PROVIDENCE INAUGURAL ISSUE FALL 2015
A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIANITY & AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
CHRISTIAN ETHICS & THE REALM OF STATECRAFT: DIVISIONS, CROSS-CURRENTS, & THE SEARCH FOR CONNECTIONS By jAMes Turner johnson
SPONSORED BY LESS HEGEL, MORE HISTORY! CHRISTIAN ETHICS & POLITICAL REALITIES By niGel BiGGAr
FALL 2015 • Number CHRISTIAN1 REALISM & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY By joseph loConTe
Also: MArk Tooley on ChrisTiAn poliTiCAl duTy • BryAn MCGrAw on violenCe • BAroness Cox on jihad • AlAn dowd on The MorAliTy of deTerrenCe • TiMoThy MAllArd on wAr • MArC liveCChe on MorAl injury • roBerT niCholson on BoundAries, CoMMuniTy, & The Middle eAsT • wAlTer russell MeAd on The CosTs of ChrisTiAn reTreAT Declinism. Joffe thinks that true American decline is pos- sible only if America itself decides to decline, which he Subscribe to believes no superpower has PROVIDENCE ever done. He discerns in the Providence: FALL 2015 NUMBER 1 current obsession with de- cline an American desire to es- A Journal of Christianity & INAUGURAL EDITORIAL cape from global responsibil- ity. Christians and especially American Foreign Policy MARK TOOLEY Evangelicals, preoccupied with a much more narrow strata of American & Christian Duty events and impressions, can learn much from Joffe, who 04 in Today’s World speaks with the grim historical reality of a Jewish European FEATURES who realizes that American leadership and confidence NIGEL BIGGAR are essential for international Less Hegel, More History! Christian order. Can Christians operate from Ethics & Political Realities 10 a similarly broad historical and international perspective in appreciating the geopolit- JAMES TURNER JOHNSON ical and moral necessity of American global hegemony? Christian Ethics & the Realm The Evangelical Left is un- likely to abandon its obsessive of Statecraft: Divisions, Cross-Currents, and contradictory anti-Amer- 18 icanism, wanting American & the Search for Connections apology and retreat while at the same time demanding America reshape the world according to the Evangelical JOSEPH LOCONTE Left’s policy desires.
Christian Realism & If America, or at least its cul- U.S. Foreign Policy 26 tural commanding heights, and join a movement of thinkers interested continues to secularize, con- servative Evangelicals will in the intersection of Christian faith and have to decide how or wheth- political reflection, foreign policy, and global er formidable American pow- Cover Image: affairs. Become a part of the inaugural cohort er can be deployed for good. Engraved by by Benjamin Benjamin Tanner Tanner after for an introductory rate of $28.00 – for four aft erdesign a design by by John John JanesJanes Barralet,Barralet, Their retreat from serious America Guided Guided by by Wisdom Wisdom public policy engagement will print issues per year is an an allegorical allegorical depiction depiction of what of what miss important opportunities and early access to the digital edition. American exceptionalism meantmeant toto the the to influence America’s global post-Revolutionary generation. Issued predominance. Even a suppos- after the the War War of of 1812, 1812, Barralet Barralet drew drew edly post-Christian America For subscription information please contact: on the then-familiar iconography of on the then-familiar iconography of still carries within its cultural [email protected] the West’s Greco-Roman patrimony toto depict the virtues ofof republicanrepublican liberty.liberty. and political DNA the burning www.providencemag.com America, guidedguided byby transcendenttranscendent wis-wis- embers of biblical justice that dom, whilewhile engagedengaged inin commerce,commerce, thethe Evangelicals can and should liberal arts,arts, andand industry,industry, wouldwould enjoyenjoy fully exploit for the global the peace of security and plenty. common good. ■
79 COMMENT PROVIDENCE ROBERT NICHOLSON TOWARD A NEW VISION PUBLISHERS FOR THE MIDDLE EAST 34 Mark Tooley Robert Nicholson ESSAYS EDITOR BRYAN T. McGRAW Mark Tooley NEITHER YODER NOR FOUCAULT: MANAGING EDITOR POLITICS & THE PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE IN ANDY CROUCH’S PLAYING GOD 41 Marc LiVecche DEPUTY EDITOR CHAPLAIN (COL) TIMOTHY MALLARD Mark Melton A CALL TO ARMS: AN AMERICAN SURVEY SENIOR EDITORS OF WAR IN THE 21ST CENTURY 46 Keith Pavlischek Joseph Loconte WALTER RUSSELL MEAD CONTRIBUTING EDITORS BOOMERS, MILLENNIALS, Mark Amstutz & THE SOCIAL GOSPEL 53 Fred Barnes Nigel Biggar MARC LiVECCHE pA ul Coyer KEVLAR FOR THE SOUL: Michael Cromartie THE MORALITY OF FORCE deAn Curry PROTECTION 56 Thomas Farr Mary Habeck ALAN DOWD Will Inboden SHIELD & SWORD: James Turner Johnson THE CASE FOR MILITARY DETERRENCE 64 Herb London Timothy Mallard BARONESS COX Paul Marshall STRATEGIC JIHAD THREATENS Faith McDonnell THE UNITED KINGDOM Walter Russell Mead & THE WEST 70 pA ul Miller joshuA MiTChell BOOK REVIEWS Eric Patterson Mackubin Thomas Owens HOW THE LEFT STABBED Greg T hornbury ISRAEL IN THE BACK - Mark Melton Rick Warren Making David into Goliath by Joshua Muravchik 74 DESIGN & LAYOUT MORE THAN GOOD NEWS - Marc LiVecche JA communications Evangelicals and American Foreign Policy by Mark R. Amstutz 76 PRINTED BY Linemark NOT DEAD YET - Mark Tooley WEBSITE The Myth of America's Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophecies by Josef Joffe 78 www. providenCeMAG.CoM Gesturing to the shield, Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom (Greek Athena) counsels Columbia, the personification of America
4 INAUGURAL EDITORIAL
AMERICAN & CHRISTIAN DUTY IN TODAY’S WORLD BY MARK TOOLEY
eventy-four years ago, Reinhold Niebuhr launched his Christianity Sand Crisis magazine to awaken American Protestants from pacifism, utopianism, isolationism, neutralism, and delusions about abstaining from the war that was engulfing the world. In what he described as the “first effective revolution against Christian civilization since the days of Constantine,” Britain then stood alone against Nazi-dominated Europe, while militarist Japan dominated much of Asia. Niebuhr succinctly explained the journal’s purpose:
In the presence of the crisis the editors against the shrinking community of free of this journal feel that as Christian nations, was impatient with his formerly citizens the least they can do is to ad- kindred spirits who insisted Christianity vocate a policy on the part of the gov- was incompatible with violence, even in ernment of the United States of giving defense of innocents against monstrous ag- those who fight for freedom all the aid that it is in our power as a nation to gressors. He observed with great alarm: give. The tragic irony of the hour is that so Himself previously a pacifist, Niebuhr, many of the men in America whom in early 1941 as totalitarianism swirled this revolution against Christian
5 civilization most concerns seem to be power, national interest, and force of arms least aware of its implications. The would become irrelevant in favor of rea- freedom of these men to speak and soned international conversation. Niebuhr, write depends upon the existence of guided by Christian insights about chron- a certain type of civilization. Yet they ically sinful human nature, knew these talk and act as if they believed that, assumptions were not just nonsense but whoever wins, religion-as-usual like business-as-usual will be the order of dangerous. the day in America after the war. The Dangerous assumptions about a peace- fact is that if Hitler carries out his de- ful world where force of arms and strategic clared designs there is not going to be calculation are no longer needed again per- any religion-as-usual, at least as far as Christians are concerned. vade much of American Christianity. Much of Mainline Protestantism, which preoc- Niebuhr was unsparing in his critique: cupied Niebuhr, has imploded. It has been largely replaced in numbers and influence The choice before us is clear. Those by Evangelicalism, which is traditionally who choose to exist like parasites on the liberties which others fight to se- more conservative theologically, well aware cure for them will end by betraying of the limits of human accomplishment in a the Christian ethic and the civilization fallen world, and was overwhelmingly sup- which has developed out of that ethic. portive of strong U.S. leadership in the Cold War, even playing a key role in sustaining And Niebuhr implored his fellow the resolve for ultimate victory over the Protestant clergy, as citizens, to lead in Soviet Empire. informing their flocks of the crisis before them and the moral urgency of placing the But there has arisen a new generation of “full resources of America at the disposal of Evangelicals who know not Joseph, who are the soldiers of freedom.” Christianity and detached from and even embarrassed by Crisis would spend the next decade urging earlier Evangelical leadership that enthusi- American Christianity to fulfill its temporal astically supported a strong U.S. foreign and duties by thoughtfully and resolutely sup- military policy. Figures of the Evangelical porting resistance to the Axis powers and Left, like Sojourners chief Jim Wallis, later the Soviet Bloc in defense of justice, who, like many Christian romantic liber- liberty, and the witness to truth. ationists, supported Nicaragua’s Marxist Sandinista regime in the 1980s, were once The challenge for Niebuhr was an marginal to public life. Now their perspec- American Protestantism that, after its zeal- tive, which is pacifist, implicitly or explicitly ous patriotic exertions during World War rejecting all violence, even by a legitimate I, had retreated into two decades of Social state, has become mainstream in American Gospel somnolence. The churches, with Christianity, including among Evangelicals, Prohibition and later on a larger scale with especially within their elite institutions. the New Deal, demanded that the govern- ment assume ever greater responsibilities Much of this Christian pacifism de- for domestic social justice while increas- scends from the teachings of the late ingly rejecting the state’s primary God- Mennonite thinker John Howard Yoder, ordained obligation to defend and protect whose 1968 Politics of Jesus has been called its people. These church voices, on behalf of by Christianity Today one of the most in- then powerful Mainline Protestantism and fluential theological works of the last cen- ecumenical groups like the Federal Council tury. Yoder’s work was popularized by Duke of Churches, assumed that an increasingly University’s Stanley Hauerwas, once hailed harmonized humanity was moving toward by Time as America’s most influential theo- a new epoch, through arms control treaties, logian. For Yoder/Hauerwas, the crucifixion the League of Nations, and enlightened at- of Jesus is primarily about the rejection of titudes when militarism, empire, balance of all violence. Followers of Yoder/Hauerwas,
6 especially in Christian academia, loudly as not meriting Christian concern much reject any Christian role for the military, less loyalty. Such attitudes, while still a national security, patriotism, or the nation minority among Evangelicals and conser- state. They often share Hauerwas’ special vative Protestants, are increasingly preva- animosity for America as a nation with the lent among young Christians, especially if effrontery to proclaim universal ideals. schooled in Evangelical academia. Most of Evangelicalism does not direct- The Evangelical Left’s hostility to the ly adhere to the Yoder/Hauerwas neo-Ana- political and military defense of what baptist perspective, which unlike tradi- Niebuhr called “Christian Civilization,” tional Anabaptist thought insists that all with its indifference to historic Christian Christians must not only abstain from the teaching about the divine vocation of gov- state’s violence, but should also try politi- ernment, is not the only threat to a con- cally to impose this pacifist perspective on structive Christian role in global statecraft. the state itself. But much of elite Evangelical In the aftermath of same-sex marriage and opinion is influenced by this thinking, re- an increasingly aggressive secularism in inforced by a psychological and political America, some conservative Evangelicals desire to differentiate itself from old-school not at all prone towards the Jim Wallis Left Evangelical high octane patriotism. When are themselves becoming disenchanted the National Association of Evangelicals with traditional Evangelical enthusiasm for (NAE) in recent years condemned U.S. America as a spiritual and temporal project. post-9-11 enhanced interrogation as torture and also renounced all nuclear weapons, in Perhaps America is now “post-Chris- contrast with its more nuanced position of tian,” these conservative Evangelicals now the 1980s, it outsourced its statements to wonder, unintentionally recalling the atti- the pacifist-leaning Evangelical Left. tude if not precisely the name of Jim Wallis’ predecessor magazine to Sojourners, the Unsurprisingly some of these same Post-American. Perhaps faithful Christians Evangelical Left voices have hailed the Iran nuclear deal. Jim Wallis has organized oth- no longer have a significant role in a nation- er religionists to support it. Richard Cizik, al politics and culture perceived to be in- NAE’s former longtime Washington office creasingly hostile to them and the Gospel. chief and now head of “New Evangelicals,” Perhaps Christians are now called to return, has opined in Politico that a “people who at least metaphorically, to their monasteries worship the Prince of Peace, supporting and catacombs, tending to their own flocks, strong diplomacy and a deal that will keep awaiting divine judgment upon a sinful Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is the land. natural position for Christians to take.” Adding to this mix, many young conser- Such Christian declarations for peacemak- vative Evangelicals are prone to a neo-Lib- ing rarely if ever explain what should hap- ertarian isolationism, pessimistic that pen when diplomacy fails, or even how to America has any major constructive role in make it work with bad actors, absent the sustaining global order. They are too young threat of force. to recall the Cold War or even the Persian Elite Evangelicalism’s penchant for Gulf War and are instead shaped by the dis- peacemaking at all costs has been ac- appointments of the Iraq War. Government companied by a rising ambivalence if not has failed to build a Great Society at home hostility towards Israel, for which most and likewise has failed to nation build Evangelicals remain strong allies. This sour abroad, they reason. They do not reject nec- attitude towards Zionism is also rooted essarily the state’s traditionally understood in wanting a new identity from tradition- divine vocation for force but have little al old Evangelicalism, reinforced by the confidence America can wield the sword or Yoder/Hauerwas critique of nation states much else competently.
7 All of these forces in today’s Evangelical- good, and that good is mixed with the evil ism and Protestantism typically fail to against which we contend.” But “this real- consider with any depth or seriousness ization must be expressed, not by irresolu- what the world, and ultimately our nation, tion or inaction, but through the depth of might become absent American political understanding with which we act.” and military strength and resolve on the world stage. Who would counter al Qaeda, Of course the challenges for Niebuhr’s ISIS, Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia? Christianity and Crisis in 1941 are differ- Who would oppose global nuclear prolif- ent from our own. We are blessed not to eration? Who would resist piracy and keep the sea lanes open? Who could replace the face the Third Reich and a militarist Japan, United States as hegemon over an approxi- and the moral quandaries of alliance with mately 70-year span of global peace that has the likes of an equally murderous Stalinist witnessed unprecedented global economic Soviet Union. Yet peace, prosperity, liberty, growth, lengthened lifespans, increased and justice are never completely secure, and health, eradication of epidemics and fam- defending them for ourselves, and praying ines, and the deliverance of hundreds of they are secured for others, remains a call- millions from millennia of uninterrupted poverty? ing for responsible, civic-minded Christians in this age and every age. The young and the comfortable in to- day’s America too often assume their se- This new journal, Providence, seeks to curity and ease are the human historical foster Christian and specifically Evangelical norm. They don’t know that war, genocide, conversation about our moral duties as tyranny, extreme poverty, and oppression Americans in this place and time to seek, are far more common to the human expe- promote, and preserve an approximate jus- rience. What America, despite its countless sins, has achieved for its own people and tice with liberty for as many as possible, for billions around the world directly and to include above all the liberty to hear and indirectly can only be called blessed and proclaim the Gospel around the world. We providential. admit that today’s Evangelical pacifists and Are America and its civilization mor- isolationists are partly a reaction against ally worth defending? Yes, because the al- past Evangelical and Protestant failure ternatives are too bleak to consider. And effectively, if at all, to articulate histor- thoughtful, public-minded Christians, who ic Christian ethical teaching about God’s are called by their Lord to care and contrib- purpose for nations and governments. ute towards justice, humanity, and the com- Providence will strive to rectify that failure mon good, cannot be indifferent to America and to initiate an exciting new adventure in and its central role in the world today. seeking to interpret where America fits in Niebuhr concluded his opening editori- the divine constellation of an ever onrush- al for Christianity and Crisis in February ing human history. 1941 by sardonically observing that his pac- ifist and neutralist friends “really believe We hope that you will join us in this that there is something particularly holy adventure! ■ in neutrality between contending forces,” which sometimes “gives them a sense of ho- liness from which they proclaim a ‘holy war’ Mark Tooley has been president of the Institute against their fellow Christians.” He noted on Religion & Democracy since 2009 and is one of that “action against evil must be resolute Providence's publishers. He is also the author of and it may have to be speedy,” realizing that Taking Back the United Methodist Church (2008) for Christians, our “evil is mixed with our and The Peace That Almost Was (2015).
8 the immediate aftermath of September 11, I said to a friend, IN “Now we are reminded of what governments are for.” The primary responsibility of government is to provide basic security – ordinary civic peace…None of the goods that human beings cherish…can flourish without a measure of civic peace and security
What…goods do I have in mind? Mothers and fathers raising their children; men and women going to work; citizens of a great city making their way on streets and subways; ordinary people flying to California to visit the grandchildren or to transact business with colleagues – all of these actions are simple but profound goods made possible by civic peace. They include the faithful attending their churches, synagogues, and mosques without fear, and citizens –men and women, young and old, black, brown, and white – lining up to vote on Election Day. WHAT GOVERNMENTS ARE FOR
This civic peace is not the kingdom promised by scripture that awaits the end time. The vision of beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, of creating a world in which “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore,” is connected with certain conditions that will always elude us… That said, the civic peace that violence disrupts does offer intimations of the peaceable kingdom. … We human beings are fragile creatures.
We cannot reveal the fullness of our being, including our deep sociality, if airplanes are flying into buildings…As we have learned so shockingly, we can neither take this civic peace for granted nor shake off our responsibility to respect and promote the norms and rules that sustain civic peace.
