'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:

“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.

'Waging Nuclear Peace: The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons'

This review originally appeared in the Washington Times on Thursday, May 2, 1985. This is probably the first time it has been readily available in digital form.  (Versions of this book review also appeared in the New York City Tribune on September 3, 1986, and in the spring 1985 issue of Strategic Review.)

BOOK REVIEW/Richard E. Sincere Jr.

A textbook look at our nuclear strategies

Waging Nuclear Peace: The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons
By Robert Ehrlich
University of New York
$12.95 paper, 397 pages

When George Mason University physics professor Robert Ehrlich began to teach a course in arms control and nuclear weapons policy a few years ago, he could find no adequate, single-volume text that was conducive to class discussion and that provided sufficient technical and political background for his students. So, Mr. Ehrlich has produced a readable, detailed and useful primer on nuclear strategy that will also be an excellent reference book for those who are already in the field.

Page 1 introduces the purpose of the book with the question, “Are we discussing the real issue?... Nuclear war is a highly emotional issue,” Mr. Ehrlich points out. “It would be almost irrational not to become emotional when reflecting on the horror that a nuclear war could bring. However, the whole point of thinking analytically about nuclear war is to try to see facts objectively, not as we might wish them to be. It is only by clearing away these misconceptions that we can best assess the most likely course of action to avert catastrophe.”

The practical applications of this view become clear later in a discussion of the 1979 Office of Technology Assessment study, The Effects of Nuclear War, a report often cited as a primary source on the immediate and long-term effects of a nuclear attack upon the United States. Mr. Ehrlich compares the advantages and disadvantages of the United States and the U.S.S.R. that bear on their prospects for survival following a nuclear exchange. He notes that the OTA report concluded that there is no evidence “that the Soviets face a lower risk [than the United States] of finding themselves unable to rebuild an industrial society at all.”

Mr. Ehrlich argues, however, that an objective reader may come to different conclusions from those reached by the OTA report’s authors, and conclude that the Soviet Union is better prepared to survive a nuclear attack than the United States: “It is possible that the authors of this [OTA] study did not want to encourage the belief that nuclear war might be survivable -- especially the notion that it might be more survivable in the Soviet Union than in the United States.”

If Soviet military leaders do believe in the survivability — or winnability — of a nuclear war, the United States is faced with a major problem for strategic policy. And Mr. Ehrlich’s analysis of this problem deserves more prominence in, his book than he gives it.

Among many other issues that Mr. Ehrlich sheds light on, two are of particular current interest, antiballistic missile defense (ABM) and civil defense. One of his views on ballistic missile defense may surprise some pundits: “It would make little sense’ the author argues, “to build an expensive and exotic ABM system of uncertain feasibility without first investing in a much cheaper civil defense system. Such a course of action would be akin to installing an expensive photovoltaic solar-energy collection system n your roof and not bothering first to add insulation in your ceiling -- a much more cost-effective measure.”

This approach is unusually relevant, since the Reagan administration has cut the civil defense budget for fiscal 1986 from $181 million to $119.1 million. There appears to be a trend in administration thinking toward putting all of its eggs in the Strategic Defense Initiative basket -- a prospect that chills arms-control advocates as well as civil defense professionals.

While acknowledging the arguments of Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups that there may be “insurmountable obstacles” to surviving nuclear war, including long-term climatic damage and the destruction of our national infrastructure, Mr. Ehrlich remains firm in his support for population-protection measures. At the conclusion of his discussion of the effectiveness of civil defense, he writes:

“While there are major obstacles to survival following a nuclear war, it is by no means clear that these obstacles are insurmountable. In the nuclear age the goal of preventing nuclear war must, of course, take priority over surviving one. Nevertheless, because a nuclear war could occur despite our best efforts at prevention, prudence requires that some attention be devoted to the problem of survival.”

The book is rich in its exposition of the myriad issues that students, citizens, and policymakers must face in the crowded debate over nuclear weapons policy. It is well- structured, with divisions into four topical sections: “Introduction to the issues,” “Nuclear Arms and Nuclear War,” “The Effects of Nuclear War” and “Policy Options and Objectives.”

These are further divided into chapters with headings such as “Public Opinion and the Media,” “Long-Term Worldwide Effects of a Nuclear War,” and “Arms Control and Disarmament.” Two appendixes address “The Physical Principles of Nuclear Energy and Radiation” and “Survival After Nuclear War.” Each chapter and appendix is followed by study questions to help instructors conduct class discussions or to devise midterm and final essay questions.

The fact that this book is designed for classroom use should not deter readers who are past the age of worrying about term papers, grades, and spring break in Florida. Waging Nuclear Peace is an important contribution to the catalog of nuclear-strategy books.

Richard E. Sincere Jr. is vice president of the American Civil Defense Association.