Academic Review

THE

ACADEMICBurke REVIEW

FALL 2013 • VOLUME 1, ISSUE NO. 1

Permanent Things by Kyle Moodhe

The Loyal Ones: Southern Unionists in Confederate Virginia by Peter Finocchio

Taiwan Strait Crisis Behavior by Jackson Wolford

NAFTA: All the Fuss by Alexander Mezick

V S ER U IT IM ATE VALIB Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader, It is with great pride that we present to you the first edition of the Burke Academic Review. This interdisciplinary journal showcases the talent of young conservative academics in their own fields. Too often conservative or right-leaning students produce scholarship that goes unnoticed by their fellow academics. Conservatism is frequently articulated solely as a political ideology. However, true conservatism influences not only one’s orientation in the political sphere but the topics they choose to investigate in their personal studies. This journal seeks to provide such individuals with readership and space to explore a range of academic areas and issues unique to their personal world view. The Burke Academic Review is published by the Burke Society, a conservative philosophical and debating society at the University of Virginia. It focuses on providing students of all ideological backgrounds an environment to learn about and discuss conservative thought. The Society takes its name from the 18th century Irish statesman, Edmund Burke, who is considered the father of modern conservatism. Throughout his life, Burke argued against abstractions and supported human dignity by countering theories that attempted to reduce society to simple concepts and easily understood ideas. We invite readers of all political persuasions, moral dispositions, and academic disci- plines to read and critique the works presented in this edition. The Review only accepts rigorous academic work and welcomes submissions semesterly. From the humanities to the natural sciences, the Burke Academic Review seeks papers by students interested in presenting their opinions to an audience critical and aware of substantive intellectual contributions. If you would like more information about our publication or to submit a paper, please email [email protected]. Enjoy this edition and the work it contains. Thank you for taking the time to peruse the inaugural edition of the Burke Academic Review!

John “JR” Roach Kasey Sease Editor In Chief Managing Editor THE

ACADEMICBurke REVIEW FALL 2013 • VOLUME 1, ISSUE NO. 1 Contents

4 Permanent Things BY KYLE MOODHE 9 The Loyal Ones: Southern Unionists in Confederate Virginia BY PETER FINOCCHIO 23 Taiwan Strait Crisis Behavior BY JACKSON WOLFORD 38 NAFTA: All the Fuss BY ALEXANDER MEZICK Publication Staff editor in chief John “JR” Roach managing editor Kasey Sease editors Samara Brown David McKillop graphic design Michael Douglas cover photography Michael Douglas

Contact Information We welcome comments and suggestions at [email protected].

The Burke Academic Review is published semesterly by students at the University of Virginia and distributed free to the university community. The opinions expressed in The Burke Academic Review are those of the authors alone. All content is ©The Burke Academic Review unless otherwise noted. Staff Bios

John Roach is a third year in the History Distinguished Majors Program from Richmond, VA, researching twentieth century British political history. In addition to Burke Society, he is a member of the undergraduate Moot Court team and the quiz bowl team.

Kasey Sease is a fourth year in the Politics Distinguished Majors Program, double majoring in History and Government. She studies early American history and 19th century Southern political thought. In addition to serving as the membership chair of the Burke Society, Kasey is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society, ADAPT, and serves as a seasonal intern for the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA.

Samara Brown is a fourth year majoring in Government and History. Her activities include the Burke Society, the Virginia Advocate, and the Network of Enlightened Women.

David McKillop is a third year from Long Island currently working towards a History and Government double major. He focuses his studies on early American history and Constitutional law. Besides being a member of the Burke Society, he plays club rugby and is a volunteer firefighter back home in Jamesport, NY.

Michael Douglas is a fourth year majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. Permanent Things By Kyle Moodhe Those familiar with Edmund Burke remember him for Reflections on the Revolution in France and not for poor reasons. Indeed it is his literary magnum opus. His prophetic words and incisive observations regarding the “Age of Reason” strike a chord with conservatives de- fending against the barbaric onslaught of Progressive Liberalism. Yet the breadth of Burke’s political vision can easily be lost if we only focus on the French Revolution or, for that matter, his writings alone. We see that Burke was not just a man accustomed to merely criticizing politics from the safety of his armchair. He was a man who engaged in active as well as pas- sive political reform throughout his entire life. Only by examining his life more fully can we understand his view of human society to any intelligible degree. A theme begins to take shape from the seemingly disparate pursuits of his life. By examining his life as a whole, we can fully see the “permanent things”1 which Burke fought for with every step in his life. Before entering into any discussion of Edmund Burke’s illustrious career, it is wise to discuss the sort of education he received. Burke was born in Ireland in the year 1729. He had the privilege of receiving a college education at Trinity College in Dublin at the age of fifteen. According to Russell Kirk, some of his favorite writers were, “Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Waller, and Young… Virgil, Cicero, Sallust, Homer, Juvenal, Lucian, Xenophon, and Epictetus.”2 He was undoubtedly a well read young man. Not only had he read these great works, but their words resonated loudly within Burke’s imagination. Cicero’s speeches to the Roman Senate carried with them the same amount of truth and relevance to the issues of Burke’s time as they did in the past. As Kirk also states, “That devotion to classical and medieval literature which Burke felt all his life commenced here among the ruins [of Ireland]. Medieval romances began to haunt the boy like a passion.”3 To Burke, there was a link between the ancients and the moderns, in more than just the ruins. History was a singular story of humanity through time, but not a Progressive narrative. The advancement of history was not the shedding off of ancient ignorance but the collection of wisdom over time. For Burke, mankind was bound by the passing of centuries rather than separated by them. The idea that humanity was linked by a similar nature, albeit imperfect, allowed him to complete his first major written work, Philosophical Enquiries into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Written when Burke was only nineteen years old, this work was a hefty discourse on the subject of aesthetics. It received little attention during Burke’s time, but it revealed the depth to which he could probe a subject. His inquiry into the world of aesthetics is a dual gateway into art and the human soul. The reader is taken on a journey in which such questions as “What is beauty” and “How is obscurity related to fear?” Burke, with keen observation, gives us his view of how the senses perceive the world and how this affects our psyches. This aesthetic treatise reveals that Burke was a philosopher at heart, one

1 Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, a Genius Reconsidered, (Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1997)4. 2 Ibid., 12. 3 Ibis., 11.

4 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 who peered into the human soul through observation and analysis. Burke’s future criticism of the Revolution in France is foreshadowed in small pieces throughout the book. In the chapter titled “Of the Passions Which Belong to Society”, he writes, “When men have suffered their imaginations to be long affected with any idea, it so wholly engrosses them as to shut out by degrees almost every other, and to break down every partition of the mind which would con- fine it”4 Needless to say, this observation seems to explain Burke’s antipathy towards abstract rights doctrine. Such a theoretical and hyper-rational view of humanity ignores reality, revolts against Reason, and puts unwieldy Passion at its helm. Even at age nineteen, the echoes of an older and more sagacious Burke can be heard through the young author’s voice. Years would pass before Burke was to come back on either the political and intellectual scene, but his career in both fields was just beginning. Being from a middling family in Ire- land, Burke realized he would only advance by moving to London, and so he did in 1750. As Kirk explains, little is known about Burke’s life for these next seven years. However, in 1757 Burke was happily married to Jane Nugent.5 This came only a few months following the first book that Burke had published, A Vindication of Natural Society. This book was a satirical response to Lord Bolingbroke, a deist with an all too sanguine opinion of the elusive “state of nature.”6 Burke fought back against Bolingbroke’s criticism of “organized religion” by asserting that Bolingbroke was essentially supporting disorganized religion and by extension disorganized society. His writings would not go unnoticed and by 1761 he caught the attention of William Gerard Hamilton, the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland. With Mr. Hamilton went Mr. Burke to Dublin working as Hamilton’s personal secretary for two years.7 By 1765 his connections within the upper echelons of the Whig party had paid off. He was elected by the borough of Wendover to the House of Commons.8 Yet Burke was not in the pockets on various British elites; indeed, he would soon become known for his controversial stance against British policy towards America. On April 19, 1774, Burke delivered a remarkable speech denouncing the actions of the British entitled “On American Taxation.” In it, Burke denounces the Stamp Act, the subsequent repeals, and well as the justification given for why they were taxing the colonists. Burke thought that the Stamp Act and Tea Act represented a deviation from their customary policy toward the colonies. He urged Parliament to listen to tradition,

“Again, and again, revert to your own principles—Seek Peace, and ensue it—leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am not here going into the distinctions of rights, not attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions; I

4 Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful. The Harvard Classics. 1909-14. Part 1, Section 8 5 Russel Kirk, Edmund Burke, a Genius Reconsidered, (Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1997), 16. 6 Henry St John Bolingbroke, The Works of Lord Bolingbroke : with a Life, Prepared Expressly for This Edition, Containing Additional Information Relative to His Personal and Public Character (Philadelphia : Carey and Hart, 1841), 331. 7 Russel Kirk, Edmund Burke, a Genius Reconsidered, (Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1997), 27. 8 Ibid., 38.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 5 hate the very sound of them. Leave the Americans as they antiently stood, and these distinctions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along with it.”9

This was not the radical doctrine of an abstract rights theorist but a doctrine of wisdom and prudence. Burke saw that Parliament’s actions in restricting trade, imposing taxes, and dissolving assemblies were perceived, understandably, as tyranny. The colonists were not costing the Empire anywhere close to the amount of wealth that they brought into it. Why burden them with taxation? They were Englishmen who wanted the rights of Englishmen. Parliament ignored his warning to its own detriment. History, however, seems to have ruled in Burke’s favor regarding the cause of American discontent. Parliament’s mismanagement of its colonies would occupy most of Burke’s time in the House of Commons, especially the mismanagement of India. At the time, the East India Company had almost full control over the governance of the British colony in India. As a mercantilist venture, the East India Company had done a fine job until 1773. That was when rumors of corruption surrounding Governor-General Warren Hastings were brought to the attention of Parliament, and among those were Edmund Burke. His worries were confirmed in 1777 when his cousin, William Burke, confirmed first-hand that extortion and injustice reigned supreme in India.10 Hastings was directly accountable for these actions as Burke saw it. Although Hastings won the praise of many in Parliament for keeping the territory intact and running, his methods were lacking in judiciousness. His disregard for Indian laws and traditions was detestable to Burke. Nothing warranted such arrogance and ignorance on the part of the Company. Burke argued that the British regime was worse than the regimes of conquerors who, upon occupying a territory, sought its social and economic enrichment. The East India Company was devoted to a system of perpetual plunder at the expense of India.11 Burke decided to devote the rest of his years in Parliament to ensure the impeachment of Warren Hastings. The process began with the awkward quandary of finding an actual crime that he committed. Parliamentary inquiry began in 1785, when Hastings had hoped to retire.12 As the allegations against Hastings stacked up, Burke seized the opportunity to call for his impeachment which was granted by Parliament in April, 1787. He was accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” (a legal phrase Burke had created for this special occasion). Of course, Hastings did not think anything that he had done in India was wrong. As far as he was concerned, he was the law in India and whatever he declared was just because Parliament had granted him full control as governor. Burke, however, would not accept arbitrary power as an excuse. He rallied against this tyrannical doctrine with an appeal to natural law and Christiani- ty.13 Through numerous speeches, Burke destroyed the notion that since India was an inferior

9 Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents and the Two Speeches on America, ed. E. J. Payne (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1990), http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Burke/brkSWv1c2.html. 10 Russell Kirk, Edmund Burke, a Genius Reconsidered, (Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1997), 97-100. 11 Ibid., 102-105. 12 Ibid.,108-109. 13 Ibid., 109-114.

6 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 civilization its laws and customs could be ignored. For eight years the trial persisted, but to no avail. On April 29, 1795, Warren Hastings was acquitted by the House of Lords.14 In the midst of the Hastings trial, Burke published his most vibrant and well-known work, Reflections on the Revolution in France. What began as a letter to a correspondent in France turned into a political tract of timeless political wisdom. Reflections on the Revolution in France was a response to the sermon given by an English Dissenter, Dr. Price, in support of the French Revolution. It is important to understand that the bulk of Burke’s letter discusses the destruction of the Catholic Church and the persecution of the clergy at the hands of the revo- lutionaries. Conor Cruise O’Brien, another notable Burke scholar, writes in his introduction to Reflections that Burke was taken aback by the hostility towards Catholicism in Dr. Price’s sermon. He began to view Dr. Price’s support for the destruction of Catholic institutions in France with increasing horror because of native sympathies to the Church.15 Burke went to work on correcting the mistakes made in Dr. Price’s praise of the French Revolution. Reflections on the Revolution in France is dedicated to preventing the armed doctrine of the French from destroying European civilization through its spread and acceptance. Broadly, Burke asserts that the French have needlessly thrown their ancient traditions and order away in the hopes of creating a “rational society.” He argues that government based “abstract men” with “abstract rights” lead to the most arbitrary and cruelest form of despotism. Order is not maintained within society unless there is some reverence for authority. The pillage and confis- cation of Church lands and property was an inexcusable and heinous crime committed by the National Assembly. Burke saw the destruction of the Church as the first step in tearing apart the fabric of civilization. How can true religious practice survive when the state is so hostile to it? How can one expect to live in peace under a regime with so little respect for the sacred? Burke conceived of society as a community of souls informed by history and mindful of the future. The endeavor of governance was a sacred duty and not a matter of mathematical calcu- lation. Revolutionary France had eliminated all that was sacred in the State. Selfish ambition filled up the vacuum that religion and aristocracy had left behind in France. Burke’s political career ended in 1794 not long after the acquittal of Warren Hastings. Burke remains an example of political courage and cunning for all politicians who followed him. He had been able to form a coalition to fight against injustice during his tenure; however, this political party ultimately failed. Some men were not up to the challenge of achieving greatness, but Burke was. He was willing to compromise out of necessity without abandoning principle. Although principle might have cost him everything, to act justly was everything for a true statesman. Throughout his life, Burke had fought to preserve the ideas and institutions essential for human society to flourish. His respect for tradition and custom stemmed from a respect for humanity and a reverence of that which endures. Burke was religiously-minded person who oriented his world in relation to God and the Good. Mankind had the capacity to understand right and wrong in spite of its proclivity to act as if it could not. The new Enlightenment doctrine became dubious when it posited that man could use Reason devoid of virtue to achieve the Good. Man was still a fallen creature incapable of helping itself. Burke used his writings

14 Ibid., 114-117. 15 Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France, pages 26-30.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 7 and time in office to stand as a witness to Truth. He is properly called the Father of Conserva- tism because he articulated those “permanent things” of society that we must seek to preserve: Truth, Beauty, and the Good.

Kyle Moodhe is a fourth year student in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is currently pursuing a History major and a minor in Religious Studies. Next semester will be Mr. Moodhe’s eighth in the Burke Society.

