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Jeopardizing Japanese ‘Abnormality’: Rejoining the War System

23 Sep

[Prefatory Note: The following post was originally published as an opinion piece in the leading Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, and appears here with their permission. The link to the Japanese version: http://digital.asahi.com/articles/DA3S11975719.htmlThere are two converging dangers of a new Cold War—one is confronting Russia in the Middle East and Central Asia and the other is confronting China in the South China Sea and elsewhere with a containment mentality within their own immediate sphere of operations. Washington’s encouragement of Prime Minister Abe’s campaign for a ‘normal’ Japan represents a regressive move regionally and globally, and deserves critical attention from a wider geopolitical perspective as well as from the viewpoint of Japan. It may in the end do more to limit the flexibility of the American approach to China than to free Japan from Article 9 constraints, a post-1945 ‘abnormality.’]

 

 

 

Commenting on the Japanese National Security Debate

 

At its peril, most of the world is ignoring the intense Japanese debate that surrounds the passage by the Diet of national security legislation that fulfills Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s vision of Japan’s proper role in the world of the 21st century. The core of the debate is about whether famous Article 9 of the Constitution can be interpreted to permit Japan to engage in collective defense arrangements around the world. Despite various prior tests of the outer limits of Article 9, and its seeming restriction of international force to territorial self-defense, the new legislation stakes out a far broader claim to engage militarily in a variety of situations around the world.

 

Most profoundly at issue is whether a changed national security environment resulting from issues involving nuclear weaponry, extremist non-state actors, and cyber warfare justify this more expansive approach to the use of force. Clearly, Abe’s belief that Japan’s national interests require an expanded role for force, and specifically the option to take part in overseas collective self-defense underlies the crafting of this new national security legislation.

 

There seems to be other issues at stake as well. The most salient of these is the continuing primacy of the United States in shaping of Japan’s security policy. It is ironic that it was U.S. occupation policy that initially demanded an anti-war clause in the new Japanese constitution, and even more ironic that the current prime minister announced his proposed policy reform with respect to collective self-defense on a state visit to the United States prior to informing the Japanese public. This posture long urged by the U.S. was welcomed by its Secretary of Defense as signaling a Japanese shift from a ‘local’ to a ‘global’ view of national security.

 

Most of the internal Japanese debate, pro and con, has been focused on the constitutional issues, especially on whether Article 9 can be interpreted in a manner that is compatible with collective self-defense and other features of the new security proposals. An informed consensus appears to be a resounding ‘no’ as expressed in expert testimony in the Diet and strong statements of opposition circulated among constitutional law professors in Japan. The effective LDP control of both houses of the Diet ensured from the outset that whatever the government proposed would be approved regardless of public opinion or constitutional objections. What seems clear is that legislative endorsement is only the first step in what is expected to be a lengthy battle in court to determine whether the ‘legalization’ of this contested interpretation of Article 9 survives judicial scrutiny.

 

There are more crucial issues at stake than raised by the legal controversy. Abe has previously argued that Article 9 was imposed on a defeated Japan when it was a helpless country without the capacity to form a national will of its own. In effect, his new approach, presented under the banner of making Japan a ‘Proactive Contributor to Peace’ is a bid to overcome the abnormal situation that existed in Japan after 1945. Flexibility for a sovereign government in defining its security priorities should not be, according to this kind of realist thinking, subject to arbitrary and rigid territorial restrictions that Article 9 has imposed. In effect, the new legislation is not militaristic at all, but a recovery of ‘normalcy,’ a restoration of full Japanese sovereignty in a manner enjoyed by other states.

 

This raises the deepest and most meaningful question: Was Japanese ‘abnormality’ a good or bad thing for the people of Japan and of the world? As someone with a commitment to peace and justice I long ago found the Article 9 approach taken by Japan inspirational, pointing the way toward making the international law of the UN Charter come to life, an example that could beneficially be followed by others, including in my wildest fantasies, by the United States itself. It is also encouraging that the Japanese public appears to agree with the positive contributions of Article 9, opinion polls indicating that a clear majority of the Japanese people oppose the new national security legislation and its implicit endorsement of collective self-defense. As is often the case, society is more peace-oriented than the elected leadership, and when party politics endows those in control of the government a capacity to defy the values and opinions of the citizenry, a crisis for democracy becomes embedded in what is put forward as a revision of security policy in light of changed circumstances.

 

The last question contained in such reflections is whether changed regional and international circumstances justify abandoning Article 9 and the peace mentality associated with it. Although Prime Minister Abe promises to carry forward Japan postwar tradition of ‘peace and prosperity’ this effort to normalize Japan is a deliberate policy rupture, especially when tied so indiscreetly to a more active geopolitical partnership with the United States. From my perspective, Japanese abnormality remains a most precious reality, a beacon pointing toward the kind of ‘new realism’ that the 21st century urgently requires.

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Kissinger: A Hero of Our Time

20 Sep

[Prefatory Note: The essay on Henry Kissinger’s World Order (2014) below was initially published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies 2015, Vol. 44(1) 155–164. For me, Kissinger was the anti-hero, somehow available to justify the unjustifiable, and situate himself in a tradition of statecraft that celebrated the European invention of modern international relations in the 17th-19th centuries. This self-styled realist tradition marginalizes law and morality, posits a fatalistic sense of human destiny, and is dismissive of the pursuit of peace and justice. In Kissinger’s case he climbed to the pinnacles of American state power, and was far from the worst advocate of global primacy based on military superiority. The fact that he owed his prominence to setting forth an argument supporting the feasibility of limited nuclear war branded him with the mark of Cain while still making his way behind the ivy of Harvard University. At the same time, we should not neglect Kissinger’s worldview just because it is antipathetic, especially as he has some important observations about how China’s rise to prominence in world history contrasts with the way in which Europe gained ascendancy.]

 

 

 

 

Henry Kissinger: A Hero of Our Time

 

“A Hero of Our Time, my dear readers, is indeed a portrait, but not of one man. It is a portrait built up of all our generation’s vices in full bloom. You will again tell me that a human being cannot be so wicked, and I will reply that if you can believe in the existence of all the villains of tragedy and romance, why wouldn’t you believe that there was a Pechorin? If you could admire far more terrifying and repulsive types, why aren’t you more merciful to this character, even if it is fictitious? Isn’t it because there’s more truth in it than you might wish?”

Mikhail Lermontov, Preface, A Hero of our Time

 

Combining the features of savant and war criminal, as well as renowned the world over as master statesman, Henry Kissinger deserves the dubious accolade of being ‘a hero of our time’ in the fully ironic sense meant by the Russian novelist, Mikhail Lermontov. Kissinger seems indictable for a series of offenses that deserve accountability in a law-abiding world: deliberate killing of civilians in Indochina; overt complicity in relation to mass killing in Bangladesh; positive association with plan to assassinate a major official in Chile; involvement in conspiracy to kill the head of state in Cyprus; incitement to genocide in East Timor; and direct involvement in plans to kidnap and kill a journalist living in Washington DC.[1] That Kissinger remains not only at large, but the object of reverence the world over, tells us quite a bit about the degree to which geopolitical celebrity trumps accountability and justice when it comes to status and reputation on a global scale.

 

Additional to Kissinger’s apparent criminality associated with his role as a governmental official developing and implementing American foreign policy in a variety of crucial settings was his earlier assertions of influence as a policy oriented intellectual at a leading American university. Kissinger, as a Harvard professor of international relations, skillfully professed views that proved useful to men who coveted and exercised power on behalf of the United States. Even before he entered government as Richard Nixon’s expert on foreign policy, the Council on Foreign Relations, a gatekeeping venue for the highest echelons of government, otherwise known as ‘the establishment,’ had bestowed stardom on Kissinger in recognition of these contributions to the policy forming community. His initial notoriety rested on an early book arguing the case for accepting the prospect of limited nuclear war as a means of offsetting Soviet superiority in conventional warfare in Europe.[2]

 

 

Later when serving as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Kissinger exerted an enormous influence on the development of American foreign policy. He managed to surround his undertakings with an aura of the invincible maestro of realpolitik, a contemporary counterpart of his own illustrious mentors, Machiavelli and Richelieu.[3]

 

A weird part of Kissinger’s claim to heroic stature was his extraordinary capacity to be repeatedly wrong about almost every major foreign policy decision made by the United States Government over the course of the last half-century, and yet manage continually to enhance his reputation and influence as the nation’s wisest guide on how the country should shape its role and behavior overseas when facing the next crisis. Kissinger was a supporter of the Vietnam War from start to finish, he even favored the disastrous Iraq War, and of course, the Afghanistan War. To leave us in no doubt as to his deepest inclinations, Kissinger even goes out of his way in this book to laud the presidency of George W. Bush by affirming his “continuing respect and personal affection for President George W. Bush, who guided America with courage, dignity, and conviction in an unsteady time. His objectives and dedication honored his country even when in some cases they proved unattainable within the American political cycle.” [324-25]. Phrase by phrase this is a remarkable encomium considering the degree to which Bush’s core policies turned out to have been such a disaster by almost any measure, with the 2003 attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq being a major contributing cause to the regional turmoil that has brought such massive suffering and political chaos to the Arab world, as well as seriously compromising U.S. goals in the region. To give his blessings to such a failed presidency is mystifying unless one takes into account of Kissinger’s worshipful attitude toward the high and mighty in the conservative American political establishment, and his extraordinary Teflon protective coating that has inoculated him over the years against the normal consequence of policy failures and ugly misdeeds.

 

It is fair to wonder at this point why I should be writing a review Kissinger’s ideas if I regard him as a disreputable public figure. My answer centers upon an appreciation of the man as an emblematic representative of global leadership in our historical era, and hence of Kissinger as truly ‘a hero’ worthy of our attention. It is not that his ideas are sympathetic, compelling, or even innovative, but rather that despite his long record of wrongdoing, Kissinger’s words continue to be taken seriously as policy guides entitled to the utmost respect by opinion-makers around the world.[4] Beyond this, his comprehensive presentation of the contours of past, present, and possible future world orders, while pretentious and superficial, does provide a helpful commentary on policy choices of immense significance, offering readers a useful platform for dialogue as to the global political future. Despite my reservations, the World Order offers a good basis for seminar discussions in an international relations course or for a reading group of attentive citizens who gather on a monthly basis to ponder the state of the world.

 

Kissinger is something more than a public figure that has guided and advised some of America’s most influential world leaders. He is also a student of international relations with a rare combination of diplomatic experience at the highest level, a broad historical knowledge of the conceptual underpinnings of statecraft in the modern world, and a street smart talent for gaming the system to his personal advantage. In this respect, the book under consideration, World Order, is likely to be treated as the culminating expression of Kissinger’s worldview and intellectual legacy.[5] And while it is devoid of empathy for the vulnerable or an appreciation of the ecological dangers facing humanity, it does frame debate on global policy in this post-colonial, post-Cold War setting in some useful ways if account is taken of its limitations.

 

Kissinger’s diagnosis of the present historical situation poses an intriguing puzzle that adopts an unexpected outlook, given its source. For this sage who earlier believed that the European West had evolved a diplomacy that reflected the eternal verities of statecraft it is now surprising to find Kissinger at the start of this book issuing a dire warning to his readers: “Our age is insistently, at times almost desperately, in pursuit of a concept of world order.” Such a sentiment is followed by a haunting question that obviously worries Kissinger: “Are we facing a period in which forces beyond the restraints of any order determine the future?” (2) Kissinger can be read as saying that the dangers posed are a result of the failure of the major world political actors not to have on their own recognized and implemented the Westphalian logic within their own civilizational and religious spheres of influence. Such a lament is conditioned by the realization that in this post-colonial era a belated embrace of some kind of global Westphalian system of world order, while the best we can hope for, cannot happen without its spontaneous adoption by non-Western political actors doing what seems best to achieve their goals in ways that correspond with the deeply embedded cultural values.

 

What troubles Kissinger most is the disorder that exists in the post-colonial world where the West can no longer run the global show by itself. He believes that the present challenge is to blend “divergent historical experiences and values” into “a common order.” (10) In his view “[a] reconstruction of the international system is the ultimate challenge to statesmanship in our time.” (371) Without this challenge being met Kissinger envisions a “struggle between regions” that might turn out to “be more debilitating than the struggle between nations has been.” (371) He is also worried by the challenges associated with the rise of non-state political actors that do not fit within the template of the only world order that Kissinger knows, the one constituted by the interplay of territorial sovereign states.

 

In setting forth the nature of this defining quest Kissinger posits several requirements that he never reconciles. He insists that a new global order to be successfully established requires that its central rules and limit conditions are the result of a participatory, non-hegemonic process of relevant actors. Kissinger asserts that only by way of such an existential bonding process will a re-framing of world order have the legitimacy to engender commitment and adherence in a historical situation where the West has lost its dominion over the non-West. In Kissinger’s words: “Any system of order, to be sustainable, must be accepted as just—not only by the leaders but also by citizens. It must reflect two truths: order without freedom, even if sustained by momentary exaltation, eventually creates its own counterpoise; yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.” (8) This passage is illustrative of the degree to which throughout this text the abstractions of language provide Kissinger with a useful comfort zone of obscurity. In over 400 pages we look in vain to find out what ‘freedom’ means beyond a vague affirmation of the American political experience. (e.g. 235-36).

 

The tone and message of World Order rests in the end on an affirmation of American exceptionalism as interpreted by Kissinger. The opening lines of the book describe a visit of homage made in 1961 to Harry Truman while Kissinger was a “young academic.” Truman was of course the former American president that took over from Franklin Roosevelt at the end of World War II and then did his part to launch the Cold War. Kissinger admiringly quotes Truman to disclose the distinctive essence of America’s political character: “That we totally defeated our enemies and then brought them back to the community of nations. I would like to think that only America would have done this.” (1)

 

With the blinkered vision of a true believer, Kissinger adds his own gloss: “All of Truman’s successors have followed some version of this narrative and have taken pride in similar attributes of the American experience.” (1) Such a portrayal of the American global role inflicts a notorious distortion on innocent readers. The truth is that United States has often been vindictive in the aftermath of wars and often not at all willing to help adversaries recover from devastating wartime experiences. For instance, in the lengthy negotiations ending the Vietnam War conducted on behalf of the United States by Kissinger, the reparations agreed upon were neither paid nor any subsequent effort made by Kissinger or the White House to have Congress uphold this clear diplomatic promise, which also was a recognition of a simple moral duty. In the aftermath of the First Gulf War (1991) the United States imposed a punitive peace on Iraq that included maintaining strict sanctions against a people that reportedly cost an additional several hundred thousand Iraqi civilian lives. And historically, the punitive peace imposed on Germany after World War I was undertaken with the deliberate intention of doing the opposite of what Truman claimed for American diplomacy after World War II. In part Truman’s postwar diplomacy represented his effort to avoid repeating the mistakes of Versailles that had earlier contributed to the rise of Hitler and the onset of a major war, as well as gave rise to a severe global economic depression. The disruption, oppression, and extremism that is now the tragic destiny of the Middle East can also be blamed on a ‘peace’ diplomacy one hundred years ago that distributed the spoils of war on the basis of colonial ambition rather than the wellbeing of peoples. How Kissinger, the purported student of history can overlook these features of the American role over its lifetime as a country, can be partly explained by his tendency to obtain historical impunity by invoking abstractions that have no discernible connection with the concrete realities that are supposedly encompassed by this overarching narrative of America’s global benevolence.

