The making of the 'long war'-neo-conservative networks and continuity and change in US 'grand strategy

8/7/2019 The making of the 'long war'-neo-conservative networks and continuity and change in US 'grand strategy

1/43

The making of the long war: neo-conservative networks

and continuity and change in US grand strategy

Nan de Graaff and Bastiaan van ApeldoornVU University AmsterdamDepartment of Political ScienceDe Boelelaan 10811081 HV Amsterdam, The [email protected] ; [email protected]

Work in progress: first, very preliminary draft, please do not cite or circulate without permission

PAPER PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THEINTERNATIONAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION, 24 -29 MARCH 2008, SAN

FRANCISCO

PANEL: Transnational Class Formation after the Imperial Turn 1:Transatlantic Relations


2/43

1

I am running for president of the United States of America because I believe the transcendent

challenge of the 21st

century is the struggle against radical Islamic extremism, which takes

many forms, is the greatest force of evil weve ever faced, and is bent on our destruction and

our extinction. And my friends, we will never surrender, they will.

Senator John McCain, Republican Presidential Candidate1

I reject the notion that the American moment has passed. I dismiss the cynics who say that

this new century cannot be another when, in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we

lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that

America is the last, best hope of Earth () we must lead the world, by deed and example ()

We must maintain the strongest, best-equipped military in the world in order to defeat and

deter conventional threats. But while sustaining our technological edge will always be central

to our national security, the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating

the shadowy terrorist networks we now face. (.) Thats why I strongly support the

expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.

(.) These are the ways we will answer the challenge that arrived on our shores that

September morning more than five years ago. A 21st century military to stay on the offense,

from Djibouti to Kandahar.

Senator Barack Obama, Democratic Presidential Candidate2

INTRODUCTION

On the eve of the US Presidential elections, and with the occupation of Iraq in its sixth year and the

US-led counter-insurgency war in Afghanistan almost in its eighth year, it seems appropriate to look

back at the now soon ending reign of the Bush II administration and its foreign policy strategy, not so

much to evaluate its record but to engage the politically relevant question what will remain of this

strategy under the next president, Democrat or Republican (male or female, black or white). Is the

long war, as then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and others called it, initiated under Bush jr. here to

stay or will it turn out to be a much shorter war once the current so-called neocons have left office?

Although the answer to such questions has to remain speculative we argue that signs are that what can

be called the neoconservative turn is far from going to be undone by the next president, whomever ofthe three leading candidates still in the race at the time of writing it is going to be. Although there will

be changes of style (and different changes depending on who wins) and in some limited respects also

with regard to substance, the grand strategy of the US is not likely to revert to either the (neo)liberal

1 As quoted in theNew York Times, January 19, 2008.2 Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, April 23, 2007,http://www.cfr.org/publication/13172 (accessed 15 February, 2008).


3/43

2

internationalism of the 1990sor, even less, so, to a so-called more realist foreign policy advocated

by some (non-neo) conservative critics of the Bush administration. We argue that to understand why

this is so, it is necessary to come to a deeper understanding of the forces referring to both structure

and agency that have made for the imperial turn in US foreign policy.

Although tons of literature by now have been produced on what we denote as the

neoconservative project and the USs new imperialism, so far surprisingly little has been produced in

the way ofa theoretically consistent and empirically substantiated explanation ofto what extent, how

and above all, why this shift in US foreign policy took place. The bulk of the literature is above all

heavy on polemics and relatively light with regard to scholarly (empirical) substance. In terms of

explanations, conventional International Relations (IR) theories tend to either take it as an aberration

that cannot be explained by our regular theories, but which (therefore) the course of history is also

likely to correct again (neo-liberalism and neo-realism), or fall into the trap of a nave idealism

(constructivism).

In seeking to advance a more comprehensive explanation combining structure with agency

this paper draws upon a historical materialist understanding of geopolitics, i.e., one which sees

interstate relations (and rivalry) as internally related to capitalist social relations, but adds a neo-

Gramscian dimension to this by focusing on the critical role of agency in effectuating shifts in

geopolitical strategy. In particular, following this framework, we will interpret and analyse what we

see as the neoconservative shift in US geopolitical strategy in terms of a hegemonic project. The term

hegemonic project here is to denote the agential moment of structural change, in which agency

transforms pre-existing structures while at the same time being enabled and constrained by those same

structures (which are again the result of past strategies).3 From this perspective we interpret

neoconservatism as an ideologically driven project but not as an irrational or arbitrary strategy, but

rather as conditioned by deep structural shifts within the global political economy, shifts related to the

dynamics and contradictions of neoliberal globalization. Hence, why this particular ideology has

become hegemonic has to be explained with reference to structural conditions that are still in place. At

the same time, and crucially, these structural conditions themselves do not determine the strategy

pursued. It is thus that we here have to examine the role of agency and how what we identify as the

neoconservative network has succeeded in securing the hegemony of its foreign policy ideas as the

answer to what we view as the contradictions of neoliberal globalization.

This paper is structured as follows. The first section below starts with a brief review of thevarious recent neo-Marxist attempts to theorize the new imperialism (in this paper we do not give an

account of the mainstream, as it clearly fails to explain the neoconservative shift, which it deems to be

'irrational, (see e.g. Ikenberry 2004 a/b; Mearsheimer and Walt 2003; 2006). We will conclude that

3 Our view of the relationship between structure and agency is informed by a Critical Realistunderstanding of the dialectical interplay of structure and agency over time (in particular Bhaskar 1979). Theagency of the present is shaped by structures that are the outcome of past agency, yet the agency of the present,transforming or reproducing structures transmitted from the past, also instantiates those structures in the present.


4/43

3

although enlightening, these explanations are incomplete and above all ignore the role of agency. It is

thus that we turn our attention to the neo-Gramscian concept of hegemonic project and argue how this

can help us to make sense of both the agency and the structural forces involved in the making of the

long war. The second section outlines some of those structural forces by examining first how after

the successful destruction of the Soviet Union, US foreign policy under Clinton came to promote

neoliberalism as a global project. This project of neoliberal globalization has however in the post-Cold

War context run into some inherent limits related to its own contradictions. Far from determining the

outcome though the (geo-)political and (geo-)economic changes that we identify have only made the

neoconservative turn possible. How it in fact emerged as a hegemonic concept for the geopolitical

strategy of the US is what can only be analysed with reference to the agency of social and political

forces as they have operated through what will identify as networks of neoconservative intellectuals

and policy-advisers. Employing the methodology of Social Network Analysis, the mapping of this

network and the analysis of the strategies pursued will be the focus of the third section. In this section

we will also see that the neocons are no free-floating intellectuals but actually closely linked to

corporate interests, and in particular to US global financial capital. The evidence will show that

although representing a transformation of the neoliberal hegemonic project, the neoconservative

project as yet appears not to represent a fundamental shift in the underlying (neoliberal) accumulation

strategy. We will conclude this paper by returning to the issue of the durability of the neoconservative

project.

THEORIZING THE NEW IMPERIALISM

US post-9/11 foreign policy, and in particular its war in Iraq, naturally has also inspired many (neo-)

Marxist writers to revive the somewhat dormant Marxist tradition of theorizing (capitalist) imperialism

in order to make sense of the bellicose interventionism of the worlds leading capitalist power. 4 Given

the long-standing concern of historical materialism with imperialism as an inherent feature of global

capitalism, the question of course arises to what extent there is actually anything new about current US

policies: is it not the same US imperialism that we have seen since at least 1945, maybe only with a

slight change of emphasis here and there? This then brings us to the question of continuity versus

change, which is one of the dividing lines within the Marxist debate. Representing a sophisticated

version of the continuity thesis Ellen Wood for instance has argued that the Bush doctrine maybemadness but that it is a madness firmly rooted not only in the past half-century of US history but in

the systemic logic of capitalism (Wood 2003: XVI; for similar views see Kiely 2005). It is an

extension of a logic of capitalist imperialism the US empire being the first truly capitalist empire

that is premised on the separation of the economic from the political but in which nevertheless or in

4 In the 1980s and 1990s also neo-Marxist writers in IR preferred to use the term hegemony rather thanempire in reference to the US (as noted by Arrighi 2005a).


