WIELDING THE SWORD WHILE P OCLAIMING PEACE: Views from the LDS Community on Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imperatives of Revealed Truth Edited by Kerry M. Kart chner and Valerie M. Hudso n A Symposium for LOS National Security Professionals 16-17 May 2003
ISBN 0-8425-2579-3
11 111 11111111 1111 111 1111
9 780842 525794
~ DAVID M. KENNEDy'CENS TER .....~ FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
ISBN: 0-8425-2579-3
Wielding the Sword While Proclaiming Peace: Views from the LDS Community on Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imperatives of Revealed Truth
Wielding the Sword While Proclaiming Peace: Views from the LDS Community on Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imper atives of Revealed Truth Edited by Valerie M. Hudson and Kerry M. Kartchner
David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, Brigham Young University © 2004 by Brigham Young University. All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 0-8425-2579-3
Contents Preface by Jeffrey FRinger ..... .
....... vii
Acknowledgments
....... viii
Introduction by Kerry M Kartchner ........ ........................................................ .................. ............ ............ ix
Part I Honoring the Contributions of Distinguished LDS National Security Professionals and Scholars 1.
A Tribute to Paul Y. Hammond ............... .... . by Valerie M Hudson
2.
Ethical and International Affairs: Some Personal Encounters ..................................... 3 by Stanley A. Taylor
.............................. .......... .... ........ 1
Part II Toward an LDS Doctrine of War and Peace 3.
Waging War While Proclaiming Peace ...................................................................... 11 _by Michael K. Young, Keynote Address
4.
Power's Reality, Power's Illusion: Policy at the Intersection of the Two Kingdoms ......................................................................................... .................. 27 by Valerie M Hudson
5.
U.S. National Security Strategy and the Gospel: Nexus and Divergence .................. 35 by Steven A. Hildreth
6.
From Whence Come Wars and Fighting Among You? An Integration of Secular and Sacred .................................................................................................... .43 by Stanley A. Taylor and Jeremy 0. Evans
Part III Is Just War Compatible with LDS Theology? Competing Viewpoints 7.
YES-The Book of Morn10n as a Touchstone for Evaluating the Theory of Just War. .............................................................................. .... .......... ........ 57 by John Mark Mattox
8.
NO-Murder to Get Gain: LDS Thoughts on U.S. Elements of National Power ......................................................................................................... 67 by Mark E. Henshaw
Part IV LDS Theology and National Security: Policy Perspectives 9.
War and Conscience: An LDS Perspective ............. ................................................... 79 by David M Kirkham
10.
The ' Teancum Option' and Modem LDS National Security Thought.. ..................... 87 by Ryan Chavez
I!.
Mass Destruction: Historical and LDS Perspectives ............................. ................... 101 by Gary L. Stradling
12.
Just War in Iraq? Arab Radical and Refonnist Perspectives .................................... 107 by Brent J Talbot
Part V Are the Strategy and Doctrine of Preemption Compatible with LDS Theology? Competing Viewpoints 13.
YES-Preemption Doctrine: Self Defense or Indefensible? .................................. 129 by Eric T Jensen
14.
NO-A Critique of the U.S. Security Doctrine of Preemptive Military Attacks: Monnon 4:4 ............................................................................................................... 139 by Fred W Axelgard
Part VI Reprinted Selections from the First Volume IS.
What Should America's National Security Objectives Be? The Problems and Possibilities of an LDS Perspective (Abridged) ................................................. lSI by Valerie M Hudson
16.
Securing a Nation: An LDS Perspective on Post-Cold War Strategies for National Security ....................................................................................................... 157 by Joseph C. Seeger
17.
A Case for Monnon Christian Pacificsm ................................................................. 163 by Eugene England
18.
Security and Morality in a Contingent World .......................................... ........ :........ 169 by Paul Y. Hammond
Afterthoughts ,on the 2003 Symposium by Valerie M Hudson ............................ .. About the Contibutors ................................................... ..
........ ............. ............ ............ 181 .. .... ... " ....... .. ......................... 185
vii
Preface This publication marks the return to a subject first explored a decade ago by Dr. Kerry M. Kartchner and Professor Valerie M. Hudson in their book Moral Perspectives on Us. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community. That book was drawn from a 1993 conference held at the Kennedy Center. Ten years later they explore how thinking on that topic has developed over the last decade. We were pleased to be involved in the first publication and are equally pleased to be involved in this one. The Kennedy Center is proud to be supportive of the efforts of scholars like Kartchner and Hudson. The publication of this book also serves to re-emphasize our commitment to and support of research and scholarship in international affairs. It is a vital and necessary companion to our efforts in undergraduate education. Furthermore, we take seriously the idea that a people's faith and beliefs can influence and inforn1 their professional activities. It is that nexus that particularly interests us in this work. I wish to thank the authors and conference participants, as well as Kennedy Center Publications staff, for their work in preparing this volume. Finally, I should thank the contributors to the Kennedy Center Endowment who make possible our support of research and publications. Jeffrey F. Ringer Director, David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies Brigham Young University Provo, Utah February 2004
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Acknowledgments
In May 2003, a conference was held at the new BYU Milton Barlow Center in Georgetown for Latter-day Saint national security scholars, professionals, and students entitled, "Wielding the Sword While Proclaiming Peace: Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imperatives of Revealed Truth in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times." The conference was sponsored by the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, as well as the Washington Seminar Program of Brigham Young University. There were approximately 100 attendees, including students, faculty, and national security professionals. Considerable collaborative efforts go into organizing, sponsoring, and conducting a conference such as this one. The editors wish to gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ryan Chavez, Tom McIlvain, Steve Hildreth, and Robert Griffiths in organizing and conducting the conference. They also wish to express their appreciation to Jeff Ringer, Scott Dunaway, Cory Leonard, Marilyn Reynolds, and Devin Christensen for their help in sponsoring the conference, making the building available, supporting the travel arrangements for speakers, assisting with the preparation of the manuscript, and countless other contributions.
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Introduction and Overview Kerry M Kartchner
It cannot be a coincidence that so much of modem scripture is devoted to accounts of nearly continuous warfare, especially between the Nephites and the Lamanites. As one author in this volume notes, "It seems clear that the rich reservoir of revelatory guidance in the Book of Mormon, on the matter of war, has come to us by Divine design" (Mattox). Neither is it a coincidence that Latter-day Saints reportedly make up a far greater proportion of the armed services of the United States than would normally be reflected by their proportion in the general population.! This reflects, I am sure, more than the traditional loyalty to nation that is encouraged by our commitment to good citizenship. I think it is also symptomatic of a deep cultural sense that national security is, as a matter of constitutional principle, the government's foremost responsibility, that all other freedoms, rights, privileges, and prosperity that we may enjoy are based on a secure domestic and international tranquility. Yet, despite our loyalty to the Constitution of the United States, and our devotion to principles of good citizenship, and our endorsement of military service, there are few efforts in print to systematically explore the implications for current national security dilemmas of modem revelation, scripture, and Latter-day Saint doctrine. 2 The present volume is an attempt to address that shortcoming. Most of what follows constitutes the proceedings of a conference of Latter-day Saint national security professionals held in May 2003 in Washington, D.C. There were three basic motivations for holding such a conference and for making its proceedings available to the public. The first objective was to promote a sense of community among those Latter-day Saints who have chosen to pursue careers in national security and foreign policy. By focusing on national security and foreign policy specialists, we explicitly acknowledge that this is a legitimate and honorable profession for Latter-day Saints, particularly in this era when peace has been taken from the earth and safety and security issues dominate the national political and spiritual agenda. Toward this end, in putting together the conference program, we did not assign topics to selected speakers but put out a general call for papers to see what our fellow professionals were thinking about, to see what current issues preoccupied their time and attention, and to provide a forum for giving voice to those analytical efforts. It is our primary aspiration that this volume, then, will promote a sense of community among Latter-day Saint professionals in the fields of national security, foreign policy, and international relations-one that will eventually be shared by a wider public. The second objective was to encourage intellectually rigorous, academically systematic, and scripturally sound thinking about the application of the gospel, as reflected in modem revelation, to our professional pursuits and responsibilities, that is, to issues of national security policy. This objective is premised on the notion that there need be no discontinuity or contradiction between our professional endeavors and our private convictions. It is also premised on the desire to promote professional legitimacy for those who would address the broader Latter-day Saint community on issues of national security and foreign policy.
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The third objective for holding this symposium was to identify, elaborate, and advocate morally sound and politically sustainable solutions to current national security policy issues that are compatible with modem scripture and revelation, and the teachings of modem prophets, that address current issues of American foreign and defense policy. For the purposes of this volume, we have necessarily restricted our focus for the most part to the security policies of the United States (the treatment of Arab policies by Brent Talbot is an exception). This is not to say that the policies of other nations have no relevance or bearing on the moral dilemmas of a global environment, only that this is a necessary first step. It is our intention, in future efforts, to expand our scope to include an examination of the security policies of other nations and international organizations, subjecting them to the same principles and standards we apply herein to U.S. national security.
The Central Dilemma of the Latter-day Saint National Security Professional The title we have given this volume is "Wielding the Sword While Proclaiming Peace: Views from the LDS Community on Reconciling the Demands of National Security with the Imperatives of Revealed Truth." This choice of title warrants some explanation. Because peace has been taken from the earth, as Joseph Smith was forewarned in 1835 (see Doctrine and Covenants I :35), it is necessary that We should have to resort to defending ourselves from time to time through force of anns. This is what we mean by "wielding the sword." We considered using the more common phrase "living by the sword," but we do not believe that accurately characterizes our professional endeavors. Most of us are not in the position of having to "live by the sword," meaning that we do not resort by choice to deadly force to resolve all conflicts. But we are commanded to "defend our families even unto bloodshed" (see Alma 43:47), and it is clear that there are occasions when we must take up the sword in our own defense, as many (but not all) of the following chapters will assert. On the other hand, we are also under commandment to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (see Doctrine and Covenants 98: 16). Valerie and I have long believed that the central dilemma facing us as Latter-day Saint national security professionals is how to reconcile the seemingly conflicting commandments to "defend our families even unto bloodshed" on the one hand and to "renounce war and proclaim peace" on the other hand. This volume is a fundamental effort to address this seeming paradox.
The Moroni Model The reader will note throughout the following chapters repeated references to Captain Moroni, and that is entirely appropriate because Captain Moroni represents the clearest example of how to resolve the above dilemma. Captain Moroni took command of the Nephite annies at the age of twenty-five, approximately seventy-two years prior to the birth of Christ in the Old World. It was a period of widespread danger, when wars and rumors of war were rampant throughout the land. The nation Moroni served was beset by traitors within and ravaging annies without. In Alma Chapter 48, the great chronicler Monnon says this of Moroni: " ... If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power Over the hearts of the children of men." He then compares Moroni, a professional soldier, with Ammon, the son of Mosiah, and Alma and his sons, "for they were all men of God" (Alma 48: 17-18).
INTRODUCTION
This validates the notion that serving in the military can be among the most honorable professions, and there need be no discontinuity between living the principles of the gospel (i.e., proclaiming peace) and promoting the nation's secular security (wielding the sword). Mormon further describes those characteristics of Moroni that serve as our guide for reconciling the commandment to "renounce war and proclaim peace" on the one hand, and the commandment to "defend your families even unto bloodshed" on the other. According to Mormon, Moroni (see Alma 48:11-13): 1) Did not delight in bloodshed 2) Took joy in liberty and the freedom of his country and brethren 3) Was humble and grateful for the blessings and privileges God had bestowed upon him and his people 4) Labored exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people 5) Was finn in the faith of Christ 6) Had sworn an oath to defend his people
These principles, then, may be considered the starting point for reconciling the central dilemma we have posed for consideration by this volume.
Overview This volume has been divided into five parts. Part I begins with a tribute by Valerie Hudson to the distinguished career of Paul Y. Hammond, whom the editors consider the pioneer of modem Latter-day Saint national security scholars. Hammond spoke at our first conference in 1993, and his remarks at that time have been reprinted in this volume. His career spans the modem era of nuclear weapons and politics, and thus he has been an astute commentator on most of the critical issues we still face today. His body of work exemplifies the academic curiosity of a world class scholar who has been unafraid to tackle the most secular of security policy issues. We have then included remarks by Stan Taylor regarding the very kind of ethical dilemmas routinely encountered by Latter-day Saint practitioners and scholars of national security policy. Taylor introduces the key measure of merit for Latter-day Saint national security professionals: what is "right" and what is "wrong" in terms of any given policy alternative, from a moral and ethical perspective-especially one informed by Latter-day Saint theology and conviction. The editors consider Taylor, like Hammond, to be a leading example of someone who has applied Latter-day Saint moral perspectives to pressing issues of national security policy. The reader is advised not to overlook his footnotes, which point to a rich literature of books on moral and ethical constraints as applied to international affairs and public policy. Part II leads off with the May 2003 conference's keynote address by Michael Young. His contribution reviews the evolution of "just war" doctrine, showing how this doctrine has been stretched throughout history to justifY almost any military campaign. But perhaps even more importantly, Young affirms through the experiences of his daughter, who has embarked on a career in the U.S. Air Force, that a decision to make the armed forces one's chosen profession can be reconciled with, even justified by, modem scriptural teachings regarding the right to defend our liberties, our homes, our families, and our right to worship as our conscience dictates. Valerie Hudson lays a foundation for distinguishing between the applications and definition of "power" as seen through the perspective of traditional political realism and applied in the kingdom
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of men, and the power that derives from the gospel and characterizes relationships in the kingdom of God. Steve Hildreth eloquently sketches areas of divergence between traditional U.S. national security objectives and gospel-derived interests. Stan Taylor and Jeremy Evans then take the classical international relations framework, which categorizes the causes of war into three levels of analysis-man, the state, and the international system-and compares these to scriptural references to the causes of war. Part III provides two perspectives on comparing traditional just war doctrine to Latter-day Saint scripture and doctrine. John Mark Mattox argues that a good case can be made for supporting the traditional just war criteria on the basis of Book of Mormon scripture and refers to Mormon's account of the life of Captain Moroni as "the most comprehensive case study on just war contained in holy writ." Mark Henshaw takes on the traditional Christian just war doctrine, arguing that these principles don't hold up in all cases. He then underscores the thesis that doctrines of "just war" must be supplemented by doctrines of "just diplomacy" and "just economics." He asserts that both Latter-day Saint perspectives on U.S. history and the Book of Mormon show potential failings in traditional just war criteria and principles. In Part IV David Kirkham examines the role of "higher law" in trumping secular civil law, and provides an insightful review of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints' position on conscientious objection. Ryan Chavez fearlessly takes on the highly controversial subject of political assassination as an instrument of national security policy, using the Book of Mormon account ofTeancum's slaying of the wicked usurper Amalickiah, who he blamed for causing the deaths of thousands of Nephites and Lamanites and needlessly prolonging an already protracted and bloody war, as a case study. He places the question of targeting individual enemy leaders in a scriptural, historical, and contemporary legal context. If individual men are the source of widespread suffering and misery, and their decisions are the cause of war, then why should whole societies be made to bear the consequences of an individual leader's lust for power? Should they not be the target of violence rather than their nations? This topic seems particularly relevant in light of the U.S. focus on finding and bringing to justice key individuals like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Chavez takes this subject on, incorporating the language of war, with references to "enemy command structures," "tactical versus strategic preemption," "covert operations," and "risk/reward ratios." Gary Stradling takes on a no less contentious issue in addressing historical and Latter-day Saint perspectives on weapons of mass destruction. Brent Talbot lends us his expertise in Middle Eastern affairs through a discussion of radical and reformist thought in modem Islam. While exploring the depth of anti-Americanism in the Arab world, he explains why rising frustration in the Middle East is improperly directed at the United States and the West by government-controlled Arabian media using the West as a scapegoat for their own bad governance, and Arab Islamists who blame the West for their own self-inflicted problems. In Part V, two authors examine, from competing perspectives, the doctrine of preemption recently made an issue by the Bush Administration's public emphasis on preemption as one instrument in the war on terrorism. Eric T. Jensen argnes that gospel precepts of self-defense support a doctrine of preemptive action under circumstances, and states that it is justifiable to resort to violence in "anticipatory self-defense." Jensen cites Moroni's threat to take preemption action against the Lamanites in Alma 54: 11 ~13 as a precedent. Fred Axelgard, on the other hand, dismisses this same scriptural pas-
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INTRODUCTION
sage as more "angry rhetoric than inspired doctrine" and delivers a passionate caution against relying on a doctrine of military preemption. Making no distinction between "offensive warfare" and "preemptive strikes," Axelgard argues that making preemption a major public tenet is to go against the grain of American history. He then addresses a series of legitimate strategic and political questions regarding whether preemption can ever be a militarily or politically effective option. Since the volume of proceedings from the 1993 conference are now out of print, the editors ofthe present volume have decided to reprint several key chapters from that publication, which are noted here as Part VI. These include seminal efforts to relate Latter-day Saint doctrine and scripture to relevant national security themes by Valerie Hudson, Joseph Seeger, Eugene England, and Paul Hammond. Finally, for those interested in further discussions on these topics, a listserv has been established, and instructions for subscribing to the list can be found at http://kennedy.byu.edu/events/enews/listserv.asp The archives of this list, which contain superb examples of this community wrestling with tough national security questions, can be accessed by e-mailing devin_
[email protected] We are in the planning stages for a third symposium, and information on this event will be available on the ldsnatsec listserv. NOTES 1. An entity once known as the "Church Military Relations Committee" (I don't know if such a committee still exists) reported in the early 1980s that while Latter-day Saints made up only about 1 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for nearly 3 percent of the armed services, concentrated not surprisingly in the branch of the services considered most "family friendly," the U.S. Air Force.
2. An earlier volume that represented the first such effort, based on a conference held at Brigham Young University in 1993, is now out of print. Some of its most salient portions are reprinted in this volume.
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Part I Honoring the Contributions of Distinguished Latter-day Saint National Security Professionals and Scholars
1 A Tribute to Paul Y. Hammond Valerie M Hudson Paul Hammond was one of the first members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to make Security Studies his professional career. In a sense, then, he is the "godfather" of the movement, begun in the mid-1990's, to forge an explicit link between adherence to LDS beliefs and the implication of those beliefs for scholarship and practice in the field of national security. Paul attended and presented at the first symposium in 1993, entitled Moral Perspectives on U.S. Security Policy, and we are honored to have him here with us today, a decade later, at the second such symposium. To know Paul Hammond is to honor his achievements, and therefore we are pleased to introduce you to the man and his career. Paul grew up in Salt Lake City. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Utah in 1949. He was awarded a graduate fellowship to Harvard University, where he began to pursue a Ph.D., specializing in foreign policy. When the Korean War began, he changed his focus to National Security Policy, impressed with the adage that "war is too important to leave to the generals." He wrote his dissertation under the direction of McGeorge Bundy and William YI. Elliott on civilian control of the U.S. military establishment, which he completed in London on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1953, when he was 24 years old. He began his teaching career at Harvard. Two years later he moved to the Naval War College for a tenn and then to the Naval Academy where he was the Forrestal Fellow in Naval History. He then joined the research staff of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and a year later, the Political Science Department at Yale. While at Yale, Princeton University Press published his much expanded dissertation under the title Organizing For Defense: the American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century (1961); Columbia University Press published a co-authored book, Strategy, Politics and Defense Budgets (1962); and the Alabama University Press published a large volume of case studies on civil-military relations with the two largest cases written by Paul. In 1962, Paul was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship in international studies. He spent the next two years at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced
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International Studies (SAIS, now the Nitze School). During this time he did policy research as a consultant to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy of the U.S. Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In 1964, he joined the senior research staff of the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. Paul's work at RAND focused mainly on problems of high-level command, control, and conmmnications (C3I, so called). He was also Director of Asian Studies and Director of Strategic Studies and during his last three years at RAND, Head of the Social Science Department. He participated in RAND's early work on terrorism and lead a team of RAND researchers which, at the behest of the then National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, produced the first design of a computer-based information system for the National Security Council (NSC)-which was never implemented. During his RAND period, in addition to producing research project reports, Paul wrote two books on American foreign policy: The Cold War Years (1969) and Cold War and Detente (1975), and edited a volume, Political Dynamics in the Middle East (1972). In 1976, Paul joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering as the Weidlein Professor of Environmental and Public Policy Studies, where he became the co-founder (with James C. Fletcher) of Pitt's Energy and Environment Research Center. During the next six years he devoted most of his non-teaching time to energy policy-related issues and co-authored a book, Individual Energy Conservation Behaviors (1980). In 1983 he moved over to University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), where he became a Distinguished Service Professor. During his years at Pittsburgh, until 1992, Paul carried out a variety of defense policy projects, usually for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He continued to deal with the command and control requirements for secure nuclear forces. He participated in work that sought to develop criteria for allocating resources within the national intelligence community. But his primary focus was on NATO and its future. His major projects on this subject were for the Director of Net Assessment in the Reagan Administration and the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the first Bush Administration. On the academic side, he published in 1992 a book entitled LBJ and the Presidential Management of Foreign Relations. In the early nineties, Paul shifted his teaching and research interests to Asia, spending a sabbatical in Singapore, and to the broader issue of American hegemony. He continues to teach graduate students at GSPIA. He plans to retire next year (2004) and expects then to take up residence in Salt Lake City, near the University of Utah where his academic adventure began fifty-eight years ago.
2 Ethical and International Affairs: Some Personal Encounters Stanley A. Taylor I am honored to open the International Forum Lecture for the Kennedy Center this year and only hope I can do justice to the traditions established in past years and anticipated this year. My remarks are essentially the same as the talk I gave last month when I was honored by the International Society of the Kennedy Center, whose annual conference theme focused on ethics and international affairs. Kennedy Center Director Jeff Ringer approached me shortly after that event and asked if I would repeat the same presentationas part of this lecture series. I attached endnotes to both talks for those who want to do further research on some of the issues I raise. For the August speech I was asked to engage in some personal reflections about ethical issues in international affairs which I had encountered. Interest in this subject has been around for centuries and its various permutations can be traced by anyone interested in reviewing a rather extensive body of literature. 1 Since I was asked to give personal reflections on this topic, I will mention three political issues with which I have been personally involved that raised ethical concerns. The first is quite brief and occurred in 1971 while I was serving as the administrative assistant to newly elected U.S. Congressman from Utah, Gunn McKay. Gunn, while very familiar with state politics, was somewhat unfamiliar with national politics. But he brought to the office a very keen sense of honesty and ethics. I, on the other hand, was more steeped in the philosophical tradition known as political realism, but was anxious to make a contribution to a genuinely good person who had little taste for Washington, D.C. political machinations. The issue involved the supersonic transport (SST) airplane. The idea of airplanes breaking the sound barrier had been around for many years and various fighter aircraft in several nations had already done so. But the thought that commercial aircraft could transport passengers at speeds greater than the speed of sound was quite new. In 1962, the governments of France and the United Kingdom announced that they had entered into a collaborative effort to design, construct, and operate the first SST for commercial passenger service. Since private enterprise could not possibly fund such a massive effort, the joint program called for an infusion of vast amounts of public money in a joint Anglo-French public-private enterprise. Not wanting to be outdone, U.S . President John F. Kennedy announced in 1963 that he would support a U.S. effort to develop an SST. But this unleashed a lengthy debate in the United States over whether or not the American government should get involved in an industry traditionally left to private enterprise. For about six years, while the Anglo-French program continued to press ahead, politicians, interest groups, and opinion leaders debated the merits of the
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United States program. As this debate was continuing, the first test flight of the AngloFrench Concorde took place in 1969. This successful test flight inflamed the debate in America with supporters of the program claiming that the U.S. would fall behind and opponents arguing that we should not get the government involved in what was better left to private enterprise. In February 1971, after Congress had been in session about a month, Gunn returned to his office from the House chambers one day quite concerned over the issue which was very new to him. He said that a vote was coming up in March and that he did not know what stance he should take. He asked me to brief him on the issue during the next week. I applied all of the skills I had learned as a student at Brigham Young University and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. I followed all of the principles I had been teaching at Bentley College in Boston and at BYU. On the day I was to brief him, I walked into his office with pages of infonnation and began my briefing. I carefully and exhaustively listed every reason why the SST was a good idea and every reason why it was a bad idea, using my best academic "on the one hand and on the other hand" approach. At the end of the hour, I put all of my papers down and looked at Gunn with some degree of pride in my work. He looked at me, his eyes somewhat glazed as a result of a clear case of infonnation overload, and in complete honesty and candor asked me a question I have never forgotten. "Well, OK, Stan," he said, "but what's the right thing to do?" The question stunned me. I had never thought of it in that way. I could tell him all of the advantages and all of the disadvantages of government involvement in an SST program, but I could not tell him what was right. I remember thinking to myself that I had been teaching for five or six years about what was "right" or "left" in American politics, but I had seldom thought about what was "right" or "wrong" in American politics. On 24 March 1971, Gunn joined the majority of the House and voted against the SST program. But he taught me a very important lesson and changed much of what I would do in the future. In the broad scope of history, the SST debate was relatively unimportant. But the question Gunn asked continues to haunt me in much of my work. What is the right thing to do? The second matter involved efforts to bring the collection of evidence against Americans cooperating with hostile and foreign intelligence services under the same legal standards as common domestic criminals. This issue arose while I was serving as a senior staff member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Utah Senator Jake Garn was one of the first appointees to this new Senate committee and invited me to join the staff as it was undergoing transition from what had been called the Church Committee into the new-standing Intelligence Committee. The SSCI was concerned because, in the absence of constitutionally and legally accepted standards covering espionage, most U.S. citizens who were betraying their country were not being prosecuted since the courts were throwing out the evidence as unacceptable. Time does not pennit me to go into this in great detail, but Senator Garn played a significant role in this process and allowed me to represent his interests in the process that led to the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)2 This Act created a FISA court that was able to weigh requests to conduct certain types of surveillance and then to authorize through a "warrant-like" procedure more intrusive evidence collection. As long as such evidence was collected according to the tenns of FISA, it was accepted in the FISA court. I have always been a little proud of my modest contri-
ETHICAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
bution to this process, because I believe we made it possible to enhance the principle of due process while at the same time making it easier to catch and imprison traitors. 3 My third experience involved a more, and still, controversial issue-the right of the U.S. government to conduct covert activities abroad, even up to and including the assassination of foreign political leaders. According to newspaper headlines, the Church Committee had documented U.S. government involvement in the death of several foreign leaders in a report released in November 1975. 4 The report was a bombshell. While allegations and suspicions had circulated for several years, this was the first time an official government body with access to classified information had confirmed such involvement. While the headlines were sensational, they were, as is often the case, wrong. The Church Committee had sorted through scores of allegations involving specific foreign leaders, but only those involving five individuals carried enough factual evidence to warrant a complete investigation. And of the five, only one individual could be said to have been the target of a U.S. government assassination effort. That was Fidel Castro. In the other cases, Lumumba, the Congolese prime minister; Trujillo, the Dominican Republic Dictator; Diem, the South Vienamese president; and Schneiter, the military chief of staff in Chile, the evidence showed that the U.S. had wanted these individuals out of the picture, and, in the case of Lumumba, had actually planned a plot, but that "no foreign leaders were killed as a result of assassination plots initiated by officials of the United States."5 Nevertheless, the story was sensational and the Church Committee had recommended that the new Senate committee should introduce legislation establishing tighter controls over intelligence agencies, including an assassination ban. So our committee staff spent a lot of time drafting what was called "an intelligence charter" for the U.S. intelligence community that included an assassination ban. While this work was going on, three u.s. presidents issued Executive Orders regulating intelligence agencies and each Executive Order contained an assassination ban. 6 The SSCI staff played a small part in drafting the language of two of those bans. With other staff members, I represented the views of the Senate, particularly Senator Gam, to Carter White House officials as they grappled with intelligence reform, particularly with the assassination ban. In 1981, I was still acting as a consultant to the Senate Intelligence Committee and engaged in several discussions with both Senate and White House officials regarding President Reagan's Executive Order 12333 and its assassination ban. Even though Congress has passed two subsequent Intelligence Oversight acts, the assassination ban contained in President Reagan's Executive Order 12333 is still today the only legal restraint against assassination. I have received criticism for my participation in, and support of, the assassination ban. My favorite story relating to this occurred in 1986. President Reagan, in retaliation for Libyan sponsorship of terrorist actions against Americans in Europe, authorized U. S. forces in England to bomb Libya on the night of April 14, 1986. This action unleashed wide public debate about whether or not President Reagan would have violated his own Executive Order had the Libyan President, Muammar Quadaffi, been killed in the raid (It was not a violation, by the way, but I will get to that later.). Shortly after the Libyan raid, Brigham Young University and its Communications Department invited long-time director of news at CBS, Fred Friendly, to speak on campus. At a small evening dinner in his honor hosted by BYU President Jeffrey Holland, Mr. Friendly raised the issue of
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the American attack on Libya and then, for several minutes, excoriated the assassination ban as well as any congressional interference with the intelligence agencies. As I recall, his final statement was, "I wish I knew who those idiots were who came up with that ban." I remember the look on his face when I raised my hand and said, "I am one of those idiots." The chances of having "one of those 'idiots' attending a small dinner in Provo, Utah must have seemed very remote to Mr. Friendly. The broad issue of secret organizations in a democracy is something to which I have since given a great deal of thought and about which I continue to write. The issue of covert action, in general, and assassination, in particular, sets off all kinds of ethical bells and whistles. I say ethical, because I believe that the legal questions are largely resolved. Legal ramifications still abound, but I believe that the national security provisions of the Constitution coupled with subsequent legislation, particularly the National Security Act of 1947, give Congress the right to authorize or to ban nearly any kind of covert action and that the President, while acting under the law of the land, has the right to either pennit or prohibit such acts. Moreover, I believe that both traditional international law as well as the " inherent right of individual or collective self-defense" authorized in Article 51 of the UN Charter support this notion. 7 And without simplifying a complicated issue too much, I can also say that both in hearings before the Senate and according to existing law, the assassination ban was not deemed to apply to the killing offoreign political officials during a time of declared war, nor in response to attacks against the United States. 8 For example, the joint resolutions passed by Congress three days after the II September 2001 attacks authorized the President to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he detennines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorists attacks."9 Applying ethical standards drawn from particular religions to public policy is both difficult and dangerous. Those of us who worked on these executive orders and the Legislative Oversight Acts came to believe that the best way-perhaps the only way- to address ethical concerns was to focus on two issues- the authority to authorize covert actions and the procedures involved in the approval process. Finally, we believed such efforts were justified by both ethical and prudential considerations. Although ethical concerns surrounding covert actions are complicated, one way to establish standards is to proscribe the decision-making power and prescribe the procedures for using that power. IO That does not address the pure moral question involved in assassinations, but it does place the broader issue of covert actions in a constitutional setting where traditional checks and balances are in play. Thus, both the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980 and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1991 require all proposed covert activities to be authorized in writing by the president through what is called a presidential finding. This does away with the traditional practice of off-the-record conversations and unwritten orders that create what is called, "presidential deniability," in which intelligence agencies engaged in covert activities without specific written presidential authorization . By proscribing this decision-making power, we believed that we came closer to putting all covert actions in a more ethical context without eliminating that option when it might be needed in legitimate national security threats. 11 We also prescribed the procedures or specified the process by which such decisions are made by requiring all proposed covert actions to be reported to the appropriate committees of Congress prior to their being carried out. We did allow emergency actions to be authorized and conducted without such a report as long as the need was
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ETHICAL AND I NTERNATIONAL A FFAIRS
deemed essential to U.S. national security and the action was reported as soon as possible afterwards. 12 We were also successful in persuading the Intelligence Community to adopt their own regimen of reviews of covert action proposals. Executive Order 12333 and the two Intelligence Oversight Acts permit covert actions under a carefully specified process and virtually ban any assassination attempts unless authorized by a specific presidential finding. This model strikes a fine balance between secrecy and accountability and, I believe, enhances moral principles. I mentioned above that those of us who worked on these developments were also concerned with prudential issues. That is, we wanted to eliminate assassination because we worried about the consequences of U.S. government-sponsored assassinations for encouraging other states to do the same. I) Obviously, we viewed as undesirable a global system in which states conducted diplomacy by murder. At the same time, we felt we needed to permit the killing of foreign leaders during times of war and in response to serious threats against U.S. national security. Concern over the social effects of deviant behaviors may well be the origin of many ethical and moral prohibitions. Our prudential concern appeared to be justified according to a study conducted by one of my students several years ago. David Dolson found information concerning 197 cases of actual or attempted political assassinations throughout history. He found that in only twelve cases, literally over hundreds of years, did the assassination or assassination attempt result in a desired change in policy. In fact, he found that, in most cases, either the assassination or the attempt strengthened the policies the perpetrators were trying to change.14 My role in all of these developments has been small, and, in spite of Fred Friendly, I have been proud of being "one of the idiots" who attempted to raise U.S. foreign policy to a higher moral and ethical ground. I hope the story has been interesting to you. NOTES I. Researchers into this topic will obviously want to consult the one indispensable relevant journal, Ethics and International Affairs, published annually by the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. While I will not make reference in this note to any of the early philosophers and statesmen who wrote about the role of ethics in the relations between sovereign units, I will try to list some of the better sources for both reading about these early contributions as well as about some of the major issues of the twentieth century. My favorite works that survey the landscape quite well are: Nardin, Terry, and David R. Mapel. Traditions of International Ethics, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1992; Thompson, Kenneth W. Schools of Thought in International Relations, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1996; and Ethics and International Affairs: A Reader, Ed. Joel H. Rosenthal, Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C., 1995. For works that go beyond literature reviews, one should review Frost, Mervyn. Ethics in International Relations: A Constitutive Theory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996; Warner, Daniel. An Ethic of Responsibility in International Relations, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, 1991; and Hoffmann, Stanley. Duties Beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1981. For works that focus more narrowly on foreign policy, see McElroy, Robert W. Morality and American Foreign Policy, Princenton University Press, Princeton, 1992; Morality and Foreign Policy: Realpolitik Revisited, Eds. Kenneth M. Jensen and Elizabeth P. Faulkner, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., 1991; and Oppenheim, Felix E. The Place of Morality in Foreign Policy Lexington Books, Lexington, 1991. Also worth mentioning in this category is Craig, Gordon A., and Alexander L. George. "Problems of Law and Moral Restraints on the Use of Force in Foreign Policy," Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time, Third Edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995. Two works that focus on the ethics of defense policy, both written by Douglas P.
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Lackey are The Ethics of War and Peace, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1989; and Ethics and Strategic Defense, Wadsworth Press, Belmont, 1989. Joseph Nye's book, Nuclear Ethics, Free Press, New York, 1986 is one of the best on this narrower topic. Works on the role of law in international affairs are too numerous to list, howeyer the Council on Foreign Relations' edited book, Right V Might: International Law and the Use of Force, New York, 1991, contains a short bibliography that includes all of the important works. My own personal favorite on the role of religion in these considerations is Religion, the Missing Dimension of Statecraft, Eds. Douglas Johnston and Cynthia Sampson, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994. For specific LDS perspectives on ethics and international affairs the series edited by the Kennedy Center's own Valerie Hudson and former Brigham Young University student and long-time arms control expeli Kerry M. Kartchner is without peer. The first volume, Moral Perspectives on U.S. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community was published by the Kennedy Center in 1995, and the second publication is forthcoming and based on papers given at an LDS National Security Symposium at the BYU Barlow Center in Washington, D.C. in May 2003. The chapter contributed by Robert S. Wood, "The Justice of States" and published in Perspectives in Mormon Ethics: Personal, Social, Legal and Medical, Ed. Donald G. Hill, Jr., Publishers Press, Salt Lake City, 1983, is, in my judgment, still the best single introduction to a unique LDS perspective on the ethics of international affairs. Elder Wood is currently serving as a member of the Second Qnorum of Seventy. Anyone interested in a very narrow application of ethics from an LDS scholar might be interested in my "Tobacco and Economic Growth in Developing Nations," first appearing in the journal Business in the Contemporary World, Winter 1989, bnt subseqnently reprinted in several readers. 2. John Elliff, also serving as a senior staff member of the SSCI, played the principle role in the process that led to the FISA. John continues to be one of the leading authorities nationally on the legality of counter-intelligence efforts. See Elliff, John. The Reform of FBI Intelligence Operations, Princeton University Press, 1979, in which he briefly surveys the history of FBI abusive practices and then focuses on rules instituted in the mid-1970s to reform FBI operations and procedures. 3. See Taylor, Stanley A. and Daniel Snow. "America's Cold War Spies: Why They Spied and How They Got Caught," Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 12, pp. 101-25, April 1997, for a more complete description of FISA and its rather dramatic effects on espionage prosecution. 4. U.S. Congress, Senate, Church Committee. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, S. Rep!. No. 94-465, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., p. 256, 20 November 1975. 5. Ibid. 6. President Gerald Ford issued Executive Order 11905 setting forth new procedures governing intelligence, including an assassination ban. President Jimmy Carter wanted an Executive Order reflecting his views about intelligence and issued Executive Order 12036 which dropped the word "political" from the phrase "political assassination" found in the Ford Executive Order and added a section banning indirect participation in assassination, a reaction to the CIA's sub-contracting the effort to eliminate Castro to elements of the Mafia. President Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 and felt a need to issue his own Executive Order covering the intelligence community and issued Executive Order 12333 which adopted about the same language regarding assassination as was found in the Carter Executive Order. That Executive Order has not been superceded. 7. See Joyner, Christopher C. "International Law," Intervention in the 1990s: U.s. Foreign Policy in the Third World, Ed. Peter J. Shraeder, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, pp. 229-46, 1992. Governments justify having the possibility of covert actions in their arsenal using three arguments: 1) Other states do it, 2) It fills a gap between diplomacy and all-out war, and 3) It is a fonn of justified self-defense that results in fewer, rather than more, deaths.
8. The best short summary of this, including references to the standard literature, is Bazan, Elizabeth B. Assassination Ban and E.o. 12333: A Brief Summary, Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, 2002.
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9. Both SJ. Res. 23 and H.J. Res. 64 are in 18 U.S.c. § 288 note. 10. The alliteration "proscription of powers and prescription of procedures" comes from Constitutions and Constitutionalism, Ed. William G. Andrew 3rd ed., Van Nostrand, Princeton, 1968. 11. This same conclusion is reached by another scholar who participated in many of these early negotiations. See Johnson, Loch K. Secret Agencies: u.s. Intelligence in a Hostile World, Yale University Press, New Haven, p. 77,1996. 12. To the best of my knowledge, this requirement has been violated only once in subsequent years. That occurred under President Reagan's National Security Council, in what is called "The Iran-Contra Affair." Those who have sworn on the altar of Justice Sutherland's (a BYU graduate, by the way) opinion in the famous case, United States v. Curtiss-Wright (1936), need to re-read the actual decision itself and then read, at least, Koh, Harold H. The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1990; and Fisher, Louis. "Foreign Policy Powers of the President and Congress," Annals of the American Academy ofPolitical and Social Science, Vol. 499, p. 152, September 1988. The Curtiss-Wright case is often cited as giving the president sole power to conduct foreign affairs, including covert actions. 13. Some people who have had access to classified information, myself included, believe that the Cuban govemment, in response to U.S. attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, played a role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 14. Dolson, David M. The Effectiveness of Political Assassination as a Means of Changing Government Policy, Honors Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1996.
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Part II Toward an LDS Doctrine of War and Peace
3 Waging War While Proclaiming Peace: International Law and LDS Perspectives on War Michael K. Young Introduction When asked to give this presentation, I initially decided to go to my principal source of all information about war and the military, my daughter, Kathryn, who is now a senior at the u.s. Air Force Academy. I was sure that she would have thought through all these issues and would provide all the insight necessary for the presentation I had been asked to give. Unfortunately, her reaction was not quite what I expected-or, more honestly, not quite what I expected, but what I should have expected after having lived with her for twenty years. In her most startled voice, she pointed out that I was totally unqualified to opine on this topic, and, in all events, what in heaven's name did I know about it. After recovering from that body blow to my intelligence and intellect, I renewed my inquiry. Interestingly, she then replied that she and her LDS classmates talked about these matters at great length, but that they too had finally concluded that the matter was too complex to answer on a global scale. Each had, however, wrestled with this issue on a personal- very, very personallevel and had reached conclusions that pertained to their own lives, if not necessarily to the decisions that might be reached by their Commander-in-Chief. For the most part, she informed me, they were all returned missionaries and had considered this matter largely from a gospel perspective. Each, in tum, had determined that they belonged where they were and could reconcile their chosen course-indeed, felt good about their chosen course- because of the things they had read in the Book of Mormon and in Conference talks. For her own part, she could not tell me what Grotius or Wolfgang Friedman said about war (or at least she could not tell me anything I did not already know), but she could tell me at great length what Nephi, Alma, Moroni and Mormon had said. She had studied only in passing what the early Church fathers had said about war, but she was encyclopedic about what Presidents Hinckley, Joseph F. Smith, and even Joseph Smith had said.
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From this, she had concluded, as had each of her LDS classmates in their own ways, that they were committed and prepared to defend their liberties, their homes, their families, and their right to worship as they pleased. Her decisions were not about the propriety of war in some geopolitical sense, but rather about the morality of her position and her behavior in the event of a conflict. I initially thought this was not particularly helpful. After all, today's audience wants to hear about intemational law theory and Christian theology, not the personal musings of a twenty-two-year-old retumed missionary. But, in the final analysis, I concluded that her insights were much more profound and central to today's theme than anything Ian Brownlie or Thomas Aquinas might have to say. But to get to that point in the analysis, let us first tum to what those important thinkers and authors have to say about the moral universe within which war IJ;lay be conducted.
Religious Theories of the "Just War" Early Christian Doctrine-Opposition to All War The earliest Christians refused to accept war as moral under any circumstances. They believed Christ's doctrine was one of both personal and political peace or, put slightly differently, that believers must be peaceful at all costs-literally at all costsand that the state must take care of itself. They wrote and spoke occasionally of civil duties, perhaps identifying with the injunction to render under Caesar that which was Caesar's. But those duties did not extend to engaging in war. At least until 170 A.D., and perhaps even later, Christians were even forbidden to enlist. l Evolution of Christian Doctrine
The Just War St. Augustine Christian doctrine changed almost as quickly and unexpectedly, however, as the fortunes of Christianity itself. Christianity became the official religion of the Empire in the third century. Romans were willing to embrace a religion that required allegiance to something even higher than the Emperor himself, especially given that the Emperor had ordered them to recognize Christianity as the new state religion. But even the most pliant Roman was much less willing to consider the nation's security interests merely another cheek to be tumed. If everyone was to become a Christian, then Christians would have to be up to the task of defending the Empire. Happily for the well-being of the vaunted Roman army, Christian theologians were up to the task of redefining the message of peace and, in short order, wars were not only apparently permissible under Christian doctrine, but might even be considered "juSt."2 St. Augustine (354-430 A.C.E.) was among the first to articulate a doctrine of "just war." He condemned conquest, but argued that certain wars were just and, hence, justifiable under Christianity. He articulated certain conditions for a just war and the theological race was on, showing even now little sign of abatement, especially if the most recent theological pronouncements regarding the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are any indication. 3 St. Augustine defined "just wars" as those that avenged injuries, as, for example, when the nation or city against which war is to be undertaken has neglected either to punish the wrongs committed by its own citizens or to restore to the aggrieved state
WAGING WAR W HILE PROCLAIM ING P EACE: I NTERNATIONAL LAW AND LDS P ERSPECTIVES ON WAR
what has been unjustly taken. He added that God himself would ordain such wars as "juSt."4 Thomas Aquinas- 3 Conditions of the Just War But the more elaborate- and more frequently quoted- articulation of a just war was undertaken by St. Thomas Aquinas, who listed three conditions for a just war. First, the war must be conducted not privately, but under the "authority of a prince." Second, there must be a just cause. His examples of just causes included wars of a defensive nature, wars under divine command, wars to eradicate heresy, and wars conducted because the opposing state has failed to pay a just debt. Finally, he asserted that the "just cause" must be "just" from an objective point of view. In other words, it is not enough that the state be able to aver a just cause, but it must actually believe in that cause, the prince must have the "right intention" to promote good and avoid evil. s St. Thomas Aquinas' influence on Christian theologians has remained significant, even to this day. But even those tied most literally to his text did not believe that his list of just causes was exhaustive; it was instead, they concluded, illustrative. Elaboration of just causes became the central preoccupation of many theologians, especially those with a special relationship to the princes of their particular states.
Islam and Byzantium In the meantime, Islam was developing its own justifications for war and conquest. Unlike Christianity, Islam, as a religion, did not develop in opposition to-or at least independent from-the state. From the very beginning, its theology intertwined state power and religious authority in a much more complex way. But even Islam, though born in conflict, developed religious doctrines that explicated the lawful reasons to resort to war. These included wars of defense, punishment for apostasy, and action against non-Muslims who were somehow preventing the appropriate spread of Islamic truth.6 Even Byzantium had a concept of a holy or just war, which may have derived in part from the Islamic concept of a jihad, or a war against the unfaithful who were somehow impeding throughout the world the proper observance of the one true way. But by the 11 th and 12th centuries, the attitudes of both Byzantium and the Russian empire were largely secular and viewed war not as moral or immoral, but largely as amoral. War was merely another tool of statecraft to be used when it was likely to be effective in advancing the interests of the state and to be avoided when it was unproductive. War, not peace, was generally considered the normal state of the state and religion was not thought to have a great deal to say about its propriety or impropriety. Of course, the princes had frequent recourse to the priests to secure adequate blessings for the success of the war, but not to seek advice on its advisability or morality.7
International Law Theories of the Just War Early Theories-Postglossators Gradually, a strand of international law, separate and apart from theological musings, began to develop, but even it was highly informed by theology for many hundreds of years. Indeed, during much of this period, two strands of thinking, related but separate and independent, began to emerge. The theologians continued to mine the theologically based "just war" shaft, while the so-called postglossators wrote as civil lawyers.
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Supremacy of the Sovereign The international lawyers borrowed heavily from the theological tradition, but focused more on issues of authority, and the dignity and autonomy of the state than did the theologians. They initially established two conditions under international law for a "just war." First, the war could be commenced and undertaken only by a prince who recognized no superior authority in his sovereign territory. Thus, one constituent part of the state could not rebel against the central authority or attack another part of the state over which there reigned a superior sovereign. But one state could attack another state that was equal in stature and dignity to the attacking state. 8 Given that the majority of states were mere principalities or kingdoms, relatively small by the standards of most states today, this permitted a rather robust state of unrest among the competing powers. Just Cause But even a supreme sovereign could not attack merely on a whim. He too needed a "just cause." Here, of course, was where the horse was generally buried. One could attack to avenge a wrong, to escape an injury, to redress "any grave injury to one's reputation or honor,"9 or even because an offending state had refused free passage to the attacking state's troops on their way to fight another (presumably '~ust") war. As time passed, the range of "just causes" increased. Indeed, one cannot help but suspect that the international lawyers were expanding the range of causes considered "just" in order to meet the demands of the sovereigns who had ordered the wars in the first place. The concept of "justice" in a war did not seem to constrain the sovereign as much as the sovereign's decision to go to war spurred the international lawyer to add another "cause" to the list of legally permissible reasons for war. While it may not be entirely fair to say that the international lawyers seemed entirely in the service of their lords, neither does it seem much of an exaggeration. 1o Eventually, even international lawyers themselves began to realize the futility of the task on which they had embarked. Almost anything could be justified and there was no independent body that could fairly determine what was truly a just cause and what was not. T.J. Lawrence finally concluded, pithily but not inaccurately, that distinctions between just and unjust causes of war "belong to morality and theology, and are as much out of place in a treatise on International Law as would be a discussion on the ethics of marriage in a book on the law of personal status. "11 The absurdity of the quest for truly "objective" just causes can be seen in the internationallawyers'-and, in many cases, the theologians'-treatment of the role of the Holy Roman Emperor in all this. Initially, he was considered the supreme authority in all matters, so only he could declare war. In other words, no authority was superior to his and thus all needed his blessing to go to war. But, with alarming frequency, princes seemed to go to war first and ask pern1ission later. Of course, the Emperors could, and frequently did, use moral suasion, and some even demonstrated considerable political savvy and coalition-building capacity to persuade recalcitrant princes to follow their injunctions. But almost from the beginning, the princes had greater de facto power and control of their territories than the Emperor ever did of them. The international lawyers had no trouble with this small conceptual lacunae in their elaborate theories. First, they made clear that the question of authority was not
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one of theory, but of practice. Thus, wars could be undertaken only by an entity which had no superior, but by "no superior," they meant no de facto superior, not .merely a theologICal superior. Thus, if a prince truly controlled his territory, that was enough to him to go to war. 12 The on the other hand, was still pennitted to bless an wars. The Pope was, after all, the "Vicar of Christ," and, as such, his authority extended over all the of the earth. No matter the facts on the ground, the Emperor's authority was of a different sort and could never be refuted by mere geopolitical truth. His authority belonl;ea to a higher sort of truth, and, as such, he could always claim superiority, no matter the actual degree of independence of a state. The Pope stood in a direct line to God in that capacity, he could always rely upon revealed truth and declare, by his words alone, a just cause. 13 This authority came in very handy when the local princes were not creative to justifY a war or conquest themselves. For example, Pope Innocent I issued a series of papal bulls that legitimized the wars against the Indians. Pope Alexander VI issued another famous set of papal bulls in 1493, permitting the and Castilian conquests in the Americas. These bulls not only demarked boundary lines between the competing European claimants, something the European powers had long occuparelied upon the Emperor to do, but also authorized the wars and tions themselves. Wars of conquest in hitherto undiscovered lands were not sornethlDlg that was easily justified under any of the prevailing theories of a just war, at least as applied to the princes themselves. But the Pope, relying on his higher authority and less intellectually constrained mandate, could authorize it and, in virtually all cases, did. 14 Even at its height, however, the notion of just cause was not considered limitor mere lessly expansive. For example, differences of religion> expansion of personal glory were not considered appropriately "just." And even conquest for missionary purposes was generally considered out-of-bounds, at least with respect to pagans and others who were considered beyond the pale of the law. It was not to subjugate those who were not capable of redemption. the Spaniards' But even those limits were more ephemeral than reaL For relentless war against the native inhabitants of the Americas was; in theory, impermissible because the Indians were pagans and beyond the pale of the law. The Spaniards conveniently avoided that restraint, however, by justifYing the war on the grounds that among the Indians had violated the fundamental rights of the Spaniards to travel them, to carry on trade and to propagate Christianity. The clearest evidence of the impediment the Indians imposed on the Spaniards' right to travel was, of course~ the fact that the Indians resisted when the Spaniards took their lands, destroyed their villages, and otherwise trying to decimate them. And the clearest evidence of the Indians' attempts to impede th~ Spaniards' right to propagate Christianity was the very fact that the Indians did not immediately join the Church. IS With these justifications, it seems a little hard to figure out exactly what protection was left for the pagans and those otherwise beyond the pale of the law. But protection of their interests was apparently not in the job description ofthe intemational1awyers of the time. Their loyalties ran elsewhere, most significantly to the princes in whose kingdoms they resided and who hired them. And, of course, as indicated above, the Emperor was always happy to step into the breach and provide a justification when the Europeans merely wanted to expand empire and could not find any other ostensible justification. So, what initially was viewed as
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a constraint on the rights of the
to go to war became among its most salient
moral justifications. Nor did the notion that one could not wage war merely to advance one's religion prove much of a check on the princes. While that concept was designed to consrrain, it was only a constraint on the princes. The himself could declare war on the infidels. to protect persecuted religious He could especially do so if the war was minorities. In addition, even a prince could protect members of minority religions, if they came under attack in a neighboring state. This rubric justified the Warring Period of 1560 to 1660, the German civil wars between the Catholic and Protestant leagues, the and the Thirty Years War. French wars of religion, the Puritan revolution in And even in cases when someone made a mistake and their cause was not in any objective sense 'just," nor could anyone plausibly believe that they believed their cause "just>" the lavryers had a defense at the ready. The party might be acting out of a mistake of fact or a mistake of law, or, in a worst case scenario, acting under "invincible ignorance." In that latter case, the party was incapable of knowing that their acts were wrong, thus they were engaged in a just war. In other words, the more you could not be persuaded or even understand reason, the more justifiable your war. 16 The very 'Nrongfulness of your acts validated them under intemationallaw. If you were the sovereign, it would be hard not to like a theory like that! Even the most morally reprehensible behavior could fmd ample supporters among the internationallavryers and theologians. Aristotle, when discussing "just" war5, even opined that it was appropriate to engage in war in order to capture "men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit" Lest there be any doubt that he meant that conquest for purposes of taking slaves fell into the category of a 'just war," he clearly stated: The art of acquiring slaves, I mean of justly acquiring them, differs from both the art of the master and the art of slave, being a species of hunting or war. The art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for the art of acquisition including hunting, an art which we ought to practice against wild beast, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for a war of such a kind is naturally just. 17
Albert the Great took pains to clarify in case there was the misunderstanding on this point: "Whoever are born to subjection and are naturally slaves (as was shown earlier), if they refuse to be SUbjected (for it is just according to nature that they be subjected). Consequently just war can be made on them and this was the cause of the first war."18 Thomas Aquinas also clearly agreed, though later commentators edited much of this out of his work. But if waging war solely for the purpose of subjecting men to slavery is » it is a little hard to think of any type of war that cannot be IU~'L.Ll.l.i;;U. And that is the central point. .I. u'__ -uU.o;;;'H under· intemationallaw-or even within theology, for that matter-for abstract moral justifications for war has been, if not quite a fool's at least unsatisfying in the extreme. One cannot help but sense that the justifiers have been in and the effect of the latter on the fanner has been much, much the pay of the greater than the other way around.
r AI{
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Post-World War II International Law Theories United Nations With ilie end of World War II came another attempt to leash the dogs of war to the strictures of intemational1aw. The countries left standing after ilie War created ilie United Nations and its seeming limits on the use of war as a tool of statecraft. The UN Charter appears to permit war in only two circumstances. The first is self-defense and the second is when authorized by the UN Security Council, and then only to advance the cause of peace. And even a war authorized by the Security Council in the cause of peace can comprise on1y the action auiliorized by the Security Council, only to the extent authorized by the Security Council~ and only in the manner authorized by the Security CounciL All this seemed a very promising start in devastation iliat was the aftennath of World War II. But while the world has not been ravaged by another world-wide war since the creation of the UN and its Charter, it is not entirely clear how much of the credit should go to the of ilie new rules regarding war. Indeed, many count the past halfcentury as among the bloodiest the world has ever seen. Self-Defense The self-defense exception, while seemingly self-explanatory, has been fraught with problems. What of pre-emptive strikes to prevent an attack by another country? With the advent of nuclear weapons, that has become an issue of more than passing interest, at least to the other nuclear powers. What of a country that is exporting war to your or someone else's shores? Can, for example, the United States plant explosive mines in Nicaraguan harbors in order to prevent from that country from exporting weapons and warriors to other Latin American countries? If Iran launches bombs from oil platforms off its coast at US. ships that are admittedly in intematio-nal waters, can the U.S. destroy those oil platforms? And these are not abstract hypotheticals of the law professor's classroom. Boili are real world cases that have been brought before-and, in one case, decided by-ilie International Court of Justice. Wars of National Liberation What of defense of one's own rights within one's own country? Countries are entitled to defend themselves against the predations of other countries. Are individuals entitled to defend themselves against the evils of their own government? The parallels seemed powerful to many international lawyers and they used this theory to justify wars of national liberation. Peoples have a to self-determination. Colonialism, on the other hand, was an "evil state," against which people were entitled to fight. Claims of justice provided an adequate legal basis. And it was not a far leap from that supposition to the idea that other countries have a to support individuals who are fighting against colonial occupation. This theory has now been criticized by many international lawyers, but it gave political cover to many countries that supported rebel movements in nearby countries, especially during the Cold War. 19 Humanitarian Intervention The latest iteration of 'just war" theory is ''humanitarian intervention." This is not authorized anywhere by ilie UN Charter, even on the part of the Security Council, but it has a certain appeal, especially as one watches humanitarian disasters of unimaginable
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proportion play out all over the world. When those disasters are man-made or, more to the point, inflicted by a government on its own people, the compulsion to intervene is close to irresistible. 20
Genocide International law is also expanding again to accommodate additional notions of a just war. For example, Article I of the Genocide Convention reads: "The Contracting Parties confIrm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime tmder international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish." Some read that merely as authorizing a Contracting Party to follow the mandate of Article VII of the Treaty to "call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide." ... Others, however, read the obligation in Article I "to prevent and to punish" as a mandate to intervene directly in a country whose government is committing genocide. In this context, the.ideal of justice is backed by the authority of the Convention and power of the governments that have signed the Convention. Even the well-intentioned attempts of the post-war international community to limit war only to those situations clearly authorized by the UN Charter have been met with mixed success, at best. International law, like warriors in all international battles, invariably suffers from mission creep. In short, it is difficult to rest assured that international legal theorists (or theologians) will be any more successful now in defIning a just war and, more importantly, constraining the behavior of nation-states than they have been for the past two thousand years.
