International Law and Politics > Likes and Comments
Hillary Clinton may or may not run for president of the U.S. in 2016. It seems likely at this time that she will. If she does, she may or may not write a conventional campaign book, setting forth her positions on the issues that will be the subject of the presidential campaign. Her recent book, Hard Choices, is not that book. Rather, it is a detailed explication of recent foreign policy and international politics issues that addresses both the nature of international politics in general and her historical actions as Secretary of State during the first term of President Barack Obama in particular.What becomes most clear during Clinton's long narrative is that foreign policy and international politics cannot be reduced to slogans and sound bites. In reading her book, I was reminded, again and again, of the last paragraph of Max Weber's January 28, 1919 lecture "Politics as a Vocation" ("Politik als Beruf"), especially the first two sentences of that paragraph: "Politics means a slow, powerful drilling through hard boards, with a mixture of passion and a sense of proportion. It is absolutely true, and our entire historical experience confirms it, that what is possible could never have been achieved unless people had tried again and again to achieve the impossible in this world." Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures, ed. David Owen and Tracy B. Strong, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004), Kindle ed., Kindle loc. 3174-76. This was a remarkable recollection for me, because I had last read "Politics as a Vocation" back in college during the 1960s (different translation and edition). Hillary Clinton is a human being and, like all human beings, she has doubtlessly made mistakes, including mistakes during her tenure as Secretary of State. But what astonishes in this book is the remarkable understanding she has of the nature of foreign policy and international politics and, concomitantly, the grasp she has of the Weberian concept of the meaning of politics as a Beruf, which in the German means not only "vocation" but also "calling."
Alan wrote: "What becomes most clear during Clinton's long narrative is that foreign policy and international politics cannot be reduced to slogans and sound bites."During the last few days, Hillary Clinton has appeared to do just that (according to media reports purporting to quote her). Although I still think her book is interesting, the question is: who is the real Hillary? We will probably find out soon enough, but, in the meantime, I have deleted my Goodreads and Amazon reviews of her book. And I will not comment further on her in this Goodreads group, as I don't want these discussions to degenerate into partisan political battles.
Professor Alison McQueen (Stanford, Department of Political Science) has written some interesting essays on Hans Morgenthau here and here. Morgenthau was one of the foremost theorists of international politics during the post-World War II decades of the twentieth century. A realist, his work influenced Henry Kissinger and others. In the first article, McQueen discusses in depth the progressive evolution of Morgenthau's thought in light of the development of nuclear weapons. Disclosure: I took Hans Morgenthau's course on "Politics among Nations" at the University of Chicago in the autumn of 1965. Although I do not necessarily agree with Morgenthau's approach, his works are well worth considering even for today's international political context. In the last section of the first article, McQueen queries whether Morgenthau's approach to the horrors of nuclear war could be applied to today's concerns about climate change.
Hillary Clinton's September 4, 2014 review of Henry Kissinger's new book World Order is here. I have not yet read Kissinger's book, but it appears to relate current controversies to long-term historical developments. Whether one agrees with Kissinger's analysis or not, it might be an informative read, and I have put it on my Kindle WishList.
During the Cold War, nations engaged in covert operations in other countries with which they professed not to be at war. The CIA and its Soviet counterpart were infamous for such activities, which resulted in more than one coup d'état. More recent examples include, of course, the assassination, by U.S. special forces, of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. This kind of activity has probably been going on forever, but we now have a contemporary example in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia continues to deny it, but proof positive of Russian troop involvement in Ukraine is shown in the graves of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. See the September 21, 2014 New York Times article here. I report this fact without taking any position on policy issues. As with so many questions of foreign policy, the question of what the U.S. or other countries should do in response to such facts is not entirely clear. It poses an enduring question: should a "realist" approach be taken (in the manner of Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, and other realpolitik theorists) in recognizing that Ukraine and other countries adjacent to Russia have been, for a long time, part of Russia's "sphere of influence"? Or should a policy recognizing freedom as the paramount principle be followed? I do not suggest an answer; I merely pose the question. I do not intend to initiate a debate over contemporary foreign policy issues here but rather wish to adumbrate some continuing themes in the study of international politics.
Charles wrote on November 15, 2015 in the "Types of Government: United States Constitution and Government" topic: "Well, I don't know where this post should be so am putting it here the Paris attacks have created a déjà vu situation have they not? How are we as a civilized society to respond and act? What is the appropriate response to such barbarity? While the events took place in Paris, its clear that we here will be facing new decisions again soon. It used to be we could ignore medieval behaviors because they occurred over "there". What happens when they occur over here? If Hollande is right about act of war, what is the correct response, and does morality have any place in that war? I am struggling with my own thinking and feelings about this, and am terrible disappointed in both Democratic and Republican reactions to this event. I think the American and Western people's need to have a serious conversation about it. It won't be pretty, andi don't think it should be. That's all for now."I have moved Charles's post, quoted in full immediately above, to the present "International Law and Politics" topic. Any further comments on the subject of terrorism should be posted in this thread subject to the following considerations.
A few weeks ago, I deleted a post that contained only a link to a two-hour video that apparently argued that there was no such thing as terrorism. I did not have time to review more than a couple of minutes of it.
I would prefer to avoid the topic of terrorism in this Goodreads group. That topic is too much involved in current international events and Republican vs. Democratic politics in the United States. It is becoming a hot-button topic in the presidential primary debates and will become even more a topic of presidential debates in 2016. The present "Political Philosophy and Ethics" discussion group is focused on long-range issues of political philosophy and ethics and is oriented toward the kinds of issues that have been the subject of political and ethical philosophy for centuries, going back in some cases to Plato and Aristotle.
However, I understand that terrorism, at least in its present-day manifestation, also presents some questions of political philosophy and ethics. Accordingly, with deep reservations, I will permit some discussion of it in the present topic, subject to the following rules:
• Any posts containing links to videos will be deleted. I don't have time to review videos.
• Any posts on this topic in a language (or containing links to any material that is in a language) other than English will be deleted. Although I have some knowledge of classical Greek and modern German, I am not a proficient reader in these languages or in any language other than English.
• Any posts degenerating into political rants (Republicans vs. Democrats, for example) will be deleted.
• Any posts degenerating into attacks on particular religions will be deleted. We have more than 400 members of this group, many of them from Muslim countries. Although "jihadism" or "terrorism" may be discussed, I am not going to allow digressions into the relative merits of Islam and Christianity. American and European group members should remember that much of Christian history involved theocratic practices, including burning "heretics" at the stake, Crusades against other religions, and religious wars between Christian denominations. If anyone doubts this, they can read my book The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience. Even today, there are Christian movements in the US and Canada that advocate a return to Old Testament theocracy, including the stoning of heretics, gays, etc. Most Christians today do not advocate terroristic methods. That has not always been the case.
• If I find that group members are not complying with the foregoing rules or that the topic of terrorism otherwise becomes unmanageable, I will terminate discussion of it by deleting any further posts and possibly deleting existing ones on it.
I am not going to respond to Charles's November 15, 2015 post on this subject, since it is not clear to me what exactly he is proposing. If he or others wish to address specific matters, I may or may not participate in the discussion.
Alan, thank you for reposting with your reservations here. My intent was not to engage in any political or religious controversy. We get enough of that in the mega media. My thoughts were around our role as citizens in this new world and what we as citizens in a democracy expect from our leaders. I also think that morality is a sufficiently important subject especially as it concerns our conduct of foreign policy and indeed warfare. If anything, the events of the past 14 years have highlighted issues of morality in the public square and what we as citizens are prepared to accept to protect ourselves and our families. These are, as Alan states , not easy subjects and I think they are deserving of attention within a discussion of ethics. Fear, suspicion and bias are human traits and behaviors which politicians of all kinds feed into and take advantage of. These issues may not interest the group and if not, please excuse my use of our square for this purpose.
