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SUMMER 2016 • NUMBER 4 SPONSORED BY them. “The foreign fighters were a churches to remain in the Middle the resources of churches in the hodgepodge of Christians, atheists, East and “have a presence of United States against so simple a and the religiously indifferent,” she Christians with Muslim people.” need,” Belz says, “and American says. “What they had in common He said he was doing his duty as Christians could make a real differ- was a conviction that the United a witness, “showing the presence ence in the lives of ISIS victims” PROVIDENCE States and its allies owed some- of the Lord, and serving him with 4 (280). SUMMER 2016 | NUMBER thing to the Iraqis and that they joy” (165). themselves had watched too long As Belz concludes, she says the from the sidelines, waiting on the Father Ragheed Ganni of Christians “confronted face-to-face West to act” (261). Church of the was The ediTors and door-to-door by ISIS had run, martyred in 2007 along with three yes, but they had run only when to A CHRISTIAN DECLARATION ON Before the end of summer 2014, deacons. Ganni had written, “We ISIS was the richest terrorist empathize with Christ, who en- stay meant giving up their faith. AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY group in the world, with some tered Jerusalem in full knowledge The sublime, nearly forgotten re- 04 $500 billion in resources, and that the consequence of His love ality in all their hardship and loss the world had disregarded the for mankind was the cross. Thus, was this: In losing everything, they jihadists while they conquered while bullets smashed our church had held on to the one thing that FEATURES one-third of with 30,000 windows, we offered our suffering mattered to them most” (295). militants. Infidels demands, as a sign of love for Christ. This is “Why? Given the millions of war, real war, but we hope to carry But for the Syrian Orthodox Nigel Biggar dollars and thousands of lives our cross to the very end with the monks of Mar Matti, a 4th centu- the West had invested: the help of Divine Grace” (161-2). ry monastery only 12 miles from IN DEFENCE OF JUST WAR: American veterans who had Mosul, included in what matters CHRISTIAN TRADITION, CONTROVERSIES, & CASES suffered injuries and sacrificed Belz reflects: most is to stay. Head monk, Yousif their limbs to IEDs, who were Ibrahim, told Belz that as long as 12 still living with their own trau- I tried to fathom the any Christians were left in Iraq, “A ma, only to see a more lasting, depths of Christian sol- shepherd cannot leave his sheep.” more widely traumatic destruc- idarity, watching these The monastery, one of the only tion unfold” (221). believers find water in cultural sites not ravaged by ISIS, this desert… Caring for alaN dowd Infidels could be an extremely de- is defended by a special unit of displaced families when pressing, despair-filled story. But the Peshmerga Kurdish military they first arrived was one THE MORAL USE OF DRONES it is no such thing. The power of and inhabited now by three coura- thing, but it was another 24 Belz’s book comes from the power geous monks and six students. The to help them six months, of the Middle East Church. Belz ongoing warfare is clearly visible one year, or eighteen demonstrates how the same God for months later. The long from atop Mar Matti’s Mt. Alfaf. whom Middle East Christians are years of war and perse- Ibrahim told Belz, “The sky lights willing to die sustains them in the cution preceding the in- up at night, but we of course are not midst of their suffering. Their faith vasion of ISIS had trained scared. God protects us” (266-67). remains strong; they receive help San Jorge y el Dragón, by Peter Paul Rubens, some muscle reflex, only and support from local churches 1605-1607. According to legend, George instead of it moving their Regardless of their suffering and to which they flee; they are unit- slew the dragon terrorizing a community and hands away from the fiery death, regardless of their bewil- saved a princess about to become the dragon’s ing and working together as never flame, it moved them to- dered disappointment with a silent victim. Various versions attend the legend. before. Belz was amazed by the ward it—and toward one West and a silent Western Church, Some are rather ignoble, including one in which resilience and courage of Middle another. (291) Infidels demonstrates that Middle the Christian hero merely wounds the dragon, East Christians like Nicodemus binds it, and terrorizes the townspeople with it Daoud Sharaf, Syriac There is opportunity, Belz points East Christians are confident in until they agree to convert to the faith. Power of Mosul. Sharaf, one of the last to out, for American Christians to the love of the God they serve and can always be misused. Most accounts render leave Mosul, declared, “They take bring good out of evil. One Indiana for whom they have sacrificed all. the tale more simply. An innocent victim is everything from us, but they cannot church raised $60,000 to pay six Together, they have strategic im- about to be devoured by an unrelenting beast. take the God from our hearts—they months’ rent for 80 families at portance in His Sovereign plan. St. George, possessing the power and opportu- the Erbil hotel in Iraqi Kurdistan, nity to save her, embraces his duty and, placing cannot” (220). himself between the tormented and the tor- where many Christians have fled Faith McDonnell is the Director mentor, uses his strength to end the evil. The Bishop Antoine Audo, in Aleppo, to escape ISIS.. And Iraqi pastor of Religious Liberty Programs use of power in foreign affairs is often complex, the head of the Chaldean Church Yusuf Matti could use help setting and of the Church Alliance for but basic distinctions can be made, and certain in Syria and Bible translator told up schools for Yazidi, Muslim, a New Sudan at the Institute on responsibilities recognized and met. Belz it was important for Eastern and Christian children. “Multiply Religion & Democracy.

79 PUBLISHERS Mark Tooley Robert Nicholson

EDITOR Mark Tooley

MANAGING EDITOR Marc LiVecche ESSAYS DEPUTY EDITOR Mark Melton Jennifer Marshall & John Scott Redd Jr. SENIOR EDITORS DEPLOYING WOMEN TO DIRECT GROUND Keith Pavlischek COMBAT: MISTAKING A LOAD-BEARING WALL Joe Loconte FOR A GLASS CEILING 32 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Susannah Black Eric Patterson JUST WAR & TERRORISM 38 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mark Amstutz Fred Barnes Mark Tooley Nigel Biggar Paul Coyer BREXIT & A GODLY NATIONALISM 46 Cromartie Dean Curry Thomas Farr Marc LiVecche Mary Habeck THE FIFTH IMAGE: Rebeccah Heinrichs SEEING THE ENEMY WITH JUST WAR EYES 50 Will Inboden James Turner Johnson Herb London Joshua Craddock Timothy Mallard Paul Marshall THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: Faith McDonnell HOW IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARIES BLINDSIDED Walter Russell Mead AMERICA’S SECULAR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY 58 Paul Miller Joshua Mitchell Luke Moon Ofir Haivry Eric Patterson THE CRESCENT & THE LION 62 Mackubin Thomas Owens Greg Thornberry

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Faith McDonnell ISSN A PEOPLE OF NO IMPORTANCE 24713511 Mindy Belz’s They Say We Are Infidels 77 San Jorge y el Dragón by Peter Paul Rubens, 1606 – 1608. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Source: Wikimedia Commons. “…If nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice.” Albert Camus, The Rebel

4 FEATURE

A CHRISTIAN DECLARATION ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

The Editors

ince the end of the Cold War, the United States has struggled to define Sits role in the world. Americans’ ambivalence about their place in the world in the 1990s was punctuated by the deadliest terrorist attack in history and succeeded by troubled wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More recently, the United States has moved away from its historic post-World War II role as the guarantor of international peace and security, even as the world and its dangers continue to press in. In reaction to all this, some Americans have embraced a reactive, populist approach to world affairs that emphasizes a peculiar, paradoxical combination of American toughness towards her enemies and withdrawal from world leadership.

Thoughtful Christians who take seriously the We are Christians who have studied, prac- roles assigned by God to the church and the ticed, or carefully observed American foreign state, and who value the equal importance policy. We believe it is our responsibility to of justice and ordered liberty, should not be speak out at this time in order to provide a silent in the face of this shift. While we are much-needed corrective to the current foreign advocates of American leadership, we are also policy debate. We offer this joint declaration in favor of American prudence and virtue in that articulates a simple yet serious frame- the exercise of power abroad. work for thinking about American power

5 and world order. While this declaration is In this sense the routine work of foreign about American foreign policy, we believe policy and maintenance of the international these are principles Christians around the system might be considered a contemporary world—Americans and others—can affirm. version of the creation mandate to cultivate the Garden (Genesis 2:15). The “garden” in This declaration has been titled “A Christian question is the international social system— Declaration” and not “The Christian or, more concisely, world order. Cultivating Declaration” because we do not presume to the garden of world order means tending to speak for all Christians. Our purpose here the tasks that uphold public safety, execute is to attempt to apply biblical principles to justice, and promote human flourishing. American foreign policy, an exercise that This is a mandate shared by all peoples, but necessarily involves calculations of wisdom those of us who live in a powerful country and reasoned judgment. We hope that our have special stewardship responsibilities. Put arguments are both clear and persuasive to another way, we believe in the prudent use fellow Christians as well as to non-Christians. of American power to encourage, grow, and defend the institutions and culture of ordered This declaration comes at a needful time. The liberty among the community of responsible 2016 presidential election has presented a sovereign nations. clarion moment for a statement of principles. We invite those who agree with us to endorse There is no perfect human political system, our vision, and those who disagree, whether but we believe the liberal order is the least Christians or non-Christians, to engage in a flawed of all presently available options and thoughtful and sustained dialogue with us. constitutes the best means for accomplishing the ends for which government was ordained. Politically, liberal order comprises account- WORLD ORDER able self-government, the rule of law, civil lib- When Christians think about foreign policy, erties, and religious freedom. Economically, they often gravitate to specific moral issues: liberal order means relatively open markets, advocating for religious freedom, alleviat- freedom of the seas, the sanctity of contract, ing the plight of refugees, fighting human and peaceful rule-based dispute adjudica- trafficking, and more. While these causes tion. Internationally, liberal order means are individually worthy and we affirm each nonaggression, mutual security, territorial of them, we are concerned that single-issue inviolability—with limited exceptions for activism is easily manipulated by policy- humanitarian intervention—and favors in- makers. Worse, limiting our engagement tergovernmental cooperation on issues of to single-issue causes risks devolving into global concern. Liberal order is especially moralism, with all the attendant problems powerful where these overlap—as it does of self-righteousness and utopianism. among the community of economically open liberal democracies that participate in mutual We urge our fellow citizens to embrace a defense and cooperative security arrange- broader framework for thinking about ments. Other goals at which governments American power. Most of the daily craft of aim—including providing for the poor and foreign and defense policy involves the regular disadvantaged, and promoting the flourishing management and implementation of policies of all citizens—are most effectively pursued to preserve order, maintain stable borders, within the framework of liberal order. manage alliances, and protect the internation- al flow of trade and communications. This is AMERICA’S ROLE the kind of work, often unseen, that enables the vast majority of American citizens to go We believe the United States should continue about their daily lives rarely worrying or even to lead the world towards these goals—as it thinking about foreign policy. has done since the end of World War II—for

6 two reasons. First, it is in America’s own erred by holding the state to the same stan- best interest because liberal order is the dard as the church or the individual, resulting outer perimeter of American security. The in pacifism and, we believe, an abdication of American government is morally responsible government’s rightful responsibilities. for the safety of the American people, rightly prioritizes their security, and rightly main- Yet others excuse the state from ethical con- tains an effective military to deter and defeat siderations altogether in the belief that mo- those who would attack the United States. rality does not apply to politics. No nation is But the United States’ safety and prosperity excused from the obligation to act justly. We is most strongly assured in a world shaped do not believe that raison d’état is a self-jus- by liberal norms of accountable governance, tifying principle or that the pursuit of power open economies, and cooperative security—a at other’s expense is the sole guiding principle world in which military force is less likely to in statecraft. The Old Testament prophets be called upon in the first place. regularly held the pagan nations to account for their acts of oppression and violence. The Second, the United States is still the leading book of Proverbs clearly expects rulers to power in the world, especially in partnership govern justly: “It is an abomination to kings with its democratic partners and allies: No to do evil, for the throne is established by other nation or alliance has the economic, righteousness,” (16:12), and “Like a roaring military, or political resources required to lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a provide the organization, administration, and poor people. A ruler who lacks understanding coordination required for global leadership. is a cruel oppressor, but he who hates unjust Without American and allied leadership, gain will prolong his days,” (28:15-16). The much of the garden of world order would go United States, like every nation, should pursue untended—evidence of which we have seen in justice and order. recent years as actors with scant regard for the responsible use of power have stepped into the Uniquely among nations, Americans have vacuum created by American passivity. While been given unprecedented power, wealth, America’s leadership is imperfect, we do not and political rights—and thus have an un- see a plausible alternative and are concerned precedented responsibility to use them well. about what kind of world would grow under Reinhold Niebuhr rightly warned against different leadership. American leadership exercising power without consideration “of should not be taken as an excuse for other the interests and views of those upon whom states to abdicate their own responsibilities. it impinges.” As the most powerful nation But the past century has amply demonstrat- in history, American power impinges on the ed that if the United States does not do its interests and views of peoples and nations part, other states will not do theirs. When around the world. American statesmen should the United States does step up, that increases be sensitive to the effects of American power the likelihood that others will do the same. on those outside American borders—both to avoid unintended harm and to recognize To accomplish this, the United States must opportunities to serve others. Like the man use its power responsibly. This has been a who hid his talent in the ground, refusing to source of considerable confusion. Americans invest it for fear of failure, the United States have often erred in applying ethical princi- would be irresponsible if it stood idly by, ples to their national life. Some Christians abdicated its global responsibilities, and re- tend to equate the United States with ancient fused to put our power in the service of the Israel and argue the former shares the latter’s common good. unique providential tasks, a tendency which blurs the special status of Old Testament We leave open the question as to how, when, Israel and blinds Americans to the sins and and where the United States should most errors in their own history and their own prudently exercise its leadership and advocate government’s policies. Other Christians have for a culture of ordered liberty abroad. Such

7 In military imagery, a horse can represent the passions or power of its rider under the control of martial discipline. This accords with the dominical use of the term “meek” in the Sermon on the Mount. In the root meaning of the biblical image, “meek” describes a war horse whose power is under appropriate submission. In providing both goads and limits, this is precisely what the just war tradition seeks to accomplish: the submission of martial power under proper command. decisions involve difficult trade-offs under should respect the checks and balances of our considerable time pressure with imperfect system of government, explicitly designed to information and are best evaluated on a case- make “ambition counteract ambition.” Finally, by-case basis. A world of ordered liberty is an when possible, they should expose American aspiration: policymakers are often compelled policy to the iron-sharpening-iron account- to compromise such aspirations because of ability of multilateralism, especially with the limitations imposed on them. Pursuing allies that share our aspirations for liberal ideals heedless of limitations is foolish and, order. We do not believe unilateralism is often, dangerous. wrong in principle, but we believe that acting in concert with others is a powerful check on We recognize the United States’ inescapable the temptation to strategic and moral myopia. leadership role presents a temptation to hubris and selfishness—a temptation to which it has Our approach to American foreign policy rests sometimes succumbed. American policy- on a biblical understanding of human nature, makers can guard against these temptations the purposes of government, and the use of in four ways. They should heed the counsel force. And here we stand in the tradition of of voices outside government, especially in centuries of Christian reflection on the role America’s religious communities. They should of the state and the just use of force, from cultivate an awareness of history, replete with Augustine to Aquinas, from Luther and Calvin the folly of self-aggrandizing power. They to Niebuhr and Elshtain.

8 HUMAN NATURE this fallen world. Some of the fiercest denun- ciations in the Old Testament are political, Human beings are made in the image of God directed towards cities, kingdoms, empires, (Genesis 1:26-27). As God uses his moral and their rulers. The prophets thundered agency for creativity and human flourishing, against the rulers of Egypt, Babylon, and so we are to wield the authority and influence Assyria for their violence, oppression, and he has entrusted to us in the same way. Using barbarism. authority as God intended is necessary and productive. Teachers have power over stu- Simultaneously, government is a divine or- dents, and help them become educated adults. dinance, created by God to be a blessing to Parents have power over children, and help all people, a check against the worst abuses them become disciplined and mature human of human sin and evil. Jesus commanded beings. Governments have power over their his followers to “render to Caesar the things citizens, and create the possibility of justice that are Caesar’s,” (Matthew 22:21). and ordered liberty. The ability of human pled with Israel to “seek the welfare of the city beings to wield power in creative and beautiful where I have sent you into exile,” (Jeremiah ways accounts for all the accomplishments 29:7). Peter ordered the early church to obey of human civilization—the arts and sciences, the governing authorities and to “fear God, the works of literature, the great cities, and honor the king,” (1 Peter 2:17). The apostle the acts of and statesmen. Paul described government as “God’s servant” who works “for your good” and acts as “an But we also hold to the doctrine of original avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the sin—which Reinhold Niebuhr famously de- wrongdoer,” (Romans 13:1-7). scribed as “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith.” The biblical Government has a unique mandate separate authors understood that we who are made in and distinct from the church—another issue God’s image have defaced that image. “The American Christians have sometimes con- Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention fused. The church is the gathering of God’s of the thoughts of his heart was only evil people, an instrument for displaying his glory, continually,” (Genesis 6:8). As the proph- the messenger of his Word, and the embassy et Jeremiah wailed, “The heart is deceitful of the coming Kingdom of God. Jesus gave above all things and desperately sick; who his church the authority to preach, baptize, can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). and make disciples in his name. Just as the church is not authorized to wield the sword or The human race is the race of Saint Theresa exercise coercion, the state is not authorized and Adolf Hitler alike. Human beings pro- to proselytize or compel belief. In that sense, duced Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—and even though a majority of Americans profess built the gas chambers of the Holocaust. The Christianity, the United States Government biblical view of human nature is that we are is rightly “secular” in that it should not favor made in God’s image but fallen, marked by or propagate Christianity. A just government dignity and depravity, capable of beauty and strives to uphold religious liberty and con- cruelty. This is the cornerstone of Christian science rights for all. The United States has political thought. an historically unique role in modeling and advocating essential human rights. THE STATE & THE CHURCH THE USE OF FORCE Government reflects both aspects of hu- man nature. Oftentimes, government is the In some hands, government is a tool of im- greatest product of human sin—wickedness mense and satanic power. But exercised amassed and expressed collectively on an rightly according to God’s creation design, epic scale, among the greatest curses to afflict the same power is a tool of blessing, justice,

9 and order. Government can err by oppress- These imperatives flow from what should ing others; but it can also err by failing to be the overarching motivation for the use of uphold order or pursue justice. Policymakers force: to uphold order and pursue justice when must avoid both the sins of omission and other means have failed. We pursue order commission. Today, we are concerned that and justice out of love for our neighbors and a some policymakers have openly advocated desire to protect them from evil. But when we oppression; simultaneously, others have over- are compelled to fight, our efforts should be corrected from past mistakes and are now at tempered with love for our enemies, fighting risk of being derelict in their duties. in such a way as to minimize unnecessary harm and to promote “a just and lasting peace As Christians, we believe the United States among nations.” must not oppress the innocent. We wish such obvious truths did not need to be stated. But CONCLUSION in an age when some elected officials and can- didates for office openly advocate torture and The United States is the most powerful na- the deliberate killings of civilians, including tion in the history of human civilization. women and children, we must plainly state Our Christian faith gives us a deep sense of that these things are wrong. The rightful responsibility to see such power used well authority of government is no license for and caution because of how such immensity murder or vengeance. of power can be misused. That is why we believe the United States should continue to That does not mean the United States must encourage a culture of liberal order around refrain from the exercise of force; to do so the world. would be an abdication of other rightful re- sponsibilities of government. We believe in Investing in liberal order is, partly, a justi- the tenets of the just war tradition—and, in fiably selfish act of seeking security at the fact, believe the just war framework can be lowest cost. We are unembarrassed about the applied broadly to the work of statecraft. pursuit of American security because uphold- ing order is the first function of government. The United States possesses the rightful authority to use force to maintain and se- However, we believe much more than cure justice—including for self-defense, the American security is at stake. Free nations are defense of the innocent, and the defense of more secure in a world of ordered liberty. All liberal order. In war, we must seek to preserve nations can and should join in the collective noncombatant immunity and use a degree effort to foster accountable governance, free of force proportionate to the goal we seek entrepreneurship, and mutual security. The to achieve. Above all, policymakers must United States and its allies have, for much understand that the goal of war is the creation of the last century, helped foster these ideals of a better peace, which must permeate the around the world—and we believe they should planning for war and its aftermath. continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

SIGNATORIES1

Mark Amstutz, Professor Amy E. Black, Professor of Douglas Burton, War of Political Science, Wheaton Political Science, Wheaton Correspondent College College Ann Buwalda, Executive Hunter Baker, University Paul Bonicelli, Director of Director, Jubilee Campaign USA Fellow for Religious Liberty, Programs and Education, The Inc. Union University Acton Institute

10 J. Daryl Charles, Associate Marc LiVecche, Managing John Scott Redd , Sr., Professor of Religion and Editor, Providence First Director of the National Philosophy, Taylor University Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and Joe Loconte, Professor of , founding Commander of the U.S. Navy s Paul Coyer, Research Professor, History, King’s College in New Institute of World Politics York FIFTH Fleet Herbert Schlossberg, Fellow, Michael Cromartie, Vice Thomas G. Mahnken, Senior Ethics and Public Policy Center President, Ethics and Public Research Professor, Johns Policy Center Hopkins School of Advanced Nicole Bibbins Sedaca, International Studies Dean Curry, Professor of Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown Politics, Messiah College Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom, University Andrew Doran, Co-Founder Hudson Institute and Senior Advisor, In Defense of Shedd, former Acting Christians Faith McDonnell, Religious Director of the Defense Liberty Director, Institute Intelligence Agency and CEO, Michael Doran, Senior Fellow on Religion and Democracy Faith Without Borders, LLC at the Hudson Institute Bryan T. McGraw, Associate Alan W. Dowd, Senior Fellow, Michael Singh, former Senior Professor of Politics and Sagamore Institute, Center for Director for the Near East and International Relations, Wheaton America’s Purpose North Africa, National Security College Council Colin Dueck, Associate Paul D. Miller, Associate Professor, George Mason Owen Strachan, Associate Director, Clements Center for University National Security, The University Professor, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Director, Peter Feaver, Professor of of Texas at Austin Center for Theological and Political Science, Duke University Craig Vincent Mitchell, Cultural Engagement John Gallagher, President and Associate Professor of Philosophy, CEO of the Institute for Global Politics and Economics, Criswell Daniel Strand, Fellow, Engagement (IGE) College Center for Political Thought and Leadership, Arizona State Wess Mitchell, President, Matthew N. Gobush, former University Center for European Policy Director for Communications, Analysis National Security Council; Chair, Gideon Strauss, Providence Episcopal Church Standing Henry R. Nau, Professor contributing writer Commission for Anglican and of Political Science and International Peace with Justice International Affairs, George Juliana Taimoorazy, Concerns Washington University President, Iraqi Christian Relief Council Mark L. Haas, Professor of Robert Nicholson, President, Political Science, Duquesne The Philos Project Mark Tooley, President, University Institute on Religion & John M. Owen IV, Taylor Democracy; editor, Providence Mary Habeck, CEO, Applied Professor of Politics, University of Grand Strategies Virginia Joshua Walker, Transatlantic William Inboden, Executive Mackubin Thomas Owens, Fellow at the German Marshall Director, the Clements Center for Dean of Academics, Institute of Fund of the United States, National Security, The University World Politics; Editor, Orbis Adjunct Professor, George Mason of Texas at Austin University Keith Pavlischek, Georgetown James Turner Johnson, University, Berkeley Center for Will Walldorf, Associate Distinguished Professor of Religion, Peace and World Affairs Professor, Wake Forest College Religious Ethics, Rutgers Department of Politics and University Daniel Philpott, Professor of International Affairs Political Science, University of Robert G. Kaufman; Robert Notre Dame and Katheryn Dockson Professor Sam Webb, Attorney; Research of Public Policy, Pepperdine Paul Rahe, Professor of History, Fellow, Southern Baptist Ethics & University Hillsdale College Religious Liberty Commission

1 Affiliations listed for identification only and do not imply institutional endorsement.

11 FEATURE

IN DEFENCE OF JUST WAR: CHRISTIAN TRADITION, CONTROVERSIES, & CASES

Nigel Biggar

12 San Giorgio e il Drago by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502. Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice, Italy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

y aim in this essay is to show that the Christian just war tradition Mremains very much alive, continuing to develop as it wrestles with conceptual problems, and thinks its way through novel cases. I begin by explaining briefly why I choose to think in terms of the Christian tradition. Then I proceed to discuss four controversial issues that my recent book, In Defence of War,1 has raised: the conception of just war as punitive, the penultimate nature of the authority of international law, the morality of national interest, and the elasticity of the requirement of proportionality. Finally, in order to illustrate the interpretation of some of the criteria of just war, and to show how these develop upon encounter

13 with particular circumstances, I consider What is more, different traditions are seldom three topical cases: Britain’s belligerency absolutely strange to one another: certain against Germany in 1914, the Syrian rebellion strands of Christianity and Islam incorporate against the Assad regime in 2011, and Israel’s Aristotle, for example; both Locke and Kant Operation Protective Edge against Hamas in are more theological than atheist moral phi- Gaza in 2014. losophers usually care to remember.