Latter-Day Saints: Proclaiming Peace While Fighting Wars Mixed Messages? As Latter-Day Saints, we also might have a bit of trouble sorting out the various injunctions regarding peace and war. Christ tells us to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31) and even our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39). Yet he also told us that he came not to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34), and he told the disciples to sell their gannents to buy that sword (Luke 22:36). The Old Testament is even more confusing. The Lord tells us to "speak peace" to our neighbors (Psalms 28:3) and in the next breath to utterly destroy everyone in a city, "both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" (Joshua 6:21). And the Book of Monnon is positively bewildering in its mixed messages. We are enjoined to peace and love throughout, and yet chapter after chapter is full of war of the most bloody kind. And the honorable and righteous, indeed, the prophets themselves, often lead the Nephites into battle. The great prophet Nephi tells us in his last literary breath that he has charity for all-his people, the Lamanites, the Jews, the Gentiles (2 Nephi 33:7-8). But his [mal epitaph is given by Jacob: "The people having loved Nephi exceedingly, he having been a great protector for them, having wielded the sword of Laban in-their defence" (Jacob 1:1"0). The great heroes of the Book of Monnon preach with vigor, but, with equal vigor, they consign the less righteous to death to let God sort them all out. No .turning the other cheek there! Even President Hinckley's latest pronouncement on the troubles in the world leaves us plenty of room to seek our own personal inspiration. He clearly condemns
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the cruelty and destruction of war. along with the untranuneled greed and ambition that
often causes it: 21 We sometimes are prone to glorify the great empires of the past, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and in more recent times, the vast British Empire. But there is a darker side to every one of them. There is a grim and tragic overlay of brutal conquest, of subjugation, of repression, and an astronomica.l cost in life and treasure ... 1 think our Father in Heaven must have wept as He has looked down upon His children through the centuries as they have squandered their divine birthright in ruthlessly destroying one another.
A strong condemnation of war, if ever there were one. But, he continues, on the other hand: But as citizens we are all under the direction of our national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally. Those in the armed services are under obligation to their respective governments to execute the will of the sovereign. When they joined the military service, they entered into a contract by which they are presently bound and to which they have dutifully responded.
But nor is that the final word. On yet the other, other hand: But modem revelation states that we are to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16).
So, that is the fmal word? Well, 'no, not quite. On yet the other, other, other hand: When war raged between the Nephites and the Lamanites, the record states, that "the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for . power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them ... defend your families even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:45-47).
It is clear from these and other writing that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression. Now, that must be the final word! Well, again, not quite, on the other, other, other, other hand: When all is said and done, we of this Church are people of peace. We are followers of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Prince of Peace.
But, President Hinckley points out, even that is not as simple as it seems: But even He said: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34).
And in the final, on-the-one-hand, and on-the-other: This places us in the position of those who long for peace, and who teach peace, who work for peace, but who also are citizens of nations and are subject to the laws of our governments. Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy. 22
General Principles and Specific Exceptions So, how do we square this circle? We are peace-loving, but committed to the defense of liberty. We proclaim peace, but sell our garment to buy a sword. We renounce war, but for family, for liberty, against tyranny, threat, and oppression. I certainly do not have an easy answer to any of this. There are no simple rules I can discern. Even more to the point, we must bear in mind the cautionary tale of
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the early Church fathers and international throughout the ages~ who invariably seemed to find ample justification for war whenever the and his troops marched. But it does seem that one can at least begin to wend one's way through the intellectual thicket by applying some simple principles. Let me offer a few that seem helpfuL
Proclaim Peace we should take the general injunctions seriously. We are a people of peace and must proclaim peace. Nevertheless, the World is at War But, at the same time, we must recognize that whatever our personal duties and obligations and whatever injunctions apply to us personally, the overall state of affairs will not necessarily be governed by our individual behavior. That is, even if we seek personal peace, war-in the geopolitical sense-is a permanent state until '"a full end of all nations" (Doctrine and Covenants 87:6). We are told in unmistakable terms that " ... with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shan mourn; , . Until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations" (Doctrine and Covenants 87:6). That juxtaposition must become our first operative We must strive for in our congregations, in our jobs, in our neighborpeace in our hearts, in our hoods. But, strive as we might and must, we should not expect peace in the world. In other words, the principles that our incividual behavior and responsibilities will not necessarily guide our interaction with those who are beyond our immediate sphere of influence. Or, put slightly differently, we must strive for peace in all our personal scheme of things. That interactions, but we probably ought to expect war in the should not affect our immediate behavior on a day-to-day basis, but it should inform our tmderstanding of world affairs and expand our vision and hope for the future, the long, long distant future. Exceptions
Self-Defense From that inherent tension comes the next principle. There are general rules of behavior-proclaim peace, for example-but they are subject to exceptions. For example, the 98th Section of the Doctrine and Covenants tells us that we may repulse an attack after having warned the attacker three times to desist. From the Book of Mormon, moreover, we have some guidance regarding these special exceptions. for example, along with defense of our liberty, our our wives, and our children, are all instances when the rites of worship, our Lord seems to mandate those exceptions. We should proclaim peace, but may appropriately be taught by our church leaders [our] enemies, even to the shedding of blood if it were to "defend [ourselves] necessary" (Alma 48:14). Instructions From Our Leaders On the other hand, our leaders may be moved to tell us to be still and let the Lord fight our battles. Daniel H. Wells, commander of the Mannon militia "Johnston's War," for example, wrote on the back of every order he issued what was described by his contemporaries as "the lisua: inscription." That inscription read simply
WAGING WAR WHILE PROCLAIMING PEACE: INTERNATIONAL
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"Shed no blood." We understand that our church leaders are entitled to special inspiration in these matters of the greatest import (Alma 43 :23). They will tell' us of the exceptions to the general rules. Instructions From The Lord But perhaps the most important operative principle is that we must await the Lord's instruction in these matters. The Nephites, in perhaps the most violent part of the known world at that time, followed the commandments. That gave them a remarkable insight into precise these matters. And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land; yea, warn them to flee or to prepare for war (Alma 48:15).23
Gospel Constrains Both Decision to Fight and How We Fight The next principle that I believe derives from the Book of Mormon is that not only is it important to take the Lord's guidance in whether to wage war, but our religion also imposes upon us special responsibilities regarding our approach to war and how we wage it. Moroni offers perhaps the best example of this principle. He only engages in wars when his people are threatened-in other words, wars of self-defense, classically and narrowly defmed. Second, he only fights when he has received conf1pl1ation from the Lord that fighting in self-defense is truly the Lord's wilL But even more interestingly, Moroni invariably also goes to the prophet to determine where and how to conduct the war. And, upon receiving those instructions, he then wages war only to the extent absolutely necessary to achieve the objective .. Whenever he conquers, he does not press his advantage, but rather makes clear his advantage to his adversary and then offers them very favorable tenus upon which they can surrender. For example, when the Lamanites are surrounded and trapped against the river Sidon, Mormon does not call for a complete elimination of the Lamanites' fighting capacity. Rather, he calls a truce and invites Zerahemnah to surrender, upon which event he promises to let them depart in peace (Alma 44). This is truly an extraordinary action of a general who has a decisive advantage in what is undoubtedly the war's decisive battle. 24 But what follows is even more extraordinary. Upon Zerahemnah's refusal to surrender, Moroni actually returns the confiscated weapons to the Lamanites and allows them to continue to fight. When the Lamanites then finally surrendered, Moroni offers precisely the same terms of surrender. His only requirement is that they stop waging war and not come up against the N ephites again. When Amalickiah stirred up the Lamanites again a few years later, again Moroni, through strategy and clever maneuvers, puts the Lamanites to the run. Once they are on the defensive, again Moroni makes his simple offer. The Nephites will "forbear shedding your blood" if only the Lamanites will not return to battle again against the Nephites (Alma 52). In the final battle, they take the last Lamanite stronghold and pin them, literally, against the walL Moroni's offer is identical to all his past offers. Surrender and promise not to come up again against the Nephites. This time, finally, the Lamanites have wised up, and, as Moroni rather laconically reports, "many
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of the Lamanites ... were desirous to join the people of Ammon and become a free people" (Alma 62:27). Moroni's response to domestic uprisings was precisely the same. He created the Title of Liberty and took up the cause of freedom within his country. Again, his only requirement was that those he conquered put down their weapons and cease their rebellion. Indeed, given that the Nephites were a Semitic people who lived over two millennia ago~ it is amazing that they had so many qualms about warfare and bloodshed. That was, to put it mildly, not characteristic of the people of that time and in the part of the world from which they had come. It does not seem extraordinary to us to learn that Moroni "did not delight in murder or bloodshed~ but he delighted in 55: 19). But, for that people of that the saving of his people from destruction" time, at least in the Old World, that would have been both a remarkable assertion and a virtually disqualification for a militaty leader. General George S. Patton's assertion25 upon the body strewn battle fields of France in World War II-"God help me~ but [ love it. I truly love it"-would have been much more in keeping with the attitude and job qualifications of the successful military general of the time.
Personal Responsibility But all of this discussion and analysis may well be of more interest to generals and other military leaders than it is to most of us. We are not in positions to start or end wars. Nor do we have much say in how they are fought or the precise terms offered for surrender. But that is certainly not the end of the matter, nor is it the end of what the gospel has to tell us about war and our relationship to it. To the contrary, I think the analysis of what is or is not a just war in some geopolitical or perhaps even religious sense is really only the start of the inquiry. Or, put slightly differently, the re8;l issue regarding war is not what our President or our generals do, but rather what we do in response to an the death and destruction in the world. In other words, we are not likely to be in Moroni's position. Indeed, most of us are not even likely to be a warrior in his or anyone else's army. So~ what does all this mean for us?
Relationship Between National Wars and Personal Behavior I start with the simple observation that war is a very, very common theme is LDS speeches and literature. A universal search for the word "war" in the LDS data base of conference speeches alone produced well over 500 entries. Most of these entries speak of a "personal" war against sin, or the war that Satan wages for the souls of men. Pronouncements about war in the geopolitical sense or about armed military conflicts are rare. But the concepts of "war" and of «battles" certainly are not. But here is where it gets interesting. Initially, one might conclude that these discussions of war in the more personal sense and war in a geopolitical sense are umelated. War is simply a metaphor for a personal internal battle we wage against sin. Our Response to War Must Be to Proclaim Peace Bui,"-6i1 reflectlon, f think the connection is much deeper and closer than we might first imagine. President Harold B. Lee shows this cOf'.nection in the most profound sense in his answer to an inquiry some years ago about the Church's position on the Vietnam War. The question had within it a trap. How could a Christian church support war? On the other hand~ opposition to the war might be construed as lack of support for
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our soldiers and our country. But, as prophets frequently do, President Lee answered the question at its deepest level, not at the level necessarily intended by the questioner. Be said: We, together with the whole Christian world, abhor war. But the Savior said, "In me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation" (John 16:33). "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you" (John 14:27). The Savior was not talking about the peace that can be achieved between nations, by military force or by negotiation in the halls of parliaments. Rather, he was speaking of the peace we can each have in our own lives when we live the commandments and come unto Christ with broken hearts and contrite spiritS. 26
In other words, the answer to our position on geopolitical war is to proclaim personal peace. The gospel brings peace, but not peace as it is conventionally understood and discussed in the New York Times. Rather, peace as it manifests itself in our personal lives. Our Response to War Must Be to Live Righteously Elder Dallin Oaks perhaps put it best: "The peace the gospel brings is not just the absence of war. It is the opposite of war. Gospel peace is the opposite of any conflict, armed or unarmed. It is the opposite of national or ethnic hostilities, of civil or family strife."27
The link between national and civil strife, on the one hand, and family strife, on the other, is particularly interesting. It suggests to us that perhaps we miss the mark when we think personal peace and global peace are entirely different things. Perhaps the relationship between peace in Bosnia and peace in our family is much closer and more intimate than we thi11,k. President Joseph F. Smith made precisely this point during World War 1. He said: For years it has been held that peace comes only by preparation for war; the present conflict should prove that peace comes only by preparing for peace, through training the people in righteousness and justice, and selecting rulers who respect the righteous will of the people .... There is only one thing that can bring peace into the world. It is the adoption of the gospel of Jesus Christ, rightly understood, obeyed and practices by rulers and people alike. 2&
President David O. McKay echoed this same thought: Peace will come and be maintained only through the triumph of the principles of peace, and by the subjection of the enemies of peace, which are hatred, envy, ill-gotten gain, the exercise of unrighteous dominion of men. Yielding to these evils brings misery to the individual, unhappiness to the home, war among nations. 29
Again, we see the connection between the home and the nation. And, equally importantly, the blame for war is not put on people, but rather on the principles of war. War arises because the principles of peace are not observed. All this reminds us of the Lord's injunction to Moses: "If ye walle in my statutes, and keep my commandments ... I will give peace in the land ... neither shall the sword go through your land" (Leviticus 26:3, 6). Elder Oaks makes clear that the causes of war are always rooted in the triumph of the principles that are the enemies of peace. As we seek to understand the causes of wars, persecutions, and civil strife, we can see that they are almost always rooted in wickedness .... All of these slaughters [the Holocaust, Stalin's purges and labor camps, the Biafran War] and others like them, were rooted in the ancient wickedness Satan taught-that man could murder to get gain. 30
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What is the solution? Again, Elder Oaks turns to the principles: Obedience to these commandments [the Ten Commandments]. which are the bedrock moral foundation for all Christians and Jews, would have prevented the greatest tragedies of this century." He continues, "we cannot have peace among nations without achieving general righteousness among the people who comprise them.
Elder John A. Widtsoe makes precisely the same point. He talks about how to build communities that eschew war. His solution mirrors that of Elder Oaks, of President McKay, of President Hinckley: The only way to build a peaceful community is to build men and women who are lovers and makers of peace. Each individual, by that doctrine of Christ and His Church, holds in his hands the peace of the world. That makes me responsible for the peace of the world, and makes you individually responsible for the peace of the world. The responsibility cannot be shifted to someone else. It cannot be placed upon the shoulders of Congress or Parliament, or any other organization of men with governing ability?l
I particularly like the notion that I hold world peace in my hands. The quest for peace starts not with a demonstration on the White House la\VIl, though, of course, there is nothing wrong with that. But rather, my greatest contribution to global peace starts in my home, at my job, within my family, my congregation, at the store where I shop, with the people with whom I come in contact every day. As usual, Elder Oaks says it best and it is on that note that I end. He identifies the precise relationship between global peace and the gospel and, more importantly, my individual responsibility-and capacity-to work towards world peace. He says: The Savior and his Apostles had no program for world peace other than individual righteousness. What can one person do to promote world peace? The answer is simple: keep God's commandments and serve his children. Like the church that sends them forth, our missionaries have no political agenda and no specific program for disarmament or reduction of forces. They circulate no petitions, advocate no legislation, support no candidates. They are the Lord's servants, and his program for world peace depends' on righteousness, not rhetoric. His methods involve repentance and reformation, not placards and picketing. By preaching righteousness, our missionaries seek to treat the causes of war. They preach repentance from personal corruption, greed, and oppression because only by individual reformation can we overcome corruption and oppression by groups of nations. By inviting all to repent and come unto Christ, our missionaries are working for peace in this world by changing the hearts and behavior of individual men and women.,2
Conclusion Among the many important ideas contained in that prophetic insight, I think one phrase bears repeating and particular emphasis: "Only by individual reformation can we overcome corruption and oppression by groups of nations." As Elder Widtsoe so eloquently put it: "Each individual, by that doctrine of Christ and His Church, holds in his hands the pe~~e of.!:he world. That makes me responsible for the peace of the world, and makes you individually responsible for the peace of the world."33 Thus, the words of a song goes round and round in my head as I conclude this presentation. Perhaps these words are not merely the musings of a 1960's hippie, but, to the contrary, perhaps reflect the most profound of all gospel principles relating to war: Let us have peace and let it begin with me.
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NOTES 1. Von Elhe, Joachim. "The evolution of the Concept of the Just War in International Law," American Jouranllnternational Law, 33'(4), pp. 665-88, 1939; Dinstein, Yoram. War, Aggression' and Self Defence, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press, p. 60, 2001.
2. Murphy, Sean D. "Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order," Procedural Aspects of International Law Series, 21, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 40-41, 1996. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Murphy, pp. 40-41; Brownlie, Ian. International Law and the Use afForce by States, Oxford University Press, pp. 5-7, 1963.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Suarez as quoted in Dinstein, Yoram. War; Aggression and Self-Defence, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press, pp. 64-65,2001. 10. Dinstein, Yoram. War, Aggression, and Self-Defence, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press, 2001. 11. The Principles ofInternational Law, Ed. Winfield, 7th Edition, p. 311, 1923. 12. Brownlie. pp. 5-7.
13. Dinstein~ pp. 64-65. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Rickaby, Joseph, S.l. SCholasticism, Dodge Publishers, pp. 66-67, 1908. 18. Ibid. 19. Dinstein, pp. 64-65. 20. Ibid. 21. Hinckley, Gordon B. "War and Peace," Ensign, p. 78, May 2003. 22. Ibid. 23. For a very interesting discussion of the role of prophecy in guiding us in times of war, see Nibley, Hugh. "If There Must Needs Be Offense," Ensign, p. 53, July 1971. 24. For a very interesting and insightful discussion of Moroni and all his activities in war, from which much of the following discussion of Moroni is derived, see England, Eugene. "Moroni and His Captains: Men of Peace in Time of War," Ensign, p. 29, September 1977. 25. Patton, 1970.
26. Lee, Harold B. Ensign, p. 70, November 1982.
27. All quotations from Elder Oaks are from Oaks, Dallin H. "World Peace," Ensign, pp. 71-74, May 1990. 28. Smith, Joseph F. Improvement Era, pp.1074-75, September 1914.
29. McKay, David O. "Gospel ideals: selections from the discourses of David O. McKay," Improvement Era, p. 280, 1953.
30. Oaks, pp. 71-74. 31. Widstoe, A. Conference Report, p. 113, October 1943. 32. Oaks, pp. 71-74.
33. Widstoe, p. 113.
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4 Power's Reality, Power's Illusion: Policy at the Intersection of the Two Kingdoms Valerie M Hudson Most of the 100 or so students in my national security class each year at Brigham Young University are graduating seniors, and most majored in political science or international relations. On the last day of class, I ask them if they got their money's worth. I present them with the following list of insights concerning national security from those fields, and inquire as to whether they had studied these over the course of their undergraduate education.
The Reality of Power 1. Power is finite. There is a finite pie of power, so if you have more power, I have less (zero sum). 2. Power balances. For every power action by one group or individual, another group or individual will react with an equal and opposite action designed to equalize or "balance" power. Thus the balance of power is constantly shifting. 3. My enemy's enemy is my friend. The world is divided into friends and enemies, and others who share my same enemy are my allies. After I vanquish my enemy, however, my former "ally" will likely become my new enemy. 4. A free rider problem will always exist. Within a social group, the person with the most power usually does most of the work. Free riders any them. selves with this power center and accept any benefits the powerful entity produces but typically repay the center of power with criticism and lack of meaningful support. S. Relative power gains are more important than absolute power Thus if a policy decision will result in benefits to us both, I will agree with that decision, but if you will gain more than I, I will oppose that decision. 6. The "security dilemma" is inescapable. As a powerful entity seeks to become more secure, it will become less secure over time for two reasons: (a) since power balances, every move the entity makes to ensure its security win-be-countered by those opposed to it; and (b) in its efforts to make itself more secure, the entity will overextend the limits of its power, drawing counterforces and eventually collapsing. 7. The center cannot hold forever. Centers of power always become less efficient over and eventually the center gives way to other forces.
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8. Situational ethics are required to maintain power. Even if a powerful entity started with our principles, the principles are eventually subordinated to power needs. Power is the end goal, and moral considerations only get in the way. 9. Fight fire with fire. To overcome an enemy, one must do what the enemy is doing to you, only more of it.
I am sure all of you are very familiar with these maxims, which seem quite descriptive of the world we live in, and my students usually nod and tell me that they have learned these things by heart in the classes they have taken in international relations and political science. I then tell them they were cheated. I tell my students they did not get their money's worth. They did not learn the truth about power's reality. They were taught illusion in the place of that reality; they were taught the reality of fallen power-and fallen power is not true power. The logic of true power is vastly different from the logic of fallen power-so different that it is virtually incomprehensible to the fallen minds. As Paul wrote: The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are not spiritually-discerned ... [And] the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness (1 Corinthians 2:14; 3:19; 1 Corinthians 1:17-31).
The True Reality of Power 1. True power is infinite. Everyone can have infinite power and thus equal power. The only time you have less power is if you reject power. 2. Power doesn't balance. It grows until the perfect day. 3. Nobody in the business of being enemies can be my friend. There is no true power in allying myself with people who define themselves by hatreds and exclusions. ' 4. There are no free riders. All are responsible and equal. 5. There are no relative power gains. All can possess infmite power, according only to the speed with which as individuals they are capable of attaining it. 6. Exercise of true power leads to more security, not less. Overextending true power is not possible. The ultimate source of security is righteousness, and the ultimate source of power is Christ-like love in the service oflife. 7. The Center can and will hold forev:er. Death, suffering, and sin have been conquered for all and for all time by Jesus Christ, our Savior. The forces of good will always triumph over the forces of evil. 8. There are no situational ethics; there are only ethics. There is always a better choice, even if a "best" choice is not possible.
sword
9 :"Fight fIre with water. Fight TIrewith love--for thos-e-wno live by thewill perish by the sword. Note that true power actively and forcefully defends the boundary between light and dark and their respective adherents. But this is done out of love, not out of hatred. And it is done out of necessity, not as an avocation.
PO\VER'S REALITY, POV·,iER'S ILLUSION: POLICY AT TIIE INTERSECTION OF THE Two KiNGDOMS
10. True power is always more powerful than "real" power. At this point, many of my students exclaim that they really do know these things, but that this doesn't work in the "real" world. I remind them of a profound statement by Elder Hugh W. Pinnock, who recently passed away. Speaking at a Christmas devotional at BYU on 13 December 1997, "Elder Pinnock said: Seek the world of "reality." Are you seeking the world of reality? Periodically I will hear some less-than-thoughtful person criticize or demean that which we may be doing by saying, "Hey, get real. Join the real world." May I communicate with each of you that the real world is that which our prophet, Church leaders, and scriptures define. It is President Gordon B. Hinckley who is walking in the real world. I
And I am also reminded David's finest hour. Now you know that David had many less-than-fine h.ours, but he did have one that shone like the sun. This is what the ruddy youth said in the valley of Elah that day: And [Goliath] said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the annies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And an this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S, and he will give you jnto our hands (1 Samuel 17:43-47).
The wisdom and and strength of this world, which is ruled by the devil who styles himself as "the god of this world," is no match for the Spirit of God. As Paul wrote, "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent ... Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:19,25). If you accept the rules of fallen power, you may find yourself things in the quest to gain power and control. For example, "we must village to save it," or "offense is moral, defense is immoral," are part of that twisted even straitjacket of fallen power. If we go down this road of fallen power, we commit evil in the name of good causes, such as "1 must accept this bribe so that my party, which is the good party, can stay in power," or "We will hate you stop vulnerhating others." Students going into law, business, or government are able to the idea that we have no choice but to "play the game." But that game has an ignominious end, as Brigham Young commented: Without the power of the Holy Ghost, a person is liable to go to the right or the left. from the straight path of deity. They are liable to do things they are sorry for; they are liable to make mistakes; and when they try to do their best, behold they do that which they dislike.1
Even-the-most-cunning and wise possessor of fallen power will eventually stumble and fall, while the most unlearned man with true power will, in the end, succeed and endure. Now, my students are right to feel frustration when I present this material to them. Until Christ comes again, we must live in fallen nations. We do not have the privilege
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of living in Zion, where the very streams and animals protect its inhabitants from the schemes and invasions of the wicked. We "live in nations that are vulnerable, in great measure because our people are not We do not have the promise of safety extended to peoples of old who obeyed God's commandments. But we and our families and our loved ones live in these fallen nations, and it is our sacred duty to protect them and other innocents unto death if needs be. Many of you assembled here work for the government for that very reason, while simultaneously being very cognizant of the fallen nature of many of our governmental institutions and leaders. In a sense, then, we reside at the intersection of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God on earth, and the kingdom of this fallen world. We know both sheets backwards and forwards. And we struggle to see how we can act in this fallen world in a way that does justice to the real world in which we have faith. How can we, who aspire to live in that real world, interact with those in the world of illusion and not get sucked into that world with them? We have not been left without guidance. We have many scriptures and many examples. For instance: "Be ye ... wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16).
Be in the world, but not of it (see John 1S: 19). "Render ... unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21). "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law" (Article of Faith 1:12). The works of honorable men of war in the Book of Mormon, such as Captain Moroni (see Alma 43-62), Many scriptures in the Doctrine and Covenants that advise the Saints in dealing with evil and corrupt persons who seek to harm them (see Doctrine and Covenants 89:4; Doctrine and Covenants 121; Doctrine and Covenants 122).
As I have pondered these and other scriptures, recent conference addresses by Elder Russell M. Nelson and President Gordon B. Hinckley about war and conflict, I have tried to distill some insights into what types of policy and actions Here is what allow one to that treacherous intersection of the Two I have learned thus far: L Though sometimes there is not a best choice in a situation, there is always a better choice. We are required to find it, and to exercise all our efforts and talents in that pursuit.
2. The key to finding that better choice is purity of heart and pmity of intentions. You must be inspired by "a better cause" (Alma The national interest cannot be defined in tenns of fallen power-there must be a better cause to all that you do. In that cause, there is no room for hatred, revenge, pridefulness, sinfulness, or covetousness. The Spirit can whisper to you-dearly when your heart is"·clean. Seek for leaders" with-dean hands and clean hearts. Be clean yourself. 3. War is not always evil. The use of force is not always eviL Sometimes it is a sacred obligation, as in cases of defense. Sometimes to refuse to use force is evil. But there must be a code of conduct in way or in any use of force.
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Such a code would include: N on-combatants not targeted No criminal behavior-pillage, rape, etc. POWs treated humanely unless they mutiny A spirit of mourning, not triumphalism, must accompany the use of force
4. Pragmatism---or expedience-is not evil unless it gives in to evil. Workable minimums are better than unsupportable, unsustainable maximums. Run no faster than you are able. You can work with others of different values if the divergence is not too gre~t, and if their values do not trample yours. Otherwise, there may be blowback and moral contamination of orie's actions. In such cases, unilateralism is to be preferred to multilateralism. 5. Parochialism is unjustifiable. Doctrine and Covenants 88 is the foundational scripture here. Our policy must include efforts to inform our public and the publics of other nations as to the truth of what is happening. An important part of that endeavor is to chronicle truth and then disseminate it. 6. If others hate and revile your policy, it does not mean it is not the better choice. If others hate and revile you, and call you arrogant or imperialistic, etc., it does not mean that you are. The important test is that outlined in #2. Are you inspired by a better cause? Are your hearts and hands clean? If so, you must have the courage of your convictions. Remember the exchange of epistles between Ammoron and Moroni; Moroni rejects Ammoron's version of events as false and self-serving, and does not shrink from telling Ammoron exactly where he is headed (Alma 54-55). 7. We must be a nation of our word. No more idle promises. No more signing treaties we have no intention of keeping. Or promising Hungari'ans or Shiites that we will come to their aid when we won't. Or telling Saddam Husseins . there will be consequences for bad behavior when there won't be. 8. We must not just stop evil; we must try to sow good. So, for example, the recent congressional initiative to provide significant funding for AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa is a wonderful and good-hearted policy decision. But we can't make everything an better for everyone-it is the privilege and agency of a people to help themselves when they can. 9. Even if you follow all of these maxims, there will still be setbacks and failures and difficulties. The better policy choice is not always the easiest to implement or the swiftest to see results. To have the courage of your convictions, you need to have some convictions! This is where tests #1 and #2 come in. Have you tried your hardest to find the better choice? Are your hearts and hands clean, and are you inspired by a better cause? 10. There is truth and there is falsehood. There is good and there is evil. The of this is complacence. The opposite of complacence is vigilance, planning, and proactivity. But after all we can do, we must rely on God's arm-and only those who are pure in heart can do that. Don't give in to discouragement, despair, cynicism, or fatalism! We can make a difference. Every one of us can. I have been reading in Ezekiel lately, and this is what God said to Ezekiel before destroying the survivors left at Jerusalem, "And I re.~p.IJ....9ilQ§i!~KgrasP
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sought for a man among them Gust one man!), that should make up the and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none" (Ezekiel 22:30; parenthetical comment added). We vvill be as accountable for what we were too complacent to do as we are accountable for what we actually do. We can wield the sword while proclaiming peace. Indeed, in this fallen and wicked world, we must. But we must not become part of that lie that is the world's wisdom of about power and security. We must maintain our full membership in the God on earth. Only with devotion to God and to good and to life, only with a clean heart and clean and diligence and hard work, can we hope to emulate those great men of old, such as Captain Moroni, who of necessity took up the sword in a better cause, conducted himself with both skill and humanity during war, and then retired to his home when his people were safe and the peace was won. We have such men today. Let me tell you of one--Captain Chris Carter of the U.S. Army in Iraq: Toward sundown, on a patch of Kuwaiti desert 10 miles south of the Iraqi border, the fIrst sergeant of Attack Company, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, caned the men to attention. 4 Their commander,Army Capt. Chris Carter, 31, of Watkinsville, Georgia, strode up to battle dress-desert camouflage, flakjacket, Kevlar helm.et. ... the formation in
fun
In the days ahead, he said in a slow Georgia drawl, thousands oflife-and-death decisions would be made by thousands of soldiers. They were well-prepared, he said. Their training, equipment, and spirit would carry them through. "We are a moral army," he continued. When Iraqi soldiers surrender, "treat them with respect," he said; when they don't surrender, "kill them." But defeating Saddam Hussein's army was only part of the job. They must also earn the trust of the Iraqi people. "We have to go in there and treat them right," he said.... [Later], after three hours offighting, a soldier saw an old woman lying near the middle of the bridge, waving for help. Carter's Bradley lurched forward, he and two ·ofhis men moving in a crouch behind it as small arms fire cracked around them. As they reached the woman, Carter threw a smoke grenade to obscure his position. Carter knelt beside the woman and offered her water, but, fearing a trap, also checked her for hidden explosives. From across the river, Iraqi fighters opened fire. The Bradleys and MIAl Abrams tanks pounded them as Carter called for an armored ambulance. After medics loaded the bleeding woman into the ambulance and backed away, the Bradley backed off the bridge, Carter and his men staying behind it for cover. Later, Carter reflected on why he had put his men in harm's way to save the woman. He had come to Iraq to fight "not just for the political aims of this conflict, but for the people," he said. "To leave out on that bridge would have gone against the grain of why we are here." , .. [Carter] also realized the war had changed him. "It has made me a lot less concerned about worldly things," he said. "It's not about possessions but about taking care of people we know, we love-and takmg care of people we don't know." On April 10 [2003], in downtown Baghdad, Carter heard the latest news: President Bush had declared that Saddam's regime was gone for good and that the Iraqi people
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would soon be enjoying the blessings of liberty. "Good, we've done our job," Carter said. "Now send us home."
May our hearts be strengthened to be like Captain Carter's heart, I pray. NOTES 1. Pinnock, Hugh W. "Christmas Gifts-LDS Style," BYU Devotional, 1997.
2. Young, Brigham. Discourses ofBrigham Young. second president o/The Church ofJesus Christ
0/Latter-day Saints, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe, Deseret Book, p. 31, 1925. 3. Hinckley, Gordon B. "War and Peace," Ensign, p. 78, May 2003. 4. "War Tests Courage, Decency," Deseret News, pp. A4, All, 20 Apri12003.
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5 U.S. National Security Strategy and the Gospel: Nexus and Divergence Steven A. Hildreth Introduction At the previous conference, I talked about how I believed a discussion of national security issues among the LDS community was timely, but perhaps long overdue. I outlined some general principles on war and peace that were derived from the scriptures, Church Presidents, and First Presidencies of the Church. 2 Therein, I noted, is found constancy over time. I further noted that although a number of questions could be answered from a general LDS doctrinal framework on security, other key questions remained unanswered. It is interesting to note that in President Hinckley's April 2003 General Conference address on war, many of these issues were touched upon. Today, I want to spend some time talking broadly first about U.S. National Security Strategy and measure that against an LDS doctrinal framework on war and peace issues. I want to do this to demonstrate there are some key areas in which there are convergences and divergences of perspective. Although I'm hoping that some questions might be answered herein, and at this symposium, I recognize that many other questions will remain unanswered, serving instead as continued "food for thought."
U.S. National Security Strategy For much of the past century, U.S. national security strategy focused on several core, interrelated objectives. These include: 1) enhancing U.S. se9urity at home and abroad; 2) promoting U.S. economic prosperity; and 3) promoting free markets and democratic principles around the world. It is important to note that the priority and emphasis that the United States has placed on each of these core objectives has varied from time to time and from place to place since the end of World War II. In addition, the United States has used a broad range of unilateral and multilateral mechanisms to achieve these objectives, again with varying degrees of emphasis at different times and in different locations. These mechanisms have included a number of security/military, diplomatic/political, and economic tools. Thus, the post-World War II legacy of the United States in the world is largely an assessment of the success or failure of these tools, as well as the strategy behind their employment. One of these core objectives-enhancing U.S. security-generally is interpreted as the -effOiCto-protect the nation's interests as defined at the time, but it has also broadly included, for instance: protecting the lives and safety of Americans; maintaining U.S. sovereignty over its values, territory, and institutions; and promoting the nation's well being. In order to protect and defend those interests, the United States has wielded a
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deep and wide range of military, diplomatic/political, and economic tools. These tools include, for instance, the deployment of military forces to deter, dissuade, or compel others; the formation of alliances and coalitions to advance U.S. interests and to counter aggression; and the use of U.S. economic power to advance its agenda or promote democratization in whole or part, or to withhold U.S. economic support to condemn Or punish states hostile to U.S. interests. More often than not, discussions of national security strategy tend to focus on one of these core objectives-enhancing U.S. security--and primarily on one of the main tools-the wide range of military options available to the United States. But we should recognize that national security strategy is much more than that. We should also recognize that the U.S. national security strategy is not the same as the national military strategy, which is how our military has determined at any particular time what should be done to achieve our national objectives as defmed by the nation's leadership. Much could be said about recent shifts in U.S. national security strategy since the end of the Cold War. This is especially so with the changes wrought by the current Bush Administration. 3 Although these changes are very important to note and assess, I wish to focus on the much larger picture-that U.S. national security strategy since the end of World War II has focused primarily around three core objectives that have themselves received varying attention over time, and that the core tools employed in striving to attain these objectives have also received varying attention over time. So, what new emphasis has this administration brought to bear? The answer is not inconsequential. First, in the context of our core national objectives, I believe today we are witnessing the militant and perhaps strident promotion of security, democracy, and free enterprise by the United States abroad. Second, I believe we are witnessing the progressive disengagement from and perhaps deliberate alienation of traditional allies and institutions, except in the application of military force with those few abroad that share this administration's views. Third, I believe this administration has embarked this nation on a pennanent war footing and fostered an atmosphere of fear in part for political purposes unrelated to the U.S. national security strategy.
An LDS Doctrinal Framework Now, let's examine in contrast what an LDS security framework might look like. This framework is based on articles that I have published previously.4 The framework itself is built around the injunction in Doctrine and Covenants 98: 16, to "renounce war and proclaim peace," as well as around the twelfth Article of Faith, which enjoins us to be "subject to kings, presidents, rulers" and to "[obey], [honor], and [sustain] the law." How might this look if we undertake closer examination of a number of securityrelated issues as commented upon by the scriptures, the Presidents of the the Church, and their First P:r:esidencies? I recognize these are largely summarized and simplified, and hence subject to criticism, but in my view their provenance is solid. 5 These issues are divided into three broad areas: war, obligation to the state, and peace. On Wifr,·Warfare, and Weapons--·--·---Warfare largely results from the imperrection of the human condition (war results from iniquity, selfishness, greed, and idolatry, for example). Warfare sometimes results from corrupt political systems (e.g., fascism or communism) and even militaristic democracies.
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Warfare is not a morally sustainable instrwme1o.t of state policy. Warfare is not a morally sustainable approach to dispute resolution, although war is sometimes recognized as the only way to end an existing conflict between states, Warfare is not morally sustainable for purposes of vengeance or domination. Warfare can be justified for self-defense in the face of aggression under a narrow set
of conditions and only after all other alternatives are foreclosed. "God, in His own due time, will pass sentence upon [leaders of nations] ... who in a frenzy of hate and lust for unrighteous power and dominion ... put into motion eternal forces they do not comprehend and cannol: control."6 Coercive force in the conduct of international relations is not morally sustainable. Relying on the arm of flesh for security is idolatry.
Anns buildups are not morally sustainable; weapons are used invariably. Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are not morally sustainable.
On Obedience to the State and to the Law Citizens are expected to sustain their respective national leaders. Citizens are expected to obey the laws of their land. U.S. citizens have a special obligation to support the Constitution, which can take precedence over an obligation to national leaders.
If military service is required, citizens are expected to serve honorably and not succumb to the attendant immoralities of war such as hatred; any life taken by honorable soldiers following the legal commands of their leaders will not be accounted against them. If legal alternatives to military service are available, citizens may rightfully pursue them.
On Peace Peaceful relations among nations are preferred. Peace for individuals and nations is attainable through obedience to the principles of Christ's GospeL Secular peace efforts-with an end to promote peace, mutual understanding, negotiated disarmament settlements, and treaties-are morally sustainable.
Nexus So where, if anywhere, does our national security strategy converge with Gospel teachings? Is it possible to make a general case for enhancing our own security within the context of the Gospel? In broad general terms, I believe the answer to be "yes." It seems prudent that some level of defensive measures and mechanisms are appropriate our families. and specifically our ability to worship as to ensure that our way of we please, be protected. As President Gordon B. Hinckley reminded us this past conference, "When war raged between the Nephites and the Lamanites, the record states that 'the Nepl1i!~~~:r52.i~~pired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for .. , power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites, of worship and their church.' . , . The Lord counseled them, 'defend your families even unto bloodshed' (Alma 43:45-47)." Having said that, however, what is sufficient? Can there be too much preparation or reliance on security through secular or material means, and if so, at what cost does
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it come? As President Kimball warned on the eve of this nation's bicentennial, at what point does the pursuit of security in this manner transcend the legitimate to idolatryT Can this type of idolatry evolve to or include something such as hubris? Is there such a thing as too much worldly security in the eyes of the Lord? Is it morally justifiable to pursue security to defend against any and all threats from without? If so, whose moral foundation is being used: the Lord's or the world's? What about another core objective, that being our economic prosperity? Although this sphere is not something I have examined in depth, it is clear that economic independence is important to the Church, its members, and by inference to this nation. But let us be clear about what might give birth to this and how it is used. So much of our free-market capitalist society places a premium on the pursuit of materialism and riches. Should this be a means or an end? I would argue that the culture in which we live today sees these as ends. Can there be too much economic prosperity? Are riches a two-edged sword? What can we learn from the Book of Mormon about this subject? Various peoples were blessed with riches at various times. What were the reasons they continued to prosper? When did they fail? What that tell us about our culture today? What does that tell us about our own lives? What things, if any, should we as a people and as a nation be concerned with when considering our economic well being and that of our neighbors and fellow humankind? , Finally, let us look briefly at the major national core Is democratization an inherent "good" that should be foisted upon other countries and cultures? or the and There is not a lot of guidance to be found here in the basic value-freedom teachings of Church leaders, but it is worth noting that a of religion-seems to have allowed the Church to prosper in any number of politically diverse and non-democratic cultures around the world. In relative terms, other demoa strategy that cratic principles or liberties may not be as important. In other encouraged religious freedom might be, in relative terms, more important to us as a people than one that included the full-range of democratic values and institutions.
Divergence So where, if anywhere, do our national security strategy and the Gospel seem to part company? From the outset, we need to recognize and acknowledge that our national security strategy belongs to this world. It is a worldly construct that has helped build a great nation, but it contrasts in several key ways with the Gospel. and perhaps most importantly, this strategy largely promotes self-interest over collective interests. Yes, I understand that you can make a case that the promotion of collective security, global free markets, and democratization, for example, can benefit the larger whole. In principle, that's correct. However, reality is often different than principle. Recent 'events regarding the Iraq war and coalition-building illustrate that although this country" rhetorically promotes the principle of democracy, when other democratic states (such as France, Germany, Russia, and Turkey) act contrary to our own self-interests, we resent them and even attempt to use some of our variou_~ __economic and diplomatic/political tools against our democratIcfrIends. In the final analy~ self-interest generally prevails over collective interests when the two are at odds. But why is this point so impoItan't? The line between self-interest and selfishness is close--even when it comes to nations. I mentioned earlier that from a Gospel perspective selfishness is seen as a key cause of warfare. I maintain that there is a close
p U.S. NATIONAL SECURlTY STRATEGY AND THE GOSPEL
link between a strategy with strong roots in self-interest and the resulting conflict even unto warfare. In contrast, we see that its opposite-selflessness-is touted as a Gospel virtue. Second, there is much to our national security strategy that causes us to rely on the employment of power or coercion in some fonn, whether it is military, diplomatic/ political, or economic power. Again, I recognize this is certainly not always the case, but we often seek to impose our will on others. In contrast, the Gospel urges us to abhor denying others free will or choice, even if it allows poor or bad choices to be made, and even choices that lead to conflict. Third, our national security strategy makes general assumptions about the inevitability of conflict in some form arising from the interaction of states. In contrast, the Gospel and the framework discussed earlier emphasize the general possibility of peace among peoples and nations. The former is pessimistic regarding perceived reality; the latter is optimistic regarding a possible and desirable future. Fourth, the major basis for ensuring our national security in the final analysis is idolatry. This nation and its citizens expend enormous portions of their talent and resources on gods of steel and firepower in a perhaps fruitless effort to deliver them from their enemies. Many of you may argue that this is the central purpose of the state, but you miss my point that in the end this is still idolatrous, as President Kimball chose to remind us of all things he could have addressed in an era of relative peace and low defense spending on the occasion of this nation's bicentennial in 1976. 8 It would require a paradigm shift of a major order for most people, including Church members, to conceive of this nation-state as justified only in providing defenses sufficient to not be perceived as idolatrous. But is it too late to do anything at this point? Is there anything Latter-day Saints in the national security community can do? Perhaps we all should just pack for Zion and wash our hands of all this untidiness.
Conclusion Let me say just a couple of things in conclusion and leave you with a final question or two to ponder. I mink there are profound dilemmas we face as a Latter-day Saint community grappling with issues of peace and security in the international church. There are a number of global issues that may not affect us directly as Latter-day Saints or as a Church, but which are very likely to offend our moral sensibilities. Anyone who has taken the time to look into these things cannot help but be outraged. These include such things as human rights violations, child soldiers, international trafficking of women, genocide, narco-trafficking, civil wars, failing or failed states, and regional conflicts. In light of what I've discussed today, should we as Latter-day Saints be doing something about these issues-and if so, what? I have argued previously and continue to maintain there is little Gospel-related support as I've outlined here and elsewhere for direct military intervention in these areas. Having provided that less-thansatisfactory response, what can we do that might be justified within this framework I've laid out? Certainly, diplomacy and political avenues can be justified and pursued, thOlign-iliey-wilToe frustrating and oftentimes non-productive. I believe in the end We will be judged more by our efforts and less on our outcomes. Finally, as Latter-day Saints, where is our first obligation in times of war? To the state? To the Gospel and its teachings? To our national leaders? Or to what? If our first obligation is to the state, then when nations are at odds with each other over a conflict,
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such as the recent war against Iraq, such a situation obliges us to support our own state and in essence pits Lati:er-day Saints in different countries against each other. Should issues such as this divide the Saints? Yet, if our first obligation is to the Gospel in conditions such as this, are we in essence pitted against our national leaders? J. Reuben Clark once wrote something very helpful in this regard: God provided that in this land of liberty, OUI political allegiance shall run not to individuals, that is, to government officials, no matter how great or how small they may be. Under His plan OUI allegiance and the only allegiance we owe as citizens or denizens of the United States, runs to OUI inspired Constitution which God Himself set up. So runs the oath of office of those who participate in government. A certain loyalty we do owe to the office which a man holds, but even here we owe, just by reason of our citizenship, no loyalty to the nan himself. In other countries it is to the individual that allegiance runs. This principle of allegiance to the Constitution is basic to our freedom. It is one of the great principles that distinguishes this "land ofliberty" from other countries.9
Clark appears to suggest that we as U.S. Latter-day Saints can distinguish what it means to be obliged to support this nation: we have a greater allegiance to the Constitution than to anyone leader or another at anyone time. I suggest this is not inconsequential for us, especially for those among us who work for our government and have taken that oath of allegiance. From the previous BYU Symposium on national security I ended with the following statement, which I continue to hold to as a guide: "Some argue that one loses credibility when one stands for principle yet loses in the policy debate or decision. If the world associates credibility with personal or collective victory, one wonders how valuable such principles are, especially if they so rarely prevail in the world? My answer is, when you stand on a correct principle and lose, you have stood on a correct principle and grown. And in my mind that speaks volumes about a person and a nation." NOTES 1. Any opinions, conclusions, or recommendations expressed or implied within are those of the author alone and do not represent the views of CRS, Congress, the Federal Government, or the sponsors of this symposium. 2. My approach over the years on these topics has been to focus exclusively on the breadth of LDS scriptures, and statements from the Presiden1s of the Church in this dispensation, as well as statements from the various First Presidencies and members of those First Presidencies. 3. I would refer the reader to Fred Axelgard's excellent piece on preemption included in this volume. I am in tight agreement with what he has to say. I would only add to it by suggesting some inclusion of our war/peace obligations from Doctrine and Covenants section 98, which complements Fred's writings. And I would push the analysis to consider whether preemption is justified under any condition and what those conditions might be. 4. Hildreth, Steven A. "The First Presidency statement on MX in perspective." BYU Studies, Vol. 22, No.2, pp. 215---':25, spring 1982; Hildreth, Steven A. "Mormon concern over MX: Parochialism or enduring moral theology?" Journal of Church and State, Vol. 26, No.2, pp. 227-53, spring 1984; Hildreth, Steven A. "An LDS moral perspective on security policy," Moral Perspectives Security Policy: Views from the-LDS Community, Eds. Valerie-M~ Hudson and-Kerry-M. on Kartchner, Kennedy Center Publications, Provo, pp. 117-123,1995. 5. See Ibid. 6. The Improvement Era, no. 5, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, p. 349, May 1942. 7. Kimball, Spencer W. "The False Gods We Worship," Ensign, p. 3, June 1976.
u.s.
-
U.S. NATIONAL SECt)"RITY STRATEGY At-In TIiE GOSPEL
8. Ibid. 7. With thanks to Renee C. Green, Director, World Family Policy Center (NY)~ for pointing this out. See Clark, J. Reuben. Stand Fast by Our Constitution, p. 189.
41
6
"From whence come wars and fightings among you?": An Integration of Secular and Sacred Stanley A. Taylor and Jeremy 0. Evans Introduction The study of war, its causes, conduct, and effects, is central to the academic discipline of international politics. While one can find speculations and idiosyncratic discussions about conflict for as long as there have been political entities, the systematic study of international politics emerged as a distinct academic focus only after World War I. 1 The discipline arose over the issue of World War I-how could such a cruel and devastating war occur? Since that time scholars have produced thousands of treatises examining the causes of war. This article attempts to reduce that literature to a few simple approaches, following fundamentally the framework of Kenneth Waltz, and then to see how various scriptural and general authority insights as to the cause of war fit within those approaches. We will first give a brief introduction to the unique characteristics of the international environment, introduce the study of war (especially the framework of Kenneth Waltz), examine what sacred scriptures have to say about the origin of war, examine what General Authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have said about war, and draw some conclusions about how the "sacred" analyses can be integrated with the secular.
The Nature of the International Environment It is the ever-present expectation of war that distinguishes international from
domestic politics. Organized violence does occur within states but it is usually more limited and less anticipated. It is useful to focus on the most important characteristic that separates these two levels of politics: in domestic politics there is a general expectation of peace; in international politics there is a general expectation of conflict, if not war. As Robert S. Wood has pointed out, no one understood this better than the eighteenth century philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who " ... was neither the first nor the last to note that domestic politics and international politics appear to be governed on different foundations and according to different principles."2 Wood prefaces his analysis with Rousseau's well-known statement: The first thing I notice in looking at the state of mankind is a palpable contradiction which makes all stability impossible. As individuals, we live in the civil state, under the control of the Law; as nations, each is in the state of nature 3
All politics is, of course, the process of attempting to create some consensus in an environment characterized by differing perceptions of goals and of the means to attain
44
TAYLORIEVANS
them. But it is the nature ofthe environment- the context in which these conflicts over ends and means occur- which creates the significant distinction between national and international politics. The expectations of those involved in a street brawl are quite different from the expectations of those engaged in a fight according to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. Combatants under each condition enter the fray with a fairly com- · plete but different set of expectations. And it is precisely this difference in expectations that distinguishes domestic and international politics. Even though the study of international politics is relatively new, the difference between these two expectations creates an environment that would be easily recognized by Frederick the Great or Thucydides were they to return to the earth today. The everpresent expectation of war sets the stage on which the drama of international politics is played. War, thus, occupies a central position in the study of international politics. The causes of war and the conditions of peace are at the very heart of this field of study- a concern all the more compelling in an age of nuclear weapons, nearly instantaneous delivery systems, and a panoply of other weapons of mass destruction. The study of war is centuries old. The earliest approaches were usually concerned with the history of war or with military strategy.4 But as war came to be studied more analytically and systematically, investigators confronted one of the most basic of all scientific needs- the need for an analytical framework to provide both a focus and a taxonomy.
The Study of War In the absence of a parsimonious focus, early attempts to study the causes of war were essentially taxonomies- long lists detailing every possible cause of war from anarchy to zealotry. Initially, the most common approach was merely to itemize the causes of war into lists as long as necessary to cover every war.' Some attempted to be more parsimonious. The late Sigmund Neumann used to tell his students that studying international relations was like watching a three-ring circus: one has to watch what goes on in each ring simultaneously. Neumann labeled those rings 1) relations between nations, 2) relations between sub-national groups (states in federal systems), and 3) local politics. While Neumann's effort was interesting, it was not very rigorous. 1. David Singer, on the other hand, has been more empirical and by far the most parsimonious in his division between systemic sources of war and sub-systemic sources of war.6 A more recent textbook speaks of six levels of analysis-world system, interstate relations, society, government, role, and individuaI.7
WaItzian Framework No attempt to create a conceptual framework for the study of war, however, has been more influential or more widely discussed than that of Kenneth N. Waltz. International relations scholars are very familiar with Waltz' framework since it has been around for over forty years. Waltz suggests that all attempts to explain the causes of war fit within three images or levels- the first is human nature, the second is human organizations (particularly the nature of economic or political systems), and the third is the nature of the international political system. First Level The first level (Waltz uses the term "image" rather than level) is human nature. Any attempt to locate the cause of war that focuses on man and his nature falls within
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND F1GHTINGS AMONG YOU?"; AN INTEGRAT10N OF SECULAR AND SACRED
this level. In fact, according to this level, all political ills stem from human defectsfrom corrupt city politics to acts of international violence. Whether or not these human defects can be altered divides this level of analysis into two prescriptive positions. The pessimists believe that corrupt human nature (what C.S. Lewis called "bent" human nature) is the source of all political ills and that there is nothing one can do to change human nature. Whether ancient (Augustine and Spinoza) or modem (Niebuhr or Morgenthau), the central notion is the same. Neibuhr spoke of wars arising in a "deep, dark, unconscious comer of man's mind."8 And Morgenthau credits man's lust for power as the chief source of all political illS.9 For both, the assumption is the same: the causes of war are to be found in the minds of men, and these motives are unconscious and ineradicable. Human nature is "bent," it is unchangeable, and we just have to learn to live with it. It is this latter, almost fatalistic, notion that earns the name "realist" for most first level pessimists. First level pessimism is a very popular position among many intellectuals and scholars. Even normally disparate fields of study seem to unite on this one point. Many ethologists have argued that human pugnacity is a biological inheritance from our animal ancestors. 10 Even though the notion that war is in the genes has been very popular among many ethologists in the last twenty years, by no means is there consensus on this point. 11 The same theme has been popular in the fiction of several English writers, particularly English Catholics. It is as if the ideas of the 16th century heretical Catholic theologian Cornelius Jansen have finally found a home. Jansen preached the doctrine of a perverse and unchangeable human nature, so incapable of choosing good that selfflagellation was prescribed. The writings of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and others speak of this human condition. 12 First level optimists, on the other hand, accept the initial assumption that all political ills (in this case, war) stem from evil human nature, but they argue that human nature can and should be changed. This is nowhere stated as clearly as it is in the Preamble to the Charter of UNESCO: "Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is therefore in the minds of men that the defenses for peace must be constructed." Human nature is still the villain, but, in this case, it is malleable-it can be changed. How human nature can be changed and how long it might take to do so are enormous stumbling blocks but do not detract from the elegance of this level of analysis. Anthropologists, social-psychologists, psychiatrists, and other behavioral scientists have argued that there are ways to change human nature and thus eliminate or reduce the likelihood of war. In its simplest form, second level optimism is exemplified by Margaret Mead's suggestion that war is learned behavior and, therefore, can be unlearned. 13 No political scientist has accepted this argument more forcefully than John Stoessinger. According to him: it has been fashionable to assert that war is not an illness, but, like aggression, an ineradicable part of human nature. I challenge this assumption. Whereas aggression may be inherent, war is learned behavior, and as such can be unlearned and ultimately selected out entirely. 14
Again, whether by education, cultural exchange, psychoanalysis, conversion to religious principles, or other ways of reorienting the mind and "selecting out" unacceptable behavior, first level optimists believe they have found the source of war and they have a variety of prescriptions for change.
45
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TAYLOR/EvANS
Second Level Second level thinking points to the organization of the state as the source of war. While there is great variety in the different explanations of second level approaches, they all have one idea in common; perfect the state and you reduce the likelihood of war. To a second level thinker, all men could be angels and there would still be war as long as the economic and political nature of the state is flawed. Human natnre is not the CUlprit; human organization is. The earliest systematic manifestations of second level thinking were attacks against monarchial sovereignty. These attacks stemmed from the developing English idea of a limited monarchy. Thus, it was believed that if all states would become liberal, democratic states, there would be no war. European socialism was another manifestation of second level thinking. Babeuf, Saint Simon, and other early socialists believed that domestic justice could be achieved only when workers owned the means of production.!S But it took Marx, Engels, and Lenin to develop the idea that all interstate violence was an outgrowth of capitalism. According to the communist theory of imperialism, all wars are merely a manifestation of domestic class warfare spread abroad as nations fight for colonial possessions.!6 Liberalism and socialism are but two of an infinite variety of "good" states for second level thinkers. Liberalism asserts a political definition and socialism an economic definition. But the second level could accept with equal theoretical ease the notion that war would cease only when all states were fascist, monarchical, democratic, parliamentary, or established under a particular religious ideology. Any approach that suggests that war can be eliminated through the reform of states is a second level approach. Third Level Waltz' third level has to do neither with human nature nor with human organization. According to third level approaches, all humans could be perfect, all states organized correctly and similarly, and there would still be war as long as there was no central source of authority in the interstate system. Third level approaches blame war neither on the presence of human evil nor on the existence of "bad" states, but rather on the absence of central authority. In the absence of a centralized decision-making authority there is anarchy, and conflict and war are inherent in anarchy. Rousseau and Hobbes are perhaps the best theorists of this level.!7 But many who have thought about war and peace have reached third level conclusions. Einstein's suggestion that "as long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable" is a third level explanation. IS So also is Freud's comment that "so long as there are nations and empires, each prepared callously to exterminate its rival, all alike must be equipped for war."!9 Waltz summarizes third level thinking perhaps better than the philosophers he is analyzing: "Because each state is the final judge of its own cause, any state may at any time use force to implement its policies."20 This framework is purely for analytical purposes and acts as a paradigm for understanding. In reality, the causes of wars are so multifaceted that every one of Waltz' levels will yield suggestive insights. Waltz himself concludes his analysis by suggesting that any comprehensive explanation of the causes of war must encompass all three levels. Nevertheless, it is useful to work with the three levels as analytical tools 2 !
