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good afternoon everyone welcome I'm Kal Raustiala I direct the UCLA Burkle
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Center for international relations and
it's a great pleasure to welcome all of
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you here today to our annual Bernard Brodie lecture on the conditions of peace
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the Brodie lecture was first given almost
40 years ago I think next year is
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actually the 40th anniversary of this
lecture since then we've had the honor
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of welcoming as Brody lecture as many
many interesting and distinguished
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foreign policy luminaries I'll just name
a few for context Secretary of Defense
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bill Perry President Jimmy Carter Prime
Minister of Japan Yasuhiro Nakasone a un
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secretary-general ban ki-moon ambassador
to Russia Mike McFaul and Los Angeles's
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own congressman Adam Schiff the Brody
lecture celebrates the memory of Bernard
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Brody as a famed teacher and scholar of
international relations and strategy and
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I've the great pleasure today of
welcoming to UCLA professor Joe Nye in a
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moment professor and I will get a proper
introduction
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but I'll just say a few words about how
we're going to conduct the lecture and
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then I'll invite Chancellor emeritus
Carnesale to introduce professor and I
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so professor now is gonna speak up here
for about 20 minutes or so then he and I
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are gonna take these two chairs if
you've been to this before you've seen
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this set up we'll talk for a little
while and then we'll open it up time
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permitting for questions from you
so they're a handheld microphones please
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raise your hands wait for me to call on
you and please keep your questions short
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and to the point so as as I mentioned
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Chancellor emeritus Carnesale will
introduce Joe Nye Chancellor Carnesale
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is a I would say a longtime friend of
the Buerkle Center but most importantly
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for today's purposes he's a long-term
friend of Joe Nye they work together
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at the Kennedy School where al was both
Dean and then Provost of Harvard they've
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done many many things together and so I
thought it was appropriate to have him
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do the welcome so please join me in
welcoming Chancellor Aparna South Thank
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You Kal it really is a pleasure to
introduce my friend longtime friend and
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colleague Joan I we were colleagues
well more than a couple of decades and
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friends for twice that long or a little
a little more I also want to welcome
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Molly Joe's wife hi Molly
Joe is a leading political scientist and
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that's understating it he's been named
the most influential scholar in
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international relations not a bad
background Princeton Rhodes Scholar
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Oxford Harvard ph.d Harvard faculty
immediately after the PhD now as you can
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see University Distinguished Service
professor emeritus at Harvard and the
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distinguished really does apply we think
of the university what it said about
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teaching research and service
Joe is distinguished in all three let me
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say a little bit about research and
scholarship the recent count is 14 books
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and well more than hundred 50 articles
remarkable depth and breadth so his
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areas of specialty areas in which I
would consider man most people consider
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them expert moral and political
philosophy political theory history
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international relations national
security politics
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real politics in the US and elsewhere
policy analysis and that combined with
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wisdom and judgment makes him a pretty
good scholar some examples of his work
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to give you an idea of the breadth not
by picking times I forgot to figure one
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book from each decade will give you one
idea pan-africanism an East African
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integration not what you would think of
first but it gives you an idea next
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decade transnational relations in world
politics next decade nuclear ethics so
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he's thought about these morality
questions before in the same decade I
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might mention he published a much more
important book called Hawks doves in
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owls an agenda for avoiding nuclear war
of which Graham Allison hi were
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co-authors
the joke and 90's is bound to lead the
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changing nature of American power in the
2000s the power game the subtitle is a
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Washington novel just to give you an
idea of the breadth it's a novel um
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2010 presidential leadership and the
creation of the American era and now
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this his most recent book just this year
do morals matter presidents and foreign
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policy from FDR to trump teaching a
devoted teacher and mentor undergraduate
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and graduate students his undergraduate
course and international relations was
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the most popular undergraduate course at
Harvard for a good while and to
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audiences beyond academia as well
service academic service many leadership
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roles Dean of the Kennedy School in
government important positions deputy to
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the Undersecretary of State for security
assistance science and technology that
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really meant in the Carter
Administration the guy that worried
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about nuclear proliferation and tried to
do something about it chair of the
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National Intelligence Council that's the
group that produces the National
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Intelligence Estimates the most
important big-picture Intelligence