5/43

4

fact precisely because of it [c]apitalist appropriation still requires the support of extra-economic

appropriation (ibid.: 24). In a similar vein Panitch and Gindin (2005) stress the continuity of US

imperialism and argue that its historical uniqueness resides in having (re)created the current world

political economy after its own image. Thus, the American empire is as yet here to stay. Although that

might be true, the problem of these accounts is that they cannot explain the recent strategy changes

that they do see as having taken place, even if within the same overarching capitalist imperialist

framework (Panitch & Gindin 2005). As Wood (2003: 162) herself writes [t]odays Bush Doctrine is,

to be sure, a distinctively extreme manifestation of the old strategic vision. Even if we accept that the

strategic vision itself has not changed, it is still pertinent to ask a) what exactly makes this new

manifestation so distinctively extreme, and b) what accounts for this distinct extremeness?

Arguably the most innovative and influential Marxist account of the USs current geopolitical

strategy has been David Harveys The New Imperialism (2003). The title here is somewhat ambiguous

in the sense that it appears to refer both to a capitalist imperialism in general (which, as Wood also

argues, is new with respect to that of previous empires) and which therefore has been characteristic of

the Pax Americana since the Second World War, as well as to the grand strategy of the Bush

administration, representing a significant break with the postwar era in at least some respects. Harvey

here thus suggests both continuity and change. The theoretical crux of Harveys argument is his

distinction - adapted from Arrighi 1994: 33-4 (see also Arrighi 2005a) between a capitalist logic and

a territorial logic of power, where capitalist imperialism represents a contradictory fusion between

the two, or between the politics of state and empire and the molecular process of capital

accumulation in space and time (Harvey 2003: 27-7). Harvey insists that these logics should be seen

as distinct from each other, frequently clashing yet also intertwined in contradictory ways, that is,

dialectically (ibid: 29-30). Harvey suggests that as neoliberal imperialism was weakening on the

inside (Harvey 2003: 190), the relationship between the capitalist logic and the territorial logic has

shifted such that we have witnessed a shift from consent to coercion with the rise of neoconservative

imperialism. Whereas the former pursued what Harvey calls accumulation by dispossession through

the privatization and structural adjustment programmes of the Wall Street-Treasury-IMF complex

(ibid.: 185), in the latter the weight shifts to coercive, indeed, military means. Although there is much

in this analysis that we find very compelling (and we shall return to part of Harveys explanation

below), the precise process through which this shift from one form of imperialism to another took

place is neither analysed empirically nor accounted for in theoretical terms.Arrighis analysis of the unravelling of US hegemony (Arrighi 2005a/b), which builds upon

yet also seeks to go beyond Harvey, finally represents the clearest example of the change thesis, a

change from the (neo)liberal internationalism of the Clinton years, and more generally a break with the

whole tradition of US hegemony in the postwar era, a break that, however, according to Arrighi will

only accelerate the latters downfall. Where Vietnam was the signal crisis of the decline of US

hegemony, Iraq is likely to turn out to be its terminal crisis (Arrighi 2005a: 57). The relevant


6/43

5

question for us is how Arrighi characterises the nature of the change that he identifies and above all

how he seeks to explain it. Here, in line with his earlier work on the rise and fall of capitalist

hegemonies (Arrighi 1994), he emphasises above all what he sees as the origins of neoconservatism in

the structural changes in the global political economy and the USs position within it. Arrighi here

draws upon Harvey but also goes beyond it, in particular stressing the rapidly deteriorating financial

power position of the (former) hegemon. Here the neoconservative project becomes a response to the

structural and inevitable decline of US hegemony, indeed a desperate attempt to cling on to it by

playing the trump card of US military superiority, an attempt that is, however, doomed to fail (see also

Wallerstein 2002; for a more heterodox variant of the same idea, see Mann 2003). As with Harvey, we

find that much in Arrighis analysis is very plausible and indeed we will draw upon some of his ideas

below. We also see the neoconservative shift as a response to structural changes within the global

political economy, although we would more emphasise what we see as the (geo-)political

contradictions of neoliberal globalization. More fundamentally though, what we see as missing in

Arrighis account (which in any case more focuses on the consequences of the neoconservative project

in precipitating Americas downfall rather than in offering a systematic explanation of its origins) is

attention to the role of agency and to the battle of ideas within US foreign policy making, and how the

interplay of these with the structural changes that Arrighi identifies has produced the particular

outcome of a neoconservative hegemonic project.

Agency matters because there were, given the changing structural context, several options for

US foreign policy after the turn of the millennium. The course that was chosen after 9/11 was far from

a pre-determined one and was certainly not the only realistic response to the terrorist attacks

themselves (Dueck 2004 also makes this argument). It is thus that structuralist explanations, whether

realist or Marxist, cannot give a complete account. They cannot fully explain how and why one

particular option was chosen over another. Our conclusion is thus that although generating important

theoretical insights into the nature of capitalist imperialism, insights upon which we will further build

below, current historical materialist scholarship on the neoconservative shift in US foreign policy

either tends to deny that such a shift has taken place or to the extent that it does fails to go beyond a

rather structuralist, and empirically unsubstantiated account.

The neo-Gramscian dimension: hegemonic projects and the integration structure and agency

To express the importance of agency and of the role of ideas in constructing grand strategies, whilst

at the same time keeping a close focus on how agency interacts with structure, and how ideas are

linked to material conditions (as they are tied to the strategies of materially situated agents), we will

use the Gramscian term hegemonic project as defined by Bob Jessop (1990). Following Gramsci,

Jessop (1990: 208) refers to a successful hegemonic project as involving the mobilization of support

behind a concrete, national-popular program of action which asserts a general interest in the pursuit of


7/43

6

objectives that explicitly or implicitly advance the long-term interests of the hegemonic class

(fraction). It is thus that a successful hegemonic project in the longer run will have to be linked to a

successful accumulation strategy. Yet, as Jessop points out, it is important to see that while they may

overlap partially and / or mutually condition each other, accumulation strategy and hegemonic project

are not identical:

While accumulation strategies are directly concerned with economic expansion on a nationalor international scale, hegemonic projects can be concerned principally with various non-economic objectives (even if economically conditioned and economically relevant). The lattermight include military success, social reform, political stability or moral regeneration (ibid).

In the short run, then, given specific conjunctures, there may well be a dissociation or inconsistency

between them, and we may observe a hegemonic project that undermines the conditions for

accumulation (ibid.: 208-209). Indeed, there is no necessary relationship between hegemonic

projects and accumulation strategies (ibid.: 346). It is precisely because of the way Jessop sees

hegemonic projects and accumulation strategies as linked yet distinct, with their precise relationship

not being predetermined that we here prefer the term hegemonic project to that of the related notion of

a comprehensive concept of control as developed by the Amsterdam IPE project (Van Apeldoorn

2004), and which is precisely to denote a congruence or synthesis between hegemonic project and

accumulation strategy (Van der Pijl 2004; Overbeek 2004). Although effective class hegemony

arguably depends on such a successful synthesis, we are rather interested in those specific

conjunctures in which a hegemonic project may change without necessarily being linked to a

concomitant change in accumulation strategy.

Whereas Gramsci used the concept of hegemony in a national context, the neo-Gramscian

approach has also conceptualised hegemony, and empirically identified hegemonic projects, at the

level of a regional order (especially as in the case of the European Union, see Van Apeldoorn 2002),

and at the level of world order (Cox 1987; also Gill 1990; cf. Van der Pijl 1998). Indeed, various

national hegemonic projects must often be seen as constituted transnationally within the context of

such a wider hegemonic order. Here, a hegemonic world order, Cox (1987) argues, is underpinned by

a hegemonic state but this hegemony itself is also the expression of the outward expansion of the

hegemonic capital fraction of that state and the transnational links it forges with other national

capitalist classes. By in this way linking state power within international relations with capitalist class

rule, Cox offers another approach to the problmatique identified above, viz. that of the dialectic of

global capitalism and the states system. The way we have to understand this though is that capitalist

class hegemony itself already implies a connection between the latter two. Although state power may

be seen as constituted by, or at least structurally dependent upon capitalist class power, the latter is

only possible through the separation of the economic from the political and the constitution of the

latter in the form of a state with a considerable degree of institutional autonomy.


