Ethical Realism

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Ethical Realism
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the
virtues political and moral, but she is the
director, the regulator, the standard of them
all. -Edmund Burke
God grant us the serenity to accept the things
we cannot change, the courage to change the
things we can, and the wisdom to know the
difference. -Reinhold Niebuhr

• A Vision for Americas Role
• in the World
• Book by Anatol Lieven
• John Hulsman
• Presentation by Lisa Pogue

Nothing is so fatal to a nation as an extreme of
self-partiality, and the total want of
consideration of what others will naturally hope
or fear. -Edmund Burke
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul? -Gospel
of St. Mark, 836
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Misconceived Notions

• America is so powerful and good that it has the
  ability to spread democracy throughout the world.
• America can spread democracy through war.
• The spread of American democracy will advance
  U.S. national interests.
• A combination of the three notions listed above
  will be supported by good people all over the
  world, regardless of their political traditions,
  national allegiances, and national interests.
• Democracy automatically brings international
  peace, economic development, and the acceptance
  of American supremacy.

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Sources of Ethical Realism

• Reinhold Niebuhr
• Hans Morgenthau
• George Kennan

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Reinhold Niebuhr

• Protestant minister and theologian committed to
  social and economic progress
• Kennan called him the father of us all.

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Hans Morgenthau

• Father of modern realism in the United States
• Politics Among Nations dealt with American
  foreign policy
• Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany

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George Kennan

• Wrote the Long Telegram setting the strategy of
  containment
• Disillusioned with later U.S. strategy , with its
  mixture of militarization and messianic belief in
  American superiority

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Common Interests of Modern Great Powers

• Committed to some form of capitalist economics
  and an orderly world market
• Common interest in resisting threats to the
  present world system from terrorists, extremists,
  and revolutionaries
• All of the major countries hold a stake in the
  current world

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The Cold War

• Lessons from Truman and Eisenhower

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Truman Administration

• The National Security Act of 1941
• Marshall Plan
• NATO
• Korean Warlimited war
• Did not turn the Korean War into a world war
• George Kennan was the head of the U.S. embassy in
  Moscow
• Henry Wallace

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The Eisenhower Administration

• Claimed not to support containment because of
  Trumans unpopularity, yet he practiced it
• Limited warHis popularity allowed him to
  practice it
• Solarium Exercise
• Fear of the garrison state
• Fiscal responsibility
• Moral authority

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Then And Now

• CIADepartment of Homeland Security
• Did not ask for sacrifices from the American
  people for the war effort and did not make hard
  choices in foreign policy in order to focus on
  the enemy
• National Debt
• Obsessed with states rather than terrorists
• People must see that siding with America brings
  jobs, services, education, and basic security
• American left criticizes what America is, rather
  than what it is doing

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The Failure of Rollback and Preventive War

• There is nothing more foolish than to think that
  war can be stopped by war. You dont prevent
  anything but peace.
• -Harry S. Truman

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Preventive War from 1940s to Today

• No one seriously claims that it would have been
  right to launch a preventive nuclear war to
  destroy a Soviet Union that was always weaker
  than it seemed and eventually crumbled on its own
• Ideological cookie cutter
• Example secular radical Arab nationalism and
  Islamic fundamentalism are believed to be the
  same phenomenon

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Ethical Realism

• History is blind, but man is not.
• Robert Penn Warren,
• All the Kings Men

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Theologian Reinholt Niebuhr

• There is only one empirically provable element
  in Christian theology, namely that All have
  sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The
  prophets never weary of warning both the powerful
  nations and Israel, the righteous nation, of the
  judgment which waits on human pretension. The
  great nation, Babylon is warned that its
  confidence in the security of its power will be
  refuted by historyIsrael in the Bible is
  undoubtedly a good nation as compared to the
  nations surrounding it. But the pretensions of
  virtue are as offensive to God as the pretensions
  of power. One has the uneasy feeling that America
  as both a powerful nation and a virtuous one is
  involved in the ironic perils which compound the
  experiences of Babylon and Israel.

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Morgenthau

• Political realism refuses to identify the moral
  aspirations of a popular nation with the moral
  laws that govern the universeThe light-hearted
  equation between a particular nationalism and the
  very counsels of Providence is morally
  indefensible, for it is the very sin of pride
  against which the Greek tragedians and the
  Biblical prophets warned rulers and ruled. The
  equation is also politically pernicious, for it
  is liable to engender the distortion in judgment
  which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy,
  destroys nations and civilizations.