Charles wrote: "Alan, thank you for reposting with your reservations here. My intent was not to engage in any political or religious controversy. We get enough of that in the mega media. My thoughts were around ou..."Thanks, Charles. My rules are not directed to you in particular but rather to everyone. Occasionally, I have found it necessary to delete a post (and sometimes a group member) for violating the basic rules of the group. I have had no problem with your posts, even when I disagree with (or have a somewhat different approach to) some points you make. But the topic of terrorism is so emotional, and so much political rhetoric has already been invested on it in national politics, that I thought I should delineate a few additional special rules for comments on that topic. I think I agree with what you write in your preceding post. However, it is at a high level of generality, so please feel free to elaborate on it if you are interested in doing so. It's not clear to me what you mean concretely. Perhaps, however, you just wish to state a few general principles.
I think that strategists on both sides lack basic notions of Physics, like the principle of action and reaction in human coexistence: the principle of cause and effect. No one can bombard with impunity the civilian populations, including children and the elderly. This escalation of horror will not lead anywhere, based on the principle of "a tooth for a tooth".
Although I don't always agree with David Ignatius, he provided a thoughtful analysis of the ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere in his November 16, 2015 column.
Good appraisal. Underlining Ignatius´statement:"The liberal dream that is the European Union, one of the great achievements of the past half-century, will not survive intact unless it gets security right. Frightened people turn to demagogues".
It has often occurred to me that we should have a separate topic entitled "European Union." This seems to me to be a logical category of inquiry in this "Political Philosophy and Ethics" group. However, I know very little about the EU other than the current events news available on the Internet and elsewhere. It would be interesting to me to compare the US Articles of Confederation during the years that preceded the ratification of the US Constitution with the EU as it exists today and as it has evolved. I encourage any group member having knowledge about the philosophical and historical roots of the EU to open a "European Union" topic in the "Political Philosophy" folder of this group. This might especially be appropriate for discussion by our European group members, who probably have greater knowledge about this institution than Americans.
Excellent idea - compare US and EU visions.
As was predictable, some US politicians running for president have gotten on the bandwagon to make this crisis a religious conflict between Christianity (with some lip service to Judaism) and Islam, which plays right into the hands of ISIS and which tears down the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It turns out, however, that the evangelical right and other Christian groups are not necessarily on board with this politicization of religion. The religious demagoguery of some politicians may, accordingly, backfire on them. See the following articles:http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11...
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11...
I'm sorry to veer into current US presidential politics, but this was perhaps inevitable once I succumbed, in response to popular demand and against my better judgment, to allowing comments on this topic.
See the article entitled No, the Governors Can't Stop Syrian Migrants by Professor Richard Primus of the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Primus indicates that the framers of the US Constitution deliberately took any such power away from the states as a result of negative experiences under the Articles of Confederation.
Alan wrote: "As was predictable, some US politicians running for president have gotten on the bandwagon to make this crisis a religious conflict between Christianity (with some lip service to Judaism) and Islam..."For an update and summary, see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politi.... Americans who regularly follow standard news outlets will already be aware of these developments. There are likely to be new future ones along this line, which I won't bother reporting because they will be so obvious.
A November 27, 2015 article in the Washington Post discusses the effects of past US nuclear testing and present climate change on the Marshall Islands, which was a US trust territory from 1947 until it became an independent country in 1986. Like most Americans, I was totally unaware of many of the facts set forth in this account.
I am not quite sure where to put this post, but I wanted to alert the group to a review of a series of books on liberal theory including the book On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present by Alan Ryan. Ryan's book has been mentioned by Charles, as I recall. I would emphasize that I have not read this book, but only point to this review in the current (3 December 2015) offering from the London Review of Books by Pankaj Mishra. As implied by its title, Bland Fanatics, Mishra is not a fan of Ryan nor of his liberal peers. He writes from the perspective of the colonized, not the colonizer. For that reason and for the reason that it is a lively and lucid piece, I heartily recommend it. It is available to LRB subscribers here but if you are not a subscriber I would recommend buying a copy of the LRB from a news stand near you.I don't want to spoil the fun, but will quote a bit from the review:
"Liberal ideas in theWest had emerged in a variety of political and economic settings, in both Europe and North America. They originated in the Reformation’s stress on individual responsibility, and were shaped to fit the mould of the market freedoms that capitalism would need if it was to thrive (the right to private property and free labour, freedom from state regulation and taxation). They did not seem particularly liberal to the peoples subjugated by British, French and American imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries. Contradictions and elisions haunted the rhetoric of liberalism from the beginning. ‘How is it,’ Samuel Johnson asked about secession-minded American colonists, ‘that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?’"
"The collapse of communist regimes in 1989 emboldened the ‘bland fanatics of Western civilisation’, as the resolutely anti-communist Reinhold Niebuhr called them, ‘who regard the highly contingent achievements of our culture as the final form and norm of human existence’. It wasn’t too difficult for Cold War liberalism, defined and deformed by its ideological battle with communism, to reincarnate itself as neoliberalism. More than one influential Western commentator in the 1990s and early 2000s outlined the new institutional framework within which latecomers to the modern world, without the benefits of slave ownership and colonialism, could achieve the virtues of individual liberty. Thomas Friedman’s recommendations to the world’s stragglers included the ‘values of hard work,thrift, honesty, patience and tenacity’, as well as ‘export-oriented free market strategies based on privatisation of state companies, deregulation of financial markets, currency adjustments, foreign direct investment, shrinking subsidies, lowering protectionist tariff barriers, and introduction of more flexible labour laws’. The financial crisis of 2008 redirected Friedman’s attention to the manifold problems of rising inequality, debt and the shrinking middle class in the US. Liberalism is deeply implicated in the crisis, as the path to it was laid by free market ideologues who demanded more liberty and less regulation from the state as elected politicians removed all restraints on corporate greed."
"Unlike Edmund Fawcett (another liberal author reviewed), a former Economist journalist who seems aware of its crisis of credibility, Alan Ryan and Larry Siedentop (still another liberal author reviewed) continue to uphold liberalism as a universal ideology to which all political progress has been leading. ‘The only morally acceptable form of democracy’, Ryan writes, is ‘liberal democracy’, and liberalism gives ‘the ordinary person a degree of intellectual, spiritual and occupational freedom the ancient world never dreamed of’. Siedentop is convinced that ‘we in the West’ must ‘shape the conversation of mankind’, but that we must first understand ‘the moral depth of our own tradition’."
Mishra thinks differently: “Convinced that ‘moral beliefs’ have given a clear overall ‘direction’ to Western history, Siedentop mentions capitalism only once in Inventing the Individual, while critics of the liberal tradition in the West – including Marx, Burckhardt, Nietzsche and Carl Schmitt – are almost completely ignored. Ryan and Fawcett offer a more capacious account of liberalism, but are just as indifferent to mankind’s many other conversations with itself, especially those held outside the West. ‘Political thought as we understand it began in Athens,’ Ryan asserts in the serenely pedagogical ‘Great Books’ style of the early 20th century; the hundreds of pages of lucid exposition that follow show no awareness of Chanakya, Mencius, Ashoka, al-Ghazali or of traditions of political thought older than Greece’s. Ryan mentions Islamic philosophy only to traduce it by dwelling on such fundamentalist agitators as Sayyid Qutb, whose shrill anti-Westernism became, after 9/11, the lens through which self-styled defenders of the liberal-democratic West like Martin Amis chose to view Islam. In this version of Western liberalism, it seems enough to posit the defense of individual liberty as the highest task of politics, and then dismiss all other political traditions as illiberal, or even fanatical.”
Other intellectuals in Asia thought differently, too. Mishra gives a decent little bio of Liang Qichao, who started out as an admirer of Western liberalism but who ended up despondent at how inappropriate was the ideology of the imperialist to the subjects thereof. Liang ended up being an inspiration to Mao Zedong, who would tell journalist Edgar Snow in the caves of Yan’an in 1935 that he had ‘worshiped’ Liang and (his mentor) Kang, and “read and reread those books until I knew them by heart.” (quoted from Wealth and Power by Orville Schelle and John Delury.) The key message of Mishra’s piece is similar to that of Korean pop economist Chang Ha Joon. I have reviewed Chang’s book Bad Samaritans here. A key thing to remember is that the free trade policies advocated for the developing world today by such entities as the World Bank were not the way that the developed world became wealthy. They did so by protecting their own industries and by exploiting the economies of weaker nations in the South. A little known fact is that the United States had among the highest tariffs in the world on industrial products for most of the nineteenth century. They were only lowered with the re-institution of the income tax by Wilson; prior to that the expenses of the government were funded primarily by these tariffs.
