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SUMMER 2017 • NUMBER 8 and can be placed within bellum be immoral. only can a sovereign authority wrongly directed, self- they do so they are dueling. duellum, From Latin: a duel From Latin: a war circumstances. Duellum Summa Theologica and Romans, respectively. the sword of ruling authority are /ˈbɛləm/ charged with the maintenance of order, justice, peace is an act of rightly directed love—or caritas, A JUST WAR LEXICON: /ˈdjuːələm//ˈdʒuːələm/ THE PROPER JUS OF WORDS: : Paul on ends. While force used is the use of force for private by bellum: ON other hand, the use of force by a proper for a just authority, jus ad bellum guidelines of the just war tradition, duellum duellum on just is almost certainly why the discussionsAquinas Thomas by Bellum is the use force for public of ends by public authorities—over This and by the Apostle private authority for private purposes is always their disquisitions on love, in the Antithetically, their delegates. peace within the political community—or can also deploy force for private purposes, and when According to the moral or immoral depending on the This is because the pursuit of private purposes others is, in the Augustinian typology of love, cupiditas— at the unjustified expense of centered love. On the cause, and in the pursuit of charity. war Bellum refers to any deploymentforce authority, whether by a sovereign of martial applied internally within the ruler’s own society or externally foreign against adversaries. whom there no one higher is PROVIDENCE Michael Cromartie SUMMER 2017 | NUMBER 8 1950-2017

FEATURES

DarreLL CoLe 4 SEX, LIES, & SPIES

LeLa GiLbert REPARTEE: LOVE, WAR, & HONEY TRAPS 14

DouGLas Mastriano SERVING GOD OR CAESAR: 22 ALVIN YORK & THE MORALITY OF WAR

Mike at the launch of Providence, November 2015

“We need to adopt a form of Christian realism that recognizes that, because of the Fall, we live in a world that will remain sinful and broken until the end of time. While Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946), living in a broken world, our task, if it’s political, is to help the state curb that a “spy noir” classic directed by Alfred Hitchcock. brokenness and that sinfulness in a way that aims toward justice. I use the phrase Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, the American ‘Augustinian sensibility’ to lean against a Utopian temptation for people on the Right daughter of a convicted Nazi spy who is recruited by U.S. government agent T.R. Devlin (Grant) to se- or the Left who give the political realm more significance than it should be given.” duce and surveil a leading member (Claude Rains) of a sinister Nazis organization in post-WWII Bra- zil. In the course of working together, Huberman and Devlin fall in love, even as she succeeds in winning the affection of, and marrying, her target. No- torious depicts the emotional entanglement of three We mourn the loss of Providence founding contributing editor, colleague, and friend Mike Cromartie. lives bound together in a web of duty, deceit, betray- The tributes to Mike that have been shared by a wide diversity of people of all faiths and political al, and espionage. persuasions testify to his extraordinary decency, wisdom, generosity, moral courage, fidelity to Christ, and curmudgeonly good cheer, in all he did, wrote, and said. He lived the Augustinian sensibility, proving the continued value of ancient truth for modern times. Be at peace, Mike. See you at the resurrection.

Providence_summer17.indd 2 28.08.17 23:06 ESSAYS PUBLISHERS Ewelina U. Ochab & Baroness Caroline Cox Mark Tooley Robert Nicholson HELPING RELIGIOUS MINORITIES EDITOR 32 PERSECUTED BY DAESH Mark Tooley John Mark Mattox MANAGING EDITOR WHEN DETERRENCE SIMPLY Marc LiVecche WILL NOT WORK 38 DEPUTY EDITOR Mark Melton Mark Tooley DEFENDING WESTERN CIVILIZATION 44 SENIOR EDITORS Keith Pavlischek James Turner Johnson Joseph Loconte READING AUGUSTINE 48 ASSOCIATE EDITOR Susannah Black Timothy Taylor CONTRIBUTING EDITORS WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE Mark Amstutz LEFT-RIGHT DIVIDE ON FOREIGN TRADE? 57 Fred Barnes Nigel Biggar Alan Dowd J. Daryl Charles Paul Coyer INSURANCE AGAINST MISTAKES, Michael Cromartie MISCALCULATION, & MADMEN 62 Dean Curry Alan Dowd Thomas Farr Mary Habeck REVIEWS Rebeccah Heinrichs Will Inboden Marc LiVecche James Turner Johnson WHAT’S THE STORY? Herb London Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017) 71 Timothy Mallard Paul Marshall Herbert Schlossberg Faith McDonnell GRIM HARVEST Walter Russell Mead Nicholas Irving’s Way of the Reaper 74 Paul Miller Joshua Mitchell J. Daryl Charles Luke Moon Mackubin Thomas Owens REVISING OR APPLYING THE Eric Patterson JUST WAR TRADITION? Daniel Strand James M. Dubik’s Just War Reconsidered: Greg Thornbury Strategy, Ethics, & Theory 75 INTERNS Matthew Allen THE QUARTERMASTER’S BOOKSHELF: Joshua Cayetano Further reading & New books 79 Savannah Husmann Logan White LAYOUT & DESIGN AD ORIENTEM Joseph Avakian Robert Nicholson PRINTED BY EMPIRES OF FEELING & FANTASY 84 Linemark Basic subscriptions are $28 for a year, four issues. Student rates available. For more information contact: SPONSORED BY [email protected] WEBSITE: providencemag.com ISSN 24713511 FEATURE SEX, LIES, & SPIES Darrell Cole

pying is a method of learning information about the enemy S(and others) that enables us to obtain political ends that could not otherwise be obtained. No spy service could exist without the use of deception, and most spy services also use sex as a way to achieve their ends. Numerous popular Hollywood films are filled the good of WWI France in Dishonored (1931), with spies who employ these crafts for the good quickly followed by Greta Garbo doing the same of their country. Notable examples began early for the good of Germany in Mata Hari (1932). with Marlene Dietrich lying and seducing for Perhaps most memorable to cinema lovers,

4 agent Ingrid Bergman took advantage of a a military, then there would be no peace or lonely German fascist for the good of the Free order for anyone. Thus, it is appropriate for World in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous Notorious Christians to participate in this office for the (1946). Then there appeared the whole James common good. Those Christians who do ought Bond phenomenon, whose offspring are still to do so out of love of their neighbors. going strong today. If the fictional spy drama has left any sort of impression upon readers Governing authorities that cannot protect their and viewers, it is that the world of spies is one citizens from threats internal and external fail of constant deception and manipulative (if not to achieve the most basic requirement for good always unenjoyable) sex. government. Augustine may have exaggerat- ed when he famously remarked that human Can this possibly be just? If so, then we are history since Cain killed Abel is a history of saying that, when an agent lies to or has sex bloodshed, for there is far more to history than with someone in the line of duty, the people fighting and killing. Nevertheless, recorded deceived have justice done to them. In other history reveals that wherever we find the for- words, just agents do not necessarily treat their mation of political states, we find soldiers and targets unfairly. Their objects of deception may spies. Spies were employed by the earliest po- deserve to be deceived. litical states on record.1 Soldiering and spying are necessary parts of any governing body’s Spying methods, like all acts of force, can be ability to protect its citizens. Aristotle put it hard to accept for people of peaceable honor with typical clarity and precision: no army and virtue. But the Christian tradition has means no state, at least not for long (Politics always included a notion of a just use of force. 7.1330a-1331a). The same can be said for the Why? Because in a world of fallen human be- spying services, which is why every political ings who love themselves more than they love body has always employed spies of some kind. justice or God (something agreed upon by theo- Spying is an act of force like soldiering. Even logians as diverse as Augustine, Chrysostom, the most seemingly noncoercive jobs a spy Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin), those who are might do—observe and report—are done for the given the mandate of providing for the defense benefit of those who can use that information of the common good must often use force if to guide policies of force. they are to succeed. In other words, coercion, or at least the threat of coercion, is necessary As should be familiar to regular readers of this for the common good. journal, upholders of a just use of force, particularly those who refer to the just war tradition Formative figures within the Christian tradi- to provide moral guidance in such areas, are tion such as Augustine and Aquinas helped generally agreed that an act of force for the to shape what has come to be known as the common good may or may not be justifiable just war tradition, while Protestant Reformers depending upon who does it, the reasons they such as Luther and Calvin confirmed that do it, and how they do it. Only those who have tradition within their writings. One of the the job of making decisions about the use of common features of the Christian literature force and carrying out those decisions may be in the tradition is the effort to prove that there permitted to use force. Only when we have good is nothing necessarily incompatible between reasons to use force—self-defense, defense being a good Christian and being a good soldier. of others whom we are pledged to defend, or The very title of Luther’s famous essay on the humanitarian intervention—may we do so. topic suggests the common feature: Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved. Luther’s affirma- We must also use tactics that intend to bring tive answer fits squarely within the tradition about more benefit than harm, and we must first articulated by the likes of Augustine and never intentionally target the innocent—those Chrysostom: Yes, soldiers can be saved if they who do not deserve to have force used against go to—and fight—wars under just conditions. them. Just wars and just war-fighting are all If the governing authorities did not employ about giving enemies their due. In other words,

5 when we say that a war is just, we mean that (2 Samuel 15-17). In the latter story, David those we attack deserve to be attacked. We also even has his own “mole” in Absalom’s court mean that our enemies are getting justice when who intentionally misleads Absalom with false we attack them in the way that we do. That advice about how to hang on to power. In both is to say, our combat tactics ought to be just. cases the writer makes no bones about the good We are pointing out here an important moral of the lies told, and Rahab is even held up as distinction between claiming a war is morally a Christian hero of faith by the writer of the permissible to fight and what is morally per- New Testament letter to the Hebrews (11:31). missible in fighting that war. Some conflicts are more notable for moral controversy in one None of this made much of an impression on criterion than the other. To use two contrast- Augustine, who in his book Against Lying ing examples probably familiar to the reader, very famously (and very influentially in the there is little moral argument about the Allied Christian West) argued that truth-telling— decision to wage war against the Axis powers being honest—is a moral absolute because it in WWII. Most of the moral controversy of that reflects God’s nature. Paul Griffiths has made great conflict was generated by the indiscrimi- a convincing case that, for Augustine, if human nate use of air power culminating in the use of beings are anything at all, they are the image atomic weaponry upon Japan. We still argue of God.2 So insofar as human beings reflect the over whether or not it was morally acceptable image of God, they fulfill their basic nature. to use so indiscriminate a tactic. On the other Augustine concentrated on the truth-telling hand, the American (with allies) invasion of characteristic of the communication between Iraq was fought with scrupulous concern for the three persons of the Trinity, in which there just tactics, but there remains a veritable hor- is never a will to deceive. The argument works net’s nest of controversy about whether or not like this: Truth-telling is essential to the Trinity, the war ought to have been waged. Spying is so it is essential to the nature of God. Because a tactic of war, and, as such, is liable to moral truth-telling is essential to the nature of God, analysis in the same two categories. Once the then it must be essential to the image of God, case for employing a spy in the first place has so it must be essential to the image of God been made, the question of how to spy comes in human beings. This being the case, every into focus, and thus one of the major moral time we speak with honesty we reflect the problems for spies is trying to make a case image of God within us, and every time we that lying and sex are just (combat) tactics. lie, regardless of the good consequences, we deface that image. There is a good case to be made within the tradition that lying for the common good is Most Western theologians followed this sort morally permissible. But that case is not with- of thinking, most famously and influentially out protest among the formative theologians Thomas Aquinas, who made lying contrary who helped us build the just war tradition. This to the natural law (Summa Theologica II-II is not surprising given that Christian Scripture, Q.110). We find the absolute prohibition carried on the one hand, tells us that truth is one of over into the Reformed Protestant tradition by the attributes of God and extols honesty as a Calvin, who for instance condemns Rahab’s prime virtue but, on the other, includes stories lies in a good cause in his commentary on in which the just tell lies in a just cause. And Joshua.3 We even find the absolute prohibition how often the stories of spies appear when in secular Enlightenment moral philosophy, it comes to honorable lies! In fact, many of particularly in Kant’s Critique of Practical the discussions about the morality of lying Reason, in which he argues that all lies lead in the Christian tradition find their locus in to a loss of rational integrity and undermine those portions of Scripture that concern spies our basic humanity.4 and those that aid them. Of particular note is the Israelite spies aided by the lies of Rahab However, alongside this absolute moral pro- (Joshua 2) and the spies who aid David in his hibition in the tradition, there always existed fight against the unjust rule of his son Absalom a more permissive tradition, typified early

6 Riffs on a theme. British posters warning of the threat of sexual espionage, especially feared in a capital swarming with refugees from enemy territories. Images Source: The Imperial War Museum, London. on by the Eastern Fathers such as Clement of who warns us that on the day of judgment, Alexandria (Stromata VII.9), John Chrysostom God will cut off those “who by a word make (On the Priesthood I.8 and de Poenitentia a man out to be an offender, and lay snare for VII.5), and the Western Father John Cassian him who reproves in the gate, and with an (Conferences 17). Chrysostom even comments empty plea turn aside him who is in the right” concerning Rahab’s lies to save the Israelite (29:21, ESV). Even in the Reformed Protestant spies: “O Beautiful falsehood! O beautiful tradition, we can see a move away from Calvin deception! Not of one who forsakes divine on this point in the famous Puritan Divine commands, but of one who is a guardian of pi- John Owen, who in his exposition on Hebrews ety” (On the Priesthood I.8).5 For Chrysostom, comments that the sort of lies told by Rahab lies and deception are not merely permissible to protect the Israelite spies are “lawful, just, but possibly positively praiseworthy in certain and good.”7 circumstances. On this view, lies and deception do not necessarily forsake divine commands For what we may call the Permissive Tradition but can actually express piety. in Christian theology, not all lies harm the innocent, and not all lies pervert justice. Indeed, Cassian would agree with Chrysostom and some lies save the innocent and preserve jus- comment upon the woman who hid David’s tice. The recognized Father of International spies and lied to Absalom’s agents that her Law, Hugo Grotius, argued that lies told in deception was a product of love and that all public defense are good.8 Jeremy Taylor, a those who deceive in like situations follow the champion of strict moralism in the 17th cen- Apostolic command to love others by placing tury, and therefore not one to take any moral their good above themselves. We find this weakness lightly, argued that it was a moral connection between piety and virtuous ly- weakness not to lie in order to save an innocent ing upheld by Martin Luther, who helpfully person’s life.9 Taylor was not convinced by the points out in his Lectures on Genesis that those Augustinian argument that we ought always portions of Scripture that explicitly condemn tell the truth because truth-telling is part of lying always have a particular kind of lying the nature of God. God always speaks the truth in mind, namely lies to harm the innocent or because he has no reason to fear anyone and to pervert justice.6 We see this exemplified in he has the power to bring about all his just and the Decalogue, which states that “[y]ou shall loving purposes. Human beings do not have not bear false witness against your neighbor” that kind of power; that is, they do not have (Exodus 20:16, ESV), and in the prophet Isaiah, the power always to use truthfulness for just

7 and loving purposes. Wicked human beings We can make a clear and convincing case that can sometimes overpower good human beings the Christian tradition may support the idea when good human beings tell the truth. So, the that lies told for the public good are justifiable. wicked can use truth to harm the innocent and When spies tell such lies in the line of duty, pervert justice. The morally good will always their deceptions fall into that category and, do what is advantageous to charity and justice. so, are justifiable. Can the same be said for Sometimes lies rather than the truth fulfill this sex in the line of duty? Can manipulative sex purpose. The just war tradition recognizes that for the public good be justifiable? some people are treated fairly when lethal force is used against them. So too do we hold that Sex is clearly used as a tool by some spies. some people are treated fairly when deceived. Espionage service case officers can seduce potential targets for development that would For the Permissive Tradition, speech is mor- be useful in penetrating enemy governments ally neutral in itself and so must be guided (say Iran or North Korea). Even if those by wisdom. True, the purpose of speech is services were to prohibit the use of sex in communication, but wisdom, justice, and love such circumstances, there is bound to be a must govern our communication. We must certain amount of sexual tension when the always consider whether or not the person case officer and target are of different sexes. with whom we are speaking deserves the truth. Besides, the case officers cannot help but True, human beings are in the image of God, be aware of this and be tempted to use it to but they are not God. We cannot always guar- their advantage. antee that truthful speech and acts will serve the purposes of wisdom, justice, and love, for The CIA and FBI do not use sexual entrap- the person we are communicating with may ment for moral and practical reasons. They be an enemy of justice and love and more find it morally distasteful, and they are powerful than us. concerned about the potential loss of their agent’s objectivity. But that is not the norm This is the conclusion formulated by the famous in the world of spies. Manipulative sex was German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who a tactic employed by all sides in World War served in the German Counter Intelligence II and was routinely practiced during the Corps during World War II. Bonhoeffer had to Cold War by the Soviet Union, China, and tell many lies while acting as a courier for those East Germany. CIA agent Aldrich Ames and involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler. He FBI special agent James Smith were both even wrote an unfinished essay on truth-telling successfully targeted by Chinese MSS dou- that fits firmly in the Permissive Tradition ble-agent Katrina Leung. Markus Wolf of upheld by Luther.10 To illustrate his argument, East Germany’s security service described Bonhoeffer uses the example of a schoolmaster his successful Romeo Operations in his au- who asks a student an inappropriate question tobiography.11 He regularly seduced single in class, one that would, if answered truth- middle-aged women who had access to valu- fully, reveal something which ought not to be able information. revealed about the student’s family. In this circumstance, the schoolmaster is abusing his Let us concentrate on one such famous agent, authority, doing an injustice to the student, and code-named Cynthia.12 British Secret Service exhibiting hatred of God and neighbor. The recruited Cynthia in 1941 to attach herself student serves justice best in this circumstance to Charles Brousse, the Press Attaché at the by lying. Bonhoeffer was motivated by a love Vichy Embassy. The embassy was suspect- of God and neighbor. He was also motivated ed of having informaion concerning Vichy by love for a justice perverted by the governing naval ciphers and of being a clearing house authorities of his own country. In his position, for German spies. In order to attach herself telling the truth could only serve to help the to Brousse, Cynthia maneuvered her way Nazi regime; telling the truth could only show into becoming his mistress. She did well in hatred toward God, neighbor, and justice. deceiving her lover, but when she was found

8 Markus Wolf, whose autobiography recounted his sexual espionage operations for East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (MfS, or Stasi) during the Cold War, speaks at a demonstration on November 4, 1989. Source: German Federal Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. out, she did even better. Cynthia managed reasoned, “Wars are not won by respectable to persuade Brousse to turn traitor to Vichy methods… I was not a loose woman. I hope (and thus loyal to Free France and the Allies) and believe that I was a patriot.”13 by helping her in her work. Brousse did so by giving her access to information on all Perhaps she was a good patriot, but the incoming and outgoing embassy telegrams question here is whether or not she could and daily reports on all appointments and have been a good Christian while engaging interviews within the embassy. She was also in such activities. Recall that we’ve already allowed to break into the embassy safe and agreed one can be both a good soldier and a photograph important documents. The two good Christian. To put it bluntly, this means were later married and, contrary to current that stabbing, shooting, and bombing oth- FBI and CIA worries, provided a useful source er human beings are conformable to being of information to the Allies throughout the good Christians. So, too, deceiving and lying war. are probably conformable to being a good Christian. But is having sex in the line of One of the reasons why Cynthia was so duty likewise conformable? If we can kill successful with Brousse was that she had our enemies for the common good, can we practiced her tradecraft quite a bit before not have sex with them? being offered the Brousse assignment. In an interview conducted with Cynthia toward When we look at the Christian tradition on the end of her life, she was quoted as saying sex, we find widespread agreement that the that she “had nothing to be ashamed of.” She primary purpose of sex is to consummate a admitted that it was particularly difficult to covenant of marriage and, only within this sleep with an unattractive man in the line covenant relationship, to procreate and to ex- of duty, but that, in such cases, she adopted perience the pleasure of sexual intercourse.14 the habit of closing her eyes and held on to There was, and still is, a minority voice within the hope “that this, like so much else that I the tradition that opts for a more ascetic view wanted to do, would be for England.” She of the good life, one that denies a place for sex

9 or, at least, looks at those who do marry and have sex as a kind of second-class spiritual part of the body of Christ. Nevertheless, the great majority of Christian theologians who have shaped the tradition, East and West, have taught that sex within a marriage is a good from God. Marital intercourse is, in a sense, a Trinitarian act in that the couple give themselves completely to each other in the sexual act. Loving sex within a marriage expresses not only a romantic desire (eros) but is informed by a God-like love (agape) Amy Elizabeth “Betty” Thorpe, codenamed Cynthia, looking that totally gives to the other for the other’s back on her sex and espionage activities said, “Ashamed? Not in the least. My superiors told me that the results of sake. So, sex within marriage is yet another my work saved thousands of British and American lives. It way to brighten the defaced image of God involved me in situations from which ‘respectable’ women draw back—but mine was total commitment. Wars are not within us. won by respectable methods.”

Unfortunately, like all genuine human goods While the Christian tradition agrees that ho- given to us by God in creation, sex too suffers micide comes in different kinds—some morally from the Fall. We are now tempted to use appropriate—fornication comes in but one. sex for selfish and manipulative reasons. We can use sex to control and harm others. Of course, other contemporary Christian theo- When spies have sex in the line of duty, they logians, such as Joseph Fletcher, have argued are clearly not expressing agapeic love for for exceptions to all moral rules, not only to their partners. Even if in love with their tar- ordinary moral norms but also to clear com- gets, they cannot give themselves entirely to mands from God found in Scripture. Fletcher the other for they are hiding their motives argues for a situational ethic of love, in the for having sex. Cynthia did not tell her fu- sense that love may lead someone to contra- ture husband about her status as an agent vene ordinary moral norms or those revealed when she first seduced him. Whatever may in Scripture.15 Paul Ramsey criticized this have developed between them in the future, sort of ethic and used the example of Mrs. Cynthia at first manipulated her future spouse Bergmeier, an inmate held in a post-WWII with sex. The sex such people have is always Soviet concentration camp, who managed to manipulative. get herself impregnated by a guard so she could be released and return again to a family life However, we could say that spies like Cynthia with her husband and children, who rightly have the motive of love of country—love of needed her. Fletcher’s reasoning allows us neighbors, just as the just soldiers who kill to say that Mrs. Bergmeir made an agapeic and the just spies who deceive. The prob- quantification that more overall good came lem for such an argument is it assumes that about through her manipulative act of sex.16 non-spousal sex is not an inherently evil act. A similar quantification could be made for In other words, Cynthia’s defense depends on Cynthia and other agents who use manipulative us looking at sex in the way the Permissive sex in the line of duty. Tradition looks at speech and other forms of communication: morally neutral acts that de- Ramsey found this sort of logic wanting, and for mand context before we determine them good good reason. If one is going to be a Christian, or evil. But no one who had a hand in shaping then one is, at the least, committed to certain the Christian tradition as we know it even covenant obligations with God and with other attempts to argue such a view, and the reason people. There are certain clear obligations that is obvious. Unlike soldiering and lying, there may never be overridden for some supposed are no Biblical sources from which to build a greater good. Love may be the fulfilling of God’s case for just non-spousal or manipulative sex. law, but it is fulfilling insofar as Christians

10 do good and avoid evil. There must be some never do evil that good may come. In short, content to guide right action, some principles there is no case to be made that Cynthia—or that are non-negotiable, or we end up with a anyone like her—can be a good Christian. kind of consequential moral reasoning that Unlike the tactics of lies and deceit, the tactics says it is permissible to boil a baby in oil for a of manipulative sex are always incompatible good cause. Traditional Christians East and with God’s will. West, Catholic and Protestant, can agree that love is a virtue but that it does not, cannot, Of course, nothing prevents spies from using create its own standards of behavior. Scripture their positive physical attributes to further their gives us norms of human behavior that admit cause. While we do not have an indisputably no exceptions. There is, for example, never a Biblical example of this sort of thing, there are time when murder is the right thing to do. We two intriguing and suggestive near-examples. may argue over what counts as murder, but the First, in the Old Testament book of Esther, we principle holds firm in all places, in all times, have the story of a young Jewish woman who is and for all peoples. Scripture gives us plenty forced into concubinage to a Persian king, soon of moral room for a just use of force, which is becomes his queen, and is then persuaded by why the Christian tradition has largely agreed her uncle to allow her favor in the king’s eyes to on the possibility of a just war. Scripture does work for the Jewish people by influencing the not give us so ready a space for lying, which is king to adopt a more protective policy toward why there is a larger division in the tradition the Jews. The heroine of the story is forced on lying than on the possibility of a just use of into a sexual relationship against her will, but force. Nevertheless, Scripture does offer some she allows the king’s desire for her to be used material to build upon a permissive tradition for good purposes. Esther is portrayed as an that would support the kinds of deceit used entirely virtuous woman. She proves to be a by spies. Scripture gives us no room at all for faithful queen, even to the point of protecting merely manipulative sex. As Ramsey reminds the life of the king by passing along information us, when it comes to some actions, “it cannot about an assassination plot, thus foregoing be shown that Christians or just men should any desire for personal revenge she may have never say Never.” harbored. At the very least, we may draw the moral lesson that it is permissible to use your None of this is to say that no one within the tra- good looks for a just cause. At the most, we may dition has made the attempt to distinguish the say that those forced into sexual relationships level of evil done in non-spousal sex. Aquinas, may use the desire of their captors as a means for example, distinguishes between several to achieve good. degrees of sexual sin as he had done with the various degrees of lying (Summa Contra But Esther is not a case of manipulative Gentiles III.2). Surely we can agree that sleep- non-spousal sex. She does not seek out a sex- ing with the enemy in order to further your ual relationship in order to target someone country’s cause against something so evil as a for a good cause. She does not seek to take Nazi regime is not as blameworthy as sleeping advantage of anyone; indeed, she is the one with your spouse’s friends because you like the who is taken advantage of by the king. Esther way they look. Nevertheless, unlike the case of does not seek to deceive the king, her husband. lying, the Christian tradition is one in holding She even proves to be a loyal wife to the very that non-spousal sexual relations are morally man who had forced her into a way of life she evil acts. The prohibition on fornication, like probably did not desire, which suggests an the prohibition on murder, is absolute across extraordinarily agapeic act. the tradition. No intention can justify such acts. In Cynthia’s case, of course, we may claim that The other notable example occurs in the book it was an evil done for the sake of a very great of Judith (a second-century B.C. document good, namely the defeat of Nazi Germany. originally written in Hebrew and consid- Nevertheless, the Christian tradition has al- ered canonical in the Catholic and Orthodox ways held with the Apostle Paul that we may Churches but merely edifying in Protestant

11 Churches and in the Jewish tradition). In it we we do not actually fulfill those desires to the find the story of Judith, a pious Jewish widow extent of sexual intercourse. If lies can be seen who uses her guile and beauty to assassinate as virtuous, and I think the moral tradition Holofernes, general of Nebuchadnezzar and here points us in that direction, then it would would-be sacker of Jerusalem. Judith poses appear that using one’s attractiveness to the as someone who believes that Israel will fall to opposite sex as a way to gain information is Holofernes, gains his confidence by using her also virtuous. However, the virtuous must stop womanly charms, and chops off his head at the short of non-spousal intercourse even when first opportunity. On her return to Jerusalem, the life of the nation is at stake. she declares, “As the Lord lives, who has protected me in the way I went, it was my face This moral restriction limits the effectiveness of that tricked him to his destruction, and yet the spy, but this is only to be expected. The whole he committed no act of sin with me, to defile point of the just war tradition is to place limits on or shame me” (13:16, RSV). what can count as justice in war.