 

Kissinger associates the American goals in the world with the well-intentioned global projection of his idealized image of constitutional democracy as it functions in the United States. He clarifies this image as embodying “an American consensus—an inexorably expanding cooperative order of states observing common rules and norms, embracing liberal economic systems, foreswearing territorial conquest, respecting national sovereignty, and adopting participatory and democratic systems of governance.” (1) Where has this man been? He makes no effort to disentangle myth from performance as it has played out as the American global story has unfolded. Any casual student of history would know that the United States, almost from its birth, has been intervening throughout the Western Hemisphere, and since 1945 has intervened covertly and overtly in many parts of the world, and often with the purpose of dislodging democratically elected governments as it did

in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), and Chile (1973), the latter while Kissinger was making policy from his White House office.

 

It is true that Kissinger does fault the idealistic tendencies of American foreign policy, which he believes reached the peak of unknowing during the latter years of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. In appraising American political leaders Kissinger contrasts those he most admires (Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, and Nixon) with those he finds dangerously naïve (especially Wilson, but also Carter, Clinton, Obama). Essentially, Kissinger affirms those political leaders that share his belief that hard power is the main agent of historical change, as well as the capstone of stability and ‘peace’ (understood minimally as the absence of major war), and in this regard, he finds the ideas that were launched in 1648 by the Peace of Westphalia as the only workable foundation for international order. This Westphalian worldview in Kissinger’s presentation rests on two organizing principles: respect for territorial sovereignty and reliance on countervailing power as necessary to deter potential aggression. As indicated, Kissinger recognizes that this statist framework was European in origin, and if it is to work in a post-colonial era of globalization it will have to be endorsed by civilizational experiences that are quite different from that of Europe and North America. This is the challenge, as Kissinger sees it, of making the logic of Westphalia sufficiently attractive to China, India, and the Islamic community, so as to induce their governments to choose such a blend of respect of others with cooperation for mutual benefit as the one basis of 21st century world order that might work.

 

There are several problems with this formulation of the contemporary world order problematique. For one thing, it overlooks the vertical dimension of the Westphalian experience that has all along relied for order on the managerial roles of hegemonic claims and structures. This has been especially so for relations between the West and non-West, making it difficult for many countries and some regions to create political communities except through brute force. For another, Kissinger seems mostly blind to the fundamental challenge posed by nuclear weaponry and climate change, and hence sees no important role for international law or the United Nations.[6] In fact, one would look in vain for any sustained discussion by Kissinger of whether a global rule of law and strong central institutions are needed to protect the global interest against the predatory behavior of a world of national governments led by officials with very uneven endowments and perceptions.[7] There is absent any consideration of how to create global governance without the commitment of political actors to uphold human interests on the basis of species identity. Even more striking is the failure to discuss the viability of capitalism as means to achieve the desired ends of world order based on the recognition that sustainable order presupposes legitimate order.[8] One wonders how this market-based system can be deemed even potentially legitimate given the persistence of mass poverty, gross inequalities, widespread corruption, the predatory plundering of the resources of the planet, and increasingly dire expectations of water scarcities and multiple forms of ecological decay.

 

Overcoming such obstacles presupposes that the values of the main competing centers of regional civilizational identity can be embodied in the new world order. In Kissinger’s view this would now entail combining power and legitimacy on a worldwide basis, and not just offering to organize the world along pre-European Union lines. In the prior historic periods, there were distinct regional forms of order of which central attention is given to that evolved by China and the Islamic world. These are also alternative conceptions of world order to that developed by the West, although challenged and encroached upon by colonialism. Kissinger makes clear that he is particularly drawn to the Chinese soft power foundations of its national greatness, which enjoys the capacity to overwhelm others essentially by reliance on its cultural superiority and the sheer density of its demographic and geographic reality.[9] According to Kissinger, China has succeeded in neutralizing those barbarian forces that have from time to time penetrated its borders by sheer patience, and although it has expressed a defensive mentality by the immense undertaking of the Great Wall, and yet unlike the West, conquest and missionary belligerence has not been its style.

 

In contrast, Islam has a totalizing vision that associates its domain with peace and righteousness (‘dar al-Islam’), and all else as the domain of infidels and war (‘dar al-harb’). With its religious sense of political community as bases on the umma, the extension of the Western state system to the Islamic world has been problematic and hence illegitimate, especially for those states that are products of colonial ambition as in the Middle East and parts of Africa. Whether such states can even retain their current territorial boundaries is one of the unanswered questions. If not, the likely near term reality is the reemergence of ethnically and religiously bounded communities that either exist autonomously within existing borders or break away to form their own states. In effect, without historical or philosophical depth, Kissinger depicts the Arab world, in particular, as a region of ‘failed states’ for which there is no solution other than military containment and intervention to prevent the disorder spilling over as with the 9/11 attacks.

 

In the end Kissinger seems to hope that a form of global Wesphalian world order will emerge because states everywhere seek to preserve as much of their autonomy as possible while cooperating to promote common interests in trade and investment. This duality exhibits both a recognition of the realities of economic globalization as conditioned by the non-viability of major warfare given the existence of nuclear weaponry. Kissinger is fully conscious of the extent to which the European invention and development of the state system in the middle of the 17th century responded to distinctively European circumstances, especially an interest in overcoming deadly religious wars and the formation of political communities that were large and stable enough to support efficient economic growth. This Westphalian innovation cannot be globalized despite the intensifying functional imperatives to do so unless the other main political actors on the world stage can agree that such an order serves their interests and is consistent with their values. It also must be perceived as a joint undertaking, not a plan hatched in the West or a byproduct of the American reality as the world’s only global state. World order of global scope in its architectural phases becomes an inter-civilizational soft power project that contrasts with the earlier hard power structures imposed by the global reach of European colonialism. However for Kissinger, seeming unperturbed by contradiction, this new undertaking still presupposes the stabilizing reinforcement of hard power diplomacy and warmaking capabilities, with the United States acting in a meta-regional managerial role.

 

Kissinger, not without reason, thinks that his world order scheme will only happen if China and the United States are able to make their relationship rest principally on the benefits of cooperation and partnership rather than rivalry and competition. In other words, not a second Cold War, but a new kind of geopolitical relationship that is sensitive to the importance of balancing and equilibrium, but without any ideological dimension of hostility toward the domestic public order system of the other. Kissinger is aware that wars often have broken out in the past when an emerging state seeks to revise the hierarchy of privilege and status that is encoded in the status quo or the hegemon threatened with displacement strikes before the challenger gets too strong. He wonders aloud whether the rising claims of China can be met without either ignoring their ambition or provoking a disastrous military confrontation.

 

Kissinger considers the United States, despite everything from Hiroshima to drones, as continuing to be the main benevolent force active in history over the course of the last hundred years, especially to the extent it is able to suppress its national proclivity to indulge idealistic temptations that ignore Westphalian parameters. Kissinger appears to believe still that only military capabilities can serve as the ultimate guardian of the public good. In this regard he sees the American leadership role as at once “indispensable” and “ambivalent,” caught between the unrealistic wishful thinking of Woodrow Wilson and the creative realism of Teddy Roosevelt or Richard Nixon, the poles of thought and action that characterize the American global role over the course of its existence as an independent state. Kissinger wants to reconcile these antagonistic energies, and above all he remains deeply opposed to any further American retreat from the responsibilities of global leadership—in contemplating the American role, he says “[w]hat is does not permit is withdrawal.” (370) Kissinger insists that in the interactive reality of the present global situation any renewal of American isolationism would be a self-destructive dead end, and more to the point, he argues that the world needs a globally engaged United States as an offshore balancer that alone can provide the countervailing force that is needed in all regions of the world as a check on dangerous types of expansionism.

 

In effect, what Kissinger would like to see emerge is a series of regionally based political orders in which the United States is involved as a balancing presence, including in China’s backyard of Asia. This kind of formula pretends to avoid any effort to establish regional hegemony in any part of the world, and disavows an American search for dominance. In this sense Kissinger is arguing for a Westphalian order anchored in the actuality of the United States as the first global state in world history. It is a global state by virtues of its already established military presence throughout the world, reinforced by the dollar as a global currency, English as a global language, and American popular culture and consumerism as influential behavioral constructs everywhere. What Kissinger is proposing with a good deal of commentary on the necessity of taking account of existing diversities linked to demands for participation in the construction of such a legitimate world order is a system of global scope that is neither centralized by law or power. In this way, he acknowledges the interplay between political decentralization and a variety of globalizing tendencies without succumbing to what he would regard as utopian or totalizing traps. Rather cunningly, there is no discussion of how, given its capabilities and assigned leadership role, the United States would be deterred or its ambitions neutralized, or even whether this is necessary. When surveying the terrain of American politics this is a disabling flaw as it is entirely plausible to imagine a militarist Republican president taking over in 2016 with a mandate for safeguarding the nation and the world by waging continuous wars.

 

 

[1] This enumeration follows the list of indictable crimes provided by Christopher Hitchens in the Preface to his important book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger (London, UK: Verso, 2001). Hitchens offers considerable evidence to back up these allegations, as well as a rationale for why such it is important to conduct this exercise in symbolic accountability, for the latter see especially p. xi.

 

 

[2] Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations by Harpers, 1957), appropriately written under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations, which was responsible for bringing Kissinger to the attention of the political elite in the United States. Kissinger with his Harvard credentials, conservative Cold War politics, and unsentimental approach to the pursuit of national interests on the basis of hard power was a valuable advisor for those of Republican Party persuasion who sought the highest political office in the country.

[3] There is a consensus that the most important scholarly contribution made by Kissinger was his initial book on the mechanisms of the balance of power as operative in 19th century Europe based on the interplay between military capabilities and dynastic legitimacy, as well as admiring portrayals of the statesmen who grasped the Hobbesian logic that made this system work to sustain the established order. A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problem of Peace, 1812-22 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1957

[4] Illustrative of such influence is full page assessment of the controversial framework agreement tentatively reached in April 2015 with respect to the international regulation of Iran’s nuclear program. It is rare for the Wall Street Journal to devote its entire opinion section to a single article, and although George P. Shultz is listed as a co-author, the attention accorded to the article is a reflection of Kissinger’s unique stature as foreign policy guru. Kissinger & Shultz, “The Iran Deal and Its Consequences,” Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2015, A13.

[5] Such earlier books as Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984) and On China (New York, Penguin Press, 2011) are part of his effort to write conceptual memoirs that argue the case for the rightness of his policies and even more so, for his understanding of how the world is organized and operates. All of Kissinger’s writing, carried on in tandem with his work as consultant to the rich and powerful throughout the world via his firm Kissinger Associates founded in 1982. These undertakings share a single minded devotion to self-serving efforts to nail down his reputation as the hero of the age. If mainstream media is to be trusted, which of course it is not, Kissinger has succeeded in becoming the iconic source of foreign policy wisdom for mainstream media audiences, his name being continuously invoked as the most authoritative commentator on foreign policy now alive.

[6] For nuclear weapons, Kissinger reduces the challenge to one of nonproliferation overlooking his own endorsement of abolition of such weaponry resulting from a perception that the nonproliferation regime is unlikely to be able to contain the spread of nuclear weapons in the future. (see 330-41). In an earlier article written in collaboration Kissinger does join in suggesting that the best way to stop further proliferation of nuclear weapons is to eliminate them altogether from military arsenals. See George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, Jan. 4, 2007.

[7] Elsewhere Kissinger has been directly contemptuous of the role of international law and morality in the conduct of American foreign policy. See e.g. Diplomacy, note 5.

[8] For relevant discussion see Stephen Gill & A, Claire Cutler, eds., New Constitutionalism and World Order (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

[9] Clearly Kissinger has through his own diplomatic experience and scholarly inquiry has developed a deep admiration of the achievement and durability of Chinese civilization as appraised from the perspective of world order. This discovery of Kissinger’s later life corrects his earlier insistence that Westphalian world order as the only game in town. See elaborations in his long book, On China, also discussion in chapters devoted to China(212-75).

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The Horrifying Syrian Dilemma Persists

15 Sep

 

 

[Prefatory Note: This post is a somewhat modified version of the text published on the Middle East Eye website on September 9, 2015, and here by prior arrangement.]

 

On its surface Syria offers seems an ideal case for humanitarian intervention. An incredible half of the 23 million Syrians are either internally displaced or refugees living in dire circumstances, aggravating the migrant crisis currently overwhelming Europe. What is worse, mass atrocities have continued under the authority of the Damascus regime since March 2011, and to some degree by actions of the opposition. Further, for more than a year ISIS has emerged as a principal opposition force in Syria, and is responsible for unprecedented barbarism in large areas of the country under its control.

 

Beyond this, a diplomatic resolution of the conflict has so far failed miserably. The UN has appointed several distinguished Special Envoys who have resigned in disgust unable to rely on ceasefire reassurances from Bashar el-Assad. The two Geneva inter-governmental conferences that were convened with great effort ended in utter frustration. The United States is far from blameless, seemingly avoiding Russian compromises early on because it believed that the insurgency was on the verge of victory, and diminishing prospects later by insisting that Iran be excluded from the diplomatic process because of Israeli and Saudi sensitivities.

 

To complete this depressing picture, the parties to the conflict seem badly stuck, neither having a path to victory nor displaying any willingness to work toward a credible compromise. The opposition to the Assad government remains incoherent and disunited, and certainly seems incapable of offering Syria a workable alternative.

 

Not surprisingly given this overall situation, especially the spectacle of persisting civilian suffering, with its regional spillover effects destabilizing Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, is prompting a renewed call for humanitarian intervention, most influentially, in the form of a no fly zone (NFZ). It is contended that a well implemented NFZ could protect Syrians from the ravages being wrought by notorious barrel bombs. These terrible weapons are mainly used by Damascus to make civilian governance impossible in rebel held areas of the country. Proponents of intervention argue that once a NFZ is established it will ease civilian suffering, and might in due course exert sufficient pressure on the Syrian leadership to produce a political climate in which an acceptable diplomatic solution is finally attainable and this dreadful war brought to an end, a result that might even have at this point the benefit of a nudge from Iran and Russia.

 

Responsibility to Protect

 

The UN recently held a self-congratulatory session celebrating the 10th anniversary of the R2P (or responsibility to protect) norm, while acknowledging that there was work to be done considering the existence of ongoing killing fields as Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and North Korea. Notably absent from the list, a supreme instance of diplomatic tact at its hypocritical worst, was Gaza, and more generally, occupied Palestine, which since 2012 is after all a ‘state’ in the eyes of the General Assembly. Such other geopolitical touchy places as Kashmir, Rakhine, Xinjiang were also conveniently ignored in this effort to assess the record of R2P’s first decade. Leaving these awkward silences aside, at least the question should be asked: ‘Why has the R2P norm not been applied to Syria?’ The answer illuminates what is wrong with the cynical way world order operates in a post-Cold War setting, being more protective of trade and finance than it is of people, more motivated by oil than by a genuine humanitarian rescue mission.

 

The superficial obstacle to a R2P operation in Syria is the geopolitical standoff between states continuing to back the Assad regime and those supporting the opposition. This means that approval of an NFZ as a tactic compatible with the UN Charter is unavailable because of an anticipated Russian veto. Thus any use of force, such as establishing a NFZ, in either the north or south of Syria, or both, would neither have the backing of the UN Security Council nor qualify as self-defense under international law. This means that such an undertaking would violate the Charter on its key principle of prohibiting recourse to non-defensive international force without authorization from the Security Council, thereby disregarding the requirement of UN approval that is a critical feature of the R2P approach.

 

Proceeding outside the UN would further undermine the authority of international law with respect to war/peace issues. A less legalistic and constitutionalist explanation of this blockage arises from the dark side of the R2P precedent set in Libya back in 2011 when Russia and China and other SC members, despite their reluctance, were persuaded to allow a proposed humanitarian NFZ in Libya to be established only to find that the UN debate was a notorious instance of bait-and-switch. It was obvious that NATO’s intentions from the outset were far more expansive than the authorizing resolution in the Security Council, and once the military operation began immediately employed tactics seeking regime change in Tripoli rather than civilian protection for Benghazi. What seemed to skeptics of the R2P approach as an outright deception in its first test of R2P left a bad taste that has definitely discouraged a cooperative approach to Syria that engaged Russia. The Libyan precedent is not the whole story of relative passivity of the international community by any means. Syria’s antiaircraft capabilities also inhibited coercive action by making it more problematic to suppose that air power could shift the balance quickly and at moderate costs against the Assad regime.

 

 

 

 

Kosovo—A Poor Precedent

 

Then there is the earlier Kosovo precedent in which a humanitarian intervention was controversially carried out without UN approval, under the authority of NATO before the R2P norm existed and in the face of strong Russian opposition. Arguably, the operation was a success, Serbian oppressive rule ended, Kosovo and its people saved from an impending episode of ethnic cleansing similar to the Srebrenica massacre of Bosnian males (1995), and despite being ignored in the undertaking, the UN willingly entered the post-conflict scene in a big way to help Kosovo achieve transition to political independence. One influential appraisal of Kosovo pronounced the NATO intervention to be unlawful, yet legitimate, because it effectively removed a credible threat of imminent threat of mass atrocity at a moderate cost.

Several problems arise if relying on Kosovo to justify establishing a NFZ in Syria. First of all, Syria is a much larger country within which a civil war has been raging for more than four years causing an estimated 300,000 deaths, the Syrian government is reported to have sophisticated antiaircraft capabilities. Secondly, Europe was unified with regard to an anti-Serb intervention in Kosovo, with the partial exception of Greece, whereas the Middle East is so deeply divided with respect to Syria as to be engaged on opposite sides of a proxy war with sharp sectarian dimensions. Thirdly, the opponents of NFZ, unless persuaded to change their position, are more deeply involved, and have the capabilities to offset the impact of such an operation against their ally in Damascus.

 

Fourthly, assuming that a Syrian NFZ would be effective, the elimination of Syrian air power might actually work to the advantage of ISIS, which operates exclusively on the ground. Fourthly, unlike Kosovo where the U.S. was eager to demonstrate that NATO still had a role in the post-Cold War world, the geopolitical motivation in Syria remains confused and weak, being uncertain despite the passage of time. Also, the U.S. has had bad experiences with its recent interventions in the region, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, and wants to avoid being drawn into yet another war in a predominantly Muslim country. And fifthly, the present scene in Libya and Iraq show that handling the effects of even a militarily successful intervention can lead to prolonged chaos and militia governance. Such experiences of sustained chaos are not viewed by most of the affected population as improvements over the old authoritarian orders held together by the brutality of Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein, or Assad. When the alternatives are chaos or order, populist sentiments generally opt for order. This pattern has been evident throughout the region, especially in the aftermath of the short-lived Arab Spring.

 

Further in the background are considerations associated with state-centric world order in a post-colonial setting, which in the Middle East has left many bad memories of the harm the European colonial powers did to the region after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. To override the sovereignty of a state, and its capacity for national resistance, ignores the experience of the world in the period since 1945 where almost every Western intervention has ended in political failure.

 

The West’s Dilemma

 

So here is the dilemma: to stand by doing nothing while mass atrocities occur year after year in Syria with no end in sight is an intolerable international failure of moral responsibility for human suffering of this innocent civilian population. Yet to do something that will actually improve the situation is far from obvious, and the record of NFZs in the kind of situation that exists in Syria is not encouraging, nor are other coercive alternatives. General Martin Dempsey, the American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently warned against establishing a NFZ in Syria, pointing out that the government’s antiaircraft capabilities are at least five times greater than what Libya possessed, including some high end systems capable of shooting down high altitude planes.

 

 

There are some alternatives that try to find tactics that do something without making the situation worse. One sort proposal is to propose a more assertive approach by the United States, comprehensively advocated in a recent report of the International Crisis Group, believes that a series of non-military and covert initiatives could make a difference. It argues that this approach should start with what is logistically easier, a focus on the South of the country where moderate anti-regime forces are in greater control, and then if successful, extending such tactics to the more contested Northwest where Syrian antiaircraft pose a greater obstacle and ISIS has its strongholds.

 

All in all, the West cannot stand one more failed intervention in the Middle East, nor can it leave unattended a deep humanitarian crisis that spilling over Syrian borders. The burden in such a tragic situation should be placed on pro-interventionists to show convincingly how a NFZ can be established and maintained in the face of expected resistance from within and opposition from without. So far this burden has not been sustained. There are other ways to help alleviate civilian suffering and to exert greater pressure on Damascus that do not rely on such a blunt and unreliable instrument as a NFZ. In the background is the steadfast refusal of the United States or its European allies to be willing to contemplate an occupation of Syria via a ground attack, not because of legal or moral inhibitions, but due to the lack of political support for any military operation likely to result in significant casualties for the intervenor.

 

There exists a more drastic diplomatic approach that should have been tried long ago, and still seems worth the effort: bringing Iran and Russia into a peace process as major players, overriding objections by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Such a diplomatic atmosphere might at last create the war-ending conditions for compromise and cooperation that include putting pressure on Damascus. In such an altered setting, either a NFZ, or an equivalent proposal could find support within the Security Council or such a measure would no longer be needed. This diplomatic initiative is admittedly a long shot, but better than the alternatives of doing nothing or acting outside the framework of the UN and international law with scant prospects of success and big chances that things would go badly wrong. There are reliable reports circulating that the U.S. Government rejected a Russian backed initiative 2012 that would have included Assad being removed from power because Washington was then so convinced that the Damascus government was about to collapse in any event, and no diplomatic compromise was needed. At least, there is now a more realistic understanding of the balance of forces in Syria, and what form of compromise has any chance of being sustained. Unfortunately, however, with the emergence in the meantime of the al-Nusra Front and ISIS, difficult questions arise as to whether in the situation that prevails at present any compromise is sustainable unless externally maintained by a major international presence, which itself seems politically unattainable. 

What this prolonged dilemma in the face of mass atrocity shows is the deficiency of state-centric world order if appraised from the perspective of human wellbeing rather than national interests. The failures in Syria are not just the shortcomings of diplomacy and manipulations of geopolitics, but also a severe mismatch between structures and capabilities of global authority and the vulnerabilities of the peoples of the world. Until these structures are transformed on the basis of the human and global interests Syrian dilemmas in one form or another are bound to recur.

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OUTLOOK INDIA Interview on ‘Digital India’ & PM Narendra Modi

14 Sep

[Prefatory Note: I am posting here an interview with the magazine OUTLOOK INDIA associated with an open letter that was signed by more than 100 Indian scholars and intellectuals, as well as those such as myself with a long research and human interest in India, expressing concern about the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Silicon Valley to promote his vision of ‘Digital India.’ I feel strongly about these issues, especially in light of the Snowden disclosures and the general use of digital capabilities to encroach upon personal freedom and a climate of liberty in post-9/11 America. The link to the original text is <http://www.outlookindia.com/article/the-future-of-india-as-a-democratic-country-is-at-risk/295251&gt;  The quoted remark at the beginning of several questions are taken from the text of the letter, which is referred to in the interview as ‘a petition.’ FYI, the full text of the letter and a partial list of signatories is appended after the interview.]

 

 

[Editorial Preface of OUTLOOK]: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Silicon Valley later this month. But over 137 US-based academics and intellectuals have already filed a petition to the Silicon Valley Enterprises expressing concern about Modi and his ‘Digital India’ campaign. It is not surprising that Richard A. Falk is one of the petitioners. The professor emeritus of law at Princeton University, a highly respected academic, has always been an outspoken critic of governments and policies that violate human rights and civil liberties. At 84, he has authored and co-edited more than 40 books and is a well-known commentator on his own. As former UN rapporteur on Palestine, Falk is also one of the few Jews who was denied a visa by Israel for his outspoken views about Israeli atrocities and occupation of Palestinian territory. He tells Pranay Sharma why he’s a signatory to the petition against Modi.] 

Q: What is the prime concern you have against Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ campaign?

I and others on the list have questions about Narendra Modi’s record on religious tolerance, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression. Some of those who signed the letter have also been subject to a campaign of harassment from Hindu nationalist followers, which raises particular worries about academic freedom. “Digital India” as an initiative has enormous potential to affect positive social change, but it simultaneously poses dangers for abuse under the Modi administration that can make use of digitalization to target members of minority communities or those who are critical of its policies. It is my impression that the Modi government has been particularly sensitive to criticism and unfriendly to critics, making our concern more credible.

Q: Does this fear stem from the individual-Narendra Modi in this case -or the proposed campaign itself?

It’s not too clear at this stage exactly what “Digital India” will become programmatically, and this is precisely why we wrote to register our concerns-to influence the course the debate will take. Most of the media treatment that I and my colleagues have seen is so far more concerned with branding the campaign rather than focusing on its substance, The plan as outlined on the Government of India website, http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Digital%20India.pdf is appropriately ambitious, and commendably has the “empowerment of citizens” at its core. But the potential for disempowerment is also present as the gap widens between those who have access to internet technology and those in India who still lack water and electricity. I believe that some of my colleagues have reasonable grounds to worry that the planned heavy investment in digital infrastructure will widen this gap, and along with it, socio-economic disparities.. There is no present indications that the Indian government is implementing policies designed to reduce, if not eliminate, the gap. And with respect to your underlying question it is impossible to disentangle the Modi Government or Modi as a political personality from the Digital India Campaign.

Q: Are there real reasons for such apprehensions given the fact that much of the proposed programme was actually undertaken by Modi’s predecessor, Manmohan Singh? “Digital India has great potential, but under the Modi government it poses dangers for abuse.”

Some of the same concerns would have surfaced in all likelihood under any Indian government.These concerns are magnified given Modi’s record on freedom of expression leading me and my colleagues to have apprehensions about a process of digital consolidation that can lead to further breaches not only of privacy but of individual security. A realization that the previous government in India has been working toward e-governance, and that these issues are ones faced by other governments in the world does not in any way make it irrelevant to raise issues associated with Modi’s specific record. As an American, with a deep commitment to the wellbeing and positive development of India, I have joined with Indian colleagues because I have seen what digital age abuses have occurred in my own country. The Snowden disclosures should serve as a reminder that citizens of all countries need to exert unprecedented vigilance in the defense of freedom and in support of societal equity given the contemporary interface between totalizing governmental security and technological capabilities.
Modi was a three-time elected chief minister of Gujarat and in 2014 successfully won an impressive mandate to become India’s Prime Minister. How do you see the obvious support he has among a sizeable section of Indians?

The fact that a policy or programme is popular or even that the majority of people at any moment in time is in favor does not make it right or suggest the inappropriateness of constructive criticism. We have witnessed this tension between what is popular and what is right numerous times in recent history, and speaking personally, perhaps most vividly with respect to the implementation of U.S. foreign policy on a global scale. We can recall with remorse a lone American Congress woman, Barbara Lee, who held out as the sole dissenting voice against authorizing the US president to go to war against Afghanistan-a policy that the entire US Congress and the rest of the country favored at the time, but produced disastrous consequences. Modi’s support appears to rest on several factors, but he and his administration have at times disturbingly invoked Hindu nationalist rhetoric to gain the enthusiastic backing of the Hindu majority in the country raising insecurities among minorities.

Q: Do you think democratic institutions in India have been weakened or seriously threatened since Modi became the Prime Minister?

My response to this question is shaped by the opinion of Indian colleagues and trusted friends, so I will not comment too much on internal dynamics. At the same time, we are living in a borderless world, not least because of the impact of the digital dimensions of modern life, and so as concerned citizens of the world we cannot shut our eyes to threatening developments even in distant countries, while at the same time being respectful of norms of non-intervention and of rights of self-determination. From this perspective, I have come to believe that democratic institutions have been weakened under Modi’s administration. It’s true that some of these anti-democratic tendencies were already evident in the behavior of prior Indian governments, but it is also the case that the last administration brought out the “Right to Information” package of reforms that has greatly increased government transparency and empowered people to hold the Indian government accountable. It’s not clear at this point whether “Digital India” in Modi’s hands will lead to increased transparency. The background of his record as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, and the experience of his first year as Prime Minister gives rise to a legitimate concern that the future of India as a democratic country is at sufficient risk to justify a petition raising questions that need to be discussed.

Q: The petition mentions Modi’s alleged role in the Gujarat riots. But given the fact that large number of world leaders including President, Barack Obama, now engage with him, do you think these charges are still relevant? “Modi’s background as CM and his first year as PM raises concern that India’s democracy is at risk.”

Yes, they are still relevant even legally: there is currently an undecided appeal in the Gujarat judicial system that raises serious questions about whether Modi took adequate steps to control the Gujurat violence in 2002, and whether he was actively implicated in its unfolding. Whether or not this unfinished legal process produces an adverse assessment of his conduct, Modi’s speeches at the time were themselves sufficient by themselves to validate continuing worries. They were inflammatory, and made no effort to restore calm and avoid violence. Such behavior signals the reasonableness of seeking clarifications and reassuring procedures. The fact that Obama and other world leaders engage Modi diplomatically is to be expected, especially when it is considered that he is the head of the world’s largest democracy and important actor in the world economy. We have seen many examples in history in which leaders lead people in a terrible direction, and yet are treated as normal and legitimate for purposes of international relations. The legacy of George W. Bush is a painful instance of a leader who did the US and the world a great deal of harm without undermining his legitimacy. Ariel Sharon when acting on behalf of Israel committed what many regarded as crimes against humanity, but when he was democratically elected in 2000 the world dealt with him without looking back. It is up to people of conscience to look back. When wrongs are done to people whether internationally or at home they do not fade from view with the passage of time. If there is to be democracy based on the rule of law then citizens and persons of conscience must treat equals equally, whether it be the poorest citizen or the most powerful politician. We are aware that there are many in India who are critical of Modi’s policies and whose right of dissent is being challenged, and their voices silenced or intimidated. Modi may be speaking on behalf of some kind of majority in India, but that does not invalidate opposition, even strenuous opposition. One crucial test of a true democracy is whether it protects the rights of minorities, especially when in tension with governing authorities. This is so whether the tension be with political minorities, religious minorities, ethnic minorities, or sexual minorities. A democracy only flourishes when divergent voices can be freely heard without fear of an official or populist backlash.

Q: You also mention the Silicon Valley Enterprises have a code of responsibility that they should be mindful of not being violated by Modi. Could you specify what this code of responsibility is?

I do not claim any special knowledge about this code of responsibility. Silicon Valley Enterprises have a great deal of influence and wealth, perhaps now in some respects greater than that possessed by any government. The New York Times Magazine did stories recently about Chinese factories making Apple products that were run as a sweat shops. Does Apple have the right or strength to insist on at least monitoring working conditions for those who make its products? The Saipan Sweat Shop case resulted in a settlement that required several clothing manufacturers to end the most egregious forms of labor abuse. Outsourcing labor is very convenient for many corporations, and not just for Silicon Valley Enterprises, but it is a prominent feature of Silicon Valley operations. So some of the questions we have about the “Digital India” initiative involve anticipated impacts on basic labor conditions in India that are presently poor and often abusive, but that do make labor costs of doing any kind of business in India more profitable. It is important that “Digital India” evolves in tandem with the protection and advancement of fundamental rights of all workers.

Q: How successful have these Silicon Valley Enterprises been so far in safeguarding their code of conduct while dealing with various governments?

So far, voluntary codes of conduct with respect to business practices, as has been promoted within the United Nations, have elicited pledges from corporations eager to uphold their reputations but the record of compliance ranges from mixed to poor.

