Praktike points to a fine post by John Ikenberry on the so-called battle of the Wilsonians on the issue of intervention for humanitarian (including democracy-promotion) objectives. I agree with prak that Ikenberry sums up the liberal internationalist worldview quite nicely. But it's a bit too abbreviated on the Bush-era "neocon" front.

The Ikenberry piece is part of a debate over "liberal interventionism" that's raging across a number of venues. In addition to the Ikenberry post, see especially the Rosenfeld/Yglesias "incompetence dodge" article, Stephen Holmes' review in the Nation of books by Paul Berman and David Reiff, a number of posts on TPMCafe's America Abroad including a contribution by Reiff, and this week's salvo on Darfur from TNR by Richard Just, with a first reply from Yglesias.

Prak had some useful thoughts on the debate awhile back. And I've been chewing on this discussion for awhile and hope to write something in the coming days. But before we get to Wilsonian family feuds (left vs right and within the left) about when/where/how/why to intervene, it's vital to distinguish more carefully between two very different worldviews on the right that are too frequently lumped together as "neocon."

Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay make the important distinction between the true neocons (Wolfowitz, Eliot Abrams, Kristol and Kagan) and the assertive nationalists (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton). They shared an objective - Saddam and Iraq - and a desire to use US power now, but not a common philosophy. Daalder and Lindsay remind us that the real power in the BushAdmin is sitting with the assertive nationalists, not the neocons.

To shorthand the Daalder/Lindsay argument, the neocons seem to see the US at a unique, but fleeting, moment in history -- the hegemonic moment -- and want to take advantage of this moment to shape the future world order. A strange blend of super-optimistic (the US can change the world) and pessimistic (but the window of opportunity won't be open long). The assertive nationalists want to sustain US permanent hegemony and believe that can be done by continually asserting US power to eliminate enemies and dissuade potential competitors.

The two groups share a focus on the ability to project military power as the main measure that matters in the international system. Both view international/multilateral entanglements as Lilliputian efforts to constrain US power. And with their focus on military power, they naturally devote more attention to states than to other types of transnational actors in other domains of international activity.

In structural terms, both neocons and nationalists prefer an international system composed of the US at the center of a sort of hub-and-spoke system of bilateral relations among states, managed by the US. The neocons are, however, more relaxed about cross-linkages among the spokes as long as the US retains the ability to shape those cross-linkages, whereas the assertive nationalists are highly suspicious of any linkages that don't go through the US hub.

By contrast, liberal internationalists increasingly see the structure of the international system as a network of a host of state and non-state relations along a number of dimensions (e.g. economic, cultural, technological, legal/regulatory -- see especially Anne-Marie Slaughter's New World Order). US institutions are the most important nodes (more links, both strong and weak) and therefore have the most influence over the general shape of the network, whether that influence is exercised through deliberate leadership or by default, and whether for good or ill. Liberal internationalists see the US role as helping to shape the network towards a more robust system through the continuous promotion of positive linkages that integrate the various bits of the network. Where linkages are disruptive, they need to be modified to the system's advantage or eliminated. Where a given node is the source of a large number of negative or disruptive linkages, the node may have to be modified directly (regime change, humanitarian intervention) or eliminated (Al Qaeda). In Clinton's terms, "manage interdependence"; in Tom Barnett's terms, "promote connectivity."

As for domestic entanglements that would constrain the executive branch, the neocons are more "ends justify the means" in the context of the hegemonic moment and the GWOT. The assertive nationalists are simply fans of untrammeled executive power as the essential permanent instrument of US power. Both tend to view the exercise of power by the executive, both at home and abroad, as "good" simply because America itself is virtuous -- the US always wears the white hat, at least as long as Republicans are in charge.

George Packer, in Assassins' Gate, has some interesting insights as to why both groups were uninterested in or unconcerned about "nation-building" throughout the 90s and in Iraq. But for different reasons. Again, shorthanding a fairly complex intellectual history traced by Packer. The neocons are indeed much more concerned about the nature of domestic political and economic regimes than the nationalists. But they've consumed too much of their own "freedom" kool-aid, as if simply removing constraints will produce a "default" democracy and free markets (the "creative destruction" approach). And 90s nation-building exercises were dismissed in their entirety as being too associated with the effete Lilliputians at the UN and Clintonian "fecklessness." The notion that there were positive lessons to be learned from people with first-hand experience wasn't seriously contemplated.

The nationalists are much more of the Jeanne Kirkpatrick school. In any event, a pre-invasion concern with nation-building would have raised all sorts of additional organizational and resource hurdles to the going-to-war process. So both groups were united in their desire to keep potential intermeddlers (both domestic, read State Dept and parts of the CIA, and international) out of the post-invasion process.

To extend the contrast between the two conservative approaches to BushAdmin views on humanitarian intervention, first Ikenberry and Daalder/Lindsay would warn that it's a mistake to focus too much on Iraq as a centerpiece of a debate over when to intervene. Humanitarian concerns, and even democracy promotion, were simply not why the BushAdmin went to war.

More broadly, although humanitarian concerns aren't major drivers for either neocons or nationalists, some of the members of the BushAdmin may indeed be true believers in "democratic peace" theory. (Here I'd probably put Rice, though she's certainly not a true neocon and she has a greater appreciation for other dimensions of national power than military.) But the guys in charge who have really been driving the train, Cheney and Rumsfeld, aren't of that persuasion. Certainly, neocons and nationalists would agree that like-minded regimes are easier to live with than those with significantly different political and economic systems. But for the nationalists, "democracy" and "tyranny" are mainly useful labels to tag friends and enemies as the occasion merits (a common weakness shared with the neocons) within a system designed to maximize the ability of the US to dissuade and defeat enemies.

So in future debates about intervention, we'd do well to recall that, although the assertive nationalists may have borrowed a bit of neo-Wilsonian rhetoric, this is not actually a battle within the Wilsonian family.

[cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism]