Guadalcanal: US Army troops on Hill 43 (Seahorse)
Posted on 11/18/2001 12:41:42 PM PST by annalex
Foreign Policy and Natural Law
By Annalex
A thought has been expressed that any assertive foreign policy, and certainly war on a foreign soil, is antithetical to the principles of free society[1]. I would like to examine the process under which a government charged with an assertive foreign policy could be theoretically established in a society of free individuals under natural law.
Several assumptions are outside the scope of this article. By "natural rights" we understand individual rights that are bracketed solely by the rights of others in the following sense: an action or inaction is naturally rightful if no one else's rightful action or inaction is prevented by it [2]. When an inaction (as opposed to action) is causing a violation of rights, the requisite action becomes a duty. "Natural law" is the body of knowledge that allows, in theory, to determine rightfulness of various actions. Both natural rights and natural law exist prior to establishment of any government (this circumstance, and not any particular relationship with things that are physiologically natural, is the reason for the choice of adjective). A government that violates the natural rights with its statutory law or its executive practices is not just. We assume that individual rights are uniformly understood and practiced by the members of the society. Right to defend one's life and property is among the natural rights. We shall not be concerned with the issues of domestic law enforcement, and we shall assume that a mechanism of law enforcement, based on individual rights is in operation. An approximation of such society would be early colonial America where internal conflicts were resolved through the system of English common law in local courts; no lawmaking body and consequently no statutory law existed as the British government had no practical impact on the life of the early colonies.
We proceed to build a simple model society. Imagine a large area consisting of a grid of individual lots. The area is exposed to an external threat. The precise nature of the threat is of no importance to us. In absence of any cooperation between the owners, the owners of the inside lots have no immediate need for any protection: they piggyback on the defensive efforts of the owners of the peripheral lots. The owners of the peripheral lots, on the other hand, expend a considerable resource defending their lots individually and it is possible that their resource become insufficient and they succumb to the threat.
A basis for voluntary cooperation exists between all lot owners. The inside lots will be better protected if their owners contributed to the defense of the peripheral lots. Depending on the nature of the threat and the topography of the area, a better defense would concentrate on different peripheral lots in different measure, or even operate outside of the perimeter of the entire area. It is therefore natural for our model society to separate the use of the lots from their defense, and develop defensive strategy that is applied to the entire area as one whole. Those lot owners who recognize that will decide between themselves to cooperatively hire a professional security firm charged with the protection of the whole area.
Several problems arise. No security firm will undertake the task unless it has operative control. The firm will insist on its own methods of decision making (usually, top-down, military-style command structure), on a degree of opaqueness (information that flows to the lot owners can end up with the enemy), and on a degree of continuity (the lot owners should not be able to sever their relationship with the firm abruptly). In return, the security firm would submit to periodic review of their activity, receive a limited budget, and adhere to the overall strategic goals as determined by the lot owners.
We also need to consider non-cooperating lot owners. Some peripheral lot owners may, for whatever reason, prefer to do their own defense. Typically, that would be the case with lots that are naturally well protected. Such owners, in effect, will be donating the benefit that their defense yields to the inside lots, preferring to maintain independence. Such owners then secede from our model society and become its friendly neighbors.
Some inside lot owners may also refuse to cooperate. Their refusal though may be unrightful. Indeed, the amount of protection they will receive from the security firm remains substantial whether they pay for it or not, due to their geographical position. By refusing to cooperate, the recalcitrant owner is giving other lot owners a choice to either provide him with security free of charge or remain with inferior protection. Receiving an unpaid-for service is rightful unless the provision of the service is forced. So, if the inferior protection (the one based on strictly voluntary cooperation) is insufficient to protect at least one lot owner, the non-cooperation is unrightful: the non-cooperating owner, by his inaction, forces others to provide him with protection in order for them to fulfill their duty to that vulnerable owner. If, however, the voluntary cooperation method is sufficient to protect everyone, opting out becomes rightful, although, perhaps, unethical.
