Immoral compared to what, you ask? Compared to the course we did not follow, the course clearly prescribed in the UN Charter, which is our solemn treaty obligation, and according to which resort to force is barred without the authorization of the Security Council. Compared to not dropping millions of tons of bombs on an area not…
Immoral compared to what, you ask? Compared to the course we did not follow, the course clearly prescribed in the UN Charter, which is our solemn treaty obligation, and according to which resort to force is barred without the authorization of the Security Council. Compared to not dropping millions of tons of bombs on an area not that much bigger than Texas, killing millions of people, as we did both in Korea and Southeast Asia. Compared with not overthrowing legitimate governments in Latin America and installing murderous thugs like Pinochet, the Argentine and Brazilian generals, the Guatemalan colonels, and many others.
These were not merely a matter of disproportion between means and ends. The ends themselves were illegitimate, by the UN Charter and the common laws of humanity. The US simply had no right to determine by force who ruled Vietnam, Chile, and dozens of other countries, any more than Putin had the right to invade Ukraine.
Forgive me if this seems an exasperating question, but would you be willing to say that the actions of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were grossly immoral, and why or why not?
But this recourse to rights and/or int'l law brings us back to the problem of question-begging I mentioned earlier. Why should we ascribe such moral significance to these treaties (which you call solemn)? Is this a permanent feature of international law, or something that only materializes in the postwar era? To say we had no "right" to do XYZ may be true in some sense (though that too requires arguing), but if so it is just as true of other powers during the Cold War (and prior), and I don't believe that ceding geopolitical position to them (which is what relying on law amounts to) gets us out of the ethical dilemma here.
Relatedly, it does not exasperate me to have to say that Hitler, Stalin, et al. were grossly immoral. But doing so is easy—indeed anyone can do it—and it does little to help us think about the hard questions of politics. Indeed, this kind of free associative moral denunciation is far more common than prudential argument these days.
There is something weightless about such denunciations. Moreover, if you hold there are evils in the world at such scale what do you propose to do about them? Abjuring the tools of force and fraud so as to avoid doing evil oneself is not a solution seeing as it effectively surrenders the field to those with no such compunction. Meanwhile deferring to the authority of international organizations/law presupposes that those institutions possess some higher moral status—a position that requires ignoring the farcical realities of such institutions. Not to mention the fact that those same institutions inevitably become a venue for power politics themselves, given the structure of, eg, the UN Security Council (which itself historically included the Soviet Union under Stalin and the PRC under Mao).
Again the answer as I see it should not be “anything goes” but rather a more prudential consideration of our unavoidable interests in the world, which perhaps ironically might produce more comparatively moral outcomes than the alternative.
“Why should we ascribe such moral significance to these treaties?” I’m not sure I understand the question. We should because we ratified the UN’s founding treaty, and our Constitution says that treaties are binding. It’s generally thought that one has a moral obligation to keep one’s most solemn promises – ie, promises on which the rest of the world is expected to rely. We have no right to do what we have promised not to do – above all, use force against another country without Security Council authorization. Does that position “require argument”? I don’t see why.
It is indeed easy to say that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were immoral, but not so easy to say why in a way that does not also imply that US crimes in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East are immoral, which you seem, for some reason, eager to avoid doing.
So you think that behaving ethically would afford geopolitical advantages (“cede position”) to our adversaries? So our own view (i.e., the government’s view) of our “national interest” trumps our legal and humanitarian obligations? Why didn’t you just say so to begin with? We are absolved of our ethical obligations when we don’t care to pay the costs? As far as I can see, this is what every Cold War realist believed, notably Kissinger. If that’s the company you want to keep …
The argument that “the other guy does it too” is really not a very sophisticated one. In general, it ignores what is practically the only empirically solid finding of social science: namely, Tit for Tat as a game-theoretical strategy. That is, in the long run, you get the best results by behaving ethically. And in our specific historical circumstances, it ignores the fact that after the Second World War, the United States was overwhelmingly the world’s dominant military, economic, diplomatic, and cultural power. If the US had played by the rules, rather than following the despicable advice offered by George Kennan in the passage I quoted earlier (a violent and lawless strategy documented at pitiless length by Chomsky), a law-abiding world order just might have stumbled into existence.