What is so telling about this story is that Judith Darrell Cole is Professor of Ethics at Drew University. definitely does not have manipulative sex for He writes regularly on the ethics of war and is the author of Just War and the Ethics of Espionage (New York: a greater good. Thus, even when the sky is Routledge, 2015). about to fall in, even when Jerusalem is about to be sacked—with all the killing, raping, loot- (Endnotes) 1 Francis Dvornik, The Origins of Intelligence Services. New ing, and destroying that is to result—Judith Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1974, 5. does not even consider actually having sex 2 Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of with Holofernes as a moral option. In other Duplicity. Grand Rapids, Mich: Brazos Press, 2004. words, better all the consequent destruction of 3 John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Joshua. Edinburgh: Holofernes alive and well than Holofernes dead Calvin Translation Society, 1854, 47-8. as a result of Judith using sex as a tactic to kill 4 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy. Translated and edited by Lewis him. Nevertheless, Judith does use Holofernes’ White Beck. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949, 347-348. sexual desire for her as a weapon against him, 5 Translation by the author. and the author praises this as a virtuous act. 6 The Lectures on Genesis can be found in Luther’s Works. The moral lesson is clear: it is a praiseworthy Vols. 2 and 3. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan. Saint Louis: Concordia act—a virtuous act—to be able to use your Publishing House, 1960-1. 7 John Owen, An Exposition of Hebrews. Evansville, Ind.: good looks to entice your unjust enemy into Sovereign Grace Books, 1960, 81. a position of weakness as long as you do not 8 Grotius’s discussion of the issues can be found in his ground- actually engage in sexual intercourse. breaking The Laws of War and Peace. New York: Cosmo Classics, 2007, III.I.11-19. Esther used the desire of a foreign king for her 9 Jeremy Taylor, Rules of Conscience. In The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor. Vol. 13. London: Thomas Davison, in order to protect a Jewish population against Whitefriars, 182, 351-72. unjust aggression. Judith enticed her enemy 10 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1965, in order to assassinate him. Cynthia enticed 363-70. her unjust enemy in order to get information 11 Markus Wolf, Man Without a Face: The Autobiography of helpful in a just war. All used the sexual desire Communism’s Great Spymaster. New York: Random House, 1997. 12 In reality her name was Elizabeth Thorpe and her story is told, of others for them in order to achieve victory in brief, by H. Montgomery Hyde in Secret Intelligence Agent, over the unjust. London: Constable and Company Limited, 1982, 218-221 and, in full, by Mary S. Lovell, Cast No Shadow, New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. Would Cynthia have been praiseworthy had she 13 Quoted in Lovell 319. merely used her good looks in order to get men 14 A excellent discussion of the relevant material can be found to give her information? Such relationships in Dennis P. Hollinger, The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics would, of course, be built upon lies (unless we and the Moral Life. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009. are talking about straightforward interroga- 15 Joseph Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality. tion), but lies are praiseworthy in those cases. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966. 16 Paul Ramsey, “The Case of the Curious Exception,” in Norm In such cases, the enticement is one in which and Context in Christian Ethics. Edited by Gene Outka and Paul we use the sexual desires of our targets, but Ramsey. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968, 67-135.

12 Benjamin Franklin’s design for the Great Seal of the United States. On the afternoon of July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to “to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America.” While Franklin’s design would ultimately be rejected, it allows a remarkable window into the revolutionary mindset of the founders. Franklin’s description reads: “Moses standing on the Shore, and extending his Hand over the Sea, thereby causing the same to overwhelm Pharaoh who is sitting in an open Chariot, a Crown on his Head and a Sword in his Hand. Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses, to express that he acts by Command of the Deity. Motto, Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God.”

13 FEATURE

Queen Esther, by Edwin Long, 1878. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Source: Google Art Project, via Wikimedia Commons.

14 REPARTEE LOVE, WAR, & HONEY TRAPS Lela Gilbert

“All is fair in love and war.” Not only is this a familiar phrase, it’s one that has long been used to justify scheming, conniving, and misbehaving in two notable and very vulnerable arenas of human life.

For some, it is a cynical dismissal of bad responsible government. As this theological behavior. For others, and especially those ethic developed, it would also strengthen with only a few scruples, it’s a welcomed, under the influence of the ideas, customs, and and dangerous, loophole. But whatever “all is practices drawn from the chivalric code and fair” includes in its scope, the possibilities of resurrected interest in Roman law. wrongdoing in romance and warfare can be blurred and even erased by such an expansive Times have certainly changed. Today, while platitude. the classical just war tradition has not been carried forward in a single, unified stream— But from the earliest days of the Christian but is found in diverse currents both religious tradition, when it came to falling in love—and and secular—it still has influence. Indeed, the more specifically what we physically do in rules of war have been magnified, in some response—there was no room for “all is fair.” cases, well beyond any theological origins and Believers have long demanded chaste behav- are analyzed in sometimes overly-exhaustive ior in the community of the faithful. The Bible, detail. Battles, and particularly successful and those who interpreted it over the centu- ones, are scrutinized for “war crimes,” for ries, provided certain iron-clad rules. Rule violations of Geneva Conventions, and for #1 was perfectly clear: Sexual intercourse is tallies of civilian casualties. Battle plans are exclusively limited to marriage. While never closely defined by stringent rules of engage- comprehensive, Christian sexual mores had ment and overseen by civilian observers, a not inconsiderable effect on the, at least zealots of various stripes, and journalists articulated if not faithfully practiced, sexual with questionable political leanings. commitments of the surrounding culture more generally. But the opposite fate has attended sexual concerns. Those strong and well-enforced So too, when it comes to war, Christian think- boundaries that once surrounded matters of ing has helped reshape societal perceptions sexuality in Western society have crumbled of right and wrong. Altering the contours and even vanished. Although this is less true of the warrior ethos, the just war tradition, in the Christian community, even there some grounded in the political thought and prac- steadfast rules have been reshaped and even tice of ancient Israel and classical Greece replaced by more flexible “best intentions.” and Rome, came into being in the Middle Ages and offered a uniquely Christian con- Meanwhile, love and war are always interception of the use of force in the context of twined in human experience, in legends,

15 tales, ballads, and in the real world. And it justifiable lying during espionage, and even is against this backdrop that Darrell Cole for the limited use of sexual attraction and has written his thoughtful essay “Sex, Lies, sexual circumstances, he is unable to find any & Spies.” defense for the deployment of non-spousal sexual seduction as an instrument of spycraft. In his reflection on sexual morality, Cole concerns himself specifically with the realm This raises an unavoidable question: What of espionage, which he understands as an makes sex for the purpose of espionage less act of coercion. “Spying is an act of force acceptable to Christians than lying, decep- like soldiering,” Cole writes, “Even the most tion, violent intervention, or other forms of seemingly non-coercive jobs a spy might do— subterfuge? observe and report—are done for the benefit of those who can use that information to guide First, a couple of queries about the purpose of policies of force.” espionage. Why is spying as defensible as soldiering in a Christian’s chosen career? Simply Addressing the use of deception and fraud in put, espionage is used to discern the plans of spying, Cole ultimately questions whether or an enemy, to minimize military losses, and to not sexual seduction is an appropriate weapon bring warfare to a successful end as quickly in the arsenal of a Christian spy. as possible. In that context, cannot spying be viewed as an act of mercy? Is it not a means Cole’s first step is to make room for the use of saving lives of both civilians and warriors? of deception as such. He takes care to acknowledge the scope of Christian opinion on In any case, it isn’t always pretty. the matter. On one side is the Augustinian assertion that “truth-telling is essential to For one thing, spies do more than fib to ac- the nature of God, and so must be essential complish their missions. They steal, forge, to the image of God in human beings.” Cole blackmail, infect, assassinate, kidnap, blow points out that John Calvin, too, prohibited up, incinerate, raise false flags, and create lying and “condemns Rahab’s lies in a good complex distractions that may involve even cause in his commentary on Joshua.” further casualties. And sometimes they lead entirely double lives—perhaps for a lifetime. On the other hand, he notes, John Chrysostom poetically defended Rahab’s lies to save Israel’s In the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The spies: “O beautiful falsehood! O beautiful Sympathizer, author Viet Thanh Nguyen, deception! Not of one who forsakes divine whose lead character is a double agent for the commands, but of one who is a guardian of Viet Cong, describes his struggle with a dual piety.” (More about Rahab in a moment.) identity: “[S]ometimes I dreamed of trying to pull a mask off my face, only to realize that Cole’s own conclusion is that the Christian the mask was my face.” Not only was he lying condition “may support the idea that lies told to the world, he was also lying to himself. for the public good are justifiable. The lies that spies tell in the line of duty fall into that Are all espionage tactics acceptable for category and, so, are justifiable.” Christian spies except sexual intercourse? Although in this particular essay Cole neither But then he asks the question that consumes defends nor really even discusses violent the rest of his essay: “Can the same be said and lethal tactics, he has written extensively for sex in the line of duty? Can manipulative elsewhere on the just war tradition and the sex for the public good be justifiable?” participation of Christians in the martial vocation, including the use of deadly force. Cole’s answer is a resounding “No.” And al- So it’s safe to suppose he does believe that, though he makes room for various shadings apart from sexual intercourse, so long as the of interpretation in the pros and cons of given action falls within just war conceptions

16 Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:2-20), by Gustave Doré, 1866. Doré’s English Bible. Source: Wikimedia Commons. of discrimination and proportionality then, they are clearly not expressing agapeic love as the augmented saying goes, “All [else] is for their partners.” fair in war.” Cole goes on to say that there are no biblical So why the denial of sexual action in espio- sources from which to build a case for mor- nage? Cole explains, “Marital intercourse is, ally justified non-spousal or manipulative in a sense, a Trinitarian act in that the couple sex. Now that is a startling statement, and give themselves completely to each other in debatable. the sexual act. Loving sex within a marriage expresses not only a romantic desire (eros) but At this point it is worth noting that, in terms of is informed by a God-like love (agape) that espionage, “honey traps” usually involve wom- is totally giving to the other for the other’s en using their beauty and sexual allure to lure sake… When spies have sex in the line of duty, targeted men into compromising situations

17 Rahab and the Emissaries of Joshua, by unknown artist, 17th century. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes. Source: Wikimedia Commons. where secrets are revealed, blackmail is ini- a politically advantageous marriage, and tiated, poisons are inflicted, and so forth. used the terms of that marriage to further advantage still. While he avoids the claim of Interestingly, the most notable biblical ac- some that Esther and Xerxes did not have counts of sexuality (including intercourse) sexual relations until after she had been made being used for worthy causes involve, in- queen, I am not convinced he gives the sexual deed, clever and cunning women. Not all element its due weight. those involved in sexual acts were engaged in anything like formalized warfare, but in Consider again the biblical text (Esther 2, the following examples one did, in fact, take NIV): place at risk of imminent war, one involved the survival of the Jewish people, and the Before a young woman’s turn came to go others, at the very least, were battling to in to King Xerxes, she had to complete continue their vulnerable existence, both for twelve months of beauty treatments pre- those they loved and to whom they belonged. scribed for the women, six months with And, amazingly, all of them played a role in oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to an almost unbelievable legacy. the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the To begin, Cole cites Queen Esther as a wom- king’s palace. In the evening she would go an who clearly used her beauty to obtain there and in the morning return to another

18 part of the harem… She would not return sex,” decided to take matters into her own to the king unless he was pleased with her hands. She covered her face with a veil and and summoned her by name. (My italics) placed herself directly in the path of her foolish father-in-law. Clearly, harem girls and the king were not playing backgammon during that eve- The Bible says, “When Judah saw her, he ning-till-morning interlude. But it’s also less thought she was a prostitute, for she had convincing that Esther was purely “forced covered her face. Not realizing that she was into concubinage.” I say this because it seems his daughter-in-law, he went over to her by that Esther made the most of her time in the the roadside and said, ‘Come now, let me king’s palace. The sex was apparently quite sleep with you.’” good, for the biblical account reveals that “the king was attracted to Esther more than One thing led to another, and Tamar stealthily to any of the other women.” Presumably this obtained Judah’s personal seal and staff. doesn’t just happen without at least some Three months later, she was pregnant and enthusiasm on Esther’s part. In any case, she her community—including Judah—called for wins the day, and the king places the royal her death. At that point, Tamar outed Judah crown on her head. as the child’s father by offering to return his seal and staff to him. “She is more righteous This series of events wouldn’t, perhaps, than I,” Judah confessed, “since I wouldn’t seem so significant if it didn’t fit a pattern. give her to my son Shelah.” Mea Culpa. But Esther is not the only biblical account of intentional non-spousal or manipulative And then there was Rahab. Her story is well sex that is described without condemnation. known (Joshua 2). She really was a prostitute Tamar, whose story appears in Genesis 38, in the ancient city of Jericho. And there really found herself victimized by her irresponsible was a war going on. father-in-law, Judah, who was the son of the Jewish patriarch Jacob. Joshua, the Israelite general and spymaster, sent two of his intelligence officers to Jericho Tamar had been married to Judah’s firstborn to assess and analyze the city’s defenses. son, Er, but what Er “did was wicked in the (Precisely why the two spies happened to Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.” be overnighting in a prostitute’s house isn’t Tamar did not have a child with Er, so after spelled out in the biblical text.) But Rahab his death, Judah gave Tamar to his next son, was very much afraid of the Israelites—their Onan. Onan decided to shirk his familial reputation for military valor preceded them. duty to provide his older brother with a son and used his sister-in-law for his own sexual So, Rahab made a deal with the spies and gratification. He “went into” Tamar several agreed to lie and hide them from the local times and “wasted his semen on the ground” king, but at a price. She demanded they pro- to prevent pregnancy. This action was evil tect her and her family when the city was enough to warrant the Lord to put Onan to finally assaulted by Joshua and his army. “Our death as well. Still Tamar was childless. At lives for your lives!” Joshua’s fervent spies as- this point, Judah promised Tamar his third sured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, but much younger son, Shelah, who was not we will treat you kindly and faithfully when yet old enough to perform his familial duty. the Lord gives us the land” (Joshua 2:14). But even when Shelah was old enough, he was not given to Tamar in marriage. And so they did.

Still without proper standing, and therefore Another heroine of the Bible is Ruth, who security, within the family and larger com- devotedly remained with her Israelite moth- munity, Tamar, in an act of what can only be er-in-law Naomi during hard times. After described as “non-spousal or manipulative the death of Naomi’s husband and two sons,

19 Judah and Tamar, School of Rembrandt, circa 1650 – 1660. Residenzgalerie, Salzburg, Austria. Source: Wikimedia Commons. grief-stricken and with no one to care for her, not obvious that Boaz and Ruth had any Naomi decided to leave Moab and return to sexual contact, but the scene is charged Israel, her homeland. Ruth lovingly refused with such possibility. This explains why to leave her side. “Where you go I will go, and Boaz wanted no one to know that Ruth came to see him at night (see 3:14). It’s where you stay I will stay. Your people will likely that the narrator wanted to commu- be my people and your God my God. Where nicate Ruth’s culturally scandalous actions you die I will die, and there I will be buried.” and tremendous risk while at the same time maintaining her noble and righteous It so happened that Naomi had a wealthy rel- reputation. This is not unlike the story of ative named Boaz. He owned fields of barley, Tamar’s morally questionable actions in and Naomi told Ruth to glean in his fields, pursuit of a greater good. following behind his harvesters. Boaz was a kind and good man, and Naomi trusted him. And then there’s the story of Bathsheba and David, which has been told and retold, and Later she instructed Ruth, “Wash, put on is perhaps best recalled in Leonard Cohen’s perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. discography: Then go down to the threshing floor, but Your faith was strong but you needed don’t let him know you are there until he has proof finished eating and drinking. When he lies You saw her bathing on the roof down, note the place where he is lying. Then Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will you… tell you what to do” (Ruth 3). Hallelujah!

The NIV First-Century Study Bible explains The biblical version is found in 2 Samuel, in an extensive footnote: chapter 11:

“Uncover his feet”…has some potential One evening David got up from his bed and sexual overtones. “Feet” can refer to the walked around on the roof of the palace. genital region… To “uncover” can some- From the roof he saw a woman bathing. times mean to have sexual relations. It’s The woman was very beautiful, and David

20 set someone to find out about her. The man that Cole requires. Surely spousal sex can be said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of just as mercenary as non-spousal. In either Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” case, agape is absent. Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him and he slept with her… The Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba—all woman conceived and sent word to David saying “I am pregnant.” (2-6) strong-willed women with clever minds, cou- rageous hearts, and, not incidentally, pleasing Bathsheba and David’s first child died be- forms. And what was their legacy? cause of the Lord’s judgment against David, as revealed by the Prophet Nathan. But the In the book of Matthew, chapter 1, we read next son Bathsheba bore to David, Solomon, the genealogy of Jesus in the lineage of his not only ruled as a king of legendary status, adoptive father, Joseph, who like his mother but he reigned and wrote with enormous Mary was of the “house and lineage of David.” wisdom and gained unimaginable wealth. Uncharacteristic of most genealogies of the He also built the first Jewish Temple that time, four women are included in the list: crowned the holy city of Jerusalem and the Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. The rest iconic Davidic kingdom. of the listed characters are fathers—Jesus’ forefathers. Did Bathsheba realize that she was in plain sight of King David’s palace when she bathed Those four women, along with Queen Esther, on the roof? Most of us know when to pull were not only heroic and notable for their down the window shades, but who can say? cleverness and courage. They were also in- Perhaps she had grown weary of Uriah’s ob- volved in somewhat risqué escapades. In sessive devotion to the army and his endless our day, they would be thought of as women tours of duty and secretly hoped the king was with a past. watching. Or was she simply forgetful of her surroundings and caught unawares? Fortunately for all concerned, they were also women with a promising future, although In any case, David’s moral failures are in- they might not have imagined it at the time. disputable. How could Bathsheba say no to In fact, to this day, illustrative of God’s un- the king? Whatever may have been going on predictable wisdom, justice and mercy, they in her mind, David was responsible for the remain unforgettable heroines. And while we adultery, and that was not the worst of it. cannot say that it is the risqué elements of He had also abused the royal authority the their pasts for which they are found worthy to Lord had given him by arranging to have be in the lineage of Christ, they, at least, are Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle. David in that lineage despite such risqué moments. murdered Uriah so he could marry Bathsheba. While not a wholesale endorsement of sex in deception—espionage or otherwise—we In the aftermath, however, Bathsheba re- ought, perhaps, to pause to consider. mained a key player in the royal court. She was regally waiting in the wings while David Lela Gilbert is an internationally recognized expert was shivering on his death bed. And, in on religious persecution, an award-winning writer, that strategic moment, she made sure that and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute who David decreed, before he died, that their son lived in Jerusalem for over a decade. She is Religion Solomon should be next in line for Israel’s and Freedom editor at Newsmax, a contributor to throne. She, too, used another’s sexual at- Philos Project, Fox News, Algemeiner, and others. Her book Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel traction to her for her own benefit. While through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner received the sexual activity was, eventually, rightly wide critical acclaim. She is also the co-author of within the nuptial covenant, it remains an Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians, and open question whether Bathsheba ever freely Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion. gave the kind of self-giving, agapeic fidelity Follow her on Twitter @lelagilbert.

21 FEATURE

York nervously poses for the camera on the deck of the S.S. Ohioan after docking in Hoboken, New Jersey on May 22, 1919. York had no idea that the April 1919 piece in the Saturday Evening Post about his battle exploits had made him a national hero. York was officially welcomed by the Tennessee Society and whisked away to be feted in New York City and Washington, DC. Source: AHEC.

22 SERVING GOD OR CAESAR: SERGEANT YORK & THE MORALITY OF WAR Colonel Douglas Mastriano

…there was one guy in my outfit who was a conscientious objector— but once he was in the thick of battle, he fought like a true American and almost captured the whole d-nmed German Army single-handed. His name was Alvin York and he was a hero. Otis Merrithew (aka William B. Cutting) October 21, 1965

On October 8, 1918, the American 82nd frequenting the French cafes behind the lines Division was preparing to attack the heav- or chasing mademoiselles. Because of this, ily defended Argonne Forest in France. The neither Savage nor York fit in well with their Argonne was seized by the Imperial German fellow soldiers and often felt isolated or alone. Army in late 1914 and was developed into a defensive network that exploited the rough This isolation was exacerbated by the tribal terrain and thick forest. To compound matters, nature of the 82nd. The unit was called the “All the week prior a battalion size element of 590 American Division” as it had soldiers from Americans broke through the German lines. 46 of the then 48 states.1 This mix resulted in This unit, later known as the Lost Battalion, regional and ethnic “tribes” forming within was surrounded for five days and threatened the division. In York’s case, the Italians, Irish, with annihilation. They had to be saved. In Greeks, Russian, Poles, etc., tended to spend desperation, the 82nd American Division was time with their likeminded people group. ordered to advance into the forest to force Being Christians not from one of these ethnic the Germans to give up their siege of the groups and not having anything in common Lost Battalion. with the other soldiers made military service daunting for York and Savage. As the 82nd prepared the assault, the Germans fired gas-filled artillery rounds into the ranks nd of the Americans, making their climb to- As the 82 Division prepared to “go over the wards the Argonne all the more difficult. top” and hit the Germans, York was heard Among the advancing soldiers was Corporal muttering that “he was willing to die for his Alvin C. York, one of the unit’s few practicing country, but not to kill for his country”—not Christians. Most of the officers had strong something any soldier wanted to hear from Christian faith, but of the soldiers in York’s one of his squad leaders. The attack was to platoon, only he and another corporal, Murray commence at 6:00 am with a ten-minute Savage, were noted as trying to live out their artillery barrage focused against the German beliefs. York and Savage would be seen study- positions. At 6:10 am, the Americans would ing the Bible and praying together instead of attack. However, the barrage never arrived.

23 The unit leader, Major Tillman, directed that the men would attack with or without the artillery. At 6:10 am, York’s unit began its advance into the Argonne. Initially, things seemed to go well, but the Germans had set a trap.

The day before, the German commander of 2nd Württemberg Landwehr Division, General Anton Franke, read reports of the American units’ movement and rightly assessed where the attack would occur. General Franke had two of his regiments, the 120th and 125th Württemberg Landwehr, create a kill zone just inside the forest. The Americans would be allowed to enter the kill zone with little resistance, but once in it they would be attacked by rifleman and machine guns from three sides. General Franke also received reinforcements from the 45th Prussian Reserve Division, who would join his Württembergers in a large counterattack to eliminate the American attack and then drive them out of the forest. Things could not be worse for the Americans.

Without supporting artillery fire, the Americans swept into the Argonne Forest, straight into General Frank’s kill zone, and hit a wall of fire, which stopped the attack. York described the scene in his diary, saying:

The Germans met our charge across the valley with a regular sleet storm of bullets. I’m a-telling you that-there valley was a death Harry Parsons ordered Sergeant Early and trap. It was a triangular-shaped valley Corporals York, Savage, and Cutting to gath- with steep ridges covered with brush, and swarming with machine guns on all sides. er up their men and find a way behind the I guess our two waves got about halfway German lines. This group of 17 men saw a across and then jes couldn’t get no further deep cut in a ridge to their south and began nohow. The Germans done got us and they moving towards it, putting them under the done got us right smart. They jes stopped barrels of five German machine guns. As the us in our tracks. Their machine guns were German gunners prepared to open fire, the up there on the heights overlooking us and belated American artillery fire providentially well hidden, and we couldn’t tell for certain where the terrible heavy fire was coming erupted on them, enabling York and the other from. It ‘most seemed as though it was Americans to successfully get behind the coming from everywhere. German lines.

The American attack literally faded away. To The Americans wound about a mile behind make matters worse, German artillery fire the lines when they encountered two German began to rip through the floundering assault. soldiers carrying large water tins. Upon seeing In the midst of the horror, Platoon Sergeant the Americans, the Germans dropped the tins

24 This photo was taken outside of Varennes-en-Argonne and is confirmed to be of York’s group of prisoners. The three Ger- man officers in the front of the formation each played a central role in the October 8 battle. At left is German Lieutenant Paul Vollmer, the commander of 1st Battalion, 120th Württemberg Regiment, who personally surrendered his unit to York after losing many men and seeing his friend Fritz Endriss fall in combat. The German officer in the center is Lieutenant Max Thoma, commander of the 7th Bavarian Mining Company, who refused to surrender unless Vollmer accept responsibility. To the right is German Lieutenant Paul Lipp, who commanded the 125th Württemberg machine gun that killed or wounded half of the Americans with York. The American in the center of the photo, just behind the German officers may be Alvin York. Source: AHEC. and ran straight back to their headquarters six of the Americans and wounded three. to report the breach to their commander. The surviving Americans fell to the ground However, the 17 Americans pursued them, hoping to survive the next burst of German surprising a mass of 70 German soldiers. machine gun fire. The Germans were so shocked to see the Americans that they surrendered. The 17 The scene was utter chaos. German ma- Americans struggled to push the throng of 70 chine gun fire sprayed over the heads of the German prisoners into a manageable mass. surviving eight Americans and 70 German Suddenly, the word “runter” was yelled, with prisoners, all huddled on the low ground. In the Germans all falling to the ground. This between bursts from the German machine was quickly followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of a gun, the Americans yelled to each other to German MG 08/15 machine gun that killed determine, who was left alive. Of the leaders

25 alcohol, the blind-tigers were renowned for knife fights, shootouts, brutal fist fights, and drunken brawls. It was not uncommon for people to be killed during the busy weekend drinking binges. Such was the environment where Alvin York spent his weekends in various stages of drunkenness.

York’s mom was terribly worried about him. He was raised with strong Christian values, but had rejected these in exchange for his weekend drinking binges. He refused to speak with his pastor, or listen to the counsel of Christian family or friends. To many, York was a good-for-nothing drunk and would never make any positive contribution to life. All hope seemed lost for him.

