SNA (Tokyo) — Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has adopted “moral clarity” as one of her leading slogans in her quest to gain the Republican nomination for president. This is a key intellectual concept behind the neoconservative movement which reached a peak under the presidency of George W. Bush; it is effectively a coded call to embrace a forever war in pursuit of US global primacy.

The first of Haley’s official television advertisements, issued last week and narrated in her own voice, begins, “A president must have moral clarity, and know the difference between good and evil. Today, China, Russia, and Iran are advancing.”

William Bennett, a prominent secretary of education under the Ronald Reagan administration, is sometimes credited with popularizing the term “moral clarity” in the early years of this century, but it was employed by many officials of the Bush administration.

This included President Bush himself, who, for example, declared on June 1, 2002, to the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point: “Because the War on Terror will require resolve and patience, it will also require firm moral purpose. In this way, our struggle is similar to the Cold War. Now, as then, our enemies are totalitarians, holding a creed of power with no place for human dignity. Now, as then, they seek to impose a joyless conformity, to control every life and all of life. America confronted imperial communism in many different ways–diplomatic, economic, and military. Yet moral clarity was essential to our victory in the Cold War.”

Bush added that “there can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it.”

Similarly, Haley’s campaign pledges as listed on her 2024 website include headings such as Defending Israel, Repealing the Iran Deal, Advocating for Human Rights, Getting Tough on China, Sanctioning North Korea, and Getting Tough on Russia.

That is a reasonably explicit promise to risk military action against at least four countries and on behalf of Israel.

“Moral clarity” appeals have been utilized by Haley for a number of years–at least going back to the 2017-2018 period when she served as Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations, where she frequently accused other governments of corruption and moral inadequacy.

Trump himself has been a target of this rhetoric, such as in June when Haley asserted that the former president had been too weak in dealing with China.

“In his zeal to befriend President Xi,” she declared, “Trump congratulated the Communist Party on its 70th anniversary of conquering China. That sent a wrong message to the world.” She continued, “We don’t congratulate Communism; we condemn it. That’s the moral clarity I’m talking about.”

Haley remains a long-shot to defeat Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, though she is making a credible run at the second-place slot of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. She has picked up de facto endorsements from monied interests such as the Koch political network and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Some Republicans are also promoting her as a possible vice-presidential partner for Trump.

It should be noted that the neoconservative arguments regarding the need for “moral clarity” are also inherent in much of the foreign policy of the current Biden administration, and policies which serve the interests of the military-industrial complex tend to be supported on a bipartisan basis.

This article was originally published on December 4, 2023, in the “Japan and the World” newsletter. Become a Shingetsu News supporter on Patreon and receive the newsletter by email each Monday morning.