8/43

7

We argue that capitalist class rule is thus enabled and indeed upheld by state power and by the

states system. Therefore, although Harveys capitalist logic maybe contradicted by a territorial logic

the former also presupposes the latter. Capitalist classes not just benefit from the existence of multiple

states (fragmented sovereignty) but also are dependent upon the application of state power both

nationally and internationally. Focusing upon the latter, capitalist class strategies, or hegemonic

projects as expressive of underlying class interests, will therefore (have to) articulate not just a vision

with regard to how to establish control or leadership over subordinate social classes and groups

(mostly in a domestic context) but also with respect to world order and the position of the respective

state or states within it, and in some cases quite explicitly with the question of how to control other

formally independent states.

Here not all national ruling classes and national states are alike - rather there is a given power

hierarchy between them which makes for a differentiation of interests and certainly of strategies. If

there is one state in the system that is predominant (not necessarily hegemonic), the ruling class of that

state will attach particular importance to, and have strong interests in, the strategy of that state vis--

vis other states. Of course capitalist production and finance are no longer (in as far as they have ever

been) primarily nationally organized, and processes of transnational class formation have since long

created organic links within what Kees van der Pijl (1998) identifies as the extended Lockean

Heartland. Yet as Cox (1987) pointed out some time ago, such transnationalization processes have

been most intense when under the aegis of a territorially defined hegemon and within a hegemonic

world order (and in non-hegemonic world orders these processes tend to slow down or even be

reversed). It is thus that these processes, at least at a global scale, have always taken place within the

context of a certain interstate power hierarchy. Although there has been the tendential rise of a

transnational capitalist class even at a global scale (Van der Pijl 1984; 1998; cf. Robinson 1996, Sklair

2001), underlying this emergent reality there is still a layer at which national identities and interests

are more salient (Van Apeldoorn 2002). In as far then as national capitalist classes still exist there is

also likely to be a power hierarchy between them, mirroring that of the interstate system. The status of

members of the TCC is likely to be determined not just by their capitalist credentials (i.e., how big the

corporation that they lead or how vast their personal wealth) but also to an extent by their nationality

and their elite position vis--vis one state apparatus rather than another. Moreover, the

denationalization of capitalist elites is arguably stronger in relatively small and open capitalist states

than in bigger ones.Although the ruling class of the biggest or most powerful state in the system may on the one

hand be very cosmopolitan in its outlook and have the capital it controls well integrated into global

circuits, it may at the same time also have a relatively acute sense of a distinct national interest within

the larger transnational interest precisely because of the fact that it sits at the top of the international /

global hierarchy, and is thus aware of the interest it has in maintaining the current system (and of what

is has to lose if the system breaks down). Hegemonic projects formulated within the context of such a


9/43


10/43

9

This of course raises the pertinent question of what form this took before the rise of the

neoconservative project, what the preceding geopolitical strategy and concomitant hegemonic project

was and where the differences with that project lie. Below we will briefly argue that in the 1990s,

under the Clinton presidency, the hegemonic project, including its geopolitical component, was

neoliberal and that indeed the 1990s were the heyday of neoliberal globalization. We thus observe a

shift from neoliberalism to neoconservatism but this shift does not so much constitute a radical break

with the past, the replacement of neoliberalism with something radically different, but rather a limited

transformation of the neoliberal project. Neoconservatism has been growing out of neoliberalism, still

clinging on to much of its essential creed while distancing itself from other aspects and reordering

some its priorities. The neoconservative project is above all, we will argue, a response to the national

and global contradictions of the neoliberal project and the subsequent confrontation with its economic,

social and political limits. The neoconservative project offered an answer to that crucial question

facing the US ruling class: that is, how to prolong US global power, or indeed, hegemony, at a

moment when the answer of the neoliberal project more a decade into the post-cold war era no longer

seemed that compelling anymore, particularly not in a changing geopolitical and geo-economic

context.

THE END OF THE COLD WAR, THE NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION OFFENSIVE AND

ITS CONTRADICTIONS

We start our story by briefly looking back at the Reagan era during the last phase of the Cold War, as

it is here that neoconservative ideas were for the first time shaping foreign policy to a significant

extent.

Reagan: rise of neoliberalism and neoconservative offensive against communism

The Reagan administration is generally associated with the rise of global neoliberalism (e.g. Harvey

2005) but this neoliberal project was combined with a geopolitical strategy that involved an aggressive

stance against the Soviet Union, and a conscious attempt to defeat communism and win the Cold War

through both stepping up the arms race and increased (covert and overt) military interventionism in the

Third World. This assertive, militarised foreign policy, involving a huge increase in defence spendingand backed up by the nationally oriented security complex contrasted with both the realism prevailing

during the era of dtente (under Nixon) and the human rights universalism under Carter (Gill 1990,

Van der Pijl 2006). In fact, as we shall see later on, within the Reagan administration we find many of

the (same) neoconservative intellectuals that later came to shape the policy of George W. Bush. In a

sense, the grand strategy of the US during the Second Cold War involved a first run of the

neoconservative project. However,the context here fundamentally differed from the one in which the


11/43

10

neoconservative shift under the younger Bush took place after 2001. Whereas the Reagan presidency

coincided with a general transformation towards a neoliberal concept of control away from corporate

liberalism (Van der Pijl 1998), and thus also reflected a transformation of the hegemonic accumulation

strategy, no such change is, as we shall see, yet involved in the recent neoconservative shift. And

whereas Reagans geopolitical strategy was aimed at defeating, within the context of a bipolar system,

the contender state of the Soviet Union (Van der Pijl 2006), and thus enabling the neoliberal project

to be globalized (what was subsequently attempted under President Clinton), the later neoconservative

project was rather about confronting new challenges to what in the meantime had become a unipolar

power position (or at least one in which the US as a great power is superior to any rival) and seeking

to preserve American primacy in new ways as promoting neoliberal globalization alone turned out to

have its own inherent limits. This different context has required a different positioning of the US in the

world and implies a different framing of the threat and of a concomitant security framework. First,

however, we need to turn to how the end of the Cold War first led the US under Clinton towards a

deepening of the neoliberal project accompanied by a neoliberal foreign policy.

The neoliberal globalization offensive in the post-Cold War context

The Reagan era, as we know, culminated in the widely assumed victory, signalled by the demise of

the Soviet Union, and while the neoconservatives in part credited themselves for this proclaimed end

of history (cf. Fukuyama), they simultaneously lost their focal battle point and compass (in terms of

grand strategy) with the end of the cold war (Podhoretz 1996; Judis 1995) Although some

neoconservative policymakers and advisors had early clear ideas about what strategy to pursue to

maintain US primacy in what was widely regarded as a unique unipolar moment (Krauthammer

1991) plans to implement such a strategy (e.g. Defense Policy Guidance of 1992 to be discussed

below) were quickly shelved as the time was clearly not ripe for them. In fact, after Bush Sr. we

witness a return to a liberal internationalism under Clinton which was characterized by a by and large

multilateralist offensive to consolidate the apparent triumph of transnational neoliberalism. 5

The neoliberal project initiated by Reagan, during Clinton not only consolidated and deepened

but also in terms of foreign policy became accompanied by a strong commitment to a (neo)liberal

internationalism, emphasising the need for so-called humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping

operations, while at the same time implementing neoliberal market regimes and interests in areas

where these did not yet prevail. The spread of the liberalization and deregulation mantra was

5 Although Skidmoore (2005) is right to relativize the multilateralism of previous US administrationsinasmuch as he argues that the US was never fully multilateralist in the sense of itself willing to always play bythe rules it was imposing and maintaining as a hegemony, but it was (until the neoconservative shift, that is)willing to put up the resources to maintain the various multilateral institutions and be committed to itideologically and politically.