Q: The US in general and the Obama administration in particular, have been accused of spying and abusing personal information of individuals by leaders and people of different countries. What has been your reaction to that? 

The pursuit of reasonable levels of state security has become indistinguishable with the Orwellian state.

This is a confusing area of governmental operations, not only for the United States, but for all countries. On the one side, especially given the current agenda of security threats, all governments engage in spying and espionage. On the other side, all states criminalize these activities that target its state’s secrets. This creates a situation of ethical and political confusion, making it difficult to distinguish heroes from villains. The United States as the world’s first global state with interests and involvements throughout the planet has the most extensive, sophisticated, and intrusive system of surveillance and espionage in all of history. As mentioned, the Snowden and Wikileaks disclosures, while viewed as criminal acts in the United States, divulged such excessive abuses that the U.S. Congress took some steps to curtail some of these intelligence operations. One of the reasons to be concerned about “Digital India” or “Digital America” is that the borderline between the pursuit of reasonable levels of state security has become almost indistinguishable from the Orwellian nightmare state of permanent war and total control over people. It is up to citizens within their own country and those with concern for the future of their region and the world to insist on scrutiny of intelligence operations to avoid their encroachment on individual and group rights.My colleagues who co-signed this petition are extremely concerned about this, and some of the signatories to the letter have expertise in this area. In criticizing India, we are not saying, nor do we believe, that the US record must not be scrutinized, protested, and reformed. Modi’s visit to the US provides an occasion for some of these shared issues to be discussed in a more global forum. But a focus on the severe dangers of US practices in the collection and use of digital information should never be interpreted to mean that scrutiny should be lessened in relation to what is, or may happen under Modi’s governmental authority.

Q: Most governments in the world today are committed to fight the “menace of terrorism.” In such a scenario do you think individual privacy and their fundamental rights are bound to be curtailed?

I think the evidence to date the answer worldwide is a resounding ‘yes.’ Partly this is the nature of threats posed by non-state actors that have no territorial address making everyone everywhere a potential suspect, which seems to serve as a rationalization for the expanded intelligence activities undertaken in the name of fighting against terrorism. This challenge of identifying and removing the threat before it materializes, also creates pressure for racial and ethnic profiling that gets translated in practice into arbitrary and discriminatory treatment of minorities, especially if perceived as anti-regime minorities.

A second level of explanation is associated with technological innovations that make the collection of meta-date feasible and economical. These capabilities are also enhanced by the development of drones and various forms of robotic activity, with even greater capabilities and intrusiveness on the technological horizon.

Because this transformed security and technological atmosphere endows the state with dangerous totalizing powers, it is more important than ever that the peoples of the world uphold freedom for themselves and others. It is only through the challenges of a petition such as ours that some hope exists for establishing a dynamic balance between state and society in the digital age. It is in this spirit that I joined with my Indian and other colleagues and friends as a signatory.

 

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Here is the full statement issued by the academicians, and a partial list of signatories:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Silicon Valley highlights the role of a country that has contributed much to the growth and development of Silicon Valley industries, and builds on this legacy in extending American business collaboration and partnerships with India. However Indian entrepreneurial success also brings with it key responsibilities and obligations with regard to the forms of e-governance envisioned by ‘Digital India’.

We are concerned that the project’s potential for increased transparency in bureaucratic dealings with people is threatened by its lack of safeguards about privacy of information, and thus its potential for abuse. As it stands, ‘Digital India’ seems to ignore key questions raised in India by critics concerned about the collection of personal information and the near certainty that such digital systems will be used to enhance surveillance and repress the constitutionally-protected rights of citizens. These issues are being discussed energetically in public in India and abroad. Those who live and work in Silicon Valley have a particular responsibility to demand that the government of India factor these critical concerns into its planning for digital futures.

We acknowledge that Narendra Modi, as Prime Minister of a country that has contributed much to the growth and development of Silicon Valley industries, has the right to visit the United States, and to seek American business collaboration and partnerships with India. However, as educators who pay particular attention to history, we remind Mr. Modi’s audiences of the powerful reasons for him being denied the right to enter the US from 2005-2014, for there is still an active case in Indian courts that questions his role in the Gujarat violence of 2002 when 1,000 died. Modi’s first year in office as the Prime Minister of India includes well-publicized episodes of censorship and harassment of those critical of his policies, bans and restrictions on NGOs leading to a constriction of the space of civic engagement, ongoing violations of religious freedom, and a steady impingement on the independence of the judiciary.

Under Mr Modi’s tenure as prime minister, academic freedom is also at risk: foreign scholars have been denied entry to India to attend international conferences, there has been interference with the governance of top Indian universities and academic institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the Indian Institutes of Technology and Nalanda University; as well as underqualified or incompetent key appointments made to the Indian Council of Historical Research, the Film and Television Institute of India, and the National Book Trust. A proposed bill to bring the Indian Institutes of Management under direct control of government is also worrisome. These alarming trends require that we, as educators, remain vigilant not only about modes of e-governance in India but about the political future of the country.

We urge those who lead Silicon Valley technology enterprises to be mindful of not violating their own codes of corporate responsibility when conducting business with a government which has, on several occasions already, demonstrated its disregard for human rights and civil liberties, as well as the autonomy of educational and cultural institutions.

Signatories

Meena Alexander, Distinguished Professor of English, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York

Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University

Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, UC Santa Cruz

Fredrick Asher, Professor of Art History and South Asian Studies, University of Minnesota

Paola Bacchetta, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies University of California, Berkeley

Sarada Balagopalan, Associate Professor of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, Camden

Radhika Balakrishnan, Prof of Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Shahzad Bashir, Professor of Religious Studies, Stanford University

Manu Bhagavan, Professor of History and Human Rights, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York

Mona Bhan Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology DePauw University

Srimati Basu, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Kentucky

Prashant Bharadwaj, Associate Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego

Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, Faculty Fellow, Barrett Honors College, Arizona State University

Nandini Bhattacharya, Professor of English, Texas A &M University, College- Station

Tithi Bhattacharya, Associate Professor of South Asian History, Purdue University

Amit R Baishya, Assistant Professor of English, University of Oklahoma

Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy and Director, South Asian Institute, Columbia University

Purnima Bose, Associate Professor, English and International Studies, Indiana University-Bloomington

Christopher Candland, Associate Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College

Paula Chakravartty, Associate Professor, Gallatin School, & Department of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University

Shefali Chandra, Associate Professor of South Asian History Washington University, St. Louis

S Charusheela, Associate Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, Bothell

Partha Chatterjee, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies, Columbia University

Indrani Chatterjee Professor of History and South Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin

Swati Chattopadhyay Professor History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara

Marty Chen, School of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and Affiliated Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Rohit Chopra, Associate Professor of Communication, Santa Clara University

Elora Chowdhury Associate Professor & Chair, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

E Valentine Daniel, Professor of Anthropology, Colombia University

Monisha Das Gupta, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Jigna Desai, Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, University of Minnesota

Pawan Dhingra, Professor of Sociology, Tufts University

Wendy Doniger, Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago

Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University

Bishnupriya Ghosh, Professor of English University of California, Santa Barbara

Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies, San Diego State University

Durba Ghosh, Associate Professor of History, Cornell University

Sumanth Gopinath, Associate Professor of Music Theory, School of Music, University of Minnesota

Nitin Govil, Associate Professor of Cinema & Media Studies, University of Southern California

Paul Greenough, Professor of History and Community and Behavioral Health and Director, South Asian Studies Program, University of Iowa

Inderpal Grewal, Professor of South Asian Studies, Yale University

Sumit Guha, Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History, University of Texas, Austin

Thomas Blom Hansen, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for South Asia, Stanford University

Syed Akbar Hyder, Associate Professor of South Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin

Nalini Iyer, Professor of English, Seattle University

Priya Jaikumar, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, University of Southern California

Pranav Jani, Associate Professor of English, Ohio State University

Sheila Jasanoff, Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard University, John F Kennedy School of Government

Arun W Jones, Associate Professor, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

May Joseph, Professor of Social Science, Pratt Institute

Priya Joshi, Associate Professor of English and Associate Director, Center for the Humanities, Temple University

Sampath Kannan, Henry Salvatore Professor of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania

Suvir Kaul, A M Rosenthal Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania Waqas Khwaja, Professor of English, Agnes Scott College

Naveeda Khan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University

Nyla Ali Khan, Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Oklahoma, Norman

Satish Kolluri, Associate Professor of Communications, Pace University

Ruby Lal, Professor of Middle East and South Asian Studies, Emory University

Sarah Lamb, Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Division of Social Sciences, Brandeis University; Co-Chair of South Asian Studies

Karen Leonard, Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, University of California, Irvine

David Lelyveld, Professor of History, Emeritus, William Paterson University

Jinee Lokaneeta, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Drew University

Ania Loomba, Catherine Bryson Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania

David Ludden, Professor of History, New York University

Ritty Lukose, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and South Asian Studies, the Gallatin School, New York University

Sudhir Mahadevan Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media, University of Washington, Seattle

Tayyab Mahmud, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Global Justice Seattle University School of Law

Sunaina Maira, Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis

Bakirathi Mani, Associate Professor of English Literature, Swarthmore College

Rebecca J. Manring, Associate Professor of India Studies and Religious Studies Indiana University-Bloomington

Monika Mehta, Associate Professor, Department of English, Binghamton University

Jisha Menon, Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, Stanford University

Kalyani Devaki Menon, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, DePaul University

Sally Engle Merry, Silver Professor of Anthropology, New York University

Raza Mir, Professor of Management, Cotsakos College of Business, William Paterson University

Deepti Misri, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies University of Colorado, Boulder

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Chair and Distinguished Professor of Women’s & Gender Studies, and Dean’s Professor of Humanities, Syracuse University

Satya P Mohanty, Professor of English, Cornell University

Megan Moodie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Projit B Mukharji, Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies, History & Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

Madhavi Murty, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz

Vijaya Nagarajan, Associate Professor of Theology & Religious Studies, Program in Environmental Studies, University of San Francisco

Gyanendra Pandey, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of History, Emory University

Carla Petievich, Visiting Professor of South Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin

Sheldon Pollock, Professor of South Asian Studies, Columbia University Kavita Philip, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Irvine

Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History, Trinity College

Jasbir K Puar, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Rutgers University

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Professor of Law and Development, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

R Radhakrishnan, Chancellor’s Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine

Gloria Raheja, Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota

Junaid Rana, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Anupama Rao, Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College

Velcheru Narayana Rao, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University

Kasturi Ray, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies/Co-Director, South Asian Studies, San Francisco State University

M V Ramana, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University Sumathi Ramaswamy, Professor of History, Duke University

Chandan Reddy, Associate Professor of English, University of Washington, Seattle

Gayatri Reddy, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago

Parama Roy, Professor of English, University of California, Davis

Sharmila Rudrappa, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin

G S Sahota, Assistant Professor of Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz

Yasmin Saikia, Hardt-Nickachos Chair in Peace Studies & Professor of History, Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University

Arun Saldanha, Associate Professor of Geography, Environment and Society University of Minnesota

Juned Shaikh, Assistant Professor of History, University of California, Santa Cruz

Nitasha Tamar Sharma, Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence and Associate Professor of African American Studies and Asian American Studies, Northwestern University

Elora Shehabuddin, Associate Professor of Humanities and Political Science, Rice University

Bhaskar Sarkar, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Priya Satia, Associate Professor of History, Stanford University

Aradhana Sharma, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Wesleyan University

Snehal Shinghavi, Associate Professor of English and South Asian Studies, University of Texas, Austin

Ajay Skaria, Professor of History, University of Minnesota

Shalini Shankar, Chair and Associate Professor of Asian American Studies, Northwestern University

S Shankar, Professor of English, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Amritjit Singh, Langston Hughes Professor of English, Ohio University

Mytheli Sreenivas, Associate Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Ohio State University

Rajini Srikanth, Professor, English, University of Massachusetts Boston Nidhi Srinivas, Associate Professor of Nonprofit Management, The New School

Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies, Harvard University

Banu Subramaniam, Professor, Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago

Raja Swamy, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Tennessee Tariq Thachil, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University

Ashwini Tambe, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland, College-Park

Vamsi Vakulabharanam, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Jyotnsa Vaid, Professor of Psychology, Texas A&M University

Sylvia Vatuk, Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, University of Illinois, Chicago

Kamala Visweswaran, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego

Kalindi Vora, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego

Bonnie Zare, Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies, University of Wyoming

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Israel’s Likud Troika: Burying the Oslo ‘Peace Process’

12 Sep

 

 

[Prefatory Note: This is a slightly modified text of an article published in Middle East Eye on September 1, 2015, and republished on my blog with permission. http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/israel-s-likud-troika-and-end-oslo-peace-process-1425103979]

 

 

Israel’s relentless accumulation of territorial facts on the ground some years ago doomed the peace process associated with the Oslo Framework of Principles adopted in 1993. It became increasingly difficult to envisage an Israeli willingness to dismantle settlements and road network or remove the separation barrier, and without such steps there could never be achieved an independent and viable Palestinian state. It should be kept in mind, without even raising the issue of the right of return of at least five million Palestinian refugees living outside of Palestine, that the whole premise of Palestinian statehood was based on the green line ceasefire borders that emerged from the 1967 borders. Even if Israel were persuaded to withdraw from the entirety of occupied Palestine, it would amount to only 22% of historic Palestine, less than half of what the UN recommended to a much smaller population by way of partition in 1947 (GA Res. 181). Yet even in those days of illusion when Israel was purporting to be receptive to the two-state approach it insisted on carving out a permanent security zone in the agriculturally rich Jordan Valley and maintaining a significant measure of border control.

 

For years Israel has played along with the diplomatic consensus constructed on basis of a two-state solution of the conflict as the only reasonable politically compromise. Israel had lots to gain from upholding this consensus, but quite a bit to lose by actually implementing it in a reasonable manner. Maintaining the diplomatic track satisfies its own citizenry and world public opinion that it is doing everything possible to reach a peaceful end of the conflict. In the course of such events, Israel gained the time it needed to expand the settlement phenomenon until it became so extensive as to negate any reasonable prospect for substantial reversal. And yet by relying on its sophisticated control of the media it could pin most of the blame on the Palestinian Authority for one round after another of failed bilateral negotiations. This in turn made it possible to mount propaganda campaigns around even the false claim that Israel lacked a Palestinian partner for peace negotiations.

 

While this diversionary process has continued for more than two decades, Israeli consolidated its influence in the U.S. Congress, which strengthened an already unprecedented ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. These dynamics made a mockery of Washington’s claim to be a neutral intermediary. And above all, the consensus pacified the international community, which repeatedly joining the public chorus calling for resumed negotiations. This became a cynical process with diplomats whispering in the corridors of UN buildings that the diplomatic effort to end the conflict was a sham while their governments kept restating their faith in the Oslo approach.

 

As argued here, the present futility of Oslo diplomacy has been indirectly acknowledged by Israel, and should be explicitly abandoned by the world community. Whether Israel’s was ever prepared to accept a Palestinian state remains in doubt. The fact that each prime minister since Oslo, and this includes Yitzhak Rabin, endorsed settlement expansion raises suspicions about Israel’s true intentions, but there were also indications that Tel Aviv earlier had looked with favor upon the diplomatic option provided that it could, with American backroom help, persuade the Palestinians to swallow a one-sided bargain that incorporated the settlement blocs and satisfied Israel’s security goals.

 

In the last couple of years the veil has been lifted, and it is overdue to declare Oslo diplomacy a failure that has been costly for the Palestinian people and their aspirations. We can reinforce this assessment by pointing to three connected developments at the pinnacle of Israeli state power, dominated in recent years by the right wing Likud Party. The first is the election by the Knesset in 2014 of Reuven Rivlin as the tenth Israeli president.