However, things began to change when a neighbor, Gracie Williams, caught his attention. The problem was that she and her family were all practicing Christians. This was Sergeant York Draft Registration Card. Block 12 is where he asked for exemption. Source: National Archives. particularly true for Gracie’s father, Francis Asbury Williams, who was deeply devout and a leader in the local church. There was no way Early, Cutting, York, and Savage, only York that he would tolerate Gracie spending time was not killed or wounded. The burden of with Alvin York. The only place where they command had passed to him. As an outspoken could see each other was at church. With the conscience objector, what would York do? sole desire to spend time with Gracie, York became a regular churchgoer. York’s journey to conscience objection began in the hills of Pall Mall, Tennessee, in 1911 Things forever changed for York on New Year’s when his father died. With the passing of his Day 1915 during a special church service. On dad, York became responsible for running that day, a preacher from Indiana preached a the family farm and blacksmith shop while providing for his widowed mom and younger sermon that gripped York’s heart. The preach- siblings. The pressure was too much for him, er, Reverend Russel, walked through the so he sought a way to escape. Fortunately for basic Gospel message that proclaimed the York, a place to do so was just a few miles sinfulness of man and the need for redemp- to the north along the Tennessee-Kentucky tion. Reverend Russel followed up the bad border. news with the Good News and explained the saving grace offered through a relationship Enterprising bootleggers found a way to sell with Jesus Christ. An altar call was given their unregulated alcoholic beverages to for those who wanted to turn from their sins the populace by building their bars (called and accept Jesus as their personal Lord and blind-tigers) on the state border, with the Savior. York would later say that it was like building half in Tennessee and half in lightening hit his soul. He went forward and Kentucky. Whenever local law enforcement prayed. Reflecting on this he wrote: officials arrived, the alcohol and those in the I found out the truth of what the Bible says: blind-tiger simply staggered to the opposite “There is more rejoicing over one sinner half of the building and into the other state. that repenteth than over ninety-nine just Beyond the risk of consuming unregulated persons that need no repentance.” I truly

26 felt as though I had been borned again. I every aspect of his life. Those who once felt that great power which the Bible talks viewed him as a good-for-nothing drunkard about and which all sinners feel when they were astounded at the change in his life. Over have found salvation, I felt in my soul like the next two years, York became a respected the stormy waters must have felt when the leader in his community, later saying: Master said, “Peace, be still.” I used to walk out in the night under the stars and kinder And that is the greatest victory I ever won. linger on the hillside, and I sorter wanted It’s much harder to whip yourself than to to put my arms around them-there hills. whip the other fellow, I’m a-telling you, They were at peace and so was the world and I ought to know because I done both. 2 and so was I. It was much harder for me to win the great victory over myself than to win it over those The change in York’s life was complete. He German machine guns in the Argonne stopped going to the blind-tigers, became a Forest. And I was able to do it because God leader in his church, taught choir and Sunday showed me the light, and I done followed it.5 school, and even preached sermons as the assistant pastor. For York, the new life was However, his world turned upside down in not easy. He said that the temptation to go 1917 when the United States entered World back to the blind-tigers was hard to overcome. War I. Like so many other Americans, York Of this time, York noted: was drafted into the Army. The idea of going to war and killing Germans was something And the more I thought the more I kinder he could not imagine. As far as York was figured that all of my trials and tribula- concerned, when the Bible said, “Thou shall tions in the war had been to prepare me not murder,” a Christian could not kill an- for doing just this work in the mountains. All of my suffering in having to go and kill other human for any reason. Having barely were to teach me to value human lives. All a third-grade education, York did not go to the temptations I done went through were the original Hebrew to discern the differ- to strengthen my character. All the asso- ence between kill and murder. However, he ciations with my buddies were to help me found himself faced with either fidelity to his understand and love my brother man. All Christian convictions or to the demands of of the pains I done seed and went through his government. He doubted he could both 3 were to help and prepare me. follow God’s Word and join the Army. On block 12 of his draft card, where it asked, This was the most important epoch in the “Do you claim exemption from draft (specify York story. As he resisted the temptation to reason),” he wrote, “Yes, Don’t want to fight.” “cuss, chase women and drink,” he in turn built his moral character, making him brave In its rush to prepare for war, one of the areas and heroic in his heart, in his soul. He said that the United States was least prepared for of this: was what to do with conscientious objectors. Sometimes Everett or Marion or some of Those who refused to do anything to support the other boys would drop around and tell the war were often treated brutally and even me they were putting on another party and imprisoned. York’s request for military ex- invite me to join them. Then it was that I emption was denied by the county board, and was most sorely tempted. I prayed most he appealed to the state board. The state board awful hard and got a good hold on myself denied this appeal. A subsequent appeal to and didn’t go. Each time I refused it was the federal board was also denied. York had to so much easier next time; and every day it serve despite his sincerely held beliefs. He was became easier. In a few months I got them filled with doubt and confusion and prayed there bad things out of my mind.4 for God’s intervention, later explaining:

This was also the time when York immersed I wanted to follow both. But I couldn’t. himself in the Bible. He knew that the Bible They were opposite. And I couldn’t recon- was God’s Word and he should follow it in cile them nohow in my soul. I wanted to

27 do what was right. I wanted to be a good conflicted. He simply could not kill. With Christian and a good American too. I had the offer of a promotion, Alvin nervously always figured that the two were sort of expressed his misgivings to Captain Danforth connected. And now I was beginning to about being in the Army. Danforth listened find out that they were kinder opposed to each other. If I went away to war and intently to York and said that he would ar- fought and killed, according to my reading range a meeting with Major Buxton to figure of the Bible, I weren’t a good Christian, And out a way to sort out this dilemma. if I didn’t go to war and do these things, according to Uncle Sam, I weren’t a good York was apprehensive about meeting with American… I wuz sorter mussed up inside both Captain Danforth and Major Buxton. worser’n ever. I thought that the word of When the time came, he was immediately God would prevail against all of the laws put at ease by Buxton: of man and of nations.6 The major was very friendly-like; he always With his appeals to avoid the draft denied, was with us boys. He told us to sit down. He York joined the United States Army on said he didn’t want to discuss this question as a battalion commander discussing it November 14, 1917, and he would eventual- nd with an officer and a private. He wanted ly be assigned to the 82 Division at Camp us to discuss it as three American citizens Gordon, Georgia. York determined that it interested in a common cause. He said he would be best if he did not make his consci- respected any honest religious conviction entious objections known and that he would and would be glad to discuss things as endeavor to be the best soldier he could. He man to man.8 would write: Providentially, York could not have been I jes went to that old camp and said noth- assigned to a better leadership team. Both ing. I did everything I was told to do. I Danforth and Buxton were outspoken never once disobeyed an order. I never once raised my voice in complaint, but I was sick Christians who knew their Bible well. The at heart jes the same, heard the boys around discussion began with Danforth and Buxton me talking about what fun would be to go quoting Bible verses that supported a person overseas and fight in the trenches I heard serving in the military. York replied with them telling of how many Germans they verses that supported pacifism. The tone were going to kill if ever they got a chance. of the discourse was perfect for Alvin, who I heard all sorts of things about the glory said, “We didn’t get annoyed or angry or of war. But I couldn’t see it like they seed even raise our voice. We jes examined the it no-how. I prayed and prayed that God old Bible and whenever I would bring up a 7 would show me His blessed will. passage opposed to war, Major Buxton would bring up another which sorter favoured war. I Being a hard working soldier who did not believed the Lord was in that room. I seemed complain and being the best shot in the unit somehow to feel His presence there.”9 Yet, it made him stand out. Furthermore, Alvin York seemed as though the two sides were at an did not spend his free time in the neighboring impasse. Finally, Captain Danforth opened town of Augusta, Georgia, getting drunk and up his Bible and read a portion of Ezekiel 33: chasing women. Instead, he attended Bible classes, sang in the chapel choir, and lived a Again the word of the LORD came unto me, quiet and clean life. This made York stand out saying, Son of man, speak to the children further as a model soldier. Because of this, his of thy people, and say unto them, When I company commander, Captain Danforth, and bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and battalion commander, Major Buxton, offered set him for their watchman: If when he Private Alvin York promotion to corporal. seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; York had been struggling with reconciling Then whosoever heareth the sound of the his faith with military service and still was trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the

28 sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not him now in charge, York pondered what to do. speak to warn the wicked from his way, His thoughts were accompanied by neither that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; rage nor hate, but rather were focused simply but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of on the fact that he must stop the killing of his his way to turn from it; if he do not turn brothers. In that instant York changed from a from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; conscientious objector to a warrior. Inaction but thou hast delivered thy soul.10 would only result in further American death and destruction. As both a watchman on the Danforth nailed it. York reflected on this wall and a Christian leader, it was his respon- scripture and at that moment knew that he sibility to save his friend’s lives. Everything could serve in the military as a “watchman on suddenly became clear for York in that mo- the wall.” But he was not convinced that he ment, and the debate of whether a Christian could kill for his country. Sadly, word spread could ever morally kill ended. across the unit that York was a conscientious objector. Several members of his squad called As bullets passed over his head, York charged him a coward and someone using religion to up the hill to a position that outflanked the get out from doing his duty. He found himself German machine gun, as well as a group ostracized and continually mocked by his of infantry whom he discovered were also fellow soldiers. As the unit traveled across the shooting at the pinned Americans. Together, Atlantic, through England, and into France, there were 19 enemy soldiers in front of York. his one real friend remained Murray Savage. Without wasting a moment, York opened fire, Their friendship was close: in addition to pausing long enough to shout to the Germans praying and studying the Bible together, they to surrender. However, the enemy refused kept each other accountable in avoiding the to lay down their arms, and York ended up ladies and wine in France. killing all 19 of them. Seeing more German soldiers coming towards him from further up Fast forward and return to York’s crisis in the the hill, and needing to return to his men, York Argonne Forest. When those machine guns ran back down the hill, only to be charged by a fired over the 70 prostrate Germans and into German officer (Lieutenant Fritz Endriss) and the American patrol only thirty feet away, a second group of enemy soldiers armed with the first burst ripped into Savage, tearing their bayonets. York pulled out his own Colt him into pieces. York fell to the ground to Automatic Pistol and fought off this assault, avoid the next deadly salvo. As the Americans shooting Endriss in the abdomen, dropping sounded off, it was clear that York was the him to the ground. York redirected his fire only leader left alive or able to fight. Laying toward the other Germans reinforcements. in the meadow with his only friend and five others he knew well dead, along with three Meanwhile, Endriss was still alive, in agony, other Americans severely wounded, and with and begging for help. Included in the throng

29 of the original 70 Germans who had surren- and the threat of death of those he loved, to dered and were continuing to hug the ground bring the issue to a clear and abrupt finality. to avoid the crossfire, was Lieutenant Paul Perhaps the comfort and security that most Vollmer, who had been friends with Endriss Americans enjoy today gives us the luxury to for more than a decade. Desperate to save his friend, Vollmer cautiously stood up and debate and reflect on such matters. Yet, for walked over to York, who would recount the York, when life itself was at stake, he knew exchange: what he ought do.

Vollmer: “English?” Colonel Douglas Mastriano (PhD, University York: “No, not English.” of Brunswick, Canada), US Army, is on faculty in Vollmer: “What?” the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and York: “American.” Operations at the US Army War College. A veteran Vollmer: “Good Lord! If you won’t of Iraq and Afghanistan, he began his career in shoot any more I will the 1980s, serving along the Iron Curtain with make them give up.”11 the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has served at tactical, operational, and strategic levels York told him to do it, whereupon Vollmer of command ranging from the 3rd Infantry Division blew a whistle, and the Germans above came (Rock of the Marne), to the Pentagon and in NATO. down the hill with their arms up. The skir- His book, Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero mish was over. In the end, this good-for- of the Argonne, is an award winning biography on nothing drunk from Pall Mall, Tennessee, this America’s greatest First World War hero. Under the conscientious objector, had killed 25 enemy endorsement of American and French authorities, soldiers and captured 132. His action saved Doug led the expedition that discovered the precise his unit from certain defeat and forced the Argonne location where York fought. The work led to German Army to retreat from their Argonne the construction of a five-kilometer historic walking Forest fortress. York was awarded the Medal trail, replete with monuments and historic markers. of Honor for this action, for which he always For further information visit his website at www. gave God the credit. When one of his officers, sgtyorkdiscovery.com. Brigadier General Julian Lindsay, asked how managed this extraordinary task, York later (Endnotes) recalled responding, “It was not man-power 1 American Battle Monuments Commission, 82d Division: but it was divine power that saved me. I told Summary of Operations in the World War, (Washington, DC, him that before I went to war I prayed to God Government Printing Office; 1944),1-2; G. Edward Buxton, and He done gave me my assurance that so Official History of 82nd Division American Expeditionary long as I believed in Him not one hair of my Forces, 19171919, (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill; 1920), 1-3. head would be harmed; and even in front 2 York, Sergeant York, 144, 147. of them-there machine guns He knowed I 3 York, 304-305. 12 believed in Him.” 4 York, Sergeant York, 146. 5 York, Sergeant York, 145. The morality of Christians serving in the military is a debate that stretches across 6 York, 155, 161. two millennia. There are no easy answers on 7 York, 166-167. whether a Christian can kill for his country. 8 Skeyhill, 160-163; York, 169-170. The Just War ethic as offered by Augustine 9 York, 171. of Hippo, although a thousand years old, 10 Pattullo, 4. Skeyhill, Sergeant York: Last of the Long provides a good road map and strong rea- Hunters, 163-164. There is a conflict in the sources as to whom sons for when and why a follower of Jesus read this to York. The 1928 York/Skeyhill book credits Buxton Christ can kill. Yet, in all cases it seems to with this. As Danforth was interviewed for Pattullo’s article, be a personal and individual decision. Such it is more likely that he read Ezekiel 33. was the case for Alvin York. However, it took 11 York, 229. the reality of war, surrounded by the death 12 York, 278.

30 God would never be cruel enough to create a cyclone as terrible as that Argonne battle. Only man would ever think of doing an awful thing like that. It looked like “the abomination of desolation” must look like. And all through the long night those big guns flashed and growled just like the lightning and the thunder when it storms in the mountains at home. And, oh my, we had to pass the wounded. And some of them were on stretchers going back to the dressing stations, and some of them were lying around, moaning and twitching. And the dead were all along the road. And it was wet and cold. And it all made me think of the Bible and the story of the Anti- Christ and Armageddon. And I’m telling you the little log cabin in Wolf Valley in old Tennessee seemed a long, long way off.

Diary of Alvin York, account of October 7th, 1918 ESSAY HELPING RELIGIOUS MINORITIES PERSECUTED BY DAESH Ewelina U. Ochab & Baroness Caroline Cox

Bell tower at the Quaragosh Church in Nineveh Plains, Iraq, approximately three weeks after liberation. November 2016. Photo provided by Ewelina U. Ochab.

INTRODUCTION the area’s indigenous people. As were not adequately addressed Daesh gained more territories, at that stage. Only after Daesh In the first part of 2014, Daesh stories of mass atrocities per- attacked Sinjar, Iraq, killed hun- (also referred to as Islamic State petrated by the group started dreds of Yazidis, and forced the or ISIS) began to establish the circulating in the media. The rest to flee could the world no so-called caliphate in many re- stories included mass behead- longer look away. This attack on gions of Syria and Iraq. This ings of “infidels”, throwing peo- the Yazidis on August 3, 2014, self-proclaimed caliphate of ple from high buildings, burning was followed by subsequent Daesh was established by the prisoners in metal cages, etc. mass atrocities in the Nineveh sword and with the blood of However, the mass atrocities Plains, Iraq, where Christians

32 were forced to flee or die by had inhabited the area for cen- in other parts of West Asia or Daesh’s sword. Most of them turies as if they had never ex- North Africa. They have lost fled to Kurdistan, a part of Iraq isted. Though Daesh seemed to territories in Syria and Iraq, Daesh could not conquer. Even flourish unabated and tried to however, and have gained new though the August 2014 atroc- conquer the region for financial territories in the Middle East ities had gained international gain and destruction of religious while continuing its expansion attention and provoked an in- pluralism, they never establish in North Africa. Egypt has be- ternational response from 73 a fully functioning and self-sus- come one of the central North countries (the Coalition against tainable state. Daesh was and is African countries where Daesh Daesh), only in the second half ill-fated. is present, and their activities, of 2016 did Iraqi forces start in particular against the Coptic regaining significant territories The central focus of this article is Christians, have become more previously under Daesh control to explore the current progress and more prominent over the for two years. in the fight against Daesh and months. On April 9, which was what it means for the victims. Palm Sunday, at least 27 peo- Over these two years, Daesh First, we look into the current ple were killed in an explosion committed murder, extermi- military actions against Daesh at St. George’s Coptic Church nation, enslavement, depor- and whether the region is in a in Tanta, and 17 people lost tation and forcible transfer of post-Daesh phase. Second, we their lives in St. Mark’s Coptic population, imprisonment, tor- examine the current progress Church in Alexandria. Over a ture, abductions of women and of rebuilding in areas recovered hundred people were injured children, exploitation, abuse, from Daesh and the attempt of in both attacks. On May 26, at rape, sexual violence, forced people to return home. Third, we least 28 Coptic Christians were marriage, and enforced disap- consider the necessary security killed when masked shooters pearance—unabated. Daesh has measures needed to ensure the ambushed a bus travelling to a specifically targeted Christians, vulnerable religious minorities monastery south of Cairo. Such Yazidis, and other religious mi- are adequately protected from attacks have been more frequent norities, including Muslim mi- Daesh or any other perpetrators in Egypt over recent months. norities, for destruction in an who may come later. Fourth, we attempt to annihilate religious scrutinize what reconciliation Due to Daesh’s continued and pluralism in the area and to es- steps need to be undertaken to growing presence across West tablish a purely Islamic region. ensure a peaceful coexistence Asia and North Africa, along Indeed, the atrocities commit- between the region’s diverse with attacks of Daesh fighters ted by Daesh against religious religious communities. Fifth, or sympathizers across Europe minorities have been recognized we look into what legal mea- and North America, we mustn’t as a genocide by the Council of sures have been taken to date yet adopt the language of post- Europe, European Parliament, or should be made to bring the Daesh. Such a narrative is not US Congress and the Secretary Daesh perpetrators to justice. merely a matter of semantics. of State, UK House of Commons, Sixth, we consider what the First, it changes the dynamics of and the Lithuanian, Canadian, United States could do to help the response. If Daesh is defeat- Australian, French, Hungarian, the persecuted communities. ed, the military response ceases and Austrian Parliaments. Our primary focus is Iraq, how- to be a priority. This narrative ever, and where we refer to the is a wrong approach as Daesh During this time, many areas of Daesh atrocities elsewhere, this continues to be present in West the Nineveh Plains were sub- is expressly stated. Nevertheless, Asia and North Africa and poses jected to Daesh destruction. these proposed steps are rep- one of the most severe security They looted all homes, shops, licable, and can and should be threats in the world. Daesh still schools, and churches. No stone taken to address crimes against recruits new followers and con- was left unturned. Their fight- religious minorities committed ducts terror attacks across the ers confiscated all valuables elsewhere across the globe. globe. Second, the post-Daesh and possessions, and burned narrative gives an erroneous down houses. The destruction feeling of security and safe- of villages sent a clear mes- POST-DAESH? ty while neglecting survivors’ sage—the looting was about Despite the fact that some actors needs. Religious minorities in more than just money. Daesh speak of post-Daesh respons- the region are not safe yet, and wanted to destroy all signs of es, the entity has not yet been they continue to be on the verge the religious communities that defeated in Syria or Iraq, nor of annihilation.

33 That said, it is important to con- hope that there is a future for The proposal to develop safe sider the eventual post-Daesh the rest of the Nineveh Plains. zones to protect minorities from response. While such a response However, Teleskof had not been Daesh atrocities is commend- cannot be implemented until subject to as much devastat- able. But without viable secu- Daesh is in fact defeated, and ing destruction as other areas, rity, any such efforts will not mustn’t overshadow current re- such as Quaragosh—one of the be sustainable. Additionally, sponsibilities, strategic planning biggest Christian towns in the there are questions relating to for the future is still necessary region. the effectiveness of safe zones and welcomed. in actually providing security. The villages’ reconstruction Safe zones have been estab- and indigenous communities’ lished over the years in some RECONSTRUCTION & RETURN return are closely interlinked. other post-conflict regions, in- As Daesh is defeated village by Without reconstruction, people cluding Bosnia and Rwanda. village, the indigenous com- will not return. Without people But, in spite of what we called munities wish to return to their returning, reconstruction may them, they were far from safe or homes. Indeed, many people seem futile. Moreover, without secure. History has shown how who fled Daesh in the Nineveh this reconstruction, the future such safe zones contributed to Plains in August 2014 want to of Christians in the region is post-conflict re-traumatization go back to the recently liberated questionable. of already vulnerable people. villages there, even if they must Although the safe zones es- return to rubble. And they have tablished in Bosnia in 1993 a right to do so. The right of ref- SECURITY MEASURES or Rwanda in 1994 provided humanitarian assistance, they ugees to return is protected un- Despite the fact that the Iraqi failed to provide adequate pro- der the Iraqi Constitution (and army has liberated many areas tection for vulnerable civilians international law). However, from Daesh, those areas are not in a post-conflict situation. this right means nothing if it is safe yet. The Iraqi army and not adequately respected and the Nineveh Plain Protection Establishing safe zones for reli- protected. Units have to check all homes gious minorities may also have and properties for explosives. Rebuilding the Nineveh Plains an adverse impact on the per- Underground tunnels that will be a massive project re- ception that religious minori- Daesh used to move between quiring substantial funding. ties are the “other” rather than buildings have to be sealed off. International organization Aid a part of the Iraqi communi- However, the actors need to to the Church in Need has as- ty. All religious communities take other steps to ensure the sessed that the cost of rebuilding in Iraq must be treated as a area’s safety and security and nine villages is in the region of part of the Iraqi community, $200 million. Reconstruction to ensure Daesh will not return. with equal rights enshrined in of villages does not mean only These measures include ensur- the Iraqi constitution and ac- clearing the rubble and rebuilding the villages are not aban- cording to international law. ing the houses. There is no in- doned by the military or securi- Religious minorities must be frastructure, which would have ty forces should Daesh manage able to live among other groups to be rebuilt from scratch. to threaten them again. Military without fear, whether they live and security forces must protect in a safe zone or not. Such Reconstruction of the village the local communities “in sick- peaceful co-existence must be Teleskof may be a model for oth- ness and health”. The previous accommodated and supported er places. It is currently being failing to protect the indige- by the Iraqi government. rebuilt, and over 430 families nous population from Daesh have already returned. Many attacks in August 2014 has to Other proposals include estab- of the houses already have wa- be investigated and addressed. lishing an autonomous region ter access and electricity, but Only then will it be possible to for religious minorities, mod- there are ongoing challenges. prevent any such future security eled on the Kurdistan autono- The next steps will be to re- failings. Moreover, steps ought mous region. However, creating construct other infrastructure to be taken to ensure that, in such an autonomous unit would and ensure that the village is a perceived post-Daesh vacu- take years while persecuted re- sustainable and safe. Teleskof’s um, other violent extremist or ligious minorities would contin- rebuilding and the people’s will- terrorist groups are prevented ue to live in fear and uncertain- ingness to return give some from entering the region. ty. Furthermore, establishing

34 Quaragosh Church in Nineveh Plains, Iraq. November 2016. Photo provided by Ewelina U. Ochab. yet another autonomous region minorities in the region must were reports of people conspir- within the borders of Iraq would be able to live as a part of the ing with Daesh to inform where lead to further defragmentation Iraqi community, not as a sep- Christians or Yazidis were hid- of the country rather than unit- arate group. It includes the ever ing. These challenges have to ing the torn communities. growing need of opening the be addressed in the process of interfaith dialogue and the pro- reconciliation to ensure that These challenges may well be cess of reconciliation. the post-Daesh Iraq will be a manageable. But previous mis- stable country accommodating takes in implementing safe Interfaith dialogue must be religious pluralism and ensur- zones in post-conflict regions accommodated by the Iraqi ing the peaceful coexistence of must be analyzed to identify government and include all re- diverse communities. and address failings and to ligious communities in Iraq. The government must include prevent previous errors from LEGAL MEASURES reoccurring. religious leaders of all religious groups in the process of estab- Legal steps have to be taken to lishing new policies aimed at ensure that Daesh fighters and INTERFAITH DIALOGUE & protecting religious pluralism any other complicit actors are COMMUNITY RECONCILIATION in the region. Religious leaders brought to justice. International must ensure that the interfaith institutions must take urgent ac- As mentioned earlier, calls to dialogue is implemented within tion, such as collecting evidence, establish safe zones raise an- their communities and engage investigating, and prosecuting other important issue: religious all in the process. perpetrators. minorities must be protected throughout all of Iraq and not The Daesh atrocities have There is still no indepen- only within the borders of the sparked an atmosphere of mis- dent commission of inquiry proposed safe zones. It is essen- trust between religious com- that would collect evidence of tial to help religious minorities munities and communities in crimes committed by Daesh. feel that they are fully part of general. Some of the houses It is a crucial step because Iraqi society and for communi- and properties belonging to without evidence no prosecu- ties to work together to combat Christians were snatched by tion would have legal stand- tensions and remove the atmo- their neighbors after Christians ing. Furthermore, evidence sphere of mistrust. Religious were forcibly displaced. There disappears every day as the

35 Destruction inside the Quaragosh Church in Nineveh Plains, Iraq. November 2016. Photo provided by Ewelina U. Ochab. reconstruction of villages pro- case of Cambodia). While it is International institutions and gresses. The independent com- still unclear what will be the states have to take legal action mission of inquiry would obtain nature of the tribunal that would to address past crimes and pre- statements from victims, pre- engage with the prosecutions, vent future crimes. It is also cru- pare for any future proceedings, Iraq would significantly benefit cial that the Iraqi government secure and investigate mass from international support in establishes a commission that graves that are being discovered this endeavor. The Iraqi judi- would consider early signs of as areas are liberated, and pre- ciary could take advantage of discriminatory practices and serve and catalogue all evidence the resources and the expertise persecution of (religious) mi- of mass atrocities perpetrated of the United Nations that led norities before it reaches the by Daesh. or assisted in other post-conflict threshold of genocide or other investigations and prosecutions. crimes against humanity. As Despite the fact that the in- It is highly relevant not only for genocide or war crimes do not dependent commission of in- happen overnight, an adequate the Iraqi judiciary but also for quiry is not established yet, consideration of the early signs the people in Iraq. Ultimately, the international community, may help prevent future mass Daesh fighters originated not in cooperation with the Iraqi atrocities from occurring. only from Iraq but also from government, must put in place the most efficient prosecution over 80 other countries from Lastly, the Iraqi government mechanism that would address all parts of the world. Daesh is must consider introducing the challenges posed by the na- not only an Iraqi issue; it is an changes to its criminal code. ture of an international terrorist international problem requiring These changes must ensure that group like Daesh. It may be an an international response. The the crime of genocide is includ- international criminal tribunal international community must ed and follows international (as was used for Rwanda and show solidarity with Iraq in standards (and especially the Bosnia), a regional mechanism defeating the ongoing impunity 1948 UN Convention on the (similar to one implemented of Daesh. States can prosecute Prevention and Prosecution for piracy cases in Somalia), fighters in their countries, but of the Crime of Genocide). or a specialized national court they should also assist the Iraqi The criminal code should supported by the UN (as in the judiciary in this important step. also strengthen the use of the

36 concept of complicit acts to to fund organizations providing Unity of purpose is required to mass atrocities. Special pro- humanitarian assistance to the preserve the religious commu- tection of minorities must be communities affected by Daesh; nities now standing on the verge adequately implemented in the address the vulnerabilities of the of annihilation. whole of Iraq, and any failings survivors; assist in identifying must be addressed as a matter the early warning signs of mass Ewelina U. Ochab is a human of urgency. The implementation atrocities; support organizations rights advocate and author of of security must be subject to a that help obtain and preserve the book Never Again: Legal regular review. evidence of Daesh atrocities Responses to a Broken Promise or that engage in the prosecu- in the Middle East. She works tion of Daesh atrocities; and on the persecution of minorities THE US RESPONSE cooperate with other countries around the world, with main projects including Daesh genocide The United States should play a in preparing a database of the perpetrators or suspects. The act in Syria and Iraq, Boko Haram significant role in assisting Iraq atrocities in West Africa, and the is an active and well-awaited de- during the progress toward a situation of religious minorities velopment, and if implemented united and ever more resilient in South Asia. She has written society. When President Trump accordingly, it may well change over 30 UN topical reports (in- took office in January, he made the fate of minorities persecuted cluding Universal Periodic Review a promise to help persecuted by Daesh. reports) and has made oral and Christians worldwide, and es- written submissions at the Human pecially Christians subjected Rights Council sessions and the to Daesh genocide in Syria and CONCLUSION UN Forum on Minority Issues. Iraq. In an attempt to fulfil this The response to the Daesh Ochab is currently working on role, Executive Order 13769, the atrocities is complex and goes her Ph.D. in international law, so-called “Trump Ban”, made a beyond military measures alone. human rights, and medical eth- clear commitment to prioritize The steps ranging from recon- ics. Follow her work on Twitter: religious minorities persecuted struction to security measures, @EwelinaUA. by Daesh. However, he replaced from interfaith dialogue and Baroness Caroline Cox sits the first executive order with a community reconciliation to as an Independent member of the second one with more apparent- legal action are closely linked House of Lords and is a frequent ly “politically correct” language. and interrelated. Failure to ad- contributor to Lords debates on The prioritization of religious dress any of the steps along the the humanitarian situation and minorities was removed. pipeline may mean the collapse human rights violations in Sudan, of the whole project. India, Nigeria, Uganda, Burma, Subsequent months have not and more. She is an advocate for seen any significant attempt to Previous responses to genocide Muslim women suffering gender assist persecuted religious mi- or other mass atrocities indicate discrimination from the appli- norities. However, civil society the direction that may be taken cation of Sharia Law in the UK, groups continue to put pressure to address Daesh’s genocid- and is the founder and CEO of the on President Trump, calling on al campaign. However, prior Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust. him to establish safe zones in mechanisms have not been flaw- Baroness Cox’s humanitarian aid Iraq. While there is no progress less. But lessons can be learned work has taken her on many mis- to date, the President continues and concerns addressed, mak- sions to conflict zones, allowing to discuss the possibility of set- ing possible a genuine opportu- her to obtain first-hand evidence of human rights violations and ting up safe zones in Syria for nity to provide feasible policies humanitarian needs. Baroness all civilians fleeing from conflict which would enable religious Cox has been awarded the minorities to return to their and associated persecution. Commander Cross of the Order homelands and to maintain of Merit of the Republic of Poland; On June 6, 2017, the US House their religious traditions in the the prestigious Wilberforce of Representatives passed the countries where they were born. Award; the International Mother House Resolution 390 (HR But the international communi- Teresa Award from the All India 390), also known as the Iraq and ty of responsible nations must Christian Council; the Mkhitar Syria Relief and Accountability work together. Daesh is a global Gosh Medal conferred by the Act, put forward by Rep. Chris problem. Iraq and other direct- President of the Republic of Smith (R-N.J.) and Rep. Anna ly affected countries cannot be Armenia; and the anniversary Eshoo (D-Calif.). Under the left to deal with them and the medal presented by Lech Walesa, act, the US Administration is resulting consequences alone. the former President of Poland.

