Meet the Cold War Liberals
[Published in The American Conservative, December 30, 2019]
They see a new Iron Curtain dividing right-wing authoritarianism and the democratic values embodied by American and Euro progressives.
Before Donald Trump’s election, many progressive foreign policy thinkers were simpatico with conservative and centrist realist thinkers. “Progressive realism begins with the cardinal doctrine of traditional realism: The purpose of American foreign policy is to serve American interests,” wrote Robert Wright in The New York Times in 2006. Sherle R. Schwenninger was a founder of the New America Foundation and one of those progressive foreign policy thinkers. “The progressive realist critique…,” he stated, “centered around international law; non-intervention; disarmament; and winding down the worst excesses of the post-9/11 period.”