Jean Bethke Elshtain Just War Against Terror, 2003
9 FEATURE
LESS HEGEL, MORE HISTORY! CHRISTIAN ETHICS & POLITICAL REALITIES BY NIGEL BIGGAR
he good news is that the moral thinking of an educated Protestant T Christian in 2015 is likely to be far more theologically and biblically literate than it was a quarter of a century ago. In the 1960s and ‘70s, at least here in the United Kingdom, Christian ethics was often represented by philosophers who championed metaphysics against fashionable logical positivism—for example, Peter Baelz and Basil Mitchell. Or else it found expression in the thought of Anglican churchmen like Gordon Dunstan, who used to begin his undergraduate courses in moral theology with Aristotle and Aquinas, and who is famously reported to have commented on one student’s essay, “Best not to begin with the Bible”! 1
10 Through the Night With the Light from Above: Transcendent wisdom symbolized by the light of Providence
While this more philosophical approach today what has recently been asserted to the discipline did have its merits—as I of her current conception of her politi- shall make clear shortly—its lack of immer- cal role: that she has yet to take serious- sion in biblical and theological traditions ly the intellectual task of developing a weakened its capacity to achieve critical dis- fundamentally theological understand- ing of it.3 tance from prevailing intellectual currents. I have in mind Faith in the City, the 1985 Likewise, on Changing Britain I com- report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s mented that it permitted the church only Commission on Urban Priority Areas, “to proclaim more loudly the good that the and Changing Britain, the 1987 publica- world already knows; but not the good that tion of the Church of England’s Board for comes to the world as news”.4 Social Responsibility.2 Each of these dealt Twenty-five years later, Christian ethics with pressing social problems in Britain— in Britain (and in the United States) is much Faith in the City with urban deprivation, better educated in Christian ethical tradi- Changing Britain with cultural and moral tions, and its moral intelligence much more pluralism. Neither of them did so, however, fully informed by the full range of theo- with moral concepts that had drunk at all logical premises. In part this is due to the deeply from the historic wells of Christian remarkable surge of interest in the thought moral theology. The result was that their of Karl Barth during the 1980s, accentuat- moral analysis and criticism was too mes- ed, if not generated, by the centenary of his merised by current, liberal-left common birth in 1986. But it is also due to the influ- sense. As I wrote in the wake of Faith in the ence of Stanley Hauerwas, whose work now City’s publication: dominates Protestant circles and not a few If we may take Faith in the City as Roman Catholic ones. To these must be add- symptomatic (and it is certainly not ed Oliver O’Donovan’s thorough mining of wholly eccentric), then we can say of Christian biblical and historical traditions social ethics in the Church of England for the construction of a moral theology of
11 political life, whose effects have been felt on Most wheels were invented long ago by our both sides of the Atlantic. Without doubt, predecessors in the faith, and it would be all of this has served to make Christian eth- foolish to waste time trying to build them ics more theologically coherent and more again from scratch. I myself spent most of self-consciously Christian, and that surely the first ten years of my career sitting met- has to be welcomed. aphorically at the feet of Karl Barth, and I have never regretted it. It’s vitally import- evertheless, this upside has a major ant to fit out the vehicle of one’s Christian Ndownside. The academic discipline intelligence with worthy wheels that will of Christian ethics—and therefore the in- stay the course. But there nevertheless telligence of those pastors and lay-people comes a time when one has to stop admir- who have been trained in it—often seems ing the wheels, get in the car, and drive it to be locked into the tradition, engrossed somewhere. in deferential conversation with the likes of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and Karl sing the tradition as a refuge rather Barth, largely inattentive to the world and Uthan a resource is one problem with the difficult practical questions it raises contemporary Christian ethics. Another is a and assuming that an appeal to an author- tendency to want theology to do too much, itative voice in the tradition will settle the too quickly—a tendency unrestrained by case. Thus in Oxford last year during an the demands of philosophical rigour. For interdisciplinary conference on my book, In example, in its 2009 report, The Ethics of Defence of War, an expert in international Defence, the Church of Scotland judged security was provoked to erupt, “What on that the U.K. should abandon its nuclear deterrent on the ground that we should earth is all this about Augustine?!!”, after trust in God instead of placing other peo- two Christian ethicists had devoted much ple “in a position of fear or threat” (2.10). By of their time comparing what I had written threatening others rather than seeking to unfavourably to the Master. And when, this be reconciled with them, it implied, a pol- April, I presented a paper on human rights icy of nuclear deterrence is immoral. But, at Princeton, a theologian present con- as I argued this May in the online Scottish tradicted me by expounding Aquinas. To Review, “this is facile”: which my (unspoken) response was, “Well, yes, I know that, but, with all due respect, I For sure, fear and mistrust are not think Aquinas’s thinking on this matter is symptoms of a happy, healthy relation- confused and so I prefer something else”. ship. Ideally, they wouldn’t exist. In the world as we have it, however, persons Don’t mistake me: I think it’s enormous- and states sometimes do unjust things ly important for Christians to learn from that give others very good reasons to the tradition before they presume to speak. fear and mistrust them. In that case,
12 the road to reconciliation doesn’t lie in those fighting in an unjust one? And, no, pretending that nothing has happened although all actual empires involve the and just holding out the hand of friend- use and threat of coercion (just like na- ship anyway. It begins, rather, with tion-states and, indeed, republics), they signalling to the wrongdoer that he has haven’t always been simply arbitrary or done wrong by opposing it and press- enslaving in their rule. The British empire, ing him to think again and change his ways in such a fashion that trust could for example, granted Roman Catholics in be restored. It may be true—as I be- Quebec freedom of religion in 1763 (much lieve it is—that we should always trust to the irritation of American colonists), sup- God. But it really doesn’t follow that we pressed the slave trade across the Atlantic should always trust Vladimir Putin or and in Africa throughout the 19th century, Islamic State.5 granted black Africans in Cape Colony the The report had tried to move far too vote (subject to a remarkably low property directly and quickly from the theological requirement) as early as 1853, and appoint- virtue of faith in God to the moral stance ed native Indians as judges under the Raj of indiscriminate trust in our enemies. It decades before the American republic ap- had no patience for the kind of careful eth- pointed African-American ones. ical analysis that formation in the intellec- Without bracing contact with empirical tual virtues of analytic moral philosophy and historical reality, abstract concepts too would have imparted. That is now a major easily become the vehicles of fashionable weakness. prejudice. further vice that infects Christian variation on this problem can be ethics today is the habit of trying A found in the writing of Hauerwas to grasp the world through abstractions, A himself. In one of his most mature works, which, preserved from interrogation by the for example, he sets the ‘church’ over and world’s angular realities, function as sub- against the ‘world’, and proceeds to de- stitutes for looking and critical reflection. scribe the latter in terms of broad-brush For example, I’ve noticed that some young abstractions, all of them pejorative: Christian ethicists now emerging from U.S. ‘Constantinianism’, ‘liberalism’, ‘moderni- universities are much impressed by the re- ty’, ‘democracy’, and ‘technocracy’.6 Let’s publican philosophy of Philip Pettit, and are take just one of these: ‘liberalism’. As I have therefore wont to assume that domination complained elsewhere, Hauerwas’s engage- is an intrinsically bad thing. In one sense, ment with political liberalism is ad hoc, un- since Pettit stipulates that ‘domination’ derdeveloped, and indiscriminate.7 Liberal means arbitrary rule and enslavement, they political thought is not all of a single kind. can’t be faulted, for it is indeed wicked by Indeed, some of it is not merely compatible definition—like ‘torture’ or ‘rape’. with Christian belief but actually required The problem arises, however, when by it. Hauerwas doesn’t actually deny this, Pettit’s disciples proceed to assume that but he ignores it nonetheless.8 He contin- anything in the real world that involves ues to essentialise liberalism (negatively) hierarchy or coercion—that is, one person as he continues to essentialise the world dominating another—is necessarily an in- (negatively). stance of ‘domination’ as stipulated and At one point Hauerwas objects that therefore immoral. If one comes to this line ‘Constantinianism’ holds that the validity of thinking, as I do, from intensive study of the church or Jesus Christ or the New of the ethics and history of both war and Testament “is to be judged by standards the British empire, then it seems obviously derived from the world”.9 To which I say, wrongheaded. Surely we want the police to “Never mind the provenance, pay attention dominate the mafia, don’t we? And we want to the data”. Or, to echo Wittgenstein, “Don’t those fighting in a just cause to dominate assume, look! And then discriminate”.10 The
13 The country enjoys the prosperity, signaled by the horn of plenty, at the feet of America
Spirit of the One God is Lord of the whole Montgomery’s orders to Brigadier Currie, world and not just of the church. So we can- commander of the 9th Armoured Brigade: not assume that everything in the world is alien to the kingdom of God. We have to The task for 9th Armoured Brigade—to discern the spirits, not rubbish them by la- advance past the infantry objective, belling them with dismissive abstractions. break through the enemy defences and immediately beyond the Rahman Track ne remedy for this ailment is for and then hold open the gap against ene- OChristian ethicists to read less mor- my counter-attacks until the heavy bri- al theology and political philosophy and gades of the 1st Armoured Division had more history. Suppose a Christian ethicist gone through—was so obviously one of is thinking about the ethics of the use of vi- difficulty and danger that when Currie’s olent force in terms of the doctrine of just time came to make comment, he rath- er diffidently suggested that by the end war. From his general theological educa- of the day his brigade might well have tion, he will know that love is a Christian suffered 50 per cent casualties. To this virtue, and in the light of the example of Freyberg had replied with studied non- Jesus, he might assume that love should chalance, “Perhaps more than that. The always take the form of compassion. From Army Commander [Montgomery] says his reading of Augustine and Paul Ramsey, that he is prepared to accept a hundred he will know that love must always moti- per cent”.11 vate and discipline war, if it is to be just. This account of a particular moment And from his wider reading of the ‘just war’ in North Africa in October 1942 reminds literature, he will know that one of the stan- our ethicist of other reading he has done in dard features of a justified decision to go to military history, and it gives birth to the un- war is that there is a reasonable prospect of settling thought that one of the conditions success. of military success is a commander’s pos- Suppose, then, that one evening our session of a certain kind of ‘callousness’. A ethicist lays down his copy of Augustine or successful commander has to be willing to Vitoria and takes up Barrie Pitt’s history of order soldiers, who may be close personal the battle of El Alamein, when the British friends, to fight to the death. And in order Commonwealth scored its first major victo- to do this, he has to be able to distance him- ry on land over the Germans in the Second self from the human consequences of his World War. He comes to page 396, where decision, to callous himself against them. he reads of a briefing conference held in This is what Winston Churchill observed the middle of the battle, in which Major of General Douglas Haig, who command- General Freyberg communicates General ed the British Army on the Western Front
14 during the First World War. “He presents of the world”13 is so often lacking. to me in those red years”, wrote Churchill, At one point in his critique of In Defence “the same mental picture as a great surgeon of War, the scholar of international rela- before the days of anaesthetics: … intent tions, Cian O’Driscoll, writes that just war upon the operation, entirely removed in his theorists like me are inevitably part of professional capacity from the agony of the “the war-machine” that we are trying to patient…. He would operate without excite- constrain, and that we therefore stand in ment … and if the patient died, he would danger of coming so close to the flame of not reproach himself”. But then Churchill power that we get burnt by it.14 I understand adds: “It must be understood that I speak what he means: institutions do acquire a only of his professional actions. Once out momentum of their own—sometimes per- of the theatre, his heart was a warm as any verse—that is hard to stop, and well-mean- man’s”.12 History, then, teaches that a kind ing individuals need to take care lest they of certain professional callousness is a con- get carried away. Nevertheless, it struck me dition of military success. Just war doctrine that where Cian sees a machine, I see fac- requires that military success be possible. es—the faces of friends in public office, who The logic of just war doctrine, therefore, are, I think, more morally reflective and appears to make callousness a necessary sensitive than the average citizen, humbler, military virtue. less sanctimonious, and who have shoul- But can callousness really be a Christian dered responsibilities and taken risks that virtue? Our ethicist reflects on his conver- academics like me have chosen careers to sation the previous evening with an ac- avoid. tual surgeon, and on his own experience It is well known that remoteness from of heading a university department in the the exercise of political power yields the wake of severe cuts in funding, and he real- important advantage of critical distance. ises that all sorts of social roles require well What is less well known is that it also oc- -intentioned human beings to make deci- casions a grave temptation—a temptation sions and perform acts that will foreseeably to relish too much the self-flattering role hurt others; and that in order to make and of righteous prophet, to indulge in wishful do them, they have to grow thick skin—they thinking, to day-dream among the ‘what- have to callous themselves. Thus, observing ifs’, and never to grasp the necessary nettle. that callousness need not involve a culpable lack of care or a failure to love, our ethicist Christian ethicists need to get to know finds himself brought to the novel conclu- those in public office, get acquainted with sion that it can be a Christian virtue. the burdens they bear, appreciate the con- straints under which they must operate, Had he not picked up a history book, and enter with them imaginatively into the however, this would never have occurred tragic dilemmas they must face. Then, hav- to him. So: less Hegel and more history, ing taken the trouble to exercise their love please—if Christian ethics is going to do in playing pastor, they will have earned the justice to political and military reality and so deserve a hearing from policy-makers right to play prophet. and decision-takers. ugustine would approve. In AD 408 he wrote to Paulinus of Nola: second remedy is for Christian eth- A Aicists to get out more. One reason On the subject of punishing or refrain- that Christian ethics so often manages to ing from punishment, what am I to say? evade the challenges posed by empirical re- It is our desire that when we decide ality is that social contact between academ- whether or not to punish people, in ei- ics (not least those in departments of religion ther case it should contribute wholly to and theology) and those whom Reinhold their security. These are indeed deep Niebuhr nicely called “the burden-bearers and obscure matters: what limit ought
15 to be set to punishment with regard to lamented the tragic dilemmas of political both the nature and extent of guilt, and life, but he didn’t flinch from facing them. also the strength of spirit the wrong- doers possess? What ought each one to And note: none of this prevented suffer?… What do we do when, as often Augustine from developing the prophetic happens, punishing someone will lead critique of the Roman Empire that became to his destruction, but leaving him un- The City of God. He stands, therefore, as punished will lead to someone else be- shining example of one who took the risk ing destroyed?... What trembling, what darkness!… ‘Trembling and fear have of coming close to the flame of power and come upon me and darkness has cov- yet was not consumed by it—of one who ered me, and I said, Who will give me risked playing pastor and yet could still play wings like a dove’s? Then I will fly away prophet. Christian ethicists should follow and be at rest’…. [Psalm 55 (54).5-8]”.15 Augustine, and not merely read him. ■ But Augustine didn’t flee. He didn’t run away. He stayed. He continued to shoulder the responsibilities of bishop, which, as the Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor of Moral and Roman Empire crumbled around him, were Pastoral Theology, and Director of the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life, increasingly those of government. He kept at the University of Oxford. He is the author of up pastoral correspondence with military In Defence of War (Oxford: Oxford University tribunes like Boniface and Marcellinus, Press, 2013) and, most recently, Between Kin and whose Christian consciences were trou- Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (Eugene, OR: bled by what they had to do. With them he Cascade, 2014).
Endnotes 1 Nicholas Holtam, “Dunstan, Gordon Reginald (1917-2004)”,Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) at
16 I DO NOT SLAY MAN OR BEAST NEEDLESSLY, AND NOT GLADLY EVEN WHEN IT IS NEEDED… WAR MUST BE, WHILE WE DEFEND OUR LIVES AGAINST A DESTROYER WHO WOULD DEVOUR ALL; BUT I DO NOT LOVE THE BRIGHT SWORD FOR ITS SHARPNESS, NOR THE ARROW FOR ITS SWIFTNESS, NOR THE WARRIOR FOR HIS GLORY. I LOVE ONLY THAT WHICH THEY DEFEND.
FARAMIR THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS “THE WINDOW ON THE WEST”
17 FEATURE
CHRISTIAN ETHICS & THE REALM OF STATECRAFT: DIVISIONS, CROSS-CURRENTS, & THE SEARCH FOR CONNECTIONS JAMES TURNER JOHNSON
rovidence seeks engagement between Christianity and American Pforeign policy, an effort that necessarily must proceed not upon a smooth playing-field but rather on a landscape strewn with numerous obstacles. In the United States, religious engagement on matters of public policy is as old as American society itself, and its possibility is in no way vitiated by the doctrine of separation of church and state. Such engagement does not have to do with replacing religious judgments and decisions with those of the political process; rather it proceeds as a form of citizen engagement in that process, seeking to inform it and to help it better operate - my own aim throughout my work is on how to understand the ethical traditions of just war and jihad of the sword. The task of such engagement is well worthwhile, but to be effectively carried out the obstacles must be recognized, understood, and negotiated. In what follows I will firstlay out some of the most important obstacles, the challenges they pose, their respective weaknesses, and some thoughts on opportunities they offer; then I will offer some thoughts on how best to bring Christianity into engagement with American foreign policy.
18 n especially difficult obstacle to Asuch engagement is that political realism as it exists today seeks to deny any place whatever for ethical or other value concerns, religious or not, in the policy are- na, reserving that arena for considerations of interests alone. On this conception ethi- cal values and arguments are expressions of idealism and assimilated to utopianism, as in Robert Osgood’s benchmark study, Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations. The realist, Osgood wrote,
is skeptical of attempts to mitigate in- ternational conflict with appeals to sentiment or principle or with written pledges and institutional devices un- less they express the existing configu- ration of national interests or register the relative power among nations. He believes that if power conflicts can be mitigated at all, they can be mitigated only by balancing power against power and by cultivating a circumspect diplo- macy that knows the use of force and the threat of force as indispensable el- ements of national policy. (9) This position is not without its own seri- ous problems. The acknowledged founders of realism, Hans Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr, had conceived it somewhat dif- ferently, leaving room for the working of ethical values and arguments, and the conception of realism as summarized by Osgood does not acknowledge its own de- pendence on ideals and values at the core of the conception of what counts as “American national interests” and the priorities among them. Nonetheless, realism in its current form wants nothing to do with ethical val- ues or arguments based on them when they are presented as bearing on policy, unless they are transformed into the language of interests. This resistance is a formidable obstacle to efforts to engage Christianity with the formulation and administration of foreign policy, but it is best met by a robust Peace through Strength: This equestrian statue of George challenge to the assumptions of realism it- Washington set before a triumphal arch is a celebration both of Washington’s military victories as well as of the self, making way for an embrace of ideals liberal arts. The message: Strength secures the nation’s and values as essential elements in conceiv- sovereignty and makes the pursuits of commerce, indus- try, and the arts possible ing national interests and policies.
19 At the same time, the challenge posed obstacle. Encountering diverse religions by realism is a reminder that Christian and opens doors to better cross-cultural under- other religious efforts—indeed, any efforts standing, and this carries obvious positive motivated by deep ethical concerns—to en- implications for engagement in the sphere ter policy debates must take with utmost of foreign affairs. I will return to this be- seriousness the complexities of the empir- low with specific reference to my own work ical landscape and the possibilities offered on the Islamic tradition of jihad of the there. This was ultimately what Reinhold sword. Niebuhr’s conception of Christian realism sought to do (see, for example, his early A third kind of obstacle is that reli- books, Christ and Culture (1932) and An giously-based ethical values and arguments Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935), coexist with, and compete with, other sorts where he was first working out this po- of conceptions of ethics and support for sition). Niebuhr avoided the attractions policies in accord with such conceptions. of believing that Christian ethical effort Domestic examples abound, many of them could transform American society into the having to do with sexuality and sexual be- Kingdom of God on earth but nonetheless havior, but in the arena of foreign policy this championed such an effort in a chastened competition is illustrated by the rise of a re- spirit of recognition of human sinfulness visionist version of just war theory within and finitude. Such a position is not utopian; the frame of analytic philosophy. So far as it is realistic on its own terms. its ethics is concerned, this revision is util- itarian, and while some revisionist just war A second and very different kind of ob- thinkers appeal to a basis in human rights, stacle to Christian ethical engagement in the conception of rights is an abstract one the sphere of public policy is that the United divorced from its historical and thematic States today has become more religious- Christian connections. ly pluralistic, with the changing contours of American Christianity itself and these Now, the tradition of just war that the various forms of Christianity coexisting revisionists seek to replace incorporates alongside varieties of the other major world important Christian influences, but these religions as well as various forms of indig- are not acknowledged in the revisionist enous religious expression, including some accounts. When such different positions radically individual. But such change is not as represented by the revisionists arise, it inherently negative, and indeed the respect is important to be able to recognize them for religious freedom that makes it possible for what they are, that is, positions that is a core American value. The American have only some terminology in common religious landscape has never been static, with the historical tradition of just war; a and the diversity of religion in America has Christian conception of the morality of the historically fed a constant renewal that has use of armed force does not distill into a been a major contributor to the strength of utilitarian argument, even one based in an religion in America and its contribution to abstracted philosophical conception of hu- the national character. So the current mul- man rights. This is just one example, but tivalent religious landscape in the United whenever the same issues arise across the States presents a challenge best met with whole arena of debates over policy, the same new focus on how to understand and live argument applies. out the basic meaning of Christianity and Finally, I would mention the obstacle how to engage creatively and with nuance posed by the fact that there is no single debates over public policy, including foreign Christian position on the sphere of political policy. life and the relationship between it on the There is also another way that the chal- one hand and the sphere of Christian life lenge of religious diversity in American on the other. We can describe the differ- society may prove a benefit rather than an ences in various ways, but what is by now
20 a classic catalogue of them was provided not offer a fruitful frame for engagement be- by H. Richard Niebhur in his Christ and tween Christianity and foreign affairs. The Culture. Niebuhr identified five major two remaining positions, by contrast, pro- approaches, analyzing each one and con- vide different frames for such engagement, necting it to the thought of particular both connected to important theological theologians. positions and also expressed in historical manifestations. Examining these in more In his first approach, Christ against detail thus takes us into constructive pos- culture, he identified with the first-cen- sibilities for the kind of engagement being tury church as well as later approaches sought in the present and future contexts. like Tolstoy’s; his second, the Christ of culture, he described as the position of n considering these two possible liberal Protestantism, connected histor- Iframes, I would note the need to go ically with the “culture-Protestantism” of beyond Niebuhr’s analysis in Christ and the nineteenth-century German theolo- Culture, for he missed some important gian Albrecht Ritschl among others; his things and, I think, did not rightly under- third, Christ above culture, he developed stand others. as the approach historically associated with Catholic theology and especially An important example of both limita- Thomas Aquinas, with his conception of tions is that, like his older brother Reinhold, the theological and natural virtues and he did not have an appreciation for the dis- their interrelation; his fourth, Christ and tinct and independent authority of the idea culture in paradox, he associated with the of natural law in medieval thought apart Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, and others; from Aquinas’s theological synthesis. This while the last approach he treated, Christ affected his understanding of the position transforming culture, he connected par- he associated with Aquinas’s theology, ticularly to the thought of Augustine and which for him epitomized the “Christ above described as exemplified in the twentieth culture” perspective. century in the theology of F.D. Maurice. Medieval thought recognized a distinc- Niebuhr did his best to treat these vari- tion between what it called the realms of ous positions evenhandedly, but the ideal the “spiritual” and the “temporal.” A full- of “freedom in dependence” he developed er and more accurate account of how these in his concluding chapter seems particu- were understood in the medieval frame larly close to his positive characterization would require closer and more appreciative of the “Christ transforming culture” or understanding than provided in Christ and “conversionist” position he characterized Culture of the canonical thought that pre- as “the present encounter with God in ceded Aquinas, for it was the canonists of Christ” and as an “awareness of the pow- the late twelfth and early thirteenth centu- er of the Lord to transform all things by ries who recovered the idea of natural law lifting them up to himself” (195). from Roman law and political thought and This inventory remains useful, not placed their understanding of it within their least because of the theological connec- thinking on just war and political order. In tions Niebuhr made and the fact that ev- their understanding of this concept and its ery one of these positions can be found in application to human moral choice, natural present-day American Christianity. The law was by no means a fixed framework, first and fourth of these positions sepa- as both Niebuhrs and much of Protestant rate Christian life from life in political thought more generally have treated it, de- community, while the second effectively fined finally by the authority of the revealed collapses the two, seriously diminishing law of God as interpreted by and through or even removing the possibility of a crit- the authority of the church. Rather, on the ical engagement based on a difference medieval conception, this law was built into between them. These positions thus do nature itself and served to give temporal
21 life its own autonomous place. The idea of serve the community governed. Nor did natural law thus heightened the importance this conception of sovereignty mean that of human moral judgments and decisions might makes right, for the sovereign’s judg- in the operation of the temporal order. ments were themselves subject to judgment Natural law referred to a rationally acces- by others within the temporal sphere. The sible reference-point for guiding moral de- point is the moral autonomy of temporal cision-making, but the final judgment as to judgments. Temporal authority, on this the meaning of this law in a given case was conception, has its own autonomy relative a matter for moral choice. to the spiritual authority of the Church, but it is bound by fundamental responsibility How this understanding worked was for the good of the society governed, and epitomized in the canonists’ conception of by extension for the good of neighboring temporal sovereignty. This conception was societies. based in the Gelasian principle (named af- ter the late sixth-century Pope Gelasius) of There is, of course, a good deal more to a distinction between spiritual and tem- say about this than these brief sentences pro- poral authority. On this distinction, while vide, and further discussion can be found in the former kind of authority belongs to the the first chapter of my Sovereignty: Moral Church, it does not extend to temporal rule, and Historical Perspectives. Sufficient for and authority and responsibility for tempo- now is to sum up by noting that on this ral affairs belongs to temporal rulers, with conception more generally the idea of nat- those having no temporal superiors—sover- ural law functioned as a guide to practical eign rulers—exercising supreme authority moral reasoning by persons operating with- in their own political communities. While in the context of worldly life. Moral deci- individual judgments as to the natural law sion-making, on this model, had to do with might differ and lead to conflicts, resolving making a responsible effort to understand such conflicts was the power and responsi- and apply the natural law. It took the form bility of temporal sovereigns in their func- of practical moral reasoning in the context tion of judges of last resort as to right and of life in community within the temporal wrong within their domains, in their mak- order. In laying on each individual the ob- ing and enforcing their own judgments as ligation to take this responsibility seriously, to the requirements of natural law in the this notion also laid a special responsibility specific contexts at hand. on those individuals with sovereign politi- cal authority, those charged with exercising A ruler’s judgments might be self-serv- this responsibility for the good of the entire ing or otherwise flawed, and thus the ulti- community. mate test of their rightness or wrongness in terms of their conformity to the natural I suggest this way of thinking about po- law was whether these judgments contrib- litical decision-making as itself a moral en- uted to the common good of the community terprise aimed at the common good of the ruled—its overall order, justice, and peace. political community—and of the interac- A ruler might be a tyrant, and this could be tions among such communities worldwide— measured both by that ruler’s own people can be a fruitful element in an engagement and by neighboring sovereigns, using their between Christianity and foreign affairs. It own judgments as to the requirement of the entails respect for the political order and the natural law that the common good is to be persons involved in its working, but it also served. Of course, that good can be served serves as a reminder that this order must be in various ways, and responsible efforts to oriented to the common good, both of our act according to the natural law might thus own political community specifically and of take many forms. On this conception the the larger interconnected reality of all polit- temporal sovereign, and in no way the spiri- ical communities more generally, and that tual authorities, was responsible for judging those responsible for the working of polit- what the natural law required so as best to ical order and relationships can be held to
22 account for their judgments and decisions. dialogue with the jihad tradition and, more That the political sphere itself, including recently, with the varied moral traditions the justified use of force in the service of on war found in Chinese history. I have the goods of political community, exists for also argued that international law and in- the purpose of human flourishing is deeply ternational agreements short of formal law rooted in Christian doctrine and should not show where such agreement across cultures be forgotten (Consider the pithy statement exists and what are the limits of such agree- provided in Romans 13:1-4; Romans 13:4 ment. Thus, of particular relevance to my was frequently cited in connection with work on the contemporary implications the classic idea of just war). An important of just war thinking, I have taken pains to reason for Christian engagement with the treat the law of armed conflict, today widely public sphere is to remind those involved in called international humanitarian law, as the making of policy and in political deci- expressing shared moral consensus. The sion-making that such human flourishing language of natural law was appropriate to should always be their goal. the context of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Whether or not the term is used In the historical context I have been today, the functions it referred to remain, describing, natural law referred to a wide- if under different names, and therefore spread consensus as to the nature of the finding the best contemporary language common good and the ends of politics. for natural law is critical to religious ethi- Pursuing this method in the effort to re- cal engagement with the sphere of foreign late Christianity to foreign affairs today affairs. This is not in any way to compro- requires identifying and pursuing agree- mise Christian ethical values and concerns ments on core values that transcend the in the process of seeking such engagement, borders of states and cultures. This returns but rather a way to frame such values and me to a point I raised earlier in relation to concerns so that they respect the different the encounter of diverse religious beliefs in role and responsibility of government from the context of American society. In my own those of the religious sphere and can be rec- work on moral traditions on war, I have ognized as relevant in the political sphere. sought to identify agreement across differ- ing religions and cultural frames by bring- Let me turn now in a different direction, ing just war tradition into comparative to Richard Niebuhr’s reading of Augustine
23 and the idea of Christ transforming cul- Christianity and the sphere of political life. ture. The transformationist or (Richard As the medieval historian R.A. Markus Niebuhr’s preferred term) conversionist un- observed in his essay in The Church and derstanding of the Christ-culture relation- War, Augustine went through three pe- ship fitted well the assumptions of mainline riods in his thinking about the relation of American Protestantism that had taken Christianity to politics, including war, and shape earlier in the twentieth century - de- only in the second of these, marked by the fined first by Walter Rauschenbusch and the rule of a Christian emperor and Christian Social Gospel movement, then chastened officials open to advice from Church lead- and redefined by Richard’s older brother ers, did he seem to have an idea that the Reinhold in his thinking on Christian love City of Earth might itself, through identi- as related to natural justice, and Richard fication with the Church, be capable of re- Niebuhr’s own theology belonged to this form towards the City of God. In the third distinctively American theological tradi- period of Augustine’s life, Markus notes, tion. The influence of his thinking in this which included imperial and other efforts way about the relation of Christianity to to suppress the influence of Christianity political life shows up in the work of Paul and restore that of the old Roman religion Ramsey, who did his doctoral work under and was also marked by the rising strength Richard Niebuhr at Yale and who adopt- of Arian Christianity in the form of the ed and developed a version of this way of power of the Germanic societies that were thinking as a way of describing the working increasingly carving the Empire up into of divine love within history progressively distinct kingdoms, Augustine moved away to shape politics toward its own ideal end. from whatever optimism he may have had about the possibility of transforming earth- This conception, in Ramsey’s work, de- ly society and focused on the City of God as pended centrally on a particular way of read- referring to the life of the saints in heaven ing Augustine’s understanding of divine love with God and the angels. or caritas, charity, as a theology describing how this love is operating within history to Within this latter conception, Christians transform the world toward the City of God. were pilgrims in an alien land, but they For “bookends” to this way of thinking, see nonetheless had an obligation to act so as to the second chapter of Ramsey’s War and maintain the best of the Roman order so as the Christian Conscience (1961) and his es- to provide a basis for the life of the Church say “A Political Ethics Context for Strategic as it moved towards its own realization as Thinking” in the edited volume, Strategic the City of God. To argue for maintaining Thinking and Its Moral Implications a society for the goods it offers despite its (1973). Augustine’s thought thus described flaws is far from arguing that divine love, provided a powerful basis for a Christian caritas, can in history remake earthly soci- politics aimed at Christian participation in ety so as to diminish and ultimately remove this transformation. Even when its possibil- those flaws, but the former still provides a ities were limited, as in Reinhold Niebuhr’s mandate for Christian engagement with the characterization of love as an “impossible affairs of the political order. Acting so as possibility” for human striving marked by to contribute to the goods society offers is sin and finitude, the ideal variously called itself morally good. the “City” or “Kingdom” of God still provid- The transformationist conception of ed the ultimate pattern for the kind of world Christian possibility was also found in an- Christians ought to seek to create. other important place: the idea of America’s But Augustine’s theology was in fact a destiny as the Kingdom of God on Earth, a good deal more complex than this reading topic to which Richard Niebuhr had devot- on its own allows, and taking this into ac- ed his earlier book The Kingdom of God in count, I suggest, leads to a different but still America. Niebuhr there criticized how this positive mandate for engagement between idea had developed, at one point referring
24 caustically to the coming together of mis- thought and ethics, to be sure, but also the sionary and commercial activity in foreign theory and practice of politics, the theory lands during the nineteenth century as and practice of military life, and other in- “bring[ing] light to the gentiles by means fluences. When the classic conception of of lamps manufactured in America” (179), just war came together in the twelfth and but he never rejected the idea in itself or the thirteenth centuries it manifested a broad ideal it set for American society in history. cultural consensus on the place the use of This, one might say, is the transformation- armed force should have in the effort to ist theme in a nutshell. I think Reinhold serve the ends of political life. Though it Niebuhr was right to point out that, be- was principally, in the first place, a product cause of human sin and finitude, our best of canonical reasoning, debate, and deci- attempts toward a love-informed justice sion, and though the particular summary nonetheless carry with them seeds of future account of this consensus given by Aquinas injustice, so that the Kingdom of God can in the frame of his theology provided the only be an ideal to aim at, not one ever to be standard statement of the just war idea that achieved by human efforts in history. But endured well into the modern age, this was even if the ideal cannot be realized in his- by no means a narrowly Christian idea im- tory, the existence of that ideal constitutes posed on Western society by the Church. a moral charge, so that the good life is one Rather its force and endurance came from that seeks to strive toward it. This way of its being a product of dialogue between the thinking corresponds well with Augustine’s spiritual and the temporal in which both insight that preservation of the best that were respected and the conclusions reached political community can produce also pres- respected the goods of temporal life in po- ents a moral charge. This, in the end, is the litical community. How to replicate such value of the transformationist understand- dialogue and to produce such a fruitful and ing of Christianity’s proper relationship to enduring end should be the aim of any ef- the world. fort at engaging Christianity with American ■ What I have been describing, begin- foreign affairs. ning with two of the perspectives Richard Niebuhr described in Christ and Culture James Turner Johnson (Ph.D., Princeton but building on this to take account of el- 1968) is Distinguished Professor of Religion and ements in Christian thought Niebuhr did Associate of the Graduate Program in Political not treat, is effectively how I think about Science at Rutgers—The State University of New my own work in the sphere of the ethics of Jersey, where he has been on the faculty since 1969. His research and teaching have focused war. I think of the idea of just war tradi- principally on the historical development and tion, the focal core of my work, as itself the application of the Western and Islamic moral tra- result of a process of engagement among ditions related to war, peace, and the practice of different sources of influence: Christian statecraft.
