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SPRING 2016 • NUMBER 3

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Providence_spring16_final_cover_spine.indd 1 Providence_spring16_final_cover_spine.indd 1 It is worth touching on two men who had killed him to a and puts us instead on a foot- points. First, and surprisingly parley, and put to them the case ing for war. Hardheaded realism perhaps, Dayan does not call that they would be better off be- must always trump soft-hearted for vengeance. This is because, ing a part of Israel than of Syria. sentiment. in part, Dayan disciplines his This petition was received by PROVIDENCE anger by recognizing Israel’s those Druze tribal warriors as Jewish strength, for Dayan, was SPRING 2016 | NUMBER 3 enemies as fellow human be- a shock—blood-for-blood was found first in a willingness to ings and because he concedes their eternal law and, Dayan yield, when yielding serves the FEATURES intelligible cause for Jewish knew, “they could not believe long-term good of all. “We must hatred by the Arabs. A man of that one whose brother had be strong enough to see the oth- profound compassion, Dayan, been shot down only days earlier er fellow’s side,” he urged, “to J. Daryl Charles the paradigmatic Jewish war- could extend the hand of ami- act with clemency, to extend rior, one whose name is counted ty to those who had taken that the hand of friendship.” At the THE MORAL UNDERPINNINGS OF with Joshua, David, and Gide- brave man’s life.” But extend same time, our enemy’s impla- on, was a man who warred for the hand Dayan did, and “those cability means our open hand JUST RETRIBUTION: the sake of peace, and absent men became my friends.” If I’m must sometimes be closed to a 04 implacable hate. Born in the right, this is what enemy-love fist. A friend who has long served JUSTICE & CHARITY IN SYMBIOSIS land, Dayan’s disposition was looks like. with courage and decency in the surely assisted by a childhood Israeli Defense Force comment- At the same time, point two, to spent among Arab neighbors. ed that, in the tough neighbor- acknowledge the reality of ene- His enemies had faces he knew. hood in which Israel resides, Bedouin children were his ear- my-love is to acknowledge the Matt N. Gobush lambs are eaten with pita and ly playmates. He boasted of his reality of an enemy. Because the hummus—they do not lie down deep respect and affection for his Arabs hate the Jews, Dayan in- MORAL MULTILATERALISM: with the wolves. And so strength Arab friends. “We took our lunch sisted the Jews cannot ignore then, in the last resort, must take THE OBAMA DOCTRINE’S CHRISTIAN REALISM together among the furrows,” he their hatred. We can clamor on the guise of Samson, and goes 18 said, “I danced at their weddings for peace all we want, he says, forth to break apart the strong- and they danced at mine.” At the but our adversaries’ intentions same time, those very Bedouin will have much to say regard- holds of our adversaries. playmates, in occasional mo- ing whether our longing is re- Sixty years ago Moshe Dayan ments of strife between Jews quited. When those intentions reminded us that strength is a MarC liVeCChe and Arabs, sometimes became are manifest in the murder his enemies and vicious fights and mutilation of Israelis, it is two-edged gift. It is as true today

UNCREDIBLE: broke out. Dayan always sought clear that Jewish ears must be as it was sixty years ago. OBAMA & THE END OF AMERICAN POWER reconciliation. stopped up against those who call for Jewish peace. Aspira- Marc LiVecche, PhD, is man- 30 Indeed, during the War of Inde- tions for an end to conflict can aging editor of Providence. pendence, Dayan’s own broth- be enervating and lull us away The text of Dayan’s eulogy is taken from the translation by Mitch Ginsburg er was killed by Syrian Druzes. from our senses. Dayan’s eulogy found at The Times of Israel, April 28th, Nevertheless, Dayan called the jolts us from our somnambulism 2016.

Cover Image:

Justice & Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, 1805-06. A corpse is sprawled across the ground while his murderer flees with his victim’s belongings. Above him, personifications of justice and vengeance are in pursuit. Vengeance illuminates the villain while it is justice, scales in hand, that will strike the retributive blow. Within the Christian intellectual tradition, Christian realism affirms that justice and retribution act in unison. Source: J. Paul Getty Museum, via Wikipedia Commons.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 87 5/31/16 7:25 PM PUBLISHERS Mark Tooley Robert Nicholson

EDITOR Mark Tooley

MANAGING EDITOR ESSAYS Marc LiVecche

Brian Auten DEPUTY EDITOR JUST INTELLIGENCE, Mark Melton JUST SURVEILLANCE, & THE LEAST INTRUSIVE STANDARD 40 SENIOR EDITORS Keith Pavlischek Joseph Loconte Andrew T. Walker SOUTHERN BAPTISTS, GENDER ASSOCIATE EDITOR IDEOLOGY, & FEMALE COMBATANTS 48 Susannah Black

Gideon Strauss CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mark Amstutz IS THERE HOPE FOR AFRICA? 54 Fred Barnes Nigel Biggar Susannah Black Paul Coyer CALIPHATE & COSMOPOLIS 58 Michael Cromartie Dean Curry Thomas Farr Robert Nicholson Mary Habeck Rebeccah Heinrichs ISLAM, CHRISTIANS, & THE END Will Inboden OF PALESTINE 62 James Turner Johnson Herb London Timothy Mallard Mark Tooley Paul Marshall DONALD TRUMP & THE LOST ART OF Faith McDonnell NIEBUHRIAN STATECRAFT 68 Walter Russell Mead Paul Miller Joshua Mitchell Alan Dowd Luke Moon A BANNER FOR THE NATIONS: Eric Patterson Mackubin Thomas Owens PRESERVING INTERNATIONAL ORDER Greg Thornbury & THE NATION-STATE SYSTEM 72 DESIGN & LAYOUT JA communications

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Marc LiVecche ISSN MOSHE DAYAN’S EULOGY 24713511 FOR ROI ROTBERG 85 Justice & Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, 1805 – 1806. A murderer flees with his victim’s belongings in his arms. Above him, Divine Vengeance illuminates the villain as Divine Justice, sword in hand, pursues him. Prud’hon made this study for a monumental painting destined to hang behind the judges’ bench in the criminal courtroom of the Palace of Justice in Paris. Source: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 4 5/31/16 7:25 PM FEATURE

THE MORAL UNDERPINNINGS OF JUST RETRIBUTION: JUSTICE & CHARITY IN SYMBIOSIS

J. Daryl Charles

hree generations ago Dorothy Sayers chided the Chris- Ttian church for its indifference toward theological foundations. The result of this deficiency, she lamented, was a church devoid of substance. Ethically, as she saw it, this dearth ended up paring “the claws of the Lion of Judah.”1

It is difficult to understate Sayers’ burden, by professional (religious) ethicists as well as for if the church’s condition in her day was at the popular level. unhealthy, in our own it may well be anemic. But this essay concerns itself neither with This opposition, of course, is by no means ecclesiology nor formal theology per se. Its confined to religious thought. The notion of burden, rather, is to identify a key deficiency retribution or punishment,2 which is foun- in the way that much of the Christian commu- dational to any construal of justice, has long nity thinks about ethics and ethical issues. It been the scourge of social science. For several is concerned to address the perceived opposi- generations, social scientists (including not tion between—when not the outright divorce a few criminologists) have viewed punish- of—justice and charity. This perceived tension ment in general as detrimental to human can be measured both in the literature written beings. Alas, it was only a matter of time

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 5 5/31/16 7:25 PM before religious ethicists and theologians responsible social policy. Thus, we may speak began imbibing this prejudice and promoting of punishment or moral retribution, properly it—in both academic and popular discourse. construed, as that which is just and not at odds with charity, properly construed. Part of the task, then, of serious Christian thinkers, for whom culture and the common I begin with an argument for the unity and social good are to be taken seriously, is to symbiosis of justice and charity on the basis of develop the distinction between retribution— theological and moral-philosophical assump- which is an intrinsically moral entity and tions rooted in the historic Christian tradition which is lodged at the heart of justice—and and natural law. Against this proposal, I ex- revenge or retaliation. We shall develop this amine influential voices that have contribut- important distinction later in the essay, but ed in substantial ways to posing opposition suffice it to say that a failure to understand between justice and charity. Following this, I the fundamental difference between the two identify representative voices within the wider is a failure to exercise moral discernment. Christian tradition that agree with my thesis. And in the end it manifests itself in a failure I conclude with reflections on the significance at the policy level, where the consequences of the harmony of justice and charity as it of bad ideas are magnified exponentially. concerns preserving the common good and undergirding responsible policy. Logically, three possibilities present themselves for our consideration: JUSTICE & CHARITY IN CONCORD: THE CASE FOR JUST (I.E., MORAL) 1. Retribution (i.e., punishment) and Christian love are one and the same RETRIBUTION and indistinguishable. At its third annual ethics symposium, con- 2. Retribution and Christian love are vened in 2012 at the Command and General polar opposites and unrelated. Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the U.S. Army brought together both military 3. Retribution and Christian love co-ex- and civilian ethicists, historians, political ist and are able to merge in an ethically philosophers, and chaplains to reflect cor- qualified way. porately on the ethics of coercive force in the contemporary geopolitical setting. One of the speakers addressed assembled attendees I reject option #1, and few people (in their (Majors and Lt. Colonels) on the moral-philo- right minds) would affirm it. There seems to sophical underpinnings of what consensually be a case for #2, based on several factors. One has been understood as the mainstream of might be a bad social environment in which the just-war tradition, a rich tradition of (fre- one grows up—for example, father-absence or quently Christian) moral reflection stretching having an abusive parent. Another might be from Ambrose and Augustine to Aquinas to the aforementioned philosophical opposition, Vitoria, Suárez, and Grotius to modern-day whereby it is assumed that punishment is theorists such as Paul Ramsey, James Turner harmful. Yet another factor might be theo- Johnson, and Jean Bethke Elshtain. The ti- logical opposition, several forms of which are tle of his address was instructive: “Justice, identified further on. Neighbor-Love, and the Permanent in Just- War Thinking.” Notwithstanding the force of arguments made on behalf of option #2, I shall reject these and The essence of his remarks was that the argue for #3. When justice and charity are symbiosis of justice and charity undergirds wed, unified, and working in symbiosis (rath- and informs the tradition and doctrine of er than separated or viewed as conflicting), “just war,” properly understood. To divorce humans perform their moral duty, dignify the these two virtues, therefore, would be to image of God in one another, and promote do irreparable damage to the character of

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 6 5/31/16 7:25 PM both justice and charity as well as to alter divine action is to be understood not as a the very moral foundation upon which just- setting aside or “negating” of various attri- war thinking rests. Both justice and charity, butes but rather as a different expression he reminded his audience, are non-fluid in or form of the same attributes. To be sure, character; as quintessential human virtues, from the human standpoint, the qualities of they are deemed universally binding, and divine mercy and compassion would appear hence, are “owed” to all people. As evidence opposites of divine judgment and wrath. And of this universality, he noted, a trans-cultural yet, historic Christian confession calls us to “Golden Rule” ethic surfaces in the teaching reject this “opposition” and affirm that these of both Plato and Jesus. And in the Christian are but different manifestations of the same moral tradition, this ethic, wherein justice attributes. The divine nature, after all, does and charity embrace, gives embodiment to not change. the natural law and finds powerful expression in the parable of the “Good Samaritan.” The ethical upshot of this doctrinal position requires reiterating. Divine justice and love Theological Considerations may not be severed or viewed as standing It has been a confession of Christian theology in tension (or opposition). And because through the ages that the nature and character Christians are “called” to imitate the divine of the trinitarian God are marked inter alia by nature, they are prohibited from divorcing incommunicable attributes such as eternality, justice and charity as these “cardinal vir- infinity, omnipotence, omniscience, transcen- tues” impact persons and people-groups. It dence, immutability, invisibility, sovereignty, is in this way—namely, creation and divine and self-sufficiency. A related attribute, which image-bearing—that the human moral im- tends not to receive much attention, is that pulse is to be understood. Christian theology of indivisibility. This doctrine counters the posits that humans are created in the image notion—whether implicit or explicit—that of God; hence, we are to bear his likeness by the divine nature is constituted by separate mirroring the imago Dei through our lives parts. A God whose being is understood or and our actions. assumed to be composite, thus, is assumed ultimately to be more creaturely than otherly A fundamental part of this image-bearing and transcendent in nature.3 Divine attri- is to manifest and work for justice in the butes are not to be understood as additions, context of human relations. Motivation for elements, trappings, or supplements—i.e., this work is summarized by the so-called qualities that are “added” or in need of being “Golden Rule” ethic that surfaces in the “balanced.” They do not exist in a certain teaching of both Plato and Jesus: we do to “combination.” At bottom, the Christian God others as we would want others to do to us. is not a deity of parts or divisions,4 nor does This entails advancing standards of moral he “develop” or “emanate.” Rather, his actions good and resisting or countering evil. For are an expression of his perfection, unity, and Thomas Aquinas, precisely this—doing good timelessness. We might even argue that God and avoiding evil—constitutes the heart of does not have attributes; he is his attributes. the natural moral law, the “first principles And for our purposes here, I am assuming of practical reason.”6 In his brief but richly that his love is his justice, that his judgments discerning essay “The Humanitarian Theory are his mercy, and vice versa, even when of Punishment,” C.S. Lewis argues that it they manifest themselves in differing (and is precisely because of the image of God in seemingly irreconcilable) ways.5 others, not in spite of it, that we hold fellow human beings accountable for their actions. The ethical implications of the doctrine of To hold them accountable, Lewis insists, is divine indivisibility become readily apparent. to dignify the imago Dei in them, and to fail Because the divine nature is not composite to hold them accountable is to disavow the or a sum of many parts but rather a unity, imago Dei.7

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 7 5/31/16 7:25 PM In some renderings of the image, Prud’hon has placed the familiar scales in the hands of Divine Justice—justice is proportionate and properly retributive.

Lest one assume that Christian theology the role of law is being hotly debated. And in loosens the demands of justice by means of the apostolic teaching recorded in Romans a presumed priority of love (an objection to 13, Paul is arguing that justice as meted out be treated in the following section), two im- by the governing authorities is divinely sanc- portant qualifications are in order. First, the tioned for the express purpose of preserving definition of “love” needs severe qualification. justice and social order in a fallen world. In “Love” needs stripping of the cultural baggage the apostle’s rationale, retributive justice and to which we have grown accustomed. When individual conscience are necessarily linked we speak, in biblical and theological terms, because of the “debt” of charity, which “fulfills of “loving one’s neighbor,” we understand the [moral] law.” charity to mean the desire for another’s best or highest. It is in this light that we are to Moral-Philosophical Considerations understand “enemy-love” as taught by Jesus. We wish for fellow human beings what is best In the context of moral accountability and for them—even for criminals and evildoers. retributive justice, a further qualifying el- To restrain or inhibit evildoers is indeed best ement requires comment—an element that for them, best for society at large, and best not infrequently is ignored, if not denied. A for future offenders. common objection to punishment, both in the sphere of criminal justice and in the realm Secondly, the teaching of the New Testament of foreign policy and international affairs, is univocal in its emphasis: love fulfills the is that retributive justice is merely a pretext law, which is another way of saying that for vengeance and retaliation. And, clearly, charity and justice are one and cannot be revenge is not rooted in love of one’s neighbor. divorced. This is the explicit teaching of Jesus, Paul, and James.8 Consider the context of The Christian moral tradition distinguishes each of these. Jesus’ teaching is designed the retributive act from revenge in important to counter contemporary religious thinking and unmistakable ways, based on intention. that might loosen the demands of the moral At its base, the moral outrage that expresses law. James is responding to tensions within itself through retributive justice is first and an emergent Christian community in which foremost rooted in moral principle and not

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 8 5/31/16 7:25 PM hatred or passion. Conceptually, revenge and both (a) discriminating and (b) proportionate retribution are worlds apart. Whereas re- in its application of coercive force.13 venge (i.e., vengeance or retaliation) strikes out at real or perceived injury, retribution In the sphere of human ethical endeavor, then, speaks to an objective wrong. Because of its there exists—based on the character of God retaliatory mode, revenge will target both and the image of God in human creation—a the offending party and those perceived to unity (and therefore, symbiosis) between be akin; retribution, by contrast, is targeted charity and justice. This unity must inform yet impersonal and impartial, not subject to ethical theory and activity, including our personal bias.9 It is for this reason that “Lady understanding of retribution or punishment. Justice” is depicted as blindfolded. Ethically, the separation of divine attributes is ruinous, mirroring weak theological founda- Moreover, whereas revenge is wild, insa- tions and in the end breeding disaster in terms tiable, and not subject to limitations, retri- of social and public policy. For this reason bution acknowledges both upper and lower it is necessary to identify influential voices, 10 limits as well as the moral repugnance of particularly in religious ethics, which have both draconian punishment for petty crimes contributed to the opposition or separation and of light punishment for heinous crimes. of justice and charity. Vengeance, by its very nature, has a thirst for injury, delighting in bringing further evil upon the offending party. The avenger JUSTICE & CHARITY IN CONFLICT: will not only kill but rape, torture, plunder, CHALLENGES TO SYMBIOSIS and burn what is left, deriving satisfaction from the victim’s direct or indirect suffering. The Priority of Love: Augustine describes this propensity as a “lust Representative Voices 11 for revenge,” a motivation which causes C.S. What unites many religious thinkers is the Lewis to reflect, in the context of war: baseline conviction that Christian love is both the goal of human existence and the means to We may [in wartime] kill if necessary, but that goal. Hence, to treat fellow human beings we must never hate and enjoy hating. We may punish if necessary, but we must not merely as moral law or justice requires is not enjoy it. In other words, something inside the same—nor as noble—as to love others as us, the feeling of resentment, the feeling Jesus ostensibly requires of us. that wants to get one’s own back, must be simply killed… It is hard work, but the In his important and defining Works of Love, attempt is not impossible.12 Søren Kierkegaard argues for love’s transcen- dence by observing the anatomy—the very The impulse toward retribution, it needs em- composition—of agape; it: phasizing, is not some lower or primitive instinct; rather, in Christian theological terms, • is our supreme duty it corresponds to the divine image present in all people. To treat men and nations, however • is a fulfillment of the law severely, in accordance with the belief that • is our ongoing debt to others they should have known better is to treat • seeks not its own them as responsible moral agents. Civilized human beings will not tolerate murder and • hides a multitude of sins mayhem at any level, whether domestic or • believes and hopes all things; and international; the uncivilized, however, will. • abides forever “Civil society” will exercise moral restraint in responding to moral evil—a commitment that Kierkegaard poses the question, “What is it is rooted in neighbor-love and an awareness of that is never changed even though everything the human dignity. The particular character of [else] is changed?” His response: “It is love, … this response is twofold in its application: it is that which never becomes something else.”14

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 9 5/31/16 7:25 PM De triomf van de Doods (The Triumph of Death) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, circa 1562. This hellscape demonstrates what proper retribution is not: wantonly cruel, delighting in sadism, full of malice, vengeful. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Love is eternal, “the only thing that will not be over time.20 Nygren insists that agape is not abolished.”15 “You shall love” is “the royal law.”16 merely a fundamental motif of Christianity; it is the fundamental motif.21 In the conclusion of Works, Kierkegaard writes tellingly: “The matter is very simple. For Nygren, the character of love is under- Christianity has abandoned the Jewish like- stood as “unmotivated,” “indifferent to value,” for-like [i.e., an eye for an eye]… but it has and “blind” to the demands of justice.22 This established the Christian, the eternal like- “blindness,” it is thought, results in forgive- for-like in its place.”17 For Kierkegaard, the ness, which is gratuitous and foregoing of concept of restitution no longer exists with any corrective rights. God’s love, after all, the advent of Christianity. In his “leap of is pure grace and doesn’t recognize merit or faith,” love becomes the source and sum of value. Therefore, the moral vision of the New ethics, a transcendent norm that lies beyond Testament is not merely a “fulfillment” of the 18 the natural law and any moral parameters. Old; it is a repudiation of law and justice as revealed in the Old. Perhaps the most sophisticated apology for love’s ethical primacy is found in the seminal One further exemplar, closer to our day, is work of Anders Nygren (d. 1978), for whom the Christian idea of love involves “a revolution in sufficient for illustration. In the introduc- ethical outlook without parallel in the history tion to his book Moral Wisdom, James F. of ethics.”19 As the title of his work indicates, Keenan writes, “I believe we need to start the main competitor to agape is the Platonic with the primacy of love and specifically the concept of eros. The challenge is therefore love of God… If we start with love instead twofold: to distinguish the two and to purify of freedom or truth, what happens? Why agape of socio-cultural notions that accrue start discussions of morality…with love?”

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 10 5/31/16 7:25 PM Three reasons, Keenan believes, justify this peace (pax iniqua) primacy: scripture, theology, and human • the failure to distinguish between experience.23 force and violence Keenan’s position, that love is the starting • the failure to distinguish contextually point for morality—and not truth, for exam- between Romans 12 and Romans 13 ple24—should give us pause. Yet, this assertion • the rejection of abiding moral law and places him squarely in the mainstream of con- the natural law temporary thinking about ethics. Generally • a false dichotomizing of Old Testa- assumed is that love and justice stand in tension or opposition, resulting in a “primacy” ment and New Testament ethics of love.25 Lest the reader conclude that I am unfairly caricaturing religious pacifism, permit me to The Priority of Love & Peace: say that I grew up in the Anabaptist tradition Religious Pacifism and thus understand—and appreciate—it from Given its basic pre-commitment to peace as “the inside.” The strengths of the pacifist “non-violence” (or peace as the absence of con- perspective are multiple and certainly com- flict), religious pacifism places love and justice pelling. It is sensitive to the violent tendencies in frequent conflict or opposition by dimin- that permeate both human experience in ishing the demands of justice in its reading general and American culture in particular. of Scripture and extolling peace as the virtue In addition, it recognizes diverse—and in of the “Kingdom of God.” In our day it finds many ways, creative—avenues for political its most forceful expression in the writings and social action. In the words of Jean Bethke of people like John Howard Yoder, Stanley Elshtain, pacifism puts “violence on trial” in Hauerwas, and other Anabaptist types. At that it views social life from the perspective the risk of over-simplification, we may say of the potential victim and not the victor.26 that because of an ideological pre-commit- Furthermore, it is keenly sensitive to the dis- ment to “peace” and “non-violence,” certain tortions of faith that come with an uncritical tendencies affecting faith and ethics flow view of the state that fades into nationalism—a from this outlook—among these: continual problem throughout history and not one that is uniquely American.27 • the extolling of love and “peace” as the highest virtues Mainstream Christian thinking through the • the “Sermon on the Mount” as not only ages takes exception to pacifist pre-commit- personal discipleship but statecraft ments at several critically important levels; • the “turning of the other cheek” as the these criticisms are theological, historical, equivalent of “enemy-love” moral-philosophical, and hermeneutical in nature.28 One objection to religious paci- • the assumption of a moral purity in fism is its failure to make the fundamental the early (pre-Constantinian) church moral distinction that exists—supported in • the assumption of a Constantinian Scripture—between shedding innocent blood decline and apostasy of the church and shedding any blood. This is seen in the (“Constantinianism”) Sixth Commandment, in the post-flood cove- • the belief that the church, since the nant with Noah (Gen. 9), and in the rationale fourth century, with the exception of for the cities of refuge (Num. 35, Deut. 19, the “radical reformation” of the six- and Josh. 20). Not all killing is murder. To teenth century (the birth of Anabap- fail to acknowledge this important distinction tism), has been in apostasy not only undermines the common good but • the failure to distinguish between a can even be said to prepare the ground for just peace (pax iusta) and an unjust totalitarianism.29

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 11 5/31/16 7:25 PM begins his discussion of war in the Summa by asking “Is it always sinful to wage war?”

At the same time that guarding the common good is a legitimate calling, a moral realism about human nature should cause us to think soberly about the use—and abuse—of power and politics while at the same time preventing us from opting out of political reality altogether in favor of utopian fantasies. This sobriety requires of us participation, action, and moral discernment in a world of limits, estrangements, and partial justice wherein we recognize the provisional nature of all political arrangements. These assumptions about political reality, rooted in Augustinian thinking about the “two cities”—the city of God and the city of man—call us to live “between the times” in a way that takes both citizenships seriously. In refusing to engage in policy and politics, pacifism creates the morally awkward dilemma of keeping its hands clean while unbelievers dirty their hands in the business of maintaining justice.

Yet another qualification needs emphasis which pacifism is inclined to overlook. “Peace” can be unjust and therefore illicit in character. The mainstream of Christian thinking differs Insofar as bandits, pirates, terrorists, and with religious pacifists on another critically criminals—in any age and social context— important front. Politics and guarding the maintain an orbit of “peace” around them common good (which encompasses a host of in order to flourish, peace must be justly civil service vocations) are not a “necessary ordered. In the words of Aquinas, “peace is 31 [or intrinsic] evil” but rather a part of our not a virtue, but the fruit of virtue.” Peace stewardship in tending all of creation (un- and justice are both human goods, but neither less, of course, scripture explicitly condemns is an absolute good. The Christian position, it needs emphasizing, is not “peace at any particular vocations as intrinsically immoral). price.”32 Mainstream Christianity’s disagree- Notice that for John the Baptist, in a context ment with pacifism does not simply concern of repentance (Luke 3:14), the sin of soldiers is the means of establishing peace; rather, it not being soldiers, any more than Zacchaeus’ concerns the nature of that interim worldly sin (Luke 19:1-10) was collecting taxes; rather, peace. Because of its commitment to “non-vi- it was the temptation to be unjust. Notice, too, olence” and consequent refusal to resist evil that two officers in the Roman Legions are directly through action, ideological pacifism paradigms of faith. One is praised by Jesus would seem to bestow upon evil and tyran- for his utterly remarkable faith (Matthew ny an advantage. Michael Walzer worries 8:5-13), and another is used by God to open that pacifism concedes the overrunning of a Peter’s eyes to God’s purposes (Acts 10 and country or people-group needing defending, 11). Significantly, a centurion is the first bap- something that no government has ever done tized Gentile. In the New Testament, soldiers willingly.33In the words of C.S. Lewis, “If or those in authority are never called away war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes from their vocation.30 For this reason Aquinas sinful.”34

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 12 5/31/16 7:25 PM Finally, civic peace—i.e., that which guards cerned with what is good—good for the per- the common good and allows people to petrator of criminal acts, good for the soci- flourish—is not the peace of the eschaton. ety which is watching, and good for future/ As Luther is to have famously quipped, if we potential offenders. insist that in the present life the lion lie down To read Aquinas’ treatment of both chari- with the lamb, the lamb will need constant ty and justice in the Summa is instructive. replacing. The prophetic images of lion and lamb, adder and infant, leopard and goat are Questions 23-46 of II-II are devoted to the intended to be eschatological; it is utopian nature of charity, its priorities, its moral and fantastic to expect these to be lying to- dimensions, and its consequences. To the gether and playing in the present life. Our interrogatory, “Is a command to love real- present obligations concern guarding and ly necessary?” Aquinas answers, “Yes,” any justly ordering a temporal peace, not the moral obligation requires a command, given perfect peace of the city of God. sin and the human propensity for hatred. In fact, the command to love is implicit in all ten LOVE & JUSTICE IN CONCORD: commands of the Decalogue. The virtues, of which caritas is one, are developed habitually SUPPORT FOR THE THESIS and therefore must be both commanded and Because the Christian social ethic rests on practiced. As a virtue, then, love for Aquinas 38 a bedrock of theological foundations, chief is “a principle of action.” of which is the character of God himself, we would expect to find a mainstream of thinking What is noteworthy in Aquinas’ discussion about charity and justice among the church’s is the fact that war is contextualized in the fathers of any era. And indeed we do, both middle of his treatment of caritas (Q. 40). ancient and modern. Charity and justice meet and guide us in

Augustine & Aquinas Augustine is important inter alia because he reminds us of our two citizenships—one in the “city of God,” one in the “city of man.” When push comes to shove, Augustine is very clear in De Civitate Dei that our ultimate allegiance is to the divine city. However, that does not release us from our responsibilities to the city of man, and in that city there is a critical need for ordering society because of the effects of sin. Hence he speaks of the tranquillitas ordinis, the justly-ordered peace. Because of evil and the obligation of Christian love to defend and protect the innocent third party, to not apply what he calls “benevolent harshness” (benigna as- peritas)35 to stop the evildoer is itself to do evil. In Augustine’s “benevolent harshness,” love and justice necessarily merge.