Final message: the institutions of liberalism, including “free markets”, democracy, and protections of the rights of individuals are a treasured Western set of values; in the rest of the world, not so much; primarily as a result of that part of the world’s history of relations with the West. And not only in the rest of the world. Plenty of native inhabitants of this continent and those who trace their ancestry back to African forebears brought to this country in slave ships have a similar disconnect with liberal values. Something to think about.
Randal wrote: "I am not quite sure where to put this post, but I wanted to alert the group to a review of a series of books on liberal theory including the book On Politics: A History of Political Thought from He..."For Americans not familiar with European terminology, "liberalism" outside the US means what is here called "economic libertarianism" or "economic conservatism." What nonacademic Americans call "liberalism" is called "social democracy" or "democratic socialism" (think Bernie Sanders) in Europe. To avoid this semantic confusion, some American "liberals" now call themselves "progressives" (hearkening back to the Progressive movement in American history about a century ago). There are complicated historical reasons for this divergence in terminology, which I won't go into on this occasion. Some American writers use the term "classical liberalism" to refer to the movement that Europeans call "liberalism." Writers outside the US also use the term "neoliberalism" to refer, especially, to the ideological rhetoric and policies of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and their political heirs.
Accordingly, when Randal and others refer to "liberalism," they are referring to the economic laissez-faire notions of Adam Smith and his successors. Leo Strauss, a famous twentieth-century professor of political philosophy, taught that liberalism in this sense actually began with John Locke, who adopted (and adapted) the focus on self-preservation of Thomas Hobbes and other modern philosophers. Similarly, and about the same time, C. B. Macpherson, a professor at the University of Toronto, taught that Hobbes, the Levellers, James Harrington, Locke, and other seventeenth-century philosophers and thinkers launched the modern obsession with "possessive individualism." After recently rereading several of Locke's works and Strauss's commentary on them, I am currently reading C. B. Macpherson's The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (originally published in 1962), which is one of Randal's favorite books.
Strauss once wrote that he would have studied the non-Western political philosophers but he didn't know their languages. Strauss was fluent in Hebrew (he was raised in the Jewish religion, though he was nonobservant in his maturity), classical Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, French, German (his native language), English, and French (and perhaps others). I guess he did not have enough lifetimes to learn other languages. He distrusted most translations. As a result of his influence, his "Straussian" successors have translated into English many works that were written in languages other than English. Following Strauss's canons of translation, these Straussian translations are as literal as possible.
Strauss and his successors did study and write about certain great medieval Islamic philosophers, for example Alfarabi and Avicenna, who flourished before Islam imposed the kind of theological orthodoxy we see today.
Randal has discussed some non-Western philosophers. I encourage him or others to create separate topics for these philosophers for additional posts to the extent they think it is appropriate. I am not myself familiar with many of these philosophers.
I must admit that I am a bit confused by Pankaj Mishra's apparent glorification of Marx, Nietzsche, and Carl Schmitt. Marx was the intellectual great-grandfather of Stalinism. Nietzsche was the intellectual grandfather of Nazism. As explained in the following excerpts from the Wikipedia article on him, Carl Schmitt was a Nazi:
"Schmitt joined the Nazi Party on 1 May 1933.[12] Within days, Schmitt was party to the burning of books by Jewish authors, rejoicing in the burning of "un-German" and "anti-German" material, and calling for a much more extensive purge, to include works by authors influenced by Jewish ideas.[13] In July he was appointed State Councillor for Prussia (Preußischer Staatsrat) by Hermann Göring and in November he became the president of the Vereinigung nationalsozialistischer Juristen ("Union of National-Socialist Jurists"). He also replaced Hermann Heller as professor at the University of Berlin[14] (a position he would hold until the end of World War II). He presented his theories as an ideological foundation of the Nazi dictatorship, and a justification of the Führer state with regard to legal philosophy, particularly through the concept of auctoritas.
"Six months later, in June 1934, Schmitt was appointed editor-in-chief of the Nazi newspaper for lawyers, the Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung ("German Jurists' Journal").[15] In July he published in it "The Leader Protects the Law (Der Führer schützt das Recht)", a justification of the political murders of the Night of the Long Knives with the authority of Hitler as the "highest form of administrative justice (höchste Form administrativer Justiz)".[16] Schmitt presented himself as a radical anti-semite and also was the chairman of a law teachers' convention in Berlin during October 1936,[17] where he demanded that German law be cleansed of the "Jewish spirit (jüdischem Geist)", going so far as to demand that all publications by Jewish scientists should henceforth be marked with a small symbol."
I don't understand why certain Straussians and others have been so enamored of Carl Schmitt. To my mind, the foregoing facts disqualify Schmitt from serious consideration as a political philosopher. Ditto Heidegger, who also supported Nazism.
As for Mao, recent biographies (which I have not read) apparently establish that he was a ruthless totalitarian.
Western colonialism, slavery, and possessive individualism were, and to some extent still are, evils. But we should not throw the baby of individual rights out with the bathwater. The biggest problem with Western history is that it did not extend individual rights to all, regardless of race, creed, etc. Another problem has been the failure of at least some countries in the West to deal with the economically unfortunate. The present post has gone on long enough, and I must now turn to other matters. But I will doubtless revisit such issues later.
Alan wrote: "I must admit that I am a bit confused by Pankaj Mishra's apparent glorification of Marx, Nietzsche, and Carl Schmitt. Marx was the intellectual great-grandfather of Stalinism. Nietzsche was the intellectual grandfather of Nazism. As explained in the following excerpts from the Wikipedia article on him, Carl Schmitt was a Nazi: ..."Alan,
Mishra is not indulging in "glorification" here. He just mentions that these critics of liberal theory are "almost" never mentioned in the books that he is reviewing. I think Marx had more in common with Adam Smith than he did with Stalin. The laser focus of the most prominent work published in his lifetime, Das Kapital, is a critique of the capitalist project, but with an understanding of it in terms of social relations, as is also characteristic of Smith. One of the things for which Marx is most frequently criticized is his lack of attention to a visualization of a world that was not driven by "possessive individualism." But to brand him as a totalitarian is way off base. A good corrective to this attitude would be the book Why Marx was Right by Terry Eagleton, which I have reviewed here. And while I credit Marx as a great critic, I am an apostate on his most famous theory, the labor theory of value, which I have criticized here.
I had never heard of Carl Schmitt. And if, as you say, he was a prominent Nazi, I certainly forgive Ryan et al. for ignoring him. But I think Mishra’s primary goal is to try to help Westerners see the world through the eyes of the colonized, as opposed to the colonizers. The values of liberal theory are a treasure of the West. What Mishra is trying to remind us, I think, is that in practice in its relations with the rest of the world the West has been many times truly barbaric. What he is trying to do is to open the eyes of Westerners to the view from the other side: The view of the Indians massacred at Amritsar, the view of the villagers in Viet Nam that had to be bombed to be saved, the view of the 750,000 Arabs driven out of Palastine in 1949, even the view into the eye of that darkness that created the Nazi state in the heart of Europe.
Many prominent Westerners have taken the trouble to learn something of the languages and culture of the world outside the Anglo-American bubble. Max Weber, for example, the father of Western sociology, wrote Konfuzianismus und Taoismus (The Religions of China: Confusionism and Taoism) in 1915 and The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism published in German and English translation by Hans Gerth in 1916 not long after his famous Protestant Ethic book. I remember hearing that when the Russian Revolution happened Weber rushed to learn Russian so he could read the daily papers from Petersburg and Moscow. My principal professor as an undergraduate published the book Kingship and Community in Early India in 1962, which was the topic of one of his PhD theses. He spent several years in India doing research. That book, published by Stanford University Press, is now as scarce as a hen’s tooth. I found a copy on the used book market, inscribed by my old professor, Charles Drekmeier.