8 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 The Loyal Ones: Southern Unionists in Confederate Virginia By Peter Finocchio The Confederate States of America was not simply a loose association of states as implied by its namesake, but rather a national movement born in the hearts and minds of patriotic Southerners. These men dreamed of establishing a Southern slaveholding democratic republic free from the dangers of abolitionist propaganda and antislavery parties. Confederate men and women did their part to honor and serve and sacrifice for their new nation. Yet despite vocifer- ous patriotism for the Southern cause, thousands of Southern Unionists unwavering in their loyalty to the old Stars and Stripes posed a persistent problem to Confederate efforts to con- solidate support and keep morale high. Concentrated in areas of the Confederacy that lacked a strong slaveholder presence, these Unionist factions exposed a regional diversity within the Confederate homeland that hindered its domestic nation-building. Thousands fled north either to seek refuge from persecution or to fight in the armies of the United States, but those who stayed home fought valiantly on the home front, forging seditious societies, publishing Union- ist pamphlets, engaging in espionage, and actively aiding Federal troops. Virginia, where the Confederate capital was seated for most of its existence, witnessed not only a constant clash of arms, but also a bitter conflict of loyalties, between Confederate patriots and Virginians who remained loyal to the Union. Many of the Virginia’s antebellum Unionists were easily turned toward disunion because while they were “Unionists,” they had been conditional unionists. These men believed that the Constitution was a compact between the states, and that if the federal government no longer protected the interests of a state, that state could sever its ties to the federal government, as eleven states did between 1860 and 1861. Conditional Unionists comprised the largest faction at the Virginia secession convention in 1861. As renowned Civil War historian William Freehling writes in Showdown in Virginia, initially about one-sixth of the representatives at the convention, almost all from the heavily enslaved east, sought immediate secession while about another sixth, predominantly from the western counties that eventually formed West Virginia, demanded unconditional Union. An overwhelming majority, therefore, of about two thirds were for Union under the right conditions. On the first day of the Convention, delegate John Janney from Loudoun County expressed the sentiments of conditional Unionism. Janney salutes “the flag of the Union, which has been borne in triumph now for nearly a century through the battle and the breeze,” and expresses his hope that it will continue to do so forever. However, he warns, “it must remain there with its crowning lustre undimmed and untarnished.” To Janney as well as to most of representatives assembled in Richmond, federal coercion of Virginia would dim and tarnish that Union, and grant legitimacy to secession. Janney ultimately supported secession after President Lincoln’s call for troops to suppress the Confederacy. Henry Wise, later a leader of the secessionist faction, expressed his desire to preserve the Union “in the integrity of the Constitution of the United States” on February 15, 1861. He complained, poetically, that he

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 9 hated the hate that hates the Union.1 Many convention delegates, especially those from western counties, firmly opposed secession. Delegate Chapman Stuart of Tyler and Doddridge Counties, now in West Virginia, contended on April 5 that “the people of the West[ern counties],” although “sound on this question of slavery and… willing, at all hazards, to stand up for the rights and interests of the people of the Eastern portion of this State,” nonetheless “are not in favor of the doctrine of the Constitutional right of secession.” They instead, according to Stuart, believed in a “right to revolution,” but “revolution pre-supposes, in my opinion, a remedy,” and “secession from the General Government would be no remedy.” He argued that the laws oppressive to the South so bemoaned by the secessionists would still remain on the books by the federal government if secession were undertaken. Worse still, seeking to appease the secessionists by appealing to their main interest, Stuart prophesied that secession “would unite the people of the North in one solid mass against our institutions” and thus “lead to the extermination of slavery.” This is, of course, precisely what did happen after years of crippling war, but at the Convention, Mr. Stuart’s words left little impact.2 Another Western Virginia Delegate, Waitman Willey, condemned secession. On March 4, the day of Lincoln’s Inauguration, Willey rose to denounce the course of the disunionists. “I never shall be made to believe that Washington, and Madison, and Franklin, and the other great sages who constructed the Union in the first place, and organized our Federal Government, brought their labors to no greater result than this,” he declared. “That is to say, to bring the States of the Federal Union together, give them a simple introduction to each other, and place them side by side under the flag of the country, without any legal bond to bind the Union.” Willey argued that if the Constitution truly established a “voluntary association,” then “we have never had a Union at all,” but rather “these States have never been united, but they have been living together in a kind of unlawful co-habitation.” Citing historical examples of federal acquisition of new states, Willey claimed that he could not fathom the federal government having purchased the Louisiana territory and paid for Florida and Texas with blood, if these and other states had the ability to dissolve their bond to the Union at will. Willey cited Madison’s statements against the legality of secession as well as South Carolina’s estrangement by its sister southern states during the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s as further evidence against the legality of secession. 3 While secessionists believed South Carolina’s nullification of the “Tariff of Abomina- tions” had been a success, Unionists like Willey and Chapman drew the opposite lesson from the controversy. South Carolina had, after all, stood alone, and no other state believed nullifi-

1 William W. Freehling, The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), xi, xiii; Chapman Stuart; Virginia Secession Convention, Wednesday, February 13, 1861 http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/index. html?id=pb.1.32 From the University of Richmond Collections, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia [Collection hereafter cited as RC-RU]. Document was accessed through the Internet via the library’s web page on April 27, 2013. RC-RU, http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/?id=pb.1.51 2 RC-RU, http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/?id=pb.3.178 3 RC-RU, http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/index.html?keyword=&delegates=baldw injb%2Cprestonwb%2Cstuartcj%2Cwilleywt%2C&formType=Delegates&Submit=&start=1&order=date&dir ection=ascending&id=pb.1.379; Freehling, The South vs. the South, xiii

10 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 cation, let alone secession, was legal. Rather than rallying to it, the Palmetto State’s neighbors had been quick to issue resolutions condemning South Carolina’s actions. Virginia agreed with Madison that the principles “set forth in the Resolutions of 1798” did not sanction “the proceedings of South Carolina” and “earnestly respected and entreated” South Carolina to cease and desist. The other Carolina more harshly rebuked its Southern neighbor by espous- ing to “abhor the doctrine of Nullification as neither peaceful, nor a constitutional remedy, but, on the contrary, as tending to civil commotion and disunion” and to “warn our fellow citizens against the dangers of adopting her mischievous policy.” Alabama denounced nullification as “unsound in theory and dangerous in practice” and “unconstitutional and essentially revolutionary, leading in its consequences to anarchy and civil discord, and finally to the dissolution of the Union.” Likewise Mississippi was “opposed to nullification” and regarded it as “heresy, fatal to the existence of the Union.” South Carolina was completely isolated from its neighbors and forced to acquiesce to President Andrew Jackson because Unionism pervaded every other state of the Old South. 1861, however, was not like the early 1830s, and by the time Virginia’s deliberations were underway, seven states had already left the Union under South Carolina’s lead.4 Willey and Chapman, vocally opposed to secession under any circumstances whatsoever, represented a minority of the men assembled to decide the fate of Virginia and the country. Most of the delegates were neither unconditional Unionists nor men who believed that Lin- coln’s election was a sufficient motivation to secede. Rather, most of the delegates had treaded a middle ground, favoring Union when they believed that the Lincoln Administration would not pose a threat. Lincoln’s call for troops to force the rebellious states back into the Union on April15, 1865 drove most of the Virginia convention’s conditional unionists to disunion, thus driving Virginia out of the Union.5 Despite the swift change of sentiments of the conditional Unionists, many still remained committed to Union, particularly the delegates from the western part of the state. John J. Jackson from Wood County boldly stood before the Convention on the very day Preston introduced his secession resolution and denounced separation. Un- derstanding that “in times of revolution to be patriotic is to shout for war” while “to be a traitor is to counsel peace,” Jackson nonetheless shouted for peace. Affirming his Virginia heritage, Jackson described himself as a man “never out of Virginia, except in the public service.” Con- tinuing his impassioned defense of loyalty to the Union, Jackson declared:

The man who was cradled under the stars and stripes; who was nurtured and cherished under them; who grew to manhood under their benignity and protection, and who now stands in the enjoyment of every civil right which he needs-I say that a man so blessed should pause and reflect upon these benefits before taking this fatal step. It was a great work to create man, but it was a greater work to keep him from pursuing the path of ruin and degradation. It was in fact the work of a demon to drag him from his high eminence, and pervert him from his noble destiny.

4 RC-RU, http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/index.html?keyword=&delegates=baldw injb%2Cprestonwb%2Cstuartcj%2Cwilleywt%2C&formType=Delegates&Submit=&start=1&order=date&dir ection=ascending&id=pb.1.379; Freehling, The South vs. the South, xiii 5 Charles H. Ambler, Francis H. Pierpont: Union War Governor of Virginia and Father of West Virginia (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1937), 79

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 11 It was a great work to create this Government; but it is the work of a Lilliput alone to destroy it. Who is it that purposes to be the architect to reconstruct this Government? Who is it? I suppose we are to have a renewal of that exhibition a few evenings ago, in having the flag of treason hoisted over the public buildings of the nation, as was done at Fort Sumter.6

Nonetheless, on April 17, the Convention adopted an “Ordinance of Secession” by a vote of 88 to 55, to be ratified by the people on May 23. To the abhorrence of Virginia’s Unionists, the Ordinance dissolved “the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution” and reclaimed “all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.”7 Thirty two of the forty seven delegates from what is now West Virginia had voted against secession, eleven had voted for it, and four had not voted. The Convention’s vote for secession triggered a strong reaction among the heavily unionist counties of the northwestern part of the state, where most of the most vocal Unionist delegates were from. Demonstrations began at Morgantown on April 17 and culminated in what historian Charles Ambler refers to as a “monster meeting” at Clarksburg on April 22. The Virginia secessionists had been motivated by fear of coercion by Lincoln’s government. Likewise, the western loyalists who now broke with secessionist Virginia believed they were in a struggle for their very survival. On June 20, the Wheeling Convention, comprising one hundred delegates representing thirty-four counties, unanimously elected Francis Pierpont Governor of Virginia to serve until an “election can be properly held.” Pierpont formally accepted the governorship in a ceremony that evening, charging that “the revolution in our Southern States” was an attack on the white laboring class in favor of the slave capitalist class which “had already arrogated to itself most of the rights and privileges of the government.” On June 30, 1861 the New York Tribune printed on the same page a “Proclamation of Confederate Virginia Governor Letcher” and the Inaugural Address of loyal Virginia Governor Pierpont. The article proclaimed that “he is altogether in the right, the Western Governor, in point of style, reason and dignity, is quite the superior of the Eastern Potentate.” Continuing, it claimed that Pierpont’s “Inaugu- ral is full of strength, moderation, and dignity… as has not come from the pen of a Virginia Governor for half a century.” Governor Pierpont was elected by the people on May 22, 1862, granting popular legitimacy to his office.8 Pierpont was, according to Ambler, “an ardent partisan with a traditional Whig complex” who “did not often concede either wisdom or patriotism to Democrats.” Pierpont did not understand Southern trends, and his own “nationality” was, he claimed, “a sentiment taught by Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, and Jackson, to say nothing of Clay and Webster.” Pierpont acquired his nationalist sentiments when he was a young man, before mid- century developments in the South influenced younger generations of Southerners to disregard the unconditional unionism of their fathers. Pierpont supported John Bell, the candidate

6 RC-RU, http://collections.richmond.edu/secession/documents/index.html?keyword=&delegates=baldw injb%2Cprestonwb%2Cstuartcj%2Cwilleywt%2C&formType=Delegates&start=161&order=date&direction=a scending&id=pb.4.43 7 Ambler, Pierpont, 80. 8 Ambler, Pierpont 82, 96, 98, 99, 177. For the New York Tribune’s article contrasting Governors Pierpont and Letcher, see also New York Tribune June 30, 1861

12 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 of the compromise-oriented Constitutional Union party in the presidential election of 1860. Pierpont argued with a Democratic neighbor who asked “who would be for the Union when the Black Republicans rule?” by responding “why would favor a dissolution of this Union if a Republican is elected President according to the Constitution.” Like most western Virginians, Pierpont was vehemently opposed to secession.9 Despite the initial opposition of Governor Pierpont and many others, most of the western counties of Virginia ultimately broke away and formed the new state of West Virginia. On May 13, 1862, the assembly of the Restored Government of Virginia gave its assent to the formation of the new state. Senator Willey, who a year earlier had spoken against secession at the Virginia Convention in Richmond, presented a petition requesting the admission of West Virginia on May 29. The United States House of Representatives approved the West Virginia Statehood bill on December 10, 1862. Governor Pierpont wrote in a telegram to President Lincoln, encouraging him to sign the Statehood Bill that “the loyal troops from Virginia have their hearts set on it; the loyal people in the bounds of the new State have their hearts set on it; and if the bill fails, God only knows the result. I fear general demoralization and I must not be held responsible.” Lincoln later informed Pierpont that it was his telegram that convinced the President to sign the bill.10 The future state of West Virginia was not the only stronghold of Unionism within the Confederacy. Pockets of Unionism endured throughout the Confederacy. Historian Richard Nelson Current writes in Lincoln’s Loyalists that “perhaps 75 percent” of Unionists within the Confederacy “lived in the mountainous or hilly country of Appalachia or the Ozarks- in northwestern Virginia, in East Tennessee and the neighboring areas of northern Alabama and western North Carolina, and in northwestern Arkansas.” There was nonetheless a “considerable minority” in West Tennessee, eastern North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida. Current writes that “loyalists represented, in some measure, every state of the Confederacy.” The presence of these Unionists was a constant obstacle to Confederate nationalism. Ash writes that despite the “loud and harmonious… patriotic chorus of the Confederacy,” it “could not drown out the protests of the otherwise-minded” whose very presence revealed that the Confederate people were not wholly united. Unionists from Virginia contributed to the Con- federacy’s defeat in two main ways. Many loyal Virginians did what they could to undermine the Confederacy from the home front, while others, more directly aiding the Union, served as officers or soldiers in the armies of the United States.11 The loyalty of western Virginia enabled Lincoln to recruit Virginians for the Union army. At the recommendation of his secretary of state, William H. Seward, Lincoln assigned Colonel Frederick W. Lander to raise a Virginia regiment. Nine of the ten companies of the First Regi-

9 Ambler, Pierpont, 62,63, 65. For more on Pierpont’s argument with a secessionist, see also U.S. 36th Congress, 1st Session, Speech of Hunter on “Invasion of States,” in Congressional Globe, Vol. LIII, Part 4, Appendix, 104-108; The Family Visitor, April 31, 1860 10 Ambler, Pierpont, 177, 178, 183, 184, 185; see also Pierpont, Scrapbook, No. 2, p. 8; Siviter, “Recollections,” Ch. 5 11 Stephen V. Ash, When the Yankees Came (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: North Carolina University Press, 1995), 2, 11; see also Richard Nelson Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992) 133