Charity, as Augustine conceives of it, must motivate all that we do, including the application of coercive force. Not the external act but our internal motivation determines the morality of our deeds.36 As a social force, this “rightly ordered love”37 is foremost con-

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 13 5/31/16 7:25 PM applying coercive force. And one of the three “a Christian, impelled by love,” simply “can- classic criteria for a war to be considered “just’ not remain aloof…toward the neighbor.”46 is right intention. Right intention is measured Although Ramsey views love as central, he by the presence of both charity—which desires regularly speaks of “the ethics of obedient the best for the neighbor—and justice (Q. love.”47 Love, Ramsey insists, originates in 58)—which is protective of the basic rights righteousness and justice.48 Which is why of the innocent neighbor. Because “justice Jesus’ teaching emphasizes a rule, a kingdom, directs a man in his relations with others,”39 and not simply love.49 justice and love meld in Thomistic thought. Neighbor-love is the primary feature of Niebuhr and Ramsey Ramsey’s “obedient” love because it is cog- Two Christian thinkers closer to our time nizant of the imago Dei in others. For this share this commitment to prevent love and reason, in Basic Christian Ethics Ramsey 50 justice from being disengaged, though in speaks of “a Christian ethic of resistance” differing ways. Reinhold Niebuhr, as clouds and a “preferential ethics of protection”51 that were forming on the European horizon in has the innocent neighbor or third party in the 1930s, grew impatient with standard view.52 Hence, “Love can only do more, it Protestant ethics of his day. In the end, can never do less, than justice requires.”53 Niebuhr rejected the divorce of love and “[N]o authority on earth,” he writes, can with- justice, even when his theological reasoning draw from charity or justice their inclination must be viewed as deficient. (Here I refer to “rescue from dereliction and oppression to his now famous words, the “impossible all whom it is possible to rescue.”54 In the possibility,” to describe Jesus’ love ethic.40) end, Ramsey opposed what he called “pure Niebuhr believed that “the final law in which agapism,” which mistakenly assumes that no all other law is fulfilled is the law of love.” basic ethical principles other than “the law But, he insists, “this law does not abrogate of love” are valid. There are general rules of the laws of justice, except as love rises above practice, as he argues in his important work 41 justice to exceed its demands.” Tellingly, he Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics.55 To his writes: “The gospel is something more than great credit, Ramsey’s theological orientation the law of love. The gospel deals with the fact always had responsible policy in view.56 that men violate the law of love.”42

“Christian orthodoxy,” Niebuhr laments (in CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS An Interpretation of Christian Ethics), has In a faithfully Christian and natural-law con- “failed to derive any significant politico-moral principles from the law of love… It therefore strual of social ethics, there is to be found a destroyed a dynamic relationship between the reciprocity and symbiosis—a unity—between ideal of love and the principles of justice.”43 charity and justice. Although we might be The result of this divorce, he believes, is tragic: tempted on occasion to think that the two we end up abetting injustice.44 Hence, he lam- virtues stand in tension or in conflict, this poons Protestant naïveté on the eve of World inclination must be rejected as false, and War II with a sarcastic lament, suggesting hence, ethically damaging. Charity flows that if only Christians had demonstrated from goodness, which is in fact no goodness more non-violent love and “if Britain had only without the leaven of justice.57 Alas, the two been fortunate enough to have produced 30 stand in true harmony. percent instead of two percent conscientious objectors to military service, [then] Hitler’s Charity, if it is authentic, will respond to heart would have been softened and he would human need by looking both to the good of not have dared attack Poland.”45 the individual and the common good, always seeking to honor what is just. Justice, if it One generation closer to us, the noted is truly just, will always seek humane and Princeton ethicist Paul Ramsey insists that morally appropriate ways of dealing with

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 14 5/31/16 7:25 PM human behavior, never losing sight of the fact J. Daryl Charles teaches in the Chattanooga Fellows of human dignity. In preserving the unity of Program and is an Affiliated Scholar of the John Jay love and justice, we affirm the image of God Institute. He is author, co-author, or editor of 14 books, including (with Mark David Hall) America’s in all people as moral agents. This affirma- Wars: A Just War Perspective (University of tion expresses itself not just incidentally but Notre Dame Press, forthcoming), (with David D. particularly in the realm of retribution. As Corey) The Just War Tradition: An Introduction (ISI C.S. Lewis argued against the grain in his Books, 2012), (with Timothy J. Demy) War, Peace, day, we punish precisely because humans and Christianity (Crossway, 2010), and Between are moral agents created in the image of God. Pacifism and Jihad (IVP, 2005).

The importance of just restitution in affirm- Endnotes ing human dignity is illustrated forcefully 1 See the opening chapter of her Creed or Chaos? (Sophia Institute Press, rep. 1995). by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, 2 Throughout this essay I am using the terms “retribution” former chief prosecutor of the International and “punishment” interchangeably. Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia 3 Hence, the response by Athanasius and Nicea to Arian distortions. and Rwanda. Goldstone had this to say in an 4 Hereon see more recently James E. Dolezal, God address at the U.S. Holocaust Museum: without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2011). 5 For example, a proper understanding of the doctrine The one thing that I have learned in my of atonement, and penal substitution in particular, will travels to the former Yugoslavia and… refuse to pit an angry, wrathful Father against a loving, Rwanda and in my own country is that merciful Son. where there have been egregious human 6 Summa Theologiae I-II Q. 94. rights violations that have been unaccount- 7 C.S. Lewis, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” in W. Hooper, ed., God in the Dock: Essay on Theology and ed for, where there has been no justice, Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 287-300. where the victims have not received any 8 Matt. 5:14-48; 22:37-40; Rom. 13:6-10; James 2:8-11. acknowledgment, where they have been 9 It is the difference between “vigilante justice” and forgotten, where there’s been amnesia, the bona fide justice. effect is a cancer in the society.58 10 Significantly, Jesus does not set aside the concept of lex talionis, which is rooted in Old Testament moral law (Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21). His quarrel (see Matt. 5:38-42) is not with the upper and lower limits of justice as What is Justice Goldstone saying? He is saying per the lex talionis but with the abuse of recompense in his own day – an abuse that appears to have been sanctioned that justice is retributive and restorative, and by contemporary rabbinic teaching (“You have heard it not one to the exclusion of the other. One said…,” 5:38a). thing needing emphasis in our day is this: 11 City of God 14.14 and Contra Faustum 22.74. 12 Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, the process of restoration cannot bypass [rep.] 1996), 109. repayment of the debt. Anselm grasped this 13 This is true of domestic as well as foreign affairs, of in his understanding of atonement, noting, criminal justice as well as prosecuting war. Grotius insisted the “the laws of war and peace” are anchored in the same “if sin is neither paid for nor punished, it is principles of justice that hold together all domains of civil subject to no law.”59 Justice Goldstone grasps society (On the Law of War and Peace 2.1.9). 14 Søren Kierkegaard, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, this, too. Christian love does not set aside the trans. H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton need for restitution, payment, or satisfaction University Press, 1990), 56. of a public debt.60 Before he became Pontiff, 15 Ibid., 71. John Paul II pressed this very argument, in 16 Cf. James 2:8. 17 Works of Love, ed. and tr. H.V. and E.H. Hong (New his book Sign of Contradiction, namely, that York: Harper & Row, 1962), 345. temporal punishment produces a necessary 18 D.J. Wenneman, “The Role of Love in the Thought of cleansing and purification from sin.61 Kant and Kierkegaard” (accessible at https://www.bu.edu/ wcp/Papers/Reli/ReliWenn.htm), develops this insight with particular clarity. Retribution, understood properly, is a moral 19 Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. P.S. Watson entity that serves a civilized culture. It does (London: SPCK, 1953), 28. not stand in opposition to Christian charity 20 Ibid., 211-19. 21 Ibid., 61-62, 65-66, 81-91, 105-45, 146-59. The primary or human dignity but rather expresses both biblical components of Nygren’s thesis are Jesus’ reiteration when guided by the harmonious melding of of the “two greatest commandments” (Matt. 22:37-40; Mark 12:29-31), the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), and the justice and charity. centrality of “God is love” in Johannine literature.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 15 5/31/16 7:25 PM 22 Ibid., 75-80. 35 Epistle 138, “To Marcellinus.” 23 James F. Keenan, Moral Wisdom (Lanham/Oxford, 36 The City of God 14.9. U.K.: Rowman& Littlefield, 2004), 14. 37 All that was created is “good,” for Augustine; however, 24 As a helpful antidote to this false dichotomy, see the when our loves are not rightly ordered, the ultimate good important 1993 papal encyclical of John Paul II, Veritatis is violated (City of God 15.22). Splendor, available online. 38 Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 23-46, 58; cf. also Com- 25 Admittedly, my choice of contemporary voices has mentary on Nicomachean Ethics, Lectures IV-VI. been selective and representative, limited as it is by space 39 Ibid. II-II Q. 58, a. 9, r. 3. and time. Other examples include Edward Collins Vacek, Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics 40 Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1994); (New York: Scribner’s, 1940), 3. In An Interpretation of Timothy P. Jackson, The Priority of Love: Christian Charity Christian Ethics (Cleveland and New York: Meridian, and Social Justice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956 [repr.]), 134, Niebuhr writes, “The ideal possibility is 2009); and idem, Love Disconsoled: Meditations on Christian really an impossibility.” What Niebuhr called “Christian Charity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). idealism” creates an illusion; what is needed, rather, is a “Christian realism” (D. B. Robertson, ed., Love and Justice: 26 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Women and War (rev. ed.; Chi- Selections from the Shorter Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr cago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 123, 132. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1992], 41-43). A useful corrective 27 At least for a previous generation of “conscientious to Niebuhr’s deficient theology is offered by Paul Ramsey in objectors” like my own father (a Mennonite who performed “Love and Law,” in Charles W. Kegley and Robert W. Bretall, alternative service in a Veterans Hospital during World eds., Reinhold Niebuhr: His Religious, Social and Political War II), it has shown a willingness to sacrifice and count Thought (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 79-123. the cost of one’s own convictions. Of course, conscription 41 Love and Justice, 25. was the reality of the Second World War, unlike today with soldiering in our culture a voluntary matter, which renders 42 Christianity and Power Politics, 18 (emphasis added). pacifism as “policy” in a wholly different light. 43 An Interpretation of Christian Ethics, 131. 28 For all the high praise that was showered upon 44 Ibid., 136. Richard Hays’ The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New 45 Reinhold Niebuhr, Christianity and Power Politics, 6. York: HarperCollins, 1996) following its publication (and 46 Paul Ramsey, Basic Christian Ethics (New York: the praise was effusive from all corners), Hays’ pacifist Scribner’s, 1950), 345-46. reading of the New Testament (chapter 14: “Violence in Defense of Justice”) is exceedingly disappointing at all 47 Ibid., xvii (emphasis added). levels—theologically, historically, moral-philosophically, and hermeneutically. More recently, Nigel Biggar, In Defence of 48 Ibid., 367. War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), esp. chapters 49 Ibid., 24-35. 1 and 2, has subjected Hays’s pacifist reading of scripture to withering—and surely much needed—scrutiny. 50 Ibid., 171-84. 29 This important moral has been succinctly emphasized 51 Ibid., 166-71. by Elizabeth Anscombe, “War and Murder,” in M.M. Wakin, 52 In this vein, Ramsey takes Jesus’ teaching on “turning ed., War, Morality and the Military Profession (Boulder: the other cheek” in the Sermon on the Mount and extrap- Westview, 1979), 285-98. olates, noting that Jesus does not say, If someone strikes 30 In his writings, Anabaptist theologian John Howard your neighbor on the right cheek, turn to his aggressor the Yoder mistakenly asserts that Revelation 13, not Romans other as well (170-71). 13, is the true portrait of governing authorities. Yoder’s 53 Ibid., 347-48, herewith citing Emil Brunner, Justice position goes one step further than his Anabaptist forebears; and the Social Order (New York: Harpers, 1945), 129. Article 6 of the Schleitheim Confession of 1527, the earliest formal declaration of Anabaptist beliefs, confesses: “The 54 Paul Ramsey, The Just War: Force and Political sword is ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ. Responsibility (repr.; Lanham: Rowman& Littlefield, It punishes and puts to death the wicked, and guards and 2002), 35-6. protects the good. In the Law the sword was ordained for 55 Paul Ramsey, Deeds and Rules in Christian Ethics the punishment of the wicked and for their death, and the (New York: Scribner’s, 1967). same (sword) is (now) ordained to be used by the worldly magistrates.” What Schleitheim rejects is that Christians 56 Despite the volume’s sensitivity to the divorce—theo- themselves can wield the sword or serve as magistrates. retically and practically—of justice and charity, Nicholas Woltertorff’s Justice in Love (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, 31 Summa Theologiae II-II Q. 29. UK: Eerdmans, 2011) is remarkable for its inattention to the work of Ramsey. An additional fundamental weakness 32 Therefore, Jesus’ words “Blessed are the peacemakers” of Wolterstorff’s volume is its deficient understanding of the need severe qualification. relationship between punishment and forgiveness and its 33 Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with rejection of retributive justice and restitution, which Wol- Historical Illustrations (4th ed.; New York: Basic Books, terstorff fails to distinguish from revenge. I have evaluated 2006), 329-35. Wolterstorff’s book at length in a review essay that appeared in Spring 2013 issue of the Journal of Church & State. 34 “The Conditions for a Just War,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. by Walter Hooper (Grand 57 So Anselm, Proslogion 9.60. Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 326. The moral distinction between 58 Richard Goldstone, “War Crimes: When Amnesia a just and an unjust peace highlights the logical conclusion Causes Cancer,” Washington Post (February 2, 1997), C4. and moral obtuseness of Gandhi’s “non-violence.” Gandhi’s advice to European Jews who were being delivered to ex- 59 Anselm, Cur Deus Homo 1.12.218. termination camps by the Nazis was to commit suicide in 60 Recall the example of Zacchaeus, who paid back four order to get the world’s attention and speak to the conscience times the debt he owed because of tax fraud (Luke 19:1-10). of nations. (See in this regard George Orwell, “Reflections on Gandhi,” Partisan Review 16, no. 1 [1949]: 85-92, 61 Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), Sign of Contradic- accessible online as well at http://www.online-literature. tion (New York: Seabury, 1979), 166-69. com/orwell/898/.) Notice the contradiction here: whereas violence toward others was viewed by Gandhi as immoral, violence directed toward the self was to be countenanced. One is justified in arguing that Gandhi’s “pacifism” was only possible in relatively free nations like India, a British colony, and not in totalitarian societies like the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 16 5/31/16 7:25 PM urrent events remind me of questions C which were put to me by members of Congress prior to December 7th, as to where American soldiers might be called upon to fight, and just what was the urgent necessity for the Army that we were endeavoring to organize and train. In reply I usually commented on the fact that we had previously fought in France, Italy, and Germany; in Africa and the Far East; in Siberia and Northern Russia. No one could tell what the future might hold for us. But one thing was clear to me, we must be prepared to fight anywhere, and with a minimum of delay. The possibilities were not overdrawn, for today we find American soldiers throughout the Pacific, in Burma, in China, and India. Recently they struck at Tokyo. They have wintered in Greenland and Iceland. They are landing in Northern Ireland and England, and they will land in France.

We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.

George C. Marshall, speech on the 29th of May, 1942, to the graduating officers of the “backbone class,” The United States Military Academy (West Point). “They pointed the way by being at the front.”

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 17 5/31/16 7:25 PM FEATURE

MORAL MULTILATERALISM: THE OBAMA DOCTRINE’S CHRISTIAN REALISM

Matthew N. Gobush

Mural by Per Krohg, donated to the United Nations by Norway in 1952. This gigantic image hangs in the UN Security Council Chamber in New York. In between horizontal depictions of hell and paradise, images saturated by the white-blue colors of the United Nations symbolize equality, unity, and peace elevating humanity from present reality to future hope. Source: United Nations. Photo of mural by Lois Conner, 1985.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 18 5/31/16 7:25 PM mong the legacies American presidents leave are doctrines: Aformal declarations of principle governing when, where, or how the United States will use military force. By defining conditions justifying war, doctrines represent the tip of the spear of a president’s foreign policy. They also represent the needle of its moral compass. As more than one Commander-in-Chief has lamented, no decision more profoundly tests one’s beliefs in right and wrong, good and evil, duty and justice, than the one to send American servicemen and women into harm’s way. Doctrines establish the standards for making such wrenching decisions.

The history of presidential doctrine-making when pressed by journalists.4 Its elusiveness stretches nearly two centuries. President has left scholars “searching for an Obama James Monroe is credited with declaring Doctrine.”5 Even the critically acclaimed fea- the first in 1823, and the so-called Monroe ture story on the subject by Jeffrey Goldberg Doctrine, which threatened U.S. military in a recent issue of The Atlantic does little action if European powers sought to fur- to advance the search. In its nearly 20,000 ther colonize the Western Hemisphere, set words discussing President Obama’s foreign the bar for presidents since. In the last one policy, the term “Obama Doctrine” appears hundred years, at least eight presidents have only once—in the title.6 promulgated eponymous doctrines, ranging from the Truman Doctrine, which committed In truth, however, the search is over—and the United States to assist in the defense of has been since May 28, 2014. In a speech democracies against Soviet subversion, to on that date to the graduating cadets of the the Bush Doctrine, which asserted a right United States Military Academy at West Point, to unilateral preventative attack. President Obama explained the conditions under which Americans would take up arms: Will President Obama bequeath a doctrine? Some, even supporters, have argued that The United States will use military force, “there has not been, and likely will not be, unilaterally if necessary, when our core any durable Obama doctrine of a particu- interests demand it—when our people are lar positive note.”1 On the other hand, his threatened, when our livelihoods are at stake, when the security of our allies is in critics have seized upon slogans to ascribe danger… On the other hand, when issues of to the president doctrines ranging from global concern do not pose a direct threat 2 the passive (“Leading from behind”) to the to the United States—when crises arise 3 profane (“Don’t do stupid sh*t”). President that stir our conscience or push the world Obama himself seems allergic to the term in a more dangerous direction but do not “doctrine,” adopting it rarely and reluctantly directly threaten us—then the threshold

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 19 5/31/16 7:25 PM for military action must be higher. In such warfighting, and in so doing, simultaneously circumstances, we should not go it alone. constrains and empowers the United States on Instead, we must mobilize allies and part- the world stage. Behind the Obama Doctrine’s 7 ners to take collective action. deceptively simple syllogism lies an important reorientation in U.S. foreign policy. Circumstantial evidence confirms this statement’s doctrinal status. The president’s advi- To better appreciate the Obama doctrine’s sors raised expectations for a doctrine before significance, it is useful to consider it in the the speech8; commentators greeted it as such context of another—the doctrine of just war. immediately afterwards9; and the president Just war doctrine, as one of its leading histori- himself later cited it when the occasion ans and Providence contributor James Turner arose.10 Moreover, no other public statement Johnson observes, is a “historical tradition of President Obama’s before or since competes of thought” incorporating a broad variety of with this singular pronouncement. influences, including “theological and philosophical ethical reasoning.”11 As theologian Unilateral force to Oliver O’Donovan counter direct threats, has said, it enables multilateral force the “improvisation of to counter indirect judgment” for waging threats—this syllo- war by leaders in a gism captures the world with no univer- essence of President sal system of justice Obama’s doctrine. or government.12 Just Direct threats he de- war doctrine is thus “a fines as those aimed tool to think with,” as at America’s “core” the modern revivalist interests; by implica- of the tradition, Paul tion, indirect threats Ramsey, termed it.13 involve marginal interests. At West Point, President Obama President Obama appreciates just war asserted that core doctrine. He alluded interests encompass to it at West Point, defense of American asserting that, “we citizens and territory, still need to ask tough of economic interests, questions, about and of allies; elsewhere he has included in whether our actions are proportional, and this category counter proliferation of weap- effective, and just.” More explicitly, he em- ons of mass destruction, and interestingly, braced it in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance prevention of genocide. Marginal interests, speech in Oslo, Norway five years before.14 by contrast, may be global dangers or noble Here he recalled how “the concept of ‘just causes, but pose no direct threat to the United war’ emerged, suggesting that war is justified States. Responding to humanitarian crises, only when certain conditions are met.” He protecting human rights, and enforcing in- challenged his audience “to think in new ternational agreements appear to fall within ways about the notions of just war and the this category. imperatives of a just peace.” Few presidents have spoken in greater depth on the subject This taxonomy of interests deserves critical than did President Obama at Oslo.15 examination. But the deeper significance of the Obama Doctrine is not so much the clas- In its classic form, just war doctrine posits that sifications as the connections it draws from leaders are responsible not only for the protec- them. In effect, it links the ends and means of tion of their citizens, but also for maintaining

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 20 5/31/16 7:25 PM tranquillitas ordinis, an ordered peace. To Although these two just war criteria have meet these responsibilities, they are morally changed over time, the relationship between bound to use force if necessary to mete justice them has remained fundamentally unchanged. as well as repel threats. Arms, however, are As scholar Nigel Biggar has said, “The various to be wielded more in sorrow than in anger, criteria are connected by an internal logic that out of duty more than self-interest, and with orders them, making some logically prior to the intent of reestablishing peace and justice. others and imposing on the complex act of Furthermore, the use of force is to be gov- judgment a certain structure.”20 The “order erned by two sets of criteria: those pertaining of judgment,” as Biggar contends, begins to the decision to resort to war (jus ad bellum), with consideration of just cause, followed and those pertaining to the way in which war by legitimate authority, and continuing with is waged (jus in bello). The first set typical- the remaining criteria. By contrast, Johnson, ly includes just cause, legitimate authority, citing St. Aquinas, argues that legitimate au- right intention, proportionality, prospect of thority stood prior to just cause in the classic success, and last resort; the second includes understanding of the doctrine.21 Regardless, discrimination and this decision-making proportionality. structure presupposes that each criterion is The Obama Doctrine to be considered on its addresses two of just own terms and judged war doctrine’s jus apart from the others ad bellum criteria: in the first instance. just cause and legit- No two criteria relate imate authority. The directly except to the nature of just cause extent that all relate has altered over the equally in the final centuries. At the dawn analysis. Ultimately, of the doctrine, it fo- all criteria must be cused upon “avenging met to justify war. wrongs,” according to St. Augustine.16 Just The Obama Doctrine cause has since been fundamentally alters reduced, if one ad- this structure not by heres to the Catholic reordering the judg- Catechism, to entail ment, but by more only self-defense.17 closely interrelating The meaning of le- just cause and legit- gitimate authority has similarly evolved. imate authority. The president transforms Originally, as Johnson has chronicled, it these two criteria from independent to in- was meant to reserve the use of force for terdependent variables: the legitimacy of the causes other than self-preservation to those authority seeking to wage war is dependent temporal leaders with no temporal superior upon the nature of the just cause in question. (auctoritas principis).18 The criterion was According to the Obama Doctrine, cause and therefore intended to deter vigilantism and to authority must be considered in tandem, with challenge “the powers that be” to “bear not the certain combinations passing muster, and sword in vain,” per Romans 13:3-4, but for the other combinations not. The end (just cause) common good. However, as just war doctrine determines the means (legitimate authority). extended beyond Christendom to inform the development of secular international law, One implication of this innovation in legitimate authority was reduced to “merely the structure of judgment is to impose a a pro forma requirement”19 conferred to duly self-constraint on the unilateral use of force. constituted and recognized nation states. Following the president’s West Point speech,

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 21 5/31/16 7:25 PM Detail from Mankind’s Struggle for Lasting Peace by José Vela-Zanetti, completed in 1953. The 20-yard long mural hangs in the third floor lobby of the United Nations Conference Building in New York. A triptych, the curved mural appropriates religious imagery to tell a salvation story: the destruction, rescue, and resurrection of a family—that is, the family of nations. In this first panel, concentration camp imagery conveys catastrophe. In the second panel, the family of nations comes together to rebuild the world. The seal of the United Nations is the capstone. Source: United Nations. Photos of mural by John Isaac, 1989.

The Washington Post seized upon its linkage conservative in the application of unilateral of ends and means to argue that it represents power, it is radical in the application of mul- a “binding of U.S. power.” “In effect, he ruled tilateral power. out interventions to stop genocide or reverse aggression absent a direct threat to the U.S. President Obama thus forges a double-edged homeland or a multilateral initiative,” the sword: limiting the U.S. military’s unilateral editors asserted.22 use, but expanding its multilateral use. This combination is unprecedented in the history Less pronounced but no less profound is the of American presidential doctrines. No prior expansion of the causes which could justify doctrine imposes explicit self-constraints, the use of American military power, albeit and certainly not external ones. On the other in concert with allies. Although he stated it hand, several other presidential doctrines in the negative, President Obama suggests define causes beyond national self-defense, military action may be appropriate to ad- such as defense of “free peoples” and support dress interests beyond “core” ones. This is for “the success of liberty.” But none ties these the inverse of the argument cited by The causes so explicitly to the use of armed force Washington Post: the Obama Doctrine rules or to multilateral action. out unilateral interventions to stop genocide or reverse aggression, but it also rules in such President Obama often defends this un- interventions when waged by a coalition of precedented preference for multilateralism the willing. With his doctrine, the president by stressing its practical advantages. These challenges the principle of non-interference include the manpower and materiel benefits in the affairs of a sovereign country and lends of such a force “as more nations bear both credence to the emerging norm of the “respon- the responsibility and the cost.”23 It also pre- sibility to protect.” If the Obama Doctrine is vents “free riders” from failing to pay their

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 22 5/31/16 7:25 PM The third panel depicts the fruits of multilateral labor: the resurrection, through a united humanity, of the family of nations. Source: United Nations. Photos of mural by John Isaac, 1989.

“fair share,” as the president said in a recent civilians of another nation may be equally 24 interview. As he explained at West Point, legitimate reasons for waging war. But the “Collective action in these circumstances is Obama Doctrine nonetheless distinguishes more likely to succeed [and] more likely to between these just causes based on their be sustained.” “directness”—the degree to which they impact or implicate the United States. Those This justification, however, rings hollow. interests which are more direct, such as It ignores crucial practical disadvantages, protecting the homeland, warrant extraor- including the time-consuming nature of co- dinary measures, namely unilateral military alition-building, and the conflicting chains action. Those which are less direct, but nev- of command that often characterize multina- ertheless equally morally justified, warrant tional fighting forces. More importantly, the the ordinarily preferable means, namely president’s rationale does not fully account multilateral action. The role the president for the clear delineation the Obama Doctrine assigns to proximity in assessing interests makes between unilateral and multilateral highlights the importance he places on per- action. If the primary advantage of multi- spective. In essence, we have a clearer view lateralism is its practical benefits, why not of that which is closest to us. Furthermore, insist upon it for addressing all threats, not the exception he makes for unilateral action just indirect ones? proves the rule of multilateral action. We should join others when we can, and go it A deeper reasoning is at work behind the alone only when we must. Obama Doctrine. It contemplates a range of causis belleorum, all just, but some more When must the United States go it alone? proximate than others. Protecting innocent Unilateral military action appears, for American civilians and protecting innocent President Obama, to be an option of last

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 23 5/31/16 7:25 PM resort, but a live option nonetheless. His this egoistic tendency. As the president said in doctrine reserves it only for “core” interests a recent interview, “One of the reasons I am so and only when “necessary,” as he explains at focused on taking action multilaterally where West Point. Given his preference for multi- our direct interests are not at stake is that lateral action, the latter condition suggests multilateralism regulates hubris.”25 With his unilateral action is necessary when no ally doctrine, President Obama seeks to reconcile or partner is willing to commit forces to the the idealism of altruism and the realism of fight in time, either because they lack the will egoism in an actionable, regulated way. or the ability. Taken together, the “core” and “necessity” requirements leave precious few This project mirrors the ministry of one of the instances when President Obama appears president’s “favorite philosophers,”26 Reinhold willing to go it alone. Nevertheless, such in- Niebuhr, and the Christian realist school of stances have arisen during his presidency. The thought he inspired. Niebuhr’s Christian re- quintessential example of the application of alism embraces ideals embodied in scripture the Obama Doctrine’s unilateral imperative and in church doctrine, while also grappling proved to be one of the president’s signature accomplishments—the raid by U.S. forces with the realities of power politics. It seeks into Pakistan to kill Al Qaeda terrorist leader the “relation between the good news of the Osama bin Laden in 2011. President Obama gospel and the daily news of the world,” in 27 chose to go it alone without the cooperation of the words of scholar Eric Patterson. This the United States’ ostensible ally to advance a relation revolves around the belief that, as “core” interest—“when our people are threat- creatures made in the image of God, we are ened,” as he describes it at West Point—when capable of aspiring to the law of love, of caring it was necessary to do so. for our neighbors as we care for ourselves. At the same time, this relation is unavoidably Notwithstanding its unilateral imperative, tainted by sin and humans’ innate tendency President Obama’s doctrine can best be un- to overestimate their own righteousness. We derstood as one of moral multilateralism. It are thus fated to careen between the poles assigns moral value to collective security in a of love and sin. As scholar Erik Owens has superficial sense, associating it with a “higher astutely observed, Christian realism holds threshold” and applying it to causes that “stir these countervailing impulses in “generative the conscience.” To the extent that morality tension.”28 is associated with altruism—consider the Golden Rule—it implies self-sacrifice and New York Times columnist David Brooks, prioritizing others’ needs above one’s own. who discovered Obama’s “love” for Reinhold The president, with his doctrine, contemplates Niebuhr, has astutely analyzed his relation- such national self-sacrifice, but only if such ship with Christian realism. Brooks perceived sacrifice is shared. Purely moral ends must be achieved through multilateral means. the candidate’s 2008 campaign as “an attempt to thread the Niebuhrian needle” between But the Obama Doctrine also represents a “naïve idealism and bitter realism,” and asked moral multilateralism in a subtler way, one rhetorically, “Has Obama thought through a that acknowledges a sobering reality. In pur- practical foreign policy doctrine of his own—a 29 suit of a transcendent ideal, of causes that way to apply his Niebuhrian instincts?” ostensibly rise above base self-interest, any Later, following the president’s Oslo speech, nation—the United States being no excep- he credited President Obama for having “re- tion—is invariably compromised ethically. It vived the Christian realism that undergirded cannot escape the reality that its own motives cold war liberal thinking.” Responding to his are impure and that its perspective is blin- own earlier question, Brooks opined that the kered. Multilateralism, combining not only president’s “doctrine is becoming clear”—a the military but the moral resources of other balancing of “two seemingly irreconcilable nations beyond our own, serves to counteract truths—that war is both folly and necessary.”30

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 24 5/31/16 7:25 PM President Obama’s Christian realist doctrine Expanding the number of independent ac- did not fully crystalize, however, until his tors in the decision to wage war increases West Point speech five years later. It was the “probability of doing justice,” in Biggar’s here he found the practical means of applying words.34 The inherent conflicts of interest Niebuhr’s philosophy to American foreign shaping the perceptions of individual na- policy by positioning multilateralism at the tions can be offset by the competing interests fulcrum of the scale balancing idealism and of other nations consulted in a multilateral realism. The United States would not hesitate context. to act alone to defend its self-interests, the president asserted. But it would also strive to Notwithstanding his mistrust in the moral transcend self-interest by joining with others motivations of human institutions, Niebuhr in defending the general interest. Sharing this appreciates the potential of heterogeneous sacrifice is essential, however, to mitigating organizations that are structured to balance the inherently selfish motives of any one the needs of competing interests to more nation, including the United States. closely approximate justice than homogenous ones. This potential is reflected in his famous Equating multilateralism with Christian re- aphorism on democracy: “Man’s capacity for alism is anathema to some. As scholar and justice makes democracy possible, but man’s Providence contributor Joseph Loconte has inclination to injustice makes democracy argued, it appears to contradict a central necessary.”35 In The Children of Light and tenet of Niebuhr’s thought. The “apostles the Children of Darkness, Niebuhr explains of multilateralism,” Loconte writes, fail to how democracy guards against injustice. understand that “Niebuhr’s doctrine of sin… “The democratic techniques of a free soci- warns that injustice is easily magnified—not ety,” Niebuhr writes, “place checks upon the mitigated—by international institutions.”31 He power of the ruler and administrator and cites Niebuhr, who criticized “world govern- thus prevent it from becoming vexatious. The ment” as a “rationalistic illusion which takes perils of uncontrolled power are perennial no account of the limited resources of reason.” reminders of the virtues of a democratic society.”36 Later, he suggests the juxtaposition Loconte erroneously conflates multilateral- of competing interests is a defining feature ism with world government, and fails to note of Christian realism. The church, he argued, that Niebuhr himself greeted formation of the should cultivate “Christian realists who know United Nations as a “wholesome development that justice will require that some men shall for America and the world.”32 Nevertheless, contend against them.”37 Loconte’s underlying argument is a legitimate one. A deep skepticism about human institu- It is this concept of justice through contention tions’ ethical claims pervades the school of and the cross-examination of interests that thought. In Moral Man and Immoral Society, served as the basis of Niebuhr’s endorsement Niebuhr pinpoints a paradox: leaders of insti- of the United Nations. He welcomed its es- tutions charged with protecting the interests tablishment “as an organ in which even the of its members cannot responsibly choose to most powerful of the democratic nations subordinate these interests to the common must bring their policies under the scrutiny good. As he writes, “No one has the right to of world opinion. Thus inevitable aberrations, be unselfish with other people’s interests.” arising from the pride of power, are correct- This reality renders human institutions “mor- ed.”38 Multilateral institutions like the UN ally obtuse.”33 According to this logic, moral employ democratic techniques in the decision multilateralism is oxymoronic. to resort to war.

