In Favor of a Constructive Foreign Policy: War or Aid?

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This meme is a little simplistic, but it is a good reminder that war is not exactly the moral high ground. Political legitimacy is not the same thing as ethical legitimacy.

Here are two ad hoc definitions: Terrorism is the creation of fear by means of violence for purposes of drawing attention to one's cause or ideology. War is the attempt to bring about tangible political or economic results by means of violence (e.g., an initially offensive war), or to to protect one's group or nation by violently crushing the military forces of a clearly-defined enemy (e.g., an initially defensive war).

The distinction between offensive and defensive is not always clear, as crushing an aggressor often means going into their own territory. For instance, the South began the Civil War with an act of aggression against the North (Fort Sumter), but the North did not remain on defense; we had Sherman's brutal 'March to the Sea' to Atlanta. Conversely, the aggressor may end up on the defensive, as was the case with Germany in both WWI and WWII.

The question of what constitutes a defensive war becomes more complicated when the offensive force is not a single entity, but a hodge-podge of individuals and groups. Not only have our so-called wars on terror involved far more foreign deployments of manpower and material (putting the lie to the Orwellian title 'Department of Defense') than domestic ones, they also have no end-game in sight. How do you know when you have won a war when you don't know who your enemy is until they have already acted?

We would do far better as a nation, both economically and politically, if we invested a fraction of what we spend on the military for reaching out to other nations in ways that are constructive, rather than destructive.

In Vietnam, 'hearts and minds' became a key slogan, because we were losing whatever sympathy and trust the Vietnamese people may have felt for American troops and American ideals, by the way in which we were waging the war. In all times, foreign policy is at its best when both the politicians and the people (rather than exclusively the former, which leads to long-term resentment) of the nation with which we are dealing feel this sympathy and trust towards us. But, surely, all wars, even those waged more honorably than Vietnam, tend to alienate a substantial percentage of both groups.

I think we would further our interests more effectively, at far less cost, by winning the peaceful cooperation of other peoples, rather than their violent and often fragmentary competition and opposition. Resentment is a precursor to malice; if it continues unchecked, growing upon itself, it always leads to evil, sooner or later. It is best to avoid provoking it in the first place. I think of terrorists as splinter-groups from nations, who often represent widespread resentments among their peoples, albeit in an extreme and counterproductive form.

The level of pure calculation is one I deplore, and it is the only one the U.S. government seems to be moved by. In all fairness, this is true of most governments, but I think the extent of Machiavellian tendencies increases with the extent of power, whether national or personal. On this level alone, much less that of the humanitarian, interacting with other nations in a democratic manner- taking account of what their peoples think of our proposals, and not influencing their politicians to act in ways that are virulently opposed by potentially violent groups within them, even if they are a tiny minority numerically- is desirable. Resentment only needs a few hearts, and it will end up finding many hands.

One of the key lessons of Nassim Taleb's work The Black Swan was that you do better to invest considerably in avoiding the unlikely chance that would ruin you, if it comes about, than to invest the same amount, little by little, in avoiding comparatively likely things that can easily be borne. You do well to avoid predicating your entire worldview on an assumption that may be false; we cannot avoid having assumptions, but we can avoid investing ourselves in them so totally. Is it unlikely that a given individual pissed off by our foreign policy will go on to kill thousands of Americans? Probably. But it is certainly desirable for most of our society (perhaps not for the military industrial complex, whose funding requires excuses for periodic wars) to keep the number of people pissed off at us enough to attempt that as small as possible.

How do avoid producing this lethal resentment? Well, not killing someone's family members- particularly someone's civilians, females, or children- is a great place to start. There is no resentment quite like revenge. Perhaps we'd be more inclined to oppose actions that lead to civilian deaths if we were honest enough with ourselves- if the media was direct enough with this mass of atomized individuals, of alienated sheep- to stop calling them casualties or collateral. Such terms are disgusting euphemisms that keep us from fully acknowledging the fact that we are talking about dead human beings- they are ways of lying to ourselves, and of subtly dehumanizing the victims of our actions.

Regardless of how earnestly we may seek to exclusively kill enemy combatants (soldiers, insurgents, terrorists), killing those who are not fighting us is most easily avoided by not fighting at all. I think war is arguably a necessary response to direct invasion of one's domestic territory, but not justified otherwise. Limiting ourselves to just wars, which are thankfully rare- and avoiding going to war for spurious (such as dubious CIA intelligence), corporate, or reactionary reasons- would help.

Interacting with other nations in a consensual manner, rather than one that is coercive, is also good strategy. Whether we cooperate with politicians who will coerce our designs upon their populations, or coerce the politicians too, we are winning concessions but losing friends.

What of winning hearts and minds, rather than merely trying to avoid losing them? Well, spending that fraction of our military spending which I mentioned earlier on bolstering the infrastructure- physical (such as running water and roads) and human (education, institutions conducive to domestic stability, healthcare, family planning- another euphemism, of course, but one which stands for something I support)- of poorer countries could end up being a public relations coup. A nonviolent coup, always the best kind. Admittedly, poor countries often remain stay poor in part because of governments that do not effectively prevent their members from taking bribes and stealing public funds. Yet, even if we could trust that only half the money we gave would be spent in the ways we intended, that aid money would still be 50% constructive; spending money on the military, beyond the extent needed to keep it ready and able to protect one's borders, is 100% constructive. In other words, I think we- and the domestic population- would both come out ahead, and there would be a lot less fear to go around.