If you thought the neocons were vanquished, disappearing along with theBush-Cheney administration, better think again. Their mindset stillanimates most of what the GOP offers in opposition to President BarackObama's magical apology tour. For while the president won a Nobel PeacePrize for his heartfelt mea maxima culpa, Charles Krauthammer & Co. see no reason to surrender America's two-decades-and-counting "era ofmaximum dominance" to the Chinese simply because Beijing holds the pinkslip on our national economy.
First, some details.
Atthe heart of this struggle lie two diametrically opposed views oftoday's world: one that accepts globalization as the all-powerfulshaper of human destiny, and one that does not, thereby leaving openthe "choice" of primacy, in Krauthammer's vernacular. For Obama,globalization is an inescapable condition of profound interdependency-- the destroyer of zero-sum competition. But for Republican hawks,globalization is nothing more than the next playing field upon whichfierce great-power competition and conflicts will unfold. In the mindsof these "true realists," globalization has, to date, failed to changehuman nature. As a result, its perceived interdependencies amount tonothing in the face of determined ideologues -- themselves included.