JUST WAR THINKING: WHY CHRISTIAN? In brief, my view of secularity is not that of Jürgen Habermas or ; it is that When I think about the ethics of war, I do so in of Augustine. In this Augustinian view, secu- terms of the Christian tradition. Why? Won’t larity is the public space where plural voices this limit its appeal, attracting only the inter- put their differences on the table, negotiate, est of Christians and excluding others? Why and compromise. doesn’t it proceed in secular terms, which are universally intelligible and accessible? Why My third reason for thinking about the ethics must it be religious, confessional, sectarian? of war in terms of the Christian tradition is that there is a variety of ways of construing the There are three reasons. First, I am a justification of war, and some are better than Christian. I see the world in Christian terms, others. Some might assume that Christian and when I come to think about the ethics of thought is passé and has been surpassed by war, I naturally do so in those terms. modern philosophical versions. I don’t think so. In my book I argued that philosopher Second, I don’t believe in the possibility of and just war critic David Rodin’s critique of secular language. That is to say, I do not be- lieve that there is a set of terms that is neutral Michael Walzer’s secular version of just war between rival worldviews, which members of thinking is, indeed, pretty damning, but that at the same time it inadvertently illuminates a plural society should adopt when commu- 3 nicating with each other about public affairs. the strengths of the Christian version. Nor do I believe that religious worldviews are irrational per se, and that public discourse Further, Christian thinking differs from con- must therefore be non-religious in order to temporary moral philosophy on just war in be rational. There is no ‘view from nowhere’; one fundamental respect: it rightly conceives there are only diverse confessions. What is of just war as basically punitive in form. This more, non-religious views—Aristotelian, brings us to the first controversial issue. Hobbesian, Kantian, Marxist, Nietzschean, etc—are quite as plural and quite as conflict- CONTROVERSIES ing as religious ones. Just War as Punitive How, then, can we communicate, perchance agree? By setting out as candidly and clearly As I see it, one respect in which Christian what we think and why; by inviting others to thinking about just war is ethically superior do the same; by engaging in the give-and- to Michael Walzer’s moral philosophy—at take of conversation; by identifying points least, as represented by David Rodin—is that of agreement; by reasoning together about the Christian view does not take national points of disagreement; and by learning from self-defence as its paradigm.4 To make nation- one another.2 I do not doubt that non-Chris- al self-defence simply the model of justified tians will be puzzled by some things that I war issues in some counter-intuitive judge- say, and that they will disagree with others. ments: for example, that as soon as the Allies But I am equally confident that many of them invaded the borders of Nazi Germany, Hitler’s will find much to which they can consent. belligerency became self-defensive and so After all, the common world that we inhabit justified, and the Allies’ war-making became does rein in the divergence of our construals. aggressive and so unjustified. This conclusion

14 reveals, I think, that to identify justified war reaction remains open and is yet to be deter- with national self-defence is morally simplis- mined. It could be one or more of several ends: tic, ignoring questions of motive, intention, defence, deterrence, or ultimately reform and cause, and proportion. In contrast, Christian reconciliation. In Christian eyes, the end or thinking holds that justified war is always goal of punishment should never be the suffer- a response to a grave injustice that aims to ing of the unjust perpetrator for its own sake. rectify it. This response may take defensive Justified war, therefore, is retributive in its or aggressive forms. It may move seamlessly basic form, but not retributivist in substance. from defence to aggression, or it may begin It is a hostile reaction to injustice, but it does with aggression. Justified aggression is what not aim simply to make the perpetrator suffer so-called “humanitarian intervention” is all simply for the sake of suffering. about. The doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is, in effect, a reassertion of the The difficulty that many people have in de- classic Christian paradigm of justified war. scribing justified war as retributive is, I think, an expression of a general cultural tendency This paradigm involves a claim about justified to equate punishment and retribution with war that is very controversial and arouses retributivism, and to see it therefore as a form quite some alarm: namely, the claim that of vengeance meted out by the self-righteous. the basic form of justified war is punitive— In Christian eyes, however, punishment and even, I would say, retributive. This view is retribution should only ever be meted out characteristic of Christian thinking at least by one group of self-conscious sinners upon up to Grotius in the 17th century, and since another, and if it is to be just punishment, it then in the cases of Jean Bethke Elshtain cannot be vengefully retributivist but must and Oliver O’Donovan.5 Therefore, it is also aim at defence, deterrence, and eventual a major reason why many believe that just reconciliation. Accordingly, it must be pro- war thinking should cut itself loose from portioned to those ends, and it must suffer its Christian moorings. Why so? Two main such constraints as that proportion imposes. reasons are given. First, that to allow just warriors to think of themselves as punishing What about the issue raised by the second the enemy is to encourage them to loosen objection, namely, the liability of soldiers the constraints on how they wage war. And fighting in an unjust cause? The first thing I second, that many, perhaps most, fighting want to say is that, while an element of tragic on the unjustified side will not be morally fate often characterises the predicament of a culpable and will therefore not be liable for soldier fighting in an unjust cause, that does punishment. not relieve him of responsibility or excuse him from culpability. Take this example. At My response to the first objection is this. If the German military cemetery at Maleme in justified defence is only and always defence Crete, there is a permanent exhibition (or at against an injustice, it necessarily has the least there was twelve months ago). It tells form of retribution. Let me make clear that by the story of the three von Bluecher brothers, “retribution” I do not mean “retributivism”: who were all killed in the same place on the I do not mean the ethic that prescribes an same day in May 1941 during the battle for eye for an eye, a wasteland of equal suffer- Crete against British, Australian, and Greek ing. Rather, my meaning derives from the troops. How did they all end up there? The etymology of the Latin verb retribuere, that two younger ones, the youngest still in his is, a handing or paying back of what is due. teens, hero-worshipped the oldest—as young- So by “retribution” I mean simply a hostile er brothers often do—and when he joined the reaction to an injustice. All punishment has parachute regiment, they followed. In the past this basically retributive form. I have used this to illustrate the element of tragedy that attends even the actions of unjust The question of what purposes one wants warriors, arguing that we should regard them to achieve through one’s hostile, retributive with a measure of sympathy. One does not

15 Saint-Georges et le dragon by Gustave Moreau, 1889 – 1890. National Gallery, London. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

16 have to agree with what these three young Margaret (exasperated, pointing to Rich): men were doing falling out of the sky onto While you talk, he’s gone! Crete in May 1941 in order to share a sense of More: And go he should if he was the Devil sadness at their untimely deaths and a sense himself until he broke the law! of common human fatedness. Nevertheless, a friend of mine who fought with the Royal Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit Ulster Constabulary against the IRA during of law! the most violent phase of the Troubles in More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great Northern Ireland, and who is less inclined to road through the law to get after the Devil? sentimentality than I, has challenged me not to assume the three brothers’ innocence. It Roper: I’d cut down every law in England is, after all, quite possible that they were con- to do that! vinced Nazis and that they had participated in atrocities elsewhere in Europe. Certainly, More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where after landing on Crete German paratroops would you hide, Roper, the laws all being were involved in some brutal reprisals against flat? This country’s planted thick with civilians. laws from coast to coast—Man’s law’s, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and My second comment on the issue of the lia- you’re just the man to do it—d’you really bility of unjust soldiers is to say that, in the think you could stand upright in the winds absence of the possibility of more precise that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil discrimination, it seems to me reasonable for benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.6 the just warrior not to give benefit of doubt and to presume guilt. The reasons for this are I do think, therefore, that sometimes one threefold: first, unjust soldiers sometimes do should tolerate a measure of injustice out of actively support the cause for which they fight; respect for the law. I also think that respect second, unjust soldiers who do not support for the authority of law is very important it always have the option, albeit costly, of for international trust, and that any state refusing to fight; and third, to require just proposing to bend (or, less likely, break) the soldiers to make very discriminate moral law should still show it the respect of making judgements on the battlefield would be to a case before the UN. For that reason, I think render the waging of just war practically that the Blair government’s attempt to secure impossible. For sure, this does make war a second UN Resolution on Iraq in March rough justice—but rough justice is still justice, 2003 was absolutely right, and far better than and all human justice is more or less rough. the Bush government’s barely concealed con- tempt for the UN. So in the absence (probably International Law as Penultimate Authority fortunate) of a global state, and in order to stave off international anarchy, I certainly The second controversial issue raised by my affirm the authority of international law. version of just war is its view of international law as a penultimate authority. On the one Notwithstanding that, the question of hand, respect for the authority of internation- what actually constitutes international law al law is very important. Why it’s important is is a controversial one. Is it simply what is made memorably clear in a passage of Robert written in treaties, or does it also embrace Bolt’s play A Man for all Seasons, where Sir customary law as expressed in state-prac- argues in favour of affording tice? And how should different bodies of the benefit of law even to the Devil himself, law relate to one another? Should the bat- so as to maintain the general security that tlefield be governed by the Laws of War or the rule of law provides. The context finds by International Humanitarian Law? When More being urged by his daughter, Margaret, lawyers pronounce, “International law says and his future son-in-law, Nicholas Roper, to this” or “Under international law that is il- arrest Richard Rich, an informer: legal”, we ought not to be over-impressed.

17 They are behaving as advocates, behaving It seems to me that it is possible to break politically, pushing a particular point of view. the treaty-letter of international law, while If they were more honest and less political—or making a serious case that one is acting within more academic and less lawyerly—they would its spirit; and that, insofar as other nations claim, “International law says this or that, are persuaded, the authority of the law will according to my interpretation of it.” There not be damaged. What is vital is to assure the is more than one reasonable view of what international community that one remains international law is and what it says. bound by common norms, even when one’s reading of them is controversial. If the man- What is more, a Christian monotheist is ner of literal transgression is respectful, the bound to acknowledge that positive inter- law’s authority can be saved, and international national law, whatever it is, cannot have the trust maintained. last word. This is because, like any moral realist, he assumes that there is a universal The Morality of National Interest moral order that transcends national legal systems and applies to international relations Thirdly, controversy attends my view that even in the absence of positive international national interest is not necessarily immor- law. He believes that there are human goods al. In the popular Kantian view of ethics, and moral obligations that exist in and with self-interest is regarded as an immoral mo- the nature of things, and which exercise a tive.8 According to this view, therefore, where guiding and constraining moral authority national interests motivate military inter- long before human beings articulate them in vention, they vitiate it. There is, however, an statutes or treaties. He holds that the princi- alternative and, I think, superior eudaemonist ples of moral law are given or created before tradition, which found classic expression positive laws are made. Legal statutes and in . Combining the Book social contracts are therefore not crafted in of Genesis’ affirmation of the goodness of a primordial moral vacuum. They are born creation with Aristotle, Thomist thought accountable to a higher, natural law, and their does not view all self-interest as selfish and word is neither first nor last. If that were not immoral. Indeed, it holds that there is such so, then Nuremberg was nothing but victors’ a thing as morally obligatory self-love. The vengeance dressed up in a fiction of “justice”, human individual has a duty to care for him- and today’s high-blown rhetoric of universal self properly, to seek what is genuinely his human rights is just so much wind. own good. As with an individual, so with a national community and the organ of its cohe- One thing that this implies is that military sion and decision, namely, its government: a action can sometimes be morally justified in national government has a moral duty to look the absence of, and even in spite of, positive after the well-being of its own people—and international law. Therefore, Christian just in that sense to advance its genuine interests warriors cannot join those who believe that the commensurate to that duty. As Yves Simon “legitimacy” of military intervention to pre- wrote, “What should we think, truly, about vent or halt grave injustice is decided simply a government that would leave out of its pre- by the presence or absence of authorisation by occupations the interests of the nation that the United Nations Security Council. Though it governs?”9 This duty is not unlimited, of lawyers are loath to admit the penultimate course. There cannot be a moral obligation nature of the authority of positive law, they to pursue the interests of one’s own nation by do, when pressed. Writing of NATO’s 1999 riding roughshod over the rights of others. intervention in Kosovo, Martti Koskenniemi Still, not every pursuit of national interest has admitted that “most lawyers—including involves committing injustice; so the fact that myself—have taken the ambivalent position national interests are among the motives for that it was both formally illegal and morally military intervention does not by itself vitiate necessary”.7 the latter’s moral justification.

18 Stained glass panel designed by Dante Rossetti and made by Morris Marshall Faulkner & Co, England, about 1862.

This is politically important, because some security of millions of fellow-countrymen. kind of national interest needs to be involved Nor need it be private; one nation’s security if military intervention is to attract popular is often bound up with others’. support; and because without such support intervention is hard, eventually impossible, So national interest need not vitiate the moti- to sustain. One such interest can be moral vation for military intervention. Indeed, some integrity. Nations usually care about more kind of interest will be necessary to make it than just being safe and fat. Usually they politically possible and sustainable. It is not want to believe that they are doing the right or unreasonable for a national people to ask noble thing, and they will tolerate the costs of why they should bear the burdens of military war—up to a point—in a just cause that looks intervention, especially in remote parts of the set to succeed. I have yet to meet a Briton who world. It is not unreasonable for them to ask is not proud of what British troops achieved why they should bear the burdens rather than in Sierra Leone in 2000, even though Britain others. It is not unreasonable for them to ask had no material stake in the outcome of that why their sons and daughters should suffer country’s civil war, and even though inter- and die. And the answer to those reasonable vention there cost British taxpayers money questions will have to present itself in terms and British families casualties.10 Citizens care of the nation’s own interests. And it could and that their country should do the right thing. ought to present itself in terms of the nation’s own morally legitimate interests. The nation’s interest in its own moral integrity and nobility alone, however, will probably not The Elasticity of Proportionality underwrite military intervention that incurs very heavy costs. So other interests—such The fourth controversial aspect of my version as national security—are needed to stiffen of just war thinking comprises my view of popular support for a major intervention. But the proportionality of military action. To be even a nation’s interest in its own security justified, war must be “proportionate”—both is not simply selfish. After all, it amounts before it is launched and when it is waged. The to a national government’s concern for the best sense that I can make of proportionality

19 is elastic and permissive. This permissive- Nevertheless, there are other concepts of ness troubles me, but I can see no rational proportionality that do make sense to me. way of tightening it. One conceivable way of One such concept is the aptness of means to tightening it is to think of proportionality ends—or, in the case of disproportion, the as that which obtains when a cost-benefit inaptness. Thus for NATO to have gone to war analysis shows an excess of goods over evils. against Russia in 1956 to save the Hungarians, My problem with this is that, while it may be or in 1968 to save the Czechoslovaks, or per- conceivable, it is not possible. This is because haps even in 2014 to save the Ukrainians, such cost-benefit analysis falls prey to the and to risk world-destroying nuclear war, incommensurability of the relevant goods and would have been to undercut its goal—a free evils. That is, the relevant goods and evils are and flourishing Hungary, Czechoslovakia, so radically different in kind that there is no or Ukraine. Thus, too, to engage in military common currency in which to measure them: operations that result in large-scale civilian they are incommensurable. So, for example, deaths, when a vital part of the counter-in- how does one weigh against each other, on surgency strategy is to win civilian hearts the one hand, the goods of regime-change in and minds, would be self-subverting and in Berlin in 1945, the liberation of Europe from that sense disproportionate. fascism, and the ending of the Final Solution against, on the other hand, the evils of 60-80 CASES million dead and the surrender of eastern Europe to the tender mercies of Stalin? In a I move now to present some topical and il- nutshell, bare human life and political justice lustrative instances of its application, which are not the same kinds of thing: so how many involve two of the six criteria of jus ad bellum instances of the former are worth sacrificing (just cause and last resort) and one of the to achieve the latter? If there is an answer to two criteria of jus in bello (proportionality). this question, it cannot come in the form of a numerical calculation. Britain’s Belligerency against Germany, 1914

Take another example. Some years ago, the Had you been living in Britain since 2014, BBC dramatised the memoirs of a Battle of the centennial anniversary of the outbreak Britain pilot, Geoffrey Wellum. At the end of of the First World War, you would be aware the dramatisation, the real, ninety-year old that historians disagree about whom to blame Wellum appeared, looking out over the iconic most for the escalation of war in 1914 from white cliffs of the southern English coastline. its Balkan beginnings into a continental And as he gazed out to sea, he said, “Was it and then global conflagration. Until very worth it? Was it worth it? All those young recently, a dominant consensus endorsed men I fought and flew with? All those chaps the thesis of Fritz Fischer that Berlin was who are no longer with us? I suppose it must primarily responsible. This view prevailed have been. I am still struggling with that.”11 even among German historians. In the past Now, did Wellum mean that he doubted that two years, however, Christopher Clark’s The Britain should have fought against Hitler in Sleepwalkers has challenged this consensus. 1940? I do not think so. Rather, I think he Clark concludes his account of the outbreak was giving voice to the truth that the loss of and escalation of the war by saying that “there each life is an absolute loss, for which there is is no smoking gun in this story; or, rather, no compensation. I think that “Was it worth there is one in the hand of every major char- it?” is the wrong question, because there is no acter… the outbreak of war was a tragedy, not sensible way of answering it. Such a “weighing a crime”.12 “The crisis that brought war in up” of goods and evils cannot be done. Were it 1914”, he tells us, “was the fruit of a shared possible, proportionality could be determined political culture”, which rendered Europe’s with some precision. Since it is not possible, leaders “sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, proportionality is more elastic. haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality

20 of the horror they were about to bring into in August 1914. Why did they do it? Because the world”.13 as social Darwinists they took it for grant- ed that war is the natural way of deciding I am not persuaded by Clark’s argument, the balance of international power; because not because of its history but because of its they foresaw that the longer the next war ethics. I think he draws too sharp a distinc- was delayed, the longer would be the odds tion between tragedy and crime, as if they against Germany’s victory; and because (to are always mutually exclusive alternatives. quote David Stevenson) “the memory of 1870 Crime often has a tragic dimension. Human [the Franco-Prussian War], still nurtured beings do make free moral choices, but our through annual commemorations and the freedom is often somewhat fated by forces cult of Bismarck, had addicted the German beyond our control. In addition, Clark as- leaders to sabre-rattling and to military gam- sumes that because blame was widespread, it bles, which had paid off before and might do was shared equally. I disagree. The fact that so again”.15 blame’s spread is wide does not make it even. Clark’s metaphor of the “sleepwalker” is a With regard to the particular issue of whether powerful one, which picks out important Britain’s entry into the war on 4 August 1914 features of the situation in the run-up to the had just cause, which is the most basic of the outbreak of world war. But a metaphor is, justifying criteria, a moral judgement has to by definition, always both like and unlike be made about Germany’s decision to invade the reality it depicts, and shouldn’t be taken Belgium, Luxembourg, and France because literally. Germany’s leaders were not actu- without that invasion Britain would not have ally sleepwalkers, but fully conscious moral fought. agents, making decisions according to their best lights in a volatile situation of limited So why did Germany invade? She invaded visibility. In such circumstances, which are because she feared that France would attack not at all unusual, error was forgivable. Not in support of Russia. According to just war so forgivable, however, was their subscription reasoning, however, the mere threat of at- to the creed of a Darwinist Realpolitik, whose tack is no just cause for war. Only if there is cynicism about human motives owes more substantial evidence that a threat is actually to Thomas Hobbes’s anthropology than to in the process of being realised would the Charles Darwin’s science, and which robbed launching of pre-emptive war be justified. their political and military calculations of any It is not justified to launch a preventative moral bottom line beyond that of national war simply because one fears that an enemy survival through dominance. might attack. In August 1914 France was not intending to attack Germany (and nor, It is perfectly natural for a nation not to want of course, was Belgium). Indeed, France de- its power diminished or to realise its inten- liberately kept one step behind Germany in tions in the world. But if social Darwinism her military preparations so as to make her thinks it natural for a nation to launch a defensive posture unmistakable, and as late preventative war simply to forestall the loss of as 1 August she reaffirmed the order for her its dominance, Christian just war reasoning troops to stay ten kilometres back from the does not think it right. Just cause must consist Franco-Belgian border.14 Notwithstanding of an injury, be it actualised or actualising, this, on 3 August Germany declared war on and Germany had suffered none.16 France on the trumped-up pretext that French troops had crossed the border and French Rebellion in Syria, 2011 aircraft had bombed Nuremberg. Under Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafiz, the It was the German government, dominated Syrian regime was populated largely by mem- by its military leadership, which launched a bers of the Alawite minority, dominated by preventative war against France and Belgium the military and security forces, and secured

21 and enriched itself through the patronage of indiscriminate ruthlessness of its determi- business. It was also fiercely repressive of nation to eliminate opposition by its very dissent, holding that it alone stood between probable use of chemical weapons and its peaceful order and anarchy—not least that certain use of barrel-bombs. which would ensue if Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood were ever to get their Given this history, it seems to me that the hands on the levers of power. Upon Hafiz armed uprising in Syria did have just cause al-Assad’s death and his son’s election to the as an act of self-defence against injustice that presidency in 2000, there was some hope that was not merely grave, but systemic. Why is Bashar would pioneer both economic and po- this significant? Because the systemic com- litical reform, and indeed he gave some early mitment of the regime to the grave injustice signals that these hopes would be fulfilled. implies the improbability of peaceful, political reform and confers on the resort to armed However, in 2011 when symptoms of the “Arab rebellion the status of “last resort”.18 Spring” began to blossom in Syria, the re- gime reflexively reverted to its customary, Israel’s Operation “Protective Edge” against repressive mode. In the first week of March Hamas in Gaza, 2014 2011, ten children in Deraa, aged between nine and fifteen, wrote an anti-regime slo- It is clear, both in morality and in interna- gan (probably more anti-corruption than tional law, that Israel had a right to defend pro-democracy) on the wall of their school. her citizens against indiscriminate killing by For this misdemeanour the Syrian authori- Hamas’s rockets in 2014. It is not so clear that ties had them arrested, sent to Damascus, her justified self-defence was proportionate, interrogated, and apparently even tortured.17 either in the sense of “strictly necessary” or in On 15 March a few hundred protesters, many the sense of “instrumentally apt to the end”. of them relatives of the detained children, began protesting in downtown Deraa. Their Provided that Israel targeted enemy combat- ranks swelled to several thousand. Syrian ants and that such targeting was necessary, security forces, attempting to disperse the there is no upper limit to the number of civil- crowd, opened fire and killed four people. ian casualties that may have been incurred, The next day the crowd ballooned to about tragically, as “collateral damage”. Let me 20,000. On 23 March, according to reports, make the point by reference to another case. the security forces killed at least a further When the Allies invaded Normandy seventy fifteen civilians and wounded hundreds of years ago, their bombers killed 35,000 French others. President Assad subsequently refused civilians. This was undoubtedly terrible and to punish the governor of Deraa, his cousin. tragic. But if we think that Allied success was worth 35,000 civilian deaths, can we say I have described the evolution of events in that it wouldn’t have been worth 70,000 or some detail in order to make clear that the 170,000? If we are judging simply by numbers, Syrian rebellion was originally an act of I do not think that we can. Provided that the non-violent protest against arbitrary and military means chosen are necessary, there ruthless state coercion. Only when it became is no absolute maximum to the collateral clear that the state was unrepentant, and damage that may be incurred. that its very centre was prepared to own the arbitrary repression by refusing to repudiate However, we should interrogate the claim of it, did peaceful protest develop into armed necessity by asking about its end: To what end rebellion. Assad’s refusal to dismiss the gov- are the chosen military means necessary? ernor of Deraa and his blaming the unrest If it is to fend off harm to Israeli civilians, on external interference made it clear that then Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile system had the oppression was essential, not accidental, already achieved that with, according to her to the regime. Since March 2011, of course, own officials, ninety per cent efficiency. It is the regime has confirmed and deepened the arguable, of course, that complete defence

22 must extend beyond deflecting the harmful on their relationship to other, non-military effects to uprooting their cause. This would parts of a political strategy. justify military action against Hamas.

Still, if the end is to uproot the cause of attacks CONCLUSION on Israel, then military means alone do not It is often claimed that just war thinking has suffice. Military means alone, then, are not been overtaken by events—that it has been apt. While the bombardment of Gaza did weaken Hamas’s military power, it did not rendered obsolete by novel phenomena such uproot it. Without a political solution, Hamas as nuclear weapons, wars “among the people”, will simply revive to fight again. war-by-remote-control, and cyber-aggres- sion. My presentation of issues and cases has, It was within Israel’s power to take diplomatic, I hope, been sufficient to show that just war confidence-building initiatives. Unilaterally, thinking continues to develop, as it always she could have stopped and reversed the has, by wrestling with controversial concep- illegal settlements in the West Bank. Since tual problems and thinking its way through she didn’t do so, her military assaults on Gaza novel sets of circumstances. The tradition were inapt and therefore disproportionate. of just war thinking is still very much alive, and with regard to the discriminate moral Now, of course, my moral analysis here de- assessment of war, it has no rival. pends on a certain reading of the political and diplomatic facts, with which one may Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and disagree. But even in disagreement with the Pastoral , and Director of the McDonald illustration, one might still accept the point Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life, at the of the principle it seeks to illustrate: that the , is the author of In Defence of proportionality of military means depends War (Oxford University Press, 2013).

(Endnotes) 9 Yves R. Simon, The Ethiopian Campaign and French Political Thought, ed. Anthony O. Simon, trans. Robert 1 Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford: Oxford Uni- Royal (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 2009), p. 55. versity Press, 2013). 10 The British casualties were very light: one dead, 2 I have written about this at some length in Behaving in one seriously injured, and twelve wounded (http://www. Public: How to Do Christian Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 2011) and in Chapter 7 and the Conclusion of Religious eliteukforces.info/special-air-service/sas-operations/ Voices in Public Places, co-edited with Linda Hogan (Oxford: operation-barras/, as at 24 November 2009). Oxford University Press, 2009). 11 Matthew Whiteman, director, “First Light” (London: 3 In War and Self-Defense (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) B.B.C., 2010). This film was based on Geoffrey Wellum’s David Rodin offers a critique of Michael Walzer’s account memoir, First Light (London: Viking, 2002). of the just war, mainly as expressed in his modern classic, 12 Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers:How Europe Went Just and Unjust Wars:A Moral Argument with Historical to War in 1914 (London: Penguin, 2013), p. 561. Illustrations (London: Allen Lane, 1977). In Chapter 5 of In Defence of War I argue that Rodin inadvertently vindicates 13 Clark, Sleepwalkers, p. 562. the early Christian tradition of just war thinking. 14 Hew Strachan, The First World War, vol. 1: To Arms 4 Rodin, War and Self-Defense, p. 108: “Michael Walzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 91. See also calls the analogical argument from self-defense to nation- Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War al-defense the ‘domestic analogy’, and places it [at] the centre (London: Penguin, 2004), p. 30. of his theory of jus ad bellum”. In particular, Rodin refers 15 Stevenson, 1914-1918, p. 596. the reader to Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 58. 16 The full version of my analysis of Britain’s belliger- 5 See Biggar, In Defence of War, pp. 163-4, including n.82. ency in the First World War can be found in Chapter 4 of In 6 Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (London: Heinemann, Defence of War. 1960), pp. 38-9. 17 David W. Lesch, Syria:The Fall of the House of Assad 7 Martti Koskenniemi, “‘The Lady Doth Protest Too Much’: (New Haven, CT: Yale, 2013), pp. 55-6. Most of what I know Kosovo and the Turn to Ethics in International Law”, The about the modern history of Syria and its current politics I Modern Law Review, 65/2 (March 2002), p. 162. owe to Lesch’s book. Is Lesch a reliable guide? Judging by the plaudits extracted from reviews in the Financial Times, 8 The ethics of Immanuel Kant are usually held to be International Affairs, and the Times Literary Supplement, simply ‘deontological’, viewing the only truly moral act as one it would seem so. By his own account he met regularly that is done out of a pure sense of duty or reverence for the with Bashar al-Assad from 2004-8 and had meetings with moral law. So conceived, the truly moral act stands in stark high-level Syrian officials until well into 2013 (Syria, p. vii). contrast to a merely prudential one, which seeks to promote the agent’s interests. Whether this common, deontological 18 A fuller version of my just war analysis of the Syrian view of Kant fully captures his thought I doubt. I think that a rebellion can be found in “Christian ‘Just War’ Reasoning better reading has him argue that truly moral acts are those and Two Cases of Rebellion: Ireland, 1916-21, and Syria, where the duty of justice as fairness disciplines—rather than 2011-present”, Ethics and International Affairs, 27/4 (Winter excludes—the pursuit of interest. 2013), pp. 393-400.

23 FEATURE

MORAL HAZARD: DRONES & THE RISKS OF RISK-FREE WAR

Alan Dowd

Combat Hammer by Staff Sgt. Nadine Barclay, May 15, 2014. Airman 1st Class Steven (left) and Airman 1st Class Taylor prepare an MQ-9 Reaper for flight during exercise Combat Hammer at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Source: U.S. Air Force.

