ARGUMENTS Regime Change and Just War

Michael Walzer the consequence, not the cause, of the war fought by the allies. It wasn’t the aim of the wars declared in 1939 by Poland, France, and Britain to transform the German state. Rather, ast year marked the sixtieth anni- these were paradigmatic just wars; their cause versary of the end of the Second was resistance to armed aggression. And ac- World War and the beginning of re- cording to the just-war paradigm, resistance to Lgime change and democratization in Germany. aggression stops with the military defeat of the The allies confirmed their commitment to de- aggressor. After that, presumably, there is a mocratization at Potsdam in July of 1945, negotiated peace, and in the course of the ne- where the British provided an admirable ex- gotiations, the victims of aggression and their ample of what democracy means. Elections allies may legitimately look for material repa- were held in the United Kingdom while the rations and political guarantees against any fu- conference was going on; Winston Churchill, ture attack, but regime change is not part of the great wartime leader of his country, was the paradigm. It is a feature of just-war theory defeated—and immediately replaced at the in its classic formulations that aggression is meetings (Stalin must have been astonished) regarded as the criminal policy of a govern- by Clement Atlee, the leader of the Labour ment, not as the policy of a criminal govern- Party. This was a classic democratic moment: ment—let alone a criminal system of govern- the ability of the opposition to challenge and ment. Individual leaders may be brought to trial possibly defeat a powerful leader is surely the after the war; the governmental system is not crucial test of a democratic constitution. at issue. But if we understand aggression as The political reconstruction of Germany an act that follows from the very character of was an effort, at least in the Western occupa- the system—which is how we came to under- tion zones, to enable the German people to stand Nazi war-making—then regime change enact moments like that. It is important to no- will seem a necessary feature of the postwar tice that what was planned was a restoration settlement. of democracy, not a creation ex nihilo—the Of course, it wasn’t only the aggressive wars Weimar republic lay only twelve years in the fought by the Nazi regime but also the geno- past, and old political parties like the Chris- cidal policies it pursued that justified the de- tian Democrats and the Social Democrats were mand first for unconditional surrender and quickly reconstituted. For that reason (and for then for political reconstruction. A negotiated others too) the German case isn’t a good pre- peace with Hitler or his associates was not a cedent, as is sometimes claimed, for what the morally imaginable outcome of the Second United States has recently been trying to do World War, as it might have been with the kai- in Iraq. Still, this was a restoration-by-force, ser in the first, had his regime not been over- the consequence of military victory and mili- thrown from within. The Nazis had to go, tary occupation. And so it raises the question whether or not their German opponents were of when or whether forcible democratization capable of seeing them out. There is a general can be justified. Or, in the language of con- argument here, which applies most clearly to temporary debates, Is “regime change” a just cases of “humanitarian intervention.” When a cause for war? government is engaged in the mass murder of In the case of Nazism, regime change was its own people, or some subgroup of its own