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 13 ment of Virginia Infantry were recruited in and around Wheeling, the seat of Pierpont’s loyal government and soon part of West Virginia. Lincoln recruited a specially authorized personal agent, Ward Hill Lamon, to assist the recruitment of northwestern Virginians. Lamon himself was a native Virginian, born in the Shenandoah Valley, and his family still lived there. Fearing that his brothers who served in their local militia would be called upon to fight for the Confed- eracy, Lamon begged his mother to remind them that they must always obey their country’s laws. He asked them “not to defend a Republican President” but “to defend their Country.” Lamon wrote to Lincoln on May 27, 1861 that he was “born in Frederick County, Virginia, within twenty miles from Harper’s Ferry” and, having “lived in that section of country until… twenty one years of age” and still “associated intimately” with those he knew there, could attest that “there are thousands of men who are at heart loyal to the Union and to the Govern- ment” there whose “voices are now being silenced by the reign of terror and violence to which they are subject.” Lamon proposed “to raise a regiment of one thousand men from the Valley of Virginia for and during the war” and to take command of it. Lincoln accepted Lamon’s offer, and considered Lamon “entirely reliable and trustworthy.” By September 1861, he had raised more than twice as many troops for which he had originally asked, and held two regi- ments, one a mix of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, and the other exclusively cavalry. By No- vember 1861, Lincoln no longer needed special agents to raise Virginia troops because part of Virginia once again had a loyal Governor, Pierpont, who was able to cooperate with him. Western Virginia, soon West Virginia, continued to furnish Lincoln with soldiers throughout the War. At Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, the Seventh Virginia, renamed the Seventh West Virginia, reinforced Battery L of the First New York Artillery on Cemetery Ridge, “capturing a number of prisoners.” Among the prisoners, ironically, was the colonel of the Confederate Seventh Virginia Regiment. As Current mused, the Seventh Virginia, U.S.A., had gotten the better of the Seventh Virginia, C.S.A.12 Outside of western Virginia, Lincoln also found Unionist allies in Loudoun County. The Loudoun Rangers, known also as the Independent Virginia Rangers, had a strong relatonship to the Lincoln government. Their captain, Samuel C. Means, was able to report directly to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who had personally given Means his commission and instructed him to organize the company. The Loudoun Rangers protected the capital by hunt- ing rebel guerrillas in Loudoun County, Virginia, which lies to the west of Washington directly across the Potomac. Captain Means was a native Virginian who before taking command of the Rangers had guided Union troops on raids into Loudoun County. He was called a renegade and a trader, and the Richmond government allegedly offered a substantial reward for his capture.13 Many Virginians who had served in the United States Army before the War remained loyal to the United States and fought against their state of birth even as others like General Robert E. Lee had resigned from their United States commissions in order to serve their states. Historian

12 Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 9, 11-14, 177. See also Lamon to Mrs. George Lamon, May 6, 1861, Lamon Papers, Huntington Library and Lamon to Lincoln, May 27, 1861, R.T.:. Collection. See also Lincoln, “testimonial for Lamon, June 5, 1861,” Works of Lincoln, IV, 416; J.H. Lockwood, report, July 5, 1863 13 Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 179-186. See also Briscoe Goodheart, History of the Independent Loudoun Virginia Rangers (Washington, D.C.: Press of McGill & Wallace, 1896), 26-27.

14 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 Christopher J. Einolf writes in George Thomas, Virginian for the Union that a large number of regular army officers born in the South decided to remain in the United States Army. Vir- ginia alone contributed eighteen generals to the Union. Only four of these men were born in the Western counties of Virginia that before the end of the War comprised the new state of West Virginia. Five others had left Virginia at an early age. The remaining nine included “[Winfield] Scott, [George H.] Thomas, Phillip St. George Cooke, a senior cavalry officer, and Alexander B. Dryer, who served as assistant chief and later chief of ordnance of the army.” Additional native Virginian loyalist generals John Newton, John D. Stevenson, and William R. Terrill served with General Thomas in the western theater.14 General Philip St. George Cooke was a native Virginian and father-in-law of Confederate hero J.E.B. Stuart, but for him the choice of loyalty during the secession crisis was a clear one. On June 6, 1861 he wrote an open letter which was published by the New York Times explaining why he and so many other Southern-born regular officers chose to stay with their country over their native state. Cooke wrote that when he attended West Point “the national government adopted me as its pupil and future defender,” giving him “an education and profession.” He contended that his “oath and honor alike forbid me to abandon their standard at the first hour of danger.” “I owe Virginia little; my country much” he held, “and I shall remain under her flag as long as it waves the sign of the National Constitutional Government.”15 The most famous loyal Virginian was General Winfield Scott, who had been a hero of the Mexican American War. Scott was a nationalist who identified much more strongly with the nation than his native state. Hated by Southerners for his unseemly loyalty to the Union, Scott, as commander-in-chief of the US Army, advised Lincoln not too surrender Sumter, and when war broke out, he devised the Anaconda Plan to surround the Confederacy and quickly bring the War to an end. The plan failed, however, and Scott retired in 1862.16 If Winfield Scott was Virginia’s most famous Unionist, Major General George H. Thomas was a not so distant second. Born five miles from the North Carolina border, Thomas became a Northern hero and a Southern villain when he remained loyal to the United States and led men in battle against his native state. Thomas, like Governor Pierpont, had supported the compromiser John Bell in the 1860 presidential election. Unlike Pierpont, however, who had been an ardent antebellum Whig, “General Thomas was strong and bitter in his denunciation against all parties North and South that seemed to him responsible for the condition of affairs,” as fellow officer George L. Hartsuff who had spoken to Thomas in early 1861 later recalled. Thomas was especially strong and bitter in his denunciation of secession. Like Chapman Stu- art at the Virginia secession convention, Thomas did not believe in a right to secession but did believe that the people have a natural right of rebellion, as Americans had exercised during the Revolutionary War. He saw no legitimate cause for rebellion in the South in 1861, however, alleging that “the tyranny did not exist, and they well knew it.” 17

14 Christopher J. Einolf, George Thomas: Virginian for the Union (University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 91 15 Einolf, George Thomas, 92 16 Einolf, George Thomas, 91 17 Freeman Cleaves, Rock of Chickamauga: The Life of General George H. Thomas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1948), 7, 85

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 15 Union Officer Richard W. Johnson, who had served under Thomas at Chickamauga, published his Memoir of Major General George H. Thomas in 1881, which highlighted the mer- its of the General. Johnson writes early in the account that he was associated with General Thomas for thirteen year and “had as good opportunity of studying and understanding his career as any one not of his own family.” He salutes the General as “an incorruptible patriot, a brave, wise, and skillful soldier” and advises the young to “study his character and strive to imitate his noble example.” Johnson recalls that when an order was issued “that all should take the oath of allegiance to the government of the United States, notwithstanding they might have done so previously,” he complained about the command to Thomas, arguing that it was demeaning that the General who had already proven his loyalty to the Union should have to again reaffirm it. Thomas, however, had no qualms with the request. He replied to Johnson, “I do not care, I would just as soon take the oath before each meal during my life if the department saw proper to order it.” Thomas’s loyalty to the United States was unwavering, much to the dismay of his fellow Virginians. General Thomas’s loyalty to his country during the War caused him to be despised as a traitor by his fellow Southerners and Virginians. On March 2, 1867, Thomas complained in the Army and Navy Journal about the way former Confederates stigmatized Unionism:

[l]oyalists to the whole country are called d--d Yankees and traitors, and over the whole great crime with its accursed record of slaughtered heroes, patriots murdered because of their true- hearted love of country, widowed wives and orphaned children, and prisoners of war slain amid such horrors as find no parallel in the history of the world, they are trying to throw the gloss of respectability, and are thrusting with contumely and derision from their society the men and women who would not join hands with them in their work of ruining their country.18

Confederates had a deep-seated hatred of the Virginian who was fighting against Virginia. When Confederate colonel J.E.B. Stuart, who had been Thomas’s student, learned that he was serving with the invading Union army, wrote to his wife that he would like to “hang, hang him as a traitor to his native state.” The ink in the letter smudged where Stuart wrote and under- lined the word “hang,” making his anger at the mention of Thomas quite clear. Wealthy North Carolinian belle Catherine Ann Edmonston, in the August 5, 1864 entry in her diary referred to Thomas as a “renegade and traitor” and a “base son of Va.” Believing a false rumor of the General’s death, Edmonston finds it just that “[Virginia’s] soil should drink his blood when he turned against her & led to the conquest of his native land a band of negro (sic) assassins which he had organized.” Commenting further on Thomas’s “death,” she reflects “the mill of the gods grind slowly, it is true, but none the less surely for its delay.” Thomas’s loyalty also caused him personal rifts. Hating him for his “treason” to his state, his own sister never spoke to him again.19 Virginians like Thomas and Cooke who remained true to the Union greatly impeded the Confederacy’s manpower. While few white Virginians served in the Union army, they are nonetheless significant because each white defection to the Union represented both anin-

18 George Thomas, Mar. 2, 1867, Army and Navy Journal, quoted in Cleaves, 293. 19 Einolf, George Thomas, 17

16 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 crease in the size of the Union army and a decrease in the size of the Confederate army. As Civil War historian William Freehling writes, “If the Confederacy could have marshaled all the slave labor states’ people and resources, free labor states might have been insufficiently richer, especially in manpower, to afford the Union’s costly strategy to complete its difficult conquest.” Not only did the Confederacy fail to push all of the slave states out of the Union and into its ranks, but even some in the Confederacy refused to ally with the new government in Richmond and the armies fighting for its independence. Major General George H. Thomas, furthermore, was not simply a plus one for the United States and a minus one for the Confederacy. The defection southward of Thomas’s superiors in the Second Virginia Cavalry- Colonel Albert Sydney Johnston, Leiutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, and Major William J. Hardee- established Thomas as the unit’s de facto commander. According to his war comrade Richard Johnson, “Thomas’s success riveted some of the nails in the coffin of the Rebellion.” Thomas had led the Second Cavalry into Virginia early in the War. Later, he saved the Union Army from destruction at Chickamauga and exhausted Braxton Bragg’s forces through his at- tacks and counterattacks. His heroics earned him the nickname “the Rock of Chickamauga.” Had General Thomas left the Union with his native Virginia, the events of that day could have gone very differently.20 Virginian Unionists acted vigilantly on the home front to do whatever they could to return Virginia to the Union they loved. Secret societies emerged throughout the Confederacy who collaborated with the advancing Union armies. One of the most significant of such groups was the Order of the Heroes of America. The Order of the Heroes of America was a secret seditious organization which originated in North Carolina and spread into eastern Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia, where it actively aided Federal troops and endeavored to undermine Confederate support on the home front. During the first year of the war, North Carolina Gov- ernor Clark had heard frequent reports of serious unrest in the Piedmont counties. In Randolph County there were supposedly numerous “abolitionists and Lincolnites” who would boldly “hold up for the Republican Party and the North.” The same seditious activity was occurring in Guilford, Alamance, and Davidson. When the Governor attempted to draft militiamen, riots erupted and were put to rest with three hundred state troops and a regiment of Confeder- ate soldiers. Repression, however, did not kill the Unionist patriots, but merely forced them underground. The strength of Unionism in Southwest Virginia enabled seditious organizations such as the Heroes of America to prosper there. Less than a fourth of Southwest Virginia had supported secession, and the region remained a hotbed of Unionism for the duration of the War. The Heroes gained the nickname “Red Strings” because of the red strings which they would wear and hang from their doors to identify themselves to fellow members and Union soldiers. It was a use of symbolism derived from the Biblical tail of Rahab, who spied for the Israelis in Jericho and was spared their plunder by hanging a red string from her door. The Heroes aided Federal soldiers, assisted escaping Union prisoners, and promoted desertion in the Confederate ranks. The Union, in turn, encouraged the Order by granting its members exemption from military service, protection of their persons and property during the War, and

20 Einolf, George Thomas 93, 188; Richard W. Johnson, Memoir of Major General George H. Thomas (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Company), 230; Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 195

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 17 participation in the division of the real estate of loyal citizens.21 Unionism also was strong along Virginia’s Eastern shore. Joseph E. Segar was one of many unapologetic Unionists from the region. In a letter to a friend in Virginia, Segar writes that the doctrine that a state could secede from the Union “never had from me that assent which is founded in a deliberate investigation, and honest conviction.” “Since the Union was formed there has been in our system no such thing as state sovereignty,” he continues. “It is a myth- a fancy, as ideal as Aladdin’s lamp or the philosopher’s stone.” He announces that the notion is “as void of reason as a barrel, without heading is, of capacity to hold water.” Segar cites opinions of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Taylor of Caroline, and even John C. Calhoun, to disprove the compact theory and demonstrate that while three-fourths of the states in Convention may dissolve the Union, one state acting unilaterally cannot. Segar denounces the Confederate Government as “the grandest, most stupendous, foulest fraud known in the history of the world.” Segar yearned for “a government under which I and mine will have some guarantee for safety to property and for stability in all the rights of society,” namely “the old Union- the Union of Washington, and Madison, and Franklin, and not this poor abortion of Davis, Yancey, and Rhett, which… may be here to-day, and forever gone to-morrow!” Joseph Segar, a Virginia native and an unconditional Unionist, made it no mystery where he stood on the contentious issue of Virginia’s secession from the Union. Segar also warned that the only chance the Confederacy’s slaveholders had of preserving their “peculiar institution” was by bringing the war to the speediest end possible, echoing Chapman Stuart’s warning at the Virginia Secession Convention about slavery’s chances of surviving a secession crisis.22 Once Virginia’s eastern shore was retaken by the Union, the loyal constituents of Virginia’s First Congressional District elected Segar to the United States Congress. He received the votes of 5,100 loyal Virginians, which in the 1860s ran along Virginia’s eastern shore, one of the three regions in the Old Dominion where Unionists were very strong. After making the long trek to Washington, however, the United States Congress refused to seat him because they were not certain of his support for the Union. Segar addressed the United States Congress with a powerful speech that left none to question his Unionism. Using an allusion to Greek my- thology to describe the separation of his family because of his Unionism he exclaimed “There they all were; the son and the nephews were there, Aeneas was there, and Creusa, and the boy Ascanius, But old father Anchises was not there.” Continuing, he shouted that he had “loved the stars and stripes better than my own flesh and blood!” He declared he had loved the Union from boyhood and “worshipped at its altars with as pure and deep a devotion as ever bowed votary there.” Denied a seat in Congress and later an appointment to the United States Senate,

21 Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 69-70; see also William T. Auman and David D. Scarboro, “The Heroes of America in Civil War North Carolina,” and William T. Auman, “Neighbor against Neighbor: The Inner Civil War in the Randolph County Area of Confederate North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, LVIII (October 1981): 332-34, and LXI (January 1984), 64, 66-67, 77-78, 81, 87, 89-90, 92. Georgia Lee Tatum, Disloyalty in the Confederacy (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), 155; Kenneth W. Noe, Southwest Virginia’s Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis (Illinois: Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 1994), 134 22 Joseph E. Segar to a friend in Virginia, November 3, 1861, p. 5-9, 45-46, http://archive.org/stream/ letterofhonjosep00segar#page/48/mode/2up Open Library Internet Archive. Document was accessed through the Internet via the library’s web page on April 27, 2013.