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND FIGHTrNGS AMONG YOU?": AN INTEGRATfON OF SECULAR AND SACRED
Causes of War According to the Scriptures After this brief description of Waltz' three levels of analysis, the next task of this essay is to discover in which level the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints best fit. As is the case with all who have developed theories about the sources of war, neither the scriptures nor the teaching ofLDS officials always fit neatly within any single one of Waltz' three levels. Even in Rousseau, Waltz' prime example ofthird level thinking, there is a little bit of first level analysis 22 To accomplish this task, we perfonned a keyword search of the standard works (using Infobases' LDS Collectors' Library CD) and found 417 references to the words "war" or "wars," not counting those repeated in the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) and the Joseph Smith History. The task of searching on words related to "war" and "wars" (for example, "violence" and "conflict") would yield interesting, though not significantly different, results but is outside the scope of this brief study.23
Table 1: Distribution of Scriptural References to 'War' and 'Wars' SCRIPTURAL WORK
Old Testament New Testament Book of Monnon Doctrine and Covenants Pearl of Great Price Total
NUMBER OF REFERENCES
214 18 168 14 3 417
We classified these 417 references into four categories: hortative (14), descriptive (348), metaphorical or allegorical (42), and analytical or explanatory (20). The hortative references fall into two types: those that, for example, exhort people to "prepare for war" (Joel 3:9) and those that, for example, call on people to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (Doctrine and Covenants 98: 16). As expected, most of the fonner are found in the Old Testament and most of the latter in the New Testament or in scriptures unique to the LDS Church. The second category, descriptive, are those scriptural references that refer to, or say something about, past, present, or future wars. Thus, for example, Matthew's words, "And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars" (24: 16) refer to future events. Metaphorical or allegorical references are those that use war or the concept of war as a teaching device or for rhetorical purposes. For example, in order to teach the value of planning and preparation, Luke writes "Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand" (14:30). And Paul, writing about the inner peace which comes from keeping God's law, complains that there is another law (not God's law) within his own body, "warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin" (Romans 7:23). None of these three uses of the idea of war are particularly helpful in suggesting into which of Waltz' three levels of analysis scriptural references might fit. The fourth category, analytic or explanatory, however, contains scriptural references that say something about the source of war. Of the twenty analytical references that exist, seventeen fit relatively cleanly into Waltz' first level. Four of these usages come from the Bible, fourteen from the Book of Monnon, one from the Doctrine and Covenants,
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TAYLOR/EvANS
and one from the Pearl of Great Price. Table 2 shows the distribution of all scriptural references into one of Waltz' three levels. Table 2: Waltzian Classification of Analytical Scriptural References to 'War' or 'Wars' WALTZIAN LEVEL
TOTAL
1st Level
17
2nd Level 3,d Level
2
SOURCE
Old Testament, 2 Chronicles 16:9 and Psalms 46:9 New Testament, James 4:1 and 4:2 Book of Mormon, I Nephi 14:15; Jacob 7:24; 7:26; Mosiah 9:13; 29:14; Alma 48:20; 50:21; Helaman 12:2; 3 Nephi 2:11; Ether 11:7 and 13:22 Doctrine and Covenants Section 38:29 Pearl of Great Price, Moses 6: 15 Book of Mormon, Mosiah 29:7 and 29:36 Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi 7:14
In the Bible, James addresses the question as directly as anyone. He asks very specifically, "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" (James 4:1). He answers just as directly, "come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not" (James 4:1-2). He continues by talking about the need to abandon adultery, sin, and to resist the devil. Nothing is said about economic or political systems and no attempt is made to blame conflict on the absence of a superior earthly authority. War, instead, stems from evil conditions in the heart which would change if all were truly converted to Christ. No Book of Mormon scripture is more clear on the cause of war than Mormon's analysis found in Alma 50:21: And we see that these promises have been verified to the people of Nephi; for it has been their quarrelings and their contentions, yea, their murderings, and their plunderings, their idolatry, their whoredoms, and their abominations, which were among themselves, which brought upon them their wars and their destructions.
Again it is a clear example of first level analysis. What is the source of war, according to Mormon? It is neither human organizations nor the international milieu-it is the human condition, it is personal sin. It is no coincidence that of the fourteen analytical Book of Mormon references to war, half were written by Mormon, the great prophet-general-abridger. The Pearl of Great Price reference occurs in Moses 6:15, in Moses' history of the human race: "And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land. And in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts; and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed." The message is again clear: the seeds of war are planted in our hearts when we allow Satan to enter therein. As mentioned above, we have not examined scriptural statements in which the word war is not contained but that nevertheless refer to the causes of war. But King Limhi's lamentation is illustrative: .. great are the reasons which we have to mourn; for behold how many of our brethren have been slain and their blood has been spilt in vain, and all because of iniquity (Mosiah 7:24).
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND FIGHTlNGS AMONG YOU?":
AN INTEGRATION OF SECULAR AND SACRED 49
The theme, " ... all because of iniquity," occurs frequently, even though it is not reported in a keyword search on "war" and reveals the scriptural relationship between personal sin and a variety of social ills. The majority of the scriptural references concerning the sources of war are quite clear. War stems from corrupt human nature-from the sinful human condition. It has little to do with politics or economics and even less to do with an abstract international system. According to analytical references about war in the scriptures, if all would tum to God and cease to corrupt His ways, peace would prevai[.24 If it is correct to assume that the scriptural teachings about the causes of war fall within what Waltz would call the first image or level, then one can ask whether these teachings are what Waltz would classify as optimistic or pessimistic. And one need look no further than King Benjamin's famous sermon and its effects on those who heard it. The sermon contains perhaps the most widely-known Book of Mormon statement about human nature: For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever, and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3: 19)
Two chapters later we are told that one of the effects of this sermon was that the Lord had "wrought a mighty change" and that those so changed "have no more disposition to evil, but to do good continually" (Mosiah 5:2). This is clearly what Waltz would call first level optimism. Virtually all ofthe first level scriptural analyses of war lay the blame on some form of personal sin. The scriptures teach that man can repent of sin, change his nature and, in King Benjamin's words, 'put off' the natural man. The Nephites in the Book of Enos illustrate a practical application of this principle. Their two-fold defense against the Lamanites consisted both of traditional military defense policies and of trying to change the Lamanites through missionary work (see Enos I :20). This strategy continues through the Book of Mormon as the Nephites follow their belief that "the preaching of the word ... [has a] more powerful effect upon the minds ofthe people than the sword" (Alma 31 :5).
What the General Authorities Have Said about the Causes of War If sacred writ adopts a first level approach to the source of war, what have general authorities of the LDS Church added to this analysis? To answer this question, we followed the same general methodology we followed in searching the scriptures-we conducted a word search on the words "war" and "wars" using the Infobase Collector s Library '97. This search resulted in 14,279 references, more than we could analyze without resorting to some form of computerized content analysis. Therefore, we did a second search limited to statements made by presidents of the church while serving in the First Presidency.25 This search yielded 404 references that we classified into the same four categories: hortative (3), metaphorical (33), descriptive (336), and analytical (32). As earlier, we were more interested in the thirty two analytical references that reveal insight into the sources or causes of war. And, as with the scriptural analysis,
50 TAYLOR/EvANS
we classified these thirty two references into one of Waltz' three levels (see Table 3) as follows; first level (28), second level (3), and third level (1). Brigham Young made one of the earlier statements by a general authority of the cause of war. He said: "Let the mothers of any nation teach their children not to make war, the children would grow up and never enter into it. Let the mothers teach their children, 'War, war upon your enemies, yes, war to the hilt!' and they will be filled with this spirit."26 This suggestion that war is a learned behavior harmonizes well with the first-level optimist assumptions of UNESCO, Margaret Mead, and John Stoessinger.
Table 3: Classification of Church Presidents' References to "War" PRESIDENT
Joseph Smith, Jr. Brigham Young John Taylor Wilford Woodruff Lorenzo Snow Joseph F. Smith Heber J. Grant George Albert Smith David O. McKay Joseph Fielding Smith Harold B. Lee Spencer W. Kimball Ezra Taft Benson Howard W. Hunter Gordon B. Hinckley Total
HORTATIVE
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
METAPHORICAL
4 17 2 0 0 0
1 0
3 0 0 0 0
3
DESCRIPTIVE
ANALYTICAL
11
125 7 0 0
65 33 46 0 8
2
11
1
4
0
1
3 33
24 336
2 0 0 0
3 12 0 0 0 0
32
President David O. McKay said in a general conference of the church: If a few more million men in the world could feel that testimony-the testimony. of the reality of our Redeemer-selfishness would be less manifest, war among nations would be eradicated, and peace would reign among mankind.27
President Spencer W. Kimball, quoting from Douglas MacArthur with approbation, said: "Military alliance, balance of power, League of Nations all in tum failed . . . . We have had our last chance. If we do not now devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door." This reference to the creation of a more equitable international system may seem at first to be a nod in the direction of second or third level thinking. But, President Kimball takes a clear first level position as he concludes, "The problem basically is theological and involves ... improvement of human character. "28 President Howard W. Hunter links global and personal peace to temple attendance: May you let the meaning and beauty and peace of the temple come into your everyday life more directly in order that the millennial day may come, that promised time when "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: Nation shall not lift up sword against nations, neither shall they learn war any more .. . . *[but shall] walk in the light of the Lord" (Isaiah 2:4-5).
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND FIGHTTNGS AMONG yOU?"; AN INTEGRATION OF SECULAR AND SACRED
A statement from the First Presidency of the Church in 1943 takes the same clear first level point of view: "There must come a victory of Right and Freedom over Iniquity and Oppression, but war will never be vanquished until men change their hearts and establish new ideals."29 This statement's emphasis on the need for men to "change their hearts" puts the First Presidency clearly in the philosophical tradition that Waltz would call first level optimist. In an expanded search including all general authorities, the most frequently mentioned human characteristic that leads to war is selfishness. Elder Bruce R. McConkie states that "So also there is a gift of selfishness, of putting one's own interests first in all things, of spewing forth hatred and animosity upon others, all of which leads to war.... "30 And according to Elder George A. Smith, "Selfishness [is the] principle cause of war. ... "31 Elder John A. Widtsoe believed that "man's unappeased greed" and selfishness are "transmuted into hate" and lead to war. 32 More recently President James E. Faust stated that "In its simplest terms, wars are so often caused by a great lust for power," following an analysis made popular by the late International Relations scholar, Hans Morgenthau. 33 Twenty-eight of the thirty-two analytical references in our search were classified into Waltz' first level optimist category. None were classified as first level pessimist. Each focuses on the human condition as the source of conflict between nations. It is no contradiction to find, as well, statements of general authorities that fit neatly into other levels. As was noted earlier about Rousseau, the articulation of philosophical analyses may well result in ideas that do not fit neatly into a someone else's subsequent categorical scheme. Moreover, the problem ofthe source of war is sufficiently complex to allow overlapping explanations. Note, however, the neat bridge to second level thinking provided by the previously quoted January, 1943 "Greeting from the First Presidency." That statement began with a clear first level argument ("wars spring from wickedness"), but continued with a call for the reform of nations ("Christ-like nations"), which is a second level position: "Wars spring from wickedness ... but peace will be maintained only by nobler men and by more Christ-like nations."34 Second level analyses within the church preceded an interesting revival of second level arguments among international relations scholars that began in the 1980's and gained center stage in the literature in the 1990's.35 Drawing from the work of Immanuel Kant, international relations scholars began debating the notion that democratic states do not fight one another, thus suggesting that non-democratic states cause war. Although this debate continues, the three references by church presidents that we classified into Waltz' second level would be very comfortable in what is often called the "Zone of Peace" argument. However, President Spencer W. Kimball's forceful denunciation of American militarism in his "The False Gods We Worship," shows that even democracies can be warlike and rely on "gods of stone and steel-ships, planes, .missiles, fortifications" instead ofturning to Christ. 36 Both World War II and the Cold War gave rise to considerable second level thinking in the Church. It became popular to believe that peace could prevail in the world, but only if fascist, militarist, and communist states were eliminated or changed. In 1942, David O. McKay specifically blamed militarism and fascism for causing World War IIY Later, in the middle of the Cold War, he blamed communism as being the source of war and contention in the world. 38 In 1950, President George Albert Smith
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blamed war on "nations arming instead of repenting."39 Although this reference has a first level flavor to it, President Smith's call was for militaristic nations to repent of their militarism. President David O. McKay said in 1966, for example, that "the position of this Church on the subject of Communism has never changed. We consider it the greatest satanical threat to peace, prosperity, and the spread of God's work among men that exists on the fact of the earth."40 The argument here is second level. The source of war is not found in human nature, but stems from a particular kind of human organization-in this case, communism. Quite obviously, the main problem with second level analysis is that there is no end of "bad" states. Church members with a conservative political persuasion urge the Church to denounce left-leaning governments and regimes while members with a more liberal political persuasion encourage the Church to denounce right-wing militaristic governments and regimes. That the Church does neither is a reflection of the Church's recognition that it must preach the Gospel in all nations, whatever their political persuasion, and that both prudence and standard diplomatic practices suggest those who freely denounce various political regimes can easily be renounced by those same regimes. At the same time, the Church has never said anything that could be interpreted as condoning any kind of violations of human dignity and human rights. Nor has it condemned efforts in any country meant to improve the treatment of women, children, or disadvantaged people. If there is a "bottom line" in reference to church attitudes towards other state systems, it is that the church encourages policies that allow all people to hear the restored gospel and be baptized into the fold of Christ. The latter-day canon contains few examples of third-level philosophy. But if one assumes, as third level arguments do, that an anarchic system compels each state to be prepared at any moment to use force to protect its own interest, then the following statement by David O. McKay has a definite third level flavor. "Force rules in the world today; consequently, our government must keep armies abroad, build navies and air squadrons, create atom bombs to protect itself from the threatened aggression of a nation which seems to listen to no other appeal than compulsion."41 Joseph Smith also used third-level language to describe Christ's intentions toward earthly governments: It has been the design of Jehovah, from the commencement of the world, and is his purpose now, to regulate the affairs of the world in His own time, to staud as a head of the universe, and take the reins of government in His own hand. When this is done, judgment will be administered in righteousness; anarchy and confusion will be destroyed, and 'nations will learn war no more.' It is for want of this great governing principle, that all this confusion has existed; 'for it is not in man that walketh, to direct his steps;' this we have fully shown.'2
This implies that peace will come to the earth when anarchy is abolished by the reign of Christ, clearly a third-level idea. But this statement by Joseph Smith is also an interesting conclusion to our attempt to see how church doctrine and statements might fit with Waltz's somewhat confining framework. It demonstrates the impossibility of locating the source of war without bridging all three of Waltz' levels. The Prophet's third level statement reveals his understanding that millennial peace, the Zion of the Lord, will come only when Christ
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND FIGHTINGS AMONG yOU?"; AN INTEGRATION OF SECULAR AND SACRED
"take[s] the reins of government [third level], when "nations will learn war no more" [second level], and when "judgment is administered in righteousness" or the earth is cleansed of sinners [first level]. The roots of international violence twist and tum through more than one of these analytical levels 43 . And the results of these analyses do not often result in any clear or singular prescription for policy. It is especially encouraging to see an increasing number of LDS foreign policy scholars and practitioners searching the roots of the gospel for perspectives on national security issues 44 It is when we confront the prescriptive question that the analytical level becomes so important. If war arises from corrupt but malleable human nature, then the logical and most effective prescription is to alter the human condition. On the other hand, if war arises from particular kinds of human organization-namely, bad political or economic state systems-then it follows that we should attempt to change or eliminate those kinds of states. It is difficult to ignore the frequent exhortations of groups that preach that only through the elimination of certain kinds of statist ideologies will the world live in peace. Ideologies that deny agency prevent human choice which is necessary for human beings to move towards perfection. This is clearly a prescription that stems from second level analysis. Finally, if war is inherent in a decentralized interstate system, then our efforts to construct some kind of centralized authority or, at least, to create structures that will vitiate the effects of interstate anarchy should be strengthened. Perhaps the talk in the 1990s about a New World Order was based on this analysis. This is the point that prophets understand better than most. It is here that the sacred transcends the secular. Prophetic prescriptions are radical-they go to the root of the problem but they also bring improvements across all of Waltz' three levels. Only when individuals understand the blessings of the Atonement "within the context of a community founded on apostolic authority" will there be a lasting peace. 4S Submission to Christ is a first, second, and third level act.
Conclusion Both the predominance of scriptural analyses about the causes of war and most general authority statements take a position that Waltz would identify as first level optimist. That is, war is caused by defects in the human condition, but these defects can and should be changed. The prevailing thrust of LDS analysis is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only medium than can make a lasting change. If the very ambiguous term "human nature" can be construed to mean what the Book of Mormon talks about when it refers to the natural man, then at least that record is quite clear on this point. 46 "The natural man is an enemy to God, [that is, he is "carnal, sensual, and devilish"], ... and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to enticings of the Holy Spirit" (Mosiah 3: 19). What the Book of Mormon calls the "wonderful conversion" of Ammon illustrates this potential. If we are to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16), it is of some importance that the causes of war be understood as clearly as possible .and that appropriate prescriptions for peace be proclaimed. That it will take too long or that it is too difficult to convert the minds of all men is not an acceptable objection. We ought to pursue what is scripturally sound whether or not it fits within man's finite timetable. The task of the Church is clear: continue to preach the Gospel of the message of peace. When all are truly converted to Christ,
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peace will prevail. But it is equally clear that this is a very protracted process, perhaps a neverending one. In the meantime, the drama of international politics will continue-and wars will occur. Those who are converted will find peace even in the midst of conflict. But the task of the state is also very clear. All states must pursue policies that will protect the basic freedoms and liberties of their citizens. "Bad" states (those which pursue power for the sake of power and gain) hopefully will become more enlightened, and the ambiguities of the international system perhaps will be vitiated by a strengthened rule of law and by improved diplomatic methods. Out of the upheaval brought on by the demise of communism and the increasing integration of international economies, it is possible to see the current time as one of transition-hopefully into a time of greater respect for human rights and a greater respect for the rule of law between nations. To use Waltz ian terminology, while the problem of war ultimately is amenable only to first level solutions, in the meantime, an anarchic interstate system inhabited by states proclaiming widely diverse ideologies and belief systems requires governments to pursue second and third level solutions. While the Church is obliged to pursue policies that hope only for ultimate success, the state, despite temporary successes, must pursue policies which ultimately will fail. International peace depends, thus, on moderate states both pursuing prudent diplomacy and encouraging personal virtue. NOTES 1. See Knutsen, Torbjem L. A History of International Relations Theory, 2d ed., Manchester, Manchester University Press, )997, and Quincy Wright, The Study of International Relations, New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1955, respectively, for a recent and an older treatment of tbe development of the discipline. One of the better recent summaries of the literature on the causes of war is Michael E. Brown and others, Theories of War and Peace: An International Security Reader, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1998. Other useful works are Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, New York, The Free Press, 1973, Dean G. Pruitt and Richard C. Snyder, Theory and Research on the Causes of War, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hail, 1969, and Keith L. Nelson and Spencer C. Olin, Jr. Why War?: Ideology, Theory, and History, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1979. 2. 'The Justice of States," in Perspectives in Mormon Ethics, ed. Donald G. Hill, Jr., Provo, Utah, Publishers Press, p. 163, 1983. 3. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. A Lasting Peace and the State of War, trans. and ed. C. E. Vaughan, New Haven, Connecticut, Whitlocks, Inc. n.d., pp. 126-27. 4. War as history ranges from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, to the most recent history of U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf. War as strategy spans an equally long period of time-from Niccolo Machiavelli, The Art of War, 1520, through Carl von Clausewitz, On War, 1833, to Mao Tse-Tung, On the Protracted War, 1952. 5. See, for example, Quincy Wright's two volume A Study of War, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1942. 6. "The Level-of-Analysis Problem in International Relations," pp. 77-92.
7. Russett, Bruce, Harvey Starr, and David Kinsella, World Politics: The Menu for Choice, 7th ed., Belmont, CA, Wadsworth Publishing, 2002. 8. Niebuhr, Reinhold. Beyond Tragedy, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, p. 158, 1939. 9. Morgenthau, Hans J. Scientific Man vs. Power Politics, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 194-95, 1946. 10. Ethologists are scientists who study the behavior of animals in their natural habitat. For some of the earliest and most scholarly works in support of this thesis, see Kourad Lorenz,
"FROM WHENCE COME WARS AND fIGHTINGS AMONG YOU?": AN INTEGRATION OF SECULAR AND SACRED
King Solomon s Ring, New York, Crowell, 1952, and On Aggression, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966. For a more popular work see Robert Ardrey, The Territorial Imperative: A Personal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Property and Nations, New York, Atheneum, 1966. For perhaps the best (certainly the most lengthy) critical review of this general philosophical position, see Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
11. Carrighar, Sally. "War Is Not In Our Genes," New York Times Magazine, p. 74,10 September 1962. 12. Greene's The Power of the Glory, New York, Viking Press, 1946, and The Heart of the Matter, New York, Viking Press, 1948, are well known; however, almost any Greene novel will do. For a general discussion of this point, see Anthony Burgess, "Politics in the Novels of Graham Greene," ed. Walter Laqueur and George L. Masse, Politics and Literature, New York, Harper and Row, pp. 92-8, 1967. 13. Mead, Margaret. "Warfare Is Only an Invention-Not a Biological Necessity," Asia, 40 No.4, pp. 402-05, 1940. Mead's title for this article was but a paraphrase of a statement made by Jose Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt afthe Masses published ten years before Mead's. Gasset said, "War is not an instinct but an invention." The American edition was published in New York by W. W. Norton in 1960. The quotation is in the epilogue. 14. Why Nations Go To War, 7th ed., New York, St. Martin's Press, p. 207, 1998. 15. See Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Co., 1940, for what, in our judgment, is still the best account of the rise of European socialism.
16. This theme is developed by V. I. Lenin in Imperialism as the Highest State of Capitalism published in 1915 but available in a variety of editions. 17. Stanley Hoffmann's discussion of Rousseau and Hobbes in Chapter 3, "Rousseau on War and Peace," of The State of War, pp. 54-87 is superlative. 18. Albert Einstein as told to Raymond Swing, "Einstein on the Atomic Bomb," Atlantic Monthly 176, p.43, November 1945. 19. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization, War and Death, ed. John Rickman, London; The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1952, cited by Waltz, Man, the State, and War, p. 187. 20. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, p. 160. 21. We are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for this point. 22. Waltz does not acknowledge this, but Hoffmann discusses it in The State of War, pp. 61-5. 23. We did not perform this extended analysis for several reasons: 1) Initial observations suggested that the results would be essentially the same, 2) It confused the matter in some respects since "violence" and "conflict" appear many more times in reference to interpersonal relations rather than interstate relations, and 3) The breadth of the inquiry would have been beyond our time limitations. While this does eliminate some insightful uses of the idea of the sources of war from the scriptures, it also prevents clouding the issue with some statements that are focused purely on interpersonal relations. For example, of the sixty-six references to "violence" in the Standard Works, none reveal the causes of violence and several talk about idiosyncratic violence (violent theft in Leviticus 6:2; violence to strangers in Jeremiah 22:3; family violence in Zephaniah 1:9; and the violence of waves in Acts 27:41). 24. The one Book of Monnon reference we have classified as third level, 3 Nephi 7:14, is a perfect illustration that, in reality, the roots of war twist through each level. It talks quite clearly of the problem created by anarchy, it makes a clear point that the tribes had different forms of goverrunent, and it concludes by noting that the people had rejected the prophets and fallen into personal sin. 25. In order to capture a comparable range of authoritative statements through the entirety of the Church's history, we relied on Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith and Journal of Discourses
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to account for the years preceding the commencement of Conference Report Coverage at the end of the 19th century. Note that this survey did not capture the more recent addresses given by President Hinckley. 26. Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News Press, pp. 199-200, 1954.
27. Conference Report [hereafter cited as CR], p. 92, April 1951. 28. Kimball, Spencer W. CR, p. 7, October 1977. 29. "Greetings from the First Presidency," Improvement Era, 46, pp. 10-11, January 1943. 30. McConkie, Bruce R. A New Witness/or the Articles of Faith, Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret Book Company, pp. 376-77, 1985. 31. Smith, George A. CR, p. 377, April 1916. 32. Widtsoe, John A. "Foundations of Peace," Improvement Era, 43, p. 125, February 1940.
33. CR, p. 59, October 1998. Morgenthau's thesis is found in his Politics Among Nations, New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1956, passim.
34. See the Improvement Era, 46, pp. 10-11, January 1943. 35. Rather than list all of the various participants in this debate, most (both pro and con), if not all, are discussed or referred to in the excellent collection by Brown and others (eds.) Theories of War and Peace, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1998, Part II. 36. Ensign, pp. 3-6 (quotation is on p. 6), June 1976.
37. CR, p. 71, April 1942.
38. CR, p. 72, April 1959. 39. CR, p. 5, April 1950.
40. McKay, David O. Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret News Press, p. 304, 1955. 41. McKay, Gospel Ideals, p. 304. 42. Smith, Joseph, Jr. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 250-51. 43. For a fascinating set of journal entries that range from first level, through second level, and into third level analyses, see John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, Salt Lake City, Utah, Deseret Book Co., pp. 298-305,1943.
44. See the excellent publication resulting from a conference on this very topic, Valerie M. Hudson and Kerry M. Kartchner (eds.), Moral Perspectives on Us. Security: Viewsfrom the LDS Community, Provo, Utah, David M. Kennedy Center Publications, 1993. 45. We are indebted to an anonymous reviewer for these words. 46. See Ether 3:2, Alma 19:6, 26:21,41:11, Mosiah 3:16-19; and 16:1-5. See also Louis C. Midgley's excellent discussion, Beyond Human Nature, Provo, Utah, Brigham Young University Press, 1968.
p
Part III Is Just War Compatible with LDS Theology? Competing Viewpoints 7
YES The Book of Mormon as a Touchstone for Evaluating the Theory of Just War Lieutenant Colonel John Mark Mattox! The decision to go to war is, of course, the gravest of all political decisions. Cognizant of the horror and destruction that inevitably attends war, thoughtful persons throughout many ages have sought to identify principles to adjudicate whether military force might justly be applied to resolve international disputes, and if so, how and to what extent. The sum total of these principles, namely, the "just war tradition," goes back in secular history at least as far as Plato and Cicero; is elaborated in a Christian context in the works of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and others; and now serves as the ' philosophical basis for most international laws respecting warfare. The genealogy of the just war tradition-coupled with the fact that the tradition reached its highest development in the period between the end of the Meridian Gospel Dispensation and the beginning of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times-is particularly significant for Latter-day Saints. This is so because it means that evaluations of the justice of modern wars are made, particularly in the West, on the basis of principles that come to us from the writings of enlightened pagans and scholastic churchmen of the post-apostolic era, none of whom-sincere though they may have been-lay any particular claim to revelation. Hence, it is not inappropriate for Latterday Saints to consider critically the place that the just war tradition ought to occupy in their world view. Historically, the Christian world has sought to derive, and thus justify, just war to the Bible, with mixed results. In the extreme case, some principles by {r;_·l!lli!~.r:~!Q:QC1.:,~~e Old Testament to justify practically unbounded applications of violence and the New Testament to justify no violence at alP Providentially-as is the case with so many issues that the world at large fmds impossibly perplexing-Latterday Saints can appeal to the great clarifier of the Bible, The Book of Mormon, as a touchstone for drawing important conclusions about theory of just war. Indeed, I wish to defend the thesis that The ,Book of Mormon an extraordinary basis for
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assessing the place that the theory of just war might appropriately occupy for Latterday Saints as they grapple with the profoundly difficult question of how the nation of which they are citizens can justify going to war and of how an ostensibly just war ought to be conducted. Anthropologist John L. Sorenson has identified at least eighty-five instances of war in The Book of Mormon. 3 Of that number, we find a set of conflicts-twenty-eight by Sorenson's count--conducted during the career of Captain Moroni. Taken collecwar theory. Indeed, it is a tively, these wars constitute a remarkable case study case study unparalleled in sacred history. Of equally important note, it seems clear that Captain Moroni's conduct stands as a fit standard which to judge matters of military ethics. As Mormon comments, "if all men had were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men" (Alma 48: 17). In the light of this endorsement, I propose the methodology: -First, I shall outline briefly the theory of just war. -Second, I shall consider how each principle of the theory of just war is illustrated in the career of Captain Moroni-first, in his decisions to apply military force, and then, in his decisions on how to apply it. -Finally, I shall conclude with some observations on how we might follow Nephi's counsel and liken this aspect of the scriptural record to ourselves and our circumstances as pertaining to the theory of just war (1 Nephi 19:23).
The Philosophical Foundations for the Theory of Just War Given the question, "Is the resort to war ever justifiable?", if one answers "no," one is, by definition, some variety of pacifist If one answers " one invites another question: "Are there limitations on how military force can be applied?" If one answers "no," one is, by definition, some variety of a so-called "military realist." If one answers "yes," one invites still another question: "Does it matter whether a given war, or the way in which the war is fought, is just?" If one answers "no," one is, by definition, some variety of a so-called "moral realist." If one answers "yes," one probably embraces the general outlines of just war theory. This theory rests on two claims: first, that in a perfect world, there would be no war, and second, that since this is not-and as long as the present order of things remains, will not be--a perfect world, such wars as do get fought should be just both in their inception and in their conduct. The latter claim serves as the basis for the fundamental theoretical distinction observed by the theory: the distinction between what traditionally is called jus ad bellum andjus in bello. Jus ad bellum, or "the justice of war," specifies those criteria that define the right of one state to engage in violent action another. In contrast, jus in bello, or "justice in war," specifies the moral limits of military action. That is, the jus in bello component of the just war tradition stands as witness to the claim that "it is not pennitted to employ unjust means in order to win even a j!!~t war. »4 The traditional list of jus ad bellum and jus in bello criteria varies in minor degree from author to author. 5 The reason for this is not so much one of disagreement as to what, in the case of jus ad bellum, constitutes a just war or as to what, in the case of jus in bello, counts as the minimally acceptable standards of conduct for those engaged in war, as it is one of presentation. Some authors opt for a larger list of very specific
YES-THE BOOK OF MORMON AS
A TOUCHSTONE FOR EVALUATING THE THEORY OF JUST
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while others opt for a smaller list of more general criteria. This presentation distinguishes nine jus ad bellum criteria as follows: 1. Just cause 2. Comparative justice 3. Right intention 4. Competent authority 5. Last resort 6. Public declaration 7. Reasonable probability of success 8. Proportionality 9. Peace as the ultimate objective of war
In what follows, I shall consider each criterion in tum, both in the light of the Western philosophical tradition war and in the specific context of Mormon's account of the late first-century B.C. Nephite-Lamanite War.
Jus ad Bellum 1. Just Cause. The claim that there exists a just cause to go to war (jus ad bellum principle # 1) implies that at least one party to the conflict has undertaken, or threatened to undertake, violent action for reasons. Traditionally, just reasons to go to war have included the defense of the innocent against armed attack, the recovery or property wrongly taken, or the punishment of eviL Mannon takes great pains to assure his readers that, throughout Moroni's career, his antagonists are the unjust actors. We first encounter Zarahemnah whose objective, according to Mormon, is "to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites; this he did that he might usurp great power over them, and also that he might power over the Nephites by bringing them into bondage" (Alma 43:8). A later antagonist, Amalickiah, is identified as being "determined . . . to overpower the N ephites and to bring them into bondage" (Alma 48:4). In stark contrast, Mormon informs us that "the design of the Nephites" is incontrovertibly just: it is "to support their lands, and their houses, and their wives, and their children, that they might preserve them from the hands of their enemies; and also that they might preserve their rights and their privileges, yea, and also their liberty, that they might worship God according to their Moroni's reckoning, if there be any grounds at all upon which desires" (Alma 43:9). military action is justifiable, it is on the basis of defending those things just named, which Moroni later will memorialize on his title of liberty (Alma 46: 12). 2. Comparative Justice. The idea of "comparative justice" (jus ad bellum principle #2) is closely related to that of just cause. The theory of just war rests on the assumption that, although war exists as a morally permissible possibility, there also exists a strongprimajacie presumption against the resort to war as a means to resolve international disputes. Thus, comparative justice requires, in addition to a state's having a just cause for the prosecution of war-a position which both parties in a dispute are likely to claim-that the offense against the aggrieved party must be of such magnitudt:.J4<'lt :th~P~_~.!Ap!ion against war is overridden; and in any case, the cause for which one claims to must be more just than the cause of one's adversary. Mormon argues not only for the justice of :Moroni's cause, but also for its comparative justice. He states, "The Nephites were inspired by a better cause [that is to say, for they were not fighta cause comparatively more just than that of their nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, ing for
their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church" (Alma 43:45). Indeed, he argues that the comparative justice of their cause is underwritten by the conviction that their defensive warfare constitutes a "duty which they owed to their God" (Alma 43:46). Neither Mormon nor Moroni claims perfection for the Nephites. Perhaps, from the Lamanite perspective, there were over time real or perceived Nephite offenses against the Lamanites not recorded in The Book of Mormon. However, whatever such surmised offenses may have been given or received, neither Mormon nor Moroni assesses them to be of such magnitude as to justify the Lamanite resort to war. 3. Right Intention. The principle that men are judged by their intentions is deeply embedded in Mormon's record. 6 Indeed, Mormon teaches that if one offers a gift or prays or does any other ostensibly righteous thing without the right intent, "it profiteth him nothing" (Moroni 7:6-8). Not surprisingly therefore, Mormon takes very seriously the matter of right intention (jus ad bellum principle #3) as it applies to war. Mormon clearly states that: "Moroni knew the intention of the Lamanit~s, that it was their intention to destroy their brethren, or to subj ect them and bring them into bondage that they might establish a kingdom unto themselves over all the land"-clearly a morally deficient intention (Alma 43:30). In contrast, Mormon points out that Moroni also knew that "it was the only desire of the N ephites to preserve their lands, and their liberty, and their church" (Alma 43:30)-the preservation of which values and institutions enjoys well established recognition as a just cause. However, Mormon does not stop here. In addition to providing his own editorial evaluation ofNephite intentions, he notes Moroni's own acute awareness of the critical role that right intentions play in the decision to go to war. Moroni's face-to-face encounter with Zarahernnah begins with Moroni's claim of right intention on the part of the Nephites: "And Moroni said unto Zarahernnah: Behold, Zarahernnah, we [the Nephites] do not desire to be men of blood. Ye know that ye are in our hands, yet we do not desire to slay you. Behold, we have not come out to battle against you that we might shed your blood for power; neither do we desire to bring anyone to the yoke of bondage" (Alma 44:1,2). However, as Moroni hastens to point out, "this is the very cause for which ye [the Lamanites] have come against us; yea, and ye are angry with us because of our religion" (Alma 44:2). Moroni's point is clear: whatever external appearance of moral high ground his enemies might seek to claim, that claim is rendered invalid by the internal reality that they have come against Moroni and the Nephites for the wrong reasons. 4. Competent Authority. The decision to go to war can be weighed or declared only by one who, by virtue of position within the social framework, is recognized generally as possessing authority to make such a declaration (jus ad bellum principle #4). Whether the political arrangement of the Nephites in the first century B.C. included the strict subordination of military authority to civil authority as is the case in contemporary Western democracies is not entirely clear. However, it seems clear that the military was not merely the "government in uniform;" that is to say, that the political and military apparatuses appear to have be~J?.. generally distinct institutions7 (although ~ ~e.rtain respects, they may have been viewed as co-equal insufiinons within their separate spheres of activity). If so, then Captain Moroni, by virtue of his position as dUlyappointed chief captain of the Nephites (AIffia 43:16), having received that appointment from both "the chief judges and the voice of the people" (Alma 46:34), surely was recognized by the Nephites to possess the authority to declare and wage war on their behalf.
>
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YES-THE BOOK OF MORMON AS A TOUCHSTONE FOR EVALUAIT\'G THE THEORY OF J UST WAR 61
In any case, Mormon certainly does not characterize Moroni as a usurper or give us any reason to doubt Moroni's right to declare war or conclude peace on behalf of the Nephites. Indeed, Mormon elsewhere informs us that "it was the custom among all the Nephites to appoint for their chief captains (save it were in their times of wickedness) some one that had the spirit of revelation and also prophecy" (3 Nephi 3: 19). To the extent that this point, made later in the record, can be applied to Moroni, 8 he may be held to have possessed divine warrant to function in what sometimes has been thought of in the West as the role of God's duly-authorized "lieutenant" on earth as pertaining to the war-making power. 5. Last Resort. Both Nephite practice and the just war tradition regard evenjustified war as a measure of last resort (jus ad bellum principle #5). Mormon states that "the Nephites were taught ... never to give an offense, yea, never to raise the sword except it were to preserve their lives" (Alma 48:14). Their observance of this ideal had the force of religious obligation; for, it was the faith of the Nephites that by so doing-provided their lives were otherwise in harmony with the divine will-"God would prosper them in the land ... yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger" (Alma 48: 15). It is instructive to note that the Nephites of Moroni's day understood that God might direct them to flee rather than to fight. Hence, it seems fair to conclude that they understood the divine warrant to fight-as communicated by their inspired military leader-to satisfy the requirement that their entry into war constitute an act oflast resort. Certainly, such a warrant would obviate the need for further justification. In any case, the record provides no indication that Moroni was anything but hesitant to enter into combat until such entry became unavoidable. 6. Public Declaration. It has long been regarded that, in order to demonstrate that a war truly is the last means available for the resolution of international disputes, the war must be one that the war-making authority is willing publicly to declare (jus ad bellum principle #6). Mormon's abridged history does not include explicit reference to an initial public declaration of hostilities by Moroni prior to engagement in battle; but then again, since the Nephites were fighting defensively and in reaction to Lamanite aggression, there is no reason to expect that they would observe this formality. Nevertheless, it is equally important to note that the need for Moroni to justify his actions in a public forum and to put his enemies on public notice is something that he takes very seriously. Throughout his military career, Moroni is very public in his warnings as to the consequences that surely will follow if war, or its continuation, cannot be avoided. For example, he writes to Ammoron, "And behold, if ye do not this [i.e., exchange prisoners in accordance with Moroni's demand], I will come against you with my armies; yea, even I will arm my women and my childreri, and I will come against you, and I will follow you even into your own land, ... yea, and it shall be blood for blood, yea, life for life; and I will give you battle even until you are destroyed from off the face of the earth" (Alma 54: 12). Although this particular ultimatum appears after Moroni has been at war for many years, the whole tenor of Mormon's account suggests that Moroni always served notice to his enemies (except in the case of morally permissible-stratagems9Yat the earliest possible opportunity. 7. Reasonable Chance of Success. Wars that present little or no hope of serving as vehicles for obtaining satisfaction for just grievances traditionally have not been considered morally justifiable; for a war to be just, there must be a reasonable chance that the righteous aims for which the war is fought can be accomplished (jus ad bellum
principle #7). In the light of this principle, Moroni demonstrates himselfto be a man of extraordinary faith and hope; he considers that, as long as the N ephites are faithful in observing the commandments of God, they cannot fail to conquer: "But now, ye behold that the Lord is with us .... And I would that ye should understand that this is done unto us because of our religion and our faith in Christ. And now ye see that ye cannot destroy this our faith .... God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith" (Alma 44:3,4). On the basis of this Divine undernTiting, Moroni only can conclude that his just engagement in this war with the Lamanites will end on terms favorable to the Nephites, or at least produce a result in keeping with the Divine economy. 8. Proportionality. A just war, the tradition holds, is one in which the moral good expected to result from the prosecution of the war exceeds the amount of evil that naturally and unavoidably results (jus ad bellum principle #8). Although Moroni approaches war mournfully-"sorry to be the means of sending so many of [his] brethren out of this world into an eternal world, unprepared to meet their God" (Alma 48:23)-still he considers his action to be a proportional response to the Nephites' laying down their lives and being "massacred by the barbarous cruelty of those who were once their brethren" (Alma 48:24). He wages war as a "duty ... owed to ... God" (Alma 43:46). Since he takes care to ensure that his people are guilty of neither the first nor even the second offense and that the likely alternative is "death at the hands of [their} enemies" (Alma 43:46), he regards that the decision to go to war falls easily within the requisite bounds of proportionality. 9. Peace as the Object of War. The restoration of happiness and the avoidance of future violence-in short, peace-must be the er.d for which just wars are to be fought (jus ad bellum principle #9). Thus, the determination to wage wars of attrition, demands for unconditional surrender, etc., generally are incompatible with the idea that peace should be concluded as quickly as it properly can. That does not mean that one should feel morally obligated to accept offers of peace that are not coupled with genuine conflict resolution measures, but it does mean that sincere and diligent efforts must be made to effect a just and lasting peace settlement at the earliest possible opportunity. Such is Moroni's continual disposition; he always is willing to terminate the conflict as soon as acceptable terms can be concluded. 10 After Zerahernnah falls into Moroni's hands, Moroni informs Zerahemnah that on condition of his accepting an offer of peace and of covenanting to surrender arms and never to come to war again against the Nephites, he will spare the lives of his forces; for, he does not seek their blood (Alma 44:6). Even after Zerahernnah's subsequent attack on Moroni's person, Moroni is willing to allow Zerabemnah to enter into a covenant of peace, whereupon Zerahernnah is "suffered to depart into the wilderness"36 without threat of further harm. Jus in Bello We ~ now to a discus~~?n of those moral criteria traditionally considered to circumscribe the just conduct ofajust war. The fundamental-assumption of/us tn-bello, or justice in war, is that a war that is initiated on just grounds can cease to be a just war if it is not fought in a just manner. Traditionally, two principles specify the criteria for jus in bello. These principles define the just application of force within the context of an existing conflict:
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YES-THE BOOK OF MORMO:\' AS A TOUCHSTON3 FOR EVALUATING THE THEORY
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1. Proportionality. In the present context, proportionality (jus in bello principle #1) has a slightly different meaning than it does in the context of jus ad bellum. Here it refers to the requirement to apply the minirr.um force necessary, consistent with military necessity!1, for bringing the conflict to a justly peaceful resolution as quickly as possible. Means that cause gratuitous suffering or otherwise cause unnecessary harm fall outside the scope of that considered to be a proportional application of force. In a battle with the armies of Jacob the Zoramite, when it becomes apparent to Moroni that the battle is a rout in favor of the Nephites, Moroni announces to his enemy, "If ye will bring forth your weapons of war and deliver them up, behold we will forbear shedding your blood" (Alma 52:37). Moroni's aim is to exert only that amount of force necessary to effect the submission of the enemy-not to annihilate him. Indeed, even those who surrender but will not lay down their weapons of war are not slain; they merely are taken prisoner (Alma 52:39). Earlier in the conflict, Moroni stops an intense battle when he sees that the men of his opponent Zerahemnah are terrified, and he offers terms of peace (Alma 43:53,54). Even when, during negotiations, Zerahemnah attempts to kill Moroni, Moroni does not require that Zerahernnah be slain (Alma 44: 12). 2. Discrimination. Thejus in bello principle #2, discrimination, enjoins upon belligerent parties to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants with the former normally constituting the only acceptable objects of violent action. Non-combatants traditionally include unarmed civilians, women and children, the aged, the infirm, clerics, or those whose purpose on the battlefield is strictly humanitarian in nature. Moroni's sensitivity to the imperative to observe this principle is clear: ''there was not a woman nor child among all the prisoners of Moroni, or the prisoners whom Moroni had taken" (Alma 54:3). One likewise finds Moroni effectively according non-combatant status to all enemy forces that will cease hostile actions, surrender their weapons, and enter into a covenant of peace. Even when he captures numerous Lamanites by stratagem and could have killed them in their defenseless state, he accords recognition of their non-combatancy and merely takes them prisoners (Alma 55 :22-25). 3. Good Faith. To these two principles ofjus in bello might be added a third principle, namely, good faith in all transactions with the enemy. Even in warfare~ Moroni never breaks an oath he has sworn, not even to his enemies. He never violates a treaty obligation. When he undertakes tactical deceptions, he does so only within the accepted and universally recognized social context for operations in war. This is unambiguously evidenced by the fact that he consciously and conscientiously weighs the propriety of stratagems before undertaking them. 12
Conclusion In addition to the value of this inquiry as a purely intellectual exercise, we also might ask what it means for Latter-day Saints. May I suggest two possible conclusions: First, in a society that recognizes a sharp division between church and state, the church doesnotwage'war and cannot be expected, in its institutional capacity, to justify war as a means for resolving international disputesY However, in a pluralistic society in which the church's members are called upon to be both saint and citizen, rendering due obedience both to Caesar and to God, one can and should proclaim peace 14 and at the same time recognize circ1ll1lstances in which war might justifiably be fought. Do
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such circumstances exist today? I believe it is clear that they do. President Ezra Taft Benson l5 , President Harold B. Lee l6 , and President David O. McKay17 are among the latter-day luminaries who have counselled against the philosophy of "peace at any price." Moreover, as President Gordon B. Hinckley reminded us, some things are worth for. President Hinckley, citing the same experiences of Captain Moroni that are central to the present inquiry, states: "It is clear from these and other writings that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppres~ sion."18 Indeed, some wars are just. Second, it is nothing less than remarkable that the Lord would inspire His prophet~ historian-army general Mormon to occupy the precious space on the plates with a lengthy and detailed account of a man whose career constitutes the most compre~ hensive case study on just war contained in holy writ. In that case study, we fmd that Captain Moroni, a man of undisputed integrity and virtue, takes full account of the kind of concerns that typify, and are embodied in, the just war tradition--even though that tradition has come down to the Western world through an altogether separate cultural evolution. The message for us as students of both the sacred and the secular would seem to be that we too should take note of this important philosophical tradition and the issues that it identifies. The Latter-day quest for truth embraces truth wherever it is found, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ comprehends all truth. As it is our lot to live in the long-prophesied age of "wars and rumours of wars" (Matthew 24:6), it seems clear that the rich reservoir of revelatory guidance in The Book of Mormon on the matter of war has come to us by Divine design. In its role as a vehicle for reflection upon war in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, The Book of Mormon highlights principles that form a striking parallel with those encompassed by the theory of just war. In no sense does The Book of Mormon commend war as the means for resolving disputes-far from it. Nevertheless, it also acknowledges what presently appears to be the inescapable reality that not even just persons will be spared the decision of whether to go to war. In the light of that reality, it is possible to view The Book of Mormon as an endorsement of the claim that the theoretic framework found in the just war tradition is not without utility to those informed with knowledge of the Gospel and intent on minimizing the evils of war in a world where, for the present, those evils pervade. NOTES
1. All views expressed herein are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of any agency of the United States Government or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
2. Compare, for example, Tertullian, On Idolatry, translated by S. Thelwall, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Vo1. III. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950, and Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichrean [Contra Faustum Manichceum, Libri .xxxIIJ), translated by Richard Stothert, in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathersr_edited by Philip Schaff, .Eirst Series. Vol. IV., Grand_Rapids, Eerdmans P.ublishing Company, 1956. For Augustine, the wars of the Old Testament are evidence of God's chastening hand in the affairs of men-a chastening hand that continues to be recognizable in the wars of the "Christian era," Tertullian, on the other hand, considers the New Testament teachings altogether to supercede those of the Old, such that he finds it impossible to justify participation in war by Christians.
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YES-THE BOOK OF MOR..\10N AS A TOUCHSTONE FOR EVALUATING THE THEORY OF JUST WAR
3. Sorenson, John L. "Seasonality of Warfare in the Book of Mormon and in Mesoamerica," Warfare in The Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin, Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Company, 1990. 4. Richard Shelley Hartigan, "Non-combatant Immunity: Reflections on its Origins and Present Status." The Review of Politics 29, No.2, p. 204, April 1967. 5. For examples of some representative lists of jus ad bellum criteria, see the May 3, 1983, Pastoral Letter on War and Peace issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Catholics and Nuclear War, ed. Philip 1. Mumion, New York, Crossroad Publishing Company, pp. 277-80, 1983. See also James Turner Johnson, "The Just War Idea and the Ethics of Intervention," address delivered at the United States Air Force Academy, 17 November 1993, The Joseph A. Reich, Sr., Distinguished Lecture on War, Morality, and the Military Profession, number six, Colorado Springs, United States Air Force Academy, pp. 22-25, 1993. Some authors are wont to combine two or more traditionally accepted just war notions under a rather more general heading, while others opt for a greater range of distinctions. (In this essay, I shall tend to the latter approach inasmuch as it will enable us to examine the specific details of the theory of just war with a much higher degree of resolution than otherwise would be possible.) 6. See, for example, 2 Nephi 31:13, Jacob 2: 19,4:5, Mosiah 5:13, and Alma 18:32. 7. On this point, Moroni's epistle to Pahoran (Alma 60) is instructive. Moroni gives tacit acknowledgement ofPahoran's status as head of government by requesting that he exert his influence to ensure the logistical provision of Moroni's armies. However, Moroni also threatens to intervene in the political affairs of government if aid is not forthcoming. Both of these facts suggest that, whatever the relation between the military and political entities of the state, distinctions between them were such that one might safely conclude that the Ne;phites were not typically subject to a "military government" or under what might be thought of today as martial law. See also John W. Welch, "Law and War in the Book ofMorrnon," Warfare in The Book of Mormon, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin, Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Company, 1990. 8. This seems altogether reasonable in the light of Monnon's assessment that "there never was a happier time among the people of Nephi ... than in the days of Moroni" (Alma 50:23). Inasmuch as Mormon's record tends to equate true happiness and true righteousness (see, for example, Alma 41: I 0), Moroni's day certainly does not seem to qualify as a time of wickedness in the context required by 3 Nephi 3:19. 9. See, for example, Alma 43:30. 10. See, for example, Alma 44:1-1L 11. In modem parlance, "military necessity" is considered to be "that principle which justifies those measures not forbidden by intemationallaw which are indispensable for securing the complete submission of the enemy as soon as possible. Military necessity has been generally rejected as a defense for acts forbidden by the customary and conventional laws of war inasmuch as the latter have been developed and framed with consideration for the concept of military necessity." See The Law of Land Warfare, Department of the Amy Field Manual 27-10, Washington, Government Printing Office, p. 4, July 1956. This general understanding of military necessity can be applied to the case of the Nephite-Lamanite War by embracing the realization that the genuine force of the concept relies on timeless moral principle rather than on the specific demands of any particular codification of secular law. 12. For an extensive treatment of the claim that tactical military deception can be used with moral warrant, see "The Moral Limits of Military Deception," Journal of Military Ethics. Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. +-T5;-2002;-bTthe present author. 13. "Message of the First Presidency," Improvement Era 45, p. 348, May 1942. 14. See, for example, Mosiah 15:15-17.
15. Elder Ezra Taft Benson, Conference Report, April, pp. 49-54, 1968. 16. Harold B. Lee, Ye are the Light of the World. chapter 28.
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17. President David O. McKay, Conference Report, April, pp. 24-28, 1955. t8. Gordon B. Hinckley, "War and Peace," General Conference, April 2003: Available online at http://wW'W.lds.org/conference/talk/disp lay/O,5232,23-1-3 53-27 ,OO.htmt.
8 NO Murder to Get Gain: LDS Thoughts on U.S. Elements of National Power Mark E. Henshaw Introduction Having toppled two regimes in two years with fairly minimal effort, the United States has chiseled its "hyperpower" status in stone. The stunning victory in the Iraq war has put to rest any questions about whether there is a "Pax Americana." That invasion, made over strenuous international opposition, was a de facto U.S. announcement that American moral values will dominate international diplomacy and that the U.S. will brook no challenges to its supremacy in either the military or diplomatic arenas. Having demonstrated that it can dominate international affairs so thoroughly despite significant opposition, the U.S. has reached that coveted level of influence where just threatening to exercise power is often as effective as the exercise of power itself Like a long lever, mere suggestions of U.S. foreign policy shifts are creating disproportionate effects over very large regions. This state of affairs, made even more obvious by the war, has revived arguments over when and how the military element of power should be used. Obviously, it must not be used callously as some critics have alleged the U.S. has now done. However, President Bush's new "pre-emptive strike" security strategy obviously-and perhaps properly-ignores some of the traditional 'Just war" criteria that might otherwise restrain that power. This situation is particularly problematic for us who, as members of the church, believe that there are eternal principles that govern every situation. We cannot argue that these circumstances justifY a "new morality" that can support pre-emptive strikes. Either gospel principles can support this strategy or they can't. Accordingly, I'm grateful to Drs. Hudson and Kartchner for convening this symposium. More so than at any time since the invention of nuclear weapons these circumstances call for an immediate resumption of the 'Just war" debate.
The Need for "Just Diplomacy" and "Just Economics" However, we LDS scholars should recognize that while the 'Just war" debate is an important discussion to have, there is a wider issue to be considered in parallel. The diplomatic wrangling that preceded the Iraq conflict could illuminate a point that many people seem to be trying to ignore: that the other elements of power (i.e., diplomatic, economic) can be abused just as badly as military power and with equally lethal results. So the best way to solve the "just war" dilemma is to pre-empt war altogether but that's not possible if there are no "just diplomacy" and "just economics" lUles in place. "Just war" doesn't even come into play until diplomatic and economic maneuvers fail,
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and yet we have no diplomatic or economic criteria comparable to the Aquinas rules against which we judge other nations' actions. At present, only military power has true quasi-legal limits on its use. For non-military elements of national power anything goes, even though their abuse can lead to equally lethal results. In short, if there are accepted moral rules governing one element of national power, it seems logical that there should be similar accepted rules governing the others. The Gospel supports this view~ur behavior must be consistently Christlike in all its aspects. It is the height of hypocrisy-a sin the Lord absolutely abhors-if we behave like rogues in our dealings with others and then invoke moral strictures against violence in our own defense when someone takes offense at our behavior. This was demonstrated alternately by the heavy-handed French maneuvering and U.S.-U.K. obstinance in the UN Security Council (UNSC) debate over Resolution 1441. Somebody stepped over a moral line somewhere. The resulting war was either "just" or it wasn't, so somebody was on the wrong side of both the diplomatic and military divides (my money is on the French and their allies). There has been subsequent "moral outrage" surrounding the French veto threats, but it has been based on emotion and not any legal or ethical set of criteria that I'm familiar with. There's been much talk about ingratitude and backs tabbing but none about the violation of any code of ethics. A "just diplomacy" tradition might have forced one of our obstinate nations to accept a solution short of war. A "just economics" tradition might have prevented the violation of UN sanctions that bolstered Saddam and convinced him that he had no friends who would provide cover for diplomatic games. The affair proved that there is still a live schism between Wilsonian foreign policy idealists and practitioners of European old-style power politics. UN member states are implicitly required to follow Wilsonian ideals-the UN charter is based on them. However, the French attempt to confound U.S. demands for implementation of UNSC resolution 1441 was the starkest example of "power politics" diplomacy seen in decades at such a high level. The French claimed a moral opposition to the U.S.fUK position, but it is now generally accepted that the French were either covering up past sins- violations of UN sanctions levied against Iraq~r trying to create a French-led European Union counterbalance to the U.S., and quite likely both. (The fact that success in that effort would have left a tyrant in place, probably holding weapons of mass destruction, largely seems lost on the French and their allies.) This lack of concern for the condition of the Iraqi people speaks to the need for diplomatic and economic codes of ethics, with success measured by quantifiable results and not the meaningless metrics of "unanimity" or "coalition building." It is telling that many U.S. war critics fretted that "we shouldn't go it alone" (which we never did) although everyone conceded from the outset that Saddam's atrocities were ongoing and unspeakable, and that his ouster would leave the Iraqi people better off. The presence or absence of a coalition has never been proposed as a precondition for "just war" condition so it seems pointless to suggest that coalition building should be a metric for success when trying to use diplomatic or economic power to prevent war.