References Johnson, James Turner. 2014. Sovereignty: Moral and Historical Perspectives. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Markus, R.A. 1983. “Saint Augustine’s Views on the ‘Just War.’” In W. J. Sheils, The Church and War. Oxford: Basil Blackwell for The Ecclesiastical History Society, 1-13. Niebuhr, H. Richard. 1937. The Kingdom of God in America. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper and Row. . 1951. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Brothers. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1932. Moral Man and Immoral Society. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. . 1935. An Interpretation of Christian Ethics. New York: Meridian Books. Osgood, Robert E. 1953. Ideals and Self-Interest in America’s Foreign Relations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ramsey, Paul. 1961. War and the Christian Conscience. Durham, Norh Carolina: Duke University Press. . 1973. “A Political Ethics Context for Strategic Thinking.” In Morton A. Kaplan, ed., Strategic Thinking and Its Moral Implications, 101-47.
25 Bearing the coat-of-arms of the United States, the inscription “Union and Independence” signals the essential elements of American flourishing
26 FEATURE
CHRISTIAN REALISM & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY JOSEPH LOCONTE
SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, WHILE AMERICA SLEPT, WESTERN CIVILIZATION WAS FIGHTING FOR ITS LIFE
n September of 1940, after occupying and enslaving most Iof continental Europe in less than a year, Hitler’s Germany turned its gaze north, across the English Channel. Beginning on September 7, the Luftwaffe unleashed a storm of death and destruction on the city of London: the Blitz. The first round of bombing raids lasted fifty-seven consecutive nights. CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow was there: “I’ve seen some hor- rible sights in this city during these days and nights, but not once have I heard man, woman, or child suggest that Britain should throw in her hand.”
Everyone in Britain, including Prime the nation’s Christian leadership: its theo- Minister Winston Churchill, expected a logians, pastors, writers, and public intel- Nazi invasion at any moment. And nearly lectuals? The lamentable fact is that most everyone in the United States, including failed to grasp the nature of Hitlerism; they President Franklin Roosevelt, tried desper- refused to contemplate the practical con- ately to put Britain’s existential struggle out sequences of a complete Nazi triumph over of their minds. “I’ll say it again, and again,” Europe. Instead, many insisted that the vowed FDR during his 1940 re-election “ethics of Jesus” demanded a U.S. foreign campaign. “Your boys are not going to be policy of isolationism, pacifism, and nation- sent into any foreign wars.” al repentance. We might expect this kind of talk from “Can military force do much against dissembling politicians, but what about soul force which folds its arms and bides its
27 day?” asked Albert Palmer, president of the West are threatened by new forms of terror Chicago Theological Seminary. “Without and totalitarianism, much of the Protestant military opposition the Hitlers wither Christian church today lacks the intellectu- away.” Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of al and moral resources to fight back. New York’s Riverside Baptist Church and Consider the reaction of leading “pro- one of the most influential preachers of his gressive” Protestant ministers to the 9/11 day, was unmoved by the fate of millions al- attacks and the rise of radical Islamic ready under Nazi occupation. “I can never extremism. The Rev. Tony Campolo, the use my Christian ministry in the support self-described “Prophet of Red Letter and sanction of war,” he wrote in January Christianity,” has focused his righteous 1941. “My personal judgment is that for the rage on American foreign policy. He com- United States to become a belligerent in this pares U.S. military action against Islamic conflict would be a colossal and futile disas- militants to the campaign of beheadings ter.” Charles Clayton Morrison, editor of the launched by the Islamic State (ISIS) against prestigious Christian Century, denounced alleged infidels. “What can we do to stop American participation in the conflict as “a this cycle of violence?” he asks. His answer: war for imperialism,” as hateful a prospect “What if President Bush and President as a Nazi victory. “For the United States to Obama stood together at the rostrum of the make a fateful decision to enter this war U.N. General Assembly and did the biblical on the mistaken and irrational assump- thing? What if, on behalf of the American tion that it is a war for the preservation of people, they repented of what our nation anything good in civilization will be the su- has done?” preme tragedy of our history.” By the 1920s and 30s, American Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Jim Wallis Christianity—especially its liberal wing— and his Sojourners magazine produced a shared the same mental outlook as that of manifesto called “Confessing Christ in a political progressivism. In politics, both re- World of Violence.” A critique of the U.S.-led acted to the cataclysm of the First World War “war on terror,” the document was signed determined to make international peace by scores of theology professors, ethicists their supreme goal, whatever the cost. In and church leaders. Its signatories sought to matters of religion, both embraced a spirit soften what they called the “crude distinc- of disbelief and evasion: a reluctance to ad- tions” being made between radical Islamic mit the stubbornness and pervasiveness of jihad and Western democracy. They thus human evil. offered a misappropriation of Solzhenitsyn: “The distinction between good and evil does “In this liberalism there is little un- not run between one nation and another, or derstanding of the depth to which human one group and another,” the petition read. malevolence may sink and the heights to “It runs straight through every human which malignant power may rise,” wrote heart.” More recently, Wallis finds the solu- Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr tion to ISIS barbarism in tackling the “root in Christianity and Power Politics (1940). causes” of terrorism, which are economic “Some easy and vapid escape is sought from and political in nature.“ Terrorism is always the terrors and woes of a tragic era.” built on grievances—real and perceived— that are used to recruit for and perpetuate his frame of mind has returned with its ideology and violence,” he writes. “So a vengeance in the post-9/11 era, T addressing those grievances and correcting fueled by the costly and inconclusive wars course along the way is essential to defeat- in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its motive force, ing terrorism.” though, is a blinkered vision of the Christian gospel that has unwittingly debased the Stanley Hauerwas, professor of ethics Christian conscience. At the very moment at Duke University, delivered a jeremiad when the political and religious ideals of the against the United States, even as human
28 remains were being recovered from Ground Christianity and Crisis, Niebuhr reminded Zero. He saw a terrible day of reckoning his generation that Protestant Christianity ahead: “I think that when America isn’t possessed unique resources to confront the able to rule the world, that people will ex- problems and perplexities of the modern act some very strong judgments against age. America—and I think we will well deserve We need to recover something of the it.” A look at his latest book, War and the Christian realism that proved so prescient American Difference, suggests that world in an era of theological confusion. As events have left his views undisturbed. Niebuhr argued, contemporary historical Hauerwas rejects U.S. military action in the events confirm the Reformation emphasis Middle East, even to prevent crimes against on the persistence of sin at every level of humanity or genocide. “If the U.S. inter- moral achievement; there is no way to fully venes, we just reinforce the presumption, escape the corrupting influence of power in which is true, that we’re an imperial power.” any political act. To believe otherwise is to And on it goes. Religious progressives imagine that politics can transcend these are not mistaken when they discover in earthly realities if only “the ethics of Jesus” the ministry of Jesus a life devoted to the would shape our priorities and methods. love of neighbor: the unconditional love of No amount of Bible citations, Niebuhr God. Nor are they wrong to see in Jesus explained, can conceal the humanistic as- the quintessential peacemaker: the Prince sumptions behind this effort: of Peace. Yet their political vision is based entirely upon the principle of non-violence. We have, in other words, reinterpret- Their politics, in all its particulars, is guid- ed the Christian gospel in terms of the ed by one rule, “the law of love.” Renaissance faith in man…We have inter- preted world history as a gradual ascent he fatal problem with this view is to the Kingdom of God which waits for fi- Tthat historic Christianity—espe- nal triumph only upon the willingness of cially Protestant Christianity—has never Christians to ‘take Christ seriously.’ There reduced the gospel to these elements. The is nothing in Christ’s own teachings…to jus- cross of Christ cannot be comprehended tify this interpretation of world history. In without an awareness of the depth of human the whole of the New Testament, Gospels guilt and the power of radical evil. “The gos- and Epistles alike, there is only one inter- pel is something more than the law of love. pretation of world history. That pictures The gospel deals with the fact that men vio- history as moving toward a climax in which late the law of love,” wrote Niebuhr in “Why both Christ and anti-Christ are revealed. the Christian Church is Not Pacifist”. “The Progressive Christianity, whatever its gospel presents Christ as the pledge and merits, bases its politics on a fundamen- revelation of God’s mercy which finds man tally flawed understanding of the human in his rebellion and overcomes his sin.” predicament. By insisting on political out- Like no other American theologian of comes akin to the vision of life held out in the twentieth century, Reinhold Niebuhr the Sermon on the Mount, it promotes a for- exposed the assumptions of progressive eign policy largely detached from political Christianity that helped to create a mood reality. of political ambivalence and isolation in an age of global terror. Niebuhr’s political the- foreign policy rooted in Christian ology—what became known as “Christian Arealism, by contrast, begins with realism”—sought a more biblical view of a sober view of the exercise of power. how the Christian citizen can live responsi- Enforcing justice, punishing wrongdoing, bly within a civilization in crisis. During the building democratic institutions—all of this 1930s and 40s, through his books, articles, is exceedingly difficult work, a truism as and the magazine he founded and edited, easily forgotten by political conservatives as
29 it is by progressives. One of the most deep- Evasive and generic references to “terrorists” ly mistaken ideas surrounding the wars in and “extremists” obscure the nature of the Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, was problem. that liberal democracies would emerge or- Even the editors at The New Republic, ganically, almost inevitably, out of the ashes hardly a source of Christian realist thinking, of decades of repression and war. nevertheless got close to the mark in an edito- In The Case for Democracy, former rial shortly after the 9/11 attacks. “No, it was Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky ar- not Islam that took the towers down. But it gued that the democratic revolutions was not Episcopalianism either,” they wrote. which toppled the Soviet Union de- “The terrorists are waging a war of ideas, pended on three key elements: enslaved and the ideas upon which they are acting are people who yearned to be free, leaders ideas in the Islamic tradition…There are those outside who believed they could be, who wish to deny the religious character of and policies that linked the world com- munity to the regime’s treatment of its Al Qaeda’s violence, so as to transform bin own people. The book was mandatory Ladenism into another variety of anti-colonial reading in the Bush White House. “It protest.” Meanwhile, Protestantism, which has will work anywhere around the world,” always cared deeply about theology - Luther’s Sharansky wrote, “including in the Reformation was, at its core, a spiritual cam- Arab world.” paign –has the necessary tools to come even How could that be true? History—es- closer to the mark. By placing the authority pecially recent history—reminds us that of the Bible above any individual or institu- there is no formula to assure a trans- tion, Protestants are less restrained than other formation from tyranny to democratic faith traditions in exposing the pretensions of self-government. political and religious leaders. They are better equipped to resist political correctness in any The Protestant tradition, which emerged form. as a reaction against Catholicism’s doctrine of perfectionism, is well-equipped to defend For the Christian realist, the horrific against this myth of progress. “The politi- acts of barbarism committed in the pursuit cal life of man,” wrote Niebuhr, “must con- of a spiritual utopia are not the result of stantly steer between the Scylla of anarchy “grievances” with Western society. Rather, and the Charybdis of tyranny.” It is for good they are the latest expression of an ancient reason that the American Founders, armed malignancy—the Will to Power—clothed in the with a strong dose of Protestant realism, robes and symbols of religion. C.S Lewis, in an- worried that factions—especially those fu- other context, described this will as the “ruth- eled by sectarian hatreds—would prove fa- less, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon tal to national unity. Thus Madison’s insight self, which is the mark of Hell.” The demonic in The Federalist: “Had every Athenian citi- vision of radical Islam is not a force that can zen been a Socrates, every Athenian assem- be bribed, appeased, accommodated, con- bly would still have been a mob.” tained, or placated into submission. Second, the Christian realist insists on Third, a foreign policy based on an honest assessment of the threats to in- Christian realism makes the defense of ternational peace and security. Let’s take Western political and religious ideals an the challenge of radical Islamic jihad. The overarching priority. Rooted in their un- claims and ambitions of al Qaeda, ISIS, and derstanding of divine grace, Protestant other terrorist groups cannot be wished reformers delivered a withering critique of away. Unlike the national security documents the entire legalistic project that had become adopted by the Obama administration, a real- “Christendom.” They laid the foundation for istic National Security Strategy would identify our liberal democratic order. Government the religious sources of the terrorist ideology by consent, the separation of powers, a that threatens the United States and its allies. constitution based on natural rights and
30 “Meanwhile, Protestantism, which has always cared deeply about theology - Luther’s Reformation was, at its core, a spiritual campaign –has the necessary tools to come even closer to the mark. By placing the authority of the Bible above any individual or institution, Protestants are less restrained than other faith traditions in exposing the pretensions of political and religious leaders. They are better equipped to resist political correctness in any form.”
human equality, freedom of conscience, fellow Christian realists would have none of free speech, freedom of assembly—all of it: “When the mind is not confused by uto- these achievements are inconceivable with- pian illusions,” he wrote, “it is not difficult out the moral capital and spiritual insights to recognize genuine achievements of jus- of evangelical Christianity. They are the de- tice, and to feel under obligation to defend fining features of American exceptionalism. them against the threats of tyranny and the Yet religious progressives, when ob- negation of justice.” sessed with America’s shortcomings, lose A one-time socialist candidate for sight of these accomplishments. They find Congress, Niebuhr was not blind to the it hard to make moral distinctions between deep injustices—economic and racial—in American democracy and even the most American society. Yet he could no longer loathsome and oppressive dictatorships. abide the morally debased reasoning of Thus the lament of John Haynes Holmes, his fellow socialists in response to fascist a New York City minister and chairman of aggression; he resigned from the party. He the American Civil Liberties Union, so typi- then turned his mind toward combatting cal of liberal theologians in the 1940s: “Our the same moral confusion afflicting liberal sins have found us out, that’s all,” he con- Protestantism: cluded. “If Hitler triumphs, it will be as the punishment for our transgressions.” We believe the task of defending the rich inheritance of our civilization to Here is the spirit of the embittered be an imperative one, however much utopian, alive and well in progressive we might desire that our social system Christianity. Recall the disturbing refrain were more worthy of defense… We do of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President not find it particularly impressive to Obama’s ex-favorite pastor, in the wake of celebrate one’s sensitive conscience the 9/11 attack: “America’s chickens are by enlarging upon all the well-known coming home to roost…God damn America! evils of our western world and equating God damn America!” Niebuhr and his them with the evils of the totalitarian
31 The Gorgon Medusa, punished for her arrogance and for breaking her vows to Minerva, suggests the importance of humility and fidelity to God for the maintenance of prosperity
systems. It is just as important for Their progressive progeny are not hard Christians to be discriminating in their to identify. Duke’s Stanley Hauerwas speaks judgments, as for them to recognize the for many when he denies the need for a for- element of sin in all their endeavors. eign policy that could thwart the depraved The Christian realist can never equate ambitions of terrorist groups or rogue re- American democratic values with gospel gimes. “My only response is I do not have morality: this opens the door to Christian a foreign policy. I have something better—a nationalism, a perversion of the faith. But church constituted by people who would a posture of cynicism toward the United rather die than kill.” States and the West is no less a corruption. What are we to make of this “theology of Social perfection at home is not required love”? The de facto pacifism of progressive before attempting to check aggression and Christianity presents us with a conscience punish injustice abroad. insulated from human suff ring. It is a con- science content to ignore the neighbor in t is at this point where Christian pro- crisis—whether he’s the Jew marched to the Igressives fail most conspicuously in gas at Auschwitz, the Tutsi villagers hacked their stated objective: to demonstrate the to death in Rwanda, the girls forced into love of Christ to their neighbor. Perhaps sexual slavery by Boko Haram, the fami- the most shameful behavior of American lies hunted down and executed by ISIS, the Christians during the Second World War gays rounded up and tossed from rooftops, was their practical indifference to the mil- or the Syrian refugees facing starvation or lions of victims of Nazism. extinction because of their faith. From 1938 to 1941, for example, Even secular political leaders at the American Protestant groups issued no few- United Nations have endorsed a doctrine er than 50 statements about how to achieve known as the “responsibility to protect” a just and durable peace. None offered a when civilian populations become the ob- plan to rescue Jews from the anti-Semitic ject of genocide or crimes against humanity. hatreds unleashed by the Nazis. There was At the moment when fresh thinking about lots of talk about debt relief and economic the Christian just war tradition is desper- assistance. Yet barely a handful of these ately needed, religious progressives have manifestos argued that the defeat of Nazism abandoned the concept altogether. “Thus was essential to international justice. the Christian ideal of love has degenerated
32 into a lovelessness which cuts itself off from supreme malevolence of their own day. a sorrowing and suffering world,” wrote Only a handful of religious leaders realized Niebuhr. “Love is made to mean not pity the demons that Nazism had let loose in the and sympathy or responsibility for the weal world. Few could imagine the sacrifices re- and woe of others, it becomes merely the quired to meet them. And fewer still dared abstract and negative perfection of peace in to predict the consequences of shrinking a warring world.” back from the duties assigned to America, Great Britain and their allies. In this, religious progressives succumb to an old temptation. They allow their ha- The Christians who did so sought to re- tred of war to blot out all other virtues and trieve a more biblical understanding of the obligations. But the historic and orthodox gospel as the foundation for their politics. Christian church has never viewed peace— They argued that the “gentleness” of Jesus peace at any cost—as the highest good. Such was not the full and final revelation of the a peace always ends in a preference for tyr- character of God. They insisted that both anny. It always adds to the catalogue of hu- the Old and the New Testament took the man suffering. wrath of God as well as the mercy of God seriously. “The divine mercy, apprehend- For the person whose life is threat- ed by Christian faith in the life and death ened by violence, servitude, or death, the of Christ, is not some simple kindness in- Christian conscience summons a full range different to good and evil,” wrote Niebuhr. of obligations: empathy, courage, sacrifice, “The whole point of the Christian doctrine and a determination to protect the neigh- of Atonement is that God cannot be mer- bor from great evil. Protestants have long ciful without fulfilling within himself, and appreciated the distinct role of government on man’s behalf, the requirements of divine in helping to carry out the last of these obli- justice.” gations. In his tract aimed at political lead- ers, On Secular Authority (1523), Martin The biblical answer to the problem of Luther explained that the sword of the State evil in human history, Christ’s death and “is a very great benefit and necessary to the resurrection, cannot separate justice from whole world, to preserve peace, to punish mercy. Thus the way of Jesus—what C.S. sin and to prevent evil.” Lewis once described as “terror and comfort intertwined”—dispels our utopian illusions. A just peace may be the final result of His gospel renders as futile our facile efforts these pursuits, God willing. But if peace is to create a society based on “love” while made the supreme goal, if it consumes all failing to reckon with the negation of love other obligations, it becomes an idol—and a which threatens every human endeavor. snare to the statesman as well as the saint. Here there is no place for sentimental hristian realism sets itself squarely Christianity, either in our pulpits or our Cagainst this idol, and against the politics. Here is a road less travelled. And utopian assumptions that give it life. The yet along this road lies our best hope: not post-9/11 era has exposed the resilience of for the immediate arrival of the kingdom of the utopian idea in both politics and reli- heaven, but for a greater measure of peace gion; it continues to exert a powerful hold on and justice within, and among, the nations of the earth. ■ the mind of modern liberalism. Unchecked, it represents a threat to the health and even survival of liberal democracy in America Joseph Loconte is an associate professor of his- and the West. tory at the King’s College in New York City and the author of A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: Where do we begin in confronting this How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered outlook? We need to recover the wisdom Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm and resolve of those who recognized the of 1914-1918.
33 COMMENT
34 TOWARD A NEW VISION FOR THE MIDDLE EAST BY ROBERT NICHOLSON he Middle East lies in the throes of a full-scale civilizational crisis. TScores of Sunnis and Shiites have declared war on the West in the name of Islam; in the meantime, they are slaughtering each other without shame. The simultaneous draw-down of U.S. troops, the rise of ISIS, the dismantling of the Syrian and Iraqi governments, the self-emancipation of the Kurds, and the imperial expansion of Iran have created new facts on the ground that dramatically complicate the next decade. Millions of people have been displaced, hundreds of thousands have been killed, and millions more have been physically and psychologically traumatized. The national borders created in the aftermath of World War I hover on the brink of collapse, and at this point there is a real question whether the region will ever go back to the way it was. If not, the next and most terrifying question is what new order will arise to take its place.
