War and Peace

Michael Totten writes about the Democratic establishments difficulting in dealing with national security issues. His basic premise is that since the '60s democrats have essentially stopped thinking about war and national security. The exception of course is a group of liberals, now known as Neo-Cons, who were more or less driven out of the democratic party. This intellectual tradition is now perhaps the most signifigant influence on Americas foreign affairs. The big questions of when war is justified and when it is not are always difficult. It is obvious that most of America believes that war is sometimes justified, but the Democratic establishment by and large offers no substantive means of determining this. During the reletively peaceful years of the '90s this was no great handicap but in a post-9/11 world unless the democrats get serious about foreign policy, they will continue to lose elections. Unfortunately, as Michael Totten's post points out, this is a probably a long-term institutional project that will be difficult to accomplish.