On May 20, I had the opportunity to participate in a public discussion sponsored by the Munk Forums in Toronto. My debate partner was John Mearsheimer, and our opponents were former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. The issue on the table was “Be it Resolved: Don’t Go Hunting Monsters.” As regular readers here can expect, John and I argued in favor of that resolution.
You can watch the full discussion by buying a pass the direct current. For Foreign Policy readers interested in my opening and closing statements, what follows below are slightly edited versions of what I told the audience at the event.
On May 20, I had the opportunity to participate in a public discussion sponsored by the Munk Forums in Toronto. My debate partner was John Mearsheimer, and our opponents were former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. The issue on the table was “Be it Resolved: Don’t Go Hunting Monsters.” As regular readers here can expect, John and I argued in favor of that resolution.
You can watch the full discussion by buying a pass the direct current. For Foreign Policy readers interested in my opening and closing statements, what follows below are slightly edited versions of what I told the audience at the event.
This is a debate between obstructionists and crusaders. We all believe that the United States should actively participate in the world and support the rule of law. What we are debating is whether it should be a crusader government that tries to shape the world by overthrowing other governments. Our opponents say yes; we say no.
In our opinion, the United States should use its capabilities to prevent or defeat the attacks itself and maintain the balance of power in important and strategic areas. For example, it made sense for the United States to enter World War II. Japan attacked the United States and Germany declared war, and both countries had major powers involved in the war. During the Cold War, American leaders were right to create and lead an alliance to contain the Soviet Union. We also believe the George HW Bush administration was correct in leading the effort to expel Iraq from Kuwait, to prevent it from dominating the Persian Gulf. But Bush acted with restraint: He wisely chose not to go to Baghdad to overthrow Saddam Hussein. His son, George W. Bush, made a different choice in 2003, even though Iraq was no longer a serious threat and had no weapons of mass destruction. You all know how the crusade ended.
The resolution tonight is based on a famous speech given by former US President John Quincy Adams on July 4, 1821. He emphasized that the United States was founded on the principle of freedom and said, “Wherever the standard of freedom … has been or will be revealed, there will be (America’s) heart, its blessings, and its prayers. But it does not go abroad to destroy.”
To put this into context, Adams says that the United States should not use its power to effect regime change. We agree because toppling foreign governments to promote democracy almost always makes things worse. Changing the political system of another country is a massive social engineering project, usually carried out in places we don’t understand, and the usual result is not a vibrant democracy but chaos, destruction, and thousands of innocent people dead. If you have any doubts, just look at what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, or consider the damage that the current war against Iran has caused in just three months.
Overthrowing foreign governments also undermines the principle of independence that underpins the rule of law. If it is right to overthrow a government that has not attacked us, then what is to stop anyone from taking territory that belongs to others, as Russian President Vladimir Putin did in Crimea or as American President Donald Trump wants to do with Greenland? If it is acceptable to use force to overthrow a government you don’t like, it is also easy to justify killing its leaders, imposing sanctions that harm thousands of innocent citizens, or even torturing enemy prisoners. Do you remember those pictures of the Abu Ghraib prison, or the approximately 120 Iranian school children killed by a US airstrike two months ago? When we decide to kill monsters, we end up doing terrible things ourselves.
As realists, we know that necessity sometimes forces nations to compromise their values. In World War II, for example, the United States partnered with the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin—who was indeed a monster—to deal with a greater threat. But arguing to remake the world—and sow violence and suffering in the process—doesn’t make us safer or advance the cause of freedom. Instead of promoting freedom, we deny it by imposing our will on others. And because we have to break a lot of rules to do it, this policy ignores any claim to support the rule of law and encourages others to break the rules themselves.
Be clear: We believe the United States should support the advancement of freedom abroad but primarily by creating a society in our country that others will admire and want to emulate, rather than one they hate and fear.
Here’s what I mean: The United States and South Korea have been allies for 75 years. Until the late 1980s, South Korea was a military dictatorship that violently suppressed pro-democracy forces and employed torture, forced labor, and occasional assassinations to maintain power. It wasn’t North Korea, but it was far from free. Did the US decide to overthrow it? Nope. Instead, it patiently worked to convince South Korea that there was a better way. We sheltered pro-democracy exiles like Kim Dae-jung and then arranged for his safe return. And in 1987, South Koreans rose up on their own and demanded an end to military rule. Today, South Korea is one of the world’s largest economies and, according to Freedom House, is now a more democratic society than the United States itself. Preventive functions; crusading does not.
The bottom line is that Adams was right. America can best defend its interests, promote freedom, and advance a stable world order by setting a good example, not by engaging in an endless search for some new beast to kill. We should not be warriors but instead use our strength with wisdom and self-restraint.
Other participants also made opening statements, followed by formal rebuttals and then a lively moderated discussion. When it was my turn to give the final statement, this is what it said:
You have heard four Americans discuss what American foreign policy should be. In closing, I invite you to think about this question as Canadians. Your country has long been actively engaged in world affairs and committed to diplomacy. Canadians don’t go looking for trouble, but you are willing to go “elbow up” when trouble is forced upon you, as you did in WWII. And you enjoy the well-deserved reputation of being among the nicest people in the world.
Now, imagine what would happen if, for some strange reason, your leaders decided that Canada should go kill the monsters—that it should intervene in foreign countries, overthrow their leaders, and try to make these countries more like Canada. To do this, you will need a bigger army and more spies. You would make many new enemies, and some of them would resist your efforts to change them, so you would have to worry more about your safety at home and you would have to watch closely to make sure enemy sympathizers did not conspire. Government officials would be doing a lot of things in secret, and they would defend their actions by hiding the truth and telling a lot of lies.
Canadians would end up dying in far away countries for reasons that had nothing to do with keeping Canada safe and prosperous. Instead of being good, others would begin to see you as self-righteous, judgmental, and indifferent to the lives of the innocent victims of your difficult struggles. Even if you started out sincerely hoping to make the world a better place, you would wake up to a world that was more suspicious and more violent. You would be more like the countries you thought you would change than they were like you. The Canada you know today would disappear forever.
If you feel that the prospect is not worth it, then you should vote in favor of the resolution, and you should hope that my country will come to its senses, give up its stupid efforts to kill monsters, and instead adopt a policy of restraint. Americans will have a better life if we do that but our allies and the rest of the world. Thank you.
I am happy to report that the audience approved the resolution by a score of 56-44.