I myself am no master of non-European languages, but I have given a go at Japanese, Tibetan, and Mandarin as an aid to getting around in these countries. I spent a year in Mexico and a year in Singapore and have travelled for two to four week stints to many parts of Asia (India, Kham, China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia) and Latin America (Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay); only a bit in Africa (Kenya) and hardly at all in the Middle East. I would say that while I have found that human aspirations are much the same the world over: we (most of us) seek love, security, and satisfaction in our work; the fixation on “me” in our Western world is really considered quite weird by many outside of it. Many many cultures, and not just those outside of the US (I am thinking of such contemporary writers as Sherman Alexie and Ta-Nehisi Coates and their predecessors,) see social relations as crucial to human thriving. So very many of us are blind to this and this blindness I lay at the feet of liberal theory or “possessive individualism” as you are coming to know it in the work of C.B. MacPherson.
Cheers,
Randal
Randal wrote: "Alan wrote: "I must admit that I am a bit confused by Pankaj Mishra's apparent glorification of Marx, Nietzsche, and Carl Schmitt. Marx was the intellectual great-grandfather of Stalinism. Nietzsch..."Thanks, Randal. I still have much to learn. Unfortunately, I spent almost 40 years preparing for and then living the very time-consuming life of a litigation lawyer. During those decades (usually working 6 days a week, 8-10 hours a day) I had little time for other studies and pursuits. Now that I am retired, I can focus on them, but I don't have enough time left to do all I would like to do, including learning other languages. Please don't hesitate to continue to contribute your accumulated knowledge, experience, and wisdom as a voracious reader and extensive world traveler. You have a perspective to which not many Americans have been exposed, and your comments are accordingly much appreciated.
Randal wrote:"the institutions of liberalism, including “free markets”, democracy, and protections of the rights of individuals are a treasured Western set of values; in the rest of the world, not so much; primarily as a result of that part of the world’s history of relations with the West"
I strongly agreed. Congrats. Ron Carneiro
I also find Randall's thinking and comments provoking and useful in negating the American-centric perspectives of the great majority. My world travels were undertaken an an earlier age in the 70's and 80's when the world was much bigger and slower, and when American culture was still largely confined to our shores and certain movie theatres in Paris . Saying that ; my experiences and the changes in the world in the intervening 30 years do not give me much cause for optimism. I have grown more respectful and admiring of our founders over time. My understanding of their unique genius and sacrifice has increased as I have witnessed the remarkable inability and unwillingness of most of this planet to think and act in ways greater than themselves. I really believe that the American experience was unique in the history of the world and that not France or even the UK let alone Brazil or India can or will combine to produce the "special sauce" that constitutes the American republic. Call me naive or a republican romantic if you like ; but the political and human development of the human race since the Bronze Age has had few true highlights and transformational moments . Philadelphia 1776 & 1787 count as 2 of those . Your thoughts and comments , especially Randall's much appreciated .
Charles wrote: "I have grown more respectful and admiring of our founders over time. My understanding of their unique genius and sacrifice has increased as I have witnessed the remarkable inability and unwillingness of most of this planet to think and act in ways greater than themselves. ..."Charles,
It is great for those of us who enjoy what has come to be known as "white privilege" to revere our founders. It is another to view those founders from the perspective of those who "felt that white American's progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence." (from the first few pages of Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.) What is it about America that inspires such adoration and such revulsion? Our liberal ideals ARE admirable. Our practice, not so much. And that includes the practice of our founders. We have discussed the deep implications of slavery in the founding and continuing life of the United States. I won't go into that again. But our failure to be really able to visualize the world from the perspective of the victims of our assumptions of grandeur is troubling to me.
This post is in the thread entitled "International Law and Politics." But the United States has an ambiguous relationship to the International Court of Justice, for example. "The United States withdrew from the court's compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 after the court ruled it owed Nicaragua war reparations." (http://www.cfr.org/courts-and-tribuna...) Many of our representatives in Congress regularly call for us to withdraw support from the United Nations. Had we been a part of the ICJ our last president but one could well have been called up for violations of the Geneva Convention for torture of prisoners and bombing of civilians. Our history of invasions of lesser developed parts of the world goes back to the Jefferson administration's campaign against the Barbary pirates. It includes foreign excursions too numerous to count, including occupation of the Philippines, management of coups in Iran and Guatemala, invasions of Viet Nam, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
We have assumed the role of chief among the Western nations who once lorded over an imperial world from which their current wealth was significantly derived. Another book that I have been reading is Resurrecting Empire by Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi is a native born American of Middle Eastern heritage who is (or was) the Edward Said Chair in Middle Eastern Studies at Columbia University. He is also the author of a more recent book, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. He is not a crank! The story that he tells in his older book of European manipulation and native resistance since the French first invaded Algeria in 1830 is hair-raising. The current bombing campaign by the French in Syria is reminiscent of similar bombing campaigns by them in Syria in 1920, 1925-26 and again in 1945. Thousands of civilians were killed in these campaigns and in the following campaigns in Iraq by England and the United States and now by the Russians today. The people on the ground in the Middle East have resisted these campaigns for almost 200 years! Could this have anything to do with the rise of ISIS?
Ironically, there is another article in the current issue of the LRB by a black man raised in New Jersey reviewing Coates's current book. While he has experienced much the same world as the one that Coates describes, he wonders about the cloak of victimhood: "In Coates's telling, an essential part of the story of black life today - the only black life I have ever known - is missing. The capacity of humans to amount to more than the sum of a set of circumstances is ignored. The capacity to find gratification in making a choice - even if it's the wrong one - is glossed over." How does someone like Colin Powell emerge from experience that also produces fiery rebels like Malcolm X? I think this is what I call a real contradiction: both freedom and determinism are true!
Enough for now.
Cheers,
Randal
Following up on the preceding posts by Charles and Randal:As we have discussed in other posts and in other topics, the Founders developed some good principles for government, at least if one can forget their 3/5 Clause and other constitutional protections of slavery. But neither they nor succeeding generations of Americans have lived up to the promise of those principles. The current anti-Muslim and anti-Hispanic hysteria whipped up by demagogue Donald Trump is only the latest example of a commonly recurring theme in American history. In addition to the examples cited by Randal, see http://www.telegram.com/article/20151.... The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Randal - I have much to learn with you. Have you receive my text: Reconciliation with reality? It will be gratifying to hear your appraisal of the concepts and proposals in this text. Cheerrrrs. Ron
Randall ; interesting collection of thoughts and perspectives that I would like to respond and react to ; your final question is the ultimate mystery and yes magic of this nation ; that it can and does produce both . My point being that the environment in which that contradiction happens is no accident and not something that I at least, in my travels and readings over the decades have been able to discover in other places . But then, I continue to keep learning in my 7th decade and appreciate the intelligent and thoughtful commentary posted here .
Randall ; interesting collection of thoughts and perspectives that I would like to respond and react to ; your final question is the ultimate mystery and yes magic of this nation ; that it can and does produce both . My point being that the environment in which that contradiction happens is no accident and not something that I at least, in my travels and readings over the decades have been able to discover in other places . But then, I continue to keep learning in my 7th decade and appreciate the intelligent and thoughtful commentary posted here .
Hey all! Have been away from this group for a while due to school. I've really enjoyed feedback in discussions in this group so I figured I would jump in on another thread. I have been reading a lot of international relations stuff lately, but still just getting my feet wet. Big names in the field I've read recently are Kenneth Waltz, Hans Morganthau, and Keohane and Nye. I also recently read Hudson's "The Hillary Doctrine" discussing gender and international politics. I finished Waltz's "Man, the State, and War" today and found his chapter discussing the liberal state's divide on foreign policy being interventionist or isolationist intriguing. He states: "What sense does it make to preach laissez faire in international relations when not all states will practice it?...This is one problem posed for the noninterventionist liberals. It raises the more general question: Can one wait with calm confidence for the day when despotic states that have made wars in the past have been turned by the social and economic forces of history, into peace loving democracies? Are their forces of evolution moving fast enough? Are they even moving in the right direction? May not the 'good', by doing nothing make the triumph of 'evil' possible? There may be a necessity of action. And even if the means-end relation is correctly described by Kant and Cobden, may men not hasten the processes of evolution by their own efforts? There may be, if not the necessity, at least the desirability of action." (pg 108).
