Obama’s “Cold War Liberalism”
Recently, on this blog, David Gibson has suggested an interpretation of Obama’s Nobel Speech in light of Niebuhr’s Christian realism, which I pointed out is also a favorite trope of George Weigel. In the NYTimes today, David Brooks also reads Obama in connection with Niebuhr and ties both to “Cold War Liberalism.” Here’s the meat of Brooks’ article:
Cold war liberalism had a fine run in the middle third of the 20th century, and it has lingered here and there since. Scoop Jackson kept the flame alive in the 1970s. Peter Beinart wrote a book called “The Good Fight,” giving the tendency modern content.
But after Vietnam, most liberals moved on. It became unfashionable to talk about evil. Some liberals came to believe in the inherent goodness of man and the limitless possibilities of negotiation. Some blamed conflicts on weapons systems and pursued arms control. Some based their foreign-policy thinking on being against whatever George W. Bush was for. If Bush was an idealistic nation-builder, they became Nixonian realists.
Barack Obama never bought into these shifts. In the past few weeks, he has revived the Christian realism that undergirded cold war liberal thinking and tried to apply it to a different world.
Obama’s race probably played a role here. As a young thoughtful black man, he would have become familiar with prophetic Christianity and the human tendency toward corruption; familiar with the tragic sensibility of Lincoln’s second inaugural; familiar with the guarded pessimism of Niebuhr, who had such a profound influence on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2002, Obama spoke against the Iraq war, but from the vantage point of a cold war liberal. He said he was not against war per se, just this one, and he was booed by the crowd. In 2007, he spoke about the way Niebuhr formed his thinking: “I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction.”
So, who’s side is this Niebuhr guy on? ”Doves” like MLK? ”Hawks” like Weigel? And do we really need to be rolling back to the Cold War? Finally, I’m sure troops in Afghanistan and Iraq would describe the situations there as anything but cold. So, how “cold” is Obama’s “Cold War Liberalism”?
UPDATE: I just wanted to link in the main body of this post the article David Gibson wrote over at Politics Daily on Obama and Niebuhr. Definitely well worth a read!
I think Brooks’s references to “Cold War Liberalism” do not in any way imply that Obama is returning to the Cold War. Brooks is talking about a belief that there is evil in the world that needs to be fought, sometimes militarily. During the Cold War, many liberals subscribed to that view. Subscribing to it now doesn’t have anything to do with reviving the Cold War. I have to say this — the necessity of military force — seems like a no-brainer to me, and I am amazed at the pounding Obama is taking from some Catholics (particularly over at Vox Nova).
It is one thing to disagree about Obama’s position on Afghanistan. It is quite another to be disappointed that Obama is not a pacifist and will not renounce war under any and all circumstances. If a pacifist running for president could get 1 percent of the vote, I would be amazed (and perhaps appalled).
I posted this quote (originally posted by Fr. Komonchak about a year ago) very recently, but it seems worth repeating:
I certainly want a president who avoids unnecessary wars, but from the little I know of “just war theory,” I would not want a president who refuses to use the military until a panel of ethicists and theologians reaches a consensus on whether or not a particular military action is a just war. And I certainly don’t want a pacifist for president. Obama has always made it clear that he is not a pacifist, and he also made it very clear that he thought the war in Iraq was a distraction from the war in Afghanistan. Anybody who feels disillusioned about Obama’s position on war in general or the war in Afghanistan wasn’t paying attention to what Obama was saying during the campaign and before.
Also, I think trying to classify people as hawks and doves may be of limited usefulness in regard to a particular war, but apart from that, I don’t see any point in it. I don’t believe Obama gave the very carefully crafted Nobel speech so he could be pigeonholed.
Eric, thanks for linking to this. I did write up my piece on this at PoliticsDaily–me channeling David Brooks channeling Barack Obama channeling Niebuhr:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/12/of-niebuhr-and-nobels-divining-obamas-theology/
As I said before (channeling Paul Elie and many others), Niebuhr can sound like all things to all people. But I’m not sure the dichotomy you propose is the best way to frame it. While many neo-cons cite Niebuhr (and liked Obama in Oslo) they don’t do so very convincingly, and George Weigel is arguably the least convincing of all when it comes to just war theory. Obama arguably knows just war theory better, or at least in the Catholic fashion, in that with the Vatican he cited it to oppose war in Iraq and support it in Afghanistan.
(The shock over Obama’s Afghan decision, mainly on the left, is itself odd, if not amusing, in that he’d said all along this is what he was going to do. Apparently the Obamessianists only heard what they wanted to hear?)
The way Obama and others (MLK eg) interpret Niebuhr I think rightly does justice to the complexity of life, and death, and sin. His work is worth reading, IMHO. Citing Niebuhr doesn’t make any one right, much less virtuous–maybe the opposite, as I try to indicate at the end of my piece.
PS: What David N said before me, too…
David G. – I really enjoyed your article. The one question that nags me, though, has to do with the “guilt” that you quote Niebuhr as saying must accompany power. I’m not sure that I heard a lot of “guilt” or all that much “self-awareness” in Obama’s remarks on Afghanistan. The speech sounded more like an apologia than an apology. Of course it’s hard to simultaneously take action and apologize for the action you take, but that is what war on your reading of Niebuhr’s view seems to require. I like this view, but how to make it politically viable?
