Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Point Of Attack 20140527

Welcome everybody. Thanks for braving the weather to make it to a American Enterprise institute today. My name is gary schmitt and im a resident scholar and i direct the Maryland Center for Security Studies here at aei. Todays event which is being cosponsored by the federal society as a Panel Discussion of john yoos latest book point of attack preventive war, International Law and global warfare. Our format today is going to be quite simple. John will start off with an overview of the books thesis and then we will follow up with our panelists comments and i might throw in a pointer point or two as well. Following that we will open up the floor to your questions and have a good robust discussion i am sure. Before turning the mic over to john however let me briefly introduce our two guests panelists. Michael levitin and harvey rishikof. As you can see from the biographical materials you have at hand both have had quite distinguished careers. Michael is currently professor of law at Northern University and a former navy pilot harvard law graduate and more importantly graduated in the 80s top 10 program. Michael has written extensively in the areas of the laws of war and the laws of war supply and the loss of force applied to the current war on terrorism. Harvey chairs the ada advisory that the war college and has also served as the chair of the colleges strategy department. Among other important posts the Legal Counsel to the fbi director Deputy Director in the 90s and has his hand in drafting several important security related president ial directives. Thank you both for joining us today. Now let me introduce john yoo. John has been teaching law at the university of californiaberkeley law school for 20 years, more than 20 years and has been a colleague here at aei for the past decade. The former Deputy Assistant attorney general law clerk to justice thomas. He is the author of five major volumes and numerous scholarly articles on president ial power the laws of war and International Law. His most recent book the one we are talking about today point of attack is like his other books and that there is nothing shy are retiring in johns argument nor do his books lack for intellectual courage. Who else could be a visiting scholar at aei and right that the surge in iraq whose idea in these spaces might not have been as important as we had aei claimed. Who else would dare to argue that Current International overview is problematic precisely because it discourages the use of force other than encouraging it. I can see john offered a record contract. Like all of jones books point of attack is a deeply serious work and has great merit in pushing his readers to think anew they are deeply held assumptions. While provocative point of attack is provocative in the best sense making all of us asked the important questions and in turn thinking about what the answer should be when it comes to enhancing global prosperity and security. John over to you. Thanks for that introduction. Its a great pleasure to be here at aei. Its been my home away from home for the last 10 years and like all homes away from home the people is better here at food is better here. Its just too expensive for me a lift here but its been a great 10 years. This is my tenth anniversary at aei and its been a great time. This book is the product of 10 years which i started working on it when i came here after the iraq war. This is my effort to try too sense of the iraq war and the Afghanistan War and the complex we have been going through as a country. Its also great to have gary as a moderator. He is one of a few people who shares an intense interest in the framers and neshell security and intelligence. I would be remiss if i didnt say i had stolen one of garys great ideas from as dissertation from my last book on Thomas Jeffersons views on executive power. Kerry actually has the view that jefferson had quite a robust approach to the presidency in practice but not in theory. I tried to disseminate that idea and you are the first one i think to realize that and to explore it. Its also a great pleasure to be here with mike lewisohn. Mike was on the front lines. Harvey was at the National War College and he was in the rear lines i guess in our effort. Its great to be with them both and i look forward to discussion. I just want to make one recognition that my mentor for many years judge Mark Silverman is here. He is very angry at me for writing this book and he claims i had stolen the idea from him. With many other things i admit it. I did steal it for him but he didnt publish it fast enough. I got there first. I just want to pay a special mention to him someone i started working for right after law school and he combines like many of us on the panel the interest of National Security and law which is all too rare i think. He was an inspiration for this book. He is entirely responsible for its faults i might add. I want to lay out the simple thesis and then maybe Start Talking about russia and the crimea. Maybe betty stasia although we will have another panel tomorrow that east asia. The simple thesis in the russian invasion of in crimea highlighted this that the Current International legal system of collective security i think has failed. The one that centers around the United Nations and the u. N. Security council the primary rule is that the use of force and International Law is illegal and even criminal unless its in selfdefense or when authorized by the u. N. Security council. I think historically that rule and its reliance on just war theory actually is incorrect. The effort and this is really the work of Woodrow Wilson in establishing the league of nations the idea that this criminalization of war hearkens back and builds on the just war tradition that ran from cicero all the way through the great medieval thinkers. Actually if you go back and this is what i start with if you look at the theory which is very wrapped up in the catholic legal theory of course in the church. The just war theory actually is much more nuanced and talks about lots of things we talk about today like humanitarian intervention preventive and preemptive war. Well beyond the simple idea that any use of force other than selfdefense is illegal. I also think its a too shall he so countries have not followed this site of just war and criminalize war other than selfdefense historically and i think they are doing it today and of the u. N. Charter itself. Institutionally