A year ago I was generally in agreement with friends on the left making criticisms of neocons and imperialistic foreign policy. In todays politics I am finding that more and more people I talk to don't seem to have a grasp on what the terminology they are using really means, or how it dulls down complex issues. Hudson's book mentioned above was grueling. Her section on Guatemala and femicide was brutal, describing horrific rape and torture during a war the United States had a complex relation in. The orgy of violence saw its end in 96', but as other IR scholars for womens rights have pointed out, this violence shifted to homes and communities, and against a socially marginalized sex; women. Stories abounded to insanity, for example women discussing the dangers of taking what were traditionally male jobs in society after the war. Some women reported having limbs from other murdered women mailed to them. Others sometimes disappeared. I believe it was around 2011 that the United State's state department and USAID began pushing Guatemala for stronger legal protection for women, as well as instilling a short lasted, female attorney general, Paz y Paz.
Our involvement in the above scenario is meddling with another culture. Yet it's hard for me to chastise the implementation of what is to me basic human rights. Today I think anti-interventionism wavers between smart and lazy. As we criticize a series of difficult and disastrous US foreign affairs I think the left, the media, and many citizens find it easiest to point fingers in the past, say we should stay out of other countries, and then that is as far as we have to think. Waltz asks us to think for the long term, not just the short, and we fail.
Waltz's theory sees International relations as a collection of governed states in a world of anarchy. This makes the safety of other nations somewhat dependent on two things: 1. The existence of good, well governed States, and 2. Those States acknowledging their existence in the international order. I feel like America has lost faith in the later. The impossible goal of good foreign policy has made it maybe the least discussed issue of the election. We have looked at foreign policy as students of history, but as theorists or philosophers we have avoided more difficult nuance and stance. Anyway, thoughts? My own stance is muddled. I am by no means a Hawk, I've been generally happy with the latest administration keeping out of serious conflict. But I still feel that we are failing to accept the harsher reality that there are few global choices (even non-choices) without sin, and that Waltz maybe right that our failure to act in anyway sets a stage for tyrants and bad State's to behave how they want.
John wrote: "Waltz's theory sees International relations as a collection of governed states in a world of anarchy. This makes the safety of other nations somewhat dependent on two things: 1. The existence of good, well governed States, and 2. Those States acknowledging their existence in the international order."Thank you for your informative contribution. I have not read Waltz, and I am a bit perplexed by the above statement. Does Waltz not recognize that some of the biggest problems we are facing are not from states as such (with possible exceptions being Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran) but rather with nonstate actors like ISIS? Perhaps I misunderstand what you are saying.
I read Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations when I took his course on international politics in the autumn of 1965. Sometime later in the 1960s, I attended a "teach-in" by Morgenthau and left-wing academics and activists at the University of Chicago Law School. This was during the height of the debate about the Vietnam War. I did not at that time accept the consensus of my classmates that the Vietnam War was evil (I was at that time naïve about the LBJ administration and the military-industrial complex), but I questioned conscription and I also questioned whether the stated objective of that war was achievable. I attended the teach-in because I was wondering how Morgenthau would agree or disagree with the antiwar activists. It turned out that he did agree on their conclusion—that the United States should get out of Vietnam and Indochina—but for much different reasons. Consistent with his political theory generally, Morgenthau argued that we should recognize that Vietnam was within China's sphere of influence and let it go at that. After the session was concluded, I asked him privately something to the effect of "What about the poor people of Vietnam being subjected to Communist totalitarianism?" (It must be remembered that this all happened in a Cold War context and that North Vietnam was explicitly Communist.) He responded, "I don't care about that" (his literal words, according to my recollection). End of discussion. I never quite accepted Morgenthau's view of the world, though I later recognized that our involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. President John F. Kennedy had, in fact, intended to pull out of Vietnam, but he was going to wait until after the election of 1964. Unfortunately, he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, some say as a direct result of his intention to pull out of Vietnam, which was well known in military and CIA circles.
I think that it is probably wrong to approach international politics from an a priori theoretical perspective. This is, I think, the big mistake of the neocons in the 1990s and 2000s (and probably today, though I don't follow them much anymore). During the 1990s and 2000s, the neocons started with the premise that, with the demise of the Soviet Union, the twenty-first century should be the "American century" in which the United States should dominate the world like ancient Rome did in its glory days. (One is reminded of the eminent international politics expert Frank Sinatra when he sang, "The glory that was Rome / Is of another day.") Included in this Weltanschauung was the obsession with oil. After 9/11, the neocons were preoccupied not so much with defeating al Qaida but with overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, but the neocons false suggested that he did, and they portrayed him as having or developing nuclear weapons (a untrue view that Saddam was happy to allow stand in order to protect Iraq against Iran). Plus, in the famous words of then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Iraq had "all that oil." So we invaded Iraq, upsetting the balance of power between Iran and Iraq and creating a power vacuum in Iraq that was filled by nonstate actors such as al Qaida and, later, ISIS—consequences with which we are still dealing today. It is likely that Morgenthau would have foreseen all this. Like leaders of most wars (Churchill and FDR being notable exceptions), the George W. Bush administration predicted a quick victory. Events, as we know, proved much otherwise.
For further reading on the neocons and their approach to foreign policy, see the books by Stefan Halper, Ron Suskind, James Mann, Jack Goldsmith, and Francis Fukuyama in my international-law-politics-foreign-policy Goodreads booklist. By the way, the books on that list by Steven Coll and Tim Weiner on the CIA are excellent.
The bottom line is that I am distrustful of approaching foreign policy and international politics from an overly theoretical point of view. Facts are stubborn things, and it is imperative that our political leaders understand in depth the facts on the ground before they make important decisions about intervening militarily in international affairs. The neocons told everyone that Iraq would become a model democracy that other Middle Eastern countries would emulate. That claim was laughable at that time, and it has become even more risible since. It may be that the United States has to intervene abroad on some occasions. But, before doing so, we must understand all the potential and unintended consequences and be willing to accept them. This kind of realistic appraisal has rarely been performed in American history, much to our detriment.
We have many members of this group from countries other than the United States. This discussion may appear to them to be irrelevant—or worse. Since, however, the United States is such a consequential actor in international politics, it is necessary to address specifics of US foreign policy.
Alan wrote: "John wrote: "Waltz's theory sees International relations as a collection of governed states in a world of anarchy. This makes the safety of other nations somewhat dependent on two things: 1. The ex..."Well first I should put this more into context. My apologies for being unclear. Man, the State, and War was published in 1959 so he is not talking about current politics. And I am not sure Waltz is advocating intervention in terms of all out war. I am certainly not. The neocons were gruesomely and obviously wrong and I am not at all trying to ask for another Iraq. My point here, and my interpretation of the above quote, is that to fully remove ones place in the world without real consideration of long term consequence may not be acceptable either. I am not trying to insult or overreach anyone in this forum from a place in the world I am positionally not familiar with. Please correct me if I am in some way out of line in my argument. But it just seems strange to me that there is such outrage over the past and such fear over groups like ISIS without much consideration of the role of nations in the present and future. As countries like Libya may crumble it is easy to say what a mistake it was. It is much harder to place the ethical and practical decisions of the international order's role after the fact. I think most American's assume they have done the greatest good by looking at mistakes in the past and deciding that they no longer need to consider what impact public opinion has on future action. We simply need to stop being involved in the affairs of the rest of the world. I however am aware that this intervention never really stops. So I end up wondering: Do we at least show support for political factions we agree with in other countries that are divided? Do we try to move foreign aid into certain sectors we feel work towards certain goals? When we work as an International order, which countries should take on the burden of these decisions? Hudson mentioned above argues that stronger statehood would exist by the US promoting women's rights in countries that rate high in terms of human rights abuses towards women. Is she right? My point is that isolationism often takes the high ground because it is anti-war. But I am fearful that it refuses to ask any of these other more nuanced questions as well.
