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In this second of three articles written in 1993-94, Roger Donway discusses the fundamental goals of a proper foreign policy: promotion of free trade, and alliances among free countries as a bulwark of security.
Part One: Rethinking Foreign Policy
Part Three: "Rethinking Foreign Policy"
A foreign policy comprises the principles that a government adopts towards other states and their citizens. Libertarians and Objectivists often assume that a free state’s foreign policy is merely a global analogue of its domestic criminal code or public law (prohibiting murder, theft, and so forth). In my last article, I argued that this was mistaken. At the least, I said, a foreign policy must also have a counterpart to the domestic civil code or private law (dealing with contract, negligence, and so forth).
But more basically, I argued, the circumstances surrounding a state’s foreign affairs are completely different from the circumstances surrounding its domestic activities- so different that the analogy between domestic law and foreign policy can never be more than limited. The reason, I pointed out, is that a state operating within its own territory has a de jure monopoly on the use of force and a de facto monopoly on the use of large scale force. Internationally, the situation of one state vis-à-vis another is more like anarchy.
To discover the principles appropriate to such a situation, I concluded, we must look back to the national motives for government, and see how they apply in this situation.
The analogy between domestic law and foreign policy does hold this far: A government needs a foreign policy for the same basic reason that it needs a domestic legal code: so that its citizens can live together with other people. (See my article “The Justification of Government,” IOS Journal, Vol. I, No. 2, Fall 1991). The primary difference is that a domestic legal code is intended to allow a society’s citizens to live together with each other, while a foreign policy is intended to allow them to live together with the citizens of other states. But that is a tremendous difference. An effective domestic legal code typically requires all of the society’s citizens to be under the rule of one over-arching government, and this is just what is lacking in the international realm.
Yet “anarchic” is not a sufficient characterization of the international realm, for anarchy is not always and everywhere the same. A resident of Galt’s Gulch (a fiction, in any case) faced a very different situation from a resident of Beirut circa 1976, and both faced situations different from that which a sovereign state confronts vis-à-vis other sovereign states.
Three features of the international realm make the absence of an over-arching government tolerable. First is the relatively few dealings that citizens of different states have with each other. Worldwide, the average ratio of a country’s gross domestic product to its exports about 6 to 1; for the United States, it is about 10 to 1; for the Netherlands, it is about 15 to 1.
Precisely to the degree that people are not “living together,” and do not constitute a single society, they do not require a single government. Among the industrialized states, however, this condition is changing rapidly. Modern transportation technology is partly responsible, but a far greater factor is the increasing economic role of information, which can be “transported” by communication technology.
A second feature of the international realm that makes anarchy tolerable is the limited number of sovereign and semi-sovereign states: fewer than 200. This feature is important because, under anarchy, the predictability (and thus the possibility) of a rational life depends heavily on knowing the characteristics of the other actors one is likely to confront and this is possible only when the number of those others is small. Facing an international “population” of only 200, a state of any considerable size can attempt to track the conditions and intentions of all the others. By contrast, a citizen living in an anarchic city like Beirut could not hope to track the conditions and behavior of all his fellow citizens.
Reinforcing this second condition is a third: the great differences among states. Of the world's roughly 200 states and quasi-states, it is not likely that more than a half require major foreign-policy attention, even from a superpower. The other 50 percent, for one reason or another, simply do not hold that much potential, either for good or ill. For example, nearly one quarter of all the world's countries are less than a thousand square miles in size; that is, they are smaller than the state of Rhode Island. One-third of the world's countries have populations under a million; that is, they have fewer people than Phoenix, Arizona. And roughly one-fourth of all states have a GDP of under a billion dollars, less than what the United States produces every ninety minutes. Obviously, such characteristics only tend to diminish a country's significance; they do not necessarily disqualify it from being a major player in the world. The West Bank has a population of only a million, a GDP of only a billion, and an area of 2,000 square miles, yet the attention that the world's foreign ministries lavish on the West Bank is enormous.
