Harper — Neocons Still Promote Permanent Revolution

Backgrounder on neoconservatism and its marriage of convenience with liberal internationalism (Wilsonianism).

Does the permanent warfare of today's neocons differ in any real way from the Trotsky idea of permanent world revolution? Socialism has been replaced by democracy-promotion but that difference is small, particularly as the consequences continue to play out on the world stage.

This prompts the question as to why Donald Trump has appointed neoconservatives like John Bolton when he is a Jacksonian nationalist and populist?

One reason could be that the deep state is populated with foreign policy idealists rather than foreign policy realists, and these types and appointments are typically made from the bench of the deep state. A reason may be to placate it, since the deep state is in a position o be disruptive enough to diminish a president's political capital, with respect to its control of the narrative through leaks and anonymous sources that feed the media. 

The deep state can also deploy more direct means, as is evident now in the lead up to the impeachment, where one of the president's "crimes" according to the deep state is highjacking US foreign policy, even though the president is actually in charge of it.

Endless war as envisioned by the promoters of permanent revolution in the cause of "spreading freedom and democracy" (read neoliberal globalism) as the "Pax Americana" fits perfectly with the warfare state the military Keynesianism that funds government expenditure through the military-industrial-governmental complex.

 Jacksonians are just as insistent on carrying a big club as Wilsonians, although they are less wont to use it through wars of choice. The president prefers to use US economic power as the first-line tool of hybrid warfare rather than relying on military force. It's still "America First" in terms of geopolitics but the strategy is different from neoconservatives and liberal interventionists.

I must confess that I was taken in by the propaganda in the lead in to Vietnam but was radicalized when I discovered the truth while I was serving a US naval officer in the Western Pacific at the time and watched things go downhill from there. Yet the US keeps coming back for more and more of the same. Why? Is it stupidity or the money and power — after all, world domination is on the table. That is hard to walk away from if one strongly believes that one pick it up with relative impunity.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

HARPER: NEOCONS STILL PROMOTE PERMANENT REVOLUTION