NationStates Jolt Archive

I was made aware of Francis Fukuyama's recent article in the NYTimes yesterday, and I was quite impressed with it, to the point that I think it warrants its own thread.

This is the link to the nytimes-website, but that requires a sign-on.

So I found this link here:
http://www.champress.net/english/index.php?page=show_det&id=2405

Have a read, and tell me what you think. Is Neoconservatism dead?

Fukuyama is making a common mistake here. He assumes that the "human rights and democracy" rhetoric of the people in power are in fact somehow related to their actual policy, and that is not the case.

He has a point regarding the policy he attacks, but the policy does not exist.

Is Neoconservatism dead?
Neoconservativism is dead. We have killed him, you and I :D

He has a point regarding the policy he attacks, but the policy does not exist.
The doctrine (elaborated, among other places, in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States) argued that, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, America would have to launch periodic preventive wars to defend itself against rogue states and terrorists with weapons of mass destruction; that it would do this alone, if necessary; and that it would work to democratize the greater Middle East as a long-term solution to the terrorist problem.

What was that about the policy not existing?

What was that about the policy not existing?

Aspects of the National Security Strategy - like unilateralism, aggression, and radical American exceptionalism - are in fact the policy; others are most definitely not, like the idea that the US intends to "promote human rights" in the Middle East.

Aspects of the National Security Strategy - like unilateralism, aggression, and radical American exceptionalism - are in fact the policy; others are most definitely not, like the idea that the US intends to "promote human rights" in the Middle East.
I gotcha, you had it in the first post. I was just nitpickin'.