24 hey are known as unmanned combat aerial vehicles— T“UCAVs” in Pentagonese—and they are the go-to weapons of today’s wars. UCAVs have been credited with disabling the convoy carrying Moammar Qaddafi in Libya; killing al Qaeda’s Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan and Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen; eliminating Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour in Pakistan; eviscerating the Taliban’s ranks across the AfPak theater; and striking ISIS leaders in Syria and al-Shabaab commanders in Somalia—all without putting their pilots in harm’s way. As then-CIA Director Leon Panetta famously put it during President Obama’s first term, UCAVs are “the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al Qaeda leadership.”1

But the promise of risk-free war offered by costs less than a tenth of what it costs to train UCAVs obscures the dangers of waging war a traditional combat aviator. by remote control. The challenge for the American people is to make sure Washington It’s no surprise, then, that drones are dislodg- employs this new technology in a way that ing manned aircraft from the central role they conforms to America’s values. have played in warfighting since World War II. Consider some of the evidence:

A RAPID REVOLUTION • Reaper and Predator UCAVs have con- The appeal of UCAVs is understandable. As ducted 33 percent of the sorties targeting ISIS in Iraq and Syria.4 In 2015, Predator an Air Force report concludes, drones “are and Reaper UCAVs were airborne 800 not limited by human performance or physi- percent longer than in 2005.5 ological characteristics…extreme persistence and maneuverability are intrinsic benefits.”2 • The yet-to-be-built B-21 bomber will be Drones can handle what humans cannot—G “optionally manned.” forces, tedium, boredom. They also deprive • In the past 12 years, the U.S. drone fleet the enemy of human targets, and they’re has swelled from 50 planes to more than cheap. 7,500, although UCAVs comprise only a fraction of that number. The Air Force Given the human and financial costs of wars deploys 325 UCAVs, the CIA between 30 in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have claimed and 80.6 America’s fleet of combat-class 6,882 U.S. personnel and devoured $1.7 tril- drones is expected to grow to 650 by 2021.7 3 lion, it’s no coincidence that UCAVs are play- • The Navy has opened a “drone command ing a central role in U.S. military operations center” aboard the aircraft carrier USS as Americans grow weary of war’s toll. By Carl Vinson and will add another aboard keeping pilots and ground crews far from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.8 harm’s way, drones make military operations dramatically less dangerous. And at a time • The Air Force concedes that growth in demand for UCAVs has made relying on when national defense is coming under severe “experienced pilots” to fly drones “unsus- budgetary pressure, the fact that drones are tainable.”9 So the Air Force is hiring civilian less expensive than other weapons systems is contractors to fly UCAVs, tasking personnel also a factor. An unmanned Predator drone with no flight experience to drone oper- costs $4.5 million, a manned F-35 $159 mil- ations, and planning to assign multiple lion. Moreover, training a UCAV controller drones to a single operator.10

25 • Max Boot of the Council on Foreign they serve. After all, the loss of a drone is the Relations notes that UCAVs equipped loss of nothing more than metal. To be sure, with “target-recognition systems” and this is good for pilots no longer being sent “autonomous attack systems” are on the into harm’s way, but it may be bad for our re- near horizon. Under a mode of operation public. Military operations involving manned known as “self-learning autonomy,” drones warplanes, by definition, put American pilots could be empowered to hit targets based on predetermined conditions.11 at risk. This forces the commander-in-chief to consider the consequences of losing pilots • Washington has built a global infrastruc- and serves as a final check on the command- ture to support America’s drone war, en- er-in-chief’s war-making power. This doesn’t folding Turkey, Italy, Ethiopia, Kuwait, always prevent the commander-in-chief from Qatar, the UAE, Niger, the Philippines, taking military action—nor should it. Given 12 Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. America’s special role as civilization’s first This rapid revolution has sobering impli- responder and last line of defense, military ac- cations—political, legal, moral, geostra- tion is often necessary. However, the prospect tegic—that policymakers have not fully of losing American personnel—and justifying contemplated. that to their spouses, children, parents, and congressional representatives—does give the commander-in-chief pause, which is a good POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS: COSTS & thing before taking the nation to war. CONSEQUENCES To be sure, in the century since President Genesis 4 provides an account of humanity’s Wilson anguished over sending troops to first killing. Although some scholars argue Europe, the United States has grown adept Cain used a stone, there’s no indication in the at striking its enemies with increasing levels text that Cain used a weapon, which suggests of precision and decreasing levels of risk to that man’s first weapon was probably his those pulling the trigger. But UCAVs erase hands, which explains why war was once the risk further, and that makes an enormous conducted face-to-face. Rocks and spears difference. increased the distance between warriors. The sling, the bow, and the arrow increased As the risks related to war decrease, it seems it further. With gunpowder, the distance the likelihood of waging war increases. “If between warriors grew, and so did the bat- war becomes unreal to the citizens of mod- tlefield. Artillery made it possible to kill the ern democracies,” political theorist Michael enemy without seeing him. Airplanes and Ignatieff worries, “will they care enough to rocketry became an extension of artillery, restrain and control the violence exercised adding another dimension to the battlefield. in their name?”13The answer is coming into focus over Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and This multi-dimensional area of land, sea, eastern Africa—ground zero for America’s and sky where war is waged is the bat- relentless drone war. tlespace. Soldiers and Marines fight there on the ground; sailors fight there on and The Executive’s inclination toward war is under the water; airmen fight there in the not new—recall Madison’s letter to Jefferson sky. Nowadays, UCAVs are there too, but noting how “the Executive is the branch of their pilots are not. UCAVs are unique be- power most interested in war and most prone cause they completely separate the warrior to it”—but the prospect of risk-free war is. The from the battlespace—unless we define the temptation to gain all the benefits of kinetic battlespace as the entire planet (a conundrum military operations with none of the costs, discussed below). consequences, or risks may be too strong for the Executive to resist. President Obama, Thus, UCAVs make war far less dangerous for for instance, has deployed UCAVs in Libya, the warriors who operate them and the nation Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan in ways he

26 has not—and arguably would not—deploy (ICC). Although the U.S. is not party to the manned aircraft. ICC, the statute considers launching an attack “in the knowledge that such attack will cause “More willing to lose is more willing to use,” incidental loss of life or injury to civilians” as Daniel Haulman of the Air Force Historical as a war crime and defines “widespread or 14 Research Agency puts it. systematic attack directed against any civilian population” as a crime. LEGAL IMPLICATIONS: A BREWING BACKLASH In short, the gray area of international law in A 2012 New York Times portrait of the drone which Washington is conducting the drone war describes President Obama “at the helm war could ultimately undermine the interna- of a top-secret ‘nominations’ process to desig- tional support needed to wage and win the nate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the war against jihadism. In fact, a Pew survey capture part has become largely theoretical.” According to the Times, the president ap- found that in 17 of 20 countries, “more than proved “every new name on an expanding ‘kill half disapprove of U.S. drone attacks tar- 21 list’” and “every strike in Yemen and Somalia geting extremist leaders and groups.” Even and…the more complex and risky strikes in America’s strongest, oldest ally is showing Pakistan,” often deciding “personally whether signs of concern: A committee of the British to go ahead” with a UCAV strike.15 Parliament has raised the prospect of “crim- inal prosecution for murder or complicity in The results are not for the squeamish: murder” for drone operators, military com- Upwards of 3,600 people have been killed manders, and government officials involved by UCAV strikes in Pakistan, including be- in drone strikes conducted without clear legal 16 tween 300 and 800 non-militants. The use of justification.22 drones to target al-Awlaki’s Yemeni branch of al Qaeda, for instance, killed dozens of people, Yet 58 percent of the American people approve many of them apparently not affiliated with of the “U.S. conducting missile strikes from al Qaeda, including a 16-year-old relative of drones to target extremists.”23 One wonders al-Awlaki born in Denver.17 how long this disconnect can be ignored. Not surprisingly, UN officials suggest that aspects of the drone war do not conform to None of this is an argument for international international law. Navi Pillay, former UN High watchdogs tying America down. The UN Commissioner for Human Rights, worries may refuse to recognize America’s special that drone strikes contribute to “indiscrimi- role, but by turning to Washington when nate killings and injuries of civilians.”18 Noting civil wars erupt, sea lanes are threatened, that the United States “has used drones…for terrorists maim civilization, and genocide targeted killings,” the UN Human Rights is let loose, it is tacitly conceding that the Council (UNHRC) has raised concerns about United States is, well, special. Washington the drone war. “Targeted killing is only lawful has every right to kill those who are plotting when the target is a ‘combatant’ or ‘fighter,’” to kill Americans. However, the brewing in- according to the UNHRC. “Everything fea- ternational backlash against the drone war sible must be done to prevent mistakes and reminds us that means and methods matter minimize harm to civilians.”19 Toward that end, the UNHRC formed a special unit to as much as ends. As Jefferson wrote in the investigate U.S. drone attacks.20 Declaration of Independence, Americans should pay “decent respect to the opinions Now, consider the preceding three paragraphs of mankind.” If that was true when America in the context of the Statute, which was a tiny republic on the backwater of the spawned the International Criminal Court globe, it seems even truer today.

27 MORAL IMPLICATIONS: TAKING A TOLL Scripture and human experience have helped humanity develop codes of conduct for waging war. The byproduct is broadly known as “just war theory,” which calls on governments to stay within certain parameters in times of war. Among those parameters: the reason for going to war should be just (self-defense, answering an attack, protecting innocents); war should be a last resort; weapons should not be used indiscriminately; and force must be used in a proportional manner, which enfolds the notion that there should be limits on the duration of the war.24

At Day’s End by 1st Lt. Shannon Collins, September 14, UCAVs, in and of themselves, don’t violate 2007. An MQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle and F-16 any of these parameters. But how and why Fighting Falcon return from an Operation Iraqi Freedom combat mission. Source: U.S. Air Force. we use them might. Like any tool—a hammer, a gun, a computer—drones can be used for the crises other presidents faced when U.S. right or wrong purposes. pilots were shot down: President Eisenhower weathered international humiliation after According to The New York Times, the Obama the Soviets brought down Francis Powers’ administration embraced a controversial U-2. President Kennedy was pressed to go method for determining civilian casualties to war when Rudolf Anderson’s U-2 was shot in drone strikes that “counts all military-age down over Cuba. President Clinton had to deal males in a strike zone as combatants…unless with a hostage crisis abroad and a political there is explicit intelligence posthumously crisis at home when Michael Durant’s UH- proving them innocent.”25 At best, that’s a 60 Blackhawk was shot down in Mogadishu. creative way to rationalize some unpleasant President Bush (43) faced a Cold War-style realities. At worst, it appears how we employ crisis when China literally intercepted a Navy UCAVs is unjust on occasion. Applying an reconnaissance plane and held the crew for after-the-fact-proof-of-innocence standard 11 days. turns justice on its head. Second, drones make it easier to keep wars In addition, some of the reasons why we are going. Pilotless planes make endless war employing UCAVs may be unjust. The main possible. Before scoffing at this, recall that appeal of UCAVs is their ability to wage risk- today’s UCAV strikes are conducted under free war—that is, war without any risk to the auspices of a 2001 war resolution that those pulling the trigger. Having the capacity authorized the president to target “those to conduct remote-control war opens the way nations, organizations or persons he deter- to some very slippery ground. mines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on First, as discussed above, drones make it September 11, 2001…to prevent any future easier to go to war. Thus, war is increasingly acts of international terrorism against the becoming a first resort rather than a last United States.”26 It would be a stretch to say resort. This is a function of political cost, this piece of legislation authorized—15 years which is high when a commander-in-chief later—an autopilot war against targets in loses a pilot, but negligible when a command- Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, er-in-chief loses a pilotless plane. Just com- Iraq, Somalia, Mali, and beyond. Those tar- pare the public’s non-reaction to the loss of gets may indeed be enemies of, and threats drones under the Obama administration with to, the United States. But few, if any, of them

28 drone operator, is in the battlespace. I can be shot down. My plane can have a mechan- ical failure. I can crash and die or fall into enemy hands. A drone pilot simply doesn’t have to think in those terms. That has to have an impact on your decisions. It’s dif- ferent to make a decision to take a life or destroy a target when your own life is at risk,” he argues—something David understood. “When that element of the act of war is re- moved, the sense of reality is removed.”28

This isn’t to suggest that drone warfare is easy on those pulling the trigger. In fact, the psychological-emotional impact may be heavier on drone operators than on tradi- “planned, authorized, committed or aided” tional combat pilots, given that UCAV op- the 9/11 attacks. erations feature long periods of loitering over a target before and after a strike—thus A recent book links the rise of drones to what providing a much clearer picture of who its authors call “the permanent war.” The the target was, how he lived, and how he problem, as former National Security Council died. This takes a toll on UCAV operators. official Paul Miller observes, is that “wars are Nor is this to suggest that one side of the drone supposed to end…Endless war is unacceptable 27 debate holds the moral high ground: UCAV and dangerous.” advocates are concerned about U.S. casualties and want to employ drone technologies to Third, drones remove the warrior from the save lives. UCAV opponents are concerned battlespace. The story of David and Goliath that drone technologies could make war too is instructive. In arguably the most famous easy to wage. decapitation strike in history, David elimi- nated Goliath with the stand-off weapon of his day: the slingshot. Yet David was close GEOSTRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: ERROR enough to hear Goliath’s taunts, close enough WAR to see that the giant “had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of This issue of defining the battlespace is im- bronze.” Although technology allowed David portant. If we argue that UCAV pilots are not to attack his enemy from a distance, David in the battlespace, which seems reasonable, remained in the battlespace. it invites friend and foe alike to draw an un- settling conclusion about American power. Many drone operators are based in Nevada— more than 7,500 miles from their targets. Amid the bombing raids on Germany at the This is transformational—and arguably end of World War II, British physicist Patrick not in a positive direction. Separating the Blackett worried that the Allies had devel- warrior from the battlespace worries Scott oped a “Jupiter Complex,” which historian Taylor, an F-15E pilot who served for 20 Paul Johnson describes as “the notion of the years in the Air Force, including in combat. Allies as righteous gods, raining retributive thunderbolts on their wicked enemies.” The “Being removed from the battlefield—and Allies concluded, as Johnson explains, that as a pilot, I understand this relative to, say, strategic bombing “was the best way to make a Marine in the trenches—makes a huge the maximum use of their vast economic difference,” Taylor explains. “But it’s im- resources, while suffering the minimum portant to remember that a pilot, unlike a manpower losses.”29

29 UCAVs take the logic of the Jupiter Complex This proliferation of drones will enable to its ultimate conclusion: maximum use of non-power-projecting nations—and non-na- economic and technological resources with tions—to join the ranks of power-projecting zero manpower losses and zero risks—all nations. Drones are a cheap alternative to buffered by the virtual-reality nature of the long-range, long-endurance warplanes. Yet delivery system. despite their low cost, drones can pack a punch. And owing to their size and range, Being seen in such a light—as detached and they can conceal their home address far more remote in every sense of the word, especial- effectively than the typical, non-stealthy ly in waging war—should give Americans manned warplane. Recall that the possibility pause. “Reliance on drone strikes allows our of a drone attack was cited to justify the war 35 opponents to cast our country as a distant, against ’s Iraq. high-tech, amoral purveyor of death,” ar- gues Kurt Volker, former U.S. Ambassador Moreover, many of the newcomers to the to NATO.30 “The resentment created by drone club are less discriminating in employ- American use of unmanned strikes,” adds ing military force than the United States—and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander less skillful. Let’s stipulate that America’s of Joint Special Operations Command, “is UCAV program is the best in the world. Yet the much greater than the average American accident rate for the Reaper UCAV is 16.4 per 100,000 hours, while the accident rate for the appreciates.”31 manned F-16 is 4.1 per 100,000 hours. More than half of the Predator UCAVs acquired by If we argue that UCAV pilots are in the the Air Force have crashed.36 Unresponsive battlespace, then we are effectively saying U.S. drones have crashed in eastern Iran, that the battlespace is the entire earth. If collided with manned aircraft, and veered out that’s true, then the enemy would seem to of control. The Washington Post reports that have the right to wage war on those places a Predator drone based in Djibouti “started where UCAV operators are based. The Air its engine without any human direction, even Force recently unveiled plans for new UCAV though the ignition had been turned off and operations hubs at Beale AFB in California the fuel lines closed.”37 (outside Sacramento), Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona (near Tucson), Joint Base Pearl To be sure, manned aircraft have mechanical Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii (in Honolulu), problems. But America’s manned warplanes and Langley AFB in Virginia (in suburban don’t start on their own; they don’t fly ren- Norfolk), to go along with an existing UCAV egade sorties; they don’t have to be chased control center at Creech AFB in Nevada (near down and destroyed; and they don’t fly into 32 Las Vegas). friendly aircraft—at least as often. If the best drones deployed by the best military on earth In addition, other nations are following malfunction this often, imagine the accident America’s lead and developing drones to rate for substandard drones deployed by sub- target their distant enemies by remote con- standard militaries. And then imagine the trol. The U.S., Britain, Israel, Pakistan, Iraq, international incidents this will trigger. It Nigeria, and Iran have used UCAVs in combat, would be ironic if the promise of risk-free and 19 countries have, or are in the process war presented by drones spawned a new era of acquiring, UCAVs.33 China has a dozen of danger for the United States and its allies. drones on the drawing board or in produc- tion. Russia is earmarking $13 billion for JUDGMENT CALLS UCAV development. Israel is sharing drone technologies with India, Turkey, Azerbaijan, The drone age finds some of us in the un- and Ecuador. China is supplying UCAVs to usual position of advocating a kind of arms Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE.34 control. It’s unusual because those of us who

30 write about national defense know that peace pilots: the future of aerial warfare,” NPR, November 29, 2011. through strength—what Reagan prescribed 11 Max Boot, War Made New, Penguin 2006, pp.440-441; at the end of the Cold War and Winston Shalal-Esa and Hepher. Churchill at the beginning—works. 12 Craig Whitlock, “Drone base in Niger gives U.S. a strategic foothold in West Africa,” Washington Post, March 21, 2013. Because of their many military applica- 13 Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War, 2000, p.4. tions, it’s unlikely that UCAVs will ever be 14 Daniel L. Haulman, U.S. Unmanned Vehicles in Combat, 1991-2003, June 9, 2003. abandoned. Yet it pays to recall that the 15 Jo Becker and Scott Shane, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test United States has drawn the line at certain of Obama’s Principles and Will,” New York Times, May 29, 2012. technologies: the U.S. halted development 16 Dan DeLuce and Paul McCleary, “Obama’s Most Dangerous of the neutron bomb in the 1970s and dis- Drone Tactic Is Here to Stay,” Foreign Policy, April 5, 2016 and mantled its neutron arsenal in the 2000s; Center for Civilians in Conflict/Columbia Law School, “The Civilian Impact of Drones,” 2012. agreed to forswear chemical weapons; and 17 Craig Whitlock, “U.S. airstrike that killed American teen renounced biological warfare “for the sake in Yemen raises legal, ethical questions,” Washington Post, of all mankind.”38 October 22, 2011. 18 Carlo Muñoz, “UN demands investigation of US drone “Technology sets the parameters of the pos- strikes in Pakistan,” June 7, 2012. sible,” Boot observes.39 Drone technology 19 Philip Alston, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extra- judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions,” UN Human Rights makes it possible not just to remove humans Council, 28 May 2010. from the battlespace, but to remove the 20 Owen Bowcott, “UN to investigate civilian deaths from unique characteristics humans bring to the US drone strikes,” The Guardian, October 25, 2012. battlespace. Perhaps we need humans in the 21 Pew Global, “Drone Strikes Widely Opposed,” June 13, 2012. battlespace not just because humans make 22 Alice Ross and Owen Bowcott, “UK drone strikes ‘could better judgments than machines—judgment leave all those involved facing murder charges,’” The Guardian, is a very human action, after all—but because May 9, 2016. having humans in the battlespace can help 23 Pew Research Center, Public Continues to Back U.S. Drone policymakers make better judgments about Attacks, May 28, 2015. when, where, and whether to wage war. 24 Brian Orend, “War,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive, July 28, 2005. Alan W. Dowd is a senior fellow with the Sagamore 25 Becker and Shane. Institute Center for America’s Purpose and a contrib- 26 Public Law 107–40. utor to the digital and print editions of Providence. 27 Paul D. Miller, “When will the U.S. drone war end?” Washington Post, November 17, 2011. (Endnotes) 28 Alan Dowd, “Drones and Just War: Ramifications of Risk- st 1 “The Drone Wars,” The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2010. Free War?” byfaith, January 21 , 2014 2 U.S. Air Force, United States Air Force Unmanned Aircraft 29 Paul Johnson, Modern Times, 1992, pp.402-403. Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047, May 18, 2009, p15. 30 Kurt Volker, “What the U.S. risks by relying on drones,” 3 Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Washington Post, October 26, 2012. Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” CRS Report, December 8, 2014. 31 Tucker. 4 Lara Seligman, “Bombing ISIS: US Official Shares Lessons 32 Tucker. From 6 Months of Airstrikes,” Defense, May 2, 2016. 5 Craig Whitlock, “How crashing drones are exposing secrets 33 New America, “World of Drones: Military,” securitydata. about U.S. war operations,” Washington Post, March 25, 2015. newamerica.net, as of June 7, 2016. 6 Greg Miller and Julie Tate, “CIA shifts focus to killing 34 Clay Dillow, “China: A rising drone weapons dealer to the targets,” The Washington Post, September 1, 2011; and David world,” CNBC, 5 Mar 2016. Axe, “Just How Many Predator Drones Does the CIA Have?” Warisboring.com, Oct 15, 2014 and Patrick Tucker, “US Air 35 Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Force to Ask for More Drones,” Defense One, December 11, 2015. Nations on Iraq, February 5, 2003. 7 Jeremiah Gertler, “U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems,” CRS 36 Whitlock, March 25, 2015 and Jeremiah Gertler, “U.S. Report, January 3, 2012. Unmanned Aerial Systems,” CRS Report, January 3, 2012. 8 Brock Vergakis, “Navy installs first drone command center aboard aircraft carrier,” The Virginian-Pilot, 37 Craig Whitlock, “Remote U.S. base at core of secret oper- ations,” Washington Post, October 25, 2012. Apr 22, 2016. 9 U.S. Air Force, p.28. 38 State Department, Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and 10 W.J. Hennigan, “Air Force hires civilian drone pilots for Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, April 10, 1972 combat patrols; critics question legality,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 2015; U.S. Air Force, p.28; Rachel Martin, “Drone 39 Boot, pp.9-10.

31 Wall Defense System, by Leonardo da Vinci, 1480-1482. This blueprint depicts a defensive system for a fortifi d wall. If enemy besiegers attempted to assault with ladders, Leonardo’s clever device could shove the ladders away, preventing the breach. Some walls are worth defending. Source: Wikimedia commons

32 ESSAY DEPLOYING WOMEN TO DIRECT GROUND COMBAT: MISTAKING A LOAD-BEARING WALL FOR A GLASS CEILING

Jennifer Marshall & John Scott Redd Jr.

or the last half-century, women in the United States have been breaking Fthrough so-called “glass ceilings”—actual or assumed barriers to our participation in a variety of educational and vocational fields. As a result, almost every imaginable option is now open for women to pursue, as their gifts and interests match those opportunities. Still, women have not reached soon gets swept away and large- MILITARY MISSION MUST BE every last possibility. In eval- ly forgotten. THE PRIORITY uating remaining distinctions between women and men in Tearing down a load-bearing The military’s mission is to society, it is important to de- wall, on the other hand, changes fight and win the nation’s wars. termine whether they are, in something fundamental about Accomplishing that combat mis- fact, glass ceilings that can be the inherent structure. Such sion must take priority over broken like so many before— demolition is a much more sig- other social goals or individual or if, in fact, they are actually nificant and costly proposition ambition. Some argue that the more like load-bearing walls, that cannot be undertaken in goals of mission effectiveness anchored in something essen- isolation. Inevitably, it changes and women’s participation in tial about how human beings the character of the structure as combat units are not mutually are designed as individuals and a whole. exclusive. Women most cer- relate in community. tainly can and do contribute Sending women into direct mightily to the overall mission The image of a glass ceiling ground combat is tearing down of the military. suggests a feature that can be a load-bearing wall. This partic- removed without changing a ular wall is vital to the military The current debate revolves building’s basic structure. It is mission, to realism about sex around the participation of incidental to its structural co- differences, and to protecting women in direct ground combat herence, and its arbitrariness life. Along with these policy units, however.1 The evidence may even be an argument for and social concerns, a Christian suggests that this is an area in its removal. worldview adds theological con- which sex differences are rele- siderations based on the nature vant to mission effectiveness. Breaking a glass ceiling causes and purpose of human beings some cultural disruption, of made in the image of God, male The most extensive evaluation course. Navigating the meta- and female. Taken together, undertaken by any of the mili- phoric “broken glass” may force it becomes clear this is a wall tary service branches while the everyone to be more self-aware that should be defended, not Obama administration con- and cautious for a while, but it destroyed. sidered the women-in-combat

33 policy change was a Marine Naval Academy, Navy Secretary post-9/11 deployment.9 In 2001 Corps study of mixed male and Ray Mabus stipulated that one the military divorce rate was female units in combat training in four enlisted recruits in 2.6 percent, and by 2011 it had activities over a period of nine the Navy and Marine Corps reached 3.7 percent. Thankfully, months. The Marine Corps’ should be women.7 Currently it has declined steadily since Ground Combat Element Inte- the Marine Corps is about seven then, reaching 3.1 percent in grated Task Force Assessment percent female and the Navy 18 2014.10 evaluated teams on 134 ground percent. Concerns about main- combat tasks. All-male units taining rigorous standards while For women in the military, the outperformed units made up of pursuing these goals have been prospect of marital strain is women and men in 69 percent of raised by many.8 already significant. Military these tasks. Mixed units did bet- women have much higher di- ter than male units in just two REALISM ABOUT SEX vorce rates than military men:11 tasks. The study showed signif- 7.2 percent among active-duty icant disparity in results for fe- DIFFERENCES women compared to 2.9 per- males and males, with top-per- Sex differences are relevant to cent among active-duty men forming females reaching the the accomplishment of the mil- in 2013.12 level of low-performing males.2 itary combat mission not just with regard to individual ca- These factors form a backdrop Beyond initial qualification, pacity, but also with respect to to the concerns raised about the women must maintain a very unit cohesion and morale. Those effects on family dynamics of the high level of performance over exceptional few women who do decision to make women eligi- time to participate effective- qualify for combat occupational ble for assignment to all military ly in combat units. Yet in the specialties enter units whose units. This issue was report- Marine combat integration test, culture will change as a result ed as a significant concern in female training course comple- of their participation. That may a 2015 survey of U.S. Special tion rates lagged well behind yield some positive results, but Operations Forces on integrat- men. In an evaluation of Army it also carries considerable chal- ing women in their ranks. In Basic Combat Training, women lenges. In particular, placing that survey, Navy SEALs made had an injury rate twice that of women into combat units ig- the following statements: the men.3 nores the realities of human na- ture that emerge when men and “It is a major concern for a lot Disregarding the recommen- women are in close quarters, in of the wives…[I]t’s bad enough dation of the commandant of situations where privacy is not that half of us have us have a the Marine Corps on the ba- always feasible. better relationship with our sis of such results,4 Secretary platoon than our family…(E-9, of Defense Ashton Carter an- Norms like modesty, privacy, SEAL).” nounced in December 2015 that and safety are reflected in pub- all military specialties would lic and professional settings “The wives will definitely object. be open to women.5 These and by sex-specific restrooms and My wife knows how close we are other statements contribute to locker rooms, for example. In here. She won’t want a female the conclusion that social goals, combat and special operations, entering that mix (E-7, SEAL).” not military effectiveness, are however, the physical proximity, taking precedence in the deci- intensity, and lack of privacy of- “I think my wife would probably sion to drop women's exemption ten dismantle those protections. have trouble with me shacking from ground combat. That not only has the potential up in a tent with a woman for a to create sexual tension for the week on a mountain. I’ve done In 2013, for example, chair- men and women in such opera- dives in small confined spac- man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff tions, but it also is likely to add es—it’s not a that men and General Martin Dempsey said considerable stress to service women can do together (E-7, at a Pentagon press confer- members’ marital relationships, SEAL).”13 ence that if a woman cannot which already suffer serious meet unit standards then mil- strain during deployment. itary commanders would have PROTECTING LIFE to justify why the standards For example, divorce rates It is one thing for women to be have to be so high.6 Similarly, among military personnel trend- incidentally drawn into com- in a May 2015 speech at the ed upward during the period of bat or for their service to be

34 potential of sex-based violence often associated with conflict. “Combat is not an equal oppor- tunity for women because they don’t have an equal opportuni- ty to survive,” says Jude Eden, who served in the Marine Corps but opposes putting women in direct ground combat.14

Pregnancy makes a woman more vulnerable in a combat situation and puts her unborn child at great risk. The poten- tial for combat exposure to degrade women’s unique ca- pacity to carry human life is at odds with the consider- ation of justice for the unborn non-combatant.