37 ESSAY

Job’s Tormentors, by William Blake, circa 1785 – 90. Source: Wikimedia Commons WHEN DETERRENCE SIMPLY WILL NOT WORK: THE CASE OF JOB John Mark Mattox*

ne of the many defects with the social sciences is the increasing Oinfatuation with everything new: new events, new issues, new sources, new data, new analyses, new publications—new everything! Indeed, the ticket to the top of the social science ladder of success is to come up with something so new that other social scientists pause and gaze in awe and wonder. To be fair, everybody—not just old stuff and of the lessons of security practitioners to think social scientists—loves new the past. of deterrence in terms of nu- stuff. Unfortunately, the social clear weapons—and for good sciences’ particular infatuation Social science narratives of the reason. When nuclear weapons with new stuff results, all too second half of the 20th centu- appeared in the mid-20th centu- often, in the woeful neglect of ry conditioned most national ry, they were the “new things”,

* Views expressed herein are those of the author and do not purport to reflect those of National Defense University or of any other U.S. Government entity.

38 par excellence. They could pro- by some combination of or collectivity will modify behav- duce destruction on a previously diplomatic, information- ior rather than risk its loss. To unimaginable (i.e., “new”) scale. al, military, economic, fi- discover that thing is to discover nancial, intelligence, or that upon which all meaningful Not surprisingly, the problem law enforcement means. deterrence efforts must focus. of how to deal with nuclear weapons was likewise treated 4. Destroy the “other”. The beginning of the story as something new. The phrase comes to us like this: which captured the essence of To illustrate both what deter- this “new” problem was, per- rence means at the most fun- There was a man in the haps more than any other, “nu- damental level and for just how land of Uz, whose name clear deterrence”. Indeed, for long intellectually engaged peo- was Job; and that man many national security practi- ple have been thinking about was perfect and upright, tioners writing at the dawn of how deterrence functions, we and one that feared God, the nuclear age, “deterrence” turn to what many moderns and eschewed evil… And equaled “nuclear deterrence”, might consider an unlikely the LORD said unto and finding literature that dealt source: the biblical Book of Job. Satan, Hast thou con- in depth with deterrence in any Job comes to modern read- sidered my servant Job, that there is none like ּוִבים) other sense was hard to come ers as one of the Ketuvim the so-called “Writings” or him in the earth, a perfect ,( ְכ ת .by “Hagiographa”—the third and and an upright man, one -that feareth God, and es , ַתַנ”ְך) Nevertheless, deterrence itself final section of the Tanakh is, in reality, a very old concept. what many non-Jewish readers cheweth evil? Then Satan In fact, deterrence has been refer to as the Old Testament). answered the LORD, and part of the human experience It is the account of a “perfect said, Doth Job fear God ever since a human being first and upright” man from whom for nought? Hast not thou uttered a threat or gave an ul- God allows Satan to take away made an hedge about timatum: “Don’t do such and everything of apparent value him, and about his house, such—or else!” The idea was, to him—his substantial wealth and about all that he hath and has always been, that one’s and livelihood, his health, his on every side? thou hast uttered threat would induce children, and the love and en- blessed the work of his sufficient angst that the other couragement of those around hands, and his substance would either modify behavior him—in short, every external is increased in the land. or not act at all. thing that one could possibly But put forth thine hand value. The only thing Satan is now, and touch all that But angst about what? not allowed to take from Job he hath, and he will curse Answering that question is the is his life. Satan is certain that thee to thy face. And the key problem of deterrence: If while Job’s righteousness is rare LORD said unto Satan, one can discover the thing that among men, even he can be de- Behold, all that he hath is is essentially valuable to the terred from continued faith in in thy power; only upon “other” and then credibly threat- God. Satan is wrong. himself put not forth en the “other” with the loss of thine hand. So Satan that essentially valuable thing, The following excerpts from the went forth from the pres- then one can deter the “other”. Book of Job1 provide thoughtful ence of the LORD. And If not, the “other” cannot be national security policy practi- there was a day when… deterred. In that case, four al- tioners with occasion to reflect there came a messenger ternatives present themselves upon the question, “Just how unto Job, and said, The (listed from nicest to nastiest): many ‘Jobs’ are there—wheth- oxen were plowing, and er individuals or states—in the the asses feeding beside 1. Make the “other” an ally. world today?” Whatever the them: And the Sabeans 2. Stop trying to deter the precise answer, Satan seems fell upon them, and took “other” and simply accept to have been right about one them away; yea, they have that the “other” is doing thing: There aren’t very many. slain the servants with something objectionable. Almost every individual person the edge of the sword; or collectivity of persons has and I only am escaped 3. Attempt to restrain something the loss of which is so alone to tell thee. While or contain the “other” unacceptable that the individual he was yet speaking,

39 Job Rebuked by His Friends (from the Butts Set), by William Blake, 1805. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

there came also another, house: And, behold, there mocks him, “Dost thou still re- and said, The fire of God came a great wind from tain thine integrity? Curse God, is fallen from heaven, the wilderness, and… and die.” But Job will not be and hath burned up the the house…fell upon the moved, “What?”, he asks, “Shall sheep, and the servants, young men, and they are we receive good at the hand of and consumed them; dead; and I only am es- God, and shall we not receive and I only am escaped caped alone to tell thee. evil?” He cannot be persuaded alone to tell thee. While Then Job arose, and rent to curse the Lord. he was yet speaking, his mantle, and shaved there came also another, his head, and fell down Next, up step three friends, and said, The Chaldeans upon the ground, and Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, made out three bands, worshipped, And said, who seek to comfort Job by try- and fell upon the camels, Naked came I out of my ing to persuade him that his af- mother’s womb, and na- and have carried them flictions are the result of evil he ked shall I return thither: away, yea, and slain the has done and must acknowledge the LORD gave, and the servants with the edge of because, by their account, God LORD hath taken away; the sword; and I only am would never afflict a righteous blessed be the name of escaped alone to tell thee. man with the terrible suffering the LORD. In all this Job and loss that has come to Job. While he was yet speak- sinned not, nor charged ing, there came also an- God foolishly. He simply must have sinned. other, and said, Thy sons That is the only possible expla- and thy daughters were Not one to give up, Satan co- nation for his wretched condi- eating and drinking wine opts Job’s wife to alter her hus- tion. (How “comforting” these in their eldest brother’s band’s cost-benefit analysis. She friendly observations actually

40 are to Job is left for the reader “Though he slay me, yet will I insistence that his suffering to ponder.) trust in him.” could only have been the result of his wrongdoing, and blesses Job, however, simply will not as- Job “demands” (i.e., earnestly him with greater abundance sent to the proposition that his seeks) from God an explanation than anything he had prior to misery is the natural—perhaps for why the afflictions have oc- Satan’s intervention. inevitable—result of wrongdo- curred without any wrongdoing ing on his part. He knows in his being committed. When God re- However, it is not this happy heart that he has been a righ- sponds with a challenge to Job’s ending that has principal claim teous and upright man. Indeed, prerogative to demand such on the attention of national se- Job, who has lost practically a thing, Job “repents” (which curity practitioners. Rather, it everything except his life, con- implies not only sorrow or re- is Job’s response to not only tinues to be unwilling to surren- gret but also an actual turn in the threat of loss but, indeed, der the one thing over which he direction or a change of one’s to the actual loss of practically still has control: his integrity. In mind) and acknowledges his everything he has. This is so for this respect, there are two things subservience before his Creator. several reasons. Job simply will not compromise: No matter what Satan throws at his insistence that he has done him, no matter how the enemy First, it illustrates the principle nothing wrong and his insis- tries to alter his behavior, Job that in order for deterrence to tence that he must not foolish- will not denounce God nor cease work, the one seeking to deter ly blame God for his suffering. to follow him. In the end, God another must discover and put His unfailing faith is character- rewards Job for his integrity, at risk the thing that the other ized by such exclamations as, chastises Job’s friends for their essentially values. If one can hold at risk that thing which the other essentially values, the other can be deterred. If not, the other cannot be deterred.

It also strongly suggests that it’s the risk to value that deters. The fear of losing things valued is often harder to endure than actually losing them. (Moreover, deterrence presumably only works so long as one’s adversary retains hope that he can preserve what he values.)

It also demonstrates that it is likely easier to deter an adversary from a particular action rather than to coerce an adversary to a particular behavior.

Second, it invites students of national security studies to ponder the following questions about Job: What is Job willing and not willing to give up? Alternatively put, what does Job truly value? What are the limits of the other to influence Job’s decisions and conduct?

Finally, it provides a point de Job Confessing His Presumption to God Who Answers from the Whirlwind, by William Blake, circa 1803 – 05. Scottish National Gallery. Source: William Blake départ to extrapolate from Archive, via Wikimedia Commons. Job’s experiences and reflect

41 Job’s Evil Dreams (from the Butts Set), by William Blake, 1805. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Source: Wi- kimedia Commons. upon contemporary problems or compelled to “change one’s cannot be persuaded to “change of national security, such as the mind”. Even the story’s hope- his mind”, one better have iden- following: ful ending provides no reason tified the viable alternatives to whatsoever for Job to have sup- deterrence. • If X (i.e., state or other- posed, at the relevant decision wise) believes it is effectively points, that anything short of The Book of Job also points “deterring” Y but does not death would have brought an to an interesting but separate know what Y essentially val- end to his abject misery. The question of contemporary na- ues, is X actually deterring Y wise Job is unable to know the tional security interest: Can at all? future—a trait shared with con- persons with deep, especially temporary objects of deterrence. religiously grounded, norma- • If X correctly identifies In short, the story of Job illus- tive commitments be dissuaded that which Y essentially trates a case in which deterrence away from that which they con- values, does the deterrence simply does not work. sider righteous? Can those moti- method X has chosen effec- vated by extreme religious zeal— tively threaten Y with the The Book of Job’s salient point like radical suicide bombers—be loss of that essentially valued for national security practi- thing? deterred? Job suggests that, at tioners is not that deterrence least on some occasions, when • If X correctly identifies never works but rather that it ultimate things are concerned, that which Y essentially val- does not always work. Hence, God alone can deter those who ues but is unable to effectively one of the security strategist’s rightly or wrongly claim to act threaten Y with the loss of that foundational tasks is to distin- in His name. thing, what other security op- guish those cases in which de- tions does X have? terrence might work from those However, while the extremist in which it will not. Moreover, it functionary might not be open As Job illustrates, there are points to the need for resourc- to deterrence, there’s reason those who simply cannot be de- es that move beyond attempts to suspect their bosses can be. terred from particular behaviors to deter. When an adversary How do we know this? Because

42 their bosses do not strap on nation-state, such as the United and when it positively will not suicide vests. They hide in caves States or Iran; or even a multi- work is worth the strategist’s while they persuade some “oth- national entity like NATO, the effort. For in the absence of er” to blow up himself or herself. U.N., Microsoft, or Wal-Mart. deterrence, the strategist is un- A viable non-state actor deter- However, not everything that avoidably left with four, and rent strategy need not focus on an outsider may assume to be only four, difficult and unhappy the zealot wearing a suicide vest valuable is essentially valuable alternatives. any more than a viable nuclear to the entity at issue. If one deterrent strategy need focus can discover what is essentially John Mark Mattox is a Senior on the lieutenant sitting watch valuable to the “other” and then Research Fellow at the National in an ICBM silo. credibly threaten the loss of that Defense University Center for essential value, then one can the Study of Weapons of Mass Indeed, deterrence strategy al- deter the “other”. Unless, this Destruction. He is a retired U.S. ways must focus on where it is the case, the “other” cannot will work—not on where it will be deterred. Army colonel, has taught at the not work. As the story of Job United States Military Academy, makes plain, the place to fo- The theory of deterrence is fre- the University of Maryland, and cus a deterrent strategy is al- quently criticized for relying Missouri State University, and ways—always—on that thing upon an ultimately unprovable is the author of Saint Augustine that the key decision maker negative, as, indeed, it does. and the Theory of Just War. He essentially values. Many things However, historical experience currently directs the Department can be assumed to be valuable with the theory suggests that of Defense Countering Weapons to an individual—like Job or reasonable assessments as to of Mass Destruction Graduate lone, non-state actors. Likewise, when and under what circum- Fellowship Program. many things can be assumed stances deterrence might be (Endnotes) to be valuable to a collectivi- expected to work are possible. 1 From the “Authorized” (King ty—like Job’s friends; a non- And the hard, intellectual work James) Version (1611), with spelling, state entity, such as Islamic required to distinguish between capitalization, and punctuation State or al-Qaida; a recognized when deterrence might work preserved.

Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils, by William Blake, circa 1826. Tate Britain, London. Source: Google Art Project, via Wikimedia Commons.

43 ESSAY DEFENDING WESTERN CIVILIZATION Mark Tooley

Donald Trump’s July 6 Warsaw Gandhi also said, “Western civ- speech defending Western ilization is material, frankly Civilization excited predictable material. It measures progress accolades and condemnations. by the progress of matter—rail- Critics claimed he was extolling ways, conquest of disease, con- a tribal blood and soil defense quest of the air. These are the of the West. Fans acclaimed triumphs of civilization accord- his mostly conventional affir- ing to Western measure.” This mation of Western principles. critique portrays the West as Admirably, he declared that secular, anti-spiritual, uncon- “above all, we value the digni- cerned with the affairs of the ty of every human life, protect soul and transcendence. He pro- the rights of every person, and posed that Eastern Civilization, share the hope of every soul to supposedly less concerned with live in freedom. That is who we material progress, better har- are. Those are the priceless ties monizes the material world with that bind us together as nations, the life of the soul. There are as allies, and as a civilization.” many Western Christians who He commended a “democratic have accepted that critique. Europe,” although he unfortunately did not otherwise men- Trump’s speech mentioned tion democracy specifically. Poland’s traditional deep faith in God and that faith’s central concepts about human life and Defending Western Civilization, role in overcoming communism. human equality have prevailed once commonly called Christian This brief mention is more than throughout the West to such an Civilization, is not a theme com- what is present in most oth- extent that prosperity, comfort, mon to religious discourse on er contemporary references to and human dignity are now pre- any part of the political spec- Western Civilization, which is sumed to be not just goals but trum. For the Religious Left, widely perceived to be secular rights guaranteed by society and the presumed existence of such or post-Christian. Secular elites specifically the state. a civilization is morally absurd. throughout the West often act They would largely agree with clueless as to the West’s reli- Yet Christian elites are curi- Mahatma Gandhi, who when gious, largely Christian origins. ously detached from the proj- supposedly asked his thoughts And Christians too quickly ac- about Western Civilization, re- cept the premises of Western ect of Western Civilization. sponded, “It would be a good Christianity’s supposed sunset. The Religious Left in America idea,” implying the existing unctuously demands social West did not live up to its In fact, a civilization once justice based on ultimately ideals. Ironically, the British- shaped and transformed by the Christian premises, imposed educated and South-African- Gospel does not easily revert, by judicial or legislative fiat, raised Gandhi was himself a absent violent revolution or in ways that could be sarcasti- product of it, and his nationalist external invasion, no matter cally labeled as theocratic. The liberation movement grafted the low rates of church partici- Religious Right is commonly Western concepts onto a mostly pation or popular faith in theo- accused of theocratic aspira- Hindu culture. logical particulars. Christian tions because of its resistance

44 President Donald J. Trump and President of Poland Andrzej Duda in the Royal Castle in Warsaw on July 6, 2017, the same day Trump delivered his speech about Western values. They stand in front of Rejtan, or The Fall of Poland, by Jan Matejko, 1866. The painting portrays Tadeusz Rejtan—a deputy of Poland’s Sejm, or Parliament—as he protests against the First Partition of Poland, which Russia, Prussia, and Austria imposed on Poland in 1773. Many members of the Sejm had been bribed or forced to accept the Partition, so Rejtan blocked the doorway to stall them from accepting the demands. Official White House Photo, by Shealah Craighead. to sexual egalitarianism, but on the autonomy of religious Forty years ago Francis its exertions are primarily de- institutions. Claiming a vested Schaeffer, from his L’Abri Alpine fensive. Although the Religious interest in perpetuating, much headquarters in Switzerland, in- Left is the more outspoken crit- less aspiring to lead, Western spired the creation of modern ic of Western Civilization as Civilization is rare. They have conservative Christian political oppressive and genocidal, it too quickly accepted the prem- activism in America by extolling still unconsciously demands ise that that West, including the West’s Christian origins that America conforms to a America, is post-Christian and and urging a return to those Christian-originated political likely spiraling into ever-great- guiding principles. Political theology. er rebellion against the created defeats on social issues have order. The Benedict Option, persuaded leading conserva- American religious conserva- conceived by Rod Dreher and tive Christian voices that this tives, in contrast, now typically inspired by Alistair McIntyre, project to reclaim Western see themselves in exile and un- proposes that Christians should Civilization is over, now re- der virtual house arrest within focus on rebuilding the church placed by self-preservation. a hostile culture. At most they and its accompanying spiritual hope for legal defenses against institutions as the West enters Christian leaders in America’s judicial and regulatory assaults into greater spiritual darkness. past, although living in more

45 troubled times, were once much take quite seriously the church’s leaders of civilization. The West more confident in Western role in renewing and leading of course is no longer confined Civilization, which they rec- society, reshaping it to align to Europe and the Americas. Its ognized was embedded within with Gospel aspirations. It’s not principles to various degrees the church’s own providential uncommon, if arguably unwise, surge around the world. Even story. As they imagined it, the for African nations with their the worst autocrats and klep- West was the earthly political burgeoning Christian major- tocrats, even as they sometimes projection of the church, and ities to legislatively inscribe persecute the church, still con- the civilization provided a pro- Christianity by name into their form unconsciously in countless tective umbrella under which constitutions and jurisprudence. ways to Christian Civilization’s the world would be evangelized They believe that societies must and Christianized, spiritually at their core be centered around influence. They eat the fruit and politically. They were not a spiritual message. Western even as they deny the tree. entirely wrong. One third of Christians have since lost that the planet is now affiliated with faith. The West was never and will Christianity, including well over never be thoroughly Christian. 2.5 billion people, thanks to America’s Religious Left her- Led and populated by sinners, Western missions and, it must alds multiculturalism and di- it has always been corrupt and be admitted, Western colonial- versity as civilizational markers. unfaithful. The church even at ism of the past. Today, Global America’s Religious Right large- the apogee of Christendom was South Christians outnumber ly cedes this point and speaks of never wholly virtuous or whol- Western Christians, a ratio Christian Civilization only in the ly wicked, never had complete that will continue to increase. past tense, and sometimes not societal control, and never at Politically, Christian-nurtured even positively. Some conserva- its best harmonized the Gospel Western economic and politi- tive Christians, and many on the with every aspect of human so- cal concepts have been univer- Left and in the middle, murmur ciety. Yet the West, as byproduct salized, however haphazardly. against the Constantinianism and partner with Christendom, The Western notion of material that birthed the West by suppos- progress that Gandhi errone- edly corrupting and exploiting is a real and living organism that ously disparaged as soulless and the church for the imperial proj- was and is providential in pur- secular is now the guiding force ect. For them, spiritual recovery pose, and whose destiny should of global culture, including in means rejecting and escaping still be a source of inspiration his own India, plus China and the vestiges of Constantine’s and delight. other ancient civilizations where dark bargain. Christian communities remain Trump’s Warsaw celebration of relatively small if growing. Indifference and willful mis- Western Civilization may or may understandings about Western not reignite conscious Christian Amid this mostly unantici- Civilization by Western interest in the West as an on- pated global success, Western Christians are self-defeating going project for the church. Christian leaders are san- and unfaithful to the church’s But even if Christians will not guine and mostly unapprecia- social vocation. The church, acknowledge the West as their tive of their own civilization. by birthing and sustaining the own, the West is inextricably They barely speak anymore of West, has created a providential woven into the church’s eternal Western Civilization, much less gift for social justice, prosperity, story, with glorious chapters yet Christian Civilization. The proj- human dignity, and equality. unwritten. Christian leaders, ect of civilization as a spiritual The West’s many failures to endeavor that should engage conform consistently to its own ecclesial and intellectual, should the church is largely denied or highest ideals do not negate step forward into their respon- at least ignored. Similar indif- those ideals. sibility for leadership and stew- ference to civilization-building ardship of the West. Contrary through the Gospel’s power, The fruit of Christian civiliza- to despairing conventional wis- with counsel and leadership tion-building and its ideals are dom, it’s not too late. from the church, is not com- underappreciated. Christians mon amongst the leaders of in the West, particularly in Mark Tooley is president exponentially growing Global America, need to regain their of the Institute on Religion & South churches. Christians in gratitude, their hope, and their Democracy, and the editor of sub-Saharan Africa especially confidence as builders and Providence.

46 The Battle of the Tenaru A helmet for my pillow, She shrieks with orange spark. A poncho for my bed, The mortar’s lash and cannon’s crash My rifle rests across my chest— Have crucified the dark… The stars swing overhead. “Cease fire!—the words go ringing, The whisper of the kunai, Over the heaps of all the slain. The murmur of the sea, The battle’s won, the Rising Sun The sighing palm and night so calm Lies riddled on the plain. Betray no enemy. St. Michael, angle of battle, Hear!, river bank so silent We praise you to God on high. You men who sleep around The foe you gave was strong and brave That foreign scream across the stream— And unafraid to die. Up! Fire at the sound!... Speak to the Lord for our comrades, Into your holes and gunpits! Killed when the battle seemed lost. Kill them with rifles and knives! They went to meet a bright defeat— Feed them with lead until they are dead— The hero’s holocaust. And widowed are their wives…. Robert Leckie Closing, they charge all howling Their breasts all targets large. The gun must shake, the bullets make A slaughter of their charge….

God, how the night reels stricken!

Robert Leckie was a machine gunner of the 1st Marine Division. He landed on Guadalcanal 75 years ago on August 7th, 1942. The Battle of the Tenaru occurred just after midnight on August 21st. It was the first major offensive of the Japanese on Guadalcanal. Sometime after daybreak the battle ended. All but 128 of the 917 attacking Japanese were killed. There were approximately 45 American casualties. The battle for Guadalcanal would rage until February. The allied victory was a turning point in the Pacific War.

47 ESSAY

Caption?? Saint Augustine, by Antonello de Messina, circa 1472. Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Italy. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

48 READING AUGUSTINE James Turner Johnson

ugustine’s influence runs deep and broad through Western Christian Adoctrine and ethics. This paper focuses on two particular examples of this influence: his thinking on political order and on just war. Augustine’s conception of political order and the Christian’s proper relation to it, developed most fully in his last and arguably most comprehensive theological work, The City of God, is central in both Catholic and mainline Protestant thinking on the political community and the proper exercise of government. Especially important in recent debate, the origins of the Christian idea of just war trace to Augustine. Exactly how Augustine has been read and understood on these topics, as well as others, has varied considerably depending on context, so the question in each and every context is how to read and understand Augustine.

