The American Interest

No I am not bitter that I have yet to recieve my first issue of The American Interest. Just to show you that I am not bitter I'm even to link to a blog hyping them up. I found the link on AI...contd which kind of mentioned that they were mentioned. So you won't have to read the whole post I am excerpting the section relevant to AI:

I mention that roundtable because a similar question gets asks of Francis Fukuyama, one of the participants of the APSA Roundtable and the Chair of the Editorial Board of a new journal, The American Interest. Those following the philosophical and policy debates in Washington will recognize the allusion to the 'National Interest', which has changed hands and now represents more of a realist of neo-isolationist perspective rather than the neo-conservative and realist mix it promoted up until this year.

The American Interest went live online in the last few days and would be worth the attention for the distinguished and eclectic contributor pool and editorial board alone. Irish readers, particularly those opinion leaders who have been attacked an ill-defined idea of neo-conservatism since the Iraq War without attention to the scholarly debate that has been underway over the last two and half years behind the scenes, would do well now to examine the new publication for indications of how neo-conservatism may be reverting to a more realist worldview, or at least how it might branch out over the next few years.

A survey of the first issue offers some clues. For a start, the choice of Secretary of State Rice as the interviewee of the cover article nicely picks up on the tension between the neo-conservative and realist tendencies embodied in Charles Krauthammer's phrase 'democratic realism' by selecting an individual who has been recently portrayed variously as steering US policy back to realism and as a leading backer of neoconservative theories within the White House. From the statement of principles and the presence of several articles on aspects of American political culture, it could be inferred that the journal will emphasise the particularly neo-conservative thesis that a state's internal arrangements greatly shape its behaviour in world affairs. Robert Kaplan's listing on the first table of contents suggests that a rather un-neo-con bent towards realpolitik may be making a bit of a resurgence at the same time. Notwithstanding the routine disclaimer that the journal represents no one viewpoint, the circumstances of its origin mean that its future line will of particular interest.

Of course, what that future line may be is all speculation for now. What's important to note is twofold. First, that there is a well-developed debate on the future of American foreign policy amongst those lazily labelled neo-conservative. Second, it's largely slipping in under the radar in Ireland. Reading the American Interest would go a long way towards addressing the problem.