DISSENT / Summer 2006 III 103 ARGUMENTS people, then any foreign state or coalition of to be compromised in one way or another. Even states that sends an army across the border to when a humanitarian crisis has rightly triggered stop the killing is also going to have to replace intervention, we can still hope to minimize the the government or, at least, to begin the pro- coercive imposition of foreign ideas and ide- cess of replacement. It isn’t only aggressive- ologies. The intervening forces have a mandate ness, then, but also murderousness that makes for political, but not for cultural, transforma- a political regime a legitimate candidate for tion. In any case, it isn’t easy to imagine how forcible transformation. Still, the primary cause they might set about changing the customs and of the intervention is to stop the killing; regime beliefs of the people they are (temporarily) rul- change follows from that purpose. An authori- ing. Negotiation and compromise are almost tarian regime that is capable of mass murder certainly better than the coercion that would but not engaged in mass murder is not liable be necessary for a project like that. to military attack and political reconstruction. Nonetheless, just wars and humanitarian Imagine that there had been, as there interventions will often be an occasion for forc- surely should have been, an African or a Euro- ible and justifiable democratization—and that pean or a United Nations intervention in will sometimes require an attack on traditional Rwanda in 1994. The initial purpose of the hierarchies and customary practices. The ex- military action would have been to stop the clusion of women from the political sphere is massacre of Tutsi men and women (and their an obvious example. So consider the other case Hutu sympathizers), but in order to do that and of post–World War II regime change: the to protect the survivors, it would have been American occupation of Japan. The constitu- necessary to overthrow the Hutu Power regime. tion imposed by the occupation authorities pro- And whoever was responsible for that over- vided that all laws governing gender relations throw would also have taken on some degree “shall be enacted from the standpoint of indi- of responsibility for the creation of an alterna- vidual dignity and the essential equality of the tive government. It would have been wise to sexes.” Sixty years later, there is pressure from share that responsibility with local political the right to repeal this article—in defense, it forces and also with international agencies, but is claimed, of traditional Japanese values. But there would have been no just way of shed- one might say that the very possibility of re- ding it entirely. peal vindicates the American imposition. The And once the intervening forces are en- Japanese now have to argue about the struc- gaged in the work of political reconstruction, ture of gender relations in their society, and there are very good reasons why they should they will get whatever structure a majority of aim at democracy or, at least, open the way for them are prepared to support. Even imposed the practice of democracy. The reasons have democracy is defensible in this sense: it is more to do with the legitimacy of democratically open-ended than any other regime change based regimes, which are established through would be. a literal (and ongoing) self-determination, and also with their relative benevolence. Genuine o we have what we might think of as the democracies have not engaged in the mass World War Two occasions for justified murder of their own citizens (even if their Sregime change, and we have the (unreal- record abroad is less satisfactory). But what if ized) Rwandan occasion. Is there, was there, there are other traditions of legitimacy in the an Iraqi occasion? invaded country—involving, for example, a Note that in the first Gulf War of 1991, dominant role for religious leaders? What if the United States and its allies fought in strict there is strong traditionalist opposition to the accordance with the classic just-war paradigm: legal equality that democracy requires—most they stopped fighting once the invasion of Ku- crucially (and commonly), opposition to the wait had been decisively defeated. They did equality of women? I can imagine cases where not march on Baghdad; they did not aim at the democratization might have to be a gradual pro- overthrow and replacement of the Baathist re- cess or where democratic principles might have gime; nor did they do anything to make it pos-

