This book review appeared initially in the New York Tribune on Monday, September 3, 1983.
BOOK / RICHARD E. SINCERE JR.
The War Powers Resolution: a siege on presidential power
The War Powers Resolution: Its Implementation in Theory and Practice by Robert F. Turner, Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1983, 147 pages, $4.95.
Clement J. Zablocki, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Milwaukee Journal on July 3: “The Wars Powers Resolution is uniquely crafted in that it accommodates to the reality of our modern, nuclear world. . . However, the distinctive virtue of the resolution is that it reserves to the Congress its constitutionally mandated responsibility of ultimately deciding the full legality of a presidential action. “In short,” said Zablocki, author of the 1973 law, “the War Powers Resolution is too fundamental in both its constitutional anchorage and its practical benefit to be dismantled” by the recent Supreme Court ruling that the so-called legislative veto is unconstitutional.
Inaccurate optimism
Zablocki’s assertions are wrong, according to attorney Robert F. Turner, formerly a legislative assistant to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Turner argues in “The War Powers Resolution: Its Implementation in Theory and Practice” that the law “is — in essence — unconstitutional, ineffective and unwise.”
Experience of the past decade demonstrates that the War Powers Resolution is not only ineffective, it is probably harmful. “Rather than fostering an atmosphere of cooperation partnership in decisions to commit U.S. forces to hostile situations, the War Powers Resolution has had the opposite effect: it pits the two branches against each other on essentially procedural grounds at the precise time that national unity is needed to deal with a potential crisis.”
The War Powers Resolution was doomed from its beginning. It was passed by a Congress that refused to acknowledge the congressional role in the conduct of the Vietnam War. Pretending that the near- unanimous vote in 1964 for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (which granted sweeping discretionary powers to the president for prosecuting the war) never occurred, Congress gave the false impression that its constitutional responsibilities had been usurped by the president. So the law’s purpose was grounded in a historical fiction.
Nixon’s veto
Furthermore, the law’s effectiveness was immediately cast into doubt because it had to be passed over President Nixon’s veto. Sen. Jacob Javits, who co-sponsored the resolution, had hoped that Congress would work out a “methodology’’ for join presidential-congressional action in committing American troops abroad and that the president would then sign it — essentially making a compact between the president and Congress. That hope was not realized when the resolution was, for good reason, vetoed.
The War Powers Resolution requires, among other things, that 60 days after American forces are introduced into “situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” the president must terminate American involvement unless Congress explicity acts to continue it. Thus, vital American military aid to a nation under siege could legally be ended simply because the Congress cannot make up its mind! More important, an enemy aware of the president’s time limits could easily delay an offensive or refuse to negotiate peace terms until the 60 days of American military presence had ended.
Turner shows that the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional for several independent reasons, including those cited by the Supreme Court in its recent Chadha decision. Among the others, Turner says, are the resolution’s provisions limiting the power of the Commander-in-Chief to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces” [Section 2 (c)]. ‘Turner argues: “Any attempt to give legal effect to this provision would be patently unconstitutional.”
Critical omissions
The resolution fails to make the crucial distinction between the Congress’s constitutional power to declare war and the president’s powers to make war. Since after 60 days Congress must affirmatively act to authorize use of U.S. armed forces, the resolution deprives the president of "a fundamental expressed constitutional power,” something “incompatible with our system of separation of powers.”
Turner’s work is a valuable lesson in history and government. It will increase in value as President Reagan and Congress continue to dispute the presence of U.S. forces abroad, particularly in Central America, where fears of “another Vietnam” obscure the realities of the situation.
Congress and the public should take heed of Turner’s analysis, as Sen. John Tower already has, calling the War Powers Resolution “probably the most potentially damaging of the 1970s legislation” that altered the relationship between Congress and president. Tower most surely agrees with Robert Turner’s concluding recommendation:
“Now that its failure has been demonstrated and the acrimony resulting from Vietnam has receded, Congress should take a valuable first step in the direction of improved legislative-executive cooperation in this vital area — and in the process reaffirm its commitment to constitutional government — by repealing the War Powers Resolution.”
