Dueck instead subsumes these divisions under a common “conservative nationalist” rubric. Other Republican thinkers have sought to suggest that a synthesis of internationalist, nationalist, and realist ideas is now necessary for foreign policy. That sort of cognitive dissonance – which forms the core of this interesting but frustrating book – is par for the course in today’s conservative foreign policy circles. This helps to explain one core thesis of Colin Dueck’s new book on American foreign policy: that conservative internationalism is, in fact, a form of conservative nationalism. alliances and active forward presence, while joining in the Trump-inspired chorus criticizing the so-called ‘liberal international order.’ Pasting a veneer of ‘conservative nationalism’ onto the existing foreign policy consensus allows elites to maintain long-running support for U.S. In large part, this schizophrenia is the result of a Republican foreign policy elite trying to rapidly pivot from the traditional foreign policy consensus to their new Trumpian political reality. Alliances and military force are good if they’re part of a conservative nationalist strategy, but bad when they arise from Wilsonian theories about multilateralism or democracy promotion – even though the practical results may look the same. Neoconservatives – a core part of the Republican foreign policy apparatus even today – are routinely portrayed as Democratic and cosmopolitan interlopers. If it turns out badly, it was the result of excessive idealism or globalism among foreign policy elites. If a decision turned out well, it was clearly an application of conservative nationalism. Much the same can be said of ‘ conservative nationalism’ as a concept within the Republican foreign policy conversation.
Thus, we are told that Nazism and Japanese imperialism had little to do with nationalism. If something is bad, attribute it to the opposite of nationalism. If something turns out to be good, attribute it to nationalism. The problem is pervasive… In the parlance of my native discipline, economics, the author continuously selects on the dependent variable. Reviewing Yoram Hazony’s book, The Virtue of Nationalism, Mark Koyama describes this quandary well: Worse, in the Trump era, the definitions have become politicized. Too often, defining the term is in the eye of the beholder, and subject to their biases. Nationalism – like power, empire, or hegemony – is one of those political science concepts that defy easy categorization and measurement. Colin Dueck, Age of Iron: On Conservative Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2019)
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