European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 28, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes saturday december 28. 1985 Anthony Lewis neoconservatives Are Gung to for adventurism look up the word conservative in the dictionary and you find such adjectives As cautious moderate prudent. Now think what today s self Siy cd conservatives want to do with american foreign policy. You will understand How an old political tradition has been transformed into something Radical and strange. The Intel ecu a right thai lays Down the line these Days is Gung to for adventurism in foreign policy it wants to fight on the beaches of Angola and in the Hills of Cam Bodia not because the . Has any vital National interests there but because ideology commands it. We must fight communism wherever it appears in the third world. The scope of this new globalism was made Clear the other Day by rep. Jack Kemp the conservative Standard bearer from Buffalo. Me suggested overthrowing not Only Angola s government but Mozambique son the other coast of Africa. American conservatism used to stand for caution in foreign affairs for restraint. It was opposed 10 International crusades even against an ideology As uncongenial As communism. It was worried about Over straining . Resources. It wanted o pursue limited goals abroad by strictly constitutional Means. Those were the views of sen. Robert a. Taft of Ohio or. Conservative As he was called in the 1950s. He even opposed the North Atlantic treaty in 1949 because he thought it committed the United states to unforeseeable military obligations. As a strict constitutionalism he opposed fighting an undeclared War in Korea. Now we arc in the age of the no constr a lives. Who want America to intervene everywhere. They do not care about constitutional or other niceties. Old fashioned ideas should not be allowed to get in the Way of a crus Aii 1., not the tradition of respect for established governments the ingrained american dislike of Covert methods the obligation of presidents to respect the will of Congress. George will the contrast Between i Host two kinds of conservatism is brilliantly drawn by Christopher Laynce in the new Issue of the quarterly foreign policy. He Calls the old school real conservatives and says it is time for a re assertion of their cautious realistic views. The  Layne says be Lieve thai the primary threat to the United states is  a failure of . Resolve anywhere will produce a worldwide Stampede to the soviet Camp accordingly  argue that we must try to Roll Back communist or marxist ideology wherever it appears at whatever Price. Layne Points out a historical irony the crusade philosophy has taken hold on the Rigi at a Lime when the United states manifestly cannot afford unlimited foreign crusades. When Taft worried about the Lim its on american resources the limits were not visible. Today they Are in enormous budget deficits and our new status As a debtor nation. The essence of a conservative  Layne concludes is to preserve National strength husband resources and expend them wisely the american Diplomat and scholar who has pre eminently stood for realistic goals is George Kennan. By Chance he has a piece in the current Issue of foreign affairs. It sums up his lifelong View that the United states must limit its commit ments abroad to the essential and the achievable. Americans must overcome their ten Dency toward ," Kennan writes and learn to examine each Case on its Merit. The Best measure of these merits is not the attractiveness of certain general semantic symbols but the effect of the Given situation on the tangible and demonstrable interests of the United  that is surely the Way to begin analysing any proposed crusade abroad in terms of hard american interests arc american who needs you lives or property threatened Here is there a threat to regional stability what will the Cost of intervention be in dollars and dam age to other american interests what end do we foresee outside interventions and plots against established governments used to go against the american Grain those were though of be soviet tactics. Nowadays our politicians casually talk of overthrowing governments for ideological reasons and hardly an Eye brow is raised. Such tactics Are still wrong As a matter of american values. But they also fail the True conservative lest of inter est. C is5 new York times be i service who s the veal conservative Taft or Reagan contemporary conservatism is haunted by inc ghosts of sounds an Echo of sen. Robert Taft s foreign policy. The Taft doctrine has not had a Large conservative following for nearly four decades since the late 1940s when prompted by the Berlin blockade and the coup in Prague conservatives joined democrats in an activist interventionist globalist consensus. During Vietnam democrats defected in droves mov ing toward tall s scepticism about . Capacities. Now Christopher Laynce. Writing in foreign policy approvingly identifies Taft s doctrine As real conservatism and a paganism As a replay of 1950s cold War  Layne says correctly that under Reagan the idea of global containment is making a comeback. Actually it is postwar policy plus and the plus is crucial. Layne says the Reagan doctrine does not differentiate Between what is vital and what is merely Desira  Bui Layne misunderstands the burdens involved in inc undertakings he criticizes and he has Hir own Trou ble differentiating. He insists that Reagan s policy of supporting anti communist insurgencies can bankrupt  but the Cost of such support is trivial especially when compared to the Cost of strategic and conventional forces that form the essential deterrent Layne supports. Reagan s defense spending is below the postwar Norm As a percentage of Gross National product and of Federal spending. Hence it is Peculiar of Layne to say deficits and strategic Over Extension arc really two sides of the same  you could not make a measurable Dent in the deficit by eliminating the trickles of Aid to insurgencies in Afghanistan Nicaragua Cambodia and Angola. In deed Small . Investments in such insurgencies have magnificent multiplier effects multiplying the soviet costs of aggression. Layne says real conservatives think go Polilli Cally. Not ideologically. But his geopolitical thinking is murky. He is at once laconic and Eye opening when he says America s strategic position obviously would be less comfortable if Mexico turned  there is something mannered about the phrase less Comfort  and his formulations contain Many nullifying modifiers. For example he says real conservatives know that vital american interests arc not engaged in Afghani Ian Angola Cambodia and similar third world hot spots and there is no third world Region or country whose loss would decisively tip the superpower balance against America and the loss of Central America would not decisively affect America s Corese  note the flinching in the form of modifiers vital decisively  obviously no single third world problem considered alone is crucial. Equally obviously such problems can not be considered alone. The Reagan doctrine As Laynce characterizes it is that . Security requires an ideologically congenial world. Hence the United states must attempt to build american style democracies in third world coun tries. Layne says that real conservatives believe for example that Nicaragua should not be allowed to be come a soviet satellite exporting revolution but they do not believe . Interests Are threatened by Sari Minista Domestic policies in and of  Here is indeed the nub of the difference. The Crux of the Reagan doctrine is that a communist regime s Domestic policies  not be considered in and of themselves. They Are part of a seamless web of aggressive behaviour a single dynamic of aggression against captive subjects and vulnerable nations. The president believes history has shown that demo cratic nations do not Start  his Assumption is that regimes respectful of fundamental personal rights will be shaped by the popular will and hence will Lack an aggressive disposition. His premise that the popular will is generally Pacific is questionable in particular cases such As 1914, but it is True enough. Laynce believes that adherents to the Reagan doctrine have fallen into a time Warp that has transported them Back to the Early 1950s." he Means they have not accommodated their thinking to the relative decline of . Power and the lessons of Vietnam. But Layne who counts George Kennan among the real conservatives seems stuck in the 1940s. The Reagan doctrine is containment  it is the postwar policy of containment plus two in sights. The first insight is that the original exposition of containment by Kennan nearly 40 years ago was Loo sanguine in hoping that russian culture would Mel Low the soviet regime. The second insight is that Mere containment is therefore too passive. It is Loo compatible with the Braz nov doctrine which holds that All soviet gains Are irreversible. Thus the Reagan doctrine is tradition modified in the Light of evidence. That is real conservatism. To 1915 wih Nolon pot writers group to hmm exp stud to m. Co Limu and cart Fri on it of Tor tune thou m Oulton and ire i n. Win � to it nut a  it a Teri a new Sun Ond Strum or 1t� Ulm my