Given this backdrop, what can we say about the proper goals of a free state’s foreign policy? To begin with, a free state should seek to increase the predictability of its international situation by learning thoroughly the political, military, and cultural characteristics of the other states with which it is likely to deal.
As a general rule, the information available to the public is quite adequate for the formulation of foreign policy, at least in its broad outlines. For example, various nonprofit organizations intensively study the countries of the world in order to rank them as free, semi-free, tyrannical, or totalitarian; and some such classification, publicly enunciated, should be the basis of a free state's foreign policy.
Sometimes, indeed, secret and classified information can be more of a danger than an aid to the formulation of foreign policy, because policymakers tend to overestimate its importance. Thus, for many years, an unpublicized discrepancy prevailed between the public anti-Israel hostility of Arab leaders and the moderateness of their private views. Too many Western politicians, learning of this secret, acted as though the Arab leaders' private views might be the basis for their behavior. They forgot that if Arab leaders had acted on their privately expressed views, they would not have long remained Arab leaders: Anwar Sadat lived only 30 months after signing a peace treaty with Israel.
Nonetheless, these observations about public and secret information are not intended to disparage spying and other covert efforts. Enemy countries do have important military secrets, and terrorists do conduct terrorism. Consequently, there is ample need for effective intelligence agencies, and they should be amply funded.
Once a government has informed itself about the international scene, how is it to behave? The principal object of foreign policy, as I have said, is to secure the conditions necessary for rational men to live together across international boundaries. Defense against aggressors, though a critical function of foreign policy, is secondary. This is an application of a principle that operates throughout ethics: pursuing positive values takes precedence, logically and spiritually, over avoiding harm to those values. Life is more important than avoiding injury; health is more important than medicine; the civil law is more important than the criminal law. And, in foreign policy, trade is more important than war.
Of course, this is not the traditional view of international affairs, which holds war and its derivatives to be the most important task of foreign policy. But that traditional view generally comes from authors who hold trade in contempt. I find it surprising, therefore, that Objectivists, by comparing foreign policy to the criminal law, have followed these traditional authors in making national security issues the be-all and end-all of foreign policy.
Perhaps Objectivists have adopted this value because Ayn Rand wrote (in “The Nature of Government,” in The Virtue of Selfishness): “the proper functions of a government fall into three broad categories.. the police… the armed services… the law courts.” I am inclined to this explanation because even Objectivists who admit the need for a foreign ministry tend to do so only on the grounds that the Executive must formulate policies for using the military. Thus, in “Foreign Policy and the Morality of Self-Interest” (The Intellectual Activist, 1986), Peter Schwartz wrote: “To adopt a metaphor: if the military is a gun, then the State Department is the marksman who decides where to point it and when to pull the trigger."
In "'The Roots of War," however, Ayn Rand wrote the following very explicit comment on foreign policy: 'The essence of capitalism's foreign policy is free trade-i.e., the abolition of trade barriers, of protective tariffs, of special privileges--the opening of the world's trade routes to free international exchange and competition among the private citizens of all countries dealing directly with one another.'' To me, this suggests that the fundamental aspect of foreign policy is not to be analogue of criminal law but of the civil law.
Now, how should a government go about creating a counterpart of the civil law, given the condition of international anarchy?
Widespread agreement exists among classical liberal economists that the first step towards international trade should be unilateral action. That is, a free government should not waste time negotiating mutual reductions of tariffs by threatening retaliatory tariffs. Rather, it should simply abolish its own obstructions to trade and travel by private citizens.
This unilateral policy often provokes a question: Ifa state acts unilaterally to remove its trade barriers, what motive will other states have to eliminate their trade barriers? The answer is: They will have the same motive as the first state, the benefit of their citizens, both as producers and as consumers. The idea that states must be bludgeoned into reducing import barriers results from the mercantilist canard that a state benefits from exports but is hurt by imports—an idea that has been refuted many times.