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Estimates in the US and then assistant
secretary defense for international
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security affairs so he seeks it achieves
excellence in essentially everything he
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does research teaching and service
leadership intellectual and
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organisational awards too numerous to
mention as a colleague and friend as a
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fly fisherman and as a gardener nobody's
better as a matter of fact I must end
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this with one honest thing to let you
all know of the greatest failure in
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Joanie's life was trying to instill in
me the rudimentary skills required for
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fly-fishing now I'm willing to take
responsibility for his failure but it's
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a failure nonetheless so on that note
let me
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introduce and welcome the UCLA my friend
Joseph Nye thank you very much I'll for
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that excessively generous introduction I
should say that when I tried to take out
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fly-fishing and I was showing them how
to cast and it was a very windy day and
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my line kept getting caught on branches
at you know the wind would take it up
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and instead of landing on the water it
caught owl looks at me he says oh I get
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it
fish live in trees and more to the point
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is that generous introduction is often
countered by the fact that when our sons
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were younger and people would call the
house and say his doctor neither they
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would answer yes but he's not the useful
kind which is particularly relevant now
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with the problems of covent so forth but
it's a real honor for me to be here at
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UCLA and to deliver the Brody lecture
when I as a graduate student I read
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Bernhard Brody's books and we are trying
to make sense at that time what
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difference nuclear weapons were making
to the world we knew they were big we
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knew they made a huge difference but
thinking through what deterrence meant
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how you could have a safe system and so
forth Bernhard Brody was a real pioneer
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on that and his early work really has
stood this test of time
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many people who followed him who did
much more elaborate calculations really
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didn't go beyond some of the original
insights that that Brody had so it's an
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honor for me to be able to to give the
Brody lecture but and I'll come back to
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that in in a minute or two about when
you talk about nuclear weapons but I
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people ask me why which
at this stage write a book about morals
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and do morals matter and put a question
mark in the title and the answer is to a
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large extent because I don't think we do
a very good job of thinking about morals
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and foreign policy we we talk about it
but but don't do a very good job
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thinking about it and when I was
studying international politics or
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international relations the conventional
wisdom is Montano there was a danger at
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being moralistic you know Woodrow Wilson
was a negative effect in this view Hans
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Morgenthau George Kennan and others
argued that basically the danger for
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Americans was a moralistic tradition and
we were taught to just being realistic
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Ahsan the hard reality of things and not
to get not to get too concerned about
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morals and that was part of the way
people were trained and if you look at
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the literature Huw Google books on
morality and American foreign policy
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it's surprising there's very little work
that's done to actually think hard about
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it there's there ought there are lots of
criticisms there are a few books on it
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but it's as I mentioned the preface of
my new book it's not a career enhancing
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move for a young scholar but fortunately
I'm an old scholar so I can can't get
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away with it but the conventional wisdom
is that basically morality doesn't
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matter that interests bake the cake it's
all national interests that matters in
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fact I remember when I was in the State
Department talking to a French diplomat
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we were at some diplomatic event
relating to nuclear weapons and I said
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you know there's some really hard moral
issues here that we're wrestling with he
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said I don't worry about
morality at all he said the only thing I
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think is matters is the interests of
France and it I don't think it never
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occurred of what a profound moral
judgment he had just made but there is a
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great tendency of this so the
conventional wisdom has been interest
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baked the cake and then politicians come
around and they sprinkle a little moral
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icing on it to make it look pretty but
basically you know the icing is just for
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glorification it's really the interests
that bake the cake trouble with that is
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it seems to me it misses error
misrepresent what's actually happening
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in history so in this book what I've
tried to do is two things one I've tried
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to look at the 14 presidents since 1945
and look carefully at how they made
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certain decisions and ask the question
if you took the cynical view that morals
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don't matter
would you get history wrong and I think
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I've shown that indeed if you have that
cynical view you're gonna get history
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wrong you're not going to understand
what really happened and I'll give you
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example of that in a second the other
purpose of the book is okay if morals do
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matter how should we think about it and
in that part of the book I try to say