To summarize, the natural law does not prevent the formation of a professional security force, which maintains its own, (often rigid and undemocratic) command structure, operates in relative secrecy and is subject to periodic policy review but not close day-to-day scrutiny. In the national context, the security force is called the foreign and military departments of the executive branch. It is hired by the taxpayers, is accountable to them and is charged with the defense of their rights against external threats. It may allocate its resources without relation to the geography of the area, both inside and outside of it, as it sees fit for most efficient protection of those who hired it. A society that implements such force may find itself in two distinct states. In a state that we'll call peaceful, voluntarily contributed resources are sufficient to protect even the most vulnerable members of the society. In a wartime state voluntary contributions are inadequate to protect all. Peaceful and wartime states relate only to the dynamics of voluntary support of the security force, and not to an official state of war or presence of hostilities. A society may transition between these two states depending on the severity of the external threats, economics, and the social mood. Mandatory taxation and military draft are rightful in a wartime state. When support of the security force is voluntary, the members of the society become divided in to categories: those who contribute to its support -- protected citizens, and those who don't non-cooperating citizens.
What limits the scope of action of the security force hired, as we described, by some members of the society? It is obligated to respect the natural rights of all, including those who did not hire it, even outside of the area under their protection. It is obligated to defend only the rights of the protected citizens. There is nothing under natural law that would limit its application to any particular geographical area. For example, if a protected citizen suffers a theft of property in another country, defensive, retaliatory and sometimes preemptive force is justified on his behalf there. While that seems contrary to practice, we should remember that the relationship between the security force and the protected citizens is contractual. While an expedition to foreign land in order to retrieve a protected citizen's property is always rightful, it is not likely to be automatically supportable by the provisions of the contract. That is because one security force may find it more efficient to delegate the protection of its clients abroad to another security force operating in that area. Hence the practice of civilized governments to entrust the protection of its citizens to the government under which jurisdiction a threat to the citizen's rights develops, is a matter of convenience under natural law. There is no fundamental reason why the citizen's government cannot reach out and protect his rights even on foreign soil.
Which brings us to the topic of cooperation between areas, or rather between the security forces operating in different areas. Such cooperation makes for a more efficient global defense for the same reason cooperation between individual lot owners made for more efficient local defense. There is nothing in natural law to limit one security force's ability to enter into agreements with another, including clandestine agreements, although the protected members would be wise to insist on some accountability.
In particular, it is always rightful for one individual to come to the defense of another, whose rights are being violated; under some circumstances a rescue becomes not only a right but also a duty. Would it be equally rightful for the protected citizens to commit their security force to the defense of non-citizens? The answer is unequivocally yes when the support of the security force is voluntary. If it is mandatory through taxation or draft, there is no single answer. If the involvement in the defense of foreign citizens increases domestic security in proportion to the increased cost to the taxpayer, then the involvement remains rightful. Such is the situation when a common threat is directed at an ally, upon whose demise the threat will become direct. If the involvement were purely altruistic, then it would violate the rights of the non-cooperating citizens and is, therefore, unrightful. This analysis supports Ayn Rand's conclusion that foreign intervention is just when it is directed against an illegitimate government and is aligned with the national interest [3].
All of the above outlines the role of executive branch of governments in foreign policy. Although it makes the provision for coercive taxation, overall the U.S. Constitution follows the natural law with remarkable precision [4]. The foreign relations and the military are run opaquely in a top-down fashion, subject to indirect and incomplete review by the taxpayers through the congressional advise and consent process and the overall approval in the elections. The Constitution does not limit that application of the military in any considerable way (the only constraints are that the National Guard must be deployed domestically and the military budget be reviewed every two years). No limit is placed on entering into treaties with foreign powers. While it can be argued that "entangling alliances" are bad foreign policy, no provision against them is made in the Constitution. Under natural law, a security firm hired to protect an area may be fired if certain process is followed; obviously, two security firms may not make contractual obligations between themselves that transcend the relationships with their clients, and similarly, the executive branch should not be able to make treaties without ratification by the legislature. Other that this procedural requirement, we see no further restraint on the foreign policy that stems from the natural law, and none can be found in the U.S. Constitution.
*** NOTES:
[1] "the proper foreign policy is no foreign policy at all", Architect in Defense of Liberty: Just Intervention (#86)
[2] Pursuit of Liberty: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Rights
[3] Ayn Rand, Collectivist Rights
Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba, or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent 'rights' of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses (pg. 122).[4] Constitution for the United States of America, in particular Article I Section 8 and Article II Section 2.(Quoted in Defense of Liberty: Just Intervention).