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Tenets of Ethical Realism

• Prudence
• Humility
• Study
• Responsibility
• Patriotism
• Community of reason

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Democracy and the Great Capitalist Peace

• Example of the British Empire
• U.S. PowerGlobal but limited
• Folly of Democratism
• Needs Nationalism
• Must recognize what exists
• Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya
• Prosperity and patriotism (different from all-out
  nationalism)
• Economy

• The Four Freedoms
• Freedom of speech and expression
• Freedom of worship
• Freedom from want
• Freedom from fear
• Choose between evils
• Leaders represent their states and go after their
  own national interests that do not always agree
  with U.S. national interests.

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The Great Capitalist Peace

• Relations with the most powerful countries in
  the world are central to our national security
  strategy. Our priority is pursuing American
  interests within cooperative relationships,
  particularly with our oldest and closest friends
  and allies. At the same time, we must seize the
  opportunityunusual in historical termsof an
  absence of fundamental conflict between great
  powers. Another priority, therefore, is
  preventing the reemergence of the great power
  rivalries that divided the world in previous
  eras
• The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism
  is the great ideological conflict of the early
  years of the 21st Century and finds the great
  powers all on the same sideopposing the
  terrorists. This circumstance differs profoundly
  from the ideological struggles of the 20th
  century, which saw the great powers divided by
  ideology as well as by national interest.
• -National Security Strategy of 2006

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The Way Forward

• The objective of foreign policy is relative and
  conditional to bend, not break, the will of the
  other side as far as necessary in order to
  safeguard ones own vital interests without
  hurting those of the other side. The methods of
  foreign policy are relative and conditional not
  to advance by destroying the obstacles in ones
  way, but to retreat before them, to maneuver
  around them, to soften and dissolve them slowly
  by means of persuasion, negotiation, and
  pressure.
• -Hans Morganthau

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Russia and the Former Soviet Union

• Slanted news coverage makes many Americans
  unaware that Russias continued power and
  influence in the former Soviet Union is not due
  to Russian Imperialism and Russian pressure on
  its neighbors
• Close ties to Russia are supported by majorities
  or large minorities of the population of many
  satellite countries.

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More on the Former Soviet Union

• The U.S. has four vital interests in the former
  Soviet Union
• Keep Russian weapons and materials of mass
  destruction out of the hands of terrorists and
  prevent potentially dangerous countries like Iran
  from acquiring such weapons.
• With Russia, help prevent Islamist revolution and
  the creation of safe havens for Islamist
  terrorists in the Muslim regions of Central Asia
  and the Caucasus.
• Preserve reasonably open international access to
  the energy reserves of Central Asia and the
  Caucasus
• Prevent the outbreak of major new conflicts
  within or between states in the region.
• Create a European security council.

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China

• America should reduce both its budget deficit and
  its trade deficit with China.
• Its approach to the latter should be gradual and
  incremental, strengthening Americas position
  without triggering a disastrous trade war.
• Americans must realize that domination of East
  Asia is now impossible
• The Chinese must recognize that it is equally
  impossible for them to replace American
  domination with their own unilateral hegemony.
• The Americans and Chinese must recognize that no
  possible gains to either from a clash between
  them could compensate for the damage that such a
  clash would do to both their economies.

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Middle East

• We cant demand that they change their beliefs,
  but we can demand that they forgo the use of
  force in seeking their objectives
• Wahabis of the tribe of Saud seized Mecca and
  Medina inhabitants view them as barbarians
• Inhabitants relate to Al Qaeda and bin Laden when
  it comes to fighting against unjust American
  domination of the Middle East.
• Encourage hostility to Islamist terrorism among
  Muslims and diminish anti-American attitudes.
• Deal with the non-terrorist conservatives

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Israeli-Palestinian Peace

• Al Qaeda gains support from the conflict.
• The Palestinians must forfeit the right of
  refugee return to Israel, except for some very
  limited and symbolic cases of family
  reunification.
• The Palestinian refugees and their descendants
  must be compensated for their lost land and
  property at a level set by an international
  tribunal, and to an extent that will not only
  allow them to create prosperous and contented
  lives, but will also transform the economic
  prospects of the countries where they live
• Symbolic contributions to this compensation
  should be made by Israel and the United States,
  but the overwhelming share should be paid by the
  Europeans.
• If the Europeans object, they should be reminded
  of Europes historical responsibility for
  anti-Semitism, and therefore indirectly for the
  creation of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian
  conflict
• The U.S. Congress will compensate Israel for the
  withdrawal of West Bank settlements