Rivlin is a complex political figure in Likud politics, a party rival of Netanyahu, a longtime advocate of a one-state solution that calls for the annexation of the West Bank, and an opponent of international diplomacy. The complexity arises because Rivlin’s vision is one of humane, democratic participation of the Palestinian population, conferring citizenship based on fully equality, and even envisioning an ethnic confederation of the two peoples to be achieved within Israel’s expanded sovereign borders.

 

The second development was the campaign promise made by Netanyahu on the eve of the March elections that a Palestinian state would never be established so long as he was prime minister. This startling break with the American posture was also a reversion to Netanyahu’s initial opposition to the Oslo Framework, and bitter denunciations of Rabin for embracing a process expected to result in Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu’s 2015 campaign pledge seemed closer to his true position all along if judged by his behavior although contradicting what his talk at Bar Ilan University back in 2009 when he declared support for Palestinian statehood as the only way for Israel to achieve peace with security. To slightly mend relations with Washington after his recent electoral victory, Netanyahu always crafty, again modified his position, by saying that in the heat of the elections he only meant that no Palestinian state could be established so long as jihadi turmoil in the region persisted. Given the extent of Israeli territorial encroachments on occupied Palestine I would trust Netanyahu’s electoral promise much more than his later clarification, a feeble attempt to restore confidence in the special relationship with the United States.

 

The third development, which should remove the last shred of ambiguity with respect to a diplomatic approach, is the designation of Danny Danon as Israel’s next ambassador at the UN. Danon is a notorious settlement hawk, long an outspoken advocate of West Bank annexation, arrogantly disdaining the arts of diplomacy needed to deflect the hostile UN atmosphere. If Israel felt that it had anything to gain by maintaining the Oslo illusion, then certainly Danon would not have been the UN pick. There are plenty of Israel diplomats skilled in massaging world public opinion that could have been sent to New York, but this was not the path chosen.

 

How shall we best understand this Israeli turn toward forthrightness? In the first instance, it reflects the primacy of domestic politics, and a corresponding attitude by Israel’s leaders that it has little need to appease world opinion or accommodate Washington’s insistence that diplomacy, while not now working, remains the only road leading to a peaceful solution.

Furthermore, the Likud troika seems to be converging on a unilateralist approach to the conflict with the Palestinians, while doing its best to distract the international attention by exaggerating the threat posed by Iran. This unilateralist approach can move in two directions: The Netanyahu direction, which is a shade more internationalist, and involves continuing the process of de facto annexation of occupied Palestine, reinforced by an apartheid structure of control over the Palestinian people; the Rivlin/Danon direction overtly incorporating the West Bank into Israel, and then either following the democratic and human rights path of treating the two peoples equally or hardening still further the oppressive regime of discriminatory control established during over 48 years of occupation.

 

While this Israeli scenario of conflict resolution unfolds most governments, not sensing an alternative, continue to proclaim their allegiance to a two-state solution despite its manifest disappointments and poor prospects. At present, there are a series of international gestures toward lifting the peace process from its deathbed. Sisi of Egypt hosts Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority proclaiming a readiness to mediate bilateral negotiations, and even Netanyahu in the immediate aftermath of Israel’s inability to scuttle the Iran Nuclear Agreement has the temerity to indicate an interest in renewed peace talks. In effect, ‘Oslo is dead, long live Oslo.’ Put differently, the political death of Oslo is being disguised by a diplomatic afterlife. It will be shameful if the Ramallah leadership again enters this cynically set diplomatic trap. As the above analysis shows there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel is at all inclined to allow an independent sovereign Palestinian state to come into existence. Israel is even fought hard against allowing Palestine to fly national flag in front of the UN building. Of course, as in the past, Israel will for the sake of public relations, including rehabilitating its ‘special relationship’ with the United States, evidently again play this cruel game of charades. But why are the Palestinians willing to be partners to such a sham?

 

This see-no-evil posture of governments, and even the UN, ignores the emergence of two more promising alternatives: the gathering momentum of civil society activism exhibited via the BDS campaign and increasingly acknowledged by Israel as its most security threat, leading recently to the establishment of an official ‘Delegitimation Department’ assigned to do battle with the Palestinian solidarity movement.

 

And on a diplomatic level, pursued with some energy and imagination by the Palestinian Authority, is the use of international law and Palestinian statehood to engage the wider international community of states in support of its struggle. Several examples illustrate the approach: the 2012 General Assembly endorsement of Palestinian statehood; the adherence to prominent international law treaties and conventions; admission as member to UNESCO; adherence to the Rome Treaty framing the activities of the International Criminal Court; and just days ago, the GA approval of the wish of Palestine, although having the status of a non-member observer state, to fly its national flag alongside the flags of UN members at UN buildings. With the abandonment of armed struggle and the breakdown of bilateral diplomacy, Palestinian recourse to legitimacy tactics reinforces the civil society global solidarity network that has been exerting increasing pressure on Israel.

 

 

 

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The Sympathetic Skeptic: Luis Cabrera’s Interview with Richard Falk on behalf of the World Government Research Network

12 Sep

[Prefatory Note: The following interview was conducted by Professor Luis Cabrera, a political theorist on the faculty of Griffith University in Brisbane Australia. Cabrera has written notable books on themes of world government and global integration. He is also the co-founder and co-director of the Global Government Research Network. The original posting of the interview can be found at <wgresearch.org/seven-questions-for-richard-falk/?tve=true>

 

[I would describe myself as a strong skeptic, and place less emphasis on the sympathetic aspects of my views about finding institutional mechanisms protective of global and human interests. I do believe that a stronger and more independent UN is part of the answer as are special governmental and quasi-governmental arrangements to deal with specific subject-matter of global scope. At the same time, advocacy of world government irresponsibly overlooks the danger of sanctioning a move to global tyranny and to a frozen economic order that would almost certainly need to deal with disparities in material circumstances by coercive means. I do recommend checking out the website recently put together by Luis Cabrera and James Thompson, and can be found via Google at ‘World Government Research Network’ where high quality articles and world government related news can be found.]

 

 

[The following biosketch preceded the interview: Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and associated with the program on Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2002. He has been a prominent and prolific voice in scholarship on international law and world order since the late 1950s, and more recently has championed the promotion of ‘humane global governance’ as an alternative to top-down economic globalization. Falk was centrally involved in the World Order Models Project in 1960s-1980s. WOMP was a research-focused outgrowth of the world government movements of the 1940s and 1950s, and its head, Prof. Saul Mendlovitz of Rutgers, was an unabashed advocate of binding world government. Falk was more skeptical, famously arguing that most world government proposals are guilty of ‘premature specificity.’ The World Government Research Network interviewed Prof. Falk on his long career and current views on global integration in August 2015.]

 

1) You were the North American director for the World Order Models Project (WOMP), which was aimed in part at developing an inclusive international academic dialogue on global integration. What were the major challenges to developing a genuinely global dialogue, and how successful do you think the project was in meeting them?

 

I think the main participants in WOMP were very disposed to a global dialogue, although sharp differences in outlook were present from its inception. There was an initial split between those of us from the North who focused on war prevention given the anxieties generated by the U.S./Soviet geopolitical rivalry and those in the South who were concerned with development, overcoming European colonial legacies, and steering clear as possible of the Cold War. A secondary split was between Saul Mendlovitz, the overall director and fund raiser who made the project possible, who strongly believed in the near term inevitability and desirability of world government in some form and the rest of us who believed that the preconditions for democratic world government did not exist, were not on the horizon, and in any event were fearful of international integrations of political authority and power beyond the level of regionalism. WOMP was successful so long as it agreed to disagree, which it did during its initial decade or so of existence. There were stimulating meetings in various parts of the world, and a series of interesting books describing our ‘preferred world for the 1990s.’ Mendlovitz edited a volume of essays that gave an overview of the project by giving the authors an opportunity to put forth their distinct visions of a feasible, necessary, and desirable future for world order. Of the principal authors my book A Study of Future Worlds came by far closest to endorsing a global integrationist vision by its stress on the necessity of ‘a central guidance system’ to deal with the problems of the world in the 1970s, but still tried to keep my distance from the Western tradition since the end of World War I of pushing world government schemes.

 

The second phase of WOMP sought to fashion a consensus view of the future of world order. Its shared framework was based on the acceptance of world order values (peace, human right rights, economic wellbeing & justice, and environmental protection) rather than on trends toward global integration. There was little attention given to the emergence of ‘globalization’ and its economistic orientation via neoliberalism or the optic provided by ‘the Washington consensus.’ This second phase of WOMP coincided with the end of the Cold War. The differences in regional priorities persisted, and the projected ended in a mood of frustration, especially on the part of Mendlovitz who until the very end believed that the secret to a peaceful future was challenging the war system and establishing a robust form of global constitutionalism. The rest of the WOMP participants were either not interested in this form of advocacy or suspected it as a kind of Western geopolitical Trojan Horse that contained a blueprint for global domination that was to be disguised in public discourse as a plan for world government.

 

2) Overall, what do you see as the most significant contribution of WOMP? What are the lessons that current scholars should take from the WOMP experience, including in such coalitional efforts such as the World Government Research Network?

 

I think the idea of bringing together prominent scholars in their respective regions who shared normative preferences for a humane world order was an extraordinarily prescient initiative, but it may have been prematurely enacted. I believe there is more awareness in this period of the early 21st century of the need for the collaborative design of alternative futures in an historical context of intensifying global integration and a growing awareness of the fragility of political arrangements in a state-centric structure of world order that can neither protect the global/human interest in relation to climate change and nuclear weaponry nor can provide national or human security for peoples living within the boundaries set by the nation-state.

 

Online collaboration provides exciting opportunities for collaboration without any dependence on major funding, although it gives up the benefit of face-to-face contact that deepens social networking. The WOMP experience may be helpful in identifying the limits of such collaboration as well as the importance of setting a research agenda that gives space and relevance to a variety of viewpoints. The dialogic experience works best when there is a shared normative ground that is at the same time comfortable with the reality and legitimacy of divergent views, with participants refraining from any compulsion to overcome disagreements and divergent priorities.

 

3) You have long been associated with world order studies and world federalism, but you have also been consistently skeptical of advocating a binding world government in the relatively near term. What would you say to the many researchers who in recent years have helped revive academic dialogue around world government, in many cases advocating it?

 

I am not sufficiently familiar with the recent trends in world government advocacy by scholars to have any strong opinion about its usefulness either pedagogically or as the basis for engaged citizenship. I continue to find absent the political preconditions for any kind of constitutional consolidation of authority at the global level as distinct from considerable latent potential for regional and sub-regional integrative developments. I also see some societal benefits accruing from reversing trends toward global integration, and have an interest in what I have enigmatically called ‘anarchism without anarchism’ and might seem to be at odds with my earlier support for global reform to achieve central guidance capabilities.

 

My scepticism about world government is grounded on three types of objection: first, creating a global polity without a prior global community is almost certainly a formula for either collapse or tyranny; secondly, the unevenness of material circumstances and cultural outlook would make the control of the political center almost certain to depend on iron fist structures of domination and exploitation; thirdly, the almost total absence of political will among either contemporary elites or publics to create a world government, or even to posit world government as a desirable goal; nationalism remains a strong ideological reinforcement for the maintenance of a state-centric world order.

 

What I do agree about is the vital importance of finding procedures and mechanism that will promote the global and human interest. The UN was conceived to fill this gap, but its statist structures has made it mainly a venue where competing conceptions of national interests seek to find compromises. Such a framework has not been able to address problems of global scope such as nuclear weaponry, climate change, and the regulation of the world economy. Is it possible to imagine the effective promotion of the global/human interest without the existence of world government, whether in federalist or unitary form? I regard this as the primary survival question facing the human species that pertains to the role and nature of global governance. Without a capability to serve the global/human interest, I lack the imagination to grasp how a catastrophic future for generations to come can be avoided.

 

 

4) You have championed global civil society, or ‘globalization from below’ as a means of promoting more humane global governance and ultimately preparing the way for shared rule well beyond the state. Are you encouraged by developments in global civil society in the 55-plus years of your academic career, discouraged, or do you see the record as more mixed?

 

I remain uncertain how to respond. My mood varies with sudden changes in the global atmosphere. I felt encouraged, even excited, by the unfolding of the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement in 2011, but feel more discouraged by the success of subsequent counterrevolutionary forces that have proved so robust in the Middle East and by the inability of the Occupy Movement to sustain its initial impulse to challenge contemporary distortions and injustices attributable to neoliberal capitalist logic and behavior. I continue to believe that hope for the future rests upon challenges from below, a normative insurgency that posits an eco-humanist imaginary with sufficient persuasiveness to mobilize widespread support around the world, including among disaffected segments of economic and political elites that recognize the need for a paradigm shift away from growth-oriented compulsions, as well as a radical turn against the war system as the means to achieve security and stability.

 

 

5) You also have championed, with Andrew Strauss, the development of an initially consultative global parliament. Later versions of the argument advocate the signing of a treaty among existing democratic states to get the ball rolling. Does that still appear to you to be a more promising route than, for example, the one advocated by the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly?

 

Yes, I still believe that a global parliament that represents people directly is more promising than the creation of a parliamentary assembly that is likely to reproduce most tendencies already present in the UN. I think there is a better chance of a peoples assembly creating a different kind of global agenda with different priorities if it is established as the outcome of a populist movement. To be worthwhile a global parliament must be responsive to global interests and to the grievances of the most marginalized and vulnerable peoples in the world, and should be proposed with these goals uppermost. Of course, as a political institution a global parliament will evolve in ways that reflect changes in the political climate, but it should be insulated to the extent possible against manipulation by money and by national governments, especially by those governments harboring hegemonic ambitions.

 

6) You are often quoted (from a 1975 piece) as saying that global government proposals and proponents engage in ‘premature specificity.’ How long until the time is right, if ever?

 

What I meant by the phrase is that without a political climate receptive to global government proposals, the blueprinting of institutions is an exercise of limited value, and tends toward an apolitical approach to global change. The Clark/Sohn plan for limited world government through the radical reform of the UN Charter is a clear illustration of what I have in mind. It lacks any conception of a political scenario that has the slightest chance of moving from the current state of affairs to the ideal future that they set forth as a solution for the world order challenges of the Cold War Era. There is a chicken and egg problem admittedly present: the demonstration of offer practical designs for how a world government would work is intended to overcome criticisms that argue that world government is not capable of preserving societal freedoms and could not restrain the abuse of power by those in control of such strengthened institutions. It has been my experience that those who set forth their plans for world government are usually ultra-rationalists who believe that change follows from having the best ideas, winning after dinner arguments. I disagree with such viewpoints, and regard change as following from the interplay and eruption of social forces. What seems useful at this time is for scholars acting in transnational collaboration to construct a series of political scenarios that envision benevolent forms of global transformation, including tentative ideas about institutional design. I would think this would be an excellent undertaking for the World Government Research Network just launched.

 

 

7) You have been actively engaged in social and political affairs for many decades. What advice might you have for upcoming generations of academics, in particular those working in areas of international politics and law, who might also want to engage, and do so effectively?

 

Political participation is a very personal matter, and depends on how a person views the world, as well as on conceptions of the proper interaction of the life of a professional academic and that of a citizen concerned with public policy. I have taken the view, which is controversial within American universities that engaged citizenship can usefully include advocacy work, which can also make contributions to education in a free society. The first challenge is to develop the skills appropriate for critical and independent thinking. The second challenge is the importance of endowing conscience with sufficient authority as to validate the role of citizen/scholars in talking truth to power and entering the arenas of debate and action to promote preferred policy outcomes.