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here here's the criteria for a good
moral reasoning about foreign policy as
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opposed to cheap shots or easy ways out
of cop-outs if you want now on on the
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first issue or the first question did
morals matter in history were they
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actually an important ingredient of the
cake I suppose - icing sprinkled on it
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and this brings me back to Bernhard
Brody the best example of this I could I
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have in the book but there I think there
are many others but just the one I find
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most appropriate for a Brody lecture is
Harry Truman
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Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki many people have
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condemned him for that and there was a
philosopher at Oxford who refused to go
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to the honorary degrees ceremony for
Harry Truman in 1948 and she said she
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would never attend the ceremony or
honors being given to a mass murderer
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and that when Truman dropped the atomic
bomb he was a mass murderer and so there
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is a tradition of saying you know Truman
is a villain because of this but it's
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also worth remembering that at that time
we didn't know much about atomic bombs
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we didn't know they're full of facts
they were very new and Truman came into
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this game kind of late all the major
decisions have been made by not only
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Franklin Roosevelt who kept who didn't
inform Truman on much of anything as
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vice president but also buying this vast
machinery of the Manhattan Project which
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was secret properly and making a set of
decisions that led to the preparation of
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the atomic weapon and it was a war in
which there'd been a breach of the
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traditional views that you didn't bomb
cities and kill civilians morality he
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had deteriorated badly in World War two
and so Truman gets into office and the
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question put to him is will we go ahead
with this and his answer is yes and he
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says in his memoirs I didn't lose much
sleep over it you know I think of the
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number of American lives that would be
lost if I didn't go ahead with these
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bombs he said no I you know this this
was not a hard decision and Truman it
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was described by general groves who was
the head of the Atomic Energy Commission
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or discern sorry yet that before the
atomic entry head of the Manhattan
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Project which later evolved and the
Truman who was described by groves as
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being like a boy who was put on the back
of a toboggan which is already heading
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downhill in principle he could have
fallen off or he could have stopped he
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could have tried to stop it legally he
had the authority to stop it but you
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know in reality there wasn't very much
that he could do and this is why he said
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he didn't lose any sleep over it but
let's take the story a few steps further
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the United States had three bombs and a
third bomb had been forward base to
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Tinian to be dropped a week later after
Nagasaki and Truman said no you may not
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drop a third bomb and he said I'm not
going to kill any more women and
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children which is a very interesting
quick moral response to what we learned
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about the evidence of atomic weapons on
civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
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even more important is to fast forward
five years to 1950 when the Americans
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were losing the Korean War China had
crossed the Yalu River was pushing
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American forces down to the tail or
bottom of the peninsula and it looked
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very much as though we were going to
lose Truman was advised that if we lost
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or stalemated the war it would destroy
his presidency his chances of running
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for election again re-election in 1952
would be destroyed and Truman said no
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I'm not going to do it General MacArthur
came to him who was then the commander
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the Far Eastern theater MacArthur said
if you allow me to drop 25 to 40 atomic
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bombs on Chinese cities Oh
win this war for you and Truman again
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said no I'm not gonna kill that many
women and children that was quite an
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extraordinary moral decision notice
something which Thomas Schelling the
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Nobel laureate who in his Nobel laureate
lecture said the nuclear taboo was one
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of the most important decisions that was
taken in the last 75 years and if Truman
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had decided that differently if he had
treated nuclear weapons as normal war
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fighting weapons as opposed to weapons
which were used for deterrence only the
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world that we live in today would look
very very different and in that sense if
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you treat morality justice icing
sprinkled on the cake you got history
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wrong
Truman's moral views that he was not
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going to save his political skin or
interpret the American national interest
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as involving this destruction of women
and children that was a profound
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importance in terms of the way history
evolved it wasn't just icing it won as
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the was one of the key ingredients in
the cake and I think it's appropriate to
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recall that in a Bernhard Brody lecture
because this was what Brody wrestled
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with so I would submit that in the title
of my book do morals matter with a
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question mark perhaps it's not
surprising that I conclude the answer is
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yes morals do matter but the more
important question is okay the matter
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how you think about them and as you try
to deal with this you realize that very
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often we talk in about moral issues in
foreign policy but we do in a very
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shallow way for example there is the
tradition of American accept
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we Americans think ourselves as a moral
people therefore we do it it's good well
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you know that's quite a non sequitur or
we'll say if it turned out all right
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it's good that's also a non sequitur or
people will say if our intentions are
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good then it's good which is also a non
sequitur let me give you a concrete
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example of that and the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 if you look at George W Bush
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Bush 43 as he sometimes called people
ask you know where his intentions good
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some people doubt it they say Bush lied
and boys died I don't that's true the
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general consensus in intelligence
communities not just in the US but
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around the world was that Saddam Hussein
had weapons of mass destruction
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I think Bush believed that and I also
believe that if you could convert Iraq
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into a democracy you could maybe get at
the roots of terrorism so in that sense
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some of his defenders have said he was
moral innovating Iraq ari fleischer his
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press secretary said you have to admire
Bush's moral clarity he had a freedom
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agenda and whether it worked or not
doesn't matter
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he had this freedom agenda and it
therefore he was moral and what he did
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I find that extraordinarily shallow
moral thinking to just judge by
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attentions and I've argued that you
really need to think in three dimensions
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to have good moral appraisal or moral
reasoning you have to think of
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intentions and motives you have to think
of the beans and you have to think of
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the consequences so I call that 3d
and something like Fleischer's Comet
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that it was good intentions is just not
that's one third of the 3d if you want
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it's not adequate moral reasoning I
sometimes use is homely example which is
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in the book which is imagine that your
child is out at a high school dance but
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she has SATs tomorrow morning and
Frances I'll bring her home but get her
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home early
don't worry and picks her up the dance
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doesn't notice that it's rain the road
is slick and wet drives 80 miles an hour
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skids off the road hits a tree and your
child is killed would you say oh that's
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okay you had good intentions of course
not you would have said inappropriate
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means and failure to think through
unintended consequences which could be
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highly immoral and that I think is
pretty much what happened in Iraq even
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if you grant Bush the benefit of the
doubt on his intentions in terms of the
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means he did not have the means to
accomplish them there were many studies
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done in the State Department and in the
intelligence agencies that showed that
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you couldn't really we didn't have the
means to reconstruct Iraq properly we
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couldn't bring democracy to Iraq and
what Bush and the White House did was
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shut that all aside it didn't pay any
attention to it it went ahead anyway and
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then if you ask about the consequences
the consequences of Bush's actions were
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that you stimulated a civil war between
Sunni and Shia in Iraq and you laid the
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basis for a strengthening of al Qaeda in
Iraq which later became Isis the Islamic
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state was who had horrible Khan
sequences so you could argue that
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there's quite similarity between my
little road accident and this complex
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international relations but in analyzing
each of them we want to think in three
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dimensions we one don't want to settle
just for good intentions therefore
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that's a moral act so I think the the
key in terms of thinking about morality
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and foreign policy is to make sure that
we don't take the easy way out we don't
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do just one dimension but think of all
three and I'm not the first to think
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about this this actually has a long
tradition which goes back to just war
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theory remember st. Augustine in the
fourth century it was wrestling with the
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dilemma that as the Roman Empire decayed
and there was increasing disorder and
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increasing violence what should he do
about thou shalt not kill and his
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dilemma was if the good didn't kill in
self-defense then evil would prevail and
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the good would vanish from the earth so
he developed the view that killing in
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self-defense was morally acceptable but
if the self-defense wasn't there then
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there was no justification so that if
somebody was about to attack you you
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could use your force to kill them but if
they drop their sword or their gun or
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whatever and stop threatening your life
and put their hands up
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you no longer could kill them there was
no longer imminent self-defense and that
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developed over the centuries to be a
doctrine which is enshrined in
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international humanitarian law the
Geneva Conventions and in the US Code
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Uniform Code of Military Justice
so it's been secularized and adopted and
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in the basic premises of Just War theory
you have you have to have all three
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dimensions as I mentioned you have to
have just cause you have to have means
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which make distinctions between
combatants and non-combatants you have
