Liberal ascendancy and the challenge of the international
In the area of international relations, the liberal impulse was seen as being far from
a constant condition. More precisely, it was recognized as being highly unstable
when the perspective shifted to the field of foreign policy. This amounted to
something of an anomaly because in many respects liberalism could be construed as
a historically sanctioned characteristic of America’s approach to the outside world.
From the notions of an ‘empire of liberty’ and the ‘Enlightenment applied’ to the
claims of being an international vanguard of liberal modernity and technological
progress, the United States had the reputation of being an applicable model for
others to emulate.^12 America stood as the self-conscious exemplar of a form of
liberalism that by virtue of its own historical and social experience possessed the
potential to extend across different regions and cultures. The Cold War deepened
the implied logic of this national liberalism that could be projected into international
arrangements of social, economic and regulatory benefit. It was understood by
mainstream consensus historians and analysts that American leadership was based
upon its liberal credentials and, thereby, on the legitimacy of its proposition that
liberalism was the basis of a strong, unified and stable social order.
An integral element of this outlook, and a fundamental source of the traction
required for its propagation, was the need for the United States to have a settled
view of its position and role in the world. In many respects, this appeared to be the
case with the emergence of the US as a global superpower that had assumed a
profusion of post-Second World War responsibilities in the fields of recovery,
security, trade and economic management. It had not only been instrumental in
devising a range of architectures related to international governance, but had
demonstrated its attachment to the need for American leadership in the new order.
Nevertheless, American adjustment to a new international role continued to be
severely limited. Despite an apparently consistent posture that seemed to bear witness
to an acceptance of the principles of liberal internationalism – based firmly upon its
own indigenous convictions – the United States remained curiously afflicted by a
state of deep unsettlement over the extent to which liberalism could or should guide
its actions in relation to the international realm
It was the doyen of consensus scholars, Louis Hartz himself, who drew attention
to what he regarded as a conspicuous and discordant anomaly in the otherwise
unperturbed unity of America’s liberal order. Notwithstanding the organizing
principle of his exposition, Hartz took it upon himself to highlight a notable
disjunction in the ramifications of American liberalism. Far from being the occasion
or the location of a seamless symmetry of liberal attitudes, the arena of international
politics exerted such enormous strains upon outlooks in the US that it could be
regarded as a major structural weakness in its professed purpose as the leader of the
free world. In this most critical of areas in which the US had positioned itself as the
key actor in a litmus test of liberalism, it was evident to Hartz that the country was
having to operate under a self-imposed disadvantage that threatened its entire Cold
War rationale. What was characterized as a grave weakness came from the very
Waltz and the process of Cold War adjustment 39