“Might” – of course there’s no certainty. What’s certain, however, is that if we keep playing the lethal game of grand strategy and great power politics, international conflicts will result, and one of them, whether in the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, or a subsequent century, will end civilization.
How to prevent this? By establishing for the first time, in the US and elsewhere, a genuinely accountable democracy and not leaving matters in the hands of the business and financial elites that currently dominate states. But this requires much further discussion. I feel I’ve said all I have to say (and probably more) about our present topic, so I’ll leave the last word to you.
PS - I think I may have understood why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. When you urge the (comparative) futility of moral arguments, you probably imagine that I'm suggesting that one make such arguments to political leaders. That would indeed be futile. Contemporary political leaders (and all others hitherto) are not moral agents; they are agents of the elites -- economic, financial, military, dynastic, religious -- who rule the society and in whose interests foreign policies are formulated. Moral considerations are unintelligible to them. No, I was suggesting making moral arguments to the democratic public, as part of an overall strategy of convincing those publics to finally assume power and create what I called above a "genuine democracy." There is at least a chance of moving ordinary people by moral arguments; no chance at all of moving political leaders and their intellectual servants.
I think this distinction (between citizens and politicians) is important, and probably did contribute to mutual incomprehension, but I'm not sure how much it changes things, insofar as it requires committing to the belief that genuine democracy would lead to more pacific and moral outcomes, which is far from obvious to me. That would, however, require a separate discussion (ideally over a beer). In any case, I don't expect this dialogue to change our fundamental disagreements, but if this to be the last word, I want to try and clarify the lines of dispute one more time.
I really am not eager to absolve the US of charges of immorality. The purpose of the original essay was rather to encourage readers to think in more political terms, which means starting from the practical realities of political life rather than from formal legalistic claims.
Thus, I certainly agree that “the other guy does it” is not a sophisticated moral justification—which is probably why my kids constantly resort to it. But I really want to emphasize that I am not using it as a moral apologia but as a practical and empirical statement. These are in fact things the other guy gets up to, and political responsibility requires taking that into account. The point isn’t that this gives us a pass from the ref or the cops or some abstract court of judgment for our behavior; the point is that there are no such authorities to which to make our appeals, and thus political communities are obliged to look to carefully to their own security and interests in light of what other states actually do and the dangers they may pose. I don’t consider this an unethical or amoral view, seeing as the lives and interests of millions of one’s own citizens are not ethically neutral concerns.
Moreover I don’t think one can make moral judgments without thinking through the contexts of the decisions involved. Thus I note that your own judgments of our policies, rhetoric aside, have an irreducibly practical dimension. As you note “the United States was overwhelmingly the world’s dominant military, economic, and cultural power.” (This overstates the military advantage over the Soviet Union, but is more true than not.)
So when you indict Kissinger and unnamed others, the conclusion here it seems to me is that they were bad realists! They misinterpreted the reality of the United States’ relative power in relation to its adversaries, and overrated the geostrategic importance of various secondary or tertiary regions (Latin America, Southeast Asia), with disastrous results. So, I am not seeking to place at all the decisions policy makers beyond our judgment; I am trying to reformulate the grounds of our judgments.
Indeed, I think harsh criticism here represents a perfectly valid judgment on our conduct, but note that it does not require accepting lawlike generalizations about the acceptable scope of action in international politics, nor does it require submitting to (in my view) the dubious moral authority of international organizations.
To reiterate: I don’t think ethical considerations are nugatory, I just think they necessarily arise from a prior understanding of our political situation, rather than being somehow independent of it. By contrast, you seem to view politics as ultimately subservient to a higher morality. Hence, we differ. Nonetheless, I very much appreciated the opportunity to go around on this topic with you.