In fact, reducing trade barriers by multilateral wrangling, such as we recently saw in the Uruguay round of the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] talks, can serve only to undermine public support for free trade. For however loudly public officials may tout the benefits of freer trade, their contentious negotiations proclaim that these benefits involve some sort of mutual self-sacrifice. In effect, the negotiators say: “America will sacrifice its steelworkers if France will sacrifice its farmers, in order that the collective in both countries may enjoy a higher national income.” No wonder so many Americans oppose free trade.
But though unilateral action is the place to begin with free international trade, a government that has eliminated trade barriers should nevertheless seek similar action from other free states, and it should seek to solemnize this conjoint free trade through a permanent multilateral treaty. Such a multilateral treaty—call it a Free World commercial alliance—would raise to the most secure possible level the several states' commitment to the principle of free trade and travel by private citizens.
In the realm of national security, as well as in the realm of trade, the goal of living together on a global scale ought to be pursued through a Free World alliance. And, again, this suggestion runs counter to most libertarian and Objectivist writings on foreign affairs, which typically display a desire for “strategic independence” (to use a term that the Cato Institute employs).
There are some understandable motives for desiring strategic independence: As Ayn Rand demonstrated in "The Anatomy of Compromise" (in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal) collaboration with others is a tricky business. At the same time, however, there can be mistaken motives for desiring strategic independence, such as the belief that a country's national self-interest is limited to thee liberty of its own people. That is like assuming one's personal self-interest is not affected by violations of others' individual rights, which is clearly false.
Moreover, I am wary when a writer asserts as a principle of foreign policy that a state should of itself defend the liberty of its citizens. For that assumes a state is able to carry out such a mission. And that, in turn, suggests the author is thinking exclusively of the United States—which, of course, indicates he is not thinking in principles at all.
Being a continent-sized nation, America might have the capacity to follow a path of strategic independence. But for most states such a course of action would be impossible. Is Lithuania seriously supposed to pursue strategic independence? Is Hong Kong? The bias towards strategic independence, I am told, is not characteristic of classical liberal thinking in Europe, particularly Continental Europe, and, given the aim of Continental European states, this is readily intelligible.
But if strategic independence is not a necessary foreign policy for a free state, what can be said for the alternative of a Free World alliance? I think much can be said, under three headings: society, security, and law.
Society. The first benefits of a Free World security alliance go to the very heart of its purpose. Private citizens in a free state profit by living together with private citizens in another free state. Looked at in reverse, the ability of private citizens in the second state to live freely is of value to people in the first state and thus it is profitable for people in the first state to defend that value. A Free World security alliance is established on the recognition that the freedom of others is in one's self-interest.
Pursuing this value will also have secondary benefits, for it will tend to break down parochial barriers between free peoples, just as commercial alliances do; and thus a Free World security alliance will lead the people involved to profit still more from each other. By contrast, people that are relatively isolated and independent will be more susceptible to thinking of their country as an extended family, with all the disasters that image fosters, from welfarism to nationalism to xenophobia.
Security. A second set of benefits derives from the element of military power. A state participating in a Free World security alliance may be able to defend the liberty of its citizens, when it could not do so alone. Closely related is the possibility that the strength of an alliance may keep free states from sacrificing one another, in a futile attempt to appease aggression. Then, too, the strength of a Free World alliance may keep free states from entering into alliance with unfree states, a policy that often builds up enemies of freedom, as Lend-Lease built up Stalin in order to hammer Hitler, and the Reagan-Bush administrations built up Saddam Hussein in order to hammer Khomeini.
Two other benefits, which might be mentioned under this heading, are known as "embedding" and ''transparency." Asan alliance achieves increasing military integration, each national military becomes increasingly embedded in the whole, and intra-alliance conflict becomes relatively more difficult, for the whole is structured to work together.An alliance also fosters ''transparency," that is, an awareness of other members' power and intentions, which in turn can give early warnings of possibly dangerous changes in one or the other.
