Excerpts from Security First

From the Preface:

Rarely have more profound changes in American foreign policy been called for than today. Democratization as the rallying cry of America's mission in the world has essentially failed, and global respect for American power has dwindled. This book, however, is not one more lengthy criticism of past policies--whether those of the Bush administration or of its predecessors, or of the conflicting Democratic agendas. I file here a brief for the future, about that which must next be done on the international front.

My argument is that there are strong principled and pragmatic reasons to turn U.S. foreign policy 180 degrees: instead of assuming that democratizing nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan will turn them into guardians of the peace and reliable friends, we must aim first to ensure basic security, both for its own sake and for the sake of the democracy that might gradually grow in these faraway places. Moreover, I show that not only in these two nations, but also in many other parts of the world, security drives democracy, while democracy does not beget security.

Instead of threatening nations such as North Korea and Iran with "regime change," we must understand that rogue states will not surrender their nuclear weapons and the means to produce them--until we pledge not to topple their governments. Leverage used against Russia and China to pressure them to democratize should instead first be deployed to encourage them to contain the spread of nuclear weapons and related technologies. And instead of taking us into nations such as Grenada, Panama, or Haiti, the "Security First" approach to foreign policy would have taken us into Rwanda and Darfur--where millions of lives were and still are threatened.

The book has a subplot: an examination of the psychological factors that deeply affect the ways many Americans view and deal with the world. Evidence presented in the following pages indicates that American foreign policy suffers from a "Multiple Realism Deficiency Disorder" (MRDD), or a "realism deficiency," for short.

From Part I:

To digress briefly: prior to Israeli independence in 1948, the Jewish community in British Palestine was engaged in a war of national liberation. Its diplomatic representatives and underground forces sought to make the British cede control of the area to the Jewish community, and thus accord it an opportunity to invest the Jewish people, as an ethnoreligious community, in a state. The underground forces were politically divided. One, called the Palmach, in which I served, was close to the social-democratic labor party, Mapai, to which David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meier belonged. The other, Irgun, was close to the right-wing Heruit, predecessor to Likud. The Palmach's strategy was to destroy the bridges and police stations and other assets that the British used, but often only after they were warned to leave. The Irgun, on the other hand, directly attacked British personnel; in one of its major operations it blew up part of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which served as a British headquarters.

Soon after the founding of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion feared that these political factions would follow their own agendas. He therefore decided--in the midst of a war against seven invading Arab armies, during which casualties were very high and the survival of Israel was far from assured--to send my unit to surround the main contingent of the Irgun, demanding that they disarm and join the newly formed Israeli Defense Force. The Irgun very reluctantly disbanded. Next the Palmach was dissolved, leaving only one Israeli armed force--one loyal to the national, democratically elected, government.

All the conditions that made this kind of nation-building possible in Israel are lacking in Iraq and Afghanistan. The members of the different political factions in Israel had a strong, shared commitment to Israeli nationhood, and they saw the danger of the invading Arab armies as vastly exceeding in importance their domestic rivalries. Ben-Gurion was a highly charismatic and effective statesman; no one claimed that he was a puppet manipulated by a foreign government or that foreign influence implications for newly liberated nations was shaping the institutions of the new Israeli state. In short, both the Irgun and the Palmach were hard-pressed to find legitimate reasons to refuse to disband. The United States probably expected similar developments in the wake of the fall of Saddam and the Taliban, but by all indications such national unity remains very elusive. Here the Ben-Gurion strategy, of rapid nation-building under fire, cannot be followed.

From Part I, pp. 3-4:

It is often ignored by politicians who make grand promises that cannot be realized, and by many individuals—especially can-do, positive-thinking, optimistic Americans—who shy away from hard choices. To highlight this point here are the results of an informal survey I conducted. When I asked fellow Americans for their reaction to a news item that someone was in a car accident, his leg was pinned down, and it had to be amputated so that he could be evacuated, the first response of practically all those I queried was, "Was there no way to save the leg?!" This was said often with considerable anger or dismay. I grant that this is a decent, humane response. One empathizes with the victim and wishes him, well, a leg. However, if such sentiments cause one to delay making the tough choices, causing the victim to bleed out, what has started as a well-meaning, good-hearted reluctance to act turns into a death sentence. It is my thesis that this is approximately what is happening in most places when foreign powers seek to impose regime change in the name of spreading their own, arguably preferable, political institutions and corollary values.

From Part III, Chapter A:

& since 9/11 the U.S. government (and some influential public intellectuals, long before that pivotal date) have grossly exaggerated the size of our opposition and mischaracterized its nature, and in the process they have come to view many potential allies as enemies. It is as if during the Cold War the United States had viewed France and Italy as part of the Soviet empire, 86 the true fault line because they had large communist parties. To sort out who is "in," who is "out," and who is neither--so far--will take several steps.

First, I briefly review several belief systems (four religious and two secular) in order to show that the major fault line runs not between "us" and "them," but through each belief system; that each contains elements that can be employed to justify violence, as well as elements that can be employed to oppose violence; that in all these "civilizations" there are those who draw on extreme beliefs to justify their violent actions, to whom I refer as "Warriors," but also those who draw on moderate beliefs to justify their efforts at peaceful persuasion--"Preachers" in this book.

Second, I point out that Islam is no different in this respect from the other civilizations and belief systems reviewed herein. I draw on textual analysis, public opinion polls, and reports by observers to support this claim. Finally, I try to show that major segments of the Muslim world are neither pro-liberal democracy nor pro-violence. Call them "Illiberal Moderates." I ask about the major implications for our security in particular and foreign policy in general of this finding.

From Part IV, Chapter A:

Security cannot merely or even mainly be based on military forces, police, and other means of law enforcement. Some might find it odd, but security is based largely on values, on most people most of time doing what must be done because they believe they ought to. True, a brutal regime can terrorize people into submitting to hated, illegitimate laws, the way, for instance, that the Stasi, the communist East German secret police, did for decades. However, even under such regimes, great efforts are made to generate the perception of legitimacy, because otherwise security is precarious. The failure either to respect to the citizens values or to change them in the end undid these regimes.

The role of what might be called the "soft underbelly" of security, the moral culture, can be highlighted if one asks: what do Russia, Afghanistan, and Iraq all have in common? In nations where an authoritarian regime has collapsed, or is failing, or where the regime has been toppled by outside forces--irrespective of whether the regime was militantly secular or theocratic, communist or Islamist--liberation is followed by explosive increases in antisocial behavior. This fact is rarely discussed in the West for reasons that are not fully clear. Many seem to presume that antisocial behaviors will go away on their own; that the perturbed condition of society following liberation will correct itself. The champions of democracy are, understandably, not keen to dwell on the ugly--often very ugly--aspects of the transformation. Still others seem to believe that the pain of transformation is the price we must pay for securing liberty, and that the price is well worth paying.

The fact is that antisocial behaviors (detailed below) do not naturally subside by themselves. Indeed, they have remained at a high and damaging level for years on end in liberated and failing states (in Russia for fifteen years and counting). After surveying some telling details I will ask what it takes to curb such conduct. Law enforcement may keep it in check initially. However, in the longer run--and I refer to months and years, not decades--a rather different kind of authority must become the major source of social order. After introducing this source--moral culture--I explore the ways in which it might be fostered, despite the severe limitations of social engineering in general and those working to foster moral cultures in particular.