FROM MAY SERVE TO MUST SERVE? The decision to eliminate wom- en’s combat exemption has led some to suggest that women should be required to register for Selective Service, making them eligible to be called up in the event of a future draft. The discussion about wheth- er a few exceptional women may participate in combat has quickly become a question of whether women general- ly can be forced into combat.

Women’s combat and draft eligibility were linked in a 1981 Supreme Court decision, Rostker v. Goldberg, which upheld the requirement that only men register for Selective Service. The Court deferred to Congress’ policy on registration because it was consistent with its specifications on combat She Shall be Called Woman by George Frederic Watts, circa 1880. Tate Britain, London. Source: Wikimedia Commons. eligibility. As Justice William Rehnquist, writing for the ma- jority, stated, “Congress was required in a national security the priority of protecting life. certainly entitled, in the ex- Greater risk of injury makes emergency in the event of a ercise of its constitutional women more vulnerable in shortage of able-bodied men. powers to raise and regulate ground confrontations with But to plan for women to par- armies and navies, to focus the enemy. Women captured ticipating in frontline direct on the question of military by the enemy could face the ground combat is at odds with need rather than ‘equity.’”15

35 The Obama administration’s this. To begin with, introduc- Bavinck explains the implica- abandonment of women’s ex- ing women into direct ground tions of these realities revealed emption from direct ground combat and registering women in Genesis 1: combat changes the facts that for the draft are very significa t the Court would consider in social changes about which we It is not man alone, nor the event of a future challenge. have had very little reflecti n woman exclusively, but Moreover, some in Congress and debate as a society. Even both of them, and those are even now seeking to change congressional deliberation on two in interdependence, Selective Service registration the issues has been sparse. The who are bearers of the in the context of 2017 Nation- changes have resulted largely image of God. And, ac- al Defense Authorization Act from the unilateral action of the cording to the blessing (NDAA). The Senate version Obama administration. What that is pronounced upon of NDAA included a provision implications would drafting them in verse 28, they requiring women to register women have on mothers, fami- are such image bearers for Selective Service, while the lies, and society at large? Would not in and for themselves House version stripped that women with religious convic- alone.16 proposal. A conference com- tions about their roles in society mittee is expected to resolve and the responsibility of men Genesis 1:28, often called the differences between the two to protect have the freedom to cultural mandate, is God’s first versions in the fall of 2016. conscientiously object, without a instruction to humanity, to claim to pacifism? Americans— both fill and govern the earth. Congress should stop the head- including policymakers—have Bavinck’s observation that male long rush in NDAA to register had hardly any opportunity to and female together give expres- women for Selective Service. consider the ramifications,even sion to the image of God and The Obama administration has as a proposal to register women that this is closely related to unilaterally promoted its social for Selective Service hangs in their cultural task strongly sug- agenda in the military without the balance in Congress. gests they can only succeed at adequately addressing concerns this endeavor interdependently. about potential negative effect Moreover, eliminating wom- on readiness and combat effec en’s combat exemption and In , respond- tiveness. The next president suggesting that men and wom- ing to God’s call to that cultur- should restore mission priority en are in-terchangeable for all al task is imperative for hu- by directing military leaders to military occupations reinforc- man beings seeking to honor revise the policy that has elim- es a false understanding of God. Incorporating Bavinck’s inated sex-based distinctions equality and blurs distinctions observation above, honoring for all combat, which removes a between the sexes. Men and God means honoring him as longstanding limit on register- his image. From this perspec- ing women for a potential draft. women are not interchange- able in every con-text, and it tive, if sexual difference is part does not advance women to of humanity’s imaging of God, SOCIETY AT LARGE suggest otherwise. Celebrating then recognizing and respecting To suggest that sending women diversity means making dis- sexual differences is essential to into direct ground combat roles tinctions between male and fe- honor God. This conclusion has is like dismantling a load-bear- male where they are relevant, implications both for individu- ing wall has implications in two not simulating sameness. That als inhabiting sexually differen- dimensions. First, assigning matters both for women—and tiated bodies, and for males and women to ground combat units men—in the military, as well as females relating in community. will fundamentally change the for society at large. military by introducing vari- To strive for interchangeability ables that risk detracting from IMAGE OF GOD fails to reflect the fullness of combat effec iveness as dis- the image of God. Similarly, to cussed above. A Christian theological perspec- set up typically male achieve- tive suggests a wider vantage ments as markers of female suc- Second, such a shift in the point on this issue that encom- cess risks denigrating aspects military will have much fur- passes the nature and purpose of God’s image that he has re- ther-reaching consequences for of human beings made in the vealed in the nature of females. society as a whole. A number image of God, male and fe- of points could be made about male. Dutch theologian Herman The question is not merely what

36 women can do as autonomous a load-bearing wall of our civil 8 Schaefer et al. Implications of Integrating Women into the Marine individuals, and it is not just society—and to stop the demo- Corps Infantry, p. 58. See also Leo about a female body’s strength lition of it before crisis exposes Shane III, “Questions, Frustrations or a woman’s aptitudes. From why we needed its support all as Women Prepare to Join Combat Units,” Military Times, February 10, this perspective, the most sig- along. 2016, militarytimes.com (accessed nificant issue is how to use those May 3, 2016). given capacities in relation to Jennifer A. Marshall, is 9 Sebastian Negrusa, Brighita Ne- others for the pursuit of the pur- vice president for the Institute grusa, and James Hosek, “Gone to War: pose for which human beings for Family, Community, and Have Deployments Increased Divorc- Opportunity and Joseph C. and es?” Journal of Population Economics, were created. Vol. 27, Iss. 2 (April 2014), p. 495, Elizabeth A. Anderlik Fellow at rd.springer.com (accessed May 5, 2016). The Heritage Foundation, and a More than nostalgia, then, 10 Amy Bushatz, “Military Divorce should prompt reflection on the senior research fellow with the Rate Hits Lowest Level in 10 Years,” wartime division of labor, an ar- Institute of Theology and Public Military.com, February 25, 2015, Life at Reformed Theological military.com (accessed May 3, 2016). rangement that has historically Seminary, Washington, D.C. Researchers caution that military di- charged able-bodied men with vorce statistics are not comparable to those in the general population because waging battle and tasked women John Scott Redd Jr., is of differing methods of measuring. with salvaging society through president and associate pro- 11 A RAND Corporation study the ravages of war. This not only fessor of Old Testament at of post-9/11 deployment concluded, underscores that continuing to Reformed Theological Seminary, “Fourth, we find a larger effect of de- cultivate the fruits of peace is as Washington, D.C. ployment on the divorce hazard of female service members. This suggests urgent a priority as waging war (Endnotes) an asymmetry in the capability or to protect it. The respective roles 1 Based on an Army survey of women willingness to adapt to deployment of of men and women in such exi- in active duty, reserves, and National couples where the service member is Guard women, only about 7.5 percent female in comparison with families gencies give expression, for ex- of the 30,000 respondents seek such where the service member is male.” ample, to the reality that God’s roles. Lolita C. Baldor, “Few Army Sebastian Negrusa, Brighita Negrusa, Women Want Combat Jobs, Survey and James Hosek, “Gone to War: Have justice includes both judgment Shows,” USAToday, Feb. 25, 2014, Deployments Increased Divorces?” and shalom. usatoday.com. Journal of Population Economics, 2 When tested for anaerobic power, Vol. 27, Iss. 2 (April 2014), p. 495, for example, the top 25 percent of rd.springer.com (accessed May 5, 2016). CONCLUSION females overlapped with the bottom 25 See also Benjamin R. Karney and Jon percent of males. In aerobic capacity, S. Crown, “Families Under Stress: the female average was 10 percent lower An Assessment of Data, Theory, and Few of us alive today have ex- than the male average. Hope Hodge perienced an all-out conflict Seck, “Mixed-gender Teams Come Up Research on Marriage and Divorce in Short in Marines’ Infantry Experiment,” the Military,” RAND Corporation, 2007, that requires men and women Marine Corps Times, September 10, p. 91, rand.org (accessed May 5, 2016). together to accomplish such a 2015, marinecorpstimes.com (accessed 12 Amy Bushatz, “Female Military May 3, 2016). great civilizational endeavor. Divorce Rates Continue Decline,” And perhaps because of that 3 Joseph J. Knapik, Marilyn A. Military.com, December 18, 2013, Sharp, Michelle Canham-Chervak, military.com (accessed May 3, 2016). it is difficult for us any longer Keith Hauret, John F. Patton, and Bruce to fathom a social mission that H. Jones, “Risk Factors for Training-re- 13 Thomas S. Szayna, Eric V. Larson, lated Injuries Among Men and Women Angela O’Mahony, Sean Robson, Agnes requires us to act in solidarity in Basic Combat Training,” Medicine & Gereben Schaefer, Miriam Matthews, with our own sex in a way that Science in Sports & Exercise, Vol. 33, J. Michael Polich, Lynsay Ayer, Derek Issue 6 (June 2001), pp. 946–954, jour- Eaton, William Marcellino, Lisa Mi- complements the role of the op- nals.lww.com (accessed May 3, 2016). yashiro, Marek Posard, James Syme, posite sex. This calls for much 4 Lolita C. Baldor, “Officials: Marine Zev Winkelman, Cameron Wright, more theological reflection on Commandant Recommends Women Megan Zander Cotugno, and William Be Banned from Some Combat Jobs,” particular implications of the Welser IV, Considerations for Integrat- Marine Corps Times, September 19, ing Women into Closed Occupations complementarity of the sexes in 2015, marinecorpstimes.com (accessed May 3, 2016). in the U.S. Special Operations Forces pursuing the cultural mandate, (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 5 Cheryl Pellerin, “Carter Opens and that reflection must extend 2015), p. 180, rand.org (accessed May All Military Occupations, Positions to 3, 2016). beyond procreation to matters Women,” DoD News, December 3, 2015, defense.gov (accessed May 3, 2016). 14 Jude Eden, “No, Women Should of ordering cultural life and 6 Douglas Ernst, “Gen. Dempsey Not Be Included in the Draft,” The governing. Hints: Bar Likely Lowered for Female Daily Signal, February 16, 2016, Combat Units,” The Washington Times, dailysignal.com (accessed May 3, 2016). January 25, 2013, washingtontimes. 15 Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 Meanwhile, much more cultural com (accessed May 6, 2016). reflection is needed on the ques- (1981), caselaw.findlaw.com (accessed 7 Derrick Perkins, “Mabus: 1 in 4 May 3, 2016). tion of sending women into di- Marine Recruits Should Be Women,” Marine Corps Times, May 26, 2015, 16 Herman Bavinck, The Origin, Es- rect ground combat. We would marinecorpstimes.com (accessed May sence, and Purpose of Man, Fig Classic do well to recognize it threatens 3, 2016). Series, 2012.

37 ESSAY

JUST WAR THEORY & TERRORISM

Eric Patterson

n a classic scene in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, King Arthur is Iattacked by the Black Knight, who takes it upon himself to oppose anyone attempting to cross a certain bridge. In the course of the battle that follows, Arthur cuts off the Black Knight’s appendages one by one while his opponent famously retorts, “Just a flesh wound…come back you pansy, I’ll bite your legs off! 1

Shapes of Fear by Maynard Dixon, 1930-1932. Source: Smithsonian American Art Museum. Through the deft collusion of imagery, color, and mood, this allegorical representation produces the uneasy suspense of unsettling expectation. Through an analogous collusion of repetition of atrocity, perpetual threat, and theatrical violence, terrorists use savagery as spectacle to instill fear, paranoia, hyper-vigilance, and continued unease.

38 Significantly, the Black Knight WHAT IS JUST WAR THEORY? the sake of hatred, revenge, is brazen in flouting the law. He and destruction is not just. The classical just war framework is not sneaky, but rather openly provides the foundation for cus- challenges the rule of law--as • Likelihood of Success: Poli- do pirates, brigands, and those tomary international law as well tical leaders should consid- we today call “terrorists.” He as the formal laws of armed er whether or not their ac- is not simply a discrete dan- conflict, in addition to ethical tion will make a difference ger to the citizen who wants to reflection. Just war thinking in real-world outcomes. This cross the bridge. Rather, he calls begins with three criteria for the principle is subject to context into question the foundation of just decision (jus ad bellum) to and judgment, because it may civilized life: a social contract use military force: legitimate be appropriate to act despite wherein security is guaranteed authority acting on a just cause a low likelihood of success by the sword in the hands of with right intent. Practical, (e.g. against local genocide). agents of the state, and citizens secondary jus ad bellum con- Conversely, it may be inap- do not engage in violence. The siderations include: likelihood propriate to act due to low ef- work of the Black Knight tears at of success, proportionality of ficacy despite the compelling the social fabric of community, ends, and last resort. Just war nature of the case. endangering both individuals thinking also has criteria re- and institutions. garding how war is conducted • Proportionality of Ends: (jus in bello): using means and Does the preferred outcome What does Arthur represent tactics proportionate (propor- justify, in terms of the cost in in this scene? He symbolizes, tionality) to battlefield objec- lives and material resources, beyond the hilarity, the rule tives and which limit harm to this course of action? of law and the imperatives of civilians, other non-combatants, political order. If Arthur did and property (discrimination). Last Resort: Have traditional not deal with the Black Knight, diplomatic and other efforts who would? If the king, if the More specifically, political ac- been reasonably employed state, does not impose order in tors should carefully examine in order to avoid outright his realm, who else can? How the following principles when bloodshed? else can justice be promoted? If considering the implementation of military force: there was no Arthur, what would Jus In Bello happen to the next peasant who needed to use that bridge for Jus Ad Bellum • Proportionality: Are the commerce? Would the King of battlefield tools and tactics the Britons show more love of • Legitimate Authority: Sup- employed proportionate to neighbor by ignoring the Black reme political authorities are battlefield objectives? Knight (“he is not my problem”) morally responsible for the or by promoting the rule of law? security of their constituents, • Discrimination: Has care and therefore are obligated been taken to reasonably pro- The Christian just war tradition to make decisions about war tect the lives and property of provides answers to these ques- and peace. legitimate non-combatants? tions. Mainstream Christian thought, from St. Paul (Romans • Just Cause: Self-defense Classical just war thinkers, 13) to early church fathers like of citizens’ lives, livelihoods, such as Cicero and Augustine, and Augustine, and and way of life are typically have long held that the end of all major Christian traditions just causes; more generally a just war is peace. Over the (Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, speaking, the cause is likely past decade, some scholars have Reformed, Anglican, Baptist(s), just if it rights a past wrong, fleshed out a jus post bellum to and their progeny) take some punishes wrong-doers, or pre- give ethical and policy direction form of just war thinking as the vents further wrong.2 to this affirmation. In earlier normal and normative position books I articulate three princi- for Christians when considering • Right Intent: Political moti- ples of jus post bellum: these issues. This essay provides vations are subject to ethical a brief overview of the just war scrutiny; violence intended Jus Post Bellum tradition and then applies the for the purpose of order, jus- framework to the problem of tice, and ultimate conciliation • Order: Beginning with ex- contemporary terrorism. is just, whereas violence for istential security, a sovereign

39 government extends its roots the efficacy of just magistrates, promote justice, including the through the maturation of police, and security personnel. use of the sword: government capacity in the military (traditional securi- Charles and Demy, and a fresh 5 Let every soul be subject ty), governance (domestic book by Nigel Biggar , are unto the higher powers. politics), and international among the best reminders that For there is no power but security dimensions. Christianity has two millennia of God: the powers that of teaching on government and be are ordained of God. • Justice: Getting one’s ‘just the use of force, and today’s Whosoever therefore Christians should start their de- desserts,’ including consid- resists the power, resists eration of individual punish- liberations with modest and in- the ordinance of God: and ment and restitution policies tent study on what the Bible and they that resist shall re- when appropriate for those the great churchmen of the past ceive to themselves dam- who violated the law of armed have to say on these issues. The nation. For rulers are not conflict. most important of such authors, a terror to good works, one cited as an authority by not but to evil. Wilt thou • Conciliation: Coming to only Catholic and Orthodox po- then not be afraid of the terms with the past so that litical theorists and churchmen power? Do that which is parties can imagine and move but also by Luther and Calvin good, and thou shalt have forward toward a shared as authoritative, is Augustine, praise of the same. For he future. Bishop of Hippo. [the government official] is the minister of God to Excellent volumes have been Augustine (354-430 A.D.) trav- thee for good. But if thou written on the history of just war eled across the Roman world do that which is evil, be thinking, making a full recita- and saw the glories and per- afraid. For he beareth not tion here unnecessary.3 Worth versions of Imperial Rome. As the sword in vain: for he highlighting is a recent volume a Christian faced with both Pax is the minister of God, a by Professor J. Daryl Charles Romana as well as the cruelties revenger to execute wrath and former U.S. Navy chap- of the arena, Augustine pon- upon him that doeth evil. lain Timothy Demy answers dered the conditions for when Wherefore ye must needs hundreds of questions—citing it was just to employ violence dozens of historical Christian in political life. Augustine’s for- be subject, not only for texts—about the ethics of war mulation of the just use of force wrath, but also for con- from a Christian perspective.4 relied heavily on the notion of science sake. In this volume the authors caritas, or charity: “love your look carefully at the earliest neighbor as yourself.” In do- extant Christian writers, such mestic society as well as inter- Augustine suggested that this as , Origen, Tertullian, national life, how does one go is also true with regards to for- and Eusebius on questions about loving one’s neighbor? eign threats: loving our neigh- of government and the mili- Augustine argued that within bor can mean self-defense of tary. These thinkers have been society adherence to the rule of the polity. Likewise, loving our wrongly identified as “pacifists.” law, including punishment of foreign neighbors may mean us- As Charles and Demy demon- lawbreakers, is a way of loving ing force to punish evildoers or strate, the early Christian writ- one’s neighbors. To love one’s right a wrong. He writes, “true ers were more concerned with neighbors includes refraining religion looks upon as peaceful the pagan religious duties that from harming them and sup- those wars that are waged not Roman magistrates and soldiers porting the authorities in their for motives of aggrandizement, had to perform as part of their efforts to provide security to the or cruelty, but with the object everyday jobs, including kneel- citizenry. Moreover, Augustine of securing peace, of punishing ing to idols, acknowledging the noted, caritas means protecting evil-doers, and of uplifting the deity of the emperor, partici- one’s neighbor when they are good.”6 pating in various sacral feasts attacked, even if one is forced and ceremonies, and the like. to employ violence to protect In addition to caritas, The second- and third-century that individual. Augustine used Augustine’s writings suggest a church was deeply concerned Romans 13:1-5 to argue that second reason for jus ad bel- about these activities as idol sovereign authorities have a lum: order. Augustine consis- worship rather than questioning responsibility to order and to tently privileged political order

40 over disorder. The Augustinian whose command the war that disrupt the international conception of the universe is is to be waged. For it is status quo. one in which God is the ulti- not the business of a pri- mate Creator, Judge, Arbiter, vate individual to declare Finally, Aquinas said that the and End. Although God allows war...And as the care of just resort to force required just sin and imperfection in this the common weal is com- intent. Scholars and churchmen world, he nonetheless sustains mitted to those who are in alike have long pointed out the the universe with a divine order. authority, it is their busi- dilemmas of ascertaining right This order is mirrored in society ness to watch over the intent. For the average soldier, by the political order with its common weal of the city, the medievals solved this prob- laws and hierarchy. Augustine kingdom or province sub- lem by providing absolution to argued that although the City ject to them. And just as it their troops before battle and of Man is a poor reflection of is lawful for them to have sometimes providing it again the City of God, nonetheless recourse to the sword in after the battle for the survivors. it is the political principle of defending that common This did not completely solve temporal order which most ap- weal against internal the problem of rage and blood- proximates the eternal order.7 disturbances, when they lust on the battlefield, but rather During his lifetime, Augustine punish evil-doers… so sought a spiritual solution to a witnessed the alternative: the too, it is their business very human dynamic. looting of Rome and ultimately to have recourse to the the sacking of his home in North sword of war in defending However, this says little about Africa in the final days of his the common weal against the sovereign’s motivation. life. His fear of political disor- external enemies.9 Contemporary politics makes der was more than a distaste the situation even more complex for regime change; it was dread because most state decisions are of losing civic order with all of Aquinas saw most violence as not made by a sovereign individ- its attendant moral duties and criminal and lawless. The fun- ual such as a king or empress. opportunities. damental purpose of the state Western governments are plu- was to provide a counterpoise to ralistic, representing multiple Today, many Christians want to lawlessness. He also argued that voices and acting based on a focus on the law of love but ne- states should be concerned with complicated set of interests and glect Augustine’s presupposition just cause. He writes: “Secondly, ideals. However, Aquinas’ focus that political order is the foun- a just cause is required, name- on right intent did not neces- 8 dation for society. Augustine’s ly that those who are attacked, sarily call for agonizing over argument is that the state has a should be attacked because they one’s ethical motivations. He responsibility to both domestic deserve it on account of some writes, “It is necessary that the and international security—a re- fault.” He quotes Augustine, belligerents should have a right- sponsibility that it must uphold, “Wherefore Augustine says: ‘A ful intention, so that they intend even if the state dirties its hands just war is wont to be described the advancement of good, or in the process of securing the as one that avenges wrongs, the avoidance of evil.” In other realm. when a nation or state has to be words, Aquinas’ idea of right punished, for refusing to make intent is that states should seek Augustine’s intellectual heir was amends for the wrongs inflict- to advance the security of their Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), ed by its subjects, or to restore people and avoid wars based who similarly argued that a war what it has seized unjustly.’”10 only on greed or vengeance. was just when it met three re- Aquinas’ conception of just cau- Aquinas again cites the Bishop quirements: sovereign author- se is richer than the contem- of Hippo: “Hence Augustine ity, just cause, and right intent. porary debate on self-defense says: ‘The passion for inflict- It is noteworthy that Aquinas because it includes punishing ing harm, the cruel thirst for began not with just cause or wrongdoing and restitution of vengeance, an unpacific and right intent, but with a focus on some sort to victims. Indeed, it relentless spirit, the fever of sovereign authority: seems that Aquinas’ just cause revolt, the lust of power, and would support the use of force such like things, all these are In order for a war to be to curb aggressive non-state ac- rightly condemned in war.’”11 just, three things are tors, protect individual human Aquinas would likely agree that necessary. First, the au- life via humanitarian interven- in contemporary international thority of the sovereign by tion, and punish rogue regimes politics, the right intent of states

41 is to seek their own security and been somewhat different. Like then promote human flourish- the Roman , ing around the world. Orthodoxy has recognized a pacific vocation for a group of It is beyond the scope of this “professional” religious indi- essay to deal with all of the great viduals (e.g. monks, priests) Christian thinkers and their but recognized the importance views on the ethics of war, but of the state in protecting the nearly every question conceiv- public. This self-defensive pos- able about the ethics of armed ture was particularly important conflict and the responsibili- as Constantinople (Byzantium) ties of the individual and the faced assault after assault by state can be found within the Muslim armies over the centu- Christian intellectual tradition: ries and was later taken up by Aquinas on self-defense against national Orthodox churches. the Turks; Vitoria and Suarez criticizing Spanish treatment of Over the years, the just war native people in the New World; tradition has become the clas- Hugo Grotius articulating an sic statement of government international law outside of ec- responsibility for aspects of clesiastical mandates; Martin real-world neighbor love for Luther and John Calvin on the Lutherans, all major Reformed importance of a robust state churches, Anglicans and their and the ethics of self-defense; descendants (e.g. Methodists), and others in our own time, and the major Baptist denomi- most notably Paul Ramsey on nations. Newcomers to the re- just war in the nuclear age and ligious scene, such as twenti- Jean Bethke Elshtain’s recent eth-century Pentecostals and work on gross human rights charismatics, typically follow violations and the possibilities the just war tradition if they of justice and forgiveness. All of have an organized statement on this work is the heritage of mod- issues of war and peace. ern Christians, and is worthy of our reference. JUST WAR & TERRORISM: At the same time, it is notewor- THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES thy that the development of From a just war perspective, all the great Christian denom- there are at least two issues to inations explicitly assert just be addressed at the outset when war thinking in some form. For considering terrorism. The first most of the past two millennia, is whether or not terroristic vi- the Roman Catholic Church olence is moral. The second is has clearly supported just war. what responsibility legitimate The Catechism of the Catholic political authorities have with Church (sections 2302-2317) regards to terrorism. Later, the begins with the distinction be- more consequential issue of ac- tween “murder,” rooted in “un- tuating neighbor love in a fallen just anger” and “hatred,” and world will be addressed. “righteous anger” or what we might call “righteous indigna- Just war thinking begins from tion.” The Catholic Catechism and punishment of wrong-doers the premise that legitimate po- emphasizes that the goal for po- motivated by neighbor-love.12 litical authorities can morally litical authorities must be peace, These basic arguments are use force. By definition, terror- but that the “tranquility of or- largely accepted within the au- ists do not meet this fundamen- der” described by Augustine tocephalous Orthodox church- tal criteria. The terrorist em- often requires prevention of es, although their trajectory ploys violence outside the rule of wrong, righting of past wrongs, since the sixth century, A.D. has law with political, theological, or

42 philosophical purposes in mind. may not have expensive, stan- typically seek haven by hiding More specifically here, terror- dardized uniforms, but legiti- within the civilian population. ism is the use of violence by mate freedom fighters wear a By doing so, they not only vi- non-state actors, usually against patch or insignia demonstrating olate the principles of ethical non-combatants and private their identity as an organized combat but they, wittingly or property but also against state combatant organization. They unwittingly, draw civilians into targets, intending, among other make explicit, public political the battlespace. When civilians things, to terrorize the public demands that correlate with are killed because terrorists and change government policy. justice, order, and peace. They have gone underground among have an organization and are them, the moral responsibility In fact, terrorism is not just out- under an authority. In just war for those deaths resides, at least side rightful political authority— terms, they accept at least two in part, on the terrorist. it is an assault upon it. Biblical forms of authority. The first teaching, including Romans 13 stems from customary interna- Few disagree that most terror- but also relevant examples from tional law and is now codified ists have violated the basic rules the Old Testament, reminds us in the Geneva Conventions; the of civilization and thus are war that political order is a moral second is that they submit to criminals and unlawful belliger- good. Terrorism undermines some form of organized authori- ents. What are governments to that order, limiting the reach of ty (i.e. “are under the command do? What are Christians serving the rule of law and eroding pub- of a person responsible for his the public good supposed to do? lic trust. It is not just unlawful: subordinates”). it is evil. Of course, one choice selected One could fight an asymmetrical by a tiny minority of Christians One need not go further in the or unconventional war against over the centuries is the just war criteria than the fun- a superior foe by attacking gov- Anabaptist option—pray that damental tenet of legitimate ernment agents and property secular authorities do a good job authority when considering ter- without attempting to terrorize keeping the peace but avoid all rorism immoral and unlawful. the general populace. We need other involvement so as to not There is no “just cause” that can look no further than the exam- dirty one’s hands.13 It is beyond legitimize bombing malls, sub- ple of George Washington, who the scope of this paper to go ways, and public buses. It is im- operated under civilian politi- into the views of this minority possible to conceive an ethical cal authority (the Continental within Christendom. Suffice it “right intention” that deliber- Congress). He enforced disci- to say, most Christians for the ately targets houses of worship, pline on his un-professional past two millennia have felt this grocery stores, and queues in troops. He forbade and pun- to be an irresponsible approach front of public offices. There is ished theft, rape, and abuse of to Christian duty and vocation no need to go further down the civilians. The Continental Army in the world and have chosen jus ad bellum checklist. may have been many things, but some form of just war thinking. it was clearly not terroristic. Some might object, “Isn’t it true CONCLUSION: THE POLITICAL that one man’s terrorist is an- Not only is terrorism morally ETHIC OF NEIGHBOR other man’s freedom fighter?” illegitimate in terms of jus ad It is important to note that this bellum criteria because it defies LOVE discussion is typically not a jus and destroys centers of political Enter here the fundamental ad bellum conversation (the authority, but it is also repug- Christian ethic, love. Christ ethics of going to war) but a jus nant in terms of jus in bello. made clear that the two great- in bello one (the ethics of how Terrorism, as an operational est commandments were to love war is fought). In other words, strategy, typically attacks “soft” God and love one’s neighbor. the debate is usually not about targets such as civilian popu- How is the individual to actu- strategic claims (such as build- lation centers. In other words, alize love? More importantly, ing a caliphate) but rather about terrorists follow a perverse form in political and social relations, tactics. To be direct, the answer of reverse discrimination: they how are governments best able to the question is, simply, “no.” actively seek unprotected ci- to employ love? Specifically, True freedom fighters abide vilians, private property, and how do political authorities, by the laws of armed conflict, un-secured government lo- how do law enforcement offi- even if they are insurgents or cations upon which to wreak cials, how do soldiers, how do guerrillas. For instance, they havoc. Furthermore, terrorists statesmen, how do leaders and