By exploring the regional importance of allow, the West can not only increase stabil- organic communities – ethnic and religious ity and freedom around the region but can blocs that have historically thought and also create new allies against the forces of acted as one – this essay aims to provide tyranny. a conceptual first step toward that new or- My goal is not to offer a comprehensive der should the old paradigm finally break. political strategy or to advocate for replac- It is these communities, I argue, that will ing the old map of the Middle East with a form the basis for the new Middle East. By new one. Prudence is the watchword in all protecting them and empowering them for things. However, I do hope to interrogate self-determination where circumstances old thinking and advance an innovative
35 conversation about U.S. strategy in the re- Prior to World War I the Middle East gion in the months and years ahead – in- had always been a cosmopolitan mix of eth- cluding within the pages of this new jour- nic and religious communities that more or nal. The conversation will be necessarily less looked out for themselves. Even during exploratory, even tentative. But sometimes the episodic cycles of empires and caliph- the best way to play is with strategic modest ates, the bulk of everyday life took place in and the patient advance of runners in delib- local units under the rule of local author- erate, methodical ways. ities. Group affiliation, whether religious, ethnic, or tribal, was the ultimate bench- There are only two things that are cer- mark of identity. tain at this point: First, ignoring the Middle East is not an option. Let’s not even speak In the wake of Sykes-Picot, the peoples about terrorism. Right now the refugee cri- of the Middle East, Arabs and non-Arabs sis sweeping across Europe demonstrates alike, were shocked by the new geographic that the problems of the Middle East don’t and political upheaval. The newly-drawn stay there, and that the West must deal pro- countries, untethered from any underlying actively with the region or find existential demographic reality, were viewed by the in- threats in its own backyard. And we can- digenous peoples as arbitrary innovations not address the symptoms of the problem of Western powers wrought for their own without seeking to eradicate the underlying benefit at the expense of the local inhab- disease. Forcing the West to swallow huge itants. The new political regime was, for numbers of refugees will only result in a them, simply the continuation of Western more monolithic and radicalized Middle meddling and betrayal which had begun East, a more fractured and frustrated West, when the British and French governments and an ever-expanding gulf between the reneged on their wartime promise that two. The solution to the refugee crisis, like Arabs would receive some degree of polit- so many other crises, is to address the prob- ical independence for their military part- lem at its root. nership against the Ottoman Empire. Arab resentment against the Western powers Second, our current model doesn’t seem would endure over the subsequent years to be working. For over a decade we have only to crescendo when the French forcibly worked hard to bring peace and democracy deposed Faisal bin Hussein, the would-be to Iraq. Today the country is riven by inter- king of the “Arab Kingdom of Syria,” from ethnic and interreligious conflict. Baghdad his throne in Damascus in 1920. remains powerless in the face of territorial incursions by Iran, the Islamic State, and While calm eventually returned and the the Kurdish Regional Government. Why new states started to take on a life of their hasn’t America been able to succeed here? own, local inhabitants never forgot that Why, despite all the blood and treasure, has these so-called nations were to a signifi- Iraq remained so dysfunctional? It is clear cant extent purely imaginary. They never that we don’t know the answer. And that, in could proclaim supreme loyalty to the gov- and of itself, begs for a new approach. ernments that ruled them. And they could never elevate their new political identity ext year marks the centennial of over the interests of their native commu- Nthe Sykes-Picot Agreement, a se- nity. Nevertheless, United States foreign cret pact struck between Britain, France, policy (like the foreign policy of every oth- and Russia during World War I to apportion er Western government) continues to take the shattered pieces of the Ottoman Empire these artificial states as given and seeks to among themselves after the conflict ended. make them stable democracies governed by This infamous agreement, implemented principles of civil rights, freedom of speech, through a series of international treaties and free market economics. Every citizen among Western states, constructed the map gets one vote and the opportunity to par- of the Middle East as we know it today. ticipate in the political process. All men
36 are given equal standing to pursue life and overflow with memos and policy papers ad- liberty under the beneficent gaze of blind dressing such questions, and yet we are no justice. closer to regional peace than we were ten years ago. Yet this approach makes major assump- tions about Middle Eastern society that One possible explanation is that our don’t always hold. It assumes that Middle policymakers are asking the wrong ques- Eastern borders are meaningful to those tions. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time. In who live within them. It assumes that the his memoir The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, fundamental unit of Middle Eastern society T.E. Lawrence observed a unique difference is the individual, and not the ethnic or reli- between the views of Arabs and Britons gious community into which those individ- during World War I concerning the pre- uals are born. It assumes that religion can ferred post-war order: be kept in the tent, and that metaphysical concerns will always be trumped by eco- The problem of the foreign theo- nomic self-interest. It assumes that his- rists—“Is Damascus to rule the Hejaz, or torically-isolated communities of different can Hejaz rule Damascus?” did not trouble faiths and tribes will pledge allegiance and [the Arabs] at all, for they would not have sacrifice their sons for a state run by mem- it set. The Semites’ idea of nationality was bers of rival communities located hundreds the independence of clans and villages, of miles away. and their ideal of national union was epi- sodic combined resistance to an intruder. As the anniversary of Sykes-Picot ap- Constructive policies, an organized state, proaches, it is clear that the system it gave an extended empire, were not so much be- birth to stands in jeopardy. Many Middle yond their sight as hateful in it. They were Easterners are returning to Islam as the fighting to get rid of Empire, not to win it. source of cultural and political authenticity, casting off their arbitrary state identities and Lawrence had his finger on something seeking to reestablish the caliphate that was important here. Westerners who work on dismantled by the Great Powers. Religious Middle Eastern policy often look to create radicalization is increasing as Muslim or reinforce multinational political entities communities argue over the true essence with an underlying structure of rational of Islam and compete to demonstrate their authority. Middle Easterners, on the oth- bona fides as messengers of Muhammad’s er hand, find legitimacy in their own local vision. Lay Muslims are caught in the mid- communities: Kurds with Kurds, Shiites dle of this firefight. Non-Muslim communi- with Shiites, Assyrians with Assyrians. ties, heavily outnumbered, face nothing less Faith in the common weal is almost nonex- than an existential threat. istent. Fear of the other is ever present. I don’t have the answers that have elud- Middle Easterners crave safety and in- ed America and her allies in their struggle dependence for their group even at the ex- to bring stability to the region and set it on pense of the state’s well-being. Westerners a course toward prosperity. But I do believe pursue the opposite approach. The com- there is at least one basic principle that can plications that result should not be sur- help us understand the region as the region wants to be understood: the principle of or- prising. Taking Lawrence’s observation to ganic community. heart, US policymakers must recognize the abiding importance of group identities and he strategic questions are endless: the abiding mistrust that these groups feel TShould Baghdad control Kurdistan? toward each other. Regardless of the final Will Damascus regain control of Raqqa? strategic priorities, factoring these princi- Will Tehran maintain its influence over the ples into U.S. policy will inevitably lead to politics of Beirut? Government databases more constructive ends.
37 he fundamental disease of the alking in general terms about affirm- TMiddle East is a crisis of identity Ting and supporting organic commu- coupled with bitterness toward the West nities in security and self-determination is and a paralyzing fear of rival communi- easy. Drawing direct application to real-life ties. Contrary to popular conceptions, the circumstances is much harder. How could Middle East is not a monolithic sea of Islam this new strategic vision be implemented or a swarming hive of hostile Arabs. It is a without making the situation even worse mosaic of religions and denominations, lan- and where should implementation start? guages and ethnicities, cultures and subcul- First, with respect to how, implemen- tures that have intermingled but remained tation of this model should be done only disparate for thousands of years. where practicable. A mad dash to balkan- America should seek to play upon this ize the Middle East and carve new states reality, not struggle against it. The problem out of whole cloth will result in the same with U.S. foreign policy is that it tries to issues caused by Sykes-Picot. Second, im- make the region look like America: a multi- plementation should be phased to coincide national melting pot that transcends group with current realities. Proclaiming inde- identities for the sake of a greater good. A pendence for Druze in Syria may not be the better policy would be to nudge the region most useful first step toward securing that toward the European model: a consortium community’s future. Nativity takes time: of particularistic and self-interested na- A smaller, more interim arrangement may tion-states that maintain their own ethnic make more sense for the time being – a and religious identities, perhaps under the province or safe haven, for example, may banner of a larger transnational union. have to be sufficient for now. Third, imple- mentation should only happen where the The American strategic vision, whatever would-be nation is committed to freedom its final form is, should work toward foster- and rule of law and is prepared to take on ing a Middle East comprised of self-deter- the responsibilities of self-government. mining nation-states living in light of their Building a state without proper leadership heritage under the principles of freedom, will condemn these new polities to failure. coexistence, and rule of law. The peaceful Fourth, implementation should begin with character of these states will derive not those communities that first of all meet the from autocracy and fear, but from the pop- above criteria and that are most urgently in ulations’ shared sense of history and com- need of outside assistance. mon vision for the future – in other words, from their desire to act out their collective Second, where to begin? Many people will as a people. talk about securing independence for the
38 Kurds as a natural first step in bringing sta- Assyrian heartland around ancient Nineveh bility to the region, and it’s a good idea over- (modern Mosul) and the plains that run all. But there is another community facing along the upper Tigris and Euphrates riv- an existential crisis whose plight should ers. It was here that God sent Jonah, where be especially meaningful to American Isaiah prophesied a restored Assyrian na- Christians and anyone else who cares about tion alongside Israel and Egypt at the end protecting minorities in the face of religious of days, and where early apostles preached persecution: that is, the Christian commu- the gospel. Today the Assyrians have been nity scattered across northern Iraq and chased out of Nineveh and scattered across northeastern Syria. These Christians are the world, but they long for the day when facing nothing short of a genocide at the they will be free from the rule of Kurds and hands of the Islamic State and, to some ex- Arabs and can return to reestablish their tent, their Kurdish neighbors. In Iraq alone ancient polity on their native soil. their numbers have diminished from 1.6 million in 2003 to just over 200,000 today. Whether an autonomous province in- side Iraq, a homogenous Assyrian state Lots of Americans are talking and writ- erected on the Nineveh Plains post-Iraq, or ing about helping these Christians, but few a mixed “State of Mesopotamia” comprised have gotten past the most myopic of solu- of Assyrians and other friendly minorities, tions. Humanitarian aid is of course criti- the idea of new political entity in northern cal, but aid money only goes so far. Schemes Iraq has garnered more and more attention to evacuate Christians and resettle them in as of late. Working to help the Assyrians the West have attracted many supporters in recover even a fragment of their ancient recent months, but this strategy ultimately homeland would undoubtedly help secure does more harm than good. Not only does their future in a collapsing Middle East. It it concede victory to the Islamic State and would help preserve Christianity in its an- eradicate the witness of Christianity in the cient homeland. It would undermine the region, it hurls impoverished and trauma- Islamic State. It would help create a buffer tized Christians into foreign lands with few between feuding Kurds and Arabs. It would resources or support. create a safe zone for minority communities The best way to help persecuted around the region to find refuge from per- Christians is to find a way to ensure their secution. And it would provide a new and ongoing survival inside their historic likeminded ally for the U.S. and its regional homeland. And the best way to do that is partners in the struggle against totalitarian to recognize not just their religious identi- ideology. ty but their ethnic identity as well. These here are, of course, numerous are not just Christians, they are Assyrian complications. Christians descended from a pre-Islamic, T Aramaic-speaking nation that has resid- First and foremost are the external ed in Mesopotamia since well before the challenges: not least among them creating time of Christ. Also known as Syriacs and conditions on the ground that will allow an Chaldeans, the Assyrians see themselves as Assyrian polity to take root. This means a distinct people. They have their own liter- destroying the Islamic State and crafting ature, art, and music. They have traditional a multinational security structure that dances and clothing. They have national carries moral and spiritual credibility, a heroes. real sense of resolve, and a tremendous amount of resources from the international This community stretches in a series community. of pockets – an “Aramaic archipelago” of sorts – from the hills of northern Israel all There are also internal challenges as the way to the mountains of western Iran. Assyrians seek to move beyond a millen- Its nucleus, however, lies in the historic nia of powerlessness and ready themselves
39 for self-governance. They need rigorous s I said at the outset, this essay is training and assistance in areas of self-de- Anot a comprehensive strategy for fense, political leadership, community- and U.S. foreign policy. It proposes only a more state-building, education, and cultural and intentional move toward a mosaic-like linguistic preservation. They need a van- Middle East comprised of self-governing guard of forward-thinking young leaders and mutually interdependent nation-states who are devoted enough and skilled enough built to coincide with the organic boundar- to lead their community into the future. ies of ancient communities. The ideal may Such leadership is rare, but the Western be difficult to achieve, at least for the time community of nations could be very helpful being. More realistic is the establishment in helping source it. of one or two such entities in the chaotic swirl of a collapsing Iraq and Syria. The any skeptics will doubt the ability ideal will always be qualified by reality and of Assyrians or any other Middle M measured against the best interests of the Eastern community to determine its own United States. But that doesn’t mean we future in such a hostile and complex en- shouldn’t try to achieve what is most pos- vironment. But skeptics also doubted the prospect of Jewish political revival only a sible and closest to the ideal. Timing is key. hundred years ago. Who could not help but Leadership is dispositive. But prudence laugh at young Jewish farmers and intel- must govern all. lectuals working against all odds to push Questions abound. How can the U.S. the concept of an independent Jewish pol- pursue this strategy in the face of ill-dis- ity located inside the Ottoman Empire and posed regimes like Iran and Turkey? Which centered on the ancient city of Jerusalem? communities should achieve independence Today the Jews are living on their ancient and which should not? What are the deter- homeland, speaking their ancient language, mining factors? Who decides? What kind of and surviving – even flourishing – among regional security arrangement can be put hostile neighbors committed to their in place to ensure interim safety for these destruction. fledgling polities as they make their way to The Assyrians are actually in a far bet- a sufficient level of independence? How can ter position today than the Jews were then, we work with regional partners to ensure and there is no reason to doubt that the that our actions don’t appear as yet another same process that resulted in a Jewish state attempt to impose Western ways? could not likewise result in an Assyrian one. Indeed, there are numerous parallels The point of this essay is not to answer between the two causes and lessons to be these questions, but merely to raise them. learned – a subject I hope to write about Yet if asking the wrong questions has up to elsewhere. now contributed to the present quagmire, then asking better questions is no idle en- Israel herself may in fact be a good mod- deavor. Small ball can win the day. ■ el for what the new Middle East could look like: a series of small, mostly homogenous nation-states with strong Western allianc- Robert Nicholson is the executive director of es and innovative economies based on the The Philos Project, a nonprofit organization that twin pillars of freedom and law. As the seeks to promote positive Christian engagement in the Middle East. He holds a BA in Hebrew “start-up nation” par excellence, Israel has Studies from Binghamton University, and a JD acquired much hard-won experience about and MA (Middle Eastern History) from Syracuse building and maintaining a progressive yet University. A formerly enlisted Marine and a 2012- traditional society in a region where fear 2013 Tikvah Fellow, Robert lives in New York City and violence remain the rule of the day. with his wife and two children.
40 ESSAY
The importance of water navigation for commerce and national security is depicted here by cargo ships and an armed U.S. Naval vessel NEITHER YODER NOR FOUCAULT: Politics & the Problem of Violence in Andy Crouch’s Playing God BRYAN T. McGRAW
teach an introductory course in political philosophy near- Ily every semester, and toward the end of the term I have my students read an excerpt from Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. Foucault’s work traces (and sometimes fudges) the history of punishment in the West as a means of laying bare what he sees as the true nature of political rule and especially contemporary liberal orders.
41 The excerpt’s centerpiece recognize and that are deeply institutions to be something is Foucault’s discussion of oppressive. dark and malevolent, rooted the Panopticon, Jeremy in sinfulness and intrinsical- Bentham’s design for a pen- What is surprising is how ly tied to self-glorification and itentiary in which prisoners’ many of my students—smart, oppression. For all too many cells are arranged around earnest Christians whose lives of my students, and for all too a central tower where the have been marked by a de- many Christians in latter-day guards, shielded by mirrored gree of ease and success prac- America, power is not a bless- glass, can see everything a tically unthinkable to the vast ing or gift but a force exercised prisoner does at all times. But majority of their fellow hu- over others, usually to their precisely because the glass is man beings—find this to be a detriment. mirrored, the prisoners can- plausible, maybe even persua- not know when they are (or sive picture of the social and Andy Crouch means to change are not) being observed—and political order they inhabit. that, arguing in Playing God: thus they find themselves “dis- Foucault’s dyspeptic critique Redeeming the Gift of Power ciplined” into “proper” behav- appeals to them, I think, not (2013) that while exercises of ior via the mere threat of sur- just because they are late ad- power are of course always tied veillance. Foucault’s point is to olescents marked by vivid up with our human sinfulness, suggest that modern liberal so- delusions of how “The Man” power itself is not simply a cieties, notwithstanding their has got them down (though problem to be avoided or con- claims about the freedom and that helps). Rather, many tained or lamented. Rather, equality of all, are shot through find it attractive because they power is a divine gift meant to with disciplinary practices of are instinctively suspicious enable the possibility of true power that mold and shape of institutions, believing the human flourishing, and when us in ways we typically do not power that animates those we refuse to exercise power the
42 cost is often that possibility. and everywhere ultimately the inasmuch as the exercise of To put it altogether too simply, product of the willful exercise power in our fallen world is though I hope not inaccurate- of power, and always and ev- always tied up with our sin- ly, Crouch means to persuade erywhere tied up with coercion fulness, it was “not always so.” us that loving one’s neighbor and violence. Simply put, my Rather, we were originally cre- usually involves the exercise students find both Yoder and ated imago Dei, in the image of power and, thereby, that the Foucault attractive because of God, with the privilege of wholesale refusal to do so is to both have a great deal in com- exercising power on behalf of disobey God. Crouch’s book is mon regarding how they view the One who created us to the a masterful and sorely needed political power. end of promoting the flou - correction regarding the na- ishing of all to His glory. And ture and possibilities of power, Nevertheless, while they might in spite of our sinfulness, we and it is one that all of us with share a sense of what poli- can still aspire to that original power—that is to say, nearly all tics, generally speaking, con- mandate, using our acquired of us—should read and think sists in, Yoder and Foucault (or inherited) skills and re- on. But it is not enough, and diverge dramatically when it sources for others’ good. The Crouch’s argument stops short comes to how we should re- world is not, or at least not al- precisely at that place where spond. Foucault rather hope- ways, simply a zero-sum game. we 21st-century American lessly seemed to think the Christians find ourselves most best one could do is to try and I suspect that most of Crouch’s perplexed with power, namely break up the various accre- readers will fi d much of what politics. tions of power—institutions, he says congenial and even in other words—that made it persuasive. We all can think of The funny thing about my difficul for individuals to live the generous teacher or boss students’ fascination with as they willed. This belief is, or neighbor whose actions, or Foucault is how it parallels for instance, one reason he ex- exercises of power, did more to a similar fascination with pressed early support for the promote our good than we had the work of Anabaptist theo- 1979 Iranian Revolution even any right to expect. Though we logians, particularly John after it became clear that it had may sometimes be tempted to- Howard Yoder and Stanley taken a hard Islamic line: it ward a deep cynicism regard- Hauerwas. Yoder, especially, stood as a broad repudiation of ing those around us, especially labored to put nonviolence at liberal modernity. Yoder took those in authority over us, very the heart of the Christian life, quite an alternative tack, call- few of us think that everyone is and at first glance it might ing on his fellow Christians to really only out for themselves. seem strange that students commit themselves to living That sort of cynicism, like could embrace both Yoder the out the virtues of the Sermon Hume’s moral skepticism, can committed Christian pacifist on the Mount as part of the ac- be thought but not really lived. and Foucault the atheist apos- tually existing Church. That is, tle of power. But the two are given the practically demonic That said, this congenial re- not as much at odds as they nature of politics, Christians ception will likely wane when might first appear, at least should follow Jesus in refusing it comes to the chapter on pol- with respect to their under- to play politics’ deeply violent itics, and I fear that Crouch standing of what constitutes game and instead embody an does not do enough to change “ordinary” political life. What alternative polis, the Church, reader’s minds about politi- they share is a conviction that one animated by commitments cal power precisely because ordinary politics is not driv- to peaceableness, forgiveness, he himself evinces a deep am- en by moral commitments or love, and the like. bivalence when it comes to reason or nature, but instead one of the things that distin- by the willful desire to domi- Crouch’s argument encour- guishes political authorities, nate others. Not every partic- ages Christians who, like my namely their employment of ular instance of political life students, find Yoder attrac- lethal force; that is, their lethal is overseen by some cackling, tive to reconsider their (often power. knuckle-cracking villain look- intuitive) Foucauldian sense ing to conquer the world (or of what power (and politics) Crouch argues that the mis- at least his corner of it). But might mean, even outside use of power always involves for Foucault and Yoder both, the Church proper. Crouch’s injustice and idolatry paired political orders are always strategy is to remind us that up together. If some person
43 or organization exercises pow- analysis, simply emanations organizations and yet still er wrongly, they are “play- of violent structures. It is the think both that they must be at ing God,” making themselves second task, of course, where least basically armed, and that (or maybe some other thing) the real controversy lies and they are justified in employing something to be placed above where I think Crouch pulls up lethal violence, if only in the the true God—and in so doing short, with perhaps significant last resort. If an unjust exer- they commit (and induce oth- consequences. cise of power is recognized by ers to commit) an injustice. the simple fact that it under- And treating others unjustly Every political order must use, mines human well-being, isn’t turns out to mean simply com- or threaten the use, of force— the expression of lethal force mitting ourselves to something or, more broadly, coercion— by the police precisely such an other than God. Fraudulent but obviously political au- improper use of force? financial systems make a god thorities sometimes use force of money and treat others in malign or excessive ways, Crouch really doesn’t give us a and their resources unjustly. tipping over into Crouch’s “vi- clear answer to this question. Committing adultery breaks olence.” The distinction be- He notes that most Christians faith with one’s spouse and tween the two follows on from have held to some version of makes an idol of sexual desire the basic prior argument, the Just War Tradition with- (or whatever might motivate namely that power has as its out endorsing it himself. it). Exercising power properly proper end the flourishing of Instead, he merely accepts the means refusing the twin temp- all. So when a state tortures idea that “no society can sur- tations of idolatry and injus- or murders or permits the de- vive without coercion” while tice. So what does it look like struction of the unborn, it acts also seeming to suppose that to exercise power properly in (or permits others to act) in the sort of “lethal or injurious the realm of politics? ways that constitute an unjust force” that political orders uti- exercise of power precisely in lize is not “ever a good thing in Crouch takes up this ques- how those acts undermine hu- itself”(p 142). What seems to tion explicitly in Chapter 7, man well-being. be at work here—and I employ though of course politics has “seems” because I don’t know never really been absent. One This all makes a great deal of that Crouch has things clear of his early examples of how sense, and we would be much even in his own mind—is that power can be used well and better off if our various po- political orders are justified badly, for instance, has to litical authorities genuinely in using deadly force in the do with modern-day slavery, thought of their power in this course of their ordinary oper- where such practices can only way. But there can also be de- ations but that such force is a thrive with the cooperation or tected in Crouch, I think, an kind of evil. We cannot escape support of political authori- ambivalence regarding force that the state bears the sword, ties. He attempts here to do and coercion that, if left un- but neither can we celebrate it. at least two related things: (1) tended, could in fact unrav- refute the idea that politics el his argument about pow- In one sense, this is obvious- is simply about violence (or er as a whole. The trouble is ly correct. The frisson we feel the threat thereof); and (2) that while Crouch rightly dis- watching a movie as an es- draw a distinction between agrees with Yoder’s conflation pecially disreputable villain what he calls “force” and “vi- of power and force (or vio- meets his violent end should olence” that in turn marks the lence), he leaves us unsure as not translate into the real po- distinction between the prop- how we ought then to regard litical world, even when we er and improper uses of po- the sort of lethal force that he think such an end necessary litical power. The first seems acknowledges every political and just. Crowds celebrating almost obviously true, since order must have at its dispos- the killing of Osama bin Laden though it may be the case that al in order for it to do its job. outside the White House politics always has some rela- How should we think about should make us feel uncom- tion to force, to reduce poli- the fact that every state kills fortable—we would be better tics to violence simpliciter is (and, more broadly, threatens off giving those who sent him to mis-describe all sorts of po- to kill) as part of its ordinary into the hereafter a sincere (if litical phenomena. Legislative operation? We may well think muted) appreciation, acknowl- deliberation and electoral that police forces should not edging the rightness of such contests are not, in the final look quite like paramilitary acts without treating it like
