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This is not a time for Boy Scouts Samuel Brittan: The Financial Times 24/10/03 In all my travels . . . three reflections constantly occur to me: how much unnecessary solicitude and alarm England devotes to the affairs of foreign countries; with how little knowledge we enter upon the task of regulating the concerns of other people; and how much better we might employ our energies in improving matters at home. Richard Cobden, letter to John Bright, September 18 1847 George Kennan, the American diplomat and historian who developed the original cold war doctrine of deterrence, also made a vigorous onslaught on what he called the "moralistic, legalistic approach" to foreign policy. His strongest argument was that this approach brought more human hardship than a straightforward defence of national self-interest. He was reinforced in this belief by the work of Herbert Butterfield, the Cambridge historian. Writing from a Christian point of view, Butterfield warned fellow Christians of the dangers of rushing to make moralistic assumptions about international events that subsequently turned out to be wrong and inflicted more suffering than a more humble approach. This modest view is now being challenged by two misguided forces. One is known as neo-conservatism. The other is liberal imperialism. Neither name is self-explanatory. It is easier to explain the liberal imperialists, who are to be found more in Britain than the US. They observe the existence of sadistic dictatorships and their violations of human rights. They also notice the "failed states", territories that do not have a stable government able to enforce the rule of law. The liberal imperialists believe that the west has a duty to intervene in these countries to impose better performance. They sometimes take these ideas to their logical conclusion and advocate the establishment of United Nations, Nato, US or other kinds of western protectorates, akin to those that existed in the closing years of the prewar empires. There are two basic weaknesses in this Boy Scout attitude. The first is that the primary responsibility of any government is the welfare of the inhabitants of the area of which it is in charge. This does not mean placing a zero weight on the welfare of other people or being indifferent to the abuse of human rights elsewhere. Claims by some old-fashioned conservatives that morality has no place in foreign policy are mystification in a bad cause. But it is wrong to expect governments to have equal concern for all the inhabitants of the globe. Even those who regard this as insufficiently altruistic need to pay attention to a second argument: we do not always have the knowledge to improve the affairs of distant countries. Because of this ignorance, dreadful mistakes are made and it is extremely doubtful that the welfare of those whom we purport to help is in fact improved. The assumption that US forces would be widely welcomed as liberators in Iraq and the failure to foresee the outbreak of tribal, religious and simple gang warfare after the fall of Saddam Hussein surely demonstrate the point. The neo-conservatives start from a different position. Originally supporters of interventionist domestic social welfare policies, they eventually became disillusioned with President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programmes. But they still wanted to "moralise" the free market approach. After a period out of the public eye, they burst forth into the foreign policy field. They could not remain silent in the face of the proliferation of repressive regimes abroad and believed the US had a duty to export democracy wherever possible. In practice their desire to engage in "nation-building" is almost indistinguishable from that of the liberal imperialists. Perhaps a difference is that they put less emphasis on international organisations and exhibit a greater willingness to see the US to go it alone. The alternative to both positions is a fairly simple one. It is that western nations have the right and duty to protect themselves not merely from traditional aggression across frontiers but also from terrorism, intolerant religious fundamentalism and other threats to their way of life. This may involve incursions into countries from which the threats emanate. But these should be as limited and as brief as possible. This is approximately the approach of Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary (as distinct from Paul Wolfowitz, his more neo-conservative deputy). Only silly people will dismiss it for that reason. Areas of tolerance, humanity and respect for disinterested learning are quite rare both historically and in geographical extent. The primary duty of western statesmen is to defend the elements of western liberalism that already exist and to concentrate on improving their own societies.
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