The idea that there is an external threat is itself a pathos, so I am not sure we can begin a policy discussion quite yet. I view "9/11" as a national security/political issue (it was traumatic and therefore there was a vacuum to fill) as one that required an internal solution (closed borders, investigations, renewed calls for an armed citizenry and civil defense...) first before an external solution. Though the event occured in NY and DC, as a people the Americans associated the event as a community and there was much greaf, however, there was no rush to sign up for the military there was say in England when Germany 'violated' Belgium in WWI. The populace has become content to simply pay their taxes which says something about the relationship the American people have with their government in its own right.
Also, patriots who would cite Waco rather than 9/11 as the climactic event that shaped personal views about man and his government, know that if only the government had warned the people that this type of attack could happen, and record show the government knew for up to a decade that 'radical Islam' planned to use hijacked jet liners, I believe the reaction would have been like that which greeted the shoe bomber, Richard Reid.
The problem with nomenclature and conservatism here is that the neoconservatives are a distinct spin-off from the left where as the New Deal Conservative, best captured in the actions of Ronald Reagan, a patriot, saved Social Security and the welfare state arrangement...but who used American power sparingly as the Old Right would prefer.
The neoconservatives, if you read Irving Kristol's book, have a distinct world view that does not come from the United States tradition of thoughts on liberty or the relationship of the individual and his government. A quick read of the Federalists Papers or should confirm as much. There is no attempt by the neoconservatives to base their ideas back to the forefathers, however, New Deal Conservatives, and Ronald Reagan, often employed the imagery of the forefathers and Reagan loved to use patently Old Right libertarian rhetoric, even if he was less successful delivering on policy.
Before we get to finer points of ideology, American liberty traditionalist look at the arrangement of individual and his government through the lens of praxeology, the 'physics' of human society, where as the neoconservatives, imported from the Left, believe in harnessing the power of the state to accomplish this or that. Certainly the Rightwing neoconservatives believe in toppling regimes (indeed, the phrase "creative destruction" is lifted from the Italian fascisti) and the leftwing neoconservatives believe in "humanitarian" missions like Serbia-- using two recent examples.
I have offered on several occasions a way out to understand the Iraq situation: "a terrible dictator has been removed and the often cruel Clinton sanction regime has been ended."
This is a center-left explanation, however, it also suits the Republicans well.
I resist ideological world views in the spirit of Russell Kirk, so I will not argue we would better off this way or that way, however, I will say that as an American Christian patriot, using vast propaganda techniques through layered media ownership to convince 51% of the public that they are under attack is the traditional way states goes to war, and Americans and the West have traditionally reject aggressive war.
An interesting case study on the West's relationship with War would be Stalin's overt invasion of Finland and Poland, contrasted with Hitler's use of the SS who dressed up as Polish soldiers and 'invaded' Germany. We could get into the role of ethnicity and world view, however, currently that is generally out of the artificial bounds set by the PC folks mentioned in the blog.
Since the Christian patriot never knows if the leader of the state is good or bad (God before country, in Islam God is acting through the 'state' mind you and Allah is never wrong), we are required to look at the process by which the state went to war.
I am not a political scientist but I think the future of conservatism is in 'radical localism.' If we can recapture, in a transient time, a sense of what it means to live in our towns, enjoy a drink at the bar with friends, stroll some open lands, perhaps the populace will be less likely to fit their world view with the desired of the DC-regime.
Thus will have to rebuild from the bottom up; rebuild the institutions that make self-government possible. I am less inclined to think and set of ideas can compete against a $2 trillion a year Leviathan, $22 trillion in debt, will reform itself. Indeed letting in foreigners, and then declaring the problem too big to do anything but offer amnesty smells of an end game in the relationship between man and his government.
The best we can hope for are moral men at the top, however, the position is simply to vast for any single leader to handle it 'scandal' free. There are many alien and anti-patriotic men in Washington who slip in and out of private or public positions to further either personal gain or Gramscian gradual revolution.
In conclusion, I think this conservatism you are looking for begins at home by re-adopting the habits of a free people. Plot your family tree for instance and do the work to go back as far as you can; reintroduce ethnic traditions of your people be they Scottish or Greek; learn the history of your state and region--not through contemporary books, but go back in time and purchase books from 100 years ago.
If the people will change from believing in America the ideal, to America, the historical nation where my people settled, perhaps a real conservatism could be born again.
From the praxeology perspective, the large states are finished. One of the most amazing developments from the past 50 years is the role of fiat currency in checking world events. After Roosevelt divided up the world with Stalin, there were few markets that a man of wealth could stick his dollars so most of it came to the United States. This allowed for the largest credit expansion in the history of the world and the state sure did wrack of a credit card bill ($22 trillion indeed.)
However, as we saw in this past war, the state which wants stability (a tenet of conservatism) could not behave with full flexibility. The dollar is crashing overseas; oil republics are threatening to switch to the Euro; the Chinese are laughing; the radicals, the neoconservatives who have been pushing to remake the Middle East argue are either dumb or are simply apathetic to the check the currency market has placed on the United States.
Because Americans, over the last ten years, have not received a meaningful tax cut, and the Fed has been selling money at such a cheap rate, cheap consumer imports (see Wal Mart) have been the key to preserving order. Lose the sense of the order of the moment, Presidents, governors, and Congress, gets tossed out but the radicals don't care about stability indeed, they thrive in chaos. That is how the Old Right pegged the neoconservatives as radicals (French Revolution) or Trotskycons (red baiting) or phonycon Ivy Leaguers (populist) whatever neat name sounds good for consumption to the audience.