Ian Buruma wrote a short article a while back about Assad and chemical weapons, stating that he was unsure why some forms of violence elicit more emotion than others. ISIS is a horrific group and a major threat to the world. But it's actual atrocities pale in comparison to tyrants like Assad. Even Boko Haram has a much higher atrocity rate last time I checked. When reading about Syrians who risk there lives to gather information on the war crimes of the Assad regime, I can't help but see this as a futile effort if the world doesn't consider what exactly it's role is in the judgment of state actors that commit human rights violations.
This is a philosophy forum so I guess the real guidance I hope to find in this discussion is that I am uncertain of my own political/philosophical foundations in terms of America's role in the rest of the world. I simply can't settle on America "should just stay out of things". But Alan, maybe Morganthau would have a similar reaction to me. My concern is irrelevant and desire for active engagement more dangerous than helpful. I try to follow foreign affairs and current events often and I am aware that my opinion as an American, however small, still makes up the attitude of a country with great power over the rest of the world. So again, as stated above, I am not trying to come off as brazen or a bleeding heart to places that I hold little stake in. I am not here to offend the politics of those who are engaged in harsh places in the world. My meditation on foreign policy ideology is sincere in my own trying to understand what the role of America and other successful democracies is in the rest of the world.
John wrote: "Alan wrote: "John wrote: "Waltz's theory sees International relations as a collection of governed states in a world of anarchy. This makes the safety of other nations somewhat dependent on two thin..."I am also not taking an isolationist position. I am merely calling for knowledge of all the facts and potential consequences before taking any particular action. A problem that the US often has is that we are usually ignorant of many aspects of the cultures of other countries and accordingly don't understand what all the consequences of our actions will be. It seemed like a good idea to the neocons to depose Saddam Hussein, because they didn't realize that the consequences--both in Iraq and in the Middle East generally--would be worse than leaving Saddam in power. Some of the opponents of the Iraq War understood this even back then. The difficulties endemic to international politics and US foreign policy ought to make us humble and cause us to realize, channeling Socrates, that what we don't know we shouldn't think we do. Instead, foreign policy issues become simplistic political footballs, leading us to additional foreign policy disasters.
Back in the 2000s, I believe that some of the neocons were explicitly articulating what they understood to be a Kantian position: that if one had good intentions, one could and should disregard consequentialist analysis. I regard this as a totally absurd moral position, especially as applied to foreign policy. Moreover, I am not so sure that their intentions were all that good. In the last analysis, it might have all about the oil. But they didn't even get that outcome because they refused to consider the consequences of their actions.
John wrote: "Waltz's theory sees International relations as a collection of governed states in a world of anarchy. This makes the safety of other nations somewhat dependent on two things: 1. The existence of good, well governed States, and 2. Those States acknowledging their existence in the international order...."Interesting and important questions. I also take John's interpretation of Waltz's book as my lead question because I think it gets at the heart of the issue of our pressing need for international cooperation. I will say that I had never heard of Waltz and did not have the opportunity that Alan had to take classes in international relations from Hans Morganthau. I took a few classes in international relations back in the day. My favorite teacher was Robert C. North, a truly good man, who started out as an expert on both Russia and China and ended up as a leader in peace research.
The Morganthau that I have been reading about is Henry, no relation to Hans, who was Treasury Secretary representing the United States at the Bretton Woods Conference. The hopes of that conference by the two key players, Maynard Keynes and Harry Dexter White, for a truly international solution to economic order and with it world peace would be crushed by the nationalistic and ideological manias of the Americans, who dictated the terms, and the Russians, who eventually refused to sign the agreement. Stalin thought that the only way to world peace was through the destruction of capitalism, the propensity of humans to "truck, barter and exchange" notwithstanding. Many of my Marxist friends still hold out hope for that destruction.
My hopes are for something less modest, in the words of the self-described manic excessive, Slavoj Zizek: “Imagine a society which fully integrated into its ethical substance the great modern axioms of freedom, equality, the duty of society to provide for education and basic healthcare of all it’s members, and which rendered racism or sexism simply unacceptable and ridiculous – there is no need even to argue against, say racism, since anyone who openly advocates racism is immediately perceived as a weird eccentric who cannot be taken seriously.”
I had occasion to visit recently with a friend who was a scout in the jungles of Vietnam with his dog while I was studying political theory. My view of that conflict has been (and remains), not "What about the poor people of Vietnam being subjected to Communist totalitarianism?" but simply that we were fighting on the wrong side. We thought that we were fighting against communism, but the Vietnamese were actually fighting their War of Independence, from French and US Imperialism, but also from centuries of domination by China.
Really, the question of US intervention in the world is moot. It is simply a long-established fact. What with hundreds of foreign bases and a military budget three times larger than the military expenditures of the next 19 countries in the world combined, thoughts of "isolationism" by the US seem mildly hilarious. This is the reason that the US has been able to sustain the Global Minotaur, the global money gorging monster which has been sapping up 5-8 percent of our GDP in the form of current account deficit with the rest of the world for almost 40 years. I have discussed this here.
If there is hope for real international cooperation, as opposed to more of the ruinous wars that we have seen in the last century, it seems to me that it may be that the realization that global climate change is the "greatest market failure in all history" may make us realize that international cooperation is the only solution for all of us and that it requires recognition of the absolute need for politics on a global scale. My hopes are not too high for this happening, however.
No cheers for this.
Randal wrote: "Really, the question of US intervention in the world is moot. It is simply a long-established fact. What with hundreds of foreign bases and a military budget three times larger than the military expenditures of the next 19 countries in the world combined, thoughts of "isolationism" by the US seem mildly hilarious. This is the reason that the US has been able to sustain the Global Minotaur, the global money gorging monster which has been sapping up 5-8 percent of our GDP in the form of current account deficit with the rest of the world for almost 40 years. I have discussed this here." things: 1. The ex..."Hey Randal! Always glad to have you weigh in. While isolationism is a moot point, my own political discourse lately involves people who feel like we should just stay out of world affairs entirely. That everything America touches it in someway tarnishes. With this in mind I think it has led a lot of us to simply not want to take opinions or discuss stances in international politics. It's usually not a place for opinion or ideological stance because we can hardly walk away without some sin in our opinions. I am not alone in this observation, several people have pointed out how limited foreign policy is intricately discussed in today's politics. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a....
Anyway I have been more and more intrigued by International politics for better or worse. My wife actually got her bachelors at Bard in international relations so she schools me often in our chats about the world. She early turned me on to some of the feminist voices in IR such as J. Ann Tickner. I enjoyed the hyper analytic style of Robert Keohane on global politics, but as far as schools of thought on how to think about the world I still feel lost. So Robert C North is a good suggestion, if there are others that have been big influences on people I would love to hear about them. Best, John
Hello all, in the spirit of this theme, I highly recommend Phillip Bobbitt's 2 volumes on the history of nation states , "The Shield of Achilles, War, Peace and the Course of History" , and his follow up examination of the challenges to the existing world order in a post 9/11 world, "Terror and Consent: The Wars of the 21st Century". Mr Bobbitt is a renowned thinker and player in international relations and provides a needed historical context in which to view the current asymmetrical works that we live in. The argument over the proper role of the US in world affairs is as old as the nation itself. Unfortunately, there is a strong messianic vein in our national view of the world beginning with the old softy , Woodrow Wilson, who felt we needed to make the world safe for democracy. Its a straight line from there to Iraq 2003. While I came of age demonstrating against the Nixonian/Kissinger Vietnam expansion, I came to appreciate Henry's more cold blooded examination of national interest in determining our foreign adventures and entanglements. Now I know how some of you feel about him, he is after all the original American war criminal. He also has made statements in favor of some the lunatic fringe of the neocons in his doderage; but his realistic view of what should guide our relationships with the outside world coupled with an expanded sense of our responsibility, as a superpower, for global security is a good place to start.
Your thoughts?