 

I felt that forthrightness in the classroom combined with receptivity and openness to opposing viewpoints gave added vitality to the academic experience, and connect the pursuit of knowledge with a commitment to societal reform in positive ways.

It is important to be sensitive to the political atmosphere as it bears on particular issues. In my own experience there is no doubt that I have paid a price for articulating controversial beliefs on current policy issues and implementing such analyses with shows of solidarity with groups and peoples seeking liberation from oppressive circumstances. Challenging the established order is much more likely to produce pushback, even in the form of discriminatory actions and defamatory attacks, on some issues than others. For instance, on questions of world order, although many disagreements exist that reflect divergent worldviews and ethical standpoints, there is rarely the kind of effort to discredit opponents as is encountered when the focus is on contemporary issues of political and social conflict, especially if it touches on matters of military intervention, religious and ethnic identity or counters the work of strongly entrenched domestic lobbies.

 

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The Nuclear Challenge (10): Seventy Years After Hiroshima & Nagasaki: Against Binaries

10 Sep

[Prefatory Note: This is the tenth, and mercifully the last, in this series of posts prompted by the 70th observance of the atomic attacks in 1945. The intention has been to explore several of the more important dimensions of what is called here ‘nuclearism,’ the securitization of nuclear weaponry in the face of international law, international morality, and simple common sense, and what can and should be done to achieve desecuritization of such weaponry of mass destruction, reviewing the stubborn adherence to nuclearism by the nuclear nine, the marginalization of the UN with respect to disarmament and denuclearization, and the rise and fall of antinuclear activism in civil society. Hopefully, the time will come when a less gloomy depiction of the nuclear challenge can be made by some future blog practitioner. This text is a slightly revised version of what was initially posted, written in grateful response to comments received.]

 

There have been a variety of philosophical assaults on either/or thinking, perhaps most notably flowing from the deconstructionist pen of Jacques Derrida. In more policy related contexts, the debate about dichotomizing gender has featured two sets of arguments: first the contention that it is important to distinguish lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, hence the LGBT designation of sexual ‘otherness,’ which enriches the either/or-ness of the reigning male/female gender binary. Identifications of sexuality also cuts against the grain of the dominant heterosexual or straight template, and is further contested by ongoing debates surrounding the societal, legal, and conceptual legitimacy of ‘same sex marriages.’

 

The New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, pushes the sexual identity envelope further by developing the case for ‘fluidity’ of preferences, that is, neither purely this or that. He personalizes the issue, indicating that he generally is attracted to women, but on occasion might also be attracted to men, which because the feelings of attraction are greater for women than men, it is not accurate to define himself as ‘bisexual.’ Such a blurring of boundaries corresponds with the actuality of his feelings that even cut across supposedly liberating socially constructed categories as LGBT is meant to be. [Sept 7, 2015] The point being that the biopolitical reality of life often does not divide neatly into binary categories, and when we address the issue as one of upholding societal norms by enacting laws disciplining sexual limits, adverse social, political, and psychological self-alienation and arbitrary distinctions follow. This encroaches upon our freedoms in unfortunate, often unconscious, ways, leading many individuals to stay in the closet to hide their true feelings or be open and face subtle punitive consequences. Or, at best, individuals conclude that their failure to fit their feelings into a single box is somehow ‘abnormal.’ Relaxing traditional roles of state, church, and society in policing politically correct identities is one of the few areas in which freedom in American can be said to have expanded in the last couple of decades, and this, largely due to the transcendence of gender and sexual binaries thanks to robust civil society activism that cut against the grain of majority sentiment.

 

 

Perhaps, the most blatant of all binaries bearing on nuclear weapons is between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ nuclear weapons states, which immediately reminds us of Mahmood Mamdani’s devastating critique of the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Muslims. [See Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (2005)] The United States and its allies regard themselves as ‘good’ nuclear weapons states that the world has no reason to worry about while Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan are ‘evil,’ or at best ‘irresponsible’ or ‘insecure’ states that should if at all possible be disallowed to acquire nuclear weapons. It is this primary binary that provides the moral/political disguised infrastructure of NPT treaty regime, which when established was confined to the P5 of the UN Security Council, which while not conceived of as ‘good’ by the West were at least not part of ‘the axis of evil’ depicted by George W. Bush during his presidency.

 

In this series on the nuclear challenge as of 2015, I have myself succumbed to the ‘binary temptation’ in at least two respects—distinguishing arms control from disarmament, and separating nuclear disarmament from conventional disarmament. Relying on binaries can contribute to a certain clarity of analysis, leading I believe to useful political discourse, but it is also misleading unless qualified and transcended. Dichotomizing choice and consequences in these ways can be especially useful in pointing out weaknesses and pitfalls in ‘politically correct’ methods of solving societal problems. In this spirit, I continue to believe it is illuminating to insist on the critical difference between complete nuclear disarmament as transformative of the security scene as now embedded in world order and arms control as a series of more or less helpful reformist moves that stabilize and manage the role of nuclear weaponry in contemporary security structures. These arms control moves are made without posing any challenge to the fundamental distribution of power and authority in the world, and tend to make such a challenge appear less urgent, and even of questionable benefit.

From this perspective, then, a critique of the NPT regime as the preeminent stabilizing structure in relation to nuclearism seems justified. It provides the basis for setting forth an argument that the NPT approach is antagonistic, rather than complementary to denuclearization and disarmament. This is contrary to the way the NPT regime is generally explained and affirmed, which is as step toward achieving nuclear disarmament, and an indispensable place holding measure to reduce the risks of nuclear war. It is true that inhibiting the spread of nuclear weaponry seems to be in the spirit of what might be described as horizontal denuclearization, although even this limited assertion is not without controversy. The recently deceased Kenneth Waltz with impeccable logical consistency seemed to believe so deeply in rational decision making as embedded in the doctrine of deterrence that he favored the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries because it would tend to make governments more cautious, and hence nuclear war less likely. Others, including myself, are more ambivalent about such an out of the box position, worrying about any further spread of the bomb, but thinking that only when there is a sense of a loss of control in the capitals of the nuclear nine will there arise a sufficient interest in denuclearization as a genuine political project (as distinct from more or less sincere rhetorical posturing). Obama’s Prague speech in 2009 still seems sincere as of the time of its delivery, but we need to notice that it lived and died as rhetoric because it lacked legs, that is, the rhetoric was never converted into a political project. In contrast, the NPT is definitely a political project and enjoys strong geopolitical support.

 

The policy emphasis on horizontal denuclearization has the sometimes intended and sometimes unintended effect of shifting public attention away from the greater problematique of promoting vertical declearization, that is, inducing the nuclear weapons states to enter a diplomatic process that would finish with zero nuclear weapons in their military arsenals. Again such a distinction, while useful for some purposes, employs the artificial binary of horizontal and vertical, and misses the nuance actuality of hybridity and interactivity, or what Blow describes as ‘fluidity’ or others have been delimiting by dwelling on the fifty shades of gray positioned between the black and white of conventional thinking. Decuclearization for each of the nuclear nine raises different issues depending on the outlook of their leadership, the political context, and the ease of making alternative non-nuclear security arrangements, as well as their interaction with one another and with neighboring states.

 

Perhaps, the most salient false dichotomy of all is between ‘nuclear weapons states’ and ‘non-nuclear weapons states.’ When countries have the enrichment facilities and materials, as well as the technical knowhow, they possess a breakout capacity that could materialize in a matter of months, or maybe already exists as a result of a secret program (as was the case with Israel). Yet without acquiring and exploding a bomb such states retain their status as non-nuclear. Israel is treated as belonging to the nuclear nine because its possession of the weaponry has been documented convincingly, although it has never officially admitted its possession of the weaponry, and keeps vindictively punishing Mordechai Vanunu because he exposed the truth about Israel’s nuclear program. North Korea may not have assembled a bomb when it was charged with violating NPT constraints. Germany and Japan, and perhaps a few other countries, are latent or threshold nuclear states, although their overt posture is one of being ‘non-nuclear.’ The fluidity of reality makes the binary classification, at best, a first approximation. At worst, it creates a deceptive distance between states that have nuclear weapons and those that do not presently possess the weaponry, but could do so in a short time. Or between those that pretend not to have the weapon but actually have it and those that pretend to have it but do not have it. The binary classification ignores the many differences with respect to nuclear weapons and doctrines surrounding use of the nuclear nine, but also the many nuances of technical and political proximity to nuclearism of non-nuclear states. Some states have allowed deployments of nuclear weapons on their territory, others have prohibited ships carrying nuclear weapons from entering their ports for even a short visit.

 

 

The situation becomes even more complicated if inquiry is extended to secondary political effects. It has been argued that vertical denuclearization undertaken by the United States would likely lead to horizontal nuclearization on the part of Japan and South Korea. Contrariwise, it is reasoned in strategic circles that the nuclearization of countries in Asia and the Middle East could induce vertical denuclearization on a systemic basis to avoid the instabilities and raised risks of a growing number of hands on the nuclear trigger, and to clear the way for regional securitization based on American conventional military dominance. Worries about continued proliferation combined with the realization that American military power would become more usable and effective in a world without nuclear weapons even led such realist mainstays as George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn to support nuclear disarmament in the normally militarist pages of the Wall Street Journal. [“A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, Jan 4, 2007.]

 

A similar line of reasoning applies to the relationship between nuclear disarmament and conventional disarmament. Focusing on nuclear disarmament as a distinct undertaking avoids difficult issues of whether disarmament rests on a premise of pacifism and thus would be imprudent in view of centuries of political consciousness supporting the right and practical necessity of political communities acting in self-defense to uphold their security against external threats. This logic of a collective right to bear arms underlies the modern system of state-centric world order that conceives of security within bounded territorial entities as integrally linked to the war system.

 

At the same time, as discussed in relation to Gorbachev’s vision of nuclear disarmament discussed in The Nuclear Challenge (3), it is unrealistic to think of deep disarmament without introducing demilitarization into the process. Otherwise as Gorbachev points out, governments will be reluctant to take the last steps in a denuclearizing process if they understand that at the zero point for nuclear weapons, the world will be confronted by American military dominance, already prefigured by the U.S. government spending almost as much to maintain and develop its military machine as the entire rest of the world. For meaningful commentary it is necessary to view different types of disarmament as complements rather than as alternatives, and not to ignore different levels of interactivity. Although both Gorbachev and the Shultz group advocate nuclear disarmament, their geopolitical agendas are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Gorbachev seeks a demilitarized world of equally secure sovereign states whereas the Shultz group favors stabilizing American military hegemony.

 

One of the most frequently identified binary is that between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy or power. This binary is built into the NPT regime, giving non-nuclear states reassurances in Article IV that by foregoing the bomb they will not be denied the supposed benefits of nuclear energy, and that they can look forward to a denuclearized world as the nuclear weapons states accepted a legal duty to negotiate disarmament in Article VI. And then in Article X parties to the NPT are given a right to withdraw after giving three months notice in response to security imperatives, a right that can be overridden by the geopolitical insistence on non-acquisition of the weaponry as with Iran. The reality of the nuclear world subverts such a binary in a number of ways. If a nuclear energy program is established it creates conditions that makes it easier to cross the weapons threshold by having the capability to produce enriched uranium or plutonium and the technical knowhow to produce a nuclear warhead. Also, the kind of nuclear accidents that occurred at Chernobyl and Fukushima suggest that nuclear facilities are nuclear time bombs awaiting an igniting natural disaster or human error. Such nuclear power plants are also could be a priority target for unscrupulous political extremists. These nuclear facilities pose unknown risks of devastation that could terrorize millions of people, and spread intense fear across the globe following the release of large amounts of intense radiation. Vagaries of air currents might determine whether communities become afflicted or not.

 

And then there are issues of geopolitical fallout stemming from managing the NPT regime. Instead of the NPT contributing to stability, its maintenance can provide the rationale for recourse to threats and uses of aggressive force. The 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq was mainly justified as a NPT enforcement operation as was the imposition of damaging international sanctions on Iran coupled with frequent reiterations of the military option by American and Israeli leaders. In effect, the alleged need to prevent certain instances of unwanted proliferation is providing political actors, especially the United States, with geopolitical justifications for costly unlawful wars that displace millions and disrupt existing political arrangements. Characterizing nuclear energy as ‘peaceful’ does not seem compatible with the spirit or substance of a fully denuclearized world.

 

There is an even deeper divide that needs to be bridged conceptually and practically. Can drastic forms of demilitarization reliably occur without also addressing poverty and gross disparities of individual and collective existence? And can such socio-economic issues be resolved without a combination of life style adjustments and the dismantling of neoliberal capitalism as the ideological linchpin of economic globalization? And are any of these radical changes worth contemplating without the inclusion on the policy agenda of global warming and threats to biodiversity? And on and on.

 

What I favor, in effect, is retaining binaries to clear up basic choices that can be better understood without the complexities and subtleties of fluidity, but also moving toward a second level of interpretation that is immersed in the existential realities of the lifeworld. On this level, evaluation would be contextual and configurative, and not be pre-judged or appraised by reference to a reductive binary. From such angles, the NPT would be seen as both helpful and harmful, making its assessment change with time and context. The NPT may have, on balance, been a constructive step in 1968 when it was possible to believe that inhibiting proliferation would give nuclear disarmament time and space to establish a more favorable climate for negotiations. By way of comparison, in 2015 the world possesses overwhelming evidence suggesting the disinclination of the nuclear weapons states to consider disarmament as a serious policy option. Such an understanding may shift the balance sufficiently to make it now more constructive to repudiate, or at least challenge the NPT regime. Such an altered approach seems quite reasonable in light of the militarist and unlawful tactics of implementation employed to victimize the peoples of Iraq and Iran.

 

The question of how to think about nuclear issues is itself daunting, yet crucial. One way to go about it is the recognition of distinct discourses with some sensitivity to overlaps between binary and contextual or configurative forms of analysis as discussed above. Among the substantive discourses that seem particularly useful for the promotion of denuclearization and disarmament the following can be commended: international relations; geopolitics; international law; international morality; denuclearization; demilitarization; securitization. Obviously, the path to nuclear zero is long with many twists and turns, and where it will lead remains unknown. What is known is that the struggle for nuclear disarmament, denuclearization, and demilitarization bears heavily on the destinies of the human species, and we each have a responsibility to become a participant rather than a spectator.

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The Nuclear Challenge (9): Relying on International Law: Nuclear Zero Litigation

8 Sep

 

The Nuclear Challenge (9): 70 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Nuclear Zero Litigation


 

[Prefatory Note: Two prior posts, The Nuclear Challenge (1) & (2) address indirectly the efforts of international law and lawyers to highlight the clash between international law and nuclear weapons. In this post I combine a focus on international law with a continuation of the inquiry into the role of civil society activism that was the theme of The Nuclear Challenge (8). Here I attempt a more concrete gaze at the promise and limitations of international law as a policy instrument available to governments and citizens committed to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits filed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands on April 24, 2014 provide an occasion for such an appraisal. This litigation reflects opposed counter-currents. It is both an encounter with geopolitical nuclearism and a mode of global consciousness-raising at a time of dangerous complacency about the threats posed by the continuing possession and deployment of nuclear weaponry, as well as the warping of the security mind by supposing that human security can ever be ethically and effectively safeguarded by current strategic thinking surrounding the varying roles assigned to this weaponry by the military planners and political leaders of the nine nuclear weapons states. The text below contains some revisions and corrections of the original post, mainly reflecting my attempt to take account of constructive feedback.]

 

From the time of the atomic explosions at the end of World War II there have been two contradictory sets of tendencies at work: the repudiation of the weaponry and its contemplated uses as ultimate criminality and the secret feverish refinement of the weaponry to enhance its precision, destructive effects, battlefield capabilities, and delivery systems. To date, the latter tendency has prevailed, but so far, contrary to the worst fears, avoiding uses (but not without unlawful threats to use, think tank proposals for use, and high alert international crises containing unseemly dangers of nuclear war).