Richard E. Sincere, Jr., serves on the board of directors of the American Civil Defense Association and on the staff of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Showing posts with label 1983. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1983. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
'With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War'
This book review appeared originally in The Washington Times on Friday, February 4, 1983. It was also published in The News World (a New York City newspaper) on Tuesday, February 15, 1983.
RICHARD SINCERE / BOOK REVIEW
Shoveling appeasement
With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War
.
By Robert Scheer
, Random House, $14.95, 124 pages + 155 pages of
notes and appendices.
Eugene Rostow’s resignation from his post as head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency underlines the pressures inherent in the arms-control process. Battered by both the right and the left, the Reagan administration has spent the past two years trying to bring order out of chaos, attempting to achieve sensible balance in the competition between the superpowers.
In “With Enough Shovels,” Los Angeles Times correspondent Robert Scheer shamelessly accuses Reagan and his advisers of wild (just stopping short of insane) views of nuclear war. Resting his accusations on unproven assumptions, Scheer pulls no punches in advancing his theory that the present administration is the puppet of a conspiracy called the Committee on the Present Danger.
Scheer is disturbed, and sometimes amused, at Reagan’s determination to stem the threat of communism. Scheer considers the Soviet threat a hallucination — or more accurately, he finds it a puzzling anachronism that lives on only in Reagan’s memories of Communist subversion of Hollywood trade unions. The few readers who could share Scheer’s conclusions are those who share his fundamental and wrongheaded assumption: The Soviet Union is a benign and defensive superpower.
Despite the many hours of extensive interviews with nuclear weapons specialists and civil defense experts, Scheer closes his eyes in this book to the possibility that there is a defense against nuclear weapons. T.K. Jones, deputy undersecretary of defense for strategic and theater nuclear forces, is portrayed as a wild- eyed maniac, a man with no human sensibilities. Scheer ignores the extensive empirical data gathered by Jones which demonstrate that, with proper preparations, the devastation from nuclear weapons can be significantly mitigated. He brushes it off with mockery rather than criticism of Jones’s case.
Clearly Scheer has fallen into the trap of believing in the apocalyptic premise preached by Jonathan Schell in “The Fate of the Earth” and by other doomsayers. Nothing will alter his assumptions. All challengers are dismissed as madmen, no matter what their qualifications.
In his criticism of the Committee on the Present Danger, Scheer carefully documents how this group of intellectuals — established in 1976 to study American defense needs and promulgate their findings that a dangerous imbalance in military preparedness exists — has moved its members into influential government off ices. Scheer calls it their “seizure of state power.” He reserves special disdain for committee members because so many of them are former (or present) Democrats from the Hubert Humphrey wing of the party. Scheer argues that they have betrayed their roots.
Yet it is no accident that people like Max Kampelman, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Michael Novak support U.S. military strength. They have observed firsthand the usurpation of political and social influence by muddle-headed utopians. They remember the lessons of Munich and are willing to take risks to prevent another global conflagration. A commitment to the liberal values of the Democratic Party — even to the values of Norman Thomas and Eugene V. Debs — requires a commitment to preserve those values against totalitarianism.
Thus the founders of the Committee on the Present Danger were willing to face public criticism when they rebutted CIA studies on Soviet military power. In asking, “Is the United States No. 2?” they answer an emphatic yes; their purpose was to influence the public debate on how to rectify that dangerous situation.
By concentrating exclusively on how members of the Committee on the Present Danger now are influencing the U.S. government, Scheer begs the question as to whether there is some sort of conspiracy at work. Since committee members helped to get Ronald Reagan elected, have advised him for many years, and since he agrees with most of their views, it is hardly surprising they are now in positions of influence. But to read that as a conspiracy is equivalent to saying that the Brookings Institution exercised conspiratorial control over the American economy during the Johnson and Carter administrations. It smacks of political naivete and fundamental distrust of American democracy.
And that is the root of Scheer’s attack on the Reagan administration’s nuclear weapons policy. A policy designed to fight and survive a nuclear war, even one designed primarily to deter war (as the Reagan policy clearly is), must — in Scheer’s view — be misguided, because there is nothing worth fighting for. American institutions are not superior to Soviet institutions. American government is as corrupt as Soviet government. Freedom is not preferable to slavery. Scheer’s repugnant view is not unique — it has been expressed in the recent appeasement demonstrations in both Europe and America.
On balance, “With Enough Shovels” presents a strikingly biased, negative view of the Reagan administration. Its only positive value is documentary: Scheer prints informative interviews with several present and former government officials. Unfortunately, Scheer is incapable of interpreting that information in a manner conducive to rational discourse. That would make a worthy addition to the literature of nuclear policy.
Richard E. Sincere Jr. is president of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Defense Association, a nationwide public education group.
RICHARD SINCERE / BOOK REVIEW
Shoveling appeasement
With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War
. By Robert Scheer
, Random House, $14.95, 124 pages + 155 pages of notes and appendices.
Eugene Rostow’s resignation from his post as head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency underlines the pressures inherent in the arms-control process. Battered by both the right and the left, the Reagan administration has spent the past two years trying to bring order out of chaos, attempting to achieve sensible balance in the competition between the superpowers.
In “With Enough Shovels,” Los Angeles Times correspondent Robert Scheer shamelessly accuses Reagan and his advisers of wild (just stopping short of insane) views of nuclear war. Resting his accusations on unproven assumptions, Scheer pulls no punches in advancing his theory that the present administration is the puppet of a conspiracy called the Committee on the Present Danger.
Scheer is disturbed, and sometimes amused, at Reagan’s determination to stem the threat of communism. Scheer considers the Soviet threat a hallucination — or more accurately, he finds it a puzzling anachronism that lives on only in Reagan’s memories of Communist subversion of Hollywood trade unions. The few readers who could share Scheer’s conclusions are those who share his fundamental and wrongheaded assumption: The Soviet Union is a benign and defensive superpower.
Despite the many hours of extensive interviews with nuclear weapons specialists and civil defense experts, Scheer closes his eyes in this book to the possibility that there is a defense against nuclear weapons. T.K. Jones, deputy undersecretary of defense for strategic and theater nuclear forces, is portrayed as a wild- eyed maniac, a man with no human sensibilities. Scheer ignores the extensive empirical data gathered by Jones which demonstrate that, with proper preparations, the devastation from nuclear weapons can be significantly mitigated. He brushes it off with mockery rather than criticism of Jones’s case.
Clearly Scheer has fallen into the trap of believing in the apocalyptic premise preached by Jonathan Schell in “The Fate of the Earth” and by other doomsayers. Nothing will alter his assumptions. All challengers are dismissed as madmen, no matter what their qualifications.
In his criticism of the Committee on the Present Danger, Scheer carefully documents how this group of intellectuals — established in 1976 to study American defense needs and promulgate their findings that a dangerous imbalance in military preparedness exists — has moved its members into influential government off ices. Scheer calls it their “seizure of state power.” He reserves special disdain for committee members because so many of them are former (or present) Democrats from the Hubert Humphrey wing of the party. Scheer argues that they have betrayed their roots.
Yet it is no accident that people like Max Kampelman, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Michael Novak support U.S. military strength. They have observed firsthand the usurpation of political and social influence by muddle-headed utopians. They remember the lessons of Munich and are willing to take risks to prevent another global conflagration. A commitment to the liberal values of the Democratic Party — even to the values of Norman Thomas and Eugene V. Debs — requires a commitment to preserve those values against totalitarianism.
Thus the founders of the Committee on the Present Danger were willing to face public criticism when they rebutted CIA studies on Soviet military power. In asking, “Is the United States No. 2?” they answer an emphatic yes; their purpose was to influence the public debate on how to rectify that dangerous situation.
By concentrating exclusively on how members of the Committee on the Present Danger now are influencing the U.S. government, Scheer begs the question as to whether there is some sort of conspiracy at work. Since committee members helped to get Ronald Reagan elected, have advised him for many years, and since he agrees with most of their views, it is hardly surprising they are now in positions of influence. But to read that as a conspiracy is equivalent to saying that the Brookings Institution exercised conspiratorial control over the American economy during the Johnson and Carter administrations. It smacks of political naivete and fundamental distrust of American democracy.