12/43

11

underpinned by the dictates of western (US ruled) financial institutions as IMF and Worldbank,

imposing fiscal austerity measures on fragile emerging economies (Harvey 2005, Gowan 1999, Van

der Pijl 2006). The position of the US vis--vis the rest of the world at that time was relatively

uncontested and unlike some neoconservatives who perceived new present dangers (Kagan and

Kristol 2000) challenging US primacy, the prevailing mood was one of optimism about the spread of

liberal democracies and free markets through the benign process of globalization and associated

institutions of (neoliberal) global governance (Overbeek 2004). Indeed, arguably together with Tony

Blair, there was no political leader of the West at the time who so much extolled the virtues of

globalization as did President Bill Clinton. Neoliberal globalization was thought to progressively lead

towards a peaceful coexistence of states in a borderless global market. Moreover, the US, as the

primary proponent of neoliberalism, was considered the natural victor and hegemon in this new world

order. There was thus no perceived need, nor would that have been easy to legitimate, for the US to

bolster its military power to underpin US hegemony. This did not imply that the US ceased to

interfere outside its borders, nor gave up its ambitions as a global economic, political and military

hegemon, but at least until the closing years of the 1990s, this strategy was more muted.

It should be noted though that while military and geopolitical strategy somewhat receded to

the background during the Clinton administration, it did not entirely disappear, on the contrary. There

were clearly grand geopolitical aspects in it, such as the expansion of the sphere of influence in the

Caspian region by initiating and securing crucial pipeline projects and relocating US bases, the

expansion of NATO and, linked to that, the Kosovo war (on the latter two and how they are linked see

Cafruny forthcoming and Van der Pijl 2006). The Kosovo war was arguably an imperialist war, and

illegal as well because lacking a UN mandate. Yet is was multilateralist in the sense of having secured

the support of the whole of NATO and also being led by it. It was also a war fought in the name of

humanitarian intervention, fitting the neoliberal globalization discourse of the time. It was neither a

pre-emptive strike not a unilateralist war fought on the basis of an explicit conception of US primacy

and only with the support of a coalition of the willing. Yet, as it was basically a war of aggression

against a rogue state challenging Western interests within Europes own borders, aimed at expanding

the US sphere of influence Eastwards (Cafruny forthcoming), the Kosovo war not only showed the

militarist face of neoliberalism but arguably also preluded and anticipated a much more blatant and

more extreme (and unilateralist) militarism of the subsequent neoconservative project.

The contradictions and limits of neoliberal globalization: a hegemonic crisis

In sum, with the benefit of hindsight we can say that the 1990s were heyday of neoliberal

globalization. Those days are now over. Although neoliberal globalization is not (yet?) being reversed,

as a hegemonic project it has arguably entered into a crisis, and it has been in response to that crisis


13/43

12

that the neoconservative project has been formulated as an alternative. This alternative, we will argue

is not incompatible with much of neoliberalism, in particular in the economic realm, but it does change

both the general political formula and in particular the geopolitical strategy with which what is

essentially still a neoliberal accumulation strategy is being promoted. This shift, as we shall see in

more detail below, as such also involves a reordering of priorities that may yet create tensions with

respect to a continued commitment to global neoliberalism (for a rather (too) strong version of this

argument see Arrighi 2005a). Here we thus agree with Harvey (2003), Arrighi (2005a), Van der Pijl

(2006) and others who have argued that the structural origins of the neoconservative turn have be

sought in the contradictions and limits into which the neoliberal globalization offensive ran into as the

20th century drew to a close. Partially drawing upon the aforementioned literature (but adding some

more elements) we would in particular point out the following sets of contradictions and the responses

that they have tended to draw.

First, internally, that is, within different national state-society complexes (and thus also

transnationally) neoliberalism produces a social anomie that from a conservative perspective needs to

be checked by a strong state both internally and externally. That is to say, the centrifugal forces

brought about by the neoliberal project need to be contained lest the order upon which it rests itself

disintegrates even if too explicit an application of state power may be seen to contradict one of the

central tenets of neoliberalism. It is thus that the authoritarian dimension already inherent in the

neoliberal project (Harvey 2005; Van der Pijl 2006) becomes more explicit and more pronounced.

Arguably these effects are strongest in the US that from the start has been one of the most

individualistic and atomistic societies. With the onslaught of neoliberal restructuring these tendencies

have been reinforced to a point where as Harvey (2003: 17) quoting Hannah Arendt puts it, (civil)

society appeared to be in the process of collapsing back into the aimless senseless chaos of private

interests. As Harvey goes on to explain the rise of the neoconservative project, subsequently [t]he

evil enemy without became the prime force through which to exorcise or tame the devils lurking

within (ibid).

Second, and relatedly, the political limits of neoliberalism have not only been manifested

within the US a but also and at the same time globally by transnational social forces resisting the

discipline imposed by the neoliberal globalization process. Both inside and outside what Van der Pijl

(1998; 2006) calls the Lockean heartland what increasingly amounts to a transnational revolt against

neoliberalism is manifesting itself. This resistance takes on many different shapes and identities e.g.from Hugo Chavez regime to the alter-globalization movement - some clearly more threatening than

others for the imperialist core but together constituting a variety of social movements that have

revealed the political limits of the neoliberal project in terms of sustaining its hegemony. Yet one

counter-movement here has to be singled out, both because of its revolutionary anti-Western ideology

and the willingness on the part of some elements within it to use violence to achieve its political ends,

that is, the transnational movement or movements of radical political Islam. Obviously there is much


14/43

13

to be said for the view that in the war on terror much of the new evil enemy without has been an

expedient political construction, the creation of subtle and less subtle of government propaganda and

constant fear campaigns within the media. Radical Islam as an enemy is undoubtedly a political and

social construction (and indeed, the war on terror is based on such a construction), yet at the same

time it is undeniable that in many regions of the world where neoliberal globalization was perceived to

destroy not only at times peoples livelihoods but also their culture and their identity, and people have

felt most alienated and this process has produced a backlash partly in the form of an Islamist ideology

rejecting perceived Western domination. As such, groups identifying themselves with Al-Qaeda are

definitely anti-imperialist and as such have to be seen as the outcome of the dialectic of neoliberal

globalization of the past two decades. 6 Thus Van der Pijl (2006: 405) is probably right in arguing that

[t]he neoliberal programme of the West, run aground across the globe, but tenaciously pursued

nevertheless, has conjured up its own nemesis, which [as it is now mutating into a broader democratic

revolution] instills fear into ruling classes. We may add here that the US ruling class in particular has

reason to be the most fearful, as it has the most to lose.

Third, and arguably most critically in relation to the shift in geopolitical strategy entailed by

the neoconservative project, neoliberal globalization also produces new geoeconomic and geopolitical

tensions that entail a threat to those states that promoted the process in the first place inasmuch as the

dynamics of global capital accumulation make the centre of gravity of the global economy shift away

from the Atlantic and towards the Pacific and in particular towards China. This historic shift may be

interpreted in terms of a hegemonic decline of the US as above all related to its deteriorating financial

power as manifested by the current slide of the Dollar in the context of the twin deficit - after its

commercial and industrial edge have already long dissipated (Arrighi 2005a, 2005b; 2007; 1994). But

it may also be seen as the price of the success of the very project of neoliberal globalization and how it

has spread capitalist growth beyond the capitalist heartland. The global process of endless capital

accumulation, with US capital in the lead, needed to incorporate ever more areas into its sphere of

influence in order to sustain the process. These growth processes, while in first instance serving the

interests of the US, slowly started to turn against US interests. First of all the territorial logic made

itself felt as emerging economies and markets started to grow into serious competitors to US and

Western capital (Perry forthcoming). Another aspect of the economic growth both within and outside

the West is the increased need for, and hence competition over, natural resources. In combination with

the finiteness of those resources and the decreasing reserves within the US itself, this made, as has