 

From the beginning international law was a tool relied upon by those who challenged the legitimacy of both the atomic attacks themselves and the later developments and doctrines associated with the weaponry and its central role in the superpower rivalry at the core of the Cold War. In the immediate aftermath of the atomic attacks on Japan, there were many governmental pronouncements in the West about nuclear disarmament as an imperative of human survival, and it was widely assumed in the public that international law through the medium of a negotiated treaty containing procedures to assure compliance by all parties was the correct approach to unconditional declearization and principled repudiation of the weaponry, and this remains the consensus view of pro-disarmers at present.

 

Especially the UN General Assembly from the outset of the nuclear age was a political venue within which the criminality of the weaponry was confirmed, although gradually the impact of nuclear geopolitics moved disarmament off-stage and shifted policy attention to the supposedly more realistic goals of managing the nonproliferation regime and minimizing the spread of the weaponry. As discussed in previous posts, whatever political energy for a world without nuclear weaponry existed has been transferred over time to a variety of civil society venues. During the Cold War, Europe was the most likely military theater for a nuclear confrontation, accounting for a variety of anti-nuclear movements and initiatives. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain being the best known, but also the German Green Party gained anti-nuclear prominence. Since the end of the Cold War the most activist anti-nuclearism has been associated with advocacy and educational efforts that were oriented around the presumed authoritativeness of international law as reinforced by political commitment and international morality in two major respects:

                        –the unconditional unlawfulness of the weaponry with respect to threat, use, deployment, possession, and development;

                        –a reliance on a treaty-making approach to achieve nuclear disarmament by carefully calibrated stages, and subject to monitoring, verification, compliance, and dispute settlement procedures, and containing robust response mechanisms in the event of non-compliance or cheating.

In other words, both the case against all facets of nuclearism as presently operative and the framework proposed for its elimination through a process of total denuclearization are both guided and governed by international law.

 

At the same time, there are difficulties with an uncritical acceptance of this centrality of international law. First, the evidence is strong that the nuclear weapons states, above all the United States, will not override its security policies as related to nuclear weapons or other vital concerns of foreign policy out of deference to international law. This official lawlessness exists even in the face of assessments of international law enjoying the strong backing of the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest judicial body. The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the ICJ reached two conclusions that should have led to operational adjustments in the announced doctrine and political behavior of governments possessing nuclear weapons: (1) nuclear weapons were only lawfully usable, if ever, when the survival of the state was credibly at issue; and (2) a unanimous views among the judges that the nuclear powers had a good faith obligation to negotiate both an end to the arms race and a disarmament plan, and what is more, and should not be overlooked, that these governments had “an obligation..to bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament.”

 

True, this was an advisory opinion, not formally binding on the parties, leading to diverse views as to legal weight of the findings. Also it was the case that the ICJ judges were badly divided, with a slim majority (and even that resting on the President’s second casting vote to break a tie) favoring the view of conditional unlawfulness of the weaponry. Actually, the unlawfulness side was stronger than it seemed by looking only at the vote on the central finding of severely qualified legality as three of the ICJ judges were so committed to unconditional unlawfulness that they refused to support the majority conclusion, which was deliberately made consistent with a very narrowly construed deterrence doctrine. What is more notable is that the nuclear weapons states paid not the slightest operational attention to what these most distinguished judges from the world’s main legal system had determined in the only systematic international review of the arguments about legality that had gone on since the first atomic explosion in wartime (a persuasive national review was set by a Japanese court in the important Shimoda case) . This disdain for the relevance of international law was apparent even before the ICJ issued its advisory opinion, taking the form of the vigorous opposition led by the United States to the General Assembly referral of the question of legality to the World Court, insisting, in effect, that a judicial interpretation of international law was not relevant to the status of nuclear weapons. The substantive claim being made was that the U.S. Government was as it was doing all that it could reasonably do to reduce risks of nuclear war, through arms control, nonproliferation, and deployment policies. Any more foundational judgment was thus deemed inappropriate and misleading. Further, that the ICJ was a judicial body not equipped to evaluate security policy, and thus at best relying on ‘moral’ and ‘political’ considerations couched in legal language.

 

The same line of reasoning was relevant with respect to the second conclusion relating to the NPT obligation to negotiate in good faith and with an end in view. What was already being done supposedly fulfilled the Article VI obligation of the nuclear weapons states, and the Court had neither the information or the expert competence to pronounce otherwise, although the judges unanimously acted as if they did have the needed knowledge, and hence an institutional responsibility to pronounce their views as to the legality of nuclear weaponry and the requirements of compliance with the NPT.

 

I think a clear picture evolves. The nuclear weapons states accord primacy to geopolitical policies when in tension with international law, especially on crucial issues bearing on the conduct of warfare and the shaping of peacetime security policies. The geopolitical consensus accepted by all nine weapons states is to disregard or sideline the purported relevance of international law. In reaction to this consensus there is some huffing and puffing by nonnuclear governments, but no political will to mount a challenge on even such a tangential issue as non-compliance with the Article VI obligation, a clear material breach of the NPT. This combination of geopolitical nuclearism and passivity by the members of international society other than ‘the nuclear nine’ has meant that it is up to each of this latter group of states, as a matter of sovereign discretion, to determine what its policies on deployment, threat, and use will be, and whether it will agree or not to specific arms control measures. And because government security policies are treated as the most carefully guarded of all state secrets, there is no meaningful democratic participation, including even by most elected or appointed government officials, and neither knowledge nor leverage by the citizenry. Every government possessing nuclear weapons is authoritarian, with only the head of state having the non-reviewable and unaccountable authority to decide whether and when to use nuclear weaponry against which targets and with what magnitudes of destructive power.

 

Left to carry on the campaign to rid humanity of the nuclear menace are the disparate and somewhat incoherent forces of civil society as receiving varying degrees of encouragement from non-nuclear states. At times of global crisis, as occurred periodically during the Cold War, these forces from below can be aroused to sound a loud alarm that has some resonance at the political center, but mainly this kind of societal pressure demands prudence and restraint rather than compliance with international law, and gains satisfaction from tiny incremental moves taken to step back from the nuclear precipice. With the decline of anxieties about possible confrontations between major nuclear weapons states after the end of the Cold War, there is mostly evident a mainstream law emphasis on the ‘enforcement’ of the NPT directed at non-nuclear states perceived as seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

 

Behind these developments, off to one side, are persevering efforts to insist on the unlawfulness of the weaponry and on gaining support for using the existing legal machinery of states and world society to push harder on the arguments of illegality. As has been pointed out, such efforts even if successful, are unlikely to make the steep climb up the geopolitical mountains on top of which are located the nuclear weapons arsenals. Yet that does not make the struggle to empower law with respect to nuclear weaponry without meaning or irrelevant to a survivable future. The outcome of the ICJ Advisory Opinion on legality, despite the unwelcome outcome of being defiantly deflected by the nuclear weapons states, did have the positive effects of strengthening the political will and morale of anti-nuclear activists and their organizations throughout the world, and even making non-nuclear governments more aware that the nuclear nine were not fulfilling their part of the NPT bargain.

 

One notable expression of this heightened political will was the initiation of litigation in ICJ and American federal courts by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) based on the alleged treaty failure to implement Article VI of the NPT by the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty, and by customary international law for India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea (having withdrawn from the treaty in 2003) that are not. Such litigation was grounded in the unanimous conclusion of the ICJ that good faith obligation to negotiate a nuclear disarmament arrangement that needed to be brought to a conclusion. In the 19 years since the Advisory Opinion there have been persuasive confirmations that the nuclear nine were not at all disposed to seek nuclear disarmament, making it highly reasonable for any non-nuclear party to the NPT to mount such a legal argument based on non-compliance, and indeed material breach of treat obligations.

 

And what country, other than Japan, had a greater moral and political entitlement to do so than the Marshall Islands? RMI lacks a legal entitlement due to Compact of Free Association, and that creates a certain awkwardness in putting forward the allegations of non-compliance with the disarmament obligations of Article VI as the real motivation arising from the legacy, harm, and memories of the nuclear testing cannot be relied upon it putting forward its legal arguments. In an important respect the past matters less than the future, and the only reason to invoke RMI vicitimization as a result of the testing is to create a stronger atmosphere of receptivity in the International Court of Justice in deliberating on the subtleties of the jurisdictional controversy and to pay a deserved homage to those from RMI who paid such heavy costs due to the harm inflicted by the tests.

 

This archipelago of 1156 islands and islets occupying 750,000 square miles of ocean space in the Pacific was taken over from Japan by the United States after World War II, and formally given the status of Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (a political entity that included several other Pacific island groups) by the United Nations in 1947. The tiny population of 68,480 lives on 29 coral atolls. In a most dramatic betrayal of trust imaginable the United States used the Marshall Islands as the principal test site without consulting the indigenous population or seeking their consent. 67 atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted between 1946 and 1958. The largest was code named Castle Bravo and had an explosive magnitude of 15 megatons, which is 1000 times the force of the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. As a result of this nuclear testing the people of the Marshall Islands have endured a variety of severe harms, ranging from forced evacuation and displacement, radiation sickness that continues to be prevalent, and environmental damage that appears to be permanent. There is a mechanism that has allowed Marshall Islanders to gain compensation from the United States for harm that can be persuasively attributed to the nuclear tests, but at the cost of waiving the pursuit of claims elsewhere as a result of the Compact of Free Association linking RMI to the United States. This mechanism continues to operate as a consequence of the fact that the effects of exposure to high doses of radiation may now result in cancer or genetic defects for many years.

 

The legal theory behind the case rests on the legal proposition that the Marshall Islands in common with all other parties to the NPT have a legal right to insist on compliance with Article VI. This provides RMI with a basis for arguing that a legal dispute exists with the nuclear weapons states emanating from this alleged treaty breach. RMI contends also as with every state in the world that if a nuclear war occurs, it would be severely harmed as the detrimental effects would be global, impacting upon the security and wellbeing of the Marshall Islands, and indeed of all peoples living on the planet. For the case to be accepted for adjudication by the ICJ a majority of the 15 judges must agree that a ‘legal dispute’ exists between the complaining state and the states accused of being in breach. The wheels of international justice turn slowly, if at all, and it remains to be determined, and I can only hope that the legal team representing the RMI will convince enough of these judges sitting in The Hague to clear this high jurisdictional hurdle. Only then can the court proceed to hear arguments and render a judgment on the merits. This litigation before the ICJ if it goes forward will result in ‘a decision,’ which unlike the 1996 Advisory Opinion is obligatory, and can in theory be enforced by the Security Council acting under Article 94. Any enforcement attempt along these lines could be vetoed by one of the five permanent members, and almost certainly would be. The NPT gives states that are parties the legal option to bring a legal dispute before the ICJ, and every state in the world, including the four nuclear powers that are not parties to the NPT are allegedly also subject to its authority by way of customary international law, which may seem a stretch given the jurisprudential conservatism of the ICJ in the past. The legal reasoning supportive of this extension of customary international law is based on the proposition that the NPT has been so widely adhered to and so fundamental to world order that it has become binding whether or not a country is a party, that it is ‘a lawmaking treaty’ on matters vital to the wellbeing of humanity and that it is obligatory for the entire community of states.

 

This line of argument raises a complex jurisprudential issue for the ICJ as the legal reasoning goes against the earlier consensus that an attribute of national sovereignty is the option to remain outside of an international legal framework, and even to dissent from it. From the development of progressive international law, this litigation presents a great opportunity for the ICJ to align itself with the authority of international law in the area of war and peace, as well as with respect to  global security and human wellbeing in the nuclear age.

 

The companion case filed by the Marshall Islands in a Federal District Court resulted in a dismissal on February 3, 2015 resting on the highly questionable notion that the alleged damage to the Marshall Islands was too speculative to qualify as a legal interest that a court of law should adjudicate, and that the issue raised was, in any event, precluded by judicial review as a result of the Political Question Doctrine (PQD), which has led past courts to dismiss international law claims bearing on national security and foreign policy.

 

Such dismissals invoked separation of powers reasoning and regressively ignores the relevance of international law to the lawfulness of foreign policy, which occurred in stages since the initial formulations of PQD in a period when recourse to war was not covered by international law. Unfortunately, PQD has been interpreted by American courts to mean that such issues are not for the courts to decide, but are matters of foreign policy that should be resolved within the exclusive domain of the executive branch. Accordingly, the judiciary should not venture an assessment of this kind of challenge to security policy even if formulated by reference to a treaty obligation, which the U.S. Constitution explicitly avows as ‘the supreme law of the land.’ This dismissal of the RMI initiative has been appealed to the Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco for review and decision. The continuing invocation of PQD in cases of this kind is to restrict severely the prerogatives of the citizenry to ensure that their elected representatives uphold international law and accept the applicability of a global rule of law when it comes to foreign policy.

 

Whatever the eventual outcome of these parallel judicial initiatives, the cases have already had a significant civil society impact, which has been galvanized by the law suits, acting to raise public awareness of their potential importance. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has played a central role in this undertaking in the realm of public education. It has taken the lead in fashioning a consortium of more than 90 civil society organizations supportive of the litigation, and through its websites it has tracked the progress of the cases through the courts in a manner that is both educative and energizing. Whether this litigation can ignite the sort of transnational collaboration between governments and civil society organization in the manner that proved so successful in generating support for an anti-personnel land mines treaty and for the International Criminal Court remains to be seen. Such a positive outcome for an anti-nuclear grassroots and moderate government coalition can only be conjectured at this point, but such a result would be no more surprising than establishing the ICC over the objections of the world’s leading geopolitical actors. 

 

These law suits have also brought much wider and overdue attention to the nuclear exploitation of the Marshall Islanders, as well as admiration for the willingness of this tiny stressed and subordinated polity to put forward such a controversial legal argument, especially considering that their own security and economic viability is so linked to the good will of the United States embodied in a paternalistic ‘compact’ (Compact of Free Association with the United States) that entered into force as the trust status was superseded in 1988 when the Marshall Island became “a presidential republic in free association with the United States.” In tangible terms this has meant that the United States has accepted responsibility for the defense and protection of the Marshall Islands and for granting a range of economic subsidies, and in exchange retains use of a missile test site on Kwajalein Atoll, undoubtedly a reminder of the years when the island group was the principal site for developing new generations of nuclear weaponry.

 

It is pathetic that it has taken so many decades to mount this very limited legal challenge to nuclearism and that the challenge is being made by this small and vulnerable republic while the rest of the governments throughout the world continue to sit on their hands while nuclearism remains essentially unchallenged. To remove all doubts as to its future expectations, the U.S. Government has budgeted $1 trillion over the next thirty years to keep its superior nuclear capabilities up to date so as to ensure its continuing dominance of the outer frontiers of nuclear security strategy. We can only at this stage be thankful to the RMI for embarking on these nuclear lawsuits, and wish that the judicial bodies given this great opportunity to apply international law in a manner directly related to the wellbeing, and indeed the survival, of humanity, will respond appropriately.

