So says Andrew Bacevich in this interview with the Stanford Review:

Q. In 2008, you wrote in the American Conservative that within President Obama’s promised withdrawal from Iraq “lies some modest prospect of a conservative revival.” How would you describe the state of affairs — specifically as it relates to foreign and defense policy formulation in the conservative movement — today? Are new ideas and leaders emerging?

Let me distinguish here between authentic conservatism and the faux version represented by the Republican Party. When it comes to foreign and defense policy, authentic conservatives are wary of utopian schemes, sensitive to the need to husband power, and have an aversion to war. That tends to make them anti-interventionists and to favor the use of force only as a last resort. This viewpoint has its advocates, but it enjoys almost no influence in Washington. Speaking as someone who plants himself in that camp, I see little likelihood of change in that regard. Afghanistan presented the president with an opportunity to open things up for a real debate. His decision to escalate the war there foreclosed that opportunity.

As for the faux conservatives — not only the Republican Party, but organs like the Weekly Standard and National Review, along with institutions such as AEI — they have succumbed to militarism and refuse to confront the consequences and implications of the disastrous policies they have promoted. They occupy an intellectual dead zone.

This is well known to TAC‘s readers. But it may come as shocking news to any Mark Levin groupies hanging around.