Non-intervention

Matt Steinglass asks:

Isn’t the Prime Directive’s doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of (particularly underdeveloped) alien civilizations a classically paleo-con non-interventionist position?

Larison's answer:

Indeed it is, which is why most Star Trek plotlines are so annoying. If the most important principle is non-interference, why is the moral of almost every Star Trek story that this or that Federation captain is right to violate the Prime Directive in order to “do something” whenever there is a crisis? Surely the stories should drive home why non-interference is the better, wiser course, but instead they routinely show the Prime Directive to be the invention of moral and political idiots. It is hard to think of another fictional world in which its heroes so regularly disrespect the core values that they are supposed to espouse. Anyone who watched very many of the original episodes with Kirk would come away with the impression that the Prime Directive was a rule mostly observed in the breach, and most TNG episodes and movies would tell you that non-interference is either misguided or actually morally corrupt. The entire ninth movie was one big celebration of so-called humanitarian intervention. The advocates of non-intervention–the people invoking the Prime Directive most often–were portrayed in that feature as corrupt collaborators with the worst of the worst.

A commenter retorts:

You’d have to be an extraordinarily doctrinaire non-interventionist to advocate anything like a Prime Directive approach to US foreign policy. Non-interference in other state’s domestic affairs is one thing. A policy of deeming other states too primitive to even be graced with the knowledge that the United States exists is a bit more extreme. Similarly, you can respect a state’s desire to protect its most important industries without going further and arguing that any economic or cultural exchange at all is too dangerous to the less-powerful culture. According to the Prime Directive it makes sense for an entire civilization, including all its people, to perish in a natural disaster, since saving anybody would halt that civilization’s natural progression towards extinction. I know paleo-conservatives aren’t known for their sentimentality, but I don’t think they’re quite that, uh, mean.

The Prime Directive is routinely disregarded on Star Trek because it’s so hard for a rational or moral person to take it seriously. A more flexible approach (like the way the crew on TNG actually makes decisions when the Prime Directive clashes violently with common sense, morality, ethics, etc.) seems more reasonable.

I'm decidedly against intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries (e.g. toppling Saddam Hussein) but I think the commenter is right about the Prime Directive becoming morally absurd when it means not being able help a civilization avoid extinction when it's of little cost to us.

There are multiple areas of intervention:  military (force), trade, and migration.

Larison, being a paleocon, is opposed to them all—which is why he likes the Prime Directive.  Some paleocons aren't quite so obtuse on trade. But they definitely oppose migration, because they despise multiculturalism.

Once, the American right agreed with Larison on avoiding military intervention, and it was the bleeding heart Left that would propose boneheaded freedom-spreading, nation-building exercises.  Times change, huh?  And it's all the neocons' fault.

Now the Left is better on military non-intervention, better on migration, and tolerable* on trade.  Which is why they have a superior foreign policy now.

*The talk last year of renegotiating NAFTA was fodder for stupid Democratic primary voters. The leadership is, thankfully, not so dumb as to follow through on that. All they'll do is stand in the way of new trade deals with e.g. Columbia. So basically we're just treading water on trade for the foreseeable future.