there have been plenty of wars since the u. N. Charter that have never been off prized and we are not in selfdefense. Again did the invasion of ukraine is a good example. Part of it is the robe part of it is the institution that if you require that you require the Security Council to authorize any aggression in china and russia said on the Security Council they are going to veto any effort to respond to an invasion of crimea. Any military engagements that arise from the South China Sea or in asia. This essentially renders not just the rule but also institutionally and the americanled effort to create a system to manage conflict after world war ii. Its really not going to work for the future. That doesnt mean that great power for his inevitability or something that we cant respond to or control actually the other remarkable thing is during this period after world war ii the amount of death and destruction from great power wars have fallen to a love that is unheard of in Human History. By whole order of magnitude the deficit we have experience from great powers to a level never seen before since the beginning of the modern nationstate system. Political scientists and they say there is a number of Different Reasons and one is clearly Nuclear Weapons. The balance between the superpowers in much of the cold war have the effect of suppressing the great powers and the soviet soviet union the rise of the United States as a hegemonic supplier of peace and stability of free trade around the world has also reduced the great power but one way to look at this is the great source of war, the two world wars that killed the most people in Human History though started in europe and were between european powers and spread to the rest of the world. Despite rashes and actually russias invasion of ukraine is a good symbol of what had preceded it. Until the russians invasion and the ukraine there were no deaths from combat in europe. There had been no unilateral withdrawal of the new borders. I think that was primarily responsible for Nuclear Weapons the bipolar struggle between the u. S. And the soviet reunion and ultimately since then the u. S. Role in maintaining a Certain International order. At the same time there are threats to that order which are being posed by what we used to call rogue nations a fancy term now is revisionist nations that want to challenge the International System like iran and maybe china russia. Challenges caused by the proliferation of wmd technology for the rise of International Terrorist groups. Or large humanitarian catastrophes. Those are two systems that have created peace and prosperity and give war a chance which i would give an asset title of the book but p. J. Had actually taken it. I actually looked it up on amazon and i was like darn. Because of this dam on International Law on any use of force that prevents western allies and the United States from intervening in smaller places to shore up the International System. Kosovo and iran are all places. The ukraine, the South China Sea. These are all areas where the system actually prevents and discourages nations from using force where we might like to because the gains of the world are going to be much higher than any cost of conflict. Under International Laws it is now those conflicts would be illegal. I think the International System is set of rules and International System are to encourage the powers to use force to control those kinds of International Systems. It doesnt need to worry about the war between the great powers and peace is being kept for other reasons anyway. Maybe one less way to understand is this is very similar to the way the law of economics scholars think about contract law tort law. There may be a rule saying you should keep promises but you should obey contracts. The law actually encourages you to breach the contract if you can do something that is more efficient. Something that has a greater benefit. That is something the lawyers fought over for many decades until under the influence of posner and frank eisen bird at the university of chicago. It has now become the law in many jurisdictions. Its similar to International Law where it should be one that countries can preach if it will makes the world better off. Let me turn now to what this means to respond to russia. The focal point for the discussion. Paralyzed by what to do in response to the invasion of ukraine. Part of that might have to do with the Cancun International institutions to cooperate in the conference because there is several prominent members. Here are some things which i think we could do to respond which i think would be consistent with this approach to International Law but which may well be seen as troublesome and potentially illegal under the u. N. Charter. The first thing i would say is the United States should the s. T. A. R. T. Treaty that limits russia to 1550 Nuclear Weapons and places limits on delivery vehicles but its an effort to treat the United States and russia as the scene when it comes to Nuclear Arsenals even though russia is not really projecting power around the world anymore and the u. S. Has a lot of laval responsibilities for peace and stability. It doesnt make any sense for United States to treat russia as an equal. Seems to me can terminate the treaty and the Nuclear Arsenal can float to whatever it needs to be for our security obligations rather than any kind of commitment. Obviously the second thing and this is someone is describing the position president , took in malaysia. It seems to me the ukraine right now we were looking at third strikes because only military aid we are giving is meals ready to be. President carter when the soviets invaded afghanistan we did more than give the afghan rebels bid. It seems to mean a thing we could do, this would be very difficult under the charter but under this set of rules that would be fine with the gift military aid to the ukraine and supply rebels that there might be in the crimea under russian control. The third thing i think he could do is to restore the antiballistic Missile Systems in Eastern Europe that the Obama Administration pulled out as a diplomatic offering of a set of relations. That seems to have clearly failed. If russia wants to go around invading its neighbors the United States could send a strong signal of support for its allies without any loose on the grounds it without any military conflict with russia by putting those systems up. It worked before in the 80s when it helped the russian soviets to go bankrupt and