Neo-conservatives examining themselves

Not that they are finding much wrong with themselves. I ran across The Past, Present, and Future of Neoconservatism by accident. I cannot even remember how I found it. I suggest this essay for those who think the neo-conservatives have learned anything, that they will go away or reform their errors. There are some points to be made against much of the essay, but this paragraph really me gritting my teeth:

Third, neoconservatives, like (in this case) most conservatives, trusted in the efficacy of military force. They doubted that economic sanctions or UN intervention or diplomacy, per se, constituted meaningful alternatives for confronting evil or any determined adversary.

I am far from a pacifist but military action means that all other possibilities failed. Military action provides the greatest chance of failure for the participants. Military power means imposing one country's will upon another. History has a huge catalog of these kind of ventures which were failures: Persia on Greece, Sparta on Athens, Athens on Corinth, England on Ireland, French Republicans on Europe, Napoleon on Europe, the Allies on the Germany in 1919, and the usual suspects of the twentieth century: Japan, the USSR, Germany, and Italy. Iraq shows the limits of our power. So much for military efficacy. Better to ponder why Weimar Germany begat the Nazis or why the Reconstruction South begat the Klu Lux Klan.

Probably would have helped if the neo-cons read more history and less political theory.

I hesitate to speak for liberalism but I think I can apply common sense here. I see none in the following paragraphs of this essay:

Next, only by enlarging our military can we base strategic decisions on military need and not on the availability of forces. How is it that a nation of 300 million cannot indefinitely sustain a force level of 150,000 in a given theater, meaning one soldier for every 2,000 Americans?

Finally, our efforts to foster democracy in the Middle East must not be curtailed but prosecuted vigorously and more effectively. True, the “Arab spring” of 2005 did not turn out to be as successful as the famous “Prague spring” of 1968. But then, it took two decades for that Prague spring to yield fruit. The modest liberalization in the Middle East and the democratic ferment that we have stirred there promise further advances if we persevere.

None of this offers a complete guide to waging the war against terror. But it does amount to a coherent approach, essentially similar to the one by means of which we won the cold war. By contrast, liberals and realists have no coherent approach to suggest—or at least they have not suggested one. That, after all, is why George W. Bush, searching urgently for a response to the events of September 11, stumbled into the arms of neoconservatism, unlikely though the match seemed. One can always wish that policies were executed better, but for a strategy in the war that has been imposed upon us, neoconservatism remains the only game in town.

All I say to this is: read Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of Great Nations.