Ethics and foreign policy: Stephen Haigh reports on the 38th Otago foreign policy school, held in Dunedin in June 2003.

• Author: Haigh, Stephen
• Position: Conference Report

Like its predecessors, the 2003 Otago Foreign Policy School ranged too widely to be reduced to a single essence. But one of the School's great strengths has been its ability to contain multitudes within a coherent thematic frame, and the 38th Sehool, entitled 'Ethics and Foreign Policy', gave ample demonstration of this elusive and admirable trait. It is perhaps no grave injustice to sum up the concerns of the school's many excellent and distinguished contributors in a (very timely) question: 'Can interests and ideals be reconciled in the conduct of international polities?'

The simple answer to that question depends on whether one subscribes to realism are dealism. These two competing theories have dominated the field of international relations nearly since its inception, so it was fitting that the 38th School got underway with a spirited defence of each.

Professor Michael Smith of the University of Virginia advanced the idealist case for an ethical foreign policy by exposing flaws in the realist argument. Foreign policy--and here Professor Smith limited his thesis to democratic polities--is profoundly moral. Morality is a given in the very nature of the state: states are not sacred, but derive from and exist to serve the rights of individuals, which are both primary and inalienable. It follows that if the state violates those rights, it loses its claim to legitimacy. Hence the realist insistence that state survival is the highest goal--that rights are subordinate--is an inversion of the truth, and should not be tolerated. The true test of state action is whether it is congruent with universal human rights. Any pursuit or definition of the national interest that fails to serve this ideal is a logical and moral contradiction.

Austere purpose

Professor Barry Cooper of the University of Calgary disagreed. The purpose of politics is austere: to provide shelter for citizens and to defend the realm. The business of politics--the national interest--is state survival and security, and it is a dangerous form of utopianism to believe otherwise. Why dangerous? Because--and this, said Professor Cooper, is what Aristotle would call the tragedy of political life--politics is conducted in an amoral world. Stripped bare, the essence of inter-state relations is aggression and threat--ultimately, the threat of annihilation. The state, then, is founded in violence and exists because of it, which puts security objectives and 'higher' moral ideals at loggerheads. The Greeks delivered this truth 2000 years ago, and nothing has changed since. Indeed, current developments confirm their teachings in spades. To ignore such wisdom would be naive, and quite possibly fatal.

Cooper's argument for politics-as-necessity was taken up by former US National Security Advisor Dick Allen, who suggested that Aristotelian ethics is the clearest lens through which to view American foreign policy. US statecraft begins with the understanding that politics is morally neutral--that it cannot be cast in terms of good and evil. Navigating its murky waters requires prudence, judgment, and practical wisdom, virtues that come together in the exercise of right reason.

The need for right reason has never been more pressing. Now, in a jihad against the very ideals of Western civilisation, 'amorphous movements' have struck the American homeland, causing great loss of life. What can be done to counter the novel and ominous threat of stateless terror? Well, let there be no doubt that this is a war--and prudence requires the continuation and even expansion of that war by all reasonable means. Such a policy does not betray the American tradition; rather, it is the only way to safeguard it against fanatics who would see the democratic way of life extinguished.

Unilateral action

Do 'reasonable means' include unilateral action? Allen concluded by noting that the United States has always supported the United Nations, and would continue to do so where and whenever it resists the impulse to 'define deviance down', or abdicate its responsibility to intervene against threats to international peace and order. Inactivity is itself an action, and, in the case of Iraq, America simply could not afford to stand by while the United Nations prevaricated.

The debate between realism and idealism is bound by its nature to polarise opinion, and it certainly divided the audience at the 38th School. On the other hand, participants were not about to settle for simple distinctions, especially when reality gets distorted as a result. Dr Campbell Craig of the University of Canterbury articulated one of the concerns in this area by suggesting that in fact recent American foreign policy has strayed so far from its traditional realist roots as to reflect a flagrant--and dangerous--disregard for the wise and cautionary principles they embody.

Recall that the heart and soul of realism is state...