But is it? The strength of multilateralism, Multilateralism, however, can “dissolve the which the Obama Doctrine grasps, is its abil- notion of the responsibility,”39 as scholar ity to mitigate the tendency of nations, driven Eric Patterson has argued. With no single by self-interest, to misjudge moral causes. nation held accountable, it risks morally

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 25 5/31/16 7:25 PM irresponsible under-reaction or even inaction. el-Qaddafi, who was acting on threats to At the same time, multilateralism reduces target not only rebels but also innocent Libyan the risk of overreaction and of the naturally civilians for destruction. This military in- corrupting effects of concentrating power. The tervention, following calls from the United Obama Doctrine seeks to manage these risks. States’ European allies and the Arab League, It mitigates against the danger of under-reac- culminated in a landmark United Nations tion for core interests Security Council by reserving the right resolution invoking to unilateral action; it the “responsibility mitigates against the to protect” norm. peril of overreaction The intervention was in response to sym- dubbed “Operation pathetic, even morally United Protector”—a justified, causes by label neatly capturing insisting upon multi- the multilateral and lateral action. moral impulses of the Obama Doctrine. If, in theory, the Obama Doctrine The president’s offi- presents a coherent cial justification for moral vision, in his the use of force in application of it, its Libya mixes direct shortcomings emerge. and indirect threats: One such weakness is its inchoate criteria Left unchecked, for differentiating Qaddafi would com- direct, or “core,” in- mit atrocities against terests from indirect ones. The president’s his own people… a humanitarian crisis approach to crises that “stir our conscience… would ensue. The entire region could be but do not directly threaten us” epitomizes destabilized, endangering many of our al- the challenge. At West Point, he suggested lies and partners. The calls of the Libyan people for help would go unanswered. that humanitarian crises fall into this cate- The democratic values that we stand for gory and therefore do not justify unilateral would be overrun. Moreover, the words action. However, having previously launched of the international community would be his signature “Atrocity Prevention Board,” rendered hollow. he issued a directive that plainly declared “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is Of the five reasons for action cited, only a core national security interest and a core one—protecting allies—falls within the cat- moral responsibility of the United States of egory of “core” interests President Obama America.”40 As such, the Obama Doctrine defined at West Point, and even this interest would justify unilateral U.S. military action is only impacted by a hypothetical sequence in response. Proximity appears in this case of events. Accordingly, the president’s official to be overridden by scale and urgency as justification stressed that the U.S. action factors in discerning the means, unilater- was in “in support of international efforts to al or multilateral, for using force—a vexing protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian inconsistency. disaster”—linking multilateral means with moral ends. Ultimately, this humanitarian Similarly, in two theaters of war where the impetus was cast in doubt after the inhumane president had the opportunity to apply his doc- execution of the Libyan leader and the sub- trine, its strengths and weaknesses emerged. sequent implosion of governance in Libya. In 2011, President Obama ordered airstrikes Nevertheless, Libya proved the strength of against the forces of Libyan leader Muammar multilateralism to motivate the ostensibly

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 26 5/31/16 7:25 PM moral use of military force, and the effec- own judgment and prioritized consultation tiveness of the Obama Doctrine’s mustering over mobilization. Libya showed the Obama of American arms for altruistic causes in Doctrine’s moral force; Syria showed its moral concert with allies. feebleness.

However, these redeeming qualities of the The Obama Doctrine is thus an imperfect Obama Doctrine proved to be critical im- instrument for directing the deployment pediments in the crucible of Syria. As the of American arms. It requires sharpening, Syrian civil war erupted in 2012, President especially in its definition of core versus Obama infamously drew “a red line” that the marginal interests, and in its moral ratio- ruling regime of Bashar Assad would cross nale for multilateralism. Neither task is po- if it utilized chemical weapons.41 He claimed litically palatable—consigning some causes to marginal status invariably alienates the that such a violation of the Chemical Weapons marginalized, and emphasizing the need Convention would “change my calculus” for for collective decision-making to prevent U.S. military engagement, a thinly veiled American misjudgment undermines the threat for potential unilateral American air- popular belief in “American exceptionalism.” strikes. The threat was tested a year later when the Assad regime indeed attacked a Nevertheless, the Obama Doctrine’s founda- rebel-held suburb of Damascus with chemical tion is sound, and its structure is innovative. weapons. In interrelating just cause and legitimate authority, it fulfills the president’s call to The sequence of events that followed drama- think anew about just war doctrine. It also tized the president’s pursuit for validation, responds to calls for crafting an approach to domestic if not international, before deliv- the use of force reflecting President Obama’s ering on his earlier threat. Ten days after “Niebuhrian instincts.” These include, on the chemical weapons attack, he claimed the one hand, the instinct that inaction in that he had “decided that the United States the face of manifest threats or consummate should take military action” in response to the evils represents an “ignoble prudence,” in “assault on human dignity.”42 He indicated he Niebuhr’s words; on the other hand, that would “go forward without the approval of a acting on one’s own “fragmentary wisdom” United Nations Security Council,” but noted alone represents a “spiritual vanity.” The that the Parliament of the United Kingdom needle of the moral compass the president failed to support intervention. The president, sets with his doctrine points to the magnetic therefore, turned to Congress for approval, pole of Christian realism. despite asserting “I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific Does President Obama, with his doctrine, congressional authorization.”43 Ultimately, leave a positive legacy? Will the Obama the Russians preempted the Congressional Doctrine prove enduring, or ephemeral? debate by brokering an agreement with Syria Historian Richard Neustadt has argued that to forfeit its chemical weapons arsenal.44 a president’s doctrine is successful if his successor adopts it, unsuccessful if he or she The president’s equivocation during this epi- discards it.45 By this standard, the Obama sode betrays the confusion embedded within Doctrine is, at a minimum, consequential. In the Obama Doctrine surrounding wheth- embracing multilateralism—indeed, making er upholding “the writ of the international it the fulcrum of the balance between direct community,” in the president’s words, is a and indirect interests—President Obama core interest of the United States. He initially effectively discards, in words if not deeds, suggested that the United States was prepared his predecessor’s policy of championing uni- to act alone in punishing the Assad regime lateralism. The Obama Doctrine thus begins for its transgression; his subsequent request the dismantling of the Bush Doctrine, per for Congressional authorization, following a Neustadt’s analysis. As for a final verdict key ally’s rebuff, suggested he doubted his on the Obama Doctrine, we must await the

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 27 5/31/16 7:25 PM judgment of a jury of his peers across future 12 O’Donovan, Oliver. Just War Revisited. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 8. administrations.. 13 Quoted in ibid, p. 127. 14 Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Regardless, President Obama leaves for his Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2009. successor not only a double-edged sword, but 15 President George H.W. Bush did address the topic at also a two-sided shield, one meant to deflect length in remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, January 28, 1991. outward attacks to the United States, but also 16 Augustine, Questiones in Heptateuchum, q. x, Super to reflect, like a mirror, America’s inward Josue; ibid. vulnerabilities. The Obama Doctrine’s moral 17 Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 2308-9. multilateralism addresses the United States’ 18 Johnson, James Turner. Sovereignty: Moral and Historical duties as the world’s preeminent power to Perspectives. Georgetown University Press, 2014. weigh global interests as well as national ones. 19 Johnson. Ethics and the Use of Force. 20 Biggar, Nigel. In Defense of War, Oxford University At the same time, it confronts the danger of Press, 2013, p. 251. moral misjudgment that superpower status 21 Johnson, James Turner. Sovereignty: Moral and Historical can impute. As such, the Obama Doctrine Perspectives. may be discarded, but it cannot be ignored. 22 Washington Post Editorial Board. “President Obama, in his West Point speech, binds America’s hands on foreign affairs.” May 28, 2014 23 Remarks by the President on the Situation in Libya, Matt Gobush served on the staff of the National March 18, 2011. Security Council in the Clinton White House, the 24 Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Obama Doctrine.”The Atlantic, U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Senate, and April 2016. the U.S. House of Representatives International 25 Ibid. Relations Committee. He also served as chairman 26 Brooks, David. “Obama, Gospel and Verse.” New York of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission Times April 26, 2007. on Anglican and International Peace with Justice 27 Patterson, Eric. “A Fire in their Minds: Christian Concerns. He currently works in the private sector Realism and Democracy Promotion.” 2009. and lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife and three 28 Owens, Erik. “Searching for an Obama Doctrine”, internationally adopted children. 93-111. 29 Brooks, David. “Obama, Gospel and Verse.” New York Times, April 26, 2007. Endnotes 30 Brooks, David. “Obama’s Christian Realism.” New 1 O’Hanlon, Michael. “Obama the Carpenter: The Pres- York Times, December 14, 2009. ident’s National Security Legacy.” Brookings Institution research report, May 2015. 31 Loconte, Joseph. “Obama Contra Niebuhr.” American Enterprise Institute: The American, January 14, 2010. 2 See Charles Krauthammer, “The Obama Doctrine: Leading from Behind: A Foreign Policy of Hesitation, Delay, 32 Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Irony of American History. and Indecision.” National Review, April 29, 2011. University of Chicago Press, 1952; p. 136. 3 See David Rothkopf, “Obama’s ‘Don’t Do Stupid Sh*t’ 33 Neibuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Foreign Policy.” Foreign Policy, June 4, 2014. Study in Ethics and Politics. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932. 4 See Tom Friedman, “Iran and the Obama Doctrine,” 34 From personal conversations, October 20, 2015. New York Times, April 5, 2015. 35 Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Children of Light and the Children 5 Owens, Erik. “Searching for an Obama Doctrine”: of Darkness. West Lectures, Stanford University, 1944. Christian Realism and the Idealist/Realist Tension in Obama’s Foreign Policy.” Journal of the Society of Christian 36 Ibid. Ethics, 32, 2 (2012): 93-111. 37 Niebuhr, Reinhold, “When Will Christians Stop Fooling 6 Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Obama Doctrine.”The Atlantic, Themselves?” in Love and Justice: Selections from the Shorter April 2016. Writings of Reinhold Niebuhr, ed. D.B. Robertson (Louisville: 7 Remarks by the President at the United States Military Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), 43. Academy Commencement Ceremony. West Point, New York. 38 Niebuhr, Reinhold. The Irony of American History, p. 136. May 28, 2014. 8 Horsley, Scott. “Obama To Use West Point Speech To 39 Ibid. Lay Out Foreign Policy Doctrine.” National Public Radio, 40 Remarks by the President at the United States Holo- May 28, 2014. caust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., April 23, 2012. 9 See Janine Davidson, “The Obama Doctrine.” Council 41 Remarks by the President to the White House Press on Foreign Relations: Defense in Depth blog, May 29, 2014. Corps, August 20, 2012. 10 See Statement by the President on ISIL, September 42 Statement by the President on Syria, August 31, 2013. 10, 2014: “And it is consistent with an approach I outlined earlier this year: to use force against anyone who threatens 43 Ibid. America’s core interests, but to mobilize partners whenever possible to address broader challenges to international 44 Ibid. order.” 45 Neustadt, Richard. Presidential Power and the Modern 11 Johnson, James Turner. Ethics and the Use of Force: Just Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to War in Historical Perspective. Ashgate, 2011, p. 2. Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1990), p. 7.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 28 5/31/16 7:25 PM “A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT”

He who looks upon a conflict between right and wrong , and does not help the right against the wrong, despises and insults his own nature, and invites the contempt of mankind…Manhood requires you to take sides, and you are mean or noble according to how you choose between action and inaction.

A day may come when men shall learn war no more, when justice shall be so clearly apprehended, so universally practiced, and humanity shall be so profoundly loved and respected, that war and bloodshed shall be confined only to beasts of prey. Manifestly, however, that time has not yet come, and while all men shall labor to hasten its coming, by the cultivation of all the elements con- ducive to peace, it is plain that for the present no race of men can depend wholly upon moral means for the maintenance of their rights.

Frederick Douglas, “Men of Color, To Arms!”

In April 1863, Douglas, driven by popular resistance to the notion that blacks should fight for the Union, worked tirelessly to recruit soldiers for the black regiment being organized in Massachusetts. By war’s end, more than 180,000 black troops had mobilized. His words are perennial: in pointing to the particular, he gestured to the universal; in speaking to some, he has spoken to all.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 29 5/31/16 7:25 PM In this WWII era poster urging Americans to purchase war bonds, Uncle Sam, spirit of America, is depicted pointing the way forward for the overwhelmingly powerful U.S. fighting forces. Source: Office of War Information, via Wikimedia Commons.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 30 5/31/16 7:25 PM FEATURE

UNCREDIBLE: OBAMA & THE END OF AMERICAN POWER

Marc LiVecche

ateful Junctures—In 1955, two years after the death of Joseph Stalin, Fthe American theologian and political theorist Reinhold Niebuhr reasserted the basic premises of Christian realism. “If we are to gauge the available spiritual, moral, political, and cultural resources of our nation,” he argued, “which are available for the performance of our responsibilities at this fateful juncture of world history, it is advisable to begin with an analysis of the dominate trends and forces of contemporary history, which have created the unique perils and opportunities confronting us.”1 Beginning with getting as accurate an assessment of the facts on the ground as one can, Christian realism insists on a sober-minded assessment of the prospects for peace, justice, and order at any given moment.

A mere decade after Adolf Hitler, Nazism, was nevertheless progressing apace. And Auschwitz, and the other variegated hor- so Niebuhr understood the free world to be rors of the Second World War, and though locked in a desperate contest against inter- the reign of Stalin was over and the grip of national communism, a system which he Stalinism itself was increasingly melting away described as a “demonic politico-religious under the relatively reform-minded thaw of movement which has beguiled millions of Nikita Khrushchev, Soviet totalitarianism people and made many nations captive by

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 31 5/31/16 7:25 PM generating a political dynamic through a 5% of GDP in 2010 to a projected 3% by the compound of utopian illusions and power time Obama leaves office) have shown up in impulses.” decreased numbers of weapons, personnel, soldiers, Marines, ships, and aircraft.3 As The free world, meanwhile, had a new cham- well, there has been a step-back in the kinds pion in a nascent American superpower. “The of military operations America conducts and, exertions of the war,” Niebuhr wrote, “dissi- just as importantly, is prepared to conduct. pated our neutralist illusions. When the war This is a consequence of both philosophy as was over we emerged not only incomparably well as budgetary necessity—America can the most powerful of the free nations but simply no longer afford to fight two major committed to responsibilities commensurate regional contingencies at the same time, with our power.” nor conduct broad, heavy-footed counterin- surgency or prolonged stability operations.4 Looking over the contemporary landscape of In their place, are the kinds of “innovative, 5 our own “fateful juncture” of history, some low-cost and small footprint” operations things have stayed the same—the free world is that Obama best likes, characterized, as in once again locked in a battle against totalizing his approach to terrorism, by drone strikes, regimes—both familiar and newly arrived. Special Forces raids, and clandestine, CIA- 6 Some things, however, are different. In the aided rebel armies. afterglow of Obama’s heady promise of hope and change, the free world cannot count on This essay argues that there are undesir- American commitment to meet responsibil- able costs to retrenchment and a downsized, ities commensurate with our still unrivaled, overseas US military presence and scaled though abating, power. back American leadership. My focus will be primarily conceptual. I critique Obama’s foreign policy through the lens of Reinhold THE CRISIS OF AMERICAN CUTBACK Niebuhr, to whom Obama has articulated a great deal of intellectual fidelity. However, Retrenchment is a foreign policy strategy in true Niebuhrian form, this conceptual designed to reduce a nation’s international analysis will necessarily be grounded in a and military commitments and subsequent practical concern. Following Dueck, I assert costs—calculated both in treasure and blood. that “allies depend upon believable, material Such cutbacks can be accomplished by with- indicators of American commitment, includ- drawing from alliance obligations, scaling ing a strong military presence together with back on deployments abroad, or reducing a credible readiness to use it. Adversaries are international expenditures and defense deterred by the same.” Against this assertion, 2 spending. the cost of retrenchment, especially in the Middle East, has been unnerved allies and Such a strategy is evident in the Obama emboldened adversaries. The cost of that is administration’s patterns of US military increased instability throughout the world. spending, force posture, strategy statements, Because a core tenet of Niebuhr’s Christian and behavior. Admittedly, as scholar Colin realism is the shouldering of political re- Dueck rightly notes, it may appear odd to sponsibility and neighbor-care, I argue that call Obama’s foreign policy one of retrench- Obama’s scuttling of American power has ment: he did, after all, violate the sovereign proved both un-neighborly and, indeed, territory of another nation in order to hunt un-Niebuhrly. down Osama Bin Laden; he has endorsed a forward pivot toward Asia; and he dramati- As the Obama administration’s previous two cally ramped up the use of unmanned drone National Security Strategy Documents attest, strikes against terrorist targets. Nevertheless, Obama has built his foreign policy on the be- retrenchment, however moderated, is clear lief that America’s most important priorities and present. Defense spending cuts (from involve promoting liberal world order, rather

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 32 5/31/16 7:25 PM than playing classic geopolitics. Rather than part, Goldberg recognizes that the Syrian red such old-school preoccupations with territory line crisis will be regarded by many—both and military power, Obama would rather detractors and supporters—as a signature focus instead on issues of common concern: moment in the Obama legacy. As he puts it: trade liberalization, climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, the rule of Friday, August 30, 2013, the day the feck- law, and so on. As Walter Russell Mead put less Barack Obama brought to a premature it, “The most important objective of US… end America’s reign as the world’s sole in- foreign policy has been to shift international dispensable superpower—or, alternatively, the day the sagacious Barack Obama peered relations away from zero-sum issues to win- 7 into the Middle East abyss and stepped win ones.” The problem, Mead notes, is that back from the consuming void. China, Iran, and Russia never accepted the geopolitical settlement imagined by some in Ever since civil war engulfed Syria in 2011, the West following the Cold War. And in light Assad has been repeatedly accused of willful of Obama’s retrenchment, such adversary na- atrocities against civilian non-combatants. tions are united in their belief that the status Obama, Goldberg notes, was horrified by quo must be revised, and they are making the evils committed by the Syrian regime in increasingly forceful attempts to do so. its attempt to put down the rebellion, even declaring in the summer of 2011 that the time Such competitor ambitions always make for had come for Assad to step aside, though potentially perilous conditions, but a forward he did little to bring that resignation about. leaning American posture has until now Then, in a 2012 press conference, Obama been a reliable resource for managing them. issued his first, more specific warning, a However, Obama’s clearly declared aversion caution against the use of chemical weap- to putting boots on the ground in any large- ons: “We have been very clear to the Assad scale ground campaign, his deep preference regime,” he insisted, “…that a red line for us for US allies to carry the lead in overseas is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical security concerns, and his unwillingness to weapons moving around or being utilized.” commit forces when core US interests are not Emphasizing the point he added, “That would at stake has clearly signaled to ally and adver- change my calculus. That would change my sary alike that America’s long-term trajectory equation.” Later on he doubled down, “We is one of disengagement abroad in order to have communicated in no uncertain terms… refocus on “nation building” at home. that that’s a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start The resulting power vacuums have also been seeing movement on the chemical weapons clearly perceived, and Russia, China, and front or the use of chemical weapons. That Iran, together with Islamist militants inside would change my calculations significantly.” the Arab world and beyond, are only too 8 happy to take a stab at filling them. That red line was crossed on August 21st, 2013 when surface-to-surface rockets containing We need only look at Obama’s bungling fail- the nerve agent sarin pounded the Damascus ure to enforce his infamous red line against suburb of Ghouta, an area long-occupied by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s gassing rebel fighters. Weather conditions aided the of civilians for a picture of how all this works. poison gas, heavier than air, in hugging the ground and seeping into the lower levels of THE COST OF AMERICAN WEAKNESS buildings where people were seeking shelter against the shelling. Nerve agents work by Of course, what I call bungled is subject hijacking the signaling between our nerves to interpretation. Indeed, according to the through blocking the enzyme that tells those widely-noted Jeffrey Goldberg essay in The signals to cease once they’ve done their job. Atlantic, Obama regards his handling of the Those enzymes obstructed, the neurotrans- crisis as something like a triumph. For his mitters simply continue doing the things

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 33 5/31/16 7:25 PM they always do, but now without cessation. should not put American warfighters at risk Within seconds of exposure, our muscles in order to prevent humanitarian disasters and secretions go crazy, the nose and eyes unless those disasters posed a direct secu- run, the mouth drools and froths and vomits, rity threat to the United States or its core and the bowels and bladder evacuate. With interests, Obama did not believe that Assad’s enough exposure, the body experiences con- action—however horrific—met that standard. striction of the chest, convulsions, paralysis, The regime’s crossing of the red line might and death.9 In Ghouta, nearly 1,500 people have changed Obama’s equation, but the final would die, including scores of children. sum remained the same.

Much of the world was appropriately aghast. Falling back on his belief, in Goldberg’s On August 30th, John Kerry delivered a phrasing, that the Washington foreign-policy thunderous speech—Goldberg called it establishment…makes a “fetish of credibili- Churchillian—denouncing the atrocity and ty”, Obama argued that “dropping bombs on “threaded with righteous anger and bold someone to prove you’re willing to drop bombs promises, including the barely concealed is just about the worst reason to use force.” threat of imminent attack.” Goldberg tells He would justify inaction on other factors as us that Kerry’s contempt mirrored the over- well: the presence of UN inspectors on the whelming sentiment within the Obama ground, the failure of British Prime Minister administration that Assad had earned dire David Cameron to obtain the consent of his punishment. Ninety minutes after Kerry parliament, fear that a strike would actually spoke, Obama reinforced his rhetoric in a strengthen Assad’s hand, and concern that he public statement: might be moving past the limits of executive power. It’s important for us to recognize that when over 1,000 people are killed, including Predictably, our allies were both incensed hundreds of innocent children, through and unnerved. In the Middle East, increased the use of a weapon that 98 or 99 percent of humanity says should not be used even doubts about Obama’s trustworthiness took in war, and there is no action, then we’re root, as did new fears that he was distancing sending a signal that that international the US from traditional Sunni Arab allies and norm doesn’t mean much. And that is a forging a new relationship with Iran—Assad’s danger to our national security. Shia benefactor. The King of Jordan, Abdullah II, lamented, “I think I believe in American It appeared clear that Obama understood power more than Obama does.” For their part, the scope of what had just happened, most the Saudis declared Iran to be the new great especially in light of his red-lined warning. power in the Middle East. America had just He ordered the Pentagon to draw up hit lists, abdicated her role. and readied five US Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean to knock out regime targets. American allies, including his British and REINHOLD NIEBUHR & THE NECESSITY French counterparts, were convinced Obama OF AMERICAN POWER meant to strike. More significantly, Saudi Arabia’s Adel al-Jubeir, the Kingdom’s am- Here we return to Reinhold Niebuhr. The son bassador to Washington, told his superiors of a German-born minister of the German in Riyadh that Obama “figured out how im- Evangelical Synod of North America, Niebuhr portant this is…he will definitely strike.” completed his own theological training at Yale Divinity School. While the bulk of his Of course, none of that happened. According career would be spent at New York’s Union to Goldberg, early in his first term Obama had Theological Seminary, his time there was pre- come to judge that only a handful of threats in ceded by a personally formative pastoral stint the Middle East could ever warrant direct US in industrial Detroit, the scene of protracted military intervention. Believing a president and increasingly bitter labor-capital conflict

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 34 5/31/16 7:25 PM by which his own socialist leanings solidified. finite and broken creatures whose political Despite this early formation, against 20th cen- and moral actions—even if rescue opera- tury history and the rise of the totalizing ide- tions—are both limited and compromised ologies of fascism and communism, Niebuhr by finitude and sinfulness. increasingly broke with his own liberal past and the cultural Christianity around him. He With this grounding in place, Niebuhr carved came to reject the unqualified assumptions a narrow path between utopianism—the sen- that Christian ethics necessarily leads to timentally naïve belief that justice, order, and socialist politics and pacifist foreign policy. peace can be fully realized in history—and extreme realpolitik—a cynical view of politics A person of great moral seriousness, Niebuhr as simply the self-interested application of refused to retreat from the seemingly intrac- power for personal gain over the interests table political and moral struggles of his time. Instead, insisting that a political ethic in or even welfare of other nations. In doing the Christian view is necessarily an ethic of so, Niebuhr enjoys the admiration of those responsibility, he confronted those struggles, searching for a way to be sober-minded about counseling others to do likewise and to do so the limits of American power while avoiding informed by, not despite, Christian convic- isolationism, as well as of those seeking to tion; which meant that even as we struggle defend American leadership abroad—even against political evil—however vast—we are a notion of American exceptionalism—while obliged to remember that we are ourselves side-stepping triumphalistic jingoism.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 35 5/31/16 7:25 PM In the mind of The New York Times’ David Brooks, this is precisely why Obama counts Niebuhr among his favorite philosophers. Obama was compelled by Niebuhr’s insis- tence that the presence of evil in the world demands humility and modesty rather than cynicism and inaction, or a swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism. Obama’s presidency, Brooks avers, is an attempt to thread that Niebuhrian needle.10

But there are inconsistencies when you jux- tapose Obama’s non-enforcement of his own red line and his fidelity to Niebuhrian realism. Among them is his apparent willingness to hamstring American power despite the threats arrayed around us.

However much Niebuhr counseled against hubris in light of the shared reality of human depravity, he didn’t for a moment think judgments couldn’t be made. Some people really are more decent, more kind, more just, and more loving than others. So too with nations. Regime-type matters, and not all ideologies are sufficiently moral to provide their political communities with even the approximate conditions necessary for human flourishing. In the fight against totalitarianism, Niebuhr was convinced that America was destined, suasion, we must…begin with the monopoly because of both her objective greatness and of power… Disproportions of power anywhere her relative goodness, to play an indispensable in the human community are fruitful of in- role in so grand and awful a period of history. justice, but a system which gives some men Moreover, he believed that American political decisions and commensurate actions would absolute power over other men results in evils 12 be fateful for the very survival of free nations. which are worse than injustice.