44 the latest celebrity athletic tri- I noted earlier that one of the to presume that we can ignore umph. Killing a human being admirable parts of Crouch’s either sort of scarcity while ex- is a serious and terrible thing, discussion of power is the way ercising power of any sort. The and Crouch is right to suggest he disabuses the reader of the solution, insofar as it is a solu- we treat it with the sobriety idea that power is always a tion, is to face those scarci- and care it deserves. zero-sum game. It obviously ties clearly and recognize that isn’t, as his numerous exam- some (though not all) of our But in another sense, it is just ples show. But sometimes it choices will have aspects to as obviously not correct. To is, and we do ourselves no fa- them that are tragic, even ter- hold simultaneously that po- vor in pretending otherwise. rible, but that we still can and litical authorities may employ Consider the business execu- should exercise power in a way lethal force as part of their re- tive, who has the responsibil- that does not commit us to act- sponsibilities and that such le- ity of exercising her power in ing immorally. thal force is a kind of evil looks such a way that it conduces to to me to be morally incoher- business’s, her own, and oth- This is not, I hardly need to ent at best. If some act truly ers’ flourishing. It seems like- say, a view that should give us is evil, we have no business ly, near inevitable, that she much comfort, for it suggests doing it, even if we think the will, on occasion, have to fire that we may be called upon to consequences would be tre- employees for wrongdoing or make terrible choices when mendously happy—just think incompetence. While such an we inhabit positions of power here of Paul in Romans 3:8 ex- event could lead to good in the and authority, choices that are pressly criticizing just this sort fired employee’s life, there is necessary to preserve the con- of moral consequentialism (i.e. certainly no guarantee, and it ditions for human flourishing the idea that we might “do evil seems quite possible that such even when they impose real, that good may result.”). We an event could be thought to tangible harms. My students, are often tempted to say that ruin that person’s life, even if I should note, tend not to like compromising on our moral it was the proper thing to do. this view. They are much more obligations is sometimes “nec- But insofar as the business comfortable with the idea ei- essary,” but that is usually just owner is exercising her power ther that power is just what a dodge, an attempt to obscure appropriately, we should not, Foucault suggests it is or that the moral contradictions we we cannot, hold her culpable. there is always a positive-sum entangle ourselves in all the She has done no wrong. It is solution to be found if we just time. Indeed, as best I can see just not the case that we can look hard enough. It would be it, Crouch’s ambivalence here always (or even often) exer- nice to tell them the latter, ex- emerges out of the very real dif- cise our power in such a way cept that in so doing I likely ficulty in seeing how the legit- that everyone flourishes. That would leave them vulnerable imate (lethal) exercise of polit- is, there is always (or at least to embracing the former. ical power fits into the broader there is often) a hard, or diffi- claim about how power is for cult, side to power, even power Power is indeed a divine gift, our flourishing. It is one thing directed toward its proper end, bestowed upon human per- to say that the business execu- flourishing sons for the cultivation of cre- tive can act in such a way that ation, all to God’s glory. But all flourish, but when the state My point here is not that as finite creatures marred by kills someone, even legitimate- power is bad or that the ly, such commendations ring Anabaptists are correct. Far our own cupidity, we should more than a bit hollow. from it. Instead, I mean to sug- take seriously the ambivalenc- gest that Crouch’s understand- es inherent in all our exercises The trouble with this, though, able ambivalence when faced of power, not just our political ■ is that if the exercise of power with the exercise of power that ones. is indeed morally problemat- has such drastic consequenc- ic at the very point—Crouch’s es—the destruction of a human Bryan T. McGraw is an Associate Professor of Politics “violence”—that Yoder and the being—leaves open the door at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Anabaptists fi d so troubling, to similarly structured ambiv- IL, where he teaches political why should we not think that alences everywhere power is theory and works on perfecting every exercise of power is like- exercised. We live in a world of his pulled pork BBQ. wise problematic, even if the scarcity, both moral and ma- stakes are not quite so stark? terial, and it is unreasonable
45 ESSAY
Old Glory A CALL TO ARMS: An American Survey of War in the 21st Century CHAPLAIN (COLONEL) TIMOTHY S. MALLARD, U.S. ARMY
ince my commissioning in 1988 as a United States Army Chaplain SCandidate, the fundamental purpose of war has changed relatively little: war generally remains a contest of wills to achieve political ends between nation-states employing military force. Clausewitz’ famous dictum still holds true that “War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.”1
46 However, war inherently remain decisive in shaping my colleagues in the Army seems different today, does a nation’s decision to go to Chaplain Corps who daily at- it not? How so? What has war and its prosecution of the tempt to help both those war- changed, and what endures as same; religion is and will re- riors and their families inte- America enters the 21st Century main a catalyst in geopolitical grate such suffering into per- still prosecuting the longest, decision-making, particularly sonal and family system iden- most intractable war in its his- the formation of grand strat- tities. A genuine theological tory? I make no pretense to egy, conflict termination, and reality of this pastoral service have the complete answers to reconciliation; and finally, the has been, I think, a renewed such broad questions, yet they context of war is shifting, with understanding, from at least are important to the profes- nation-states enduring as sta- the Christian tradition, that sion of arms, the nation, and, bilizing forces in the global suffering is not an end unto I contend, the world as well, so order and sub-state actors ex- itself but a means to an end sketching them is a type of sa- ercising increasing influence, of renewing a living hope. cred duty. As part of my calling but with the potential of war Suffering thus becomes a valu- now as an Army chaplain with in cyberspace to produce com- able experience of living both over 27 years’ service, I trust plex catastrophes incorporat- immanently and transcen- I’ve gained a broad enough ing lethal effects in diplomatic, dently in, by, and through the professional understanding to informational, military, and God who is both with us and undertake the task. The son economic spheres (including beyond us, and ironically be- of a career Army chaplain, I energy, healthcare, and trans- comes an antidote to the per- have served at and through portation networks). I have vasive idolatry of the self on the attack on the Pentagon, explored these questions in which contemporary American deployed to combat multiple greater detail in my own doc- society is so fixated. Such a times, and most importantly toral research but shall simply living hope—founded and ex- have pastorally walked with detail them here and see if they ercised in Jesus Christ—thus warriors and their families might point the way to a deep- transforms our suffering from through the suffering of a war er understanding of war as a a barrier to be overcome to a where religion and religious social phenomenon and, more path to be walked.3 issues inform combat. As a re- importantly, how like-mind- sult, I probably have as great a ed Christian spiritual leaders However, it further remains currency with these questions might responsibly direct war’s true that such suffering affects as does anyone. Still, these conduct in the future. not only warriors and families musings are mine alone—cer- but also the societies which tainly not those of the U.S. f the four truisms I’ve out- employ them and, by exten- Army Chief of Chaplains, the Olined, we cannot escape sion, the world at large. Thus, U.S. Army, or the Department the enduring reality that war the suffering of war takes on of Defense—and I can only of- remains catastrophic to war- a multi-dimensional charac- fer them as limited consider- riors and their families and ter: it is individual, familial, ations designed to stimulate corrosive to military forma- communal, national, and even professional reflection and tions. While this observation global in its nature and effects. discussion. Yet, in this sense, might seem naively self-evi- The image which reminds me one might consider this arti- dent, in a culture which often of this is that though all war- cle a verbal call to arms to ap- inchoately desires technology riors leave the battlefield, the preciate anew the enduring yet to sanitize the messiness of re- battlefield never leaves them. changing nature of contempo- ality war, reminds us such an The weight of carrying such a rary war. effort is illusory. Combat trau- burden is concentric to soci- ma, post-traumatic stress, and ety and is a life-long project. That said, from my service the moral and spiritual injury This war on terror has remind- in the profession of arms, in personnel wound not only ed those of us in the American there are four truths which warriors but also the loved context of this reality. the Global War on Terror has ones around them.2 both elevated and affirmed However, and perhaps relat- war is catastrophic to individ- I have been particularly in- ed to this, this war also subtly uals and families and corrosive formed in this regard by corrodes the military forma- to military formations; values the enduring ministries of tions and institutions which
47 provide citizens their securi- ethical analysis from perspec- For instance, one cannot un- ty. As Mark Mattox reminds tives such as the Just War derstand how France ap- us, war on a protracted scale Tradition, the tradition in proaches contemporary secu- diminishes the moral fiber of which I am trained and ad- rity challenges and decisions warriors and, to the extent that mittedly operate in the pro- about war without under- those same warriors become fession of arms. Rather, what standing its almost sacrosanct leaders in their formations, I am advocating is that in the desire for peace and how that also diminishes the moral fiber best tradition of American civ- value still retains strong ties of the units in their charge.4 il-military relations, we as a to the nation’s experience in For a modern constitutional nation need to rediscover links World War I, perhaps partic- democracy in which the mil- to an increasingly profession- ularly the Battle of Verdun in itary forces of the state are an alized and, to be candid, dis- 1915-1916. Another contem- ever-growing cohort of skilled tant set of military forces oper- porary example of this concept professionals charged with the ating for the nation but at the lies in America’s continual em- “management of violence,” to margins of its collective social phasis on the value of freedom quote Samuel Huntington, this understanding. for individual citizens, particu- corrosive effe t of prolonged larly based on a liberty of con- war thus has immense impli- If such forces are experienc- science. Whether the National cations for the Republic.5 ing moral corrosion as I’ve Security Strategies of either described, then strength- the Bush or Obama adminis- Even those military forma- ening the links between the trations, the United States re- tions with the most cherished American military and its peo- mains committed to champi- histories and deeply held val- ple is not just a nice perk to be oning the notion that each per- ues are increasingly at risk in casually pursued; rather it is son is afforded the inalienable bello for, at best, a drift into vital to the life and future of right of freedom of the soul the hazy shadows of ill-consid- the nation. A helpful start to and that each person is further ered moral acts and, at worst, this process would be to in- afforded the expression of such the outright commission of tentionally address at a force- freedom through voting, as- atrocities and war crimes.6 wide level the need for healing sembly, worship, etc. Linked to For those same forces post and reconciliation within our national legal enshrinements bello, the collective effects of armed forces and only then such as the 1998 International moral corrosion manifest in to effect renewed training in Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), malformed personal behav- moral formation as a part of the United States has demon- ior, arrested leader moral de- leader development - to put strated a commitment to its velopment (and perhaps psy- the horse back before the cart First Amendment codification cho-social development), the rather than just leaving the of both the non-establishment legitimate need to confront horse behind and hoping the and free exercise of religion war crimes (if committed), the cart will roll along on its own. clauses.8 re-establishment of the rule of law through justice and rec- his conclusion leads to my This reality points to the func- onciliation, and necessary so- Tnext observation that val- tional nature of values and cial healing through exercises ues and identity remain deci- ideals, particularly political of memory, repentance, and sive in shaping a nation’s deci- aspirations, relative to na- forgiveness.7 While such acts sion to go to war and its pros- tional identity and economic of contrition have occurred in ecution of conflic . In essence, prosperity. In this, however, this war at some points on a these two concepts for any lies a challenge for the United local scale, the process of col- nation are inextricably linked. States as it exercises both hard lectively addressing moral cor- Despite the post-modern ethos and soft national power: how rosion for units, the Army, or of self-defining meaning and much will the Republic con- the nation has been distinctly truth, when a nation-state con- tinue to rely on its values in absent. siders whether to go to war, shaping a grand strategy in then at least part of its deci- pursuit of its aims, interests, I am not arguing that America sion is based on an assessment and policy goals? Relative to or its Army needs to be placed of its collective values, partic- values such as religious free- on trial for specific war crimes; ularly as those values relate to dom, one could only say to- such a generalization does or are an outgrowth of its his- day that this dilemma is an not hold up to considered torical ideals. open question at best. For
48 instance, pursuant to IRFA, levels of conflict. In essence, the United States established whether we in America debate both the Ambassador-at-Large if or how religion should in- for International Religious form life in the public square, Freedom in the Department for our stated enemies that de- of State and began its annu- bate is a settled question and al reporting requirement to religion is the basis for inform- Congress on the status of in- ing all facets of human culture. ternational religious freedom In predominantly Muslim so- by country. cieties, Islam undergirds de- cision-making in families, The effect of this reporting tribes, clans, towns, regions, has been manifest, particular- and indeed nations and does ly with the Secretary of State’s so first through personal and designation of certain coun- secondly through professional tries each year as “Countries relationships. of Particular Concern.” The People’s Republic of China Thus with United States forc- has received this designation es conducting unified land consecutively every year since operations for over a decade 1999, and the sobriquet re- in such countries, command- mains a geopolitical thorn in ers on the ground have had to the side of the PRC as it seeks incorporate religious issues to redefine its geopolitical into their battlefield calculus image and role as an aspir- in new ways. Chaplains have ing great power, particularly often been called on in this ef- relative to the United States. fort to utilize their status as However, today this ambas- religious leaders to establish sadorship is only recent- relationships with local reli- ly-filled, and the United States gious leaders (of multiple faith Commission on International traditions) in order to facilitate Religious Freedom faces the building of trust, air griev- possible funding cuts from strategy, conflict te mination, ances or issues, and act as a 10 Congress, putatively as an ex- and reconciliation. While re- “bridge” to the command. ample of congressional debate cent American presidential ad- over the commission’s role ministrations have made seri- Religion’s role in other soci- but possibly also as a result of ous strides in actualizing this eties leads, in fact, to anoth- changing administration geo- notion, much more remains to er possibility in the critical- political priorities about the be done to realize effectivel ity of religion to the current role of religious freedom as a its potential. conduct of war, and that is its value undergirding the United functional utility to become First, notwithstanding the po- States’ exercise of power.9 a conduit for post-war peace, liticized debate prevalent in Thus for America as for all na- particularly achieving justice this country about the sepa- tions, the role values will con- and reconciliation and social ration of church and state, a tinue to play in shaping geo- healing through memory and majority of other countries political actions remains man- forgiveness. Theologians such around the world continue to as Miroslav Volf, Nigel Biggar, ifestly evident and critical but base the functioning of their and the late Jean Bethke subject to domestic political cultures on religious histories, Elshtain have eloquently ad- considerations. ideas and beliefs, places, and vocated religion’s utilization certainly leaders. Indeed, the he third observation de- from a religiously-informed or Global War on Terror might rives from the anteced- Just War Theory ethical per- T plausibly be considered the ent, so I naturally advance spective. However, significant first war in American history experts in geopolitics such as that religion is and will re- in which religion was and is a Douglas Johnston, Cynthia main a catalyst in geopolitical dominant factor at the tacti- Sampson, and Chris Seiple decision-making, particular- cal, operational, and strategic have also argued for this, ly in the formation of grand
49 “Despite the post-modern ethos of self-defining meaning and truth, when a nation-state considers whether to go to war, then at least part of its decision is based on an assessment of its collective values, particularly as those values relate to or are an outgrowth of its historical ideals.”
particularly seeing religion as processes play across the War II. However, in the United a potential catalyst for the res- world, even amidst the chang- States’ joint operational doc- olution of conflicts or inclusion ing nature of war. This is so trine, war started in the land into humanitarian interven- particularly regarding how domain and then progressed tion missions. The step which conflict can and should end to the sea, air, and space do- must be taken for this to occur, and how religion can inform mains; these were and are the however, is for religion and re- the re-establishment of any natural physical domains in ligious issues to be consciously just and lasting peace. which nation-states operate. incorporated into the strategic Today, we face the RMA of cy- decision-making of national inally, I wish to advance the berspace as a fifth domain of leaders through its inclusion Fobservation that the con- war, but one which is wholly in grand strategy. It is instruc- text of war is shifting. Nation- synthetic, or man-made, yet tive, for example, that for the states endure as stabilizing emerging as vital to the pur- United States there exists at no forces in the global order, and suit of national interests, aims, level of national government sub-state actors continue to and policy goals, to include the higher than one of the service exercise increasing influ nce. preservation of basic national chiefs of chaplains any advi- But to this must be added the security.12 What ethical rules sor to the national command rise of a new domain of war in will govern warfare in cyber- authority who is a trained and cyberspace as a vehicle toward space? While I have argued authorized geopolitical ethi- complex catastrophes incor- that there are relatively few cist, let alone one conversant porating lethal effects in di - nations which have suffered in the multiplicity of religious lomatic, informational, mil- the effects of an actual attack issues present in the world to- itary, and economic spheres in and through cyberspace, day. To state again, however, (including energy and trans- there is no doubt that such at- despite the debate in America portation networks). The his- tacks will increase in frequen- over the role religion should torians MacGregor Knox and cy, intensity, and lethality. play in the public square, a Williamson Murray helpful- This development points, how- majority of the world retains ly developed the concept of a ever, to the resilience of the no such confusion over the is- “revolution in military affairs” nation-state amidst the rise of sue. Therefore, in order to ef- (RMA) to describe paradig- regional tensions, no matter in fectively craft American grand matic changes in how nations which domain war is or will be strategy (integrating ends, initiate and fight wars. An fought. ways, and means into attain- RMA reshapes how all nations able policy aims) that engage must face these tasks.11 In essence, as did Jean the world as we find it, the Bethke Elshtain, I see the na- United States must re-appre- For example, the advent of tion-states’ status as the domi- ciate the vital geopolitical role atomic and then nuclear weap- nant actors on the internation- that religion, religious issues, ons was and remains a deci- al scene remaining in place and religious decision-making sive RMA pursuant to World but growing in their capacities
50 to prosecute war simultane- I term “transnational military more importantly, ongoing ously in each of the five do- interventions and operations” military capabilities necessary mains listed above (and this is (TMIO).14 Arising principal- to achieve tactical success (for not just for the United States, ly from the Rwanda Genocide example command and con- which already possesses this in 1994, the International trol, logistical support, indirect capability).13 Moreover, this Commission on Intervention and direct fire support, and will be attenuated by the con- and State Sovereignty devel- both lift and attack aviation, to tinual rise of either competi- oped the concept of the “re- name but a few)? Finally, the tor states or sub-state actors, sponsibility to protect”, or UN has not rightly been with- such as al Qaeda or Islamic R2P.15 Since then, the concept out its critics for the conduct of State, and contests for region- has been applied as the basis its peacekeepers during TMIO al dominance if not outright for military interventions in in the past decade or so par- hegemony. peace-keeping missions such ticularly, so the prosecution as OPERATION Artemis in of such a military operation is Further, if the current Global the Democratic Republic of and would remain challenging War on Terror has taught us Congo in 2003 and, more re- at best (and this criticism does anything about the future of cently, in Libya in 2012. As not count other ongoing chal- war, it is the resurgence of well, partnerships such as that lenges such as developing and counterinsurgency operations of Harvard University and the enforcing appropriate rules of (COIN), particularly in ur- United States Peacekeeping engagement, political coordi- ban populations or increas- and Stability Operations nation of military aims, strate- ingly in the future in so-called Institute have refined mili- gic communications, etc.). mega-cities. Whether na- tary doctrine to more broadly tion-states or sub-state actors describe both military atroci- Still, though the challenges to fight in land, sea, air, space, or ty prevention operations and conducting TMIO are many, cyberspace, the goal will be to military atrocity response op- they are not finally insur- increase political legitimacy, erations.16 Still, while many in mountable, and the concept power, or control of peoples. the international community remains ethically acceptable Ironically then, in the future (whether in the diplomatic, to many and viable given ap- COIN will likely not be con- military, educational, or eth- propriate international politi- fined to the land domain but ics professions) may champion cal will, consensus, resourcing, will be increasingly conduct- TMIO, such operations are dif- and coordination. Such inter- ed through the other domains, ficult to politically legitimate, ventions and operations are particularly through cyber- strategically coordinate, mil- and will remain a part of the space. In essence, Clausewitz’s itarily resource, execute, and changing context of war in the “trinity” of violence or passion, conclude. coming years. chance, and policy will remain proscriptive in war. People For instance, notwithstanding otwithstanding the call will still increasingly live and the above operations, other sit- Nfrom some quarters to- relate to one another as peo- uations such as the war in Syria day for growing multilateral- ple, so COIN will retain cur- demonstrate the problematic ism, the reality is that America rency in both mega cities and nature of the construct. When will retain its role as the global cyberspace. Such a changing in 2012 a consensus could hegemon in the near future. contextualization should have not be reached in the United However, such a role always immense implications for how Nations Security Council on a remains that of a type of “he- nations now conduct training resolution authorizing the use gemon in being,” that is only and operations for their mili- of military force to conduct a potential power based on a tary forces for future war, and a TMIO, the effort fell apart, nation’s combined diplomat- indeed nation-states are in- and nation-states were left to ic, informational, military, creasingly applying vast na- develop singular responses. and economic authorities. tional resources to this reality. Moreover, if a resolution had Without political will or grand been reached and the United strategy, such power remains Nonetheless, this contextual- Nations Peacekeeping and unrealized. ization points to another out- Military Operations division growth of the current war, tabbed to coordinate the mis- Relative to war the fundamen- and that is the growing inter- sion, which nations would tal purpose of the phenom- national preference for what contribute what forces and, enon has changed relatively
51 little, and the Global War on influence, but with the po- what is changing can we effe - Terror has affirme four ob- tential of war in cyberspace tively shape the discourse in servations: war is catastrophic to produce complex catastro- the public square over the ini- to warriors and their families phes incorporating lethal ef- tiation and prosecution of war and corrosive to military for- fects in diplomatic, informa- and, in its wake, the establish- mations; values remain deci- tional, military, and econom- ment of any just and lasting sive in shaping a nation’s deci- ic spheres (including energy, peace. ■ sion to go to war and its pros- healthcare, and transportation ecution of the same; religion networks). CH (COL) Timothy Mallard is and will remain a catalyst is a career U.S. Army Chaplain. in geopolitical decision-mak- If these mark current and fu- He holds a Ph.D. in Christian Ethics from the University ing, particularly the forma- ture wars with either state or of Wales Trinity Saint David tion of grand strategy, conflict sub-state actors, then it is im- and is a graduate of the U.S. termination, and reconcilia- perative for Christian public Army War College and certified tion; and, the context of war is intellectuals, ecclesial leaders, Army Strategist. He is a former shifting, with nation-states en- and military personnel and Division Chaplain for the 1st during as stabilizing forces in government official to under- Infantry Division and veteran the global order and sub-state stand these markers. Only by of five combat and operational actors exercising increasing knowing what is enduring and deployments overseas.