6 Manuel Castells describes the Western (and especially US) attitude producing this backlash as follows:The attitude in general has been: this is a traditional attitude, this [muslim fundamentalism/ Jihad] iskind of a remnant of traditions that will be superseded by modernity and the practice of technology andso on. So first we ignore them, if they become necessary we buy them and if we cannot buy them andthey resist and we cannot ignore them because they become bothersome, then we destroy them. ... theideal global capitalism (...) would be: lets connect in the planet everything that is interesting of thesenetworks of wealth, technology and power. And the rest, we just drop them. I mean, they can go back tonature () It just doesnt happen this way, because even if we think we dont touch anything, we do,we do. This global culture does not integrate people, but disintegrates societies. (M. Castells)


15/43

14

been noted above, in particular oil and gas, to become increasingly strategic commodities, and made

the control over its flows, as well as the ability to set conditions of access for others, an increasingly

strategic objective (De Graaff forthcoming). It is thus the uneven development of capitalism itself, and

to the extent the success of the spread of capitalist markets as promoted by the neoliberal programme,

that makes for the rise of new rival centres of accumulation. The growth of these rival centres

externally has been enabled by the global spread of, to use Arrighis (1994) and Harveys (2003)

terminology again, the non-territorial capitalist logic, but internally has been enabled and

conditioned by the use of territorial logic of state power applied in the tradition of what Van der Pijl

(2006) calls the Hobbesian contender state. Indeed, China may be viewed in that way (ibid.: ch. 9).

The contradictions arising out of the dynamics and dialectics of neoliberal globalization have

created a hegemonic crisis of neoliberalism and have thus been enabling the formulation of alternative

project inside (and arguably also outside) the US. |But the structural conditions associated with these

contradictions have not determinedthis outcome. Other kinds of answers to the changing geopolitical

and geoeconomic framework and the inner contradictions of neoliberalism were possible. We argue

that the reason why this particular answer won the war of position, has crucially depended upon

agency and the active promotion of ideas. Below we will thus analyse the agency that has constructed

the neoconservative project. This analysis will, however, also show how this agency and the ideas it

promoted has been linked to powerful material (capitalist) interests.

ANALYSING THE NEO-CONSERVATIVE PROJECT

Neoliberalism is essentially a project of restoring bourgeois hegemony or capitalist class power

(Overbeek and van der Pijl 1993 and Harvey 2005) by liberating capital from its postwar constraints

through a programme of marketization (van Apeldoorn and Horn 2007) and privatization. In doing so

it appeals to an ideology of possessive individualism in which the utopia invoked is one of freely

contracting agents within a free market in which all are equal before the law. The thrust is thus

towards a commodification of social relations to the point where, as Margaret Thatcher put it, there is

no such thing as society. As indicated, neoconservatism has much in common with neoliberalism and

in particular is equally aimed at strengthening or preserving capitalist class power through

strengthening the market as the arbiter of social life. Yet, it also goes beyond it in that it in particular

recognizes how there is in fact such a thing as society and that the price mechanism alone cannot

sufficiently provide order in that society, and that people cannot be held together just through

contractual relations. It is the overriding concern with order, and the willingness to back up that order

through coercion, both domestically and internationally, that distinguishes the neoconservative project

from the neoliberal project. As Harvey writes:


16/43

15

US neoconservatives favour corporate power, private enterprise, and the restoration of classpower. Neoconservatism is therefore entirely consistent with the neoliberal agenda of elitegovernance, mistrust of democracy, and the maintenance of market freedoms. But it veersaway from the principles of pure neoliberalism and has reshaped neoliberal practices in twofundamental respects: first, in its concern for order as an answer to the chaos of individualinterests, and second, in its concern for an overweening morality as the necessary social glueto keep the body politic secure in the face of internal and external dangers (Harvey 2005: 82).

It is on the perceived external dangers, and how to deal with them, i.e., the neoconservative

geopolitical strategy, that we will focus here, and that arguable also forms its most prominent

component. The neoconservative foreign policy orientation, may be summarized as containing the

following core elements (see, e.g., Hurst 2005:78; Dueck 2004; and see Steltzer 2004 and Kagan and

Kristol 2000 for representative essays of prominent neoconservative intellectuals on these issues):

First, an emphasis on US global primacy as the explicit objective of US foreign policy: a clear and

unequivocal commitment to maintain US' global leadership and neutralize any potential threat to its

supremacy. Second, a strong emphasis on defence and the need for a powerful and (pro-) active

military: the belief that US military supremacy is an essential pillar of its global hegemony. Third, a

rejection of the notion that the US should always, or even preferably resolve problems multilaterally:

the defence of US interests should not be constrained by multilateral institutions; there is nothing

wrong with unilateral actions (including military) if US vital interests are at stake. Fourth, and related

to the previous point, what later came to be known as the pre-emptive strike doctrine, or the explicit

claim of the US on the right to make war in order to prevent threats from materialising. Fifth, and in

addition to the instrument of pre-emptive strikes, the perceived necessity of developing a national

missile defence (NMD) system to counter the threat of rogue states armed with weapons of mass

destruction (WMD). Sixth, the dedication to active liberal democracy promotion and intervention

abroad to implement US values and interests, including regime change and nation building (if

necessary by military force and followed by occupation).

It is in particular because of the last element that the neoconservative approach to foreign

policy is often coined Wilsonian (see e.g. also Ikenberry 2004a; Layne 2006; Stelzer 2004, but see

e.g. Busby & Monten 2005 for a different interpretation): combining principles of power with moral

principle and adding an 'idealist' dimension to the realist principle of power politics. However, a

crucial difference is that Woodrow Wilson in his drive to model the world after the US democratic

example had a clear preference for multilateral means and institutions whereas neoconservatives prefer

regime change, if necessary by force, and if not supported by flexible coalitions, then by unilateral

action (Stelzer 2004:10). Some authors therefore suggest that while neoconservatives might be

Wilsonian in their ends, they are anti-Wilsonian in their means (ibid.; also Guelke 2003:112; cf.

Ikenberry 2004a).

A similar ambiguity exists with the internationalist aspect of neoconservatism, for in spite of

neoconservatives preference for democracy promotion and intervention abroad to implement western


17/43

16

(US) 'values', the neoconservative take on liberal internationalism deviates from the approach that for

instance prevailed during the Clinton presidency. A distinction that is used in the literature in this

respect is between conservative internationalism and liberal internationalism (e.g. Mayer 1992;

Mandelbaum & Schneider1978; Chanley1999).7 These two distinct foreign policy approaches in fact

crystallized in the mid-70s in the wake of the rift in the Democratic Party over Vietnam and dtente

and after 1976, when Carter came into office, the different actors advocating these diverging views

grouped themselves in two rival lobby groups (the conservatives in e.g. the Committee on Present

Danger, and the liberals in New Directions see Mandelbaum & Schneider 1978). Whereas liberal

internationalists in general are more supportive of economic aid and multilateral action through

organizations like the UN, neoconservatives put much greater emphasis on the use of military force.