LDS Conflicts with the "Just War" Tradition Unfortunately, the great weakness of any proposed "just diplomacy" or "just economics" ideals and with the existing "just war ideals," is the often-subjective conception of "just." The divergent views on moral principles-or complete lack thereof--defin-
MURDER TO GET GAIN
ing "just" held by the world's various groups, Latter-day Saints included, practically guarantee that there will never be an agreement. We can see it within our own group; both the LDS perspective on U.S. history and the Book of Mormon provides examples that highlight potential failings in Aquinas' three "just war" rules: The war must be started and controlled by the authority of state or ruler. This has been historically interpreted to rule out civil war and rebellion. However, that interpretation would denounce the American Revolutionary War which was prophesied in the Book of Mormon and led to the formation of the United States, whose creation Latter-day Saints consider to have been divinely directed. l That inspired event demonstrated a moral principle not accepted in "just war" theory but codified in both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution: leaders who act like thugs towards their own people are illegitimate rulers and may be overthrown. Thomas Jefferson explained the idea clearly in the Declaration of Independence, saying: Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ... but when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is [mankind's] right, it is [mankind's] duty, to throw off such government. A just cause is required; namely that those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. Historical interpretations of this tend to agree that righting a wrong already committed is the primarily acceptable just cause. However, remember that the Gadianton robbers and the Lainanites each justified attempted overthrows ofthe Nephite civilization on false claims of righting a past injustice. 2 The Book of Mormon documents some vitriolic correspondence that Captain Moroni received from his Lamanite counterpart Ammoron discussing the cause of an ongoing war. Ammoron claimed: ... your fathers did wrong their brethren, insomuch that they did rob them of their right to the government when it rightly belonged unto them. And now behold, ifye will lay down your arms, and subject yourselves to be governed by those to whom the government doth rightly belong, then will I cause that my people shall lay down their weapons and shall be at war no more (Alma 54: 17-18). The claim was fallacious, as it presupposed that by separating themselves from Laman's family and forming their own government, Nephi's family had somehow stolen something from future generations of Lamanites. The Lamanites had no legitimate claim and Ammoron knew it- "Moroni ... knew that Ammoron knew that it was not a just cause that had caused him to wage a war. .. "-but it was a legal claim under this "just war" tradition. The belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. This is usually interpreted to mean that you can only fight for the reasons laid out in the "just cause" for the war. This is problematic because the idea of "rightful intention" is entirely subjective. In his own mind, Ammaron is justified his war by suggesting that imposing Lamanite rule over the Nephites would be a restoration of lost rights, which, on its face, would appear to be "rightful intention." Moroni, of course, raised the Title of Liberty, thereby making a public declaration of his rightful intention to preserve existing liberties (Alma 46:12). Both Captain Moroni and Ammaron were sufficiently convinced that their own cause was "just" that that they each told the other he was going to hell (Alma 54:4-24, with emphasis on verses 11,21-22):
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[Captain Moroni] Yea, I would tell you these things ifye were capable of hearkening unto them; yea, I would tell you concerning that awful hell that awaits to receive such murderers as thou and thy brother have been except ye repent and withdraw your murderous purposes, and return with your armies to your own lands (Alma 54:7). [Ammaron] ... if it so be that there is a devil and a hell, behold will he not send you there to dwell with my brother whom ye have murdered, whom ye have hinted that he hath gone to such a place? But behold, these things matter not (Alma 54:22).
We share Moroni's conception ofright and wrong and hence his justification for the war. No doubt that justification would have a different spin if the Lamanites had won the war and drafted the Book of Mormon. The victors really do write the history books.
Using the Gospel to Define "Just" This is not to say that these 'just war" rules are unhelpful. On the contrary, they often fulfill their purpose, but clearly we Latter-day Saints should not consider ourselves in total agreement with them all the time. Aquinas' and Wilson's principles are a fine start but without explicit gospel-based benchmarks that define 'just" underlying them, those principles will never hold up in all cases. We Latter-day Saints claim that the gospel is for all people, that its principles are applicable to everyone, regardless of culture or other factors, in all circumstances and at all times. The restored gospel, we believe, offers truth, which is defined as "knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come," and not some skewed mortal view of events (Doctrine and Covenants 93:24). God sees all things clearly where we cannot (we're only mortals after all), so only gospel principles based on revelation from Him can properly correct for our lack of omniscience and our mortal biases, derived from the natural man. Accordingly, I propose that the gospel must contain a definition of justice in the restored gospel that can act as that explicit moral benchmark. Any "just" traditions not based upon "justice" as defined by the principles of the restored gospel will inevitably come up against situations where those 'just" traditions will·fail to offer best guidance. Moreover, if we really want to fairly judge "just cause" claims, we must demand that they be based on current, observable violations of gospel values that can be quantified, recorded, and tested for truthfulness. Again, Jefferson summarized this idea in the Declaration of Independence: When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation .... The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
The rest of the declaration is a laundry list of King George's offenses against the colonies. Jefferson accepted John Locke's proposition that everyone has a divine right to "life, liberty, and property"3 and said that a published chronicle of the rights violations-tangible, observable violations-should precede a fight for those rights. This is a practice that the Lord agrees with. It allows others to benchmark our claims against the truth and judge fairly whether the fight is "just." If the Lord really did give us free
MURDER TO GET GAIN
agency, then He also gave us the right to disagree and we must stop detlning "fault" in tenns of subjective philosophic or political differences. The Mahan Principle- "Murder to get gain" I suggest that a negative lesson taught in the Book of Moses might lead us to that definition of "just" that we are lacking. If we study conflict in the scriptures chronologically, we find that the first recorded act of conflict in the scriptures is Cain's murder of Abel. Admittedly, at first glance it might not be obvious what a murder has to teach us about international relations. For ''just diplomacy" and ''just economics" purposes, if Wilsonian ideals are correct and nations can and should be held to the same standards as individuals, then the morals of Cain's story are directly applicable to nations. In the 1993 LDS National Security Conference, Eugene England made this very point by recounting a First Presidency statement that takes the same position: To all who seek a resolution to conflict, be it a misunderstanding between individuals or an international difficulty between nations, we commend the counsel of the Prince of Peace: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:44-45) This principle ofloving one another as Jesus Christ loves us will bring peace to the individual, to the home and beyond, even to the nations and to the world"(emphasis added).
For "just war" purposes, this single killing wouldn't qualify as war under any currently accepted standard, this should not necessarily deter us from considering it-war has no universally accepted definition. It seems unlikely that we'll ever agree on tiUly universal "just war" criteria when we cannot even agree on what war is. For example, there is much debate over whether terrorism, which has it's own nebulous set of definitions, is a subset of war or something more separate. 4 But if we consider things from the Lord's point of view, it's quite likely that war, guerrilla war, assassinations, et ai, just appear to Him to be needless violence among His children regardless of the numbers, strategies, or tactics we use to conduct it or our motivations behind it. So even a single killing might teach us something about how the Lord views all conflict, including war. Without going too much into detail, Cain's rebellion against the Lord made him open to learning Satan's principles for doing business. Satan demanded an oath of secrecy from Cain, which he clearly got, and then taught a principle that Cain reiterated in some chilling language: Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain" (Moses 5:31).
On its face, this statement would seem to be another version of Paul's dictum that "the love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Timothy 6: 10). However, it has a deeper meaning. If this life is the "time for men to prepare to meet God" through repentance, which comes only through the exercise of free agency, then it is small wonder that murder is considered so serious. Murder is a terminal abrogation of free agency. It hinders, perhaps permanently, the spiritual progression of another by taking away their freedom to choose "liberty and eternal life ... or captivity and death" (l Nephi 2:27) by closing the window of opportunity when they could make such a choice. Paul's statement deals strictly with greed. Satan's Mahan principle, for lack of a better term, is about the abrogation of another's free agency for personal benefit. Disciples of Christ should consider it a negative example of precisely how we should not conduct our affairs. It
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also gives us a benchmark against which to judge righteous intentions. Actions that violate another's right to life, liberty, or property can be judged against the law. Satan first proposed this false principle in the pre-mortal council when he suggested that he, and not Christ, should be the Savior of mankind. His plan, of course, was to force the mass surrender of individual free agency. Satan suggested that the mass abrogation of free agency would benefit everyone, though clearly he was in it for selfish reasons-"wherefore give me thine honor" (Moses 4: 1). This strategy sounds suspiciously like Clausewitz's definition ofwar-"an act of force to compel an enemy to do our will." Once on earth, Satan had no power to abrogate anyone's free agency so he persuaded Cain to do it for him. The Mahan principle was eventually codified in a series of secret combinations practiced among Cain's own descendants (Moses 5:49-51, 6:15, 28-29, etc.) and the Gadianton robbers in the Book of Mormon. Mormon said that these secret combinations, operating on the Mahan principle, could be the undoing of whole societies if unchecked (Helaman 2:13-14) and backed up his claims by including a story found in 3 Nephi 6-7 where that actually happens. In Cain's case, the "gain" was his brother's flocks that Cain felt he was free to appropriate without consequence after the act-"I am free; surely the flocks of my brother falleth into my hands" (Moses 5:33). However, "gain" need not be limited only to material gain. The Lord has made it clear that we should not seek after riches, titles, honors of men, or any other worldly rewards (2 Nephi 26:29). Also, various Book of Mormon villains spent their time pursuing political power-Amalickiah comes to mind. They did this perhaps as a means to wealth, but the two are not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, "gain" could be political power, influence, office, or title just as easily. In short, it's hard to come up with an example of political conflict that wasn't started by someone trying to outright seize something they didn't have or to maintain a status quo at someone else's expense.
Implications of the Mahan Principle for U.S. National Security If this line of reasoning is accurate, then it carries with it several implications for the approaches we should take to deal with or pre-empt conflicts: Our national security interests should be defined in terms of preserving life, liberty, and property and not just in terms of protecting our material prosperity. The United States has always attributed its rise to power at least as much to its underlyc ing philosophy of government and individual liberties as to its vast natural resources. Although it's a worthy goal to maintain and improve our material quality of life, the lessons of the Mahan principle would be that we can't justify using aggressive military force to do so unless directly threatened (somebody else trying to use the Mahan principle against us). That leaves the protection of individual liberties as the viable underlying national security principle, which is best defined in terms of right to life, liberty, and property. Purely self-interested, material "gain"-oriented diplomatic positions that maintain power at the expense of other nations may succeed, perhaps even indefinitely in some cases, but will create wasteful violent conflicts. The U.S.' primary long-term goal, (emphasis on "long-term") should be the establishment of democracy and international guarantees of life, liberty, and property protections, not the avowed protection of "critical material resources." Churchill claimed that democracy was a terrible form of government, but that it was better than anything else ever tried. The latter half of that statement is true, if for no other reasons, because:
MURDER TO GET GAIN
a) Democracies tend to do a better (though not perfect) job of protecting civil liberties over the long run than other forms of government; and b) All else being equal, democracies are generally less reluctant to engage in military action than other forms of government.
Both of those trends are in line with "just diplomacy" and 'just war" goals. Accordingly, the best long-term national security strategy would appear to be encouragement and defense of democracy worldwide rather than the avowed protection of resources. The successful expansion of democracy should foster an environment in which the u.s. could negotiate more and fight less for the material goods needed to maintain its citizens' quality oflife. Furthermore, the U.S. should push for the United Nations to make such guarantees of life, liberty, and property protections a prerequisite for full membership. At present, the UN has no consistent penalties it applies to nations that abuse their own citizens, as Saddam Hussein did for twenty-four years. While revoking their UN membership might not be the best approach, at a minimum such nations should be barred from participation in such committees as the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council. It is unreasonable to believe that international peace can be secured when nations that don't protect their own citizens are influencing key decisions. U.S. power primarily should be targeted to eliminate geographic flashpoints where Mahan-style strategies flourish. Like it or not, this means engaging in nation building to some degree. There are many areas, Africa notably, that are so mired in poverty and corruption that it seems likely they will never evolve stable societies without significant outside assistance. Economic aid and advice will be required to reduce poverty through micro development, as will lower trade barriers, and the elimination of illiteracy through increased educational opportunities. However, the lesson of the Mahan principle would be that we should not seek to profit off such endeavors. Largescale debt forgiveness and no-interest (or interest-matching-inflation-only) loans may be prerequisites. That we should not adopt diplomatic or economic positions that would support foreign governments' efforts to restrict the guaranteed liberties of their own people. This might appear problematic on its face, as different cultures have various ideas about what constitutes acceptable liberties. One solution could be the aforementioned encouragement of foreign nations to explicitly and individually establish a Bill of Rights containing aforementioned guarantees of life, liberty, and property protections. The world community could then judge complying nations not by an imposed universal standard (an unrealistic notion) but against their own self-declared standards. Failure to adhere to one's own constitution would trigger international repercussions. This suggests an additional implication that is likely to be controversial: that the international community should not consider national sovereignty to be absolute. If free agency, as expressed in terms of recognized human rights and constitutionalliberties, is truly invaluable then the preservation of it should trump other foreign policy considerations, including sovereignty under egregious circumstances. This notion currently is undermined in a rather lethal way by the UN charter that states: [t]he Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
Unfortunately, this can and sometimes does run directly counter to the American
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experience I referred to earlier-a leader who behaves like a thug towards his own people loses the legitimacy to rule no matter how he came to power.' This was clearly the case with Saddam for almost thirty years, but despite Saddam's documented atrocities the UN: -Did not revoke Iraq's UN membership. -Explicitly refused to permit his removal from power after the first Gulf War and tried to protect his position before and during the second. -Did not investigate or sanction members (France, Russia, and Iraq) who violated post-Gulf War sanctions put in place against Iraq, thereby permitting the violators' personal enrichment at the expense of the Iraqi people.
This de facto UN position that it will respect the sovereignty even of member states whose leadership, by any standard, clearly deserve to be removed undermines any hope that the United Nations and its associated agencies can be the world's best protector of human rights and individual liberties. Diplomacy is most effective when it is aggressive, consistent in its positions, and when it is clear that diplomacy can be taken only so far. However, even if all of these were followed, inevitably there would still be war. The lessons of the Mahan principle would seem to dictate that: No war may be started purely for selfish material or political gain. No worldly reward can justify the violation of another's free agency. Free agency is a divine gift so valuable that God condemned a third of His children to eternal purgatory rather than withdraw it from the rest (Moses 4:1-4). Our free agency was worth more than Lucifer's opportunity for a mortal life. If free agency is that valuable, it's ridiculous to think that material gain could be worth a fair trade, much less be worth killing for. This is not to say that an aggressor country cannot benefit economically from war. It is not unreasonable to hope that a newly liberated people might want to engage in trade; but it is only ethical if those people make that decision through a truly representative govermnent and not through an aggressor-installed puppet regime that isn't acting in the people's own best interest. There should be no "spoils of war" when we are forced to fight. 6 It is true that the Lord handed spoils of war over to the Israelites. However, the earth is the Lord's and he can divvy it up as He sees fit. By contrast, the Nephites under Captain,Moroni and other righteous leaders never looked to seize Lamanite lands-they only looked to take back cities the Lamanites had seized through invasion. In the absence of a direct revelation from God to the country, we avoid even the appearance of evil by following the latter example and not holding on to anything we didn't have before a war started. Violence used in the defense of our own lives, liberties, and property may be justified. All disagreements that affect only the quality of life and are not considered life threatening must be settled through non-lethal means where possible; but where not possible, self-defense is justified: We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievance, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends and property, and the government from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded (Doctrine and Covenants 134:11).
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Consider also Captain Moroni's lament that he and his army were the instruments of sending so many of their brethren into the eternal world where, no doubt, an eternity of suffering awaited them: Now, they were sorry to take up anns against the Lamanites, because they did not delight in the shedding of blood; yea, and this was not all-they were sorry to be the means of sending so many of their brethren out of this world into an eternal world, unprepared to meet their God (Alma 48:23). But his defense of the Nephites was justified (Alma 48:23-24). Moroni's words suggest that the spiritual cost of war is infinitely high and so may only be justified in the defense of something infinitely valuable. We may use military force to defend others whose lives, liberties, or property is being threatened. The Lord does not seem to object to standing up in defense of the helpless-Captain Moroni's defense of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis seems to support that position. Although we should respect others' free agency, even that of our enemies, agency is not absolute. "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." Unfortunately, diplomatic and economic sanctions levied against aggressor states have proven ineffective at establishing reasonable limits. Military action and, perhaps, pre-emptive intervention against states that violate the lives, liberties, or property of their own people or neighboring states becomes morally sustainable. Upon the United States' entry into World War II, then-apostle David O. McKay said: There are ... two conditions which may justifY a truly Christian man to enter-mind you, I say enter, not begin--a war: 1) an attempt to dominate and to deprive another of his free agency, and 2) loyalty to his country. Possibly there is a third, viz., defense of a weak nation that is being unjustly crushed by a strong, ruthless one 7 (emphasis added). The U.S. should, as a matter of policy, always support stripping away the "gains" earned by aggressor nations through violent action. Faced with the prospect that military aggression would gain no spoils of war and could result in material and political loss, aggressive dictators would think twice about invading their neighbors. Saddam likely is wishing he'd never gone after Kuwait in 1991, seeing where it has led him now. The Lord set the pattern for this when He called Cain out, extracted a confession of Abel's murder, and imposed justice. The benefits of the act were taken away and then some, leaving Cain to lament "my punishment is greater than I can bear" (Moses 5:38). Accordingly, the U.S. national security strategy should call for the U.S. to bring its elements of power to bear in some combination against nations that attempt to get gain through violent action. The first Gulf War was a pattern that should be made to hold in all cases. While military power might not be necessary in all cases, making it explicit policy to keep the option open (and the successful application of it as in 1991) might discourage futme aggressors. This idea would also call for full U.S. support of international bodies of arbitration and justice-no pulling out of the UN, and full engagement in the International Criminal Court until these have proven themselves ineffective, unable, or unwilling to live up to their self-proclaimed mandates in a fair, unbiased manner.
Conclusion To conclude, if we really believe that all men are created equal and that they all have inalienable (and infinitely valuable) rights endowed by their Creator, then we
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must also believe that no form of national "gain" can be worth the abrogation of those rights. The U.S. should develop a clear set of "just economics," just diplomacy," and 'Just war" policies and principles and push for their international adoption. Those principles and policies should be founded in the idea that nations operating according to the Mahan principle, abrogating the individual free agency of others for gain, will consistently be confronted using some combination of our national elements of power. Jefferson once declared, "I have sworn eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man." That is a fine stand to take-cooperation with those who willfully abuse their own citizens cannot be justified by the gospel. While we do not have the military power to right every wrong, there is always something we can do diplomatically and economically by withholding our support from such regimes. 1fnothing else, we can focus the attention of international forums on such wrong so that evil can't work unhindered in the dark. Consistent, principled, active engagement with all our elements of power is needed. Cooperation for gain with such regimes makes us partners in their sins; refusing to confront aggressive nations out for gain is just passive compliance.
A Proposed LDS Revision to Aquinas' "Just War" Tradition Wars between states must be started and controlled by the legitimate authority of state or ruler. Governments that systematically take the lives, liberties, or property of their own citizens without means for appeal do not constitute a legitimate authority of state. A just cause is required; namely that those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault. A 'Just cause" may only be defined in terms of a state attacking or threatening imminent attack against the lives, liberties, or property of a group. The belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement ofgood, or the avoidance of evil. Such rightful intention may only be defined in terms of protecting the lives, liberties, or property of self or the helpless.
A Proposed LDS "Just Diplomacy" Tradition The negotiators should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil. Diplomacy must be conducted in "good faith." Rightful intention may only be defined in telms of protecting the lives, liberties, or property of self or the helpless. No state may propose or support an agreement that would encourage or prolong the killing, political oppression, or impoverishment of any group without means for appeal. We cannot support actions committed by others that we could not do ourselves in good conscience. Doing so makes us conspirators to their violations of others' free agency. States claiming injury must take responsibility for initiating diplomacy to resolve the issue peacefully. The Lord said that we should go to the offender first rather than waiting for him to come us. States claiming injury should be required to begin the diplomatic process and suggest a solution. The obvious exception would be when an attack is underway and the diplomatic option closed. A Proposed LDS "Just Economics" Tradition No state may interfere with another state s ability to secure the necessities of life for its own people. Withholding the necessities of life from any group constitutes a
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de facto attack on their lives, liberties, and property. Accordingly, no state may do so except, perhaps, when war has broken out. Even then, the innocent should not suffer needlessly. No state may demand economic aid or tribute as a requirement for avoiding war. Extortion denies free agency. If it's not acceptable to murder to get gain, it cannot be acceptable tD threaten murder to get gain. North Korea's effort to secure U.S. economic aid through nuclear brinkmanship is a negative example. No state may engage in trade that would cause, encourage or prolong an unjust war, or the political oppression, or impoverishment of any group. No country should profit from the misery of others. Economic support of aggressor nations makes us "murderers to get gain." Economic support of nations that violate their own people's liberties makes us "oppressors to get gain." Economic trade that robs a nation of its precious material resources for less than fair value is simple fraud. NOTES I. See 1 Nephi 13:16-19; Doctrine and Covenants 101:76-80.
2. Among others, Alma 54: 16-24 (particular emphasis on verses 17-18 and 24); and 3 Nephi 3: 1-11 (particular emphasis on verse 10). 3. Locke defined "property" in terms of the me;tns by which people can obtain sustenance. Accordingly, we should be careful to define property for this discussion in terms of the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter) and not confuse it with the luxuries of life. In this sense, property is a necessary prerequisite to sustaining both life and liberty. 4. Terrorists themselves can't seem to make up their mind about it. One terrorist recently captured in Afghanistan was sent to Guantanamo Bay as an EPW, but then announced he was a U.S. citizen and as such had a constitutional rigbt to a criminal trial instead of a military tribunal. Another sllch al-Qa'ida member, John Walker Lindh, was granted such a trial. Terrorists usually claim that they are soldiers at war with their enemies, but when caught they usually seem to prefer classification as criminals rather than prisoners of war. 5. Consider the Alma chapter 60 declaration (particularly verses 23-30) of Captain Moroni-a plainly righteous man as stated in Alma 48:17-in which he threatens to overthrow the Nephite government because of their perceived neglect of the anny fighting in their defense. 6. Conversely, this suggests that absolute pacifism ("peace at any cost") is not a justifiable philosophy. If the right to free agency is worth more than Lucifer's opportunity to have a mOlial life on earth, then the right to free agency is also worth more than the mortal lives of those here who would take it away. Therefore, it's worth both dying and killing for. 7. Conference Report, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 1942.
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Part IV LDS Theology and National Security: Policy Perspectives 9
War and Conscience: An LDS Perspective David M Kirkham Iutroduction If "war is heU" and hell is itself in some degree the burning consciousness of unforsaken sin, then war and conscience are no strangers to one another. Members of The Church of Jeslls Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches that the human conscience is the light of Christ that enlightens all who come into the world, would be remiss not to examine the role conscience plays in Latter-day Saint participation in waf. What docs an "LDS" conscience suggest to be the proper reaction to war? When, if ever, are human beings j uslified in its participation? What actions in wartime arc and are not to be regarded as legitimate and "conscionable"? The pages that follow carve out the beginnings of one Latter-day Saint's view of these questions, suggesting that in times of war, as ever, the LDS conscience is as likely to demand action as restraint.
Historical Foundations of the "Higher Law" in America Despite its sometimes complicated histOlY, the United States orAmeriea is widely acknowledged to be a nation committed in theory) and generally in practice, to the rule of law. Democratic and constitutional institutions, structures, and practices in this country have deep roots and have proven themselves able to withstand severe crises. Behind this system of laws, however, lies an equally long tradition in America of "higher law" theory to which there has been a recurring appeal over Ule years by minority elements of a community whose vital interests have been threatened. Sometimes this second tradition has worked in tandem with and has been protected by the civil law; other times its adherents have found themselves on the wrong side of the civil law and have been prompted to commit acts of eivil disobedience or more. The result has been either punishment of the offenders or changes in the societal conditions offensive to the offenders or both. Always this higher law has taken the form of an appeal to conscience, natural law, the laws of God, or to a more fimdamental law of liberty and human rights than was being currently upheld by legal and governmental institutions at the time of the challenge.
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The higher law tradition in America goes back to Colonial times. Puritans came 10 this country in the seventeenth century to establish a religious community that would sit as a "city on a hill," an example to the rcst of thc world of what God could do with a people who had been given the freedom to practice their "true" religion. Their settlement was itself an act of conscience. However, dissenting members of their congregations, Anne Hutchinson and Roger Shennan, to name two, sometimes found themselves expelled from the community for voicing their private conscience in response, according to their claim, to a higher law. In Hutchinson's case, losing the protection of the community cost her lifc. The American Revolution also drew on the higher law tradition, with colonists claiming allegiance to a long tradition of liberty stemming from an almost mythical, ancient English constitution that had been abrogated by British legislation and executive practice. They fought initially for their rights as "Englishmen" but when it became clear that there could be no going back to bctter times with King George, the colonials appealed to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" to justify their complete break [rom the mother country. I The tradition has continued up to the present century. At one time or another in our histolY, abolitionists, suffragettes, civil rights marchers, conscientiolls objectors, even early Mormon pioneer settlers in the Salt Lake valley, have all laid claim to a higher law that would trump the civil law.
Higher Law and War In times of war, given what is at stake, emotions run high, and appeals to the higher law, in this case a law of nonviolence, become 1110re common. For example, in the time period leading up to the recent war in Iraq, a freshman at the U.S. Air Force Academy sent an e-mail to a history professor at a Midwestern uiliversity asking him if he would pass on to his students an invitation to attend the school's annual "Academy Assembly," a forum that brings>' together college students from around the nation to discuss political issues of topical interest. That scholar responded: You ,He "d disgrace to this countlY, and I am furiOlls you would even thiilk I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign [sic] death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sIr? Resign your commission and serve your country with honor. No war, no, Air Force cowards who bomb countries without AAA (anti-aircraft artillery], without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers [i.e., the snipers who terrorized Washington, D.C. in fall 2002]. You are imperialists who afC turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts havc done to the Palestinians, the YC, the Serbs, a retreating :lI"1lly at 13,lsra. You are unworthy of my sllpport. 2
It did not take long before this e-mail exchange had circulated throughout the country, drawing publicity from the likes of the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago 7Hbune, and News and World Report. In the wake of the uproar that followed, the obviously chagrined professor published on his university's web site the following explanation for his actions:
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Again I would like to apologize to all who are oITended, burdened, distracted, and
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hurt by my e-mail to an Air Force Academy cadet. My e-mail, while motivated from a pacifist perspective, was not professional in tone and totally at variance with Illy usual interaction with students and colleagues. I am opposed to war and Gle use of violence in resolving international conflicts while understanding many believe it is appropriate as a last resort. 1 believe pacifism is a noble calling and should be part of the national dialogue concerning war, peace, and justice. I recognize individuals who serve in the military deserve respect both for their service and their viewpoints. It is wrong for me or anyone to blame an individual serving in the military when the debate is over national policy.3
The point is of course that war brought out in this case apparently honest but very emotional differences of opinion on the role of the militmy in American democratic society. And, although the professor was administratively sanctioned for implicating his university in his brash remarks, American law upholds his right to express his antiwar positions. In fact, the United States makes attempts to accommodate those who, as a matter of conscience, refuse to take part in war. This nation asks, even requires, however, its citizens to take up arms ill it'> defense when Ilecessmy, all the while recognizing their right to refrain when the demands of their conscience so dictate. The Military Selective Service Acts of 1948 and 1967 and the Military Universal Training and Selvice Act of 1951 exempts from service those who "by reason of religious training or belief are conscientiously opposed to pmticipation in war in any [onn." In the early 1970s, the Supreme Court interpreted these laws to suggcst that deeply held ethical beliefs on the subject were sufficient to meet the religious belief requirement but that objection had to be to war in general and not simply to a particular war (i.e., in this case the Vietnam War),4 Individual armed service regulations have implemented this law for application to militaty members who seek discharge from the service on conscientious objector grounds. For example, the U.S. Air Force discharges conscientious objectors who it defines as persons "opposed to participation in war in any fOlTI1 or the bearing of arms, by virtue of a fi1l11, fixed and sincere belief as a result of religious training or similar schooling. Moral or ethical beliefs, even jf not characterized by the holder as religiolls, may provide sufficient ground for CO status."s Many Americans link conscientious objection with the Vietnam era. It actually is part of a much longer tradition, having found a voice in every American wal~ including both World Wars. Henry David Thoreau wrote his famous essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" as a result of a stay in jail for refusing to pay taxes in support of the Mexican War. Early conscientiolls objectors in America tcnded to be Quakers or Mennonites. By the time oflhe World Wars, this had extended to Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and others.
Latter-day Saints and Conscientious Objection The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, however, while "renouncing war" and "proclaiming peace," has never requested or recognized conscientious objector status for its members by virtue of their Church membership. According to the Encyclopedia ~lMormonism: While any member of the Church is free to object to military combat service because of conscience, simply holding membership in the Church in and of itself, is not a jus.tiflcation. Church leaders have discouraged conscientious objection in every conflict of the twentieth century. Although it is opposed to wal" and recognizes that going (0
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war is a velY poor alternative means ofresolving conflicts, the Church considers it the loyal duty of citizenship for members to answer the call of their variolls countries [or militmy service. At the same time, it recognizes the right of the individual member to determine for themselves whether their deep, spiritual consciences will allow them to serve in combat or require them to request assignment to altemate service. The Church will not support a member in the request until he 01' she has consulted with the appropriate bishop and stake president and has spirihml confirmation that the way decided upon hy the member concerned is acceptable to the Lord.6
In virtually all wars, the Church has reaffin~led this position. During the Vietnam War, in a letter dated 20 March 1970, Elder Joseph Anderson, then secretaty to the First Presidency, wrote to a Church member who had inquired regarding the Church's position on conscientious objection: I am directed to tell you that membership in The Church of Jeslls Christ of Latter-day Saints does not make one a conscientious objector. As you are aware, there are thousands of young men of the Church assigned to the variolls services in the military.
As the brethren understand, the existing law provides that men who have conscientious objection may be excused ti'om combat selvice. There would seem to be 110 objection, therefore, to a man availing himself on a personal basig of the exemptions provided hy law.... I am further directed to tell you that the Presidenl, with Congress, must determine the position the countly should take with regard to any national or international question. If it were left to the illdividualto determine whether 01' not we should be involved there would be nothing but chaos. Then too, it is not possible for fill individual citizen to have the information tllat is available to the President and the Congress, and without all of th<:.factFi he is not in a position to judge. Each individual citizen should use his influence to chunge any act which he thinks is not in the best interests afthe country, but while the act is in force it is his responsibility to support itJ "
So the Church will not categorically deny a member the right to object to military service on the basil> of conscience, but it will not support members in such a claim based on their Church membership. Elder Robert Oaks of the Church's Second Quorum of the Seventy, who was Air ForGe General Oaks before he was General Authority Oaks, has said, "The moral ques,tion for Church members is much more one of the spirit than of the uniform. It echoes John the Baptist's cOllnscl to soldiers to avoid violence and extortion, and to be content with their wages." He then reminds us that "the Book of Mormon repeatedly counsels soldiers to abhor the shedding of blood .... However, it also contains as to when war may be justificd."s This point cannot be overstated: Latter-day Saints are asked to walk that difficult line between supporting wars, participating in war, even to the point of taking human life in war as necessary, and yet they must abhor bloodshed. If they should take sure in the oftifc, regardless of whether the war is lcgitimate and their participation is sanctioned by the Church, then they will find themselves out of harmony with the spirit of the Gospel, perhaps to say the least. Unforhmately, Americans have not been immune to the temptation to commit atrocities in times of war. Perhaps even more unforhmately, Latter-day Saints have not been left unscathed by the degradation of spirit that invariably accompanies the commission of war crimes. In March 1968, an American infantry company entered
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the viHage of My Lai in Vietnam and there killed in cold blood and~ in some cases, mutilated, tmtured, and raped, bctween 200-500 noncombatant civilians who gave no resistance; they were children, women, and old men. There were no combatants among them. Initial rcsearch suggests there were several LaUer-day Saint members of this company, and the stories of at least two would figure rather prominently in historians' efforts to recreate a rccord of the hOlTors of that day. Par instance, according to Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim, two British researchers of the lTl£tssacrc, at one point during that day, two soldiers at lunch, one a "devout Monnon," began discussing with some compassion "what they could do for the injured. who would get no medical assistance and would die a lingering death. Thcy began finishing off the wounded" and then returned to their lunch. 9 Ronald Ridenhour, one of the first nonparticipallts to hear of and report the massacre, was acquainted with this LDS soldier. According to Bilton and Sim, "Knowing [this soldier's] deeply held Mormon faith, his story of what happened in the village was deeply affecting. Ridenhour considered [him] to be honest) sincere, and deccnt-someone he was proud to call a fricnd. He felt chilled to his soul." When the subsequent inquiry took the investigation to this young man, then in Orem, Utah, the investigator found a man "chastened by mental anguish over his actions in the village."l0 The odler Latter-day Saint member of Charlie Company whose subsequent story the whole sordid affair has been charactcrized by was instrumental in bringing to Bilton and Sims as having seen "the moral certainties of his Mormon upbringing" faU apal1 "in the face of what he saw in Charlie Company!' This LDS soldier stated: "We believed this behavior was preUy conunonplace. I didn't think we were doing anything different from any other lmit. You real1y do lose your sense ... not of right and wrong, but your degree of wrong changes, ... A different set ofmies and I don't think that any of us quite knew what those rules were."11 Raising the queRtion of Latter-day Saints being present at My Lai is no attempt to judge these men for their individual roles that day, which from most accounts remains less than clear. rt does serve as a ready wamillg, however, that even Latter-day Saints can have their minds clouded, their hearts hardened, and their spirits chastened in the fog of war. Complex dangers can erode the conscience and loosen restraints that would hold fast in less perilous times. The lessons of war also suggest, however, that conscience can as likely compel action as to restrain it. One Latter-day Saint example that has received renewed attention of late is that of Helmut Huebencr, a young member of the Church who, along with two other LDS fl'iends, undertook to spread anti~Na7,i propaganda in wal1:ime Hamburg, Gennany. The sixteen-year-old Hucbener would pay with his life (and for a time with his Church membership); his friends would serve extended time in concentration camps.12
Conscience and War in the Book of MOI'moD There are numerous in the Book of Mormon of individual conscience, or the light of Christ, restraining or compelling action by members of the Church of God in wartime or in. other peril where human life was on the line. The first relevant example has Nephi being "constrained by the Spirit" to kill Laban, the Spirit declarthat "the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes" (1 Nephi 4:10, 14).13
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Another famous example where conscience apparently compels to take up anns has Moroni brandishing the Title of Liberty in c1eady a righteous cause. Moroni was a man of God. He: , .. was a strong and a mighty Illan; he was a man of a perfect understanding; yea, a man that did 110t delight in bloodshed; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the tj'eedom of his eountly, and his brethren from bondage and slavelY. Yea, a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God, for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his people; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people. Yea, and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ (Alma 48:11-13).
On the other hand, the Book of Mormon provides ample instance of God restraining men from participation in warfare. Alma tells of the Lamanite converts who turned away from their warlike ways when they "were brought to believe and to know the truth" after which "they were firm and would suffer even unto death rather than commit sin." They in fact "buried their weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war, for peace" (Alma 24:19 Another prominent example has Monnon relinquishing command of his troops when their delight in bloodshed and atrocity bas risen to a level beyond his ability to restrain them: And it came to pass that I, Mormon, did utterly refuse from this time forth to be a commander and a leader of this people, because of their wickedness alld abomination. Behold, I had led them, notwithstanding their wickedness I had led them many times to battle, and had loved them, according to the love of God which was in me, with all my heart. ... And it came to pass that I utterly l'~fuscd to go up against mine enemies; and I did even as the Lord had commanded me; and I did stand as an idle witness to manifest unto the world the things which I saw and heard, according to the manifestations of the Spirit which had testified Q.fthings to come (Mormon 3: 11-12,16).
Conclusion Latter-day Saints, of all peoples: have a firm belief ill and commitment to a higher law, a law of heaven that has inade of them a peculiar people. The belicfthat this higher law and God's expectations of them can be communicated to them through the Spirit of Christ or their conscience is a fundamental tenet of LDS doctrine. Nevertheless, the Church as an institution, in renouncing war and proelaiming peace, has recognized situations in whieh war becomes a tragic necessity. To this date in modem history, the Church has supported national calls to militalY service. But never have Church leaders, in modern or ancient times, allowed for rationalization of taking "delight in the shed- ding of blood." The message is quite the opposite: renounce war, proclaim peace. In the end, war remains an evil that must be faced with the greatest of regrets that no better solution was found to the issues giving rise to it. The views expressed in this article are those ofthe author alone and are not intended to represent the views of either the United States Air Force, the u.s. Air Force Academy, or The Church of Jesus Christ o/Latter-day Saints. NOTES
1. See Sandoz, Ellis Sandoz} cd., The Roots oj Lilx.-rrty: Magna Carta, Ancient Constitution. and the Anglo-American Tradition qf Rule of Law.
WAR AND CoNSCIENCE: AN
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2. E-mail letterfromPeterN.Kir:;tein.professorofllistory.S1. Xavier University, dated 31 Odober 2002 reproduced at http://www.collcgefrecdom.orglkirletl.htm, http://www.instap1.lIldit comJarehivcs/005332.php, and other web sites (Accessed 1 June 200~). 3. http://www.8xll.cdu/aeadem/artsci/ilislory/pkirstciniapologia.html (Accessed 1 June 2003).
4. See Shanor, Charles A. and L. Lynn Hogue, Milital)l Law, Wesl Nutshell Series, 2nd Ed., pp. 66-68, 305--306, 1996 and "The Reader's Companion to American History: Conscientious Objection" at Houghton Mifflin College Division http://collegc.hmco.comJhistoryJreaderscomp/ rcah/html/rc._019400_con:;cientioll.htm and "Fact MoIlster: Selective Service" at http://www. factmonster.comJce6/history/A0844347.html (Accessed 1 June 2003). 5. See "personnel Issues for the Commal1der," chapter seven in The Milit(IIY Commander and the Law, November 2002, Col. Thomas L. Strand, ef aI, publication of the U.S. Air Force Judge
Advocate General School. A downloadable version is available at http://milcol11.jag.afmillch07/ eonscien.httn. 6. Talc, Charles D. ··Conscientious Objection," Encyclopedia oj Mormonb:m, Infohase Library CD-ROM version.
7. Letter of Joseph Anderson, Secretary to the First Presidency, to an anollymOlls Church member, dated 20 March 1970. Copy in author's possession, provided by B. Kent Hal"rison, emeritus professor of physics, Brigham Young University. A copy of another letter written by Bider Anderson in his secretarial capacity and voicing a similar policy, appeared in Dialogue: A Journal qf Mormon Thought, Vol. III, No. L p. &, spring 1968. 8. Oaks, Robert C. "Military and the Church," Encyclopedia oj"Mormoni'>f11, Infobase Library CD-ROM version. 9. Bilton, Michael and Kevin Sim, Four Hours in 216, 1992.
1\1Y Loi,
New YOl'k, Penquin Books, pp. 124,
10. ibid., pp. 216, 224.
11. Ibid, pp. 367-368,
12. Seveml accounts of this resistance exist. The most complete is When Truth Was 'J}'easol1: German Yotlth Against Hitler: The SfOlJl of the Helmuth Huebener Group by Blair Holmes, ed., at ai, Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1996. 13. No effort will be made in this short concluding analysis to ma ke doctrinal distinctions between the Light of Christ and the Sph'it of the Holy Ghost. The question is one simply of examples ill sacred text that give guidance to those troubled about appropriate responses to war.
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10 The "Teancum Option" and Modern LDS National Security Thought Ryan Chavez "U.S. covert teams have been operating in urban areas in Iraq trying to kill members of President Saddam Hussein's inner circle," declared a Washington Post · article during U.S.- Iraq hostilities in March 2003.' Coupled with the 2002 killing of Al Qa'ida operative Ali Qaed Sun ian al-Harithi in Yemen, this targeting renews an important debate over the legality and morality of the selected killing of enemies that pose a national security threat to the United States. Critics have raised concerns that targeting individuals amounts to little more than assassination prohibited under U.S. and international law, while proponents counter that such actions are legitimate self defense measures. 1. 't possible for Latter-day Saints to reconcile their religious convictions with a national security strategx that allows for the selective targeting of individual enemies? I argue that, within certain bounds, such reconciliation is possible both legally and morally. The Book of Mormon account of Teancum 's targeted killings of Amalickiah and Ammoron is the foundation for this reconciliation. Furthennore, the "Teancum option," as outlined in this account, reinforces existing international and U.S. legal and ethical norms that targeted killing can be a moral and strategically sound tool of national security policy.
Teancum as a Case Study Teancum's experience is an excellent case study for assessing a possible LDS perspective on targeted killing. Teancum's era was a period of frequent warfare between two nations, and his actions have clear national security underpinnings. Latter-day Saints can draw from the extensive accounts of this warfare as a starting point for 1Ssessing how the Book of Mormon accounts influence their own perspectives on national security issues. The Book of Mormon is also the foundation of a canon exclusive to the LDS faith, and as both a secular and a spiritual history of various peoples, :t provides insights unavailable elsewhere. The National Security Context in the Book of Alma The national security environment facing the Nephite nation during the period from roughly 74- 61 B.C. provides important context for understanding Teancum's motives in killing Amalickiah and Ammoron. In 74 B.C., the Nephite nation (traditionally the more righteous people in the Book of Mormon) had recently defeated ~he aggressor Lamanite armies in a series of battles. Taking advantage of the newly won peace, Nephite leaders set out to strengthen the spiritual character of their people rAlma 45:22). This was in part a reflection of the war-weariness of the nation and also
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probably a recognition that a constant war footing was not particularly conducive to its spiritual character. The peace did not endure, as certain elements of the Nephite population, led by a malcontent named Amalickiah, sought to replace the nation's representative government with an absolute monarchy, with Amalickiah himself as king (Alma 46:4). Moroni, the supreme commander ofthe Nephite army, rallied the Nephite nation to reject the insurrection and sought the capture and killing of Amalickiah and his followers, but Amalickiah escaped with his followers to the Lamanite lands (Alma 45:11-33). This flight was nowhere near the end of the troubles Amalickiah would cause for the Nephites, but he decided to develop and consolidate his own power base before pursuing a grander scheme of conquest against his former people. Amalickiah defected to the Lamanite nation and actively sought a position of authority in his adopted land. Through a series of clever machinations, including some very astute political maneuvering and, ironically enough, some actions that undoubtedly qualify as murder and treason, Amalickiah became king over the Lamanite nation (Alma 47). As Lamanite king, Amalickiah was now in a position to exploit his subjects' traditional animosity against the Nephites for his own ends, even though the latter were decidedly victorious against the Lamanites in the series of wars prior to 74 B.C. Amalickiah's ability to rally his new nation to war so soon after its momentous defeat is a testament to the danger he posed, and perhaps a key reason for Teancum's future actions against him. Bitter that the Nephites would not choose him as king, Amalickiah decided to either subjugate them by force or destroy them trying. He soon led his Lamanite subjects in wars of conquest against the Nephites, which led to numerous deaths on both sides and the eventual fall of various Nephite cities (Alma 48:4). As commander of Nephite forces Moroni was responsible for the overall Nephite defense, while Teancum was a principal deputy. Moroni obviously trusted Teancum's judgment; the length of the war and the multi-front Lamanite attack required that Moroni dispatch large armies to separate fronts for extended durations. Teancum commanded significant divisions of the army disconnected from the headquarters element, and Moroni would likely have been unable to provide direct command and control (beyond general guidance) to those units for long periods. Teancum would therefore have significant leeway in some tactical and strategic initiatives. He also probably would have been free to pursue unconventional measures within certain bounds. Like most of the other Nephite leadership, Teancum was probably reluctant to use war as a tool of statecraft, but he also clearly knew the security threat the Lamanites constituted under Amalickiah's direction. Amalickiah's charisma and intransigence, coupled with Lamanite tenacity under his command, eventually led Teancum to believe that the only hope for peace and security was what is referred to now as a decapitation attack (See Alma 62:35). Motivated by this belief, Teancum took it upon himself to forcefully remove Amalickiah from leadership. While Amalickiah's and Teancum's opposing armies were encamped following a particular battle, Teancum infiltrated the Lamanite camp, slipped into Amalickiah's tent, and killed him. Teancum then returned to the Nephite encampment and prepared his subordinates for what he wonied would be a fierce response. Instead, the ploy actually worked-temporarily: upon finding their leader dead the following morning, the Lamanite army quickly descended into disanay and panic (Alma 51 :32-52:2). The effect was short-lived, as Amalickiah's apparently equally charismatic brother
THE "TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL SECURlTY THOUGHT
Ammoron rose to power and continued to pursue conquest over the Nephites. Ammoron led the Lamanites to a number of subsequent violent clashes with the Nephites, in which the Lamanites continued to capture various Nephite cities. Though the Lamanite successes would eventually prove temporary, their initial magnitude surely led the Nephites to fear for their national and cultural survival. Moroni, Teancum, and other commanders eventually rolled back the Lamanite offensive through their own clever tactics and strategy, but Ammoron proved as formidable an enemy as his brother, and the Book of Alma records Teancum's frustration at Ammoron's own intransigence. Teancum again took it upon himself to eliminate what he perceived as the source of the problem and undertook another covert killing in much the same way he had killed Amalickiah. The attempt itself proved successful in the strategic sense, but Teancum paid for his boldness with his life, as Ammoron managed to alert his guards to Teancum's presence before dying. Still, the Lamanite offensive collapsed in the aftermath, and the Book of Alma indicates that no leader with the charisma or command ability of Amalickiah or Ammoron rose in this particular era to fill the leadership void left by their demise (Alma 62:31-8). A Valid Case Study? Before proceeding further in considering the lessons Teancum's experience teaches, it is important to judge whether or not the lessons are actually valid in the first place. If Teancum's killings are to serve as a touchstone for thought on the matter of singling out individuals for liquidation, his actions should probably meet some fundamental conditions, one of the most important of which would be some semblance oflegality. The Book of Mormon provides little explicit detail as to what Nephite legal thought was regarding targeting individuals and offers no overt praise or condemnation for Teancum's actions. Important circumstantial evidence provides insight on how the 'l"ephite leadership may have viewed his actions. Interestingly, Alma records Moroni, not Teancum, as being the first to seek .\malickiah's death, in response to his initial attempts to stir up his countrymen to overthrow the government. Moroni's desire to capture and put Amalickiah to death indicates a belief that only by eliminating him would the threat to Nephite security dissipate. This belief proved prescient, as numerous battles and Nephite deaths later demonstrated. The Nephite hierarchy historically considered death a legitimate puni:ive measure in certain circumstances (2 Nephi 9:35 and Alma 1:13-14), thus, their ::onsideration of targeting leaders as a military tactic to serve the supreme national :nterest (in this instance, survival) was a significant possibility. Teancum's long tenure as a Nephite commander after he first killed Amalickiah, :oven though Moroni and probably the civilian Nephite leadership almost certainly .O',amed of the action at some point, also suggests that they considered at least the .\malickiah killing acceptable. As noted above, Alma records that Teancum informed ":.is subordinates of the action almost immediately upon his return and does not appear ;;) have made any attempt to keep his action secret. Moroni also probably would have at 50me point inquired about why Amalickiah was no longer commanding the Lamanite :.-rnies. Given Teancums's continued tenure, even if he did not receive direct instruc·on to target Amalickiah, the Nephite leadership likely accepted the action. Teancum's license in the Ammoron killing, six years after Amalickiah's death, is ::::lore debatable. The scripture records that at this time the Nephite armies, Moroni's _d Teancum's divisions included, had finally converged in a combined offensive
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against the Lamanites but were initially too exhausted from a lengthy march to devise an overall strategy. However, the ever-entrepreneurial Teancum decided Ammoron merited the same fate as his brother. Teancum clearly had no corresponding instructions in this instance, and moreover, the record indicates that he acted more in anger this time, which has probably led some to interpret it as reckless behavior. Commenting on the overall Nephite leadership, Hugh Nibley asserts that "Lehi, Moroni's second in command ... was a holy terror, but Teancum was the worSt."2 Nibley's lengthy analysis of the conflict implies that Teancum was merely a hatchet man for the Nephite armies whose primary purpose was the dirty work necessitated by war. George Reynolds' commentary is more tempered, stating that "we might almost call [Teancum] rash," but also noted the commander's "stem integrity, inspired valor, and unflinching virtue" as well as his "ardent disposition, his fiery impetuosity, his zealous patriotism, his undaunted courage, [and] his love ofliberty."3 This interpretation seems more accurate; that Teancum acted in anger does not necessarily impugn his character. The Book of Mormon notes that Moroni's anger with Nephite traitors and Lamanite aggressors alike was a motivation for some of his actions (Alma 44: 17, 46:11, and 51:14). Moroni's own character may in fact hold the key to understanding Teancum's nature; Alma notes Moroni's "perfect understanding" and his uprightness before God (See Alma 48: 11-17). If Moroni was truly of the "perfect nnderstanding" assigned to him, it seems implausible that he would want men of questionable character as his direct subordinates and with significant control over the war effort. On the contrary, Moroni would likely appoint commanders he found trustworthy, loyal, and probably with similar spiritual qualities-even if they did not quite measure up to his spiritual stature. Certainly Teancum was quite bold and perhaps even a little rash, but the boldness may very well have endeared Teancum to Moroni, or else he likely never would have received an important command position in the first place. In the end, despite the Book of Mormon's lack of explicit approval ofTeancum's actions, it does offer sufficient circumstantial evidence that at least the Amalickiah targeting found acceptance among the Nephite leadership, although the Ammoron targeting did not. Teancum's long tenure following the first killing, Moroni's own desire to see Amalickiah liquidated, and Moroni's character all suggest that at a minimum the first incident is a reasonable baseline for thought. And, if unaccepted, the Ammoron incident still offers some important lessons. Moreover, the results of both actions were consistent with Nephite goals and aided in defeating the Lamanites in this particular war. Lessons Learned These conclusions allow for a consideration of the explicit and implicit lessons Teancum's actions offer for warfare in general and more specifically for targeting individual enemies. Many of these lessons will seem readily familiar to the contemporary strategist, for good reason: by the time the Nephites and Lamanites engaged in this series of battles, the Nephites had experience with decades of war. Through this experience they digested and applied many of warfare's timeless conventions, just as other militaries with long practice in the art of war have done. Teancum's knowledge of the disproportionately negative influence enemy leaders often had over their own nations and others was clearly a principal source of motiva-
TH E "TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL S ECURITY THOUGHT
tion. He was angry that a single leader could stir up an entire nation and cause so much death, and he seems to have believed that individuals, rather than entire nations, were primarily responsible for the era 's conflicts (Alma 62 :35). Therefore, he probably believed that targeting Amalickiah and Ammoron directly would perhaps eliminate the disproportionate effect of these specific individuals on the course of entire nations, and save many more innocent lives than would be otherwise spared. Recognizing these disproportionate effects, Teancum probably also reasoned that the elimination or disruption of enemy leadership could have important battlefield consequences. This reasoning likely led him and other Nephite military commanders to believe that enemy leaders posing a clear threat to the security of a free nation were legitimate targets. Teancum was the first Nephite leader actually recorded to have singled out individual leaders as direct targets, even though the Nephites had killed Lamanite commanders on earlier battlefields. He understood that targeting the enemy command structure could disrupt the enemy's ability to wage war and serve both tactical and strategic purposes. The accounts of the immediate aftermaths of both Amalickiah and Ammoron's deaths show that this in fact was a practical effect of their leaders' deaths on the Lamanite armies. Teancum also clearly believed that targeting enemy leaders did not necessarily have to occur on the battlefield proper. Nephite military commanders did have a conception of what constituted the "fair" battlefield (Alma 62:19), and when they went on the offensive, they often sought to engage the Lamanites in this setting. However, they were also more than willing to take the battle to wherever the Lamanites armies were found in Nephite lands (including their strongholds) if they would not come out to fight. Teancum's forays into the tents of enemy leadership were more akin to special operations than conventional maneuvers, designed to go unnoticed by the Lamanite army until too late. This methodology offers the corollary lesson that Teancum believed that targeting enemy leaders via covert means was acceptable, which ultimately proved to be a double-edged sword in terms of risk and reward. The attempt against Amalickiah proceeded as intended, but something went wrong with the Ammoron attempt, costing Teancum his life. Teancum's death highlights the risk/reward ratio of such operations. Still, Nephite military commanders were willing to accept the risks; covert operations were not unique to Teancum's experience as there are numerous accounts of other stealthy actions undertaken by the Nephites during this particular war. A final lesson is equally cautionary and has been raised by various contemporary and historical commentators in discussing the risks of targeting enemy leadership. "'''hen Teancum killed Amalickiah, he mayor may not have foreseen that Amalickiah's brother, who proved just as dangerous, would rise to the Lamanite leadership. Many critics of targeting enemy leadership warn of such unintended consequences: someone more brutal or dangerous may replace the targeted individual. The Book of .'I1ormon gives no indication of whether or not Teancum considered this possibility, but Ammoron 's rise reminds of yet another risk to account for when considering the targeting of individual enemies. Just as there are interesting lessons to draw from Teancum's experience, there are also mistaken assumptions that some might extract from the account; for instance, a commentary on preemptive warfare as a tool of statecraft. Teancum's actions really have no bearing on the issue of preemption as contemporarily discussed, primarily
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because when Teancum killed Amalickiah and Ammoron, the Nephite nation was already several years into the war with the Lamanites. Teancum's tactics were as much a response to Amalickiah's and Ammoron's past actions as they were measures to stop their aggression. While the killings might be thought of as tactically preemptive since they significantly affected subsequent battles, they were not the same as the strategic preemption that is the subject of a robust contemporary debate. A second, and perhaps more rampant mischaracterization, is any attempt to depict the "Teancum option" in the same vein as many modem instances of assassination of political leaders. This connection relies on a mistaken equation of "assassination" to the selected targeting of specific individuals, irrespective ofthose individuals' combatant or command status or the national security threat they pose. This equation might be semantically accurate in the classical international legal perspectives discussed below, as most commentators labeled any individual targeting as assassination. Yet, most of these perspectives also offered circumstances under which targeting of individuals would be appropriate. Additionally, various modem international and u.s. legal scholars (and leaders) have made a concerted effort to draw a clear distinction between the political assassination commonly thought of as anathema and the targeting of individuals for national security purposes in times of war.
