The Harries response to Kagan—that the neocons were essentially ultrarealists, who were incapable of recognizing changed circumstances—explains why the Australian conservative, writing a widely read cover feature in The New Republic twenty years ago, even put forward a qualified defense of the Clinton administration’s foreign policy. Bereft of serious purpose, Harries argued, Clinton had inadvertently provided a counter to the dangers associated with the kind of excessive idealism and optimism that characterized the writings of Kagan and other neoconservatives such as Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Harries’ argument was sound: although the U.S. armed forces were maintained at a high level, new commitments, over and above the maintenance of U.S. alliances, were scrutinized mercilessly, and any undertakings were kept limited in time and scope. The U.S. military often seemed more concerned with effective exit strategies than with implementing ambitious, open-ended foreign-policy projects—whether that concerned Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia or places entirely avoided, such as Rwanda. By the 2000 presidential election, when George W. Bush shunned national building for a more modest and prudent foreign policy, things looked promising from a Harries point of view.

Then September 11 intervened. As the alleged “holiday from history” came to an abrupt end, America’s outrage over the terrorist attacks, taken together with the mental habits of American hegemony and American exceptionalism, had given U.S. leaders a clear, overriding sense of purpose. Kagan’s worldview had become the prevailing wisdom. The Bush doctrine was born. And the countdown to Operation Iraqi Freedom had begun.

During the year of the Iraq invasion, a few neoconservatives were honest enough to acknowledge the stakes. In the Weekly Standard, Kagan and Kristol argued:

“The future course of American foreign policy, American world leadership, and American security is at stake. Failure in Iraq would be a devastating blow to everything the United States hopes to accomplish, and must accomplish, in the decades ahead.”

Joshua Muravchik, another leading neoconservative, expressed similar sentiments that year: “There’s a tremendous amount on the line [in Iraq]. If this goes wrong, of course, [neoconservatives] will be, to some degree, discredited. Justifiably so. We put forward these ideas and they’re really being put to the test.” Yet neither Kagan, who hardly mentions the war in his recent New Republic essay, nor Muravchik and other leading neoconservatives have made any serious attempt whatsoever to refute the overwhelming consensus that the Iraq venture was a comprehensive failure.

Not surprisingly, today there is a widespread reconsideration of the Kagan worldview. After all, the limits of the U.S. capacity have been made evident and the inclination to resist the notion of American global leadership has greatly strengthened on both sides of politics in Washington. Bloodied by quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, crippled by a $16 trillion debt and sluggish growth, mired in a crisis of confidence, the United States is struggling to impose its will, leadership and influence across the globe.

Meanwhile, as Fareed Zakaria points out, the world is “far more peaceful and stable than at any point in decades and, by some measures, centuries.” There is no Soviet Union seeking global hegemony. A cash-strapped Washington spends more on defense than the next fourteen nations combined. Since both major wars have cost America dearly in blood and treasure as well as credibility and prestige, there is overwhelming support for a more prudent approach to foreign affairs and a respite for responsibilities. So much so that the president of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass, a self-described “card-carrying member of the American foreign-policy establishment”, writes articles and books these days on how “foreign policy begins at home” and “getting America’s house in order.”

Make no mistake: the United States will remain the world’s largest economy and its lone military superpower, and it has enormous capacity to bounce back from setbacks with tremendous force. But it is also true that the United States, far from acting like the kind of almost indiscriminating global policeman that Kagan has advocated during the past two decades, is bound to define distinctions between the essential and the desirable, between what is possible and what is beyond its capabilities. It will also place more stress on limits and modesty in a complex and ambiguous world that won’t conform to American expectations.

That is essentially what Barack Obama was trying to say at West Point last week. For his pains, he has been denounced as a weak and empty president who has retrenched America’s global engagement. To refine his message and provide it with intellectual backbone, the president’s advisers could do worse than consult the works of Kagan’s preeminent critic.

Tom Switzer is a research associate at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre and the Australian editor of The Spectator.

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