43 public servants employ neighbor conditions are an expression of cunda Secundae (New York: Christian love in collective situations? sovereign responsibility. This Classics, 1981). How do you put love into prac- leads another morally nuanced 3 Two of the best are Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle tice in times of war and terror? distinction: that between vio- Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- lence and force. A distinction sity Press, 1975) and James Turner Johnson, The Just War Tradition and Crucially, the Just War tradition with a difference, force is rightly the Restraint of War (Princeton: Princ- does not suggest that employing caused, geared toward justified eton University Press, 1981). force is simply a lesser evil. It is ends, and proportional, while 4 J. Daryl Charles and Timothy popular to say that one cannot violence is illegitimate, deployed Demy, War, Peace, and Christianity lead a nation and avoid dirty toward unjustified ends, and (Crossway, Wheaton, 2010) hands. Against this simplistic employed by those without sov- 5 Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014). insistence, the just war tradition ereign mandate. Force, in the 6 This famous quote from Augustine takes a more profound, morally context of military power, is is referred to in Aquinas’ statement fol- nuanced view. Just war mor- employed by those responding lowing Objection 4. Summa Theologica, al analysis holds that evil and to sufficiently grave evils with Part II, II, Question 40. dirt comes in different kinds; it an eye toward the restoration 7 Roger Epp, “The Augustinian Moment in International Politics,” asserts that employing force, of justice and the hope of peace International Politics Research Papers, while tragic, can be a virtuous and reconciliation. No. 10 (Aberystwyth, UK: Department of International Politics, University act that seeks the greatest possi- College of Wales, 1991). ble good rather than lesser evils; What this amounts to is the 8 This debate—how to employ the law and it recognizes that killing too claim that, in the end, just war of love in a violent world—turned many comes in different kinds, as both thinking is really about “neigh- Christian pacifists such as Reinhold bor love.” The best way, some- Niebuhr away from pacifism and toward common sense and positive law “Christian realism” in the 1930s and recognize in distinguishing mur- times the only way, to opera- 1940s. The Christian realist argument der from self-defense. It does all tionalize neighbor love in the refl cts Augustine’s call for this-worldly policies to thwart evil, even if such poli- this, in part, by emphasizing the real world of limits, fallenness, cies dirty the hands of those engaged in importance of intention, which and evil is by standing between fighting for justice and order. See Eric the beast and their prey, em- Patterson, ed., The Christian Realists allows it to render distinctions (Lanham, MD: University of America between, say, righteous indig- ploying force against those who Press, 2003), especially chap. 1. nation and hatred as well as be- intend the innocent harm, and 9 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part tween justice and revenge. See by standing for justice in the II, II, Question 40. Nigel Biggar’s essay in this issue face of its assault. 10 This continues Augustine’s quote for further elaboration on this. from above in Aquinas’ Question 4. Eric Patterson, Ph.D. is Dean Summa Theologica, Part II, II, Ques- tion 40. Just War thinking also distin- and Professor in the Robertson School of Government at Regent 11 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Part guishes between political au- II, II, Question 40. University in Virginia Beach, VA. thorities employing force and 12 A good summary of the Catholic He is the author or editor of 11 private citizens employing vi- position can be found here: https:// books, including Ending Wars www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/ olence. These principles are Well, Ethics Beyond War’s End, just_war.htm. rooted in both Old and New and Debating the War of Ideas. 13 The Schleitheim Confession, the Testament models of gover- classic statement of the Anabaptist nance that find expression in the (Endnotes) tradition can be found at: http://www. 1 I have previously used this point anabaptists.org/history/the-schlei- Catholic Catechism and some in a chapter, from which some of this theim-confession.html. Because it is Protestant as “sub- material derived. See Eric Patterson, so poorly understood, readers should sidiarity” or “sphere sovereign- “Just War Theory: Christian Think- familiarize themselves with, in par- ing on Justice and Security” in David ticular, the section “On the Sword”. It ty” which hold that the gov- Gushee, ed., Evangelical Peacebuilding is noteworthy that classical Baptists ernment “sphere” has duties to (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2013). have not accepted this Anabaptist po- 2 This formulation derives from sition. In fact, in 1524 the five Baptist law, security, and order. Thus, Augustine, as recorded in Aquinas’ churches of London publicly dismissed the use of force under certain Summa Theologica. Question 40, Se- the Anabaptist view.

44 It is characteristic nowadays to talk with horror of killing rather than of murder, and

hence, since in war you have committed

yourself to killing—for example “accept-

ed evil”—not to mind whom you kill. This

seems largely to be the work of the devil.

G.E.M. Anscombe, “Mr. Truman’s Degree”

45 ESSAY

BREXIT & A GODLY NATIONALISM

Mark Tooley

he Brexit vote recalls a prescient editorial from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Tjournal Christianity & Crisis (a model for this magazine!) in January 1946 warning that “the movement toward centralized authority on a world scale contains a threat of world tyranny, particularly if the authority within the world is conceived merely in terms of police power in world government.”

A View of London with St. Paul’s Cathedral from the Thames by John Gendall, 19th century. Held in private collection. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

46 In the aftermath of WWII’s economies cannot function Historically, of course, Britain’s murderous horrors, this ed- competently under a common self-understanding has always itorial supported the emerg- currency with wealthier north- set itself apart from continental ing United Nations and some ern Europe. In the latter much, Europe, as a global power tied to abridgments of national sover- if not most, of European opinion empire and later to the broader eignty. Though perhaps exces- rejects the automatic accep- Anglosphere. It has also gloried sive and overly optimistic, his tance of unlimited immigration, in its traditionally Protestant article was at least still aware most spectacularly showcased and constitutional identity as of the accompanying dangers by Angela Merkel’s quick induc- a defiant defender of individ- to liberty and self-government. tion of over 1 million Muslim ual liberties against European migrants without sufficient statism, whether absolute mon- The United Nations, once touted consideration of demographic archy or violent egalitarian rev- as humanity’s last best hope, has and social impact. Subsequent olutionary ideologies. The more long since receded as a cause increases in crimes like rape in outspoken Brexit advocates of hope or, by its critics, fear, Germany and Sweden, accom- wondered why Britain should having become mainly a con- panied by mass murders from surrender to presumptuous EU versation forum and an occa- radicalized Muslims in France, clerks in Brussels claiming au- sionally somewhat useful instru- have further and justifiably in- thority over Britain’s Parliament ment for humanitarian relief flamed opinion. and people that Napoleon and and peacekeeping operations. other continental tyrants were Other international accords that Britain’s somewhat surpris- forcefully refused, thanks to empower unelected global elites ing, at least to some, vote to the illustrious sacrifice of the at the expense of self-govern- quit the EU was not so direct- British nation. ing local peoples have raised ly tied to recent Mideast mi- Britain maintains a more glob- alarms about national sover- gration. Some commentators, eignty, particularly related to ally capable armed forces, in- typically pro-EU, highlighted global warming. cluding nuclear weapons, than the resentment of the British do nearly all other European working class in depressed in- Europe’s ongoing subordination nations. It also arguably sus- dustrial areas over the impact of nation-states to largely ap- tains a more vigorously defined of increased immigration from pointed managers and bureau- spiritual sense of nationhood other EU nations, especially crats of the European Union in and distinct national purpose. Eastern Europe. This focus has Brussels has been historically This self-identity is hard to portrayed pro-Brexit voters as understandable after the can- quantify but almost certain- cerous nationalisms that ignited chauvinistic. Such critique de- ly facilitated Brexit at least two world wars, killed tens of monizes Brexit while largely as much as, if not more than, millions, and unleashed total- ignoring widespread British any resentment aimed at east itarian ideologies that refined distress over the increasing loss European immigrants. Many tyranny and torture to satanic of national decision-making to British elites are discomfited levels. EU bureaucrats. by this ongoing British nation- alism, as are of course European But the EU project has seemed Much of Europe embraced or and global elites, including particularly unwieldy if not de- surrendered to gross nation- some Americans, who share structive when managing, or alisms during the last century, continental European notions failing to manage, the weaker and its elites with popular ac- of post-nationhood and dis- economies of southern Europe, quiescence sought atonement miss champions of nationhood, especially Greece, and the on- and protection under a new whether British or American, as going Mideast migrant cri- post-national identity through reactionary. sis, in which EU elites try to the EU. Britain stands nearly mandate open doors for un- alone among European nations As British Christian thinker restricted numbers of most- in having fairly consistently Nigel Biggar has noted, tra- ly young Muslim men. In the and often courageously resist- ditionally Catholic cultures former, the Greeks and other ed continental totalitarianism are historically familiar with Southern Europeans have re- and aggressions. It emerged transnational federations un- sented Teutonic imposed eco- from WWII economically and der a distant authority in- nomic stringency, tacitly admit- politically depleted but at least vested with spiritual purpose, ting that their own vulnerable with its virtue relatively intact. while Protestantism was more

47 conducive to and helped con- majority of Britain that voted now by Brexit, and constructed struct nation-states, including for Brexit, retains a sense of over 1,000 years of shared ex- some national churches which its nation’s unique and even periences and political devel- claimed their own distinct spiri- providential destiny. Such an opments that have benefited all tual mandates. Britain obviously appreciation is essential for any humanity, especially the United falls in the latter category, as nation’s public order, morale, States—is surely a model for does the United States. Polls and survival. many in our world too often rent indicate that British Christians by tribe and tongue. Anglican were likelier to support Brexit Extreme and dangerous na- Protestantism was both created than more secular voters, who tionalisms have incited wars by the British experience and an seem more comfortable with a and genocides, though there instrument in refining Britain’s post-national reality. are relatively fewer such cases special identity. of excessive nationalism today. Increasing numbers of Post-communist Russia and What can that Anglican legacy American Christians, especially sort-of post-communist China teach all of us, Christian or not, Evangelicals, originally more on offer the greatest exceptions. about building just and sustain- the left but now increasingly on Absent persuasive ideology or able societies and nations? Very the right, have become outspo- religion (though Putin exploits likely a great deal. Rather than ken against nationalism, which Russian Orthodoxy in a nation critiquing nationalism, more of is ostensibly idolatrous and at with few active religious prac- Christianity needs a theology of odds with the Gospel. There is of titioners), Russia’s and China’s just and godly nationalism. course much truth in their anal- regimes corral their peoples and ysis, as many nationalisms in re- exert themselves internationally As the January 1946 cent memory have calamitously based on nationalism. Most oth- Christianity & Crisis editorial claimed lordship for themselves er threats to the global order are counseled, “Though we do not that belongs only to God. not mainly nationalist but partly claim to have a simple Christian religious or ethnic, especially solution for each problem, we Christian critics of nationalism relating to forms of political do believe that there are in the typically offer little to no polit- Islam, as Joshua Craddock’s Christian faith sources of insight ical alternative to nationalism article in this issue asserts is the concerning the conditions of a other than a vaguely global hu- case with Iran. manitarianism. Conservative solution, and that solutions be- Christians rightly prioritize the Nationalism for many troubled come easier when sought with primary loyalty owed the church nations would be a political sal- courage and the spirit of hu- as the universal Body of Christ, vation. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, mility.” As that editorial also without considering the subor- Somalia, the Sudans, Libya, reminded, nations who pros- dinate but still very important the DRC, Chad, and countless per and endure must not forget role of nations in providing for other countries are war torn the “majesty of the Lord under essential human needs from a by religious, ethnic, and tribal whose ultimate judgment all our Christian perspective of justice, divisions. Surely it is godly to judgments stand.” dignity, and compassion. If na- pray that their peoples discover tions are ordained by God as a national purpose, a harmoni- Mark Tooley is president ongoing providential tools, then ous nationalism, for living and of the Institute on Religion Christians cannot be dismissive prospering together in relative & Democracy, and editor of of them. peace, united in national loy- Providence. He is the author, alty if not in religion or tribal most recently, of The Peace That Although ostensibly post-Chris- identification. Almost Was: The Forgotten tian in many ways, even with Story of the 1861 Washington a state church headed by the The unique British sense of na- Peace Conference and the Final crown, Britain, or at least the tionhood—reasserted at least for Attempt to Avert the Civil War.

48 VOLUNTEER BOYS

HENCE with the lover who sighs o’er his wine, Cloes and Phillises toasting, Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine, Of ardor and constancy boasting.

Hence with love’s joys, Follies and noise, The toast that I give is the Volunteer Boys. Nobles and beauties and such common toasts, Those who admire may drink, sir; Fill up the glass to the volunteer hosts, Who never from danger will shrink, sir.

Let mirth appear, Every heart cheer, The toast that I give is the brave volunteer. Here’s to the squire who goes to parade Here’s to the citizen soldier; Here’s to the merchant who fights for his trade, Whom danger increasing makes bolder.

Let mirth appear, Union is here, The toast that I give is the brave volunteer. Here’s to the lawyer, who, leaving the bar, Hastens where honor doth lead, sir, Changing the gown for the ensigns of war, The cause of his country to plead, sir. Freedom appears, Every heart cheers, And calls for the health of the law volunteers. Here’s to the soldier, though batter’d in wars, And safe to his farm-house retir’d; When called by his country, ne’er thinks of his scars, With ardor to join us inspir’d. Bright fame appears, Trophies uprear, To veteran chiefs who became volunteers. Here’s to the farmer who dares to advance To harvests of honor with pleasure; Who with a slave the most skilful in France, A sword for his country would measure.

Hence with cold fear, Heroes rise here; The ploughman is chang’d to the stout volunteer. Here’s to the peer, first in senate and field, Whose actions to titles add grace, sir; Whose spirit undaunted would never yet yield To a foe, to a pension or place, sir.

Gratitude here, Toasts to the peer, Who adds to his titles, “the brave volunteer.” Thus the bold bands for old Jersey’s defence, The muse hath with rapture review’d, sir; With our volunteer boys, as our verses commence, With our volunteer boys they conclude, sir. Discord or noise, Ne’er damp our joys, But health and success to the volunteer boys.

A song of the revolutionary war attributed to Henry Archer, a native of England, who emigrated to America in 1778. Em- bracing the cause of the Colonists, Archer forthwith embarked as a volunteer in the American Army.

49 A U.S. Marine contemplates the corpse of a fallen North Vietnamese soldier during Operation Prairie, 1966. Based on an original photograph by Larry Burrows, for Time.

50 ESSAY

THE FIFTH IMAGE: SEEING THE ENEMY WITH JUST WAR EYES

Marc LiVecche

n the Christian view, the normative grounding from which the tradition Iof just war casuistry springs is the dominical command to love. Pace the Christian pacifists, there is no biblical prohibition against killing. This includes, of course, both the New Testament as well as the gospel revelation of Christ. While this specificity is redundant, it often tends to be necessary. However, and pace certain breeds of Christian realists— including the Niebuhrian kind—there is in this dominical command to love not simply an injunction to do so in our discreet, individual lives, but to love in the capacity of our public, that is our political, lives as well. Indeed, that the just war tradition can be claimed as a Christian ethic at all is owed to the fact that force, even of the killing kind, can be deployed as an expression of love.

According to the just war frame- of the political community— sufficiently grave evil, to take work, wars may be justly fought determines, in the last resort back what has wrongly been tak- only when a sovereign authori- and with the aim of peace, that en, or to protect the innocent. ty—over whom there is no one discriminate and proportionate In such cases, and only such, greater charged with the care force is necessary to retribute a war may be required to restore

51 justice, order, and peace—po- do we love those whom we may war in recorded history, despite litical goods without which no be in the process of needing to these “pretty clear in-principle other political good can long kill? Can war, really, be an act guidelines”, conduct antithetical perdure. of love? to the Augustinian prescrip- tion occurs: whether atrocities Seen in this way, that war can According to Saint Augustine, against the surrendered, the vi- be an expression of love for and that stream of Christian olation of rules of engagement, the innocent neighbor under realism in which he stands or the inability of warfighters unjust assault is self-evident. at its headwaters, it can. The in preventing their “attitudes If Christian love prompts a just warrior loves his enemy, toward the enemy—including concern for the welfare of our Augustine asserts in Contra the enemy civilian population— neighbor, we also have to be Faustum, when he avoids the [from devolving] into contempt concerned for the quality of desire for harming, the cruelty and even hatred.” the neighbor’s neighborhood. of avenging, an unruly and im- If justice, order, and peace are placable animosity, the rage of But this descriptive concern essentials for a political com- rebellion, the lust of domination is secondary to the normative munity to enjoy other goods— and the like; or, as Augustine question of whether “the at- such as health or life—with any tells the Roman military tribune titudinal expectations of the degree of confidence, then we Boniface (Letter 189), when Christian tradition are realistic ought to be concerned about the he cherishes “the spirit of the in the first place.” The doubt is presence of justice, order, and peacemaker” and recognizes partially grounded biographi- peace. I take the Christian part that it is necessity and not hap- cally. Augustine, like many of of Christian realism to include py-desire which prompts the the theologians and academics a measure of concern for not conscientious warrior to “slay arguing from within the just just our proximate next-door the enemy who fights against” war tradition, was “far removed neighbor, but also our far-off him. For Augustine, as he writes from the realities of combat”, foreign neighbor. While we to another tribune, Flavius having no practical military are not responsible for them Marcellinus, the use of violence experience himself. While I may to the nth degree, it remains is deployed against an enemy be less suspicious as to the de- that when, prudently, we realize in order to punish him for his gree this limits one’s “authority that we both ought to and can unjust aggressions with a sort to opine” on the question than intervene against injustices of “kind harshness” that serves is Cook, the concern is clearly abroad then, well, we do. And to constrain him, to prevent him real. Cook’s own long-running that this is something worth from further wrongdoing, to practice, therefore, of grounding certain (not total) measures of confront him with his own in- his speculative work in combat our own blood and treasure. justice, and so to encourage him narratives is an appropriate Naturally, prudence means to repent and embrace peace. means of seeking the anecdotal these conditions won’t be met validation of those who have in all situations. Of course, to the question walked the battlefield. While whether war can be an act of such support cannot absolutely However, when our innocent love, others will say “no”—and prove the veracity of any par- neighbor’s rescue can only be not just the pacifists. In his ticular proposition, Cook’s ap- procured at the cost of lethal book, Issues in Military Ethics, proach demonstrates both wis- force against his unjust assail- the military ethicist Martin dom and epistemic humility. I ants, then we are confronted Cook posits in the chapter on will follow it. with the problem of the corpse. “just war spirituality” that it is The enemy-dead is a problem quite unlikely “in the midst of Against the just war attitudi- because the dominical injunc- combat to maintain the kinds of nal requirements, Cook de- tion to love takes the wide-view attitudes and the psychological ploys four “images of the en- and includes the enemy tormen- states that Christian just war emy” drawn from J. Glenn tor. Moreover, the injunction is writers hold out as the moral Gray’s classic The Warriors: without time constraints. We ideal for the Christian soldier.” Reflections on Men in Battle. are to love our enemies now, in In support, Cook gestures first On the same day in May of this moment, even when this to history, insisting that “few 1941, Gray received two letters moment is that in which the conflicts have even approximat- in the mail. The first was from enemy is busying himself with ed the normative standards” of Columbia University, informing savaging the innocent. But how the just war tradition. In every him that he had been granted

52 a doctorate in philosophy. The holding such an image of second letter ordered him to his foe. How can he be- report for induction into the come enthusiastic about United States Army. Entering as Operation Killer or look a private, Gray became a special forward with eagerness to agent with the Army’s Counter- carrying out a superior’s Intelligence Corps and served orders to close with the in both the North African and enemy? The war itself is European theatres. He would more likely to seem the be discharged as a second greatest folly and crim- lieutenant in 1945, having re- inality ever perpetrated. ceived a battlefield commission If he kills, he is troubled during fighting in France. The in conscience. Warriors is Gray’s un-roman- If this is correct, we have a prob- ticized meditation on what war lem, or rather a crisis. We see it does to human beings and why manifest in the large number of warfighters act as they do. psychiatric battle casualties suf- fered during combat in Iraq and In Gray’s typology, these “imag- Afghanistan. Indeed, through- es” are “ideal types” describing out history combat veterans the common attitudes warfight- have staggered home suffering ers have toward those against not necessarily from physical whom they contend. The first injuries—at least as classically image is of the enemy as a “com- perceived—but wounded all the rade in arms” against whom one same. I have in mind here “mor- may use all destructive force al injury”—a proposed, if con- necessary while he is still in troversial, subset of Post (-com- the fight but whom we regard bat) Traumatic Stress Disorder, with the respect owed to any or PTSD. Following clinical in- skilled professional who is sim- teraction with Vietnam veter- ply doing his job. The second ans, VA psychiatrist Jonathan is that of the enemy as “totally Shay began to recognize that evil” against whom our crusade many veterans all-too-often must be absolute. The third suffer symptoms atypical to image conceives the enemy as their PTSD diagnosis. Instead “a creature who is not human of, or in addition to, the para- at all.” Against such loathsome noia, hyper-vigilance, and other enemy-beasts, the warrior is responses typical to life-threat- freed in his lethal force from the ening ordeals, many veterans necessity of remorse. In the last anguish over what Shay termed image, the enemy is considered “soul wounds”—crippling de- to be just another poor chump grees of guilt, shame, sorrow, or like me—an “essentially decent more easily in warfare if they remorse. This pointed to some- man who is either temporarily possess an image of the enemy thing new. misguided by false doctrines or sufficiently evil to inspire hatred forced to make war against his and repugnance.” On the other Over time, and through the cor- better will and desire.” hand, the images of the enemy roborating work of other clini- as a peer professional or a gen- cians, moral injury has come Clearly, some of these images erally decent person makes the to signify the harm that comes conform closer to just war pre- task having to kill profoundly from committing, failing to pre- scriptions than others. The im- difficult. Gray writes: vent, or witnessing acts which age of the enemy as unadulter- transgress deeply held moral ated evil or a sub-human animal It is nearly impossible for beliefs. It has become increas- comport hardly at all. Rather, a combat soldier to pre- ingly clear that while psychic these images call to mind Gray’s pare himself psycholog- wounds occur, appropriately observation that “most soldiers ically for bloody combat enough, after atrocities—intend- are able to kill and be killed with a will to victory while ed or accidental—warfighters

53 are suffering moral injury from functional impairments, violent shoot him. But his lips having performed the most ba- behavior, substance abuse, mar- snarled back and he sic business of war: killing a ital and other relational difficul- threw it right at me. lawful enemy under conditions ties, unnecessary risk-taking, As the grenade left his hand, cohering with the rules of armed and depression. Marlantes fired. The soldier conflict and, moreover, com- died and the grenade detonated mensurate with the dictates of This brings to mind combat vet- harmlessly. When Marlantes reason and natural law. eran Karl Marlantes’ lament in asks himself what he felt then, What It Is Like To Go To War, he answers: pleasure and satis- As I have argued previously in his memoir of the Vietnam War. faction—he was alive! That felt Providence and elsewhere, I “The violence of combat assaults good. Relief, no more grenades! believe much of this is owed to psyches, confuses ethics, and Another obstacle was way out a diminished confidence in the tests souls,” he writes. “This is of the; that felt good too. “But,” West—especially the Christian not only a result of the violence he admits, “it also felt just plain West—that love can be com- suffered, it is also a result of the pleasurable to blast him…There patible with the use of force. violence inflicted.” is a primitive and savage joy in This slide toward an increas- doing in your enemy.” ingly maudlin view of love has Marlantes recounts a fierce as- been taking place for some time. sault he led up a steep hill laced Now, however, he feels differ- In his own day, C.S. Lewis ob- with interconnecting fighting ently. Now he has the time to served that we mistakenly con- positions. From one of the po- imagine the NVA soldier as flate “love” with “kindness”, sitions above, a Vietnamese one of his own sons. He sees which he termed as “the desire soldier kept dropping grenades him trapped, filled with fear as to see others than the self hap- blindly down on him and his he battles against these huge py; not happy in this way or in team. Knowing it was only a Americans who charge “relent- that, but just happy.” Believing matter of time before one of lessly from out of the jungle, that one cannot both restrain the explosions killed them both, swarming up the hill, killing his another’s actions and will their Marlantes’ buddy pinned down friends in their holes around happiness, love has come to the soldier with a grenade toss him.” In his sensitized state, mean the antithesis of judg- of his own while Marlantes ma- Marlantes envisions the boy’s ment and coercive power. One neuvered into a flanking posi- final moments: wounded, know- upshot of this is that too many tion. In place, he quickly settled ing that “death is coming in a people, including too many in the stock of his weapon into crummy little hole hundreds uniform, now believe that kill- his shoulder and waited for the of miles from his family, and ing is, and always is, malum enemy soldier to pop up again. he has never made love to a in se—morally wrong in and of Marlantes writes: woman and he will never know itself, even when required. We the joys and trials of a family of see this, if we look for it, in one Then he rose, grenade his own.” Marlantes asks, “My combat memoir after another. in hand. He was pull- feelings now? Oh, the sadness. It presents itself in some form ing the fuse. I could see The sadness. And, oh, the grief of the locution, “I know that blood running down his of evil in the world to which I killing is wrong, but in war it is face from a head wound. contributed.” He continues: necessary.” Thus the very busi- He cocked his arm back ness of warfighting is rendered to throw—and then he inevitably morally injurious. What is different be- saw me looking at him tween then and now is across my rifle barrel. quite simply empathy. I This is not simply a theological He stopped. He looked or conceptual crisis. Clinical ex- can take the time, and I right at me. That’s where have the motivation, to perience has shown that having the image of his eyes was killed in battle is the chief pre- actually feel what I did burned into my brain for- to another human being dictor of moral injury among ever, right over the sights combat veterans. In turn, moral who was in a great many of my M-16. I remember ways just like my own injury has been shown to be the hoping he wouldn’t throw chief predictor of suicide among son. Back then I was oper- his grenade. Maybe he’d ating under some sort of veterans. In those cases falling throw it aside and raise short of self-slaughter, moral psychological mechanism his hands or something that allowed me to think injury is the chief predictor of and I wouldn’t have to