104 III DISSENT / Summer 2006 ARGUMENTS sible for the Iraqi people to turn Saddam for a significant expansion of the doctrine of Hussein out of office. On the contrary, having jus ad bellum. The existence of an aggressive called for rebellions against Saddam’s rule, they and murderous regime, it claimed, was a le- failed to come to the aid or, only a short time gitimate occasion for war, even if the regime later, to the rescue, of the rebels. Though U.S. was not actually engaged in aggression or mass officials compared Saddam to Hitler, the al- murder. In more familiar terms, this was an lies did not act on the comparison; it was pro- argument for preventive war, but the reason for paganda and nothing more. They did seek con- the preventive attack wasn’t the standard per- straints on the future behavior of the Baathist ception of a dangerous shift in the balance of regime, and these constraints were predicated power that would soon leave “us” helpless on a fairly grim view of the regime. Still, what against “them.” It was a radically new percep- we might think of as the constitutional char- tion of an evil regime. acter of the Iraqi state—whether it was auto- No one who has experienced, or reflected cratic or democratic, secular or religious; on, the politics of the twentieth century can whether it recognized or overrode human doubt that there are evil regimes. Nor can there rights; whether its bureaucrats acted arbitrarily be any doubt that we need to design a politi- or were legally constrained—all this was judged cal/military response to such regimes that rec- irrelevant to the decisions about war and peace ognizes their true character. Even so, I do not made by the American-led coalition. believe that regime change, by itself, can be a By 2003 the position of the United States just cause of war. When we act in the world, and its allies, a smaller number now, had and especially when we act militarily, we must changed dramatically. To be sure, the second respond to “the evil that men do,” which is best Bush administration gave a variety of reasons read as “the evil that they are doing,” and not for its decision to go to war: another day, an- to the evil that they are capable of doing or other reason. But all the reasons suggested the have done in the past. Aggression and massa- need, this time, to march on Baghdad and re- cre are legitimate causes of war, and we must place the Baathist regime. The most important learn, what we have not yet learned, to respond reason was the danger that Iraq possessed, or to each of these in a timely and forceful way. in the near future would be capable of produc- But the existence of regimes capable of aggres- ing, weapons of mass destruction. But the fact sion and massacre requires a different re- that France (say) possessed weapons of mass sponse. destruction was never imagined as an occasion for war. It was the character of its regime that he harsh containment system imposed made Iraq dangerous: the U.S. government on Iraq after the first Gulf War was an claimed that Saddam’s was an inherently ag- T experiment in responding differently. gressive and an inherently murderous regime. Containment had three elements: the first was Just as it had committed aggression in the past, an embargo intended to prevent the importa- so it had massacred its own people in the past, tion of arms (which also affected supplies of and American leaders insisted that, in this case, food and medicine, though it should have been the past was prologue. What had happened possible to design a “smarter” set of sanctions). before would happen again unless the regime The second element was an inspection system was replaced. organized by the UN to block the domestic de- So Iraq was not similar to the German or velopment of weapons of mass destruction. Japanese or the (hypothetical) Rwandan case: The third element was the establishment of the war was not a response to aggression or a “no-fly” zones in the northern and southern humanitarian intervention. Its cause was not parts of the country so that Iraq’s air power (as in 1991) an actual Iraqi attack on a neigh- could not be used against its own people. The boring state or even an imminent threat of at- containment system was, as we now know, tack; nor was it an actual, ongoing massacre. highly effective. At least, it was effective in one The cause was regime change, directly—which sense: it prevented both weapons development means that the U.S. government was arguing and mass murder and so made the war of 2003

DISSENT / Summer 2006 III 105 ARGUMENTS unnecessary. But in another sense it was a fail- easier to justify than a full-scale attack would ure: it did not prevent the war. be. The standard arguments against preventive The primary reason for the failure was, ob- war don’t apply, it seems to me, to the preven- viously, the ideologically driven policy of the tive use of force-short-of-war—since short-of- Bush administration, which from the beginning war means without war’s unpredictable and favored regime change and war over contain- often catastrophic consequences. Forceful con- ment. But there is another reason, less obvi- tainment can be justified by a reasonable per- ous, which needs to be stressed: the states that ception of the dangers posed by a regime like opposed the war on the grounds that contain- Saddam Hussein’s. ment was working were not themselves mak- But containment doesn’t or, in the Iraqi ing it work. They were not participants in, or case, didn’t, bring the regime down. So why is even supporters of, the containment system. it preferable to, let’s say, a short war that pro- The containment of Saddam’s Iraq began as a duces a new regime? That is a hard question, multilateral enterprise, but in the end it was even after the war has turned out not to be the Americans who were doing almost all the short. But I believe that patience would have work. Had there been many states, or even just been a better policy in 2003. Because contain- a few more states, enforcing the embargo, in- ment rendered Saddam’s regime harmless, it sisting on inspections, and flying planes over did in fact weaken it, for regimes of this sort northern and southern Iraq, the unilateral ab- cannot endure being harmless. But the full re- rogation of the containment system by the U.S. alization of this effect was still a long way off; government would not have been possible (or, in the short run, the regime survived contain- at least, it would not have been as easy as it ment. Hence the most plausible argument for was). Had containment been an international going to war might have been that the contain- project, American power might also have been ment system was costly and carried risks of its contained within it. own, that it could not be sustained indefinitely, There is a simple lesson here about the and that a decision to fight might well win out meaning of collective security. If measures on a straightforward utilitarian calculation. The short of war are to work against evil or danger- argument fails, however, because the calcula- ous regimes, they have to be the common work tion would only go that way if we took an opti- of a group of nations. They require multilat- mistic view of the probable costs of the war, eral commitment. Collective security must be and it seems to me that we are not allowed a collective project. It won’t be successful if that kind of optimism. I mean, morally allowed, the costs of security are assigned to one state given the nature of the risks that we are im- while all the others pursue business as usual. posing on other people. The state bearing the costs can’t be counted on to bear them indefinitely. Adventurous poli- o, the Iraqi case invites us to think about ticians will be tempted by the idea of a quick the use of force-short-of-war—the con- and radical alternative to containment. And Stainment regime of 1991–2003, which regime change is the obvious alternative. the UN endorsed and the U.S. enforced, is I have described the elements of the con- only one possible example of this use. Despite tainment system as “measures short of war.” the French argument at the UN in 2002 and In fact, they all involved the use of force, which 2003 that the use of force must always come is why states eager for business as usual re- as a last resort, force-short-of-war obviously fused to participate. According to international comes before war itself. The argument about law, embargoes (stopping ships on the high jus ad bellum needs to be extended, therefore, seas) and the enforcement of no-fly zones to jus ad vim. We urgently need a theory of just (bombing radar and anti-aircraft installations) and unjust uses of force. This shouldn’t be an are acts of war. But it is common sense to rec- overly tolerant or permissive theory, but it will ognize that they are very different from actual certainly be more permissive than the theory warfare: compare Iraq before and after March of just and unjust war. The immediate ques- 2003. And certainly containment is much tion for us is whether the permissions reach to