Paul Ramsey was right to insist, them as connected. When they fundamental problem for any in the process of developing are separated, one or another reading of Augustine on these his own understanding of just kind of distortion is the result. subjects. war, that in Christian thinking the idea of just war does not It is, of course, possible to ap- My discussion begins by exam- stand alone but is part of a com- proach either or both of these ining the use of Augustine by prehensive conception of good topics without taking account two prominent recent thinkers politics. This also describes of Augustine’s thinking or its on just war, Paul Ramsey and Augustine’s thinking. Those influence, or indeed any form Jean Bethke Elshtain, in the writers on just war who sepa- of Christian perspective at all. process of beginning to look rate it from the larger context My focus on Augustine here more closely at Augustine’s of good politics—and in recent reflects my judgment as to the thinking in his own context. debate there have been a good impossibility of doing full jus- Then I turn to a very different many of these—omit something tice to either without attend- way of reading Augustine and essential to both: for the just ing to his influence, so deeply examine the way his thought war idea, its direct connection imbedded is he on these top- was carried (and in the process, to political order, justice, and ics in Western experience and transformed) during the Middle peace, the three goods classi- ways of thinking. But to take Ages up to the coalescence of a cally defining the nature and account of his influence also systematic understanding of just purpose of politics; and for the requires recognizing and com- war in the twelfth and thirteenth sphere of government and state- ing to terms with the different centuries, again setting this over craft, the necessity of a just but ways Augustine’s thinking has against Augustine’s thought in limited role for the use of coer- been used in different contexts. its own context. Each of these cive force. To treat each of these How to make useful sense of historical contexts yields a dif- topics properly requires treating these differences? This is the ferent picture of Augustine’s

49 thinking, and so I conclude this the rest of his chapter to an towards it; its effect is present discussion by suggesting how to extended discussion focused even when unacknowledged. use these varied perspectives to on City of God XIX, develop- This understanding permeates shape a reading of Augustine ing Augustine’s concept of just Ramsey’s discussion through- and his influence for the present war as an element in his under- out his chapter on Augustine context. standing of political ethics and on just war, and he carries it particularly his conception of forward into his own conception justice. This choice is interest- of just war as centered on the PAUL RAMSEY’S READING OF ing because Augustine says rel- Christian responsibility of love AUGUSTINE atively little directly about war for the neighbor threatened or here, and he does not make the harmed by injustice. Ramsey’s Among recent thinkers on connection to divine charity that reading of Augustine is that of just war, Ramsey has a semi- Ramsey regards as central. So a theologian seeking to draw nal role. Not only did his two one must follow Ramsey’s rea- out the meaning of Augustine’s books from the 1960s War soning, not simply Augustine’s theology for the idea of just war. and the Christian Conscience words, to find this connection. and The Just War: Force and 1 Yet Ramsey the theologian was Political Responsibility take How Ramsey understands and also working out of his own the first major step in recov- draws out the connection to theological context, which was ering and redefining the just Augustine’s theology of chari- one in which the centrality of war idea for the context of con- ty is especially well illustrated love for Christian ethics was temporary warfare, but his use by his use of City of God XIX, defined in terms shaped by late of Augustine, especially in the chapter vii. Here Augustine di- nineteenth-century Protestant first of these books, set a pat- rectly discusses war, but his liberalism, the Social Gospel tern for later thinkers to build purpose is to show how war movement of the early twen- on. In chapter two of this book, contributes to the misery of tieth century with its drive to titled “The Just War According human life in sin. In this pas- transform society toward the to St. Augustine,” Ramsey un- sage, which Ramsey quotes at Kingdom of God on Earth, dertakes a theological exege- length, Augustine writes, “For and the influence of Reinhold sis of Augustine on Christian it is the wrongdoing of the op- Niebuhr, with his emphasis on love (which Ramsey here calls posing party which compels the love transforming justice. In this “charity,” following the King wise man to wage just wars.” context Augustine’s own focus James Version and reflecting Here the problem is sin, and on love was especially attractive. Augustine’s term caritas). From Augustine links the justification this he develops his own distinc- of opposing it to prudence, not But Ramsey’s reading of City tive conception of just war built charity. Yet Ramsey argues that of God XIX as an expression on the Christian’s obligation to charity is present nonetheless of a theology of love as one in love the neighbor, employing in that wisdom. His thinking which divine charity is drawing Augustine’s discussion of love here reflects the description of human justice towards it reflects in On the Morals of the Catholic Augustine’s overall methodol- Ramsey’s own theological con- Church XV, a passing reference ogy given by Ramsey’s doctoral text rather than Augustine’s to City of God V, and then, in mentor H. Richard Niebuhr in position. As R.A. Markus has numerous citations and at more his book Christ and Culture,3 observed,5 Augustine did in length, City of God XIX.2 where Augustine’s theology is fact hold a view something characterized as an example like this for a time during the Ramsey is not deterred by the of “Christ the transformer of middle period of his life, when fact that the first of these works culture.” Ramsey puts his own the imperial establishment of says nothing at all about just version of the idea this way: Christianity as Rome’s official war or the use of force as an “[S]ince the nature of that city in religion promised reforms that instrument of neighbor-love. which men together attain their would gradually change the na- His argument is rather that the final end is divine charity, as a ture of society towards the good. conception of love defined there consequence even earthly cities This changed in the last period serves as the theological basis began to be elevated and their of his life, when his duties as a for Augustine’s entire ethic. justice was infused and trans- bishop, his struggle against the After establishing the founda- formed by new perspectives, Donatists, a shift in the impe- tions of Augustine’s theology in limits, and principles.”4 That rial religious climate back to- this way, Ramsey then devotes is, charity draws human justice ward paganism, and finally the

50 A page from the City of God by Augustine of Hippo, originally published in 426 AD. This copy dates from 1475. Source: Wikimedia Commons. combined military-political-re- of the world, however fatal- Christian ideas in her work. ligious threat posed by the Arian ly marred by sin, until God’s This is especially true for her Vandals all fed a darkening of purposes for it had finally been thinking about just war, most his attitude toward the possi- realized. Again to cite Markus: fully given voice in Just War bilities of history. Peter Brown “[W]ar now became for him one Against Terror, chapters three calls this change in Augustine of the tragic necessities to which and seven.9 As she shows here, “the lost future.”6 By the time Christians must at times resort her understanding of just war he wrote the last books of City in order to check the savagery is fundamentally shaped by of God, including Book XIX, which is liable to break out be- Augustine, and two comments Augustine was thinking in terms tween, as well as within, polit- she makes—“The origins of this of this darker conception of ical societies.”8 This is a some- tradition are usually traced from human history, not his earlier what different understanding of St. Augustine’s fourth-century optimism. Markus describes the nature of the Christian mor- masterwork, The City of God” the change in these words: “In al justification for participating (actually completed in 425) and the City of God, and especial- in just war than that read out of “For Augustine, a resort to force ly in its last books, Augustine Augustine by Ramsey. may be an obligation of loving turned his back on the mirage one’s neighbor, a central feature 10 of the ‘Christian Empire’ of the JEAN BETHKE ELSHTAIN’S of Christian ethics” —corre- Theodosian dynasty, and on the spond to the two features high- assumptions about God’s hand READING OF AUGUSTINE lighted in Ramsey’s reading of in human affairs which had sus- I turn now to a briefer look at Augustine on just war. tained it.”7 His conception of the Jean Bethke Elshtain’s reading justification for Christian par- of Augustine. Unlike Ramsey, But a fuller look at her referenc- ticipation in a just war accord- Elshtain was not a theologian es to just war and its use shows ingly shifted to a more modest but a political scientist, though a close fit to the references to one: to help maintain the order she made significant use of Augustine provided in Aquinas’

51 question “On War.” The paral- war and how it manifested the fourth century (that is, during lels include her characterization diversity in Augustine’s thought most of Augustine’s life) “each of just war on just cause, right on this topic. How Augustine copy of the Gospels cost as much authority, and limits on means;11 was read here differed in major as a marble sarcophagus,”17 and the citation of Romans 13 as ways from the readings offered this relative cost carried through providing the scriptural basis by these recent interpreters. the following centuries. When for Christian authorities to use The development of this medi- even individual volumes were so force; the rejection of certain eval tradition of interpretation expensive, only the wealthy and, motivations for resort to war;12 reflected important facts about increasingly as the Middle Ages the aim of resisting evil;13 and its historical context and the developed, monastic houses and Augustine’s connection of just changing nature of Christian major bishoprics could afford war to the end—aim—of peace.14 religion. to own and maintain libraries. She makes these references At the same time, these were without citations to Augustine, First, there was an enormous the places where knowledge suggesting that this understand- difference between that age and of Latin could be maintained. ing of just war has become so our own in literacy and in the Augustine’s writings themselves imbedded in her mind as not to availability of published materi- made up an extensive library, need such justification, though a al. Today one can affordably ac- and even in his own time not look at Aquinas’ corresponding cess online all the major works all his works were generally citations from Augustine shows of Augustine, other Fathers of available. After his death this that they come from a variety of the Church, Aquinas’ Summa, became a more acute problem— works (letter 138 to Marcellinus, and other resources, either in not only for his writings but also Contra Faustum, his commen- the original Latin, English, or for the works of other important taries on the Heptateuch and other major languages. Most of Christian authorities. on the Sermon on the Mount, these were already in print be- and letter 189 to Boniface). fore the advent of the internet: The character of Christian reli- Moreover, none of these ref- Ramsey’s reading of Augustine gion in Europe also changed in erences directly links just war depended on the availability this period. During Augustine’s to the idea of Christian love of of a somewhat excerpted ver- lifetime the Christian ide- neighbor. The one citation of sion of City of God and On the al, strongly influenced by Augustine Elshtain does pro- Morals of the Catholic Church Platonism, was the life of se- vide, supporting one of her com- in a Random House two-volume clusion and contemplation. ments on the relation of just collection published near the be- Augustine sought to follow 16 war to peace, is to City of God ginning of his academic career. this pattern in his early life as XIX.15 Aquinas cites letter 189 a Christian and never gave it By contrast, during Augustine’s to Boniface on this topic. The up as an ideal even after ac- lifetime and increasingly as the diversity of Aquinas’ citations cepting the office of bishop, Middle Ages developed, only a of Augustine on just war reflects with its necessary involvement narrow range of people could the way the historical tradition in worldly affairs and the lives read and write: the educated of his priests and congrega- from which he drew recalled elite, a range of clergy, and some tion. This ideal remained for Augustine’s teachings on just among the monks in monas- the medieval Church, but it was war, while Elshtain’s readiness teries. This situation was ag- increasingly channeled by a dis- to root Augustine’s just war gravated as the Roman Empire tinction between those who had thought in the City of God mir- in the West came apart by the received the particular vocation rors the influence of Ramsey emergence of regional vernac- to the “religious” life—monks in American Christian just war ulars and the decline in general and nuns—and those who had thinking. knowledge of Latin, the lan- not, the majority of people of guage in which the Christian au- all social ranks. The religion of MODERN READINGS VS. thorities had written. Moreover, the latter had to be defined in MEDIEVAL READINGS during this period books were some other way than by world- extremely expensive, a conse- ly renunciation, seclusion, and Neither Elshtain nor Ramsey quence mostly of the hours re- contemplation. refers to the way the historical quired to produce each copy but tradition between Augustine also to a lesser degree the ma- These three needs—the great ex- and Aquinas defined and carried terials composing them. Peter pense of books, widespread pop- what Augustine said about just Brown comments that in the ular illiteracy, and a simplified

52 form of religious and moral the canons together and orga- deal of recent Christian thought guidance for the majority of nized them to address particular on the just war idea, when this the population who had not issues with the use of armed idea first coalesced into a sys- received the calling to monas- force. After two generations of tematic form, it was not pre- tic life but still wanted to live canonists, Gratian clarified what sented as deriving from love of as Christians—were met by the was meant in particular cases neighbor, and it was based on emergence of a new kind of and added content where there citations from a broad variety Christian literature: collections were gaps. of Augustine’s works, not Book of selections from the teachings XIX of City of God. of Christian authorities gathered Aquinas’ question “On War” and laid out as canones, canons came at the end of this process Two major concerns were re- or ritual and ethical rules for and directly reflected and sum- flected in this medieval concep- Christian living. The resulting marized it with its definition tion of just war, in the canons volumes could be relatively in- of just war by three requisites chosen to define it, and in how expensively reproduced and (princely or sovereign author- they were interpreted. These circulated among bishops and ity, just cause, and right inten- concerns were the disorder and clergy to use in their guidance tion, which included avoidance violence endemic to the society of the faithful. of evil purposes and the aim of the time and the nature of of producing peace) and his the relation between the Church heavy reliance on references to and the temporal authorities AQUINAS’ READING OF Augustine to provide authority in governing society. The can- AUGUSTINE, THROUGH for the main elements of the just onists’ definition of just war GRATIAN war idea. All of Aquinas’ refer- addressed both these concerns ences to Augustine came from by giving lexical priority to the Collections of canons began Gratian. These references were, responsibility of sovereign tem- to be circulated, according to as noted earlier, from works of a poral authority in the just use of Peter Brown, coincident with wide variety of sorts: polemical armed force, then hedging this the collapse of the Western treatises, biblical commentar- by defining this use as requir- Empire, which provided a vac- ies, and certain of Augustine’s ing a just cause and direction uum of unity and leadership letters. In addition to these, all to the end of social peace. The the Church sought to fill. There of which Aquinas took over, result was a conception of just were numerous such collections, Gratian’s references included war that, as noted earlier, mir- building on one another as old- selected biblical passages as rored the understanding of the er volumes disintegrated from well as various other works of goods or final purposes of pol- use and time, and most of them Augustine: additional commen- itics as inherited from the clas- have been lost. In the twelfth taries and sermons, Book I (but sical world. This first systematic century, their legacy was pre- not Book XIX) of City of God, understanding of just war was served and represented in two additional use of the Contra thus placed inseparably within major collections, those of Ivo of Faustum, and On Free Will. an overall normative conception Chartres and Anselm of Lucca, All these he placed alongside of politics and its purposes. which provided the basis for the selections (that is, canons) from first systematic compilation of other early authorities, notably The immediate implication of canon law, Gratian’s Decretum, including Isidore of Seville and this way of thinking about just completed in 1148. The disci- Pope Gregory the Great. war was to limit the right to use pline of canon law effectively armed force to the sovereign au- began with this work, and so None of the passages Gratian thority in each political commu- does a comprehensive, system- included in this first systematic nity—a major step in a society in atic conception of just war. compilation on just war men- which every male member of the tioned love of neighbor, and knightly class claimed the right Among the topics specifically indeed there was no effort to to use the sword on his own treated by Gratian was the topic give them a theological context. choosing, and particularly to of just war,18 which earlier had Rather, these passages were tak- settle disputes. Gratian set aside been defined only in a scattered, en simply for their own content, this claim by using canons from non-cohesive way in the collec- and their authority as rules for Augustine and Isidore to define tions of canons by selections Christian life was assumed be- the sovereign in every political from various works by various cause of their authors. Contrary community as the judge of last authors. The Decretum brought to Ramsey, Elshtain, and a good resort in all cases of disputes,

53 and to place the right to use armed force in the hands of this ultimate authority alone to enforce his judgments. Any and all uses of arms by persons not in sovereign authority here became a disordering of the justice and peace of the political community, and Gratian here cited Augustine on the need for just war to respond to injustice and restore justice and peace—a topic addressed in several of the Augustinian canons he cited.

The canonists after Gratian reached outside Augustine and other Church fathers to Roman law, recently rediscovered and being examined by some of the same canonical thinkers who were working on the just war idea first shaped by Gratian. From Roman law they drew the idea of natural law, defining the sovereign’s responsibility in terms of being guided by the natural law in determining justice in particular disputes and in establishing and enforcing justice in the political community as a whole. Any political authority who flouted the natural law was not properly a sovereign but rather a tyrant, subject to removal and replacement by Consecration of Saint Augustine, by Jaume Huguet, circa 1463 – 70. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. Source : Google Art Project, via others within the community Wikimedia Commons. or, under special conditions, by other sovereigns. giving the temporal realm au- assert the autonomy of temporal tonomy in its own affairs and sovereigns within the sphere Underlying the canonists’ reserving Church authority to of temporal government and thinking on all these matters the spiritual realm. To do this reserving the authority of the was their handling of the rela- they drew on a letter from a late Church to spiritual matters. The tion between the churchly and fifth-century pope, Gelasius, to effect was to further strengthen temporal authorities regard- the Eastern Roman emperor their idea of sovereign author- ing the government of society. Some of Augustine’s writings, of the time, in which Gelasius ity and the responsibilities it including his correspondence made exactly this distinction. entailed. with two high Roman author- His purpose, in context, was to ities in Africa, Marcellinus and assert his authority in spiritual When one reads Gratian’s Donatus, could be read to place matters while granting that the Decretum on just war, one the authority of the Church over emperor had all authority in finds a conception of just war that of the temporal authorities. temporal matters. But the me- built mainly on passages drawn The canonists of the twelfth and dieval canonists’ theory of pol- from a number of Augustine’s thirteenth centuries instead itics and conception of just war works, with selections from distinguished sharply between turned the emphasis around, us- other Church authorities play- these two kinds of authority, ing this “Gelasian principle” to ing supportive roles, all drawn

54 together in a systematic frame is not itself a guide for the use his references to the idea of determined by Gratian. His im- of armed force in the service of just war reflect the context of mediate successors, while hon- politics in an unchristian world. the ongoing struggle with the oring the pride of place given to Donatists and his effort to enlist Augustine, drew from addition- Both the readings of Augustine imperial Roman military help al sources—most importantly found in these different con- in this. Pulling these together the idea of natural law and the ceptions of just war extend and to produce a systematic view of Gelasian principle—to interpret transform what Augustine him- just war requires a reading that the implications of this canon- self did with the idea of just imposes a common purpose and ical collection and to reinforce war, though they do so in very order on them, and that is what it. There is no indication they different ways. Augustine him- both the modern readings I have were seeking to replace the au- self never wrote a systematic been discussing provide. thority of Augustine, but rather treatise on just war (by contrast, to draw it out, place it in a larger for example, with his numerous Each of these readings’ strength context, and thus apply it to the distinct treatises on aspects of is also the source of problems. context of life as they knew it. sexuality). Rather, his thoughts For Christians, Ramsey’s read- on just war were occasional, ing of Augustine on just war scattered through works of var- has the important strength of WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO ious sorts, and conditioned by the central place it gives to the WITH IT? context. In most of these cases, idea of love of neighbor and the Augustine’s observations about connection of this moral obliga- Theirs was a very different read- war are functionally second- tion, through Augustine, to the ing from that which has been ary, illustrating whatever larg- New Testament, and particu- commonplace in Christian un- er point he is aiming to make. larly to the parable of the Good derstandings of just war since So what he says about killing Samaritan. It also, as indicated the work of Ramsey, which be- in war in De Libero Arbitrio I above, fits squarely within a gins with Augustine’s theology serves to illustrate his larger century and more of Protestant of love and defines just war as point about the presence of libi- thought about the ethical nature proceeding from the idea that do (lust, or self-centered love) in of Christian life. But its special Christian love of neighbor ought acts of self-defense by contrast Christian character makes it to be manifest even in the use with its absence in the action appear sectarian and irrelevant of armed force toward anoth- of a soldier acting on orders to non-Christians, and it is diffi- er. In the work of the medieval from a superior; his enumer- cult to extend it to the needs of canonists, the idea of just war ation of wrongful motivations secular politics. is imbedded in the goods of in war in Contra Faustum 22 politics as defined by the law of is part of a larger argument The conception of just war read nature. In Ramsey and much against Faustus over whether out of Augustine by the medie- other recent Christian just war the Old Testament deserves to val canonists has the strength of thought, just war results from be a guide for Christians; and placing just war squarely within the Christian obligation to love the comment about the neces- the sphere of temporal political one’s neighbor. In the former, sity to wage just wars to oppose life and its responsibilities, but just war does not stand over and evildoing that appears in City of its intentional sundering of this against the practice of politics God XIX provides an illustration conception from the sphere of but embodies and serves the of his larger point about the the Church and its reliance on goods of politics. In the latter, violence, chaos, and injustice natural law rather than an ethic by contrast, it is necessary to in the world as he knows it. In drawn from the Bible opens it to find some mediating connection his commentaries on various the criticism that it is non-Chris- between the ethic of Christian books of the Old Testament, tian and paves the way for alter- love and the secular arena of what he says about war comes native ways of thinking about politics: hence the idea that from that period of his life in Christian responsibility in the love has entered history and is which he believed Roman im- face of violence and injustice. inexorably transforming history perial policy was doing the work As to the centrality of natural towards God’s ends for it. There of God in this world. And in law in this conception of just is much power in the idea that other cases, notably his letter war, Protestants have long been Christians ought to seek to ex- 93 to Vincentius, letters 133 uncomfortable with the idea press love of neighbor in their and 138 to Marcellinus, and of natural law, and Reinhold dealings with others, but this letters 185 and 189 to Boniface, Niebuhr’s explicit rejection of

55 the just war idea in The Nature of moral reasoning but also in and the practice of statecraft. and Destiny of Man19 came the moral bases for such reason- He is a contributing editor to in the course of an extended ing. Providing a moral base was Providence. criticism and rejection of the the function natural law played Catholic conception of natural for the medieval canonists who (Endnotes) law as he understood it. produced the classic system- 1 Paul Ramsey, War and the Christian atization of the idea of just war Conscience (Durham, North Carolina: In my own work on just war, and, pace Niebuhr, something Duke University Press, 1961) and I have focused on its develop- that functions like this is need- The Just War: Force and Political Responsibility (New York: Charles ment and transmission as a ed in contemporary reasoning Scribner’s Sons, 1968). tradition within Western culture about just war. I have argued as a whole, with the specific that positive international law 2 Ramsey, War and the Christian Conscience, 16, 17, 21-30. Christian contribution one el- on war serves in somewhat this ement alongside others in the way for contemporary discourse 3 H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and overall tradition. On this con- on war and political order, but Culture (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 206-18. ception there have been mul- the commonality expressed tiple kinds of inputs into the there remains relatively thin, 4 Ramsey, War and the Christian overall tradition, and in the and it is an intellectual reach to Conscience, xxi. modern period this has result- assume that a particular state’s 5 R. A. Markus, “Saint Augustine’s ed in somewhat different ways agreement on a specific point Views on the ‘Just War,’” in W. J. Sheils, of carrying the tradition in the of the positive law genuinely Ed., The Church and War (Oxford: Basil Blackwell for he Ecclesiastical History arenas of Christian theology, or fully expresses that state’s Society, 1983), 8-9. academic philosophy, military underlying values. theory and praxis, and interna- 6 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo tional law. The problem here For these reasons I have in- (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University creasingly argued for an effort to of California Press, 2000; originally is taking pains to bring these published London: Faber and Faber develop a thick dialogue across different streams into mutual Limited, 1967). 139-49. communication, which I have cultures on fundamental moral values and their implications for 7 Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Views tried to do not only by identify- on the ‘Just War,’” 9. ing present-day commonalities politics and war. I believe any among them but by showing such effort must take special 8 Ibid., 12. how they are connected to the pains to explore the thinking 9 Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War unitary pre-modern concep- of important historical figures Against Terror (New York: Basic tion. This approach makes use in the moral traditions of each Books,2003), 46-58 and 99-111. of a reading of Augustine, but culture. For the West, this must 10 Ibid., 57. include Augustine and not only my reading has sought to show 11 Ibid., 50. how Augustine in himself and the variant readings discussed 12 Ibid., 52. as seen through his interpret- above but also the influence of ers fits within the tradition of other ideas potentially relevant 13 Ibid., 108. just war as a whole. It is not an to the subjects of war and pol- 14 Ibid., 49, 57, and 125. itics. That is, much remains to approach that produces a priv- 15 Ibid., 57 n. 12. ileged Christian conception of be done in exploring how to read Augustine. 16 Whitney J. Oates, ed., Basic Writings just war, but it seeks to under- of Saint Augustine (New York: Random stand the Christian element in House Publishers, 1948). the tradition as a whole and to James Turner Johnson (PhD, Princeton), was the Distinguished 17 Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a bring contemporary, specifi- Professor of Religion and Needle (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton cally Christian, conceptions of Associate of the Graduate University Press, 2012), 275. just war into conversation with Program in Political Science at 18 Decretum, Part II, Causa 23, in the disparate other streams of Rutgers – The State University Gregory reichberg, Henrik Syse, and just war tradition and with the of New Jersey, where he was on Endre Begby, eds., The Ethics of War moral traditions on politics and faculty for more than forty years. (Malden, Massachusetts; Oxford; and war developed in other cultures. His research and teaching have Carlton,Victoria, Australia: Blackwell focused principally on the histor- Publishing, 2006), 104-23. This work seeks commonality ical development and application 19 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature not only in the particular out- of the Western and Islamic moral and Destiny of Man, vol. II (New York: comes of these various streams tradition related to war, peace, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1943), 283.

56 ESSAY WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE LEFT-RIGHT DIVIDE ON FOREIGN TRADE?

Timothy Taylor

hey agreed. At least on the single issue of foreign trade, Donald Trump Tand Hilary Clinton agreed the United States must retreat from free trade agreements. In the midst of the most polarized presidential election in living memory, both major party candidates converged on the need to reconsider American-led globalization and take a more protectionist stand in foreign markets.

Perhaps the only thing more has generally existed since the surprising in the primaries and end of the Second World War.3 general election than Trump However, the partisan division and Clinton’s convergence on over foreign trade is seemingly their opposition to trade was at an end. Not only in the United that the issue was a talking States, but many in other ad- point at all. International trade, vanced democracies are increas- after all, has generally been ingly pulling back from foreign among the least important is- markets. sues in recent U.S. elections.1 Trade was once a very conten- Representing the interests of tious issue in electoral debates. labor, left-leaning parties ap- In fact, one Pennsylvania leg- proach trade liberalization with islator in 1833 quipped that reservation and oftentimes ad- the definition of man ought vocate for protectionist policies. to be changed to “an animal Building barriers to trade, the that makes tariff speeches”.2 Democratic Party, for example, It would seem then that trade protects domestic manufactur- policy has once again become ing and accumulates support a relevant issue in American amongst trade union allies. politics. The reemergence of trade, however, is noteworthy Right-leaning parties tend to in the simultaneous dissolution advocate for the expansion of of the left-right partisan split on a free trade order. Allying with the issue. business leaders and owners of capital, Republican politicians Throughout the developed regularly vote vigorously in fa- world, the United States includ- vor of free trade agreements. It ed, political parties tend to di- is from the right, however, that verge on trade policy. Indeed, a we see a sudden shift in trade left-right divide on trade policy preferences. While right-leaning

57 parties still represent the in- While candidates may have oc- national referendum where vot- terests of capital owners in the casionally trumpeted one trade ers narrowly approved CAFTA domestic economy, national- agreement or vilified a country by a margin of 51-48. On the ism has led toward a rejection for devaluing its currency to other hand, the U.S. Senate of the old regime in favor of gain an unfair trade advantage, debated the agreement for protection.4 presidential candidates have sel- less than four hours, and most dom focused upon foreign trade American voters were unaware in their national campaign strat- the trade agreement even exist- THE POLITICIZATION OF egies. Despite some agreements ed.6 Foreign legislatures have TRADE POLICY such as NAFTA garnering public even devolved to violence over The attack on trade from the interest, American voters are trade agreements. Such was right is not only new, but rep- typically apathetic and ignorant the case in South Korea when resents a shift from the general with respect to foreign trade.5 a politician released a canister apathy with which politicians of tear gas in a vain effort to and voters have regarded trade In the past decade, political disrupt the vote to ratify the policy during national elections. discussions of trade policy were Korea-United States (KORUS) For the greater part of the last all but unknown to American trade agreement.7 century, foreign trade has rare- voters while foreign citizens ly been controversial in United responded with vehement po- The 2016 election marked a States presidential elections. larization to trade agreements notable departure from recent The 2016 presidential election, signed with the United States. public opinion apathy over however, stands in stark con- Consider, for example, the pas- American trade policy. The trast in the attention given to sage of the Central American prominence of foreign trade international trade agreements. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). was on display beginning with Costa Rican voters, on the one the primary campaigns. Bernie Before 2016, trade rhetoric was hand, demanded that the agree- Sanders rallied voters to trade unusual in American elections. ment only be ratified through a protection through calls to

Liberal Party poster displays differences between an economy based on free trade and one based on protectionism. The free trade shop is full to the brim with customers due to its low prices while the shop based upon protectionism suffers from high prices. Circa 1905 – 1910. By unknown artist, printed by Nathaniel Lloyd and Company, and published by the Liberal Publication Department in London. Source: Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science, via Flickr.

58 Lithograph depicting a free trade shop selling imported goods, with an unemployed British workman discussing how he cannot afford the cheaper goods if he does not have money. Circa 1905 – 1910. By unknown artist, printed by Percival Jones Ltd, and published by Imperial Tariff Committee in Birmingham. Source: Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science, via Flickr.