And that is the root of Scheer’s attack on the Reagan administration’s nuclear weapons policy. A policy designed to fight and survive a nuclear war, even one designed primarily to deter war (as the Reagan policy clearly is), must — in Scheer’s view — be misguided, because there is nothing worth fighting for. American institutions are not superior to Soviet institutions. American government is as corrupt as Soviet government. Freedom is not preferable to slavery. Scheer’s repugnant view is not unique — it has been expressed in the recent appeasement demonstrations in both Europe and America.
On balance, “With Enough Shovels” presents a strikingly biased, negative view of the Reagan administration. Its only positive value is documentary: Scheer prints informative interviews with several present and former government officials. Unfortunately, Scheer is incapable of interpreting that information in a manner conducive to rational discourse. That would make a worthy addition to the literature of nuclear policy.
Richard E. Sincere Jr. is president of the Washington chapter of the American Civil Defense Association, a nationwide public education group.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
'Law and the Grenada Mission'
This review appeared originally in the New York City Tribune on Monday, March 18, 1985.
Legal lessons learned from Grenada rescue
By Richard Sincere
Law and the Grenada Mission, by John Norton Moore. (Center for Law and National Security and Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1984.) 129 pages, $9.45.
Oddly, the New Republic, in its editorial endorsing Walter Mondale for president (October 22), credited Ronald Reagan with invigorating U.S. foreign policy. Reagan, the magazine said, “dispelled the post-Vietnam jinx on the successful use of American military force. The invasion of Grenada not only left the people of that island indisputably freer and safer than they were before the troops landed, it also made the salutary announcement to the world that the United States is once again prepared to use force when it deems the cause necessary and just.”
In October 1983, in response to a request for help by the independent states of the eastern Caribbean and an urgent plea by the head of state of Grenada, the U.S. government deployed its troops to bring an end to anarchy, rescue American civilians quarantined by a thuggish military regime, and restore peace and security to a small island nation of 110,000 people. In Law and the Grenada Mission, Ambassador John Norton Moore, a distinguished professor of international law at the University of Virginia, has compressed the facts and opinion about the case into a slim volume designed to affirm the author’s belief in the rule qf law as a means to peace, stability, and security. He writes:
Bizarre analogies
Even after last December’s first free elections in Grenada since Maurice Bishop suspended the country’s constitution in 1979, Americans draw bizarre analogies to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan five winters ago or of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1968. The differences are numerous, as Ambassador Moore shows. We all know that after five years of occupation, Soviet troops are still engaged in combat am terrorism in Afghanistan; U.S. combat troops left Grenada in December 1983. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan to replace a government which the Kremlin felt it could no longer adequately control; the United States and the eastern Caribbean democracies acted to restore order in a country that had no functioning government. Afghan refugees continue to crowd neighboring states, such a Pakistan; today refugees from the Bishop regime are able to return home to Grenada with a sense of honor and optimism for the future.
Ambassador Moore notes: “The Soviet action in Afghanistan is completely counter to self-determination for the people of Afghanistan and can never permit free elections or other forms of political freedom.” The Soviets claim that the Afghan people, by implementing a Marxist revolutionary system, have made the doctrine of self-determination no longer relevant. In contrast, “91 per cent of the people of Grenada welcomed the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States mission, 76 percent said they believed Cuba sought control of their government, and the OECS states are pledged to free elections.”
The “Brezhnev Doctrine,” which undergirded the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, states that once in the socialist camp, no nation may leave it. Moore calls it “a blatant violation of the non-use of force, self-determination, and human rights provisions of the United Nations Charter.” Unlike Grenada -- where the people praised the rescue mission led by the U.S. military -- “in no country where the Brezhnev Doctrine has been applied have the people who lived there welcomed its application.”