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More on Israeli-Palestinian Peace

• The Palestinian Authority and all the major Arab
  states that have funded it must sign the
  settlement treaty, recognize the state of Israel
  with in the agreed borders, and formally pledge
  not to support violence against Israel.
• Israel should do the same
• The treaty should be witnessed and guaranteed by
  all members of the U.N. Security Council
• Israel must recognize an independent Palestinian
  state with full sovereign rights, subject to
  security guarantees acceptable to Israel.
• The border should take as a point of departure
  the 1967 boundaries, because only this formula
  has international recognition.
• In practice, Israel would annex the largest
  existing settlement blocs in the West Bank,
  including the great majority of Jewish settlers,
  in return for due compensation to the Palestinian
  state.
• The Palestinian state must be contiguous, viable,
  have free access to the outside world, and cover
  the great majority of the land of the existing
  Palestinian territories.
• The Palestinian capital should be in East
  Jerusalem and there should be a guaranteed and
  uninterrupted road and rail links between the
  West Bank and Gaza

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Pakistan

• Pakistan could be a vital ally
• Long-term commitment
• Water
• Education
• Transport route
• The transport route will also help Iran,
  providing a means to dissuade their nuclear
  program.
• In return for suspending their nuclear program,
  the U.S. will integrate Iran into the world
  economy and new regional transport networks.
• The transport route would provide Afghanistan
  with stability and an alternative to heroine
  production.

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Containing the Iraq Civil War

• There should be a regional conference to discuss
  the future of Iraq.
• Include Iran, Saudi Arabia, America, and Israel
• Ex Kosovo
• First, contain the Iraqi civil war
• All regional states must agree to respect Iraqs
  existing borders, accept a federal framework of
  Iraq with guaranteed ethnic power-sharing at the
  center, and not arm opposing factions and risk a
  regional war.

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Dealing With Iran

• Incremental approach
• U.S. and Iran are combating the drug trade.
• We cant just tell the Iranians to abandon their
  nuclear programs
• The Iranians have suggested that they would
  accept a small, limited, and strictly inspected
  enrichment program.
• We dont like Hezbollah, but we recognize that
  it is the democratic representative of the great
  majority of Lebanese Shia, and theres nothing we
  can or will do about that
• A demand that Hezbollah disarm would result in a
  new civil war and the return of Syrian
  domination.
• Tehran should use its links to persuade Hezbollah
  not to attack us or seriously attack Israel.

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More on Dealing with Iran

• There is no point in demanding that Iran
  recognize Israel as a precondition of talks or
  agreements on other issues.
• This would humiliate Iran, including those who
  are openly indifferent to the fate of the
  Palestinians.
• Prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons
• The U.S. should make the same threat as Israel
  If there is a nuclear terrorist attack on Israel
  that can be even plausibly traced to an
  Iranian-backed group, then Israel will
  automatically launch a nuclear strike against
  Iran.
• We should create a regional concert and integrate
  Iran into the Great Capitalist Peace

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Dealing with Irans Nuclear Prospects

• Go back to the letter of the NPT and allow
  strictly limited and controlled Iranian
  enrichment if the major powers will sign a
  binding international agreement setting what the
  major powers and other signatory nations will do
  if Iran breaks its word and does weaponize.
• Russia would be allowed to boost its
  international prestige by taking the diplomatic
  lead in the matter.
• The international agreement would be signed in
  Moscow.
• The U.S. would use this to make Russias
  adherence to its word on this question the top
  determinant of future U.S.- Russian relations.
• The U.S. must learn to play chess by Iranian
  rules.

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Developmental Realism

• Free trade encourages nations to acquiesce to
  developed nations national interests.
• Agriculture and no protectionism
• The middle class is a stabilizing factor.
• Set an example
• Aid given to countries based on two principals
• Truly important to vital U.S. interests
• States concerned are sufficiently honest and
  effective to absorb this aid effectively
• A strong middle class is needed for a stable
  democracy to exist.

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The End.