Niebuhr famously understood democracy as This goes some distance in explaining both the superior political preference. “The distin- Niebuhr’s vehement support of American guishing mark of Anglo-Saxon democracy,” entry into WWII as well as his support, in he wrote, “is precisely the rigor with which the context of the Cold War, for America’s even the power of majorities is checked in anti-Communist objectives. Perceiving the interest of minorities, and every kind of Communist revolutions anywhere in the 11 political power is made responsible.” Against world to be a threat to American national this basic equity, Niebuhr saw totalitarian security, Niebuhr believed it America’s re- regimes doing just the opposite: sponsibility to prevent nonaligned countries 13 If we seek to isolate the various causes of from being turned toward Moscow. Because an organized evil which spreads terror and he believed America had a responsibility to cruelty throughout the world and confronts prevent the turn to Moscow, he therefore us everywhere with faceless men who are believed America had a responsibility to culti- immune to every form of moral and political vate and utilize the power necessary to do so.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 36 5/31/16 7:25 PM I posit that not a lot has changed in the 21st invasion of Poland would be a European war, century. In Russia and China, we find the Hitler had little cause to take them at their familiar totalitarian adversaries of old. In word. Having suffered no repercussions after Iran and radical Islamicists non-state actors militarizing the Rhineland, annexing Austria, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State we or dismembering Czechoslovakia, why ought find, perhaps, newer breeds. he to have thought the Anglo-French threats anything but bluster? Obama’s failure to enforce his own red line in Syria helped embolden both. It all comes Deterrence is in the mind of the adversary. back to credibility. If our allies depend upon In order for a threat against action to be believable, material indicators that America effective, it has first to be believed. Belief is committed to their security, then credibil- requires at least that there is both capacity ity—including in the form of both a strong, to carry out the threat, as well as the will to forward military presence and the credible do so. While Hitler would have perceived readiness to use it—is the coin of the realm. Chamberlain and Daladier as having the The other side of that coin is the ability to military capacity to counter his aggression, deter our adversaries. they had already convinced him that they lacked the martial will to oppose him. Once In the darkening days of the late 1930s, when credible deterrence is lost, restoring it in the British and French Prime Ministers Neville mind of our adversaries will likely come only Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier warned after significant costs—as the Second World Adolf Hitler that the price of a German War strongly suggests.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 37 5/31/16 7:25 PM Consider Russia. Putin’s actions since Obama looking for a repeat of the Iraq experience, blinked on the red line have been increasingly but we could have long ago started helping belligerent. His air force has repeatedly made the moderates with weaponry, intelligence, incursions into European airspace; his mili- and nonlethal assistance. Not having done so, tary intimidates Sweden on multiple points, and with Russian airstrikes helping to bolster including through a tremendous uptick in the Assad, even those moderate opposition forces sailing of Russian submarines into the North realize they need a sponsor, and so regional Atlantic and even into Sweden’s territorial al-Qaeda groups have been winning new waters, as well as by simulated bombing runs adherents. on Swedish cities; Russian jets have harassed US military ships and aircraft; Putin has Backing away from reacting when Assad repeatedly threatened Baltic States and for- crossed that red line has desiccated confi- mer Soviet Republics, invaded and aided a dence in American credibility not just in the rebellion in Ukraine; and has cast apocalyptic Middle East but in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, warnings against NATO allies, most recently Pyongyang, and elsewhere. America bluffed, Romania over the installation of a new an- and now the world has taken measure of our ti-ballistic missile system. All this on the heels bluster. of Obama’s allowing Putin to descend onto the Syrian stage like a deus ex machina and bail him out of the corner into which he had THE BETRAYAL OF NIEBUHR-LOVE red-painted himself. Russia, not the US, has started looking like the indispensable nation Christian realism, including in its Niebuhrian in certain Middle East eyes. form, is grounded in the basic assumption that a political ethic is an ethic of responsi- The lesson seems clear: weakness is provoc- bility. Informed by faith, the Christian realist ative, Obama has projected weakness, and presumes that those who love God are bound Putin was provoked. When Obama declared to love what He loves—that’s just how it goes in February of 2014, that there would be with love. Therefore, we are to love the world “costs” for Russian belligerence in Ukraine, because history has made clear that God Putin had already seen that playbook, having loves the world. To love something means we taken Obama’s measure in Syria. He had no long for its genuine good; that is, we desire cause to believe that Obama had the intestinal to see it flourish—to achieve the purposes of fortitude to impose significantly deterring its creation. costs. Moreover, without doubt, China, Iran, and North Korea all took Obama’s measure in If nothing else has, then 20th century histo- Ukraine, and have followed the Russian lead ry ought to have convinced us that things in upping their own saber-rattling mockery don’t always flourish on their own. So not of America, her interests, and her allies. only must we desire that the things we love flourish, we must commit to helping them Meanwhile, our allies are unnerved. Israel to do so. This is to take seriously that part of has moved closer to longtime enemies in the Genesis account which declares, “Let us the region in order to counter Iran—not out make mankind in our image.” The most basic of renewed trust in one another but because interpretation of this is found in the simple they no longer have confidence in American exegetical premise that the meaning of “made commitments to their security. In Asia, Japan in the image” is found in what immediately and South Korea are increasingly fearing that follows: “Let us make mankind in our image… the US nuclear umbrella is beginning to let and let them have dominion over all the fish some water through, and both nations are of the sea and over the birds of the heavens flirting with the idea of acquiring their own and over the livestock and over all the earth.” bombs. In the Levant itself, our moderate To be made in the imago Dei is to be born allies in the Syrian opposition have had every into a natural responsibility to exercise, as a reason to lose faith in America. No one was divine mandate, dominion—care—over all

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 38 5/31/16 7:25 PM creation. We have delegated responsibility in Not incidentally, Winston Churchill famously history for the conditions of history. shared an anecdote about a conversation with Roosevelt in the closing months of WWII. He We can of course get a bit carried away with recalls that the American president asked this, including—perhaps especially so—re- what this soon-to-be-over war should one garding matters of foreign relations. History day be called. Churchill responded, “The does not, finally, depend on us. Our delegated Unnecessary War.” He insisted that the responsibility is neither final nor ultimate Second World War should have been easy to but much more modestly qualified. In the avoid. “If the United States had taken an active exercise of political power—both soft and part in the League of Nations,” he wrote, “and hard—we are, most basically, simply to resist if the League of Nations had been prepared evil, to do no harm, and to help where we can. to use concerted force…to prevent the re-ar- We have a say, at least partially, both in how mament of Germany, there was no need for we act and in how we react to the actions of further bloodshed.” At several further points, others. But, again, if nothing else has, then he noted, the Allies still could have resisted th the 20 century ought to have taught us the Hitler strongly enough to make him recoil. horrors that can happen when we couple Strength, Churchill insisted, predictable power to a bid for an ultimate role in history. strength and the credible willingness to use Our responsibilities must never be replaced it might have changed 20th century history. by ambitions—we will only ever approximate justice, order, and peace; we will never realize It is not too late to change the history of the them. 21st.

So it is right to articulate a foreign policy Marc LiVecche, (PhD, University of Chicago), is a characterized by both responsibility and fellow at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, limits. It is even right for this articulation and managing editor of Providence. to have a discernibly religious accent—for it is a very late idea that pits religion against Endnotes 1 Reinhold Niebuhr, The World Crisis and American politics. Religion has always been integrated Responsibility, ed. Ernest W. Lefever (New York: Association with public life, informing and grounding Press, 1958), 11. political thought. For a particular stream of 2 Colin Dueck, “The Strategy of Retrenchment and Its Consequences,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, accessed Christian realism, though not the Niebuhrian May 19, 2016, http://www.fpri.org/article/2015/04/ one, this responsibility-within-limits is artic- the-strategy-of-retrenchment-and-its-consequences/. ulated through the moral framework of the 3 Ibid. just war tradition. Within that framework, 4 Ibid. the classical view of just cause includes the 5 Department of Defense, Sustaining US Global Leader- ship: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (January 2012), 3-4. punishment of evil, the taking back of what 6 Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlan- has been wrongly taken, and the defense of tic, April 2016, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ the innocent. In his bungling of the red line, archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/. 7 Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics,”For- Obama ignored the first and the last of these. eign Affairs, September 15, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs. com/articles/china/2014-04-17/return-geopolitics. In doing so, he has shown his doctrine of 8 Colin Dueck, “The Strategy of Retrenchment and Its retreat, to be a contradiction of love—in both Consequences.” 9 James Hamblin, “What Does Sarin Do to People?” The its neighborly and Niebuhrian forms. While Atlantic, May 6, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ a Christian realist view does not require a archive/2013/05/what-does-sarin-do-to-people/275577/. return to American inclinations under Bush 10 David Brooks, “Obama, Gospel and Verse,” The New York Times, April 26, 2007, http://www.nytimes. in the early years following 9/11, it without com/2007/04/26/opinion/26brooks.html. doubt stands opposed to reverting to any- 11 Reinhold Niebuhr, The World Crisis and American thing approaching the disengagement that Responsibility, ed. Ernest W. Lefever (New York: Association Press, 1958), 31. characterized American strategy in the in- 12 Ibid., 50. terwar years preceding WWII and that led 13 For a deeper discussion of Reinhold Niebuhr in the an entire world over the brink and into the Cold War see, among others: J. Stevens, “Should We Forget Reinhold Niebuhr?,” Boundary 2 34, no. 2 (June 1, 2007): conflagration of total war. 135–48.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 39 5/31/16 7:25 PM Les Marguerites Fleuriront ce Soir by Jeffrey W. Bass, 2006. During the Second World War, Virginia Hall from Baltimore, Maryland conducted espionage in France for Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) and later for America’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). For her efforts, she received the Distinguished Service Cross, the only one awarded to a civilian woman in the war. She later served the CIA. Source: Central Intelligence Agency, via Flickr.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 40 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY

JUST INTELLIGENCE, JUST SURVEILLANCE, & THE LEAST INTRUSIVE STANDARD

Brian Auten

INTRODUCTION & BASIC cross-Atlantic character. Initial- Michael Herman, have made RECONNAISSANCE ly, Aberyswyth University’s their own contributions to the Department of International conversation, the most recent Over the last ten years, scholars Politics served as one intellectual of which is Omand’s Securing have shown deeper interest in springboard. There, beginning the State (2010). applying the just war tradition in 2002, Toni Erskine and, lat- to the extra bellum realm, espe- er, her doctoral student, Ross In the United States, Jan cially to intelligence collection Bellaby, examined notions of Goldman—a now-retired intel- and surveillance. In multiple personal agency, responsibil- ligence professional and profes- academic journals, swords have ity, and harm in intelligence sor at Tiffin University—brought crossed over whether “just intel- operations. In 2005, Quinlan, together a multidisciplinary co- ligence” and “just surveillance” who served as a Permanent terie in his two-volume antholo- are viable research projects, Secretary in the UK Ministry gy The Ethics of Spying (2006; while a number of books have of Defense, gave a now-canon- 2010). The first volume offered tried to connect ethics to the ical lecture to Aberyswyth’s selections from former CIA world’s “second oldest profes- Centre for Intelligence and Director Robert Gates and well- sion.” This article compares the International Security Studies. known intelligence scholars like ethical frameworks of two spe- Later published as an article Loch Johnson, Art Hulnick, and cific authors in this project—the in Intelligence and National David Perry, but also includ- late Sir Michael Quinlan and Security, Quinlan coined the ed articles on philosophy, the Kevin Macnish—and evaluates phrases jus ad intelligentiam ethics of interrogation, and the their work in light of how the US and jus in intelligentia—the co-opting of anthropologists for Intelligence Community (USIC), analogical application of jus ad national security and defense specifically the FBI, considers bellum (just resort to war) and purposes. Goldman’s second jus in bello in national security jus in bello (just execution of volume continued along the investigations. war), respectively, to a state’s same vein, integrating the work intelligence operations. Two re- done in the UK by Erskine and The debates over “just intel- tirees from the UK Government Herman and including voic- ligence” and “just surveil- Communications Headquarters es involved in Surveillance lance” have had a distinctly (GCHQ), David Omand and Studies circles. Goldman’s

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 41 5/31/16 7:25 PM work would be augmented in Studies in Christian Ethics Jus ad intelligentiam & jus by James Olson’s Fair Play and Surveillance and Society, ad speculandum (2007); David Perry’s Partly an online journal of the UK Cloudy (2009); David Price’s Surveillance Studies Network, Quinlan’s jus ad intelligentiam Anthropological Intelligence the four major names associ- and Macnish’s jus ad speculan- (2008), Weaponizing Anthro- ated with the just surveillance dum are meant to focus atten- pology (2011), and Cold War conversation are MIT’s Gary tion on the interplay between Anthropology (2016); and Marx, a long-standing surveil- intelligence operations and na- Darrell Cole’s Just War and lance scholar whose work was tional security investigations (e.g., counterintelligence, coun- the Ethics of Espionage (2014), used in Jan Goldman’s second terterrorism, or counterespio- which was just reviewed in volume; David Lyon, the direc- nage cases) and the traditional these pages. Goldman was also tor of the Surveillance Studies deontological and prudential the driving force behind the Centre at Queens University ad bellum categories of sover- International Intelligence Ethics (Canada); Eric Stoddart, a lec- eign authority, just cause, right turer with University of St. Association (IIEA)—which held intention, last resort, likelihood annual conferences between Andrews’ School of Divinity; of success, and proportionality 2006 and 2011—and the short- and—most pointedly—Macnish, of ends (macroportionality). lived International Journal of a former GCHQ SIGINT (signals Surveillance being one means Intelligence Ethics. intelligence) analyst and pastor, of collection in both non-in- and currently a lecturer at the vestigatory and investigatory Now, after l’affaire Snowden, University of Leeds. Following operations, Macnish’s jus ad the just intelligence debate has in Quinlan’s shoes, Macnish speculandum might be more morphed into a more concerted has offered his own variant of appropriately cast as a species discussion about the just war jus ad bellum and jus in bello of ad intelligentiam; howev- tradition and one particular for the world of surveillance: er, both are trying to answer subcategory of intelligence col- jus ad speculandum and jus in the same questions: Is an in- lection—surveillance. Writing speculando. telligence operation, national

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 42 5/31/16 7:25 PM security investigation, or act surveillance is performed sole- these all may occur on the basis of surveillance being initiated ly at the state level—Macnish of what might best be deemed under the proper authorities demonstrates how his model reasoned hunches. for the right purposes? Will an works for the private gumshoe intelligence operation, national and for a corporation’s tracking Unfortunately, neither scholar’s security investigation, or act of of “insider threats”—but when model has enough to say about surveillance achieve the good it comes to state-authorized right intention. The category it is meant to? And, in the end, surveillance, he is emphatic is simply missing in action in will the expected good be over- that one may not use the state’s Quinlan’s article, while Macnish whelmed by the resulting harm instruments of surveillance to focuses on ulterior motives and or damage arising out of the indulge one’s private whims the use of just cause as a “cov- planned operation, investiga- and desires, or for “salacious, er” or fig leaf. “[The surveillant tion, or surveillance act? trivial or ignoble causes.”3 A must not],” argues Macnish, just cause for a state’s use of “pursue an ulterior motive un- Quinlan’s ad intelligentiam surveillance would therefore dermin[ing] the value of the just is comparatively sparse with not include the protection of cause” or hide his true inner respect to the traditional dean individual’s personal repu- motives under the public guise ontological just war catego- tation, his financial gain, or his of a just cause.7 I would like to ries of sovereign authority, professional advancement, but see greater attention by Macnish just cause, or right intention. rather the necessary and “gen- as to the proper content or char- The state-as-dominant-actor uine defense of the lives of [the acter of those motives. Right is assumed, and the issues for 4 state’s] citizens.” intention isn’t simply just about which the state might wish to a mismatch between behav- initiate collection fall along a “Genuine defense” as a com- spectrum. At one end, there ior and inner motivation. In monsense approach to the con- a manner reminiscent of the are less-sensitive matters open cept of necessity in just cause, to non-clandestine means, and Apostle Paul’s admonitions to admits Macnish, is open to believers to “put off” their for- on the other, closely-held plans abuse. It is a fine enough con- mer, worldly natures and “put and intentions regarding im- cept for a state with healthy, on” the Christian virtues, it is minent threats requiring less functioning firewalls between overt, more invasive approach- the public good and private in- about the “putting-off” of self- es. Falling back on the pru- terests, but in regimes without ish or malevolent motivations dential ad bellum categories, such protections, it might be for action and the “putting-on” Quinlan argues that clandestine used to justify the tracking of of peace through love. Instead intelligence collection may be dissidents or political enemies.5 of rebellion, vengeance, or the done after an evaluation of, and Additionally, as Macnish out- lust for power and glory—mo- an attempt to use, some of the lines, in both investigatory and tivations embodying what the more overt methods (i.e., it is to non-investigatory scenarios, New Testament labels epithu- be undertaken as a type of last collection may be necessary to mia (cupiditas, self-love or, resort), and may be done only if confirm or disprove a hypothe- using an older term, concupis- the attendant harms or damag- sis about the nature of a threat cence)—right intention requires es from clandestine operations or a competing nation’s capabil- agape (caritas), the Christian’s would still allow “[a govern- ities. “Genuine defense,” then, ment] to forestall, counter or tangible expression of love for may necessitate collection based one’s neighbors and the world.8 alleviate actions that would be on little more than suspicion.6 seriously damaging” to the polit- In jus ad intelligentiam and jus The standard of reasonableness ad speculandum, right intention ical community and its citizenry is what guards against impro- should therefore connect three (i.e., macro-proportionality and priety and misconduct in such 1 things: the sovereign’s initiation probability of success). cases, but it is still an important and oft-overlooked point. of an intelligence operation or In contrast, Macnish’s ad spec- Intelligence operations and acts act of surveillance; the sover- ulandum is more focused on of surveillance contribute to eign’s guidance as to the types of the distinction between bellum, “genuine defense” by confirm- acts used at the strategic, oper- the use of force-in-the-form-of- ing the accuracy of reporting ational, and tactical levels; and surveillance for the common streams, refuting longstanding the Augustinian political goal good of the polis, and duellum, assumptions, and improving the of peace defined as the “order the private use of surveillance confidence levels of one’s exist- of tranquility” (tranquillitas for non-public goals.2 Not that ing analytical assessments—but ordinis).

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 43 5/31/16 7:25 PM Jus in intelligentia & jus in and tactical level between those “might relate to whether seri- speculando who may and may not be legit- ous coercive violence—or its imately and licitly attacked. It near-equivalent, as in black- As is well-known to Providence aims at protecting certain cat- mail—is done to individuals readers, sovereign authority, egories of people from harm— whom we are not entitled to just cause, and right intention women, children, the elderly, harm.”10 do not necessarily address how and the mentally infirm or dis- an individual is to fight in a abled. Double effect is an as- Macnish connects his in bello just manner once a conflict is sociated concept which allows analysis of micro-proportionali- underway, though one could for the injury or death of those ty and discrimination in surveil- argue that right intention’s re- who may not be intentionally lance to judgments about threat, quirement of agape-motivated targeted if—and only if—such harm, invasiveness, and what behavior towards one’s oppo- harm is incidental to an action he calls “liable” and “non-lia- nents suggests, at the very least, intentionally aimed at a legiti- ble” targets. He acknowledg- a specific type of demeanor. Jus mate, military objective. es that, overall, surveillance in bello involves judgment as to comes in many forms, varies the just and proper execution Micro-proportionality and dis- in invasiveness and potential of force at the operational and crimination are addressed by harms, and, as a general rule tactical levels of conflict. It is Quinlan’s jus in intelligentia of thumb, “[the] less extreme typically explained using the and Macnish’s jus in specu- the occasion, the less invasive categories of micro-proportion- lando. Both models ask: at the and pervasive the surveillance ality and discrimination. point of the act itself, who is should be.”11 Surveillance is the proper target, and what are not life-threatening to the sur- Micro-proportionality, or pro- legitimate, just methods of in- veilled, but Macnish explains portionality of means, involves telligence collection and surveil- how it can nevertheless result in an evaluation as to whether the lance? Quinlan highlights key psychological and social harms, anticipated harms or evil result- in bello concerns about intelli- which then play into the overall ing from a particular operation gence collection, including the micro-proportionality calculus. or use of force will outweigh use of coercive versus non-coer- Such harms include but are not the expected good. It recogniz- cive human recruitment and the limited to individual stereotyp- es that, in a just conflict, there resort to enhanced interrogation ing and discrimination (what are some applications of force or torture. While lying and de- Surveillance Studies notes as that are unwise because they do ceiving for purposes of covering “social sorting”), the discount- not “fit” with the cause at hand one’s acts are noncontroversial ing of communal and institu- and, if pursued, can poison the and de rigueur for Quinlan, he tional trust, the overwhelming very possibility of ever arriving argues that many aspects of fear of authority, and erosion of at tranquillitas ordinis. In his collection run little risk of dis- privacy.12 As part of Macnish’s discussion of proportionality proportion or jeopardizing the discussion on harm, he insists writ large in the pages of In wellbeing of those who are not that limiting electronic sur- Defence of War, Nigel Biggar legitimate targets. For example, veillance to the collection of explains that at both levels, pro- he believes that one may legit- metadata is comparatively less portionality is meant to limit imately accept non-public in- invasive than the interception damage and to “[rule] against formation from a volunteer and and review of content and also military operations that appear perhaps even cajole or tempt references (albeit too quickly) to be imprudently expensive of an individual to give up secret some of the post-United States human lives.” A judgment of information. The more coercive vs. Jones concerns about wheth- disproportion, Biggar goes on the approach, however, or the er the amount and quality of to say, is made when the antici- more innocent the prospective collected metadata can, upon pated evil or harm arising out of target—Quinlan talks pointedly analysis, build an intimate, per- an action is plainly unnecessary about the legitimacy of target- sonal picture on par with that or likely to “subvert or destroy ing family members or using constructed by collecting and the very good that one hopes to blackmail and torture—the more evaluating content.13 gain by it.”9 potentially illicit is the operation along in bello lines. “[T]he line For the in speculando catego- The second in bello category is of prohibition [between permis- ry of discrimination, Macnish discrimination, the ability to sible and impermissible acts of contrasts liable and non-liable distinguish at the operational collection],” Quinlan concludes, subjects of surveillance. A liable

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 44 5/31/16 7:25 PM LESS INTRUSIVE ACTIVITIES MORE INTRUSIVE ACTIVITIES -- Collection of information available from “less sen- -- Collection of protected information (i.e., financial sitive and less protected places” (i.e., open source data, attorney/client information, material where information, commercially-available data that the there is a reasonable expectation of privacy) public can access)

-- Collection of information about isolated events -- Collection of complete phone call histories, full and/or locations (i.e., single financial transactions; credit or financial reports, 24/7 physical or elec- phone data covering discrete periods; use of a track- tronic surveillance of an individual or group over a ing device to detect a single trip; time-limited CCT wide geographic area, capture of computer file con- coverage of a single location) tent (versus only host identification information) -- Collection of information from those who are law- -- Collection of information from those who, fully entitled to disclose it freely because of the nature of the relationship with the subject of the investigation, have to be compelled legally to give information -- Interviewing the subject of an investigation away -- Collecting information in such a way that it from his/her home, neighborhood or workplace; increases the probability that the subject and/or the waiting to interview his or her associates until after subject’s associates will find out about it an investigation is in the public domain Figure 1. subject is a competent adult NATIONAL SECURITY Investigations and Operations who has not given his or her INVESTIGATIONS & Guide (DIOG), the internal poli- consent to be surveilled, but cy manual outlining how the FBI THE “LEAST INTRUSIVE operationalizes the AGG-DOM whose surveillance was, and STANDARD” continues to be, legally autho- in its everyday investigative policies and procedures.16 rized. A non-liable subject might One way the US Intelligence be an individual whose surveil- Community (USIC) addresses This does not mean that the FBI lance was unauthorized or inci- Quinlan’s jus in intelligentia and Macnish’s jus in speculando is prohibited from using lawful, dentally collected as part of an when it comes to national secu- more intrusive collection tech- authorized operation. Macnish rity investigations is through the niques, but it does mean that frames it in this way because it “least intrusive standard.” Even there had to have been con- is impossible to tie the justness after multiple amendments, sideration and judgment as to of a particular surveillance act to Executive Order (EO) 12333 micro-proportionality and discrimination. Neither the AGG- the nomenclature of “innocent” has remained clear that when DOM nor the DIOG gives a pre- or “guilty” parties. As he puts it, elements of the USIC operate cise definition for “intrusive,” “the [innocent or guilty] status in the United States or are en- but in order to help FBI person- of the surveilled prior to the gaged in intelligence collec- nel think through concepts like act of surveillance is frequently tion activities “directed against jus in intelligentia and jus in United States persons abroad,” unknown,” and as already dis- speculando, the DIOG lays out cussed with respect to ad spec- those elements are to use the a range of typical investigative ulandum and legitimate initia- “least intrusive collection tech- tactics and techniques which fall 15 tions of surveillance, it is often niques feasible.” Because of along a “more or less intrusive” surveillance itself that allows continued concern regarding spectrum.17 (figure 1) investigatory bodies to reach potential interference with, or harm to, an individual’s priva- conclusions about innocence or The FBI DIOG refers to this cy, civil liberties, or personal guilt. For Macnish, double effect act of judgment as “balancing reputation, this standard was concerns non-liable subjects of the factors” or engaging in a reiterated in late 2008 with the “balancing test” and explicitly surveillance. If the particular act release of the Attorney General’s ties it to an evaluation of poten- of surveillance is legitimately Guidelines for Domestic FBI tial harm. In cases where “the authorized, and the non-liable Operations (AGG-DOM), a set threat is remote, the [investi- subject has not been intention- of authorities and procedures gative subject’s] involvement is ally targeted, any incidental addressing all FBI investigation- speculative, and the probability surveillance of the non-liable al work in the United States, and of obtaining probative informa- subject would be morally licit.14 with the FBI’s first Domestic tion is low, intrusive efforts may

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 45 5/31/16 7:25 PM of Government at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. All views, opinions and conclusions are solely those of the author and not the US government, or any entity within the US intelligence community. This article was submitted and approved through his agency’s pre-publication process. Endnotes 1 Michael Quinlan, “Just Intelligence: Prolegomena to an Ethical Theory,” Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 22, No. 1, February 2007), pp. 7-8. 2 For a discussion regarding bellum and duellum, see James Turner John- son, “Just War: As it Was and Is,” First Things, January 2005. 3 Kevin Macnish, “Just Surveillance? Towards a Normative Theory of Sur- veillance,” Surveillance and Society not be justified (i.e., they may on retirement and health insur- (Vol. 12, No. 1, 2014), p. 147. 18 do more harm than good).” ance, or questionable marks 4 Ibid. If it is judged that the threat is on one’s employment record). 5 Ibid. severe or the targeted foreign Not only that, there is also the 6 Ibid, pp. 144, 147. intelligence is of key importance relationship between duration 7 Ibid., p. 148. to US interest or survival, the and the risk of harm. The more 8 For caritas and cupiditas, see “feasible” caveat allows for a involved the investigation or the again James Turner Johnson, “Just determination of greater intru- longer it continues, the greater War: As it Was and Is.” siveness—and therefore the ac- the potential opportunities for 9 Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. ceptance of a higher probability social and psychological harms 113-114. 19 of injury or harm. and the greater the risks of in- 10 Quinlan, pp. 8-11. cidental collection. 11 Macnish, p. 151. Also see Macnish, National security investigations “Debate: Response,” Surveillance and Society (Vol. 12, No. 1, 2014), p. 175, are not ethics-free, and there- In conclusion, when I teach the and Macnish, “An Eye for an Eye: fore many of their parameters topic of national security in- Proportionality and Surveillance,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (Vol. comport with the just war tra- vestigations to undergraduates 18, Issue 3, June 2015) [though citation dition—micro-proportionality at a Christian college, we cover derived from paper manuscript available at academia.edu, pp. 21-22, 24, 31]. and discrimination being two. micro-proportionality, discrim- 12 Macnish, “An Eye for an Eye,” An understanding of jus in intel- ination, and the “least intrusive manuscript, p. 25. ligentia and jus in speculando standard” via a tweaked version 13 Ibid., p. 27. helps remind the investigator of the Golden Rule—namely, if 14 Macnish, “Just Surveillance,” p. that the intrusiveness or inva- you were being investigated for 151, and Macnish, “An Eye for an Eye,” siveness of his tactics places a a national security issue but you manuscript, pp. 22-24. subject’s reputation, dignity, 15 US Executive Order 12333, Sec- knew yourself to be complete- tion 2.4. and privacy at risk and has the ly innocent, how would you 16 The Attorney General’s Guide- ability to cause harm. If an in- want someone to investigate lines for Domestic FBI Operations vestigation requires interviews (2008); Domestic Investigations and you? The just intelligence and Operations Guide (16 December 2008; of a subject’s family, friends, just surveillance research proj- revised version dated 15 October 2011). co-workers, or neighbors, or if The first version of the DIOG was ects, including Quinlan’s and declassified with redactions on 8 July a pending or ongoing investi- Macnish’s models, are meant 2009; the second was declassified with gation necessitates temporary to provoke thinking along that redactions on 30 August 2011. removal of access to classified 17 DIOG, 16 December 2008, pp. very same line. 34-38; DIOG, 15 October 2011, pp. information or administrative 4-15 to 4-18. leave, there is a significant risk Brian J. Auten currently serves 18 Attorney General Guidelines, pp. of reputational harm and poten- as a supervisory intelligence 12-13; DIOG, 16 December 2008, p. 37; DIOG, 15 October 2011, p. 4-18. tial injury to the subject’s cur- analyst with the United States 19 DIOG, 16 December 2008, pp. rent and future livelihood (e.g., government and is an adjunct 34-38; DIOG, 15 October 2011, pp. 4-15 loss of income, negative impact professor in the Department to 4-18.6.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 46 5/31/16 7:25 PM “If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”