Kirkpatrick’s analysis
The comparisons of these events shed light on a statement made by U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick in another context. At a dinner in 1993 honoring Polish labor leader Lech Walesa, she said: “Though Marxism itself had some roots in the European liberal socialist tradition, Marxism-Leninism and Soviet state power and the political organization ruled in their name are to the liberal-democratic tradition as antithesis is to thesis. Marxism-Leninism does not incorporate either the theory or the practice of liberalism, democratic nationalism, or socialism; indeed, it denies al1 the essential elements of Western liberal-democratic, democratic-socialist, tradition.” In short, there is not respect for law, international or otherwise, in the Marxist-Leninist order, unless it furthers the cause of Communist expansion. Thus, there are no moral or ethical restraints to prevent more numerous and more brutal takeovers of small but strategically placed nations like Grenada, Nicaragua, or Vietnam.
In his monograph, John Norton Moore furnishes the documents which make the legal case for U.S. participation in the Grenada mission. Among them are letter from Sir Paul Scoon, governor-general of Grenada, to the prime minister of Barbados formally but diplomatically requesting assistance “in stabilizing this grave and dangerous situation;” the statement by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States explaining the decision to take military action “to remove this dangerous threat to peace and security;” and statements by President Reagan and Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica announcing the action after it had taken place.
In an editorial the day after the successful :invasion, the New York Times challenged the legal basis for the U.S. participation, saying that Secretary of State George Shultz “strained the language” of the OECS treaty and that the law binding on the U.S. was in fact the 1947 Rio Treaty. Yet Professor Moore amply demonstrates that the U.S. role was “in full accord with the United Nations, OAS, and OECS Charters and United States national law: Most importantly, by serving human rights, self-determination, and international peace and security, by the mission serves the core purposes of these great Charters.”
If the lessons of Grenada still need to be studied, this book is a good place to begin the examination. History will show that the prompt legal action taken in October 1984 was a blow struck for freedom and against the American malaise of the past decade.
Richard Sincere is a Washington-based policy analyst who writes frequently on African affairs.
Legal lessons learned from Grenada rescue
By Richard Sincere
Law and the Grenada Mission, by John Norton Moore. (Center for Law and National Security and Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1984.) 129 pages, $9.45.
Oddly, the New Republic, in its editorial endorsing Walter Mondale for president (October 22), credited Ronald Reagan with invigorating U.S. foreign policy. Reagan, the magazine said, “dispelled the post-Vietnam jinx on the successful use of American military force. The invasion of Grenada not only left the people of that island indisputably freer and safer than they were before the troops landed, it also made the salutary announcement to the world that the United States is once again prepared to use force when it deems the cause necessary and just.”
In October 1983, in response to a request for help by the independent states of the eastern Caribbean and an urgent plea by the head of state of Grenada, the U.S. government deployed its troops to bring an end to anarchy, rescue American civilians quarantined by a thuggish military regime, and restore peace and security to a small island nation of 110,000 people. In Law and the Grenada Mission, Ambassador John Norton Moore, a distinguished professor of international law at the University of Virginia, has compressed the facts and opinion about the case into a slim volume designed to affirm the author’s belief in the rule qf law as a means to peace, stability, and security. He writes:
“Fidelity to law is and should be an important element of foreign policy. Americans were thus puzzled by the cacophony of voices instantly heard in the aftermath of the Grenada mission urging variously that the action was lawful, that it was unlawful, or that law was irrelevant. .. Perceptions about lawfulness can profoundly influence both national and international support for particular actions. In the long run only a principled policy rooted in law can ensure the international peace and justice so importantly a part of the national interest of the United States and of all nations.”
Bizarre analogies
Even after last December’s first free elections in Grenada since Maurice Bishop suspended the country’s constitution in 1979, Americans draw bizarre analogies to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan five winters ago or of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1968. The differences are numerous, as Ambassador Moore shows. We all know that after five years of occupation, Soviet troops are still engaged in combat am terrorism in Afghanistan; U.S. combat troops left Grenada in December 1983. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan to replace a government which the Kremlin felt it could no longer adequately control; the United States and the eastern Caribbean democracies acted to restore order in a country that had no functioning government. Afghan refugees continue to crowd neighboring states, such a Pakistan; today refugees from the Bishop regime are able to return home to Grenada with a sense of honor and optimism for the future.