The emphasis on coercion and military confrontation in the 1980s under Reagan took shape as the

preferred means to defeat communism (Chanley 1999:25) whereas now it is expressed as the 'war on

terror'. Following this, and in light of our earlier analysis of the neoliberal project of the Clinton era,

we can summarize the differences between neoliberal and neoconservative foreign policies as follows:

Table 1: Differences neoliberal and neoconservative foreign policy summarized

Neoliberal foreign policy Neoconservative foreign policyType ofinternationalism/ extra-regionalengagement

Liberal Internationalism Conservative internationalism

Type ofinternationalcooperation

Multilateral cooperation, internationalregimes

Coalitions of the willing, ad hoc, flexibleor unilateral

Position US in

the world

US hegemony, consent in the

foreground

US primacy, coercion more in the

foreground (hegemony secondaryobjective)

Type of action Multilateral if possible, unilateralonly if necessary, pro UN and proNATO, multilateral gloves

Unilateral if necessary, multilateral if notdetrimental to US interests, not pro-UN,selectively pro-NATO, unilateral ironfist out of multilateral gloves

Rogue states /enemies

Regime change from within or bymeans of economic sanctions(pressures) and diplomatic means, useof force only in last instance andpreferably by NATO / UN

Pre-emption, if necessary with militaryforce, if necessary unilateral or withselected coalition partners; necessity ofdeveloping a developing a nationalmissile defence (NMD) system to counterthe threat of rogue states armed withweapons of mass destruction (WMD)

Values in policy Belief in liberal democracy,unfettered individual and economicfreedom, liberalized markets

Belief in democracy and free marketsunderpinned with moral absolutism andlimited state regulation to protect socialorder

7 Some authors instead refer to a cooperative vs. militant internationalism (Chanley 1999; Wittkopf &Maggiotto 1983).


18/43

17

Having briefly characterized the neoconservative project the remainder of this paper analyses how,

through which networks of influence, and supported by which social forces, it has risen to power.

A Neoconservative Grand Strategy

The approach of this paper is that an analysis of a shift in US grand strategy that seeks not only to

identify but also to explain how and why this grand strategy came about, needs to include into the

analysis the authors of the grand strategy; 'the grand strategists' (i.e. policy-advisers). And the ideas

and interests that motivate them. Furthermore, and rather crucially, we will focus on the non-state

channels (i.e. think tanks, policy innovating and planning forums) through which these ideas and

interests were disseminated. These formally non-state, independent platforms, operating in the shelter

of actual policymaking, are often left out of public analyses, although they are increasingly recognized

to have considerable influence on foreign policy making (e.g. Jacobs & Page 2005; Gill 1991). By

extension, this study will focus on a network of these institutions, the ties of which consist of the

individuals connecting the network by means of interlocking memberships. For this purpose we will

employ a social network analysis (SNA).8 The aim of this network analysis is to catch the

characteristics, reach and structure of the network. In order to see whether a more or less cohesive set

of actors, ideas and interests can be identified to have been involved in this network in the period

since the end of the Cold War, and how this might have been of influence on the post-9/11 grand

strategy of the US. The question to be addressed here is: how did the neoconservative movement from

an anachronism and collection of scattered individuals (cf. Judis 1995) which had seemingly lost

their main cause in foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and had moreover lost their position

in power to a Democratic administration, become such a powerful influence in US foreign policy?

In the mid-90s several rightwing Republican alternatives started to manifest itself (e.g. Newt

Gingrich's Contract With America) and it was alongside these various programmes that a distinctive

neoconservative project began to take shape. This project distinguished itself, first of all, from the

isolationist stream in the Republican party, and, secondly, from the prevailing tendency of the 1990s

to reduce the business of America to business (Dorrien 2004:134).

As is well known, an important platform from which this project was launched was the Project

for the New American Century (PNAC), founded in 1997 by William Kristol (as an offspring from his

New Citizens Project) and housed in the same building as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one

of the largest and oldest of neoconservative think tanks. Its founding charter advances a set of guiding

principles for American foreign and defence policy, urging America to embrace its cause of

8 The distinctive difference of SNA from more traditional sociological (statistical) methods is that itfocuses on relations among actors instead of comparing their attributes (Wasserman & Faust 1994; Hanneman &Riddle, 2005; Scott 1990). Hence it allows for an analysis of how individual agency is embeddedin and at thesame time constructssocial structure.


19/43

18

American leadership and shape a new century favourable to American principles (PNAC Statement

of Principles, 1997). The charter also provides some concrete policy proposals which the PNAC itself

coins a Neo-Reaganite agenda of military strength and moral clarity. Whereas the PNAC was

certainly not the most extensive or institutionalized channel of neoconservative thought, nor can be

considered the project's most durable platform, we argue that its significance resides in that it came to

serve as a focal point of the neoconservative project, in which previously existing ideas, actors and

influences converged.

A Neoconservative Multileveled network

Since the proposition is that the PNAC served as the focal point of the neoconservative project,

PNAC-membership will be taken as the selection criterion from which a network of actors can be

mapped out. Within our SNA approach, we will in the following employ the concept of an affiliation

network, which is a network that includes either two sets of actors, or takes one set of actors and

one set of what is labelled events (such as clubs or voluntary organizations) and studies the relations

among them (i.e. interlocks, co-membership).

As our selection of actors we took the most active affiliates with PNAC 9 in the period 1997-

2001, which gives an N of 52. Since we want to identify the reach, structure and influence of the

networkthrough its actors and the ideas and interests they promote, we did not start from a prefixed

selection of events but proceeded in an exploratory fashion by mapping the affiliations of each of the

52 actors in the selection. Included were affiliations at both the private level and the state level in the

period from the end of the Cold War until 2006 (including, think tanks, policy institutes, ad-hoc

committees, advocacy groups, media and academic affiliations, government positions and corporate

affiliations / connections). 10

First of all it should be assessed whether indeed PNAC affiliation can validly be taken as the

selection criterion on the basis of which a neoconservative project can be identified. If it would turn

out that the rest of the network (affiliated actors and events) is unrelated, or only loosely related, this

would indicate that the proposition of the PNAC as a focal point of the neoconservative project is

flawed. However, it turned out that PNAC affiliation generates a vast, dense, and highly cohesive

network. Graph 1 below gives an overview of the PNAC networks affiliations to 1) the private

institutional level (neoconservative think tanks, policy institutes, media etc), 2) government (theRepublican administrations of Reagan 1981-1989, Bush 1989-1993, Bush jr 2001-2006), 3)

9 I.e.: Board of Directors, Founding Members, signatories and contributors to several key advocacyletters and statements regarding grand strategy and the reports Rebuilding Americas Defences and PresentDangers.10 Since PNAC affiliation is taken as the selection criterion of the actors, PNAC is not included as anevent in the analyses and graphs.


20/43

19

involvement with influential grand strategy formulations; 4) corporate affiliations (board membership,

executive functions, consultancy).

Graph 1: Overview Total of affiliation PNAC Network

Source Data: Whos Who 2006, International Relations Center 2006, biographies, membership rosters, participant overviews, annualreports of the affiliations.

This graph gives an unambiguous impression of the connectedness and reach of the PNAC network

across these various levels: there are no isolates (i.e. unconnected actors), and only a very few that

have but one connection. In fact, the graph shows that a substantial part of the network (27 out of our

52 actors) is connected to all four levels.11 The thickness of the ties expresses the total number of

affiliations that each actors has with each dimension separately.12

11 The colours express the number of affiliations that the actors have with these various levels (grey =affiliation to only one dimension, black = two dimensions, red = affiliations with three dimensions, blue = withall four).12 Despite its reach it should be noted that the network is not inclusive; key actors within the Bushadministration that are coined neoconservatives, have not, or barely, been associated with the PNAC andtherefore fall outside the network (e.g. Muravchik, Feith, Hadley). On the other hand there are also actorsincluded in the network that are not considered typical neoconservatives (e.g. Armitage and Bauer) What isinteresting about the PNAC criterion is that it includes a wide range of actors who irrespective of being coinedpure neo-cons or not nonetheless endorsed the neoconservative project of PNAC.


21/43

20

To get more insight into how the PNAC network spans across these various levels, i.e. how

ideas that were formed at the private institutional level and disseminated there (including grand

strategy formulation) did actually reach into government, and how this same political network includes

substantial overlap with the corporate world, by means of revolving door activities of its members we

will address each level separately and analyse them more closely, to start with the private institutional

level.