can choose to the fall of the soviet union. When why not give it another try . I dont see why the u. S. Should partner with russia in an action which is having the effect of propping up the Syrian Regime and switching the momentum of the civil war towards the other side regime. Lastly this is the strong one. Its difficult to see this happen quickly is institutionally created an alternative to the u. N. An alternative to the Security Council where we dont give permanent vetoes two of the. And off their authoritarian governments. You still need an institution a process to legitimize the use of force then create one. It doesnt have to be focused around the u. N. And the charter. It can be focused around those countries that are democracies and open markets and have the same value system as the United States. Thank you very much and i look forward to your comments. Thank you all for coming out and aei for having me here. I think professor yoo is right that this u. N. Security council is broken in the permanent veto will prevent the use of force in places where the use of force would improve Human Welfare. Since the institution of the United Nations but at the same time the number of internal struggles of civil wars low intensity conflicts around the world has gone way up. As have the number of people dying in those complex all over the world. The idea of saying you can improve Human Welfare by intervening in these complex in preventing these complex from having the humanitarian disasters that they become in many cases is a legitimate use of force but its a use of force that is forbidden by the u. N. Charter now and less we can get russia and china in the United States who all agreed the same time that this is a place where you want to use force. The only exception would be article li selfdefense and in most cases that does not apply. Another point that professor yoo makes in his look is that there is at least an undercurrent of nations that have three state practice indicated a willingness to go beyond where the u. N. Charter says they are supposed to go. In terms of using force to prevent even humanitarian crises are other kind of disasters so that whether it be tanzania intervening in uganda or vietnam and cambodia all of which were unilateral interventions or a collective intervention of nato in kosovo where you had a group get together and decide we need to stop the humanitarian crisis in kosovo. They have also all been praised in some way or other for the kinds of good they have done. The central theme or one of the central themes to the book though is to say how do we figure out when a war is going to be a net benefit to Human Welfare . It has a law and economic sense to it and it is saying you have to calculate. Here are the benefits that are going to accrue from using voice here. Here are the lives that are going to be saved in here are the lives that will be improved as a result of doing whatever happens whether it be delivered at syria iran etc. And while that is i think a laudable idea in practice its going to be very difficult and i think we can look at perhaps the best way of looking at things is looking at this pragmatic example which would would be rwanda. Everybody looks at that and say its how could they thousand people have been killed with machetes and smallarms in the late 20th century while all of europe and the rest of the world stood by and watched . It seems that cries out for intervention but looking at the one intervention that has happened in the last few years, libya, its a good example of the indeterminacy of the good that is done. What i mean by that is that whenever you intervene and intervention is a nice word but what you are doing is killing people in. You are going to go in and kill people. Whether it libyan command control and Communications People or the air defense people are some of the Libyan Special forces or Ground Forces that we attack. You are going to kill those people and sometimes you will kill the wrong people. You will kill civilians and have Collateral Damage. The french and the british were criticized for the amount of Collateral Damage and strikes in libya that killed civilians when they were going after command and control in tripoli. So you were going to be old to hold up and say these were people that died that should not have. You tell me who you saved. I dont know how we can tell exactly how many people were saved in libya. I dont know exactly what the estimates are but the best you can do is come up with a historical counterfactual saying if we had not done this this is what would have happened and he will have to convince skeptics and other nations opposed to the action that this in fact would have been the case. I guarantee you that had we intervened it in rwanda if youre going to turn around and try to convince the world it should have saved 800,000 lives there is no way no one would have believed you. The belgians and the americans and to go back in and reestablish control over a lost colony. And no one would have believed you could save 800,000 lives by doing so. The counterfactual nature of this means that while i agree that there is value to intervention and that intervention should be undertaken on a number of occasions that if you do so you have to be cleareyed about the fact that nobodys going to thank you. Nobody is going to look back and say was a great thing that you did that. Nobody is telling us that for libya. Nobody is telling us that for iraq. As long as you dont expect people to thank you and as long as you dont expect people to fully support everything you do because for political geopolitical reasons i guarantee you russia and china and others will criticize any of those actions you take. You have to be prepared to accept that and do the best you can to back up that claim that hears the counterfactual that we avoided. Excellent. Thank you so much. Let me thank aei. Ive been here before and its always great to create a forum like this that is deeply committed to the principle of open debate about interesting events. These remarks are my own and dont represent any groups that im associated with. This is quite fascinating for me because on johns tenth anniversary he has revealed himself to be a canadian, international idealist is interventionist which is fascinating and the book which i find intriguing and the earlier work would have found extremely compelling is the current ambassador samantha powers. If you read the book you can make a strong argument that john has become samantha. Out