Endnotes 1 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Anotol Rapoport, ed. (London: Penguin Classics, 1988), 119. 2 Cf. Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York: Scribner, 2003), 3-102 and Edward Tick, War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation’s Veterans from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2005), 115-ff 3 “The Cost of Love: A Rejoinder to Nigel Biggar on Living an Ethic of Self-emptying Love in War.” Paper presented at the Just War Workshop, University of Chicago Divinity School, Chicago, IL, 8 January 2014. 4 John Mark Mattox, “The Moral Foundations of Army Officershi ” in The Future of the Army Profession, 2nd Ed., eds. Don M. Snider and Lloyd J. Matthews (New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing, 2005), 389. 5 Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 15. 6 Arthur C. Danto, “On Moral Codes and Modern War,” in War, Morality, and the Military Profession, ed. Malham M. Wakin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 476. 7 Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford: OUP, 2013), 63-64. 8 U.S. Public Law 105-292 (since amended as 108-458), accessed online at < http://www.state.gov/documents/organiza- tion/2297.pdf > on 5 February 2014. 9 Ambassador David Saperstein was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 12 December 2014 and began his term of service this calendar year. 10 C.A.L.L. Handbook No. 08-09, Leader’s Guide: Chaplains in Current Operations—Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lessons Learned, 2008); George Adams, Chaplains as Liaisons with Religious Leaders: Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006); Ira Houck, “The U.S. Army Chaplaincy’s Involvement in Strategic Religious Engagement,” in The Army Chaplaincy (Winter-Spring 2009), 49-53; and William Sean Lee, Christopher J. Burke and Zonnna M. Crayne, Military Chaplains as Peace Builders: Embracing Indigenous Religions in Stability Operations (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 2005). 11 MacGregor Knox and Williamson Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolutions, 1300-2050 (Cambridge, UK: CUP, 2001), 11-14. 12 Peter W. Singer, Cyber Security and Cyber Warfare: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2014). 13 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 116. 14 I prefer this term as opposed to the oft-used term humanitarian intervention because the latter connotes a sense of moral agency or purpose which seems to belie the complex military nature of such missions and/or their ultimate political purpose for participating nation-states. 15 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Center, 2001), accessed online at http://www.idrc.ca on 21 November 2008. It is im- portant to note that R2P was originally intended to mitigate a lack of political will on the part of an individual nation-state to protect either other “global citizens” or its own citizens, and thus to legitimize a TMIO from outside a given country’s borders if the need to prevent genocide was manifest. 16 Cf. Sara Sewall, John Kardos, et. al., Mass Atrocity Response Operations: A Military Planning Handbook (Cambridge, MA: HUP and the U.S. Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, 2010).
52 ESSAY
BOOMERS, MILLENNIALS, & THE SOCIAL GOSPEL WALTER RUSSELL MEAD
s a college professor and employer of budding journalists, I spend Aa lot of time with Millennials. In fact, I spend more time with the rising generation than I do with the, well, falling generation to which I belong – the Boomers. And as I listen to my colleagues and students, I hear much that reminds me of my own misspent youth and of my contemporaries when we were getting ready to charge out and change the world.
Millennials and Boomers are revolution; we were forced to racially, and religiously di- alike in many ways. Both gen- question the guiding assump- verse societies than past gen- erations are large: there are so tions of American society and erations in the United States many of us Boomers that we culture as part of figuring out remember. developed a stronger identity who we were and what we and culture than most genera- wanted to do with our lives. Both generations also came tional cohorts do. Both gener- Millennials have similar prob- of age in times of econom- ations see themselves as both lems; the old assumptions and ic pain; the inflation and the products and the agents conventions are falling apart, high unemployment of the of change. The Boomers grew and Millennials need to think 1970s came as a very unwel- up during the Civil Rights through what it means to live come shock to Baby Boomers Movement and the feminist in a much more ethnically, who passed their childhood
53 The beehive is emblematic of industry and the spinner depicts “the first and most useful of domestic manufactures.” Commerce is represented by the figure of Mercury, with one foot resting on bales of American manufactures and coun- seling Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, who is holding wheat sheaves and adolescence in one of Boomers went wrong. Most of the collapse in the social cap- America’s longest periods of us (at least of that part of the ital of poor and middle class prosperity. Millennials have generation that was interest- American communities. We been there too; the two lon- ed in public service) ended up have more organizations with gest back to back economic putting our energy into an- more money working to solve expansions in American his- ti-poverty programs, human more social problems than tory came to a juddering halt rights NGOs, environmental ever before. Yet more chil- with the 2008 financial crisis; organizations, and so on. All of dren are growing up in bro- Millennials’ introduction to these are much stronger now ken homes; more adults are the real world has been harsh. than when my generation first disconnected from communi- got involved with them. The ties of fellowship and solidar- There are other similarities be- enormous growth of the NGO ity; more drugs are wreaking tween the generations. Both sector, both in the United greater havoc in more families generations grew up at a time States and abroad, has been and more individual lives than of social change, turmoil, and one of the hallmarks of the ever before; and more people global and national unrest, and Boomers’ engagement with the are cut off from full participa- both generations were seen as world. tion in social life than before less conventionally religious my generation, with its great than their parents. Both gener- Looking back, I think we got ambitions to change and im- ations grew up in the shadows it wrong. In our eagerness to prove the world, came on the of unpopular wars; both gen- change the world and to em- scene. erations felt strongly called to brace the tumult and challenge embrace careers dealing with of our times, we overlooked As a generation, I think we social injustice, environmen- the most important NGO of made a simple but costly mis- tal crises, and global develop- all: the Church of Christ. take. We were the builders ment. Neither generation put who cast aside the stone that a high priority on the institu- The greatest paradox of the turns out to be the cornerstone tional church. last fifty years in the United of the whole building. We nev- States has been the contrast er really understood, at least That last similarity is one of between the enormous growth most of us didn’t, that strong the places where I think we of the non-profit sector and local neighborhood church
54 communities provide the nec- law enforcement agencies – believers living intentionally essary structure for a just and tend to offer the worst services in Christian communities with progressive society. to the people who need them their vocations to serve the most. It is the poorest neigh- wider society won’t be a luxu- Charles Murray’s research in borhoods that have the most ry. If the church continues to Coming Apart documents the brutal cops, the worst schools, retreat and to withdraw as an heart-wrenching erosion of and the worst medical facil- institution, if the proclama- social capital that took place ities. And the most import- tion of the gospel fails to reach while the Baby Boomers were ant needs so many Americans those who need it most, the out saving the world. In 1963, have – a stable, caring adult goals of social and political re- fewer than 5% of U.S. house- male for a fatherless boy; a form that so many Millennials holds, of any race, were head- trusted, mature confidant who seek will not be reached. ed by a divorced or separated can help a young girl in a dys- person; the white illegitimacy functional family steer towards One hundred twenty-five rate was under 3%, although it a stable and happy adulthood; years ago, many American had begun to rise worryingly in a volunteer reading tutor who Christians heard the message the black community already; helps the shy kid in the back of the Social Gospel and be- and 99% of the public declared of the room begin to read with lieved that responding to the a religious preference, with confidence and skill; the close needs of the society around half saying they had attended knit group of friends who hold them meant disentangling church within the last seven each other accountable as they themselves from doctrinal or- days. A generation later, all of encounter the temptations of thodoxy and what they saw as those numbers were worse by urban life: people like these inward facing churches and a wide margin. Among whites, come out of communities, not denominations. That impetus for instance, illegitimacy was bureaucracies. was very much a part of the up to approximately 30%. In Baby Boom generation’s ethos 2010, 21% of middle-aged The only institution the United of service. whites declared no religious af- States has that can meet these filiation, and about a third of needs on anything like the The results for both the church the religious were “Chreaster” scale required is the institution and the world have not been observant, or attended church that the Boomers by and large healthy, and it will fall to the on only Christmas and Easter, neglected: the neighborhood Millennial generation either at best. According to Pew, in church. to strike a new and more con- 2013 less than half of all U.S. structive balance, or to see children lived in a home with This is a mistake the Millen- both the church and society two married parents still in nials can’t afford to make. It is continue to suffer and fade. ■ their first marriage not just the mainline denom- inations that face a crisis of Some of these problems can, ageing and shrinking congre- over time, be alleviated by gations. We need more strong Walter Russell Mead is the changes in policy and law. congregations building ma- James Clarke Chace Professor And bad government policies ture Christians. We need more of Foreign Affairs and the make social problems worse. outreach to the socially isolat- Humanities at Bard College, the Distinguished Scholar But these lives won’t be healed ed and the marginalized, and in American Strategy and by policy memos, and political we need Christian communi- Statesmanship for the Hudson change is not the most import- ties who are strong enough to Institute, and the Editor- ant thing most of these people reach out with the compas- at-Large for The American need right away. sion and healing so many lost Interest. He previously served and lonely Americans badly as the Henry A. Kissinger What most poor Americans need. There is no other way; Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign today need more than any- Millennial Christians will not Policy for the Council on thing else doesn’t come from have the luxury Boomers did Foreign Relations. His works government programs and of taking the health of the include God and Gold: Britain, bureaucratic institutions. Or church for granted. America, and the Making of the to put it another way, most Modern World (2008), and he of government institutions – For Millennials, the in- also writes for the Wall Street from schools to hospitals to tegration of their lives as Journal and Foreign Aff irs.
55 56 ESSAY
KEVLAR FOR THE SOUL: The Morality of Force Protection MARC LiVECCHE
n the opening days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lt. Nathaniel Fick led Itwenty-two Recon Marines against a military airfield at Qalat Sukkar. As he explains in One Bullet Away, the original plan called for The British Parachute Regiment to make the assault following a U.S. Marine recce to assess the suspected presence of a significant Iraqi defensive threat, including tanks and antiaircraft guns. However, after several days of near-ceaseless enemy contact and little rest, Fick and his dog-tired Marines arrived at the rendezvous point just before dawn to find that plans had changed.
With American reconnaissance were making choices under the radioed another change: all behind schedule, the British as- same beclouding fatigue that personnel on the airfield were sault was on hold. A reasonable had left him and his Marines now declared hostile. Such precaution, Fick assumed the exhausted. an order annulled the nor- attack would simply be delayed mal rules of engagement con- until the scouting was complet- The plan was unsophisticated: straining the Marines to fire ed. This was not to be. Instead, Marine Humvees would rush only after having identified un- it was ordered that the Recon the airfield, smash through ambiguous military targets. In Marines, in only light-skinned the front gate, spread out and its stead, the “declared hostile” Humvees, would attack the engage enemy forces in and order effectiv ly rendered the airfield immediately. For the around the airport structures, airfield a free-fire zone – there first time since the war had be- and then consolidate on the no longer were any rules of en- gun, Fick felt genuine fear - not main runway beyond. Just as gagement. Instinctively, Fick over possibility of battle but at the Humvees were underway, grabbed his radio handset to the prospect his commanders however, company command countermand the decree. But
57 he hesitated: in the heat of an Those weren’t rifles ollowing that terrible day, attack already underway he we had seen but shep- FFick reconfigured his own overruled the urge, trusting herd’s canes, not muz- goals. His men had been is- that his company leaders had zle flashes but the sun sued incompetent orders and new information that justified reflecting on a wind- were then left to suffer the the change and that there sim- shield. The running consequences of other peo- ply was no time to share it. camels belonged to ple’s poor judgment. Much these boys. We’d shot had conspired against them: Cue the terrible consequence: two children. foolish tactics; rash deploy- A machine gun [in The platoon responded. With ments of force too often need- the Marine vehicle] the corpsman insisting one lessly putting warfight rs at in front of us fired a boy would die without imme- increased risk and thereby en- short burst. I caught diate surgery while the other couraging the substitution of a blurred glimpse of might linger before infection more aggressive, and often im- people, cars, and cam- claimed him, the men staged moral, rules of engagement; els running through a small-scale mutiny against apparent indifference to the the brush…A garbled initially indifferent senior offi- fate of non-combatants; and radio transmission cers before finally securing an the subterfuge of enemy figh - warned of “muzzle evacuation to a U.S. field hos- ers who regularly traded mil- flashes…men with ri- pital where the children would itary uniforms for civilian at- fles.” Something near be treated by a shock-trauma tire to make hash of coalition the people flashed, but platoon. target selection and thereby we were already be- amplify risk to the innocent. yond them, sprinting Afterward, Fick brought his Nevertheless, “Technical de- for the runway. Marines together and com- tails aside,” Fick insisted, “We were U.S. Marines and The Marines overran the air- menced with a simple acknowl- Marines are professional war- field only to discover that it edgment: “Fellows,” he ad- riors fighting for the greatest was deserted and clearly had mitted, “today was f-cked-up, democracy in the world. We been for some time. The attack completely insane.” He knew don’t shoot kids.” It was no over, they began securing a de- they had gotten lucky. A single longer enough to simply win fensive perimeter. Soon, there well-camouflaged tank could the fight and bring his men was movement in the distance. have taken out their entire pla- home. Fick realized he owed Five figures approached: two toon. That the airfield looked as it to them to help them figh women were dragging a bun- if it had not been used in years their bit of the war while main- dle wrapped in blankets while brought no comfort. They had taining their honor and hu- behind them three men pulled been sent on the attack blind, manity and “to get them home another. Intercepting them, despite the viability of delay- physically psychologically the Marine’s discovered the ing until after proper recon- and intact.” The dilemma in this enshrouded objects were two naissance. Compounding their obligation should be plainly wounded Iraqi children; one anger, because of the faulty in- articulated. already near death, his life telligence assuming heavy re- leaking away through the four sistance, they were granted the First, there is the commitment holes punched through his ab- “compensation” of the free fire to protect the innocent in war. domen. As the combat medic allowance to mitigate the addi- Naturally, both the classic just began triage, it became evident tional risk. Fick confessed his war tradition and, more broad- the children had been hit with own failure in letting the ‘de- ly, the international war con- 5.56 mm rounds. Fick explains: clared hostile’ order stand and acknowledged that this mistake vention – in Michael Walzer’s The only such colluded with several other er- phrasing those “norms, cus- rounds in Iraq were rors to result in the shooting toms, professional codes, le- American, and the of innocents. When everything gal precepts, religious and only Americans there that could be said was said, the philosophical principles, and were us. In horror, I Marines then did the only immedi- reciprocal arrangements that thought back to our ate thing left for them to do. shape our judgments of mili- assault on the airfield tary conduct” - mandate target a few hours before. The They grieved. discrimination, but, more than pieces fell into place. this, each also requires that
58 warfighters accept certain per- within the laws of war, the act Paul Ramsey, Jim Johnson, sonal risks rather than harm of making an independent de- Jean Bethke Elshtain, and civilian noncombatants. cision to kill another human Nigel Biggar. Within this tra- being and “watching as he dies dition are rendered, among The dilemma’s other horn due to your action combine to other things: guidelines and is the obligation – incum- form one of the most basic, im- limits; exhortation toward bent on everyone from the portant, primal, and potentially particular character disposi- Commander-in-Chief down to traumatic occurrences of war.” tions; crucial distinctions be- the individual fireteam leader Subsequent to such a trauma, and tween moral and non-moral - to protect one’s own military manifesting more specifically in evil; and the location of moral personnel. In any war these the experience of remorse, sorrow, judgment in intention rather commitments will often clash. or guilt rather than fear or hyper- than simply outcome alone. In the asymmetrical conditions vigilance, moral injury has come Such ideas oppose the notion of counterinsurgency, enemy to be recognized as a, or even the, that killing is simply malum in tactics attempt to exacerbate chief predictor of suicide among se – wrong in itself; recognizing this clash from a simple tension combat veterans, rendering some rather that killing comes in dif- to something more like a prac- casualties of war even long after ferent kinds: including that which tical contradiction. In the light their firefights have ended. is simply innocent as well as that of increased awareness of the which – however tragically – is psychiatric condition known as While suicide is the most ex- morally commendable. While moral injury, this must be seen treme consequence, many who such resources provide invalu- as a crisis. struggle with having taken an- able help with, most especial- other life identify that because ly, the lawful killing of lawful The realization that war can be they believe killing, even in enemies, they can, as well, go morally eviscerating is as old as war, transgresses moral or reli- some distance in helping warf- war itself. Although the idea that gious beliefs, they suffer a pro- ighters navigate more com- combat occasions moral and eth- found sense of dissonance and plex traumas like the acciden- ical challenges that, even in opti- internal conflict Such suffe - tal killing of non-combatants. mal operational environments, can ing manifests in higher rates But they cannot go all the way, lead to perpetrating, failing to pre- of symptoms on most mental and conceptual frameworks vent, or bearing witness to acts that health and functional impair- alone will always be impotent transgress deeply held beliefs is no ment measures including not in preventing moral injury, or new wisdom, recent empirical and only PTSD symptoms but those the conditions for moral inju- theoretical research surrounding associated with peritraumatic ry, in certain especially moral- the sequela known as moral inju- dissociation and functional im- ly eviscerating circumstances. ry as a proposed, if controversial, pairment, including increased sub-set of PTSD is only in its in- rates of violent behavior, al- To cite one example of such fancy, and key concerns remain in- cohol abuse, uncontrollable limited efficac the Israeli phi- adequately addressed, among them anger, marital and other rela- losopher Noam Zohar right- the relationship between moral in- tionship problems, frequent ly notes, in his contribution to jury and the normative dimension job turnover, and excessive How We Fight: Ethics in War, of the act of killing. Nevertheless, risk-taking. that permission for the un- clinical studies suggest that hav- intended killing of non-com- ing killed in combat is the chief evertheless, however im- batants is commonly pro- predictor of PTSD, over even Nposing such challenges, vided through referral to the threats to life or the intensity, there exist conceptual resourc- doctrine of double effect But duration, or repetition of com- es to help warfight rs deal Zohar also notes that gestures bat. Neither the circumstanc- with the trauma of killing in toward double effect as advo- es surrounding the killing nor combat – chief among them cated in some resources, such the emotional state of the kill- is the classic just war tradi- as the articulation of the law er turn out to be absolutely es- tion whose nascent Christian of warfare found in the 1907 sential factors. As retired Army roots are found in Ambrose Hague Conventions, can result office and psychologist David and Augustine, find great- in particularly perverse permis- Grossman asserts, whether in er maturation in Thomas sions: allowing, for example, the lead-up to atrocity, the acci- Aquinas and the neo-scholas- that the attacker may, despite dental killing of a non-combat- tics, and stretch forward along the presence of innocents in a ant, or the felling of an enemy the Protestant line to include combat zone, do anything that
59 it would be permissible to do if distance of preventing mor- investigation, no questions there were no innocents there al injury in certain cases, nei- asked; but he also recognized subject to the restrictions of ther can the tactical or proce- that his Marines would carry proportionality. The problem, dural ones. Prior to the start the burdens of that day for the as Zohar has it, correctly in my of the invasion, Lt. Fick stood rest of their lives. judgment, is that under such in the Kuwaiti sands of Camp guidelines there is no compul- Matilda listening to an ad- This brings us to consideration sion for a combat planner to dress by Lieutenant General of what the military ethicist choose equally mission effe - James Conway, the command- Martin Cook, in The Moral tive alternatives that would ing general of the first Marine Warrior, has described as result in fewer or even no Expeditionary Force. Conway’s “the implicit moral contract non-combatant casualties over theme was the rules of engage- between the nation and its sol- a strategy that would result in ment, and he emphasized four diers.” Cook intends here more significant innocent deaths so points: first, commanders had than the merely legal contract long as the threshold of propor- a legal and ethical responsi- in which such things as pay tionality had been met. This is bility to defend their Marines; and benefits are spelled out. He morally obtuse and, grateful- second, when the enemy used means that kind of constructed ly, there are better renderings human shields or intentional- social contract in which is ar- of double effect such as those ly brought the battle to pop- ticulated the relationship and drawn by Ramsey and Biggar ulation centers he, not U.S. attendant responsibilities be- from the doctrine’s Thomistic warfighters, was responsible tween the contracting parties. headwaters, that stipulate ad- for endangering them; third, The terms of these responsi- ditional limits, say, of necessity commanders would be held re- bilities make plain that mili- - in the sense that the bad effec sponsible for the facts as they tary personnel live in a unique is unavoidable, that is, the good appeared to him in good faith moral world: effect genuinely cannot be at- under the given circumstances They exist to serve the tained otherwise. – not as they were revealed af- state. The essence and ter an investigation; and, fina - moral core of their But even when these addition- ly, fourth, the general took the service is to defend al principles are inaugurated, opportunity to distill the rules that state through the there remains the question of of engagement to their essence: management and ap- whether these equally effecti e essentially proportionality and plication of violence in and more moral alternatives discrimination. In those ear- defense of the territo- are also comparable in permis- ly days, Fick found this guid- rial integrity, political sible costs regarding any or all ance, in his words, pure gold; sovereignty, and vital of a spectrum of values: either perceiving the ROE to be to the national interests of financial, strategic, or time re- minds of his Marines what ar- that state. Their con- sources, or, most relevant here, mor was to their bodies. This tract has an “unlimited the welfare of our own sailors, follows Vietnam combat veter- liability” clause – they soldiers, airmen, or Marines. an Karl Marlantes’ colorful as- accept […] the obliga- Deliberating which costs are sertion, in the preface to his ex- tion to put their lives worth paying to better secure traordinary What It Is Like To at grave risk when or- the lives of the innocent will al- Go To War, that such prepara- dered to do so. ways prove deeply complex and tory instruction helps to provi- must be undertaken, and the sion warfighters with a spiritual Of course, the contract also re- conclusions embraced, by the combat prophylactic or, in my quires that they close with and responsible agents at all levels own, perhaps unfortunately, kill enemy human beings when in the organizational culture of more sermon-friendly locution, lawfully ordered to do so. In re- the military – from the lowest armor for the soul. turn, the state owes warfighters ranked individual fighter likely the confidence of knowing that shouldering a substantial por- After Qalat Sukkar, however, they will only be called upon for tion of the costs to the high- the limitations of the ROE were morally legitimate and weighty est officer and their civilian made plain. Fick realized that causes and with the implicit overseers. the shooting of the two Iraqi promise that the circumstanc- children occurred well within es under which they are being But if conceptual resources the given rules of engagement, called to kill and risk death are cannot independently go the there would be no command such that the defense of the
60 sovereignty and integrity of the Since those small and psychological preservation and nation, or the careful extension dispersed units on the to allow that the psychological of its national interests, includ- ground were not very preservation will likely require ing its moral responsibility, susceptible to effec- tactics that increase physical truly requires their action. tive targeting, given threat. the chosen weapons To bring the accidental killing platforms and tactics This does not mean that I am of non-combatants back into NATO implicitly em- looking for a fair fight, nor am view, in light of the state’s mor- barked upon a war I suggesting that we take ev- al responsibilities, and despite of attrition against ery risk in limiting harm to the fact that the preservation Serbian infrastruc- non-combatants. There is noth- of innocent foreign nationals ture. No matter how ing in the just war tradition will always be a priority for at precise the weapons that prohibits so overwhelming least politically expedient if not employed, widespread an enemy challenge that, for all moral reasons, I note Cook’s destruction of national intents and purposes, the en- additional assertion that “even infrastructure is inher- emy has no real chance of de- the concern with protection ently an indiscriminate feating you – if our jet fighters of innocents will probably be attack on the whole can destroy enemy aircraft be- secondary to force protection population. fore their radar systems can of our own troops.” Of course, In summary, then, with Kosovo even detect our presence, all to some of this is also due to the the idealistic humanitarian in- the good. If a belligerent nation political expediency of elected tentions were hamstrung by a so conducts themselves so as leaders concluding that the de- commitment to force protec- to provoke a response of justi- ployment of American military tion to a degree that restricted fied force sanctioned – obligat- force will be politically accept- effective tactics able to end the ed even – by the just war tra- able only if it passes the ‘Dover horrors and instead promoted dition then respond with force test’, the spectacle of America’s tactics that likely heightened we must – even if our enemy’s children returning home in the misery of the very people warfighting ability, compared flag-draped caskets. In this, our we were trying to help. While to our own, gives the appear- leaders arguably register the such decisions might have pur- ance of their having brought a American public’s common- chase in light of the state’s re- knife to a gunfight. place insistence on essential- sponsibilities to care for its own ly “immaculate war.” To illus- warfighters, one has to ask, in But because veterans often trate this, Cook gestures to the light of moral injury, what does lament that while prior to de- NATO bombing campaign over force protection finally mean? ployment their lethal abili- Kosovo. ties were refined their ethical s darkness fell over the understanding of killing was In the Kosovo operation, de- Aairfi ld at Qalat Sukkar, not, they regularly enter com- spite repeated emphases on Lt. Fick sat alone in the dim bat with a commonly held as- precision targeting aimed at green light of the radios. He sumption: killing is wrong but minimizing civilian casualties felt sick for the wounded shep- is necessary in war. If this is and damage to civilian struc- herd boys, for his Marines who the case, then compliance with tures and property, Cook notes abetted in their wounding, and the ROE is never going to be that such precision would have for himself, not in self-pity but enough to prevent moral inju- been much higher had the coa- for the “kid who’d come to Iraq. ry because the very business lition aircraft operated at alti- He was gone.” But as I have of combat is perceived to be tudes lower, and riskier, than already noted, his remorse was morally injurious. But this is 15,000 feet. Moreover, the marbled with resolve: even if not, in fact, the case – at least decision to adopt a no-boots- it meant increased risk, his not according to the domi- on-the-ground airpower-only Marines would fight their lit- nate Christian view of the last campaign (and announce it in tle piece of the war with honor 2,000 years. Against such false advance) surely lengthened and in retention of their hu- beliefs then, those charged the conflict and did nothing manity. In just this way, I posit with the moral formation to bring a cessation of the a simple but perhaps paradox- of our warfighters – includ- atrocities that prompted the ical commitment: force pro- ing our congregational lead- conflict in the first place. Cook tection must be reconfi ured ers - must employ conceptual concludes: to include both physical and frameworks such as the classic
61 just war tradition to help dis- … a war machine.” One thinks the kind of men or women will- abuse warfighters of false mo - mainly of “the production of ing to pay such increased costs. al notions and replace them bombers, of pursuit ships, of Collectively, the civil-military with those more normatively tanks, howitzers, rifles and partnership must be one char- sound. But because these con- shells.” But, the General insist- acterized, as Nigel Biggar indi- ceptual truths must navigate ed, underlying “the essentially cates in his own essay in this reality, they must be accom- material and industrial effort is issue, by a willingness to spend panied by rules of engagement the realization that the prima- that aid warfighters in main- ry instrument of warfare is the the lives our sailors, soldiers, taining fidelit to proportion- fighting man.” He continued airmen, and Marines – even as we promise never to waste ality, discrimination, and mis- So we progress from them. sion effectiveness the machine to the man and much of our n closing, I turn to an an- Such formative measures must time and thought and ecdote featuring General I effort is concentrated take place before deployment, George Marshall’s com- on the disposition and for just as the time to devel- mencement address at Trinity the temper and the op a sexual ethic is not in the College, Hartford, on June spirit of the men we backseat of a car so too is boot 15th, 1941. In his comments have mobilized and we camp not the time to consider he drew a parallel between get back to the word the ethics of killing. They must the role of Trinity College and “morale.”…Today war, also be continued during de- that of the United States Army, total war…is a long both which provide in their ployment, in the ongoing main- drawn out and intri- own manner patriotic service tenance of bodies and souls in cately planed busi- to the nation. Trinity accom- the chaos and din of battle. But ness and the longer it plished this, in part, by attend- they must continue after de- continues the heavier ing not simply to the techni- ployment as well. Steve Irwin, are the demands on cal academic preparation of the character of the the late Australian wildlife ex- its students but to the spiri- men engaged in it… pert and television personality, tual needs required of them The Soldier’s heart, once noted that before jump- to be participatory citizens of the soldier’s spirit, the ing on the back of a crocodile good character in distressing soldier’s soul, are ev- you had better have a plan and unpredictable times. Of erything. Unless the for jumping off inadvertently the Trinity student, Marshall soldier’s soul sustains noted, “Their period of devel- analogizing the importance not him he cannot be re- opment here not only vitalized only of knowing how to send lied on and will fail the faculties of their minds but our warfighters off to battle but himself and his com- also aroused and intensifi d also how to bring them home mander and his coun- those latent forces of the soul again, to communities and not try in the end. that the ordinary education- just clinics. Such a communal al process sometimes fails to The effort to prevent this fail- commitment to moral forma- reach”. In his own martial uni- ure is not a martial task alone. tion yields, to my mind, the verse, the General noted, the Those public institutions best hope for helping our na- charged with the moral for- word “soul” would be replaced tion’s warfighters endure the with “morale.” mation of those young people morally bruising environment from whom future warfight- Akin to the vocation of the ers are drawn – schools, faith of battle without, themselves, university, Marshall contin- communities, families, and becoming irreparably morally ued, the War Department of the like – must take up their bruised. ■ the United States had an ob- role as well. First, by becom- vious and perhaps not-so-ob- ing willing to accept increased Marc LiVecche is the Managing vious dual concern. Instead of risks to our deployed sons and Editor of Providence. Parts of a University’s production of daughters and by relinquish- this essay were first presented scholars, the War Department ing insistence, if not desire, for at the Fort Leavenworth Ethics might easily be thought to be immaculate war. Second, by Symposium at the U.S. Army concerned only with the “de- also so forming these sons and Command and General Staff velopment and perfection of daughters that they grow to be College in 2015.
