The Great Transformation and the Failure of Illiberal Hegemony - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 183

rooted in Wilsonian ideas and for which “there are strong echoes in the Clinton administra-
tion,” a Republican foreign policy would be internationalist but it would also “proceed from
the firm ground of the national interest, not from the interests of an illusory international
community.” 84 The notion of an international community is a polite fiction.
Finally, conservative discourse suggests that the source of legitimacy in American foreign
policy is domestic, rooted in popular sovereignty and the constitution. The rectitude of Amer-
ican actions is ensured by the legitimacy of the nation's democratic process and not by the
opinions of other governments. States around the world may approve or disapprove of what
the United States does but they do not speak for some vague international standard of legit-
imacy; on the contrary, their views reflect their own national interests and nothing more lofty
or virtuous. Giving voice to this view, President Bush asserted in his State of the Union ad-
dress in 2004 that “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our
people.” 85 This was both a legal claim and a proclamation about the sources of legitimacy in
America's pursuit of its interests and national security.
In practical terms, this view simply restates what is generally accepted as true. The United
States retains its sovereignty in regard to the use of force. But in more general terms, it re-
flects a position that stands in contrast with liberal notions of American foreign policy and
international order. John Bolton again offers the essential critique of liberal notions: “The
question of legitimacy is frequently raised as a veiled attempt to restrain American discretion
in undertaking unilateral action, or multilateral action taken outside the confines of an inter-
national organization, even when our actions are legitimated by the operation of that Con-
stitutional system. The fact, however, is that this criticism would delegitimize the operation
of our own Constitutional system, while doing nothing to confront the threats we are facing.
Our actions, taken consistently with Constitutional principles, require no separate, external
validation to make them legitimate.” 86
Conservative nationalist ideas about international order have always coexisted with liberal
ones in the American experience, but they did not guide Washington policy at the most crit-
ical order-building junctions of the last century. 87 In the hands of the Bush administration,
these themes all led in the same direction—toward an old-style conservative nationalist for-
eign policy. The United States would attempt to defend itself and get what it could in a com-
petitive state system while also protecting its national sovereignty. It presented itself to the
world as a self-regarding actor. The United States does not have any special obligation to
uphold the international order, provide public goods, or abide by global norms. It is out for
itself like all other states. The United States is a great power in a world of competing great
powers seeking security and advantage for itself. Together, its unipolar grand strategy and
these conservative nationalist ideas offered a new and provocative way in which the United
States would operate in the world. And, in the end, it was simply unsustainable.