 

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The Nuclear Challenge (8): 70 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Civil Society Activism on Behalf of Nuclear Zero

6 Sep

 

The Jeffersonian faith in the future of democracy rested on the cumulative impact of education on citizen participation encouraging a robust and vigilant civil society. The United States has developed a number of institutional paths to academic excellence, and can claim world leadership in crafting the modern university experience. At the same time, this type of excellence has become increasingly a disappointment from a Jeffersonian perspective, with the quality of American democracy declining in many respects since the earliest years of the republic despite several crossing several humane thresholds: including ending slavery, enfranchising women, and more recently, legally entrenching same sex marriage. Yet the role of money as linked to corporate power as well as the lavish funding of special interest lobbies has undermined the functioning of government and university education of, by, and for the people. There are several plausible explanations of this outcome that have nothing, or little to do, with the nature of the educational experience, yet I believe that our high schools and universities bear a significant responsibility for qualitative decline of democracy, which is also a result of education itself being relegated to a role of providing a skilled labor force for the neoliberal world economy that includes what I would label as ‘normative pacification.’

 

I would relate this contention to the tendency of most universities, with a few notable exceptions, to conceive of their primary role as one of imparting knowledge, by and large avoiding normative domains of ethics and citizenship. In the midst of the Vietnam War there was a brief period of epistemological revolt on the part of students on many college campuses that was carried out under the unifying banner of ‘relevance,’ which was a code word for what I would prefer to call engaged citizenship. This rallying cry for relevance translated into demands by students for participation in all aspects of their educational experience, and more broadly with respect to societal life. Underneath this call was an insistence on normative knowledge, how American society might be made more equitable and satisfying for all of its residents. Although the initial motivation for the student movement of the 1960s was the perceived imprudence and wrongfulness of the Vietnam War, unjustifiably endangering life and limb of young American males via the draft, the activist agenda was deeper and broader, being constructed around a proposed invigoration of democracy in the critical spirit of “as if people mattered.” The triple revolution (calls for universal controlled disarmament, reform of the Democratic Party, and university reform) proclaimed in the Port Huron founding document of Students for a Democratic Society in 1962 or the Mario Savio clarion call at Berkeley two years later on behalf of the Free Speech Movement to ”put your bodies upon the gears” of the machine that was destroying meaningful life were signifiers of this preoccupation with what needed to be done to make democracy work on the home front.

 

This student movement and its wider reverberations became increasingly threatening to mainstream American society, especially as it lengthened its agenda to accommodate an emergent militant feminism, glimmerings of LBGT movement, Black Panther radical anti-racism, and a grassroots cultural Spring featuring flower girls, psychedelic drugs, and rock music. Although these movements persisted, and realized many goals, there occurred a well-funded backlash orchestrated under the auspices of what Richard Nixon called ‘the silent majority,’ which itself seemed to derive from Jerry Falwell’s ‘moral majority.’ We should also not forget that the 1960s were a decade of political assassinations that were unwittingly very effecting in bursting the balloon of an incipient cultural revolution: John F. Kennedy (1963), Malcolm X (1965), Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy (1968). It must also be acknowledged that the bright promise of this period also collapsed under its own weight, a series of internal contradictions dramatized by two grisly incidents in 1969: the Manson Family murders and a homicide committed by the Hells Angels in the course of an unruly Rolling Stone concert at the Altamonte Speedway. These occurrences, in particular, epitomized what middle America thought was ‘the new normal’ being brought about by those who were celebrating the 1960s as inaugurating a new era of permissivness.

 

An active and anxious political consciousness associated with the menace of nuclear war was an integral part of the early phases of the Cold War, highlighted by the Berlin crises climaxing in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 that might well have produced a nuclear exchange had not cooler heads prevailed in Moscow and the most belligerent voices in Washington kept in check. The peace movement expressed its anti-nuclear mood by adopting the survival slogan “better red than dead.” Despite this display of biopolitical common sense, the operational code of the established order, at least in the West, mindlessly based its strategic doctrine and geopolitical activities on the opposite sentiment of “better dead than red,” privileging regime survival over human survival. Any doubt as to this morbid orientation was removed by building an elaborate underground shelter structure designed exclusively to enable the political leadership of the country to carry on the work of government in the aftermath of a nuclear attack even if American society was substantially destroyed—its people slaughtered, its cities reduced to rubble, and its smoke-filled skies saturated with intense radiation. School children were instructed in these years to duck beneath classroom desks, a pathetic gesture of official concern for protecting the wellbeing of the nation’s young people, which did more to call attention to their vulnerability than it did to offer them safety in the event of nuclear war.

 

Many of us who were old enough to assess this period of bipolar confrontation and mad doctrines of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) came haltingly to the conclusion that only the peoples of the world could emancipate the world from the militarists who were exerting almost total control over the governing process in the countries possessing nuclear warheads. It was this turn to civil society, accompanied by mobilizing efforts in an atmosphere of grassroots fear and apprehension, that produced a measure of political pushback that mounted principled challenges to the moral, political, and cultural postulates of nuclearism, challenges that could be met in the end only by the elimination of the weaponry.

 

Such anti-nuclear radicalism, although gaining many adherents throughout the world and a few surges of support, never threatened the nuclear weapons establishments around the world in any sustained way. What seemed more effective from a political perspective were liberal incremental initiatives that focused on the excesses of nuclearism such as first strike technology and doctrine and an unregulated arms race, and didn’t view it as realistic to question nuclearism itself. The ‘freeze movement’ that peaked in 1980 was a characteristic liberal effort to curtail the nuclear arms race without directly challenging the wisdom, morality, legality, and most of all the structure of belief and bureaucratic commitment to continuing to ground the security of the West on its reliance on nuclear weaponry. Societal support for such liberal initiatives ebbed and flowed, seemingly tracking the rise and fall of fears in the general public that nuclear warfare would occur as a consequence of Cold War geopolitics. This liberal orientation may have moderated the arms race and mitigated the risks of unintentional nuclear war, but it proved irrelevant, or worse, with respect to the existence and partial normalization of nuclear weaponry as the ultimate foundation of the global security system.

 

In many respects, the civil society focus shifted from activism to education, a process accelerated by the end of the Cold War, which induced a different set of concerns that can be comprehended as societal complacency or denial. Such attitudes gave rise to a new variety of false consciousness with respect to nuclear weapons, understating risks and ignoring opportunities. The immediate aftermath of the Cold War in the decade of 1990s provided the best geopolitical opening since Hiroshima for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but the leadership in nuclear weapons states saw no reason to depart from its nuclear comfort zone by engaging with a disarmament process. The absence of pressure from below meant that the nuclear status quo would not be significantly questioned despite the erosion of the deterrence rationale that had served as the principal justification for nuclearism put forward by the realist consensus throughout the entire Cold War.

 

Seeking out of deep resolve to fill this political and normative vacuum with respect to nuclear policy, which is itself a disturbing sign of the times, are a few largely educational efforts of which the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy are two of the longest lasting, most dedicated, and most respected. In my view, although strongly supportive of such an educational outreach, premised on the supreme sanity of the belief that only a world of zero nuclear weapons is morally and political sustainable, these organizations do not clearly enough draw a line separating the stabilizing managerial impulses underlying arms control and the maintenance of the nonproliferation regime from their proclaimed and genuine transformative raison d’ětre of nuclear disarmament. As a result the educational message conveyed is incomplete, and in my view, confusing. To some extent this ambiguity it understandable, and even commendable: nuclear disarmament is not currently on the political agenda in any meaningful sense, and so nudging the nuclear status quo may in certain respects reduce immediate risks (for example, moving away from hair trigger alert for strategic missile forces). From this angle, it makes a certain sense to exert a short-term policy influence by supportive arms control measures while reserving purely educational efforts to explaining the strong case for a world without nuclear weapons with or without an accompanying demilitarization of securitization and geopolitical interaction. What is left insufficiently explored is whether arms control/nonproliferation has the negative effect of sucking most of the energy away from more drastic repudiations of nuclearism.

 

There are two issues that relate to filling the educational gap created by the failure of universities to prepare students to be citizens in the nuclear age:

–first, the shift of the center of pedagogic gravity from academic institutions to civil society organizations, most notably the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation;

–secondly, to explore whether the path to nuclear disarmament can proceed in tandem with arms control and the nonproliferation regime, or that a choice must be made and explained as between these two approaches. I believe the long record since 1945 of incremental small steps forward combined with the structural rigidity of the nuclear establishment points in the direction of incompatibility. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the most credible strategy for achieving a world without nuclear weapons requires, in my view, a renunciation of the logic of arms control and nonproliferation. And even a step further, the advocacy of nuclear disarmament must become joined at the hip with the recognition that global demilitarization and conventional disarmament are part of a retrofitted political package of unconditional anti-nuclearism.

 

 

 

 

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The Nuclear Challenge 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki (7): Nuclear Civil Disobedience

4 Sep

 

In the years after World War II there was a widespread belief that rational minds would prevail, and that nuclear weapons would not be further developed, and their possession as well as their threat or use prohibited. The onset of the Cold War, the Soviet acquisition of the bomb, and the Eisenhower threat to use nuclear weapons if necessary to end the Korean War basically extinguished any real prospect of nuclear disarmament. Of course, the diplomacy of peace advocacy and of nuclear nonproliferation made it expedient to continue to affirm nuclear disarmament as a goal of foreign policy. And indeed up through the 1960s both Washington and Moscow tabled disarmament proposals with some fanfare, yet clearly lacked the political will to confront what had already become the powerful nuclear establishment that was a principal component of the military-industrial-complex that was so memorably depicted in Eisenhower’s still relevant Farewell Address.

 

It is against this background that it became increasingly clear that nuclear weapons would remain part of the geopolitical scene so long as their role was left to governments and normal statecraft. Before long all five permanent members of the UN Security Council opted for possession of nuclear weapons, which as a result seemed to connect great power status on a global level with entry into the nuclear club. Its expansion beyond this circle of World War II victors was more problematic as the further spread of the weaponry collided with the geopolitical priority of nonproliferation and with the oligopolistic mentality that was shared by the nuclear weapons states, and belied the central claim of the West that nuclear weapons were needed and effective in a deterrent posture, keeping the peace by discouraging attacks and provocative international initiatives. The strategic rationale for nuclear weaponry relied upon by the United States and Europe stressed the need to offset Soviet superiority in conventional weaponry and territorial access from their base in the Asian landmass.

 

Ever since the 1980s peace activists, especially those with deep religious convictions, have mounted civil society campaigns centered on the immorality of threatening or using nuclear weapons, and even on possessing and contemplating possible use. Those activists with the deepest convictions have repeatedly resorted to nonviolence civil disobedience, sometimes in provocative forms (spilling their own blood at nuclear facilities, damaging warheads, blocking trains carrying missiles), to communicate the depth of their opposition, and their own willingness to accept prison sentences to get their message better heard. I was deeply moved and influenced by the purity of several of the leading personalities who followed this line of thought and action, and participated in a supportive role by being an expert witness in several high profile legal cases. Among those I came to know through this contact, and particularly admired, were the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Philip, Elizabeth McAlister, and James Douglass. They were and remain for me among the most charismatic and inspirational figures in my life experience, not only for their anti-nuclear clarity (accompanied by strong earlier stands against the Vietnam War and wider commitments of service to the poor), but for the ways they connected such strong spiritual identities with their daily life styles and citizen engagements that harmoniously fused religious values with deeply felt and reflected upon moral/political understanding of how to live in the world.

 

I was particularly drawn to the work and outlook of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Protest founded by James and Shelley Douglass in Bangor, Washington and reaching out to many in the greater Seattle area with their uncompromising and sustained opposition to nuclearism, with a focus on so-called first-strike weapons. There worldview combined their embrace of pre-Constantine Christianity, the early pacifist Christian communities that were persecuted and yet adhered to their beliefs and practices, and Gandhi whose life, work, and thought established the radical transformative potentiality of militant nonviolence. I was impressed during my years of contact with the people of Ground Zero by their deep belief that the point of confrontation is always conversion to truth and right action, and not passing judgment as to evil. By virtue of such efforts they managed to generate widespread sympathy with their work, eventually persuading the formerly apolitical Archbishop of Seattle, Raymond Hunthausen, to join them in nonviolent civil disobedience and gaining the respect and even the support of some local prosecutors.

 

An important element in their dedicated lives was the strong belief in living up to the Nuremberg ethos, including respect for the UN Charter and for international law generally. It was my role to show that their beliefs in what I called ‘the Nuremberg obligation’ created a civic, if not a legal, duty to oppose within reasonable bounds policies and behavior by a government if it directly violated international law, and the more so, if the context involved warmaking. I also gave my opinion that it was reasonable for individuals to believe that all activities associated with nuclear weapons involved or were leading to the commission of the most severe of war crimes, and that these persons being prosecuted did so believe.

 

From a somewhat more secular point of view, Daniel Ellsberg, followed in these footsteps, taking a journey that has led him from the pinnacles of state power in Washington as a top level strategic advisor to his brave and precedent-setting decision to release the Pentagon Papers that divulged the secrets wrongly withheld from the American public, a shocking documentary record of the policies and conduct of the U.S. Government in relation to the Vietnam War.

I have known Ellsberg since we were both students at Harvard in the 1950s, and were originally at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Dan was a starstudent of Cold War strategy within the reigning realist paradigm and I was an obscure and alienated critic, but we managed to keep some contact in subsequent years, and I was one of those who Dan entrusted with the cache of top secret documents that constituted the Pentagon Papers, and was later called to testify before the Boston Grand Jury (convened to investigate the criminality of the release) and later as an expert in the criminal trial that the government started and lost with respect to Ellsberg and the NY Times.

 

Ellsberg also has worked while at the Pentagon on nuclear war plans, the secret of secrets, irresponsibly sharable over the years with such reckless military adventurers as Curtis LeMay and Dick Cheney, and their less extremist colleagues. It is a wonder that with this kind of incubated knowledge of the most deadly reality the human species has ever confronted, that species endangering catastrophes have not yet darkened the horizon.

 

Ellsberg’s perseverance with respect to nuclear weaponry has become iconic. Besides, lucidly lecturing throughout the world he has committed civil disobedience about 100 times, engaged in long vigils and fasts devoted to dramatizing the failures of the UN and U.S. Government to achieve nuclear disarmament. Most recently, at an event on August 7th observing the 70th anniversary of the nuclear attacks, Ellsberg joined with 50 other protesters in a ‘die-in,’ outside of Lawrence Livermore Labs where nuclear warheads have for decades being continuously developed to attain ever higher levels of annihilating perfection. It is worth observing that the Livermore Labs are located in Livermore, California, which is in the Bay Area, and that the large budget for work on weapons, often more than $1 billion is federally funded by Department of Energy, and the operation is carried on as a partnership between the University of California and several large corporations, an alliance suggestive of the bondings between the government, universities, and the private sector. Ellsberg’s words at Livermore deserve contemplating and heeding as best we can however we are situated:

 

“The killing at Hiroshima was mass murder.… In the target plans that I worked on, and ones I worked on in Russia, the smoke will go into the stratosphere as it did in Hiroshima by higher firestorm. But simultaneously, thousands of cities, with pillars of smoke, will join around the globe blotting out the sunlight sufficiently to kill harvests around the world, and condemn nearly the entire population of the world to death. It’s the Doomsday Machine, The End. We’ve known that, not at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but for the last twenty-five years, and yet these threats go on; the threats go on. They are threats of ending nearly all life. It’s never a good day to die, but it is a good day to get arrested.”

 

It is a somber message, but an informed recognition of where we are as a nation, and what this portends for species vulnerability, but also what it means culturally when national security is unethically conflated with a latent threat to commit a massive genocide, even omnicide.

 

70 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is lamentable that more than ever it is the voices in the wilderness that speak most clearly to those who are the global managers of security for the peoples of the world. We can be thankful for those who have put their bodies on the line in this unbroken tradition of anti-nuclear civil obedience. An aspect of the problem has followed from the fact that the media puts almost all of its weight on the side of the nuclear militarists, and refuses to give attention or space to those who for decades selflessly seek to awaken us from this lengthy, hazardous, and immoral ‘nuclear sleep.’

 

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