18 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 Segar was rewarded for his loyalty with a post on the Spanish Claims Commission in 1877.23 One of Virginia’s most famous and actively seditious Unionists was Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond lady who spied for Union troops during the Civil War. Born the daughter of a slaveholder and the granddaughter of an abolitionist, Van Lew was one of the rare Southern Unionists who was also opposed to slavery. Van Lew never forgot a story she had been told by the daughter of a slave trader, who recalled a slave mother dying of a broken heart when she learned that her child was sold to a different master. Fredrika Bremer, a writer from Finland recalled that when he met her, “Good Miss Van L. could not refrain from weep- ing” when she heard a group of slaves singing. When her father died, Elizabeth Van Lew convinced her mother to sell their nine slaves. Although a wealthy, aristocratic family, the Van Lews ceased to be invited to social gatherings when Richmond socialites discovered their antislavery sentiments.24 Elizabeth Van Lew detested the storm of secessionism that tore her state from the United States. Van Lew wrote in her diary that the vote for the ordinance of Secession was “conducted under a system of terror.” Van Lew bewailed the outcome, lamenting “a community with such sins as ours unatoned for, unsheathing the sword of treason.” Miss Van Lew hated secession and was prepared to do whatever she could to help the Union cause.25 In December 1863, Elizabeth Van Lew corresponded with United States General Benja- min F. Butler and agreed to work for him as a spy for the Union. Butler wrote that he had been informed “that Miss Van Lieu [sic] is s true Union woman as true as steel.” Throughout the remainder of the war, Van Lew corresponded with Butler, giving valuable information to the Union soldiers. When Colonel Dahlgren fell in battle after Van Lew urged him to attempt to free thousands of Union prisoners who were suffering on Belle Island, Van Lew and a fellow Unionist, William S. Rowley, whom she calls “the bravest of the brave and the truest of the true,” arranged to rescue the Colonel’s body from Confederate hands so he could be sent North to his family. That she was constantly in fear that she was being watched, and burned count- less entries in her diary out of fear of being caught is a testament to her effectiveness in service to the Union. Union General George H. Sharpe, who headed the Union Secret Service during the war, wrote that Van Lew “influenced rebel surgeons to send our men to the hospitals, and when she got them in the hospitals, she alone went from cot to cot where lay a sufferer in blue, while all the other women of Richmond attended to the men in gray.” He contended that “for a long, long time, she represented all that was left of the power of the U.S. Government in the city of Richmond,” and had mastered a system of correspondence in cipher, by which she communicated information to the Union. Scorned by her Southern community after the war,

23 Joseph E. Segar, Southern Unionist Pamphlets and the Civil War, “Speech in the House of Representatives of the United States, May 17th, 1864, in Defence of His Claim to a Seat in That Body”, ed. Jon L. Wakelyn (Columbia: Missouri University Press, 1999), 304, 329. 24 Einolf, George Thomas, 91. Elizabeth Van Lew, A Yankee Spy in Richmond: The Civil War Diary of “Crazy Bet” Van Lew, ed. David D. Ryan (1996; reprint, Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2001), 6, 7. For Elizabeth Van Lew and abolitionism, see John Albee, Elizabeth Van Lew Papers, Swem Library, College of William and Mary, n.p. For Bremer’s impression of Elizabeth Van Lew, see Fredrika Bremer, The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America, 509-511. 25 Van Lew, Civil War Diary, 33

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 19 her grave went unmarked for years after she died in 1900. Friends from Massachusetts sent a fitting plaque to mark her grave. The inscription on the plaque read, “She risked everything that is dear to man- friends, fortune, comfort, health, life itself, all for one absorbing desire of her heart- that slavery might be abolished and the Union preserved.”26 Van Lew frequently mentions her friend the former Virginia Congressman John Minor Botts, who like her, shared strong Unionist sentiment. Like many of Virginia’s Unionists, Botts was a former Whig who voted for John Bell in the 1860 presidential election. Like Van Law, Botts came from a prominent Virginia family. Degler writes that there was “no question of his support of the Union or of his conviction that secession was unconstitutional.” Elizabeth Van Lew wrote in her diary that both she and Botts believed that if he had been a representative at the secession convention, he would have been assassinated. Botts later wrote that when he learned of Bell’s abandonment of his Unionist position after Lincoln’s call for troops, he begged God’s forgiveness for having voted and worked for Bell’s campaign. Unlike his presidential candidate, John Minor Botts did not abandon Unionism when most of the middle South’s conditional unionists did. Instead, Botts wrote a series of letters to Lincoln’s Attor- ney General, Edward Bates to urge the calling of a national constitutional convention, which would allow the Confederate states to legally abandon the Union. Botts did not want disunion, but he did want peace. Like Segar, Botts believed that a convention of the several states was the only way that states could leave the Union legally. Botts did not want disunion, but he did want peace. When his requests were repeatedly ignored, Botts continued to advocate for Union. On March 1, 1862, after the Confederate government declared martial law around Richmond, Botts was arrested for his outspoken Unionist sentiments. After two months, he was released under the condition that he would never again speak against the Confederacy in public. Where bolder men would not be silenced, Botts obliged.27 Virginia’s Unionists created precarious divisions within Confederate society. One of the reasons for diminishing Confederate morale was the increasing antipathy toward intrusive Confederate policies. Many Southerners had envisioned their War for Independence as one between a decentralized Southern republican people and a usurping Yankee oppressor. But when Confederates responded to internal dissent with harsh repression, it became more difficult for citizens to see Richmond as a more vigilant protector of their rights than Washington had been. Mary Boykin Chesnutt, a Confederate Virginian who kept a diary during the Civil War, wrote that government abuse “worked like a dry rot in the Army” and caused Confederate soldiers to question why they were even fighting at all, if their new country would not make them freer.28 Confederates, understandably, hated the Unionists within their land. Virginia’s Unionists, like General Thomas, Congressman Segar, Elizabeth Van Lew, and the members of the clandestine Red Strings, were regarded as ignorant and treasonous. Van Lew, as she well understood, would certainly have been hanged if she had been caught aiding the Feder- als. Wealthy Southerners denounced the Heroes of America, whose members they regarded

26 Van Lew, Civil War Diary, 51, 53, 16-17, 67-82, 107, 116, 3 27 Van Lew, A Yankee Spy in Richmond, 32. Joseph Degler, The Other South: Southern Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century (1974; reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1982), 136-137, 145-146 28 Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie, ed. by Ames Williams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1950), 448.

20 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 as “the most ignorant classes… induced to join the organization by the promise of a division here after among them of the property of the loyal Southern citizens.” But more than they were hated, Virginia’s secret Unionists were feared. In May 1862, reacting to the defection of Jeremiah Clemons, Mary Chesnut bemoaned in her diary, “how I wish all of that kind would at once take that road; the ultra-Union men, the half-hearted, the half-handed, the outspoken abusers of our Confederate Government.” Distraught by the presence of Unionists within the Confederacy, Chesnut conveys rumors of secret Unionists throughout her diary, including one that Jefferson Davis himself was one. Wakelyn writes that nothing seemed to divide Confed- erate leaders more than personal remarks about loyalty and devotion to the cause. Chesnut too bemoaned the fact that the former harmony among Confederates was degenerating into dis- trust among the leadership, partly exacerbated by the incidents of Unionism. It was difficult to maintain a sense of trust among Confederate leaders and citizenry when secret Unionists were plotting against the Confederacy’s very survival. And neither could Confederate nationalism thrive nor, transitively, the war be won, if Confederates could no longer trust one another.29 The birth of a Confederate nation required an active, loyal citizenry rallying under its ban- ner on the home front. While the Confederate States of America was able to rally millions of citizens to its Stars and Bars, citizens still loyal to the Stars and Stripes of the Old Union were a significant obstacle to Confederate nationalists for the duration of the War. Remnants of an age when love of Union captivated Northern and Southern audiences alike, these loyalists, Tories, or traitors, depending on the perspective, refused to shift their loyalty to the fledgling slaveholder’s Republic whose struggle for survival left blood-stained battlefields and broken households as its legacy. Just as a previous generation of Southern unionists had railed against secession during the Nullification Crisis in the 1830s and the sectional controversy of 1850, so Southern Unionists made their voices heard during the secession debates of 1860 and 1861. Although they had failed to ward off secession this time, Unionists actively strove to thwart the Confederate nation for the duration of its short existence. The Heroes of America and heroes such as Elizabeth Van Lew risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to save a Union that a previous era of patriots had risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish. Nervous about the dangers of the enemy within, Confederates responded by trying to repress heavy Unionism out of existence. Repression, however, not only failed to stamp out the vestiges of Unionism, but also further weakened morale among citizens who increasingly distrusted their intrusive government. Southern Unionists are among the unsung heroes of the Civil War. Putting country first, they risked permanent estrangement from neighbors and kin, persecution, and even death, for a Cause that they believed in more than any other. Initially successful at delaying Virginia’s withdrawal from the Union, Virginia’s conditional Unionists turned amidst the indignation at Lincoln’s call for soldiers following the attack on Fort Sumter. Nonetheless, those who were unconditionally committed to the Union continued their efforts. Fifty western counties of the Commonwealth demonstrated their resentment of Virginia’s secession by seceding back into the Union, forming the new state of West Virginia. Thousands of soldiers and officers of Virginia birth and ancestry remained true and blue, participating in the invasion of their native

29 Current, Lincoln’s Loyalists, 138; see also see also Auman and Scarborough, “Heroes of America,” 345; Chesnutt, 224; Wakelyn 104-05, 113, 116

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 21 land. Virginia’s military men in blue deprived the Confederacy of additional soldiers when it was most in need of them, and supplied the United States with arms and leaders when it was most in need of them. As loyal Virginians on the battlefield helped break the Confederacy’s military defenses, Unionists on the home front were a relentless obstacle to the idea of South- ern solidarity. Elizabeth Van Lew reported Confederate movements to General Grant and both risked her life and extinguished her inheritance in the service of Union. Joseph Segar and John Minor Botts eschewed secessionism and made vocal arguments for unconditional union. The Order of the Heroes of America worked secretly to aid the Union and sabotage the Confed- eracy. Virginia’s Unionists had helped reclaim the Old Dominion for the old Union. Unionists paid a heavy price. General Thomas had severed familial ties and Elizabeth Van Lew would live the remainder of her life a stranger in her state, reduced from riches to poverty. To them, however, the price was worth it. Virginia’s Unionists were committed to a cause that was not lost, and they were unwavering in their loyalty.

Peter Finocchio is a fourth year in the History Distinguished Majors Program with a second major in Government and a Classics minor. He was awarded a Harrison grant toward his distinguished major thesis analyzing Edmund Burke’s “Essay towards an Abridgement of English History,” which he is currently working on with Professor Paul D. Halliday and will have completed by April 2014. Peter wrote the attached essay for a seminar on the Confederacy, taught by Professor Gary W. Gallagher, during the spring semester of his third year. Peter joined the Burke Society during his first semester at U.Va., is a staff writer for the Virginia Advocate, Vice Chair of Campaigns for the College Republicans, a Student Council representative, a Student Ambassador, and participates in Chi Alpha and Reformed University Fellowship.

22 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 Taiwan Strait Crisis Behavior By Jackson Wolford Introduction

Of the many flashpoints in Chinese-American relations, confrontation in the Taiwan Strait is one of the few that has consistently prompted both parties to seriously consider the use of military force.1 A crisis in the Taiwan Strait involving the U.S., China, and Taiwan has the potential to destabilize the East Asian region.2 With the stakes of the escalation of a crisis this high, it is essential to understand how the U.S., China, and Taiwan would behave in a potential crisis, and analyze how these behaviors could cause friction with other actors and subsequent escalation to the crisis. This paper will seek to summarize trends in crisis behavior for each of the three actors involved in such a crisis, ascertain these potential friction points and compare recommendations on crisis behavior in a Taiwan Strait crisis in light of this analysis.

Framework and Definitions

This paper will operate under the theory that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait involving the U.S., China, and Taiwan is likely to occur again. It is reasonable to assert that relations between China and Taiwan will continue to improve into the foreseeable future.3 As relations improve, Taiwanese economic dependency on China will increase at a faster pace than Chinese dependency on Taiwan. In the international sphere, Taiwan will remain unable to negotiate with third parties or international organizations without the approval of China. Additionally, China continues to increase its ability to project power in the region. Taiwan will grow closer to China while simultaneously losing freedom of action.4 This growing closeness cannot remain asymptotic. Pressures to reunify will force a decision in Taiwan for either reunification or open rejection of reunification. Either response will be likely to result in a crisis.5 This paper will proceed from this analysis and analyze responses to Taiwan crises by China, the U.S., and Taiwan. Even under this narrowed scope, analysis can become bogged down in determining what a “crisis” constitutes . For the purpose of this paper, Michael D. Swaine’s definition of “political- military crisis” will be used This definition requires that “1) key or core interests of the actors are involved, 2) time element or sense of urgency exists, and 3) great advances or threats (or

1 Dennis C Blair and Carla Anderson, “U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, a Responsible Course: Report of an Independent Task Force, ed. Frank Sampson, Council on Foreign Relations (New York : Jannuzi, 2007), 39. 2 Dean P. Chen, U.S. Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity, (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), ix. 3 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 6-16. 4 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 16-22. 5 Ibid., 22.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 23 both) to the interests of all sides are possible, including the threat of military conflict and, in the case of major powers, a potential threat to the structure of the international system”.6 A Taiwan Strait crisis refers to any particular crisis that develops involving China, the U.S., and Taiwan.

Objectives and Methodology

The first objective of this paper is to paint a picture of how these three actors would respond to a Taiwan Strait crisis. In order to do this, there will first be a summary of patterns in crisis behavior for each actor based on historical analyses. This will be followed by extrapola- tion in the current climate of relations. Once there is a cohesive idea of how each actor may behave within a Taiwan Strait crisis, there will be an analysis of where these actors’ behaviors may run up against each other, leading to potential escalation. The final objective of this paper is to compare proposed solutions from various academics on how to approach such a crisis and evaluate them in light of the analysis of likely crisis behavior in a Taiwan Strait crisis.

Comparing Crisis Behavior

An overview of the characteristics of Sino-American crises must be understood in order to properly recognize the patterns of the behaviors in crises. The patterns of behavior for the United States, China, and Taiwan are drawn from academic analyses of historical Sino-Amer- ican crises, with particular emphasis on crises concerning Taiwan.

Characteristics of Sino-American Crises

Wang Jisi and Xu Hui provide an analysis of these characteristics in their chapter in “Man- aging Sino-American Crises.” They constrain their analysis to crises that contain a military element, into which group they place both Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950’s and the passing of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. A Taiwan Strait crisis as addressed by this paper would thus fall under the purview of their analysis. The first feature they list is that crises have historically occurred during periods of poor relations, phases when the relationship was one of “non-foe, non-friend”. The authors use this to explain the Taiwan Strait crises of the 50’s. However, perceptions of mutual third-party threats (such as the Soviet Union) mellowed out relations, and prevented crises from emerging. The authors posit that the collapse of the Soviet Union as a major contributing factor in the escalation of the 1995-96 Lee Teng-Hui visa issuances into a crisis as there was no mutual enemy to bring China and the United States together.7 The second feature is the mutual antagonism of perceptions. The political elites of each

6 Michael D. Swaine, “Conclusion: Implications, Questions and Recommendations,” Managing Sino- American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 1. 7 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 134.