Charles wrote: "Hello all, in the spirit of this theme, I highly recommend Phillip Bobbitt's 2 volumes on the history of nation states , "The Shield of Achilles, War, Peace and the Course of History" , and his fol..."Nicely put, Charles. I haven't read Bobbitt's books, but I've read a little bit of a book that some other group members might find of interest: Justice Among Nations by Thomas L. Pangle and Peter J. Ahrensdorf. The title is an obvious take-off on Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations. The following is the Goodreads description of this book:
"In the post-Cold War era, we have lost the clarity that once characterized our vision of international conflict. Foreign affairs are no longer defined solely by the ideological battles fought between capitalism and communism or by the competition between two great nuclear superpowers. That oversimplified view has been replaced by an increasing awareness of the moral and political complexity surrounding international relations.
"To help us deal with this new reality, Thomas Pangle and Peter Ahrensdorf provide a critical introduction to the most important conceptions of international justice, spanning 2,500 years of intellectual history from Thucydides and Plato to Morgenthau and Waltz. Their study shows how older traditions of political philosophy remain relevant to current debates in international relations, and how political thinkers through the centuries can help us deepen our understanding of today's stalemate between realism and idealism.
"Pangle and Ahrensdorf guide the reader through a sequence of theoretical frameworks for understanding the moral basis of international relations: the cosmopolitan vision of the classical philosophers, the 'just war' teachings of medieval theologians, the revolutionary realism of Machiavelli, the Enlightenment idealism of Kant, and the neo-realism of twentieth-century theorists. They clarify the core of each philosopher's conceptions of international relations, examine the appeal of each position, and bring these alternatives into mutually illuminating juxtaposition.
"The authors clearly show that appreciating the fundamental questions pursued by these philosophers can help us avoid dogmatism, abstraction, or oversimplification when considering the moral character of international relations. Justice Among Nations restores the study of the great works of political theory to its natural place within the discipline of international relations as it retrieves the question of international justice as a major theme of political philosophy. It provides our moral compass with new points of orientation and invites serious readers to grapple with some of the most perplexing issues of our time."
Pangle and, I guess, Ahrensdorf are "Straussians," but from what I've read so far I don't see that they share the neoconservative view attributed to Strauss and his followers by many in the academic community. (I have discussed this misattribution at post 2 here). I intend to finish Justice Among Nations at some point, but I need to study/restudy the texts discussed therein before returning to it.
Great! Well thank you all for the suggestions. I'll be sure to add Bobbit, Pangle and Ahrensdorf to my reading list.
The June 2016 issue of The Federal Lawyer: The Magazine of the Federal Bar Association is devoted to the subject of international law. The articles include "Murder, Torture, Surveillance and Censorship: The Recent Nexus of Federal Jurisprudence and International Criminal Law in Alien Tort Statute Litigation" by Matthew C. Kane; "An Experiment in U.S. Territorial Governance: The District of the Canal Zone and Its Federal Court (1904-1979)" by US District Judge Gustavo A. Gelpi; "Supporting the Rule of Law and Democratization Abroad: Personal Remembrances From 20 Years Abroad in 12 Countries" by Brian C. Murphy; John Okray's "Interview with William Neukom" (the founder and CEO of the World Justice Project); and "International Law, Agro-Ecological Integrity, and Sovereignty—Proposals for Reform" by Professor John H. Head.Except for members of the Federal Bar Association, this issue will be available online only until the next issue appears sometime in early July 2016. Accordingly, nonmembers interested in reading any or all of the foregoing articles should access and download/print them by the end of June 2015. At some point a few months from now, the entire issue will be purchasable by the general public.
This looks like an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
On June 20, 2016, the Supreme Court decided a case having some important international law implications: RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community . The Opinion of the Court was written by Justice Alito, who was joined by six other justices (Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan) with regard to Parts I, II, and III of his opinion. Although the remainder of Alito's opinion and the judgment reversing the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision was joined only by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy and Thomas, these four justices nevertheless formed a majority in this case because Justice Sotomayor took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. With the vacancy caused by Justice Scalia's death being unfilled and Justice Sotomayor not taking part, only seven justices participated in the decision of the case.This civil case reached the Supreme Court at what lawyers call the "pleadings stage": the question involved merely whether the plaintiff (the European Community) had alleged sufficient factual and legal material in its complaint so as to survive a motion to dismiss. The case had not reached the summary judgment stage (whether there are any genuine issue of material fact) or the trial stage. Accordingly, the Supreme Court's analysis involved only legal, not factual, issues.
This case involved the extraterritorial effect of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968. RICO has both criminal and civil provisions. Although Justice Alito's opinion addressed legal issues that appear to apply to both criminal and civil proceedings, the specific holding in this case (Part IV and the judgment) was limited to civil actions brought under RICO.
The US District Court dismissed the civil RICO complaint filed by the European Community against RJR Nabisco, Inc. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the District Court's decision. The Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit judgment.
All page references herein to Justice Alito's Opinion of the Court are to the slip opinion (linked above).
Justice Alito made the following observations in Part II (page 7) of his opinion:
"It is a basic premise of our legal system that, in general, 'United States law governs domestically but does not rule the world.' Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 454 (2007). This principle finds expression in a canon of statutory construction known as the presumption against extraterritoriality: Absent clearly expressed congressional intent to the contrary, federal laws will be construed to have only domestic application. Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247, 255 (2010). The question is not whether we think 'Congress would have wanted' a statute to apply to foreign conduct 'if it had thought of the situation before the court,' but whether Congress has affirmatively and unmistakably instructed that the statute will do so. Id., at 261. 'When a statute gives no clear indication of an extraterritorial application, it has none.' Id., at 255. "
In Part III-B of Alito's opinion (page 13), the Court stated that RICO applies to some, but not all, foreign racketeering activity. The Court's discussion here is complicated and technical. Those interested in the specifics of the analysis can consult the opinion.
In Part III-B of Alito's opinion (page 17), the Court reached the following conclusion:
"Although we find that RICO imposes no domestic enterprise requirement, this does not mean that every foreign enterprise will qualify. Each of RICO’s substantive prohibitions requires proof of an enterprise that is 'engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce.' §§ 1962(a), (b), (c). We do not take this reference to 'foreign commerce' to mean literally all commerce occurring abroad. Rather, a RICO enterprise must engage in, or affect in some significant way, commerce directly involving the United States—e.g., commerce between the United States and a foreign country. Enterprises whose activities lack that anchor to U.S. commerce cannot sustain a RICO violation."
In Part IV of his opinion, Justice Alito turned to the dispositive question of this appeal: whether or not the plaintiff (the European Community) had a private right of action under the RICO statute. The Court held (page 22) that nothing in RICO "provides a clear indication that Congress intended to create a private right of action for injuries suffered outside of the United States." In reaching this conclusion, the Court elaborated on its observation (page 21) that "[a]llowing recovery for foreign injuries in a civil RICO action, including treble damages, presents the . . . danger of international friction."
Although Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan joined the analysis in Parts I, II, and III of Justice Alito's opinion, they dissented from the Court's holding in Part IV that the private right of action provision in RICO has no extraterritorial application. Accordingly, they also dissented from the Court's judgment reversing the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
With yesterday's vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, many questions arise. With Scotland voting heavily in favor of remaining in the EU, will a second Scottish referendum on independence result in the dissolution of the UK? What will be the effect on Northern Ireland (Sein Fein says it should now be merged with Ireland, which remains in the EU)? Will Europe return to the system of strong nation states that characterized much of the twentieth century? Are nationalism and xenophobia the wave of the future—not only for England but also for continental Europe and the United States? Do such developments portend the return of the kind of European world that brought us the First and Second World Wars? Is the EU model dead or dying? Is that model, like the former US Articles of Confederation (1781-89), doomed to failure in the absence of a strong central, ultimately sovereign government? Is the EU government too undemocratic and bureaucratic to be considered legitimate by the populations of Europe? Will the United States witness a similar phenomenon with the possible election of Donald Trump (who cheered the Brexit result) in November? Will the economic devastation that is already occurring worldwide as a result of yesterday's vote help or hurt Trump and similar populist and nativist movements throughout the world? Will there be any effect on the Western response to Russian and Chinese expansionism? For example, will Putin now be emboldened to take Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania? Will NATO, which predates the EU, continue to remain strong and a deterrent to Russian imperialism?I am not an expert on EU matters and don't pretend to know the answers to the foregoing and related questions. However, I invite those who do have such knowledge or information to comment. I am especially interested in the perspective(s) of those group members who reside in the UK or continental Europe or who otherwise closely follow such developments.
