I have long groused about interventionists’ appropriation of masculine sounding rhetoric to describe what is essentially a fear based policy. When debating interventionists they often imply that non-interventionism is the inherently weak or wimpy position, and conversely that aggressive militarism is strong and manly. When they are not implying it they are stating it outright, often in quite colorful language that frequently invokes male and female body parts that, shall we say, are essential to reproduction.
Thankfully, I am not the only one who has been troubled by this.In a recent Atlantic article, Peter Beinart recently complained about the use of the term “muscular foreign policy”. Paleoconservative blogger Daniel Larison concurred with Beinart in a blog post at The American Conservative. Beinart suggested “muscular” be replaced by “warlike.” While this is an accurate description of interventionist foreign policy if you take their own rhetoric seriously, I’m realistic enough to know it won’t fly. But if “warlike” is too negative, isn’t “muscular” too obviously self-serving?
One issue I have always had with the use of the friendly term “muscular” is that there is no real neutral counterpart to use to describe its opposite, a presumably “non-muscular” foreign policy. What exactly is the opposite of “muscular?” “Weak?” “Flabby?” Or better yet “flaccid?” (As per the discussion of body parts mentioned in paragraph one.)
This is why I generally use “interventionist” and “non-interventionist.” These are neutral terms and have the added benefit of actually describing the policies at hand. Imagine that. Interventionists do think it is necessary and proper for the US to intervene in various foreign skirmishes, and non-interventionists do not. When I believe clarification is necessary to express degree, such as in the case of the obviously deranged John Bolton, I will often use “hyper” to modify the term “interventionist” to distinguish him from a run-of-the-mill interventionist.
“Muscular” is an unfortunate description not only because it is blatantly self-serving, but it is also inaccurate. On inspection, interventionism is not a position based on strength. It is a position based on fear, often comical levels of fear.
Our friends in the so-called manosphere identify many alpha male tells related to body posture. The alpha male is king of his domain, and he knows it. Since he believes his dominance is unlikely to be challenged, his posture is relaxed and confident. He sits in a relaxed and open manner. He doesn’t “mate guard” because he doesn’t need to.
By contrast, the beta male is not the king of his domain. He is an orbiter. Therefore his body posture is often tense and rigid. He is ever alert and vigilant that someone is going to challenge him for the small piece of the pie he has managed to obtain.
It does not take a lot of imagination to see that the latter description best fits a contingent that abides in the most militarily powerful nation on earth with a very heavily armed citizenry to boot, yet hand-wrings about the “threat” of a ragtag bunch of poorly armed fanatics halfway around the world. Thus we are treated to spectacles such as the sweater vest clad Rick Santorum fretting about the rising Venezuelan menace. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not. Yeah, nothing says muscular and macho like a grown man spinning Chicken Little yarns about a country that can’t even get out of its own economic way.
American interventionists are like the big but insecure playground bully. He is big and strong and he knows it, but beneath the surface he is actually insecure about how tough he really is. Therefore he trolls around the playground throwing his weight around and picking on little guys he can beat-up. In contrast, the real tough guy doesn’t go looking for fights. He confidently surveys his domain and implicitly dares anyone to take their shot.
Likewise, there is nothing at all tough about a foreign policy that advocates pre-emptive wars against comparatively weak countries and deliberately inflates threats. It is the foreign policy of the insecure playground bully writ large on the world’s stage.
For example, the current boogie man of the moment, ISIS, is not a threat to the US mainland, much less an “existential” one, as is obvious to anyone not made foolish by FOX NEWS generated hysteria. They have no navy to get them here. They have no air force, much less a trans-Atlantic capable air force to transport their non-existent airborn division here. They have no ICBMs to launch missiles our way. ISIS is clearly a regional force who should be dealt with by the neighbors they actually do menace. (That we financed their rise and hamstring their natural Shia enemies in Syria and Iran is a subject for a different essay.)
What is so disappointing is how easily Red Americans, who view themselves as the masculine, red-blooded antithesis to effete latte-sipping Blues, have been fooled into supporting a foreign policy that is only manly in the most superficial way, but is clearly predicated on absurdly exaggerated fears.
A real “muscular” foreign policy would not look at ISIS and shriek “Eeek! They’re an existential threat to us! Let’s go over there and beat them up!” A real muscular foreign policy would look at ISIS (or Venezuela or Iran or Syria or whoever) and say “Oh, you think you want some of this? Then make your move Big Boy!”
In my many years of debating Reds on foreign policy, I have found that this reframing is often useful. It may not change many minds right away, but the dynamic is so obvious that it is hard for them to dismiss it. In fact, they will often in essence concede that the enemy of the moment does not represent a literal threat to the American nation, and fall back on the neocon idea that they represent a threat to the prevailing global order that the US has some sort of duty to maintain. The absurdity of “conservatives” adopting globalist rhetoric and arguing for the maintenance of a New World Order will be the subject of a future essay.