Teancum and Modern Moral and Legal Perspectives Targeted Killing, Assassination, and International Law International legal and moral perspectives playa central role in the consideration of the "Teancum Option" in a contemporary context. Modem international law has basically established acceptable standards of behavior in armed conflict, and some actions and practices that may have been acceptable during ancient times are not necessarily acceptable in the modem era. If Teancum's actions are to serve as a framework for contemporary thought they must be supportable within generally accepted modem ethical and legal principles. Otherwise, the actions remain anecdotes oflittle more than historical interest. Most of the early debate within international legal and moral thought on the issue of targeting individuals focused on the matter of acceptable conduct in traditional armed conflict involving militaries, primarily because this was far and away the predominant form of armed struggle at the time. LT CDR Patricia Zengel, u.s. Navy, examined the perspectives of fourth, seventeenth and eighteenth century international legal scholars, Gentili, Grotius, Vattel, and Bynkershoek. Her general conclusion was that "none of these authors asserted that a leader or particular member of an opposing army enjoyed absolute protection, or was not a legitimate target of attack."4 However, each of the commentators also offered different standards for the specific circumstances under which targeting individuals would be acceptable. Alberico Gentili offers the most rigorous standard, essentially concluding that targeting individuals is generally only permissible on the field of battle. He rejected covert attacks off the battlefield or attacks against unarnled enemies, but this rejection was based on his own standards of honor, justice, and valor5 that would probably be irrelevant in both the Book of Mormon and contemporary eras. The other commentators offer much more liberal standards. "Grotius considered it permissible under the law of nature and of nations to kill an enemy in any place whatsoever, though he condemned killing by treachery or through the use of treachery of another."6
THE "TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL SECURITY THOUGHT
Emer de Vattel's thoughts on the issue bear the most striking application to Teancum's experience. Stated Zengel, "Vattel rejected assassination as contrary to law and honor, but was careful to distinguish it from ' surprises'- that is, attacks by stealth . . . if a soldier were to slip into an enemy's camp at night, make his or her way to the commander's tent and stab him or her ... the soldier's action actually would be commendable." Note the striking resemblance to Teancum's methodology. Bynkershoek offers an even more permissive framework, stating that "every force is lawful in war. So true is this that we may destroy an enemy though he be unarmed, and for this purpose we may employ ... an assassin .... "7 Only under Gentili's framework would Teancum's actions have been impermissible, but in addition to his views on honor, Gentili's field of battle conception seems irrelevant to modem warfare and to Teancum's time as well. Furthermore, given the more permissive frameworks the other commentators pronounced for individual targeting, Gentili's concepts of valor and honor by no means represent a generally accepted view, at least with respect to leadership targeting. Zengel's ultimate conclusion is that "the consensus ... was that an attack directed at an enemy, including an enemy leader, with the intent of killing him or her was generally permissible, but not if the attack was a treacherous one." Zengel defines treachery as "betrayal by one owing an obligation of good faith to the intended victim."8 One might ask whether the covert nature of Teancum's methodology, specifically stealing into enemy commanders' tents under cover of darkness, falls under the definition of "treachery" outlined above. Gentili would apparently argue so, but the other three would disagree. The treachery and perfidy proscribed by them rely on varying principles of good faith or agreements between relevant actors to adhere to a certain standard of behavior. Clearly no agreements to avoid targeting enemy leadership existed between the Nephite leadership and the Lamanite leadership, nor did Teancum gain access to Amalickiah or Ammoron on bad faith. Amalickiah himself rose to the Lamanite monarchy through his own treachery, including surreptitious administration of poison to his predecessor. Given an earlier vow to drink the blood of the enemy leadership (Alma 49:27), he undoubtedly would also have been willing to use treacherous tactics against the Nephite leadership. No element of faith in an agreement to avoid targeting the enemy leadership is evident on either the Nephite or the Lamanite side. Some modem commentators have mistakenly equated stealth with treachery.9 However, Teancum's methodology would only have been treacherous within the early standards had he used means prohibited under laws of war to facilitate his stealth, such as concealing a weapon while dressed as a civilian and then attacking. The Book of Mormon account does not indicate that this was the case; it merely suggests that Teancum used the cover of darkness to facilitate his mission. Three of the four early legal scholars noted above agree that such tactics fall far short of treachery. Teancum's targeted killings would fit cleanly in the early international legal framework on targeting individuals. Modem international law builds on the early legal foundation that enemy leaders are legitimate targets during international armed conflict. Says law professor Scott Silliman, "When you move into a state of recognized armed conflict ... and you are dealing with a head of state who has tactical control over his armed forces, he becomes a legitimate military target." IO Another scholar notes that a formal declaration of war is
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unnecessary: "What the law cares about is the factual situation on the ground. If there is an armed conflict, the laws of war are applicable."" A more fundamental modem consideration would be the legitimacy of conflict in which enemy leadership or other selected individuals are targeted. Post-World War II era discussion concerning the right of a state to use force frequently invokes the United Nations Charter. The charter essentially proscribes the use of force in most instances, while preserving the right of states to use force as a self-defensive measure. Once the self defense or other legal requirements for the use of force are satisfied, the laws of armed conflict form the most logical source of norms on targeting individuals, and as noted above, enemy leadership exerting control over the enemy military is a lawful target. The Nephite nation would have no trouble claiming the right to wage war against the Lamanites with a self defense invocation, since the Lamanites were an aggressor nation threatening Nephite security. Once engaged in the warfare, Teancum's targeting would have been lawful since Amalickiah and Ammoron both met the standard as leaders in control of a fighting military. Furthermore, his specific methodology would have been within the bounds of international law as noted above, since there is no record of treachery or violations of faith. Teancum s Actions within the Modern u.s. Legal Framework In addition to modem international ethical and legal norms, comparing Teancum's experience to the U.S. legal framework makes sense; as the lone Western superpower, the U.S. in many respects remains a pacesetter on issues concerning the use of force. This status does not imply that other states automatically kowtow to U.S. approaches. Instead, it suggests that U.S. actions are more likely to stimulate debate on what is and is not appropriate. Comparing Book of Mormon perspectives to U.S. norn1S can be illuminating because many other Western theological traditions offer commentaries that have influenced U.S. security policy. The "Just War" tradition is arguably the most notable. The Book of Mormon has much to contribute to this Western theological tradition in part because of its origins and also the authority Latter-day Saints ascribe to the volume. Any discussion on the role of targeting individuals as a tool of U.S. foreign policy will inevitably recall the assassination prohibition in Executive Order 12333. The ban was largely the product of aversion to perceived CIA and Intelligence Community abuses in the 1970s and prior, specifically the agency's role in attempts on the lives of Fidel Castro, Rafael Trujillo, and other foreign leaders considered problematic to U.S. interests. During congressional hearings in the 1970s investigating these abuses, allegations of CIA involvement in the plots surfaced and incurred congressional outrage. President Ford subsequently issued Executive Order 11905 governing Intelligence Conmmnity behavior. The order included a prohibition on political assassination, probably as a means to avoid congressional enactment of a legal prohibition, although no definition of "political assassination" was specified. Later revisions (EO 12036 and EO 12333 remain in effect today), dropped the modifier "political" and simply stated that "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."12 For some, the revision to the executive order still leaves a murky question as to what exactly constitutes "assassination." Assuming a liberal definition of the term (meaning essentially any killing of an individual off the recognized battlefield) would not only render a whole host of U.S. actions in recent decades illegal, it would ren-
THE 'TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL SECURITY THOUGHT
der moot the consideration of Teancum's actions as a baseline for modem thought. However, U.S. actions following the EO 12333 issuance suggest that the lack of a definition was designed to avoid a proscription conforming to such a liberal definition. Instead, the language only established a minimum U.S. standard on targeting individuals, granting the president flexibility in U.S. national security policy options while preventing a more institutionalized legislative prohibition of any killing. An important end result of the series of executive orders was that Congress never acted on an assassination ban, leaving EO 12333 as the defining American standardY EO 11905's original language banning "political assassination," while not defined, still held a certain implication that the United States as a matter of policy would not target individuals for their political beliefs. When the Carter Administration revised the language in EO 12036 and dropped the "political" modifier (which change the Reagan Administration maintained in EO 12333), some claimed that the ban expanded, but others have offered compelling evidence that the revision was merely an elimination of unnecessary language, as "political assassination" is a redundancy.I4 Indeed, many commentators assert that "assassination" as thought of today must contain a significant political rationale, not to mention the added component of treachery, while targeting individuals for self-defensive purposes does not meet such criteriaY Each U.S. presidential administration from Reagan onward has sanctioned the targeting of individuals, but only two of these instances bear immediately apparent similarities to Teancum's circumstances. While engaged in armed hostilities with Iraq, both the first and second Bush administrations directly targeted Saddam Hussein, and justified the actions with the assertion that enemy leaders are legitimate targets during armed conflict. Though a few commentators objected, both administrations could credibly counter the criticisms since international law allows for the targeting in arn1ed conflict, as Saddam exerted direct control over his nation's war effort. Additionally, the EO 12333 assassination proscription was essentially irrelevant since the administrations asserted a view of Saddam as a national security threat. U.S. legal scholar Robert Turner agrees that targeting individuals for self defense purposes is not proscribed under U.S. or international law, and offers an additional justification for why the selected targeting of individual national security threats can be a prudent and moral tool of national security policy. He argues that "the doctrine of proportionality favors the option of intentionally killing the head tyrant as a means of ending aggression, rather than sending our young men and women onto the battlefield to slaughter-and be slaughtered by-the tyrant's young men and women." Turner's "innocent soldier" theory, based upon years of interaction with soldiers from many countries, posits that their lives have moral value, and that international law ought to weigh that value as it decides what behavior to make lawful. As an example, he asserts that Saddam Hussein's soldiers do not have the option of running off to Canada if they disagree with his policies, and he "would rather see [Saddam], and not his soldiers, punished for his crimes."I6 Turner's reasoning calls to mind a Book of Mormon injunction given well before Teancum's time, when the Lord counseled Nephi that "It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief' (1 Nephi 4:13). The instruction's connotations appear more theological than political given the context, but perhaps it also has some application to the most egregious of tyrants, both ancient and modem. The moral applications aside, Teancum's actions would fit within U.S. legal stan-
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dards as much as they would within the intemationallegal framework on assassination for the simple reason that the targetings were motivated by national security, rather than ideological concerns. This distinction is actually a key reason why this paper has avoided referring to Teancum's actions as assassination. There is no evidence that Teancum, Moroni, or other righteous Nephite leaders singled out and targeted individuals on the basis of ideology alone, indeed, the Nephites appear to have favored freedom of thought and discourse. However, when the ideology of certain individuals translated into action directly threatening to Nephite freedoms, the leadership felt compelled to act to protect those freedoms by appropriate means, including the use of force. EO 12333 shares that spirit: the U.S. will not target individuals for their political beliefs alone, but if those beliefs translate into action that threatens American lives and security, the U.S. reserves the right to act with necessary and appropriate force.
Teancum's Actions and the Current National Security Environment The synthesis of Teancum's experience with modem international and U.S. legal perspectives supports a notion that the U.S. can legitimately target enemy leaders during anned conflict, assuming involvement in the conflict is in self defense or some other justifiable cause. However, the modem international security environment offers more challenges than interstate war, particularly the threat of transnational terrorism. In the 1980s, the U.S. targeted Libyan leader Moammar Qhaddafi as an accused sponsor of terrorism. More recently, the U.S. killed Al Qa'ida operative Ali Qaed Sunian Harithi and has targeted Osama bin Laden. These incidents have stimulated considerable debate since they occurred outside traditional armed conflict. Applying lessons from Teancum's experience to this debate is on its face difficult because the account of Nephite combat experience during the period primarily discusses what contemporary scholars would also characterize as interstate war. A threat similar to modem transnational terrorism was not apparent in this era, and the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" do not even appear in the Book of Mormon. The Nephite nation in this period did face some subnational threats, but they were internal insurgencies rather than transnational in nature. The Nephite reaction to these insurgencies was forceful; when Amalickiah incited rebellion, Moroni sought his death, but Amalickiah fled to the Lamanite nation and subsequently became the leader of a major state threat. In another instance, the Nephite government sent an army to head off the defection of a sizeable group of Nephite dissenters that threatened national stability (See Alma 51). The Nephite nation in this era clearly believed that using deadly force was justifiable "to preserve their lives" (Alma 48: 14). Additionally, the record notes in many instances Moroni's firm belief in the right of his people to defend their lives and liberties from armed threats, "even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:47). If a transnational, non-state group had arisen as a major threat, Moroni's response would not likely have been different than it was to the invading Lamanite armies or even the smaller internal insurgencies; he would probably have sanctioned an armed response. Moreover, if Teancum 's targeting of leaders of adversary nations was acceptable in the eyes of the Nephite leadership, targeting individual terrorists would probably have been just as acceptable in their view. The distinction between substate actors and the post-Westphalian nation-state would probably have been a rather foreign concept to the Nephites at least as much as it would have been to other ancient peoples. The Nephite
THE "TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL SECURlTY THOUGHT
leadership did not delight in innocent bloodshed, and if singling out an aggressive enemy to prevent such bloodshed was possible, they probably would have accepted it. Indeed, Moroni's early desire to kill Amalickiah before he even reached a leadership position in an enemy nation suggests a belief that targeting individuals was warranted as a response if the individual represented a sufficient national security threat. The modem debate on the validity of targeting individual terrorists generally revolves around the issue of what legitimate rights and obligations a state has in defense of national security concerns. Critics of the selective targeting of terrorists when opportunities arise argue from perspectives frequently influenced by their views on human rights; some assert that it amounts to little more than extrajudicial execution. Others characterize the individual targeting of terrorists in the same general vein as assassination prohibited under international or U.S. law. One legal scholar questioned whether the U.S. can merely "decide that someone is a terrorist and then simply execute him with no trial."!7 Another commentator asserted that the Harithi killing "signals a dangerous and unethical shift in U.S. policy and underscores the hypocrisy of the [Bush] administration's stance on democratic norms .... On the surface, [the killing] violates Executive Order 12333."18 These criticisms imply that responses to terrorist acts should generally remain the province of law enforcement, and that terrorists should receive treatment as criminals rather than as national security concerns. Many scholars refute these characterizations; legal commentator Frank Biggio noted that the nature of modem terrorism has led some to "support the suggestion that acts of terrorism should be characterized as acts of war due to their destructive consequences and the threat they pose to national security and regional stability."!9 The scale of modem terrorist attacks, with the attendant loss of life and damage to infrastructure, not to mention the myriad other consequences, should dispel any notion that they are not national security threats. When possible, transnational terrorists should be captured and punished according to established law, but as Biggio noted, "There have been and will be times when law enforcement and diplomatic tools are simply not enough, when our national security is challenged."20 This threat certainly merits a forceful response, and the selective targeting of terrorists known to have planned or that are planning terrorist activities is a legitimate defensive response. As Jeffrey Addicot asserted, "the nation that is attacked with aggressive force may respond in self defense with proportional military action. "21 Targeting a terrorist because they represent a clear national security threat is not assassination. As noted in earlier discussion, the assassination prohibited under EO 12333 is the selective killing of individuals due to their political ideology. A terrorist that has been involved in prior attacks and is planning future operations is more than a political threat and, according to U.S. and international law, is subject to a forceful response when other options will not suffice. Harithi is the most recent example of this interpretation; in addition to his involvement in the USS Cole attack, his continued association with Al Qa'ida suggests that he would have been involved in future operations had he lived. All of this reasoning generally suggests that terrorists are legitimate targets for individual attack. The Book of Mormon, particularly the account of Moroni and Teancum's era, indicates that this response would be reasonable due to Moroni's belief in the right of the people to self defense against aggression. Modem international legal and U.S.
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perspectives also support a right to self defense, and thus the option to target terrorists. Therefore, the U.S. actions against terrorists such as bin Laden and Harithi, and even those providing them support, appears to have firm legal and ethical standing.
Conclusion When considered in the light of modem international and U.S. legal perspectives, the "Teancum Option" suggests to this author that Latter-day Saints can accept as a legitimate tactic the targeting of individuals that represent a clear threat to the national security of free nations. The taking of human life is no trivial matter, but the modem national security environment requires a variety of unconventional approaches beyond pitched battle. The circumstances for targeting individuals call for careful consideration and frequent error on the side of caution to prevent abuses. Still, selectively targeting enemies is sometimes the best option for preserving the national security of free nations. The views contained in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young University, or the u.s. government. NOTES
1. Priest, Dana. "U.S. Teams Seek to Kill Iraqi Elite: Covert Missions Target Hussein's Inner Circle," Washington Post, p. 1,29 March 2003. 2. Nibley, Hugh W. Teachings of the Book of Mormon-Semester 1, Transcripts of [29] Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Monnon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988-90. Introduction and 1 Nephi 1-Mosiah 5. Provo, Utah, FARMS, p. 116, 1993. 3. Reynolds, George. The Story of the Book of Mormon, 3rd ed., Chicago, Henry C. Etten & Co., p. 170, 1888. 4. Zengel, Patricia (LT CDR, USN). "Assassination and the Law of Armed Conflict," Military Law Review 134, p. 125, fall 1991. 5. Ibid. p. 126. 6. Ibid. p. 126-27. 7. Ibid. p. 129. 8. Ibid. p. 129. 9. Weinstein, Henry. "Leaders Legitimate Targets, Experts Say," Los Angeles Times, 21 March 2003. 10. Ibid.
11. Ibid. 12. Addicot, Jeffrey. "Proposal for a New Executive Order on Assassination," University of Richmond Law Review 37, p. 756, March 2003; Bauks, William and Peter Raven-Hansen. 'Targeted Killing: The U.S. Legal Framework," University of Richmond Law Review 37, p. 721-22,2003. 13. Harder, Tyler (MAJ, USA). "Time to Repeal the Assassination Ban of Executive Order 12333: A Small Step in Clarifying Current Law," Military Law Review 172, p. 13, 2002. 14. Bauks and Raven-Hansen, p. 722. 15. Addicot. p. 761; Pickard, Daniel. "Legalizing Assassination? Terrorism, the Central Intelligence Agency, and International Law," The Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 30, p. 18, fall 2001. 16. Turner, Robert. "It's Not Really Assassination: Legal and Moral Implications of Targeting Terrorists and Aggressor State Regime Elites," University of Richmond Law Review 37, p.
THE "TEANCUM OPTION" AND MODERN LDS NATIONAL SECURITY THOUGHT
799-800, March 2003. 17. Cassel, Doug. "A Shot in the Dark-It's a Crime," Chicago Tribune, 2 February 2003. 18. Donohue, Laura. "The 'Good Guy' Turns Assassin," Los Angeles Times, 17 November 2002. 19. Biggio, Frank. "Notes: Neutralizing the Threat: Reconsidering Existing Doctrines in the Emerging War on Terrorism," Case Western Reserve Journal of Law 34, p. 17, fall 2002. 20. Ibid.
21. Addicot. p. 770-71. REFERENCES Bonafide, Michael. "Note: Here, There, and Everywhere: Assessing the Proportionality Doctrine and U.S. Uses of Force in Response to Terrorism after the September 11 Attacks," Cornell Law Review 88, pp. 156-214, November 2002. Dycus, Stephen, Arthur Berney, William Banks, and Peter Raven-Hansen, ed. National Security Law, 3d. ed., New York, Aspen Law and Business, 2002. Schrader, Esther and Henry Weinstein. "U.S. Enters a Legal Gray Zone," Los Angeles Times, 5 November 2002.
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Mass Destruction-Historical and LDS Perspectives Gary L. Stradling We can hope and pray for that glorious day foretold by the prophet Isaiah when men "shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isaiah 2:4). When all is said and done, we of this Church are people of peace. We are followers of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the Prince of Peace. But even He said, "Thiuk not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34).
President Gordon B. Hinckley, General Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, April 2003.
Mass destruction is a phenomenon relatively common in the history of this world. Mass destruction from war is a particular concern, though natural calamity can be even more devastating. There is in evidence among the more liberal of national security policy makers/thinkers of a tacit confidence-or wishful thinking-that certain rules of civility can be counted upon to govern modem international relations, that unilateral disarmament will make us safe, and that we may trust the security of the United States in the hands of other nations. They gravely misunderstand the nature of security and of conflict as well as religious teachings about peace. Peace through weakness is not possible-there is a law of nature that "threats seek vulnerabilities." We have a responsibility to defend our nation and our people from danger. We can beat our swords into plowshares only when the enemy is gone. We can cease vigilance only when peace is permanently established. Even the famous section VI of the NonProliferation Treaty calls for nuclear disarmament only in the context of "general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." I personally do not see that happening until the fulfillment ofthe prophecy that Christ will reign personally on the earth, having all power and establishing His peace. Historians note that when some bad actors have risen to positions of power they use their power, without conscience or respect for the sovereignty of nations or peoples, to destroy, subjugate, and enslave other nations, stealing their treasure. The death tolls from these conflicts range from the hundreds a/thousands to millions. As the nations of Europe found through WWI and WWII, civilization with its social rules, communica-
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tion, business dependencies, and international nonns of behavior, even when canonized into treaties, does not hinder powerful, wicked people from making war. I believe that there exists today people like Genghis Khan, Hitler, Hirohito, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, who, if allowed the power of mass destruction, would use it to annihilate this nation. My particular concern is the potential for a strategic, incapacitating, attack on our nation. During the Cold War, this meant a massive nuclear strike from the Soviet Union. While there remains the capability in Russia and China to launch such devastating attacks, we are on reasonably friendly relations with them and the current risk appears relatively small. However, international relations are volatile and the future must be safeguarded. The oceans thatbuffered the U.S. from conventional attack and invasion up to the 1950s have been effectively reduced to ponds with the speed and reach of modern technology. The isolation we enjoyed is gone. In WWI and WWII, we had long periods of time-years-to build up war industries and to ann ourselves. Today we must maintain our military defensive and deterrent capabilities at the ready. The development of business and communication technology have made the U.S. asymmetrically vulnerable to some types of attacks. The attack on a high-density business node (the World Trade Center) with unconventional weapons on 9/11 was such an asymmetric attack. This particularly vicious and destructive attack was the culmination of a long series of smaller attacks on the U.S. by militant Islamist groups who seek our national destruction. The Bush Administration,l through the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review and the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, has developed a strategy of "assure, dissuade, deter, defend/defeat" requiring the U.S. to develop necessary capabilities and to respond to the capability of potential adversaries. We will continue to "assure" our allies and friends that the United States can respond to unexpected or new threats while "dissuading" potential adversaries from developing threatening capabilities. Our ability to hold at risk assets valued by our adversaries will "deter" them from attacking our territory and our interests. Because not all adversaries may be dissuaded or deterred, our policy is to develop the capability to "defend" against attacks and to "defeat" our adversaries on our tenns. I strongly support this approach, which is forward-thinking and prudent. An essential part of our defensive capability that contributes to this strategy is the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. The fundamental importance of capable U.S. nuclear forces has been reaffiruled by every administration since Truman. The U.S. nuclear arsenal, designed to deter the Cold War threat of a massive, annihilating attack of the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal, has a powerful capacity to destroy nearly any target in the world. This awesome capability for destruction has held large-scale conventional war at bay for sixty years now. The large-scale peace guaranteed by the U.S. nuclear arsenal has, by my estimation, saved tens to hundreds of millions of lives that might otherwise have been lost in the upward spiral of conventional war, that is illustrated by Figure 1.
MASS DESTRUCTION-HISTORlCAL AND LDS PERSPECTrYES
Nuclear We3pODS Cut Rane of Wal'tUue
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The rate of wartime fatalities dropped dramatically following World War II and the Korean war, when the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal made large-scale conventional war untenable, leading to greater international effort to assure peace. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union the nature of the threat has changed from the "arsenal exchange" scenarios of the Cold War. The massive collateral damage--the unnecessary destruction of civilian population and infrastructure-that would accompany an attack on an enemy using our Cold War arsenal would be daunting to our national leadership. The very lethality of these weapons is self-deterring to a moral and democratic nation. Our threat is now more diverse and requires greater flexibility to accomplish the objectives of "peace through strength." Our experiences with Bosnia, Kosovo, Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, etc., show that a deterrent gap exists. Our regional adversaries do not believe we really threaten them with massive, indiscriminant nuclear attack (I do not believe it either), and they are able to hide their key military assets deep underground, out of reach of all but the most extensive conventional attack. The Bush 2001 NPR policy directed that we find ways to enhance conventional weapon capability to carry part of the deten·ence load previously shouldered by the nuclear arsenal and to reduce our deployed nuclear weapons by 2012 to a level of 1700 to 2200 weapons. With the possibility that the existing nuclear forces, which are based on large-yield weapons of moderate accuracy, may not be adequate to the security challenges of the future, there is an important debate currently underway on the development of effects-based, discriminating nuclear weapons to fill the deterrent gap from the top down. These would be nuclear weapons with specific capabilities that provide
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effective destruction of designated targets, including deep bunkers, and chemical and biological agent facilities, without excessive collateral damage. I believe this nation having military might and wielding it for the defense of righteousness, freedom, and peace is the "high moral ground," as opposed to the "morality" of unilateral disarmament advocated by many. I am proud to be part of that enterprise. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our adversaries are a cause for real concem. A strategic attack using a contagious biological weapon that kills only a few percent of our populace could bring our govemment and business structures to their knees through the loss of key people and the disruption brought about by fear, quarantine, and health-care overload. The SARS epidemic in Asia, in which the numbers of dead were measured in the hundreds, given modem news reporting, disabled key industries of the affected nations and disrupted intemational commerce. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on 25 February 2003 at the Hoover Institution in Washington, D.C., said: The new danger is, clearly, the nexus between those very powerful weapons-biological, particularly, contagious weapons .... (The John Hopkins University) Dark Winter Exercise, ... ended up taking smallpox, and locating it in three places in the United States, and within a relatively short period of months, there were ... deaths numbering in the hundreds of thousands, up to a top level of potentially a million people dead from smallpox.'"
I worked on the chemical and biological weapon issue in the Pentagon Counterproliferation Office a few years ago and recognized that the technology existed then to develop contagious bio-weapons, strategic weapons, at a cost 100,000 times less than the cost of developing a strategic nuclear arsenal. This modest price and the required technology are within the reach of a regional adversary. We were not successful at that time in gaining support from the military to address the nation's intemal vulnerability to this threat. The focus then was the military vulnerability to tactical chemical and biological weapons of deploying and deployed forces, a legitimate and pressing concem, but not as broad a focus as I advocated. So it is a relief to hear Rumsfeld's concem about strategic bio-weapons and to see the beginning of Homeland Defense policies that can provide intemal defense against such threats. It is important to preserve this nation to accomplish its assigned role, and I envision the United States standing for many more centuries as a bastion of righteousness and a source of freedom. As a Latter-day Saint national security professional, my vocation is to try to protect this nation from calamitous events. My secular view of the state of the world has been substantially illmninated by my faith and the scriptures that I have been immersed in from my youth. I was taught that the United States was prepared as a place where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints could be restored and from which the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ can go forth to the world. However this nation is at risk because of our own moral weaknesses. Said Moroni from his vantage as a historian and a prophet: And now, we can behold the decrees of God concerning this land, that it is a land of promise; and whatsoever nation shall possess it shall serve God, or they shall be swept off when the fulness of his wrath shall come upon them. And the fulness of his wrath cometh upon them when they are ripened in iniquity (Ether 2:9).
Of course the only real protection, in which we can have high confidence, is for the nation to live righteously and thereby to deserve the protection of God.
MAss DESTRUCTION--HISTORICAL AND LDS
PERSPECTIVES
In scripture there is a plethora of prophecy from God by His authorized representatives foretelling of mass destruction for the latter days-wars, disease, calamity, pestilence, famine, earthquake, and stom1S. The prophecies generally tie these destructions to a state of wickedness existing in the affected nations and to the existence of conspiracies of wicked men. The past fulfillment of many of those prophecies has also been recorded in scripture and historic writings. On 25 December, 1832, twenty-nine years before the start of the Civil War, God told Joseph Smith: Verily thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortly come to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which will eventually terminate in the death and misery of many souls; And the time will come that war will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at this place .... And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn; and with famine, and plague, and earthquake, and the thunder of heaven, and the fierce and vivid lightning also, shall the inhabitants of the earth be made to feel the wrath, and indignation, and chastening hand of an Almighty God .... (Doctrine and Covenants 87:1-2, 6)
The Latter-day Saints were spared the terrible devastation of the Civil War by being driven out of the United States. We understand that it is not only war that puts our nation at risk. We are in danger from plagues and destructions that stem from behaviors we have been cautioned against. Monte Wolverton has put epidemics in perspective with the graphic in Figure 2.
Figure 2. A comparative perspective on epidemics today.
Note that our most devastating plagues result from disregarding the wise counsel of a loving Father. With regard to tobacco-caused deaths, Joseph Smith was cautioned in 1830: . Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation-....
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And again, tobacco is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man (Doctrine and Covenants 89:4, 8)
We have long been counseled to retain sexual relationships within the safety of marriage. This passage from the Old Testament is particularly poignant as we consider the plight of Africa, where sexual immorality fuels the terrible, spiraling, scourge of the AIDS epidemic: By committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood. Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish (Hosea 4:2- 3)
Safety for our nation also requires our people to understand and obey the commandments of God. The scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, the Bookof Mormon, and the more recent Doctrine and Covenants, are replete with examples in which God has told His people to be faithful and obedient to his commandments and then to stand back and watch Him fight their battles. However, while our nation is still in the process of choosing between righteousness and wickedness, we must labor to protect it, as General Mormon did for his wayward people at the end of the Book of Mormon. To that end, LDS national security professionals work locally in their comer of the world while also attempting to influence the nation and the world for good on a larger scale. First, we labor to conquer our own weaknesses, through repentance and faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ. We also try to raise our families in righteousness, that for the sake of a few, many might be spared (as in Abraham's negotiations with God over Sodom and Gomorrah). We teach the gospel to those around us, encouraging them to be worthy of God's protection. We send our children out as missionaries to the world, while also preparing them to "wield the sword in defense of truth and right." I see two great dangers that threaten the longevity of the United States. The danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of undeterred adversaries, and the danger of domestic unrighteousness that invites calamity down upon us- both are serious. It is our responsibility to protect this nation and to work to establish peace in the world. In doing this, we must do our best with the most effective policies, strategies, and technologies that we can devise, while living wOlihy of the help of God. The views expressed in this paper are the author 's and do not purport to represent Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy, or the Department of Def ense. NOTES I. Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee: Defen se Strategy Review, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. , Thursday, 21 June 21 200l. 2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2003/t02252003 _t0225hoover.html
12 Just War in Iraq? Arab Radical and Reformist Perspectives Brent J Talbot Introduction This [war in Iraq] is the shock that may bring the Arabs into the twenty-first century. -Michael Barone'
In just the last two years, the United States has initiated a War on Terrorism in which it has conquered and occupied both Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, it has maintained a large military presence in the region since the 1991 Gulf War, and it continues its deep involvement in Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Such activities have placed the U.S. number four on the list of states most likely to be targeted by terrorists in the next twelve months, according to a London-based research company.2 This is likely due to the large number of terrorist groups in the region. The State Department has designated thirty-three foreign terrorist organizations worldwide, nearly half of which are located in the Middle East. 3 Moreover, five of the seven designated state-sponsors of terrorism are Middle Eastern states. 4 It is generally accepted that terror against the United States is directly linked to U.S. involvement in Arab/Islamic affairs. By following this line of reasoning, one might conclude that pulling American military forces out of the Middle East would curb attacks against U.S. targets. Opponents of U.S. involvement use this as justification to bring the troops home, out of harm's way, and Arabs have typically blamed Western colonialism or continued involvement in their affairs for many of the problems of the region. In other words, U.S. efforts to aggressively defeat terrorism likely results in more anti-Americanism and terrorist attacks since such efforts are bound to insure a continued American presence in the Middle East. Still, if the opponents of U.S. involvement are correct, and if the Arabs prefer non-intervention, then why is the U.S. so involved? Equally important to Latter-day Saints, why has President Hinckley suggested that the war to remove Saddam Hussein from power was just?5 Such a pronouncement seems to go against the international harn10ny that the gospel decrees, particularly in light of the number of countries that stood against U.S. involvement in Iraq and the accompanying lack of a final UN Security Council resolution sanctioning the war against Saddam, or efforts to build an international peacekeeping force during the aftermath. 6 This essay is an effort to address the "apparent" dilemma. My view is that frustration in the Middle East has been improperly directed toward the West by two sources. First, many Arab governments use control of the media to filter popular frustration away from its root cause (the governments themselves) onto Western scapegoats-primarily Israel and the United States. Secondly, Arab Islamists blame the West for most of the problems in the region. Thus, the media fuels support for Islamist radicals bent on terrorist attacks against Western targets and contributes to the perception that all U.S. efforts in the region are anti-Arab/anti-Islamic. Moreover, whereas other essays in this volume tackler Just War
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from a doctrinal/theological perspective, my effort also seeks to provide a case-study of Just War doctrine using Operation Iraqi Freedom and related post-Gulf War events that contributed to the breakdown in the Gulf War alliance. I also hope to shed light on what I believe is the suitability of President Bush's Preemptive War strategy, outlined in the latest National Security Strategy document, as it applies to this region of the world. 7
The Arab Media and Perceptions of the U.S. During the aftermath of al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 (9111), "cameramen caught crowds celebrating in Gaza or people expressing satisfaction in Cairo and other cities in the region over the demise of the WTC [World Trade Center]."8 Although these scenes likely reflected a minority, they shocked most Americans. Were they representative of Arab views? Do the Arabs hate America, and if so, why? The Arab media is a leading source of misperceptions among the Arab populace. In an AI-Jazeera talk show that aired during 10 July 2001 (before the WTClPentagon attacks), bin Laden was portrayed as an Arab hero who stood up to the West. The talkshow host declared that "bin Laden has made the greatest power in history shudder at the sound of his name, while the ... heavyweights [other Arab leaders] arouse only America's pity and ridicule." On the same program, a viewer from Jordan who called in stated that "anyone who attacks bin Laden and accuses him of terrorism stands with the enemies of our nation."9 AI-Jazeera claims a viewership of over thirty-five million Arabs and is thus the most influential television station in the Middle East, a region where more people claim to get their news from television than any other source. The New York Times reported that AI-Jazeera broadcasts a mix of anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism, and that its independent "reporters see themselves as anti-imperialists .. . convinced that the rulers of the Arab world have given in to American might."lo Misperceptions also abounded after 9111 when many in the Arab world did not believe bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. For example, a regional Arab opinion poll concluded that 31 percent of respondents blamed Israel for the attacks on the U.S., while only 27 percent blamed bin Laden. ll Even more shocking, a (non-Arab) Pakistani poll reported that 71 percent of respondents agreed that 4,000 Jewish workers had not gone to work in the twin towers the morning of 11 September because they had been warned by Mossad (Israeli Secret Service) agents who were responsible for the attacks. Though the rumor behind this accusation was traced back to Hezbollah news sources in Lebanon, it was carried throughout the region on state-run and private news channels and leading newspapers.r' Interestingly, even the Syrian Defense Minister professed this belief at a Damascus meeting where he was hosting a delegation of Western military officers from the British Royal College of Defence StudiesY As America went after the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Arab news channels reported it as a war against Islam, especially after President Bush made the mistake of calling the War on Terror a "crusade," invoking memories of Christian Crusaders retaking the Holy Land from Arabs during the eleventh century.14 Bush's "axis of evil" speech strengthened the negative view because two-thirds of the axis (Iran and Iraq) consisted of Muslim states and the terrorist organizations he named during the speech all claimed to be Islamic-inspired and were based in the Middle EastY Distorted news reports reflected in the opinion polls. A Bir Zeit University poll found 76 percent of Palestinians opposed to joining the U.S.-led coalition and an even
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greater number, 89 percent, believed the US. was not justified in attacking Afghanistan. Additionally, 64 percent felt that the attacks actually violated Islamic law. I6 As an interesting insight, Kuwaiti liberal parliamentarian Ahmad al-Rubei said that because of media reports during the lead-up to the war against Iraq, "the Arab person is waking up and going to sleep every day with the different and exaggerated analyses that are not based on realities but rather on wishes and prefabricated positions. 17 Indeed, US. govemment declarations regarding Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power were especially worrisome to the Arab populace. Pressure mounted after UN Security Council Resolution 1441, passed unanimously on 8 November 2002, required a retum of weapons inspectors and threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if the inspectors were not allowed back into the country. Once inspectors did reenter Iraq, violations found by new rounds of inspections fell short of providing a "smoking gun," according to Arab and European allies, and thus, no final resolution actually authorizing the use of force was passed. Is Most Arab govemments remained reluctant to support American efforts to oust the Iraqi leader without stronger evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and as long as the UN remained reluctant to pass an authorization for force. Reluctance to join the coalition was fueled by popular sentiments throughout the region. In the United Arab Emirates, typically considered pro-U.S., women in a university political science class said that "any war against Iraq would be a war against them." Most Arabs believed "conflict will breed more extremism" and some expressed concem over "whether America is friend or foe?,, 19 In believing that the war could create more bin Laden types, these views demonstrated a sense of increased frustration among the Arab populace toward US. policies in the region?O Pre-war polls showed 69 percent of Egyptians holding an unfavorable view of the U.S., and in Westem-friendly Jordan, 75 percent expressed an unfavorable viewY Both countries have close ties to the U.S. and are among the largest recipients of American foreign aid. Equally disturbing is news from Arab political analysts reporting greater antagonism towards the U.S. than at any time in recent memory, and that such perceptions are driven by stereotypes that bear little resemblance to reality or the intent of U.S. policy.22 Graham Fuller relates the following synopsis of the problem: The U.S. tendency to disregard popular Muslim concerns as Washington cooperates with oppressive and insecure regimes fosters an environment in which acts of terrorism become thinkable and, worse, even gratifying in the eyes ofthe majority. The vast bulk of Muslims, of course, will go no further than to cheer on those who lash out. But such an environment is perhaps the most dangerous of all, because it legitimizes and encourages not the tolerant [reformist] and liberalizing Islamists and peacemakers, but the [radical] negativistic hard-liners and rejectionists. 23
The Arab-Israeli dispute is perhaps the largest source of Arab irritation against the United States. Indeed, a 2001 poll of Saudis, Kuwaitis, Emirates, Egyptians, and Lebanese Arabs concluded that 60 percent of the Arab public in those states claimed the Palestinian conflict as the "single most important issue" of personal concem. 24 Moreover, Hilal Khashan's study of Levant Arabs indicated that the Palestinian question concems the entire Arab, and even the entire Islamic world. 25 During the past two years, over two thousand Palestinians have died at the hands of the Israeli military (and over eight hundred Jews have fallen victim to suicide bombings and other attacks by radical, militant Palestinians).26 As a superpower, Arabs believe
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the U.S. is imminently capable of pressuring the Israelis to grant Palestine statehood and end Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The Saudi Foreign Minister expressed this concern when, during a New York Times interview, he appeared "angrily frustrated" about President Bush's failure to do more. Bush's perceived lack of effort "makes a sane man go mad," according to the minister. The Saudis are reportedly bracing for a "furious gathering storm" among their populace over the Palestinian plight?Moreover, an Arab businessman reported that during a telephone conference between U.S. and Arab business leaders, he expressed frustration over American views, stating that "all they want to know about is Israel and its security. What about the Palestinians and their security? We will not compromise on what is a legitimate issue."28 Animosity is especially manifest among Palestinians, as evidenced by the number identifying themselves as supporters of radical Islamist groups. Only 15 percent supported such groups during December 2000, but eighteen months later (April 2002), over 26 percent supported terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Brigade, which are opposed to peace with Israel, let alone negotiations brokered by the United States. 29 Furthermore, though the Egyptian government signed a peace treaty with Israel, mediated by the U.S. in 1978, it now "encourages the Egyptian press to be hostile towards Israel."3o Lastly, Islamic states gathered in Malaysia during April 2002 and voted on a resolution that declared Palestinian resistance to Israel could not be viewed as terrorism, including suicide bombers who act within Israel's borders. Some fifty-seven Muslim states attended the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting and a majority voted contrarily to U.S. views in its conduct of the war against terrorism. 3l Hendawi concludes that suicide bombers are now portrayed as the "ultimate Palestinian heroes" and "gone is the optimism of the mid-1990s when peace seemed a realistic proposition."32 In sum, Arab animosity is on the rise because of U.S. involvements in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Much of this animosity is driven by widely distorted media views propagated by the Arab governments as well as radical Islamists bent on driving America out of the region.
What's Wrong with Arab Perceptions? The polling data above gives the impression that America would be better off to redeploy its military forces from the Middle East. However, one must ask why hatred of the West is so endemic? The answer lies, in part, in the poor economic conditions prevalent in the region. For example, average growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) progressed at a rate of 6.5 percent during the 1970s, but experienced negative growth in eight Middle Eastern states during 1985~94, was less than 0.5 percent in four others, and above 1 percent in only six states in the region. 33 Current GDP growth rates average 3.2 percent (2001), below 1970s levels, but a slight improvement over more recent decades. Nevertheless, this rate is only slightly higher than the population growth rate averaging between 2~3 percent, which translates into zero real growth 34 The eighties were particularly difficult for the region, with wars (Iran-Iraq, Afghanistan), anarchy (Lebanon), insurrection, (Palestine), "wildly fluctuating" oil prices (Gulf States), droughts, and "clumsy government" economic interventions all significantly inhibiting growth.35 And according to Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's National Security Advisor, the hopelessness that results from such poor economic conditions "provides a fertile ground for ideologies of hatred that persuade people to
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forsake university educations, careers, and families and aspire instead to blow themselves up-taking as many innocent lives with them as possible."36 One must address why the Middle East has been unable to overcome economic and demographic challenges that have been subjugated in many other regions of the globe. Bernard Lewis spells out what I consider the major cause: a political and social crisis due to a "breakdown of consensus, of that generally accepted set of rules and principles by which a polity works and without which a society cannot function."37 The lack of consensus arises out of governments' inability to improve conditions and lack of support among the polity. As evidence of a consensus problem, Ziad Asali indicates that neither the "regimes" nor the "Islamist opposition ... represents a majority, since a large middle-ground is occupied by politically marginalized or impoverished sectors of society," but they are the "two major internal forces" that shape the "political dynamics" of the region. 38 Without government reform intended to win over the populace, the lack of consensus ensues. And as described in the previous section, both governments and Islamists have looked for scapegoats rather than working to solve problems from within. In other words, governments sought to deflect blame from themselves and thus pointed to the West and/or the plight of the Palestinians as the real cause of suffering and the lack of development in the region. Accordingly, blaming the West for its own ills is a major preoccupation of Arab society and it contributes to poor Arab perceptions ofthe United States. The Islamist opposition is also divided into two loose groupings, which I prefer to label as the radicals-extremists and the reformists (thus avoiding the generic tern1: Islamic fundamentalists), which again is evidence of a lack of consensus, making it difficult to generate a united front against government corruption. 39 I will now define each of the Islamist categories in more detail, then introduce the need for improving opportunities for the reformists as justification for the war in Iraq. lslamist Radicals Osama bin Laden is the champion radical Islamist of the present. The terrorist attacks of 911\, the USS Cole attack (2000), and the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa (1998), were all attributed to bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorists, who were attempting to drive U.S. forces from the Middle East so that they might then conquer the corrupt regimes of the region and replace them with their own, twisted version of radical Islamist government. 40 According to a RAND study, the radical rationale for wanting to replace Arab leaders ties back to rejection by those very regimes that had supported them during their time as Mujahadeen warriors in Afghanistan. After beating the Soviets, the core al-Qaeda veterans expected to be welcomed home as heroes; but instead, Middle Eastern governments became suspicious of their revolutionary fervor. The arrival of American troops to fight the Gulf War, and the continued repression of Islamists by the American-backed regimes, provided ample grounds for their desire to renew their fight against a new enemy-the U.S. 4 1 Kepel adds that they had been "completely divorced from the social realities ofti1e world around them, locked as they were into a sectarian religious logic." Moreover, their efforts in the early nineties to "export jihad" into Bosnia, Algeria, and Egypt were thwarted with Western assistance; Western aid that came to them during the Mujahadeen era had evaporated. Though they had beaten a Soviet "evil empire," they were now viewed as "terrorists and fanatic criminals" themselves 42 Even among Middle Easterners, according to a Wall Street Journal source, "few
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people endorse bin Laden's goals or his methods;" still, many believe that "bin Laden constitutes the only so far effective acknowledgement of discontent. The United States misses the boat because it is identified with support of Israel and discredited regimes."43 In other words, many in the Muslim world view bin Laden as a Robin Hood of sorts, brave enough to stand up to the United States and wage war against the West in his desire to restore the Islamic Caliphate and rid the Muslim world of Western and particularly American influence. 44 The animosity described above helps to rationalize the "buy in" of unobserving bystanders to the theological arguments made by the terrorists that justify defying their own religious values in order to make war against the West. Establishing the state of Israel, allowing U.S. military basing on Saudi soil, or U.S. occupation of Islamic states such as Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be allowed according to the radicals. Lewis related: What is truly evil and unacceptable is the domination of infidels [non-Muslims] over true believers [Muslims]. For true believers to rule misbelievers is proper and natural, since this provides for the maintenance of the holy law and gives the misbelievers both the opportunity and the incentive to embrace the true faith. But for misbelievers to rule over true believers is blasphemous and unnatural, since it leads to the corruption of religion and morality in society and to the flouting or even the abrogation of God's law45
Wilson further defines why this is so among radical Islamists. Muslims "who believe that there is one set of moral rules superior to all others, laid down by God and sometimes enforced by the fear of eternal punishment, will understandably expect their nation to observe and impose these rules."46 In other words, Islam has designated the individual subordinate to society. Religious values should be enforced in order to save all. But such a ruling comes at a price. There is little if any religious freedom; religious intolerance abounds; and most often, the authorities that enforce such standards are autocratic. Sullivan calls it "a world of absolute truth ... [with] no room for dissent and no room for theological doubt. Hence, the[re is a] reliance on literal interpretations of texts-because interpretation can lead to error."47 Unfortunately, the radicals rely upon interpretations from past centuries and ignore the possible application of the Prophet Muhammad's teachings to the modem world. Islamist Reformists Interestingly, early twentieth century Islamist reformist movements sought to mix Western and Islamic thinking to create Islamic democracies. Leading Islamist scholars of the era believed there was a "natural affinity of Islam with science and reason," which justified the mixing of secular and Islamic traditions, and that "reason [w]as given by God to protect humankind from either excess or adulteration of religion."48 Though early experiments for reform went astray, many Muslim scholars among the intelligentsia continue to call for moderation and government reform. Unfortunately, they are most often ignored by the media or jailed by governments who lump them into the same "fundamentalist" category along with the radicals, and their small numbers and lack of recognition have left them with little influence. 49 Still, their existence provides hope that radical thinkiug can be undone or overcome by the more moderate forces within Islam. I would also argue that although the radical voices have the upper hand due to circumstances (especially their widespread influence upon the media) at present, the "silent majority" of Muslims are much more likely aligned with moderate
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views of the refonners. 5o The refonnist version of Islam is much closer to what the Prophet Muhammad envisioned when he established this great religion and it is his unadulterated teachings which the majority of Muslims wish to follow. 51 Indeed, the Indonesian Minister of Religion, quoting a popular Islamist refonner, said that "the backwardness of Islam arose because the door of ijtihad (independent judgment) was closed ... as a result of thirteenth century mysticism ... that taqlid (indiscriminate adoption of traditional religious interpretations) by the ulama (religious scholars) must be avoided, and that the ijtihad is open, not closed."52 Thus, continued efforts to interpret and apply the Quran and Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) should be ongoing among Muslim religious leadership. Why Support the Reformists? To illustrate the danger behind imposed religion favored by the radicals, Sullivan recounts the case made by Dostoyevsky in the Brothers Karamazov. In the novel, there is a character described as the Grand Inquisitor, responsible for managing the Spanish Inquisition. He believes that "Choice leads to unbelief or distraction or negligence or despair. What human beings really need is the certainty of truth, and they need to see it reflected in everything around them." In other words, allowing free choice, or free agency, "is too great a burden" for the average human being. This line of reasoning leads to the trial and punishment of Jesus (who had returned to Earth at the time of the Spanish Inquisition in the storyline) because he allowed humans the chance to refuse salvation. 54 Sin was not outlawed as it should be; freedom of choice was not taken away. This is the same great crime of which bin Laden and other Islamist radicals accuse the United States. Thus, bin Laden and his followers, like many other religious fundamentalists of the past, would choose the same way Lucifer did during the War in Heaven, which resulted in the loss of a third of the souls residing therein. They would fight against the Lamb of God, the first born Son, the true plan of salvation that is based upon free agency, in the hope of forcing all souls to obey and thus return to GOd. 55 Herein lies the true danger behind radical Islamist thought, and, like the Gadianton robbers of old, their kind must be hunted down or in some other way eliminated. Lewis summarized why we need to help Islam reject radical beliefs and promote those of the refonnists: For Osama bin Laden, 2001 mark[ed] the resumption of the war for the religious dominance of the world that began in the seventh century. For him and his followers, this is a moment of opportunity. Today, America exemplifies the civilization and embodies the leadership of the House of War, and, like Rome and Byzantium, it has become degenerate and demoralized, ready to be overthrown. Khomeini's designation of the United States as "the Great Satan" was telling. In the Koran, Satan is described as "the insidious tempter who whispers in the hearts of men." This is the essential point about Satan: he is neither a conqueror nor an exploiter-he is, first and last, a tempter. And for members of al-Qaeda it is the seduction of America that represents the greatest threat to the kind of Islam they wish to impose on their fellow Muslims. 56
Interestingly, refonnist voices ofIslam also recognize the error of radical thought. While radicals blame the West for all the ills of Islam, refonnists make the following comment: Our reaction to repeated defeats over the last two centuries was as follows: After every defeat we became less courageous in asking [ourselves] painful questions, and more deeply mired in the culture of finding excuses, placing responsibility for our defeats
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on the unknown and settling for complaining about the trap laid by the West and its 'stepdaughter' Israel, who have targeted our land and skies ... all this [has happened] without us asking [ourselves] the embanassing question of whether internal factors have made us, unlike all other nations, easy prey to all. The [Arab] elites have opted for ... denying their overwhelming responsibility for these defeats. 57
In other words, the reformists blame the ills of the Islamic world upon themselves and their governments rather than pointing fingers toward the West. They seek internal reform to bring out the inherent good within Islam and overcome the dark forces of radical and authoritarian rule. Leading Arab intellectuals admit they are being held back by "a political and economic 'freedom deficit. '''58 America can best serve the interests of Iraqis by ensuring that the transition govemment includes reformist-minded Iraqis who understand the dangers of radicalism and seek to overcome the intemal problems of the past in an effort to build a viable govemment. Following this line of reasoning, the defeat of Saddam and democratization of Iraq could provide the opening reformists have been looking for. Reformist thought has the potential for providing an altemative future for the Middle East, one much-better suited to solving the difficult demographic and economic problems that have only grown worse in an era of authoritarian rule and growing radical discontent. It also provides further justification for war against radical Islam, whose forces have now moved into Iraq in an effort to fight against the American presence. 59 I will now tum to a discussion of why removing Saddam from power was a just cause in Iraq, despite_Arab perceptions and allied opposition.
Just War and the Preemptive Strategy Against Iraq Just War doctrine evolved from the writings of early Christian Saints Ambrose and Augustine and was later refined by Thomas Aquinas and others. According to the United States Institute of Peace, "Just war doctrine provided a middle road between the pacifism of the early church on the one hand and the crusade or the unrestricted use of force in God's service on the other."60 Its basic premise is the concept of jus ad bellum-the justice that leads to war, which incorporates five basic principles: legitimate authority, just cause, last resort, peaceful intent (on the part of the attacker), and a reasonable hope of success 61 Whether all five of these principles must be fully satisfied is subject for debate, but my effort to justifY the war against Iraq will address each principle in tum. I will start by briefly reviewing the history of how sanctions and policies in place at the end of the 1991 Gulf War destabilized over time due to weakening alliances, frustrations over Iraqi policy in the region, and Clinton administration inconsistencies and errors that contributed to the overall resentment among members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This undermined the legitimacy built during the 1991 Gulf War. Weakened legitimacy also hampered President Bush's ability to rebuild the coalition and get UN authorization for the war in order to satisfy this first principle: legitimate authority. Secondly, self-defense is considered a just cause, and I will address the Bush doctrine of preemption as a principle of self-defense. The third principle is the most controversial. Whether Saddam was an immediate threat and war was the last resort during the early months of2003 is widely debated in the press. Still, I will argue that the weakening Gulf coalition gave Saddam hope that he could eventually outlast the sanctions and keep his weapon secrets hidden. I will also argue that U.S. intentions in Iraq are peaceful; American forces are there to replace a tyrant with democratic rule
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and return the state to the Iraqi people, thus satisfying the fourth principle of just war doctrine. Lastly, whether there was a reasonable hope for success could be judged as having been satisfied since Saddam's army was defeated so easily [he has since been captured and his sons died killed in fighting]. However, peacekeeping efforts are problematic as of this writing and media reports have led many to believe that the U.S. has a quagmire on its hands. This too is debatable when considering the overall level and location of violence in Iraq. Clinton Administration Inconsistencies Which Weakened Legitimacy During March 1997, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright "gave Saddam a propaganda weapon by saying that the United States, even if Iraq did comply with the disarmament regime, would not favor the lifting of sanctions until Saddam had gone."62 Such a revelation was sure to lessen any prospects ofIraqi cooperation as well as alienate allies from the Gulf War coalition, and according to Richard Butler, Chief of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), some even considered Saddam justified in his refusal to cooperate after Albright's pronouncement. 63 Arms inspections would come to an end the following year. During early 1998, UNSCOM inspectors, who had just returned to Iraq under a new agreement, were barred from inspecting "presidential sites."64 This time the U.S. and Britain mobilized forces for attack as they had done during earlier crises that arose after the 1991 war. But conflict was prevented due to two major factors, according to Robert Freedman. First, there was little U.S. domestic support. CNN broadcast a Town Hall meeting from Ohio State University on 18 February where Secretary Albright encountered a hostile audience as she fielded questions regarding U.S. policy toward Iraq. The then-recent revelation of the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual relationship may have played a role in the lack of domestic support. Second, Saddam had begun a public relations campaign over the suffering of his people, which he blamed on UN sanctions. Arab allies were moved by this and felt U.S. policy hurt the Iraqi people much more than its leadership.65 France, Russia, and China were also opposed to any attack and argued against stronger wording in a resolution passed by the Security Council. Both the U.S. and Britain had sought the threat of "severest consequences," but Russia and France held out against any explicit threat and simply requested that Saddam allow the inspectors unrestricted access to suspect sites. 66 France even suggested that America had not offered Iraq sufficient "incentives" to comply.67 Saudi Arabia was moved to declare that it would not permit attack against Iraq from its soil, and among other Arab states, only Kuwait supported Washington publicly. Crowds of Egyptians, Jordanians, and Palestinians demonstrated by burning U.S. flags, and overall, the crisis struck a blow to U.S. credibility in the region. 68 As a result, the U.S. backed down from its attack posture with the help of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who negotiated with Saddam to allow arms inspections to resume. 69 By October 1998, Saddam's defiance in barring weapons inspections resulted in what had become an unusual international consensus for military intervention. A Security Council vote on 5 November demanded that UNSCOM be allowed back into Iraq70 France, Russia, and China were not opposed as they had been earlier in the year. On 10 November, a top Kuwaiti military general openly called for attacking Saddam's military infrastructure, lines of communication and command and control, and to create opportunities for Saddam's overthrow because, he claimed, "Saddam simply does
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not understand diplomacy without force."7l On 12 November, Egypt, Syria, and the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council issued a strong warning to Saddam: "Iraq must heed UN Security Council resolutions and abide by them to avoid military confrontation .... The Iraqi government will be solely responsible for all repercussions resulting from its decision to block UNSCOM."72 This meant that even the Arabs supported an attack and would allow air strikes from their soil this time around. For the first time since 1994, the Gulf War coalition was united in opposing Saddam. Despite all this international support, Clinton backed down after Iraq offered to allow UNSCOM to resume its inspections, in spite of noted analysts predictions that Saddam was simply continuing his "cheat and retreat" scheme. 73 On 15 November, after "canceling" air strikes, the president announced that the U.S. was looking forward to working with a new Iraqi government. Until this time, containment had meant the goal was to keep Saddam "in the box." Now the President's words indicated that there would be an effort to remove the Iraqi leader from poweL an effort not backed by any coalition members, with perhaps the exception of Kuwait. Indeed, just two months earlier, Congress had called for Saddam's removal and authorized $97 million in funding to equip and train the Iraqi opposition, and now the president was following the congressional lead. 74 But the administration's announcement came as air strikes were called off, sending a very mixed signal to the Iraqi leader and coalition allies. To further cloud the administration policy, Operation Desert Fox, the largest air campaign in the 1991-2003 interim, was initiated against Iraq the following month. U.S. and British forces from the November crisis were still in place and on 15 December, the UNSCOM chief inspector issued a report outlining Iraq's failure to cooperate--despite Saddam's offer to allow inspections to resume the previous month. The following day. as an impeachment vote was taking place in Congress, Clinton ordered the attack he had called off in November. Although Britain participated in the attack and the NATO Secretary General blamed the Iraqi leader for the "consequences of his defiance,"75 there was much opposition elsewhere. The window oflegitimacy, which had opened in November, had closed before the December attack. Russia, China, and France, key members of the Security Council, opposed the Desert Fox air strikes. The New York Times stated that the Russian Prime Minister had asked that the attacks be suspended, and his government's official statement went so far to say that "the entire system of international security, with the UN and the Security Council as its centerpiece, has been undermined" by the U.S.-British attack. 76 The Duma (Russian Parliament) went even further by passing a resolution calling the air strikes an act of "terrorism. "77 Arab governments offered no public support, other than Kuwait which allowed the launching of attack aircraft from its soil. Syria and Lebanon condemned the attack,78 and an Egyptian newspaper editor claimed that "A wave of hatred against the United States has started," and that it "leav[ es J an image of an arrogant power intent on dividing the Arab World."79 Interestingly, just two days prior to launching the attack, President Clinton had visited Gaza and met with Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. The Palestinians have demonstrated strong ties as well as sympathy to Saddam's regime and they questioned the sincerity of Clinton's visit after he launched the attack that he had so recently called Off80 Indeed, after news of the attack they burned the very flags they had waved in his presence only a few days before. 8l Butler stated that "in these circumstances, it is
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hard not to see Desert Fox as a failure," especially since it resulted in "an extended absence from Iraq of any arms-control or disarmament work" as had been carried out by UNSCOM.82 The arms inspection mission effectively ended after December 1998. Such adamant opposition had appeared much more muted in the previous month and showed that the poor timing of U.S. policy had undermined legitimacy and weakened the coalition. An increasing number of countries, including former coalition members, demonstrated their dissatisfaction by ignoring UN restrictions after the 1998 attacks. For example, air travel into Baghdad, banned by international sanctions, had resumed unchecked, and included airlines from over a dozen countries willing to pay no heed to UN restrictions. Moreover, smuggled Iraqi oil flowed through Syria as well as U.S.friendly states of Jordan, Turkey, and a number of Gulf states. 83 Others, particularly France and Russia, built up significant business interests with the one-time Gulf enemy. Illegal oil profits were accrued by selling oil below market value, then demanding kickbacks from the recipients, which amounted to sums not accounted for by controlled accounts in the "oil for food" program. These illegal profits were then used to purchase weapons in outright defiance of UNSC resolutions.84 The above narrative demonstrates evidence of weakening resolve among UN members. Without the UN, legitimacy weakened, and the coalition that fought Saddam became nearly extinct after 1998; but I must also point out that the UN itself was weakened by Clinton's own lack of commitment to enforce UN sanctions. Without leadership, the UN authorized coalition was assured to decline. Restoring legitimacy required renewed leadership, and such an effort was pursued by the Bush administration that followed.