David N. – I think I mostly agree with you on the impossibility of political pacifism, but political realism can hide a multitude of sins.
A war that has been waged for eight years? How is it not running on empty. Everybody supported it in the beginning because Al Quida was there. Then, which was an absurd sell which many liberals bought into, Iraq was invaded witht 9/11 as justification. As others have pointed out here, Obama did say what he was going to do in Iraq. I admit I missed it. Isn’t it fair to say that he was rather quiet about it while he had the highest decibel raised in his comparison with him and Hillary over Iraq.
It is almost ridiculous to talk about America as pacifist. Isolationists maybe. But never pacifists. Self defense is only a problem with the extreme left. Afghanistan is no longer self defense. It is now a policy of supporting a corrupt government who will make our presence legal.
Obama played on nuclear fears in his attempt to get support for this war. The answer may lie in cutting off the Taliban suppliers and getting Israel to be just with the Palestinians rather than bombs away in Afghanistan.
It really cheapens the debate to assume the lines are between pacifism and just war. There are serious questions about Obama’s position and he justly deserves the heat he is getting.
As I read Reinhold Niebuhr, he was innately suspicious of any intellectual proposition that smacked of ideology. He would be baffled that contemporary politicians/writers are being assessed in terms of how “Niebuhrian” they are. Equally baffling would be the discription that he was a “Cold War Liberal.” Acheson, Kennan and others may have referred to Niebuhr’s political realism when they defended the “Doctrine of Containment.” But many of those who became known as “Cold War Liberals” rejected containment because it did not “roll back” Communisim. The Vietnam War made clear this division among liberals.
Niebuhr was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, not because he was morally opposed to the use of force, but because that war violated his principles of political realism.
Niebuhr’s anti-ideological stance makes it difficult to summarizes his approach in a neat syllogism. His starting point is that human reason is always enveloped in ambiguity and uncertainty. Thus he was skeptical of the “just war theory.” He did not trust that we could accurately sort out the moral complexities which surround the decision to unleash violence on others. This distruct in the human intellect also led him to criticize John XIII’s PACEM EN TERRAM as too utopean.
IMHO, Niebuhr operated within the rhetorical boundaries of early 20th Century American Protestantism. The Social Gospel had emphasized Christian charity and justice in political action and denegrated self-interest as a variant of selfishness. Niebuhr apparently accepted this classification. He spoke of the “guilt” that nations must bear when they use force to advance/defend national interests. Politics always advanced “interests” not moral goods. Politics is not to be shunned but Christians should be realistic about the imperfect moral outcomes of all political activities.
Niebuhr was an Augustianian Christian. Politics at best can achieve an “earthly,” second-best justice. He was skeptical of the Thomistic Catholic tradition that used Aristotle to depict politics as a human activity for advancing the human common good.
At Olso, Obama spoke of creating a peaceful world, not just a world marked by the absence of war. In those remarks, Obama was more likely channelling John XIII than Rienhold Neibuhr.
Aside from Niebuhr Obama can draw upon many secular cold war liberals, or human nature realists: Hans Morgenthau, Arthur Schlesinger, Samuel Huntington. Here’s Sidney Hook, one of the first liberal anti-communists: “Love without power is an invitation to surrender the world to power without love.”
Most of these intellectuals were allies of Niebuhr but were puzzled by his theology. Schlesinger viewed Niebuhr’s treatment of Original Sin as a “powerful metaphor.” To which one may respond, to paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, “if Original Sin is only a metaphor, to hell with it.”
Metaphor or not, pessimism about human nature is not popular with the campus left or probably half of the Democratic base. I wish Obama good luck with those factions.
Patrick – Pessimism about human nature doesn’t seem to be popular with humans.
My apologies for the misspellings/typos in my earlier post.
Write in haste
Repent at leisure.
Eric — Agreed. Original Sin also doesn’t seem to be popular with humans, not even with Obama supporters!
Obama did state he would take the war to Afghanistan in his campaign. He did state just recently that in order to stop or contain the Taliban and stabilize the region from terrorism, our presence was necessary. It surprised me that so many other countries (39) support and join our presence there. I consider Obama a realist amd neither a hawk or a dove. I believe he is doing what he believes is pragmatic to protect the interests of freedom from fear.
Patrick,
Original sin and pessimism are not the same even tho the fact of original sin can generate or reflect pessimism. We follow Jesus’ command to let our light shine before others so that where sin abounded, grace may super abound. Good people make others better. The reason the US has problems with other countries is not because we do not go to war but because we are too ready to be imperialists. There is a bountiful market for imperialism.
Optimism is neither right nor left but Christian. Explaining the hope within and renewing the face of the earth.
Interesting–Mark Silk discovers that Brooks edited his column online for a different ending:
http://www.spiritual-politics.org/2009/12/whats_up_david_brooks.html
The original dead-tree edition walkaway:
The later redaction:
Does it mean anything? FWIW…
PS: First Things follows the trail–and finds First Things at the end! (Sort of. But really.)
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/12/15/did-first-things-influence-the-obama-doctrine/#more-10605
He aims to be like Truman, not Nixon or Carter or McGovern.
I imagine a reference to Truman in the dead-tree version (and probably Nixon or Carter as well) would not resonate with many readers.