54 of that teenager as “the my conclusion by discussing Doing so helps to clarify that enemy.” I killed him… one. Recall that I began by say- Augustine’s imperative to the and…moved on. I doubt ing that the ground of the just just warrior to “cherish the spirit I could have killed him war tradition is the dominical of the peacemaker”, isn’t simply realizing he was like my command “to love.” No good the first of the internal charac- own son. I’d have fallen command, certainly no domini- teristics of the just warrior; it is apart. This very likely cal one, is arbitrary. Rather, the one from which the others would have led to my divine commands serve a good. take their cue. To war with the own death or the deaths Drawing on the sixteenth chap- spirit of the peacemaker is to re- of those I was leading. ter of Matthew, Oxford ethicist member that the human neigh- With Gray’s typology and tes- (and Providence contributing bor deserves to be loved; it is to timony such as Marlantes’ in editor) Nigel Biggar reminds us presuppose their value. To be hand, Cook advances an uncom- that we are to love our neighbor, sure, some among our enemies fortable conclusion: including our enemy-neighbor, have so habitually defaced their because it is good for us to do own dignity through the eager so—it profits us. Biggar is as- embrace of monstrous evil that It appears that the nor- serting here that the fundamen- their deaths appear to involve mative Christian tradi- tal rationality of both the just the loss of nothing good. But tion’s central idea that war tradition and the internal this exception proves the rule, as Christian soldiering is dispositions that accompany it Biggar notes in his In Defence of acceptable only if ac- emerge from the same ethical War. It is a tragedy, he asserts, companied by a continual grounding: that is, the promo- “that someone should have so “spirit of a peacemaker” tion of true human happiness, misdirected their lives that their who approaches his dis- or eudaemonia, genuine hu- death amounts to a moral gain tasteful task mournfully man flourishing. Recalling C.S. and not a loss.” To kill a person is fundamentally at vari- Lewis, eudaemonia is emphat- is always to commit an evil— ance with psychological ically not “just happy”—it is though not always a moral evil— possibility. happy in very particular ways. because “it is to cause the death Perhaps so; indeed certainly so Expounding on the profit of of someone with an equal calling if the just war tradition’s central enemy-love, Biggar writes: to discern, interpret, embody, ideas are simply mandates—a and represent what is good in set of free-standing rules, per- the world.” The relevant profit, how- haps chosen by fiat, to which ever, is not extrinsic but warfighters are compelled, on Because the neighbor is worthy intrinsic, and its currency pain of impiety, to adhere. But to be loved, the just warrior is not money but virtue. that is not how the attitudinal keeps the goal of peace as the It is good that we should requirements of the just war chiefly desired end: in the first grow in the virtues of be- tradition are to be conceived. place for the tormented-neigh- nevolence and justice; it Undoubtedly, neither Augustine bor through their rescue but, belongs to our own good nor Thomas Aquinas consid- in the second place, to the ene- or flourishing that we ered them thus. The just war my-neighbor through establish- should become benev- character, as I’ve already insist- ing the conditions that, alone, olent and just. And that ed, is grounded in love. Love, might lead to reconciliation. will remain true, even if of course, is rather inimical to That the motive for all of this is it should cost us our very external control; it cannot be love ought to be clear to anyone lives; for God—judging forced. Human love is made with children. On more than one by his resurrection of possible, in the first place, only occasion, Augustine made plain Jesus—will recover the because God gave to His human that parenting is a study in the righteous (or, better, the creation the gift of freedom. interpenetration of love and faithful) from death. While love cannot be forced, justice. Among the many corol- it can be cultivated. The just Asserting that the Christian laries, a loving father gives his war character traits are not the ethic grounding the just war children their due. When praise product of rules. They are the tradition is essentially eudae- is what their child’s actions war- manifestations of virtue. monist helps to shift the focus rant, then praise is dispensed; from the attitudinal dispositions when a rebuke, then a rebuke; There are many ways of cultivat- themselves to why those are the when a stronger restraint, then ing virtues. I will move toward dispositions in the first place. a stronger restraint is employed

55 to prevent the child from fur- He hesitated long enough to furnishes us plenty of occasions ther wrongdoing, to confront hope the kid would not throw in which we must thicken our him with his own injustice and the grenade, that he might, in- skin to do the right thing despite to point him toward what he stead, simply toss it harmlessly painful—even destructive—side ought to be, and so to encour- aside and raise his hands “or effects, how much more will age him toward repentance and something”, and he would not a life in a combat zone? But the mutual joy of fully restored need to be shot. What is that callousness, like other forms relations. about: that silly, foolish, naïve of distancing, betrays itself. It hoping-against-any-reason-to- makes plain that the calloused Seen in this light, war is recog- hope hope in the midst of com- heart can be the one that, in fact, nized as not simply the exten- bat? It is desiring that you might grasps the gravity of the present sion of politics but the extension not have to do the terrible, and task. With a kind of peripatetic of the interaction of justice and terribly necessary, thing when moderation, the calloused war- love in everyday life but now, that necessary thing means fighter knows it must not be too tragically, to the nth degree. bringing harm to the human easy, nor too hard, to make the Because of this, when it comes being positioned against you. necessary kill. to how we are to regard our en- In this “interval of hesitation”— emy, the Christian just war tra- that luminous moment in the All the while there is sor- dition introduces no new moral midst of raw, red, flesh-hewn row—the image of the ene- legislation. Gray’s four-point conflict—Marlantes encoun- my-as-neighbor means that we typology is ultimately insuffi- tered the neighbor before him. never rejoice in getting to kill, cient: the image of the enemy By my lights, that was love. but lament in having to. It is, that the just warrior embraces perhaps, only in this way that is simply the image of what the And then Marlantes killed him. it is possible both to recognize enemy has always rightly been: our neighbor. The just war proposal I have the humanity of the enemy and been advocating does not see to kill again and again and again How all of this might play out a contradiction in hoping for and yet not be a man of blood. on the battlefield can be seen by peace but engaging in war, Thus, only thus, might it be returning to Marlantes. Recall and weeping over it after the possible to navigate the morally that Marlantes contends that fact. Granted, the image of the bruising theatre of war with- had he been aware of his love for enemy-as-neighbor requires out becoming, oneself, morally that Vietnamese boy then, in the the cultivation of a certain cal- bruised. midst of combat, he never would lousness—much as the surgeon have been able to kill him. But, needs it when cutting away Marc LiVecche (PhD, University if I might suggest, Marlantes’ limbs to save lives, as does a of Chicago) is managing editor own testimony seems to stand parent when punishing an er- of Providence, and Scholar on against his claims. After he and rant child, so too a warfighter Christian Ethics, War, & Peace that boy locked eyes over the when stopping an enemy by at the Institute on Religion & sights of his M-16, he hesitated. slaying him. If everyday life Democracy.

56 The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.

Winston Churchill “ The Gift of a Common Tongue” September 6th, 1943

57 ESSAY THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY: HOW IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARIES BLINDSIDED AMERICA’S SECULAR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Josh Craddock

“A devotee who sits in a corner not for God’s sake Is helpless. What can he see in a dark mirror?” — Saadi Shirazi, Persian poet (1184-1283)1

In the aftermath of the 1979 In her book On Revolution, Iranian Revolution, a State Hannah Arendt writes, Department official summed up “Secularization, the separation the confused state of American of religion and politics and the intelligence when he exclaimed, rise of a secular realm with a “Whoever took religion serious- dignity of its own, is certainly a ly?”2 Among the many intelli- crucial factor in the phenome- 3 gence failures leading up to the non of revolution.” Operating overthrow of the Shah—rivalry on this basic assumption, the between competing agencies, State Department presumed unmerited “group-think” op- that third world countries would timism about the Shah’s resil- progressively secularize their ience, over-reliance on official politics as they developed social- intelligence channels, and the ly and economically. Meanwhile, in her dealings with Iran during naive desire for America’s in- the decades leading up to 1979, vestment in Iran to pay off—the the United States was primar- total disregard for Islam as a ily focused on bolstering the political force is perhaps the The Certitude of Belief, Kazim Chalipa, Persian nation as a bulwark most egregious. Although post- 1981. From the early stages of the Iran- Iraq war, this painting carries forward against communism. 9/11 American foreign policy the religious sentiments of the revolution. Depicting the salvific power of martyr- is painfully aware of the dan- dom, a dead warrior’s body transforms A then-classified CIA briefing gers posed by political Islam, into a tulip—symbol of martyrdom in Iranian Shi’i iconography. His mother shortly after the assassination too many intelligence analysts cradles her lost son in a posture remi- of Premier Raxmara in March still hold secular biases about niscent of Christian Pietá scenes. To her right is a row of other tulips, sprouting 1951 demonstrates an aware- the nature of man, giving short embryonic warriors, and, on her left, ness of nationalist and socialist fully-formed warriors march toward shrift to religion as a politi- the battlefiel s. Background figures threats to stability, but gloss- cal force. Inattentiveness to represent Imam Husayn and the mar- es over religious influences.4 tyrs of the Battle of Karbala. Iranians Iran’s religious context prior to who follow after Husayn and sacrifice Indeed, the organization re- 1979 underlines the dire need themselves for Shi’i Islam are promised heaven and eternal paradise. Source: sponsible for the assassination, for awareness of religions in Special Collections Research Center, the Friends of Islam, received American foreign policy. hardly a passing mention in the

58 document. The briefing pro- The CIA misdiagnosed the root vided to the Truman adminis- of the cleric’s malcontentment, tration rightly concluded that for Khomeini’s vision for Iran the situation was unlikely to was pan-Islamic, not national- result in upheaval of the Shah’s istic. Even before his return to government. Nevertheless, the Iran, he “worked hard to pre- CIA was solely concerned with vent the revolutionary move- the Soviet Union’s potential to ment from assuming patriotic work through secular socialist colors.”12 He warned against and nationalist movements to “nationalist feelings” which “are destabilize the regime. opposed to the very foundations of religion,” and once told visi- The CIA concluded that, though tors that “all this talk about be- the popular nationalist move- ing Iranians and what we should ment was large, it appeared do for Iran is not correct.”13 In disorganized and had little rep- Khomeini’s view, there could resentation in the Majlis (the be no national identity, only Iranian parliament).5 When na- the ummah. tionalists did pose a threat in One-Year Anniversary of the Revolu- 1953, the CIA helped oust Prime tion, 1980. Commemorating the Ira- The Shah discouraged American nian Revolution, a giant fist contains Minister Mosaddegh to solidify a black and white image of demon- intelligence contact with Iran’s the Shah’s power. The small strators from the 1979 revolutionary clerics. Walter Cutler, an group of Soviet sympathizers protests. Referring to Khomeini’s tri- American diplomat instructed to umphant return and the Shah’s over- in the illegal Tudeh Party had throw and exile, the Qur’anic verse gather intelligence on the mul- no power to disrupt the Shah’s at the top describes the revolution lahs in the 1960s, recalled the as a religiously consecrated battle of authority. Based on the CIA’s good (truth) against evil (falsehood). Shah sending a clear message analysis, the number of armed Source: Special Collections Research not to “mess around with the re- forces and police were adequate Center, University of Chicago ligious elements.”14 In the 1970s, to maintain order against na- Kissinger’s State Department tionalist groups or pro-Soviet deterred any engagement with groups. To the CIA’s knowledge, his voluntary abdication will be the Iranian religious elements these forces were still loyal to present.” They cautioned that and focused on the Cold War the Shah.6 These conclusions over the long term, “profound objective of monitoring com- about the Shah’s position be- political and social changes ap- munist sympathizers. The last came axiomatic and remained pear virtually inevitable.”10 American ambassador to Iran, relatively stagnant until 1979. William Sullivan, expressed Once again, however, a neurotic concern at his appointment A 1962 CIA document estimat- focus on the nationalist move- that he “had never lived in the ing the political prospects for ment and infiltration from the Islamic world and knew little Iran summarized the situation Tudeh communist party over- about its culture or its ethos.”15 as being under control so long looked the religious dynamic of American intelligence observ- as the Shah could maintain the Persian civic and cultural life. ers, interacting primarily with loyalty of the army and security Within a year, massive riots westernized English-speaking forces.7 They criticized previous rocked Tehran. The riots were Iranian elites and preoccupied reports for being overly “pessi- not led by nationalist or commu- with the threat of communism, mistic about the prospects for nist oppositions, as the CIA pre- remained blissfully ignorant to political stability in Iran”8 and dicted, but by the radical Islamic the strong religious undercur- suggested that nationalist and cleric Ruhollah Khomeini react- rents of Iranian culture. socialist dissenters were unlike- ing to an American-backed de- ly “to develop both the will and velopment program.11 Khomeini Exploiting the secular blind the capability to overthrow the perceived the Shah’s “White spot of the Shah’s Western Shah”9 for some time to come. Revolution” as an importation allies, Khomeini successfully Nevertheless, the authors har- of Western values odious to “devised revolutionary tactics bored no unrealistic optimism Iran’s Muslim heritage. The which stemmed from the spe- and warned that “each time a Shah survived the unrest and cific religious-cultural environ- serious crisis occurs, the possi- brutally put down the rioters, ment of Shi’a Iran.”16 Over the bility of his overthrow or even sending Khomeini into exile. centuries, Shi’a Islam in Persia

59 had developed a hierarchy of didn’t represent a threat to the Khomeini spoke directly to the religious authority superior to regime.”22 Of course, no threat military and thanked them for and distinct from civil authority, was perceived because no inves- refusing to fire on protesters. He which provided a religious doc- tigation was done: “There was sought to exploit the wedge be- trine for overthrowing the Shah practically no reporting on the tween mosque and secular state and made it possible for the Islamic groups in the country, by appealing to the soldiers’ mullahs to lead a revolution.17 so we were caught relatively decency as Muslim brothers. flat-footed,” he said.23 The CIA’s Khomeini pled with soldiers While in exile, Khomeini re- 1977 report “Iran in the 1980’s” “who are faithful to Islam”28 leased taped messages to the concluded that “the shah will be to refrain from shooting other Islamic faithful encouraging an active participant in Iranian followers of the Prophet, for resistance, which were spread life well into the 1980s” and that it would be like “firing at the through the Komitehs (religious “there will be no radical change Quran” itself.29 As standoffs committees) in mosques.18 The in Iranian political behavior in grew more tense and frequent role of the mosque was crucial the near future.”24 Carter’s CIA in late 1978, the military proved to the revolution because “it director, Stansfield Turner, later that Khomeini’s faith was not was impractical for the state to admitted, “In 1977, Islam as a misplaced: apart from isolated regularly suppress the mosque, political force was not on our incidents there would be no it offered opportunities to the radar scope. The intelligence mass killings of civilians. In revolutionaries that no oth- community was not prepared many cases, the military, which er place did.”19 The Komitehs to understand it.”25 the CIA classified as intensely clandestinely formed the rev- loyal to the Shah, was actually olutionary network that even- In March 1977, leading Islamic aiding the revolutionaries. tually led to the creation of the intellectual Ali Asghar Hajj Islamic Revolutionary Council Sayyed Javadi wrote an open Robert Jervis, Professor in 1979. American academic letter critical of the Shah and a of International Affairs at James Bill writes that it was the subsequent critique of the mod- Columbia University, suggests structure within “their mosques, ernization of Iran which was that at this time, “analysts didn’t schools, cells (hojrehs), and distributed widely among the understand the nature of the holy shrines” that “mobilized public. When the Shah did not opposition, particularly the re- the population and that was respond with repression, dissi- ligious dimension—which was ultimately responsible for the dent literature multiplied.26 An dismissed as an anachronism.”30 destruction and collapse of the anti-Shah article, published in America expected that the Shah Pahlavi regime.”20 a popular periodical in January would respond to opposition the 1978, fanned the flames of reli- way he did in 1953 and in 1963, It was not simply a popular gious dissidence in the spiritu- with brutal crack-downs and Islamic awakening, however. al center of Persia, Qom, and power solidification, despite its The Iranian working and low- inspired the madrases to close incompatibility with the Carter er middle class “were as reli- down in protest of the regime. administration’s pressure on gious during the Shah’s rule Religious students engaged in Iran for democracy and respect as they are now… They can a tense stand-off with the mili- for human rights. American hardly be said to have under- tary, but security forces balked intelligence did not consider gone an Islamic revival: they at killing civilians. Sensing the plausible alternative responses have been deeply religious all Shah’s weakness and the mili- and persisted in believing their along.”21 Meanwhile the secular, tary’s hesitation, Khomeini or- intelligence models—“discon- Westernized ruling class of the dered more demonstrations. firmable” predictions that could Pahlavi government stood aloof The editors of The Dawn of the only be demonstrated false once from the religio-cultural envi- Islamic Revolution wrote that the Shah was overthrown.31 ronment of the common people. “Ramadan sermons provided Khomeini merely exploited the a perfect and powerful vehicle In 1978, the CIA made its in- disconnect. for spreading a basically politi- famous confidential claim that cal message, urging men to rise “Iran is not in a revolutionary or Charles Naas, Director of and act against tyranny.”27 The even a ‘pre-revolutionary’ situa- Iranian Affairs at the State result? “Anti-Shah sentiment tion.”32 The Defense Intelligence Department between 1974 and rose sharply.” Agency (DIA) concurred, issuing 1978, wrote that CIA reports its opinion that although the believed “that the religious right As demonstrations blossomed, situation was turbulent, “there

60 is no threat to the stability of and to gauge properly its actual (Summer 1991): 211-37. JSTOR. the shah’s rule.”33 Even in late course and eventual outcome.”40 12 Taheri, Amir. The Persian Night: September 1978, the DIA would Because of skepticism toward Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution. New York: Encounter, 2009. Print. p. not recant, doubling down with the “notion of religion as the 55 its prediction that the “shah is rallying point for social revolu- 13 Id. at 62 expected to remain actively in tion,” Sick says almost everyone 14 Dreyfuss, Robert. Devil’s Game: power over the next 10 years.”34 “misjudged the power… [and] How the United States Helped Unleash the nature of the popular ap- Fundamentalist Islam. New York: Me- tropolitan, 2005. Print. p. 230 It was not until “late November peal” of the 1979 revolution.41 15 Zonis, Marvin. “IRAN: A Theory 1978 that the intelligence com- of Revolution From Accounts of the munity considered that the In retrospect, it is easy to crit- Revolution.” World Politics 35.4 (July Shah might fall.”35 Even still, icize the intelligence commu- 1983): 586-606. JSTOR. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. American intelligence down- nity’s massive oversight of the 16 Hiro, Dilip. Iran Under the Aya- played the religious nature of religious dimension present in tollahs. London: Routledge & K. Paul, the uprising: “a military regime the Iranian revolutions. Instead 1985. Print. p. 100 was seen as a likely successor, of engaging in blame-casting, 17 Rubin, Barry M. Paved with Good with a radical government based modern students of internation- Intentions: The American Experience and Iran. New York: Oxford UP, 1980. on the religious opposition less al relations should seek to learn Print. p. 6 36 likely.” Conventional wisdom from the neglect of religion 18 Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs suggested that the mosque during this tumultuous period at 69. would “serve as the transmis- in foreign policy. Diplomatic 19 Id. at 100. sion belt of the revolution,” and intelligence communities 20 Bill, James A. “Power and Religion but that “its political impor- must be intimately aware of in Revolutionary Iran.” Middle East tance would quickly wane once man’s spiritual dimension if Institute 36.1 (Winter 1982): 22-47. JSTOR. p. 2 its initial objectives had been they wish to understand and 37 21 Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs achieved.” James Bill even as- predict the trajectory of political at 5. serted that the mullahs “would forces. American foreign policy 22 Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game at 229. never participate directly in the simply cannot afford to operate 23 Id. formal government structure.”38 within a secular vacuum. 24 Id. Eyewitness accounts indicated Josh Craddock is a student at 25 Id. at 230. otherwise: French philosopher Harvard Law School. He lives in 26 Hiro, Iran Under the Ayatollahs at 68. Michel Foucault reported “an Cambridge with his wife and son. 27 Id. at 74. explosion of spiritual energy in (Endnotes) 28 Id. at 76. the streets… a sudden intrusion 1 Shirazi, Saadi. “On Rules For Con- of religion in the affairs of the duct In Life: Maxim 42.” The Gulistan. 29 Id. at 100. Kessinger, 2004. Print. p. 157 city” when he visited Tehran 30 Froscher, Torrey. “Why Intelli- 39 2 Sick, Gary. All Fall Down: Amer- gence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian in late 1978. The events of ica’s Fateful Encounter with Iran. Revolution and the Iraq War.” Studies early 1979 proved the academ- London: I.B. Tauris &, 1985. Print. p. in Intelligence 54.3 (2010): 238. Center 165 ics and diplomats wrong. The for the Study of Intelligence. Web. 3 Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. 31 Id. military defected, the Shah fled, New York: Penguin, 1965. Print. p. 26 32 Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game at 229. and Khomeini installed himself 4 United States of America. Central as Grand Ayatollah of the new Intelligence Agency. The Current Crisis 33 Seliktar, Ofira. Failing the Crystal Islamic Republic of Iran. in Iran. Special Estimate. CIA, 16 March Ball Test: The Carter Administration 1951. Freedom of Information Act and the Fundamentalist Revolution Electronic Reading Room. in Iran. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. Foreign observers had futilely 5 Id. Print. p. 92 attempted to categorize the dis- 6 Id. 34 Id. tinctly religious revolution into 7 United States of America. Central 35 United States of America. Central familiar categories from secular Intelligence Agency. Political Prospects Intelligence Agency. Memorandum for for Iran. 34-62 ed. CIA, 7 Sept 1962. Director of Central Intelligence. CIA, 6 experience. Gray Sick, aide for Special National Intelligence Estimate. Jan 1984. Freedom of Information Act Persian Gulf Affairs in Carter’s Freedom of Information Act Electronic Electronic Reading Room. p. 2 Reading Room. National Security Council, later 36 Id. 8 Id. at 2 wrote that the “tension between 37 Sick, All Fall Down at 165. 9 Id. at 4 the secular and the religious was 38 Id. 10 Id. a major contributing factor to 39 Taheri, The Persian Night at 76. the failure… to recognize the 11 Moens, Alexander. “President Carter’s Advisers and the Fall of the 40 Sick, All Fall Down at 164. revolution in its early stages Shah.” Political Science Quarterly 106.2 41 Id. at 167.

61 ESSAY THE CRESCENT & THE LION

Ofir Haivry

he most prominent inter- Tnational development of recent years has been the rise of a “crescent” of instability, civil war, and bloodshed in the Middle East, stretching from Lebanon in the west through Syria and Iraq to the Iranian border in the east. It has captured the world’s attention, with the danger it represents for the major oil and gas reserves on the planet, with the rise of the murderously-telegenic Islamic State (IS), and with the potential of a spiraling re- gional all-out Sunni-Shia sec- tarian whirlwind that would ingest countries from Iran to Saudi Arabia to Turkey, spew- ing them out in shreds.

However, the focus on this northern crescent has distract- ed international attention from the emergence of a second, no less dangerous, crescent of fal- tering, failing, and failed states in the south. Encompassing now much of northeastern Africa and southern Arabia, this crescent may prove to have consequences just as dire as its northern predecessor. The only serious bulwark against the descent of the southern crescent into total chaos is the rise of Ethiopia, a Christian- majority, market-oriented, and Resurrection, Unknown artist, Ethiopia

62 relatively democratic regional one between the Arabic- of President Hadi, supported power, which already functions speaking east and the African- by Saudi Arabia, controls only as a force for stability in sev- languages-speaking west portions of the country, espe- eral neighboring countries. To (Darfur and Kordofan). Not to cially in the south around the continue and expand this role, be outdone, newly indepen- city of Aden. Meanwhile, the Ethiopia needs and deserves the dent Christian-majority South vast but sparsely populated east support of the United States and Sudan, without any strong insti- is to a great extent controlled the West. tutions or traditions of self-rule, by Al-Qaeda on the Arabian has supplied in its short history Peninsula (AQAP), currently the FAILING AND FAILED STATES the gloomily familiar spectacle most active of Al-Qaeda fran- in post-colonial Africa of recur- chises and proud publisher The starting point for the emerg- rent violence between leading of the Jihadi youth-magazine ing southern crescent of chaos tribal groups—here specifically Inspire. Nevertheless, AQAP it- is Libya, on the Mediterranean between the Dinka and Nuer. self is increasingly challenged by shore which, since the violent Only a fragile political truce now new IS-affiliated armed groups. toppling of the Ghaddafi dicta- prevents all-out civil war. Recently, Saudi Arabia too has torship in 2011, has disintegrat- entered the fray, attempting ed into a failing state today. The Hopping eastwards to the horn to forestall the complete col- country is currently divided of Africa, where the Red Sea lapse of the pro-Hadi forces between an Islamist govern- meets the Indian Ocean, we by conducting military strikes ment in Tobruk and the east, find Somalia, a failed state if against the Houthis, albeit in- and a more extreme Islamist there ever was one. Since 1991, effectively to date. government in Tripoli and the the county has ceased to be a west. All the while, perched be- politically unified entity: most tween them lies the zone ruled of its areas are contested be- FALTERING STATES by the most extreme and IS- tween a feeble UN-recognized After the dismal list of clearly affiliated Islamist militias, gov- “official” government and sev- failing or failed states comes erning the Wilayat (province) eral Islamist militias and local a list of faltering ones—places around Sirte in the name of warlords, the most prominent less volatile, at the moment, “Caliph Ibrahim”—the mur- being the homicidal Al-Qaeda than failed states though which derous Iraqi Islamic scholar affiliate al-Shabaab. Meanwhile, display worrying signs of patent (and former inmate at the Camp the northwest of the country has incompetence at dealing with Bucca US internment center practically seceded, functioning mounting challenges and in- in Iraq) Ibrahim al-Badri, aka for the last 25 years as a relative- stability. Such countries need Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. Released ly stable and moderate, nomi- to rapidly stabilize and regain in 2004 as a “low level pris- nally independent “Somaliland”. confidence in their ability to oner”, all IS-affiliated groups overcome current difficulties, now regard him as the supreme Just across the Red Sea from or else risk a swift slide into the ruler of Islam. Several other Somalia on the southernmost vicious circle that has destroyed political and tribal factions rul- tip of the Arabian Peninsula so many of their neighbors. ing smaller areas jockey ruth- is Yemen. Long a faltering lessly against each other for state, Yemen is now the latest First among these is Egypt. For power and influence. addition to the list of failing generations a stable region- ones. Politically divided since al power and regarded as the To the southeast of Libya are the “Arab Spring” of 2011, leader of the Arab world, Egypt Sudan and South Sudan, po- its divisions have, within the has been gradually undermined litically separated since 2011 last year or so, escalated into by decades of colossal govern- yet sadly united in a common full-blown civil war between ment corruption and incompe- slide towards failure. Sudan, belligerents, each of which tence, resulting in a systemic after generations of strife which holds territory. An alliance of economic deterioration that has brought about a largely peace- militias headed by the Shiite brought it to the brink of bank- ful break from the non-Mus- Ansar-Allah (aka Houthis, af- ruptcy. Egyptian insolvency is lim south, had the opportuni- ter their founder) and supported currently averted only by peri- ty to enter a phase of stability by Iran, presently controls the odic and massive cash injections and recuperation. Instead, it is north and west of the coun- by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, now tumbling into a new civil try. The Sunni forces of the which nevertheless only just war—this time an intra-Muslim former “official” government suffice to keep it afloat. These