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to have proportionality in the means you
can't just kill wanton way for it self
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defense and you also in terms of
consequences you have to have a
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reasonable prospect of success those
three dimensions which really come down
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to us over the centuries are pretty good
initial framework for how we should be
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thinking about morality in international
politics now life is always more complex
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than in any formula but I would argue
that it's a good framework to start with
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now it becomes more complex for example
when we talk about good intentions you
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have to realize that the stated
intention is that most political leaders
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are going to tell you are going to be
good that's how they get elected they're
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not going to say I'm about to go and do
evil the interesting question is do they
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have the emotional stability emotional
IQ to prevent their emotional needs from
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distorting their attentions so that
their motives are in line with the
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intent stated intentions an example of
this would be in Vietnam both Jack
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Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson their stated
intention was to save South Vietnamese
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from totalitarian communism imposed by
the north but their motives turned out
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to be slightly different because of
their different emotional needs McGeorge
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Bundy who was a hawk on Vietnam and who
advised both
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Kennedy and Johnson said later in life
after he'd retired he's asked what would
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Kennedy have done if he had not been
assassinated Bundy said Kennedy probably
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would have been reelected and would have
got out and he said the reason is that
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Kennedy wanted to be seen as smart
Johnson of course did something very
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different
he sent five hundred sixty-five thousand
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American combat troops into Vietnam
which ultimately led to 58,000 American
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deaths even though he knew that the war
was not going well and as he put it it
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was interfering with what he really
loved which was the Great Society and
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his one point he says that bitch of a
war is interfering with the woman I
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loved the Great Society and yet he went
ahead anyway and the reason according to
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Bundy in tarns and others who study this
is Johnson emotionally having grown up
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in Texas and being worried about being
seen as botch oh and his father's image
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Johnson was most afraid of being seen as
a coward and he felt that if he was the
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man who lost Vietnam he would be seen as
a coward so even though the stated
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intentions of Kennedy and Johnson were
the same they're different emotional
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needs twisted their motives into
something which was quite different in
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terms of its consequences so we have a
we have to realize that there are many
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nuances as we think about votives means
and consequences on consequences there's
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also some very important differences
which you get into in terms of the the
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context of the decision and how much you
can know with any complex social
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phenomena and particularly foreign
policy which deals with the events
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international nature there are many all
sorts of unintended consequences and so
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how should we judge somebody if there
are unintended consequences should we
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say well nice try but you didn't get it
but that's okay you get a bye on this
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round
probably not I think what we would say
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is how good was your contextual IQ how
good was your ability to think through
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and make major efforts to assess on
possibility of unintended consequences
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to assess risk so and that is where the
hardest kinds of calls are made for
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example if you look at unintended
consequences I and go back to my example
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of Bush 43 in Iraq the fault I think for
Bush was he didn't understand much about
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International Affairs unlike his father
who I great very highly in my book
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because he had extraordinary knowledge
of internationally or as the younger
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Bush didn't understand a lot about
international affairs and he didn't make
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the effort that he needed to learn well
or see he didn't you should not have
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discarded all those State Department
studies which was done partly out of
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bureaucratic politics his intentions
let's assume they were moral the moral
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intentions led him to inappropriate
means and a failure to think carefully
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and clearly about the prospect of
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highly immoral and when we look at that
we can say yes everybody is likely to
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suffer unintended consequences at some
point but did they make a major good
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faith effort to anticipate that and to
assess the risks of it and in law we
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call that due diligence
others if you have done due diligence
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you get a bye for having at least made
that every day and if you haven't done
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due diligence then we call that in law
culpable negligence and I think the same
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goes for the issues of moral judgments
about consequences which is did the
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decision-maker do due diligence and if
not was it culpable negligence now there
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are some cases that always turn out more
difficult than that Henry Kissinger once
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said that the interesting thing is that
most issues of international morality
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wind up in the sort of the range between
