Talking about he bottom left quadrant “internationalists” "This group believes that America and its allies are knit together not only by shared security interests, but also by shared values."
In my opinion, this group is toast. Resignations from the State Department, annecdodal reports of foreign government officials asking behind the scenes "has the West gone crazy?" Talk of shared values I think will be met by more than skepticism.
> These two groups do not mirror each other as easily as the people in the upper quadrants. In theory a primacist in the upper left could become a prioritizer in the upper right if he was convinced of American weakness. The bottom two quadrants, however, do not just differ in their perception of American strength, but also in the particular values espoused.
They're not mirrors because what you call a "power-based viewpoint" here is just one particular instance (or perhaps a few related instances) of a value-based viewpoint, not an equal and opposite type of thing. That's not a square, it's a collapsed god-knows-how-many-dimensional polytope. There are realpolitik arguments advanced in China too: they advocate for very different things. You can adopt as utterly orthodox a realist understanding of the objective interests of the state as you like - but the fact remains that individual human beings are not states, and it takes more than instrumental reason to make a person adopt state interests as their own.
This is obviously true (realist view points are a type of values view point) but it doesn't really collapse the taxonomy. You have two large groups of people who understand international relations through a power frame, and two other groups that reach similar conclusions to them but for an entirely different set of reasons.
I'm less sure if the top and bottom quadrants meaningfully differ. Don't primarcists and internationalists basically agree on issues of democracy and power? I.e. If you believe in liberal democracy, you would want to sustain US power. And if you want to sustain US power, you would believe in democracy. While Select Committee and Marco Rubio may disagree about things, it's not clear that it is the issue of power vs democracy that sets them apart. Same for the others falling in the same verticals.
I think Rubio and the select committee are fairly close--Rubio and Cotton less so.
They often arrive at the same place, but for very different reasons. People in the bottom quadrant naturally have a bit more difficulty fitting themselves into an "America first" mode. They view international democracy/liberties as goods in and of themselves, not as simply as tools for furthering American power.
One thing potentially worth noting is that the ”Prioritizers” on China sound very realist, very… John Mearsheimer , very Paul Kennedy.
And yet, every time I see a media appearance by Mearsheimer, it’s on Judge Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” or Glenn Greenwald’s “System Update”. And those guys feel very “Restrainer”, very suspicious of US motives and especially Israeli motives.
These are close to my four quadrants, which in turn are based on Walter Russell Mead's four strands of American foreign policy. https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/where-do-you-stand
Elon Musk? He seems off the map
Talking about he bottom left quadrant “internationalists” "This group believes that America and its allies are knit together not only by shared security interests, but also by shared values."
In my opinion, this group is toast. Resignations from the State Department, annecdodal reports of foreign government officials asking behind the scenes "has the West gone crazy?" Talk of shared values I think will be met by more than skepticism.
annecdodal = anecdotal
> These two groups do not mirror each other as easily as the people in the upper quadrants. In theory a primacist in the upper left could become a prioritizer in the upper right if he was convinced of American weakness. The bottom two quadrants, however, do not just differ in their perception of American strength, but also in the particular values espoused.
They're not mirrors because what you call a "power-based viewpoint" here is just one particular instance (or perhaps a few related instances) of a value-based viewpoint, not an equal and opposite type of thing. That's not a square, it's a collapsed god-knows-how-many-dimensional polytope. There are realpolitik arguments advanced in China too: they advocate for very different things. You can adopt as utterly orthodox a realist understanding of the objective interests of the state as you like - but the fact remains that individual human beings are not states, and it takes more than instrumental reason to make a person adopt state interests as their own.
This is obviously true (realist view points are a type of values view point) but it doesn't really collapse the taxonomy. You have two large groups of people who understand international relations through a power frame, and two other groups that reach similar conclusions to them but for an entirely different set of reasons.
Very interesting framework, though the same quadrants probably not only applies to Republicans but Democrats too.
I'm less sure if the top and bottom quadrants meaningfully differ. Don't primarcists and internationalists basically agree on issues of democracy and power? I.e. If you believe in liberal democracy, you would want to sustain US power. And if you want to sustain US power, you would believe in democracy. While Select Committee and Marco Rubio may disagree about things, it's not clear that it is the issue of power vs democracy that sets them apart. Same for the others falling in the same verticals.
I think Rubio and the select committee are fairly close--Rubio and Cotton less so.
They often arrive at the same place, but for very different reasons. People in the bottom quadrant naturally have a bit more difficulty fitting themselves into an "America first" mode. They view international democracy/liberties as goods in and of themselves, not as simply as tools for furthering American power.
One thing potentially worth noting is that the ”Prioritizers” on China sound very realist, very… John Mearsheimer , very Paul Kennedy.
And yet, every time I see a media appearance by Mearsheimer, it’s on Judge Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” or Glenn Greenwald’s “System Update”. And those guys feel very “Restrainer”, very suspicious of US motives and especially Israeli motives.
Where do the old realists fall on this?
They aren't Trump republicans.