Conservatives as Liberals

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, what on Earth happened to the party of Eisenhower? Here is Christain Brose, formerly of Rice's State Department [via Andrew Sullivan]:

Furthermore, we should not allow resources to determine strategy, as this study suggests, which was one interpretation I heard for the administration's recent statements walking back U.S. goals: The economy's bad, and we have to do what we can. This gets it backwards. We should determine the optimal outcome we are confident we can accomplish, and then pay for it. After all, we still have a GDP of, what, $12 trillion? If our conception of strategic success is achievable, let's not hide behind tightening budgets.

What's fascinating to me is that Republicans would never accept this argument when it comes to domestic policy. If you said, we have a problem with the uninsured and we should be prepared to spend and do whatever is necessary to fix it, there would, I suspect, be a number of objections.

But when it comes to foreign policy, the GOP is all too ready to embrace fantasy policy making.

Brose's view was, of course, the view of the Kennedy administration and it led to a deadly debacle in Vietnam. It is - or at least, was -one of the bright lines that divided Republicans and Democrats on foreign policy. One side believed in the fantasy that resources are infinite and that policy makers should only focus on the ends. The other based policy in the reality of a world of limited resources. One side lived by credit, the other by cash in hand.

And the verdict that history has rendered on both approaches seems pretty obvious to me. Does anyone believe that the U.S. emerged from Vietnam stronger? Or that the blood and treasure we have currently "invested" in Iraq couldn't have been put to a more profitable use?

It's not yet clear if the two parties have flipped, because I'm not convinced the Democrats have purged themselves of their Kennedy-esque affinity for fantasy-based goal-setting. But it is absolutely clear that the GOP has done a 180 and it goes a long way in explaining why U.S. power has eroded so rapidly of late.