106 III DISSENT / Summer 2006 ARGUMENTS regime change and democratization. As I have one. They are operating at the edge of the non- already suggested, this is closely connected to intervention principle, but not in violation of questions about prevention. Preventive war is it. If preventing aggression and mass murder not justifiable either in standard just-war theory is justified, then so is this indirect version of or in international law, but what we might think regime change. of as “preventive force” can be justified when we are dealing with a brutal regime that has ut there are limits on the occasions acted aggressively or murderously in the past when force-short-of-war can be used and gives us reason to think that it might do B and also on the ways in which it can be so again. In such cases, we aim at containment used—limits that correspond to jus ad bellum but hope for regime change. And we can le- and jus in bello. I have already discussed the gitimately design the containment policy to occasions, which have to do with the threat of advance this further purpose whenever that is aggression or massacre. But what state or set possible—which means that we can use force, of states is morally bound to recognize this in limited ways, for the sake of producing a new threat and organize a containment system? (and if new then also democratic) regime. Collective security depends on collective rec- I will come back to the necessary limits on ognition. Right now, however, the capacity of this use of force; before doing that, however, I international agencies and regional associations want to consider how it stands vis-à-vis the to respond to threats of aggression and massa- classic principle of nonintervention, which cre is probably even less developed than their holds that the regime of a country should re- capacity to respond to actual aggression and flect the history, culture, and politics of that massacre. So we have to acknowledge the pos- country, and not of any other. A regime of free- sible legitimacy of unilateral action in both dom, as John Stuart Mill argued, requires men cases. But unilateralism works less well in the and women who value freedom enough to risk first case than in the second. Force-short-of- their lives in its defense. But regime change war—especially when it involves trade sanc- short of war leaves plenty of room for local valu- tions or a weapons embargo—requires the co- ations and local risk-taking. It is so indirect that operation of many nations if it is to be effec- it doesn’t raise the questions I have already tive. I have said this already, but it bears re- raised with regard to Japan in 1945. Consider, peating: the avoidance of war and massacre again, the no-fly zone in northern Iraq: this was requires a committed collective, ready to use certainly a kind of humanitarian intervention, force. It is sadly true that Europe today does in that it served to prevent a massacre of the not display that commitment; nor do Europe Kurds, which there was good reason to expect and the U.S. together. And the U.S. alone has after the massacre of Shi’ites in the south. That been more ready, these past several years, to good reason, it seems to me, was sufficient to go to war than to use force in restrained and justify the preventive intervention. The no-fly politic ways. zone also produced a kind of regime change, When force-short-of-war is used, it should in that it allowed the creation of an autono- be limited in the same way that the conduct mous Kurdistan. Can this also be justified? of war is limited, so as to shield civilians. This Kurdish autonomy was not a regime imposed is especially important in the case of economic from the outside; though the containment sys- blockades, where the civilian population is in- tem made autonomy possible, the new regime evitably at risk, even if the government and not was first demanded, and then created and sus- the population is the target of the blockade. tained, by the Kurds themselves. It may hap- The policy that Colin Powell called “smart pen that containment anticipates rather than sanctions”—they are meant to be morally as responds to local demands for self-determina- well as politically smart—is supposed to reduce tion. But this isn’t an unjust anticipation, since the risk; it should certainly be tried on the next the states organizing the containment don’t legitimate occasion. There is no justification themselves overthrow the old regime, and they for a blockade that effectively deprives civil- don’t establish the new one, if there is a new ians of food and medicine. But what should