24 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 country each actively construct the other as an enemy. In both countries this dates most directly to the Korean War. In the United States, anti-communist sentiment led to the image of “Red China” as a threat that had to be quashed. The Chinese portrayed the American forces in Korea as imperialist, and a direct threat to Chinese sovereignty. In 2000, the CCP commemo- rated the fiftieth anniversary of the Korean War and reemphasized that it was an occasion when American imperialism was thwarted, and America was stopped from having a base in Korea from which to invade China. The Korean War continues to be called in Chinese “抗美援朝”, or, “The War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea”.8 Despite the rhetoric, the third characteristic is the earnest desire of both parties to avoid military conflict in the modern period. While both China and the United States had strong hawkish factions during the ideological fervor of the 1950’s, the hawks now are less hawkish than before, and less numerous.9 Any military positioning undertaken by either party has been conducted with a consciousness of walking a line between deterring and inciting escalation.10 The final characteristic Wang and Xu offer is the involvement of third parties in the major Sino-American crises. Crises between China and America are typically fundamentally tied up in issues regarding an ally of either state, with the exception of the EP-3 crisis. This correlates closely with the desire of both countries to avoid direct conflict, and so their tensions are en- acted through proxies.11 United States Crisis Behavior

Historical Patterns

The United States’ handling of Sino-American crises beginning in the 1950’s has been a story of success despite blunders, and growing refinement in approach. A key contributing factor to the mistakes made in the U.S. approaches to Sino-American crisis management has been a lack of concern for interpreting China’s interests and objectives. Until the fall of the Soviet Union, most U.S. policy toward China dealt with it in the context of the Cold War and global communism.12 In the Taiwan Strait Crises of 1954-5 and 1958, the United States fundamentally misunderstood China’s interests in Taiwan and the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu that the Kuomintang (KMT) was occupying. The Eisenhower administration mistook

8 Ibid., 134-135. 9 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. “Management” of Three Taiwan Strait “Crises” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 260-263. 10 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 136. 11 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 137. 12 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 6-7.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 25 the Chinese desire for the islands as an ideological desire to spread global communism. This analysis is overly simplified, and ignores the Chinese interpretation of the offshore islands and Taiwan as components of Chinese sovereign territory.13 Since the 1950’s, the amount of information on China and the speed at which it can be attained has increased tremendously. However, the abundance of information does not necessarily indicate sensitivity to China’s concerns, as is demonstrated by the 1995-96 visa crisis. Even with experience and technologically advanced information gathering resources, the U.S. still managed to underestimate the severity of the CCP’s response to the recognition of the Taiwanese president.14 A second key pattern of U.S. crisis behavior in Sino-American crises has been slower response time from leadership than that shown by Chinese leadership. In the 1954 and 1958 Taiwan Strait Crises, the 1995-96 Visa crisis, the 2001 EP-3 crash, and every other Sino- American crisis, decisions have been made through the executive with the consultation of particular committees. The particular committee relied on the most and the degree of consultation the president engages in are different for every president, but the process of consultation and decision making remains the same. Such a process involves high-ranking staff of both political and military backgrounds, with bureaucracies as diverse as the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the National Security Council (NSC) meeting up with the Secretary of State. The level of bureaucracy utilized in this process has increased as information management systems have become more complex. In the1954 and 1958 crises over the KMT occupied offshore islands, Eisenhower consulted directly with the NSC and the JCS, giving preference to the opinions offered by the NSC.15 But by the time of the 1995-96 visa crisis, Clinton was being briefed by a special State Department task force, the JCS, the CIA, and the NCS, each of which had established multiple subcommittees specifically on the crisis.16 These extended levels of bureaucracy provide more information, but the tradeoff is that decisions are formed more slowly and with more internal division than in years past. While overall decision making has historically been slower in the U.S. compared with their Chinese counterparts, the United States has been quick to employ military force – either through strategic posturing or serious consideration of use - in Sino-American crises. In the 1954 offshore island crisis, which occurred within nine days of the Chinese shelling of KMT troops in Quemoy, hawkish members of the JCS were advocating the use of force up to and including nuclear weapons.17 In 1995, the first round of policy recommendations included moving naval forces around the Taiwan Strait to project power.18 The United States has kept brinksmanship in their policy toolkit in international crises, using threats of war as deterrent

13 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 6-7. 14 Ibid. 15 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 272-273. 16 Ibid., 282-283. 17 Ibid., 254. 18 Ibid., 282.

26 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 forces in negotiations, with limited success.19 The tactic of brinksmanship is frequently paired with the tactic of strategic ambiguity. The United States has often purposefully obscured their intentions in Sino-American crises from relevant actors in the hopes of gaining more advantageous results. By maintaining un- certainty over how it will respond to crises- including the possibility of war- the United States has hoped to deter Chinese aggression. This has been a key component in crisis management in every Taiwan Strait Crisis.20 In the two offshore island crises, the United States threatened nuclear retaliation without internal certainty that they would initiate it. At the same time they threatened nuclear retaliation in defense of KMT control of the islands, however in both 1954 and 1958 the United States was pressing Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw from the offshore islands entirely. The objective of this ambiguous stance was to hopefully lessen the possibility of conflict by making China think that the United States would retaliate to their aggression, and making Taiwan think that they would suffer a decline in their relationship with the United States unless they withdrew from the islands. In this way, military conflict would be avoided.21 Another key example of strategic ambiguity was the United States’ approach to the June 2003 crisis in the Taiwan Strait over Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian’s calls for a referendum on Taiwanese sovereignty. The United States sells military equipment to Taiwan, and this fact has certainly been construed by the Chinese in the past as expressing a desire by the United States for Taiwanese independence. But despite this apparent endorsement-through-arms, Chen’s call for an official referendum on sovereignty was met with harsh criticism by the United States. The United States chooses to remain in an ambiguous position of supporting and not supporting Taiwan- ese independence. This position defines the United States’ behavior in the Taiwan Strait.22 The final pattern of the United States’ management of Sino-American crises concerns a more fundamental conception of how diplomacy works. The United States has continuously sought to base crisis management in international law by frequently asserting that China is in violation of it. It also uses internal lawmaking as justification for foreign policy, as was the case when the Taiwan Relations Act was the theoretical justification for the sending of naval forces near Taiwan during the 1995-96 crisis. The validity of the law is essential in the United States’ approach to handling Sino-American crises.23

Application to Future Crises

These patterns of crisis management must be contextualized in the modern world in order

19 Xia Liping, “Crisis Management in China and the United States: A Comparative Study.” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis. Ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 156-158. 20 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), 45. 21 Ibid., 48-49. 22 Ibid., 52-54. 23 Xia Liping, “Crisis Management in China and the United States: A Comparative Study.” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis. Ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 160-161

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 27 to identity which ones are still relevant. The United States now has a much larger wealth of information on China, both at the tactical level and in analyses of their leadership. It is unlikely that the desires of Chinese leadership will be as drastically misinterpreted as they were in the 1950’s. However, the wealth of information does not bring perfect clarity, and as analyses become more nuanced the need of the bureaucracies required to distil them for presidential understanding increases. As these bureaucracies increase in size, internal disputes over the proper interpretation of information also increase.24 Additionally, while information has increased on the perspective of Chinese leadership, there is still a lack of clarity on overall objectives in the Taiwan Strait. As China’s relative power increases, the United States is prompted more and more to rely on strategic ambiguity rather than the active use of military threats or posturing. Following the 1995-96 crisis, President Clinton formally adopted the “Three No’s” policy, stating that the United States would oppose Taiwanese independence, would not support two Chinas, and would oppose Taiwanese representation in the United Nations.25 The response of President Bush to the June 2003 crisis concerning Chen Shui-bian’s call for a sovereignty referendum supported the Three No’s policy. As China’s relative power has risen, the United States has been less comfortable using military posturing as a strategy in the Taiwan Strait, and even less comfortable issuing concrete military threats. The United States will have to re- orient its crisis management strategies to deal with China’s growth in relative power. Chinese Crisis Behavior

Historical Patterns

The most striking pattern in Chinese crisis behavior is how quickly they have learned from their dealings with the United States. After the quagmire of the Korean War, the Chinese have taken painstaking efforts to prevent the escalation of crises with the United States into military engagements, even when American forces were fighting the neighboring communist Vietnam- ese.26 There has been a major transition in its understanding of global politics since the end of Maoism and the reforms under Deng Xiaoping. Under Mao, a major war with the United States was considered inevitable. It was a component of the perpetual revolution espoused by Mao, and was always seen as a coming event. Chinese global politics were conceived of in these harsh ideological terms, even less forgiving than anti-communist fervor in the 1954-55 and 1958 Taiwan Strait crises. The conception of conflict as inevitable played into a willingness to irritate the United States in crisis situations, especially the decisions to shell Quemoy

24 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 282-284. 25 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 62. 26 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 144.

28 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 and Matsu in 1954 and 1958.27 However since then, there has been a transition in China toward a much more nuanced understanding of global politics. The Maoist ideology has declined, and with its decline has come an openness to evaluating Western techniques of crisis management. Following the SARS outbreak in 2003, Chinese academics and policy makers began to seriously consider crisis management techniques, and research has been increasing since.28 Even under Maoism China has proven to be typically averse to brinksmanship, favoring reserved use of military force or coercive diplomacy. In the 1954-55 and 1958 crisis, the Unit- ed States dug itself into a hole with its hard line ideological stances and nuclear rhetoric. In the end, it was China, under Zhou Enlai, who removed the United States from this diplomatic corner by coming to the table and being willing to make deals.29 This is likely related to the general reservation over the use of military force that China has demonstrated in Sino-Amer- ican crises. The Chinese approach to the use of military force has been generally expressed in the maxim “youli, youli, youjie”, which translates to “On just grounds, to our advantage, and with restraint.” This is a description of when, why, and how to employ force in crises. Michael Swaine elaborates on these principles, explaining that they become manifest in policymaking in three clear ways: 1. “Do not attack unless attacked.” 2. “Never fight without certainty of success, unless failing to fight would likely present a worse outcome.” 3. “Do not be carried away with success.” Although these principles originated with Mao, they have continued to color Chinese views on the use of coercion and military force in crisis management.30 This reservation to employ military force is in contrast with the speed of Chinese decision- making in crisis situations. The nature of the politburo standing committee makes decision making an extremely streamlined process. However, intelligence gathering is not as mature within the Chinese structure, and the speed of decision-making comes at the cost of glossing over potentially important dissent from analysts. In 1995-56 China was quick to attempt to communicate to the Clinton administration the severity of the breach of trust and reach an understanding on the issue. They had already formulated their position while the Clinton administration was still convening the subcommittees that would eventually provide the briefs that would inform the president on how to respond (Jun 2006:306-7).31

27 Ibid. 28 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 145. 29 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 264-274. 30 Michael D. Swaine, “Conclusion: Implications, Questions and Recommendations,” Managing Sino- American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 23-24. 31 Jun Niu, “Chinese Decision Making in Three Military Actions Across the Taiwan Strait,” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis. Ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 306-307.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 29 However, despite quick response times and often being the first to come to the table, China does not have as negative a view of military crises as does the United States. Scholars in China have argued that crisis is a natural component of the relations between countries. According to the Chinese philosophy, crises contain within them the potential for opportunities, they are not aberrations from the typical state of affairs, but rather are reflections of the normal state of relations, only intensified. Crisis is just as likely, under the Chinese conception, to resolve the tensions in international relationships as it is to cause escalation or hostility. This view of crisis likely contributes to the speed at which China is willing to come to the table. In the view of the Chinese crisis presents an opportunity to resolve tensions on a win-win basis. 32 The final historical pattern of Chinese crisis behavior concerns the process of negotiations itself. While the United States has typically appealed to international or domestic laws as the basis of negotiation in Sino-American crises, China has appealed to moral values that it believes are self-evident. There is a preference for statements of principle over legalistic treaties or documents. This leads to the problems of misunderstanding in negotiations. These problems are augmented by the method of compromise that has been historically employed by Chinese diplomats. Chinese diplomats tend to consider a position before coming to the table and presenting a proposal that they consider to be a fair compromise. Because of this, they tend not to want to haggle over this position. The position presented is in accordance with their principles and is viewed as a win-win proposal. Legalistic quibbling is not the norm for Chinese diplomats.33

Application to Future Crises

Based on both their historical record of improvement in managing Sino-American crises and the scarcity of information available on Chinese crisis management strategies, it is likely that China will continue to understand U.S. crisis-management better than the U.S. understands China’s crisis-management. As information opens up it is possible that we will approach a parity of understanding, but the historical trend has been that China will adopt American standards of crisis-management (such as legalistic treaties) into their diplomacy, while the United States has been disinclined to adopt Chinese methods of diplomacy, despite Kissinger’s great appreciation for the Chinese approach to negotiation.34 China has expressed a growing understanding of US policy-making and crisis management, and has begun building better relationships with the United States Congress as opposed to focusing solely on the president since the 1995 visa crisis.35

32 Xia Liping, “Crisis Management in China and the United States: A Comparative Study.” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 150-151. 33 Ibid., 160-164. 34 Xia Liping, “Crisis Management in China and the United States: A Comparative Study.” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 163. 35 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 132.

30 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 Despite increased understanding of the particulars of US policy-making, Chinese crisis management will still maintain some of its fundamental characteristics that differ from U.S. crisis management. There is no reason to think that crisis responses from China will slow down, as the bureaucracy now contains the same streamlined features it did in the 1995 visa crisis. If anything, the recent shrinking of the politburo from nine to seven members could speed up consensus. Likewise, there is no reason to assume that the fundamental justification of Chinese foreign policy as based on essentially moral principles will change. China has begun to appeal more to international law as supposed justification for policies, but the true justification has remained a moral one based on claims of sovereignty and self-defense. While the tactics to realize these moral principles will grow more and more nuanced, the principles that guide these policies will likely remain unchanged. Taiwan Crisis Behavior

Historical Patterns

The first pattern that emerges from a survey of Taiwan Strait crises is that, while weak in comparative power to both China and the U.S., Taiwan has proved too often to be the instigator of Taiwan Strait crises. In 1954-55 and 58, Chiang Kai-shek’s occupation and refusal to withdraw from the islands of Quemoy and Matsu off the shore of China is what initially insti- gated their bombardment by the CCP, and drew the United States into the crisis. The occupation and refusal to withdraw occurred despite requests from the United States.36 This reckless- ness continued in the 1995-6 crisis, as President Lee Teng-hui prioritized gaining an advantage in the polls over the stability of the U.S.-China-Taiwan relationship by not only requesting a visa to speak at Cornell but focusing his speech on the independent successes of Taiwan. This cavalier attitude was replicated by President Chen Shui-bian in June 2003, when he called for his referendum on Taiwanese independence.37 This role as instigator is closely related to the second historical pattern, which is a relative ideological hard line compared to China or the United States. While all three states began their relationship in the 1950’s on strict ideological terms, both China and the United States have since tempered these ideological tendencies. Taiwan has also tempered its stance, but not to as great a degree. Additionally, it maintains a bipolar perspective on the issue, and its hard line faction is more powerful than hard line factions in the United States or China. Chen Shui-bian, who called for a referendum of Taiwanese independence, only left power four years ago, and his party is still the second largest in Taiwan.38 While Taiwan Strait crises have occurred both when the United States and China held hard line ideological positions (1954, 1958) and after they tempered these positions (1995, 2003-6), Taiwan is unique in that Taiwan Strait crises

36 Robert L. Suettinger, “U.S. ‘Management’ of Three Taiwan Strait ‘Crises’” Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 266-275. 37 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012). 38 Ibid.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 31 have only occurred when Taiwan has been under the control of a president who expresses hard line ideological positions. Additionally, as Taiwan has liberalized its politics and allowed opposition parties beginning in 1986, the chance for referendums on independence increased. In 2001, Robert Sutter wrote, “...such liberalization might lead to overt moves like a plebiscite or other action that would establish a separate identity for Taiwan.”39 This evaluation was proved correct in 2003 when Chen Shui-bian, an opposition party candidate, proposed just such a plebiscite. The Taiwanese populace remains ideologically entrenched in the push for independence, this has reflected itself in hard line ideological positions coming to play in every major Taiwan Strait crisis.