Hi David,
Immoral compared to what, you ask? Compared to the course we did not follow, the course clearly prescribed in the UN Charter, which is our solemn treaty obligation, and according to which resort to force is barred without the authorization of the Security Council. Compared to not dropping millions of tons of bombs on an area not that much bigger than Texas, killing millions of people, as we did both in Korea and Southeast Asia. Compared with not overthrowing legitimate governments in Latin America and installing murderous thugs like Pinochet, the Argentine and Brazilian generals, the Guatemalan colonels, and many others.
These were not merely a matter of disproportion between means and ends. The ends themselves were illegitimate, by the UN Charter and the common laws of humanity. The US simply had no right to determine by force who ruled Vietnam, Chile, and dozens of other countries, any more than Putin had the right to invade Ukraine.
Forgive me if this seems an exasperating question, but would you be willing to say that the actions of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were grossly immoral, and why or why not?
But this recourse to rights and/or int'l law brings us back to the problem of question-begging I mentioned earlier. Why should we ascribe such moral significance to these treaties (which you call solemn)? Is this a permanent feature of international law, or something that only materializes in the postwar era? To say we had no "right" to do XYZ may be true in some sense (though that too requires arguing), but if so it is just as true of other powers during the Cold War (and prior), and I don't believe that ceding geopolitical position to them (which is what relying on law amounts to) gets us out of the ethical dilemma here.
Relatedly, it does not exasperate me to have to say that Hitler, Stalin, et al. were grossly immoral. But doing so is easy—indeed anyone can do it—and it does little to help us think about the hard questions of politics. Indeed, this kind of free associative moral denunciation is far more common than prudential argument these days.
There is something weightless about such denunciations. Moreover, if you hold there are evils in the world at such scale what do you propose to do about them? Abjuring the tools of force and fraud so as to avoid doing evil oneself is not a solution seeing as it effectively surrenders the field to those with no such compunction. Meanwhile deferring to the authority of international organizations/law presupposes that those institutions possess some higher moral status—a position that requires ignoring the farcical realities of such institutions. Not to mention the fact that those same institutions inevitably become a venue for power politics themselves, given the structure of, eg, the UN Security Council (which itself historically included the Soviet Union under Stalin and the PRC under Mao).
Again the answer as I see it should not be “anything goes” but rather a more prudential consideration of our unavoidable interests in the world, which perhaps ironically might produce more comparatively moral outcomes than the alternative.
David,
“Why should we ascribe such moral significance to these treaties?” I’m not sure I understand the question. We should because we ratified the UN’s founding treaty, and our Constitution says that treaties are binding. It’s generally thought that one has a moral obligation to keep one’s most solemn promises – ie, promises on which the rest of the world is expected to rely. We have no right to do what we have promised not to do – above all, use force against another country without Security Council authorization. Does that position “require argument”? I don’t see why.
It is indeed easy to say that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were immoral, but not so easy to say why in a way that does not also imply that US crimes in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East are immoral, which you seem, for some reason, eager to avoid doing.
So you think that behaving ethically would afford geopolitical advantages (“cede position”) to our adversaries? So our own view (i.e., the government’s view) of our “national interest” trumps our legal and humanitarian obligations? Why didn’t you just say so to begin with? We are absolved of our ethical obligations when we don’t care to pay the costs? As far as I can see, this is what every Cold War realist believed, notably Kissinger. If that’s the company you want to keep …
The argument that “the other guy does it too” is really not a very sophisticated one. In general, it ignores what is practically the only empirically solid finding of social science: namely, Tit for Tat as a game-theoretical strategy. That is, in the long run, you get the best results by behaving ethically. And in our specific historical circumstances, it ignores the fact that after the Second World War, the United States was overwhelmingly the world’s dominant military, economic, diplomatic, and cultural power. If the US had played by the rules, rather than following the despicable advice offered by George Kennan in the passage I quoted earlier (a violent and lawless strategy documented at pitiless length by Chomsky), a law-abiding world order just might have stumbled into existence.