63 Ethiopia Superior by Dutch cartographer Willem Blaeu, 1635. Koninklijke Bibliotheekr, The Hague, Netherlands. Source: Wikimedia Commons. dire economic straits are the population and good infrastruc- incongruous, for by some ap- background to a brittle political ture, it looked ideally poised pearances the Saudis have an environment; since 2011 this to gain from commerce and outwardly stable political and has resulted in two brusque re- tourism opportunities towards economic situation, possessing gime changes, first the toppling some degree of economic and both the world’s second-largest of the Mubarak kleptocracy, and social progress after its consen- reserves of hydrocarbon fuels then a military coup ousting the sual separation from Ethiopia and a state-of-the-art equipped elected Muslim Brotherhood in 1993. However, under the military. However, beyond the government of Morsi. The cur- erratic and brutal rule of presi- shining veneer of wealth and rent Egyptian regime, led by dent-for-life Isaias Afwerki, its stolidity, widening cracks are General Sisi, is struggling with short history is mainly a chron- becoming evident, pointing to a stability. With some short-term icle of political repression and likely crisis in the making. success, it faces the daunting a tottering economy, while its long term prospect of dealing ruler appears to be mainly con- Public discontent, notoriously simultaneously with a barely cerned with syphoning-off the hard to gauge in repressive so- solvent economy and a brittle largest possible sums from his cieties, is rising unmistakably, political legitimacy, while at the impoverished population’s de- and the rate of anti-government same time confronting an in- pleted funds into his Swiss- incidents is increasing. The creasingly violent Islamist oppo- bank account—at last count an Saudis are witnessing intensi- sition as well as an actual armed estimated 695 million USD. fying dissent among the sizable insurgency by IS-affiliates in the Continuing on this course, it and downtrodden Shiite minori- northeast of the country, which is surely only a matter of time ty, perhaps a third of their total they now term “Wilayat Sinai”. before the country’s economic population and a regional ma- or political structure (or both) jority in the southwest as well Another increasingly unsta- collapses. as in the eastern, oil-producing ble country within the south- provinces. Meanwhile, among ern crescent is Eritrea, on the The latest addition to the list the regime‘s core constituency shores of the Red Sea. A small, of faltering states is certainly of devout Sunnis, who increas- Christian-majority country the most surprising one—Saudi ingly regard the regime as hope- enjoying a relatively educated Arabia. At first glance this seems lessly corrupt and religiously

64 lax, there is a growing pull of of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the instability and failure, there is Islamist ideology, even towards prominent Shiite Saudi cleric however at least one significant militant groups like Al-Qaeda the Saudi regime executed in bright spot: Ethiopia. One of a and the Islamic State. Saudi early 2016. handful of civilizations across citizens feature prominently in the world with an uninterrupt- the list of IS activists and suicide The failures of the Saudis’ ed history since antiquity, the bombers, and several recent aggressive strategy are espe- only early Christian nation nev- large-scale terrorist attacks on cially significant as the gov- er to be conquered by Islam, Shia places of worship in Saudi ernment of King Salman has and the only country in Africa Arabia point to the IS strategy of staked much of its credibility never to have been successfully fanning sectarian conflict within on this policy by prominent- brought under colonial rule, the country. The growing fear ly placing in leading roles the Ethiopia has a unique character among the Saudis is from an “two Muhammads”—Crown and story that owes much to its “Iraqi scenario”, where repeated Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, unusual bible-based national IS-inspired attacks on Shias stir as Minister of the Interior head- identity. According to Ethiopian up Sunni-Shia sectarian strife to ing the battle against enemies tradition, their nation was born the point of explosion, whereby on the internal front, and the 3,000 years ago when Makeda the government loses its ability king’s son (and second in line to Queen of Sheba returned from to maintain control. the throne) Prince Muhammed her visit to the wise King of bin Salman as Minister of Jerusalem carrying ’s This mounting internal insta- Defense heading the military child and accompanied by thou- bility is coming at a time when effort on the external front in sands of Israelite soldiers sent the country is also experiencing Yemen. Since Salman’s acces- to defend her. As the soldiers patent difficulties with its mili- sion to the throne in January settled down in Sheba and mar- tary intervention in Yemen. Far 2015, the traditionally cautious, ried local women, a new mixed from delivering the expected consensual (and slow) process Israelite-African people were swift and decisive blow to the of Saudi decision-making and created. Headed by Menelik, Iran-supported Shia Houthi acting has been replaced by a the “son of the wise man” born rebels in Yemen, the Saudi mil- far more decisive and confron- to Makeda and Solomon, the itary intervention there, albeit tational style, which does not new people went on to conquer enjoying absolute air and sea shirk from ignoring and even neighboring lands and to cre- superiority and employing some alienating many of the royal ate the Ethiopian nation, with of the world’s most sophisti- family’s prominent princes. The Menelik crowned as “Nugus cated weaponry, is struggling results of this new approach, Nagast” (king of kings), the first to overcome the rag-tag militia however, leave much to be de- Ethiopian emperor. The con- confronting them. Indeed, the sired. If the new policies and fidence and pride provided by Houthis are not only effectively the operational leadership by their biblical pedigree sustained resisting Saudi attacks, but even the “two Muhammads” do not Ethiopians every time they were successfully delivering surprise deliver evident successes soon, faced with an existential crisis counter-attacks within Saudi the kingdom risks returning during their long history, and territory. Besides reflecting bad- to earlier practices of inter- assisted them in repelling re- ly on the government’s compe- nal dissension and strife even peated Muslim and European tence, this inept military per- within the royal family—prac- invasions. To this day, the Lion formance also risks embroiling tices which previously led to of Judah is the Ethiopian na- the Saudis more deeply into the the unseating of King Saud by tional symbol. widening regional Shia-Sunni his brothers Muhammed and sectarian conflict, precipitat- Faisal in 1964, to the ousting After successfully overcoming ing internal strife and bringing from the succession of Crown an invasion by Fascist Italy be- it into a direct collision course Prince Muhammad by his broth- tween 1935 and 1943, Ethiopia’s with Iran. The clear awareness er Faisal in 1965, and to the slow progress towards develop- of populations across the region assassination of King Faisal by ment and growth was crushed to such a scenario is best illus- a nephew in 1975. for a generation by the estab- trated in Iran-supported Shiite lishment in 1974 of a communist militiamen in Iraq reportedly ETHIOPIA RISES dictatorship led by Menegistu plastering artillery shells they Haile Mariam. By the time that fired at the IS-held Sunni Arab Against such a dismal region- regime was ousted in 1991, its city of Fallujah with the name al background of increasing 17 years of misrule had left the

65 country in shambles as one of economic growth—around 10% the poorest places on earth, riv- a year. Significantly, since the en by internal rebellions and un- country lacks the substantial oil able to feed its own population. or mineral resources of places However, since then Ethiopia like Nigeria and South Africa, has decisively changed course, this great economic progress and it has become a star per- is solely the product of entre- former politically, economically, preneurship and hard work and diplomatically. among the Ethiopian popula- tion—aided by a large expatriate In the political realm, after en- Ethiopian community in the joying remarkable stability and US and Europe that is invest- openness for a quarter-century, ing funds and know-how in the even if not yet a model of perfect mother-country. democracy, Ethiopia is never- theless one of the few African Granting that it began from a countries to hold mostly free, very low base, Ethiopia’s eco- regular, and peaceful elections, nomic growth over the last resulting in a government that decade has nevertheless been is among the most confident nothing short of spectacular: and legitimate of the continent. GDP in 2006 was a mere 12.4 No less impressive is that this billion USD, but had increased evident political stability occurs more than four-fold by 2015, in a country that has a Christian reaching an estimated 56 billion majority alongside a significant USD.1 This fantastic rate of eco- Muslim minority—sustaining nomic expansion, achieved de- peaceful relations between reli- spite a fast-growing population, gious communities while swiftly has also undoubtedly benefited uprooting any surfacing militant Ethiopians in absolute terms, or jihadist tendencies in their as is evident from the growth early stages. By a combination of the GDP per capita, which of vigilance, suspicion of activity in 2005 was a mere 169 USD, by foreign Muslim organizations while by 2015 it was estimated in Ethiopia, and swift action to have surpassed 600 USD, a uprooting terror plots in their more than threefold increase earliest stages, the Ethiopian in a decade. These economic government has succeeded to numbers have translated into a this point in neutralizing any steep improvement in the UN serious internal Islamist threat. Human Development Index of Moreover, in 2012 the Ethiopian Ethiopia’s population, which political system even managed for the last several years has to overcome the death of its consistently placed it among the founding figure, Prime Minister top 10 countries globally with Meles Zenawi, without any po- Michael and the Crossing of the greatest annual human im- litical upheaval or instability— the Red Sea by anonymous Ethiopian provement. When considering artist, mid-19th century. Together an occasion that speaks volumes with its companion on the opposite the size of the population—some about the maturity of its polit- pillar, this work originally flanked the 90 million at last count—what is ical system. entrance to an Ethiopian church sanc- happening in Ethiopia today is tuary, where it served as a guardian figure. Here, the archangel Michael probably the fastest and most On the economic front, after acts as a protector of the Jewish people. extensive large-scale economic the 2004 jettisoning of so- The Old Testament scene beneath him and social advance in the history cialist economic policies and is divided into three parts. On the left, of Africa. the Red Sea consumes Pharaoh and opening up to free enterprise, his army, while, on the right, privatization, trade, and for- closes the waters with his staff. Below, With these political and eco- eign investment, Ethiopia has Aaron’s sister Miriam and another nomic successes and as the sec- woman sing songs of praise. Walters experienced more than a de- Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. ond most populous country in cade of massive and sustained Source: Wikimedia Commons. Africa, Ethiopia has naturally

66 been increasing its diplomat- both farther south and north. ic and military clout in the Towards the south, Ethiopia region for several years. Her is building up a broad coali- leadership role in the African tion of bordering African states Union (headquartered in Addis sharing its political and eco- Ababa), together with a will- nomic outlook, with shared ingness to assume significant interests in regional stability regional security responsibili- and in fighting Islamist terror- ties in cooperation with the US ism: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and the West, Ethiopia is rap- and Tanzania. The economic idly turning into the most im- and strategic integration be- portant and reliable American tween these countries is being ally in Africa. For more than a consistently strengthened, and decade, Ethiopia has played a Ethiopia’s building of the mas- major role alongside the US in sive Renaissance Dam on the activities propping-up the feeble Blue Nile is opening up pros- UN-recognized government of pects for exporting significant Somalia and fighting its Islamist amounts of Ethiopian electricity enemies. Ethiopia is also regu- to the energy-hungry countries larly extending its protection to of the area. Meanwhile, towards smaller political entities of the the north, the main Ethiopian region, who are unable to fend goal has been to defuse the off the Islamist threat on their considerable opposition to the own, such as the tiny city-state Renaissance Dam of down- of Djibouti and the neighboring stream Nile countries Egypt and self-declared state of Somaliland Sudan, who fear the negative re- in northern Somalia—both of percussions on already meager minuscule size, but strategi- water resources. The historic cally placed at the entrance to opposition of Egypt to the dam the Red Sea, which controls had in the past peaked repeated- the shipping lanes from Asia ly with threats of military action towards the Suez Canal and against the project, including Europe. Moreover, Ethiopia’s declarations about sending the peacekeeping forces deployed in Egyptian Air Force to bomb South Sudan are playing a vital the facility. By a combination role in preventing an escalation of steady resolve and rhetorical of that conflict, and they are es- moderation, undoubtedly aided sentially the only thing prevent- by the recent internal disarray ing the brittle local cease-fire in Egypt, Ethiopia has success- from descending into renewed fully continued to build the dam civil war. Meanwhile, Ethiopia project while also progressive- is also keeping an ever-vigilant ly defusing the Sudanese and eye on the antics of the erratic Archangel and the Miracle of Egyptian resistance. By initiat- Eritrean regime, and occasion- the Sea Monster by anonymous Ethiopi- ing the “Nile Basin Initiative”, ally reining-in that regime’s an artist, mid-19th century. This image a 9-member forum based in depicting Raphael standing above a more rash and irresponsible church built in his honor explains the the Ugandan city of Entebbe actions—as when, some months story about Raphael’s relationship and including all the countries ago, Ethiopia foiled the Eritrean to the church. According to legend, having some share of Nile wa- soon after the church’s completion, the ters (in addition to Ethiopia, attempt to exploit the chaos in ground beneath the building began to Yemen and establish a military shake, and it became evident that the Egypt, and Sudan, this includes presence on the Hanish Islands, structure was built on the back of a sea Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, long disputed between Yemen monster. Raphael speared the monster, Democratic Republic of Congo, saving the church and its congregation. and Eritrea. Raphael’s spear is shown descending and Tanzania, with Eritrea as an down through the building; the missing observer), Ethiopia has turned On the diplomatic front, portion of the canvas likely featured the issue of Nile resources into the sea monster. Walters Art Museum, Ethiopia is investing consid- Baltimore, Maryland. Source: Wikime- a regional concern, instead of erable and sustained efforts dia Commons. a merely Egyptian-Ethiopian

67 Front of a Double-Sided Diptych with Mary and Her Son, and Saint George by anonymous Ethiopian artist, late-18th century. This small icon was worn around the neck to ward off evil and could be hung with either side facing out. This is a small replica of the famous icon known as the “Kwerata Reesu” (Christ with the Crown of Thorns), believed to protect the whole kingdom of Ethiopia. Allegiance to the emperor was sworn on the “Kwerata Reesu”, and it accompanied him on military expeditions. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland. Source: Wikimedia Commons. dispute. Since the ingrained has been a momentous swing of of Chaos”. It has the ability and majority of members in the fo- strategic importance and roles, the political will to do so, and rum are from the energy-hun- between Egypt and Ethiopia. with Western backing and assis- gry upstream countries that For generations Egypt was the tance it can achieve much more. stand to benefit from a supply undisputed regional leader, Moreover, beyond dealing with of low-cost Ethiopian electrici- while Ethiopia had to content it- immediate threats, Ethiopia is ty, the Egyptians and Sudanese self with playing at most second the only realistic long-term hope eventually realized that their fiddle—under Menegistu it even for an eventual rolling-back of downstream objections to the lost that role for a time. Since project would be consistently the removal of the communist regional chaos and violence, as outvoted. Finding themselves dictatorship, Ethiopia has se- well as for bringing some sta- diplomatically outmaneuvered curely established its role as bility and one day perhaps even and in no position to carry-out the clear economic and strate- prosperity to places like South military threats, the Sudanese gic powerhouse in northeastern Sudan, Eritrea, or Somalia. In and Egyptians have had to set- Africa and beyond. Indeed, con- the face of the many threats tle on Ethiopian assurances sidering the mounting internal emanating from the “crescent”, that the dam will be filled in a challenges faced by Nigeria and the US and its allies should not gradual manner, so as not to South Africa, the other two lead- spare any effort in supporting drastically impair their water ing African powers, if Ethiopia and strengthening the rise of supply in any one year. But the plays its cards well, it could very the Ethiopian Lion. end result of this process is of well emerge within a generation historic significance, since both as the undisputed leader of the Dr. Ofir Haivry is Director of Sudan and Egypt absolutely rely whole continent. the National Strategy Initiative on the Nile water flow for their and Vice President at the Herzl existence, and for the first time Ethiopia, a Christian-led coun- ever, they conceded effective try whose national symbol is the Institute in Jerusalem. He has re- Ethiopian control over them. “Lion of Judah”—testimony to cently published pieces on Middle its ancient and persisting affini- East regional strategy in Tablet, In many ways the diplomatic ty with the bible and Jewish his- Al-Monitor, Commentary, and developments regarding the tory—is today the only regional Mosaic. Renaissance Dam project re- power with realistic prospects (Endnotes) flect the emerging reality of the for containing the spread of 1 Final figures for the year 2015 have regional balance of power: there the violent southern “Crescent not been released yet.

68 BOOK REVIEW

CHALK DUST ON OUR CLEATS Review by Keith Pavlischek

PLAYING TO THE EDGE: AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE IN THE AGE OF TERROR by MICHAEL V. HAYDEN, Penguin Press, 2016

This is a rare talent for senior employment of UAVs (drones) military officers and certainly in the War on Terror, as well for senior intelligence officials, as on offering insight into bu- not least of all because the pub- reaucratic infighting, intelli- lic discussion of highly classified gence leaks, dealings with the information, even apart from press, and interactions with the technical details, is fraught Congressional Intelligence over- t would be, quite simply, with pitfalls. Responding to crit- sight committees. Iimpossible to find a person ics is somewhat akin to going to better positioned to write on a knife fight with one hand, the But regarding Hayden as a “American Intelligence in the one with your knife, tied behind person, it is not until halfway Age of Terror” over the past two your back. I suspect this book through the book in a chapter decades than Michael Hayden, will be essential reading for de- titled “Going Home: Pittsburgh, who from 1999 to 2009 served cades, certainly for military and PA, 1945-2014” that you really as the Director of the National intelligence professionals, for- get at what makes him tick, as a Security Agency (1999-2005), eign policy experts and wonks, leader and an intelligence pro- the first Principle Deputy and (one would hope) members fessional, and get a glimpse into Director of National Intelligence of congress, although given the his character. (2005-2006), and then Director book’s description of the feck- of the Central Intelligence lessness of a few representatives Hayden grew up in a modest Agency (2006-2009). of this later group, including blue collar family in a hard- them in this aspiration may be scrabble ethnic neighborhood In the first page of the forward, a bridge too far. on Pittsburgh’s North Side in a Hayden says, “Critics, observers, house that would later be torn and just average citizens don’t While describing his profession- down to build Three Rivers know much about intelligence al interaction with the whole Stadium. His family attended as they want or should. A goal of the US military and govern- the same Catholic Parish as the of this book is to help address ment, Hayden focuses on the Art Rooney family, owners of that.” He more than succeeds, most significant intelligence the Pittsburgh Steelers (Dan, not simply because he held such programs and initiatives: NSA’s Art Rooney’s son and the fu- critical positions of leadership Stellarwind Program (the so- ture president of the Steelers, during such a critical period of called metadata program), the was Hayden’s grade school American history, but because CIA’s enhanced interrogation football coach). He attended he has an uncanny ability to program and the Obama de- parochial grade school, North summarize and communicate cision to release Department Catholic High School, and then highly classified, technical, and of Justice memos from the Duquesne University, where complex policy and legal issues Bush administration, the con- he joined Air Force ROTC and to the informed non-specialist troversial Iranian National graduated in 1969. “I was on and average citizen. Intelligence Estimate, the active duty with America’s Air

69 Force before I ever sat in a class- observer might be inclined to NSA’s cautious approach room that didn’t have a crucifix take this as self-evident. Why to any collection of intel- in it.” would anyone choose to play ligence relating to activi- between the hash marks when ties in the United States He recalls his parents as hav- the bad guys were playing from ing “imposed a high (practi- sideline to sideline? Why not There were also gaps in cally guilt-inducing) moral use the entire field, so long as NSA’s coverage of foreign standard on us, but insisted you don’t go out of bounds? communications and the on a great deal of tolerance FBI’s coverage of domes- for others: ‘Judge not lest… But as Hayden observes, and tic communications. We are all God’s children.’” As as I can personally confirm, the commencement speaker at since the Church Commission NSA did not want to be Duquesne University in 2007, hearings of the 1970s, the NSA perceived as targeting he described, “the challeng- culture in particular, and the individuals in the United ing philosophy and theology associated bureaucratic pres- States. courses” taken at Duquesne sures generally, had produced [In talking about one-end as “wonderful gifts…gifts that an agency that was extremely US conversations] there keep on giving. They give me cautious and almost manically was insufficient focus on anchor in what is often a turbu- resistant to pushing up against what many would have lent sea. They give me compass legal boundaries. Despite the thought was among the when the way ahead is far from more hysterical critics (includ- most critically important clear. They give me a beam of ing those who take seriously kinds of terrorist com- entertaining but wildly exagger- light when I have to work in munications, at least in ated movies and TV shows like the shadows” [emphasis in the terms of protecting the Enemy of the State or 24) and original]. homeland. half-informed critics, right and I call attention to this chapter left, who think the NSA is all It wasn’t for nothing that because, if you are a leader with about “spying on the American General Hayden was famous great responsibility and are go- people,” NSA professionals are, for saying after 9/11, “I want ing to “play to the edge” in the as Hayden says, “very conserva- chalk dust on my cleats.” That intelligence business, especially tive when it comes to the privacy he had to say it repeatedly, even during a time of great peril, you of US persons.” Rather than after 9/11, is sufficient evidence better be personally honorable “play to the edge,” rather than that old habits die hard. and trustworthy because sooner go right up to the “is it legal?” or later you will be confronted boundary line, it was always Most American intelligence not only by honorable men and easier and safer, not to men- professionals,” Hayden says, women who sincerely believe tion career enhancing (typically “are well acquainted with the you may have crossed the line, bureaucracies, including intelli- broad cultural rhythm connect- but also because you will be in- gence bureaucracies, discourage ing American espionage practi- evitably slandered by less than risk) to establish policies that tioners and American political honorable politicians, and will would keep you as far away from elites: the latter group gets to have to withstand the slings that legal sideline as possible. criticize the former for not doing and arrows of half-baked, ill-in- That’s how you end up playing enough when it feels in danger, formed, and sometimes crack- between the hash marks while while reserving the right to crit- pot critics with a microphone. your adversary uses the entire icize it for doing too much as field, and more. soon as it has been made to feel “Playing to the edge” is a foot- safe again.” This dynamic is a ball metaphor that Hayden had Arguably, throughout the 1980s consistent theme of the book, been using at the NSA since at and the 1990s, the cost of this layered on top of the perennial least 9/11. “The reference is to cautious approach could be task of balancing security and using all the tools and all the borne. But the true cost even- secrecy with privacy. (Hayden authorities available,” he writes. tually became painfully evident gets in a dig at some critics by “Much like a good athlete takes in 2001. As Hayden notes, the pointing out the frequent mis- advantage of the entire playing Congressional Joint Inquiry quotes of Benjamin Franklin field right up to the sideline Commission (JIC) investigation who actually said: “Those who markers and endlines.” Now, into the failure to prevent 9/11 can give up essential liberty the average citizen and casual mentioned specifically: to obtain a little temporary

70 safety deserve neither liberty program under the FISA Court doesn’t. [emphasis in the nor safety.”) and a broader (i.e., legislated) original] legal structure. We did, but not I’d imagine Hayden’s under- So, how does “playing to the until years later” [emphasis add- graduate theology and philos- edge” cash in on the two most ed]. That’s playing to the edge. ophy courses played an influ- well-known intelligence pro- ential role here. For it is at this grams, the NSA’s metadata col- Hayden was perhaps the most precise point where—especially lection program and the CIA’s articulate public defender of when playing to the edge—in- interrogation program? The the CIA interrogation program. tegrity, honor, and character moral and legal complexities While the most controversial matter. Even before evaluating are not easily summarized, so interrogation technique, wa- the evidence Hayden presents I’ll simply highlight a reveal- terboarding, had ended long that the interrogation program ing Hayden comment on each before he became Director of did indeed produce otherwise program. the CIA, he vehemently and unattainable, actionable intelli- articulately opposed the total gence, you have to first take the With regard to Stellarwind elimination of all enhanced in- (NSA’s “metadata program”) terrogation procedures, rightly measure of the man. Does his Hayden, as we have seen, rejecting the claim that they life and his public service give called attention to the failures constituted “torture” as well as us reason to believe he is a man of NSA as cited by Congress in the frequently asserted claim of honor and integrity, and thus the JIC. In response to these that these techniques were use- can he be believed when he says findings, Hayden writes, NSA’s less and ineffective in producing the interrogation program was Stellarwind program ought to highly important intelligence. effective, even if you believe that have been perceived as: And he, along with just about the techniques employed should every other living Director of be prohibited? The choice is forced: Is he trustworthy, or is a logical response to an Central Intelligence, was justifi- agreed upon issue and not ably furious and publicly critical he being deceitful in stating so the product of demented when the Obama administration categorically that the techniques cryptologic minds, as decided to release Department worked? Or do you believe that some later would suggest. of Justice legal memos that laid ideologically-driven or feckless By Congress’ definition, out in detail the techniques that political opportunists declaring what we had been doing had been authorized for the “they didn’t work anyway” are had not been enough. CIA’s interrogation of high val- merely, once again, “reserving What would they have us ue terrorists. He described the the right to criticize [the intel- do if not a Stellarwind- release of those memos as a “be- ligence community] for doing like approach to fill the trayal of trust” and “fundamen- too much as soon as it has been gaps they were so righ- tal dishonesty.” Hayden’s posi- made to feel safe again”? teously identifying? tion is succinctly summarized: That, it seems to me, is an easy I don’t think there is a good, call. One can only wish we Most of the people who or even a plausible response to had more public servants like that question, which tends to oppose these techniques General Hayden. be confirmed by the NSA in- want to be able to say, “I don’t want my nation do- spector general, Brenner, Keith Pavlischek is a Senior whom Hayden describes as a ing this (which is a purely Editor for Providence. He retired “skeptical outsider,” and who honorable position), and as a Colonel in the U.S. Marines was read into the program in they didn’t work any- in 2007. From 2002 to 2005 he 2002 to provide oversight. “Joel way.” The back half of served at the National Security was pretty much on record that that sentence isn’t true. Agency and from 2005 to 2007 any president who failed to The honorable position at the Office of the Director of collect the intelligence autho- has to be, “even though National Intelligence. He grew rized by this program would these techniques worked, up in the Steel Valley near have been derelict in his duty. I don’t want you to do Pittsburgh, PA, and is a Steeler He was equally passionate that that.” That takes cour- fan who, like General Hayden, we should move as much of this age. The other sentence bleeds Black and Gold.

