Neoconservatism: A vindication

It turned out that deterrence was not only simple but very powerful. And very practical. But the criticism persisted even as deterrence showed its value. Take stop-and-frisk, the most controversial policing behavior during the crime-drop period. It was ground-level deterrence at its most basic. It warned you not to carry a gun if you don’t want it taken away from you and don’t want to get arrested for possessing an illegal firearm. And second, it removed the gun from circulation before it could be used. Nonetheless, stop-and-frisk was largely eliminated. Now, with the crime surge in New York City and elsewhere, it’s coming back. But with a new name. Because history rhymes.

All of this had a clear moral superstructure. Domestically, there were good guys (people who went about their daily lives) and bad guys (people who preyed on them). Perhaps more important, there were bad guys abroad (the Communists, the Arab oil states). And there was a giant Good Guy—the United States.

That was the hardest pill of all for the cognoscenti to swallow, because they did not believe that the United States was good—and their moral frame was much more about restraining American ambitions rather than the ambitions of those who would do ordinary Americans harm.

Deterrence is what America lost in the years before Vladimir Putin took the gamble of going into Ukraine, and it is deterrence we need to restore. That is why this is a neoneoconservative moment.