51 and 49 percent when you balance and
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wait the motives means and consequences
you have to make adjustments and you
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often get a lot of things that come out
to narrow margins but at least if you
332
have a framework you're not going to
have the sort of cheap and easy cop-out
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because we did it it's good or because
it turned out right it's okay or because
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we had good stated intentions everything
is moral and what I've tried to do in
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the book is demonstrate not only that
morals matter and if you deny that
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you're gonna get history wrong but if
they matter we've got to do a better job
337
of thinking of them in all three
dimensions and realizing that these easy
338
cop-outs are not sufficient one final
word I'll say before ending and having
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our conversation cow is when you assess
consequences you don't just take the
340
consequences of the particular action
you have to think of the consequences
341
for the system as a whole and future
actions philosophers sometimes call is
342
the difference between act utilitarian
and rule utilitarian if I'm an act
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utilitarian I look at
particular action and I say was this the
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greatest good for the greatest number in
this act and you know that's one way to
345
do it but suppose if I do a decision
this way in this particular act I break
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a set of rules or institutions that will
affect all future actions don't I have
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to calculate the consequences of that as
I make my decision that's a rule
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utilitarian as opposed to an act
utilitarian a lot of what we're seeing
349
today is to discount the effect of
breaking rules and destroying
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institutions a lot of what we're seeing
is essentially very short run Act
351
utilitarian transactional approaches and
I think that's a mistake I think there
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is a conventional wisdom that
international politics because there's
353
no higher law or higher government to
enforce the law is like the game of
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prisoner's dilemma which there's a great
incentive for prisoners who are caught
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by the police to squeal on each other
essentially to cheat on each other to
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defect and that's often the model is in
Chapter one of the textbooks but there's
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a political scientist at University of
Michigan Robert Axelrod who did a
358
computer tournament and he said to a
group all right we're gonna play this
359
game not once but many many times
together and whereas if you play this
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game once there's a strong incentive to
cheat but if you play it again and again
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and again you find that the optimal
strategy is to have reciprocity what he
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called tit-for-tat you cheat on round
one I'll cheat on you round two you can
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cooperate I'll cooperate and so forth
and what Axelrod found was that this
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expectation that the game was going to
go on created what he called a long
365
shadow
of the future and institutions and rules
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and norms create a long shadow of the
future and that's what bothers me about
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some of the ways in which we're
approaching foreign policy today we're
368
discounting institutions and discounting
that long shadow of the future and the
369
net result of that is I think we're
selling our own future short the I think
370
the better better for for how to think
about morality and foreign policy is
371
that used by George Shultz who was
Reagan's Secretary of State
372
we should had better to think of foreign
policy is like gardening you cultivate
373
you trim you we you you proceed but
you're playing this for a long range and
374
that's very different from a
transactional approach which says each
375
of these operations like a real estate
deal I win you lose this zero-sum and
376
then we go on to the next deal in the
next deal the next deal I think that
377
this whole question of thinking of
morals has to think not just of act
378
utilitarian each transaction but a rule
utilitarian which includes the long
379
shadow of future and these international
institutions do create that long shadow
380
of the future and that essentially
allows for greater range for morality in
381
foreign policy so I would submit that
yes morals matter in foreign policy if
382
you don't believe that you're going to
get history wrong and that if you accept
383
it you have to accept it in terms of
thinking of all three dimensions of
384
morality motives means and consequences
and include in the consequences
385
institutions and oral frameworks as well
as the particular actions so let me end
386
there and turn to our conversation all
right well thank you so much for for
387
coming out and for that lecture
so I thought what we could start with a
388
couple of questions were based on your
your book and your your remarks tonight
389
and then maybe open it up a little bit
MMN to the audience so so maybe first
390
thing on the case for morals mattering I
had understood Morgenthau and others as
391
making a normative critique that
Americans traditionally focused too much
392
on morals or at least at that time did
in our foreign policy and that that led
393
to mistakes and I think you made a
pretty convincing case that it also
394
leads to a miss read of history but it
doesn't necessarily answer the question
395
of whether we ought to be focusing on
morals so can you speak to that a little
396
bit is that something that we should be
doing why I think the the conventional
397
wisdom in the period after World War two
that Morgenthau ave georgetown and made
398
the same points was that we had gone
through a very moralistic period under
399
Woodrow Wilson Wilson wanted to create a
League of Nations didn't have the
400
capacity or the means to do it
and in the process of trying had
401
terrible consequences because it failed
and they led to an isolationist reaction
402
against it
so I think with what Morgenthau and
403
Kenan and their generation of post-war
intellectuals were trying to do was
404
protect us against the mistakes of World
War one and it's aftermath and
405
particularly the isolationism of the 30s
and I think I grew that I think they're
406
right I mean they if you are too
moralistic and don't have the means to
407
carry it out you can have terrible
consequences which is my little example
408
the road accidental Iraq but it is
interesting to me that and essentially
409
they overdid it George Kennan who wrote
a classic work called American diplomacy
410
in 1950 which was highly critical
Woodrow Wilson by the late 1980s Kenan
411
said you know I've revised my opinion of
Wilson maybe he wasn't quite so bad
412
for all so I I think I agree with their
premise but I think they overdid it so
413
let me ask you about those specifics of
the president so you talk about 14
414
presidents in the book maybe give us a
sense of one or two surprises that you
415
found things you didn't expect you sort
of alluded to one which is the Bush 41
416
that you've you've evaluate him quite
highly in the book and you didn't
417
necessarily expect that but are there
others that you want to point out well
418
it's interesting that Bush 41 I had
spent a good part of 1988 trying to
419
prevent it being president obviously not
very effectively and I had to in as a
420
story in there analysts say you know I
