Hawkish Moralizing and U.S. Foreign Policy

We have seen how “values” rhetoric has been used to legitimize and whitewash aggressive and illegal actions.

There is a tendency in U.S. foreign policy debates to substitute heavy-handed moralizing for substantive argument. This tendency is not limited to any one side of the debates, but it is concentrated most often among advocates of “forward-leaning” and interventionist U.S. policies. It is fairly common for supporters of more hawkish and confrontational po…