Rudyard Kipling, “A Father’s Advice to His Son”

In a famous image taken 80 years ago, June 13th, 1936, a crowd at the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany performs the Nazi salute. But not everyone. August Landmesser, a shipyard worker, had already attracted the wrath of the Nazi party for his unlawful relationship with his fiancé Irma Eckler, a Jew. After continued refusal to end the relationship, Landmesser was imprisoned until his release and conscription to the front line. Eckler was sent to a concentration camp. Neither survived the war.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 47 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY

Amazonomachia: Fight Between Greek Warriors & Amazons by unknown sculptor, circa 160 – 170 AD. Vatican Museums. Source: Wikimedia Commons. SOUTHERN BAPTISTS, GENDER IDEOLOGY, & FEMALE COMBATANTS

Andrew T. Walker

n one world, Southern Baptists have a reputation for cultural conservatism Ireminiscent of 1950s America. In another world, Facebook offers over fifty choices of gender identities for its users to choose from. Is cultural conservatism enough to withstand the tide of proliferating gender ideologies like those seen on Facebook? Are cultural niceties accompanied with chivalry and genteel decorum, while mannerly and preferred, capable of withstanding the gender ideology of today’s social justice warriors? I would contend that cultural conservatism, or convention, is not enough to prevent additional gender identity splintering. Only a robust biblical vision for manhood and womanhood can attempt to offset the wreckage of tampering with nature.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 48 5/31/16 7:25 PM Southern Baptists are a confes- Today, Southern Baptists find Ashton Carter, ignited specu- sional religious body, meaning themselves at odds with gen- lation about the prudence of that our dictates and directives der ideologies that attempt to mandating women to register issue from the authority of Holy erase distinctions between the for the draft. In the interven- Scripture. So opposition to to- sexes or that, as in the trans- ing months, there has been day’s gender wars cannot be met gender phenomenon, decou- endless discussion concerning simply by tradition or chivalry, ples sex and gender altogeth- the religious and moral con- but from Scripture. er. From the Southern Baptist siderations bound up in such Convention’s Baptist Faith an act. Southern Baptist senti- A denomination predominately and Message, which explicitly ment remains resolute: Women located in America’s geograph- adopted a complementarian1 should not now—or ever—be ic South (but expanding in all view for family life, to the 2014 made combatants or forced into parts of the country), Southern Southern Baptist resolution military conscription.5 Baptist’s evangelical biblicism “On Transgender Identity,”2 has made America’s largest Southern Baptists have been Southern Baptist leaders re- protestant denomination stal- outspoken critics of egalitarian- soundingly condemned these wart critics of ideologies that at- ism and gender ideology. proposals. “It is no shock that tempt to override innate differ- a secular society that has em- ences between men and women. Most recently, Southern Baptists braced feminism and trans- find themselves amidst new gender ideology is now con- Suspicion of egalitarianism has controversy surrounding fe- fused about gender roles and taken many forms in Southern male combatants3 and the stated war,” Owen Strachan, presi- Baptist life. Most notoriously, support by military officials of dent of the Council on Biblical in the years of the Conservative possibly requiring women to Manhood and Womanhood, Resurgence, egalitarianism and register for Selective Service.4 told Baptist Press, the news feminism were indistinguish- agency of the Southern Baptist able, which took the form of Though such a challenge seemed Convention.6 Strachan, a not- support for female ordination. inevitable in our progressive ed young complementarian, is This, and other issues at the age, the precipitating event was also a professor of Christian time such as the exclusivity of the fateful pronouncement in theology at Midwestern Baptist Christ for obtaining salvation, December 2015 that all U.S. Theological Seminary in Kansas were key dividing lines in the military combat roles, without City. Popular Southern Baptist recovery of biblical inerrancy exception, would be opened blogger and academic Denny throughout the denomination to women. That statement, is- Burk said that women in com- and its seminaries. sued by Secretary of Defense bat represents the “undoing of

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 49 5/31/16 7:25 PM civilization.”7 Albert Mohler, in two main objections. First, expression of the divine or- president of The Southern Southern Baptists have an in- der for humanity, yet with- Baptist Theological Seminary tuitive objection to the idea of out blurring or denying the remarked on his podcast, The female combatants grounded in meaning or significance of Briefing, that such announce- a biblical vision of natural law in gender-based distinctions es- ments are the result of a secular Genesis 1-2 and modeled from tablished by God in the creat- worldview working itself out the Christ-Church relationship ed order. consistently: in Ephesians 5. Secondly, opposition is grounded in a larger • The equality of male and fe- In the larger society, oper- battle against a sweeping cul- male as to dignity and worth, ating from a secular worl- tural egalitarianism based on following from their creation dview, there is likely to be gender ideology at odds with in the image of God (Genesis a great discomfort with Southern Baptist views on bib- 1:27), is fully consistent with this announcement and lical complementarity. gender-based distinctions as with the inevitability of to roles and responsibilities the fact that there is now But as far back as 1998, the which are also established in no compelling argument Southern Baptist Convention the created order. passed a resolution against against registering young 10 women for the draft. But women in combat. Authored • God, by creating Adam first increasingly, denying by Southeastern Baptist (Genesis 2:18; 1 Corinthians that there is any basic Theological Seminary ethicist difference between men and military veteran Daniel and women, that secular Heimbach, the resolution’s worldview has forfeited protest against female combat- any ability to say that this ants was grounded in a theo- is wrong, only that there logical vision for biblical com- is some kind of cultural plementarity. According to the distaste for it.8 resolution: Finally, while still on the campaign trail, Southern Baptist presidential candidate Ted Cruz called the proposal to draft women “nuts.”9

Southern Baptist opposition to female combatants is grounded

11:8) and also by creating woman “an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18, 20, 22; 1 Corinthians 11:9), has set the gender-based role and responsibility of males in the most basic unit of society (the family) to be that of leader, • God created male and fe- provider, and self-sacrificial male with specific and com- protector (also cf. Ephesians plementary characteristics 5:25; 1 Peter 3:7), and likewise (Genesis 1:27), declaring them has set the gender-based role “good” (Genesis 1:31) so that and responsibility of females male and female in relation- to be that of help and nurturer ship constitute a complete (Genesis 2:18) and life-giving

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 50 5/31/16 7:25 PM (Genesis 3:20) under male • Biblical examples that record leadership and protection (1 women serving in combat Peter 3:7). (Judges 4:4-23) are presented as contrary to proper and The resolution would also ac- normal gender-based dis- knowledge the biblical pattern tinctions, and result from a of male combatants as the nor- shameful failure of male lead- mative ethic for military con- ership (Judges 4:9-10; Nahum flict grounded in theological 3:13). anthropology:

• The moral justification for combat service is the duty to protect and defend vital national interests, including the welfare, security, and good order of families,

The above information indicates that Southern Baptist opposition to women in combat is grounded in the convention’s confession, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM), whose biblical vision for male and female complementarity places man in the role of provider and protector—roles ground- Finally, the resolution also ex- ed in nature, not convention. pressed solemn disapproval The BFM states that: of proposals to equip women for combat around five key The husband and wife concerns: are of equal worth before God, since both are • Willful rejection of a gen- created in God’s image. whose justification is essen- der-based role distinction The marriage relation- tially linked to the divinely that limits combat military ship models the way God assigned role and respon- service to males is a foolish relates to His people. A sibilities of self-sacrificial social experiment that: (1) husband is to love his male headship of the family threatens good military order wife as Christ loved the (Ephesians 5:23-24). and discipline by unnecessar- church. He has the God- ily escalating sexual tensions given responsibility to • The pattern established by among combat warriors, (2) provide for, to protect, God throughout the Bible is and to lead his family. A weakens unit cohesion, (3) that men, not women, bear re- wife is to submit herself exposes female warriors taken sponsibility to serve in combat graciously to the servant as POWs to the special trauma if war is necessary (Genesis leadership of her hus- 14:14; Numbers 31:3, 21, 49; of rape and sexual abuse, (4) band even as the church Deuteronomy 20:5-9; 3:14; places a major new strain on willingly submits to the Joshua 1:14-18; 6:3, 7, 9; 8:3; marital fidelity, and (5) risks headship of Christ. She, 10:7; 1 Samuel 16:18; 18:5; the nation’s military securi- being in the image of God 2 Samuel 11:1; 17:8; 23:8- ty by scrambling the moral as is her husband and 39; Psalm 45:3-5; Song of framework defining male/ thus equal to him, has the Solomon 3:7-8; Isaiah 42:13). female relationships. God-given responsibility

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 51 5/31/16 7:25 PM to respect her husband The cultural ethos behind this make us automata. He didn’t and to serve as his helper proposal carries inestimable make us asexual monads. He in managing the house- consequences for our society’s made us gendered, embodied, hold and nurturing the understanding of sex and gen- and different. Those differences next generation.11 der. As evangelicals, Southern extend to all levels of our be- Under the pretenses of patrio- Baptists unapologetically affirm ing—our emotional, physical, tism and equality, Americans God’s complementary design and psychological selves—and are being confronted with and purpose for men and wom- this is intentional and good. The a moral dilemma. As the en. While men and women are Christian tradition finds these American people now contend fully equal in essence, worth, differences beautiful, and we with the morality of forcing and dignity, the burden of pro- embrace them with glad accep- women to register for Selective tection is squarely placed upon tance. God made men and wom- Service—the draft—a larger men. Southern Baptists firmly en fit for complementary roles question looms over the dis- reject policy measures which ask and tasks that, when exchanged cussion. Will American society men to acquiesce to a culture of or blurred, represent a sort of forever dismiss the distinction emasculation by surrendering de-creation. Romans teaches between male and female? their innate gifting and respon- us that disavowing creation is sibility. Such proposals reaffirm its own form of judgment. A There is no valor in requiring our culture’s enfeebled under- nation cannot suppress the nat- a woman to be subjected to the standing of masculinity, mak- ural laws of God and expect to brutalities of a wartime foxhole ing male obligation optional if prosper in the long-term, much where unimaginable horrors are women are willing to undertake less in armed conflict. played out in real life. For the the duties of men. same reason, there is no need The biblical tradition testi- to forcibly compel women into Egalitarianism is pervasive in fies that man and woman are our culture. It has largely ren- military service or make them made beautifully different for dered the recognition of appar- combatants. Should the day ar- purposeful reasons. The broad ent differences between men rive when the U.S. military was shoulders of men aren’t ancil- and women as antiquated mi- dependent upon female com- lary or accidental features, but sogyny. Yet, the truth is un- batants to win a war, the United evidence of the natural strength States would have already lost deterred. Nature continues to that males innately possess. The its most important battles. A testify to the beauty and dis- protective instinct that men can nation relying on female com- tinctness of the sexes. And by harness at a moment’s notice batants has been brought to its design, men and women con- isn’t an evolutionary instinct knees by political correctness tinue to manifest and display passed down from marauding and has lost all trappings of both physical and emotional cavemen—it issues from the fact male and female differentiation. qualities which clarify the follies that God made men protectors. It is a nation denying creation of female conscription. and reality in favor of anti-cre- Military conscription of women ation and anti-reality. So let it be said that a regime that depends on female com- makes the thwarting of nature The logic and consequence of batants obscures reality, ig- mandatory. Women are nurtur- drafting women leads down a nores history, and shames our ers, not warriors. That women path that should cause our con- American legacy. No amount of possess, on average, a smaller sciences to shudder. Think of “progress” or modern notions of frame than men indicates their the moral equivalency of such equality will convince Southern aptness for less rugged activi- arguments that would make it Baptists that placing women in ties, and not hand-to-hand com- the duty of wives to respond to combat is a good idea. Because bat. Noting that women cannot midnight intruders, rather than it isn’t. It’s barbaric. comparably handle the physi- husbands. That is exactly what cal strain of soldiering isn’t to those in favor of drafting wom- All of this is undergirded by deny their intrinsic worth and en are asking us to accept. And Christian ethics. At the very dignity, but actually esteems it it isn’t just a military propos- beginning of the Christian as something distinct from, but al; it’s about a dangerous and Scriptures, we’re presented with equal to, a man’s. And inciden- ever-evolving worldview built a story of creation. The pinnacle tally, it underscores the diversity on the absolutizing ideology of of creation is God’s creation of supposedly favored by cultural egalitarianism. men and women. God didn’t progressives.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 52 5/31/16 7:25 PM The Apostle Paul tells the The only way that a so- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/ us/politics/combat-military-wom- Corinthians to “act like men,” ciety can get to the idea en-ash-carter.html. which assumes that if men are to of women in combat is 4 Dan Lamothe, “Army and Marine act like men, there’s a standard by erasing any under- Corps Chiefs: It’s Time for Women to Register for the Draft,” The Washington by which manliness is measured standing of differences Post, February 2, 2016, https://www. (1 Corinthians 16:13). This is between the sexes. In washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/02/02/army-and-ma- why the Bible, the same Bible every civilization in hu- rine-corps-chiefs-its-time-for-wom- which provided America with man history, men have en-to-register-for-the-draft/.”URL”:” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ a rich moral ethos, considers it been trained to be war- news/checkpoint/wp/2016/02/02/ cowardly, shameful, and embar- riors and to protect the army-and-marine-corps-chiefs-its- time-for-women-to-register-for-the- rassing for men to allow women women. Having women draft/”,”ISSN”:”0190-8286”,”short- to engage in a sphere for which in combat not only jeop- Title”:”Army and Marine Corps chiefs”,”language”:”en-US”,”author”:[{“- men are best suited (Judges ardizes national security family”:”Lamothe”,”given”:”Dan”}],”is- 4:9). Nations should always by not taking into account sued”:{“date-parts”:[[“2016”,2,2]]},”- accessed”:{“date-parts”:[[“2016”- be reluctant to undertake mil- the very real differences ,3,31]]}}}],”schema”:”https://github. itary action, but God forbid, if physically, between men com/citation-style-language/schema/ raw/master/csl-citation.json”} wars arise, it ought to be sons and women, but it also 5 Criticism of women in combat that do the nation’s bidding. puts men in dangerous naturally leads many to then question Nature continues to bear faith- situations because there’s whether Israel, considered an ally of both the democratic west and evangel- ful witness to the truth, and so a natural created drive to icals, are likewise erring as grievously shall we. America may fall prey protect women. To deny as this article would suggest. Israel, it should be noted, has more restric- to foolish ideologies placing them this opportunity tions for women in the IDF than what women in harm’s way, but not is to eviscerate the very has been proposed by the Pentagon. 13 For more on the differences between without strong Southern Baptist concept of masculinity. Israel’s use of female combatants, objection or opposition. and the proposal by the United States Moore objected to the claim that military, see David French, Stop Us- arguments against female coming Israel’s Example to Justify the Southern Baptists are not alone Barbaric Practice of Drafting Women batants are grounded merely in into Combat, National Review, 2016, in their intuitive revulsion at the convention, insisting that the http://www.nationalreview.com/arti- idea of female combatants. The cle/431239/israel-women-combat-ex- use of male combatants is root- perience-not-what-left-says. editors of the conservative peri- ed in nature. “Every human civi- 6 David Roach, “Women in Combat: odical National Review editori- lization has made the distinction DOD Change Spurs Debate,” Baptist alized against such proposals, Press, December 9, 2015, http://www. between men and women. Why? bpnews.net/45978/women-in-combat- echoing the theme of natural Because that distinction is root- dod-change-spurs-debate. law that Southern Baptists also ed in human biology.” 7 Denny Burk, “Women in Combat draw from: “Such a policy in- and the Undoing of Civilization,” Den- ny Burk, December 4, 2015, http:// verts natural law and the rules Andrew T. Walker (M.Div.) is www.dennyburk.com/women-in-com- that have grounded our civili- the Director of Policy Studies at bat-and-the-undoing-of-civilization-2/. zation for thousands of years.” The Ethics and Religious Liberty 8 Albert Mohler, The Briefing, Albert- Mohler.com, February 3, 2016, http:// They went on: “Men should Commission of the Southern www.albertmohler.com/2016/02/03/ protect women. They should Baptist Convention. He is a doc- the-briefing-02-03-16/ not shelter behind mothers and toral student in Christian Ethics at 9 Katie Glueck, “Cruz: Drafting The Southern Baptist Theological Women Is ‘Nuts,’” POLITICO, Feb- daughters. Indeed, we see this ruary 7, 2016, http://www.politico. reality every time there is a mass Seminary. com/blogs/new-hampshire-primary- 2016-live-updates/2016/02/ted-cruz- shooting. Boyfriends throw Endnotes women-military-draft-new-hamp- themselves over girlfriends, and 1 For an articulation of Biblical shire-218910. even strangers and acquain- Complementarianism, see the Council 10 “On Women in Combat,” Southern for Biblical Womanhood’s (CBMW) Baptist Convention Resolution, Salt tances often give themselves “Danvers Statement,” available at: Lake City, Utah, 1998. Available at: up to save the woman closest http://cbmw.org/uncategorized/ http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/1089/ the-danvers-statement/. resolution-on-women-in-combat to them.”12 2 “On Transgender Identity,” South- 11 Baptist Faith and Message ern Baptist Convention Resolution, 2000, http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/ Baltimore, Maryland, 2014. Avail- bfm2000.asp. When I spoke with Russell able at: http://www.sbc.net/resolu- Moore, president of the tions/2250/on-transgender-identi- 12 The Editors, “Only a Barbaric ty. Full disclosure: I was a primary Nation Drafts Its Mothers and Daugh- Ethics and Religious Liberty co-author alongside Southern Baptist ters into Combat,” National Review Commission, and the Southern scholar Denny Burk of the resolution. Online, February 9, 2016, http://www. nationalreview.com/article/431002/ Baptist Convention’s chief po- 3 Matthew Rosenberg and Dave women-combat-selective-service-nat- Philipps, “All Combat Roles Now Open ural-law litical and ethical spokesman, to Women, Defense Secretary Says,” he told me: The New York Times, December 3, 2015, 13 Personal correspondence.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 53 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY

IS THERE HOPE FOR AFRICA?

Gideon Strauss

Interior by the South African painter Wolf Kibel, circa 1930 – 1935. South African National Gallery. Source: Google Cultural Institute, via Wikimedia Commons.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 54 5/31/16 7:25 PM AFROPATERNALISM IS EASY is that non-African attitudes Not that such pessimism, pa- towards Africa are bent towards ternalism, and pity are without It is easy to be pessimistic— an afropaternalistic bias that probable cause. even despairing—about the fu- prompts support for interna- ture of Africa. Most of us who tional disaster relief and devel- According to the June 2015 live in North America have our opment aid as the primary re- Bulletin of the World Health views of Africa filtered through sponse to the African situation. Organization (a themed issue stories told in the mainstream on the health of the 738 mil- media we consume, and these In a study of attitudes towards lion people currently living in are most often stories of disease, Africa in the US,2 Andy Baker Africa): famine, and war. For non-Af- ricans seeing Africa through of the University of Colorado at Boulder found that “white • More than 90% of the malaria these filters, the most positive cases worldwide every year Americans view the foreign poor response seems to be paternal- are in Africa; istic concern. of darker skin through a pater- nalistic lens that underestimates • Africa has 11% of the world’s As I write the opening para- their capacities to be active population but 60% of the graphs to this essay, I scroll agents in bringing about im- world’s people with HIV/ through the first four websites provements to their own lives.” AIDS (and this disease is the that pop up when I google “top He concluded that “[given] the continent’s leading cause of news Africa,” to see what their standard American media por- adult deaths); headlines on Africa show us on trayals of Africa as well as the this day. At cnn.com/Africa, sheer physical and symbolic • 19 of the 20 countries with “38 dead in beach massacre: distance between Western and the highest maternal mor- Tourists flee Tunisia” takes the African lives, white Americans tality rates worldwide are in main spot, followed by “Child are more likely to treat foreign- Africa; and, bomber kills 10 in Nigeria mar- ers of African descent as enig- ket,” “Al Shabaab claims suicide • Africa has the highest neo- matic others with less than full attack,” and “SA mine mas- natal death rate in the world. sacre: Report blames many.” capacities to plan and act.” At bbc.com/news/world/ According to the 2015 Regional Carla De Ycaza of the Center for Africa, “Tunisia launches se- Overview of Food Insecurity: Global Affairs in New York, in curity clampdown” is the top Africa of the Food and an examination of “the existing news item, and at independent. Agriculture Organization of the co.uk/news/world/africa/—the competing methods for teaching United Nations, the total num- 3 most astoundingly myopic of and researching Africa,” sug- ber of undernourished people the sources in this day’s top gests that also in the academic in Africa has increased from Google hits—the lead head- world the study of Africa by nearly 176 million in 1990-1992 line is “Tunisia hotel shooting: non-African scholars is marked to about 220 million in 2014- 15 Britons confirmed dead as by “the prevalence of a neocolo- 2016. And the World Health Government warns death toll nial Afro-pessimist form of cul- Organization’s Regional Office ‘may well rise.’” The content tural imperialism.” She laments for Africa claims on its website exception with regard to leading that “the involvement of African that as of 2015, “[undernutrition coverage of Africa in my search studies and African scholars in Africa] is directly or indirectly is itnewsafrica.com, which leads in setting the conceptual and responsible for 3.5 million child with “Nigerian-born scientist methodological architecture of deaths every year.”4 wins award for cancer-seeing globalization or international glasses.” studies remains minimal.” According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project The satirical publication The These glimpses confirm my (ACLED), “Africa in 2014 ex- Onion captures the tone of sense that the global conversa- perienced the highest risk of much of the reporting that in- tion about Africa continues to violence against civilians since forms our understanding of be characterized by pessimism ACLED records began in 1997.”5 Africa with its headline “Tens and paternalism. As a result, The organization reports that, Of Thousands Dead In Ongoing Africans are primarily under- “the rate of conflict occurrence Africa.”1 One consequence of stood and approached as objects in Africa has risen over the past this kind of reporting on Africa of pity. 18 years. ACLED recorded a

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 55 5/31/16 7:25 PM total of 10,174 organized, armed violent. An atmosphere of an- vote, regardless of race. By 1995 conflict events in Africa for ger and fear pervaded public South Africa had its first black 2014, an increase from [the pre- life, somewhat mitigated by president, the erstwhile political vious year’s] 8,379 organized, voices and actions of bright prisoner Nelson Mandela. By armed conflict events.”6 courage (frequently emerging 1996 South Africa had a new from Christian communities of constitution that in its preamble It is these kinds of dismal re- faith, as in the case of efforts states the purposes of the new alities that provoke the pessi- mobilized by the Anglican arch- constitutional order are to: mism, paternalism, and pity bishop of Cape Town, Desmond with which the rest of the world Tutu, and by the leader of Heal the divisions of the views Africa. past and establish a society based on democratic BUT AFRICA DOES values, social justice and NOT NEED fundamental human AFROPATERNALISM rights; Lay the foundations for a dem- Nonetheless, I be- ocratic and open lieve that pessi- society in which mism, paternal- government is ism, and pity are based on the inappropriate will of the peo- responses to the ple and every present predica- citizen is equal- ment of the people ly protected by of Africa. law; Improve the quality of life I have seldom been so of all citizens and thoroughly surprised free the potential of as I was at the beginning each person; and Build of 1990 when the then racist a united and democratic government of South Africa, South Africa able to take under its president, F.W. De its rightful place as a sov- Klerk, announced that it was ereign state in the family releasing Nelson Mandela and the pan-African evangelistic of nations. other political prisoners, un- organization Africa Enterprise, banning the African National Michael Cassidy). During that The process of change in South Congress and other anti-apart- decade I came to believe that Africa in the first half of the heid organizations, and initiat- God’s call on my life was to a 1990s persuaded me once and ing a public process of negotia- relentless struggle against the for all that pessimism with re- tion towards a new democratic political injustice and econom- gard to the prospects of Africa constitutional arrangement in ic exploitation entrenched in is an inadequate preparation apartheid, but given the obvious the country of my birth. for the kinds of surprising turns stubbornness and apparent ef- that history takes. As I consid- ficiency of the apartheid state’s In many ways the 1980s were ered the end of apartheid, it horrible years in South Africa. apparatus, I also came to believe appeared to me that a philos- As the apartheid regime be- that I would not see the end of ophy of history informed by came more and more belea- that struggle in my lifetime. the clues towards a theological guered (internationally by increased sanctions and other Thus the enormity of the sur- anthropology that I glimpsed in acts of censure from foreign prise in early 1990, when sud- my reading of the Bible (the sa- governments and internation- denly, precipitously, a tectonic cred scripture that tells the story al businesses and domestically political shift took place that, in that has decisively shaped my from an intensifying resistance very short order, thoroughly review of the world), rather than by South Africans opposed to arranged South Africa’s political succumbing to historical pes- that racist constitutional order), landscape. By 1994 South Africa simism (with regard to Africa, suppression of dissent became had its first elections in which or anywhere), more properly both more thorough and more all adult citizens were eligible to would start out from a stance of

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 56 5/31/16 7:25 PM openness to surprise, recogniz- Afropaternalism fails Africans To say that one has hope for ing the capacity of people to act by ascribing less agency to those the future of Africa is not to with both amazing grandeur and of us who make (all or part of) deny or underestimate the very horrifying pettiness. History, our lives in Africa than we have considerable challenges Africa in such a view, results from the exercised historically, and it fails faces, many of which are made turbulent flow of myriad human to measure up to the high view in Africa and many of which persons’ actions—imbued with of human persons in general are the consequence of a global an innate agency explained in portrayed in the poetry of the context marred by idolatries an- the poetry of the first few chap- Bible. The surprises served up cient and modern, the predatory ters of Genesis as the result of by South Africans in the early hubris of European colonialism, human beings’ creation in God’s 1990s, considered in the light and the ideological distortion image and of a promise from of biblical poetry, suggest that of global market dynamics and God that humans would tend we should be open to further international politics. Practicing hope for the future of Africa the rest of creation in ways that historical surprises both from demands honesty and atten- would unfold possibilities God South Africans and from others tiveness in the study of the chal- enfolded into creation—across elsewhere on that vast and un- predictable continent. lenges the continent faces, seri- a landscape of divine creation- ousness in the cultivation of the al sanction and providential To say that one has hope for skills necessary for courageous constraint. Africa, as I do, is not only a action in addressing these chal- confession of belief but also a lenges, but above all, guileless The surprises of South African recognition of a calling. Hope is trust that our efforts in history history in the late twenti- not only the virtue of anticipat- are both meaningful because of eth century for me resonate ing the blessing of a loving God; who we are as human creatures with the poetry of the bibli- and ultimately sustained and cal scriptures, and in addition it is also the theological virtue guided by divine providence. to persuading me away from that serves as the precondition afropessimism persuaded me for the exercise of courageous Gideon Strauss is Associate away from afropaternalism. The action. Classical Christian virtue teaching recognizes hope as an Professor of Worldview Studies primary actions that brought at the Institute for Christian about the end of apartheid infused virtue, primarily a divine gift, not primarily (as some Studies and commutes between were the actions of Africans Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, other virtues are) the result of (of manifold races), even as New York City, and Cape Town. the conditions that increased sustained habit. To accept the the likelihood of success for gift of hope is to accept the call- those actions (the end of the ing to courageous action. Endnotes Cold War, economic sanctions, 1 http://www.theonion.com/article/ the diplomatic efforts of many To say that one has hope for tens-of-thousands-dead-in-ongoing- africa-28201 nations and international agen- Africa is to recognize that a key element in the future of 2 “Race, Paternalism, and Foreign cies) were the result of efforts Aid: Evidence from U.S. Public Opin- by people from all around the Africa will be the life of com- ion.” American Political Science Review (February 2015). world. But the key actors in munities of faith that recognize and proclaim that hope is 3 “Competing Methods for Teaching that surprising drama—people and Researching Africa: Interdisciplin- like Nelson Mandela and F.W. ultimately anchored in Christ, arity and the Field of African Studies.” whose present and future reign Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, De Klerk, Cyril Ramaphosa and 38(3), 2015. is the ultimate context within Roelf Meyer, Joe Slovo and Niel 4 http://www.afro.who.int/en/clus- Barnard—were Africans, and which courageous action finds ters-a-programmes/frh/child-and-ad- they were not objects of pity but its meaning and direction. The olescent-health/programme-components/child-health.html. Accessed real leaders (as Dean Williams7 hope for Africa is a Christian June 27, 2015. defines real leadership) who hope, nurtured in the celebra- 5 http://www.acleddata.com/ focused on “getting people to tion of the sacraments, the study violence-against-civilians-in-2014/. Accessed June 27, 2015. face reality and think and act of the biblical scriptures, the 6 http://www.acleddata.com/rates- responsibly, thereby enabling practice of prayer, and finding of-violence-in-2014/. Accessed June their organizations and commu- courageous expression in ev- 27, 2015. nities to address their toughest ery human vocation and in our 7 Real Leadership: Helping Peo- ple and Organizations Face Their challenges and make meaning- vocational contributions to the Toughest Challenges. San Francisco: ful progress.” common good. Berrett-Koehler, 2005, p. x.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 57 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY THE CALIPHATE & THE COSMOPOLIS

Susannah Black

n the days since the Friday the IThirteenth attacks in Paris, a vivid set of images has made its way through the media. First, there was the darkened Eiffel Tower: Paris itself in mourning, the gaiety of the city’s central belle epoque identity in abey- ance. Second, there were the photographs of iconic structures in cities across the globe lit up in the blue, white, and red of the tricolor in solidarity.