Ambassador Moore notes: “The Soviet action in Afghanistan is completely counter to self-determination for the people of Afghanistan and can never permit free elections or other forms of political freedom.” The Soviets claim that the Afghan people, by implementing a Marxist revolutionary system, have made the doctrine of self-determination no longer relevant. In contrast, “91 per cent of the people of Grenada welcomed the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States mission, 76 percent said they believed Cuba sought control of their government, and the OECS states are pledged to free elections.”
The “Brezhnev Doctrine,” which undergirded the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, states that once in the socialist camp, no nation may leave it. Moore calls it “a blatant violation of the non-use of force, self-determination, and human rights provisions of the United Nations Charter.” Unlike Grenada -- where the people praised the rescue mission led by the U.S. military -- “in no country where the Brezhnev Doctrine has been applied have the people who lived there welcomed its application.”
Kirkpatrick’s analysis
The comparisons of these events shed light on a statement made by U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick in another context. At a dinner in 1993 honoring Polish labor leader Lech Walesa, she said: “Though Marxism itself had some roots in the European liberal socialist tradition, Marxism-Leninism and Soviet state power and the political organization ruled in their name are to the liberal-democratic tradition as antithesis is to thesis. Marxism-Leninism does not incorporate either the theory or the practice of liberalism, democratic nationalism, or socialism; indeed, it denies al1 the essential elements of Western liberal-democratic, democratic-socialist, tradition.” In short, there is not respect for law, international or otherwise, in the Marxist-Leninist order, unless it furthers the cause of Communist expansion. Thus, there are no moral or ethical restraints to prevent more numerous and more brutal takeovers of small but strategically placed nations like Grenada, Nicaragua, or Vietnam.
In his monograph, John Norton Moore furnishes the documents which make the legal case for U.S. participation in the Grenada mission. Among them are letter from Sir Paul Scoon, governor-general of Grenada, to the prime minister of Barbados formally but diplomatically requesting assistance “in stabilizing this grave and dangerous situation;” the statement by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States explaining the decision to take military action “to remove this dangerous threat to peace and security;” and statements by President Reagan and Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica announcing the action after it had taken place.
In an editorial the day after the successful :invasion, the New York Times challenged the legal basis for the U.S. participation, saying that Secretary of State George Shultz “strained the language” of the OECS treaty and that the law binding on the U.S. was in fact the 1947 Rio Treaty. Yet Professor Moore amply demonstrates that the U.S. role was “in full accord with the United Nations, OAS, and OECS Charters and United States national law: Most importantly, by serving human rights, self-determination, and international peace and security, by the mission serves the core purposes of these great Charters.”
If the lessons of Grenada still need to be studied, this book is a good place to begin the examination. History will show that the prompt legal action taken in October 1984 was a blow struck for freedom and against the American malaise of the past decade.
Richard Sincere is a Washington-based policy analyst who writes frequently on African affairs.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
'Justice and War in the Nuclear Age'
This book review was first published in The Washington Times on May 11, 1983. Another version of it appeared in in the May 19, 1983, edition of the Arlington Catholic Herald, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic diocese of Arlington (Virginia); it is that version that appears below.
A Book Review...
Applying Catholic Doctrine to Contemporary Issues
“Justice and War in the Nuclear Age,” edited by Philip F. Lawler. University Press of America, 1983. 113 pages, includes bibliography. Cloth $16.95, paper $5.25.
By RICHARD E. SINCERE, JR.*
Questions of morality and politics inevitably transcend particular political events. “Justice and War in the Nuclear Age” is a collection of essays by five scholars, all actively religious and concerned to examine their tradition — in this case Roman Catholic — and apply its ancient principles to contemporary issues.
Each writer succeeds in producing a useful and thought-provoking analysis of the premier problem of our time: how to secure peace with justice in an age of nuclear weapons. All agree ‘that nuclear deterrence is a moral good simply because it has prevented a general European war for the past generation. All, however, reject the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) which has governed deterrence policies since the Kennedy administration. Instead they seek “a deterrent in which our preparations match our risks, and our potential for destruction is proportionate to the evils we seek to avoid.”