“Might” – of course there’s no certainty. What’s certain, however, is that if we keep playing the lethal game of grand strategy and great power politics, international conflicts will result, and one of them, whether in the 21st, 22nd, 23rd, or a subsequent century, will end civilization.
How to prevent this? By establishing for the first time, in the US and elsewhere, a genuinely accountable democracy and not leaving matters in the hands of the business and financial elites that currently dominate states. But this requires much further discussion. I feel I’ve said all I have to say (and probably more) about our present topic, so I’ll leave the last word to you.
PS - I think I may have understood why we seem to be talking at cross purposes. When you urge the (comparative) futility of moral arguments, you probably imagine that I'm suggesting that one make such arguments to political leaders. That would indeed be futile. Contemporary political leaders (and all others hitherto) are not moral agents; they are agents of the elites -- economic, financial, military, dynastic, religious -- who rule the society and in whose interests foreign policies are formulated. Moral considerations are unintelligible to them. No, I was suggesting making moral arguments to the democratic public, as part of an overall strategy of convincing those publics to finally assume power and create what I called above a "genuine democracy." There is at least a chance of moving ordinary people by moral arguments; no chance at all of moving political leaders and their intellectual servants.
I think this distinction (between citizens and politicians) is important, and probably did contribute to mutual incomprehension, but I'm not sure how much it changes things, insofar as it requires committing to the belief that genuine democracy would lead to more pacific and moral outcomes, which is far from obvious to me. That would, however, require a separate discussion (ideally over a beer). In any case, I don't expect this dialogue to change our fundamental disagreements, but if this to be the last word, I want to try and clarify the lines of dispute one more time.
I really am not eager to absolve the US of charges of immorality. The purpose of the original essay was rather to encourage readers to think in more political terms, which means starting from the practical realities of political life rather than from formal legalistic claims.
Thus, I certainly agree that “the other guy does it” is not a sophisticated moral justification—which is probably why my kids constantly resort to it. But I really want to emphasize that I am not using it as a moral apologia but as a practical and empirical statement. These are in fact things the other guy gets up to, and political responsibility requires taking that into account. The point isn’t that this gives us a pass from the ref or the cops or some abstract court of judgment for our behavior; the point is that there are no such authorities to which to make our appeals, and thus political communities are obliged to look to carefully to their own security and interests in light of what other states actually do and the dangers they may pose. I don’t consider this an unethical or amoral view, seeing as the lives and interests of millions of one’s own citizens are not ethically neutral concerns.
Moreover I don’t think one can make moral judgments without thinking through the contexts of the decisions involved. Thus I note that your own judgments of our policies, rhetoric aside, have an irreducibly practical dimension. As you note “the United States was overwhelmingly the world’s dominant military, economic, and cultural power.” (This overstates the military advantage over the Soviet Union, but is more true than not.)
So when you indict Kissinger and unnamed others, the conclusion here it seems to me is that they were bad realists! They misinterpreted the reality of the United States’ relative power in relation to its adversaries, and overrated the geostrategic importance of various secondary or tertiary regions (Latin America, Southeast Asia), with disastrous results. So, I am not seeking to place at all the decisions policy makers beyond our judgment; I am trying to reformulate the grounds of our judgments.
Indeed, I think harsh criticism here represents a perfectly valid judgment on our conduct, but note that it does not require accepting lawlike generalizations about the acceptable scope of action in international politics, nor does it require submitting to (in my view) the dubious moral authority of international organizations.
To reiterate: I don’t think ethical considerations are nugatory, I just think they necessarily arise from a prior understanding of our political situation, rather than being somehow independent of it. By contrast, you seem to view politics as ultimately subservient to a higher morality. Hence, we differ. Nonetheless, I very much appreciated the opportunity to go around on this topic with you.