Application to Future Crises

The available research on Taiwan responses to crisis is not as comprehensive as the research available on China and the U.S., but what is available paints a vivid picture. Taiwan is the most likely of the three actors to instigate a Taiwan Strait crisis, and the most likely to respond to such a crisis from an ideological basis. While it is likely that Taiwan-China relations will improve as a function of increased talks, Taiwanese concessions under the KMT to China and the shift in Chinese foreign policy toward the pursuit of win-win scenarios, there is still a large faction of the Taiwanese political and civilian population that holds hardliner views on Taiwanese independence.40 As noted, Taiwan Strait crises have only occurred when the leadership in Taiwan expresses such hard line ideological opinions. With general improvement in relations likely, it is even more likely that the next Taiwan Strait crisis will not develop under the current administration, but only as a result of either hard line political parties taking control of the presidency, or a moderate political party caving to domestic pressures in Taiwan to adopt a hard line position. However, as China’s relative power increases, it is likely that Taiwan will be less able to realistically achieve the ideological objectives that they set for themselves in case of crisis.

Points of Friction in Crisis Behaviors

The noted shifts in crisis behavior by China, the U.S., and Taiwan indicate that any future Taiwan Strait crisis would play out differently than it has in the past. From Wang and Xu’s analysis, it can be reasonably assumed that a future Taiwan Strait crisis will occur under conditions of poor relations (“non-foe, non-friend”), it will involve the mutually antagonistic perceptions of the other, and will also involve third parties. The last point is the most likely in a future crisis, since China has begun to respect and employ the use of international law in crisis situations.41 The additional characteristic that both parties still lack is the willingness to

39 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 48. 40 Ibid., 6-7. 41 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 133-137.

32 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 use direct military engagement, but it should be noted that a desire to avoid direct military conflict has not, in the past, prevented military posturing by the United States. As China grows in relative power, it is likely that their ability to project power as well will increase. These characteristics lead to three specific spheres for friction and potential escalation in a Taiwan Strait crisis: communication failures, inadvertent military conflict and ideological confrontation.

Communication Failures

Sino-American crises have always exhibited communication failures, as a result of the fact that Sino-American crises have always occurred under the backdrop of strained relations.42 The abundance of information that is now available to both the Chinese and the United States (and, to a limited degree, Taiwan) does not necessarily imply greater understanding or ability to communicate with each other. During the 1995 crisis, one of China’s first steps was to cut communication channels with the United States. This is a historical pattern of crisis response. Under these conditions, the amount of information one can accrue is irrelevant- as it is impossible to communicate. These communication failures have frustrated American negotiators who have tried to work out resolutions with China. The United States has grown equally frustrated with Taiwan during Taiwan Strait crises. Such crises have typically owed their origins to a lack of communication between Taiwan and the United States concerning Taiwanese intentions. In 1995 and June 2003 Taiwanese politicians demonstrated a lack of concern for the both the United States and China’s concerns. Under future crisis conditions, there is no reason to assume that this pattern of behavior will not continue. The lack of communication is by no means solely the fault of Taiwan. The United States’ policy of strategic ambiguity has great potential to inhibit proper communication in a Taiwan Strait crisis. In 2003, part of the reason President Chen Shui-bian felt comfortable asserting his referendum on Taiwanese independence were statements made by President Bush in 2001, stating, “…the Chinese must understand that… [the United States would do] whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.”43 When obscuring one’s intentions is part of a designed policy, as it is in strategic ambiguity, it is unsurprising that communication failures arise that both lead to and escalate crises. It is additionally difficult for either Taiwan or China to seriously consider treaties proposed by the United States against a backdrop of strategic ambiguity, in which intentions are unknown. China, the United States, and Taiwan share responsibility for poor communication before, after, and during crises. Taiwan and the United States share responsibility for friction at the inception of crises based on poor communication. Taiwan provides a potential further point of friction due to the likelihood of hard-line ideologies, which prevents effective negotiations. When the crisis comes to the negotiating table, China provides another potential point of friction in its handling of negotiations. China’s strategy of beginning with a position they consider

42 Wang Jisi and Hui Xu, “Patterns of Sino-American Crises: A Chinese Perspective,” Managing American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 133-134. 43 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), 52.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 33 to be sufficiently conciliatory and sticking to it has provided a minor obstacle in the past, as the United States has been able to move the seventh fleet within sufficient proximity of Taiwan to make these initial conciliatory positions favorable for them, as they did in 1995. As China grows in relative power with regards to the United States, the Seventh Fleet may no longer be sufficient to deter behavior. A comparison of United States response to the 1995 and June 2003 Taiwan Strait crises show a lessening ability for the United States to use military posturing in the region. As China’s relative power to the United States has grown, they have shown themselves to be more aggressive in their position.44 This could cause further disconnect at the bar- gaining table between the two powers, and allow for the prolonging and escalation of crises.

Military Maneuvering

The United States has shown a pattern of responding to Taiwan Strait crises with the threat of military force through naval maneuvering in the region. This preference toward military maneuvers provides a potential friction point for the escalation of a crisis. As China gains in comparative power to the United States, it has shown a greater willingness to both expand its navy and move naval forces into nearby waters.45 If a Taiwan Strait crisis were to occur in the interim space where the United States still felt it could position naval forces in the theater while China feels comfortable maneuvering ships in the same region, the potential for crisis increases. The potential friction generated from concurrent naval maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait is magnified by the demonstrated characteristics of past Taiwan Strait crises. These crises occur when there is poor communication, particularly with the Chinese tendency to cut off all communication with the United States during the crisis. In the state of non-communication, accidental encounters of enemy forces in the Taiwan Strait are more likely. The patterns of behavior of China and the United States show that the physical maneuvering of naval forces in the Taiwan Strait is a potential point of friction that could escalate a Taiwan Strait crisis.

A Rogue Taiwan

In the 1954-55, 1958, 1995 and June 2003 Taiwan Strait crises, Taiwan demonstrated a pattern of acting in their own perceived best interest, to the point of acting against the interest of the United States. While the administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-Jeou has been highly successful in beginning to mend the damaged relationships it has with China and the United States, the democratic whims of the Taiwanese people are a complicating factor in a Taiwan Strait crisis.46 Taiwan Strait crises have always been, and will likely continue to be, sparked by issues of reunification and independence between China and Taiwan.47 In the most

44 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), 53-55 45 Ibid., 50. 46 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), 54-57. 47 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed.

34 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 recent crises, those of 1995 and June 2003, the initial crisis situation was initiated by Taiwan- ese politicians supporting independence either explicitly or implicitly, particularly in order to garner political support from Taiwanese citizens. The body politic of Taiwan is divided on this issue, and the political elites of Taiwan have shown that they are willing to place public opinion over the desires of close allies. Such behavior in the future could escalate a Taiwan Strait crisis, as it provides for friction between the United States and China, China and Taiwan, and the United States and Taiwan.

Comparing Proposed Approaches to Taiwan Strait Crises

New ideas on proposed strategies and approaches to Taiwan Strait crises will be evaluated by their ability to avoid the historically demonstrated problems and friction points in the Tai- wan Strait crises. The approaches evaluated will include those proposed by Dean P. Chen in US Taiwan Strait Policy, Michael D. Swaine in Managing Sino-American Crises, and the US Council on Foreign relations Independent Task Force Report No. 59, U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, a Responsible Course.

Chen’s Approach- Strategic Ambiguity

The first approach is that espoused by Dean P. Chen, which is one of strategic ambiguity. This approach is intended for application not just in times of crisis, but as a blanket approach to the triangle of relations between the United States, China, and Taiwan at large. Chen argues that strategic ambiguity is the only option in the United States’ diplomatic arsenal that can effectively deter both of the United States’ least desired scenarios from coming true. The first of these would be an invasion of Taiwan by China. The second would be a Taiwanese declaration of independence. By letting China know the United States does not endorse Taiwanese independence while selling Taiwan armaments that seem to indicate otherwise, the United States appeases both sides, but deters any actual change. To Chen, this is a desirable situation to be in, as it could potentially help eradicate this international flashpoint for good.48 However, strategic ambiguity fails to abate any of the major anticipated friction points of a Taiwan Strait crisis. Under strategic ambiguity, there can be no clear communication. Inten- tions are masked by the very nature of the approach. The June 2003 crisis was made possible in part thanks to the miscommunication inherent in strategic ambiguity, and actually embold- ening Chen Shui-bian to push for independence. When a state is perceived as untrustworthy, it is likely that further negotiations will be mired in doubts of intentions, especially given the Chinese style of communication, which is more direct. Strategic ambiguity additionally did not deter Mao from positioning ships in the strait during the 1958 crisis, despite the threats of the 1954-55 crisis. In more recent years, strategic ambiguity can claim more success in preventing Chinese naval maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait during a crisis. But as China’s relative power rises and their naval capacity grows, the potential threat inherent in strategic ambiguity

Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 12-13. 48 Dean P. Chen, “US Taiwan Strait Policy: The Origins of Strategic Ambiguity,” (Boulder: FirstForumPress, 2012), 54-61.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 35 that the United States might defend Taiwan militarily if it is invaded grows less potent. Finally, strategic ambiguity has failed to restrain Taiwanese leaders from escalating crises by supporting Taiwanese independence.

Swaine’s Approach- Direct Communication

Swaine argues that miscommunication is one of the primary issues in Taiwan Strait crises. Swaine adapts Alastair Iain Johnston’s principles for crisis management into eight points. These points include managing direct channels of communication, limiting goals in negotiations, escalate military involvement slowly, and avoiding hard-line ideologies, among others.49 The approach is comprehensive in its recommendations, and clearly addresses the issues of miscommunication during a Taiwan Strait crisis by recommending that direct lines of communication be established between China and the United States for civilian and military leadership,. Such systems of communication could potentially help avoid escalation due to both diplomatic miscues and naval forces unexpectedly maneuvering into one another. However, this approach cannot function effectively if either China or the United States have de-normalized relations with the other at the time of crisis, and have shut down such methods of communication. Even if such direct modes of communication were established during periods of normalized relations, all Taiwan Strait crises have either occurred at times of de-normalized relations where there was virtually no communication between China and the United States, or else have precipitated a shutdown in communication by China toward the United States. Additionally, unlike the approach of strategic ambiguity, this approach only addresses China and the United States, and provides no methodology for deterring Taiwan from taking actions that may escalate a crisis.

Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force’sApproach- Minimize Involve- ment

The approach espoused in the Independent Task Force Report No. 59 is one of strict adher- ence to the status quo with a recommendation that the United States extricate itself from the quagmire of Taiwan-China relations as much as possible. The Task Force supports strategic ambiguity for the present, with a long-term plan to leave China and Taiwan to their own devic- es.50 They suggest that a strong military presence be maintained in the Taiwan Strait in order to deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan, that the United States make clear its opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo, that the United States continue to sell arms and encourage defense spending in Taiwan, and that the United States should decline to act as a mediator between China and Taiwan, instead letting them sort out their issues.

49 Michael D. Swaine, “Conclusion: Implications, Questions and Recommendations,” Managing Sino- American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 424-436. 50 Dennis C Blair and Carla Anderson, “U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, a Responsible Course: Report of an Independent Task Force,” ed. Frank Sampson, Council on Foreign Relations (New York : Jannuzi, 2007), 85-87.

36 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 This approach has the benefit of potentially restraining Taiwan from unilateral action, as the Task Force recommends a clear statement against such behavior. However, strong military presence in the region escalates the potential for friction to occur around the issue of naval maneuvering. Additionally, Robert Sutter offers a robust critique of the sustainability of the status quo in “Taiwan’s Future: Narrowing Straits”, in which he argues that China and Taiwan will continue to grow closer together and will eventually reach a point at which Taiwan must either reunify or declare independence.51 Both of these eventualities are outside of the interests of the United States. The appeal to the status quo only delays crisis, and does not resolve any of the fundamental issues. This approach also shares the faults of Chen’s strategic ambiguity in its inability to solve for communication problems that could potentially escalate a Taiwan Strait crisis.

Conclusion

From the historical record certain patterns become clear in how Taiwan, China, and the United States can be expected to behave in a Taiwan Strait crisis. When these expected behaviors are viewed against one another, three major friction points can be found that, if activated, may escalate a Taiwan Strait crisis into a larger diplomatic issue. While strategic ambiguity ostensibly restrains China and Taiwan from upsetting the current status quo, it is clear that in a time of crisis its inherent communication failures are likely to cause problems. In a similar tradeoff, Swaine’s approach has the benefit of establishing lines of communication, but these lines are likely to be cut in the case of crisis. Finally, the Council on Foreign Relations recommends a clinging to a status quo that likely cannot be maintained, but their approach does lend weight to restraining Taiwan from engaging in unilateral behavior, which is one of the major potential friction points. None of these three approaches are sufficient to avoid all of the potential friction points of a Taiwan Strait crisis. However, they are also not mutually exclusive. The Council on Foreign Affairs’ approach employs strategic ambiguity, and is intended as a more long-term approach to the relationship triangle between China, Taiwan, and the United States. Its failures come primarily during the crisis itself, when strategic ambiguity prevents clear communication. Swaine’s approach of direct communication has little deterrent power in the long run, yet as a behavior in times of crisis its emphasis on direct lines of communication can provide the potential to resolve communication issues, if the lines remain open. A perfect approach may be impossible, but it is likely that only by embracing elements of all three can the friction points of Taiwan Strait crises be best avoided.

51 Robert G. Sutter, “China Policy: Crisis Over Taiwan,” Taiwan-China: A More Ticklish Standoff, ed. Adam W. Clarke, (Huntington, New York: Novinka, 2001), 19-22.