was wrong and so I think Bush 41 was
421
extraordinary in the sense that he had a
great emotional intelligence remember
422
when people said to him celebrate these
fall of the wall he said I'm not going
423
to dance on the wall I've got to deal
with Gorbachev so he resisted the the
424
braggadocio temptation and he also had
great contextual intelligence the
425
questions of how do you end a cold war
with Germany inside NATO and not a shot
426
being far fired required extraordinary
understanding of the nuances of
427
international politics so that's that's
why I revised my opinion on but there
428
there are others that I also revised my
opinion on I was much more critical
429
Truman frankly before I started doing
the more detailed research on his
430
positions on nuclear weapons and the
more I read more I uncovered the more I
431
said gee this guy it was a lot better I
used to think that Hiroshima Nagasaki
432
was a tough call on utilitarian grounds
and you know that was it it was actually
433
a much more
interesting and nuanced evolution that
434
Truman had and it's also interesting
there it the role of emotional
435
intelligence Harry Truman never went to
university he was a very simple man who
436
spent a lot of his life as a farmer
before World War one and I but he knew
437
who he was he had he had emotional
intelligence he wasn't going to be you
438
know stampeded and in that sense
Truman turned out to be another who rose
439
up even higher in my estimation than
they expected a third would be Jimmy
440
Carter I had worked for Jimmy Carter I'm
high then criticized and still
441
criticized his tendency to get absorbed
in details as people said you know they
442
said Jimmy Carter couldn't tell the
forest from the trees but some people
443
said no he couldn't tell the trees from
the leaves but but I think that kind of
444
character of Carter turns out to be
wrong he took some really tough
445
principled decisions which were costly
to him politically but because he had a
446
larger vision that one was decision to
give back the Panama Canal right away
447
when his staff told him there's no waste
a lot of political Apple don't do it if
448
he hadn't you could have imagined
guerrilla movements in many Latin
449
American countries which would have been
you know a nasty legacy or a nasty
450
spread if you want and also his general
raising of the profile of human rights
451
in American foreign policy I think
deserves more credit I think the time
452
Carter is going to look better than we
assessed in
453
at the time so yeah but this is always
true with history anytime you look at
454
something and you you you look at in
history you have new information and new
455
perspectives from the from the current
time and that leads you or it should
456
lead you to make some reassures so those
are all examples of upgrade upgrade
457
downgrades well downgrades are I mean
that's less yeah exciting i well richard
458
nixon is generally celebrated as a on
foreign policy only now I'm not talking
459
about Watergate and so forth who
generally celebrated as a foreign policy
460
genius and that you know he his opening
to China was great it redeemed all his
461
other problems when you look more
carefully at Nixon's foreign policy he
462
did a lousy job on foreign economic
policy he basically didn't care about it
463
and what it led to was an unleashing of
a rampant inflation which led to major
464
problems in the international system as
well as the American economy in addition
465
to that there's a whole question of how
he left Vietnam in when Nixon came into
466
office in 69 he and Kissinger did an
assessment of what were the prospects
467
for winning the Vietnam War and decided
it was unwinnable and the question is
468
what do you do there were people like
Senator Aiken of Vermont who were saying
469
declare victory and get out and centered
Russell of Georgia that a similar view
470
Nixon and Kissinger said no we have to
have a decent interval between when we
471
leave and when the North takes over and
that term decent interval led us to
472
continue fighting and it cost twenty two
thousand American lives and in the end
473
the time between when we signed a peace
accord with the North Vietnamese and
474
when the north of these took over Saigon
turned out to be two two years and that
475
is about 10,000 American lives a year is
that the right trade-off I mean he did
476
it for credibility in our overall
foreign policy it's not clear that that
477
was necessary I mean there may have been
alternatives so I the idea that Nixon
478
was a foreign policy genius I give him
full credit for the opening to China but
479
as the more I looked at this a more I
said that the foreign economic policy
480
was a mess and that the policy on
Vietnam was marginal the framework that
481
you laid out in your remarks would you
apply that generally to questions of
482
morality I guess another way to put the
question is what's distinctive about
483
foreign policy when we're thinking in
Walter well I think you can I mean this
484
is why I use this simplistic example of
the road accident you you can apply to
485
anything and morality I think what's
different in foreign policy is the
486
complexity of the situation if you if
you think about foreign policy the it
487
with so many different countries
different cultures different power
488
structures changing context the prospect
of unintended consequences going to be
489
much higher and it's harder than to
think through the risks so the due
490
diligence is a tougher job and I think
in that sense a foreign policy is the
491
framework can be applied to anything but
I think it's tougher in foreign policy
492
because of the difficulty of doing the
due diligence about unintended
493
consequences does that suggest greater
caution because we have adversaries in
494
the foreign policy and texts and those
adversaries are going to react maybe
495
well it does
does suggest that caution and prudence
496
are more than instrumental virtue in
foreign policy it means that the
497
prudence is you know it's there's
something like a Hippocratic oath and
498
foreign policy first do no harm
doesn't mean do nothing but it does mean
499
that err on the side of being awfully
cautious you know be careful before you
500
unleash the dogs of war and so it does
lead to a greater emphasis on prudence
501
and now you could argue that our time
when prudence is inappropriate
502
you know Chamberlain and after Munich
should vote her not as prudent so if
503
you're faced with a Hitler and you know
it's a Hitler and you can you can
504
understand some of the likely
consequences of not standing up to
505
Hitler then prudence is not a virtue but
on the other hand if you're dealing with
506
a very complex situation such as Libya
in 2011 maybe you ought to be more
507
prudent than we were I mean what we did
was use military force to prevent
508
Qadhafi from destroying or killing
civilians in Benghazi but we hadn't
509
thought through the fact whether the
Europeans were up to their part of it
510
what did you do if after you've
protected the civilians in Benghazi what
511
did you do about Qaddafi and if you
allow the mission to morph into regime
512
change and you left chaos did you have a
plan for let's say a massive UN
513
peacekeeping operation or something to
stabilize situation none of that
514
occurred and the net effect of that was
in an unintended consequences was that
515
when we tried to do something about
Syria the Russians and the Chinese would
516
veto every UN resolution we
tried to pass to get some action on
517
Syria and they said it's because look at
what you the mess you made in Libya so
518
in addition to the mess that's in Libya
today there's the contribution to the
519
mess in in Syria so I think in that
sense you know the prudence it's hard I
520
mean Obama in in his various interviews
and retrospective has said that said I
521
intervened in Libya
I didn't intervene in Syria and I'm
522
criticized for both but there may be
more of a connection between the two it
523
does seem like the the last 20 years
it's hard to assess the mood of a nation
524
like ours but the last 20 years have led
to a time in which is increasing concern
525
about the day after problem and a lot of
questioning of things that I think were
526
viewed as at the time maybe reasonable
choices now seem imprudent because we
