-Caveat Lector- >From IntellectualCapital.CoM The Pitfalls of Foreign-Policy Morality by Alan Tonelson Thursday, April 08, 1999 Comments: 10 posts President Clinton and his congressional allies have described the bombing of Serbian military targets as a strategic necessity -- with arguments much like those used to support sending U.S. troops to Haiti and Bosnia, and keeping them in Somalia to nation-build. But their repeated appeals to the nation's conscience demonstrates that they realize that American self-interest by itself cannot justify these policies. The resulting inconsistency deserves a bright spotlight. For more than a year, Clinton and most of these same politicians have insisted that a president's personal sense of right and wrong matters far less than the results his policies achieve for the nation. Today, they are claiming that a president can send the nation into war whenever that personal sense of right and wrong is offended. More important than this inconsistency, however, are the questions raised by this crystallizing doctrine about some philosophical fundamentals of U.S. foreign policymaking -- especially about when and why American leaders can legitimately risk the nation's blood and treasure. So far, the answers suggested by recent interventions sound dangerous and divisive for the country, and profoundly undemocratic. Governing in the global 'collection' The problems start with the president and congressional interventionists getting it exactly wrong on when and where in a democracy a president's personal character alone gives him a mandate to act, and on when moral considerations should significantly influence decision-making. Americans obviously expect presidents to deliver the goods in domestic policy. But the United States is more than a group of investors. It is a genuine political community, and as such, its citizens are bound by some sense of shared values and mutual obligations. American presidents and moral dilemmas Therefore, notwithstanding the public's reactions to the presidential sex-and-perjury scandal involving former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, domestic politics and political leadership can never rest on a purely utilitarian base. National decisions about identifying the common good and acceptable ways to achieve it inevitably and properly have a prominent ethical dimension, and the individual moral compasses of citizens and leaders inevitably and properly loom large in any policy calculus. In domestic affairs, as a result, the president cannot in the end avoid significant responsibility for the nation's moral health, and not even the most cynical electorate can long divorce his character from his mandate. >From time to time, Americans also expect presidents to emphasize moral concerns in foreign policy. But the polling data show that these expectations have been shallow and fleeting at best -- especially since the Vietnam era. They rest on much shakier substantive ground as well. Most of the time, the public seems to understand that the world of nations is not a community of any kind -- official boilerplate to the contrary -- but rather a collection of independent, self-interested actors seeking power and advantage. Both during elections and between them, Americans generally act as if they want their leaders to stick with the basics -- promoting their security and prosperity. Moreover, because no truly global consensus exists on what constitutes moral behavior -- or more precisely, on how to confront immoral behavior -- ethics are a much less reliable guide to policy than self-interest. As a result, foreign policy, not domestic policy, is the realm where results should be seen as paramount, and the end frequently justifies the means. If anything, amoral and even immoral leadership is often imperative. Everyone's opinion counts Just as important, when the question of acting morally in foreign policy does arise, there is no convincing reason in a democracy to allow presidents to call the shots unilaterally. The strongest justification for sweeping executive powers in foreign policy is that a dangerous world often requires speedy, stealthy decision-making and usually prevents extensive consultation. But if moral angles are being explored in detail, it is difficult to maintain that emergency conditions are in effect, and there should be ample time for following more democratic, constitutional procedures. The only other possible reason for deferring to a president's moral judgment in foreign policy would be a belief that presidents know more about morality than other Americans. Yet even leaving aside this president's moral blind spots, this belief cannot withstand scrutiny. For the superiority of moral judgments never rests on superior knowledge. When it comes to morality, any virtuous adult and even many children can be experts. A president's moral take on a given foreign-policy situation may be intellectually interesting and is certainly worthy of consideration. Because of the office, moreover, it has obvious political importance. But the president's views in and of themselves deserve no special moral authority. Nor do those of any politician, much less pundits and other molders of public opinion. Finally, leaders of a big, diverse country like the United States should recognize that foreign policies based largely on morality make consensus hard to create or maintain. Morality may not be relative, but it does tend to be highly subjective. Because moral positions also are often strongly held, and everyone is entitled to consider themselves experts, finding common ground -- let alone striking compromises -- can be daunting. Foreign-policy decisions based largely on selfish national interests can entail controversial judgment calls, too. But at least some of the factors from which they flow can be assessed objectively and presumably agreed on if enough reason and good will are present. For example, certain foreign forces either can or cannot threaten national security. Certain foreign resources either are or are not economically critical. Further, certain leaders and experts rightly can claim to be unusually knowledgeable about these subjects. Their deserved authority can, in principle, nurture agreement as well. Morality by the majority In addition, genuine interest-based policies are more conducive to consensus because they are by definition designed to benefit the entire nation, or at least a critical mass of the public. What makes them self-interested are attempts by their proponents to discern which actions will help or hurt the country as a whole. And when these policies are designed properly, the public's common stake in their success should be widely apparent. Policies grounded