62 It is hard for those who have never known persecution, And who have never known a Christian, VI To believe these tales of Christian persecution. It is hard for those who live near a Bank To doubt the security of their money. It is hard for those who live near a Police Station To believe in the triumph of violence. Do you think that the Faith has conquered the World And that lions no longer need keepers? Do you need to be told that whatever has been, can still be? Do you need to be told that even such modest attainments As you boast of in the way of polite society Will hardly survive the Faith to which they owe their significance? Men! polish your teeth on rising and retiring; Women! polish your fingernails: You polish the tooth of the dog and the talon of the cat. Why should men love the Church? Why should they love her laws? She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget. She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they would like to be soft. She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts. They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. But the man that is will shadow The man that pretends to be. And the Son of Man is crucified always And there shall be Martyrs and Saints. And if blood of Martyrs is to flow on the steps We must first build the steps; And if the Temple is to be cast down We must first build the Temple.
T.S. Eliot Choruses From ‘The Rock’ (1934)
63 ESSAY
“The Peace Negotiations between Julius Civilis and the Roman General Cerialis” by Otto van Veen In 1613, the Dutch legislature, the States General, commissioned twelve paintings depicting the Batavian Revolt against the Roman Empire in 69-70 AD, including this depiction of the negotiations between Julius Civilis and the Roman General Cerialis. Even though they are negotiating to resolve the conflict, the image still shows that both sides are well armed so that their leaders can negotiate from positions of strength. The painting is now part of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
SHIELD AND SWORD: The Case for Military Deterrence
ALAN W. DOWD
64 magine walking through a dark wilderness. It teems with vicious Ianimals; it throbs with uncounted dangers; it’s buffeted by nature’s fury. But you come prepared. You’re equipped with a parka, flares, food and water, a rifle. Then you see something precious in the middle of all that danger: a baby. You would do anything you could—and use everything had—to protect this defenseless child from the dangers lurking in the wilderness. In fact, failing to do so would be criminal, even sinful. Surely, the same principle ap- neglected its defenses—would para bellum. “If you wish plies in the realm of nations. invite aggression, thus jeopar- for peace, prepare for war.” Our world teems with violent dizing its people. President George Washington regimes and vicious men. And put it more genteelly: “There something precious—our no- Second, all uses of force are not is nothing so likely to pro- tion of peace, sovereignty, lib- the same. The sheriff who uses duce peace as to be well pre- erty, civilization itself—sits force to apprehend a murder- pared to meet an enemy.” Or, exposed to all that danger. In er is decidedly different from in the same way, “We infinit - a world where might makes the criminal who uses force to ly desire peace,” President right, the only thing that keeps commit a murder. The police- Theodore Roosevelt declared. the peace, defends our sover- men posted outside a sporting “And the surest way of obtain- eignty and liberty, and upholds event to deter violence are de- ing it is to show that we are not civilization is the willingness cidedly differ nt from those afraid of war.” After the West to use our resources to keep who plot violence. Moral rela- gambled civilization’s very ex- the dangers at bay. Yet too tivism is anything but a virtue. istence in the 1920s and 1930s many policymakers disregard on hopes that war could some- the wisdom of military deter- Some lament the fact that we how be outlawed, the men live in such a violent world, rence, and too many people who crafted the blueprint for but that’s precisely the point. of faith forget that the aim of waging the Cold War returned Because we live in a violent deterrence is, by definition, to to peace through strength. prevent wars, not start them. world, governments must take Winston Churchill proposed steps to deter those who can be “defense through deterrents.” ome people of faith op- deterred—and neutralize those President Harry Truman pose the threat of military who cannot. In this regard, it S called NATO “an integrated in- force, let alone the use of mil- pays to recall that Jesus had ternational force whose object itary force, because of Christ’s sterner words for scholars and is to maintain peace through message of peace. This is un- scribes than He did for sol- derstandable in the abstract, diers. In fact, when a centu- strength…we devoutly pray but we must keep in mind two rion asked Jesus for help, He that our present course of ac- truths. didn’t admonish the military tion will succeed and maintain 3 commander to put down his peace without war.” President First, governments are held sword. Instead, He commend- Dwight Eisenhower explained, to a different standard than ed him for his faith.1 “Even in “Our arms must be mighty, individuals, and hence are ex- the Gospels,” soldier-scholar ready for instant action, so pected to do certain things in- Ralph Peters reminds us, “it that no potential aggressor dividuals aren’t expected to is assumed that soldiers are, may be tempted to risk its own do—and arguably shouldn’t however regrettably, neces- destruction.” President John do certain things individuals sary.”2 They are necessary not Kennedy vowed to “strengthen should do. For example, a gov- only for waging war but, pref- our military power to the point ernment that turned the oth- erably, for maintaining peace. where no aggressor will dare er cheek when attacked would attack.” And President Ronald be conquered by its foes, leav- It’s a paradoxical truth that Reagan steered the Cold War ing countless innocents de- military readiness can keep to a peaceful end by noting, fenseless. A government that the peace. The Romans had “None of the four wars in my put away the sword—that a phrase for it: Si vis pacem, lifetime came about because
65 we were too strong.” Reagan there wouldn’t have been a conventional about our re- also argued, “Our military World War II, since the Allies sponse.”8 Eisenhower’s words strength is a prerequisite for allowed their arsenals to at- were unambiguously clear, peace.”4 rophy after 1918, and b) there and unlike Wilson, he wielded would have been a World War the military strength to give ven so, arms alone ar- III, since Washington and them credibility. Een’t enough to deter war. Moscow engaged in an unprec- After all, the great powers edented arms race. The reality iscussing military deter- were armed to the teeth in is that miscalculation lit the Drence in the context of 1914. But since they weren’t fuse of World War I. The an- Christianity may seem incon- clear about their intentions tidote, as alluded to above, is gruent to some readers. But and treaty commitments, a strength plus clarity. for a pair of reasons it is not. small crisis on the fringes of Europe mushroomed into a A second important factor First, deterrence is not just a global war. Neither is clari- to avoid miscalculation: The matter of GDPs and geopol- ty alone enough to deter war. adversary must be rational, itics. In fact, scripture often After all, President Woodrow which means it can grasp and uses the language of deter- Wilson’s admonitions to the fear consequences. Fear is an rence and preparedness. For Kaiser were clear, but America essential ingredient of deter- example, in the first chapter lacked the military strength rence. It pays to recall that de- of Numbers the Lord directs at the onset of war to make terrence comes from the Latin Moses and Aaron to count those words matter and thus dēterreō: “to frighten off. 6 Of “all the men in Israel who are deter German aggression. In course, as Churchill conceded, twenty years old or more and other words, America was un- “The deterrent does not cover able to serve in the army.” able to deter. “The purpose of the case of lunatics.”7 Mass- This ancient selective-ser- a deterrence force is to create murderers masquerading as vice system is a form of mil- a set of conditions that would holy men and death-wish dic- itary readiness. Similarly, I cause an adversary to con- tators may be immune from Chronicles 27 provides detail clude that the cost of any par- deterrence. (The secondary about the Israelites’ massive ticular act against the United benefit of the peace-through- standing army: twelve divi- States of America or her allies strength model is that it equips sions of 24,000 men each. II is far higher than the potential those who embrace it with the Chronicles 17 explains the mil- benefit of that act,” explains capacity to defeat these sorts itary preparations made by Gen. Kevin Chilton, former of enemies rapidly and return King Jehoshaphat of Judah, commander of U.S. Strategic to the status quo ante.) a king highly revered for his Command. It is a “cost-ben- piety, who built forts, main- efit calculus.”5 So, given the Third, the consequences of tained armories in strategi- anemic state of America’s mil- military confrontation must be cally located cities “with large itary before 1917, the Kaiser credible and tangible, which supplies” and fielded an army calculated that the benefi s of was the case during most of of more than a million men attacking U.S. ships and try- the Cold War. Not only did “armed for battle.” Not sur- ing to lure Mexico into an al- Washington and Moscow con- prisingly, “the fear of the liance outweighed the costs. struct vast military arsenals to Lord fell on all the kingdoms of That proved to be a grave deter one another; they were the lands surrounding Judah, miscalculation. clear about their treaty com- so that they did not go to war mitments and about the conse- against Jehoshaphat.” In the In order for the adversary not quences of any threat to those New Testament, Paul writes to miscalculate, a few factors commitments. Recall how in Romans 13 that “Rulers must hold. Eisenhower answered Soviet hold no terror for those who Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s do right, but for those who do First, consequences must be boast about the Red Army’s wrong…Rulers do not bear the clear, which was not the case overwhelming convention- sword for no reason.” Again, on the eve of World War I. al advantage in Germany: “If this is the language of deter- Critics of deterrence often you attack us in Germany,” rence. Those who follow the cite World War I to argue that the steely American com- law within a country and who arms races trigger wars. But mander-in-chief fired back, respect codes of conduct be- if it were that simple, then a) “there will be nothing tween countries have nothing
66 to fear. Those who don’t have Secondly, it is not incongru- Moreover, the likelihood that much to fear. Likewise, to ex- ent if we understand military the next great-power war plain the importance of cal- deterrence as a means to pre- would involve multiple nu- culating the costs of following vent great-power war—the clear-weapons states means Him, Jesus asks in Luke 14, kind that kills by the millions, that it could end civilization. “What king would go to war the kind humanity has not en- Therefore, a posture that against another king without dured for seven decades. We leaves peer adversaries doubt- first sitting down to consider know we will not experience ing the West’s capabilities and whether his 10,000 soldiers the biblical notion of peace— resolve—thus inviting miscal- could go up against the 20,000 of shalom, peace with harmo- culation—is not only unsound, coming against him? And if he ny and justice—until Christ but immoral and inhumane didn’t think he could win, he returns to make all things – unchristian. “Deterrence would send a representative new. In the interim, in a bro- of war is more humanitari- ken world, the alternatives to an than anything,” Gen. Park to discuss terms of peace while peace through strength leave Yong Ok, a longtime South his enemy was still a long way much to be desired: peace Korean military official ar- off. In a sense, both kings are through hope, peace through gues. “If we fail to deter war, wise—one because he recog- violence, or peace through a tremendous number of civil- nizes that he’s outnumbered; submission. But these options ians will be killed.”9 the other because he makes are inadequate. sure that he’s not. Put anoth- Peace through violence has er way, both kings subscribe to The sheer destructiveness and been tried throughout history. peace through strength. Again, totality of great-power war tes- Pharaoh, Caesar and Genghis as with the Centurion earli- tify that crossing our fingers Khan, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin er, Jesus could have rebuked and hoping for peace is not and Mao, all attained a kind the martial character of these a Christian option. Wishful of peace by employing brutal kings, but he did not. This is thinking, romanticizing real- forms of violence. However, not just description but com- ity, is the surest way to invite this is not the kind of “peace” mendation. We ignore their what Churchill called “temp- under which God’s crowning example at our peril. tations to a trial of strength.” creation can flourish; neither
67 would the world long tolerate position of security so over- noticed. Without a U.S. de- such a scorched-earth “peace.” whelming and so unchallenge- terrent in place, Stalin gave This option, too, the Christian able that we never cared to Kim a green light to invade. rejects. think about it.”11 Like preda- Washington then reversed tors in the wilderness, the Axis course and rushed American Finally, the civilized world powers sensed weakness and forces back into Korea, and the could bring about peace sim- attacked. Korean peninsula plunged into ply by not resisting the ene- one of the most ferocious wars mies of civilization—by not In October 1945—not three in history. The cost of miscal- blunting the Islamic State’s months after the Missouri culation in Washington and blitzkrieg of Iraq; by not de- steamed into Tokyo Bay—Gen. Moscow: 38,000 Americans, fending the 38th Parallel; by George Marshall decried the 103,250 South Korean troops, not standing up to Beijing’s “disintegration not only of the 316,000 North Korean troops, land-grab in the South China Armed Forces, but apparent- 422,000 Chinese troops and Sea or Moscow’s bullying of ly…all conception of world re- 2 million civilian casualties.16 the Baltics or al-Qaeda’s death sponsibility,” warily asking, The North Korean tyranny— creed; by not having armies “Are we already, at this early now under command of Kim’s or, for that matter, police. As date, inviting that same inter- grandson—still dreams of con- Reagan said, “There’s only one national disrespect that pre- quering South Korea. The dif- guaranteed way you can have vailed before this war?”12 Stalin ference between 2015 and peace—and you can have it in answered Marshall’s question 1950 is that tens of thousands the next second—surrender.”10 by gobbling up half of Europe, of battle-ready U.S. and ROK blockading Berlin, and arm- troops are stationed on the The world has tried these al- ing Kim Il-Sung in patient border. They’ve been there ev- ternatives to peace through preparation for the invasion of ery day since 1953. strength, and the outcomes South Korea.13 The U.S. mili- have been disastrous. tary had taken up positions in The lesson of history is that Korea in 1945, but withdrew waging war is far more cost- After World War I, Western all combat forces in 1949.14 ly than maintaining a military powers disarmed and con- Then, in 1950, Secretary capable of deterring war. As vinced themselves they had of State Dean Acheson an- Washington observed, “Timely waged the war to end all wars. nounced that Japan, Alaska disbursements to prepare for By 1938, as Churchill conclud- and the Philippines fell within danger frequently prevent ed after Munich, the Allies America’s “defensive perim- much greater disbursements had been “reduced…from a eter.”15 Korea didn’t. Stalin to repel it.” Just compare
68 military allocations, as a per- his book The World America 1940. These cuts might make centage of GDP, during times Made, Robert Kagan explains sense if peace were breaking of war and times of peace: how “America’s most import- out around the world, but we ant role has been to dampen know the very opposite to be In the eight years before enter- and deter the normal tenden- true. ing World War I, the United cies of other great powers to States devoted an average of compete and jostle with one The result of the cuts slicing 0.7 percent of GDP to defense; another in ways that histori- through the U.S. military—civ- during the war, U.S. defense cally have led to war.” This role ilization’s first-responder and spending spiked to 16.1 per- has depended on America’s last line of defense—will be cent of GDP. military might. “There is no the smallest Army since 1940, better recipe for great-pow- smallest Navy since 1915 and In the decade before enter- er peace,” Kagan concludes, smallest Air Force in its his- ing World War II, the United “than certainty about who tory.19 This makes deterrence States spent an average of 1.1 holds the upper hand.”17 less credible—and miscalcula- percent of GDP on defense; tion more likely. ■ during the war, the U.S. divert- Regrettably, America is deal- ed an average of 27 percent of ing away that upper hand, GDP to the military annually. thanks to the bipartisan gam- ble known as sequestration. Alan W. Dowd is a senior fel- During the Cold War, The U.S. defense budget has low with the Sagamore Institute Washington spent an average fallen from 4.7 percent of GDP (sagamoreinstitute.org/cap). of 7 percent of GDP on defense in 2009 to 3.2 percent to- His writing has appeared in to deter Moscow; it worked. day—headed for just 2.8 per- Policy Review, Parameters, cent by 2018-19.18 The last Military Officer, Claremont Yet it seems we have forgotten time America invested so lit- Review of Books, Landing Zone, those hard-learned lessons. In tle in defense was, ominously, and byFaith, among others.
Endnotes 1 Matthew 8:5-13. 2 Ralph Peters, “Our New Old Enemies,” Parameters, Summer 1999. 3 Harry Truman, Statement by the President, April 3, 1951, http://trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/viewpapers.php?pid=281. 4 Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Republican National Convention, August 23, 1984, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/ speeches/1984/82384f.htm; Ronald Reagan, Address to the British Parliament, June 8, 1982 http://www.heritage.org/research/ reports/2002/06/reagans-westminster-speech . 5 General Kevin P. Chilton, “Challenges to Nuclear Deterrence,” Air & Space Conference, Washington, D.C. September 13, 2010, http://www.stratcom.mil/speeches/2010/50/Challenges_to_Nuclear_Deterrence_Air_Space_Conference/. 6 The Latin Lexicon, “Definition of deterreo,” http://latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=1004403&p2=d. 7 Winston Churchill, Remarks before the House of Commons, March 1, 1955, http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/ speeches/1946-1963-elder-statesman/never-despair . 8 Quoted in David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight Eisenhower, 1961-1969, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2010, p.86. 9 Quoted in Nicholas Kristoff, “South Korea Extols Some of the Benefits of Land Mines,” New York Times, September 3, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/03/world/south-korea-extols-some-of-the-benefits-of-land-mines.html 10 Ronald Reagan, Televised Address to the Nation, October 27, 1964, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/ timechoosing.html . 11 Winston Churchill, Address to the House of Commons, October 5, 1938, http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/ speeches/1930-1938-the-wilderness/the-munich-agreement . 12 General of the Army George C. Marshall, Speech before The New York Herald Tribune Forum, October 29, 1945. 13 See Donggil Kim and William Stueck, “Did Stalin Lure the United States into the Korean War? New Evidence on the Origins of the Korean War,” North Korean International Document Project, August 27, 1990, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/ did-stalin-lure-the-united-states-the-korean-war-new-evidence-the-origins-the-korean-war . 14 See U.S. Army, The Korean War: The Outbreak, September 13, 2006, http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/KW- Outbreak/outbreak.htm . 15 “Dean Acheson on the Defense Perimeter, 1950,” Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Third Edition, Thomas Paterson, Ed., 1989, pp.398-399. 16 Patrick Brogan, World Conflicts, 1988, pp.217-218; History Channel, “Korean War,” http://www.history.com/topics/ korean-war. 17 Robert Kagan, The World America Made, 2012, pp.50 and 90. 18 OMB, Fiscal Year 2014 Historical Tables, 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2014/assets/ hist.pdf, pp.57-59. 19 Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Letter to Sen. John McCain, November 14, 2011, http://security.blogs.cnn. com/2011/11/14/panetta-details-impact-of-potentially-devastating-defense-cuts/ .
69 ESSAY
STRATEGIC JIHAD Threatens the United Kingdom and the West
THE BARONESS CAROLINE COX
he British people have had an august and splendid influence T on several key freedoms which have spread throughout Western Civilization, and this historical contribution dates to at least the Magna Carta 800 years ago. Our forbears have given us a rich political inheritance, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and equal access to the law. Alarmingly, today therare mil- we are able to recognize these humanity, including the en- itant Islamists who are us- and other versions of ‘Strategic slavement of Christians ing ‘Strategic jihad’ to threat- jihad’, our civil societies and and other minorities. Yet en our fundamental free- governments will be better ‘Military jihad’ has con- doms and rights. Most of the able to protect our freedoms tinued as well to threat- world’s 1.2 billion Muslims, so that future generations may en our peace and security at including those in the United enjoy the rich heritage with home. In the United Kingdom, Kingdom, are very hospita- which we have been blessed. two Islamist Nigerians mur- ble and law-abiding, and the dered a young British soldier, Christian community should Perhaps the most obvious ver- Fusilier Lee Rigby, on the encourage those Muslims who sion of ‘Strategic jihad’ that street in broad daylight. His are developing theological citizens have seen is ‘Military murderers carried pieces of and political interpretations jihad’, including Islamic ter- paper with Quranic vers- compatible with religious tol- rorism. Nearly every day our es which they claimed legiti- erance and democratic free- television screens and news- mized their actions. These acts doms. Nevertheless, the West papers show Islamic extrem- of Islamic terrorism seek to must remain vigilant against ists’ carnage against those weaken our resolve, whether those militant Islamists who who do not follow their be- we are at home or abroad, but would use our freedoms in or- liefs and interpretations. our governments must contin- der to destroy our democracy Abroad, the Islamic State, ue to provide vigilant securi- through military, political, le- or IS, and Boko Haram have ty in order to protect our citi- gal, and cultural jihad. Once carried out crimes against zens and our freedoms.
