It is now common knowledge that the coalition on the American right is fraying, if not splitting like a ripe melon. The “fusionist” movement that began when Ronald Reagan brought together anti-Communists, social conservatives, and classical liberals (i.e., libertarians) seems to have run its course, with the latter growing increasingly concerned about the ongoing struggle to complete the liberation of Iraq.
We must remember that the combination of a strong military and a limited government in a political coalition is quite rare in American history. In fact, Reagan’s Republican coalition completed a transition that ended roughly 110 years (1860-1970) during which the party that endorsed larger government (the Republicans before 1932, the Democrats after) supported a strong military and a robust foreign policy. In fact, the only period where the party of smaller government was also the more militaristic party (I do not use that term pejoratively) was during the Jacksonian era (1829-1849).
For this reason, most consider an active, “tough” foreign policy and limited government to be contradictory in political thought. I would disagree, and I believe history would show that I am correct: limited government cannot survive without military strength, and vice versa.
The reasons my view seems counterintuitive (at best) is due to the nature of government itself. Since the military is by definition a part of the government, its growth would lead one to assume the rest of government should follow (likewise the contrapositive, a drawdown in civilian government should lead to a similar military effect). Moreover, many classical liberals today are very distrustful of governments in war time seeking authorities and powers that they are reluctant to give up when peace dawns.
However, I believe these notions reverse the true nature of actor and reactor in society; it is not the government’s actions that concern me, but the actions of the people.
It is no secret that large government fosters societal dependence, and thus saps the natural strength (physical and psychological) of the individual. As a person becomes more dependent on government to survive, rather than the other way around, (s)he becomes more subject to that government’s whim. This can, of course, lead a nation into wars it might otherwise avoid (another standard classical liberal concern), but it rarely leads to successful wars.
Consider the nature of the autocracy at war when faced with a republic at the other end of the field. The United States routed Mexico in the 1840s despite serious internal divisions on the war itself, and a numerical disadvantage in the field. Likewise, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Great Britain, the second most free nation on earth, repeatedly succeeded in military endeavors against nations less free (its only catastrophic defeat in two centuries came at the hands of the only nation with a freer populace – the United States). Moreover, during the great (albeit imperfect) battles between tyranny and freedom (World War II and Cold War I), the very nature of the autocracies (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union respectively) did tremendous damage to the non-democratic side (best summed up by John Lewis Gaddis in We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History – “who is about to tell the authoritarian in charge when he is about to do something stupid?”).
I would, however, take this a step further. It is the nature of humans to be more willing to defend that which they have helped build. That was the beauty of America in her past (and to a lesser extent, still is today). The average American not only had selfish reasons to defend America (the home, the family, etc.), or patriotic reasons (the nation as home), (s)he had the personal reason of knowing American was something (s)he helped build, helped form, and helped to maintain. The less one has government do, the more one does for oneself, and thus the more one is determined to defend what they have made and done. To use modern parlance, if one is a stakeholder in society, rather than its pensioner, one is far more likely to defend that society, rather than submit to occupation or decay and merely minimize the effect on one’s own life. Thus, the more an individual must rely on him- or herself, the more willing they will be to see beyond themselves to the outer world, and respond to the threats that face society.
Thus it should not surprise us that it was during the Jacksonian era (the last time small government and assertive foreign policy were combined in the majority party) that America reached the Pacific Ocean over 900 years earlier than Thomas Jefferson himself predicted she would. Likewise, it was under Reagan and his hand-picked successor that the most dangerous tyranny on earth up to that time collapsed in a heap of rubble, and America achieved a global position never before seen in the history of the world.
Now, classical liberals would have little objection to what I have written so far. They would, however, wonder why a strong military and/or assertive foreign policy is necessary to protect a free republic. This insistence by classical liberals that such things are not necessary – that America can thrive as a non-interventionist, commercial republic – is why I can never consider myself one of them, and thus prefer the label that titles this blog.
What most classical liberals fail to understand is that the United States of America has been under threat from the moment of its very creation in 1776. Great Britain spent nearly 30 years after the Treaty of Paris trying to undermine the new republic – to the point of trying to seize the Old Northwest and create a Native American buffer state there and later, exempting New England from the War of 1812 embargo to encourage Royalist and dovish factions there. Europe’s machinations during the Civil War nearly ended it as a Confederate victory. Both Hitler and Stalin envisioned American cities burning to the ground in fiery destruction (the former planned for it well before the United States entered World War II). To this day, our mere existence sends Wahhabi terrorists, Chinese Communists, African tyrants, and all of their murderous henchmen into a rage. Even the so-called periods of “peace” seem merely way stations from one war to the next, because of American weakness abroad. The 1920s saw America enter arms control agreements for the first time in her history; twenty years later our enemies had tremendous, albeit temporary, advantages in firepower because they cheated the agreements while we honored them (the Soviets played the same game decades later).
What we must realize is that a strong military and a limited, “weak” civilian government go hand in hand. An America vigorously defending her interests abroad and keeping her enemies at bay is more able to avoid emergency security measures at home. As an imperfect example: we can be far more rigorous in our standards of rights in our legal system if we keep enemy combatants in the military justice system where they belong. More to the point, we can be less worried about Wahhabists, Ba’athists, and Khomeinists committing acts of war in the U.S. if we defeat and kill them in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Iraq.
Liekwise, a strong military is well nigh impossible without physically and mentally strong Americans to serve in it; meaning government must not be in the business of doing for us what we can do for ourselves.
Whatever one thinks of Jackson (my great-great-great-great grandfather, Thurlow Weed, was the lead anti-Jacksonian political operator of his time in New York; he battled with Jacksonian Martin Van Buren for a quarter-century) or Reagan (one of my personal political icons), it was no secret that the political coalitions they formed were among the most successful in foreign affairs America has ever seen. They relied on a strong America abroad, supported by strong Americans at home. It is a lesson I hope classical liberals and “compassionate conservatives” can learn, and for all our sakes, I hope they learn it quickly.