mainly in morality usually are not even conceived with their concrete impact on Americans in mind. After all, that would be self-interested. It is, therefore, that much more difficult for moralists to push or pull their countrymen on board -- at least democratically. American leaders have long searched for reliable ways to reconcile strategic and moral foreign-policy imperatives. But all-purpose formulas simply do not exist. In our democracy, American foreign policy ultimately can only be as moral as a majority of Americans wish it to be. And for this, our leaders should be profoundly grateful. After all, as an increasingly complex world continues to make clear, promoting and defending our purely selfish interests is usually difficult enough. Alan Tonelson is a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council Educational Foundation. Related Links After a recent trip to Kosovo, Gjeraqina Tuhina, writes "We don't speak about the dead yet, because nothing can be confirmed--But least we know who is alive because we have seen each other." The Center for Defense Information calls NATO air strikes in Kosovo a short-term solution. James Anderson and James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation urge NATO to provide ethnic Albanians with arms to defend themselves. Ted Galen Carpenter calls Clinton "The Aggressor". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- March 23, 1999 Bill Clinton, Aggressor by Ted Galen Carpenter Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author or editor of 10 books on international affairs. There are some occasions when one should not mince words, and the spectacle of U.S.-led air strikes on Serbia is one. Put bluntly, if President Clinton orders an assault on Serbia, the United States will be guilty of committing a flagrant, shameful act of aggression. U.S. forces will be attacking a country that has not attacked the United States, a U.S. ally, or even a neighboring state. That is the very definition of an aggressor. Belgrade is guilty of nothing except attempting to put down a secessionist rebellion in one of its own provinces. Nearly a dozen other countries have done the same thing in this decade alone -- often with far greater bloodshed. Russia's war in Chechnya, Sri Lanka's conflict with Tamil rebels and Turkey's suppression of the Kurds are merely a few examples. The Clinton administration's spinmeisters insist that Serbia is the aggressor in the current confrontation, but that argument twists language in a manner reminiscent of characters out of George Orwell's novels 1984 and Animal Farm. "Aggression" is a long-standing concept in international relations, and it has a very specific meaning: unprovoked cross-border warfare -- an unwarranted attack by one state on another. A country cannot commit aggression in its own territory any more than a person can commit self-robbery. The argument that Serbia has committed aggression in Kosovo, thereby justifying military intervention by NATO, is not only an Orwellian distortion, it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. The traditional standard that developments within a country, however sad and tragic, do not justify military intervention by outside powers is one that should not be cast aside lightly. Without that limitation, weak and imperfect as it may be, the floodgates are open to intervention by an assortment of countries for any number of reasons -- or pretexts. Before the proponents of NATO intervention in Kosovo cheer too loudly, they ought to consider the potential ramifications. For example, might Russia and its ally Belarus someday cite the Kosovo precedent for attacking Ukraine because of the latter's alleged mistreatment of Russian-speaking inhabitants in the Crimea? Could China and Pakistan argue that India's suppression of secessionists in Kashmir is a humanitarian tragedy and a threat to the peace of the region, justifying joint military action against that "aggressor"? Of course, the Clinton administration contends that the events in Kosovo are not really an internal Serbian affair, because the conflict might spread southward in the Balkans. According to that scenario, the fighting threatens to draw in Albania and Macedonia and, eventually, NATO members Greece and Turkey. That argument is a refurbished version of the old domino theory, and it is dubious on two levels. First, it is curious (if not nauseating) to see Clinton, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and other alumni of the anti-Vietnam War movement make that argument. They ridiculed the domino theory when Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon invoked it during the conflict in Southeast Asia. They were even more scornful when Ronald Reagan invoked it with regard to the communist insurgencies in Central America and the Caribbean during the 1980s. Now, suddenly, they believe the theory has indisputable validity in the Balkans in the 1990s. At the very least, they owe the American people an explanation of their dramatic change of perspective. Second, even if one accepts the dubious domino theory, the administration's policy is making the spread of the Balkan conflict more rather than less likely. The Serbs are not the party with expansionist ambitions in the southern Balkans; the Albanians are. Kosovo Liberation Army commanders have stated that their ultimate goal is, not merely an independent Kosovo, but the creation of a Greater Albania. Nationalist groups in Albania openly circulate maps of Greater Albania -- an entity that includes not merely Albania and Kosovo but an additional slice of Serbia, all of western Macedonia and a large chunk of northern Greece. By facilitating Kosovo's secession -- and the NATO-imposed peace settlement is nothing more than Kosovo's independence on the installment plan -- the United States and its allies would be strengthening the very faction that is the most likely to stir up additional trouble in the southern Balkans. Thus, the administration's policy lacks even internal coherence. War against Serbia is unwarranted on strategic, legal and moral grounds. If air strikes take place, Serbia will be the fourth country Bill Clinton has bombed in the past seven months. That record is one of a trigger-happy administration that is creating an image of America as the planetary bully. Decent Americans need to make a stand when it has reached the point of a full-scale war of aggression against a country that has done us no harm. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- � 1999 The Cato Institute ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority. -Thomas Huxley + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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