“dump TPP” (Trans-Pacific Since coming to office, President suggests that voter preferences Partnership),8 and Trump vig- Trump has confirmed his com- have largely converged toward orously criticized US trading re- mitment to protectionism. protectionism. In a political lationships,9 including when he One of his first executive or- landscape increasingly char- called the TPP a “horrible deal” ders was to withdraw the U.S. acterized by polarization and in one GOP debate.10 Through from the TPP trade agreement.15 partisan bubbles, it is all the boycotting Oreo cookies, Trump Additionally, the president has more marvelous that an elec- further politicized American called for the renegotiation of torate would agree on anything, trade deals as firms outsourced NAFTA and has pledged to pay let alone foreign trade policy.18 operations to foreign markets.11 for a Mexican wall using reve- However, this change in voter nue from a proposed border-ad- trade attitudes seemingly con- This protectionist politiciza- justed corporate tax scheme.16 flicts with prevailing economic tion continued into the general Surprisingly, even Canada expectations. election campaigns as Trump has been criticized for bene- used historic trade agreements fiting from a “one-sided deal to put Clinton on the defen- against the United States” when OLD PARTIES & OLD sive. Despite Clinton’s voting re- President Trump remarked that DIVISIONS cord against trade agreements, what Canada has “done to our For decades Democrats in Trump used her marriage with dairy farm workers is a dis- Congress have generally blocked Bill Clinton to associate her grace”.17 Such protectionist rhet- new trade agreements while with the passage of NAFTA.12 oric is even more uncanny given Republicans have supported Clinton continued to affirm her it is fueled by a Republican, the such legislation. Meanwhile, opposition to unfair trade deals party that has tended to cham- presidents from both parties across the debates.13 Meanwhile, pion trade liberalization. have consistently supported free Trump maintained his protec- trade since the end of WWII. tionist positions through calling What can Trump and Clinton Because presidents must appeal NAFTA “the worst trade deal teach us about Americans’ trade to voters across all districts, they maybe ever signed anywhere”.14 attitudes? The 2016 election tend to pursue general welfare

59 and consumer interests over it is inward looking. Voters are varied industry interests.19 Some increasingly divided, therefore, industries like those in Silicon along a new cleavage of open Valley are clear beneficiaries vs. closed. Elections across the from globalization while others world have seen this new form are vulnerable to increased for- of nationalism run rampant eign competition. in right-leaning parties. Like other foreign policies such as The recent congressional immigration, trade is now re- fight over the Trans-Pacific garded more through the lens Partnership exemplifies the of national populism and less old partisan divisions on trade on its welfare effects upon the policy. Despite being promot- economy. ed by President Obama, most Republicans supported the National populism and trade agreement. Even while holding protection went hand-in-hand their nose at joining hands with in European elections as British the president, constituent inter- and French voters flexed their ests once again led right-lean- collective and reactionary ing politicians to vote for trade strength against their coun- expansions. Ironically, it was tries seemingly immutable in- the Democratic Party that crit- tegration into global markets. ically resisted the administra- Brexit took the world unawares tion and vocally opposed TPP as British voters cast aside their ratification. nation’s role in the European project. Without precedent, the Communist and National Front OLD PARTIES & NEW candidates, both outspoken in ALLIANCES their condemnation of global- ism, combined for 41 percent Because both Hilary Clinton of the French vote share in the and Donald Trump politicized first round of the presidential the dangers of foreign trade, election.24 voters are reacting uniquely to trade policy vis-à-vis other Even before Donald Trump’s economic policy areas. Clinton’s tell because trade had not been 22 victory, some political scientists protectionist rhetoric is easily a salient electoral issue. argued that out-group fear and predicted by classic trade divi- nationalism may drive pref- sions; after all, the Democratic Does economic self-interest no erences for trade protection.25 Party has long championed the longer determine voter trade Donald Trump may simply causes of labor.20 Trump’s fer- preferences? In short, not neces- have vilified trade agreements vent demands to increase trade sarily. Donald Trump may have to evoke nationalism and out- protection, however, is peculiar spurned the Republican Party’s group anxiety. Attitudes on given the Republican Party, traditional stance on trade, but trade, like those on immigra- like other right-leaning parties, his tax proposals did not stray 23 tion, may be more determined tends to represent the interests from typical Republican fare. by perceptions of cultural con- of capital.21 While this may seem perplexing to some, it serves as further evi- sequences than by material well-being.26 If citizens from the left and right dence that Trump strategically vary in how they benefit from pivoted on trade to electorally As elections around the world free trade, then the protectionist gain from the new determi- experience a rise of nationalism, rhetoric adopted by Trump and nant of trade attitudes: national we may no longer see a left-right Clinton seemingly indicates that populism. divide on trade. Left-leaning some voters are rallying in spite parties that have historically of their self-interest. Perhaps Unlike the nationalism that opposed trade in the interest citizens were never too mind- wrought conflict throughout th of labor may unite with rightist ful of their self-interest when it the 20 century, national pop- parties on this one issue. Even came to trade, but we could not ulism is not adventurous, but

60 parties with a track record of Trump over China and the TPP during the GOP debate.” The Week, November trade liberalization may abrupt- 10, 2015. ly shift and adopt protectionist 11 Farley, Robert. “About Trump’s rhetoric so as to benefit from the Oreo Boycott.” Fact Check, November tide of national populism. 19, 2015. 12 Montanaro, Domenico. “A Timeline Donald Trump has taught us of Hilary Clinton’s Evolution on Trade.” that, at least for the time being, NPR, April 21, 2015. American trade attitudes are 13 Wolf, Jim. “Hilary Clinton Slams Proposed U.S.-Korea Trade Pact.” driven less by material self-in- Reuters, June 9, 2007. terest and more by national 14 “Presidential Debate: Trump, populism and global anxiety. Clinton clash at fiery first debate on With the post-election realign- trade, tax returns, temperament.” Fox ment of politics in Europe and News, September 26, 2016. the United States, parties are 15 Mui, Ylan Q. “President Trumps Signs Order to Withdraw from entrenching themselves for up- Trans-Pacific Partnership.” Washington coming electoral battles. In the Post, January 23, 2016. midst of this stark polarization, 16 Weinstein, Austin, Justin parties on the left and right may Sink, and Joshua Green. “Trumps Warms to House Republicans’ Proposed find all too much agreement in Border-Adjusted Tax.” Bloomberg, their willingness to construct January 26, 2016. new walls to global trade. 17 Robertson, Lori. “The U.S.-Canada Dairy Dispute.” FactCheck.org, April If the United States is to return 28, 2017. to its position of promoter and 18 Darcy, Oliver. “Obama: America’s guarantor of free trade, a po- Retreat into Partisan ‘Bubbles’ Represents ‘Threat to Our Democracy’.” litical champion of global in- Business Insider, January 10, 2017. tegration must emerge. Future 19 Lohmann, Susanne and Sharyn electoral battles, however, may O’Halloran. 1994. “Divided Government not necessarily be fought along and U.S. Trade Policy: Theory and Evidence.” International Organization, the traditional left-right divide. 48 (4): 595-632. Instead, a new open vs. closed 20 Schlozman, Daniel. “The Alliance of electoral cleavage in national U.S. Labor Unions and the Democratic politics may develop, where Party.” Scholars Strategic Network, October 2013. integrationists compete against Judkins. 2014. “Partisanship, Trade protectionists in casting their Policy, and Globalization: Is There a 21 Dutt, Pushan and Devashish Left–Right Divide on Trade Policy?” Mitra. 2005. “Political Ideology and visions for American growth International Studies Quarterly, 48 Endogenous Trade Policy: An Empirical and strength. (1): 95-119. Investigation.” Review of Economics and Statistics, 87 (1): 59-72. 4 In terms of domestic economic Timothy W. Taylor is policies such as taxes and government 22 Taylor, Timothy W. 2015. “The Assistant Professor of Politics spending, it was business as usual for Electoral Salience of Trade Policy: the Republican primary candidates. The Experimental Evidence on the Effects of and International Relations at same candidates, however, noticeably Welfare and Complexity.” International Wheaton College. took a more protectionist stand on Interactions, 41 (1): 84-109. foreign economic policies. (Endnotes) 23 Hedrick, Brian. “Trump’s Tax Plan 5 Guisinger (2009) Is More of the Same from Republicans.” 1 For empirical evidence for the low The Hill, October 3, 2010. electoral importance of trade in the U.S. 6 Jimenez, Marianela. “Costa Rica see, for example, Guisinger, Alexandra. to Join Free Trade Agreement.” 24 National Front candidate Marine Le 2009. “Determining Trade Policy: Do Washington Post, October 8, 2007. Pen won 21.6 percent, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left candidate, won Voters Hold Politicians Accountable?” 7 “South Korean Lawmakers Tear Gas 19.5 percent. International Organization, 63 (3): Rivals.” New York Post, November 22, 533-557; Taylor, Timothy W. 2015. 2011. 25 Mansfield, Edward D. and Diana C. “The Electoral Salience of Trade Policy: Mutz. 2009. “Support for Free Trade: 8 Corasaniti, Nick. “Bernie Sanders Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Self-Interest, Sociotropic Politics, and Hones Anti-Trade Message for Illinois Welfare and Complexity.” International Out-Group Anxiety.” International and Ohio.” New York Times, March 11, Interactions 41(1): 84-109. Organization, 63 (3): 425-457. 2016. 2 Shepard, William B., Representative. 26 Margalit, Yotam. 2012. “Lost in 9 Krugman, Paul. “Trade and 1833. Speech. Register of Debates in Globalization: International Economic Tribulation.” New York Times, March Congress. Vol. 9. Part 2. Washington, Integration and the Sources of Popular 11, 2016. DC: Gales and Seaton, 1434-1478. Discontent.” International Studies 3 Milner, Helen V. and Benjamin 10 “Rand Paul embarrassed Donald Quarterly, 56 (3): 484-500.

61 ESSAY INSURANCE AGAINST MISTAKES, MISCALCULATION, & MADMEN ALAN DOWD hree decades ago, there were nine countries that fielded ballistic Tmissiles. Today, there are 31. Not coincidentally, the world has seen an increase of more than 1,200 ballistic missiles since 2010.1

Several of these missile-wielding a full-fledged ICBM, leading missile that brings Guam and countries are unfriendly (Iran some missile experts to con- the westernmost parts of the and North Korea) or unstable clude Pyongyang’s missilery Alaska island chain in range, (Pakistan and Egypt) or under could reach Los Angeles or along with “space launch vehi- internal threat (Saudi Arabia) even Chicago. The Defense cles,” which are poorly disguised or all of the above (Syria). Some Intelligence Agency (DIA) as- ICBMs.7 Equally worrisome, missile threats aren’t even coun- sesses North Korea could have North Korea has tested subma- tries: Hezbollah has a massive a “reliable, nuclear-capable rine-launched missiles, making arsenal of rockets and missiles, ICBM”3 program in 2018. the missile’s range irrelevant. and an Australian man was nabbed for assisting ISIS with In March 2017, North Korea North Korea is intent on mating advanced missile technology.2 test-launched four medi- its nuclear capability with long- um-range ballistic missiles on range missilery. “We have long Because of the nature of their re- a single day. According to weap- assessed that the North Koreans gimes—adjectives like paranoid ons experts, the regime’s earlier have the capability to fit a nu- and terrorist come to mind— September 2016 nuclear-weap- clear weapon in a warhead on North Korea and Iran are per- ons test indicated “progress a missile,” then-Director of haps the most worrisome of the towards developing a miniatur- National Intelligence James world’s missile threats. To be ized nuclear warhead.”4 Back Clapper reported in 2016.8 sure, other regimes have larger, in 2015, we learned that North DIA reported in July 2017 that more lethal arsenals (China and Korea had produced enough Pyongyang may have mastered Russia), but those other regimes nuclear material for 20 nuclear the ability to miniaturize a nu- are rational and relatively sta- warheads. But by mid-2017, clear warhead. Pentagon offi- ble, which means the old rules U.S. intelligence agencies con- cials assess North Korea’s nu- of deterrence apply. That may cluded that Pyongyang has pro- clear-capable KN-08 ICBM to be not be the case with Iran and duced as many as 60 nuclear operational.9 That brings all of North Korea, which is why the warheads. All of this raises the Alaska, Hawaii, and the western advancement and deployment specter of nuclear blackmail, part of the continental U.S. in of missile defenses must become widespread nuclear prolifera- range.10 This is a regime, it pays a centerpiece of American for- tion, EMP attack, and of course to recall, that warned in 2013 it eign policy and national security nuclear war.5 was prepared to launch “a pre- strategy. emptive nuclear attack” against Since 2006, Pyongyang has con- the U.S. and South Korea. ducted five nuclear tests and THREATENING SKIES multiple short-range and me- “They’re approaching their mis- In mid-2017, North Korea dium-range missile tests.6 It has sile development in a very prag- test-fired what appears to be tested an intermediate-range matic way,” satellite-imagery

62 analyst Joseph Bermudez told the Washington Post. “They are testing, and they are testing often,” he explains. “This is the way you really learn how to develop a ballistic missile, and that’s what worries me.”11 Indeed, under Kim Jong Un, North Korea has detonated more nuclear devices and test- launched more missilery in six years than it did under his father’s 14-year regime.12

In January 2017, Iran tested a medium-range ballistic missile. In 2015 and again in 2016, the Islamic Republic tested missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons—in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Iran appears to be focusing on precision-guided missiles with a range of 1,250 miles—within striking distance of U.S. allies and bases from Southwest Asia to Southeast Europe. In addition, Iran is modifying missiles to extend its missile reach up to 1,860 miles, bringing much of Western Europe within range.13 Plus, Iran has demonstrated the capacity to loft a rocket into orbit, highlighting technologies that are applicable to ICBMs. In July 2017, Iran launched a rocket capable of delivering sat- ellites into orbit, prompting the United States, Britain, France, and Germany to issue a joint report declaring that such rockets “are closely related to those of ballistic missiles, in particular to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile… This launch therefore represents a threatening and provocative step by Iran.”14

Iran’s missile reach is not limited to land-based assets. In 2004, senior Pentagon officials confirmed that Iran secretly The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), the Japan Ministry of Defense (MoD), test-fired a ballistic missile and U.S. Navy sailors aboard USS John Paul Jones successfully conduct a flight test on February 3, 2017, resulting in the first intercept of a ballistic missile tar- from a cargo ship: “They had get using the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA off the west coast of Hawaii. taken a short-range, proba- Source: Missile Defense Agency photo by Leah Garton. bly Scud missile, put it on a

63 The Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) and the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) successfully complete a series of tests of the David’s Sling Weapon System on De- cember 21, 2015. This test series was the final milestone before declaring delivery of an operational system to the Israeli Air Force in 2016. Source: Missile Defense Agency photo by Leah Garton. transporter-erector launcher, was discovered in the moun- In testing, this system of sys- lowered it in, taken the vessel tains near Qom. In 2010, the tems has scored successes on out into the water, peeled back International Atomic Energy 76 of 93 hit-to-kill intercept at- the top, erected it, fired it, low- Agency (IAEA) revealed evi- tempts since 2001 (an 81.7-per- ered it, covered it up.”15 Again, dence of Iranian military at- cent success rate). The Aegis having the ability to move the tempts to develop a nuclear sea-based system has achieved launch pad makes a missile’s warhead. In 2011, the IAEA con- 35 successful intercepts in 42 range irrelevant. (Related, what cluded that Iran “carried out ac- attempts (an 83.3-percent suc- if the next cargo ship to fire off tivities relevant to the develop- cess rate). The ground-based a missile is owned by a stateless ment of a nuclear device.” When interceptor (which targets in- terrorist rather than a govern- it was suspected in 2013 that bound threats near their highest ment? Deterrence, which crit- Iran conducted tests for nucle- point) has hit 10 of 18 intercept ics of missile defense claim is ar-bomb triggers in Parchin, the attempts. The Terminal High the best answer to the missile issue was not just papered over, Altitude Area Defense system threat, only works if the enemy but quite literally paved over. (THAAD, which targets threats a) fears retaliation and/or b) has In 2014, U.S. agencies accused near the end of their flight tra- a return address.) Iran of illegally acquiring com- jectories) has scored a perfect ponents to aid in the production 13 out of 13 in testing.17 The The Iranian regime normaliz- of weapons-grade plutonium.16 implications of these aggregate es terrorism into a basic gov- tests are that the United States’ ernment function, threatens to Given their records and missile interception systems wipe neighboring countries off plans, the odds are high that are advanced and increasing in the face of the earth, and is a Pyongyang and Tehran will have accuracy every day. serial violator of international added to this list of missile tests, nuclear agreements. The list provocations, and worries by the While it would be unwise to is staggeringly long: Following time you read this. deploy a Potemkin missile de- Pyongyang’s road map to the fense, it would be irresponsible nuclear club, Iran was devel- to delay deployment until the oping its nuclear capabilities A NEW COALITION system can guarantee 100-per- surreptitiously until 2002, when If proliferation gives us reason cent success—a standard so high dissident groups exposed Iran’s to worry, two other realities of- that “failure” is inevitable. As outlaw nuclear-weapons ac- fer reason for hope. The first is the missile threat metastasizes, tivities in Natanz and Arak. In the record of missile defense in we must not allow perfection to 2009, a secret nuclear facility testing and in battle. be the enemy of the possible.

64 Weapons systems are often fielded today by the U.S. trace will extend “coverage to all deployed before they are per- their roots from Army concepts Allied territory and popula- fected or fully tested. Consider during World War II, through tions.”22 The U.S., Poland, and the JSTARS planes and bun- early anti-ballistic missile the Czech Republic—NATO al- ker-penetrating bombs rushed (ABM) systems like the Nike lies all—agreed that year to the to the Gulf before Operation Zeus and Sentinel, to President deployment of a bed of perma- Desert Storm, the much-ma- Ronald Reagan’s Strategic nent ground-based interceptor ligned stealth technology that Defense Initiative (SDI), the missiles in Poland and support- has proved its worth repeat- internationalization of missile ing radar elements in Czech ter- edly in the post-Cold War era, defense arguably didn’t take off ritory.23 In 2010, NATO leaders or the unmanned aerial vehi- until the early 2000s. declared missile defense “a core cles that were retrofitted with element of our collective de- weapons and transformed into After President George W. fense” and pledged to “develop unmanned combat aerial vehi- Bush notified Russia that the the capability to defend our pop- cles after 9/11. U.S. planned to withdraw from ulations and territories against the ABM Treaty—a Cold War ballistic missile attack.”24 Of course, the true value of missile defense is gauged by how it performs in battle. In 2003, in the early stages of the Iraq War, U.S. missile-defense assets intercepted nine inbound Iraqi missiles, shielding the coalition’s headquarters in Kuwait from a decapitation strike.18 In 2014, during the most recent war with Hamas, Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system— relying on the same principles as longer-range missile defense— intercepted 735 inbound threats and registered a kill rate of near- A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched from 19 the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, on July 30, 2017. During ly 90 percent. In 2016, Saudi the test, the THAAD weapon system successfully intercepted an air-launched, Patriot missile-defense batteries medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) target. Source: Missile Defense Agency knocked down missiles fired by photo by Leah Garton. Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. anachronism that prevented Toward that end, U.S. sailors Also last year, Aegis missile de- the broad deployment of missile recently took their posts in fenses detected and destroyed defenses and, in effect, codi- Romania to man a so-called an inbound cruise missile fired at the USS Mason operating of fied the madness of mutually “Aegis Ashore” facility—a mod- the coast of Yemen.20 In 2017, assured destruction—he began ified land-based variant of the Israel’s Arrow anti-ballistic building a global shield to of- ship-based Aegis anti-mis- 25 missile system tallied its first fer some semblance of protec- sile system. Another Aegis real-world intercept, hitting an tion against rogue or acciden- Ashore facility will be activated inbound threat from Syria.21 tal missile launches. Britain in Poland in 2018. A flotilla agreed in 2003 to upgrades of of four Aegis missile-defense The second reason for hope is ground-based radar stations warships is now based in Rota, the growing international accep- at RAF Fylingdales. Denmark Spain.26 Germany hosts a mis- tance—and consequent expand- approved similar upgrades to sile-defense operations center. ing international network—of satellite-tracking stations in Turkey hosts a powerful U.S. missile defenses. The opera- Greenland. missile-defense radar system tive word here is “internation- known as the AN/TPY-2. al.” Twenty countries, plus the By 2008, NATO had en- NATO alliance, are part of what dorsed U.S. plans to deploy mis- With a wary eye on North Korea, might be called an international sile defenses in Eastern Europe, Japan is deeply involved in test- missile defense (IMD) coalition. calling for a “NATO-wide mis- ing, producing, and deploying Although the missile defenses sile defense architecture” that of missile-defense assets. For

65 instance, the U.S. and Japan to purchase a THAAD bat- only means of trying to protect co-developed the SM-3 Block 2A tery. Qatar and Saudi Arabia people of goodwill from the interceptor missile. Japan also announced plans in 2015 to mushrooming missile threat. hosts two powerful AN/TPY-2 purchase THAAD systems.30 Diplomacy and treaty enforce- missile-defense radars, which Saudi Arabia, which already ment, nonproliferation regimes, are networked with other U.S. deploys a number of PAC-3 bat- military deterrence, “left of missile-defense assets, includ- teries, is considering purchasing launch” strategies, hardening ing ground-based missile inter- Aegis missile defense systems. of vulnerabilities, counter-pro- ceptors in Alaska and California. Kuwait deploys a number of liferation capabilities, and cy- And Japan deploys its own fleet PAC-3 batteries. ber-weapons and other non-ki- of six Aegis warships (eight by netic tools all must be brought 2020). This global acceptance of mis- to bear as well. sile defense—enfolding dozens South Korea fields Patriot bat- of nations—is nothing short of However, since treaties are only teries and Aegis warships. In remarkable. After all, not long as good as the character of the 2016, South Korea joined the ago, missile defense was consid- governments that sign them, U.S. and Japan for the trio’s ered too internationally desta- since irrational regimes may first joint missile-defense ex- bilizing, too politically divisive, very well be immune from de- ercise off the coast of Hawaii. and too financially expensive. terrence, since counterprolif- And after years of deliberation, But today, Reagan’s vision of eration via preemptive military Seoul allowed the U.S. to deploy a missile shield—once derided action is a high-risk proposition a THAAD system in South Korea as “Star Wars”—is shared by (as the Bush 43 administra- in 2017.27 leaders on four continents. In tion learned in Iraq), and since short, missile defense has gone counterproliferation via third Australia’s IMD contribution mainstream. parties leaves much to chance includes early-warning radar and mischief (as the Obama ad- as well as plans to acquire two ministration learned in Syria), Aegis-equipped warships. The COSTS robust and ready missile defens- Congressional Research Service The reason for this transforma- es must be part of the answer to reports, “Allied countries that tion: The technology is catch- the missile threat. now operate, are building or ing up to Reagan’s vision, and are planning to build Aegis- the world’s most terrifying re- Like an insurance policy for equipped ships include Japan, gimes—regimes that boast about home or health, nations need South Korea, Australia, Spain erasing their neighbors, regimes to invest in missile defense in and Norway.”28 that want to upend the liberal order to prepare for—and sur- international order, regimes vive—the worst. In a sense, this In the Middle East, Israel hosts that believe there is no God to is a way nation-states can apply AN/TPY-2 radar systems and, hold them to account, regimes the lessons of the parable about with U.S. financial and techno- that believe they are acting on the wise and foolish builders. logical assistance, fields concen- God’s behalf—are catching up in The given of the parable is that tric rings of missile defenses: the race for long-range missilery in this broken world, disaster the long-range Arrow, the me- and nuclear weaponry. Thus, tends to affect us all. But when dium-range David’s Sling and missile defenses are no longer a disaster strikes, only the house Patriot Advanced Capability-3 theoretical possibility or a costly constructed by the wise build- (PAC-3), and the short-range luxury or a bargaining chip at er, “who dug down deep and Iron Dome. the summit table. They are a laid the foundation on rock,” moral imperative. Given today’s survives the storm.31 The wise The United States and the Gulf and tomorrow’s missile threats, builder invests more time and Cooperation Council—a defense failing to fully fund and broadly more money into constructing alliance enfolding Saudi Arabia, deploy a shield against the likes his home than does the foolish, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, of Iran and North Korea—and a shortsighted builder—and that and Oman—agreed in 2015 to hedge against human error and makes all the difference. “a region-wide ballistic mis- cyber-mischief—is shortsighted sile defense capability,” with and reckless. Without question, defending Washington promising techni- against missile attack costs cal assistance.29 The UAE was To be sure, missile defenses money. Critics always latch on the first foreign government should not and cannot be the to the system’s costs as reason

66 $4.8 billion during the Clinton administration (a 71-percent increase), and it jumped from $4.8 billion to as high as $9.4 billion during the Bush 43 administration (a 95-percent increase).

The Obama-era cuts had real consequences. The Navy deploys 33 ships equipped with Aegis missile defenses but needs 77 to meet combatant commanders’ requests.35 The MDA has nowhere near the resources An Aegis Ashore Weapon System facility in Kauai, Hawaii, 2014. Source: Missile to meet that. Obama capped Defense Agency. photo by Chris Szkrybalo. the number of ground-based to downgrade or kill missile shield is important, its value interceptors at 30 instead of the defense. However, protecting as a dissuasive force or deter- planned 44, which left his ad- the U.S. from accidental missile rent is proving far greater.”33 ministration scrambling when launches and missile-armed North Korea’s unpredictable madmen is not the cause of “We want potential adver- new leader started rattling nu- our fiscal woes. The U.S. has saries to know that not only clear sabers in 2013.36 Those 14 invested a total of $189.7 bil- is there a price for attack- interceptors would have been lion on missile-defense devel- ing us or our friends,” Adm. operational if Obama had sim- opment at the Missile Defense James Winnefeld, former ply followed the bipartisan plans Agency (MDA) since FY1985. Vice Chairman of the Joint put in place before his presi- Spread over 33 years, missile Chiefs of Staff, explains, dency. Instead, the interceptors defense has cost $5.7 billion “but the attack may not suc- won’t be activated before the annually. In comparison to the ceed in the first place, result- end of 2017. Pentagon’s budget, or the size ing in pain, but no gain.”34 of big-ticket social programs, It was President Bill Clinton or the overall federal budget, In other words, missile defense who signed legislation paving the amount invested in missile could change an adversary’s the way for deployment of a mis- defense is a rounding error: calculus. If the odds of a missile sile-defense system, reflecting Between FY1985 and FY2016, getting through are reduced the emergence of a new national annual Social Security outlays by missile defenses, even an consensus on the issue. Thanks grew from $188.6 billion to erratic adversary may resist to that consensus, Bush 43 was $910 billion, annual Medicare the temptation to take a shot able to begin deploying a layered outlays from $65.8 billion to at the United States and its al- system of missile defenses. $588 billion, the federal bud- lies. There’s enormous value in get from $946.3 billion to $3.9 something that causes the Kim In this regard, Clinton and trillion.32 Dynasty and Iran’s theocracy to Bush 43 were following the trail second-guess and/or restrain blazed by two giants of the 20th The return on investment is dif- themselves. century. “The deterrent does ficult to quantify, but this much not cover the case of lunatics or we know: Missile defenses have Given the mounting threats, dictators in the mood of Hitler successfully protected troops it’s distressing that annual in- when he found himself in his fi- in battle (see above) and influ- vestments on missile defense nal dugout,” Winston Churchill enced our adversaries’ “percep- fell under President Barack observed. To foil the plans of tion of the economic and politi- Obama—from $9 billion when rabid regimes and death-wish cal cost they must incur to pur- he entered office to as low as dictators, Churchill called for sue ballistic missile technolo- $7.6 billion in FY2013, before a “defensive shield.” He wasn’t gies,” as Gen. James Cartwright rebounding a bit, to $8.3 billion talking specifically about missile observed during his stint lead- in FY2016. By way of compar- defense, but there can be no ing Strategic Command. “While ison, missile-defense spending doubt that he would have been missile defense as a defensive climbed from $2.8 billion to an ardent supporter of it. After

67 all, he ordered the RAF to inter- scores of foreign policy and na- cept incoming rockets, and he tional security practitioners, as saw the devastation caused by well as many of us who write those rockets that got through. about these issues.39 One area where he has left little room for Likewise, Reagan advocated for concern is missile defense. a shield against missile threats. “What if free people could live Noting that “our ballistic mis- secure in the knowledge that sile defense capability has been their security did not rest upon degraded at the very moment the threat of instant U.S. retal- the U.S. and its allies are fac- iation to deter a Soviet attack, ing a heightened missile threat that we could intercept and de- from states like Iran and North stroy strategic ballistic missiles Korea,” Trump has vowed “to before they reached our own soil develop a state-of-the-art mis- or that of our allies?” he asked. sile defense system” and “re- “This could pave the way for build the key tools of missile arms control measures to elim- defense.”40 inate the weapons themselves.” Trump’s commitments to end Note the sequence: Reagan sequestration and increase the would not lower America’s nu- defense budget suggest he will clear sword until the shield was follow through on this prom- The U.S. Missile Defense Agency suc- ise. However, a caveat is in or- up. He knew robust missile de- cessfully intercepts an intercontinental fenses had to be in place before ballistic missile (ICBM) target during der. Although Trump promised nuclear disarmament. With his a test of the Ground-based Midcourse “historic” increases in defense Defense (GMD) system on May 30, 2017. spending, his budget proposal simultaneous cuts to America’s Here, a ground-based interceptor is nuclear deterrent and missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force only nudges defense spending defenses, Obama tried to do the Base, California. Source: Missile De- from 3.1 percent of GDP to 3.2 fense Agency photo by Senior Airman 41 very opposite. Ian Dudley. percent of GDP. To be sure, that translates into more re- Unlike his predecessors, Obama Minister of Russia, declared, sources for the Pentagon. But seemed to view missile defense “The Americans have simply it’s hardly a historic increase. not as an investment or an in- corrected their own mistake. (One budget specialist says it’s surance policy, but as a bargain- And we are not duty-bound to only the eighth-biggest increase 42 ing chip. To mollify Moscow, pay someone for putting their since 1977.) Moreover, while Obama unilaterally scrapped the administration’s proposal own mistakes right.”37 Worse, the Bush administration’s mis- for the MDA budget was “more Obama’s approach fractured sile-defense plans for Europe— than the budget submitted by relations within NATO.38 plans endorsed by NATO. the Obama administration in The Czech Republic rejected Instead of planting permanent FY2017…the requested amount Obama’s scaled-back plans as ground-based interceptors is $334 million less than was “a consolation prize.” A Polish (GBI) in Poland and IMD radars appropriated by Congress last defense official called Obama’s in the Czech Republic, Obama year.”43 retreat “catastrophic.” opted for missile-defense warships in the Mediterranean and If Trump ultimately invests big In short, the technical success- the impermanent Aegis Ashore in missile defense, he will face es and global advances of mis- system. An important benefit resistance from Moscow and of the GBI missile is that it has sile defense occurred in spite Beijing, just as Reagan faced a much longer range than the of—rather than because of— when he unveiled SDI. While missile deployed with the Aegis Obama’s policies. critics at home dismissed it as Ashore system. technologically infeasible, the Soviets opposed SDI for pre- Obama’s missile-defense re- CONSEQUENCES cisely the opposite reason: They versal gained nothing from President Donald Trump’s zig- knew it could work, and they Moscow. Instead, Dmitry zagging views on national secu- knew that a Soviet equivalent Rogozin, Deputy Prime rity have drawn concern from was something their bankrupt