Efforts by President George W. Bush to Restore Legitimacy After the tragedy of 9111, the Bush administration undertook major efforts to shore up the coalition against Iraq. Saddam had been living free of inspectors for over four years, and as part of his. effort to go after states that harbor terrorists, President Bush focused on the Iraqi problem and led the Security Council in an effort to build a consensus for the return of weapons inspectors. As early as 27 November 2001, during his first year in office, Bush warned that if UN weapons inspectors were not allowed to return, Iraq would "face consequences." Media reporters probing to understand the administration's intentions against Saddam were told: "He' ll find out." This warning was subsequently interpreted as meaning that Iraq was likely the next target of the war on terror; furthermore, ten leading lawmakers signed a letter to President Bush asking him to target the Iraqi regime next. 85 Many in Congress also called to implement and expand the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act intended to support efforts to overthrow Saddam.86 As support for renewed war efforts grew, the president called upon the Congress to vote for an authorization of force against Iraq. In his speech following the House vote, Bush called upon Iraq to fully and accurately account for all chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons materials. He blamed Iraq for treating the former UNSCOM inspection process as little more than a "game in which cheating was never punished."87 The Bush administration also stepped-up efforts in the Security Council asking for a fortified authorization to use force against Iraq if it did not make good on its compliance commitments from the Gulf War and allow a return of weapons inspectors.
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Speaking to the UN General Assembly, Bush said "Iraq has answered a decade of UN demands with a decade of defiance."88 As a consequence of renewed pressure, Iraq signaled intentions to allow the return of inspectors. These renewed efforts to shore up the Gulf War coalition resulted in UNSC Resolution 1441, passed on 8 November 2002, following "two months of arduous, exasperating, discussions led by Secretary of State Colin Powell."89 The original draft resolution put together by the United States and Britain required several modifications before it was acceptable to the French and Russians, who feared it would justify war against Iraq at the first sign of trouble. The final resolution called for Iraq to readmit inspectors and for the Security Council to "convene inunediately" should Iraq fail to comply with all demands. This "convene immediately" clause was the added compromise that met French and Russian concems.90 Still, the United States maintained that even though it agreed to discuss any Iraqi "material breech" in the Security Council, it would continue to maintain "freedom of action" to defend U.S. interests.91 Thus, American military forces were not necessarily committed to waiting for additional UN rulings specifically authorizing the use of force after it was determined Iraq had failed to comply with the demands of 1441. Such failure was noted early by the new weapons inspection regime that entered Iraq. Hans Blix, ChiefInspector of the new UNMOVIC team, documented Iraq's failure to provide full disclosure of its weapons programs in his last report published prior to the initiation of hostilities, which began on 19 March 2003.92 Such documentation was required by the November resolution as well as previous UNSC resolutions dating back to the Gulf War. Thus, one could argue that 1441 provided the legitimacy required for intervention, but the Security Council failed to deliver an "authorization of force" because of disagreement with American policy.93 A Just Cause One of the major arguments against attacking Iraq in early 2003 concerned the "inuninence of danger." Just War theory requires a just cause, and self-defense is an accepted justification for war; but self-defense against a potential Iraqi WMD attack upon the United States also requires evidence of imminent danger. 94 Was there a looming WMD threat? In the Iraqi case, this issue was controversial, especially in light of the administration's ongoing difficulty in discovering significant WMD evidence to meet the "smoking gun" criteria so heavily discussed in the press .95 Many felt it proper that Saddam not be allowed to use oil revenues to rebuild military capabilities, particularly WMD capabilities, but saw no immediate danger and believed that UN economic sanctions could continue to check his ability to acquire weapons technology. Still, great opposition had built up within the international community against the sanctions, paIiicularly after the end of inspections in 1998. Many felt that the sanctions had caused so much death and suffering, but at the same time had failed to remove Saddam from power, and were thus only hurting the Iraqi people and not the regime. Indeed, Saddam's earlier mentioned public relations campaign was blaming over one million deaths upon the sanctions, and the international conununity had begun to believe such allegations.96 One must then ask, how does one go about strengthening the sanctions to prevent oil revenues from building weapons, but also allow an increased flow of goods into Iraq? Pollack argues that "too many important countries [were] willing to subvert them for the scheme to be effective" and that "comprehensive sanctions . . . are of neces-
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sity a multilateral effort."97 In other words, the intemational community could not end sanctions and continue to contain Saddam. In effect, he could no longer be contained, and it would only be a matter of time before he could use oil revenues to rebuild his weapons program, including WMD weapons, which he could very likely use against the U. S. or Israel, or pass on to terrorist groups for their use. Once again, Pollack relates the possibility of the latter occurrence: Few knowledgeable observers doubt that Saddam refrained from using WMD when he attacked Israel during the Gulf War because he feared Israeli nuclear retaliation, and he seems to have been deterred from using WMD against Saudi Arabia and coalition forces because he feared U.S. retaliation. Nevertheless, Saddam has a number of pathologies that make deterring him unusually difficult. He is an inveterate gambler and risk-taker who regularly twists his calculations of the odds to suit his preferred course of action. He bases his calculation on assumptions that outsiders often find bizarre and has little understanding ofthe larger world. He is a solitary decision-maker who relies little on advice from others. And he has poor sources of information about matters outside Iraq, along with Intelligence services that generally tell him what they believe he wants to hear. These pathologies lie behind the many terrible calculations Saddam has made over the years.98
Indeed, Saddam's attacks against Iran and Kuwait, and the firing of Scud missiles at Israel during the Gulf War, provide evidence of severe miscalculations. "Leaving him free to acquire nuclear weapons and then hoping that in spite of his track record he can be deterred this time around is not the kind of social science experiment the United States government should be willing to run," according to Pollack. 99 This logic speaks for itself. A Saddam with WMD forces would not have been deterrable; and sanctions were too full of leaks to stop WMD imports. It would only be a matter of time before he had the weapons he wanted. Given the above circumstances, the president's National Security Strategy provided cause for just war. It states: "We must be prepared to stop rogue states ... before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States, our allies, and friends."loo Furthermore, such weapons "can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning." Hence, it is legal to "take anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."IOl Legal scholar Walter Slocombe strengthens the argument: "The right of anticipatory self-defense by definition presupposes a right to act while action is still possible. If waiting for 'imminence' means waiting until it. is no longer possible to act effectively, the victim is left no alternative to suffering the first blow. So interpreted, the 'right' would be illusory."lo2 In other words, the "right of self-defense does not require absorbing the first blow."lo3 In these terms, war against Iraq was a just cause. Waiting for Saddam's next move, given his track record, would be akin to ignoring vital interests of U.S. national security. Strategic Ambiguity and Preemptive War as Last Resort Washington Post journalist Michael Schrage makes a strong case against efforts to outlast Saddam with sanctions. He states that the Iraqi leader was simply playing a "shell game" of "strategic deception," where he was betting that the coalition would let him get away without answering the "does he or doesn't he" question about WMD capabilities. For Saddam, ambiguity was a "viable strategic deterrent." Even if he didn't have "impressive caches of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons," he
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continued to behave as if he might. "Iraq took no public actions to reduce the level of ambiguity surrounding WMD programs."I04 Saddam would cheat, then retreat, playing cat and mouse with the inspection teams. The Iraqi leader "defiantly chose sanctions over inspections," only to reluctantly acquiesce on occasion when the threat of invasion reached a climax. 105 Such behavior was "completely rational according to Schrage, because "strategic ambiguity" enhanced Saddam's survivability by following a Cold War-like strategy of obscuring his ultimate intentions. Saddam "regularly threatened to engulf his enemies in a 'sea of fire. '" Still, he knew if it became clear that he had weapons, he would be disarmed by force with UN consent. But if it became clear he didn't have them, he would be less powerful among his Arab neighbors and internal opposition, and thus, his control of Iraq might even come into question.106 Hence, a policy of strategic ambiguity meant that Saddam would never choose to fully cooperate with new UNMOVIC inspectors authorized by 1441. Leaving the Iraqi dictator in place meant that sanctions would become less effective-the leaky net would only get leakier-and the U.S. would have to face a nuclear-armed Saddam at a future time when war options would be much more constrained. This argument also reinforces the legal reasoning that one should act "while action is still possible" in order to ensure self-defense. 107 The only way to ensure disarmament was to remove Saddam from power. War was justified as the last resort. Peaceful Intent The earlier discussions above point toward a clear intent to remove Saddam from power in order to protect the U.S. from the longer-term threat imposed by Iraqi WMD. Moreover, the Iraqi leader sought dominance of the Middle East and would continue to seek the capability to achieve such dominance. Thus, the Iraqi menace threatened peace and stability in the region and removing him from power was an effort to stabilize this critical part of the globe. There could be no more peaceful intent, and the added effort to democratize Iraq means that if the U.S. is successful, Iraq could change the entire dynamic of the region as other Arab leaders feel the carryover pressure created by the U.S. presence to reform their own governments. Reasonable Hope for Success The last principle of just war doctrine requires a reasonable hope for success in achieving the objectives of the war effort. The war was easily won in six weeks of official fighting (though the statue of Saddam toppled at the three-week point in Baghdad).108 Still, the post-war rebuilding and stabilization efforts continue. There are over 167,000 occupation troops in Iraq as of this writing, including 21,700 troops from twenty-one allied states. Negotiations are moving forward to acquire additional forces-over ten thousand from each of three additional allies: Pakistan, India, and Turkey.109 And though most of Iraq is peaceful, large-scale acts of terror continue in what has become known as the "Sunni Triangle."lIO So far the administration has indicated it is there for the long-haul and efforts to build an Iraqi governing council, police force, and military are moving ahead. III Oil revenues are being used to rebuild infrastructure and restore water and electricity though rebuilding efforts are being hampered by terrorist incidents. 112 If the terror escalates to a level that U.S. or Iraqi public support weakens, then the hope for success will diminish. But if the terror is curbed and stabilization efforts produce results, particularly in the Sunni triangle, then hope for success is much more assured.
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New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has suggested "the Iraqi silent majority is our only potential friend in the whole neighborhood." He goes on to quote Iraqi Kurdish leader Masrour Barzani, who stated, "The Iraqi people are the only ones in the area who have an interest in your success."1l3 So despite the terror attacks and hatred of Americans by many Arabs of surrounding states in the region, success in Iraq would not only be acceptable and achievable among Iraqis, but it could improve America's standing in the region. The key to success, according to Friedman, is to "get the basics right-water, jobs, and electricity ... ", while at the same time empowering the Iraqis to run things on their own. Let them take the credit or blame for what goes right and wrong. "They need to be seen to be solving their own problems."114 Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq, seems to be following this advice as "he describes conditions in Iraq as better and more hopeful than the media often suggest."115
Future Interestingly, much of the debate over Iraq is focused on what type of post-war government will be established. Fouad Ajami has said that "war [against Iraq] should come with the promise that the United States is now on the side of reform ... America has not known or trusted the middle classes and the professionals in these lands. Rather, it has settled for relationships of convenience with the autocracies in the saddle."116 The current administration effort changes directions, which means Iraq could serve as the catalyst for governmental reform throughout the region. A new democratic government in Iraq sends a message that the U.S. is now committing itself to a "long-term transformation" of the region, according to Rice.ll7 This means that the U.S. should withdraw its support from those that refuse to restructure their governments and continue to suppress their peoples. Moreover, changes brought about by the war in Iraq could provide a catalyst for reform among the Palestinians. Consider that Saddam's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War cleared the way for the Madrid Conference and the eventual Oslo Peace Process. The overthrow of Saddam this time around could also provide such an impetus. Doran suggests that the road to peace in Palestine may actually run through a Baghdad administration that cooperates with the U.S 1lS More importantly, solving the Palestinian-Israeli dispute would eliminate a major scapegoat other Arab governments have long used to justifY the lack of democratic and economic reforms in their own countries. Such governments fuel opposition forces that provide radical recruits for alQaeda-like organizations, the Gadianton robbers of our age. In addition, among Arabs, the Palestinians are the most educated, contain the best semblance of a middle class, and are thus the most ripe for democratic reform. Pressuring the Palestinian authority towards reform will not only create avenues for peace with Israel, but allow them to serve as an example of democratic success to other Arabs. along with the Iraqis. Memories of Beirut and Mogadishu encourage Saddam loyalists and the radical Islamist forces that are fighting against coalition rebuilding efforts. In both places, U.S. forces withdrew after being bloodied by radical Islamist attacks. ll9 But these enemies must now realize that they face "a different America--[one] driven by a sense ofrighteous violation after September 11, 2001."120 LDS Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley shared his own words of righteous violation after the 9/11 attacks: The terrible forces of evil must be confronted and held accountable for their actions . . . it is the terrorist organizations that must be ferreted out and brought down .... The Book of Mormon speaks of the Gadianton robbers, a vicious, oath-bound, and secret
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organization bent on evil and destruction. In their day, they did all in their power, by whatever means available, to bring down the Church, ... to take control of society. We see the same thing in the present situation. 121
Although President Hinckley was specifically referring to the war in Afghanistan, he later stated that "the present war [in Iraq] is really an outgrowth and continuation of that conflict."122 Thus, it is imperative that the U.S. administration continue its efforts to bring peace to Iraq. If it fails, the radical Islamists would gain a new base of operations from which to launch a new round of terrorist operations against the United States and its allies. Iraq has become a major battle ground in the War on Terror. It is a just battle that must be won in defense of freedom for both Christians and Muslims. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or that of the U.S Government or any other of its agencies. Comments are encouraged and should be addressed to Brent.
[email protected]. NOTES 1. Barone, Michael. Words spoken during live television interview, Fox News Television, 9 April 2003. Barone is an editor for U.S News and World Report. 2. The report specifies that the U.S. is likely to be targeted by militant Islamist groups. See Don Van Natta, Jr., "Report Calls U.S. a Top Target for Terror Attack Within a Year," New York Times, 17 August 2003. 3. Sixteen terrorist groups are in the Middle East and an additional four of the thirty-three groups are located in adjacent Central Asia or Kashmir. See the Department of State's Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2001, Washington, D.C., U.S. Goverrunent Printing Office, p. 85, May 2002. 4. Ibid pp. 63-68. The five Middle Eastern states that sponsor terrorism include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and Syria.
5. In his General Conference address regarding ongoing conflict in Iraq, the prophet quoted from Alma 43:45-47 and Alma 46: 12-13 and related that "it is clear from these and other writings that there are times and circumstances when nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression." See Gordon B. Hinckley, "War aud Peace," LDS General Conference, 6 April 2003, online at http://lds.org/conference/talkldisplay/0,5232,23-I-353-27,00 .htrnl. 6. For discussions of opposition to the war in Iraq, see Andrew Higgins, "'New Europe' is as Skeptical of War as 'Old Europe,'" Wall Street Journal, 18 March 2003; Shafeeq Ghabra, "An Arab House, Openly Divided," Washington Post, Bl, 9 March 2003. 7. Bush's preemptive (some call it "preventive") war doctrine is spelled out in George W. Bush, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, pp. 10-12, 20 September 2002, online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. Accessed on 20 September 2002. 8. Sammakia, Nejla. "The Role of the Media After September 11," Paper presented at the International Meeting on Global Trends and Human Rights, Geneva, p. 6, 10-12 January 2002. 9. "Terror in America Retrospective: A bin Laden Special on AI-Jazeera Two Months Before September 11," The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRJ) #319, 21 December 2001, online at http://memri.org. Accessed on 8 October 2002. 10. Ajami, Fouad. November 2001.
"What the Muslim World is Watching," New York Times Magazine, 18
11. Published in An N ahar, a Lebanese newspaper. See Ariel 0 'Sullivan, "Syrian Defense Minister Blames WTC Attacks on Israel," Jerusalem Post, lA, 19 October 2001. 12. Among Pakistani respondents, only 13 percent considered the story a rumor and another 16
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percent thought it was baseless. Michael Dobbs, "Myths Over Attacks on U.S. Swirl Through Islamic World," Washington Post, A22, 12 October 2001. 13. O'Sullivan, 1A. 14. Samrnakia, p. 7. 15. Abdelkarim, Riad. "PR Alone Won't Win Arab, Muslim Hearts and Minds," Arab News , 6 February 2002, online at http://www.arabnews.com. Accessed on 24 April 2002. 16. Lamia Lahoud, "Palestinians Demonstrate Against U.S. Attacks," Jerusalem Post, 14 October 2002,3. 17. al-Rubei, Ahmad. [writer for Asharq a1-Awsat, a London-based daily Arabic newspaper], 14 January 2003. Reprinted in GulfWire E-Newsletters, 23 January 2003, online at http://www. arabialink.comlGulfWire/. 18. See Julia Preston, "Short of a 'Smoking Gun,' Allies Ask Why the Rush?" New York Times, 22 January 2003; and Bill Nichols, "Bush Lacks Votes in UN, Diplomats Say," USA Today, p. 4, 23 January 2003. 19. Perlez, Jane. "In Search for Democracy, U.S. is Rejected as a Guide," New York Times, 28 September 2002. 20. Perlez, Jane. "Arab Leaders Glumly Brace for Inevitable War," New York Times, 8 October 2002. 21. December 2003 survey by the Pew Research Center reported in Evan Osnos, "Moderate Arabs Shudder, Denounce U.S. as Gulf Bully," Chicago Tribune, 22 January 2003. Interestingly, the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan also denounced 1991 efforts to free Kuwait from Iraqi domination, indicating that opposition to U.S. policy in the region is not a new phenomenon. Esposito reports that "People forgot about Saddam's record and focused on America ... Saddam Hussein might be wrong, but it is not America who should correct bim." See John 1. Esposito, "Islamic Movements, Democratization, and U.S. Foreign Policy," in Phebe Marr and William Lewis, Eds., Riding the Tiger: The Middle East Challenge After the Cold War, Boulder, Westview Press, p. 193, 1993. 22. Walker, Edward S. "Gloomy Mood in Egypt and Saudi Arabia," Middle East Institute Perspective, 22 January 2003. Reprinted by Gulfwire E-Newsletters, pp. 1-2, 23 January 2003; online at http://www.arabialinkcomlGulfWire/. 23. Fuller, Graham E. "The Futnre of Political Islam," Foreign Affairs 81, p.56, March/April 2002. 24. Farah, Joseph. "Just What is Arab PR?" Jerusalem Post, p. 14, 10 August 2001. 25. Khashan's 1999 survey included Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Palestinians. 45 percent of those surveyed claimed the Palestinian question concerned the "Arab world" and 40 percent also claimed it as an "Islamic world" concern. See Hilal Khashan, "Arab Attitudes Toward Israel and Peace," Policy Focus #40, Washington, D.C., The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pp. 4, 19,2000. 26. Death stats reported by Middle East Information Center. Accessed on 23 August 2003, online at http://www.middleeastinfo.org/article2878.html. 27. As reported by Tony Blankley, "Arabian Storm Rising," Washington Times, p. 19, 14 November 2001. 28. Dorsey, James. "U.S. Publicity Efforts in Terror War Fall on Deaf Ears in Muslim Nations," Wall Street Journal, 7 November 2001. 29. Kiely, Kathy. "Extremist Voices Drown Out All Others in Mideast," USA Today, p. 1,5 April 2002. 30. "Once We Started Fighting Israel We Lost Democracy," MEMRI #104, 20 June 2000, online at http://memri.org. Accessed on 8 October 2002. 31. "Death Wish," Washington Post, p. 16,4 April 2002. 32. Hendawi, Hamza. "Ordinary Arabs Join Ranks of Militants as their Governments Pursue Path of Negotiations," Associated Press Cairo, 28 September 2002.
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33. Gerner, Deborah J. Understanding the Contemporary Middle East, Boulder, Lynne-Rienner, p. 231, 2000. 34. Statistics compiled by World Bank, online at http://devdata.worldbank.org. Accessed on 27 July 2003. 35. Anderson, Roy R. et al. Politics and Change in the Middle East, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall, p. 240, 2001. 36. Rice, Condoleezza. "Transforming the Middle East," Washington Post, p. 21, 7 August 2003. 37. Lewis, Bernard. The Middle East, New York, Simon and Shuster, p. 385, 1995. 38. Asali, Ziad. "Arab-American Perceptions of U.S. Policy toward the Middle East," Middle East Policy IX, p. 34, June 2002. 39. Husain actually divides Islamists into three groups: Revolutionary Islamists-those typically labeled fundamentalists in the West, which include the likes of Osama bin Laden and others who favor "aggressive political action" against Middle Eastern regimes and Western intruders; Traditional Islamists-also often equated with fundamentalists (above), but who seek a more peaceful return to Islamic traditions, though they are also anti-Western; and Modernist Islamists-who interpret the teachings ofIslam in a more progressive light and allow for modem interpretation, or ijtihad, as well as interaction with the West. See Mir Zohair Husain, Global Islamic Politics, New York, Addison Wesley, pp. 63--130, 2003. For additional evidence of the Islamist split, see Emmanuel Sivan, "The Clash Within Islam," Survival 45, pp. 25-44, spring 2003. 40. Bin Laden claims that he fights the U.S. for "the removal of the man-made laws that America has forced on its agents in the [Middle East] area so that this [Arab] nation could be ruled by the Book [Quran] that has been sent down by its Creator, Allah." Moreover, he said that" America will never dream of safety, until safety becomes a reality for us living in Palestine ... America won't be able to leave this ordeal unless it leaves the Arabian Peninsula, and it stops its involvement in Palestine, and in all the Islamic world." See Osama bin Laden, interview with Tayseer Allouni, Kabul correspondent for al-Jazeera, 21 October 2001, online at http://www.muslimthai. corn/jehad-online/article.php?a~252. Accessed on 23 January 2003. 41. Jenkins, Brian Michael. Countering al-Qaeda, Santa Monica, CA, RAND, pp. 3-4, 2002. 42. Kepel, Giles. Jihad: The Trail ofPolitical Islam, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, pp. 300-01,2002. 43. Dorsey, James M. "U.S. Publicity Efforts in Terror War Fall on Deaf Ears in Muslim Nations," Wall Street Journal, 7 November 2001. 44. The Islamic Caliphate refers to early days in the Islamic empire when the religious leader also served as the political leader. The prophet Muhammad was considered the first Caliph. The last figure who stood as Caliph was the Ottoman Sultan. The Caliphate ceased to exist after World War I because of the dissolution of the office by Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, the first ruler of modem Turkey. 45. Quoted in Andrew Sullivan, "This is a Religious War," New York Times, p. 6, 7 October 2001, online at http://www.nytimes.com/2001110/07/magazine/07RELIGION.html. Accessed on 23 October 2001. 46. Wilson, James Q. "The Refonn Islam Needs," Front Page Magazine, 29 October 2002. 47. Sullivan, p. 2. 48. As outlined in Roy R. Andersen, et al., Politics and Change in the Middle East, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall, pp. 160-61,2001. 49. Support for this view can be found in "On the Struggle Against Corruption in the Arab Regimes," MEMRI # 411, 14 August 2002, online at http://memri.org. Accessed on 8 October 2002. 50. Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy,
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Washington, D.C., actually refers to them as the "silenced majority," and says that "Liberal Islam represents the overwhelming majority within the Muslim world." See Radwan Masmoudi, "The Silenced Majority," Journal 0/Democracy 14, April 2003, online at http://www.islam-democracy. org/artjod_april-2003.asp. Accessed on 2 September 2003. 51. LDS Prophet George A. Smith shares his feelings about Muhammad as a prophet to the Arabian peoples of the seventh century: "Now this man [Muhammad] descended from Abraham and was no doubt raised up by God to scourge the world for their idolatry." See George A. Smith, Journal o/Discourses, Vol III, Liverpool, B. James, p. 32, 1856. 52. Perwiranegara, Haji Alamsjah Ratu. "Islam and Modern Trends," in Spencer J. Palmer, Ed., Mormons and Muslims, Brigham Young University Press, p. 30, 1983. This book introduces the Mormon reader to Islam and spells out many of the similarities between Mormon and Muslim beliefs. 53. Other great reformist scholars include al-Tahtawi (Egypt, 1801-73), who "fearlessly suggested learning from the West," aI-Afghani (1839-97) who felt that the "backwardness of Islam was caused by factions in the Muslim communities, absolute governments, entrusting the leadership of the umma (Islamic community) to unreliable persons .... " and Muhammad Abdu (1849-1905) who believed that weakness was caused by tainted, "nonreligious teachings," all teachings on the side of reform and against radical, un-Islamic perversions. Ibid., pp. 30-31. 54. Sullivan, pp. 3-4. 55. War in Heaven described in Revelations 12: 7-9. See also Isaiah 14: 12-20 and Moses 4: 1-4. 56. Lewis, Bernard. "The Revolt ofIslam," The New Yorker, p. 13, 19 November 2001, online at http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?factiO 11119fa_FACT2. Accessed on 3 October 2002. 57. al-Akhdhar, AI-Afif. "The Missed Opportunity of July 2000 and its Consequences," Al-Hayat [London-based Arabic daily newspaper ], 29 July 2002, online at http://memri.orgibiniopener. cgi?Page=archives&ID=SP40402. Accessed on 8 October 2002. 58. Rice, p. 21. 59. Evidence of radical Islamist infiltration into Iraq spelled out by Bradley Graham, "General Cites Rising Peril of Terror in Iraq," Washington Post, p. 1,22 August 2003; and Audrey Hudson, "Foreign Militants Converging, Making Iraq Terror Battlefield," Washington Times, p. I, 25 August 2003. 60. Powers, Gerard F. et af. Would an Invasion 0/ Iraq be a 'Just War? " Washington, D.C. U.S. Institute of Peace Press, p. 2, 2003, online publication at http://www.usipp.org/pubs/specialreports/sr98.html. Accessed on 20 August 2003. 61. Ibid. p. 3. 62. Butler, Richard. The Greatest Threat, New York, Perseus Books, p. 49, 2000. 63. UNSCOM was the weapon's inspection commission in Iraq. See Butler, p. 49. 64. Though undocumented here, UNSCOM inspectors had been banned from Iraq on four previous occasions since authorized to enter Iraq by UN Security Council Resolution 687, passed on 3 April 1991. UNSCOM was authorized to destroy Iraqi WMD capabilities and remain in a monitoring and verification role inside Iraq until such time as the Security Council declared Iraq weapons free and ended sanctions against the regime. See United Nations, Iraq-Kuwait Conflict 1990-1996, Blue Book Series, Volume IX, New York, United Nations Press, pp. 74-98, 1996. 65. Robert O. Freedman, "American Policy Toward the Middle East in Clinton's Second Term," Stephen J. Blank, Ed., Mediterranean Security into the Coming Millennium, Carlisle, PA, Strategic Studies Institute, pp. 387-88, 1999. 66. Crosette, Barbara. "Security Council Does Not Authorize Use of Force Against Iraq," New York Times, 3 March 1998, online at http://www.nytimes.com/library/worldl030398iraq-uni. 67. Katzman, Kenneth. Iraq: International Support/or Us. Policy, Washington, D.C. Congressional
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Research Service, pp. 2-6, 19 February 1998. 68. Schmemann, Serge and Douglas Jehl, "Analysis: Iraq Crisis Hurt U.S. in Mideast, but for How Long?" New York Times, 27 February 1998, online at http://www.nytimes.com/library/ worldl022798iraq-us-assess/ 69. Freedman, pp. 388. 70. Ibid p. 390.
71. General Fahad AI-Amir, Deputy Chief of Staff, Kuwaiti Armed Forces. Speech to Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 10 November 1998. See Fahad AI-Amir, "Kuwait, Iraq, and Challenges in the Gulf," Policywatch, 12 November 1998. 72. Schneider, Howard. "Baghdad Stiffens as u.S. Air Armada Assembles Nearby," Washington Post, 13 November 1998. 73. Interestingly, B-52s from Diego Garcia were en route to bomb Iraq on 14 November when President Clinton cancelled the strike after learning of the new Iraqi offer. Skeptics publicly criticized this decision as reported in the Washington Post and Newsweek. See Paul K. White, Crises After the Storm: An Appraisal of u.s. Air Operations in Iraq since the Persian Gulf War, Washington, D.C., The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pp. 57-58, 1999. 74. Freedman, p. 390. 75. "Critics From Paris to Kuwait, But a Friend in London," New York Times, A21 , 18 December 1998. Desert Fox was carried out by U.S. and UK forces during 16-19 December and included 300 strike sorties and 400 cruise missile attacks. See White, pp. 56-60. 76. Bennet, James. "Policy Power and Politics, With a Whiff of Unreality," New York Times, A23, 18 December 1998; and Barbara Crossette, "At the UN, Alliances of the Cold War are Renewed," New York Times, A19, 18 December 1998. 77. As reported in Slate Magazine, 18 January 1999, online at http://slate.msn.com/.Accessed on 18 January 1999. 78. "Critics," A21. 79. Mustafa Barky, editor of Al Osbu, as reported by Schmemann and Jehl, New York Times, 28 February 1998. 80. Marshall, Toni. "Clinton Goes from Cheers to Jeers in Two Days," Washington Times, 18 December 1998. 81. Rosenthal, A. M. "What Clinton Can Do," New York llmes, A31, 18 December 1998. 82. Butler, p. 213. 83. Pollack, Kenneth M. "Next Stop Baghdad?" Foreign Affairs 81, p. 34, MarchiApril2002. 84. It is believed Iraq amassed $2.3 billion in oil contract kickbacks during 1997-2002. See Mark Hosenball, "Iraq's Black Gold," Newsweek, 11 November 2002. 85. See Elisabeth Bumiller, "Next Target in Terror War: Bush Says it Could be Iraq," New York Times, 27 November 2001; Ronald Brownstein, "Demand for Iraq Inspections Could be Ploy for Attack," Los Angeles Times, 29 November 2001; David Hackworth, "Timely Next Target?" Washington Times, p. 17, 6 December 2001; Steven Mufson, "10 Leading Lawmakers Urge Targeting ofIraq," Washington Post, p. 28, 6 December 2001.
86. Tyson, Ann Scott. "U.S. Weighs Options Beyond Afghanistan," Christian Science Monitor, 7 December 2001. 87. Bush's speech to the House of Representatives regarding their vote to support combat operations against Iraq, online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20021l0/20021010-5.htm!. Accessed on 7 November 2002. 88. "President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly," 12 September 2002. Online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20021l1l20021108-I.htm!. Accessed on 7 November 2002.
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IRAQ? ARAB
RADICAL AND REFORMIST PERSPECTIVES
89. Preston, Julia. "Security Council Votes, 15-0 for Tough Iraq Resolution," New York Times, AI, 9 November 2002. 90. See Colum Lynch, "U.S., France, Near Deal," Washington Post, p. 3, 6 November 2002; and Karen DeYoung and Colum Lynch, "6 Words Separate U.S., France on Iraq Language," Washington Post, p. 19,31 October 2002. 91. 'Transcript of Bush's Remarks on the Security Council's Iraq Resolution," New York Times, 9 November 2002. 92. Blix's report made a distinction between cooperation on "process" and "substance," saying essentially that Iraq was cooperating with the process of inspections, but was not fully disclosing substantive information to "resolve outstanding disarmament issues" left over from the period of UNSCOM inspections. See UN Security Council, UNMOVIC Quarterly Report S/2003/232, pp. 11-13,28 February 2003, online at http://www.un.orglDepts/unmovic/new/documents/quarterly_reports/s-2003-232.pdf. Accessed on 25 August 2003. 93. The U.S. administration argued that justification for war had always remained an option due to UNSC Resolution 687 (1991), which authorized "all necessary means" to disarm Iraq if Saddam continued to defy inspection requirements. War was increasingly viewed as the only means to ensure Iraq's compliance. 94. Powers, Gerard F. et al. Would an Invasion of Iraq be a Just War?, Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, p. 3, 2003. 95. The "smoking gun" refers to substantial evidence of we aponi zed nuclear, biological, or chemical systems capable of immediate use against an adversary. As of this writing, only bits and pieces of actual systems have been uncovered according to media reports. 96. Pollack labels such allegations as "ludicrous Iraqi propaganda," though he admits that these allegations "were accepted at face value the world over." See Pollack, pp. 33-34. 97. Ibid. p. 34. 98. Ibid. p. 36.
99. Ibid. p. 37. 100. The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 6, September 2002, online at http://whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html. 101. Ibid. p. 15. 102. Slocombe, Walter B. "Force, Pre-emption and Legitimacy," Survival 45, p. 125, spring 2003. 103. Ibid. p. 124. 104. Michael Schrage, "No Weapons, No Matter. We Called Saddam's Bluff," Washington Post, B2, 11 May 2003. 105. Ibid. p. B2. 106. Ibid. p. B2.
107. Slocombe, p. 125. 108. The war officiallystarted on 19 March and President Bush declared "an end to hostilities" on 1 May 2003. Still, acts of terror against coalition forces continue at this date and the number of combat casualties during the hostility phase has now been exceeded by post-war deaths attributed to both terror attacks and non-hostile incidents. 109. Richter, Paul and Maggie Farley. "U.S. Wants Army of Many in Iraq," Los Angeles Times, 21 August 2003. 110. The "Sunni Triangle" is the region between Baghdad, Tikrit to the North, and Ar Ramadi to the West of Baghdad, covering less than 10 percent of the Iraqi state. Most violence has been contained within this region as of this writing. 111. A twenty-five member council of judges and lawyers was appointed by the Iraqi governing council to draft a constitution. See Dexter Filkins, "Iraqis Name Team to Devise Way to Draft
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Constitution," New York Times, 12 August 2003. Additionally, U.S.-led forces have trained over 32,000 Iraqis as police, border and security guards, and an additional 12,000 troops will be trained by the end of 2003 for an Iraqi Anny. Another 2,500 Iraqis will make up a civil defense force. See Associated Press, "Rumsfeld: No Plan to Increase [U.S.] Troops," Dallas Morning News, 21 August 2003. 112. For economic rebuilding, see Warren Vieth, "U.S. to Let Iraq Manage its Oil," Los Angeles Times, p. 1, 18 August 2003. For more on terror attacks, see John Tierney and Robert Worth, "Attacks in Iraq May be Signals of New Tactics," New York Times, p. 1, 18 August 2003. 1l3. Friedman, Thomas. "No Time to Lose in Iraq," New York Times, 20 August 2003, online at http://www.nytimes.coml2003/08/20/0pinionl20FRffi.htm!. 114. Ibid. 115. Slavin, Peter and Vernon Loeb. "Bremer: Iraq Effort to Cost Tens of Billions," Washington Post, p. 1,27 August 2003. As evidence, Bremer meets with the Iraqi Governing COlllcil twice weekly and confers with individual members on a daily basis so that they have a major impact on U.S. decision making. See Alissa Rubin, "Bremer Lends an Ear to a Cacophony of Hopes," Los Angeles Times, p. I, 25 August 2003. A recent State Department report also supports this view, spelling out signs of democracy in Iraq: the establishment of municipal councils in all major cities, a Baghdad City Advisory Council established in July and selected by Baghdadis, the existence of over 150 freely published newspapers, the Baghdad symphony is performing, religious rites are being reestablished, banned books are available in the market, and 34,000 Iraqi police forces in fifty-eight of eighty-nine Iraqi cities are patrolling along with coalition forces. See Department of State, "Results in Iraq: 100 Days Toward Security and Freedom," Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 7,11-12,19- 20,8 August 2003. 116. Ajami, Fouad. "Iraq and the Arabs Future," Foreign Affairs 82, pp. 5-6, January/February 2003. 117. Rice, p. 21. 118. Doran, Michael Scott. "Palestine, Iraq, and American Strategy" Foreign Affairs 82, p. 22, January/February 2003. 119. U.S. forces withdrew from Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 after a terrorist bombing killed 241 Marines. Withdrawal in Mogadishu followed the loss of eighteen U.S. Anny Rangers killed while trying to capture Somali warlord Aideed in 1993, whose forces had attacked and killed twenty-two Pakistani peacekeepers. 120. Ajami, Fouad. "On Beirut and Baghdad," Wall Street Journal, 25 August 2003. 121. Hinckley, Gordon B. "The Times in Which We Live," LDS General Conference, 7 October 200 I, online at http://lds.orgiconference/talkidisplay/0,5232,23,-1-225-27,00.htm!. 122. Hinckley, Gordon B. "War and Peace," LDS General Conference, 6 April 2003, online at http://lds.org/conference/talkidisplay/0,5232,23 ,-1-353-27 ,00.htm!.
Part V Are the Strategy and Doctrine of Preentption Compatible with LDS Theology? 13 YES-Preentption Doctrine: Self Defense or Indefensible? Major Eric Talbot Jensen Our responsibility is clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when roused to anger. The conflict was begun on the timing and tenns of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing. I On 14 September 2001, three days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush spoke these words in the National Cathedral concerning the threats that now faced the United States. With this speech, President Bush set a pattern for the United States' response to enemies in the asymmetric world2 of the new millennium. It is clear that the United States is committed to the use ofmilitary force to counter this emerging threat. Not only is the president willing to use force, but he has clearly stated that he is willing to use force preemptively against threats as he deems necessary, with or without the support of the rest of the world. One year later, in September 2002, President Bush issued the new National Security Strategy (NSS).l In it, he said: We will disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations by: direct and continuous action using all the elements of national and international power ... [and by1defending the United States, the American peop Ie, and our interests at home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders. While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country ... we recognize that our best defense is a good offense. 4 This commitment to take the war outside the borders of the United States under the justification of self-defense has become known as "preemption doctrine" and is clearly the stated position of the United States government. However, this preemption doctrine has drawn the criticism of foreign governments 5 and scholarly critics 6 from both inside and outside the United States. As a Latter-day Saint community, can we support President Bush in his strategy to deal with enemies of the United States or is this strategy counter to gospel principles and doctrine? Given the inspired writings of prophets, both ancient and modem, does the principle of preemptive self-defense com-
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ply with God's laws? The clear answer is "yes." While some have understood the scriptures and statements of the prophets to say that such actions are not in keeping with gospel ideals, in fact the principles taught conceming the righteous use of force allow for a nation to take preemptive action in self-defense when necessary for its security. This paper will address the issue of preemption and its gospel underpinnings and establish that it is supported by gospel precept. As a precursor to that analysis, the paper will discuss the use of violence in general and the circumstances under which that is acceptable. The paper will then examine the right to use violence in self-defense and anticipatory self-defense and conclude that both of these doctrines comply with gospel guidance on the use of force. Finally, the paper will conclude with a study of the doctrine of preemption and assert that it also complies with gospel principles and that members of the LDS community can support President Bush in his preemptive application of military force. Violence and the Gospel The application of militaty force as an instrument of national power was discussed a decade ago in a Kennedy Center Symposium, the precursor to our current meeting. A number of the presenters at the prior symposium presented views on the righteous application of military force, some arguing for a fairly strict standard ofpacifism. 7 One of those authors, StevenA. Hildreth, stated, "Doctrine and Covenants 98:16 imparts to us the central theme 'renounce war and proclaim peace.' These are powerful words, rich in meaning. They are not passive or isolationist cliches but assertive, proactive requirements."8 A multitude of other scriptures support the theme of avoiding violence and seeking peace. "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13).9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9).10 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, tum to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39).1l "For behold, I do not require at their hands to fight the battles of Zion; for, as I have said in a former commandment, even so willI fulfill-I will fight your battles" (Doctrine and Covenants 105:14). Given these scriptures, it might appear that a complete disavowal of the use of military force might be the guiding gospel principle. However, Clu'ist did not completely eschew violence. Not only did He command His people to commit violent acts on several occasions,13 but on at least two occasions, Christ did not hesitate to use violence himself when cleansing the temple of moneychangers.14 As the apostle John describes the first of these occasions, he mentions that the "disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 2: 17). Christ also taught "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment" (Matthew 5:22, emphasis added). Clearly, there are some things that will rightfully raise anger, even in Christ, and invoke a physically violent responseY The question then becomes, "Under what circumstances is violence approved?" While that general topic is far too broad for this symposium, a closer look at that question as it pertains to the national security of the United States is one of the key reasons this symposium, and its predecessor of a decade ago, were organized. More specifically for this presentation, under what circlUllstances is it appropriate, and within gospel guidelines, for the leaders of the United States to use military force to accomplish national objectives? The first step in that inquiry is to look at the use of military force
'.
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in national self-defense. Self-Defense The Book of Mannon abotmds with references to the righteous Nephites using military force in self-defense from the invading Lamanites. 16 One account tells how the military leader, Captain Moroni, sought and received direction from the prophet concerning where best to engage in combat with the invading annies. As a result, he was able to meet and defeat them (Alma 43:23-24). Captain Moroni's example of looking to the prophet for direction is appropriate today. In April 2003 General Conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley taught: But modem revelation states that we are to "renounce war and proclaim peace" (Doctrine and Covenants 98:16). In a democracy we can renounce war and proclaim peace. There is opportunity for dissent. Many have been speaking out and doing so emphatically. That is their privilege. That is their right, so long as they do so legally. However, we all must also be mindful of another overriding responsibility, which l may add, governs my personal feelings and dictates my personal loyalties in the present situation. When war raged between the N ephites and the Lamanites, the record states that "the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for ... power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. "And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God" (Alma 43:45-46). The Lord counseled them, "Defend your families even unto bloodshed" (Alma 43:47) ... It is clear from these and other writings that there are times and circumstances when
nations are justified, in fact have an obligation, to fight for family, for liberty, and against tyranny, threat, and oppression. 17
This concluding statement by President Hinckley is a certain endorsement that nations and individuals can, and must, act in self-defense, unless given other direction by the living prophet. 18 The direction to "defend your families even unto bloodshed" is no less unequivocal than "renounce war and proclaim peace." And when set in a hierarchy, the prophet places the obligation to defend family as the "overriding responsibility. " However, establishing that there is an obligation to act in self-defense unless otherwise directed does not clarifY all the questions raised by the current international situation. What are the limits of this obligation to act in self-defense? Is there a time when that obligation expires? Are there geographical limitations for the exercise of that right? Between 364 and 375 A.D. on the American continent, the warrior prophet MOlmon led the armies of the N ephites against the Lamanites, who had once again invaded their land. Eventually, because of the Nephites' wickedness, he refused to lead them any more. Shortly thereafter, the Nephite annies decided to take the battle to the land of the Lamanites. Unlike before, they were sOlmdly defeated in this battle. Mormon, now a bystander, accredited this great defeat to the fact that the Nephites went to the land of the Lamanites. He wrote, "And it was because the annies of the Nephites went up unto the Lamanites that they began to be smitten; for were it not for that, the Lamanites could have no power over them" (Monnon 4:4). This example would seem to teach that the right of self-defense can only be
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righteously exercised in your own land against an invasion by the enemy. Ifthis were true, why did President Hinckley speak so approvingly of the United States' action in Iraq? The answer to this question lies in a more detailed explanation of the right and obligation of self-defense. Anticipatory Self-Defense In the days of more limited warfare, where armies met with armies face to face and decided the battle by personal confrontation, self-defense was an easier principle to apply. In the case of the Lamanite armies, the Nephites did not need to attack the Lamanites in the land of the Lamanites in order to adequately defend their Nephite homes, because for the Lamanites to attack the Nephites they had to come to the land of the Nephites. Warfare is fundamentally different today than it was at that time. It is insufficient to wait until the enemy is within a nation's borders to begin the defense of homes and family. Because of the changing nature of warfare, the definition of what constitutes self-defense has also changed, allowing a nation to anticipate the attack and use military force in self-defense before the actual attack takes place. This doctrine is known as anticipatory self-defense and may require a nation to maintain a vigilant offensive capability to effectuate viable national defense. In an age of instantaneous lethality, either by weapons of mass destruction, computer network attack, or some other form of weapon that can be triggered without warning and do immense damage from thousands of miles away, nations must have the right to respond before the actual attack occurs. This customary international law doctrine of anticipatory self-defense was first articulated by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster in the nineteenth century.19 In its original form, the doctrine allowed a nation to strike out at an impending attacker without waiting for the first strike. The standard for such anticipatory actions was that the attack be "instant and overwhelming, leaving no moment for decision or other means of redress. "20 Since that time, scholars have argued about exactly what action is authorized lmder anticipatory self-defense, even as nations relied on it for the use of force in their dealings with other nations. 21 However, of those who accept the doctrine,22 it is clear that it provides a nation with the legal right to anticipate the attack at some point prior to the actual attack having occurred, and use force to prevent the attack from occurring. As mentioned above, President Bush has determined that when considering the potential threats the United States faces today, even the right of anticipatory selfdefense is insufficient to protect the United States from its enemies. Rather, he has embraced the doctrine of preemptive self-defense.
a
Preemptive Self-Defense The United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community in this fight against a common foe. If necessary, however, we will not hesitate to act alone, to exercise our right to self-defense, including acting preemptively against terrorists to prevent them from doing harm to our people and our country.23
In President's Bush's articulation of this preemption doctrine,24 he has expanded the customary right of anticipatory self-defense to include the authority to take "anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place ofthe enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."25 In so stating, President Bush has amended the requirement of immediacy of the
YES-PREEMPTION DOCTRINE
attack that traditionally triggered the right to anticipatory self-defense. As previously mentioned,26 this has met with much criticism from both within and without the United States. Critics argue that this is an even more egregious expansion of the right of selfdefense, basically swallowing the rule allowing defensive actions with the exception of allowing military action in self-defense before the threat has materialized. Condoleezza Rice, the assistant to the president for National Security Affairs, argued this was not a significant departure from existing doctrine in a speech shortly after the NSS had been issued. She argued that the NSS "does not overturn five decades of doctrine ... But some threats are so potentially catastrophic-and can arrive with so little warning, by means that are untraceable-that they cannot be contained ... And new technology requires new thinking about when a threat actually becomes 'imminent. "'27 Key to Rice's explanation is the important fact that circumstances have changed from when the doctrines of self-defense were developed. No longer do uniformed warriors face each other on the battlefield, gazing into each other's eyes before wielding their weapons. Instead, battles are fought and won from sterile rooms thousands of miles from the battlefield and threats appear dressed as noncombatants only seconds before initiating devastating destruction amongst the civilian population. This fundamental change in circumstances requires a fundamental change in the doctrine's parameters. The international law principle to be preserved is that of effective self-defense, rather than the timing of when it is to be initiated. While President Bush and Rice may be right in expanding the doctrine of selfdefense under international law, can that expansion be supported by gospel principles and exercised in accordance with divine guidance? Even if legal, is it morally sustainable under the scrutiny of gospel doctrines? Yes. In about 73 B.C., at a time when technology did not allow for the instantaneous and devastating attacks we face today, the Nephite warrior and general of the armies, Captain Moroni, was faced with a situation that he felt required actions in selfdefense. A fellow Nephite named Amalickiah wanted to be a king over the Nephite people (Alma 46:4) and had convinced a large number of Nephites to follow him (Alma 46:7). In response to this national security threat, Captain Moroni rent his coat and raised the Title of Liberty and gathered all to him who would fight "[i]n memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children" (Alma 46: 12). "And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running togetllCl' with their armor girded about their loins" (Alma 46:21). As the people gathered to Captain Moroni, he marched forth to meet Amalickiah: Amalickiah saw that the people of Moroni were more numerous than the Amalickiahites-and he also saw that his people were doubtful concerning the justice of the cause in which they had undertaken-therefore, fearing that he should not gain the point, he took those of his people who would and depat1ed into the land of Nephi (Alma 46:29). The land of Nephi was where the Lamanites, enemies to the Nephites, lived. Captain Moroni's response to Amalickiah's action is instructive: Now Moroni thought it was not expedient that the Larnanites should have any more strength; therefore he thought to cut off the people of Amalickiah, or to take them and bring them back, and put Amalickiah to death; yea, for he knew that he would stir up the Lamanites to anger against them, and cause them to come to battle against them;
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and this he knew that Amalickiah would do that he might obtain his purposes. Therefore Moroni thought it was expedient that he should take his armies, who had gathered themselves together, and armed themselves, and entered into a covenant to keep the peace--and it came to pass that he took his tents into the wilderness, to cut off the course of Amalickiah in the wilderness. And it carne to pass that he did according to his desires, and marched forth into the wilderness, and headed the armies of Amalickiah. And it carne to pass that Amalickiah fled with a small number of his men, and the remainder were delivered up into the hands of Moroni and were taken back into the land of Zarahemla (Alma 46:30-33).
Moroni's actions were clearly preemptive in nature. Amalickiah was not in the act of attacking the Nephites, nor in imminent preparation to do so. In fact, he was leaving their country, trying to flee as quickly as he could. Yet, Moroni knew that ifhe allowed Amalickiah to escape, it would lead to further death amongst the Nephites, as in fact, it did (Alma 48:1-6). Moroni felt completely justified by gospel principles and his understanding of the righteous exercise of self-defense, in preemptively attacking the people of Amalickiah. He believed, and was proven correct, that ifhe did not take advantage of the opportunity at that point in time to stop Amalickiah, he would miss the chance and would next meet him when the Nephite nation was under aggressive attack. The previously quoted address by President Hinckley, titled War and Peace, was not only a general explanation of the gospel principles concerning war and peace, but also a specific comment on the hostilities on-going in Iraq. President Hinckley began his talk by telling the story of Sergeant James W. Cawley, a member of the Church who died in the conflict and then said, "And so I venture to say something about the war and the gospel we teach."28 His discussion on this topic, at this time, mllst be taken as a significant comment on the war against Iraq-an approving comment. He clearly implies that the actions in Iraq, which he refers to as the "present situation"29 are of the type that provide an "overriding responsibility" above that of "renounce war and proclaim peace." This address by the living prophet, is a recognition of the doctrine of preemption and an affirmation of its correct application in the current circumstances. While as a Church we understand that continual peace is the most desirable condition of humankind, the actions of men and nations will, at times, require the preemptive use of force to effectively accomplish our overriding responsibility to defend our families, even unto bloodshed. Conclusion In response to the tragic events of 11 September 2001, and also to the asymmetric threats that the United States faces today, President George Bush has expanded the customary doctrine of anticipatory self-defense to include preemptive strikes although the traditional requirement of immediacy is not met. As is the case with the doctrines of self-defense and anticipatory self-defense, preemptive self-defense is supported by the principles and doctrines of the gospel. Both scripture and the teachings of the modern prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley, confirm the right of a nation to defend itself preemptively in this age of long-range, instantaneous lethality. Therefore, LDS members who work in the area of national security can support President Bush's doctrine as morally sustainable and personally supportable.
YES-PREEMPTION DOCTRINE
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and should not be attributed to the Judge Advocate General s School, the Judge Advocate General s Corps, the United States Army, or the Department of Defense.
NOTES 1 Bush, President George W. Address at the ;\Tational Cathedral, 14 Sep 2001. 2 Asymmetric warfare is where a state, weak in a traditional reading of military strength, develops a capability that off sets its inferior position. See Ryerson Clnistie, Homeland Defence and the Rei Territorialization of the State, available at http://www.cda-cdai.ca/symposia/2002/christie.htm.3 Bush, President George W. The National Security Strategy of the United States ofAmerica, Sep 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf(hereafterNSS). 4 Ibid. p. 6. 5 See "Fidel Castro's Envoy to Washington is Accusing the United States of Trying to Create a Crisis Between the Two Countries," Broadcast News, 23 Apr 2003, available in LEXIS Nexis Library, CURNWS File; "So Much Squandered in so Little Time: Doctrine of Preemption Hurts Goodwill Towards United States," National Catholic Reporter, 28 Mar 2003, available in LEXIS Nexis Library, CURNWS File; "Bush, Baghdad Quiet as Iraq War Ultimatum Passes." Agence France Presse, 20 Mar 2003, available in LEXIS Nexis Library, CURNWS File. 6 See O'Hanlon, Michael E. Susan E. Rice, and James B. Steinberg, "The New National Security Strategy and Preemption," The Brookings Institution Policy Brief #113, Dec 2002; "Invading Iraq: the Road to Perpetual War," Middle East Policy, 1 Dec 2002; See also "Iraq: History's 'Nightmare' Revisited," Inter Press Service, 17 Mar 2003; "Bush's Doctrine of Pre-emption Carries Grave Risks," Mnming Cal!, Allentown, PA, 12 Feb 2003. 7 England, Eugene. "A Case for Mormon Christian Pacifism," Moral Perspectives on Us. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community 96, Valerie M. Hudson and Kerry M. Kartchner eds., 1993; Steven A. Hildreth, "An LDS Moral Perspective on Security Policy," Moral Perspectives on Us. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community 96 (Valerie M. Hudson & Kerry M. Kartchner eds., 1993). 8 Hildreth, supra note 7, p. 120. Hildreth continues: where is our first allegiance: to the principles of the gospel related to peace or to the state in war? How do we deal with nations or other intemational actors who are unresponsive to entreaties of peace? Military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina does not appear to be morally sustainable from these guiding principles. But how can we ignore the torturous cruelty and murder of innocent men, women, and children? Some non-LDS moral perspectives justify military intervention in such instances, but we should recognize that those views are not ours. They belong to the world. Ibid. p. 112. Eugene England echoed this sentiment: I think that Christ and his modem prophets have enunciated clearly an absolute ethic based on the etemallaw of God. It is a pacifist ethic; however, it recognizes that in the practical lives of human beings, we will-sometimes must-break that law to preserve similar higher values. But this is not an easy compromise, and when we do make it, as individuals or as a nation, we pay an enormous plice ... I think I would use violence in defense against certain attacks: if my wife or children were under attack or threatened by dehumanizing violence or if the state-which is a good state in this case, as it preserves liberty in the world-were under direct attack and threatened with destruction, But the highest ethic would call me to do everything possible, including building a less violent and less sexist society where attacks on my wife would be less likely. It would call me to use an absolute minimum of violence and to follow up with doing good to the victimizer as well as the intended victim. Those principles wuuld also apply to nations. England, supra note 7, pp. 98-100. But see Doctrine and Covenants 98:5 where the Lord proclaims the freedoms of the U.S. Constitution "belong to all mankind;" and Doctrine and Covenants 101 :79 where the Lord states "Therefore, it is not right that any man should be in bondage one to another."
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9 See Doctrine and Covenants 59:6. 10 See 3 Nephi 12:9. 11 See also 3 Nephi 12:39. 12 See Joshua 10-12, I Samuel 15:1-3. 13 See John 2: 13-17, Matthew 21:12-13. 14 See also 3 Nephi 12:22. 15 James E. Talmage writes concerning Christ's first clearing ofthe temple and His use ofphysical violence to do so: Righteously indignant at what He beheld, zealous for the sanctity of His Father's House, Jesus essayed to clear the place; and, pausing not for argument in words, He promptly applied physical force almost approaching violence-the one form of figurative language that those corrupt barterers for pelf could best understand. Hastily improvising a whip of small cords, He laid about Him on every side, liberating and driving out sheep, oxen, and human traffickers, upsetting the tables of the exchangers and pouring out their heterogeneous accumulations of coin. With tender regard for the inlprisoned and helpless birds He refrained from assaulting their cages; but to their owners He said: "Take these things hence"; and to all the greedy traders He thundered forth a command that made them quail: "Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." His disciples saw in the incident a realization of the psalmist's line: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up ... The incident of Christ's forcible clearing of the temple is a contradiction of the traditional conception of Him as of One so gentle and unassertive in demeanor as to appear unmanly. Gentle he was, and patient under affliction, merciful and longsuffering in dealing with contrite sinners, yet stem and inflexible in the presence of hypocrisy, and unsparing in His denunciation of persistent evil-doers. His mood was adapted to the conditions to which He addressed Himself; tender words of encouragement or burning expletives of righteous indignation issued with equal fluency from His lips. His nature was no poetic conception of cherubic sweetness ever present, but that of a Man, with the emotions and passions essential to manhood and manliness. He, who often wept with compassion, at other times evinced in word and action the righteous anger of a God. But of all His passions, however gently they rippled or strongly surged, He was ever master. Contrast the gentle Jesus moved to hospitable service by the needs of a festal party in Cana, with the indignant Christ plying His whip, and amidst commotion and turmoil of His own making, driving cattle and men before Him as an unclean herd. Talmage, James E. Jesus the Christ, 33 ed., pp. 154-55,58, 1979. 16 See 2 Nephi 5:34, Jacob 7:24, Omni 1:10, Alma 3:23, Alma 43-63, Mormon 1:11. 17 Hinckley, President Gordon B. Sunday Morning Session Address, 173rd Annual General Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 April 2003, available at http:// www.lds.org/conference/talk/dispJay/0,5232,23-1-353-27 ,00.h1m!. 18 There have been a number of instances where members of the church have been instructed to not fight, even in self-defense. See Alma 24:5-26 (discussing the Anti-Nephi-Lehies decision to die rather than fight resulting in the conversion of many of their attackers), Alma 56:6-8. 19 The quintessential statement of the right of anticipatory self-defense was espoused by the U.S. Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, in The Caroline incident. In a letter to Henry Fox, the British Minister in Washington, D.C., Webster argues that an action by the British was not justified by anticipatory self-defense. The statement of Secretary of State Daniel Webster on The Caroline incident in 1842 has been widely accepted and was quoted approvingly by the Nuremberg TribunaL Webster said, with reference to the invasion of U.S. territory across the Niagara River by British forces to prevent aid to Canadian revolutionaries from The Caroline, which was loaded with arms and about to depart, that such inva-
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sion was in principle illegal, but he added "while it is admitted that exceptions growing out of the great law of self-defense do exist, those exceptions should be confined to cases in which the necessity of that self-defense is instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means and no moment for deliberation, and must be limited by that necessity and kept clearly within it." Self-Defense, 5 Whiteman, Digest a 25, at 981-82 (citations omitted). See also Sharp, Walter Gary, Sr. CyberSpace and the Use of Force 43, 1999 (discussing anticipatory self-defense under the UN Charter). But see Timothy Kearley, "Raising the Caroline," 17 Wisconsin International Law
Journal 325, 1999 (asserting that Webster's original meaning and the original understanding of
the doctrine of anticipatory self-defense applied only to actions outside its own territory. It is only since the charter that this doctrine has been used to justifY acts within a state's own tetritory.). 20 See Whiteman, supra note 23, at pp. 981-82. 21 See Jensen, Eric Talbot. "Computer Network Attacks on Critical National Infrastructure: A
Use of Force Invoking the Right of Self-Defense," 38 Stanford Journal ofInternational Law, pp. 207,217-21,2002.