Before we confront Armageddon, Alan, there are two possible rays of hope following the disastrous referendum vote.The first is that thers is a large REMAIN majority in Parliament, and only Parliament can pass the necessary legislation to put the exit process into effect. Parliament is not bound by the referendum, and Parliament cannot be constitutional bound to any of its own previous decisions. Parliament could, therefore, do the right thing!
Secondly, there is a petition calling on the government to re-run the referendum on the basis that there is an insufficient majority based on turnout. Parliament is bound to debate this call as it exceeds 100,000 signatures. As of now, over 1.3 million people have signed. Perhaps you may care to do likewise. The link is https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions.
That apart, every one of your conjectures is certainly pertinent and worth debate. Personally, I fear that the referendum vote had more to do with the wish of a seemingly disenfranchised section of society bent on giving the Esatablishment a good kicking rather than anything else. That having been achieved and Cameron out, a second referendum may give the right result!
Plato certainly knew what he was talking about...
Rodney wrote: "Before we confront Armageddon, Alan, there are two possible rays of hope following the disastrous referendum vote."Thank you, Rodney, for your thoughtful and informative observations. This is exactly the kind of response from a Brit that I hoped to elicit. After I posted my remarks in #43, above, I read an article that pointed out the resentment in the UK over the economic turmoil caused by Cameron's austerity policies. (Thanks to Obama's Keynesian approach, which Congress would only partially approve, the US recovered more quickly than the UK and continental Europe from the Great Recession.) I also read that many people voting to leave didn't even know what the EU is—that the "European Union" was the biggest topic being searched in the UK yesterday on Wikipedia. (The joke here is that Brits are no longer entitled to make fun of American political ignorance.) With the pound and international stock markets crashing, some "leave" voters may be having buyer's remorse. And I guess one of the advantages of Parliamentary supremacy (I seem to recall we fought a war over this long ago) is that Parliament can do what they want. And yes, Plato (having observed Athenian democracy in action in the trial and execution of Socrates) did know what he was talking about. But, of course, democracy, in some form and with some limitations, is necessary. As Sir Winston said on November 11, 1947, in the House of Commons:
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters."
Winston S. Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948 (1950; repr., New York: RosettaBooks, 2014), Kindle ed., Kindle loc. 3388-91).
Interesting that parliament could override or redo the referendum, but I'm afraid that the pitchforks would really come out if they did so! The same thing would happen in the U.S. if the Republicans used some maneuver with rule changes at the convention to deny Trump the nomination. Forget pitchforks, the AR-15's would come out! (I know one person who would use his!)
In the same way that Churchill saw democracy as the "least worst" alternative, it is perhaps the case that the EU project is a "least worst" adventure for Europe. Two key matters influenced the referendum vote - one concerned the "thinking voter", the other the "not so thinking voter". To describe the latter as gullible may be derogatory but is almost certainly true. To take the former first, stated simply there was an understanding in 1975 (at the time of the last referndum on EU membership) that the UK was joining a 'common market' - an elbaorate large-sacle free trade area - and the electorate saw the clear advantages to this. What the voter didn't generally forsee was that (a) some commonality was required in member states regarding regulation (e.g. some common quality control issues, weights and measures, state financial assistance to home industries) and that this would require supra-state laws and a Europe-wide judiciary. The 'Thinking' voter has come to resent this loss of sovereignty. (b) The EU has gone from 6 members to 28, most of them considerably poorer than the UK, Gernay and France and that to allow them to compete in the market there has been a transfer of resources from the richer to poorer members to facilitate improved infrastructure. The problem here is the same one that has dogged the Euro - a common currency only works if you have a common political and fiscal structure - in other words a United States of Europe; a project that the governments of Germany and France are eager to pursue, even if there constituents are less sure. In the United States, the Dollar works across State borders because the Federal government can shift resources from rich Californians to poor Alabamians, because the folks in California and those in Alabama both consider themselves Americans. This has not proved to be the case in Europe. Believe me, the Greeks hate the Germans and the Dutch and Swiss have long memories regarding the Germans. It goes without saying that the Brits are disdainful of them all! Few people in the UK favour a United States of Europe.To turn to the gullible: they have been persuaded that the free movement of labour - fundamental to a common market - has led to immigration on a large scale from the poorer EU countries and these immigrants have taken their jobs. Arguments that the evidence suggests that this immigration has largely helped the UK economy falls on deaf ears. As we say "None are as deaf as those who don't want to hear.' This significant sector of the population are the people who have suffered most from the government's austerity program and increasingly have no one to reflect their concerns. The Labour party is divided from top to bottom and has effectively lost its way. The Liberal Party, by joing a Conservative coalition as a junior party in 2010, has lost its credibilty and most of its MP's. As matters stand today, there is little choice but to support the Conservative Party.
Although I very much regret the referendum result, I am by no means despairing. The economy is fundamentally strong and politically it may be no bad thing if we come to recognise a reduced role in the world. We have been trying for too long to punch above our weight, and perhaps a time of quiet 'retreat' and political reflection may be no bad thing.
Rodney wrote: "In the same way that Churchill saw democracy as the "least worst" alternative, it is perhaps the case that the EU project is a "least worst" adventure for Europe. Two key matters influenced the ref..."Excellent analysis! Thanks much.
MimiIn Britain we have the expression "that there is more than one way to skin a dog". Rather than members of Parliament simply defying the 'will of the people', they can instead delay and frustrate the necessary legislation. A General Election could be called and fought on a platform of remaining in the EU and effectively ignoring the referendum result. The majority of MP's from ALL the UK political parties (apart from UKIP with one MP) are for remaining in the EU. As of now over 1.6 million people (3.5% of the electorate) have already signed a petition calling on Parliament to call a second referendum.
I don't think it will come to pitchforks and, thankfully, anyone caught with an AR-15 in the UK may expect to spend many years in jail. I do, of course, accept that we cannot continue to call referenda until we get the right answer, but rather like the Athenian Assembly when considering the revolt at Mytilene, perhaps mant 'leavers' are now reconsidering...
Rodney, in the US we say "there's more than one way to skin a cat." Perhaps, like our departures in spelling, etc., we just wanted to say it differently from the way it is said in England.Questions: As currently constituted, how are the governing officials (executive, legislative, and judicial) of the EU selected? Are candidates for any of these bodies popularly elected, and, if so, how? Does the manner of selection differ from country to country? Does the UK Parliament select British candidates or are they popularly elected?
As you can see, we are pretty ignorant of EU law and procedure in the US. For example, I have considerable knowledge of US constitutional law (I am retired from the practice of law, in which I focused on US constitutional and public law) and even know a fair amount about the history of pre-EU British law (English common law cases even form part of law school curricula here), but I know little about EU law.
When I created this topic in 2014, I named it “International Law and Politics.” For “international law,” see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna.... For “international politics,” see https://gkscientist.com/meaning-and-n.... The latter article mentions Hans Morgenthau, whose most famous book was titled Politics among Nations. Morgenthau was one of my professors in the political science department at the University of Chicago (I was a political science major in college). In retrospect, I probably should have used the more common term “international relations” instead of “international politics,” but I was thinking of the political science definition of “international politics” when I named this topic. I now realize that “international politics” may not be a term in wide use outside of political science departments in academia. Since, however, I still prefer it to “international relations,” I will keep that title for this topic.
As a result of the confusion about what I meant by “international politics” in the topic title, many posts in this thread have been off topic. For further information about topic relevancy, see my post 48 (August 25, 2022) in the “Rules and Housekeeping” topic.
Alan E. Johnson
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