The Private Institutional Network

The matrix in Table 3 on the next page gives an overview of the private institutional network in which

the number of interlocking memberships each organization shares with each other can be read from the

diagonal.13 Since the focus of this analysis is to assess how and to what extent ideas have been

disseminated throughout, and shared within this network, we will look at measures of its cohesion: i.e.

distance and density. A commonly used measure for connectivity of a network is the geodesic distance

(meaning; the shortest path between two actors / events). The smaller the geodesic distances the faster

information may travel. The smallest geodesic distance is 1, which is equal to one path. The

measures of the network can be read in Table 2, below:

Table 2: Distance among actors in private institutional network

Average distance (among reachable pairs) = 1.391

Distance-based cohesion ("Compactness") = 0.745

(range 0 to 1; larger values indicate greater cohesiveness)

Distance-weighted fragmentation ("Breadth") = 0.255

Frequencies of Geodesic Distances

Frequenc Proporti

-------- --------

1 1506.000 0.615

2 930.000 0.3803 14.000 0.006

Social Network Analysis (UCINET): Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman (2002)

In the right column of Table 2 we can see that 61% of all the actors within the private institutional

network have a geodesic distance of only 1, indicating a direct connection; 38% has a distance of 2;

and 0,6% has a distance of 3.14 The left column illustrates that the average distance between the actors

is 1,4 and the overall distance based cohesion (Compactness) is 75%. The density of the network,

which similarly gives an indication of the pace/ease at which information can potentially be diffused

among its actors, is 0,949, indicating a very dense network (maximum being 1,0).

13 From the total reach of the networks private institutional affiliations only those events were includedwith an interlock of at least 4 that is; those events in which at least four of the actors in our selectionparticipated.14 A distance of 1 means that there is a shared membership; a distance of 2 means that there is aconnection between two actors (or an actor and an event) through an intermediate actor/event.


22/43


23/43


24/43

23

substantive affiliation is with Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), here

included. This finding confirms its characteristic as an intellectual and an elite project.

A qualitative content analysis of the main characteristics of the organizations within this

(private institutional) network reveals that indeed the same core themes that PNAC advocated - i.e.:

the necessity of global US leadership underpinned with military strength, active regime change with

the aim of democracy promotion and the implementation of free market principles, defence and

preservation of Israel, pressure for an increase in defence budget, and an emphasis on moral principles

and a strong belief in the superiority of US values (and the need to combat those who are not believed

to share these values) - were substantively reproduced, disseminated and further developed within this

wide-ranging network of organizations at the private institutional level. Combining our quantitative

and qualitative analyses we can conclude that indeed there seems to have been a rather cohesive set of

actors and ideas that can be identified as a neoconservative project on the basis of PNAC affiliation.

Moreover this network of actors and ideas had a vast institutional structure at its disposal, providing it

with a dense and highly connected pattern of channels through which these ideas could be diffused and

shared. The crucial question is of course, did these ideas and actors also influence actual policy

making? In other words: did they reach government and how?

Influence of the Network - Governmental affiliations

To assess whether there is an overlap between the private institutional level and the state level,the

actors affiliations with US (Republican) administration since the Reagan administration were

mapped. 18 As can be seen in Graph 3 below the overlap turns out to be quite substantive: except for 9

of the 52 actors, each of them participated in at least one of the three administrations, 14 of them

participated in all three Republican administrations.19 Most importantly; many of them occupy (or

have occupied) key positions within the G.W. Bush administration on foreign policy and defence

issues, (see Table 5 in appendix)

18 This timeframe is chosen because the neoconservative foreign policy outlook started to manifest itself mostpronouncedly since the Reagan administration. Since the Clinton administration contained only three interlocks,which moreover where either positions in ad-hoc commissions or study groups, this connection seemed notsufficiently significant and was left out. Administrations that lasted two presidential periods where combined tokeep the graphs and tables as orderly as possible, this, of course, implies some lack of accuracy. The DefensePolicy Board (DPB) (2001-2006), which is an independent Pentagon advisory body, drastically reformed underthe chairmanship of Richard Perle, is also included here and analysed separately because of the influential role itis said to have had in the crafting of post-9/11 US foreign policy (see e.g. Hersh 2003a; Halper & Clarke 2004;Dorrien 2004).19 Cheney, Libby, Wolfowitz, Woolsey, Armitage, Bolton, Khalilzad, Dobriansky, Kirkpatrick, Quayle, Allen,Rowen, Rodman, Zoellick.


25/43

24

Graph 2: Governmental Affiliations Network


26/43

25

From these findings can be concluded that the reach of the neoconservative network into government

is extensive and pervasive, providing a plausible and substantive channel of influence. Table 4 below

provides an overview of the total of interlocks.

Table 4: Governmental affiliations - Interlocking memberships

1 2 3 4

Bush jr DPB Bush sr. Reagan

1 Bush jr. (2001-2006) 21 0 12 15

2 DPB (2001- 2006) 0 8 5 63 Bush sr. (1989-1993) 12 5 23 194 Reagan (1981-1989) 15 6 19 34

The total number of interlocks with Republican administrations ranges from a total of 34 in the

Reagan administration, 23 in the Bush sr. administration, and 29 in the Bush jr administration (incl.

DPB). The latter confirms the suggestion that the project has a longer historical ancestry and makes

the label neo-Reaganite seem increasingly appropriate. Looking at quantity only, these figures in fact

seem to indicate a decreasing influence over time. However, taking into account the qualitative aspect

of it reveals that the actors in the G.W. Bush administration in general hold more influential and

powerful positions compared to the Reagan period. On the other hand it tells something about the

relation between agency and structure. First of all, the active and prolonged agency that is needed to

promote certain ideas. Secondly, that whereas the presence of neoconservatives in Republican

administrations has been quite constant, it was the interplay with crucial structural shifts and agency,

ideas and interests that produced the particular shift in US foreign policy that we are analysing here.

Hitherto we have been able to distinguish and visualize apatterned channel of influence from

the level of ideas at the private institutional level to the state level, established and mediated through

agency. In the next section we will look closer at how this patterned channel of influence translated the

neoconservative ideas into official US foreign policy by analysing the route that neoconservative

grand strategy has taken throughout time.

Grand Strategy Route

During the 1990s various ad-hoc projects have taken place at both the public and the private level

that foreshadowed post-9/11 grand strategy. These ad-hoc projects generated reports, or advocacy

statements, with the explicit aim to influence US foreign policy. If we want to establish a direct

relation between these formulations of grand strategy and official US post-9/11 grand strategy, there

should be 1) an overlap in content and 2) a plausible connection to the level of official foreign

policymaking. In order to see if both these conditions existed we will identify those actors from our


27/43

26

network that participated in a selection of the most significant of these ad-hoc study projects and

analyse their interlocks with the G.W. Bush administration.20 Two of them deserve special attention:

In the early 90s a memorandum was ordered from then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

The report, coined the 1992 DefensePolicy Guidance, was supervised by Wolfowitz (then Deputy

Secretary of Defence); and with most substantial input coming from Lewis Libby (then Cheneys

Chief of Staff). Its intention was to help set the nations direction for the next century calling for

concerted efforts to preserve American global military supremacy and to thwart the emergence of a

rival superpower in Europe, Asia or the former Soviet Union (Gellman 1992). The ideas that were

expressed in this document however clearly were ahead of their time (cf Gaddis, Frontline 2003b): an

emphasis on the US as a global leader; the importance of deterring potential competitors; advocating

ad-hoc coalitions under supervision of the US rather than enduring institutionalized co-operations; the

selective addressing of wrongs that threaten US interests; a geopolitical focus on the Middle East and

Southwest Asia and the region previously under Soviet influence (i.e. Caucasus, Central Asia) and the

proclaimed goal to retain influence in these regions and preserve access to its energy sources.21

Indeed,

when the Pentagon document leaked to the press it provoked so much controversy that the original

proposal was quickly withdrawn.22

Nearly ten years later, the PNAC report Rebuilding Americas Defenses, strategically released

in the 2000 election year, states in its introduction to build further upon the shelved DPG 1992 draft

and is intended as a roadmap for the nations immediate and future defense plans (PNAC 2000: ii,

iii), expecting that it might have a more receptive audience now than in recent years (ibid.).The

report proceeds from the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global

leadership by maintaining the pre-eminence of U.S. military forces, which in turn requires a

substantial increase of the defence budget. The main military missions now should contain the

threefold tasks of: 1) securing and expanding the zones of democratic peace; 2) deter the rise of new

great-power competitors, and; 3) exploit the transformation of war (i.e. technological revolution). The

report also contains a straightforward strategy with respect to Iraq and the Middle East Region: the

need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of

Saddam Hussein (ibid:14). Also the new axis of evil (i.e. North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria)

is in this report already frequently highlighted.