68 empire could not produce. games feature simulated nuclear innocents, to promote stability, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev strikes against Poland. to deter those who can be de- made this clear during the 1986 terred, and to neutralize those summit in Reykjavik, where To cut through Moscow’s blus- who cannot. he put everything on the ne- ter, just ask yourself: Is it the gotiating table in exchange cop wearing a bullet-proof vest As Providence editors and oth- for just one concession: SDI. who is provocative and aggres- er signatories argued in the Fast-forward three decades, sive—or the gunman loading his thoughtful statement52 on faith and Beijing is pressuring the weapon? And to extend the met- and foreign policy, “Christians U.S. and South Korea to re- aphor, if Russia has no inten- have erred by holding the state verse their THAAD decision. tion of unloading on Europe or to the same standard as the “We firmly oppose the de- North America, why is it both- church or the individual, result- ployment of THAAD,” China’s ered by the bullet-proof vest? ing in pacifism.” Governments Foreign Ministry declared after are expected to do certain things the system arrived at Osan Air The Cold War-era argument individuals aren’t expected to Base, warning that “[a]ll conse- that missile defenses—by ren- do—and arguably shouldn’t quences entailed from this will dering offensive missiles use- do certain things individuals be borne by the U.S. and the less—could have the effect of should do. A government that Republic of Korea.”44 allowing those protected by turned the other cheek when the missile shield to wage war attacked would be conquered, Moscow lists “the creation and with impunity doesn’t apply to- exposing its people to harm. A deployment of strategic missile day. The limited IMD elements government that puts away the defense systems” among “the in Europe could never defend sword—and the shield—would main external military dangers” against Russia’s massive arse- invite aggression, thus leaving facing Russia.45 That’s a far cry nal—due to both the placement innocents defenseless. from how Moscow responded of the system and the number of when Washington notified the Russian missiles. “Russia’s large Given that missile defense, by Russian government of U.S. strategic offensive force could definition, is a tool of self-de- intentions to build a defense overwhelm the U.S. system’s fense, it should not raise the against rogue missile threats. limited number of deployed moral quandaries that other At the time, Vladimir Putin said interceptors,” an MDA report weapons systems raise for some Washington’s decision “does explains, noting that a) “there people of faith. After all, this is not pose a threat to the na- would not be sufficient time to not a weapon of destruction; it is tional security of the Russian detect, track and intercept” the not used against people; it is not Federation.”46 thousands of warheads Russia even used against places people is capable of launching, and b) live. Rather, it is designed to Yet by 2008, Russian for- the system’s elements in Europe protect people and where they eign minister Sergey Lavrov are designed to protect “NATO live—their homes and places of described the basing of mis- allies at risk from long-range worship and schools and busi- sile-defense assets in Poland ballistic missile attack from the nesses—from weapons designed as “a threat to Russia’s secu- Middle East.”51 Putin knows to kill and destroy. rity.”47 After the Aegis Ashore this, but old habits—and de- site in Romania came online, cades of distrust—die hard. the Kremlin said the “sys- CHANCES tem poses a certain threat to That word “protect” is important President John Kennedy warned the Russian Federation.”48 in the missile-defense debate. that “Every man, woman and In 2016, the Russian Foreign As people of faith, Christians child lives under a nuclear Ministry called U.S. and NATO should keep in mind that gov- sword of Damocles…capable missile-defense deployments ernment exists to protect in- of being cut at any moment by “destructive actions.”49 Gen. nocents and preserve order. accident or miscalculation or Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top Missile defense contributes to by madness.” As the number of general, recently warned that both of these legitimate func- missile-wielding states grows “[n]onnuclear powers where tions of government. Because and as the nuclear club expands, missile-defense installations we live in a world teeming with the likelihood of a missile being are being installed have be- threats and bending toward unleashed against the American come the objects of priority re- disorder, governments must people or their allies—whether sponse.”50 Thus, Russian war take steps to shield and protect by mistake, miscalculation, or

69 a madman—also grows. Missile 25, 2016. Statement, May 14, 2015. defense doesn’t eliminate the 9 Jon Harper, “NORAD commander: 30 Jeremy Binnie, “IDEX 2015: Saudi, North Korean KN-08 missile Qatari THAAD contracts in the pipeline,” danger, but it does give us a operational,” Stars and Stripes, April IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly, 24 February 7, 2015. fighting chance to confront it. 2015. 10 CSIS, Missiles of North Korea, 31 Luke 6. https://missilethreat.csis.org/country/ dprk, accessed March 15, 2017. 32 Office of Management and Budget, The question critics of missile Fiscal Year 2016 Historical Tables, defense must answer is this: 11 Anna Fifield, “Did North Korea just February 2, 2015; Congressional Budget test missiles capable of hitting the U.S.? Office, The Federal Budget in 2016, If—when—an American or allied Maybe,” Washington Post, October 26, https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/ 2016. files/115th-congress-2017-2018/ city is in the path of an Iranian, 12 David Sanger and WIlliam Broad, graphic/52408-budgetoverall.pdf, 2017. North Korean, terrorist-ac- “Trump Inherits a Secret Cyberwar 33 James Cartwright, Statement before Against North Korean Missiles,” New the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of quired, or accidentally-launched York Times, March 4, 2017. the Senate Armed Services Committee, missile, would they prefer an 13 CSIS, Missiles of Iran, https:// March 28, 2007. missilethreat.csis.org/country/iran/, 80-percent chance or even a accessed March 15, 2017. 34 Tyrone C. Marshall Jr., “No Decision Yet on East Coast Missile Defense Site, 50-50 chance of intercepting the 14 Michelle Nichols, “At U.N., Winnefeld Says,” DoD News, May 19, Western powers warn Iran rocket test 2015. killer rocket, or a zero-percent a ‘threatening step’” Reuters, August 2, 2017. 35 MDA, Aegis Ballistic Missile chance—something guaranteed Defense, https://www.mda.mil/system/ by not fully funding, not test- 15 The Washington Times, “Missile aegis_status.html, accessed March Defense,” August 26, 2004. 15, 2017; Navy Times, “BMD Mission ing, and not deploying a missile 16 Colum Lynch, “U.S. Accuses Iran Demands Outstrip Fleet’s Capabilities,” shield? of Secretly Breaching U.N. Nuclear April 14, 2015. Sanctions,” Foreign Policy, December 36 Justin Fishel, “Pentagon to beef 8, 2014; Nuclear Threat Initiative, up missile defense in response to North Alan W. Dowd is a contribut- “Iran Nearly Done Paving Over Suspect Korean threat, sources say,” Fox News, Military Grounds: Analysis,” August March 14, 2013. ing editor with Providence and a 22, 2013; Shreeya Sinha and Susan Campbell Beachy, “Timeline on Iran’s 37 Philip P. Pan, “A Cautious Russia senior fellow with the Sagamore Nuclear Program,” New York Times, Praises Obama Move,” Washington Post, Institute Center for America’s April 2, 2015. September 18, 2009. 17 MDA, Ballistic Missile Defense 38 CNN, “U.S. scraps missile defense Purpose (http://www.sagamore- Intercept Flight Test Record, May 30, shield plans,” September 17, 2009; Judy institute.org/cap). 2017, https://www.mda.mil/global/ Dempsey and Dan Bilefsky, “Czechs, documents/pdf/testrecord.pdf. Disliking Role, Pull Out of U.S. Missile (Endnotes) 18 Henry Schuster, “Iraqi missile Defense Project,” New York Times, June 15, 2011. 1 Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., targeted coalition HQ during war,” CNN, Remarks at CSIS, May 19, 2015; Arms May 29, 2003; Michael Gordon, “A Poor 39 New York Times, “Letter From Control Association, “Worldwide Man’s Air Force,” New York Times, June G.O.P. National Security Officials Ballistic Missile Inventories,” July 19, 2003. Opposing Donald Trump,” August 8, 2014, https://www.armscontrol.org/ 19 Alon Ben David, “Iron Dome Blunts 2016. factsheets/missiles. 90% Of Enemy Rockets,” Aviation Week, 40 Donald Trump, Speech in 2 Adam Entous, “U.S. says unclear September 1, 2014. Philadelphia, September 7, 2016. if Hezbollah took Scuds to Lebanon,” 20 Tara Copp, “Aegis defense system Reuters, April 16, 2010; Ben Westcott, helped stop missile attack on USS 41 Office of Management and Budget, “Australian arrested for helping ISIS Mason,” Stars and Stripes, October 13, Budget of the U.S. Government Fiscal develop long-range missile technology,” 2016; Marcus Weisgerber, “US-Made Year 2018, 2017. CNN, February 28, 2017; National Air Patriot Missiles Shoot Down Houthi 42 Connor O’Brien and Greg Hellman, and Space Intelligence Center, Ballistics Rockets,” DefenseOne, August 16, 2016. and Cruise Missile Threat, 2013, “Trump’s defense budget boost falls https://fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/ 21 Barbara Opall-Rome, “Israel’s short of buildup plans,” Politico, March nuclearweapons/NASIC2013_050813. Arrow scores first operational hit — but 16, 2017. pdf; Willy Stern, “Missiles Everywhere,” against what?” DefenseNews, March 43 Tom Karako and Wes Rumbaugh, Weekly STandard, June 20, 2016; and 17, 2017. “Analyzing the PB 2018 Missile Defense Lahav Harkov, “WikiLeaks: Syria gave 22 NATO, Bucharest Summit Agency Budget,” CSIS Missile Defense Hizbullah Scud D missiles,” Jerusalem Declaration, May 8, 2014. Project, May 24, 2017. Post, December 7, 2010. 23 State Department, Ballistic Missile 44 Emily Rauhala, “China’s anger over 3 Ellen Nakashima, Anna Fifield and Defense Agreement Between the United U.S. antimissile system poses challenge Joby Warrick, “North Korea could cross States of America and the Republic of to Trump,” Washington Post, March ICBM threshold next year, U.S. officials Poland, August 20, 2008; Steven A. 7, 2017. warn,” Washington Post, July 25, 2017. Hildreth and Carl Ek, “Long-Range 4 Anna Fifield, “With each test, N. Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe,” 45 The Military Doctrine of the Russian Korea inches closer to being able to send CRS Report for Congress, July 24, 2008. Federation, 2010. a nuclear-tipped missile to the U.S.,” 24 NATO, Strategic Concept, 46 BBC News, “U.S. welcomes Putin’s Washington Post, September 9, 2016. November 19, 2010. missile pledge,” December 14, 2001. 5 Joby Warrick, Ellen Nakashima and 25 David Larter, “Sailors laying 47 Associated Press, “Lavrov: Russia Anna Fifield,”North Korea now making groundwork for missile shield in opposes missile defense in Poland,” missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. Romania,” Navy Times, June 8, 2015. September 11, 2008. analysts say,” Washington Post, August 8, 2017; Brad Lendon, “US slams North 26 Megan Eckstein, “BMD-Equipped 48 Andrew Kramer, “Russia Calls New Korea missile test as Kim claims ‘whole Destroyer USS Porter Arrives in Rota, U.S. Missile Defense System a ‘Direct US mainland’ in reach,” CNN, July 30, Spain,” USNI News, May 1, 2015. Threat,’” New York Times, May 12, 2016. 2017. 27 Kim Tong-Hyung, “U.S. Begins 49 Ibid. 6 Sam Kim, “North Korea Missile Moving Missile Defense System to South Launches, Nuclear Detonations: Korea,” AP, March 07, 2017. 50 Paul Sonne, “Russia Threatens Timeline,” Bloomberg News, NATO Over Missile Shield,” Wall Street September8, 2016. 28 Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Aegis Journal, April 16, 2015. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) 7 National Air and Space Intelligence Program: Background and Issues for 51 Missile Defense Agency, Proposed Center. Congress,” CRS Report for Congress,” U.S. Missile Defense Assets in Europe, October 25, 2016 June 15, 2007. 8 Anthony Capaccio, “U.S. to Try Again on Missile Defenses as N. Korea Threat 29 White House, Annex to U.S.-Gulf 52 The author was a signatory to the Grows,” Bloomberg News, September Cooperation Council Camp David Joint declaration.

70 DARK OPS: FILM REVIEW NEVER SURRENDER

Review by Marc LiVecche DUNKIRK (WARNER BROS. PICTURES 2017) RATED PG-13 DIRECTED & WRITTEN BY CHRISTOPHER NOLAN; PRODUCED BY EMMA THOMAS & CHRISTOPHER NOLAN STARRING: FIONN WHITEHEAD, TOM GLYNN-CARNEY, JACK LOWDEN, HARRY STYLES, ANEURIN BARNARD, JAMES D’ARCY, BARRY KEOGHAN, KENNETH BRANAGH, CILLIAN MURPHY, MARK RYLANCE, TOM HARDY

he historic event ground- across the dangerous wa- ing Christopher Nolan’s ters, bringing with them TDunkirk involved a mil- always men whom they itary crisis that was, in its be- had rescued. The num- ginning, as dark, desperate, bers they have brought and seemingly hopeless as it back are the measure of was extraordinary, full of hero- their devotion and their ism, and even miraculous in its courage. conclusion. Whether his film captures any of that sufficiently In this July 4th speech to the is an open question. House of Commons, Churchill admitted that a week earlier he On the 10th of May, 1940, blitz- feared that his next statement krieg kicked its way into the to the House would be to an- global lexicon as German par- nounce the “greatest military achutists, infantry, and ar- disaster” in his nation’s histo- mor punched through the Low ry. When the crisis at Dunkirk Countries of the Netherlands, first began, Churchill didn’t Luxemburg, and Belgium. Five better than Winston Churchill dare hope that any more than days later, they broke through to deliver the narrative? 20,000 or 30,000 troops might French defenses and swarmed successfully be re-embarked. In into the country, outpacing The Royal Navy, with the the end, almost 340,000 troops and overwhelming any effec- willing help of count- made it home. tive counter-offensive. Quickly less merchant seamen, reaching the northwest coast strained every nerve to As he alluded, the “difficult of France, the German spear- embark the British and coast” of Dunkirk was a sin- head severed the British Allied troops; 220 light gularly poor place to attempt Expeditionary Force (BEF), warships and 650 other any such evacuation. Among the French First Army, and the vessels were engaged. the primary challenges was the Belgian Army from the majority They had to operate upon absence of a deep-water port. of the French troops south of the difficult coast, often Extremely shallow, the beach the German line. Beginning to in adverse weather, un- gently shelved a good distance sweep north, the German pen- der an almost ceaseless from the waterline. Those ships etration was poised to capture hail of bombs and an capable of taking aboard large the remaining French ports and increasing concentra- numbers of evacuees, including to trap the seemingly surround- tion of artillery fire. Nor commercial ferries and naval ed British and French troops. were the seas…them- destroyers, were necessarily selves free from mines deep-drafted, requiring up- But they were not, of course, and torpedoes. It was in wards of 15 feet to float. Hence surrounded. Yes, on all land- conditions such as these the need for those 650 “oth- sides they had the Germans, but that our men carried on, er vessels”—“small boats” as to their backs they had the sea. with little or no rest, for they’d affectionately come to And out of this sea would come days and nights on end, be known—able to ferry men a miracle of deliverance. Who making trip after trip from shore to the larger ships at

71 deeper anchorage. As the film’s onscreen—but, really, especially speech. He delivers the final tag line insists, home came for in light of what seem to be cer- lines of the peroration, “We those who couldn’t get home. tain continuity problems (is that shall fight on the beaches, modern Dunkirk beneath the we shall fight on the landing Churchill’s oratorical gaze descending Spitfire in the end?) grounds, we shall fight in the spanned the domains of bat- and certain factual inaccuracies fields and in the streets, we shall tle, lifting from sea to sky. He (I can find no record of small fight in the hills; we shall never stressed the role of the Royal Air boats evacuating from Dunkirk surrender.” In classic rhetoric, Force, whose contributions over going past the Cliffs of Dorset), the peroration is the summary the course of the rescue were Nolan seems to suggest all this conclusion of a speech typically often unseen by those on the could be about any threat, any delivered at a higher emotional beach and water, leading many enemy. This has led some re- pitch. Through it, one can find to “underrate its achievements.” viewers to see the film as equally the meaning of the preceding Not so, said Churchill: the mir- about the historic evacuation text. acle at Dunkirk “was gained by as it is about Islamist terror or the air force.” In every dimen- even Brexit. I need to retract, somewhat, my sion, he insisted, Dunkirk was “a earlier suggestion that none of miracle of deliverance, achieved So I’m left to assume that Nolan the characters are developed. by valor, by perseverance, by wasn’t specifically concerned There is a modest exception. perfect discipline, by faultless about the particular Englishmen Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), service, by resource, by skill, by around whom the film is os- the owner of a small pleasure unconquerable fidelity.” tensibly centered. Rather, his boat who pilots it to Dunkirk, is concern was the types: the foot the film’s moral core. About him It is in comparison to the incan- soldier, the pilot, the civilian we know little, save that he’s descence of history’s Dunkirk sailor. Indeed, the main char- already lost a son in the RAF. that Nolan’s Dunkirk falls short. acter, if there is one, is a British He saves a shipwrecked soldier A common complaint about the soldier named Tommy, which is from the water who pleads for film points not to an oversight both a name and a generic term the boat to head immediately but to something surely inten- for, well, a British soldier. back to England. Mr. Dawson tional. Many viewers insist the will have none of it. He says film’s characters are, every one, But why? If not about Dunkirk simply, “There’s no avoiding grossly underdeveloped. There’s or particular men involved with this, son; we have a job to do.” no backstory, nothing really to the evacuation, what is Dunkirk even mark them as individuals. about? An interpretive key can Seen through Churchill’s per- In fact, at the risk of being outed be found in what appears to oration, Mr. Dawson’s admo- as some kind of Anglo-racist, be a framing device, found at nition suggests that the theme I confess that all the English the beginning and the end of of Dunkirk is, quite simply, that troops simply looked alike to the film, that offers contrast- modest, obstinate, British deter- me; I couldn’t tell them apart. ing comments on the notion of mination to carry on—a phrase “survival.” that appears more than once in In much the same way, while Churchill’s speech. In fact, just the identity of the eponymous In the opening scene, Tommy before Tommy reads Churchill’s battle being depicted is clear, is moving through the town of words, there is an exchange be- Dunkirk seems insistent that Dunkirk toward the evacuation tween another British Tommy one not focus exclusively on beach. He catches a propaganda and an old man handing out Dunkirk. In terms of adversary, leaflet dropped from an enemy blankets. I don’t think we ever hear the plane and featuring a map of word “German.” We certainly the besieged BEF position. In “All we did was survive,” the never see them—except in war- the bottom margin is a warning: Tommy complains. planes and, briefly, at the very “We surround you! Surrender end when they apprehend a [and] survive!” “Sometimes,” says the old man, downed RAF pilot—though even “that’s enough.” then they are gauzy forms out- Fast forward to the conclu- side the depth of field. We get, sion. Tommy is safely aboard In between these framing mo- instead, only the generic locu- a London-bound train and ments, Dunkirk shows us men tion “enemy.” Yes, yes, Dunkirk reads aloud an excerpt from trying to survive. At times, it is what’s obviously unfolding Churchill’s House of Commons isn’t pretty. We see cowardice,

72 deception, opportunism, panic, first to point out that wars are free nation between the profes- men abandoning other men to not won by evacuations. Among sional military and the civilian face their fate alone. But we also the takeaways for any modern population. Binding these two see heroism, self-sacrifice, and viewer is the simple fact that, spheres together is an implicit mutuality—men (and women) in war especially, defeat sucks. contract that each will care for at their best. Most times, we The British lost 30,000 men in the other. The military has our see men who will do much—but the days leading up to Dunkirk. six, we must have their backs. not everything—to live. On the They lost near-crippling re- That may mean that journals one hand, the Germans offer sources in military armaments like this exist to help provide survival at the cost of subju- and other material. Total defeat the moral intelligence necessary gation. On the other, Churchill was always a possibility. calls a nation to survival for the to help warfighters know their purpose of being able to fight The military disaster of Dunkirk duty or to navigate the morally another day: reminds us that the time to pre- bruising theatre of combat with- pare for war is not the moment out becoming morally injured. I have, myself, full confi- before you learn what blitzkrieg It may mean providing deployed dence that if all do their is. We must have the men and warfighters stable communi- duty, if nothing is ne- equipment necessary, in times ties worth their coming home glected, and if the best of deepest peace, to be ready to to—places in which they can arrangements are made, fight and win the next conflict. reintegrate, tell their stories, as they are being made, More than this, a portion of the we shall prove ourselves be heard, be taken seriously, be just war commitment to “last once again able to defend commended, be thanked, and to resort” includes not presenting our Island home, to ride which they can contribute. an inviting target to those ad- out the storm of war, and versarial nations with malevo- to outlive the menace of At its best, Dunkirk cap- lent intent. A strong and ready tyranny. tures a bit of all of these most military helps prevent conflict Dunkirkian of sentiments. by presenting a deterrent—na- That the British did, in fact, But too seldom. The story of survive, that their unwillingness tions that know they will bleed if Dunkirk is a story very much to bow their knees to totalitar- they pick a fight with us might, worth telling. But Dunkirk ianism did, in fact, help lead to in the end, not pick a fight with doesn’t quite manage to tell it. the final liberation of Europe, us or with those friendly na- is a testament to the power of tions whose interests we might As a film, it doesn’t flourish—it simply carrying on, one steady protect. merely survives. step at a time. Finally, Dunkirk reminds us of Marc LiVecche (PhD, Uni- Of course, it ought not to have the necessary spirit of co-bellig- versity of Chicago) is managing been this way. Churchill is the erence that ought to exist in a editor of Providence.

73 BOOK REVIEW GRIM HARVEST Review by Herbert Schlossberg WAY OF THE REAPER: MY GREATEST UNTOLD MISSIONS AND THE ART OF BEING A SNIPER. NICHOLAS IRVING, with GARY BROZEK, St, Martin’s Pres, 2016, 304 pages.

n the surface Nicholas there is no way of knowing how Irving’s Way of the Reaper widespread these feelings are in Oseems to be a typical shoot- airborne units, this reviewer has ‘em-up memoir designed for men known hundreds of paratroopers, vicariously seeking adventure. But but has no recollections of ever by the end of the book, Irving has hearing one of them express sim- turned reflective. To his evident ilar fears. And yet Irving drops surprise, experience on the bat- his macho tough talk and tells the tlefield finally sinks into his con- world of his weakness. The reader sciousness, enabling him to break can only admire the honesty of his through the studied callousness of self-revelation. the combat soldier and to turn himself into a case study on the role of Toward the end of his tour of duty battle in causing moral injury. in Afghanistan, Irving and his platoon embarked on a typical night An African-American soldier, mission during which he killed Irving (called “Irv” by his com- several Taliban fighters. With a macho attitudes typical of elite rades) served his platoon in the quick snap shot, he wounded one th combat soldiers. He writes of his 75 Ranger Regiment in various man who suddenly sprung up again “excitement of taking out a few capacities, with the occupational unexpectedly and seemed, simply, more guys that night,” or in other specialty of sniper. So successful to sit there lost in thought after the words, killing them. It would be was he in the course of killing 7.62mm bullet struck him in the unrealistic to expect a young infan- 33 armed militants that he gladly leg. Irving recollects: claimed the title of “reaper.” Much tryman to reflect much on the ethics of this is told in greater detail in his of sniping or even to know that similarly titled previous memoir, “sharpshooters” as far back as the He was an older guy, The Reaper. American Civil War were actually judging by the folds and held in abhorrence even by their wrinkles around his eyes. Irving practiced his specialty as own comrades in adjacent infantry I swear he was looking a direct action sniper in support units. Irving does know that there at me and thinking, “So, of Ranger night missions, typi- were critics of the ethics of sniping, okay, are you going to cally tasked with the capture of and he emphatically, glibly, rejects shoot me or what?”… I’d high-value individuals. He also those sentiments. Indeed, while done all that training… assisted interdiction missions that the sentiments he attributes to the and without warning or targeted weapons caches or illic- critics are superficial, so too are his regret, something passed it drug ventures used to support own responses to them. Both are through me that had nev- Taliban operations. Irving usually likely to be dismissed out of hand er before factored into my provided surveillance for his team by any reader with a modicum of life as a sniper or soldier. using elevated terrain or rooftops, interest in the moral dilemmas that I had this creeping belief seeking out threats up to about 300 both sides ought to be considering. that this was a variation meters away. His ambition was to on suicide by cop. All improve his skills so that he might Yet, there is another side to this along this guy had been qualify for further training toward hard young man who volunteered hoping that we’d end his the long-range version of the sniper for, and succeeded in qualifying life. He’d given us every profession. for, the hard duty of special oper- opportunity, had wanted ations missions. For instance, he to make it difficult for us For most of his time in Afghanistan, acknowledges his fear of heights so that we wouldn’t feel Irving did not depart from the and hatred of parachuting. While so bad.

74 Early in the book Irving tells us that I pushed out of my mind know something more about of the sniper’s motto, undoubt- until after I’d decided to leave spiritual injuries in war. Irving’s edly intended to help avoid such the Army and begun finding dependence on alcohol was fol- thoughts as he was now hav- comfort and courage in the lowed by a suicide attempt, each ing at this moment in the end bottom of too many bottles of being means borne of his at- of his combat career. “When I booze: Was I a good man or a tempt to answer that question first heard the words ‘Without bad man?” about his own moral character. warning; without remorse,’ I Like too many of our combat didn’t realize that remorse could Such existentially desperate veterans, Irv was never wound- ambush me without warning.” questions have been addressed ed in the conventional sense, The crisis of conscience that in the pages of Providence but he became a living example now overtook him was appar- before, including in essays in the library of moral injury. ently the cause of his leaving by the managing editor Marc the Army at the end of his en- LiVecche and contributing edi- Herbert Schlossberg is a re- listment rather than following tor Chaplain Timothy Mallard, tired historian. He is a former through on his earlier intention US Army. These are good plac- infantryman in the 82nd Airborne to reenlist. “I had one question es to start for those wanting to Division, United States Army.