70 Though ‘Military jihad’ threat to our values. Not only discussions about sensitive is- may be quite visible for do Sharia courts violate the sues. As long as ‘Cultural jihad’ many citizens, other ver- democratic principle that keeps a firm grip on our uni- sions can be quite perni- there should be ‘One Law for versities, those Muslim schol- cious, if also pervasive, such All’, but the courts also pro- ars who wish to promote theo- as ‘Political jihad’. This form mote religiously sanctioned logical interpretations that are of ‘Strategic jihad’ can occur gender discrimination. Under compatible with religious tol- when Islamists seek to reduce Sharia law, girls and women erance and democratic free- our political freedoms. During only receive a one-half share doms may struggle to find Prime Minister Tony Blair’s of any inheritance that is giv- traction within the Muslim administration, a piece of leg- en to boys or men. These laws community. islation that would have dra- allow men to have polygamous matically reduced British marriages and easily divorce These aforementioned ver- citizens’ freedom of speech their wives (often just by say- sions of ‘Strategic jihad’ along was progressing through the ing ‘I divorce you’ three times), with other versions such as British Parliament. The word- but a wife has a much more ‘Demographic Jihad’ pose ing in this legislation would difficul experience. She must a serious threat not only to have made it a serious crime often pay a hefty fee to have the United Kingdom but also to make any criticism about a divorce, but sometimes she to Western Civilization as a Islam, to promote any faith may not have the money with- whole because they threat- that could ‘give offense’, or to out her husband’s permission. en the freedoms that serve make jokes about Islam. The Through these means and oth- as the foundation to our so- punishment for breaking this ers, the Sharia courts promote ciety. Recognizing this jihad law could have been six years gender inequality, even though and then resisting it can help imprisonment. In the House as a nation, we are committed us to preserve those free- of Lords, we discerned these to the promotion of gender doms. If we are afraid to fight provisions and possible inter- equality, which is essential for this Islamization, then our pretations of the law, so we our democracy. grandchildren may have to then included amendments fight the battles we did not that guaranteed British citi- The Islamists have not have the courage to fight We zens’ freedom of speech. Yet only imposed their will have received a rich inher- Tony Blair’s administration through Britain’s Sharia itance. We have an obliga- sought to remove these ‘free- courts, but they have also tion to pass on our spiritual, dom amendments’ as the leg- used ‘Cultural jihad’ to pro- cultural, and political heri- islation moved through the mote their agenda. This form tage and freedoms undimin- House of Commons. Despite of ‘Strategic jihad’ manifests in the opponents’ lobbying ef- massive investments in cultur- ished to our children and to ■ forts, the amendments sur- al institutions, such as univer- our children’s children. vived, but they survived sities. Many centers for Islamic by only one vote. The United studies and schools receive Baroness Caroline Cox Kingdom almost lost one of its substantial financial support joined the United Kingdom’s fundamental freedoms. from places like Saudi Arabia, House of Lords in 1983 as a and this financing can help to Life Peer and has traveled ex- Though the ‘Freedom amend- hinder professors or students tensively while helping conduct ments’ survived to protect who may have ideas which go humanitarian aid in confl ct our freedom of speech, in against the Islamists’ agen- zones. She has also been award- the United Kingdom there is da, as described in Douglas ed an Honorary Fellowship of still a ‘Legal jihad’, specifi- Murray’s publication appro- the Royal College of Surgeons cally through the imposition priately named ‘Degrees of of England and Honorary of Sharia law through Sharia Influence’ One should seri- Doctorates by universities Council/courts. Today there ously question whether or not in the United Kingdom, the are at least 80 known Sharia a Department of Theology that United States of America, Councils/courts operating in depends upon Islamists’ fi- the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom and serv- nancing is able to make unbi- Armenia. She is also the found- ing the Muslim communities. ased appointments or can en- er of Humanitarian Aid Relief These courts pose a serious courage serious, balanced Trust (HART).
71 n the Sainsbury Wing of England’s National Gallery resides Sandro Botticelli’s early renaissance depiction Iof Venus and Mars. The deific couple is presented in a moment of post-coital intimacy, reclining opposite one another and surrounded by a fold of cheeky satyrs. Venus is awake, watching over the slumbering Mars. The work is generally taken to symbolize the platitude that love conquers war. But there are reasons to be dubious. For one, a facsimile hung in the Oxford rooms of C.S. Lewis, whose generally unadorned walls betrayed his lack of enthusiasm for art and who, in any case, was hardly one to endorse simplistic aphorisms. Happily, there can be found in Lewis’ writings a pair of promising explanatory keys.
The first is located in a comment to a friend: “In a certain juncture of the planets,” Lewis mused, “each planet may
72 play the others’ part.” In the second Lewis reflects on how Renaissance depictions of inverted relationships in images of cosmic order tended to convey mutual reconciliation rather than a triumph of one over the other. Roman mythology itself lends credence to this possibility in the naming of Venus and Mars’ most noteworthy offspring, their daughter Concordia - the personification of harmony. These ideas hint at another interpretive option: Botticelli’s Venus and Mars – love and war - embrace and reform one another in mutual self-giving without either annihilating the other. This idea has much to say about the attitudinal requirements of the classic Just War Tradition in which love qualifies but does not eradicate war. Now that is something with which Lewis could truck.
Watch for the forthcoming essay on C.S. Lewis and the moral char- acter of the just warrior in the next issue of Providence, Winter 2016.
73 HOW THE LEFT STABBED ISRAEL IN THE BACK Reviewed by Mark Melton MAKING DAVID INTO GOLIATH HOW THE WORLD TURNED AGAINST ISRAEL, JOSHUA MURAVCHIK Encounter Books, 2014, 296 pages
ollowing the announce- saw Israel as an excellent ex- from a Marxist focus on class Fment of an agreement con- ample of how leftist policies conflict to a focus on race cerning Iran’s nuclear pro- could prosper. For nearly 30 conflict: “Once, Zionism had gram amongst the P5+1 years, “Labor Zionism” had tapped into that older Leftism, (China, France, Russia, the developed a socialist system seeing itself as a workers’ United States, the United including cooperative farms movement. But in the latter Kingdom; plus Germany), cri- and collectives while still pre- twentieth century […], it be- tiques about the deal ema- serving democracy, which was came redefined against its will nated mostly from the United an important success since the as a movement of white peo- States and Israel. Some have communist model utilized dic- ple competing for land with argued that the deal, despite tatorships. This combination people of color. This transfor- its flaws, is the best realistic of Zionism with leftist politics mation meant that from then option for avoiding a possible thus allowed the Israeli cause on the Left would be aligned war, or even an inevitable war to find sympathy with non- overwhelmingly and ardent- according to some, with Iran Jews. Even American union ly against Israel.” The much- and the best way to prevent leaders and civil rights leaders loved David had thus turned Iran from obtaining a nuclear such as Martin Luther King, into a much-hated Goliath. weapon. Pro-Israeli observ- Jr. supported Israel during ers have warned that Israel the Six Day War in 1967. Though Israel had developed would face increased insecu- However, after this war when regional military supremacy, rity as an Iran without sanc- Israel had conquered territory the Arab countries still had tions would have more spare from the Arabs, “Israel became strong economic power since cash to fund Israel’s enemies, the overlord of millions of it could cut off oil supplies to especially Hezbollah. In this Arabs.” Israeli leaders had ex- Israel’s potential allies. This environment when Israel’s pected these conquered Arabs “oil weapon” had been ineffe - security has reentered pub- would go to the neighboring tive in 1967 because the United lic debates, reading Joshua Arab countries in exchange States had enough spare pro- Muravchik’s Making David for land taken during the Six duction capacity to make up into Goliath: How the World Day War, but these countries for what the Arab countries Turned Against Israel would refused. “And, as time passed, refused to export, but the dy- be an excellent primer for the once nebulous sense namics had changed dra- anyone who wants to under- of national identity among matically by the Yom Kippur stand a pro-Israeli perspective Palestinians […] began to crys- War in 1973. In spite of the on how the Jewish state went tallize. Thus, not only did the oil weapon threat, the United from the world’s darling to the Israelis occupy territory that States continued to provide world’s pariah. More specifi- the Arabs claimed as theirs, Israel arms, but most of the cally, the book details how the but they had become ‘occupi- European countries, who were left turned against Israel. ers’ in a second, more fraught much more reliant on Arab sense- standing between an- oil, attempted to appease the The Israeli state was initial- other people and its nation- Arabs. This war gave anti-Is- ly well-respected in the inter- al aspirations.” Thereafter, raeli socialists in Europe the national community, espe- as Muravchik chronicles, the impetus to shift their govern- cially amongst socialists who “New Left” shifted the debate ments’ sympathies from Israel
74 to the Arabs and the Global become eager to please China South. Eventually, countries in order to gain an econom- like Austria, Portugal, and ic or political advantage, but Spain would even host Yasser the global community mostly Arafat on officia visits, even ignores China’s human rights though he was not an officia violations. Moreover, the var- head of state. ious organizations who pro- mote the Boycott, Divestment, Though the vast majority of & Sanctions (BDS) campaigns the book targets Israel’s left- against Israel, including some ist critics, Muravchik does mainline protestant church- address how some of Israel’s es, have not promoted these actions have damaged the same campaigns against state’s international stand- China. Muravchik speculates ing. First, Israel shifted away that even though Israel has from socialist politics in 1977 military supremacy over its re- when Menachem Begin be- gional neighbors, the country came Prime Minister. This General Assembly has passed would face less criticism if its shift alienated some of Israel’s numerous resolutions criti- economic influence was stron- previous international sympa- cizing Israel for human rights ger. The book’s arguments are thizers on the left, and Begin’s violations, but this same body strongest when making this rhetoric was either harsh or rarely if ever addresses hu- case that the global communi- undiplomatic. The govern- man rights violations in oth- ty has used a double standard ment also began to encour- er neighboring countries. when criticizing Israel with- age settlements in the West According to the book’s cal- out criticizing its neighbors or Bank so that a future left-lean- culations, roughly one-fifth China. ing government would not be to one-quarter of all resolu- able to surrender land to the tions passed in the General Though the book does make a Palestinians as part of a peace Assembly specifically criticize good case for how Israel has deal. In addition to the govern- Israel, and roughly three-quar- faced a double standard, the ment’s shift away from leftist ters of resolutions that criti- book does not make as strong politics in 1977, the Lebanon cize a specific country apply of a case for how the global War in 1982 was a second ac- to Israel. Meanwhile, Human community’s realist political tion which damaged Israel’s Rights Watch concentrates theory has always been detri- international standing. The more heavily on Israel than on mental to Israel’s interests. In inclusion of these two actions any other country in the region the first chapter, Muravchik helps balance the book’s rou- even though Freedom House argues that because the Arabs tine critiques against Israel’s ranks Israel as more free than had a larger population and leftist opponents. Though these other countries, even controlled oil supplies, real- these opponents would un- when only considering the ists would naturally favor the doubtedly include other ac- West Bank and Gaza, which Arabs over the Israelis. He tions that damaged Israel’s are either better or rough- elaborates, “The Zionists or standing, Muravchik makes a ly the same as neighboring Israelis managed to prevail thorough defense for how the countries. This double stan- only in those rare instances global community has used a dard may make one wonder when ‘idealism’ prevailed.” double standard when criticiz- if human rights organizations’ The book makes a good ar- ing Israel. true motivations are politi- gument for how Europe’s de- cal or altruistic. In addition to pendency on oil helped the Indeed, one of the book’s ma- comparing Israel to its neigh- socialists use realist logic to jor complaints is how the in- bors, the book also makes turn Europe against Israel ternational community rou- the argument that the world after the Yom Kippur War. tinely admonishes Israel with- holds Israel to a higher stan- However, Israel does appear out treating Israel’s neighbors dard than China. Because of to have prevailed in the United with the same level of scru- China’s strength and prosper- States during the Cold War at tiny. For instance, the UN ity, the global community has least in part because realists
75 sought to contain the Soviet Union in the Middle East, MORE THAN GOOD but the book does not ad- dress instances when re- NEWS alism may have benefited Review by Marc LiVecche Israel. Perhaps Muravchik could have further quali- fied the word “prevail”. For instance, in 1975 Henry EVANGELICALS AND AMERICAN Kissinger, who is not well renowned for his idealism, FOREIGN POLICY defended Israel and helped defeat Arab attempts to ex- MARK R. AMSTUTZ pel Israel from the United Nations. Why would this in- Oxford University Press, 2013, 272 pages stance not constitute Israel “prevailing”? A couple of he primary aims of Mark to say, Evangelicals must find sentences could perhaps an- TAmstutz’s Evangelicals their foreign policy voice with- swer this question. and American Foreign Policy out losing “their focus on reli- are twofold. First, the veter- gious matters.” Notwithstanding this slight an Wheaton College profes- critique, Making David into sor of political science intends The book is divided into two Goliath remains an excellent to provide a “more compel- major parts. The first four read for anyone who wish- ling account of Evangelicals’ chapters explore the rise of es to better understand how influ nce on America’s role Evangelical global engage- the left turned against Israel in the world” than has been ment. Chapter one, in de- even though the country previously appreciated. This scribing the context in which was once the left’s darling. endeavor is important not Evangelical faith influences Not only does the book give least because what American American global engagement, a thorough retelling of the Evangelicals have already addresses four issues: morality important historical events done involving global affairs and foreign policy, religion and which affect Israel today, but will have much to critique and the development of America, its analysis helps put more commend regarding the in- foreign policy and Christianity recent events into context. creasing work they will do, es- more specifically, and the in- The Iran deal over its nucle- pecially given the shifting of tegration of moral values and ar program would certainly Christian political influence i faith with statecraft. Chapter deserve a future addendum America away from the main- two traces the origins and de- to this book, but the drop in line denominations and onto velopment of Evangelicalism oil prices over the past year the Evangelicals. In light of in the United States. The third would also deserve further this analysis, the book’s sec- chapter details the substan- analysis. The oil weapon ond, and primary, task is to is- tial if sometimes indirect role will likely become less po- sue both a challenge and a cau- that American Evangelical tent as American shale oil tion. The challenge is to call missionaries have played in and gas companies have re- American Evangelicals to for- the conduct of American for- placed the Arab countries mulate a coherent framework eign relations. Concluding this as the key “swing produc- for thinking about foreign pol- section, Chapter Four maps er”, so perhaps Israel could icy. The caution comes with the conceptual features of benefit as realist calculations reminding Evangelicals that Evangelical social and political change across the globe. As “religious groups make their ethics, including: the primacy the Middle East continues to most important contributions of the spiritual realm, the dual change rapidly, Muravchik’s to the moral life of nations nature of Christian citizenship, work will nevertheless re- when they relate transcendent the imperative of human dig- main an important primer norms to domestic and inter- nity, the priority of individual for understanding this re- national social, political, and responsibility, and the need gion. ■ economic concerns”. This is for a limited state. With this
76 in hand, the second section, global policy without actually chapters five through eight, possessing adequate compe- brings the Evangelical world- tence and knowledge as well view to bear on particular cas- as forgetting that “specific es, focusing on global poverty, policy recommendations are America’s ties to Israel, and a the least significant contribu- collection of other foreign poli- tion that religious groups can cy issues including human traf- make.” Rather, the church’s ficking, international religious key competence is moral anal- freedom, and climate change. ysis and the fundamental “task Concluding the volume, chap- of the church, or of religious ter nine offers both critique associations…, is not to tell of past practice and construc- government official what to tive suggestions for develop- do, but to help structure the ing a more coherent strategy analysis of important moral for Evangelical global engage- issues facing both individual ment. Here Amstutz offers a concerns as respect for hu- nations and the international particularly Augustinian tra- man life, social responsibility, community.” jectory, endorsing Christian freedom from arbitrary infl - realism’s assertions regarding ence, and the like. For anyone, In light of the challenge of the the radical dichotomy between Evangelicals included, moral church simultaneously par- the claims of the heaven- principles “contribute to the ticipating in conversations re- ly kingdom and the claims of development and implemen- garding the American expres- temporal life; the ubiquity of tation of foreign policy by… sion of power abroad as a part human sin; and the paradox- helping to define goals and of faithfully manifesting its ical dimension of human na- purposes...[and by]…provid- responsibility to care for her ture, expressed in both self-as- ing a standard for judging ac- neighbors, while not forget- sertion as well as self-dona- tion, and…offering inspiration ting her primary focus of pro- tion, as consistent with core for action.” For Evangelicals, claiming good news to a world Evangelical assumptions. these moral values inexorably sorely in need of it, Mark manifest in the belief that U.S. Amstutz’ book is enormously One of the book’s decisive security and prosperity – our helpful in guiding Christians strengths is its ability to rally interests – include meeting to competently pursue mat- an important counter-narra- the responsibilities incumbent ters of public affairs advoca- tive to the increasingly strong upon us not just as human be- cy. His recommendations that populist retreat in America ings but as followers of Christ. Evangelicals should focus on away from international re- These responsibilities result, sponsibility, most particular- necessarily so, in deep global deepening their understand- ly regarding military inter- engagement. ing of the problem or issue at vention abroad. Against this hand; on identifying and ex- trend Amstutz reminds us of The portrait Amstutz draws plaining how biblical princi- the Evangelical grounds for of the career of Evangelical ples address those problems; understanding “that norms, foreign policy activism is no on maintaining core distinc- especially moral values, are subject hagiography. He is tions such as between the two an inescapable element of all clear about what he regards kingdoms or good and evil; human actions, whether indi- as the institutional, intellec- on illuminating and applying vidual or collective.” Indeed, tual, and, indeed, theological political theology; on empha- for a government to meet its shortcomings of Evangelicals sizing teaching over advocacy; sovereign responsibility for that sometimes manifest in and on keeping humble aspi- the preservation of justice, their attempts to influence rations are wise prescriptions order, and peace, some min- U.S. policy and world events. for American Evangelicals who imal morality is necessary. He strongly warns against wish to engage in foreign pol- For Amstutz, this necessity is both attempting to speak au- icy while not forgetting that clearly the case regarding such thoritatively on matters of they’re Christians. ■
77 own failures and sins, prompt- NOT DEAD YET ing constant anticipation of Review by Mark Tooley impending divine judgment and fall from grace. This American preoccupation with its own jaded soul ironically is THE MYTH OF AMERICA’S a source for constant reform and adaptation, Joffe believes, DECLINE fueling an ongoing dynamism POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND A HALF CENTURY that other countries and cul- OF FALSE PROPHECIES, JOSEF JOFFE tures rarely replicate. Liveright, 2013, 352 pages Joffe observes that American share of global GNP of about 20-25% has remained remark- ably constant for the last cen- ssumptions about American tury excepting after WWII, Adecline are now common when the rest of the industri- fare in secular and religious al world was in ruins. China’s circles. Only a decade ago share has been growing, but or less, the Evangelical Left Europe and Japan, now joined shrilly decried an advancing by stagnant petro-power American “empire” in the Bush Russia, have been losing share. years. So the Christian anti-im- No power has the capacity to perialists should be pleased by approach America militarily, the empire’s irreversible de- and America will remain un- cline, presumably. surpassed in the best univer- sities and in most fields of sci- Meanwhile, many conservative ence and technology. Christians accept the assump- tion of American economic Among the great powers, and geopolitical decline as in- America is the only one, ex- trinsic to its secularization and cepting India, with a robust- moral decline. God is punish- ly growing population, thanks ing America, they surmise, as mostly to immigration. China Yet in each case, Joffe recalls, He punished decadent Rome. faces a potentially bleak de- America endured and sur- mographic future with a dis- passed its putative successors, Except maybe the decline is proportionately elderly popu- including ultimately, he be- not really a decline, at least lation. And even if China’s de- lieves, China, whose cronyism according to Josef Joffe in clining economic growth rates his The Myth of America’s and corporatism will inevita- remain twice the U.S. growth Decline: Politics, Economics, bly curtail its dramatic growth rate, it cannot catch up. Then and a Half Century of False rates, a prediction maybe there is America’s unique Prophecies. He traces the long actually validated, since the global cultural power, plus its history of American Declinism, book’s publication, by China’s international network of al- which across 60 years assumed current relative slump. liances, compared to relative America was being left behind isolation for China, surround- by the Soviets after Sputnik, America has an inner social ed by neighbors who fear and by Third World revolution and economic resilience typi- coalesce against it. and tumult after Vietnam, by cally absent among its rivals, the 1973 oil embargo plus the Joffe declares, and which Joffe, speaking as a German Iranian Revolution, by pros- critics and doomsayers, chief- newspaper publisher of Jewish pering Japan during American ly American themselves, too background who often teach- stagflation, by the emergent often overlook. Dating to its es in the U.S., offers a bracing European Community after Puritan forebearers, America and refreshing international the Cold War, and finally by historically has a unique critique of American self-ab- fast-growing China. self-introspection about its sorption embodied in chronic
78 Declinism. Joffe thinks that true American decline is pos- sible only if America itself decides to decline, which he Subscribe to believes no superpower has PROVIDENCE ever done. He discerns in the Providence: FALL 2015 NUMBER 1 current obsession with de- cline an American desire to es- A Journal of Christianity & INAUGURAL EDITORIAL cape from global responsibil- ity. Christians and especially American Foreign Policy MARK TOOLEY Evangelicals, preoccupied with a much more narrow strata of American & Christian Duty events and impressions, can learn much from Joffe, who 04 in Today’s World speaks with the grim historical reality of a Jewish European FEATURES who realizes that American leadership and confidence NIGEL BIGGAR are essential for international Less Hegel, More History! Christian order. Can Christians operate from Ethics & Political Realities 10 a similarly broad historical and international perspective in appreciating the geopolit- JAMES TURNER JOHNSON ical and moral necessity of American global hegemony? Christian Ethics & the Realm The Evangelical Left is un- likely to abandon its obsessive of Statecraft: Divisions, Cross-Currents, and contradictory anti-Amer- 18 icanism, wanting American & the Search for Connections apology and retreat while at the same time demanding America reshape the world according to the Evangelical JOSEPH LOCONTE Left’s policy desires.
Christian Realism & If America, or at least its cul- U.S. Foreign Policy 26 tural commanding heights, and join a movement of thinkers interested continues to secularize, con- servative Evangelicals will in the intersection of Christian faith and have to decide how or wheth- political reflection, foreign policy, and global er formidable American pow- Cover Image: affairs. Become a part of the inaugural cohort er can be deployed for good. Engraved by by Benjamin Benjamin Tanner Tanner after for an introductory rate of $28.00 – for four aft erdesign a design by by John John JanesJanes Barralet,Barralet, Their retreat from serious America Guided Guided by by Wisdom Wisdom public policy engagement will print issues per year is an an allegorical allegorical depiction depiction of what of what miss important opportunities and early access to the digital edition. American exceptionalism meantmeant toto the the to influence America’s global post-Revolutionary generation. Issued predominance. Even a suppos- after the the War War of of 1812, 1812, Barralet Barralet drew drew edly post-Christian America For subscription information please contact: on the then-familiar iconography of on the then-familiar iconography of still carries within its cultural [email protected] the West’s Greco-Roman patrimony toto depict the virtues ofof republicanrepublican liberty.liberty. and political DNA the burning www.providencemag.com America, guidedguided byby transcendenttranscendent wis-wis- embers of biblical justice that dom, whilewhile engagedengaged inin commerce,commerce, thethe Evangelicals can and should liberal arts,arts, andand industry,industry, wouldwould enjoyenjoy fully exploit for the global the peace of security and plenty. common good. ■
79 PROVIDENCE INAUGURAL ISSUE FALL 2015
A JOURNAL OF CHRISTIANITY & AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
CHRISTIAN ETHICS & THE REALM OF STATECRAFT: DIVISIONS, CROSS-CURRENTS, & THE SEARCH FOR CONNECTIONS By jAMes Turner johnson
SPONSORED BY LESS HEGEL, MORE HISTORY! CHRISTIAN ETHICS & POLITICAL REALITIES By niGel BiGGAr
FALL 2015 • Number CHRISTIAN1 REALISM & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY By joseph loConTe
Also: MArk Tooley on ChrisTiAn poliTiCAl duTy • BryAn MCGrAw on violenCe • BAroness Cox on jihad • AlAn dowd on The MorAliTy of deTerrenCe • TiMoThy MAllArd on wAr • MArC liveCChe on MorAl injury • roBerT niCholson on BoundAries, CoMMuniTy, & The Middle eAsT • wAlTer russell MeAd on The CosTs of ChrisTiAn reTreAT