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Defense of Liberty: Two Articles On Anti-Terrorist Policy by Peikoff
Defense of Liberty: Just Intervention
The topic of national self-determination was discussed in:
Defense of Liberty: Attila In a Boeing
Defense of Liberty. National Self-Determination: An International Political Lie
This summarizes my own views.
Guadalcanal: US Army troops on Hill 43 (Seahorse)
For example, a swimmer capable of rescuing a drowning person, when no one else can render help, violates the drowning person's rights if he inacts. That is because his inaction -- not the incident that caused the vicim to fall into water -- is the immediate and wilful cause of death.
It is true that if there are two or more bystanders uniquely capable of preventing a certain injury to rights, then the duty dilutes among them.
Men drawn from all over the country man the border points. The outer lots themselves are armed to the teeth. Booby traps are everywhere. All this made the country an extremely unattractive target. And, in fact, no one has dared attack the country since Napoleon (after which the Swiss learned the principle of turning the entire country into an armed camp).
Both the French and the Germans drew up plans to attack through Switzerland in WWI. Both rejected them. Hitler never attacked even though he had the country entirely surrounded. After WWII, the country learned another lesson. Supplies are stockpiled in order to wait out a seige of many years.
The Swiss approach is to draw a line in the sand and tell the world that any attempt to cross it will be met with overwhelming force. The Swiss would never make incursions into neighboring countries, except in hot pursuit of enemy forces. This is collective self-defense. It works. The neutrality of the Swiss is respected everywhere and is almost never violated, even by non-governmental forces.
I have little disagreement with the concepts you bring up in this article. The problem is certain people equate self-defense with attacking other countries "in defense". Attacking other countries is not defense at all. It is attack.
Let's say that Israel drew a similar line in the sand. Then we might well decide to include it inside our defense perimeter. But it doesn't. It is the only country in the world which refuses to outline the boundaries it claims. This is precisely because Zionism is an expansive force which has, from the beginning, insisted on growing Israeli boundaries by force. And continues to do so today.
Therefore, including Israel inside a defensive perimeter is a contradiction in terms. Israel does not defend. It attacks. All American troubles with the rest of the world have come from our insistence on defining attack as defense.
The liberal project is to take this simple truth and distort it in three ways: assume away all knowledge that the doer has (everyone's stupid); convert the duty to inform into a duty to stop the harmful action (mandate seat belts); and attach that inflated duty to everyone (the taxpayer), rather than to the "bystanders" in a unique position to help, such as relatives or professionals.
Another security model wholly supportable by the natural law is this. The security firm identifies the security threat repeatedly coming from one particular location -- say, a camp of thieves up in the hills. The attackers always have the element of surprise on their side. The security firm recommends raiding the thieves' camp rather than going through the expense and aggravation of building up walls, getting armed to the teeth, and expecting an attack at all times. There is nothing unlawful in that policy either.
History here at FreeRepublic would suggest that annalex is not a liberal. You (and I) disagree with him that not saving someone is violating their rights, but that doesn't make him a liberal in any sense.
If Israel offered to return to the only boundaries over which it has even a smidgeon of a legal claim, those of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, this war would be over in an instant.
Even the Palestinians don't ask for this, and haven't for about 30 years. Their position is that the lands stolen in 1967 have to be returned, together with compensation for lands stolen in 1948-9. This show how far we have moved from legality to a recognition the realities of American and Israeli coups de force.
IMHO, the only reason you support this despicable notion of "attack as defense" is precisely because you support Zionism. It is also why Rand and Peikoff abandoned their principles too.
Not necessarily. Under natural law there are only individuals that carry their perimeter with them; and there are their properties that have their own perimeters. The security firm they hire may draw a perimeter where it's rightful if it thinks it is a good defensive strategy, but it doesn't have to.
The example in the article describes a contiguous area with lots inside only in order to illustrate the need for the individuals to cooperate. There is nothing sacrosanct about this large border, since only individual lots constitute rightful property.
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