Reply #21: The tenets of Radical Nationalism

[ThePittsburghKid]

are basically what we understand as typical Neo-Con positions, but "benevolent hegemony" is what is considered the main motivation of Radical Nationalism, as presented by my professor. Others tenets involve presenting American positions on issues as "righteous", or even "infallible". As you noted, Strauss, the Krisols, Wolfowitz, and Perle are considered the intellectual fathers of RN; Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfield are those considered actually to have implemented the ideas in government policy.

I concur with you on the implementation of ideas vs. mere ideas, but allow me to slightly expand on my previous post, which, admittedly, was unclear on what I wanted to say. I didn't expect that RN would come to the point it would be a major school of thought in international relations theory so quickly. It seemed to me, even though RN is a major shift in American policy, it seemed to me that the impact is greater than I expect. I could understand if the theory was added to the canon after frequent implementation in policy over the course of many years, but the acceptance of the theory so quickly shocked me, merely because other theories of international relations have been around for hundreds of years, and it usually takes awhile for the practices to gain acceptance in the field and literature.