These parallel images—the darkness in one city and the blazing colors in the others—highlight a particular feature of the war that this incarnation of Islamism has declared. It is a war not on one particular nation state, but on the cities of the West.

ISIS controls a defined geo- graphical area and has—more or less—established political structures. The Western powers, nevertheless, don’t want to dignify it by calling it a nation state. What we miss, though, is that the dignity it itself seeks is not the dignity of a nation state.

The acronym ISIS—Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—is a misleading one. It is partly misleading because it seems to limit the body’s ambitions to Iraq and Syria; ISIL too is misleading, as this seems to limit La rue Montorgueil à Paris. Fête du 30 juin 1878 by Claude Monet, 1878. Musée the group’s ambitions to the d’Orsay, Paris. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Levant. But both acronyms are

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 58 5/31/16 7:25 PM also misleading because of the as it has threatened to do, it course of history, become the assumptions that we have about will not primarily be because idolatry of the debauched cities the word “state.” ISIS does not DC is in the United States, or of the modern West, the idolatry want to be—they do not consider because it is the capital of the of the Cosmopolis? themselves—a nation state over U.S. Nationalism, indeed, is one and against Iraq and Syria. of the manifestations of Western There are several reasons that a decadence that al-Baghdadi Western Christian might have “Rush, O Muslims, to your seeks to overturn: he is quoted for rejecting this way of understate,” al-Baghdadi called out in the November 2015 issue of standing what happened. Some to fellow believers upon be- Dabiq calling for the West to make more sense than others. ing proclaimed Caliph in 2014. “comprehend... hear and under- “It is your state. Syria is not stand the meaning of terrorism, First, our political philosophy is for Syrians and Iraq is not [which] will trample the idol of deeply committed to sovereign- for Iraqis. The land is for the nationalism, destroy the idol ty embodied in nation states, Muslims, all Muslims.” In oth- of democracy, and uncover its and for mostly sound histori- er words, there is no intended deviant nature” cal reasons; we don’t want to overlap between a nation and be post-national. So we say to a state. Rather, the intended This point was muddied in the ISIS, no, you are either a state overlap is between the global September 11 attacks, partly or you are terrorists, but what community of all Muslims—the because al-Qaeda had not—yet— you attacked was France, and ummah—and the territory held birthed ISIS and partly because that’s how we’ll respond. by al-Baghdadi’s armies. Bin Laden called the U.S. in particular the Great Satan. In Second, we of course don’t want And the territory is not, of its own way, this flattered our to be forcibly defined as dar course, confined to areas of the vanity: they hate us, we liked to al-Harb, the House of War. So Middle East, or even to terri- say, for our freedom, and it was we say to ISIS, your division is tories like Spain once held by a particularly American kind of barbaric and wrong. Muslims and taken back in the freedom we had in mind; they Reconquista. Al-Baghdadi does probably specifically hate the Third, we in the U.S. don’t want not mince words in his call to Connecticut Compromise or to feel ourselves pressured to Muslims: “This is my advice to Federalism or the Bill of Rights respond as though we had been you. If you hold to it you will or other things we learned about attacked. We have had almost a conquer Rome and own the in Civics class; the image we had decade and a half of war in the world, if Allah wills.” was of jihadis with a beef against Middle East; every regime and James Madison. half-regime we smash seems to ISIS is a conventional English- leave room for a worse succes- language rendition of the Arabic It’s possible to go the same di- sor. We don’t want to go this acronym Daesh—al-Dawla rection with the attack on Paris: route again. We are not good at al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al- they hate France for its laïcité; “hydra-fighting.” Shaam (the North, i.e. Greater they hate it as the birthplace of Syria). Dawla, however, is Charles Martel. But this would Moreover, even in the world- not well-rendered as “state.” view of ISIS, it is not accurate be to miss the point. Instead, it is something closer to see this as a simple conflict to “dynasty” or “regime,” and between the House of Islam The point is not that one na- the kind of regime is, of course, and Christendom. The dar al- tion-state attacked another. It the Caliphate. Our closest anal- Harb includes “unsubmitted” ogy might be something like the is precisely that the Caliphate nominally-Islamic areas, and Holy Roman Empire, which attacked one of the cities in… these are, if anything, greater would have been confused—and let’s call it the Cosmopolis, goads, greater irritants, than then insulted—if in the year 900 the collection of cities that are those places that used to be the an anachronistic commentator the capitals of what was once capitals of Christendom. Beirut had called it a nation state. Christendom. In the view of was, after all, attacked the day the hardest-core of Islamists, before Paris; while historically Not itself a nation state nor surely these two things flow Western-influenced, it was not aspiring to be one, ISIS did not into each other: Christianity is one of the cities of Christendom. attack Paris because it is part polytheism, idolatry; is there of the nation state of France. If any wonder that the idolatry of It has a greater claim to be one ISIS attacks Washington, DC, Christendom should have, in the of the cities of the Cosmopolis,

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 59 5/31/16 7:25 PM which makes it more objection- ISIS’ grievance—the reason it able, in the view of ISIS; it is a chose France to attack, at this Muslim city that is appallingly moment—was the series of air un-Islamic, and that is the most strikes against ISIS in Iraq and offensive kind of city for some Syria, which President Hollande jihadis. Insufficiently Islamic began in late September. Muslims will always be in more danger from their coreligionists It was the Cosmopolis blazing On the principle that we should than Western Christians and defiance to the Caliphate, as it believe what ISIS tells us about secularists. This is particularly has done, as it will do. why it does what it does, this is true in the case of ISIS (and its certainly correct. The unsigned progenitor, al-Qaeda in Iraq), which is far quicker than al-Qae- Don’t let it be this, we think. lead editorial in Dabiq that cov- da “Central” or other al-Qae- Let it be just the club of good ers the Paris attacks explains da affiliates to proclaim other humans, the good civilized real this with great clarity: Muslims as takfir, apostates sensible whole world, express- deserving of death. ing human solidarity with one A year earlier, on “19 city in that world. Let it just be September 2014,” France But the fact is that in the days that there is this group of disen- haughtily began execut- since the attacks in Paris, it has franchised and perhaps psycho- ing airstrikes against the been accurate for New Yorkers logically damaged victims of Khilāfah. Like Russia, it and Londoners and Viennese globalization who are lashing was blinded by hubris, to feel themselves targeted— out using religious symbolism thinking that its geo- more targeted than, for exam- to give context to violence that graphical distance from ple, the inhabitants of a village is really about economics. the lands of the Khilāfah in Normandy. ISIS does not would protect it from the have a particular problem with That’s the instinctive explana- justice of the mujāhidīn. France, or with the French. It tion of the modern Western It also did not grasp has a problem with the Franks. liberal, who refuses to see poli- that its mockery of the It is symbolic and emotionally tics and religion as related cat- Messenger would not be gratifying to say Nous sommes egories. A November 14 piece left unavenged. Thus, the tous Parisiens. But it is just a in Haaretz described the un- Islamic State dispatched matter of grim realism to say willingness of many, even in the its brave knights to wage that we are all Franks. hard-hit 11th arrondissement, to war in the homelands of talk about the attackers as act- the wicked crusaders, This is not how we think of our- ing on behalf of ISIS. They are leaving Paris and its selves anymore. We have trou- disaffected, insane, economical- residents “shocked and ble wrapping our minds around ly marginalized—even criminal; awed.” The eight knights the concept of Obama as a lack- even, perhaps, evil. But not po- brought Paris down on ey of the Pope, or an American litical, and not religious. its knees, after years of soldier as one of the army of French conceit in the face Rome. But it is how those who But that’s not how the attackers of Islam. A nationwide carried out the attacks under- understand their actions, and it state of emergency was declared as a result of stand the world, if we take them will be impossible for leaders in the actions of eight men at their words—and it seems the West to respond effectively armed only with assault wise to do so. unless they understand what rifles and explosive belts. they’re responding to. And so revenge was ex- It may be that, in this, our ene- acted upon those who mies understand more than we One of the ways of describing felt safe in the cockpits do. But Westerners understand the grievance that ISIS has of their jets. it, too, in part. And that’s why it against the West, and against was the iconic buildings of what France in particular, deserves However, the realpolitik anal- were the capital cities of the further examination. It’s pop- ysis—from both liberal and Franks, and those in the cities ular among both contempo- conservative sources—tends settled by their descendants and rary advocates of realpolitik to conclude that all this talk of influenced by the remnants of analysis of current events and the attacks being “because of” their culture, that were lit up in among those who identify with religion, or in service of global solidarity. the Left. This analysis says that jihad, are therefore nonsense.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 60 5/31/16 7:25 PM But orthodox Christians are in fact that arsenal had, at various enemy, to decide ahead of time a particularly good position to points over the previous twenty that some maximal combina- straighten out this misunder- years or so, been a major sup- tion of bombing and ground standing. We share with Islam a plier of weapons to Islamists warfare is the one satisfactory vivid sense that history is where did not seem to make much of and effective way to deal with God acts; the “spiritual” world an impression.) this enemy—is no course for is not something that is simply Christian realist wisdom. a matter of eternal principles, Of course no one really thought divorced from concrete political this way—not through and To think that we can discern and earthly realities. We, and through. But American conser- with absolute clarity what God’s ISIS, know that, because God vatives did have a remarkably purposes in history are at this acts in history, it is nonsense difficult time, when considering moment—with the kind of clari- to say that an act has a concrete foreign policy, in remembering ty that ISIS believes it has, with political reason and therefore that even the sphere of influence the kind of clarity that we can has no “religious” reason. of our nation is not coextensive have at this point about Nero— with the rule of Christ. (They is to pretend to a level of in- Indeed, based on their own have in many cases held this sight we just don’t have. The writings, it seems that ISIS belief while simultaneously af- Cosmopolis that ISIS is attack- sees France’s attacks on their firming that American domestic ing is no paragon of purity; the Caliphate precisely as the latest policy, particularly in regards to City of God is not coextensive instantiation of Allah’s enemies the life issues and sexual mo- with Paris, and was not even attacking his rule in the world. rality, is creating a regime that when St. Thomas taught there. Christians can understand this, is coextensive with the rule of to some extent: we can look antichrist.) But we do our best. Given that back and say with a fair amount we are going to respond, we of clarity that when, say, Nero Christians who are not pacifists need to respond with at least was executing Christians, he have learned one of Niebuhr’s some understanding, with a viv- was setting himself in hostility lessons—the one about the im- id sense of our own limitations to the Body of Christ; that this possibility and irresponsibility as we seek to protect those who historical act was something of quietism in the face of a vi- are innocent—not absolutely that had spiritual significance. olent world—while forgetting innocent, but innocent of ag- the other—the one about the gression in this particular mo- That doesn’t mean we agree only-partial claim of any worldly ment. Those who have the duty with ISIS’ worldview, any more citizenship, the only-relative na- to defend our cities must at least than we agree with the world- ture of the virtue of any group. attempt to do so, even though view of the apolitical, areligious they act through the fog of war secularist left. As Christians, we It’s only by remembering both and what Jean Bethke Elshtain have other resources, but we of these lessons that we’ll be called the fog of politics, even must use them very carefully. able to respond to these new though they act on behalf of a attacks. There are no perfect nation whose laws do not pro- In the years after September responses available. Pretend tect its own most vulnerable th 11 , a tendency grew up among that they were attacks merely inhabitants, even though they American Christians to essen- on France? Take our cue from are not themselves perfected tially agree with, but invert, the Washington via Monroe and saints. jihadist worldview. We were stick to our hemisphere? Let not in fact the dar al-Harb; we Putin and Hollande handle it Susannah Black received her were Christendom, which was between them? This seems like BA from Amherst College and her the political expression of the an unlikely outcome, and given MA from Boston University. Her Kingdom of God, which was the fact of Western involvement work has been published in First identical to the visible Church, in the region in the past hun- Things, The Distributist Review, which more or less in one way dred years, an irresponsible one. Front Porch Republic, Ethika or another turned out to be best Politika, and elsewhere; she is guarded by the institutions of But to adopt a worldview that a founding editor of Solidarity the United States. The Pentagon is a simplified and inverted ver- Hall. She blogs at radiofreethulca- became, in the crassest versions sion of ISIS’—to see the ummah ndra.wordpress.com and tweets at of this equivalence, the arsenal as constituting a single body, to @suzania. A native Manhattanite, of the Kingdom of God. (And the see that body as the body of our she is now living in Queens.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 61 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY

ISLAM, CHRISTIANITY, & THE END OF PALESTINE

Robert Nicholson

Detail of Ottoman Syria from the Cedid Atlas Tercümesi, 1803. The Cedid Atlas is the first published atlas in the Muslim world, and only 50 copies were printed at the press, as such it is one of the rarest printed atlases of historical value and of great importance to Middle Eastern history. Source: U.S. Library of Congress’s Geography & Map Division, via Wikimedia Commons.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 62 5/31/16 7:25 PM he international commu- want to coexist with Israel and So says conventional wisdom. Tnity pretty much agrees on those who want to destroy it. But anyone with a cursory the preferred solution for the Yet it is these conflicts that are knowledge of the region’s histo- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: two most likely to decide whether ry knows that Jewish-Arab con- states for two peoples living side Palestine lives or dies, and if it flict in the Holy Land predated by side. On the ground, Jews lives, how Palestine will treat the birth of Israeli settlements and Arabs are less certain. A the Jews and Christians who are by at least fifty years; that Jews recent Pew study found that living nearby. accepted the two-states-for- Israeli Jews are not convinced two-peoples formula as early as that an independent State of Conventional wisdom says 1947; that Arabs didn’t accept Palestine will ever live at peace that the main obstacle to peace it until the early 1990s; that beside Israel (43% yes/45% no). is Israel’s preservation of Jewish 95% of the Palestinian popu- Israeli Arabs are only slight- settlements inside the West lation already lives under the ly more hopeful (50%/30%), Bank. These settlements, we’re control of an indigenous Arab while Palestinians in the West told, inhibit the establishment government, the Palestinian Bank and Gaza—the popula- of a viable State of Palestine. Authority (PA); that even using tion actually able to build a Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran cleric maximum estimates, Jewish Palestinian state—are far more from Bethlehem and author of settlers make up only 12% of negative. According to an April Faith in the Face of Empire, the population under the PA; 2016 poll from the Palestinian echoes this opinion: “The Israeli and that in Israel, by contrast, Center for Policy and Survey settlement activity in the West Arabs make up about 20% of the Research (PCPSR), about half Bank has made the aim of es- population. of all Palestinians oppose the tablishing a Palestinian state a two-state model in principle, de facto impossibility.” It is hard to take seriously the and roughly 60% believe that claim that settlements pre- the concept is no longer viable. The cancerous evil of settle- vent peace. And yet Palestinian Only 30% want to preserve the ments is a constant theme in Christians continue to raise that Oslo Accords at all. Palestinian Christian rhetoric. standard, and only that stan- A group of distinguished clerics dard, using it to drive a wedge This philosophical gap between gathered at the Carter Center between their Western co-reli- international diplomats and in April 2016 for a conference gionists and the State of Israel. local communities bodes ill for called “Pursuing Peace and Gatherings like those at the the future of the peace process. Strengthening Presence” where Carter Center and Christ at the Diplomats will keep pushing, they announced, “The continu- Checkpoint, a biennial evangel- and people on the ground will ing expansion of illegal Israeli ical conference in Bethlehem, keep resisting. If the situation settlements on Palestinian lands have worked hard to convince doesn’t change, the concept increasingly dims the hopes and Christians in the US and Europe of Palestine—a secular, dem- that settlements are the main realistic prospects for a two- ocratic Arab state in the West impediment to peace. state solution and is a major Bank and Gaza—will soon be threat to peace.” dead. And if that happens, the The end of Palestine may be population most likely to suffer near, but if Palestine dies it Another seminal Palestinian will be the small and already-be- won’t be because of settlements. Christian document, Kairos leaguered Palestinian Christian One need only glance at recent Palestine, repeats this theme: community. polling data to see that the big- gest obstacles to statehood are Many articles have been written Israeli settlements rav- disunity in Palestinian society, on the imminent collapse of the age our land in the name outrage at Palestinian leaders, two-state paradigm, usually of God and in the name and a fundamental aversion to with a focus on the growth of of force, controlling our the idea of a Jewish state living Jewish settlements. Far less natural resources, includ- next door. has been written about atti- ing water and agricultur- tudes and conflicts inside the al land, thus depriving Many Westerners don’t Palestinian territories them- hundreds of thousands know that Palestinians al- selves—conflicts between sec- of Palestinians, and con- ready have a government of ularists and Islamists, Muslims stituting an obstacle to their own. Even fewer know and Christians, those who any political solution. that the Palestinians actually

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 63 5/31/16 7:25 PM have two governments: the extremism, or the absence of The penchant for violence re- Fatah-controlled PLO in the freedom and security. By con- mains strong in Palestinian so- West Bank and the Muslim trast, only about 20% want ciety. Majorities in both the Brotherhood-controlled Hamas to leave because of the Israeli West Bank and Gaza support the in Gaza. These two governments occupation. prospect of an armed intifada hate each other, despite the best and believe that it would help efforts of third party interme- The Palestinian Authority is advance Palestinian national diaries. Everything else aside, a mess. No less than 80% of rights in ways that negotiations Palestine will never rise if these its citizens believe that their cannot. About 60% support ran- two factions don’t reconcile and government is corrupt. Only dom stabbing attacks against cooperate; or, better yet, if the 17% believe there is freedom Jewish civilians—yes, civilians— PLO can’t defeat Hamas and of the press. Public approval in Israel. Most worrisome is the expunge them from the terri- for President Mahmoud Abbas fact that Palestinian millennials, tories completely. But more on has dropped to 36%, and two- the so-called “Oslo Generation,” that later. thirds demand his resigna- are the least supportive of the tion. Shockingly, only 45% of two-state solution, most likely Life under both Palestinian gov- Palestinians see the founding to support an armed intifada, ernments is hard. The April of the PA in the 1990s as an and most supportive of stabbing 2016 PCPSR survey found accomplishment. More (48%) attacks against Israeli civilians. that one-half of West Bank see it as a burden. Meanwhile, Palestinians and two-thirds of an overwhelming majority of The Palestinian tendency to- Gazans describe their living Palestinians (76%) feel that the ward violence flows from a ba- situation as “bad” or “very bad.” Arab world doesn’t care about sic opposition to the existence About one-fifth of West Bankers them at all. Feeling poorly led of a Jewish state in the Middle and half of Gazans want to em- at home and abandoned abroad, East. To most Palestinians, the igrate, mostly (70%) because the Palestinians are more and State of Israel (all of Israel, not of poor economic and educa- more inclined to commit des- just the pre-1967 version) was tional opportunities, religious perate acts. created by the West to solve

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 64 5/31/16 7:25 PM Europe’s Jewish problem and regain the freedom they once its “subtle colonial ideology.” He disempower the Arabs at the enjoyed. argues that the Jewish people of same time. An overwhelming today were invented in the late majority believes that Israel’s Palestinian Christians 19th century and cleverly linked ultimate goal is to annex their agree with their Muslim to the Jews of biblical times to territories and deny their rights brethren about the intrin- strengthen the colonial project. or expel them. For this reason, a sic immorality of Israel. The “This,” he writes, “is precisely full 60% say that even after the Kairos Palestine document af- the crux of the problem: the creation of a State of Palestine firms that, “The West sought natives of the land have been and resolution of all outstanding to make amends for what Jews made strangers in order to make issues they will not recognize had endured in the countries room for an invented people to Israel as the state of the Jewish of Europe, but it made amends occupy the land.” people. Trained to see Israel as on our account and in our land. a colonial outpost filled with They tried to correct an injus- On a recent trip to Bethlehem, Europeans, this group finds the tice and the result was a new I heard similar rhetoric from idea of “normalizing” relations injustice.” Raheb’s colleagues at Christ with the Jews fundamentally at the Checkpoint (CATC), a repugnant. “It was, after all,” writes Mitri Western-facing billboard for Raheb, “the British Empire that Jesus-infused Palestinian na- For most Palestinians, Jewish planted Israel in the Middle tionalism and ground zero settlements in the West Bank East, and it is the Western world for a small but vocal group of are just the tip of the imperial that continues to sustain Israel Palestinian evangelicals who spear. What prevents peace in militarily, financially, and ideo- are working hard to undermine the Holy Land is not Israel’s pol- logically. This is what I call … Christian support for Israel. icies but Israel itself. Palestine empire.” While plagued by a few radi- needs to be purified, brought cals, most of the CATC crowd back to its status quo ante. Only Raheb rails against the “myth of are more docile than oth- then will the Palestinian people a Judeo-Christian tradition” and er Palestinian activists: they

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 65 5/31/16 7:25 PM condemn terrorism, reject anti-Semitism, and call for peace with Israel. They tend to vote on the right side of public opinion surveys and are quite possibly the most Zionist Arabs in the Middle East. It’s a fact that often gets them labeled as normalizers by their angry neighbors, which in turn forces them to talk tougher in order to reinforce their ever-precarious street cred.

That said, the CATC conference in March 2016 was an of- take root. It’s a problem that the PA so that the West Bank fensive overreach. The theme Palestinian Christians must ad- can once again be reintegrated was “The Gospel in the Face of dress head-on. And fast. with Israel. Religious Extremism,” and in tedious sessions like “Christian Palestinian Christians may But Christians’ fear of Muslim Zionism as Imperial Theology,” be outspoken in their national- neighbors and a desire for equal the organizers sought to draw ism, but they’re not stupid. They status are nothing new. In fact, comparisons between Islamic may shout their bona fides from it was this motivation that terrorists, Jewish settlers, and the housetops, but they do so caused Syrian and Lebanese Christian Zionists. Straw men as self-aware minorities (less Christians to pioneer the Arab were aplenty. Attendees heard than 2%) in an overwhelmingly nationalist movement a century about hordes of shofar-blowing Muslim society. They see their ago. By emphasizing the Arab evangelicals who support settle- population rapidly shrinking in rather than Islamic character of ments in the name of eschatolo- relation to their Muslim neigh- their societies, these Christian gy and endorse Israel’s oppres- bors. They see the rising pop- intellectuals and their Muslim sion of the indigenous church. ularity of Islamist movements contemporaries succeeded in But these straw men only served like Hamas and disturbing lev- razing the caliphal model of to create a new “other” for jus- els of sympathy (25%) for the Middle Eastern governance tice-minded Christians to hate. Islamic State. They know that and laying a new, non-sectar- Article 4 of the Palestinian Basic ian foundation for political life As in previous years, self-crit- Law, the country’s proposed in the region. icism was completely absent. constitution, promises that the The speakers blustered on future State of Palestine will The problem with Arab nation- with seemingly no awareness be an Islamic polity governed alism was that it was artificial— of Palestinian public opinion, by the principles of Shari’a. there was never a pan-Arab heaping all the blame for their Meanwhile, they see what is nation, only a regional mosa- sorrows on Israel and none on happening to their Christian ic of ethnicities and cultures themselves or their leaders. brothers and sisters in Iraq, that happened to speak Arabic. Though “speaking truth to pow- Syria, and Egypt. They know Hostility against Israel (and er” was a major theme, the or- that they are different, and that its inverse, solidarity with the ganizers invited dignitaries from when push comes to shove that Palestinians) thus became a the PA to attend the conference difference could get them killed. key ingredient for unifying the and cheerfully applauded them. disparate peoples who flocked Christians inside the territo- under the movement’s thin The mark of any healthy society ries are hostages in their own ideological banner. To be an is its ability to reflect on its own society. In private conversa- Arab nationalist was to hate shortcomings and resolve to do tions, many express fear to- Israel and its imperial backers. better. Unfortunately, CATC ward Muslims, positive feelings No questions. reflects a broader lack of self-re- toward Jews and Israel, and flection in Palestinian society envy for Arabs citizens living But the Arabic language and that has until now prevented inside the Jewish state. Many anti-Zionism were not enough a real vision for the future to even hope for the collapse of to sustain the movement, and

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 66 5/31/16 7:25 PM its inherent weakness was ex- of Islamism only underscores not what it is against. Better posed when leaders like Gamal the broader failure of Arab na- yet, they must explain what Abdel Nasser, Hafez al-Assad, tionalism. Many Palestinians Palestinian society is and what and Saddam Hussein had no feel that the two-state solution it’s all about. What happens choice but to brutally suppress isn’t just unworkable, it’s un- after Israel uproots the settle- Marxist, Islamist, and non-Arab desirable. The possibility that ments? What happens when all national movements that chal- Palestine will be overrun by political issues are settled? The lenged their legitimacy. It was those seeking to establish an fact that a significant majority the only way to keep a lid on Islamic state overtop the ruins of Palestinians still plan to deny things and maintain the façade of yet another nationalist regime Israel’s existence means that of Arab unity. And so began a (think Syria, Iraq, Libya) is a their leaders have serious work cycle of government crackdowns frightening one indeed. to do—work that has absolute- and popular uprisings that have ly nothing to do with Jewish continued across the Middle This fear drives some settlements. East until recent times. Palestinian Christians to work even harder in the name of sec- Palestinian Christians and their Today Arab nationalism is all ularism. It drives others to- secular Muslim colleagues must but discredited and dead, hav- ward the “one-state solution”: revive the imaginations of their ing been replaced by Islam in a single, binational Jewish and people and make the case for a the 1970s and 1980s as the Arab “state of all its citizens” proud but peaceful Palestinian more authentic source of cul- between the Mediterranean and nationalism that posits religious tural identity and political com- the Jordan River. This proposal, freedom and peaceful coexis- munity. The would-be State which is increasingly popular on tence as cardinal virtues. The of Palestine is one of the last the Palestinian street, is symp- life or death of Palestine de- places where secular Arab na- tomatic of a basic (though iron- pends on their success. tionalism still survives. But it ic) trust in Jewish governance doesn’t go unchallenged. In fact, over the Islamic alternative. Palestinian Christians face only the Palestinian quarrel over For Jews, the one-state model two alternatives in the long-run: the two-state solution reflects is almost always a non-starter seek asylum elsewhere, possibly a larger quarrel in the region as it effectively means the end in Israel; or learn to survive in between those still clinging to of Israel as a Jewish state. an Islamic state. Neither time Arab nationalism and those nor demography are on their turning back to various forms Salvaging the vision of a secular side, and now is the moment to of political Islam, the historic Palestine living peacefully be- make difficult choices that will baseline of Middle Eastern po- side a secular Israel remains the lead to tangible gains. litical life. The rivalry between best solution for all parties. But old-guard PLO leader Mahmoud Palestinian Christians who carry Only a strategy that begins from Abbas and upstart Hamas CEO that vision must abandon their a positive vision of the future Ismail Haniyeh exemplifies this obsessive focus on Jewish settle- will prove worthwhile. We in ideological and generational ments as the cause of all evil and the West who care about the conflict in a microcosm. address the outrage and despair Palestinian church must en- that grips the Palestinian street. courage its leaders to take the Middle Eastern Christians The appeal of Islam is too strong right path. will always prefer Arab nation- to let this outrage go unchecked, alism over political Islam, and it and only a more compelling vi- Robert Nicholson is the ex- isn’t hard to see why. Palestinian sion will win the day. ecutive director of The Philos Project, a nonprofit organiza- Christian advocacy stems from tion that seeks to promote posi- the same impulse that motivat- Secular society offers the best tive, Christian engagement in the and most authentic future for ed early Arab nationalists like Middle East. He holds a BA in Michel Aflaq, George Antonius, Palestinian Christians, but that Hebrew Studies from Binghamton and Ibrahim al-Yaziji: the desire society will only arise when University, and a JD and MA to live in a society that protects their leaders frame it in posi- (Middle Eastern History) from and treats them as equals. tive terms. No longer can they Syracuse University. A formerly construct Palestinian identity enlisted Marine and a 2012-2013 But the catastrophic failure of as a negative reaction to Jewish Tikvah Fellow, Robert lives in the PA to foster a free society aggression. They must articulate New York City with his wife and and compete with the rising tide what Palestinian society is for, two children.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 67 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY

DONALD TRUMP & THE LOST ART OF NIEBUHRIAN STATECRAFT

Mark Tooley

onald Trump’s April 17th to Charles Lindbergh’s “America against Nazi Germany and in Dforeign policy speech to First” isolationism, which was vigorous defense of Christian National Interest would alarm dominant among the Protestant Civilization. Reinhold Neibuhr. The theo- churches. The proponent of logian founded Christianity & Christian Realism advocated a So Trump’s declaration that Crisis, a model for this journal, Christian witness in support of “America First will be the main early 1941 in direct response America’s alliance with Britain jor and overriding theme of

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 68 5/31/16 7:25 PM my administration” would pro- History will not forget what One day we’re bombing Libya voke Niebuhr to respond, al- we did. and getting rid of a dictator though some have pointed that to foster democracy for ci- Woodrow Wilson had used the After his homage to the past, vilians, the next day we are same phrase before America’s which was actually far more watching the same civilians entry into WWI. Young Niebuhr complicated and less consis- suffer while that country falls no doubt supported Wilson at tently successful than portrayed, apart. that point, when Wilson pledged Trump denounces post-Cold to keep America out of the war, War U.S. policies as disastrous: We’re a humanitarian nation. and Niebuhr was himself still a But the legacy of the Obama- pacifist. Logic was replaced with fool- Clinton interventions will be ishness and arrogance, and weakness, confusion, and Like other Protestant pacifists this led to one foreign policy disarray. of his day, Niebuhr support- disaster after another. ed WWI as an idealistic cru- We have made the Middle sade to end war and universal- We went from mistakes in East more unstable and cha- ize democracy. With much of Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to otic than ever before. American Protestantism in the President Obama’s line in the 1920s, he embraced pacifism sand in Syria. Each of these We left Christians subject to more resolutely, with a dash of actions have helped to throw intense persecution and even isolationism, until the global the region into chaos, and genocide. crisis of Fascism and milita- gave ISIS the space it needs rism summoned him to shift to grow and prosper. Our actions in Iraq, Libya, again. He became an assertive, and Syria have helped un- though calibrated proponent of It all began with the danger- leash ISIS. American global leadership, not ous idea that we could make because he sacralized America Western democracies out of And we’re in a war against or its strength, but because countries that had no experi- radical Islam, but President America was the providential ence or interest in becoming Obama won’t even name the counterweight to notably sinis- a Western democracy. enemy! ter alternative global hegemons. We tore up what institutions Asserting that America will be Trump in his speech tries to they had and then were sur- “strong again,” Trump prom- align himself with the vision of prised at what we unleashed. ises a “coherent foreign policy” American power that Niebuhr Civil war, religious fanati- based on “American interests ultimately urged: resistance to cism; thousands of American and the shared interests of our totalitarianism in WWII and the lives, and many trillions of allies.” The nation under his Cold War: dollars, were lost as a re- presidency will be “more un- sult. The vacuum was creat- predictable,” and ISIS is “going We have a lot to be proud ed that ISIS would fill. Iran, to be gone,” by means he won’t of. In the 1940s we saved too, would rush in and fill explain. He added: the world. The Greatest the void, much to their unjust Generation beat back the enrichment. In the Middle East, our goals Nazis and the Japanese must be to defeat terrorists Imperialists. Our foreign policy is a com- and promote regional stabil- plete and total disaster. ity, not radical change. We Then we saved the world need to be clear-sighted about again, this time from totali- No vision, no purpose, no direc- the groups that will never be tarian Communism. The Cold tion, no strategy. anything other than enemies. War lasted for decades, but we won. Trump pronounces that America Trump pledges “America is go- is overextended, exploited by al- ing to be a reliable friend and Democrats and Republicans lies who will not defend them- ally again,” that will no lon- working together got Mr. selves, no longer trusted by al- ger be in “the nation-building Gorbachev to heed the words lies, not feared by enemies, and business, and instead focus- of President Reagan when he has no clear foreign policy goals. ing on creating stability in the said: “tear down this wall.” He explains: world.” All this will be done

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 69 5/31/16 7:25 PM with bipartisan support, which is “how we won the Cold War, and it’s how we will win our new and future struggles.”