Jackson Wolford is a third year Anthropology major in the College of Arts and Sciences. His interests include the intersection of theater and ritual, playwriting, and the triangular relationship of Taiwan, China, and the United States.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 37 NAFTA: All the Fuss By Alexander Mezick Abstract

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect on January 1, 1994. As an important and substantial phenomenon in the international political economy, NAFTA is fraught with dispute. Since its initial negotiation, passage, and implementation, it has been a point of reference in nearly every major trade debate in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Despite the agreement’s initial U.S. bipartisan1 and North American regional support, many stakeholders and theorists differ strongly on their assessment of NAFTA. In this paper, I seek to answer the question, “Why is NAFTA controversial?” To answer this question, I first layout what NAFTA does. Then, I review the history of the agreement. I examine the most important stakeholders involved in NAFTA, as well as the practical effects the agreement has had on those various stakeholders. I then move to a theoretical analysis of NAFTA. I then address policy suggestions regarding NAFTA. Finally, I look to the future to see what it may hold for NAFTA. What NAFTA Does

NAFTA creates a multilateral free trade area between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The objectives of NAFTA are to “eliminate barriers to trade in, and facilitate the cross-border movement of, goods and services between the territories of the Parties; promote conditions of fair competition in the free trade area; increase substantially investment opportunities in the territories of the Parties; provide adequate and effective protection and enforce- ment of intellectual property rights in each Party’s territory; create effective procedures for the implementation and application of this Agreement, for its joint administration and for the resolution of disputes; and establish a framework for further trilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation to expand and enhance the benefits of this Agreement.”2 NAFTA “stipulates the removal of most tariffs and restrictions on trade between the three nations and codifies a wide range of agreements on agricultural, textile and auto trade, as well as telecommunications, intellectual property, mobility of workers and environmental policies.”3 NAFTA lowers barriers to investment, and it provides for dispute resolution between the three parties. NAFTA contains two further appendages: the North American Agreement on Environmental Coopera- tion (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC), which set up the Commission for Environment Cooperation (CEC) and the Commission for Labor

1 The Miller Center, “American President,” millercenter.org. http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/events/12_08. 2 NAFTA, “NAFTA Secretariat,” http://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/en/view.aspx?x=343&mtpiID=122 3 Andréa Ford, “A Brief History of NAFTA,” TIME, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868997,00.html

38 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 Cooperation (CLC).4 In essence, NAFTA completely liberalizes economic exchange between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. As of 2008, all of NAFTA’s provisions have gone into effect. The History of NAFTA

The Buildup

The trade integration of North America began before the creation of NAFTA. The first major political leader to call for a liberalized common market between North American countries was Ronald Reagan, in his presidential campaign in 1979. This idea of more open trade manifested itself in President Reagan’s first term in 1984, during which the Tariff and Trade Act of 1984 was passed, giving the president more power to authorize multilateral trade agreements, subject to the approval of Congress. Following this legislation, the process of North American trade integration began. During Reagan’s second term, the United States entered into three trade agreements with Mexico. In 1987, the United States and Canada negotiated the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), implemented in 1989.5

Passage: From Bush to Clinton

These various agreements culminated in NAFTA, which consolidated the policies within the previous agreements.6 In 1990, the three North American countries agreed to enter into negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA). In 1991, the nations’ leaders agreed to trilateral negotiations for a North American FTA. Nearly two years later, George Bush, Brian Mulroney, the president of Canada, and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president of Mexico, signed NAFTA. In 1993, President Clinton worked with Congress to pass the agreement, which was approved in November and took effect in January 1994.7

Post-Implementation

While CUFTA had basically completely liberalized U.S.-Canada trade years before NAF- TA, NAFTA included provisions for eliminating U.S.-Mexican trade barriers after implementation. On January 1, 2004, all of U.S.-Mexico tariffs were eliminated, save some agricultural protections. NAFTA ended many remaining trade barriers on January 1, 2008.8 At the 2009

4 NAFTANOW, “North American Free Trade Agreement: Governments of Canada, United States, and Mexico,” http://www.naftanow.org/links/default_en.asp 5 Ranko Shiraki Oliver, “In the Twelve Years of NAFTA, the Treaty Gave to Me…What, Exactly?: An Assessment of Economic, Social, and Political Developments in Mexico Since 1994 and Their Impact on Mexican Immigration into the United States,” Harvard Law Review, (2006): 58. 6 Ibid. 7 Armando Garza, “Background Information on the North American Free Trade Agreement,” (2011): 2-4. 8 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, “North American Free Trade Agreement,” http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/grolier/nafta.htm.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 39 North American Leaders Summit, the three countries reiterated their commitment to NAFTA. NAFTA’s Effects on Major Stakeholders and their Perspectives

NAFTA connects the economies of a region with a GDP of $17 trillion, a population of over 450 million, and a land mass of 8,331,362 square miles. An agreement with such far- reaching consequences has many interested parties, including ardent supports of NAFTA as well as some harsh detractors, all of which have a stake in the far reaching consequences of NAFTA. Without understanding the stakeholders and how NAFTA affects them, one cannot begin to understand the controversy surrounding NAFTA. Much controversy has been fueled by both stakeholders and outsiders. Both lovers and critics of NAFTA cite correlation between the post-NAFTA period and good or bad things that have happened during it. However, correlation is not causation, and NAFTA’s incrementally slow changes to the economic landscape of North America indicate that any substantial consequences are overstated.

North American National Economics and Trade Regimes

It is abundantly clear that trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada has increased substantially under NAFTA. Lower trade barriers have had several economic effects that explain this phenomenon. Reduced barriers leads to increased competition among the nations’ producers, which drives prices down and increases the aggregate quantity of goods and services demanded. Some goods and services, which may have been prohibitively expensive or outright banned beforehand, are now accessible to new markets. The data support this hy- pothesis. Since NAFTA, trade among the countries has more than tripled, from $288 billion to $1 trillion, with daily trade estimated at $2.7 billion.9 Over the same time period, Canada-U.S. trade has nearly tripled, while Mexico-U.S. has more than quadrupled.10 Since NAFTA, the North American GDP has more than doubled in size, from $7.6 trillion in 1993 to over $17 trillion in 2008.11 Because of the similar political, economic, and social characteristics between the United States and Canada, Mexico has been the most substantially affected by NAFTA. Despite the evidence of increased trade and output, it is still difficult to determine exactly how much, if any, was due to NAFTA. It would appear that the growth in trade and GDP may have been only slightly affected by NAFTA.12 The reason for this is simple: trade between countries was already mostly liberalized before NAFTA. According to the CBO, “In 2001, 87 percent of imports from Mexico entered the United States duty free.13 The average duty on the remainder was only 1.4 percent, for an overall average tariff rate of 0.2 percent, down from 2.1 percent in 1993. The overall average Mexican tariff rate in 2001 was only 1.3 percent, down

9 Ron Kirk, Edward Fast, and Ferrari Bruno, JOINT STATEMENT FROM 2012 NAFTA COMMISSION MEETING,” State News Service, (2012): 1. 10 NAFTANOW, “Results: North Americans Are Better Off After 15 Years of NAFTA,” http://www.naftanow.org/results/default_en.asp. 11 Ibid. 12 Congressional Budget Office, The Effects of NAFTA on U.S.-Mexican Trade and GDP, 2003: 9. 13 Ibid.

40 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 from 12 percent in 1993.” Additionally, many other factors have affected growth and trade for the past twenty years, including: other emerging markets (e.g. China), lack of infrastructural power in the Mexican government, general American and world peacetime, the Mexican Peso Crisis, the expansion of the U.S. economy in the 1990s, recessions in the late 1990s/ early 2000s, the technology bubble, the information boom, and the financial crisis of 2008. Since NAFTA changed relatively little about the fundamentals of the international political economy in North America, it is likely only a small factor in the continent’s successes and failures since. Perhaps most importantly, the Mexican economy has been affected more than the United States’ or Canada’s, because the expanded trade has meant larger percentage increases in the Mexican economy, which started off smaller than those of its northern neighbors.14 Be- cause of the country’s relative uniqueness, it will be important to analyze effects on Mexico.

Labor and Wages

The economic implications of NAFTA spill over into areas that directly affect us all—the workforce of the three countries and their wages. NAFTA was built on a promise of more jobs for every country as a result of the increase in trade and opportunity. For the United States and Canada, critics of NAFTA argue that this promise has been broken. Opponents argue that more trade inevitably leads to some jobs created and others destroyed.15 This destruction hap- pens because the current account deficit for a country, such as the United States, that imports more as a result of liberalized trade will grow, resulting in fewer jobs based on exports. Con- versely, opponents would argue that countries with lower labor costs, such as Mexico, will see rising employment, because the open market will allow for that country to export more goods and services. Those who are against NAFTA say that this competition for low costs of labor has led to a race to the bottom, depressing wages for all workers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, “Although U.S. domestic exports to its NAFTA partners have increased dramatically—with real growth of 95.2% to Mexico and 41% to Canada—growth in imports of 195.3% from Mexico and 61.1% from Canada overwhelmingly surpass export growth.”16 This growth in the trade deficit would mean fewer export jobs for the U.S. Furthermore, opponents say, “NAFTA has created a climate that has emboldened employers to more aggressively threaten to close, or actually close their plants to avoid unionization.”17 This further depresses workers’ earnings. However, the data for these issues are once again reflective of forces much larger than NAFTA at work. For instance, the rise of China as a trading partner may have much more to do with the increasing trade deficit faced by the United States. While the general insights about the imbalance of job returns from increased trade may be true, NAFTA’s minor effects on trade policy are probably not the cause of these imbalances.

14 Ibid. 15 Robert Scott, THE HIGH PRICE OF ‘FREE’ TRADE: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” Economic Policy Institute, (2003): 2. http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/ 16 Ibid., 3. 17 Kate Bronfenbrenner, “Final Report: The Effects of plant Closing or Threat of Plant Closing on the Right of Workers to Organize,” Cornell University IRL School, (1996): 3.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 41 Agricultural Industries

Barriers to trade of agriculture tend to be relatively high for most countries; this was true for the NAFTA countries as well, with agriculture barriers being higher before the agreement and taking a longer time than most to phase out. According to the U.S. Department of Agricul- ture, “[NAFTA countries] protected their import-sensitive sectors with longer transition periods, tariff-rate quotas, and, for certain products, special safeguard provisions.18 However, now that the 15-year transition period has passed, free trade…prevails for all agricultural products.” Proponents of NAFTA argue that it has led to increased volume of agricultural trade between countries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture states, “In 2007, Canada and Mexico were, re- spectively, the first and second largest export markets for U.S. agricultural products. Exports to the two markets combined were greater than exports to the next six largest markets combined. From 1992-2007, the value of U.S. agricultural exports worldwide climbed 65 percent. Over that same period, U.S. farm and food exports to our two NAFTA partners grew by 156 percent.”19 Because it changed agriculture more than most other industries, NAFTA likely had a substantial effect on this growth. Opponents of NAFTA have argued that NAFTA may have indeed made agricultural trade more efficient, but this efficiency came at the expense of small farmers. Markets have been opened for cheap food, resulting in a race to the bottom. Large and corporate farms, opponents argue, have benefited from the increased efficiency and lower costs, but smaller farmers have been outcompeted, resulting in over one million job losses for Mexican agriculture, which still contains about a fifth of the country’s workforce.20 Even though NAFTA affected agriculture trade policy more than other policies, most of the benefits and harms said to be caused by NAFTA are overstated, for reasons previously mentioned.

Manufacturing Industries

As an industry that thrives on exports and faces very stiff competition from imports, the manufacturing sector is undoubtedly a key stakeholder in any trade agreement. Opponents of NAFTA in the United States argue that manufacturing has seen job losses due to increased imports. For example, in 2010, non-oil goods imports were dominated by manufacturing, which in turn was dominated by durable goods, which totaled $163.1 billion, or 71.3 percent of total U.S. imports from Mexico.21 This made up a large portion of the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico. As would be expected, manufacturing in Mexico has increased since NAFTA. Mexico has seen significant growth in its manufacturing exports, and manufacturing employ-

18 United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, “Fact Sheet: North American Free Trade Agreement,” (accessed December 12, 2012). 19 United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, “Fact Sheet: North American Free Trade Agreement,” (accessed December 12, 2012). 20 Robert Scott and David Ratner, “NAFTA’S CAUTIONARY TALE: Recent history suggests CAFTA could lead to further U.S. job displacement,” Economic Policy Institute, (2005): 2. 21 Robert Scott, “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA,” Economic Policy Institute, (2011): 8.

42 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 ment has increased, even though the increase fell short of expectations.22 However, NAFTA is likely not the principle cause of this phenomenon. Rather, the Mexican Peso Crisis is a more suitable explanation. Occurring in 1994, this sudden devaluation of the Mexican peso happened concurrently with NAFTA’s implementation. The devalued peso made Mexican goods more attractive to consumers in the U.S. and Canada with relatively stronger currencies.

Investors

NAFTA has had substantial effects on investment, specifically foreign direct investment (FDI), particularly in Mexico. Because the agreement solidified long-term liberalization of markets between North American countries, in conjunction with Mexico’s lax labor policies and low costs, much FDI has poured into the Mexican economy in the post-implementation period. As the Economic Policy Institute finds, “NAFTA made it attractive to companies all over the world to invest in Mexico to gain duty free access to the U.S. market.”23 This, however, may have led to job displacement in countries which previously supported the jobs now part of foreign direct investment in Mexico. Proponents would counter by saying that this means more jobs in Mexican production, and there have been increases in employment in manufacturing, as stated previously.

Immigration

One of the main arguments made for adopting NAFTA was that the increased economic prosperity resulting from the treaty would mean a decrease in illegal immigration from Mex- ico into the United States. Since Canada and the U.S. had and continue to have close levels of prosperity, it was unlikely that the treaty would make much difference for that border. To many NAFTA proponents’ surprise, Mexican emigration to the U.S. has continued to increase dramatically in the past two decades, only slowing somewhat after the 2008 financial crisis. The United Nations now ranks the United States as the country with the highest rate of immigration and Mexico as the country with the highest rate of emigration.24 NAFTA opponents say that the shake-up in Mexico’s economy from the agreement has caused this rapid increase in Mexican emigration, while proponents argue that the long-term prosperity that liberalized trade brings will lower emigration in the long term. Proponents also argue that socio-political problems are a major factor in emigration from Mexico.25 While NAFTA may have had some effect on emigration in Mexico, it remains likely that larger economic, social, and political

22 Oliver, Ranko Shiraki, “In the Twelve Years of NAFTA, the Treaty Gave to Me…What, Exactly?: An Assessment of Economic, Social, and Political Developments in Mexico Since 1994 and Their Impact on Mexican Immigration into the United States,” Harvard Law Review, (2006): 81. 23 Robert Scott, “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA,” Economic Policy Institute, (2011): 2. 24 Ranko Shiraki Oliver, “In the Twelve Years of NAFTA, the Treaty Gave to Me…What, Exactly?: An Assessment of Economic, Social, and Political Developments in Mexico Since 1994 and Their Impact on Mexican Immigration into the United States,” Harvard Law Review, (2006): 117 25 Ibid., 120.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 43 forces drive Mexican emigration, as evidenced by the slowdown in immigration since the 2008 financial crisis.26

Politicians

NAFTA has been a ball and chain hauled by politicians since its inception. Because of the dispersed benefits of the agreement and the perceived concentrated costs to certain domestic industries, many in top elected offices have resorted to taking a non-committal approach to NAFTA, mildly arguing against it during campaigns but not pushing for changes once in office. President Obama, for example, campaigned against NAFTA in 2008. He stated that some trade deals are good for the United States but that NAFTA was not. However, he said that he would not personally want to opt out should he be elected. Since his election, the president has not taken action against NAFTA. President Bush was supportive of NAFTA while in office. Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada has expressed full approval of NAFTA, citing the importance of Canadian oil and gas exports to the United States.27 Former President Felipe Calderon of Mexico was also very supportive of the agreement, stating that changing NAFTA would “provoke considerable damage on the economy” and would condemn North America “as a region to compete from a position of backwardness in today’s world.”28, It seems that the concern of domestic industries has been shifted to scapegoats other than NAFTA, such as China. This has allowed politicians, such as 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, to campaign against other perceived economic threats, while leaving NAFTA largely out of the debate.