22 There are some who advocate that the United Nations Charter has eviscerated the customary law right of anticipatory self-defense. See McDougal, Myers S. and Florentino P. Feliciano. The International Law of War: Transnational Coercion and World Public Order, pp. 232-34, 1994; The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary, Bruno Simma ed., pp. 675-76, 1995; Henken,
Louis. How Nations Behave, pp. 141-45, 2d ed., 1979; Permissible and Impermissible Uses of Force, 12 Whiteman, DrGEsT a 1, at 48. The United States believes the doctrine is still viable and survives concurrently with the United Nations Charter. See NSS, supra note 3, at 15 where President Bush states "For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack." Ibid. 23 President George W. Bush, National Strategyfor Combating Terrorism 2, Feb 2003, available at http://usembassy.state.gov/rnumbailwwwfns.pdf.
24 For an excellent analysis on Bush's preemption doctrine, see Michael Schmitt, Bellum Americanllm Revisited:
u.s.
Security Strategy and the Jus ad Bellum, 176 Military Law Review,
summer 2003. 25 See NSS, supra note 3, at 15. 26 See supra, notes 5 and 6.
27 Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Address to The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, The 2002 Wriston Lecture, 1 Oct 2002. 28 See Hinckley, supra note 120. 29 Ibid.
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14 No-A Critique of the U.S. Security Doctrine of Preemptive Military Attacks-Mormon 4:4 Frederick W Axelgard I have been asked to provide a perspective on the recently announced U.S. doctrine of military preemption, based on principles found in the Book of Mormon. This is an extraordinary challenge. Intemational and domestic controversy over the U.S.-led operation in Iraq make it difficult to critique U.S. security policy without appearing partisan. Nevertheless, this policy stands in need of review, particularly the morally thoughtful, faith-based review that this audience can bring to bear. Let me begin by underscoring the precise focus of my remarks-the new U.S. strategy on preemption. Although U.S. actions in Iraq have generated significant controversy at home and abroad, a distinction should be drawn between that operation and the broader questions posed by the Bush administration's avowal of preemptive military action as a central tenet of U.S. security policy. l Nevertheless, the manner in which the U.S. govemment has approached operations in Iraq underscores the serious questions that a policy of preemption poses. It is these broader questions-of both a moral and practical nature-that I wish to address. The times in which we live are unique. The United States is preeminent in world affairs; it operates on the global stage without an extemally imposed check or balance. But there is a troubling tendency that seems to grow out of this primacy: the inclination to equate U.S. military, economic, and political preeminence with moral authority. Put in plainer words, because of our worldly strength, we seem to believe that we are in a position to judge what is happening in the world and authorized/obligated to fix what is wrong, by military means if necessary, with little regard for what other nations think. With this tendency, current U.S. national security policy would add the right to execute such judgments by preemptive military action. Under existing world conditions, the moral and military scope of such a claim is staggering. It begs for thoughtful, even reverent debate. To frame my own preliminary contribution to this debate, I submit two basic propositions. The first is that the individuals leading this country are not prophets, seers, and revelators. They are elected officials, operating within a constitutional framework that we believe had an inspired beginning. However, we do not consider that these individuals are inspired: they do not possess prophet-like knowledge or understanding, nor do their policy statements carry absolute moral authority. No matter what party they belong to and no matter what portion of the vote they received, our officials are just people, mortal and fallible, put in place by a political process and having no inherent claim to heavenly inspiration. My second basic proposition is that "We are a warlike people."2 This is a prophetic assessment, offered by a modem-day prophet, Spencer W. Kimball. It is not a positive, complimentary assessment. Rather, it was given as a caution, even a waming, at the
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time of the U.S. bicentennial, against the misapplication of worldly power and developing a false sense of security from relying on "the arm of flesh." I submit that this assessment retains its prophetic and cautionary value to this day. Taken together, these three points: that the United States has no rival to its global power and influence, that our political leaders have no automatic entitlement to transcendent moral insight or authority, and that we have been warned of our warlike nature as a society, suggest that Latter-day Saints should not hesitate to question the forceful military policies now being adopted by the U.S. government. We can view with particular concern the recently announced doctrine of preemption. The Preemption Doctrine At issue here is the propriety and feasibility of the doctrine of preemption. Although unique in many important ways, the current administration's views on this subject are not entirely original. A December 1999 pronouncement by the Clinton administration declared: "We will do what we must to defend these interests, including when necessary and appropriate, using our military unilaterally and decisively."3 The Bush administration took this positi9n several steps further in a September 2002 statement of U.S. national security strategy, from which these excerpts are taken: We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends .... Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first. In the Cold War, especially following the Cuban missile crisis, we faced a generally status quo, risk-averse adversary. Deterrence was an effective defense. But deterrence based only upon the threat of retaliation is less likely to work against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people, and the wealth of their nations .... We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning. The targets of these attacks are our military forces and our civilian population, in direct violation of one of the principal norms of the law of warfare. As was demonstrated by the losses on September 11, 2001, mass civilian casualties is the specific objective of terrorists and these losses would be exponentially more severe if terrorists acquired and used weapons of mass destruction. The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction-and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively4
This statement of national strategy seeks to make the case that the risk of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction fundamentally alters the security challenge
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faced by the United States. Part of this diagnosis is the calculation that deterrence, as practiced during the Cold War, will not work against terrorists and rogue states willing to put their populations and national wealth at risk for the sake of attacking the United States. It concludes that because there is a danger of exponentially greater losses than were inflicted on 11 September, the United States could justifiably take "preemptive " or "anticipatory" steps against an enemy, even if we do not know whether an attack from that enemy is imminent. Although I am not a trained historian, my study and experience tell me that this statement represents a significant departure from U.S. tradition. To adopt preemptive action as a major national security tenet (as opposed to maintaining it as a quiet option) goes against the grain of our history of reliance on military preparedness, diplomatic suasion, and active national defense. As noted, U.S. national security strategy justifies this moral and military change of direction by citing the existence of a new, uniquely dangerous threat to U.S. national security, namely the potential for terrorists or rogue states to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. Every 'worldly' aspect of this justification deserves to be carefully scrutinized, including: • whether intelligence means can actually verifY the physical dimensions of such a threat; • whether the intelligence and policy apparatus can genuinely determine a terrorist organization's or rogue state's imminent intent to use WMD, in view of its analytical limitations and its unavoidable tendency to politicize; • whether this threat is really unique or more dangerous than past threats to U.S. national security; and • whether preemptive, unilateral military action can actually eliminate such a threat.
The first three questions raised above challenge the assumption that intelligence and policy-making processes are likely to produce absolute Truth. As national security professionals, we have learned from experience that these processes are far from perfect. They rely on incomplete information; they are driven by the energy and intelligence of strong-willed personalities and are compromised by the tug-and-pull of internal and interagency dynamics. For these reasons, it is difficult to argue that what is produced by the combined intelligence national security apparatus should command moral authority. The assessments are not always going to reflect things as they are or were, and the prescriptions for action are not always going to be driven by noble or morally-grounded motives. And the risk of error, on either count, increases as the political significance of a given course of action grows. For these reasons, it is appropriate to ask whether a doctrine like preemption, with such large moral implications, could ever be justified by a process that is so likely to produce such non-absolute results. The fourth question above tries to insert a practical reason for pause. Even if we were able to accurately pinpoint the physical location of a terrorist/rogue-state WMD threat, is it likely that the infrastructure comprising that threat could be destroyed by a rapid preemptive attack, particularly where we will likely be operating on our own? Or is it more likely, in view of the experience gained in Iraq, that we would have to invade and occupy a country in order to ensure that the posited threat has been addressed? One final observation from a 'worldly' perspective. I believe the reason that the United States has adopted a strategy of military preemption has less to do with new
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threats and more to do with the reality that the United States is the sole superpower in the world. I cannot help but doubt that the United States today truly faces greater external danger than it did during the Cold War. I am similarly led to conclude that the United States has adopted an aggressive strategy in the world not because it needs to, but because it has no credible rival to prevent it from pursuing whatever policy it chooses. To some this unchallenged position might represent the best of all possible worlds. But just as checks and balances in our domestic system of government are inherently reassuring and stabilizing, one might argue that it can be inherently unsettling to have just one paramount power in the international sphere-even if that one power is the United States. Mormon's Perspective It should not be surprising that the Book of Mormon has a good deal to say
on major issues such as the one we address today. President Benson taught that its major authors all spoke for the benefit of future generations. He added that the book provides a pattern for preparing for the Second Coming, and for "how disciples of Christ live in times ofwar."5 I fe~l that the dilemmas faced by the prophet Mormon in the declining days ofNephite society have particularly direct applicability to our discussion today. Between 350-360 A.D., there was a hiatus in the fighting between Nephites and Lamanites. It stemmed from a treaty in which the two peoples agreed to divide the land north from the land south. Whatever this pause meant in political and military terms, Mormon saw it as extremely important in spiritual terms-i.e., as the Lord giving the Nephites a final chance to exercise faith unto repentance. It was to no avail, even though the Lord allowed Mormon to resume his active role as prophet and to open his mouth and cry repentance. It is also interesting to note that, during this same decade, Mormon did not neglect his role as the Nephites' commander-ill-chief but rather led them to make extensive military preparations (see Mormon 2:28-3:3). Indeed, in the end, as their moral stature crumbled, militarization became the sole focus of the Nephites' dwindling hope and energy. Early in the 360s, the Lamanites came up to battle. The Nephites defeated them under Mormon's leadership, not once but twice (see Mormon 3:4-8). And then the Nephites reached beyond the mark. They boasted in their own strength and swore that they would go up out of their own lands and avenge themselves on the Lamanites: And now, because of this great thing which my people, the Nephites, had done, they began to boast in their own strength, and began to swear before the heavens that they would avenge themselves of the blood of their brethren who had been slain by their enemies. And they did swear by the heavens, and also by the throne of God, that they would go up to battle against their enemies, and would cut them off from the face of the land. (Monnon 3:9-10)
Mormon was so offended at this reaction that he refused "from this time f011h to be a commander and a leader" of the Nephites. Let's catalogue the Nephite mistakes that drove Mormon away: boasting of their military prowess, taking vengeance into their own hands, taking God's name in vain, and determining to "go up unto their enemies to battle"-i.e., to wage offensive warfare. The Lord was offended, too. He whispered to Mormon, "Vengeance is mine," and added that "because this people repented not .. . they shall be cut off from the face of the earth" (Mormon 3: 15). And so, as Mormon witnessed, the Nephites began to be "swept off." One defeat
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followed another until the entire nation was fleeing for its life. As this collapse gained momentum, Mormon looked back and poignantly and specifically bemoaned his people's bloodthirsty determination to go on the offensive against their enemies: And it was because the armies of the Nephites went up unto the Lamanites that they began to be smitten; for were it not for that, the Lamanites could have had no power over them. But, behold, the judgments of God will overtake the wicked; and it is by the wicked that the wicked are punished; for it is the wicked that stir up the hearts of the children of men unto bloodshed (Mormon 4:4-5).
This is an exceptional passage. In it Mormon provided a surprisingly narrow explanation for the military collapse of the Nephites by saying that the Lamanites' ability to dominate the Nephites stemmed from the fact that they "went up unto the Lamanites." One might expect this cataclysmic tuming point to be accounted for in broader terms. After all, the Nephites at this time were guilty of all manner of spiritual and moral debauchery, including cannibalism. Yet, when he could have invoked a wide range of factors, Mormon pinpointed but one major cause for the final sequence of Nephite defeats. His unexpected reckoning should make us pause and ask if we might underestimate the moral importance of this matter of offensive warfare. Consider as well that Mormon did not dwell on the threat posed by the Lamanites, although he knew that the Lamanites throughout this era represented an overpowering danger to the Nephites. Mormon perhaps had a military appreciation of this peril through the use of scouts or spies, but he knew with a more perfect understanding (as had every prophet since Nephi) that the Nephites one day would face annihilation at the hands of the Lamanites. Compare Mormon and his threat scenario with the threat ,described in the current U.S. national security strategy and the proposed reaction to it. Great as it is, today's risk ofterrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction compares weakly to the threat faced by Mormon and his people, in two key respects. First, Mormon had a more accurate appreciation of the dangers his people faced because it was based on the spirit of prophecy and revelation. By contrast, the security assessment of our leaders today is a blend of intelligence, analysis, and political (and politicized) judgments, rather than revelation or inspiration. The relative merits of deterrence vs. preemption seem to have had no place in Mormon's assessment. Second, the threat to the Nephites was annihilation. Complete demise was the nightmarish end that stared Mormon and his people in the face. Yet, despite this, Mormon refused to consider let alone embrace the option of offensive warfare. By contrast, we do not face an existential threat today. We encounter in terrOlism only a fraction of the destructive capacity posed by the weapons of mass destruction deployed by the former Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the U.S. govemment is taking provocative security steps that far exceed what we have done historically. Some might argue that there is an obvious answer to the contrast between Mormon's outlook on offensive warfare and the one taken by our govemment: the Nephites were outnumbered and would have been foolish to attack, whereas the U.S. as an unrivaled superpower can move at will. I do not agree that Moml0n's perspective was based on a comparative assessment of military strengths. Rather, I believe that the Book of Mormon record shows a deep-seated, historical, and prophetically mandated aversion to offensive warfare, and that this instinct of restraint worked on Mormon as it had on many who preceded him as military and spiritual leaders among the Nephites.
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Other Book of Mormon Perspectives Mormon's views on offensive warfare had an extensive genealogy in Nephite history. The following description of Captain Moroni's cause stresses repeatedly the defensive position the Lord had instructed the Nephites to take in their warfare: Nevertheless, the Nephites were inspired by a better cause, for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but they were fighting for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; for the Lord had said unto them, and also unto their fathers, that: Inasmuch as ye are not guilty of the first offense, neither the second, ye shall not suffer yourselves to be slain by the hands of your enemies. And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion (Alma 43:45-47).
Following is another explanation ofNephite attitudes about warfare. The context is Captain Moroni's invoking ofthe Title of Liberty, as he embarked on a conflict with the Lamanites in Nephite territories, while simultaneously dealing with the treason of the king-men: . Now the Nephites were taught to defend themselves against their enemies, even to the shedding of blood if it were necessary; yea, and they were also taught never to give an offense, yea, and never to raise the sword except it were against an enemy, except it were to preserve their lives. And this was their faith, that by so doing God would prosper them in the land, or in other words, if they were faithful in keeping the commandments of God that he would prosper them in the land: yea, warn them to flee, or to prepare for war, according to their danger; And also, that God would make it known unto them whither they should go to defend themselves against their enemies, and by so doing, the Lord would deliver them; and this was the faith of Moroni, and his heart did glory in it; not in the shedding of blood but in doing good, in preserving his people, yea, in keeping the commandments of God, yea, and resisting iniquity (Alma 48:14-15).
The above passage is rich with instruction. It points out the strictly defensive circumstances in which Nephites were counseled to "raise the sword." It also makes clear that they understood that God's intervention on behalf of their security could vary and would not always take the same form, and that this could sometimes involve fleeing from their enemies. Perhaps most important of all, they recognized that faith in God was the core element of their security, that acting in accordance with his counsels was the key to their survival rather than reliance on their own strength or devices. The next passage, taken again from Captain Moroni's experience, is an interesting departure. It depicts a threat he made during negotiations for a prisoner exchange. It is harsh and violent and includes a promise to arm Nephite women and children and to take the battle to the Lamanites, into lands that the Nephites had long since ceased to claim as their own: ... therefore I will close my epistle by telling you that I will not exchange plisoners, save it be on conditions that ye will deliver up a man and his wife and his children, for one prisoner; if this be the case that ye will do it, I will exchange. And behold, ifye do not this, I will come against you with my annies; yea, even I will arm my women and my children, and I will come against you, and I will follow you even into your own land, which is the land of our first inheritance; yea, and it shall be blood for blood, yea, life for life; and I will give yon battle even nntil you are destroyed from off the face
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of the earth. Behold, I am in my anger, and also my people; ye have sought to murder us, and we have only sought to defend ourselves. But behold, ifye seek to destroy us more we will seek to destroy you; yea, and we will seek our land, the land of our first inheritance (Alma 54:11-13).
Several points might be made about this passage. First, none of the threats contained here were ever carried out; moreover, given the context, one can well ask whether they were angry rhetoric or inspired policy. Second, unlike the passages cited above, this one says nothing about Moroni's feelings stemming from a commandment of the Lord or the teachings of his prophets. As tactics, Captain Moroni's words were provocative, but as a paradigm for Nephite security doctrine, they seem to have offered little or lasting value. The next passage to consider comes from the prolonged and massive war that the Nephites waged against the Gadianton robbers, around the year 17 A.D. In this case, Gidgiddoni was leader of the Nephite armies and an acknowledged prophet. Like Mormon, Gidgiddoni reacted negatively to his people's desires to "go up" and wage offensive war against the Gadianton robbers. Even though the robbers' haven was located (apparently) within the Nephites' own territorial domain, Gidgiddoni adamantly resisted moving into it, fearing that this would result in the Lord delivering his forces into the hands of the enemy. Again, the role of faith is evident in Gidgidonni's determination to prepare his armies and wait in the middle of the land for their enemies to be delivered into their hands: Now it was the custom among all the Nephites to appoint for their chief captains, (save it were in their times of wickedness) some one that had the spirit of revelation and also prophecy; therefore, this Gidgiddoni was a great prophet among them, as also was the chief judge. Now the people said unto Gidgiddoni: Pray unto the Lord, and let us go up upon the mountains and into the wilderness, that we may fall upon the robbers and destroy them in their own lands. But Gidgiddoni saith unto them: The Lord forbid; for if we should go up against them the Lord would deliver us into their hands; therefore we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands, and we will gather all our annies together, and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us; therefore as the Lord liveth, if we do this he will deliver them into our hands (3 Nephi 3:19-21).
Significantly, these preparations led to the largest conflict in Nephite history to that point, but one in which Gidgiddoni and his annies prevailed. And in the aftermath of their victory, Gidgiddoni carefully forbade his men to pursue the robbers beyond the "borders of the wilderness" (see 3 Nephi 4: 11-13). As a precedent, Gidgiddoni's faith and his repeated rejection of the idea that the Nephites should "go up" against their enemies seem to have had a significant impact on Mormon's views. President Kimball's Perspective Let me insert here some additional observations from President Spencer W Kimball. They are taken from the same source cited earlier, a statement issued in the name of the First Presidency of the Church, in June 1976. Their timeless prophetic significance is only enhanced when set alongside arguments for military preemption. President Kimball's message centered on the concern that the "unequaled" prosperity enjoyed by the American people was leading us to worship their "flocks and herds and acres and barns and wealth ... as false gods." He said that in the quest "to guarantee carnal security," many had forgotten that "our assignment is to use these many resourc-
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es ... to build up the kingdom of God." It was in this context that President Kimball extended his comments from the sphere of personal security to the arena of national security, saying "We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord." Here he pointedly reflected on "the fabrication of gods of stone and steel-ships, planes, missiles, fortification" as evidence that we are inclined to forget that the Lord is the source of our deliverance: We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us-and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Nephi 1:7)-or he will fight our battles for us (Exodus 14: 14, Doctrine and Covenants 98:37, to name only two references of many). This he is able to do ....
President Kimball concluded by challenging us, both personally and nationally, in the context of the American bicentennial, "to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves ... [and] leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the 'arm of flesh. ", A Specific Critique of Preemption Doctrine With these remarks as immediate backgronnd, I submit that the doctrine of preemption might well represent an apex of our "warlike" tendencies. At its worst, it represents a war of vengeance. At its best, it constitutes pursuit of an absolute guarantee of national security. By justifying offensive military action against would-be terrorist attacks, even without an immediate provocation, this policy makes security the defining purpose of the state. Carnal security has become an end in itself, rather than the means to other ends, whether promoting human freedom and democratic values at home and in the world, or supporting establishment of the kingdom of God on the earth. The moral consequences of this justification, as I see them, are far-reaching. In seeking to eliminate virhlally any threat, ranging from large-scale biological attacks to a radiological device carried across the border in a suitcase, it is fair to ask: Has any room been left to exercise faith in God's deliverance? Does such an approach strike an acceptable balance between doing "all we can" (i.e., all that is appropriate) for ourselves while relying, ultimately, on the Lord? My own conclusion is that the announced policy of preemption is not balanced; it does not combine our physical might and political will in a way that encourages faith in the Lord's power or strengthens our claim on that power. I would also note that certain controversial issues surrounding the operation against Iraq point up the practical weaknesses of a policy of preemption. These issues include the tensions produced among close allies by the U.S. government's diminished regard for international opinion about the invasion of Iraq, and the protracted debate over the use of intelligence to win support for forceful military action. I submit the war with Iraq underscores the potential for preemptive military action to damage key relationships with allies whose political and military cooperation is needed to deal with the global threats of WMD and terrorism. These threats, the very ones highlighted in the doctrine of preemption, cannot be resolved without broad international support. Similarly, the failure to quickly find evidence of Iraq's WMD programs and the post-war debate over U.S. and UK intelligence about these programs validate the thoughtful warning below, written many months before the invasion of Iraq: A right of pre-emption is one thing; a meaningful capability to pre-empt is quite another. Exercising the right pre-supposes E that there is some military operation that
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will achieve the desired result of eliminating the WMD capability that is targeted at an acceptable cost E Too much attention to action moves and too little to the realities of intelligence collection have tended to obscure the difficulty of knowing enough about a nation's WMD programmes to have much confidence of eliminating them by pre-emption. 6
Again, irrespective of one's views on its particulars, the post-war debate on intelligence about Iraq has demonstrated that there are indeed limits to what intelligence can offer. We have seen how difficult it is to collect accurate intelligence, to analyze it accurately, and to develop an effective course of action to deal with that threat. Overall, the operation in Iraq has demonstrated the foundations of the announced U.S. preemptive strategy-an absolute reliance on timely, accurate intelligence; the readiness to act without support from allies; and the ability to destroy a WMD capability in a rapid operation-are far weaker than anticipated. These weaknesses only add to and deepen doubts about the moral defensibility of such a strategy.7 Conclusion I hope the above observations stimulate discussion of current trends in U.S. national security policy. The moral basis ofthat policy and its practical effectiveness in addressing. the global threats of terrorism and WMD both bear careful, critical review. My task here has been to suggest faith-focused approaches to security issues. This gathering called for such an emphasis, and I have hoped we could be as open with our ideas as if we were holding gospel doctrine class in the White House situation room. I have also been mindful that President Bush, more than any president in my memory, has used spiritual pretexts to substantiate his course of action in national security. I have not hesitated to follow that lead, although it has taken me to different conclusions. To recap some of these differing conclusions, I offer the following summary: The cun'ent external threat to U.S. national security is not an existential, mortal threaL The WMD capabilities and immediate intentions of terrorists and rogue states a) remain elusive to U.S. intelligence, and b) at their worst would represent only the smallest fraction of the destructive power that the U.S. faced from Soviet nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and missiles for almost fifty years. Monnon and his people, in the declining years ofNephite civilization, faced a threat of massive destmction. Even though it did not include WMD as we know it or the missiles to deliver them, this threat overwhelmed and annihilated the Nephites. MOlmon knew the nature of this threat, but like generations of righteous military leaders before him, he recoiled at the thought of "going up" to attack that threat. Current U.S. national security strategy holds that the terroristIWMD combination poses a new, greater threat because it is not subject to traditional military deterrence. This is a theOlY, an opinion. On the strengths (or weaknesses) of such judgments, U.S. policy has overturned two centuries of military and moral restraint. Similarly, there is a substantial body of ancient and modem prophetic that seems to argue against such extreme steps as taking preemptive militalY action.
As debate on these issues goes forward in the LDS community, definitions will be important. In fact, colleagues who have reviewed my remarks have suggested that I should define certain key terms. Some have cautioned about not explaining terms such as "offensive warfare" and the need to distinguish between "preemption" and war for the sake of revenge (which, it could be argued, is what Mormon 4:4 is all about). Others have argued against including chemical and biological weapons in the category of
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weapons of mass destruction. I am not addressing these concerns here in part because this presentation is intended to be preliminary and even somewhat informal in nature. There will be time and opportunity to prepare a proper typology for this debate. But I am also wary about the potential pitfalls in such an exercise. For example, the definitional finesse that suits our intellectual, professional, and political instincts may not be spiritually significant. I feel less pressure to re-shape the wisdom of ancient and modem-day prophets to fit the nuances of current national security terminology; I feel more inclined to ask whether such nuances really clarifY things as they are, or whether they simply enthrone our own prejudices while whittling away at inspired, prophetically-validated principles. In shaping a typology, we would do well to keep in front of us such formulations as "they were not fighting for monarchy nor power," or "they were also taught never to give an offense," or "we will prepare ourselves in the center of our lands ... and we will not go against them, but we will wait till they shall come against us" (Alma 43:45,48:14,3 Nephi 3:21). Staying close to the overall spirit of such statements will be important, and potentially more fruitful than insisting that we import our whole work-a-day glossary of national security terms into this debate. The security challenges "facing this country are inunense. American society feels vulnerable and the specter of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists is literally terrifYing. But we have a history. Past U.S. administrations have dealt effectively and appropriately with more dangerous threats, in partnership with close allies. We also have a purpose. There is little lasting merit in responding to security threats in ways that undermine basic freedoms at home or diminish the principled position of the United States in the eyes of the world. This brings us back to the measuring rod offered by President Kimball. I re-submit it here as an inspired insight for both believers and policy-makers, a prophetic but practical guideline to help determine whether a given security policy has lasting merit: Does the proposed policy enshrine physical (carnal) security as an absolute-as an end in itself-or does it pursue security only as a means to achieving the higher purposes for which this country was established? Central to this approach is the realization we cannot achieve full security. Despite the post-September 11 impulse to do anything and everything to eliminate threats, absolute safety is a chimera. Policies that seek such security guarantees will inevitably lead to disappointment, and for us as a people to entertain them will only deepen the "warlike" tendencies President Kimball warned against. Although it now seems unimaginable that any leader would openly admit that the security we seek is beyond our capacity to achieve, this is nevertheless true. Meanwhile, we might do well to consider the security and strength that could flow from actively acknowledging this principle, including a U.S. role in the world that accepts limits and builds alliances, but which also leaves room for the work of a far stronger Hand than we can imagine.
NOTES 1. I do not consider the U.S. military operation in Iraq as "preemptive." Such a label does not seem applicable to steps taken against a regime that invaded Kuwait in 1990 and that for many years resisted internationally-sanctioned efforts to root out its weapons of mass destruction. 2. The entire context of this quotation is as follows: "We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel-ships, planes, missiles, fortificationsand depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti enemy
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instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:44-45.)" Spencer W. Kimball, "First Presidency Message: The False Gods We Worship,"'Ensign, June 1976. 3. "A National Security Strategy for A New Century," December 1999. 4. U.S. National Security Strategy, September 2002 (taken from White House web page). 5. Benson, Ezra Taft. "Cleansing the Inner Vessel," Ensign, pp. 4-7, November 1986. 6. Slocombe, Walter B. "Force, Pre-emption, and Legitimacy," Survival, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 11726, spring 2003. Slocombe is both a scholar and practitioner of national security. He served as Undersecretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and was later asked by the Bush administration to oversee development of a new Iraqi army. 7. In view ofthe disappointing results of U.S. policy in Iraq, I have given thought to our excessive confidence in the technical and military prowess at our disposal. In contrast to this prideful, unbalanced approach, I think of Captain Moroni, who energetically applied temporal defense measures but also incorporated reliance on the spirit of revelation and prophecy: But it came to pass, as soon as they had departed into the wilderness Moroni sent spies into the wilderness to watch their camp; and Moroni, also, knowing of the prophecies of Alma, sent certain men unto him, desiring him that he should inquire of the Lord whither the armies of the Nephites should go to defend themselves against the Lamanites. And it came to pass that the word of the Lord came unto Alma, and Alma informed the messengers of Moroni, that the armies of the Lamanites were marching round about in the wilderness, that they might come over into the land of Manti, that they might commence an attack upon the weaker part of the people. And those messengers went and delivered the message unto Moroni (Alma 43:23-24). Verse 30 of this same chapter shows that, in addition to arming his people, using spies, and seeking revelatory input from Alma, Moroni also used "strategem" to defend his people from an ominous threat. This was indeed a balanced, multi-faceted, and appropriate approach to national security.
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PARTVl Reprinted Selection From the First Volume 15 What Should America's National Security Objectives Be?: The Problems and Possibilities of an LDS Perspective (Abridged) Valerie M Hudson The Gospel Definition of Security: Is America Secure? This has been a very perplexing paper to write. It is clear that moral principles must be applicable to national security objectives: the purpose of moral principles is to guide human motivation and behavior, and the nation-state is a collectivity of humans. Indeed, our scriptures state that "govemments were instituted of God for the benefit of man" and that the purpose of secular law is "the good and safety of society" (Doctrine and Covenants 134: I). Nevertheless, it is also apparent that when a collectivity of humans lives the fullness of the gospel, they become Zion, and Zion is a higher form of human organization than the nation-state (4 Nephi I: 17). Indeed, we look forward to tbe "end of nations" (Doctrine and Covenants 87:6), which would signify the triumph ofCluist. A search of the scriptures tell us in broad terms the foundation of Zion's security and the "foreign policy" of Zion. These are based on a very different idea of security than that of traditionally defined nation-state security. The sOllrce of their immense security is the tremendolls level of personal righteousness among Zion's inhabitants (Moses 7:18). As a result, Zion doesn't seem to need armies (Moses 7:13-15). God fights Zion's battles, and He wins all of them, seemingly without much human assistance (Doctrine and Covenants 105:14; however see v. 30-31). Zion proclaims peace (Doctrine and Covenants 98:34). Zion undertakes no alliances or collective security arrangements (Doctrine and Covenants 45:69, Moses 7:14-17). Zion seems to have very little to do with the outside world: the outside world, unsuccessful in its attempts to conquer Zion, wishes to keep as much distance between the two realms as possible (Doctrine and Covenants 45:67,70,74-75). Zion is a refuge for those from all nations who desire and are able to live celestial law, which includes desiring not to shed others' blood.(Doctrine and Covenants 45:68-69, 71) Citizenship is, thus, based on merit, not
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ethnicity or birthright or quotas. Eventually, in the epitome of isolationist policy, Zion is removed from the earth completely (Moses 7:69). What lessons can be drawn from this scriptural exegesis for American national security policy? Not as many as you might think. Is it necessary to point out that America in the 1990s is not Zion, and that the prospects of it becoming more Zion-like in the future seem very dim? Zion seems to have no other security objectives besides the maintenance of its Zion society. From that society flow all the security blessings one could possibly hope for: the unassailable protection of God, separation from external sources of spiritual pollution, the fear and astonishment of one's enemies. America, in my personal opinion, is not currently obedient to the laws upon which receipt of these blessings is predicated (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21). Though we have the law, which presumably puts us at an advantage vis a vis our brethren in nation-states which do not, we are as the Nephites of old who spumed and mocked the law and ended up in a much worse state in God's eyes than the Lamanites (Alma 9:23, Helaman 15: 14--17). Therefore, although of inspirational value, Zion's way is not the guide to current national security planning in the United States of America. However, knowledge of the God-mandated connection between the state of our society and the state of our national security may move us toward some long-range social refonTIs that could lay the foundation of enhanced security in the future. I will expound on this point later in the essay. First, though, let me tangentially note again that this is security for our citizens, as the traditionally defined security of the American state will appear at some point to be in jeopardy if we're really on the right track. One can foresee how difficult would be cboices that pit the security of American citizens in a gospel sense and tbe secUlity of the United States in a secular sense against one another--even most members of the LOS faith cUITently equate the two securities. When that day comes, there will be a very profound sifting among the saints. Luckily for me as essayist, we are nowhere near the point of renouncing the primacy of U.S. secularly-defined security in our collective value system. But it can be argued that every choice we make in national security either leads us closer to the day when citizen security in a gospel sense and state security in a secular sense part company. Do we feed the American hungry, or do we buy a new attack submarine,) We currently have the resources to do a bit of both and continue to serve two masters: will we always have such resources') Furthermore, some questions demand a "do or don't" resolution: do we send U.S. troops to Bosnia, or don't we? We can philosophically fence-sit all we wish, but there either will be American servicemen in Bosnia or there won't be. In sum, prioritization and resource allocation in national policy have profound moral ramifications for our people that we cannot dismiss. Before going fUliher, let me consider the question of whether security in the gospel sense can come from above (the level of national leadership) or can only come from below (the level of the citizenry). That is, can our security dilemma be resolved by the election to national office of men and women of God? As I understand the gospelinterpreted history of the Book of Mormon and the Bib.le, the situation of good leaders ruling sinful people does not stay the sword of justice unless massive repentance takes place-such repentance being urged upon the people by the .leaders themselves. Indeed, this massive repentance is not a common occurrence unless accompanied by imminent threat of national destruction. Without such an imminent threat, the good leaders are usually passed by in favor of leaders who are more in bannony with the
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people's true desires. I believe it is generally true that peoples end up with leaders that reflect their own average level of righteousness: that is why God can look to the will of the majority as a way to judge a people (Mosiah 29:27). Good leaders can buy time for their sinful people, but this lime is probationary, of finite duration, and is accompanied by external threat which will be realized in destruction once the time of probation is over. Lasting and solid security can only be built when the people are righteous themselves. Citizen security in a gospel sense and state security in a secular sense parted company very dramatically in the former Soviet Union-even though the old state was destroyed (arguably improving the forecast for citizen security in a gospel sense), citizen security in a gospel sense was inunediately jeopardized by a plethora of ethnic conflicts. War and hostility initiated because of ethnic difference does not come from righteousness. "Every man to his own tent and tribe" was one of the lowest points of societal righteousness in the Book ofMOJmon and ushered in the great destruction that preceded the visit of the resurrected Christ. (3 Nephi chapter 7). Re-establishment of -ites signalled the end of the miraculous period of peace that followed the appearance of the Savior on this continent. (4 Nephi 1:20,35-39) Likewise, lack of obedience to God's laws (which laws require being no respecter of ethnicity, race, or gender) undermined any benefit to citizen security in a gospel sense that resulted from the destruction of the Soviet state. Therefore, I conclude that tl1e strategy of leaders acting righteously, while their people remain unrepentant, is unlikely to be a recipe for sustained enhanced gospel-defined security. Only active efforts by good leaders to facilitate repentance of the citizenry can result in the desired end. Of course, the choice of evil leaders only hastens the time of destruction (Mosiah ll). That having been said, how do we assess the current state of America's security, defined in a gospel context? Our leaders are not men of God, and do not preach adherence to God's laws. Our society is full of the consequences of "every man wal king in his way and calling it good" (HeJaman 13:27). America used to be the unwitting protector of the fullness of the Restored Gospel (3 Nephi 21 :4): over the next few decades, God may no longer need to protect America in order to protect the Church as the majority of Church members and increasing numbers of Church leaders will be found outside of North America. Though the gospel must have liberty to flourish, the gospel in America is increasingly being choked out by the noxious weeds that are also bred in climates of liberty, ease, and peace, which paradox was the bane and the doom of the Nephites. We know we are to be gathered finally to a place that cunently exists within the borders of the nation-state we call America, but that says nothing about the fate of America as a nation-state itself. Indeed, in numerous scriptures, God promises destruction to those nations raised up on the promised land which do not serve Him (Mosiah 1: 13, Mosiah 7 :31, 3 Nephi 20: 15-20, 27-28, 3 Nephi 2 J: 11-21, Ether 2:8-10). Accept with me the premise that the state of America's gospel-defined security is not great: there are many good people in America, but the amount of societal evil in which they have to live increases almost daily. There came a time in the Book of Mormon (and I can't find the scripntre, so please bear with me, but see Doctrine and Covenants 33:4) when it was impossible for even the elect to be born into the corrupt society of the Nephites without being corrupted themselves. Even among the society of saints in America, who supposedly should know belter, our Church leaders have condemned us for oW" materialism and for ow' light esteem of the sacred scriptures. Given this assumption, what should American national security objectives be?
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A two-pronged strategy is called for: I) domestic refolmation and 2) a foreign-policy strategy based on the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16 that perserves the nation while objective number one is being pursued.
Domestic Reformation as a National Security Objective It is impossible to accept the scriptures without also accepting that domestic reformation is the highest priority in national secUlity affairs. Mighty men with mighty weapons are not stronger than the arm of a just God. Indeed, to prove His point, God often makes a mockery of the arm of flesh: remember Gideon with 300 routing hundreds of thousands without having any weapons at all! Remember the fall of Jericho, and the destruction of mighty Pharaoh's almies in the midst of the Red Sea. If we believe these scriptural accounts to be accurate, then domestic reformation is even more important to American security than armies and high-tech weapons. The United States will never be Zion, but there is certainly a political agenda for those who see adherence to God's laws as the basis for national security. \Vhat injunctions do we find in the scriptures? We must maintain a high degree of individual lighteousness and must teach our children to do the same (Mosiah 26: 1--4,2 Nephi 25:26, Doctrine and Covenants 93:40, 68:25 ). This righteousness includes charity: taking care of the hungry, the naked, the sick, the widows, and the fatherless to the end that we may be more equal in earthly things (Mosiah 4:26, Doctrine and Covenants 78:5-6, Alma I :30). We must search for wise and lighteous leaders and actively support them. (Doctrine and Covenants 134:3) We must not trade in our republic for a monarchy (Mosiah 23:7; Mosiah 29:31-38). We must not remain complacently ignorant of the doings of nations, including our own. (Doctrine and Covenants 88:78-81) To the extent that we are made aware of powerful forces that combine to get gain through murder, we must oppose those forces. (Ether 8:22-24) We must uphold the law-both domestic and international-insofar as it replaces anarchy and terror with peace and harmony and uphold those who make and enforce such law-both domestically and internationally (Doctrine and Covenants 134:6). We encourage the enactment of laws that "secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life" (Doctrine and Covenants 134:2) We encourage the restraint of crime and the punishment of guilt (Doctrine and Covenants 134:4), as well as the disentanglement of church and state (v. 9). In a more proactive sense, we also know that certain types of laws, in that they parallel the precepts of God, are good. Excellent examples include anti-discrimination laws, laws against murder, adultery, lying under oath, stealing, sodomy, fraud, sexual assault or abuse, laws that try to prevent a gross inequality of wealth or learning in society, and so forth. We should act so as to preserve these laws. We could also think of a wish list of conditions that might be promoted by law, but are not: less class/privilege divisions by wealth (3 Nephi 6: 10-16), restrictions on the use of abortion, greater promotion of healthy intact families as a societal ideal, greater censorship of pornographic and graphically violent material, uprooting of demand for harmful and toxic substances/drugs, etc. Again it is difficult to sort out whether those initiatives are best legislated by the government, or best left to the devices oflocal communities unfettered by federal intervention. Citizens concerned with the gospel definition of secUlity could surely be active at both levels.
The Unjust Steward and American Foreign Policy Objectives America has been a steward for quite some time in world affairs. Yet because of
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the decline in righteousness of its society, it will not always-and perhaps even now does not-enjoy the support of its Lord. So it was with the steward in Jesus' parable to be found in Luke 16: I -17. A certain lord has a steward who is accused of squandering his lord's goods. The lord takes away the man's stewardship, but the former steward determines not to sink to menial labor or begging as a livelihood. He goes to those who are in debt to his lord and, as they do not yet know he has been fired, he uses his ertswhile authority to ,mange for them to substantially reduce their debts. When the lord finds out, is he enraged? On the contrary, he commends the steward for having done wisely according to the wisdom of the world. Now that the lord has disowned the steward, the steward will have somewhere to go and someone to take him in. Of course, "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (v. lS) and what the steward did brings him no celestial brownie points at all, but at least he saved his rear-end in a temporal sense in the wake of his lord removing his trust in him. If you can't bejust, better to be unjust and worldly wise than unjust and stupid is the moral of this parable. America is in the same position. I feel the Lord's trust is not with our nation because of the state of our society. Yet we are still very powerful, and we should parlay that power into temporal security for our nation in the hopes that our domestic refOlm efforts will prove fruitful and re-establish the support of the Lord. We may clmently be perceived by God as unjust, but this is no reason to be stupid as a result. If we are left to rely on our own strength, then let's do that with all prudence and wisdom. How can we be worldly wise and procure such temporal security without undercutting our desire to once again be under the protection of the Lord? Is it possible to be "wise as a serpent, yet harm less as a dove"? (Matthew 10: 16). I believe it is.
16 Securing a Nation: An LDS Perspective on Post-Cold War Strategies for National Security Joseph C. Seeger' From 1945 to 1992, American national security policy was primarily driven by the threat of Communism and Soviet expansion. U.S. defense policy hinged on concerns of national interest and reflected varying levels of threat perception. Through all of this, however, national security policy was directed at seven objectives relating to the fundamental goal of preserving the American way of life: 1) deter military attack on the United States or its allies; 2) reduce reliance on nuclear retaliation as an operational military su·ategy; 3) protect the United States and its allies against attack; 4) encourage political refonn in the Communist bloc; 5) preserve and protect free trade and ensure U.S. access to world markets; 6) prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destlUction and limit, as much as possible, significant military technology, e.g., nuclear, chemicallbiological, and missile technologies); and 7) hinder the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. 2 Indeed, the entire concept of containment, as presented by George Kennan, indicated a need to inhibit the advance of Soviet power. In his famed "X" article,l Kennan suggested that U.S. economic, political, military, and moral strengths and capabilities be used to motivate change in Soviet policy. By using its strengths to motivate change in the Soviet Union's political apparatus, the United States could provide for its own national security as conceptualized in the Constitution. Rather than peaceful change, however, what emerged was a Cold War driven by ideological differences between the United States and the Soviet Union. But with the fall of Soviet Communism, military doctrines and strategies of containment that have defined national security policy since 1945 have been called into question. "A nation's security policy is a reaction to a threat- real or perceived.'" This is the key to understanding U.S. security policy over the past half century. In the absence of a clearly defined enemy, the Clinton administration's continued reassessment of U.S. security and force requirements merely reflects a more pressing need to look to the future and seriously consider the objectives guiding our national security policy. This is reflected most distinctly in the changes we are seeing in the U.S. military's force structure. From budget cuts to the Defense Department's Bottom-up Review,s the indication is that the Clinton administration has detelmined Cold Warlevel military forces are no longer necessary to provide security for the American people. As definitions of security have shifted from the Cold War mentality of zerosum politics to issues such as employment, productivity, health care, the trade deficit, and the eroding U.S. standard of living, adjustments are both wan-anted and necessary. The current administration has redefined national security in tenns of the well-being of the American population at large-the right of the people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 6 In the wake of the Cold War, these seem to be the defining tenns and objectives of national security.
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This being the case, two questions arise. First, how is national security to be achieved? What steps can and should be taken to produce security in all aspects, whether economic, social, political, or military? Second, how can security be enhanced and preserved? Modern-day scripture helps us identity real answers to these questions.
Books for Our Day Ezra Taft Benson has noted: "The Book of Mormon was written for us today. God is the author of the book. It is a record of a fallen people, compiled by inspired men for our blessing today Those people never had the book-it was meant for US."7 Why? Because God knew that, in the latter days, his children would need the knowledge the book provides if they were to succeed in establishing the kingdom of God on earth and rise victOlious over Satan and his armies. The Doctrine and Covenants has a similar purpose. President Joseph Fielding Smith noted: "this Doctrine and Covenants contains the word of God to those who dwell here now. II is our book. It belongs to the Latter-day Saints. More precious than gold, the Prophet says we should treasure it more than the riches of the whole ealih. I wonder if we do? If we value it, understand it, and know what it contains, we will value it more than wealth; it is worth more to us than the riches of the earth."g (1956,199; Smith's italics). It comes as no surprise then that the Book of Mormon and other latter-day scriptures are analogous to our day. The Book ofMOlmon prophets saw our day and wrote that great book to teach us not only the gospel of Jesus Christ but how the gospel enables us to survive. As the prophet Mormon wrote: "Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing" (Mormon 8:35). Lessons often are found within the patterns that unfold as we earnestly seek knowledge out of these "best books" by study and by faith (Doctrine and Covenants 88: 118). While policy makers tend to discuss issues such as national security in a very temporal manner, to the Lord all things are spiritual (Doctrine and Covenants 29:34). This indicates that even though we may live in a temporal world, our activities have spiritual implications. As Bruce R. McConkie noted, "If we cannot care for our temporal needs in this world, 110W can we ever succeed in spiritual things in the world to come?"9 In a revelation given to the prophet Joseph Smith on2 April 1843, the Lord stated, "There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated-And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated" (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21). The scriptures are wJitten in such a fashion as to both explicitly tell us the laws upon which blessings are predicated and show us, through illustrative patterns, the consequences of disobedience. In matters of national security, it seems no different.
Principles for Security: Obedience and Preparation The Book of Mormon teaches us that this land (the Americas) was preserved for the righteous (Ether 2:7). Furthermore, the Lord provided for the establishment of the U.S. government in such a way as to set conditions for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Afier Lehi led his family out of Jerusalem and into the wilderness, the Lord spoke to Nephi, telling him that "inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shaH prosper, and shall be Jed to a land ... which is choice above all other lands" (I Nephi 2:20). In addition, Lehi was promised that:
SECURING A NATION
. inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and tbey shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever. But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord .. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give tUlto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten (2 Nephi 1:9-11).
Indeed, this was the case for the Nephites. Their iniquity brought war upon them (A Ima 50:21); contentions among the people also led to war (Relaman 11: I) and ultimately to their final destruction at the hands of the Lamanites (Mormon 6, 7, and 8). The single greatest cause for the Nephites' loss of security was their lack of obedience and forgetfulness of God. As Relaman noted: ... the Lord in his great infinite goodness doth bless and prosper those who put their trust in him. Yea, and we may see at the very time when he doth prosper his people, yea, in the increase of their fields, their flocks and their herds, and in gold, and in silver, and in all manner of precious things of every kind and art; sparing their lives, and delivering them out of the hands of their enemies; softening the hearts of their enemies that they should not declare wars against them; yea, and in fine, doing all things for the welfare and happiness of his people; yea, then is the time that they do harden their hearts, and do forget the Lord their God, and do lrampte WIder their feet the Holy One-yea, and this because of their ease, and their exceedingly great prosperity. And tl1Us we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many amictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him (Reiaman 12: 1-3).
This is the Nephite Syndrome. Obedience and preparation brought the Nephites prosperity; then, as the people settled into comfortable (secure) lives, they forgot God and became disobedient, "quick to do iniquity," "slow to do good," and they "set their hearts upon the vain things of the world" (Relaman 12:4). As a result, God chastened them, in some cases by war and destruction. He removed their security and brought them to a remembrance of their God. As the Nephites repented, God once again blessed and prospered them. In the tinal analysis, however, the Nephites fell. This implies that, unless a people remember God and take heed to obey his commandments, their nation will suffer the consequences of disobedience, especially if it has been blessed with and founded upon faith and the gospel. In the extreme, the nation will lose security to the point where it will be overth.rown. At the same time, keeping the commandments alone is not enough to ensure a nation's security. The Lord expects us to do aU we can before he will take it upon himself to protect us. He expects his children to "do many things of their own free will" because the "power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves" (Doctrine and Covenants 58:27-28). This was Moroni's criticism of Pahoran during the war between the Nephites and the Lamanites: " ... do ye suppose that the Lord will deliver us, while we sit upon our thrones and do not make use of the means which the Lord has provided for us?" (Alma 60:21). These examples indicate a responsibility on our
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part to prepare an adequate defense of our land and liberties (Alma 43:26) so that, if threats do arise, we might fight as the Nephites, being inspired by a better cause in the war: "for they were not fighting for monarchy nor power but ... for their homes and their liberties, their wives and their children, and their all, yea, for their rites of worship and their church. And they were doing that which they felt was the duty which they owed to their God; ... And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion" (Alma 43:45-49). The counsel is that even in the face of "wars in far countries, ... if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear" (Doctrine and Covenants 38:29-30).
Implications for U.S. Security Policy The foregoing indicates a need for a dual-track national security policy. On one hand, America must be prepared to protect itself and its vital interests. Speaking strictly in military terms, the United States must be adequately secured against foreign invasion and prepared to protect its vital interests. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its strategic forces, we need only be marginally concerned over an ensuing attack from the former Soviet Union. Likewise, other states, such as China, which possess technology making them capable of such an attack, have yet to show themselves as being militarily hostile to the United States. This has lowered U.S. force requirements, as retlected by the Pentagon's recent budget cuts resulting in base closures and the reevaluation of force requirements. But it does not mean the United States will (or should) reduce its military forces to the same scale as nations like Japan, which maintains only limited defensive forces for its protection. In an international system seemingly characterized more each day by instability, the United States must retain the ability to adequately project force if for no other reason than to maintain general stability and protect its strategic interests, as in the 1991 Gulf War. On the other hand, such military preparation is not enough. America must retTench itself in obedience to God's commandments if it is to find true national security. After the Lord's visitation to the Americas, Nephi records that there "was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people" (4 Nephi I: 15). The result was Zion, a people with "one heart and one mind," a people who "dwelt in righteousness" and had "no poor among them" (Moses 7: 18). Because of the people's obedience to God's commandments, contentions ceased and "there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God" (4 Nephi J: 16-17). Indeed, "righteousness exalteth a nation" (Proverbs 14:34). Obedience is the first law of heaven. Thus, if we are to "dwell safely" in the promised land, we must keep the commandments of God (2 Nephi 1 :9). The mandate is clear: "For verily I say unto you, my law shall be kept on this land" (Doctrine and Covenants 58: 19). This is the only sure course to security. McConkie emphasized this point in the Church's April 1979 general conference: I stand before the Church this day and raise the warning voice .... Be it remembered that tribulations lie ahead. There will be wars in one nation and kingdom after another until war is poured out upon all nations and two hWldred million men of war mass their annaments at Annageddon. It is one of the sad heresies of am time that peace will be gained by weary diplomats as
SECURING A NATION
they prepare treaties of compromise, or that the Millennium will be ushered in because men will learn to live in peace and to keep tbe commandments, or that the predicted plagues and promised desolations of latter days can in some way be avoided .... We do not know when the calamities and troubles of the last days will fall upon any of us .... The Lord deliberately withholds from us the day and how' of his coming and of the tribulations which shall precede it-all as part of the testing and probationary experiences of mortality. He simply tells us to watch and be ready. We do not say that all of the Sajnts will be spared and saved from the coming day of desolation. But we do say there is no promise ojsafety and no promise ojsecurity except
jor those who love Ihe Lord and who are seeking to do all that he commands. There i, no security in (lny course excepl the cOllrse oj obedience and conjormity and righteollsness."
Conclusions The main conclusion I would draw from the foregoing is simple: the best course to establish and maintain national security lies in pre paring for the days of tribulation and obeying God's commandments. The scriptures are replete with directives and patterns that support this premise. Accordingly, we must recognize three fundamental factors in any future national security policy. First, national security is a spiritual as well as a temporal issue. If this life is a time to prepare to meet God (Alma 12:24), then we can expect our temporal actions to have everlasting implications. With a knowledge of the great and wondrous plan of salvation, we are blessed to understand one simple truth: mediocrity will not suffice. As the Lord put it, "I would thou wert hot or cold. So then because thou ali lukewarn1, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" (Revelations 3: 15-16). We must recognize that both temporal action and inaction have everlasting implications. Second, the establishment of security depends on our preparation. In the face ofa new world disorder, we must "maintain the military capability to support whatever diplomatic course our government should choose."" The Lord expects the children of men to do all they can in preparing for the final days of tribulation. We must "prepare ... by doing the things" that the Lord has commanded (Doctrine and Covenants 78:7). This requires that we, like the Nephites, do all we can to establish a solid defense, capable of protecting the nation and its interests throughout the globe. At the same time, however, intentions must be correct, that is, without deception or hypocrisy (2 Nephi 31: 13). If we are prepared, we shall not fear. Finally, the preservation of national security is dependent on obedience to God's laws. The scriptures teach us "there is no peace ... unto the wicked" (I Nehi 20:22) and that "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41: 10). The Lord has cautioned men saying, "And all they who receive the oracles of God, let them beware how they hold them lest they are accounted as a light thing, and are brought under condemnation thereby" (Doctrine and Covenants 90:5). The Nephites failed to understand this. Consequently, they were destroyed. In the wake of the Cold War, one naval officer has said that we must "look critically at events of the not-tao-distant past, to help us find the right direction and avoid repeating mistakes as we work toward new national and military strategies."'2 Developing and maintaining permanent strategies for national security is not so different. By looking to the Book of Mormon and other scriptures, we can better understand how real
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security is achieved. It is only achieved through preparation and righteousness. NOTES
1. Joseph C. Seeger received his master's degree in international relations from the David M. KClUledy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Colorado 2. Korb, Lawrence J. "The United States," The De/ense Policies o/Nations: A Comparative Study, 3rd edition, eds. Douglas l. Murray and Paul R. Viotti, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. 3. KelUlan, George F. ("X"). "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, vol. 25, no. 4, July 1947, pp. 566-82. 4. Rosa, Frank L. "The United States," The De/ense Policies 0/ Nations: A Comparative Study, 2nd edition, eds. Douglas J. Murray and Paul R. Viotti, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, p.599. 5. Aspin, Les and Colin Powell. The boltom-up review, U.S. Department of Defense, 1 September 1993. 6. Stewart, Clay. "Remarks on U.S. National Security Objectives," Moral Perspectives on Security Policy: Views/rom the LDS Community, Kennedy Celller Publications, 1995, p. 23 .
u.s.
7. Benson, Ezra Taft. 1975. 'The Book of Monnon is the word of God," Ensign, May 1975, p. 63. 8. Smith, Joseph Fielding. Doctrines a/Salvation: Sermons and writings 0/Joseph Fielding Smith , vol. 3, compiled by Bruce R. McConkie, Bookcraft, 1956, p. 199. 9. McConkie, Bruce R. 1979. "Stand Independent Above All Other Creatures," Ensign, May 1979, p. 92.
10 . Ibid, pp. 92-93, italics added. II. Coyle, Barry J. "Leaming the right lessons," United States Naval Institute Proceedings, vol. 19, no. 9, September 1993, p. 33. 12. Ibid, p. 31.
