Elites, Public Opinion, and Empire: On Lions, Foxes and Mass Politics in the Post-Vietnam Era

Abstract

This essay analyzes the replacement of ‘managerialism’ with ‘militarism’ as the dominant ideology within the US foreign policy establishment. At issue for both sides in the post-Vietnam power struggle was how best to combat centrifugal forces at work in the international order that threatened further erosion of the US empire. The resolution of the debate in favor of “containment militarism,” the paper contends, emerged from a decisive shift in the domestic political climate that, after a brief interregnum, restored US foreign policy to its familiar adversary role vis-a-vis global reform and transformation. In support of this thesis, the essay focuses attention on the “Soviet threat” mobilization campaign of the elite Committee On The Present Danger (CPD). As the parameters of policy debate moved steadily to the right during Carter's term in office, the Administration's rhetoric and doctrine evolved accordingly from global interdependence to global confrontation. The paper argues that the deepening crisis of capital accumulation acted as an added constraint on Carter, which, in combination with the domestic mood, forced abandonment of managerialism and with it all pretense of elite reform. It concludes by suggesting that the political impetus for meaningful global reform will have to come from a popular democratic movement. Conversely, the domestic concerns of the latter can only be realized in a world beyond empire.