America’s “military domi- nance must be unquestioned,” Trump insists, while looking for “savings.” He’ll seek “common ground” with Russia and China, on tough terms that inspire respect, while prepared to go “separate ways” absent the clear lens of American in- pacifist escape from political reciprocal interest. He’ll seek a terests,” as “America’s greatest responsibility, as well as the summit with NATO and Asian defender and most loyal cham- post-WWI mythology that allies for a “rebalancing of fi- pion.” He concludes: America had been tricked into nancial commitments.” Trump an unnecessary war by conniv- promises: The world is most peaceful, ing European powers. National and most prosperous, when strength is indeed very import- I will not hesitate to deploy America is strongest. ant, he resolved, not for its own military force when there is sake but in defense of justice no alternative. But if America America will continually play and specific social goods. He fights, it must fight to win. I the role of peacemaker. urged America’s alignment with will never send our finest into Britain and aggressive prose- battle unless necessary—and We will always help to save cution of WWII so that Anglo- will only do so if we have a lives and, indeed, humanity Protestant democracy could plan for victory. itself. But to play that role, we survive not only for the benefit must make America strong of the English-speaking peoples After a “reckless, rudderless and again. but as an exemplar of political aimless foreign policy” from harmony offered to all peoples. Obama and Clinton “that has We must make America re- Certainly Niebuhr was confident blazed a path of destruction spected again. And we must that Christian Civilization, for in its wake,” and in contrast make America great again. all its foibles, was infinitely pref- with other candidates who tout erable to the Axis-totalitarian “war and aggression,” Trump If we do that, perhaps this alternative, characterized chiefly understands that “caution and century can be the most by a brutal exaltation of national restraint are signs of strength.” peaceful and prosperous the will and brute strength against He claims to have “totally” op- world has ever known. perceived weaker, lesser people. posed the Iraq War, despite some contrary evidence. And The perfunctory calls for peace Trump briefly cites “Western he suggests: and prosperity aside, there are civilization” without defin- a number of contradictions ing it, while distinguishing it Instead of trying to spread from and omissions by Trump. from “universal values.” The “universal values” that not Perhaps foremost among them European Axis powers, who so everyone shares, we should is an explanation of America’s rightly alarmed Niebuhr, also understand that strengthen- identity and how it relates to professed to champion Western ing and promoting Western America’s interests. How can Civilization against their en- civilization and its accom- national interest be understood emies in the East. Their con- plishments will do more apart from national identity? ception of the West was rooted to inspire positive reforms But characteristically, Trump in tribe, blood, and race, en- around the world than mili- focuses on strength without hanced by twisted mythology. tary interventions. explaining what he seeks to Niebuhr’s conception of the protect. West and of America was pre- Trump affirms the nation-state mised on Christian-influenced as the “true foundation for hap- Niebuhr advocated a Christian societies based on legal equality piness and harmony,” and he understanding of strong state- for all, protecting the weak and will “view the world through craft, rejecting the prevalent the strong alike. Such societies

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 70 5/31/16 7:25 PM on human rights and Christian anthropology. Comfortable in the tension, Niebuhr insisted that in both America’s secular and religious traditions was a recognition of a “collective life” among the community of nations and concomitant responsibilities that opposed “pure self-regard” while, at the same time, recognizing that it was “not within the realm of moral were not intended by God only interests too narrowly. possibilities to ask a nation to be for Christian or Protestant cul- It will do this because it ‘self-sacrificing’” to the degree tures but are the ideal for all will fail to consider those that it abdicated self-interest. peoples who are equally His of its interests which are This tension needn’t be abrogat- image bearers. bound up in a web of mu- ed. Rather, “the art of statecraft tual interests with other Believing in “universal values,” nations. is to find the point of concur- at which Trump scoffs, is intrin- rence between the parochial and Trump’s brief citation of the general interest, between the sic to the Christian-influenced “Christians subject to intense West, in contrast to the Axis- national and the international persecution and even genocide,” common good.” preferred idealization of ancient almost certainly inserted awk- pagan Europe. God is lord of all wardly by an aide aware of the peoples and cultures, according Niebuhr stood against those in political importance of Christian his own day who refused this to the Church, which rejects the voters, is the only real hat tip in atomization and relativization of his speech to human rights or responsibility. Likewise, he peoples under their own private humane values for their own would not smile on Trump’s or competing national deities. sake. update of “America First”, Reflecting along these lines, which diminishes America Niebuhr cautioned, “Nations as Niebuhr did not comprehend by refusing to recognize who well as individuals stand under America apart from its human- she really is. the law: ‘Who-soever seeketh ity related to Christian anthro- to gain his life will lose it.’” He pology. He rejected “America Mark Tooley is the co-publisher continued: First” under Charles Lindbergh and editor of Providence. He has because America’s greatness been president of the Institute on In more concrete terms and vocation, as well as its au- Religion & Democracy since 2009. this means that a nation thentically legitimate national He is the author of Taking Back that is too preoccupied interests, called it to prudent the United Methodist Church with its own interests is global engagement in defense of (2008) and The Peace That bound to define those the approximate good, centered Almost Was (2015).

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 71 5/31/16 7:25 PM ESSAY A BANNER FOR THE NATIONS: PRESERVING INTERNATIONAL ORDER & THE NATION-STATE SYSTEM

Alan W. Dowd

or the better part of four control over neither. Disparate These failed and failing states Fcenturies, the world has governments and groups are are places where government been organized and governed by using cyberspace to delete the has lost the ability to perform sovereign nation-states. Indeed, very notion of nationhood. basic functions like maintain- sovereignty—the notion that a ing public order, controlling country has the responsibility, This multi-pronged assault on borders, and ensuring that authority, capacity, and will to the nation-state system rep- what happens within their bor- govern itself—has served as the resents a serious threat to U.S. ders does not adversely impact very foundation of international interests and to the liberal inter- neighboring states. The Failed order. But today, this centu- national order the United States States/Fragile States Index indi- ries-old order is under assault forged after World War II. cates that the failed-state prob- from four divergent movements: lem is worsening, as once-stable post-nationalism, supra-nation- countries enter the failed-state alism, trans-nationalism, and BROKEN ranks and unstable countries non-nationalism. Let’s start where nation-states register some of the worst de- effectively don’t exist, where clines on the index since it was Just glance at the headlines: what might be called “non-na- first published a decade ago.2 Islamic State (ISIS) is trying tionalism” has supplanted the to maim and murder its way writ of government authority. By my count, the United States toward a borderless caliphate We don’t have to look far for an has engaged in military oper- enfolding the Middle East and example: Drug cartels control 12 ations in 10 of the bottom 15 North Africa. In Libya, Yemen, percent of Mexico’s territory.1 countries on the Failed States/ and Somalia, jihadist groups The problem of weak or non- Fragile States Index in the past and sectarian armies have de- existent government authority 20 years: Somalia, Yemen, clared competing zones of au- is worse in Yemen and Libya, Iraq, Syria, Haiti, Afghanistan, thority. Afghanistan is increas- Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan Pakistan, Central African ingly a figment of cartographers’ and Pakistan. It’s no coinci- Republic, Democratic Republic imaginations. Russia has de- dence that the pirate plague of Congo, and Sudan.3 These ployed troops scrubbed of insig- has raged in the waters between countries are not failing or bro- nia to wage anonymous warfare the failed states of Somalia and ken because the United States against Ukraine. After decades Yemen, or that al Qaeda’s most intervened. Rather, the United of deferring their borders and dangerous branch is based in States intervened because these finances to the European Union lawless Yemen, or that ISIS countries were failing or bro- (EU), many European nations seized 34,000 square-miles of ken—and as a consequence were have awoken to realize they have Iraq and Syria. either threatening America’s

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 72 5/31/16 7:25 PM interests, shocking America’s collective conscience, or both.

BELOW Next, let’s consider transnational groups. Transnationalism differs from non-nationalism in that, while both thrive on chaos, transnational groups are cohe- sive and have a clear objective: to erode the nation-state system from below.

As then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld concluded in 2004, jihadist groups have a simple but sweeping goal: “to end the state system, using terrorism to drive the non-radicals from the world.”4 Love him or hate him, Rumsfeld was right about this. Consider the words of al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, who wants to create a geopolitical power that “does not recognize nation-state, national links or the borders imposed by occupiers.” ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi calls on his followers to “trample the idol of nationalism” and “destroy the idol of democracy.”

In a sense, the war on terror is an outgrowth of nation-states failing or refusing to live up to the responsibilities of sovereignty, thus allowing transnational movements like ISIS and al Qaeda to exploit the resulting openings. For example:

• In the 1990s, the Taliban regime of Afghanistan allowed al Qaeda to create a terrorist campus in the lawless border- lands near Pakistan. Osama bin Laden used this territory as a launching pad for his global guerilla war against the United States.

• On the other hand, today’s Afghanistan and Iraq want The Avenue in the Rain by Childe Hassam, 1917. This image is displayed in the Oval Office. Source: White House Collection and The Athenaeum, via Wikimedia to control what happens in- Commons. side their borders but are too

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 73 5/31/16 7:25 PM weak to hold back transna- happened in Syria and Libya. Council report warns that in tional movements. Thus, ISIS The resulting vacuum fueled the the “hyper-globalized” world is laying waste to Iraq and rise of ISIS. likely to emerge in the coming Syria, destabilizing once-sta- decades—a world where power ble nation-states, and spread- The irony is that while UN has devolved to nongovernment ing into Europe, Africa, and bodies seem reluctant to con- organizations and multinational Afghanistan. A resurgent strain the enemies of interna- corporations—countries “wed- Taliban and a reconstitut- tional order, they are eager to ded to the notion of sovereignty ed al Qaeda are taking aim constrain legitimate, sover- and independence” will “find it at Afghanistan’s Western- eign nation-states: According difficult to operate successful- oriented government. This to a Wall Street Journal re- ly.”8 That sounds like a warn- explains why the Obama ad- port, the ICC has investigated ing for Americans. After all, ministration grudgingly re- “whether NATO troops, includ- few nation-states exercise their turned to Iraq in 2014 and ing American soldiers, fighting sovereignty and independence reluctantly reversed plans to the Taliban may have to be put with more gusto than the United withdraw from Afghanistan in the dock.”6 The ICC has no States. in 2015. authority to take such action since the U.S. is not party to the To be sure, the United States • Pakistan plays games with ICC treaty, but that didn’t stop has benefitted from global- sovereignty, claiming it is too ICC prosecutors from lunging ization. In fact, some contend weak to control its territory at U.S. sovereignty. globalization is just another with one breath but then in- word for Americanization, and voking its sovereign and invi- Moreover, the UN has watered they may be right. After all, President Harry Truman ad- olable borders with the next. down the principle of sovereign- vocated that “the whole world SEAL Team 6 exposed this ty by not holding nation-states adopt the American system.”9 duplicity—and Islamabad’s accountable for their actions. In The Truman administration 2003, the UN Security Council complicity in transnational declared in NSC-68 that the terrorism. took eight weeks to approve a goal of America’s post-World resolution requiring Saddam War II foreign policy would be ABOVE Hussein to comply with existing “to foster a world environment resolutions—and then failed to in which the American system If transnationalism erodes the enforce it. In 2010, North Korea can survive and flourish” and “to nation-state system from below, torpedoed a South Korean ship develop a healthy international supra-nationalism whittles away in international waters. All the community.”10 The operative at it from above. Examples of UN mustered in response was a word here is “international”— supra-nationalism are organi- pathetic report condemning the between nations, not beyond zations like the United Nations, attack without mentioning—let nations. EU and International Criminal alone punishing—the attacker.7 Court (ICC). In 2012, the Syrian government What post-nationalists over- reopened the Pandora’s Box look is that there are regimes Rumsfeld worried that the de- of chemical warfare. The UN that don’t share their vision of cline of sovereignty in the West responded with a farcical dis- a world where rules rather than “gives states an excuse to take armament deal that not only force determine behavior—and the easy way out by…punting failed to disarm Bashar Assad, that there are vast swaths of problems to supra-national bod- but ensconced him as essential earth where globalization’s low- ies, instead of taking responsi- to carrying out the deal. er transaction costs, just-in-time bility.”5 Again, whatever your commerce, and melting-away view of Rumsfeld, he was cor- of nationalities has no appeal rect about this. Writing about BEYOND whatsoever. Disinterested in the the Yugoslav civil war, William Post-nationalism envisions a responsibilities of nation-state- Pfaff argues that the UN and world after or beyond the na- hood, post-nationalists trust European Community (fore- tion-state. One of the main that globalization’s economic runner to the EU) “proved an drivers of post-nationalism is and commercial connections obstacle to action by inhibiting globalization, the term used will do what the nation-state individual national action and to describe today’s highly in- used to do: enforce norms of rationalizing the refusal to act tegrated global economic sys- behavior, promote stability, and nationally.” Something similar tem. A National Intelligence protect individuals and interests

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 74 5/31/16 7:25 PM from threat. Regrettably, this in sovereignty, independence, First, nation-states should be doesn’t work in practice. After and borders. held accountable for their ac- all, when ISIS tears through tions. As the Obama adminis- western Iraq and central Paris, Yes, Americans have looked tration concluded in its 2010 Beijing tries to poach inter- beyond borders to pursue close National Security Strategy, the national waterways, Putin’s bonds with people of goodwill— U.S. is best suited “to pursue unmarked armies dismember witness America’s friendships our interests through an inter- Ukraine, or al Qaeda maims with such diverse places as Israel national system in which all nations have certain rights and Manhattan, the victims don’t and India, Germany and Japan, responsibilities.”14 The strategy turn to multinational corpo- France and the Philippines, argued the U.S. needs to provide rations for help. They turn to Canada and Korea, the UK and nation-states—usually the most incentives for nation-states to the UAE—but always in a state- act responsibly and needs to powerful nation-state. to-state context. And yes, the enforce consequences when they United States helped found the don’t. The administration’s 2015 RESISTANCE United Nations. But according strategy calls for “growing the to the UN Charter, the main goal ranks of responsible, capable The United States defended the of its founders was not to en- states.”15 So, what consequenc- nation-state system by resisting croach upon the sovereignty of es have North Korea, Iran, and these movements throughout members-in-good-standing or Syria faced for their actions? its history. to create a supra-national gov- What incentives are there for ernment, but rather to protect Nigerians, Libyans, and Iraqis For example, the Congressional to hold their nation-states to- Research Service maintains a the “sovereign equality,” “territorial integrity,” and “political gether? Did withdrawing from tally of U.S. military interven- Iraq and pulling back from independence” of nation-states. tions abroad. Of the hundreds Afghanistan help them become of examples of interventions more responsible and more Finally, the United States has before this century, at least 60 capable? involved failed states—what always resisted transnational movements that threaten the we have labeled “non-nation- Second, the West must strength- 11 alism.” U.S. willingness to in- nation-state system. Yesterday, en at-risk nation-states. The tervene in failed states dates to it was the “long, twilight strug- natural order of the world is not 1816, when U.S. troops entered gle” against communism. Today, that orderly. The nation-state Spanish Florida to bring some it’s the generational struggle system has brought a measure 12 semblance of order. In 1904, against jihadism. of order, but it takes hard work President Theodore Roosevelt to maintain it. To shore up this argued that the United States What may be unique about this foundering international or- has a right to exercise “interna- moment in history is that the der, the U.S. and its partners tional police power” and inter- United States is being asked to should help nation-states con- vene in places where “chronic confront all of these challenges trol borders, defend borders, wrongdoing” or “impotence” to the nation-state at the same respect borders, and assert their results in “a general loosening time. sovereignty. of the ties of civilized society.”13 SOLUTIONS This is not to suggest that sov- As to post-nationalism and ereignty can be used to justi- supra-nationalism, consider The United States was born fy barbaric behavior. The idea our founding documents. The into the nation-state system, that what happens within a na- Founders announced their in- raised in it, grew to master and tion-state is unimportant to dependence by declaring it was shape it, and today benefits other nation-states is as perni- time for “one people to dissolve from and thrives in it. If the the political bands which have cious as the idea that borders nation-state ceases to be the connected them with another” are irrelevant. Consider an ex- main organizing structure for and wrote a constitution example from close to home: If pressly for “the people of the the world, there is no guarantee my neighbor harms someone United States.” The Federalist the United States will have the on his property, encroaches on Papers speak of “our country,” same position it enjoys today. my property, or through action “dangers from abroad,” and na- And so, the United States must or inaction negatively impacts tions with “opposite interests.” respond to this multi-pronged me and my property, he is mis- In short, the Founders believed assault on the nation-state. using his sphere of sovereignty

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 75 5/31/16 7:25 PM and inviting external interven- change that spawned the trag- decades of the 2000s. In Iraq, tion. In the same way, what edy of Iraq, but rather pre-9/11 Washington tried cooperation happens inside nation-states realpolitik. Isolationists view and realpolitik in the 1980s; a becomes a concern when gov- the 2003 invasion of Iraq (and police-action war in the early ernments harm their citizens, consequent civil war) as proof 1990s; no-fly zones and contain- negatively impact neighboring that America should never go ment in the late 1990s; regime nation-states, or simply stop “abroad in search of monsters change and waist-deep engage- governing—thus inviting what to destroy.” Yet interventionists ment after 9/11; benign neglect TR called “international police view the 2011 withdrawal from and hands-off disengagement power.”16 This can take many Iraq (and consequent rise of after 2011; and pinprick air- forms: embargoes, sanctions, ISIS) as proof that U.S. engage- strikes after the ISIS blitzkrieg. military strikes, even regime ment is the key ingredient to in- Put another way, perhaps the change (the nation-state equiv- ternational stability—and point problem isn’t Washington’s alent of the death penalty). This to the connective tissue between approach to failed states like is a drastic step. However, na- Iraq and Afghanistan; perhaps tion-states can forfeit their the problem is failed states. sovereignty. That’s what happened to Germany and Japan Third, the United States and its as a result of their behavior allies should promote liberal before and during World War democracy and the institutions II. After allowing bin Laden that support it—the rule of law, to use Afghanistan as a train- political and religious plural- ing ground and launching pad ism, free markets, majority rule for his jihad, the Taliban re- with minority rights. It is not gime of Afghanistan fell into the the EU, UN, or ICC—well-in- same category. After decades of tentioned as they may be—that supporting international ter- guarantee individual freedom rorism,17 deploying chemical and international order, but weapons externally and inter- rather liberal democratic na- nally, using mass-murder to tion-states. This doesn’t mean control its subjects, and waging the West should spread liberal aggressive war against four of its democracy by force. As noted, neighbors, Saddam Hussein’s Afghanistan and Manhattan, regime change is a drastic step, Iraq arguably did as well. To Yemen and Ft. Hood, Syria and and transition from autocracy use TR’s term, both were guilty Paris and San Bernardino, as to liberal democracy requires of “chronic wrongdoing.” evidence that if America fails many difficult steps. However, to go in search of the monsters, it does mean the United States However, Afghanistan and Iraq they will come searching for us. and its allies should promote serve as reminders that solu- democratic values, reward re- tions can create their own prob- This debate over what Simon gimes that move toward demo- lems. For example, President Serfaty calls “the wars of 9/11” cratic governance, and practice George W. Bush’s critics blame will go on for decades. But what FDR called “armed de- him for invading Afghanistan this much we know: Iraq and fense of democratic existence.” and Iraq, and thus upend- Afghanistan have vexed U.S. Washington in recent years has ing what passed for stability. policymakers for the better part done the very opposite—scaling President Barack Obama’s crit- of 40 years. In Afghanistan, back democracy-promotion ini- ics blame him for withdrawing Washington waged a proxy tiatives; averting its gaze when from Iraq, disengaging from war in the 1980s; then aban- pro-democracy movements Afghanistan, and thus open- doned the country in the early come under assault; leaving ing the door to the emergence 1990s; then watched, in a kind nascent democracies to fend of ISIS and the reemergence of self-imposed helplessness, as for themselves; and shrinking of the Taliban.18 Realists use it became a spawning ground for the reach, role, and resources of Iraq’s sectarian war to explain jihadism in the late 1990s; then democracy’s greatest defender: why Saddam Hussein was so launched a light-footprint inva- the U.S. military.19 ruthless and why regime change sion after 9/11, which evolved is so risky. Yet idealists argue into nation-building and coun- Not surprisingly, Freedom that it wasn’t post-9/11 regime terinsurgency in the first two House reports “a disturbing

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 76 5/31/16 7:25 PM decline in global freedom” and essential function in God’s plan. Post, November 1, 2007. an ebbing of the democratic tide Legitimate governments exist 5 Remarks June 11, 2003, https://web. archive.org/web/20030630205140/ that had been surging from 1984 to protect life and property, to http://www.defense.gov/releas- through 2004, with 61 countries be instruments of justice, to es/2003/nr20030612-0095.html. suffering declines. “Acceptance deter and if necessary defeat 6 Daniel Schwammenthal, “Pros- of democracy as the world’s enemies, and to maintain law ecuting American ‘War Crimes’,” The Wall Street Journal, November 26, dominant form of government— and order—within nation-states 2009. and of an international system and between nation-states. The 7 Bill Powell, “South Korea’s Case built on democratic ideals— nation-state system provides for How the Cheonan Sank,” Time, is under greater threat than at a measure of order in a world August 13, 2010. any point in the last 25 years.”20 predisposed to chaos. 8 NIC, Global Trends 2030: Alter- native Worlds, December 2012. 9 Cited in Niall Ferguson, Colossus, “The future international order To be sure, in Christ, there is 2004, p.80. will be shaped by those who neither “Greek nor Gentile nor 10 Institute for National Strategic have the power and the collec- Jew,” “no barbarian, Scythian, Studies, NSC-68, http://www.au.af. tive will to shape it,” Robert slave or free.” However, the mil/au/awc/awcgate/whitehouse/ nsc68/nsc68.pdf. Kagan argues.21 Regrettably, given of scripture is that nations 11 Barbara Salazar Torreon, In- Washington seems wearied by exist, nations are an important stances of Use of United States Armed the realization that a liberal in- organizing feature of this world, Forces Abroad, 1798-2013, August ternational order favoring free and nations play crucial roles 30, 2013. government doesn’t run on au- in maintaining order and pro- 12 Torreon. topilot or grow by magic. tecting innocents. That would 13 Message to Congress, December 6, 1904, www.ourdocuments.gov/doc. not happen in a world without php?flash=true&doc=56&page=tran- AMBASSADORS nation-states. Instead, such a script. world would descend into the 14 The White House, National Se- We must never put our nation law of the jungle, or be micro- curity Strategy of the United States, May 2010. ahead of our faith. That would managed by some unchecked 15 The White House, National Se- be idolatry. But it pays to recall tyranny. As history proves, curity Strategy of the United States, that Paul saw himself as a citi- God’s crowning creation cannot February 2015. zen of Rome’s earthly kingdom flourish under either extreme. 16 Message to Congress, December 6, 1904, www.ourdocuments.gov/doc. and Christ’s eternal kingdom; php?flash=true&doc=56&page=tran- he brandished his Roman citi- Alan W. Dowd is a senior fel- script. zenship; and he called believers low with the Sagamore Institute 17 See Tony Blair, A Journey: My “Christ’s ambassadors.” Yes, Center for America’s Purpose Political Life, 2010, p.384; Council on Foreign Relations, “Abu Nidal Organi- that means “our citizenship is and a regular contributor to zation (ANO), aka Fatah Revolution- in heaven,” as he put it. But Providencemag.com. His writ- ary Council, the Arab Revolutionary ing has appeared in Providence, Brigades, or the Revolutionary Orga- to extend Paul’s metaphor, it nization of Socialist Muslims,” May also means nation-states matter Policy Review, Parameters, 27, 2009. Military Officer, Claremont enough to heaven that God has 18 Jennifer Griffin and Lucas Tom- deployed ambassadors around Review of Books, Landing Zone, linson, “Army chief Odierno, in exit World Politics Review, byFaith, interview, says US could have ‘prevent- the world to represent and pro- and other leading publications. ed’ ISIS rise,” Fox News, July 22, 2015. mote His interests. 19 See Charles W. Dunne, “Democra- Endnotes cy Promotion: Obama’s Mixed Record,” One of those interests is order. 1 Mathieu von Rohr, “A Nation De- Middle East Institute, November 19, scends into Violence,” Spiegel, Decem- 2014; Jamie Dettmer, “Obama to Cut We sometimes forget that God ber 23, 2010. Middle East Democracy Programs,” does not like chaos. Genesis The Daily Beast, January 2, 2014; 2 See Foreign Policy/Fund for Peace, David Feith and Bari Weiss, “Deny- tells us He brought form and “The 2013 Failed States Index – Interac- ing the Green Revolution,” The Wall order out of chaos. Paul writes tive Map and Rankings,” June 24, 2013 Street Journal, October 23, 2009; http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/24/ and Fariborz Ghadar, “Iran’s Nuclear that He is not a God of disorder the-2013-failed-states-index-interac- tive-map-and-rankings/ and Fund Negotiations and the West,” CSIS, (I Corinthians 14), that gov- For Peace, “The Fragile States Index November 12, 2009. ernments are in place for our 2015,” http://library.fundforpeace.org/ 20 Arch Puddington, Discarding own good (Romans 13), that we library/fragilestatesindex-2015.pdf. Democracy: Return to the Iron Fist, 3 Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Kony Freedom House, 2015; Freedom should pray for “all those in au- 2013: U.S. quietly intensifies effort to House, “Freedom in the World 2015,” thority that we may live peace- help African troops capture infamous https://freedomhouse.org/report/ warlord,” The Washington Post, Octo- freedom-world/freedom-world-2015#. ful and quiet lives” (I Timothy ber 28, 2013. Vru5Z_krLZ4. 2). The implication is clear: 4 Robin Wright, “From the Desk of 21 Robert Kagan, The Return of Earthly government serves an Donald Rumsfeld,” The Washington History, 2008, p.105.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 77 5/31/16 7:25 PM BOOK REVIEW CHOOSING TO MISREAD? Review by Gerald R. McDermott

CHOSEN? READING THE BIBLE AMID THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT by WALTER BRUEGGEMANN—Westminster John Knox Press, 2015, 108 pages.

