that Eteraz is arguing against Kos’s commenters, why? Not only is this something of a violation of Drum’s Law, it’s downright silly.
In the context of your example (which is a good one, I think), my concern is that so-called Truman Democrats would find themselves engaging in the same sort of me-tooism which characterized the behavior of many liberal “hawks” in the build up to Iraq. That’s a practical rather than a doctrinal concern: in the abstract there’s nothing especially wrong with the framework Eteraz suggests. In reality, it’s demonstrable that those holding these views have tended to favor exceptionalism, use of force and hegemony over “the world community, liberal-mindedness, and helping the least well off” by a fairly wide margin, with disastrous results. Obviously, Eteraz personally is not in this category given his opposition to the Iraqi adventure. But he’s in something of a minority amongst those who would ascribe to Truman Democracy. At least that is my fear.
Pooh, your reference to Kevin’s Law is well-taken. And I think that the noninterventionist description is more helpful than the pacifist or isolationist labels. However, I’d like your thoughts on Dave’s suggestion of using Iran as an example to flesh out the Democratic view of the limits of US foreign policy. In the late 40s, the West created NATO in response to Stalin’s imposing threat. Do you see the Dems endorsing a Truman-like coalition to isolate Iran, for example?
In principle, yes. The problem is that I don’t see it working, not because isolating Iran wouldn’t be effective, but because our standing is so low presently that I can’t see us being able to form or manage a really effective coalition. I still think unilateralism would be even worse in that it would be ineffective while lowering our standing even further.
There was absolutely no enthusiasm for further isolating Iran in 2002. Our standing has nothing to do with the problems in building an effective coaltion. The pound sterling, francs, deutschmark, yuan, etc. marks have a lot more to do with it.
Fair point, though you are overstating your case by saying that our lack of standing has nothing to do with it.
True. I should have just left it at the observation that on net the outcome probably would have been the same.