DISSENT / Summer 2006 III 107 ARGUMENTS

we do if a barbarous government deliberately democracy requires—the associational world increases the privation of its own civilians in of interest groups, labor unions, professional order to discredit the blockade, as Saddam did societies, social movements, and political par- in the 1990s? The UN responded with its oil- ties. By opposing repression and censorship, for-food program, and I suppose something they open space for organizations independent might be learned from that effort, if only about of the state, and their people on the ground how to do it better. Some such response is train local men and women in the organiza- clearly necessary, even if the hunger and dis- tional skills that enable political action. These ease attributed to the blockade are in fact the organizations, and these men and women, are work of the targeted government—further evi- at least potential contributors to a democratic dence that the targeting is justified. political process. In the case of really brutal and dangerous governments, however, their orce-short-of-war doesn’t permit forc- actual contribution may wait upon a more co- ible democratization. The German and ercive political intervention. Politics-short-of- FJapanese examples are not relevant here, force may depend on force-short-of-war. In nor is Iraq as it is at this moment, with forc- fact, we have to sponsor and support this in- ible democratization proceeding, not very ef- teraction—because these two together can fectively. I have defended an alternative way help us avoid war itself. of proceeding, which was wrongly rejected in Allied policy at the end of the Second 2003 but will certainly come up again. Con- World War reminds us that regime change can tainment opens a different path to democracy, be justified in the aftermath of a just war. I where the actual work of democratization must have argued that a more indirect approach to be done by local political agents, taking advan- regime change can also be justified before (and tage of the international condemnation, ostra- instead of) a just war—indeed, the success of cism, and constraint of the brutal regime. But this approach would render war unnecessary this suggests one further step in the regime and therefore unjust. And if we commit our- change argument. War can lead directly to po- selves to that indirection, if we commit our- litical reconstruction; the use of force-short- selves to the forceful containment of brutal of-war can do this only indirectly. But there is regimes, to collective security, we may find that another form of direct action, which involves we can reach justice without the terrible de- what we might call “politics short of force,” structiveness of war. • noncoercive politics, the work of nongovern- mental organizations, such as Human Rights Michael Walzer is co-editor of Dissent and Watch or Amnesty International, which also author of, among other works, Just and Unjust aim, in their own way, at regime change. Wars. This essay is taken from the new introduc- The most important work of groups like tion to the 2006 edition and is printed here by these is to foster the kind of civil society that permission of Basic Books. Check out our Web site at www.dissentmagazine.org

Also, please note our e-mail addresses: GENERAL INQUIRIES: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTIONS: [email protected] CUSTOMER SERVICE: [email protected] ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS: [email protected]

108 III DISSENT / Summer 2006