20 The projects included are: theRumsfeld 1998 Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the

U.S.; the Center for Peace and Security in the Gulf, which in 1998 which produced an advocacy statement tooverthrow Hussein; theNational Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) team,producing the Study on Rationale andRequirements for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control in 2001; theRAND Transition 2001 Panel, which provideda guide for the next president to lead the country into the coming century; the PNAC volume Present Dangers:Crisis and Opportunity in American Defense and Foreign Policy (2000) a key representative volume ofneoconservative foreign policy thought; the PNAC report: Rebuilding Americas Defences (2000); and the1992 Defense Policy Guidance (DPG).21 The original memorandum is classified, but The New York Times published some excerpts of the initial draftof Febr. 18 199222 Cheney produced a revised and sanitized version, the 1993 Regional Defense Strategy, see for a comparisonbetween the two Tyler (1992).


28/43

27

The fact that all of these ideas were later implemented in the grand strategy of the Bush

administration is certainly no coincidence, as is demonstrated by our network analysis. Graph 4,

below, contains what is labelled here a Grand Strategy Route which shows a mapping of the

involved actors in the above outlined projects, and their interlocks with the G.W. Bush administration,

the Defense Policy Board (DPB) and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI). 23

Graph 3: Grand Strategy Route

To highlight a few examples, we can read from this graph that:

- Of all those involved in at least one of these study projects, twenty-two hold a position in theBush administration, many of them on crucial Defence, National Security and Intelligencepositions (see also Table 1 in appendix, p. 7).

- Of the principal actors involved in the 1992 Defense Policy Guidance Draft, all three have(had) high level positions in the Bush administrations. Two of them were involved in thedrafting of Rebuilding Americas Defenses; one of them was also a signatory of the 1998Center for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG) letter to overthrow Saddam Hussein, andmember of the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission.

- Of those eighteen involved in the PNAC studies Rebuilding Americas Defenses andPresent Dangers, eleven are affiliated with the Bush administration; six were affiliated withthe Committee of Liberation of Iraq (CLI); six were signatories of the 1998 CPSG letter tooverthrow Hussein.

- Of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) members, five are affiliated with the Bushadministration, and seven of them were involved in the PNAC reports. And of all the

23 The DPB because of its aforementioned influential role in the formulation of post-9/11 foreign policyand the CLI because it is the advocacy group most directly dedicated to the post-9/11 policy with respect to Iraq.


29/43

28

signatories of the 1998 Center for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG) advocacy letter,thirteen interlock with the Bush administration, of which three are seated in the DefencePolicy Board.

This rather complicated web of interlocking relations does give us two important overall suggestions:

(1) it illuminates the extensive amount of direct interaction that has been taking place between a

substantive number of actors within subsets of the network; (2) it does indicate that through these

interactions at the private institutional level, ideas and concrete policy proposals have been

disseminated and can be directly linked to actual foreign policy making.

9/11 A Window of Opportunity

Were at war was the first reaction of President Bush to Vice President Cheney on the phone after

the news of the 9/11 attacks had reached him (Woodward 2002:17). In the turmoil that reigned in the

days after, it seems that neoconservatives in- and outside government have done everything within

their power to fill that statement with their preferred content. The process of the tumultuous

developments in the post-9/11 first weeks has been excellently and extensively described by others

and we will therefore refrain from reiterating that here (see e.g. Halper &Clarke 2004 129-131;

Dorrien 2004, ch 4: Woodward 2002, 2004). Indeed, it is by now common wisdom that the

neoconservatives have skilfully used the window of opportunity that was provided by the tragic and

shocking events of 9/11, to implement what prior to 9/11 in the eyes of many (also within the

administration) had looked as a rather unrealistic and far too extremist foreign political programme

and forged it into a comprehensive paradigm for US foreign policy within a couple of weeks. The

reverberation of their influence is most explicitly conveyed in the speeches of the president shortly

after 9/11 which were subsequently enshrined in the official US National Security Strategy of 2002

(NSS 2002) to be analysed more closely in the next section. What the above analysis has shown is

how this influence has been facilitated through long-term and recurrent active promotion of these ideas

and a widespread network of institutional and governmental channels, spanning across the American

state-society complex. In addition, we embedded our analysis in a theoretical perspective by

interpreting it as the construction of a hegemonic project by neoconservative agency and ideas.

The remaining question is how this neoconservative hegemonic project relates to an

accumulation strategy. In order to assess this we will below explore whether a link can be established

between the neoconservative network, their grand strategy, and particular corporate interests /

strategies, in terms of: 1) the networks possible corporate affiliations, 2) the promotion of particular

corporate interests over others as a direct result of the strategy, and 3) support to the strategy in terms

of campaign finance. In other words, we will examine to what extent the neonconservative hegemonic

project is in fact supported by and expressive of a set of dominant capitalist class interests, and to what

extent those interests are similar to that which have usually been associated with neoliberalism.


30/43

29

Corporate Affiliations, Corporate Interests?

A mapping of the corporate affiliations of the members of our network revealed that 60 % has (had)

direct corporate affiliations.24 The total of interlocks amounts to 94 (including almost 80 different

corporations). We therefore clustered the affiliated corporations by sector, as can be seen in Graph 6below. The colour of the nodes expresses the actors degree, i.e. their number of ties with the

corporate world compared to the total of corporate interlocks, the thickness of the tie expresses the

strength of each actors connection to a particular sector (which can be several). The exact overall

distribution of corporate interlocks is: Defense 28; Finance 20; Technology 14; Lawfirms 14; Energy

7; Media 4; Miscellaneous 3; Non-Profit 4.25

Graph 4: Network of clustered sectors of industry with affiliated actors

24 Included were e.g. positions at Boards of Directors, Advisory Boards, and CEOs in the period 1989 to 2003(some of which extend into the present). The charting of the actors corporate affiliations was not based on aprefixed selection but proceeded in an exploratory fashion. Since there was no opportunity to interview or surveythe actors, only those affiliations could be included which were actually made public , which might make theselection slightly biased. It seems however reasonable to assume that the corporate affiliations that these actorshave made public give a robust indication of their corporate involvements and allows us to distinguish somebroader trends within the network.25 Although we dont think it plausible that narrow interests within for instance the defence industrysolely are the main drive behind the neoconservative projects strategy, it remains interesting that the link withdefence is so substantial, a finding that certainly deserves further research.


31/43

30

All in all the mapping of corporate affiliations of the network reveals that: 1) the network does display

a substantial overlap with the private corporate level; 2) it reaches out to a broad spectrum of corporate

sectors, of which a substantial part are large corporations, often multinationals;26 3) it also shows that

there are strong connections to powerful players in for example the defence industry. This last point

might indicate what some claim to be a conflict of interest between current US politics and corporate

interests.27 But apart from a couple of concrete examples of conflicts of interests it remains difficult

to claim a direct causal connection between the interests represented by these sectors of industry (or

individual corporations) and the ideas and policies represented by their involved actors, either at the

institutional private level or at the public level. Most often, actors who take a public position leave

their functions in the private corporate sector precisely to avoid (the impression of) direct conflicts of

interest.

Whereas it would seem unwarranted, on the basis of these data, to conclude that narrow

interests, in for example the defence industry, solely influenced the strategy of the Bush administration

(but see Bichler & Nitzan 2004; 1995; 1996), it is clear that dominant sections of US capital have

formed part of the drive behind the current US strategy: An overview of the reconstruction contracts in

Iraq received from US Department of Defence in 2003-2004 for instance reveals that from the total of

contractors for reconstruction tasks in Iraq the lion share are US based multinational corporations.

Another striking fact is that of those corporat

Documents

The making of the 'long war'-neo-conservative networks and continuity and change in US 'grand strategy