Law. A third set of benefits derives from the ability of an alliance to move foreign policy in the direction of more law-like behavior, both among alliance members and with relation to the rest of the world. For example, as an alliance grows more integrated, its supra-national institutions can make the interstate relations among members less anarchic and can provide for more law-like means of settling differences.
Behavior toward the rest of the world may also become more law-like, for a variety of reasons. In a situation where one nation is tempted to act rashly, because it is biased in its own case, an alliance may be able lead that nation to judge more objectively. In addition, because a combination of states has greater power than an individual member, a Free World alliance might at some point be able to specify in law-like fashion what punishments it will mete out for what violations of rights.
Finally, someone might ask: Do the reasons given above for a Free World alliance to ameliorate international anarchy also argue for a Free World government to abolish it? I would say yes. In principle, the same considerations argue for a Free World confederation, and ultimately for a Free World federation, along the lines of the federal state that Americans originally contrived. But I would stress the word “ultimately.”
Two very remote conditions seem required before such a government becomes reasonable. First, the people involved must have reached a degree of interaction sufficient to make them a single society, a single people living together. This is a stage that should not be forced, as the European Union is forcing it. Second, the culture of freedom supporting such a government must be dominated by Objectivism or something very like it. If it is not, then the benefits to be obtained from one over-arching state would seem to be outweighed by the benefits to be obtained from a multiplicity of states.
These latter benefits are well known. Classical liberals often point out that a multiplicity of states may mean refuge for the oppressed when one government turns tyrannical. Or, on a lower level, the existence of many states allows for Brain Drains and capital flights when one government shrinks the sphere of liberty. Indeed, progress towards liberty in one state, coupled with the possibility of Brain Drain and capital flight, may motivate progress towards liberty is other states.
But such considerations are most appropriate to an era when freedom is a mere privilege, susceptible to being revoked or expanded at any moment. In such an age, whether pre- or post-Enlightenment, one's freedom is a sphere of action preserved by power. It exists because one's duke can check the king, or one's lobbyist can buy off Congress. If the duke dies, or the lobbyist turns out to be Wesley Mouch, then it is useful indeed to have a sanctuary across the mountains, whether one can flee with one's family and possessions. (A familiar joke says this truth explains why there are so many Jewish violinists and so few Jewish pianists.)
I believe the situation is quite different when liberty has been established as a right. In those circumstances, the battle between freedom and tyranny is philosophical; oppression cannot be imposed overnight; and the need for political sanctuary is correspondingly less urgent. Observe that, despite America's deep philosophical weaknesses, 150 years were required to break the back of capitalism in this country: from 1787, when the Constitution was written, to 1937, when the Supreme Court capitulated to the New Deal. If a Free World federation were founded on an Objectivist Enlightenment, I believe the likelihood of its declininginto tyranny, whether in 150 years or 1500 years, would be negligible.
Perhaps I am sanguine about this because, unlike Jefferson, I do not think government is inherently disposed to tyranny, any more than more than business is inherently disposed to fraud. Both are rational and legitimate institutions; neither is cursed with Original Sin. Indeed, in the perspective of the last 10,000 years, government appears as a magnificent invention, one that makes civilization possible. The pantheon of man's heroes, I believe, ought to include the statesmanand the soldier, alongside the humanist, the scientist, the artist, the inventor, and the entrepreneur.
But does all this matter? To speak of a Free World federation, and one founded on Objectivism, no less, is obviously to speak of a very remote goal. True. But that does not make it an inappropriate goal for foreign policy. We steer by the horizon—which is to say, by our ultimate goal. The problem for foreign policy, as for any branch of ethics, is to translate its ultimate goal into immediate action. And that is the task I will take up in the next issue.
Originally Published in IOS Journal Volume 3 Number 5 • January 1994
Read Part 3 of "Rethinking Foreign Policy"
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