71 BOOK REVIEW THE PARADOX OF MICHAEL WALZER: 50 YEARS ON RADICAL RELIGION Review by Stephen Baskerville

THE PARADOX OF LIBERATION: SECULAR REVOLUTIONS AND RELIGIOUS COUNTERREVOLUTIONS by MICHAEL WALZER – Yale University Press, 2015. THE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS: A STUDY IN THE ORIGINS OF RADICAL POLITICS by by MICHAEL WALZER – Harvard University Press, 1966.

book, which combined similar Praised at its appearance, themes: The Revolution of the Walzer’s book had little long- Saints, the most provocative term impact. Leftists could historical work ever produced not reconcile it with Marxist by the New Left. The intellectual dogma dismissing early mod- shortcomings of the left (and ern revolutions as “bourgeois.” right) are attested by their fail- Scrutinizing radicalism as itself ure to appreciate their greatest a subject of critical study and philosopher’s most stimulating suggesting that the left’s ped- work. igree could be traced back to religious zealots was ironically Revolution rejected standard Marxist historiography that im- posed ideological dogma on history. From a more detached perspective, Walzer self-con- sciously used the emerging mil- itancy of his own time to ask he cover of The Paradox new questions about the roots Tof Liberation describes of ideology itself. Michael Walzer as “America’s leading political thinker.” In this Walzer argued that “the origins case the dust jacket hyperbole of radical politics” lay not in has some validity. While not the republicanism of the eigh- today’s most famous philoso- teenth century but in the rad- pher, his work and its recep- ical religion of the sixteenth to tion provides a commentary on seventeenth centuries—an era liberal politics since the 1960s. historians of revolution had ig- His latest book follows a career nored precisely (and arbitrarily) that has explored enduring but because it was religious. Walzer threatening to those posturing often ignored themes, two are saw radicalism emerging from as bearers of infallible truth. particularly critical now: religion Calvinism, which culminated and political radicalism. in the English Revolution of the But the right’s failure was more 1640s. The first great modern serious. By identifying radical- This year also marks the fiftieth revolution was not Jacobin but ism as an historically specific anniversary of Walzer’s first Puritan. innovation, Walzer offered the

72 possibility of approaching it crit- yet newer forms that even the fit his pattern. While all con- ically, as a social pathology that left’s greatest philosopher can- tained secular-religious tension, entered with modernity and at not confront. the two “liberations” seemed some point might be discarded. largely either/or. Paradox recombines similar Conservative intellectuals themes but now within the de- Indeed, the striking exception dropped the ball. Conservative bate over “secularization.” Yet I to Walzer’s pattern of secu- historiography responded to the am not sure Walzer now honors lar liberation followed by reli- earliest revolutions not with a the insights of his own work. gious reaction is the England cogent critique, but by belit- The tensions of politicized sec- of Revolution. Here religious tling their importance. Rather ularization—the “paradox” of radicalism preceded secular- than recognize that radicalism this book—reflect our civiliza- ization, and while secular rad- and revolution might be dan- tion’s central crisis today. If icalism also contributed ideas gerous innovations, the safer our most eminent philosophers (later attractive to both left and ploy was to suggest that the cannot sort them out, they may right), Walzer himself insisted English Revolution was not re- be looking at optical illusions that religion overwhelmingly ally very revolutionary or pop- that deceive us all. drove the revolution. ular but instead an accident of circumstance perpetrated For Walzer, secularization is Moreover, this seminal revo- by unrepresentative elites. dynamic and political. It is in- lution produced offspring, the Conservative backlash against separable from the post-war Anglophone “dominions,” with Marxist historiography of the anti-colonial movements of “na- little need of subsequent “na- English Revolution spent little tional liberation” exemplified tional liberation.” The exception effort describing its dangers and in Algeria, India, and Israel. that proves the rule might be instead showed why it should It is also open-ended; as he the United States (considered not have happened. makes explicit, it has no real in a postscript), whose war of conclusion. It is itself ideologi- national liberation (of sorts) Today, Walzer’s contention that cal, therefore, and seems to be revived many principles from political radicalism originated the exclusive property of the England (both religious and in religious radicalism appears “secular democratic left.” secular) and is often described starkly vindicated by the new as a second British civil war. Islamist militancy. The “paradox” is why the trium- Rebels’ continued engagement phant secular leftist “equilibri- with their own society is an im- But the larger implication is that um” is then so frequently over- portant theme in Walzer. Here “radical politics” constitutes a thrown by politicized religious he recognizes the most success- phenomenon in itself, larger militancy: Islamism, Hindutva, ful “secularization,” calling it than the tenets of any histor- and Orthodox Judaism. But the “the first secular state in world ical manifestation: religious, beliefs themselves are ignored; history.” republican, nationalist, social- unlike political ideas, which he ist, communist, Islamist. Each dissects mercilessly, religion is By contrast, later movements of episode distances itself from a black box and unworthy of “national liberation” are largely and demonizes its predecessors comparative treatment. No dif- failures, which certainly ex- while refusing to acknowledge ferences of importance distin- plains the return to religion. any shared pedigree, being too guish the religions themselves The grim legacy of Marxist- intoxicated with its own righ- (Islam, Hinduism, Judaism) or dominated anti-colonial lib- teousness to consider itself a their transfiguration as political eration makes it unsurprising product of history. Modern po- ideologies (Islamism, Hindutva, if intellectuals throughout the litical discourse has thus be- apparently Orthodox Judaism). global South look to religion as come a dialogue among rival an alternative “liberation.” radicalisms, with few entertain- Also unclear is how far Walzer’s ing the possibility of non-ideo- “national liberation” struggles Indeed, wars of national lib- logical civic culture. include the great revolutions eration have not provided the which also presented themselves modernization that Walzer Walzer’s own work addresses as anti-imperial revolts: China himself saw as one purpose of this in places, but now his pur- in 1949? Iran in 1979? These revolutionary politics. Though poses seem different. Moreover, revolutions, like their European Communists prioritized in- radical politics today is taking predecessors, generally do not dustrialization, the result was

73 ramshackle, even in Europe. of any ideology or ideological his complex argument connect- Culturally, it was equally di- religion (or even apolitical reli- ing religious radicalism with sastrous, producing dysfunc- gion) may be a question of how secular “equilibrium” climaxing tional societies of suspicion and constructively it processes the Revolution: apathy. In contrast to radical resentments endemic to all so- religion, he writes, “National cieties (intensified during rapid …the Puritans knew liberation…is a secularizing, change, as Revolution argued) about human sinfulness modernizing, and developmen- and to what ends the resent- and…Locke did not need tal creed.” Developmental? This ment is channeled. to know. … The triumph is precisely what national liber- of Lockeian ideas…sug- ation has not produced in the Paradox criticizes leftists for gests…the appearance global South, resulting in little dismissing religion in libera- of saints and citizens for besides poverty, famine, dis- tion, but then he appears to whom sin is no longer a placement, conflict, stagnation, dismiss it himself: “Revivalist problem. … Lockeian lib- and incessant cycles of insur- and millenarian movements… erals found it possible to gency and counter-insurgency. are sometimes tumultuous but dispense with religious… always ineffective.” Ineffective controls in human soci- Now their replacement ideolo- in what sense? Has he read ety…but…only because gies, Islamism and Hindutva, The Revolution of the Saints? the controls had already aside from terrorism, produce “Neither millenarian nor tradi- been implanted in men. little economically besides stag- tional politics invites ideologi- … Liberalism was depen- nation. (I will not comment on cal commitment or long-term dent upon the existence of the plausibility of comparing activism,” he adds. “Nor does “saints”…persons whose Orthodox Judaism.) So radical either politics promise individ- good behavior could be religion has proved no more suc- ual freedom, political indepen- relied upon. cessful than radical nationalism, dence, citizenship, democratic socialism, and anti-colonialism. government, scientific educa- Walzer believes this is achieved tion, or economic advance.” by political ideologies. He Indeed, it is not clear that to- The assumption that secular makes a powerful case that day’s radical religions are reac- political radicalism is a virtue Puritanism achieved it. His tions or “counterrevolutions.” for its own sake characterizes suggestion that it applies to Islamism itself is a hodge-podge Walzer’s understanding of both Jacobins, Bolsheviks, and others of ideas taken largely from the secularization and (another ma- looks less plausible. western left. jor theme) citizenship. For all his commitment to secu- But the larger dilemma is that As for individual freedom and larization, he is asking politics to Islamism combines the resent- the rest, this is precisely what achieve what only religion can. ments of the left (Western “im- Walzer’s own account of radical Not a religion that is also a polit- perialism,” “capitalism”) with religion in England did pro- ical ideology, but one that, if not those we might associate with duce. Here Walzer seems to apolitical, recognizes legitimate the right (Western cultural-sex- be at odds with the author of spheres for Caesar and God. The ual decadence). How to respond a half-century ago. More than latest book appears to make na- thus divides both Western left an historical effort to pinpoint tional liberation the continued and right. radicalism’s chronological or- vehicle for modernization by igins, Revolution explored the renewal through “engagement” Perhaps the important point political sociology of modern- with the religious culture that, transcending left and right is ization. For Walzer, the revo- he recognizes, commands far that this demonstrates what lution creates the national civ- more popular allegiance. Islamism shares not only ic maturity, the trial by which with other radical religions the nation collectively acquires But I am not sure the chosen but also with secular ideolo- the habits of self-government. religions can help. Both secu- gies: All thrive on resentment. Functional reasons therefore lar and quasi-secular radical- This is clear from the logic of explain why religious radical- isms have become ever-more Revolution, and it is the only ism preceded secularization and terrifying—their terror directly way religious and secular rad- stability, which the religion still connected to their aspiration icalism can be plausibly equat- undergirds and from which it to control the state. “They aim ed. Evaluating the social value could still resurface. This was in each of my three cases to

74 create a state that is entirely overcome—totally,” he quotes seeking power or remuneration. their own.” But that is because the liberationists. “But the old If not a professional revolution- he has chosen religions (cer- ways are cherished by many of ary, he is a potential policymak- tainly Islamism and Hindutva) the men and women whose ways er or implementer. that are also political ideolo- they are. This is the paradox of gies. He ignores the religion of liberation.” Unlike the citizen, the activist Revolution that created “the does not return home when lib- first secular state in world Walzer wants the liberators to eration is achieved, because it is history.” be better connected to the val- never achieved; his entire life is ues cherished by the people they absorbed by politics and ideol- Walzer’s Puritans also aspired are liberating. But most people ogy. Stable liberal democracy is to state power, and their brief do not want liberation on the never enough; he (or nowadays endeavor to create theocracies left’s terms. If we all need per- she) always demands more. And in England and New England manent liberation, most people now the agenda extends into the attests to their ideological na- seek it in religion, not politics. most intimate corners of private ture. Moreover, revolutionary life: family and sexuality. Puritanism was not without its Walzer’s liberators are ideo- own circumstantial involvement logues in that their agenda is Here is the book’s most reveal- with terror, as the Irish know. open-ended. This distinguishes ing feature, the one most illus- them from non-ideological lib- trative of our emerging crisis. But it is also clear that the po- erators with limited goals whom Throughout the book, without litically aggressive phase of the left despises: Gandhi’s pas- elaboration, Walzer crowns his Protestant Christianity, not- sive resistance (whom Walzer points with examples from a withstanding some polemicists’ calls “the odd man out” for new radicalism that he does not current efforts, cannot remotely “turning traditionalist passivi- scrutinize with his characteristic be compared to the Islamist ty into a modern political weap- nuance: not national but sexual terrorism that now shocks the on”); Martin Luther King; the liberation. And as for follow- world. Walzer himself insisted “anti-politics” of Communist- ing the liberators to their latest that the Puritans never advocat- era dissidents and their “velvet” barricades—homosexual liber- ed or engaged in assassination revolutions. ation—this is a “no-go zone.” or terror. And their theology alone provided for precisely the Why are these not valid mod- If the result is less elegant “secularism” that he now sees els of “national liberation”? than expected from Walzer, slipping through our fingers. Because they do not involve we should be asking why. “ideological commitment or Uncharacteristically, he enters Despite his effort to appropriate long-term activism”? They freed sectarian casuistry reconciling secularism for the left, most specific people from specific feminism with Islam. But to do of us in the liberal West to- injustices, all state-imposed. this without descending into day—left and right, believers Moreover, they used the re- precisely the tedious ideologi- or not—share his desire to pre- gimes’ own principles against cal correctness that we all read serve the secular state, however them (another Walzerian Michael Walzer to avoid re- we might disagree on the de- theme). And when the limited quires recognizing parallels and tails. The devil in those details liberation was accomplished, alliances that embarrass both was (until recently) fairly well those remaining returned to sides. Here again, Walzer does harnessed: sacramental drugs, the private apolitical lives that not “go there,” and this tells us school prayer, flag salutes. (Walzer himself complains) the something about where we all left holds in contempt. may be going without much In the West, this equilibrium guidance from our best minds. is now being upset not by reli- This distinction is connected to gious zealots but by new radicals major themes in Walzer’s work: All Walzer’s examples delineat- armed with new ideologies, de- citizenship and community. But ing the boundaries of religion manding changes in the name of Walzer’s citizens are mostly ac- and politics directly involve sex- ever-expanding secularization. tivists. He extolls “amateurism,” ual politics and women, whom Indeed, it is Walzer’s central but the activist is a professional he calls “the true heirs of na- “paradox” that the “equilibrium” or aspiring professional. His tional liberation.” One quality he values upsets itself: “The old citizenship is not sacrificial be- distinguishing Walzer’s leftism ways must be repudiated and cause he works at it full-time, is his refusal to equate disparate

75 claims to “oppression.” But here Today’s minefield in the church- alternative response to the same he sounds like the leftists he state borderland is marriage, for resentments and injustices—de- criticizes: “If you are in favor centuries a DMZ and now an mands for ethical government, of this kind of liberation—of open battlefield. And not only economic development, and peoples or nations or religious in the West: divorce and family functional family structure— groups—you must be in favor law come up repeatedly in his that have been monopolized by of its repetitions,” even if they examples, without elaboration. discredited radicalisms. This are not apparently comparable. would have been helpful when Liberation becomes a virtue for Here we may indeed have the discontents were economic its own sake, and apparently reached “the end of ideology,” and social; it is critical now that self-justifying. not in the sense of writers in the 1950s and 1990s prema- they are sexual. Nor does he explore the huge turely declaring it obsolete, but can-of-worms he opens. “I sus- because we have pursued the For this was the achievement pect that the differences [be- logic of radical politics to its of Revolution: to show that re- tween secular liberation and conclusion. We seek not only ligion also processes resent- both traditional and revivalist political redemption but also ments and other responses to religion] are clearest with regard social, spiritual, and even sex- dislocation, injustice, inequality, to the subordination of women,” ual fulfillment from something poverty, ignorance, superstition, he suggests. “The demand for that can never satisfy it: politi- and corruption and aspires to gender equality poses the great- cal ideology. Indeed, this latest build a stable, prosperous, and est challenge to traditional re- book is the logical culmination free society. Whether it chan- ligion and is probably the most of the recognition—begun with nels the rage constructively or important cause of revivalist Revolution—that radical ideol- destructively is the debate that zealotry in all three of my cas- ogy is itself a secularized reli- Revolution should have started. es.” Indeed, his suspicion’s huge gion whose hope for redemption We must demand substantive, implications are relentlessly from irrelevance is to reconnect even theological dialogues be- pushed by sexual liberationists, with its origins. tween Christianity, Judaism, which is why secularist ideology Islam, Hinduism, and liberal and religious faith now stand It is a religious cliché that peo- democracy, in preference to eyeball-to-eyeball worldwide. ple are searching for something insurgencies by Puritanism, that secular politics cannot pro- This is the point where, once vide. That some are searching Islamism, Hindutva, and the again, liberation confronts free- for it in violent politicized re- open-ended sexual radicalism dom. But Walzer is not going ligions that resemble secular that is now served up as the suc- there, and neither is anyone ideologies indicates that we have cessor to socialism and commu- else, left or right. It is today’s not reconnected enough. nism by the puerile left whose gender ideology that is aggres- best alternative was the work sively upending Walzer’s “equi- We cannot extricate ourselves of Michael Walzer. librium,” demanding state con- from this crisis without recog- trols on religious and other free- nizing that religious ideas, like Stephen Baskerville is doms: litigating against bakers political ones, are not all the Professor of Government at and prosecuting unorthodox same; they can be good and Patrick Henry College and visiting views as “crimes against human- bad and demand extended de- scholar at Jagiellonian University ity”; arresting preachers and bate not limited to seminaries. in Cracow, Poland. An expanded civil servants for their sexual That debate must return to the version of his book, Not Peace but morality; patently false rape ac- center of our political culture, a Sword: The Political Theology cusations against students and which for most people globally of the English Revolution soldiers; mass incarcerations of it never left. We must scruti- (Routledge, 1993) will be pub- divorced fathers without trial. nize each specific religion as an lished later this year.

76 BOOK REVIEW A PEOPLE OF NO STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE: MIDDLE EAST CHRISTIANS & THE DISREGARD OF THE FOREIGN POLICY ELITE Review by Faith McDonnell THEY SAY WE ARE INFIDELS: ON THE RUN FROM ISIS WITH PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST by MINDY BELZ, Tyndale Momentum, 2016

n March 17, 2016, United reader to see Christians, Yezidis, OStates Secretary of State and others as individuals, as fellow John F. Kerry issued a deter- Christians, and as representatives of mination of genocide against ancient threatened cultures. ISIS (“Daesh”), naming Yezidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims as As shocking as the decimation of victims. There had been very real Christian and minority communi- fear that Christians would be ties itself is the continuing disre- omitted from the determination gard for them by Western govern- because for months the State ments. Belz exposes this shameful Department claimed to lack indifference, something of which hard evidence of Christian geno- few seemed aware until ISIS sawed cide. Specifically, Christians off Christian men’s heads on a were not included in the U.S. Libyan beach. While she covered Holocaust Museum’s report. stories of church bombings, and But the Hudson Institute’s Nina other attacks, a State Department Shea wrote in National Review official assured her, “We don’t that the report’s authors “spoke think there is a wave of violence with Yezidis, Shia Turkmen, and documents the increasing suffering against Christians; it’s inadvertent- Shia Shabak but apparently not of an already suffering people. ly happening as a result of the over- with any similarly aggrieved She explains, “I didn’t go looking all situation” (99). But by 2006, St. Christians. Neither Christian for Christians in Iraq; I stumbled George’s Church, Baghdad had a leaders nor Christian docu- upon them when I went to cover a 24 page list of Christians either killed or kidnapped. mentation sources are cited in U.S.-led war. But the vitality of the the report.” Christian community there would “Iraq’s Christians and other minori- draw me in, and their underreported No one who reads They Say We ties” had “long considered them- plight would compel me to return Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS selves allies of the United States,” again and again” (xix). with Persecuted Christians in the Belz explains, but to the U.S. Middle East by World Magazine Administration, they “didn’t seem By the time the ISIS genocidal editor Mindy Belz should ever to enter into the equation” (168). doubt Christians are victims of nightmare began, Belz counted Further, Belz says, Western forces ISIS genocide. They will also re- Iraqi and Syrian Christians as dedicated to promoting Middle East alize attempts to eradicate Middle friends. She holds those person- freedom and democracy did not East Christianity had been going al relationships in tension with see the “strategic importance” of on before Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi journalistic objectivity maintained helping Christians. This compelled declared himself Caliph of the over 13 years visiting the region. a young father to ask Belz what all Islamic State. Consequently, no one writes about the area Christians were asking: Middle East Christians’ plight with “Why is America standing up for Belz was embedded with the lo- more passion, authenticity, and in- the rights of Muslims and not for cal Christian community and sight than Belz. Infidels invites the Christians” (167)?

77 Belz recalls a meeting of American should have represented all Iraqis abandoned their posts and shed and European military commanders and guaranteed individual rights their uniforms, leaving residents at which a NATO adviser presented and religious freedom for all. But defenseless. ISIS killed on the spot a report on the ongoing atrocities instead, it “undermined the secu- Christians who did not leave or towards Christians and other mi- lar state itself” and ensured future pay the enormous fine (jizyah) norities. The adviser asked the strife (94). imposed on infidels. Hundreds of military officers, “Would you in- thousands fled, leaving homes, tervene if genocide comes to Iraq’s Likewise, while ignoring natural al- businesses, everything behind. One Christians?” The American answer, lies, the U.S. wooed freedom’s en- Christian told Belz, “We have lived “I would not deploy my troops to emies. Belz mentions the Supreme in Mosul and had a civilization for intervene.” The British answer, Council for the Islamic Revolution thousands of years and suddenly “No, we would not intervene.” in Iraq (SCRI). This political party some strangers came and expelled The adviser “even reframed the with direct backing from Iran had us from our homes” (219). Belz question, ‘Sir, with your history of little support from the Shiites, but writes, “The Christians suspected liberty for all and desire to do what the U.S. gave these Iranian prox- that their Muslim neighbors had is right, would you not intervene?’” ies a seat on the Iraqi Governing actually shown ISIS the way to Again, the commanders told him Council anyway. “The Americans Christian homes—and no one in they would not intervene (220-21). couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see that the army or police had come to help parties like SCRI sought a theocrat- them” (220). Belz adds elsewhere: ic government,” states Belz (25). A few months later ISIS took Amazingly, Western forces had lit- When they did see danger Sinjar, home to Yezidis, kidnap- tle understanding of the deep, rich signs, Western leaders ping boys to serve as fighters and heritage of indigenous Christians were reluctant to get in- taking girls to sell as sex slaves. back to the days of , volved. The U.S. leaders Forty thousand people, mostly , and Jesus and long before in particular, starting Yezidis, but also Christians, fled the introduction of Islam. Belz with George W. Bush’s to the top of Mt. Sinjar where they explains that most diplomats and were trapped by ISIS with no food, administration and military commanders “assumed water, or shelter. Before the U.S. continuing through the [Christianity] was an import of helicopter rescue efforts, 7,000 Obama presidency, trad- British colonial rule or an invention Yezidis and Christians were dead ed an American legacy of of American evangelicals” (15). on Mt. Sinjar, and 500 girls were standing up for minorities taken as sex slaves. Women, girls, who faced annihilation— In the last third of the Infidels, and even tiny children were raped Holocaust survivors, “Inside the House of War,” Belz by ISIS. Some killed themselves Russian Pentecostals, describes the out-and-out war on to escape that horror, and others Rwandans, Congolese, Christians. She introduces ISIS pleaded for the United States to and many others—for a leader Baghdadi through his attack “bomb them” so they could die. political advantage that on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Belz revisits Christians and Yezidis, never manifested itself. Baghdad, October 2010, in which traumatized by murder, rape, or American leaders ex- 58 were murdered and 75 were kidnapping, forced to flee again changed the lives of those wounded in a horrific four-hour and again. targeted by sectarian mil- siege (178). This evil, seen as in- itants for the supposed sanity by most, is described by Christians formed Assyrian mili- advantage of appearing Baghdadi as “pure Islam.” More tias to assist their rescue. “It’s not nonsectarian. (xvii) “pure Islam”: In March 2013, the acceptable to watch our lands tak- This was not only a tragic reversion Islamist al-Nusra group (later fold- en by terrorist groups and expect of America’s legacy, but a horrible ed into ISIS) seized Raqqa, Syria. Kurds to come to liberate them, and mistake. The Christians’ experience According to a UN fact finding we just watch while Kurds fight. could have helped the United States mission, children were “killed or It’s our land and our people, so we and its allies in countering jihadist publicly executed, crucified, be- have to be active,” Odisho Yousif ideology, but no one was listening headed, and stoned to death.” told Belz (258). to them. And so, Article 2 of the new constitution of Iraq declared Infidels tracks the flight of Though Iraqi Christians receive Islam “the official religion of the Christians and others on the ear- scant help through official channels, State” and “a fundamental source ly morning in June 2014 when Belz says American, British, and of legislation.” The constitution ISIS seized Mosul. Iraqi soldiers other war veterans fight alongside

78 them. “The foreign fighters were a churches to remain in the Middle the resources of churches in the hodgepodge of Christians, atheists, East and “have a presence of United States against so simple a and the religiously indifferent,” she Christians with Muslim people.” need,” Belz says, “and American says. “What they had in common He said he was doing his duty as Christians could make a real differ- was a conviction that the United a witness, “showing the presence ence in the lives of ISIS victims” PROVIDENCE States and its allies owed some- of the Lord, and serving him with 4 (280). SUMMER 2016 | NUMBER thing to the Iraqis and that they joy” (165). themselves had watched too long As Belz concludes, she says the from the sidelines, waiting on the Father Ragheed Ganni of Mosul Christians “confronted face-to-face West to act” (261). Church of the Holy Spirit was The ediTors and door-to-door by ISIS had run, martyred in 2007 along with three yes, but they had run only when to A CHRISTIAN DECLARATION ON Before the end of summer 2014, deacons. Ganni had written, “We ISIS was the richest terrorist empathize with Christ, who en- stay meant giving up their faith. AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY group in the world, with some tered Jerusalem in full knowledge The sublime, nearly forgotten re- 04 $500 billion in resources, and that the consequence of His love ality in all their hardship and loss the world had disregarded the for mankind was the cross. Thus, was this: In losing everything, they jihadists while they conquered while bullets smashed our church had held on to the one thing that FEATURES one-third of Iraq with 30,000 windows, we offered our suffering mattered to them most” (295). militants. Infidels demands, as a sign of love for Christ. This is “Why? Given the millions of war, real war, but we hope to carry But for the Syrian Orthodox Nigel Biggar dollars and thousands of lives our cross to the very end with the monks of Mar Matti, a 4th centu- the West had invested: the help of Divine Grace” (161-2). ry monastery only 12 miles from IN DEFENCE OF JUST WAR: American veterans who had Mosul, included in what matters CHRISTIAN TRADITION, CONTROVERSIES, & CASES suffered injuries and sacrificed Belz reflects: most is to stay. Head monk, Yousif their limbs to IEDs, who were Ibrahim, told Belz that as long as 12 still living with their own trau- I tried to fathom the any Christians were left in Iraq, “A ma, only to see a more lasting, depths of Christian sol- shepherd cannot leave his sheep.” more widely traumatic destruc- idarity, watching these The monastery, one of the only tion unfold” (221). believers find water in cultural sites not ravaged by ISIS, this desert… Caring for alaN dowd Infidels could be an extremely de- is defended by a special unit of displaced families when pressing, despair-filled story. But the Peshmerga Kurdish military they first arrived was one THE MORAL USE OF DRONES it is no such thing. The power of and inhabited now by three coura- thing, but it was another 24 Belz’s book comes from the power geous monks and six students. The to help them six months, of the Middle East Church. Belz ongoing warfare is clearly visible one year, or eighteen demonstrates how the same God for months later. The long from atop Mar Matti’s Mt. Alfaf. whom Middle East Christians are years of war and perse- Ibrahim told Belz, “The sky lights willing to die sustains them in the cution preceding the in- up at night, but we of course are not midst of their suffering. Their faith vasion of ISIS had trained scared. God protects us” (266-67). remains strong; they receive help San Jorge y el Dragón, by Peter Paul Rubens, some muscle reflex, only and support from local churches 1605-1607. According to legend, Saint George instead of it moving their Regardless of their suffering and to which they flee; they are unit- slew the dragon terrorizing a community and hands away from the fiery death, regardless of their bewil- saved a princess about to become the dragon’s ing and working together as never flame, it moved them to- dered disappointment with a silent victim. Various versions attend the legend. before. Belz was amazed by the ward it—and toward one West and a silent Western Church, Some are rather ignoble, including one in which resilience and courage of Middle another. (291) Infidels demonstrates that Middle the Christian hero merely wounds the dragon, East Christians like Nicodemus binds it, and terrorizes the townspeople with it Daoud Sharaf, Syriac Archbishop There is opportunity, Belz points East Christians are confident in until they agree to convert to the faith. Power of Mosul. Sharaf, one of the last to out, for American Christians to the love of the God they serve and can always be misused. Most accounts render leave Mosul, declared, “They take bring good out of evil. One Indiana for whom they have sacrificed all. the tale more simply. An innocent victim is everything from us, but they cannot church raised $60,000 to pay six Together, they have strategic im- about to be devoured by an unrelenting beast. take the God from our hearts—they months’ rent for 80 families at portance in His Sovereign plan. St. George, possessing the power and opportu- the Erbil hotel in Iraqi Kurdistan, nity to save her, embraces his duty and, placing cannot” (220). himself between the tormented and the tor- where many Christians have fled Faith McDonnell is the Director mentor, uses his strength to end the evil. The Bishop Antoine Audo, in Aleppo, to escape ISIS.. And Iraqi pastor of Religious Liberty Programs use of power in foreign affairs is often complex, the head of the Chaldean Church Yusuf Matti could use help setting and of the Church Alliance for but basic distinctions can be made, and certain in Syria and Bible translator told up schools for Yazidi, Muslim, a New Sudan at the Institute on responsibilities recognized and met. Belz it was important for Eastern and Christian children. “Multiply Religion & Democracy.

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