Americans are going to have ditch what Rush Limbaugh calls liberalism; international liberalism was around long before conservative talkback radio. It finds it earlier expressions in some of Kant's musings on the international order. It has been a consistent strand in various forms in Australian foreign policy with Doc Evatt the most notable user of it.
It is defined similar to liberalism. Common cause in humanity, morality, freedom etc. It is based on debate, deliberation, reason and the seeking of minimum dissatisfaction between actors. Consequently it pays a lot of importance on honesty of communication and group action. Obama's speech was consistent with most of that.
There were other elements of the use of national power, but there wasnt anything that said, "Fuck you europe" for instance like Rumsfields statement on 'Old Europe". Or the neoconservative view of dominant national power meaning unilateral decision making. No foreign policy is ever pure; Australia has three competing methodologies and all are used at different times by Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers though one tends to dominate at different times.
We havent really seen how Rudd is going to operate his foreign policy though, most of his policies have been relatively meek so far, probably still finding his feet as a new executive - the abuses will come in the third term - but no over-riding foreign policy doctrine has emerged yet. I suspect that Obama's view of international liberalism will be palatable to the Rudd Government.
Walter Mead argued that there were four types of American foreign policy; Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian and Jacksonian. It has been a while since I read it and I cannot remember which one he equated with international liberalism; probably a mix of Wilsonian and Jeffersonian. I cannot recall the taxonomies well enough to go through them.
| < Sex and Death | Attention Texas Infidel > |