It is a curious paradox that those who accept deterrence begrudgingly often argue that the only way to prevent nuclear war is to make the weapons big and dirty and to target civilians (i.e., MAD). The prospect of war then becomes so awful that no sane leader would risk using nuclear weapons. Those who support deterrence, on the other hand, have since the end of the brief era of “massive retaliation” tended to find the idea of targeting civilians morally repugnant and strategically dubious. Therefore, they have made every effort to reduce the size of nuclear weapons, make them more accurate, and devise defenses against missiles and bombers — all in order to prevent collateral damage, save innocent lives, and mitigate suffering — and concomitantly to strengthen deterrence.
Only recently, culminating with the Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter on peace and war, have we heard arguments from the anti-deterrence side of the debate that counter-city targeting doctrine is intrinsically immoral. However, instead of expressing support for a counterforce or counter-military strategy, these critics have set about undermining the moral basis of deterrence itself. By some trick of logic they have decided if we can’t target people, we can’t target anything.
This volume persuasively shows the correctness of the pro-deterrence, pro-defense position from the perspectives of several disciplines: politics (Robert R. Reillyexamines “The Nature of Today’s Conflict”), philosophy (James V. Schall, S.J., on the “Intellectual Origins of the Peace Movement”), arms control (Thomas F. Payne discusses “The Amorality of Arms Control”), military strategy (Angelo Codevilla integrates “Justice, War, and Active Defense”) and theology (Bishop John J. O’Connor turns to “Traditional Western Criteria for Justice in War”). Together these five essays establish essential foundations for an intellectual defense of flexible deterrence policies and a moral argument for active defenses that will render nuclear weapons obsolete.
Professor Schall and Bishop O’Connor remind us that peace is not the mere absence of war — any tyranny, through coercion and mind control, can stamp out conflict. Peace is more, says Schall, and “always a consequence, not a direct object of our strivings, (but) a result of truth and mercy and charity.” Reilly says that in today’s struggle with the Soviet Union — whose leaders lack mercy, truth, and charity — our duty is to assess accurately “what is at stake in a war, otherwise we cannot judge what exertions are justified for defense.” As Pope Pius XII taught, “There are greater evils than the physical death and destruction wrought in wars.” Relating religious ethics to an empirical view of the global crisis leads to the conclusion that the quest for peace with justice does not automatically exclude the use or threat to use nuclear weapons: neither does it exclude any other means of conflict resolution.
On this subject. the more technical essays — Payne’s and Codevilla’s — have special relevance. Those who argue that any use of nuclear weapons would be immoral must reckon with technological developments over the past 20 years. Weapons can be more precisely targeted now than they were in 1962, when both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had to rely on bombers and primitive missiles, which were effective only against population centers. Today, we also have the means to ward off incoming nuclear weapons if necessary. Codevilla states: “The assertion that nuclear war must be either mass murder or suicide, or both, cannot be founded on fact.”
A 20th-century Voltaire might quip that Mutual Assured Destruction is neither mutual, assured, nor destruction. Recognizing the limited power of nuclear weapons is the first step toward eliminating their horrors. Ballistic missile defense and civil defense are moral and practical alternatives to self-generated vulnerability. The technology exists; only the will to use it seems absent.
Justice, peace, and freedom will be secured when we realize that the ethical foundations of our society face human, not merely technological, threats. Until humanity no longer suffers from sin, technology guided by charity and justice must stave off the evil that overshadows us.
*Richard E. Sincere, Jr., is research assistant for church and society at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and serves on the board of directors of the American Civil Defense Association.
A Book Review...
Applying Catholic Doctrine to Contemporary Issues
“Justice and War in the Nuclear Age,” edited by Philip F. Lawler. University Press of America, 1983. 113 pages, includes bibliography. Cloth $16.95, paper $5.25.
By RICHARD E. SINCERE, JR.*
Questions of morality and politics inevitably transcend particular political events. “Justice and War in the Nuclear Age” is a collection of essays by five scholars, all actively religious and concerned to examine their tradition — in this case Roman Catholic — and apply its ancient principles to contemporary issues.