BOOK REVIEW REVISING OR APPLYING THE JUST WAR TRADITION? Review by J. Daryl Charles JUST WAR RECONSIDERED: STRATEGY, ETHICS AND THEORY. JAMES M. DUBIK, University Press of Kentucky, 2016, 225 pages.

urely it was not a coinci- emotional but straightforward. dence that my exposure “Listen,” he told them, “this Sto James M. Dubik’s Just really hurts. But let me tell you War Reconsidered coincided what would make these [loss- with my reading of a memoir by es of life] hurt even more: if one of now retired Lt. General it is all in vain.”1 Dubik, who Dubik’s esteemed U.S. Army at the time was serving as the colleagues. As Dubik informs commanding general of the the reader, General Stanley Multi-National Security and McChrystal, who commanded Transition Command in Iraq, as special operations forces in Iraq well as a special advisor to sev- and later in Afghanistan, took eral commanding generals,2 has the responsibilities for that com- this to say: “What McChrystal’s mand with utmost seriousness. comments reveal…is that how During the dark period of the these lives are used does mat- Iraq conflict in the mid-2000s, ter.”3 How those lives are used, McChrystal agonized over the how their commanders use Amidst the stress of months- loss of life—to both Coalition them, really matters. This re- forces and Iraqi civilians who long, close-quarter combat, sponsibility, Dubik concludes, were being murdered and muti- McChrystal called together his derives from the fact that “sol- lated by al-Qaeda and insurgent leaders, many of whom he had diers, at least American soldiers, forces. known for years. His plea was remain citizens and that the

75 democracy for which they fight and establish the coordi- in a democracy is recognized retains its obligation to provide native bodies necessary following continual military-ci- adequate care for its citizens.”4 to translate plans into vilian dialogue; (3) the principle action and adapt as the of “managerial competence,” These comments express the vagaries of war unfold.9 by which senior military and heart of Dubik’s burden in Just political leaders ensure that War Reconsidered. Indeed, it is Dubik worries that “few—if their respective bureaucracies no exaggeration to describe his any—accounts of jus in bello” support war aims and strategies; basic thesis as a “burden.” While address the responsibilities of (4) the principle of maintaining “America may be tired of war,” senior political and military “war legitimacy,” i.e., cultivating he observes in the prologue, leaders at the strategic level, ongoing support of the war ef- “war does not seem to be tired what he refers to as “war-wag- fort throughout the population of America.”5 And, as Dubik ing.”10 Developing a rationale for by senior military and political is acutely aware, the evidence this “missing link” constitutes leaders; and (5) the principle of overwhelms—from the conflicts the burden of chapter one.11 “resignation,” which acknowl- in Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya Chapter two expands the con- edges that, because we are moral and Syria to the Islamic State in tours of this “war-waging” task, agents, political and military its manifold expressions. None setting it apart from—though leaders are conscience- rather of which, Dubik rightly con- not in opposition to—“war- than task-bound. cludes, will end by itself. And fighting” dimensions of jus in these developments, which ex- bello. Chapters three and four Because war, in terms of prac- tend throughout Africa and Asia, attempt to analyze two “alter- tical morality, is an extraordi- are fully aside from the belliger- native accounts” of how senior narily complex human activity, ence of Russia’s intervention in military and political leaders in- and because mistakes, misjudg- the Baltic region, North Korea’s teract at the strategic level. One ments, and misunderstandings interminable bellicosity, the of these, the “principal-agent” abound at both the strategic menace of China, the seemingly account, is based on obedi- and tactical levels, Dubik is endless bloodletting in Africa, ence, compliance, and control concerned to emphasize the and the growing threats asso- as motivation for enforcement. importance and necessary in- ciated with “cyber-warfare.” In The second model, what Dubik clusion of “war-waging” in jus multiple forms, most of which calls “unequal dialogue,” has in bello considerations. This is are non-conventional in na- the advantage of acknowledg- as it should be. Dubik believes, ture, war remains “a condition ing particular responsibilities moreover, that the “war-waging” of our contemporary strategic specific to both the political principles he has set forth in the environment for the foreseeable and the military sectors. At the volume are not only “useful” in future.”6 same time, it too is deficient to “the training, education, and se- the extent that it does not ade- lection of political and military Dubik’s argument is straightfor- quately translate “dialogue” into leaders” who are confronted ward: current just war theoriz- execution of aims. with the matter of war but are ing is insufficient insofar as it “requirements” for “war-waging “omits a major part of the con- Chapters five and six provide a leadership.”12 But they are im- duct of war.”7 A “new addition” fuller account of “war-waging” portant for the general citizenry to jus in bello theory is urgently responsibilities within the jus as well insofar as they provide needed.8 The reason for this, in in bello context. Dubik argues “a way to judge what is done on Dubik’s view, is patent: that to wage war justly, various their behalf, whether in combat “cross-disciplinary” dialogues or in capitals.”13 The conduct of war…in- must occur and then be melded volves more than fighting. to a “performance-oriented” ex- Just War Reconsidered is an War is also conducted at ecution. Five principles embody important work. It deserves the strategic level, the lev- this important strategic process the widest readership for a va- el at which senior political as Dubik understands it: (1) riety of reasons. It is written and military leaders set the principle of “continuous by someone who not only has war aims, identify strate- dialogue” between civilians and invested a career serving mil- gies and policies, approve military senior leadership; (2) itarily “in the trenches” but the military and nonmili- the principle of “final decision who has also wrestled with the tary campaigns necessary authority,” by which military matter of moral leadership at to achieve those war aims, subordination to civil authority multiple levels. In addition

76 to his experience during the At the same time, one senses just war tradition do so with a “Surge” of 2007-08 serving not only in this timely, well-ar- keen awareness of its debt to as the commanding general gued volume but also among the Christian moral tradition.19 of the Multi-National Security military leaders in general a From Ambrose, Augustine, and Transition Command, his reticence to acknowledge the Gratian, Alexander of Hales, 37 years of service in the U.S. religious sources of morality. Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Vitoria, Army have included teaching As one Major recently lamented Suárez, Grotius, and Locke, to ethics and just war doctrine at to me at the Army’s Command John Courtney Murray, Paul West Point and applied mili- and General Staff College at Ramsey, William V. O’Brien, tary force at the Army’s School Fort Leavenworth following James Turner Johnson, and of Advanced Military Studies my address on justice, chari- Jean Bethke Elshtain, the most at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. ty, and right intention,15 “the significant just war theorists, Thus, as a former infantryman, Army wants you to be good and past and present, “secular” paratrooper, and Ranger, and do good, but it doesn’t tell you or religious,20 have done their as a senior military leader, how or why.” The words of this work—and their “policy anal- Dubik is well placed to argue mid-level officer have stayed ysis”—with a conspicuous debt for the inclusion of “war-wag- with me. to the Christian moral tradition. ing” alongside “war-making” And they have been important in discussions and treatments What is it that we seem to fear architects of our own cultural of jus in bello. in terms of the moral train- heritage. ing offered to our soldiers and Additionally, Dubik’s commit- to military leadership as a British ethicist Nigel Biggar, 16 ment to the fundamental belief whole? Quite helpfully, Dubik whose important work well il- that soldiers and statesmen, uses Michael Walzer’s Just and lustrates my point,21 has ex- civilian leaders and military Unjust Wars as both a model pressed the truth with precision: of moral reasoning and a foil. leaders, are all moral agents “So with due respect to just war Quite correctly, he points out and hence accountable for war Habermasians, the search for a the inadequacy of Walzer’s sep- aims and intentions and not universally acceptable ‘secular’ aration of jus ad bellum and jus merely war’s execution is to language [for just war] is a nar- in bello.17 As one who was re- be applauded. Relatedly, the cissistic illusion. The same ap- sponsible for both war-making recurring accent throughout plies, pace just war Rawlsians, and war-waging, Dubik knows the book on the need for di- to the search for an overlapping from experience the danger—in- alogue—between and among consensus that transcends con- deed the moral schizophrenia— 22 military leaders at various levels troversy.” My own hunch is of divorcing the two realms. of authority, between military that even Lt. Gen. Dubik would agree with me at this point: and civilian leaders, and even And yet it is telling that no single between senior political and moral principle is not some her- just war theorist of note who in- metically-sealed entity waiting military leaders and the general teracts with the classic Christian public—is to be welcomed. The to be lassoed by Rawlsian “neu- moral tradition appears in tralists” or well-meaning secu- spectacular failure or absence Dubik’s bibliography.18 To il- of such dialogue, from Vietnam larists. Such, in truth, does not lustrate, the most distinguished exist. Moral principle, rather, to the present, surely affords us just war historian alive, James the opportunity early in the 21st is incubated in a religious ma- Turner Johnson, whose books trix, which is why we find the century to reflect on this urgent on the history and applicabil- need. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, to just war idea developed and ity of just war reasoning have refined chiefly within the clas- his great credit, is convinced rivaled Walzer’s influence, is sic Christian moral tradition. that any theory of ethics that not cited even once in the vol- is applied to justify and guide ume. Nor do any of Johnson’s J. Daryl Charles serves as a war-waging and war-fighting important works—several of contributing editor to Providence. must take into consideration which are already classic texts— An affiliated scholar of the John the actual conditions in which appear in the bibliography. This Jay Institute, Charles is author moral agents must reflect, de- is truly remarkable since, with most recently (with Mark David cide, and act. The difficulty or the notable exception of Walzer Hall) of America’s Wars: A Just ambiguity of conditions “may and perhaps the Canadian phi- War Perspective (University of mitigate responsibility,” but it losopher Brian Orend, most Notre Dame Press, forthcom- “does not erase it.”14 theorists operating within the ing), Natural Law and Religious

77 Freedom (Routledge, forthcom- and mutual accountability which Dubik “the discussion is far from finished,” ing), and (with David D. Corey) advances apply to democracies—which he writes: “My purpose in this book… are a fairly recent development—and is not to enter any of these debates, for The Just War Tradition: An would be difficult to conceive of in these are being thoroughly examined Introduction (ISI Books, 2012). traditional monarchies. See, however, by others” (ibid.). I would argue that in Gregory M. Reichberg, “Thomas Aquinas the very spirit of the dialogue Dubik is (Endnotes) on Military Prudence,” Journal of so concerned to stimulate, military lead- Military Ethics 9, no. 3 (2010): 261-74, ership should be entering these debates 1 General Stanley McChrystal, My and idem, “The Decision to Use Military and dialoguing in significant ways. More Share of the Task: A Memoir (New Force in Classical Just War Thinking,” than likely, civilian-military relations York: Penguin, 2014), 185, reproduced in James Turner Johnson and Eric D. would benefit therefrom. in James M. Dubik, Just War Patterson, eds., The Ashgate Research Reconsidered: Strategy, Ethics, and Companion to Military Ethics (Surrey, 19 Walzer, it needs emphasizing, Theory (Lexington: University Press of UK, and Burlington: Ashgate, 2015): is an anomaly. The secularist and Kentucky, 2016), 53. 13-23, esp. the section “Aquinas and the metaphysical materialist, by sheer 2 Dubik, 2. Moral Virtues of Military Command.” definition, deny a transcendent source of morality. While a massive amount of 3 Ibid., 53. 12 Dubik, 168. literature has appeared in the last fifteen 4 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 170. years on the just war idea, much of this has been critical of the tradition or of 5 Ibid., 1. 14 Ibid., 25. various aspects of the tradition. Most 6 Ibid. 15 J. Daryl Charles, “The Ethics of just war exponents are not “secularists,” Humanitarian Intervention and the since to give an account of the just war 7 Ibid., 3. Just War Tradition: Rethinking the tradition requires a perspective that is 8 Classic renditions of just war Implications of Neighbor Love in the 21st willing to acknowledge its incubation doctrine typically identify two principal Century,” The Ethics of Humanitarian and refinement as coming chiefly from moral criteria under the in bello rubric: Military Operations and Intervention, within the Christian moral tradition of discrimination or non-combatant April 18-21, 2016, U.S. Army the last two millennia. On the great value immunity and proportionality. Dubik Command and General Staff College, and contribution of religious conviction adds to these the principle of double Fort Leavenworth, KS. Accessible at in the public sphere, see Nigel Biggar, effect and double intent and the principle http://www.cgscfoundation.org/wp- Religious Voices in Public Places (Oxford of due care and due risk (following content/uploads/2016/04/Charles- and New York: Oxford university Press, Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars EthicsofHIandJWT.pdf. 2009). [4th ed.; New York: Basic Books, 2006], 16 At the very least, this would seem a 20 Hereon see, for example, James 44, 137, 156). Most theorists subsume contradiction of the idea and function of Turner Johnson, “The Beginnings of double effect and due risk under the military chaplaincy. On the other hand, a Secular Just War Doctrine,” chapter criterion of discrimination/non- to its credit, the U.S. Army a decade ago 3, and “Secularized Just War Doctrine: combatant immunity. See, for example, instituted an annual ethics symposium, Grotius, Locke, and Vattel,” chapter “Part II: Right Conduct in the Use of which has been integrated into the 4, in idem, Ideology, Reason and the Military Force” of James Turner John curriculum of the Command and General Limitation of War (Princeton: Princeton and Eric D. Patterson, eds., The Ashgate Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. University Press, 1975), 150-207 and Research Companion to Military Ethics Mid-level officers—i.e., Majors and Lt. 208-56. (Surrey, UK, and Burlington: Ashgate, Colonels—spend ca. eleven months at 2015), 115-328. 21 See especially his In Defence of the College in a rich and much needed War (Oxford and New York: Oxford 9 Dubik, 3. environment of reflection and personal University Press, 2013). study. 10 Ibid., 4. 22 Nigel Biggar, “Natural Flourishing 17 Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 21, 11 One might respond that this is less as the Normative Grounds of Just War,” 228-32, 251-55. a “missing link” than it is a matter of in A.F. Lang, Jr., Cian O’Driscoll, prudence—that is, a matter of applying 18 Notwithstanding the acknowledg- and John Williams, eds., Just War: the existing in bello criteria in an ment by Dubik on p. 13 that “the update Authority, Tradition, and Practice integrated and holistic manner from to traditional just war theory is an active (Washington, DC: Georgetown top to bottom. In addition, the dialogue field for moral philosophers” and that University Press, 2013), 50.

78 THE QUARTERMASTER’S BOOKSHELF:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER READING & A SURVEY OF NEWLY AVAILABLE BOOKS

DEEP DIVES: THE ETHICS OF SEX, OF ESPIONAGE, & OF SEX & ESPIONAGE

Just War and the Ethics of Espionage, Darrell Cole, 2014. Is spying bound by moral limits? The War on Terror requires we determine what are acceptable practices in defense of our liberties and the local and global common good. In many cases, clandestine networks increasingly perform activities inappropriate for military forces. These actions sometimes contravene both international law and, arguably, commonly held moral norms. Harnessing the resources of the just war tradition, Cole helps us sort through the complexity. See the longer review by David Shedd in Providence’s Winter 2016 issue, which is available at ProvidenceMag.com.

Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, Sissela Bok, 1978. Is it ever morally acceptable to lie? Bok addresses questions about the ethics of interpersonal communication through reflecting on deception in multiple spheres of public and private life from government to medicine, law, aca- demia, journalism, and the military.

The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life, Dennis P. Hollinger, 2009. In a time when confusion about the nature of sex and sexuality seems to be at a destructive all-time high, Hollinger offers clarity that moves beyond the often simplistic answers found in our churches. This book offers detailed insight on a range of subjects including pre-marital sex, sex within marriage, homosexuality, and reproductive technologies. By arguing for a God-given meaning to sex, he makes plain why the classic Christian tradition has been so unified on the ethics of sex.

79 Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II, Mary S. Lovell, 1992. A biography of one of the most successful spies in World War II, codenamed “Cynthia,” is engagingly told by Lovell. A guaranteed page-turner, this account tells of the sacrifice and peril that a few select women (and men) lay bare to help secure the freedoms that we cherish today.

SGT. YORK Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne, Douglas V. Mastriano, 2014. Alvin York remains the most celebrated American Soldier from the First World War. In this groundbreaking new biography, Mastriano, an Army War College professor and historian, uses German and American primary sources, battlefield archeology, and forensic ballistic analysis to, for the first time ever, tell the full and complete story of Sergeant York. Comprehensive, compelling, and accessible, this is military history at its very best.

Sergeant York (1941). Howard Hawks’ classic biopic of the WWI hero, based on York’s own diary, was the highest grossing film of the year. York had refused on several occasions to authorize a film version of his life but finally relented in order to finance a the building of an interdenomination- al bible school. Gary Cooper, playing the titular role, won an Oscar for his performance. The film was still in theatres when the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred and is said to have had a profound effect on recruitment—with many men going straight from the film to enlistment offices.

HUMAN RIGHTS & RELIGIOUS MINORITIES They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East, Mindy Belz, 2016. Belz offers a gripping look into the suffering of Christians and other minorities in Syria and Iraq. Detailing the conflict, the efforts made to give aid, and the hope that remains amid the disturbing horrors of persecution and exile, this book is a testament to both the human capacity for unmitigated evil as well as extraordinary physical and moral courage. The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Faith McDonnell wrote a compelling review in Providence’s Summer 2016 issue, available at ProvidenceMag.com.

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Giorgio Agamben, 1998. Undoubtedly Agamben’s best-known work and probably the most controversial, this book is a mentally challenging yet fulfilling read concerning human dignity. Agamben delves into the belief that there is connection between sovereign power and bio-politics, forged in the extraordinary foundation of State authority. Dive in deep, if you dare!

80 DETERENCE

The Guns of August, Barbara W. Tuchman, 1962. This 45-year-old book deserves renewed attention during this centenary of World War I. The fact that its treatment of the Great War is rather more artistic than scientific may, in reality, be its strength, since war itself is in many ways more of an artistic enterprise than a scientific one. A 21st-century reader may profitably approach this text with the question: “Why did deterrence fail, and what could have been done to make deterrence work?” Clearly, the scientific answer to the question failed in the case of World War I.

GLOBAL ECONOMY Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2012. Reflecting upon his experience as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (1995- 1997) and chief economist of the World Bank (1997-2000), Stiglitz examines the impact of global economic institutions upon impoverished countries. He critiques the International Monetary Fund and World Bank among others as employing one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions where customized solutions were needed for unique contexts. This work provides context for why many citizens are distrustful and discontented with the global economic system.

Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, 2012. Acemoglu and Robinson attempt to answer one of the most eluding political questions of our time: why are some countries wealthy while others are poor? Focusing upon the importance of institutions, the authors analyze how political and economic institutions, if done correctly, can lead to economic growth and political stability. In a political climate of skepticism and protectionism, this book meaningfully demonstrates the importance and efficacy of sound institutions.

AUGUSTINE Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Peter Brown, 1967. This classic work, published 50 years ago, has become the standard account of the life and teaching of the Bishop of Hippo. Following Augustine’s life and connecting it to his written works done along the way, this newer addition accounts for previously unknown letters and sermons by Augustine. Brown updates his own scholarship and reviews the field.

Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, R.A. Markus, 1970. Another classic work on Augustine’s teaching, Markus addresses questions concerning Augustine’s thought regarding the purpose of human society, with some particular emphasis on the intersection of history, society, and the church. It is an important book to have in hand as you read recent scholarship on Augustine.

81 NEWLY DEPLOYED: RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON THE CENTENNIAL OF THE GREAT WAR

Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I, Mitchell Yockelson, 2016. The Battle of the Meuse-Argonne was the deadliest clash in American history and the unlikeliest of American victories. With a focus on the per- sonalities that helped turn the tide of the war against a better trained and more experienced adversary, Yockelson explores a cast of characters that includes commanding General John Pershing, General Hunter Liggett, fighter ace Eddie Rickenbacker, Corporal Alvin York—the pacifist who would single-handedly killed more than 20 Germans and capture 130 more—then artillery officer Harry Truman, tank commander George Patton, and Douglas MacArthur, the most decorated soldier of the Great War. Forty-Seven Days is the extraordinary story of a military coming-of-age.

Back Over There, Richard Rubin, 2017. In addition to the longest sub-title ever, Rubin offers a considerate, emotive, engaging, and meaningful journey into the rich and sometimes forgotten history of World War I. A successor volume to his celebrated The Last of the Dough Boys, Rubin follows in the wake of the American Expeditionary Forces, finding battlefields, trenches, bunkers, and the embattled villages of France. He also found an abiding gratitude toward America among the French people for whom, living in the land where the struggle’s din still echoes, the Great War remains a living thing. While bringing this bit of American history alive, Rubin manages to never quite abandon the present, and thereby makes past and present a bit more seamless for Americans as well.

With Their Bare Hands: General Pershing, the 79th Division, and the Battle for Montfaucon, Gene Fax, 2017. One more standout in the Meuse-Argonne publishing flood, Fax’s work chronicles the providence of the US 79th Division men, drafted off the streets of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, from their training camp in Maryland through the final years of World War I. Primarily concentrating on their assault on Montfaucon, the most heavily fortified part of the German Line, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in 1918, Fax offers readers insight into the mistakes and triumphs of the offensive, as well as the tactics of General Pershing. Importantly, he also demonstrates how the lessons learned from this engagement particularly, and World War I generally, would prove vital in World War II.

82 (Continued from page 84 ) The second obstacle is the lack of political That doesn’t mean a new political entity called pragmatism. The Jews have always accepted Palestine cannot emerge: that is, a smaller state something over nothing (Zionist leader Chaim of the Palestinian people in some part of historic Weizmann famously declared his willingness Palestine, just as Israel is a state of the Jewish to accept a Jewish state “even if it’s the size of a people in some part of historic Israel. Accept that, tablecloth”); Palestinians have consistently pre- and get your people to accept it. ferred nothing over something. From Haj Amin al-Husseini and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam to Yasser Forget the refugees. Or rather, forget the idea that Arafat and Ismail Haniyeh, the basic Palestinian the 800,000 refugees from 1948 and their mil- position has been to sacrifice oneself and one’s lions-strong progeny will ever return to the State people in a blaze of glory before conceding one of Israel. You can throw those old keys away. The point of the political program. Palestinian culture gives the word shahid mythical power, making refugees belong in their country of residence or gritty compromises like the 1947 Partition Plan in the new State of Palestine. Accept that. and other peace deals impossible to contemplate. Far better to die in purity. Be pragmatic. You’re not going to get what you want. So start asking yourself what is a “some- If martyrdom is the greatest Palestinian vir- thing” Palestine, a Palestine the size of a table- tue, tatbi’a, or normalization, is the greatest cloth. Create a state that you can be proud of for Palestinian sin. A normalizer is a Palestinian who the sake of your children and grandchildren. The accepts Israel, cooperates with Israel, or suggests Jews have accepted less than they wanted. You that Palestinians should get used to a Jewish state should too. living next door. Professor Mohammad Dajani of Al-Quds University was accused of tatbi’a in Punish violence and incitement to violence. This 2014 when he brought his Palestinian students on is simple enough. a study trip to Auschwitz. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was accused of tatbi’a that same Embrace tatbi’a. You must deal with the Jews; year when he dared to lament the Arabs’ rejection you must befriend them. Terrorizing their ci- of the 1947 Partition Plan. vilians won’t scare them away; it will do the opposite. If independence and coexistence are This basic inability to cope with the fact of Israel your goal, they are not your enemy. Normalize. is a major obstacle that needs to be overcome. “[Y]esteryear’s conventional nationalism and Concede. Compromise. Live. ‘national liberation’ are no longer the best currency for political mobilization and expression Accept Jewish citizens. The current position of in today’s world,” explain Agha and Khalidi. the Palestinian Authority is that the future State Palestinians must “adapt their struggle and as- of Palestine will be free of Jews—Judenrein, as pirations to new global realities. der Führer used to say. This is a position that Christians like me cannot endorse. Jews are an “Nationalism itself has changed,” they continue. ancient people who belong there as much as “Palestinians need to search for new means of you do. Just as 20 percent of Israelis are Arab, expressing their political identity and hopes in there is no reason that 20 percent of Palestinians ways that do not and cannot replicate the past.” shouldn’t be Jewish. Settlers should be able to stay if they want to become citizens. Embrace AND YET, I SAY, the liberation of Palestine is their love of the land. still possible. The real Palestinian martyr will be the one who President Abbas raises an eyebrow: “How so?” stands up and delivers this bold message to his people, even if he is killed immediately afterward. Admit mistakes. The starkest difference between Israeli and Palestinian political culture is self-crit- The death of this prophet, unlike the death of the icism. Israelis never stop criticizing each other Jabareens who threw their lives away for nothing, and their policies; Palestinians almost never do, will ignite a new spirit of truth among right-think- at least in public. As someone who leads study ing Palestinians that, God-willing, they will fan tours on both sides of the Green Line, I can vouch and use to raze the old empires of the mind and for the glaring contrast between the two. to build anew.

Forget Greater Palestine. It’s over. Israel is Robert Nicholson is the executive director of not going anywhere and is getting stronger. the Philos Project, and co-publisher of Providence.

83 AD ORIENTEM- A WESTERN PERSPECTIVE ON THE MIDDLE EAST and citizens of the State of Israel. Their name was Robert Nicholson Mohammed Jabareen—all three of them—and they brought two rifles and a pistol in a bag from their homes in the northern Israeli city of Umm EMPIRES al-Fahm. Their plan was to kill Jews and kick off a regional conflagration that would advance the OF FEELING liberation of Palestine. & FANTASY Just before 8 am, they gunned down two Israeli police officers near the entrance to the Temple Mount complex. The officers were Druze, not n an August 2017 edition of The New Yorker, Jews, but wore the uniform of the Jewish state, IHussein Agha and Ahmad Samih Khalidi of- and that was enough. Pursued by Israeli security fer a grim eulogy for the Palestinian national forces, the Jabareens fled into the complex, where movement. “Palestinians are sliding toward they died in a hail of bullets as shahids, martyrs the unknown,” they write. “The contemporary for their people. Palestinian national movement—founded and led by Yasser Arafat and embodied by the P.A., How could the Jabareens have possibly thought Fatah, and the P.L.O. over the past half century— killing Israeli police officers would advance their is reaching its end.” cause? Didn’t they realize these senseless murders would make Israelis even more vigilant? Didn’t This is hard reading for someone who still hopes they understand that Palestinian violence has nev- for a healthy Palestinian state as a means to end er worked since the time of the British Mandate? the conflict. But I speak with Palestinians often, so I know that Agha and Khalidi are right. Apparently not. But the Jabareens aren’t alone. And it isn’t just self-defeating violence that hin- The basic telos of Palestinian identity is the liber- ders the Palestinian cause. Agha and Khalidi point ation of Greater Palestine (not the just the West out two more defects. Bank and Gaza but all the land that comprises modern-day Israel) and the return of its refugees. The first is the weakness of Palestinian identi- But what happens when Palestinians realize that ty. Currently there is no “unifying Palestinian neither goal is achievable? They will either deny bond” that can “forge a truly national enterprise the fact, stagnate, and fall deeper into despera- out of highly localized components.” As the tion; or they will accept it, move on, and rebuild 1948 generation dies off, young Palestinians are their movement from the ground up. Fearing the wondering what the cause is all about. Is it about first, Agha and Khalidi call for the second. So do I. resistance? Negotiations? Religion? Real estate? There isn’t a clear answer. “Without ‘armed The Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik believed struggle,’” Agha and Khalidi write, “the national that Arab states would never be as prosperous movement had no clear ideology, no specific dis- as Western states until they embraced a more course, no distinctive experience or character.” scientific and objective approach to reality. He admitted that the encounter with empiricism The PLO formally abandoned the armed strug- would cause “whole empires of feeling and fan- gle and the liberation of Greater Palestine in the tasy and prejudice and poetry…to crash down,” 1990s for the establishment of a smaller state but believed it was necessary for the long-term inside the West Bank and Gaza. But the spec- well-being of the Arabs. tacular failure to achieve even that more limited goal has pushed many young Palestinians back to The Palestinian national movement is one such the original vision. “The conflict may be dragged illusory empire. Constructed on poetry and preju- back to its historical origins as a struggle over and dice and generations of fantasy, it too must come across the entire Holy Land,” suggest Agha and crashing down so that it can be rebuilt, this time Khalidi, “reopening old wounds, inflicting new on a more solid basis. ones, and redefining how and if the conflict will be resolved.” The Jabareen attack, committed THE THREE YOUNG MEN who slipped into by Israel citizens who grew up speaking Hebrew, the Old City of Jerusalem before dawn on July might be indicative of such a blurring of the 14, 2017, were all members of the same Arab clan 1948/1967 narratives. (Continues on page 83) 84 PROVIDENCE Michael Cromartie SUMMER 2017 | NUMBER 8 1950-2017

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placed within the sword of ruling authority are and by the Apostle Paul on war their disquisitions on love, in the charity. moral or immoral depending on the circumstances. Duellum This is because the pursuit of private purposes others is, in the Augustinian typology of love, cupiditas— at the unjustified expense of centered love. On the other hand, the use of force by a proper for a just authority, cause, and in the pursuit of private authority for private purposes is always duellum, According to the can also deploy force for private purposes, and when they do so they are dueling. Bellum refers to any deploymentforce authority, whether by a sovereign of martial applied internally within the ruler’s own society or externally foreign against adversaries. whom there no one higher is charged Antithetically, their delegates. peace within the political community—or