527
couldn't deal with the aftermath of
racism but well it's a good example this
528
is the current situation in Afghanistan
after the Taliban hosted al Qaeda and al
529
Qaeda then planned and bounded attacks
on us from their bases in Afghanistan
530
the question of should we have gone in
as we did had defeated al Qaeda and
531
basically driven them out of or some
people would say not driven out loud
532
that escape from Afghanistan but
essentially in early 2002
533
should we have said you've done what you
needed to do is a basic minimum now
534
withdraw or should we have stayed and
tried to construct an effective Afghan
535
state and we have not done that
effectively and it's lasted there what
536
is the saying that there young men
fighting in Afghanistan today who
537
weren't even born when we started this
and there's an interesting article in
538
the LA Times day by Andy bass of itch
saying that this was not a success so
539
the question is are there some
situations in which you know you're
540
better off making a statement going in
and getting out than trying to cure the
541
whole situation because you're not
capable of hearing the whole situation
542
it's ok let's pivot to a couple of
broader bright issues as al said you've
543
covered so many different things and so
I just want to ask you a few I guess a
544
few questions about fly-fishing so I
didn't notice your tie how's that that's
545
right I wore that for Al so maybe we
could start with coronavirus so you've
546
thought about the effect of
globalization and transnational
547
relations for decades and now we're
facing potentially a major pandemic it's
548
hard to say at this point but it's
expanding still what do you see is the
549
kind of geopolitical implications of
that what is that well it's interesting
550
because if you look at our national
security strategy which was issued in
551
December of 2017 it said we were
reorienting our budgets in our strategy
552
toward great power competition China and
Russia and some of that's okay but it
553
doesn't deal with coronavirus doesn't
deal with climate change so we're we're
554
spending what seven hundred billion
dollars plus on the defense budget and
555
yet we're facing a threat today which is
not addressed by any of that seminar
556
virtually any of that seven or $50 would
mean you'd wanted to be unlike what the
557
administration did which was to cut
resources for the CDC and to abolish the
558
part of the National Security Council
which which was
559
oriented toward dealing with pandemics
you would say no we're you know we're
560
looking at the wrong things we have to
deal with other dimensions as well so it
561
doesn't mean you say I'm not gonna worry
about Chinese encroachments in the South
562
China Sea but it means you don't spend
all your time and attention on that
563
there are other things to think about as
well so I think the covin 19 may prove
564
something of a wake up call on this you
would have thought the way it got called
565
already occurred with Ebola
remember Obama's first reaction of Ebola
566
is what's the last thing I want to get
involved in this is this is a no-win for
567
me back here in the US and then he cited
you know I'm not going to be able to
568
isolate us from this I'm not being able
to keep away from this and it's also a
569
humanitarian issue and so we used our
the American military to build emergency
570
hospitals in Liberia and other places
and we were able to stamp out a major
571
part of that virus before it became a
pandemic and then in this administration
572
we've cut back on that that to me is
there's a lesson there do you think if
573
we'll hope this doesn't happen but if it
became something worse something that
574
really was truly global would there be
implications for for example the
575
importance of you mentioned
international institutions in your
576
discussion so that we would look more
towards the World Health Organization
577
other organs that would it strengthen
multilateralism because we would see the
578
need or would it in fact have the
opposite effect where countries would
579
want a wall themselves off more and in
fact disengage politically and
580
economically well the initial reactions
that we've seen have been stop
581
international travel no travel from
certain countries so forth that may be a
582
temporary measure of that is useful it
doesn't deal with the basic problem
583
and for example the virus apparently was
more widespread and realized earlier and
584
many people had already traveled from
China or elsewhere well before we closed
585
the border so you know closing the
border is not the sufficient answer if
586
on the other hand we had strengthened
the World Health Organization and more
587
cooperation with China on pandemics and
had a better early warning system of
588
what was going on we might have had a
better capacity to limit it so I think
589
the the dangers we think that that were
safe behind borders unfortunately we're
590
not and if you go from Co food to
climate change of the idea that you're
591
safe beyond borders is nonsense we in
China 40% of the the greenhouse gases
592
that are produced in the world the idea
that we can solve this without China is
593
a mistake the idea that China can solve
it without us mistake and these are
594
challenges which don't respect borders
the only way you can deal with them is
595
essentially by working with others so
what I argue in the last chapter of the
596
book where I try to look ahead of what
are the moral challenges for the future
597
is we've got to get away from focusing
just on power over others we've got to
598
think also of power with others certain
things you can do with power over others
599
there are other things and climate
changes is a good example you can only
600
do with power with others final question
then we'll open it up so this is the
601
lecture on the conditions of peace what
do you see as the primary threat today
602
to peace the leading threat it's most
urgent threat
603
well the short-run media threats are in
my mind of miscalculation which would
604
destabilize the nuclear deterrent
relationship I don't think there's a
605
high probability of that but that would
be a truly catastrophic event it's worth
606
remembering that in 1914 August 1914
nobody expected World War 1 they
607
expected the third Balkan war in which
Serbia would be taught a lesson and the
608
troops would be home by Christmas what
they wound up with was four years of
609
horror which Europe tour itself apart
he destroyed three empires and Europe
610
ceased to be centered the world in terms
of the global palace of power so today
611
when we look at the rivalry with China
for example many people say this is the
612
greatest threat an even greater threat
is not to underestimate China its
613
overestimate China but it's getting the
right balance to realize that if we
614
played chicken with China and somebody
miscalculates
615
and it does escalate that could be truly
catastrophic so if you say what is my
616
what worries me most it's Americans
working himself up into a fervor of
617
anti-chinese sentiment so that we create
the fear that can be devastating one of
618
my colleagues at Harvard talks about a
Thucydides trap and with China in which
619
through cities famously attributed the
Peloponnesian War to the rise of the
620
power of Athens that fear created in
Sparta and everybody focuses on the
621
first half of that equation the rise of
the power of China they don't pay enough
622
attention to the fear it creates in
Washington
623
and to overstimulate that fear is a
great danger this doesn't mean we
624
shouldn't stand up to China I'm all in
favor of freedom of navigation
625
operations in the South China Sea and so
forth but to overstimulate fear and to
626
create a climate in which there's a
miscalculation I think is something that
627
worries me that's my that's my short-run
fee with fear of the threat to peace my
628
long-run fear is failure to master new
technologies and their application
629
particularly cyber and artificial
intelligence and what that means for the
630
ability to continue to maintain control
not over not only over nuclear systems
631
that Bernhard Brody was so prescient
about but over many more systems and
632
that is not is imminent but it's
something that we should be worrying
633
very much about the longer term