Taboo Topics on Contemporary Foreign Policy Discourse

[Peter Presland]

I found this piece by Stephen Walt in Foreign Policy interesting. As much for the way in which, as an senior Establishment FP Wonk, he finds it necessary to repeatedly and carefully point out his own orthodoxy. He tries to be 'tongue-in-cheek' and trendily risqué but the message comes over loud and clear: For anyone aspiring to a career in government or any of its agencies, there are limits to allowable debate. Transgress and, at best, you will have to find an alternative career.

The whole thing is worth a read but here are the headings:

#1. Thou Shalt Not Question U.S. Membership in

#2. Thou Shalt Oppose the Spread of Nuclear

#3. Thou Shalt Not Question the Need for a Nuclear Deterrent.

#4. Thou Shalt Not Question the Desirability of American Primacy.

#5: Thou Shalt Not Call For an Accommodation with Cuba (or North Korea, or Iran, or….).
#5A: The Chamberlain Corollary: Under no circumstances should one
use the word “appeasement,” except as an accusation directed at ones’ political opponents.

#6: Thou Shalt Not Criticize the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, IISS, Brookings, or other major foreign policy institution.

#7: Thou Shalt Not Take the Armed Forces’ Name in vain

#8: Thou Shalt Acknowledge the Importance of Human Rights, Democracy, and Other American “Values.”

#9: Thou Shalt Not Question the Right of the United States to Intervene in Other Countries.

#10: Thou Shalt Not Favor Negotiating with “Terrorists.”