17 A Case for Mormon Christian Pacifism Eugene England' Robert Wood ended his address with a challenge that we hear the Master's voice and follow it as citizens 2 Christ's voice seems clear and unequivocal if we look at tbe scriprures. As Jehovah in the Old Testament, he commands us not to kill (Exodus 20:13). In the Doctrine and Covenants, he adds that we should do nothing "like unto" killing (Doctrine and Covenants 59:6). In the New Testament, he says: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy [the realist's solution]. But I say unto to you, Love your enemies ... do good to them that hate you ... that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven .... Be ye therefore petfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:43-48). In that same book, he states two even more challenging notions: "all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew 26:52) and "resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39). Paul adds to that a positive dimension, "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). A prophet in our time, Spencer W. Kimball, has applied these notions specifical Iy to our condition-during the Cold War in fact. He chose an interesting time to publish "The False Gods We Worship": in the June 1976 Ensign, at the height of our bicentennial as a generally self-congratulatOlY nation. In this article, he says something noteworthy: ... we are, on the whole [and he is speaking about Americans and MOimons in particular), an idolatrous people--a condition most repugnant to the Lord. We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel-ships, planes, missiles, fortifications-and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti[ -]enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:44--45). We forget that if we are righteolls the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us-and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Nephi 1:7)--or he will fight our battles for us]
Bruce Porter reminded us of that remarkable promise and the essentially internal narure of our problems. 4 To me, President Kimball's comments suggest that one of the main internal problems threatening us-if we are doing threat assessment-is our threat to others, our war-likeness (as Porter has pointed Ollt), and the danger this poses of provoking defensiveness and reaction from others. What should we do then? President Kimball concludes, "What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as
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ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies."5 What is laid out for us here, in very clear tenns, is a choice. Will we in the way of realists who govern our world, including many Latter-day Saints, look ultimately to justice, which is a high principle, or to mercy, a higher principle, as our chief responsibility in dealing with the violence of the world? One response has been, "These commandments and principles, suggesting that mercy is the answer, apply to individuals but not to nations."6 This was Reinhold Niebuhr's position in analyzing what happens to people when they fonn into groups and why a different set of moral principles seems to apply under such circumstances. Prophets have spoken of this interesting dilemma. Near the beginning of the Second World War, the First Presidency issued a relevant statement about the consequences of making justice our chief value: "There is an eternal law that rules war and those who engage In It. ... The Savior ... laid down a nniversal principle, ['all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword'-Matthew 26:52] upon which He placed no limitations as to time, place, cause, or people involved [whether righteous or wicked]. ... This is a universal law, for force always begets force.'" As an alternative to the way of justice, the First Presidency in 1981 specifically addressed the question of whether mercy, as a principle outlined by Christ, applies to nations as well as individuals: "To all who seek a resolution to conflict, be it a misunderstanding between individuals or an international difficulty between nations, we commend the counsel of the Prince of Peace: 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.' (Matthew 5:44-45) This principle of loving one another as Jesus Christ loves us will bring peace to the individual, to the home and beyond, even to the nations and to the world."g Again I think that is unequivocal. Yet in 1942 the First Presidency supported the Second World War, at the very time they were issuing the waming about force. What are we to do when Christ gives an absolute ethic of mercy, reinforced by his modem prophets, and yet we are required to support a constitutional government? It is also clear that our Church leaders have allowed violence. How can we find our way in this seeming contradiction? Let me suggest how we might. I think that Christ and his modem prophets have enunciated clearly an absolute ethic based on the eternal law of God. It is a pacifist ethic; however, it recognizes that in the practical lives of human beings, we willsometimes must- break that law to preserve similar or higher values. But that is not an easy compromise, and when we do make it, as individuals or as a nation, we pay an enonnous price: the principle remains in judgment over us and should control the way in which we violate it and respond afterwards. I would add that one way we should respond to our national violence is with repentance and sorrow, which have been very rare in our experience. Why would God make suchan absolute requirement of us? It has to do with the nature of ultimate reality, about which God is trying to teach us. The most ultimate reality is our individual, eternal human selves. That humans are each equally and infinitely precious is confirmed throughout the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Each human, by its very existence, constitutes a claim on every other human to be treated as an end rather
A CASE
FOR MORMON CHRISTIAN PACIFISIvI
than a means, to have its personhood respected as the most basic of all realities and rights. We must do only good to each other and make each other's welfare paramount. This is the way God responds to each of us and the way we are told we must respond to his children. Note that refrain in his conunandments: ifwe are to be the children of God, this is the way we are to act. For Mormon Christians, this understanding of personhood is enriched by the conviction that our most essential selves, our "intelligences," have existed forever, uncreated and coeternal with God; that we have, therefore, the potential to become genuinely Godlike; and that God's declared work and glory is to help us do that. Joseph Smith declared in his King Follet discourse, "All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement and improvement."9 One form of this understanding has been conceptualized in the term "ethical monotheism," which Max Weber claims is the central and revolutionary contribution of the Old Testament literary prophets: the understanding that God is one god and, therefore, not ethically divided against himself as were the pagan pantheons and that his ethical nature demands our relationship to him be possible only through our relationship to others.lo In the strong words of Amos, he hates and despises our efforts to placate him with sacrifice or to approach him with our piety and worship if we simultaneously neglect to relate to his other children, whom he loves and values equally, with justice and mercy (Amos 5:21-24). Christ completely rejects our distinctions between friends and enemies, those who love and those who hate us. He is no respecter of persons; that means he does not distinguish or discriminate among them by nationality, skin color, sex, or state of sinfulness but does good to all. When we do otherwise, we violate our nature as children of God and enter the devil's territory. If] am correct about the most fundamental right of all humans, then no other claim of justice or ethics is more fundamental. Nothing would justify violating that basic right, not even a so-called "just war." There is no means that can justify the violation of that end. Then what about war? Justice is per force the highest value of the realist, and it is not high enough. That is what my Shakespeare class learned with me as we studied The Merchant oj Venice, in which POl1ia tells us, "in the course of justice, none of us / Should see salvation."" We are reminded that the principle of justice will not save us. I do not believe it will save us as nations or as individuals. War requires that we immediately dehumanize a whole group or a nation. What have previously been individuals, ends in themselves, each with a unique and infinite claim on our response to them as humans, suddenly become means to our supposedly higher and more just ends-even mere obstacles to be destroyed in pursuit of those ends. Enemy soldiers, especially, lose all individual claim on us or our obedience to such laws as the Ten Commandments and become legitimate targets to be deceived, maimed, or killed at our will. Worse, in modern warfare, such dehumanization and consequent denial of ethical responsibility is extended beyond those in uniform to include innocent civilian men, women, and children, who become targets or at least acceptable victims of collateral damage. Simply because an enemy nation or its leaders, such as Hitler or Saddam Hussein, have acquiesced by going to war, they and their people do not-because they cannot-give up that most basic, infinite, inalienable right to be treated as persons. We have not somehow been excused from our responsibility to treat them as ends in themselves.
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What do we do with the fact that the prophets have supported war? I think I would use violence in defense against certain attacks: ifmy wife or children were under direct attack or threatened by dehumanizing violence or if the state-which is a good state in this case, as it preserves liberty in the world-were under direct attack and threatened with destruction. But the highest ethic would call me to do everything else possible, including building a less violent and less sexist society where attacks on my wife would be less likely. It would call me to use an absolute minimum of violence and to follow up with doing good to the victimizer as well as the intended victim. Those principles would also apply to nations. At the beginning of World War II, after Neville Chamberlain's prolonged efforts at negotiation and all we could do did not bring peace, then the Nazis-an irrational, powerful force with the potential of destroying the Judeo-Christian civilization, ofwiping out main sources of the very ethic I have been describing-had to be stopped, even with violence. But the ethic I have outlined also forces me to recognize that all such decisions for violence are tragic, for one is forced into a dilemma where all available courses bring evil. The highest ethic would also serve as a constant reminder that I must try not to dehumanize my enemy but rather to draw back from violence as soon as possible and to mourn rather than rejoice in my actions. Attention to that highest ethic would have allowed us, even after entering the "just war" of World War II, to struggle against tendencies toward bloodthirstiness and dehumanization of our enemies. It would have allowed us to see that we had accomplished our legitimate purposes by the summer of 1943 and should have been working for an armistice. Instead we entered fully into the mechanism of violence that the prophets have so plainly explicated-force producing force and increasing toward revenge. We increasingly dehumanized our enemies while becoming more and more like them, insisting on an unconditional surrender, which allowed us to give way to revenge. With revenge came the wholesale bombing of civilians that we had denounced as barbaric when introduced by the Nazis earlier but that we adopted as common practice. This practice culminated in the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which one Mormon prophet, J. Reuben Clark, Jr., rightly called "the crowning savagery of the war."12 As a result, we have reaped a continuing harvest of lasting spiritual damage. Porter outlined some of the consequences in our nation- the breakdown of families and family values that resulted from the dehumanization and desensitization of milThe legacy also includes continuing imitative lions of American men in World War violence, the rivalries of the Cold War, and U.S. presidents' continued acceptance of World War II as an example and a justification for going to war again and again since then, in what I believe have been unjustified circumstances. I will close with two examples. During the Cold War, right after the Reykjavik Summit, a young Mormon Rhodes scholar, who had attended BJigham Young University (BYU) and was then working for the State Department, visited BYU. I had a long conversation with him, and he bragged a bit about having been in a session to prepare President Ronald Reagan for that summit and having spent two hours with notable State Department staffers planning Reagan's strategies. Their planning essentially consisted of figuring out what gambits the U.S. coalition could propose to the Russians to gain some advantage in the Cold War. After he talked for some time, I asked him, "Did anyone in those two hours ever suggest that there might be something we could offer that would encourage trust-that would give the Russians an advantage for them-or suggest something we could do together to mutually further peace in the
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A CASE FOR MORMON C'HRISTIAN PACIFlSM 167
world, which would, in the process, build trust between us?" After thinking he said, "I'm ashamed to have to say, 'No.' We did not think in those terms." That is what I am talking about: the difference between thinking in terms of justice and thinking in terms of mercy. This difference is what the prophets, modem anthropologists, and literary critics like Rene Girard l4 have tried to teach us. Great writers like Shakespeare have also tried to ingrain in our bones that force always begets force. We have fine evidence now that the Russians have nol been coming for a long time. It is not simply that they are not coming now: we manufactured, with our imitative violence, a threat that prolonged the Cold War long after it was necessary, producing in our country a debt-moral as well as economic-that even our children will Dot outlive. We could have begun to think about mercy much earlier. A second, more recent example: President Bill Clinton entered the White House and, like George Bush, had to prove he is a man by authorizing a raid on Iraq. What did this do to further peace in the world? What was the justification? They had threatened our former president by planning an assassination, and of course we hold the higher moral ground here, don't we? We would never plan the assassination of a foreign leader! You students are not old enough to remember our complicity in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega. And yet we, in great dunder and moral righteousness, say our honor-Clinton actually used the word "honor"-required that we respond with massive retaliation. This is an example of choosing justice instead of mercy, a practice that is furthering the international threat of war rather than containing it. NOTES I. Eugene England was, at the time of the 1993 symposium, a professor of English at Brigham Young University. He then taught at Utah Valley State College before his death in 200 I. 2. Wood., Robert. "Rendering unto Caesar: Moral Responsibility and Civic Duty in a World of States," Moral Perspectives on u.s. Security Policy: Views pom the LDS Community, Kennedy Center Publications, 1995, p. 75. 3. Kimball, Spencer W. "The False Gods We Worship," Ensign, June 1976, p.6. 4. Porter, Bmce D. "The Moral Dilemmas of National Strategy," Moral Perspectives on u.s. Security Policy: Views ji-orn the LDS Community, Kennedy Center Publications, 1995, p. 93-95. 5. Kimball, p. 6. 6. Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941. 7. Clark, J. Reuben, Jr. "The Message of the First Presidency to the Church," The Improvement
Era, May 1949, p. 349. 8. First Presidency Christmas message, LDS Church News, 19 December 1981, p. 3. 9. Larson, Stan. "The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Amalgamated Text," BYU Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, winter 1978, p. 204. 10. Weber, Max. The Sociology of Religion, transi. Ephraim Fischoff, Beacon Hill, 1964. 11. Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice, in The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, act 4, scene I, 1974, pp. 199-200. 12. Clark, J. Reuben, Jr. "Demand for Proper Respect of Human Life," The Improvement Era, 49, November 1946, p. 689. 13. Porter, pp. 93-94. 14. Girard, Rene. Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1987.
18 Security and Morality in a Contingent World Paul Y Hammond' Introduction Christ's teachings center on individual behavior, moral obligations to other persons, and value in God's eyes. It was a message conveyed in the context of traditional communities with powerful social customs that sometimes failed to value the individual over group survival or that simply accepted that some would win at the expense of others in an ego-driven society. In the aftermath of the Cold War a great deal of sorting out is going on with respect to individualism and collective action. A prevailing AmeIican view is that we won and they lost and that we refers to individualism and they refers to collectivism. The Cold War divide was a bit more complex than this, but there is something to the point. Judging by the behavior of governments worldwide, the marketplace-which, as conceived, relies more than any other structure on decentralized, individual decision making-has gained in reputation at the expense of collective, centralized decision making. The United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia, Nigeria, China, Indonesia, Australia, Peru, Brazil, and many of their neighbors have in varying degrees opened their national markets and privatized government functions. Undoubtedly, the shrinking public sector and expanding private sector, where markets supply the major structure, endorse the individual pursuit of individual gain. Furthermore, the main source of ideas about the modern marketplace (like the main source of ideas about Marxism, which now appears the loser) is a Westem political economy rooted in Judeo-Christian traditions. I hesitate to say "rooted in JudeoChristian values" because what has happened in Western culture sometimes defies those va lues. Old market economies live with and recognize their own imperfections. One can scarcely turn a corner in the United States without finding a critic of American business practices and the government's fiscal and economic policies. These criticisms usually deal, one way or another, with the limitations of economic and political institutions that rely on ego-driven, self-centered behavior. Political and economic analyses begin with the recognition that such behavior usually prevails, is unavoidable, and can be put to good use. The "good use" is explained in terms of aggregate individual gains reflected in rising gross domestic products and per-capita incomes. This is a game we aJi (or many of us) can win. It is non-zero-sum game. My pursuit of gain is justified because, in pursuing gain, I benefit you and others, and your pursuit benefits me. I state these things with a sense of irony and skepticism that I hope is evident (but not too evident). The trouble is, these statements are mostly true. Likewise what we have to say about the moral dilemmas of national (or group or community or collective) security are ironic, deserve our skepticism, yet are mostly true. We are entitled to be skeptical about claims regarding security that tbreaten or seem to threaten the value of the individual in the name of protecting the individual.
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Yet to some extent, this skepticism is a reflection of a secular society that values the individual pursuit of individual gain over everything else. Some other secular value systems do not. I am living in Singapore this year (1993), and I am learning that Confucianism, referred to there as a secular value system, pays more attention than do Western values to the individual's obligations to the group, to the community, and particularly to authOlities, beginning with filial piety. Of course Asian Confucians are not the only ones who know about honoring their fathers and mothers, although they may be justified in noting that Westerners give extraordinary attention to individual rights and less attention to group obligations. Perhaps our problem begins with the powerful forces of economic and social modernization that have shattered the extended family and the community into nuclear units and have prized and rewarded the acquisitive individual. If this is true, Asia is not far behind, despite claims in Asia to the contrary To deal with security we must recognize that it is a collective good and that achieving and maintaining it requires collective action. Difficult moral issues arise over our relationship and responsibilities to collective action because morality is usually defined in terms of individual responsibility and behavior and the consequences of individual I behavior. I would identify three concepts that are highly relevant to contemporary issues of national seculity. As I have listened during this conference, the first and third have been dealt with by other participants, but the second remains mostly overlooked, as is often the case.
The Commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" I want to identify somewhat telegraphically two issues, both having to do with the complications that arise when security is recognized as a collective good that is pursued and provided through collective action. The first is, what is one's moral obligation in the face of killing? Is inaction a kind of "hand washing" (i.e., keeping oneself free of sin) at the expense of others whom we might protect if we were willing to risk sinning ourselves? Would this inaction not be a gross distortion of the admonition, "seek ye first the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 6:33)? In practice, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not encouraged people to avoid the world to save themselves. If that was intended as one aspect of gathering in Missouri or Utah, gathering no longer seems to play that role. The second issue deals with the fact that government almost invariably provides military action in pursuit of national security. Therefore, how much confidence should one place in the state in its pursuit or preservation of security through military action'! For those who believe their government can do no wrong, this will not be a problem. If one is a critical American citizen, one may give heavy presumption in favor of supporting the state in its military preparation and actions even while reserving a citizen's right and duty to evaluate and criticize it, if necessary. This is a simple problem only if one is highly confident of one's government. What obligations does one have to fight and kill for a government that does not allow one to vote, vote for an opposition party, speak out, or practice a religion freely'! This list can be lengthened to depict governments that are entitled to less and less confidence on the part of citizens with moral scruples.
Munich and Deterrence Munich, of course, is a historical reference to the lesson that prudent security requires us to diagnose and treat aggression early. Deterrence actually refers to a similar situation.
SECURlTY AND MORALITY TN A CONTTNGENT WORLD
Where aggression might occur, the pursuit of security requires that a state or other organization (if one can imagine that) make the necessary military and diplomatic preparations and signals so that the would-be aggressor will not take the feared action. Moreover, since the threat of aggression can sap the will and cow-age of would-be victims, deterrence must manifest itself to give heart to these would-be victims. Thus, deterrence supposedly justifies credibly threatening others to forestall their aggression. It is in a sense the lesson of Munich extended. Extending further, military planning is done in advance of military threats that might (or would) provide the moral justification for taking action. No twentieth-ceotmy slogan more readily invites parody than that of the former U.S. Air Force Strategic Command, "Peace is our profession." Yet this was a legitimate organizational slogan that deserved to be taken seriously. Parody masked the irony and tragedy of men and women having to live with plans to carry out mass destruction as their assigned professional role. Parody is surely justified here, not because the subject deserves to be treated lightheartedly but quite the opposite. It is too heavy a subject to face head on. Resorting to parody risks missing what is perhaps the largest moral dilemma of the twentieth century: the utility and even necessity of nuclear deten·ence. Or if one seeks to wash one's hands of nuclear deterrence, it is possibly to "fi'ee ride" on someone else's excruciating moral dilemma.
When Violence Is Justified, How Much Is Justified? This is the classic issue of Christian theology and has already received some attention at this conference. Here I draw attention to only one aspect of this important subject. It is related to the previous point and has to do with military preparations and operations. I contend that in military matters implementation is not everything, but it is almost everything. When violence starts, it is too late to develop options. They have to be planned and prepared for in advance. Christian theologians have argued persuasively the principle of proportionality in applying military force. Proportionality will be futile if its meaning in terms of operational requirements is not anticipated and prepared for. Applying it will also be misguided if its proponents do not come to terms with the operational imperatives that military planners deal with when they discuss the advantages of speed and overwhelming force. When violence occurs, we should get it over with as quickly as possible and get on with order and politics. Niccolo Machiavelli 2 and Carl von Clausewitz1 understood this. Desert Storm serves as an excellent illustration of this point. The Gulf War was a splendidly short war involving overwhelming force on the wirming side. Based on such factors as body counts, where possible, and on estimated dead from known wounded, it is possible (I would say probable, though far from certain) that only fifteen thousand Iraqi troops were killed in the campaign. Several independent estimates converge around this low number. These estimates do not come from apologists on the American side. The official estimates are actually much higher. If these extremely low numbers are accurate, they are due to high rates of armor abandoned before it was destroyed and high rates of desertion, very likely the result of techniques honed during the eight-year Iran-Iraq War. Whatever the explanation, speed and overwhelming force contributed to military victory with incredibly low casualties. One would hope that Christian or other moralists would not, in pursuing the principle of proportionality, cause thousands more casualties in achieving the same outcome.
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Collective Action: Needed to Achieve Security Robert Wood has explained the reasoning involved in realpolitik.4 As his remarks make clear, states face issues that individuals do not face and, therefore, must deal with moral choices very different than those faced by individuals. One issue is that protection of the state-the social order in which moral choice by individuals is possible-is necessary. A second is that moral choice may require collective action to implement it. Nobody tells us we should individually decamp to Bosnia and, by our individual action, stop the killing and otherwise set things right in that troubled land. The moral choices regarding peace and war in Yugoslavia are coJiective-actionchoices, and they are few and poor because better ones have not been anticipated or prepared for by Western Europe, the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations, or through some sort of "coalition of the willing" such as the American-led coalition that fought Desert Storm. These two issues, how to maintain order so that moral choices can be made and how to provide for collective action when moral choice requires it, both require a third type of action: allocating scarce resources. Moral choice is not just for heroes. It is also for planners, bookkeepers, and speculators who bet about the future. Individual moral choice depends on the existence of a civic order, which in tum depends on security, and security depends on collective action. To be successful, collective action must be prepared for in advance and requires decisions about resource allocation. Resource allocations can have profound moral implications yet be fraught with unceliainty and ambiguity and, therefore, with the possibility of error-of doing harm rather than good. With these complications regarding collective action in mind, let me take up three broad problems that are characteristic of national security policy.
Threat-based Analysis as Support for Collective Action Much of what happened during the Cold War that was good (that facilitated the prudent pursuit of security values) and that was bad (that posed serious moral issues) had to do with the way collective action was managed, anticipated, and planned. One of the least attractive activities associated with military preparations and planning is threat analysis and threat-based military planning. I single it out here because it is unattractive and would seem to be readily dispensed with. However, something like it will continue to be necessaly. Threat analysis is unattractive because, in characterizing the threat, it seems to assume the threat, reify it, and therefore induce it. Its purpose is to state the threat dramatically so it is noticed and taken seliously. No doubt military planners and their civilian sponsors, by focusing on the threat as an "objective" fact, when it is "subjective" as well, serves the interest of consensus-building. Typically, military threats have been characterized in terms that aroused public concern and supported established military programs. Labeling such actions as a moral cop-out is easy after the fact (i.e., now that the Cold War is over). But doing so means missing the U.S. Defense Department's efforts throughout the Cold War-efforts that admittedly varied over time-to challenge threat definitions and put them in perspective by relating enemy capabilities realistically to American capabilities. Threat analysis since the end of the Cold War remains useful, but it must change to be valid. Threat analysis used to provide benchmarks. But few threats now are standing, manifest, and unconditional; more threats are contingent, conditional, aJ1d discon-
SECURITY AND MORALITY IN A CONTINGENT WORLD
tinuous, and they depend on the development of various factors. Security interests are likewise less constant, less stable, less invariant, and more contingent. Therefore, it is difficult to prioritize security interests and threats and to draw lines or define thresholds regarding interests and threats. No doubt military planners and their masters, if the latter in particular are convinced that the public is complacent in the face of danger, can jiggle their data to make the Russians "look ten feet tall" or create some equivalent distortion to arouse public concern. Such distortion has been put forth before, as have earnest efforts to . counter this propensity. Noticing this phenomenon is not sufficient grounds for considering it morally repugnant, only for taking prudent corrective action to offset its undesirable effects.
The Psychology and Social Psychology of Public Interest in Security and Morality For the citizen with moral scruples who takes seriously the pursuit of both security and morality in a contingent world, broadened awareness of the world and its problems is a contemporary concern. Public-opinion research and other group-behavior research shows that people do not spend all their time worrying about anarchy in Somalia or the starving people of Nigeria or Calcutta. A new factor has come into play-what some actually caIl the "CNN factor." People see problems on television and want them fix-ed. It is an exercise of moral sentiment that, in and of itself, can scarcely be condemned. But it rarely lasts long enough to support the efforts needed to achieve its intentions. History will tell us whether the United States, on balance, did more harm in Somalia with an intervention that was aroused by television images and did not stay the course. A similar judgment may await Bosnia. In 1964, Erik H. Erikson, observing the malaise among young people in America and elsewhere, pondered how much awareness a human could take of other cultures and the needs of distant peoples before the sensitive, concerned, moral person became disoriented and morally ineffective, or worse. s These observations deal with the behavioral limits of the morally aware person responding to modern environments in which the mass media shrinks distances and demands attention to an agenda of morally significant things that need fixing. Ignorance once kept our individual moral agendas short. Now they become long with our wider awareness of the world's problems, and the possibilities of collective action. To shorten and prioritize them is essential if we are to maintain any perspective on our collective capabilities in the face of evident needs. Shortening the list and prioritizing it can make us morally callous, if only as a defense mechanism against our sense of guilt. How can we justify saying no to starving children? Conversely, how can we get on with our lives if we always say yes to demands for our moral action?
Choosing When to Act and When Not to Act in the Post-Cold War Era: Is It Harder Than Before? There is a different language tbat speaks of defining and pursuing U.S. (or other) national interests and poses the difference between moral issues involving national interests. I use terms of choice because interests are likely to be defined in the course of responding to demands to intervene or stay out and because interests, like threats, lack distinct objective content. I seek something more objective for choosing or not choosing to take collective action, especially state action, than unprioritized concerns,
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however moral the intent behind them may be. If talking about interests will help, [ am all for it, but with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Cold War did not solve, but did seem to simplify, the problems of moral choice in foreign policy prioritization. It was a convenient way to give structure and order to those problems. When and where should the United States become involved? On what basis should we decide such questions? The necessity to choose (which was present in abundance during the Cold War) is more discomfiting now only because security issues are more contingent and, therefore, more unceliain or seemingly so. The Cold War, or at least the Soviet threat as we perceived it, organized us. A European school of international relations emphasizes necessity in foreign policy choices. It reflects the realization in the context of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European politics that statesmen had few choices, that they had little room to maneuver between the balance of power in Europe and their own domestic political conditions. Henry Kissinger plays on this meaning with a book title: The Necessity for Choice. 6 The Cold War imposed large constraints on choice in international politics and, therefore, in national foreign policies. With Cold War threats gone, presumably there is less necessity and more room for moral choice. Cold War conditions can actually be put more positively. During the Cold War, the United States built up an infrastructure of foreign policies and alliances that made its commitments to allies and other states credible. It institutionalized its promises and threats in the routines of a1111ual defense budgets and alliance obligations, the deployment of forces in Europe and Asia, and the very design of military forces, hardware, and communications systems. With the Cold War over, the necessities are less confining, and these infrastructural constraints can become more flexible. Presumably, more opportunity exists to choose the moral way as opposed to accepting choices imposed out of necessity. This being the case, another set of questions arises. How much should we trust ourselves (as citizens or as groups of citizens, organized or otherwise) and our government(s) as morally responsible and prudent actors to pick the right issues to address (so that we do not waste our moral opportunities), to diagnose problems correctly, and to employ the right treatments and stay the course until a cure is effected, or at least until our intervention has done more good than harm? In ShOlt, how much should we trust collective action? This is not just a matter of trusting foreign governments. It is a matter of confiding in one's own government-and not only discovering the moral way but staying the course as a responsible moral agent. To govern is to choose. In the post-Cold War era the United States faces more choices than it used to. It must learn to choose responsibly: to say yes and no to demands for its involvement in morally significant situations that involve a wider range of contingencies than it is used to considering. Not only is there a wider range of choices for involvement but, as in the past, demands for U.S. involvement often can)' the expectation that the United States will lead. In late 1993, Bosnia and Somalia remained on a short U.S. agenda for initial or continued military intervention in support of humanitarian efforts, i.e., as peacekeeping operations. Military commitments to Eastern European states, mainly through NATO, were also a relative priority for the U.S. government. Economic assistance to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, especially Russia, stood high on a related agenda. During the Cold War, priorities were often set on the basis of how they would affect the rivalry with the Soviet bloc.
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This consideration is obviously no longer germane. The agenda items mentioned above have gained their priority due to a variety of considerations that mix moral factors with practical factors in different proportions. A further complex moral issue pertaining to security is taking into account the possibility of error. Government is an imperfect instmment; for that matter, so is human judgment. Whether one is dealing with persons (including oneself) as moral agents or with collective agents (governments in particular), moral responsibility requires that we take into account the possibility of enor and build error minimization into our policies and their implementation structures. Will a clear moral justification for using nuclear weapons ever exist? Maybe not, but it may. I am more certain that there is no moral justification for a military power, nuclear or otherwise, to get into a position where it must make decisions about the employment of violence in haste and desperation, when haste and desperation could have been avoided with foresight and preparation. A minimal moral imperative for those who act knowing they (or their organization) may commit enor is to take that possibility into account. We have governing procedures in a constitutional democracy that deal with the possibility of enor in government decision making and policy implementation. In the United States these procedures, with respect to national security matters, revolve around a struggle between Congress and the executive branch. This struggle works to COlTect error by checking and challenging. In addition, foreign policy instmments and implementation procedures need to be redundant, adaptable, and resilient. Foreign policy needs implementation mechanisms, or policy implements, that "learn." It needs to be able to fail nondangerously and noncatastrophically. Policy "infrastmctures" need built-in learning and adaptive capabilities, what in manufacturing would be called short product cycles. I remind you, however, that I speak metaphorically. I am not talking about producing widgets. I am talking about morality! Moral behavior is morally responsible behavior, and it requires employing qualities of application, efficiency, and effectiveness pertaining to collective action that successfully relates intentions to outcomes. Individual moral actions sometimes have trouble with this relationship; collective actions, including the actions of governments, always have trouble relating intentions to outcomes because of the complexities that are necessarily involved in collective action. Morally responsible collective behavior must take account of the nature of the instruments that are employed to implement policies. Presumably, any public policy has a moral dimension to it, and the choice of policy instmments to carry out a given public policy goal is closely associated with that moral dimension. But the instrument is not coterminous with the policy goal itself. Policy instmments tend to have a life of their own and to generate morally significant effects not directly associated with the policy goals they were chosen to carry out. Morally responsible public policies, including external policies that address security goals, address not only the morality of the goals in question but the morality of the means available to achieve them. Where coercion and violence may be involved, the moral issues are particularly burdensome and complex. Because they are, they raise particularly severe questions about the possibility of enor and demand that the possibility of enor be taken into account as a moral requirement.
Order and Power I return now to the basic issue of order that, in most respects, sets security apali
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as a special domain of moral reasoning and behavior. Sec1.lrity is an underlying condition, so to speak, which permits society, including the Church, to realize its valuable objectives. The Church has benefited in the pursuit of its own goals from the order that secular governments provide. It is not in the business of providing that order. The Church relies on secular governments to do so. Sometimes these governments are not particularly attractive. When the Church built a temple in then-East Germany, it relied on a particularly unattractive government to provide the social order needed for it to construct and operate the temple and transport temple patrons. Presumably, it could have chosen a more attractive government to deal with by choosing a different site for the temple, providing the Church would have been willing to compromise on the temple's location. Therefore, we face moral issues when we rely on unattractive, even morally unsatisfactory governments to provide the civic order that makes certain moral choices feasible. However, in dealing with the moral issues associated with security, we must also consider how violence can be employed to moral ends. If violence can serve moral purposes as an instrument of policy, as I believe it can, it achieves its moral purposes best (perhaps only) when it is not actually applied overtly, when violence is not actually realized, when it underwrites the rule of law and reassures citizens that the civil order is secure, and when it deters counterviolence. Its value is marginal at best or more likely negative when the threat of violence represses people and when the employment of violence wreaks destruction. Almost without exception, deterring and compelling are morally superior to actually employing violence because they are not directly destructive. I wish I could say that this is a simple matter. The threat of violence can also terrorize, destroying free government, free society, the moral community, and even the moral individual. These extreme effects are usually possible only when violence can be threatened overwhelmingly and at will-when no countervailing threat or rule of law exists or when those who threaten violence are not otherwise accountable. Even if violence is not turned loose, its prospect can crush. Conversely, to rule out a resort to violence in police or peacekeeping actions can deny an effective tool for a worthy purpose. Consider the dead end met by peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts in Somalia and Bosnia because peacekeeping forces have not been able to employ violence as a deterrent force. Next, I want to consider power in its more general manifestations and possible moral uses. To understand how power can be used constructively, we need to discard a myth about American power, often called "American hegemony." The term hegemony is often employed negatively to connote an illegitimate use of national power or an illegitimate international order imposed by force. That connotation is appropriate in characterizing the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, and doubtless it applies to some cases where the United States has employed power as well. It is not an accurate description of the Atlantic Alliance and NATO, despite critics' claims that they are the mirror image of the Warsaw Pact. Once almost overwhelming Soviet coercion ceased to govern the Warsaw Pact, it collapsed. On the other hand, NATO members have continued to support NATO's existence, and America's leadership, in the face of the collapse of its raison d'etre. In the interest of objectivity, analysts of the Cold War often depicted the two alliance systems as roughly equivalent in their hegemonic underpinnings and, therefore, morally equivalent.
SECURlTY AND MORALITY IN A CONTINGENT WORLD
Although their objective was a wOlihy one in my opinion-i.e., to establish common ground for analyzing political conflict-they were wrong. If consent indicates anything about the nature of cooperation and is morally relevant, there is a world of difference between the Warsaw Pact and NATO as moral communities. Most American alliance ties have been considerably more voluntary than were the Soviet bloc's ties, although Soviet bilateral relations with such countries as Egypt, Vietnam, and Cuba were voluntary to a considerable degree. Certainly hegemony is immoral when it constitutes the exercise of coercive power against the will and interests of client powers in the hegemonic system. The myth is that hegemonic power is always pushed by the hegemon on unwilling clients. In fact, clients that stand to gain from the order the hegemon provides often draw powerful states into, or at least sustain them in, exercising hegemony American hegemony, or primacy, has been far from absolute. American hegemonic power has depended to a great degree on voluntary participation. That is why France has been able to be a persistent spoiler of u.S. purposes in Europe and why other Western European states considered friends and allies have persistently failed to do all that Washington, D.C., asked them to do. For example, during the Cold War NATO's European members failed to provide what the United States demanded: larger conventional forces to counter Soviet conventional strength in Europe, so that NATO would not have to rely on more dangerous low-threshold nuclear options supplied largely by the United States. NATO Europe's failure to comply with U.S. demands forced the United States into relying on nuclear weapons with limited range, placed in vulnerable (although secure) Western European locations, and on their possible first use in case of a Soviet conventional attack. This low-threshold nuclear policy testified to NATO Europe's capacity to force upon the United States policy options it did want to adopt To add insult to injury, Europeans and some Americans came to view the low-threshold nuclear policy as the preferred American policy, and the United States has usually been left to defend it. These policy outcomes are not the consequence of an all-powerful state imposing its will on helpless minions. They are more characteristic of power relationships in which persuasion and voluntarism are important elements and no group member gets its way on all important matters. American hegemony, much like the exercise of presidentialleadership domestically, relies on the power to persuade, not on the coercion of other states to comply with an enforceable order. How then are states persuaded, if not through coercion in some form? Assuming they are rationally self-interested, which seems likely, they comply because they benefit from the undertakings into which the United States leads them and participates with them. Do they benefit equally? A hegemonic order does not depend for its legitimacy on the equal distribution of burdens, benefits, choices, or power between the lead state and other states that participate in that order. Rather, it depends on positive net benefits for each participating state. I have gone through this application of hegemony theory to dispel two myths. One myth is that American foreign policy, particularly in its security dimension, is about the employment of absolute power. In two respects it is not. First, military power is most successful when armed forces are not deployed to kill and destroy. They are most successful when they deter and when they reassure that they are deterring. NATO and the political stability of Western Europe were built on reassurance. We cannot avoid noting the case for claiming that the long nuclear stalemate in Europe was moral, now
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that it is gone. Second, American hegemony has not been a rule of absolute or overwhelming power. Far from it. The United States has exercised its power, because it has had to exercise its power-more often by persuasion than coercion. Does this mean it could not coerce? Certainly not. Coercion is costly and sometimes counterproductive, and American influence as alliance leader has extended well beyond the range where coercion is practical. The second myth is that other states do not benefit from cooperating with the United States because the United States is more powerful. European states and even states in the Asia-Pacific region still want American hegemony, if it can be called that. In both regions the American military presence and accompanying political influence are seen almost without exception (although not always explicitly) as a desirable source of political and military stability.
Morality in the Post-Cold War Era Finally, r return to the question of moral scruples with respect to security as it is pursued in the highly contingent world that has emerged since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Or more plainly, what should we conclude from the foregoing observations? You must draw your own conclusions. My assigned task is to offer the following suggestions. I) The United States cannot hide from moral choices about collective action as related to foreign policy. America is engaged in an interdependent world. Its power serves order-maintaining purposes unavoidably. To withdraw from its claims to power and dismantle the tools of its power would avoid the possibility of error, much as choosing life in a monastery could enable an individual to avoid the sins of this world. No, on second thought, this analogy is in error. The unspecified individual who withdraws to the monastery leaves an unspecified void. The opportunity costs of his leaving the world behind also remain unspeci fied. Such would not be the case if the United States withdrew. The consequences of things left undone, burdens unloaded, and functions abandoned would be manifest, and they would be seriously negative. The point is that stepping away from the burdens of American power would be an act of serious negative moral import even though it would doubtless avoid some serious errors as well. 2) The individual does have a place to hide with respect to the moral choices of American national power. Individual citizens cannot be expected to get up each morning and decide all the great issues of power and morality that their governments face in pursuit of security that day. That is what governments are for; they must be legitimate and accountable. 3) A large set of foreign policy instruments can serve the pursuit of moral purposes in foreign relations: alliances; international institutions, including the United Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, European Community, Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, NATO, and Western European Union; trade and monetary policies; military capabilities; cultural and information programs; etc. The efforts put into nurturing these instruments, into institution-building at the international level, should be recognized as an investment-not always the wisest one but often an investment of some value with some prospect of returns. 4) Security doctrines and practices need to be adapted to a new era of high contingency, and that adaptation wi II require a healthy respect for operational factors. Nowhere
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is this more evident than with respect to the related opportunities of peacekeeping and peacemaking. Peacekeeping and peacemaking are difficult operational problems. More is involved in employing operational capacities than trucking supplies or distributing packages of food. Behind the logistics that so often dominate peacekeeping discussions lie issues of deterring violence and preventing intimidation. Many of our peacekeeping and peacemaking discussions fail to recognize this important point. 5) When is the use of military force appropriate and, in particular, morally justified? A utilitarian calculus would hold that the answer is when it will do more good than hann. The following are guidelines designed to filter out cases where intervention is likely to produce more harm than good: -Do we understand the situation well enough to be highly confident that our employment of force will achieve the intended results~ -Is the operational (or military) force able to do what we want it to do? If so, will it maintain its ability long enough to accomplish its mission? Will we support it long enough for it to succeed? -Does the situation as we understand it require us to set limits on the employment of force either at the outset or as operations proceed? I differ with Brent Talbot on this point.) Limited objectives and means are justifiable. However, I previously discussed the value of speed and overwhelming force, which is perhaps Talbot's point of departure. -To what extent do our above answers depend on the behavior of other states and nongovernmental organizations and how confident are we that their necessary behavior wi.11 occur? More pointedly, what incentives will our proposed action generate for other players to let us or help us fail~
6) Finally, the concern for security from internal threats that may come from the burdens of meeting external threats is not new. In 1952, President Dwight Eisenhower campaigned on a platfonn including the "Great Equation," which referred to the fact that external security was a burden on the internal economy and polity and that a healthy state could generate a response to external security when it needed to. It is appropriate now (and always) to think about this relationship. I live in Singapore, a country and a region where this conception of security is respected and dealt with by stressing economic growth. It deserves our attention. There was a time when attending to domestic prosperity could risk disengaging from the moral concerns of the external world. Given international trade patterns, this is no longer a serious prospect, Since it is not, attending to domestic prosperity has much to recommend it on moral as well as practical grounds. NOTES 1. Paul Y. Hammond is Service Professor at the Graduate School of Public and Intemational Affairs at the University of Pinsburgh. 2. Machiavelli, Niccolo The Prince, eds. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price, Cambridge University Press, 1988. 3. von Clausewitz, Carl. On War, eds. Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, 1976. 4. Wood, Robert. "Rendering unto Caesar: Moral Responsibility and Civic Duty in a World of States," Moral Perspeclives on Us. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community, Kennedy Center Publications, 1995, pp. 57-61. 5. Erikson, Erik H. Childhood and Society, revised ed., W. W. Norton & Company, 1964, p. 374. See also Hammond, Paul Y. "Faith and the Cosmopolitan Society," Commissioner 5 Lecture
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Series, Brigham Young University Press, 1974. 6. Kissinger, Henry. The Necessity for Choice: Prospects ofAmerican Foreign Policy, Doubleday, 1962. 7. Talbot, Brent 1. "Assessing the U.S. Military Role in the Post-Cold War Environment: Moral Imperatives versus Realist Restraints," Moral Perspectives on Us. Security Policy: Views from the LDS Community, Kennedy Center Publications, \995, p. 130.
Afterthoughts on the 2003 Symposium Valerie M Hudson In preparation for writing these afterthoughts, I have perused both the 1993 proceedings, as well as the 2003 papers for this volume. I think of how the world has changed in those ten years, and I think also about how we, the community of Latter-day Saint scholars and professionals working in national security, also have changed. In 1993, no one was quite sure what the post-CoJd War world would bring. Indeed, then I still had one or hvo students who felt strongly that the Soviet Union was only appearing to dissolve, and that we were in even greater danger than before from its desires for world domination. I no longer have students who feel that way. I remember in the old days when Colin Powell, who was then CJCS, stated that the most important threat to Amel;can national security was "uncertainty." Now, after 9-11, we are more able to put a name to our fears of what the future will hold. In 1993, Eugene England was with us; now he has passed on. Bruce Porter and Robert Wood went on to become members of the First Quorum of the Seventy and an Area Authority Seventy, respectively. Robert Walpole is now the National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Systems, and a member of the President's National Intelligence Council. In 1993, a few of the participants struggled to articulate a link between their beliefs and what they did for a living in the national security establishment. No paliicipant in 2003 seemed to shuggle in th.at regard. In fact, many of the brightest participants in the 2003 symposium were former students of 1993 participants who came of age in the interim after the first symposium. I feel to say that this has been one of the greatest delights of this second symposium: to see a rising generation eclipse our earlier, rougher attempts with work that is both masterful and clear. If there is any group capable of formulating a foreign policy that is both wise and harmless, it is this wonderful rising generation of LOS thinkers. May God bless their efforts. One thing that has become more clear to me in the intervening decade is that we, as LOS national security scholars and professionals, do well when we consciously reflect upon the intersection of our faith and issues of national security. This is a good work, and an important work. I say this despite two constraints: I) orthodox LDS persons can and do disagree about important issues, such as preemption (see, for example, Axelgard and Jensen, this volume), and 2) any discussions within this community cannot be considered authoritative or in any way binding on others. Yet the goodness of the work derives from its fruit. As we discuss these issues, we come to appreciate the viewpoints of others. We consider that which we had not considered before. Our
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knowledge and intelligence on these issues expand. We begin to make personal choices about arguments that are persuasive to us and arguments that are not. We manu·e in our judgment of these things; and we mature in our use of the scriptures to inform owdeliberations. If we are careful in our deliberations, and seek to understand the variety of perspectives that orthodox LDS scholars and professionals in the national security field can have on these matters, we can prepare ow-selves to receive "further light and knowledge." Hugh Nibley reportedly once said, and I am sorry 1 do not have the sow-ce, "God can't pour a one-gallon revelation into a one-cup mind." We do well to prepare our minds and hearts for those one-gallon revelations surely to come. But we must make sw-e that we "wrest" the scriptures in a way that does not distort their meaning for our day. For example, I often hear LDS critiques of U.S. presidents based on comparisons to what Captain Moroni would have done in similar circumstances. These critiques are off-base, in my opinion. No U.S. President can be compared to Captain Moroni, for Moroni had the benefit of guidance from a prophet, and he had presumably made sacred covenants in the temple. A more justified comparison might be, perhaps, to other powerful historical world leaders who felt the teaching power of the Lord in their lives, but who were not covenant servants directed by prophetic inspiration. (For example, a more defensible comparison might be to the workings of the Lord through Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4).) In other cases where we search the scriptures for insight, we must ask ourselves if there are circumstances in the present day that have no parallel in the days when our scriptures were written. For example, weapons of mass destruction deliverable by exceedingly fast, long-range missiles did not exist in the days of Captain Moroni. If an enemy did not have to attack you with troops-if an enemy did not even have to venture outside his own homeland-to destroy your entire population, perhaps within the space of thilty minutes, how does this change our understanding of defensive war justifiable under divine principles? Fortunately, a lively discussion with others is the best medicine for "wresting disease." The 2003 symposium discussion is now ongoing on a listserv discussion group sponsored by the Kennedy Center, where participants can test out their ideas on these issues with some of the brightest young minds thinking about them. As this community of scholars and professionals develops over time, I hope it will motivate individuals in several ways. The most important way, as several of the chapters note, is to live a clean and righteous life, for security at all levels is ultimately centered in each individual's agency. The second motivation for which I hope is that individuals will be prompted to think more reflectively about these issues, to search out infomlation and insight on these matters, and to develop judgment about these things. As Colonel Kirkham has pointed out, in the heat of conflict, notions about what is good and what is bad may shift unless we have prepared ourselves mentally and spiritually to exercise judgment even in such conditions. We must have done our thillking beforehand, so that we may stand on a firm foundation in times of trial and testing. There is a third thing I hope for, as well. I hope that individuals in this group will be motivated to utter public prescriptions about the national security policies of their natioll based upon their understandings of how their beliefs inform such discourse. Though such public prescriptions !Day be couched in purely secular language, they may surely rest upon a foundation rooted in faith. I think here of the excellent chapter by Mark Henshaw, where he attempts to layout guidelines for a moral conduct of foreign policy that can be embraced and understood by many, not only those who belong to the Church. This
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outreach effort to inform public discourse is something potentially very powerful, and generally speaking, we as members have not laid claim to that power, even though it is our right and our duty to do so (Doctrine and Covenants 88:80-82). Again, though no member of our community of LDS scholars and professionals can speak on behalf of the Church, or make assertions binding upon the understanding of any others, members or not, it behooves us to speak and write in wisdom to the benefit of our people and our nation (Doctrine and Covenants 28:4-7). Though, with Steve Hildreth, we might wish to "just pack for Zion and wash our hands of all this untidiness," in truth, we were foreordained to come forth at this time in world history. None of us is here by chance. In the premortal existence, each of us thought we could make a difference during this time period, and we obtained the gifts and talents necessary to do so. Though now behind the veil, the Lord plants in our hearts the desires we had in our premortal existence. I am not surprised that Michael Young's daughter at the U.S. Air Force Academy waxes "encyclopedic" about what ancient and modem prophets have said on issues of national security and war and peace, nor am I surprised that she and her LDS classmates study these issues intently. The desire to study these issues is a righteous desire, rooted in the determination of these young people from the foundation of the world to be a force for good in the dispensation of the fullness of times. In an age where black is called white, and good is called evil, our world needs young people with the desire and the ability to think clearly about these crucial moral issues. We may bring them forth into our families, we may meet them in our classrooms, we may become acquainted with them professionally-howsoever we do meet them, we owe them our best legacy of faith and thoughtfulness. For in the days that will be theirs, they will need every ounce of strength that we can bequeath to them. This volume, then, is an offering to the coming generation: building upon our foundation, may you excel us, and may the Lord bless you always. See you in 2013. Or sooner!
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About the Contributors Fred W. Axelgard has been international operations director for General Dynamics since April 2002. Axelgard had been the U.S. State Department's liaison to the U.S. Central Command from September 200 I to December 2001. Prior to joining General Dynamics, Axelgard served for twenty years in several public policy and government service positions. He began his career as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah) in April 1980. In January 1982, he joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he became a senior fellow in Middle East studies. He began working at the State Department in December 1989 and served in various office director positions at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In October 1993, he became a special assistant on the department's Middle East Peace Process team. Four years later, he was assigned as the political-military affairs counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, where he served until June 2001. During his last year at the U.S. State Depaltment, Axelgard also served as the coordinator for Iraqi opposition affairs, senior advisor in the State Department's office of counter-terrorism and liaison to the U.S. Central Command. He earned a bachelor's degree with primary focus in political science from Brigham YOlmg University in 1977 and a master's degree and a doctorate from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1979 and 1988, respectively. He has written or co-authored Jive books and more than fifty magazine and newspaper articles on theMiddle East. Ryan Chavez graduated from Brigham Young University in 2000 with a BA in international politics. Chavez' career has included employment as a contractor supporting the U.S. Army and Navy and a civil service position with the Department of Defense. He currently works for the Department of Homeland Security. He is an MA candidate in Security Studies at Georgetown University, where he has researched topics including terrorism, intelligence, and military innovation. Jeremy O. Evans studied international relations as an undergraduate at Brigham Young University. Evans worked as Dr. Stanley Taylor's research assistant on a paper that used Kenneth Waltz' framework to analyze the sources of war as described in Latter-day Saint scripture. He continued in this vein of research for his honors thesis. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 200 I, Evans became an associate at an international law film in Washington, D.C., where he co-authored articles on international arbitration and U.S. antitrust regulation. In 2004, he relull1ed to Utah to practice law with Hatch, James, and Dodge, P.c. in Salt Lake City. Mark E. Henshaw became an intelligence analyst in 1999 after eall1ing a bachelor's degree in political science in 1995 Brigham Young University and master's degrees
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in international relations and business administration in 1999 from BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies and MalTiott School. Since 1999, he has followed foreign information warfare-related developments and has worked on several task forces managing national computer security crises and supporting the "War on TeITor." He has presented briefings on computer and critical infrastmcture protection at the Pentagon, the U.S. State Department, and the White House, and has written related briefings for the President of the United States. Henshaw lives in northern Virginia with his wife Janna and their son Russell. Steven Hildreth is specialist in national defense and head of the Central Research Unit in the Foreign Affairs, Defense & Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Hildreth received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University and did graduate work at Georgetown University and the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. In 1997, he was selected to attend the National War College, where he received a MS in national security strategy the following year. Prior to CRS, he worked as fellow in international security studies at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and international Studies. Hildreth has published several books on international security issues and scores of journal articles and reports on a broad range of foreign affairs and defense issues. He also currently serves on the Diversity Advisory Council at the Library of Congress and is president of the Little Scholars Child Care Center. Valerie M. Hudson is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Hudson received her doctorate from Ohio State University, and previously taught at Rutgers and Northwestern Universities. She was graduate studies director at BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for Tnternational Studies for eight years. Her fields of specialty include foreign policy analysis, national security affairs, and gender and international relations. She is the author and editor of numerous articles and books, her latest work is Bare Branches: Security Implications ofAsia Surplus Male Population co-authored with Andrea Den Boer and forthcoming from MIT Press.
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Eric Talbot Jensen has been in the U.S. Army for fifteen years and is cunently serving as a professor of international and operational law at the Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, VA. Jensen received a BA in international relations from BYU's David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies in 1989 and entered the U.S. Army as an armor officer with his first assignment in Germany. The Army then sent him to the University of Notre Dame where he received his JD degree in 1994. As a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps, he has had numerous assigrunents including as an Operational Law Attorney for Task Force Eagle, Bosnia, in 1996; the Command Judge Advocate, Task Force Able Sentry, Macedonia in 1997; and the Chief Military Law, Task Force Eagle, Bosnia, 1998. He received an LLM in military law from the Judge Advocate General's School in 2001, where he began his current teaching assignment. Jensen is a member of the Bars of Indiana and the U.S. Supreme Court. Kerry M. Kartchner is senior advisor for missile defense policy in the Bureau of Arms Control, U.S. Department of State. Kartchner was previously the senior representative of the U.S. Department of State to the Standing Consultative Commission for the ABM Treaty, and prior to that, the senior representative of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency to the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission for the
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START Treaty. His cun'ent duties include substantive responsibility for the bureau's public diplomacy efforts related to U.S. missile defense policy. He also serves as a senior advisor to bureau and department leadership on policies related to deterrence, weapons of mass destruction, and strategic arms control more broadly. Kartchner is a fonner staff member of the U.S. Arms Control and Disannament Agency (ACDA). While at ACDA, he served in both the Bureau of Strategic Affairs, and the BmeaL! of Verification and Intelligence, where he was chainnan of the interagency START Verification and Compliance Analysis Working Group. Before joining ACDA and the U.S. Department of State, he was senior policy anaJyst and area leader for anns control at Analytic Services (ANSER) in Arlington, Virginia, and an assistant professor on the faculty of the Department of National Secmity Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He has served as a consultant on nuclear weapons policy to the Computer Sciences Corporation and the National Institute for Public Policy in Washington, D.C., as a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, as a graduate student instructor at the University of Southern California, and as an adjunct professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. Kartchner has been the recipient of a Meritorious Honor Award (1999) and a Hubert H. Humpluey Anns Control Fellowship (1989), both from the Anns Control and Disannament Agency. His MA and PhD are from the University of Southern California (1987), and his BA in international relations is from Brigham Young University (1981). He is a frequent speaker on topics related to anns control, U.S. foreign policy, and ballistic missile defense. David M. Kirkham is a professor of international politics and democratic studies at the George C. MarshaH European Center for Security Studies in Gannisch, Germany. Kirkham has previously served on the history and foreign area snldies faculties and as international programs director at the United States Air Force Academy. As a U.S. Air Force Foreign Area Officer for Europe and Africa, his assignments have included the United Nations as a senior humanitarian affairs officer in Geneva, Switzerland, and Africa, and service as an Air Force international negotiations officer. He has also served as a member of the Air Force Judge Advocate General staff in Washington, D.C., and England. He holds a PhD from George Washington University, a JD from the J. Reuben Clark School of Law at Brigham Young University, and he is a graduate of the German Federal Anned Forces Command and General Staff College in Hamburg, Germany.
John Mark Mattox is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Almy. Mattox currently serves as chief of nuclear policy and surety for the inety-two-nation U.S. European Command and as an adjunct associate professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland. He graduated from Brigham Young University in 1984 with a BA in linguistics. He holds a master of military arts and science degree from the U.S. Anny Command and General Staff College, and MA and PhD degrees in philosophy from Indiana University. He has served on the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and as an instructor at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) School in Oberammergau, Gennany. Jeffrey F. Ringer is director of the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at Brigham Young University. Ringer was appointed director of the Kennedy Center in 2002 after serving the center as associate director since 1992. Prior to joining the center, he was a visiting instnlCtor of political science at BYU. In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Ringer continues to teach courses on U.S. foreign policy and Asian politics. His primary research and writing interests are in the field of U.S.-Asian
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relations. His MA and BA degrees are from Brigham YOlUlg University. Gary L. Stradling is currently in the office of Military Applications at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Stradling has worked at both Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1977 in national security-related technology including laser fusion and nuclear weapons. He has received the Hubert Schardin Gold Medal for contributions to high-speed photonics research. He has served two tours in the office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon in both arms control technology and nuclear weapons policy. He holds BS and MS degrees in physics from Brigham Young University and a PhD in engineering/applied science from the University of California-Davis.
Brent J. Talbot a retired Major in the U.S. Air Force, serves as an assistant professor of military strategic sludies at the U.S. Air Foree Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Talbot holds BA and MA degrees from Brigham Young University and a PhD in international studies from the University of Denver. His specialties include Middle East politics and security studies. He previously taught in the Political Science department while still in uniform at the Air Force Academy. Stanley A. Taylor received his graduate degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Taylor has taught, off and on, at Brigham Young University since 1968 where he helped found the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, and has served as Political Science Department chair. He has been a visiting fellow at the University of Kent at Canterbury, a senior Fulbright lecturer at the University Otago in New Zealand, and a visiting professor at the University of Wales-Swansea. He served as the Idaho Boise Mission president from 1998 to 200 I. During the course of his government experience, he served as an executive assistant to U.S. Congressman GufUl McKay (1971-73) and as a professional staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1976-78). Michael K. Young is dean and Lobingier Professor of Comparative Law and Jurisprudence at the George Washington University School of Law (GWU). Young joined the law school in the summer of 1998. He has served as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is a member of the Committee on International Judicial Relations of the Judicial Conference of the United States, a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and was recently appointed to the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Commission to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. In addition, he has served as a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Young was recently appointed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to the Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Commission. Before joining GWU, Young was the Fuyo Professor of Japanese Law and Legal. Tnstitutions at Columbia University, where he also served as director of the Center for Japanese Legal Studies, the Center for Korean Legal Studies, and the Project on Religion, Rights, and Religiolls Freedom. He has been a visiting professor and scholar at the law faculties of the University of Tokyo, Waseda University, and Nihon University, and has been a Japan Foundation Fellow. Before beginning his teaching career, Young served as a law clerk to Justice RelU1quist and to Justice Benjamin Kaplan of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. During the administration of President George Bush, he served as ambassador for trade and environmental affairs, deputy under secretary of state for economic and agricultural affairs, and deputy legal adviser to the U.S. Department of
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State. In 1996, he also served as counsel to the Select Subcommittee on Transfers of Iranian Arms to Bosnian Muslims of the U.S. House of Representatives. He has published extensively, including articles and books on the Japanese legal system, dispute resolution, mergers and acquisitions, labor relations, the legal profession, comparative law, industrial policy, international trade law, legal reform in Eastern Europe, NAFTA, GATT, international environmental law, and international human rights and freedom of religion. His latest books are the Fundamentals of u.s. Trade Law (2002) and Japanese Law in Context: Readings in Society, the Economy, and Politics (200 I) (with C. Milhaupt and M. Ramseyer). Young received a SA from Brigham Young University and a JD from Harvard University.