Each writer succeeds in producing a useful and thought-provoking analysis of the premier problem of our time: how to secure peace with justice in an age of nuclear weapons. All agree ‘that nuclear deterrence is a moral good simply because it has prevented a general European war for the past generation. All, however, reject the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) which has governed deterrence policies since the Kennedy administration. Instead they seek “a deterrent in which our preparations match our risks, and our potential for destruction is proportionate to the evils we seek to avoid.”
It is a curious paradox that those who accept deterrence begrudgingly often argue that the only way to prevent nuclear war is to make the weapons big and dirty and to target civilians (i.e., MAD). The prospect of war then becomes so awful that no sane leader would risk using nuclear weapons. Those who support deterrence, on the other hand, have since the end of the brief era of “massive retaliation” tended to find the idea of targeting civilians morally repugnant and strategically dubious. Therefore, they have made every effort to reduce the size of nuclear weapons, make them more accurate, and devise defenses against missiles and bombers — all in order to prevent collateral damage, save innocent lives, and mitigate suffering — and concomitantly to strengthen deterrence.
Only recently, culminating with the Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter on peace and war, have we heard arguments from the anti-deterrence side of the debate that counter-city targeting doctrine is intrinsically immoral. However, instead of expressing support for a counterforce or counter-military strategy, these critics have set about undermining the moral basis of deterrence itself. By some trick of logic they have decided if we can’t target people, we can’t target anything.
This volume persuasively shows the correctness of the pro-deterrence, pro-defense position from the perspectives of several disciplines: politics (Robert R. Reillyexamines “The Nature of Today’s Conflict”), philosophy (James V. Schall, S.J., on the “Intellectual Origins of the Peace Movement”), arms control (Thomas F. Payne discusses “The Amorality of Arms Control”), military strategy (Angelo Codevilla integrates “Justice, War, and Active Defense”) and theology (Bishop John J. O’Connor turns to “Traditional Western Criteria for Justice in War”). Together these five essays establish essential foundations for an intellectual defense of flexible deterrence policies and a moral argument for active defenses that will render nuclear weapons obsolete.
Professor Schall and Bishop O’Connor remind us that peace is not the mere absence of war — any tyranny, through coercion and mind control, can stamp out conflict. Peace is more, says Schall, and “always a consequence, not a direct object of our strivings, (but) a result of truth and mercy and charity.” Reilly says that in today’s struggle with the Soviet Union — whose leaders lack mercy, truth, and charity — our duty is to assess accurately “what is at stake in a war, otherwise we cannot judge what exertions are justified for defense.” As Pope Pius XII taught, “There are greater evils than the physical death and destruction wrought in wars.” Relating religious ethics to an empirical view of the global crisis leads to the conclusion that the quest for peace with justice does not automatically exclude the use or threat to use nuclear weapons: neither does it exclude any other means of conflict resolution.
On this subject. the more technical essays — Payne’s and Codevilla’s — have special relevance. Those who argue that any use of nuclear weapons would be immoral must reckon with technological developments over the past 20 years. Weapons can be more precisely targeted now than they were in 1962, when both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had to rely on bombers and primitive missiles, which were effective only against population centers. Today, we also have the means to ward off incoming nuclear weapons if necessary. Codevilla states: “The assertion that nuclear war must be either mass murder or suicide, or both, cannot be founded on fact.”
A 20th-century Voltaire might quip that Mutual Assured Destruction is neither mutual, assured, nor destruction. Recognizing the limited power of nuclear weapons is the first step toward eliminating their horrors. Ballistic missile defense and civil defense are moral and practical alternatives to self-generated vulnerability. The technology exists; only the will to use it seems absent.
Justice, peace, and freedom will be secured when we realize that the ethical foundations of our society face human, not merely technological, threats. Until humanity no longer suffers from sin, technology guided by charity and justice must stave off the evil that overshadows us.
*Richard E. Sincere, Jr., is research assistant for church and society at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and serves on the board of directors of the American Civil Defense Association.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