International Institutions

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the most relevant international institution to NAFTA. As NAFTA is a regional result of the GATT/WTO understanding of better trade policy, the WTO is generally positively affected by NAFTA. As NAFTA includes provisions for dispute resolution between member countries, the WTO’s role in North American trade should be smaller. This trade pact, proponents of NAFTA say, signals that countries are on the right path toward greater trade liberalization, even between developed and developing countries. Similarly, the IMF and World Bank should be expected to play less of a role in helping Mexico’s economy since NAFTA will have long-term beneficial effects on Mexico’s economic development and stability. Opponents, however, say that NAFTA leaves out certain important provisions, including many fair labor standards and currency stipulations. This

26 Jeffrey Passel, “Recession Slows –but Does Not Reverse – Mexican Immigration,” Pew Research Center Publications, (2009), http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1288/mexican-immigrants-recent-inflows-outflows. “Re-opening NAFTA would benefit Canada: Harper,” CTV News, (2008), http://www.ctvnews.ca/re-opening- nafta-would-benefit-canada-harper-1.290993. 27 “Re-opening NAFTA would benefit Canada: Harper,” CTV News, (2008), http://www.ctvnews.ca/re-opening-nafta-would-benefit-canada-harper-1.290993. 28 “CALDERON: CROPPING NAFTA WOULD DAMAGE ECONOMY,” WorldNetDaily, (2008), http://www.wnd.com/2008/04/62368/.

44 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 will mean continual reliance on other international organization to develop dispute resolution strategies to deal with imbalances.

The Environment

The last and largest stakeholder of NAFTA is the environment, both global and regional. Despite NAFTA’s institution of the North American Agreement on Environmental Coopera- tion, environmentalist opponents of NAFTA have been the louder voices. Nearly ten years after NAFTA, environmental funding from the CEC established under NAFTA, averaged $3 million per year. Since NAFTA, air pollution from manufacturing in Mexico has increased enormously, while government investment has declined in real terms.29 The worst industrial pollution impacts of NAFTA occur in the base metals sector and the Mexican petroleum sector.30 Critics also argue that trade has led to a race to the bottom concerning environmental policies, as governments have attempted to increase attractiveness to investors. Proponents of NAFTA counter that the U.S. is not engaging in pollution load displacement in Mexico, even if it is displacing more of its pollution.31 U.S. decreased pollution is likely to be replaced by pollution from China and other countries. All in all, pollution and environmental harm has increased since NAFTA, but the agreement is likely a minor cause, secondary to larger economic forces at play internationally. Theoretical Analysis of NAFTA

Various theories of international political economy can help us understand the origins, impacts, and controversies of the minilateralist policy that is NAFTA. The strands of thought on IPE can be divided into four main groups: liberal theories, realist theories, Marxist theories, and alternative theories. Thus, these four groups of theories provide a good theoretical framework for analyzing NAFTA. Individual theoretical concepts outside of the four main groups can also help us understand NAFTA.

Liberal Theories

It is abundantly clear that NAFTA is a result of neoliberals’ success. It is fitting that an economic neoliberal like Ronald Reagan be a major starting point for the trade pacts that became NAFTA. The Washington Consensus, one in line with NAFTA’s policies, was growing during and after his term. Those of the liberal mindset, who support this consensus, maintain that free trade in a capitalist system leads to economic growth and efficiency in the aggregate. They would support this position by pointing to the gains in GDP and productivity since NAFTA. The modern intellectual descendants of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, especially neocon-

29 “Happily Ever NAFTA,” Foreign Policy, (2008): 59. 30 Kenneth Reinert, “The Industrial Pollution Impacts of NAFTA: Some Preliminary Results,” George Mason University School of Public Policy, (2000): 5. 31 Matthew, Cole, “US environmental load displacement: examining consumption, regulations and the role of NAFTA,” University of Birmingham Department of Economics, (2002): 449.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 45 servatives, argue that states and individuals will prosper due to lower prices and increased economic efficiency coming from liberal markets. Free trade is a prerequisite for countries and individuals to utilize their comparative advantages. In a world of completely liberal trade, competition will drive prices down and “democratize” economics, allowing people to “vote with their dollars” for the best products and services. Governmental trade barriers are an aber- ration to be seen as interference that should be stamped-out. NAFTA was such a stamping- out, and liberal proponents of the agreement would support conclusions favorable to NAFTA. Many alleged impacts of NAFTA are smiled upon by neoliberals. While many argue that increased imports in the United States harm U.S. workers, neoliberals argue that this is only a sign of lower prices for all consumers, coming from beneficial competition. Agricultural goods, manufactured goods, and services, have all become more accessible to the average consumer. Liberals also see NAFTA as a boon for Mexico, which would appear to be engaging in export-oriented industrialization.

Realist Theories

Realists have mixed feelings about NAFTA. From the statist and structural/neorealist perspective, the United States, Canada, and Mexico operate in an anarchic international system in which institutions like the United Nations and the WTO have little actual power and effectiveness. Individual states do not operate out of motivation to better the world in the aggregate. Rather, they would only sign onto a regional FTA if it was in their self-interest. NAFTA has some attractive features to a realist. Because it requires no supra-national institutions, the three states need not cede any of their sovereignty. Rather, the contract is voluntary to the member states, and each can opt out. Unlike their mercantilist intellectual ancestors, neo-realists agree with liberals in seeing trade as a positive-sum game. However, neo-realists argue that the state should only enter into an agreement if the relative imbalances resulting from the aggregate increase in prosperity go toward the domestic interest. Along these lines, realist opponents may perceive NAFTA as having harmed the United States by causing more offshoring, while Mexico may have been harmed by losses in agriculture. Realist supporters of NAFTA may argue from a Mexican perspective, contending that Mexico’s export-led growth has been in its self-interest and is a direct result of NAFTA. Furthermore, statists may see NAFTA as a mechanism for strengthening the political and economic position of a like-minded region. Regionalism can fit into the realist framework when it benefits the states engaging in it. Neo- mercantilists and economic nationalists would tend to oppose NAFTA, as they see barriers to trade as crucial for helping domestic industry. Protecting industry not only serves an economic and political function; it helps maintain the state’s desired national social structure. The increased immigration and flood of foreign goods into markets due to NAFTA are cause for concern among these realists.

Marxist Theories

Marxists view NAFTA negatively, as part of the next stage in the global capitalist system. To Marxists, NAFTA means increased competition under the capitalist system, which will lead to an ever-increasing movement toward efficient production, substitution of machinery for la-

46 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 bor, and diminishing returns. The “race to the bottom,” cited by many opponents of NAFTA, is predicted by Marxists, who see depressed wages and environmental policies as no real surprise. Marxists see NAFTA as only benefiting large corporations, who accumulate capital at the expense of workers. Both, what Marzists refer to as, the bourgeoisie and proletariat are subject to the law of falling rate of profit, which will only be exacerbated by the efficiency race promoted by NAFTA. NAFTA has allowed for increased exploitation of workers in all three countries, as open trade means that MNCs and other large business entities can shift their labor elsewhere. In a semi-Marxist vein, modern world systems theorists see NAFTA as exploitative. America, as the core, would negotiate the agreement in order to take advantage of Canada and, more importantly, Mexico’s business environments. The investment of American business into the periphery will not benefit the periphery, only the owners of capital in America.

Alternative Theories

Several alternative theories promote an understanding of NAFTA. Supporters of hege- monic stability theory view NAFTA as confirmation of their ideas. America, as a hegemon both pre and post-NAFTA, can largely be given credit for initiating and maintaining negotiations for the agreement. Functionalists and neo-functionalists would argue that their theories predict NAFTA, as the North American states would see the need to integrate certain policies in the face of increasing globalization. NAFTA would provide the groundwork for eventual greater integration and expert-driven institutions to guide policy in the countries. Institutional- ists would also contend that NAFTA may serve as the foundation for further North American institutional reform to combat problems that no single state could solve. NAFTA’s creation of the CEC and CLC is evidence of this prediction. Environmentalists have among the most negative opinions of NAFTA, seeing it as promoting environmental exploitation in pursuit of economic gain. While NAFTA provided for some minor environmental standards, these are largely tacked-on and do not acknowledge the urgency of the threats of global warming and environmental degradation. Social greens take this moral rather than practical view of the consequences of NAFTA seeing NAFTA as unjust insofar as it promotes inequality and dam- ages the ecosystem. Policy Proposals

With all the controversy, it is only natural that there are major policy suggestions for addressing NAFTA’s shortcomings. The most important proposed policies are threefold: further liberalization or maintain the status quo, alter trade barriers or increase government funding/ institutions to address economic imbalances, and/or institute policies to address non-economic concerns. Since NAFTA as a political issue has stagnated, all of these options are currently being overlooked.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 47 Further Liberalization

While NAFTA has provided for a huge amount of trade liberalization, supporters would likely favor knocking down even more obstacles to trade, namely investment. This policy would likely be aimed at making Mexico a more attractive business environment. Issues with corruption, crime, and lack of infrastructural power by the government make Mexico a non-option to many investors. Providing more funding or institutions for addressing these problems would be a step in the right direction for tackling this problem. This support for liberalization is likely to be derided by domestic industries from within the countries, which have fears about even lower wages and import competition. On the other hand, investors would support this option.

Policies Addressing Economic Imbalances

NAFTA undoubtedly causes some imbalances. Domestic industries of the three countries would support policy measures to counteract these imbalances. The policies are likely to focus on changes in currency valuations. The peso is valued much lower than either the U.S. or Canadian dollar. Policies aimed at increasing the peso’s value would be attractive to U.S. and Canadian exporters. A more likely policy avenue would be aimed at increasing labor standards for the three countries. This would be favored by most workers in all three countries, as U.S. and Canadian workers will benefit from Mexico’s rising labor costs, while Mexican workers will enjoy protections that increase their quality of life.

Policies Addressing Non-Economic Problems

The largest non-economic problem that NAFTA seeks to address is environmental degradation. Environmentalists argue that the agreement does not go nearly far enough to address ecological issues. Environmentalists would support dramatically increased funding for environmental safety, as well as much stricter standards for production, greenhouse gas emissions, other air and water pollution, and deforestation. Large corporations and workers would likely not benefit from these increased costs, and they may oppose such measures. Conclusion

I have sought to address the question, “Why is NAFTA so controversial?” Despite the loudness of NAFTA supporters and opponents, much of the perceived effects of the agreement likely stem from outside and stronger forces that have happened concurrently with NAFTA and its aftermath. Most of NAFTA’s significance is symbolic. The pact represents the liberal success of the late 20th century. However, the 21st century may not be so kind to these perspectives. NAFTA, and other liberal policies, will have to be defended in light of increasing concerns about trade imbalances, job displacement, and environmental concerns, among many others. As NAFTA has largely been placed on the backburner of hot-button political issues, it is unlikely that the agreement will change in the near future. In fact, regional FTAs may become more common as the WTO liberal understanding of trade continues to grip the

48 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 international political economy.

Alexander Mezick is a fourth year majoring in Financial Economics and Government. He is extensively involved in the Burke and Jefferson Societies, works at Madison House, and is a participant in the McIntire Business Institute this year.

Fall 2013 The Burke Academic Review • 49 Alumni Spotlight

Each year, some of our members graduate and move into exciting new endeavors. This space highlights some of our alumni and their current pursuits.

Keenan Davis

Keenan Davis, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, graduated with highest honors from The Uni- versity of Virginia in 2011. He studied Neuroscience and Religious Studies. After working for a year in a Neuroscience lab at UVA’s Medical Center, he currently serves as a second-year corps member of Teach For America in the Metro Atlanta region, where he teaches high school Chemistry, Biology, and Forensic Science.

Rick Eberstadt

Rick, from Washington D.C., was a member of the University of Virginia class of 2011. He double majored in Politics and History as an undergraduate. He served as president and co-founder of The Burke Society and president of the Jefferson Society. After graduating, Rick worked as a research assistant at the U.S. House Republican Study Committee during the 112th Congress. He currently works as a communications associate at the White House Writers Group. He will be returning to Charlottesville in Fall 2014 to attend U.Va. School of Law.

Wes Siler

Wes, from Memphis, Tennessee, graduated magna cum laude from the University of Vir- ginia class of 2010. He double majored in American Politics and Russian & Eastern European Studies. He served as president of the Burke Society and Associate Editor of The Virginia Advocate. He currently serves in the 27th Intelligence Squadron of the United States Air Force supervising aspects of the Air Forces’ intelligence gathering missions at the Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. He has participated in mission trips to various countries including Ecuador, Uganda, and Romania.

Corina Spânu

Corina, originally from Romania, most recently from Falls Church, Virginia, was a member of the University of Virginia class of 2012. She double majored in Chemistry and Studio Art as an undergraduate. She served as public relations and social chair for the Burke Society. After graduating, Corina took two years off to work at the U.Va. Hospital with a surgery and pharmacy team studying Benzodiazepines. She now lives in Memphis, preparing to start Pharmacy School at the University of Tennessee and expects to graduate in 2018. She currently serves as the Events Chair for the U.Va. alumni chapter in Memphis.

50 • The Burke Academic Review Fall 2013 V S ER U IT IM ATE VALIB

The elevation of the mind ought to be the principal end of all our studies; which if they do not in some measure effect, they are of very little service to us. But, beside this great purpose, a consideration of the rationale of our passions seems to me very necessary for all who would affect them upon solid and sure principles. It is not enough to know them in general: to affect them after a delicate manner, or to judge properly of any work designed to affect them, we should know the exact boundaries of their several jurisdictions; we should pursue them through all their variety of operations, and pierce into the inmost, and what might appear inaccessible, parts of our nature,

Quod latet arcand non enarrabile fibrâ.

Without all this it is possible for a man, after a confused manner, sometimes to satisfy his own mind of the truth of his work; but he can never have a certain determinate rule to go by, nor can he ever make his propositions sufficiently clear to others. Poets, and orators, and painters, and those who cultivate other branches of the liberal arts, have, without this critical knowledge, succeeded well in their several provinces, and will succeed: as among artificers there are many machines made and even invented without any exact knowledge of the principles they are governed by. - Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful