Defense of Others

Is this a useful debate to be having at this time?

"the Sawicky Doctrine seems to hold that it's always wrong to do this. Why would you think that?"

Because Max, bless his heart, is reflexively anti-war.

Wouldn't defense of other countries be covered under exception #3?

"Is this a useful debate to be having at this time?"

Yeah, dude. Stuff like this makes you just as irresponsible as Mickey.

Be more useful and less interesting, fergawdsakes.

(1) It's not a good debate to be having at this time. That being said,

(2) Without going into too much detail, Max would likely cite the historial behavior of nations which engage in imperial ventures. For a whole host of reasons, you let the genie out of the bottle, and fallible governments don't limit themselves to the few cases of genuine need and justification. Build a big army and it WILL be used. Start intervening in wars around the world, and percieved national interests will trump what's just. Which is why I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that even Max' 2nd and 3rd rationales have practical problems.

Oh, heck, IOZ, you reading this? You can swat this one down better than I can.

I guess it's imperative that we liberals all go on record as stating that there are certain wars, albeit not THIS war, that we would gladly support. I guess.

The question is, when is it justified to help other countries? For the past few administrations, it seems justified only when US vital interests are involved, which make it hard to distinguish from wars of aggression. On the other hand who made the US the policeman of the world? Shouldn't the world as a whole bear this burden?

Wouldn't defense of other countries be covered under exception #3?

I don't see how. I mean, you might try to argue that no matter how small or insignificant the conquered country, liberating it is inherently a "very great benefit" to those liberated. But it doesn't seem safe to assume that defense of other countries will always entail "very low cost" to the U.S. But that doesn't mean (I think Matt is implying) that we should bar wars in defense of other countries.

And if not "at this time", I think liberals need to have this debate *sometime*. Some variant of just war theory seems like something worth reestablishing as our guidepost.

"I'm not saying it's always a good idea for the US to come to the defense of others, but the Sawicky Doctrine seems to hold that it's always wrong to do this. Why would you think that?"

I don't speak for Sawicky, but the operative word in your question is "US". Why is it incumbent on the US (certainly not the only rich and powerful country in the world) to act like the world's sole superhero?

If the cause is truly just (i.e., protecting a smaller country from acts of aggression by a third country), certainly other rich powerful countries will join -- and join in a significant way, yes?

Those are pretty murky, subjective conditions, bordering on being uselss. I would imagine most Americans believed the Iraq invasion would easily fall into #3, and a lot would argue #1 and #2.

Yep. All three of Sawicky's conditions applied to Iraq.

"3) the near-guarantee of very great benefits at very low cost."

When Sawicky gave himself this out, he put himself in the same moral basket as Mr. Cheney as far as I can see. Presumably Mr. Cheney thought that the benefits of the Bush-McCain war were far greater than any possible costs, and continues to think so (thus prompting the 'double down'). Now, his judgement comes to a different conclusion thann Swicky's but I don't see how it differs morally.

Cranky

QED. Al (thanks man) demonstrates empirically why (1) Matthew is wrong to suggest an additional circumstance where war was justified beyond Max' three, and (2) why even Max' three conditions are too broad.

For the past few administrations, it seems justified only when US vital interests are involved, which make it hard to distinguish from wars of aggression.

That doesn't seem right to me. The question is whether defense of others is justified. If it is justified, then surely defense of others and defense of vital interests is also justified.

The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 by a broad American-led coalition, by signalling that major acts of cross-border larceny wouldn't be tolerated, had a globally salutary effect, helping usher in a decade of impressive levels of peace and prosperity.

Unfortunately, the younger Bush has undone much of the accomplishment of his father.

Also, yes, Condition 3 borders on the meaningless. It would also seem to license certain acts of unchecked aggression -- war to conquer the oil fields of Alberta, for example. I think we actually might be welcomed as liberators if we did that.

Al has demonstrated that no matter how closely you circumscribe the conditions, someone can always argue that they've been satisfied. After all, even if they're 100% wrong, you have no way of proving that, right? You're left with nothing but a "debatable" point.

Thus, laying out express conditions is not only a useless exercise, but counterproductive. For a more obvious version of this conclusion, consider what a meaningless platitude "war should only be a last resort" has become in the mouths of people like George W. Bush.

Because Max, bless his heart, is reflexively anti-war.

By "war" you mean that large scale murder and destruction?

If so, one can't be reflexively anti war, just normal. Maybe sometimes the large scale murder and destruction is unavoidable, but "let's all talk of it in a serene, balanced way" is just a very militaristic thing to say.

On to Alberta!! Okay, given my stated policy beliefs I suppose I shouldn't even joke about that.

More seriously, regarding Matthew's 4:23 post, the danger, given the world in which we live, is that if we say that defense of others plus vital interests justify war, we are likely to (in practice) give far more emphasis to the second haf of the equation, to the point where the so called defense of others gets (a) construed very broadly, and (b) is an excuse for what we want to do to benefit ourselves, rather than a real policy motive.

War supporters certainly argued for the war on all three grounds, though I didn't find their formulations particularly reasonable. I don't think one can really put down in words a pithy war doctrine that could never be misapplied or twisted, not that I'm saying Max was attempting to. You really have to take these things on a case by case basis and use some common sense. Even a document as well thought out as the Constitution can fall apart if various actors willfully ignore its overall principles.

But as general guidelines, these aren't bad, and I would probably add defense of an invaded nation as #4, under similar logic to the idea behind #2, and would add the caveat that all four (especially #3 and #4) need to be rigorously scrutinized such that none serves as a flimsy pretense toward an altogether different purpose.

Max's conditions would appear to make the British and French declarations of war on Germany on September 3, 1939, unjustified. the only possible way that this could be justified is on Max's #2 - threat of genocide - but I don't think that applies. The genocide of the Jews only really began with the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Would Max extend "self-defense" to include the defense of countries one has agreed by treaty to defend? The Soviets invading western Europe, I'd imagine, would have to qualify, for instance. What about the Korean War? Again, none of Max's benchmarks seem to apply, but i find it hard to say that the right thing to do would have been to let the North overrun the south.

So, basically, I think I agree with Matt. Some kind of provision for defense of others from outright aggression ought to be considered as justifying war.

My three exceptions would be 1) self-defense (in the face of an imminent, manifest, tangible threat, or act of aggression),

Yes.

naturally; 2) the threat of genocide,

The whatsisandwhosis? What constitutes genocide and the threat thereof? There are limited circumstances in which I would support this theory. For one thing, it would need to be a genocide (not some sort of 'ethnic cleansing) lest you wind up killing more than you save, and it would also help if there were actually a threat. In most of the circumstances I have seen where people were calling things genocide, a> they weren't and b> the problem could be dealt with by arming resistance groups.

or 3) the near-guarantee of very great benefits at very low cost.

There is no near-guarantee ever.

why isn't it appropriate for a rich and powerful country like the United States to go to war in order to help defend a smaller, less-powerful country against acts of aggression committed by a third country?

As long as that is what occurring, I don't have a problem with that. I have noticed, tho, that many 'acts of aggression' are retaliating against 'acts of aggression'; who defines which ones are considered which tends to be people from the given region who have an ax to grind, and would like the US Army to do their work for them. The answer to that one is NO.

Steve: The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 by a broad American-led coalition, by signalling that major acts of cross-border larceny wouldn't be tolerated, had a globally salutary effect, helping usher in a decade of impressive levels of peace and prosperity.

The first problem I have is, is that we encouraged (or at least tolerated) and laid the groundwork for that particular act of cross-border larceny, in the process of 'defending' against somebody. Minus American intervention in the first place, none of that comes about. Second, it doesn't take much to switch from organizing to defend to organizing to attack. Which is HOW Bush undid whatever his father achieved. Three, I am real not clear that stomping on Kuwait did anything to encourage peace and prosperity; it seems to me that Saudi Arabia opening the spigots to their oil wells had a lot more to do with that. (I could then make the argument that defending Saudi Arabia was the important act, not liberating Kuwait.)

Fourth, simply succeeding encourages people to think we should run around defending everybody against everybody else, which is precisely why the DoD costs too damn much, since we have 750+ overseas bases to pay for and 200 divisions (more now) worth of defensive commitments. Such a system is not sustainable over the long run. If we ever actually brought our commitments in line with our capabilities, closed bases and whatnot, we might then be in position to intervene against acts of aggression when we needed to, without getting tied down all over hell and creation. Imperial 'realism' though demands we have to work to base in every country on the planet, which provokes or demands acts of aggression and pretty soon you're up to your armpits in little imperial wars. Which is how we got here.

m, and I don't like it here

"If aggressive war is wrong (which clearly seems to be an underlying theme here), and wars of self-defense are justified, why isn't it appropriate for a rich and powerful country like the United States to go to war in order to help defend a smaller, less-powerful country against acts of aggression committed by a third country?"

My first instinct was to reply that of course defense of others is valid, but I think it isn't completely so.

If another nation's security is of sufficient interest to a powerful nation, then they should make a treaty of mutual defense. This reduces the likelihood of the initial aggression. Had the US guaranteed Kuwait's security before the Iraqi invasion, a lot of trouble would have been avoided.

There are complications to this rather simple idea. Sometimes a security agreement can cause more problems than it solves. For example: Today, the US would almost certainly come to the defense of Taiwan if it were attacked by China. China does not really have any intention of invading Taiwan. If the US did sign a security agreemnent with Taiwan, China would immediately set into motion plans to invade it. The preventive measure would be the direct cause of that which it is designed to prevent. But aside from these tricky situations, nations should try to make their priorities well known.

It should be noted that US foreign policy - at least in East Asia - is based on creating a deterrent to China and NK (and to a lesser extent, Russia) against invading Japan, Korea and Taiwan, along with other possible allies or neutral countries in Asia that are much weaker than China in the event it goes crazy (again) (Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand). This probably fits somewhere into this question, but I'm too lazy right now to figure out how.

"and would add the caveat that all four (especially #3 and #4) need to be rigorously scrutinized such that none serves as a flimsy pretense toward an altogether different purpose."

I think this point by Royko is really the key. The basic premise that other nations can, and should, come to the aid of a nation that has been attacked is fairly irrefutable. Nations without any significant standing armies rely on treaties for military protection. The point really is how it is determined whether an "act of agression" was significant enough to justify another nation sending in troops. As you recall, one of the main and, IMO, most persuasive arguments against attacking Iraq was that we did not get U.N. justification for the attack. Regardless if you support the U.N as it is currently constituted, it is hard to argue against the proposition that there has to be some international process that relies on rule of law to justify the sort of military action proposed in this post.

Would number four give other countries the right to declare war on the US for invading Iraq? If Russia had invaded Saudi Arabia for alleged connections to Chechnyan terrorists, wouldn't the world have been rightly outraged? I'm just saying that it is hard for countries to be objective when evaluating their motives. There has to be some external mechanism whereby those motives can
be properly tested.

As I understand it, the Security Council can authorize defense of a state that's been attacked; but if American bigshots decide to be heroes on their own without Security Council authorization, that's a crime.

The UN/Security Council model is imperfect of course, but it's the best thing we have. Yeah yeah, I know, Americans think global lawlessness is fine as long as America is the criminal. Well, I don't. America has invaded the wrong country way too many times to be trusted again.

The irritation I experience looking at Sawicky's doctrine reminds me of the irritation I experience when listening to Norah O'Donnell grill guests as a co-host on Hardball (shorter: Sawicky's doctrine would benefit from Sawicky taking the course Public International Law 101).

One point is missing that Matt has stated earlier: A war is only just if it is won at the end. Nothing good comes from a lost war.

Another point: we have a great military not to fight war (contra Madeleine Albright!), but to have a deterrent that makes fighting unnecessary. Starting from this point I'd argue that whenever this deterrence fails - the big stick doesn't work - this may be because in the ensuing fight we are not well positioned to win. Our threat is not credible to the adversary beause it is objectively not credible. To follow up a non credible threat with war is therefor probably always a mistake. (Interestingly Saddam found the threat credible. Bush could have converted his gamble into a spectacular diplomatic victory. He chose defeat instead.)

As to fighting to help victims of aggression: only if a credible party is there that can be helped (the regimes in South Vietnam or El Salvador would not qualify for example) such as in the hypothetical attack of the Sowiet Union against Western Germany. Or when the Brits helped the French in World War II (by 1939 it was clear though that Hitler was going to attack sooner or later, the French/British declaration of war was just picking the time for the fight rather than letting Hitler choose it. Not that it helped much as it turned out).

"the Sawicky Doctrine seems to hold that it's always wrong to do this. Why would you think that?"

First, we should never say "always". Every principle is susceptible to bending if the circumstances are extreme enough.

But in general, as to why it's wrong to intervene on behalf of invaded nations (while holding that aggression is wrong and self-defense right)...

1) Because nation-states are not altruistic actors. Of course, in our third-grade intellectual culture it's an unquestioned article of faith that the United States is a benevolent, selfless power, the first in world history--and surely comparable concepts are held to be true by other people in other countries. But in the real world all nation-states act in accordance with their interests as they percieve them, and this would no less be the case should one decide to intervene on the behalf of another.

When a liberal endorses intervention, he's doing so presumably because he considers an invasion by one nation against another to be the highest sort of injustice, worth killing for in order to rectify. But when the nation-state actually intervenes, it won't being doing so in the name of justice; it will be intevening in pursuit of its interests, hoping to reinstitute the status quo ante or exploit an opportunity. So the liberal must come to some sort of reckoning, if he's not self-deluded: his country has intervened and begun killing others, but not in order to end an injustice. It's killing for practical gain. Can a liberal support that? It seems to me that he can't, if he wishes to remain true to his principles.

Of course, you can call this an intentionalist argument and point to the actual consequence: that an aggressor nation was in fact fought back. But this is too narrow a view to take. If nation-states are selfish actors and intervene in conflicts in order to reap rewards, you can be assured that, if its intervention is successful, the intervening nation will impose its demands on the rescued country. Which makes the intervening country in effect a kind of aggressor, beating back one party in order to impose its demands on another. Can the consistent liberal support that? I don't see how.

2. Aggression is wrong because it takes life. Self-defense is right because it preserves (one's own) life. Third-party intervention takes life and causes one's own life to be taken.

Contra Matt ("If aggressive war is wrong, and wars of self-defense are justified, why isn't it appropriate for a country like the United States to go to war in order to help defend a smaller, less-powerful country against acts of aggression committed by a third country?"), adherence to the ideas that aggression is wrong and self-defense right actually leads one to oppose third-party intervention in general.

Re: the update, that was another Max.

In general I appreciate the feedback. You have a rough draft of a doctrine. It's not my regular job. Doubtless it could stand improvement.

Naturally any precept can be corrupted in the hands of a leader. The best reason in the world could be sheer fabrication. I am a reformist, not a revolutionary, so I have to at least assume leadership might be able to act in good faith. When you see leaders who can't, I think the doctrine becomes very simple: trust nothing you hear and let them do as little as possible.

In a post justifying his attack on the netroots as insufficiently intellectual, insufficiently left, and overly partisan, and attacking the netroots' anti-war arguments, Sawicky outlines his "doctrine" of international aggression. This is inane. You don't prop yourself up as a deep-thinker and then propose something that ignores centuries of international legal development. Smarter people than Sawicky have spent their lives examining this subject, and perhaps Sawicky should crack open a few of their books before outlining his own theories. Sawicky's weak mea culpa: "You have a rough draft of a doctrine. It's not my regular job. Doubtless it could stand improvement." Not good enough. If you want to play the wise, old sage, then you should refrain from pontificating on whatever happens to strick your fancy. Stick to economics.

Matthew Y:

Given your past fallibility, you should avoid this kind of speculating about the justifiability of hypothetical wars the way a hard-case alcoholic avoids a barstool.

Paul: Life is too short to embark on a study of international law. As a citizen I think I have some obligation to opine on this. I've made clear it is not an area of professional expertise. By your logic most blogs including this one would have to shut down.

More narrowly: my purpose is not to explicate what the law stipulates. It's to envision what a reasonable policy might be. I suppose the law would provide some guidance, but so what. You figure the rest out.

The question is, when is it justified to help other countries? For the past few administrations, it seems justified only when US vital interests are involved, which make it hard to distinguish from wars of aggression.

There's a crucial distinction that's being blurred here, I think. We can ask the question, "When is one justified in going to war in defense of other countries?" and we can also ask "Under what conditions ought the U.S. in fact go to war in defense of other countries?"

The answer to the first question is that one is always justified in responding to acts of aggression. Aggression is the international equivalent of a crime, and, as with crime, one is always justified in attempting to stop criminals. That, however, is different from saying that it is prudent to attempt to stop this particular criminal in the course of committing this particular crime.

To put the point in more technical terms, acting in response to aggression is a necessary condition for going to war in defense of another nation. But it is not a sufficient condition. A nation ought not go to war if, for instance, it has zero chance of winning or the costs of winning are likely to be higher than the benefits of waging war.

Saying that the U.S. goes to war only when its vital interests are at stake is not equivalent to saying that the U.S. always engages in wars of aggression. It is entirely possible that a nation could fight a just (i.e., defensive) wars that serves its vital interests.

"Paul: Life is too short to embark on a study of international law. As a citizen I think I have some obligation to opine on this"

Fair enough. As do the mindless drones who participate in the Netroots. Lack of knowledge should never be a hinderance to participation in democratic discourse. Democracy is founded on the idea of everyone being their own best judge of "the good." The Netroots is a way in which people can participate in that discussion.

And my criticism wasn't that you got the law wrong. My criticism was that you're in no position to "envision what a reasonable policy might be," from an intellectual perspective, until you study up a bit. I never said you should shut up, just that you shouldn't criticize people for participating in democratic discourse when that is exactly what you are doing.

We should probably continue this over a water pipe with light from a lava lamp, but when did I criticize anyone for participating in democratic discourse? The more the merrier. What's wrong with richer discourse, more independent of the resorts to which elected Democrats are constrained?

"3) the near-guarantee of very great benefits at very low cost."

So aggressive war is OK if it's profitable and easy? By that measure, Hitler's invasion of Poland was the "good war." Lebensraum on the cheap.

It's not like Sawicky to be so intellectually sloppy. He needs to rethink.

Max's #3 is the main problem...it's no different than the Iraq War.

You don't commit mass murder to gain extraordinary benefits for minimal cost...you cannot justify war or murder by better conditions afterward.

PP: "Benefit" in my litany means the attainment of noble and ethical goals, not the ability to beat up others.

Jimm: Mass murder would sort of subtract from the benefit side, or add to the cost side, depending on your accounting conventions.

"You don't commit mass murder to gain extraordinary benefits for minimal cost...you cannot justify war or murder by better conditions afterward."

In 1942, the Japanese wanted peace with the US. We would leave them with their gains, and end the war. Our casus belli with Germany would then be gone before we began any real fighting with them. Our only reasons for continuing the war was to gain a better situation for ourselves. Was it wrong of us to continue fighting?

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