arbitrarily arrested Palestinian do not pay “attention to facts citizens at least 1,391 times. on the ground.” Treatments of During that year, according this complex subject should be to the Monitor, there were at “prophetic” and “truth-telling.” least 179 cases of torture in Palestinian Authority (PA) Unfortunately, this little book prisons. fails Brueggemann’s own test. Not once do Palestinians or According to Palestinian jour- their governments (the PA and nalist Khaled Abu Toameh, Hamas) come in for any criti- “Palestinians who beg to differ cism. The reader is led to believe with PA President Mahmoud that human rights violations are Abbas or one of his friends are committed by Israelis alone. The called criminals and can ex- fact that the human rights of pect to be interrogated and/or Palestinians are violated more imprisoned.”1 often by fellow Palestinians than by Israelis is conspicu- These are human rights abuses ously missing from this book. by Palestinian parties against I remember my hike across Consider the following three other Palestinians. Galilee in 2009 when a burly items. Palestinian Christian whispered One would think that these to me, “Our real enemy is not On October 3, 2015, a kinds of terrorist attacks and the Israeli government but our Palestinian terrorist stabbed human rights violations would Muslim cousins who attack us four Israelis, including a two- be part of any honest and bal- for our faith.” year-old child, killing two. He anced treatment of the Israeli- then fired a gun at police who Palestinian conflict. Not once in this book are we told returned fire and killed him. The that for more than four decades BBC ran a story under the head- That in fact is exactly what Palestinians have cheered their line, “Palestinian shot dead af- the renowned Old Testament fellow Palestinians who have ter Jerusalem attack kills two,” scholar Walter Brueggemann deliberately attacked non-com- without informing its readers (emeritus professor at Columbia batant Jewish elderly, wom- that it was the Palestinian who Theological Seminary) calls for en, and children. The present killed the two. Since that attack, in his new little book, Chosen? PA names squares on the West nearly thirty Israelis have been Reading the Bible Amid the Bank after terrorists who have killed, and scores of others in- Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. killed innocent Israelis, includ- jured in unprovoked knife as- He criticizes accounts of the ing children. Are these not hu- saults by Palestinians. conflict that are “indifferent to man rights violations? human rights,” provide “uncon- The Euro-Mediterranean Hu- ditional support” for one side, Brueggeman charges that the man Rights Monitor reports lack “courage” and “honesty,” Israeli government has asserted that in 2015 the two Palestinian are “mere ideology” because its claim to the land “without parties, Fatah and Hamas, they are “one-dimensional” and compromise” and “refuses to

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 78 5/31/16 7:25 PM engage in any serious negotia- Americans and Euro- took its moral duties and its tions” (49, 51). Perhaps this is peans who keep talking responsibilities under the laws why he never mentions histor- about the need to revive of armed conflict is that in some ical evidence that makes these the stalled peace process cases Israel’s scrupulous ad- claims risible: Israel’s giving up in the Middle East con- herence to the laws of war cost the Sinai peninsula in 1979— tinue to ignore these two Israeli soldiers’ and civilians’ more than ninety percent of the factors. They continue to lives.”4 land it occupied after the 1967 insist that peace is still war—and unilaterally withdraw- possible and that the Brueggemann makes not only ing from Gaza in 2005. In 2000 ball is in Israel’s court. historical mistakes but exe- the Israeli government offered The Americans and getical and theological ones as to return 92% of the West Bank, Europeans fail to ac- well. His most serious is the but the Palestinians refused to knowledge that in order supersessionist mistake, which accept the offer. to achieve peace, the lead- claims that the church super- ers must prepare their sedes Israel, so that for the New Brueggemann claims that the people for compromise Testament authors God is sup- Netanyahu government does and tolerance.2 posedly no longer interested in not seem interested in pursu- Brueggemann charges that the Jewish people or the land ing a two-state solution (58). Israel “relies on military pow- of Israel. He advises that “we Although he criticizes those er without reference to cove- will do well to avoid such [overt who don’t pay attention to “facts nantal restraints” (56). This is arguments] in the church,” but on the ground,” he seems not laughable for anyone familiar claims that “Paul insisted that to have paid attention to the with Israel’s practice of warfare. the early church was ‘the Israel facts outlined by (Palestinian) Consider the 2014 war with of God’ (Gal. 6:16), and the lyri- Toameh: Hamas in Gaza. According to cal articulation of 1 Peter 2:9-10 the High Level International clearly intends to preempt the No Palestinian leader Military Group, a consortium claims of ancient Israel from has a mandate to reach of some of the world’s leading Sinai for the church as the car- an everlasting peace military experts, Israel went rier of the covenant” (56). agreement with Israel. No out of its way to minimize ci- leader in Ramallah or the vilian casualties and observe Translation according to Gaza Strip is authorized international law during that Brueggemann: Paul and Peter to end the conflict with war, even to the point of costing believed that God had trans- Israel. Any Palestinian the lives of its own soldiers and ferred the covenant from Israel who dares to talk about citizens. Despite a daily barrage to the church. This is the false concessions to Israel is of rockets, often launched from claim that most Catholic and quickly denounced as a schools, mosques, and hospitals Protestant theologians rejected traitor. Those who be- within Gaza, Israel went to great after the Holocaust made them lieve that whoever suc- lengths to follow laws governing ask how the most Christianized ceeds Abbas will be able armed conflict. The fighting was country in Europe could have to make real concessions sparked by daily rocket and tun- murdered six million Jews. to Israel are living in an nel attacks mounted from Gaza, The fact of the matter is that illusion. as well as the kidnapping and the New Testament never once murder of three Israeli teens by uses the term “New Israel” There are two main rea- Hamas operatives, and lasted for the church. In every one sons why Palestinians will for seven weeks, leaving more of the eighty times that the not sign a real and mean- than 2,000 dead. “Israel not word “Israel” is used by New ingful peace agreement only met a reasonable interna- Testament writers, it refers with Israel—at least not tional standard of observance to the Jewish descendants of in the foreseeable future. of the laws of armed conflict, Abraham. When Paul refers to The first is a total lack of but in many cases significant- the “Israel of God” at the end of education for peace. The ly exceeded that standard,” Galatians, he probably means second is related to the states the report.3 Gen. Klaus what he called the “common- absence of a leader who Naumann, former chief of staff wealth of Israel” in Ephesians is authorized—or has the of the German armed forces, 2:12, Israel as the (faithful) guts—to embark on such observed, “A measure of the Jewish people with Gentiles as a risky mission. seriousness with which Israel associate members. This was

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 79 5/31/16 7:25 PM what he called the “olive tree of the promises made to the patri- minorities? Of course Israel is Israel” in Romans 11:17-24, into archs it was that of the land that not a perfect country. It has which believing Gentiles were was the most prominent and de- not always treated its minori- grafted. Of Jews who did not ac- cisive.” Land is the fourth most ties with justice. But here is cept Jesus, Paul said they were frequent noun or substantive in what one of those minorities “enemies” of the gospel but nev- the Old Testament. It is more has written: ertheless still “beloved for the dominant statistically than the 5 sake of their forefathers” and idea of covenant itself. When We minorities get to en- their “calling” as God’s people the biblical God calls out a peo- joy nearly-free medical was “irrevocable” (Rom 11:28- ple for himself, he does so in an care in one of the best 29). In other words, God was earthy way, by making the gift medical systems in the still in covenant with the Jewish of a particular land an integral world. We have full eco- people, even those who had not aspect of that calling. nomic freedom to start a yet accepted the messiah. business, and participate Brueggemann is right about the fully in one of the most Peter held the same view. He Deuteronomic if in chapter 28 vibrant economies in the proved it by his second speech of that book of the Bible—Israel world, and certainly the in Jerusalem, where he said the was told she would lose control healthiest economy in the day was coming when Israel of the land if she was unfaith- Middle East. Our chil- would be restored to its land ful to the covenant. But what dren get free education as the prophets had foretold. he misses is that even when in excellent schools, and Peter used the same word— Israel was driven off the land we Christians can send apokatastasis—for the “times because of her infidelity to the them to schools that re- of restoration” (Acts 3:21) that covenant, her prophets said the inforce our faith. We feel the prophets used repeatedly land was still hers. She had lost privileged indeed.6 in the Greek version of the Old control of the land, but she still Testament for God’s vindica- held title to it. In exile Jeremiah Palestinians in Israel have more tion of his covenantal promises wrote that God was promising freedom of speech and religion to Israel. to “bring them [the people of than in any other Arab coun- Israel] back to their own land try in the Middle East. King Brueggemann’s real opponent that I gave to their ancestors” Hussein massacred thousands in this book is Zionism, which (Jer 16:15; 12: 14-17). God told of Palestinians during the “Black claims that there is a connec- Ezekiel that he had driven the September” of 1970 for protest- tion between the Hebrew Bible’s people of Israel off “their own ing against him, and all the Arab promise of the land and the soil” because “they defiled it states backed him up. Hamas in return of Jews to establish a with their ways and their deeds; Gaza slaughtered almost one polity in the land in recent their conduct in my sight was thousand Fatah Palestinians times. Brueggemann complains like the uncleanness of a woman in order to consolidate its own that Zionism “disregards the in her menstrual period.” This rule, and the Arabs kept silent. Deuteronomic if” (36)—that was why he “scattered them Israel allows its Arab citizens to Israel will control the land only among the nations.” But there practice their democratic rights, if she lives up to the terms of was coming a time when “I will to protest and even curse the the covenant. He suggests that take you from the nations, and state, and still enjoy freedom modern Israel has not done so gather you from all the coun- from the Zionist state. Arabs because of its “oppression” (57) tries, and bring you into your hold seats in the Knesset and of Palestinians, and that the es- own land” (Ezek 36:17-19, 24). from those privileged positions sence of Judaism has nothing to criticize the government at will. do with land anyway. “Judaism Bruggemann argues that Israel Nowhere else in the Middle East consists most elementally in in- does not deserve to control the does this kind of political free- terpretation of and obedience to land because she excludes the dom, especially for minorities, the Torah,” which “can be done Palestinians “either by law or exist. Why are these anomalies anywhere” (36). coercive violence” and by var- never cited by Brueggemann? ious kinds of “oppression” (7, This claim ignores what is cen- 57). Does Brueggemann know that tral to the Hebrew Bible. As the the government of Israel has great Old Testament scholar Is that true? Does Israel exclude affirmative action programs Gerhard von Rad put it, “Of all and oppress its Palestinian for Arabs?

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 80 5/31/16 7:25 PM Affirmative action poli- to promote economic Endnotes cies initiated under Ehud development in the Arab 1 Toameh, “U.S., Europe Fund Tor- 7 ture by Palestinian Authority,” Gate- Olmert were accelerated community. stone Institute (Feb. 26, 2016), http:// during the Netanyahu www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7509/ If Brueggeman knows about palestinians-torture-funding administration. These these practices—which are prioritized economic 2 Khaled Abu Toameh, “Why Pal- strange for a government that estinians Cannot Make Peace with development, includ- supposedly wants to “exclude” Israel,” Gatestone (July 13, 2015), http:// ing allocating funds for www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6142/ non-Jews—why does he not palestinians-peace-israel joint industrial parks in acknowledge them? If he does 3 “Key Preliminary Findings of the Arab and Jewish towns. not know about them, he is not High Level International Military Group Subsidies helped firms on the Gaza Conflict,” UN Watch, http:// paying attention to “sociopolit- blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2015/06/12/ hire Arab labor and ex- ical facts on the ground” (53). key-findings-of-the-high-level-internation- panded transportation al-military-group-on-the-gaza-conflict/ (accessed July 6, 2015). infrastructure, which Walter Bruggemann is a distin- 4 Ibid. allowed Arabs to reach guished Old Testament scholar. 5 To learn more about the use of employment sites. These His enormous prestige will help the use of the word “land” in the Old ventures were so success- perpetuate, through this book, Testament, see McDermott, Gerald R., ful that the government “A New Christian Zionism,” Providence: distortions and untruths about A Journal of Christianity & American began setting up industri- Israel, both biblical and mod- Foreign Policy (Winter 2016), p. 61. Or al parks and employment read online at https://providencemag. ern. Sadly, Chosen? is an exam- com/2016/04/new-christian-zionism/ offices exclusively in Arab ple of the one-sided propaganda 6 Shadi Khalloul, “Theology and towns. In addition, the which he says he deplores. morality,” in McDermott, ed., The New Israeli government de- Christian Zionism: Fresh Perspectives on Israel and the Land (Inter-Varsity veloped a five-year plan Gerald R. McDermott is editor academic, 2016), chap. 10. for improving Arab ed- of The New Christian Zionism: 7 Robert Cherry, “Netanyahu and ucation and established Fresh Perspectives on Israel and the Israeli Arabs: The Untold Story,” Mida (July 9, 2015), http://mida.org. a special unit in the the Land (InterVarsity Academic, il/2015/07/09/netanyahu-and-the-is- prime minister’s office forthcoming). raeli-arabs-the-untold-story/

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 81 5/31/16 7:25 PM BOOK REVIEW

THE RUSSIAN PUZZLE Review by Mark Melton

WINTER IS COMING: WHY VLADIMIR PUTIN & THE ENEMIES OF THE FREE WORLD MUST BE STOPPED by GARRY KASPAROV—PublicAffairs, 2015, 320 pages.

RUSSIA & THE NEW WORLD DISORDER by BOBO LO—Brookings Institution Press/Chatham House, 2015, 336 pages.

trol a kleptocratic, mafia-style government. Arguing against the Russian “humiliation myth”, Kasparov relates how Western uggesting that the old Soviet democracies bankrolled the SUnion is as dangerous as the collapsing Soviet Union with modern Russian Federation billions of dollars to prevent its would be foolish, not least collapse when they could have because modern-day Russia advocated for human rights (6- is neither driven by a global 9, 27-30). Foolishly hoping for ideological agenda nor has the a more cooperative relation- economic strength to afford a ship that never came, multiple global agenda. However, sug- American presidents from both gesting that Russia poses no risk parties ignored atrocities and to global security would also be human rights violations in- foolish, and not simply because stead of speaking truth to the of its top-tier nuclear arsenal. As Russian people (50-58, 80-81, Stephen Kotkin argued in the 156-158, 209-211). Once demo- 2016 May-June issue of Foreign policy recommendations must cratic checks had been disman- Affairs, Russia insists on being understand this country. Two tled, Russian oligarchs perfected respected as a great power, books, Garry Kasparov’s Winter kleptocracy, and Putin emerged despite its great weaknesses, is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin as a mafia-style “capo di tutti while Putin and other Russian & the Enemies of the Free World capi” who sidelined noncompli- elites have pushed to “make the Must Be Stopped and Bobo ant oligarchs and now enables country ‘relevant,’ come what Lo’s Russia & the New World others to rob Russians’ wealth. may.” If accurate, this pushing Disorder, give contrasting yet Public theft became the state’s and rubbing against neighbors, enlightening perspectives into raison d’être. Complicit in these whose citizens can increasingly Russia’s internal dynamics and crimes because they accept the assert their own agendas, will foreign policies. ill-gotten wealth (e.g., letting create considerable risks across oligarchs make deposits into multiple regions. Garry Kasparov, a Russian activ- Western banks), Westerners ist and former chess champion, still enable Putin to purchase Because Russia remains a signif- explains in Winter is Coming the support he needs. As long as icant Eurasian actor, Christian the wider dynamics, starting at oligarchs can keep their wealth realists who wish to understand the end of the Cold War, that in Western banks that are pro- the world as it is and make wise allowed Vladimir Putin to con- tected by the rule of law, there

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 82 5/31/16 7:25 PM is no need to revolt (158-165, op-ed writing style, Lo’s book cert of Europe—ignores realities 205-208). Meanwhile, everyday is a denser, more informative on the ground. Expanding glo- Russians cannot challenge Pu- work that immensely rewards balization has spread technol- tin peacefully or even organize readers who have the patience ogy that has undermined state against him. to delve deeply. Currently an power, and military strength associate fellow at the Russia & without soft power has become In response to the widely-held Eurasia Programme at Chatham less effective and can even be belief that Putin is popular at House in the UK and a former counterproductive (xvii). Yes, home, Kasparov says, “The deputy head of mission at the countries like China have grown entire definition of approval Australian Embassy in Moscow, stronger relative to the West, and popularity of a democratic he provides fascinating insights but the rising tide of prosper- leader has no application in an into the many problems Russia ity and technology has raised autocracy. When there is only will face in the emerging “new all ships, not just China. Many one restaurant in town and it has world disorder”. smaller nations, including sev- only one item on the menu, and eral of Russia’s neighbors, have no other restaurants are allowed His analysis rejects many popu- become stronger and can assert to open, is it popular?” He also lar Western and Russian myths their own agendas (53-56, 62- asserts that if Putin was truly about the country, but it does popular, he would not need to carefully examine how a trou- 63). A multitude of new relevant rig elections, eliminate rivals, bled history and vulnerable ge- actors on the global stage also or attack a single protestor in a ography have created a unique, means that many long-ignored town square (180-181). antagonistic mindset that will issues, such as water security, outlast Putin (16-22, 179). may be addressed. Yet finding In addition to witty writing, Through this Eurasian vision, solutions will require inclusive, one of Winter is Coming’s great Russian elites feel a strategic multilateral negotiations that strengths is Kasparov’s personal, entitlement that requires other Russia has tended to loathe be- on-the-ground perspective as a great powers to respect Russia’s cause it cannot dominate them Russian activist, and his stories exceptionalism on any issue (65). This emerging “new world give context to events that would deemed important (17, 134). disorder” could disrupt all exist- otherwise appear as historical From its rightful great-pow- ing powers, including the United footnotes. However, the book er position in a multipolar, States, but Russia is especially mostly “preaches to the choir” polycentric order, Russia can vulnerable because it has proven without trying to convert those maintain global stability while unwilling and unable to adapt realists willing to ignore human serving as a balancer between for multiple reasons. rights violations. Kasparov only a declining United States and a briefly argues that supporting rising China (xvi, 39-40). Small- Russia’s overreliance on mil- Russian democracy would im- er countries are irrelevant ac- itary strength without soft prove global stability, but his tors, pawns without their own power partially explains why it argument is too brief and over- agendas or agency. Through this has struggled to adapt, as the looks easy counterarguments mindset, Russian elites cannot Ukraine crisis demonstrates. (262). Elsewhere, Kasparov believe countries like Georgia Though many Westerners con- suggests Russia “exports cor- or Ukraine would revolt against sider the Ukrainian invasion a ruption” that weakens democ- their wishes without American genius masterstroke, Lo insists racies (158-159, 161-162, 205). backing or support. Most trou- Putin and his elites miscalcu- This could make for an inter- bling, these elites view geopol- lated greatly. Originally, Russia esting line of attack, but again itics as zero-sum, with their could have done nothing and the argument is too ineffective. country either triumphant or allowed Ukraine to toy with humiliated (40-47). Win-win moving towards the European Whereas Kasparov’s anger settlements or sustainable com- Union. Eventually, Ukrainian against Putin leaps from the promises for crises in Ukraine, elites and European bureau- page while he deplores Rus- Syria, or elsewhere are thus un- crats would have grown tired sia’s internal kleptocracy and desirable unless they somehow of each other. Then Russia could autocracy, Bobo Lo’s Russia & humiliate the West. have reasserted itself over all of the New World Disorder con- Ukraine without spending blood centrates calmly on the coun- However, as Lo reasons, this and treasure. Now, however, try’s foreign policies. Though Russian mindset—largely based the invasion means Ukrainians lacking Kasparov’s entertaining upon a retro-vision of the Con- will move towards Europe, even

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 83 5/31/16 7:25 PM when both sides get frustrated expecting this contribution on multitude of insights that are with each other (216-217). a regular basis would be unwise. worth digesting slowly and reading twice. Plus, the lessons can Moreover, Lo argues global lead- Overall, Russia & the New be applied not only to Russia ers in the new world disorder World Disorder paints a de- but also to the United States, gain respect by resolving global pressing picture. Believing Putin who must handle changing geo- problems, whereas oftentimes has been successful, the Russian politics as well. Compared to Russia’s goal is not solving geo- elites see little reason to change Winter is Coming, Russia & the political crises but simply getting course, so the country will likely New World Disorder is more reject reforms (203-204). Lo to the talks and thus receiving rewarding for readers already extrapolates, “A Russia that fails respect (xvii, 50, 72, 140). While somewhat familiar with Russia, to adapt to the demands of the Russia has proven its ability to and it would make for an ideal new world disorder will remain break things, it has not proven text for a university course. its ability to fix them on a reli- backward, in comparison not only with the developed West, able basis (57, 99, 128-129). In Much more should be said about but also with a rising non-West. one case where Lo maintains It would be less actor than act- both books—including how the Russia did contribute positive- ed upon, unable to defend its authors view NATO’s expan- ly, by helping remove Assad’s interests against the compet- sion in the 1990s, the Russian chemical weapons from Syria, ing agendas of others” (208). Orthodox Church’s influence, he says that Russia’s motiva- Given this forecast, it can be and so forth. To read longer tion was not to promote peace easy to foresee how—despite reviews for each of these books but to constrain the United its military strengths—Russia and others about Russia, check States (211). The same could could become the “Sick Man of ProvidenceMag.com over the probably be said for Russia’s Eurasia”, spreading the conta- summer. military intervention in Syria, gion of disorder across multiple but those events occurred after regions. Mark Melton is the Deputy the book was published. In the Editor for Providence. He future, Russia may contribute Though more details could have earned his Master’s degree in positively to other global crises been given about how and why International Relations from the while trying to counter the West, the “new world disorder” de- University of St. Andrews and fo- but according to Lo’s account, veloped, Lo offers readers a cuses on European affairs.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 84 5/31/16 7:25 PM REVIEW

BE STRONG: A REFLECTION ON MOSHE DAYAN’S EULOGY FOR ROI ROTBERG by Marc Livecche

n the early part of the 1950s, finishing touches to their has rightly suffused the Israeli Ia young Israeli named Roi preparations and receiv- mind. More than simply a war Rotberg left Tel Aviv to help ing their guest, Ro’i rode for self-determination, the War create Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a set- away on his horse to drive of Independence was, for the tlement adjacent to the border off a group of Arabs who outnumbered and ill-equipped with the Gaza Strip. Taking had crossed the border Jewish fighters, a battle for sur- charge of defense and working [and] were pasturing vival. “All knew,” Dayan said, the land, Rotberg was regularly their flocks in the kib- “that there could no retreat and involved in chasing away Arabs butz fields and cutting no surrender.” Common threats who crossed the furrowed bor- their crops. When Ro’i breed common cause, and thus der to conduct petty theft or reached them, he was unity was found in the recogni- other, sometimes more serious, shot dead, and his body tion that there were no alterna- crimes. was dragged across the tives to war. To the question of border. His corpse, mu- whether it was in Israel’s power Sixty years ago, on April 29th, tilated, was later handed to stand up to the Arab assault, 1956, Moshe Dayan, then the Is- over the U.N. soldiers, the common retort was, “Is it in raeli army’s senior commander, who delivered it to us for our power not to?” Dayan and learned that Rotberg had just burial. his contemporaries understood been murdered. Dayan, hero of When Dayan heard about the that any prospect of survival the 1948 War of Independence, crime, he returned to his room would only be found in facing had come to Nahal Oz the day where he wrote a eulogy. The up to their enemies, rather than before as the community was text is considered, by many, to standing down. preparing to celebrate four wed- be one of the greatest speeches dings. He and Rotberg had met of the 20th Century. It has been This recognition would be per- and, by all accounts, got along called Israel’s equivalent to the petually renewed. Years on, rem- well. Gettysburg Address. It is said to iniscing about the Yom Kippur have taken Dayan half an hour War, former Prime Minister Dayan’s own memoir describes to write it. Golda Meir re-inhabited the the murder: mood of the time, “We know that From the very inception of the giving up means death, means While the kibbutz mem- Jewish state, a perpetual sense destruction of our sovereignty bers were putting the that national existence is at stake and physical destruction of our

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 85 5/31/16 7:25 PM entire people. Against that we forgot to bring it down from the Unperturbed, Samson avoids will fight with everything that mountain. That commandment the assault by simply breaking we have within us.” is Number Eleven: Be strong.” down the Gazan gates and carrying them away on his shoulders. In this commitment, Meir and In just this way, Dayan’s eulo- Later, blinded by trust in his un- Dayan call to mind the impera- gy has as its central image the faithful Philistine wife, Samson tive proclaimed years earlier by story of Samson from the book is betrayed into the hands of his David Ben-Gurion. “God left one of Judges. Samson, gifted by enemies. Delivered in the geo- commandment out of the Bible,” God with miraculous strength, graphic vicinity of these historic Ben-Gurion mused. “Perhaps learns that Philistines in Gaza events, Dayan’s address drew the Almighty delivered this com- are lying in wait to ambush him striking parallels. Here it is in mandment to Moses but Moses at the locked gates of the city. its entirety:

Yesterday with daybreak, Roi was murdered. The quiet of a spring morning blinded him, and he did not see the stalkers of his soul on the furrow. Let us not hurl blame at the murderers. Why should we complain of their hatred for us? Eight years have they sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and seen, with their own eyes, how we have made a homeland of the soil and the villages where they and their forebears once dwelt.

Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves. How our eyes are closed to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty. Have we forgotten that this small band of youths, settled in Nahal Oz, carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces—has this been forgotten? For we know that if the hope of our destruction is to perish, we must be, morning and evening, armed and ready.

A generation of settlement are we, and without the steel helmet and the maw of the cannon we shall not plant a tree, nor build a house. Our children shall not have lives to live if we do not dig shelters; and without the barbed wire fence and the machine gun, we shall not pave a path nor drill for water. The millions of Jews, annihilated without a land, peer out at us from the ashes of Israeli history and command us to settle and rebuild a land for our people. But beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.

It is to us that the blood of Roi calls from his shredded body. Although we have vowed a thousand vows that our blood will never again be shed in vain—yesterday we were once again seduced, brought to listen, to believe. Our reckoning with ourselves, we shall make today. We mustn’t flinch from the hatred that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who live around us and are waiting for the moment when their hands may claim our blood. We mustn’t avert our eyes, lest our hands be weakened. That is the decree of our generation. That is the choice of our lives—to be willing and armed, strong and unyielding, lest the sword be knocked from our fists, and our lives severed.

Roi Rotberg, the thin blond lad who left Tel Aviv in order to build his home alongside the gates of Gaza, to serve as our wall. Roi—the light in his heart blinded his eyes and he saw not the flash of the blade. The longing for peace deafened his ears and he heard not the sound of the coiled murderers. The gates of Gaza were too heavy for his shoulders, and they crushed him.

Providence_spring16_final_pages.indd 86 5/31/16 7:25 PM It is worth touching on two men who had killed him to a and puts us instead on a foot- points. First, and surprisingly parley, and put to them the case ing for war. Hardheaded realism perhaps, Dayan does not call that they would be better off be- must always trump soft-hearted for vengeance. This is because, ing a part of Israel than of Syria. sentiment. in part, Dayan disciplines his This petition was received by PROVIDENCE anger by recognizing Israel’s those Druze tribal warriors as Jewish strength, for Dayan, was SPRING 2016 | NUMBER 3 enemies as fellow human be- a shock—blood-for-blood was found first in a willingness to ings and because he concedes their eternal law and, Dayan yield, when yielding serves the FEATURES intelligible cause for Jewish knew, “they could not believe long-term good of all. “We must hatred by the Arabs. A man of that one whose brother had be strong enough to see the oth- profound compassion, Dayan, been shot down only days earlier er fellow’s side,” he urged, “to J. Daryl Charles the paradigmatic Jewish war- could extend the hand of ami- act with clemency, to extend rior, one whose name is counted ty to those who had taken that the hand of friendship.” At the THE MORAL UNDERPINNINGS OF with Joshua, David, and Gide- brave man’s life.” But extend same time, our enemy’s impla- on, was a man who warred for the hand Dayan did, and “those cability means our open hand JUST RETRIBUTION: the sake of peace, and absent men became my friends.” If I’m must sometimes be closed to a 04 implacable hate. Born in the right, this is what enemy-love fist. A friend who has long served JUSTICE & CHARITY IN SYMBIOSIS land, Dayan’s disposition was looks like. with courage and decency in the surely assisted by a childhood Israeli Defense Force comment- At the same time, point two, to spent among Arab neighbors. ed that, in the tough neighbor- acknowledge the reality of ene- His enemies had faces he knew. hood in which Israel resides, Bedouin children were his ear- my-love is to acknowledge the Matt N. Gobush lambs are eaten with pita and ly playmates. He boasted of his reality of an enemy. Because the hummus—they do not lie down deep respect and affection for his Arabs hate the Jews, Dayan in- MORAL MULTILATERALISM: with the wolves. And so strength Arab friends. “We took our lunch sisted the Jews cannot ignore then, in the last resort, must take THE OBAMA DOCTRINE’S CHRISTIAN REALISM together among the furrows,” he their hatred. We can clamor on the guise of Samson, and goes 18 said, “I danced at their weddings for peace all we want, he says, forth to break apart the strong- and they danced at mine.” At the but our adversaries’ intentions same time, those very Bedouin will have much to say regard- holds of our adversaries. playmates, in occasional mo- ing whether our longing is re- Sixty years ago Moshe Dayan ments of strife between Jews quited. When those intentions reminded us that strength is a MarC liVeCChe and Arabs, sometimes became are manifest in the murder his enemies and vicious fights and mutilation of Israelis, it is two-edged gift. It is as true today