of power. That happens all the time. So why is that . It is because first of all its a class that classic john sub seven piecework. He retrieves all the classics the romans the greeks augusta this and thomas. Its been opening of international but reach a completely differently than anyone else. He comes to a different conclusion about what is embedded in the doctrine and that doctrine allows him to make an argument of why you can have a principle of prevention tied to morality and the morality is tied to much more of the classic poster conception costbenefit analysis. So he marries economic theory to International Policy based on a principle of global goods so its a very creative argument. Its classic yoo. So is it good or bad . Like Everything Else it depends. As my colleague to the left has actually been john rejects the concept as being ripped apart from this tradition and therefore our traditional the way we teach it is like you go through the steps and is there just cause and comparative justice and Common Authority . Is it a last resort to use force and finally the proportionality is the classic way we teach it and we teach in any really honed in on that but it doesnt talk about the classic doctrine about how we make distinction all personality combatants and the other apps in part which im sure john has become like posner is that there is something we call postbellum. The great line about just postbellum is go cross line which is the issues that john intervene and are very hard and nasty internal issues. We also have this notion but most of the civil wars and the conflicts and its hard for americans to stand by and for many of us who have experienced world war ii. The irony of what scowcroft used to say is intervening in these cases doesnt solve them. It gives you you win the right to try to solve them in the intervention. Because the assumption is that people your intervening with will embrace the ideas and values that we carry as americans and the values of what we understand the world should be. That is somewhat unclear actually and not only that but the assumption of johns book is you stay at the high level of what the values are in interest is how far can you go . One of the great cleavages in the world system is how do you treat women . You have gone through quite a struggle inside of United States for equal rights but if you did do a certain ethnic groups such as orthodox their protective about how they see women which is not particularly accord with the way we understand the violation of equal rights. What values and how far do you want to push will we see as the american way . As you know there are many parts of United States that are resisting the american way. Where do you stand on abortion . Where do you stand on a whole range of issues and what is the logic . When you started that level of distraction and you have to then dived down into the specifics that is where the devil is in the detail. We have not been very good at nationbuilding. We have been good at nationbuilding when we occupy and whether we like it or not the american way of work is that its Unconditional Surrender which historically these to do and then we actually occupy germany and occupy japan. The irony about the america is we win the war but we lose the negotiations. Thats also what that means for the evolution of where we are in afghanistan and iraq today. I found the book extremely fascinating as always really putting forward a whole range of arguments to go forward but the logic is really where does one understand when one wants to intervene for the common good . The prevention doctrine the caroline case and the actual phrase which is quoted in the book which refers to a phrase you never see in literature. He refers to canadian rebels. You almost never heard canadians were people historically apologize to answering machines rather than the rebels. The actual logic of the doctrine is webster responding to the ambassador. Necessity was instant overwhelming leaving no choice of means at no moment of liberation and the british horse imposing the necessity of the moment authorized United States nothing unreasonable or excessive which i would say is just which the necessity of selfdefense the cost and with that analysis of selfdefense must be limited by that necessity and cap clearly definitive. The object was clear. They blew up the ship. The object of prevention at the National Level is much different than blowing up the ship. I leave you with this famous daniel bell problem the problem with sovereigntist sovereign states. The problem with the nationstate is that its too big to deal with ethnic rob owns and problems and too small to deal with transnational problems like the warming of the environment, the global environment. We dont have a mechanism. Nonetheless the state has proven to be almost extraordinarily resilient because now the state is the monopolization of legitimate use of course of force. The argument is that what john is asking for if you take the analysis he would like america to be the entire state alone. Doing it unilaterally you know its hard for democracies to store up the firepower around the world. That is the deep paradox of the book which sets the principle of morality but then it doesnt have a mechanism of understanding when to exercise that visible in the end what would the world look like based on that particular understanding of your sense . I will end with wee ice agree that we will someone was an extraordinary idealist. We tried not to let people from princeton anymore which is a good rule. With that i will turn it back to the debate. Yes somebody who has a ph. D. In Political Science i fully appreciate the fact that i should never be president. John has given me the license to be an immoderate moderator so im going to throw in a few ted gets into the discussion. One of the nice things about johns book is the degree he and pacs in a very useful way for scholarship in the literature on a just war tradition and it shows in where its been taken over the last century and concluding the last couple of decades. It does remind me in some respects when augustine is talking about the just war theory or talking about war he becomes very analogous to the leasing. Augustine tends to think of military efforts as keeping order. Obviously this is within the context of the roman empire. But there is sort of an analogy to johns argument about the role of United States and other democracies when it comes to policing the world when it comes to wmd and terrorism and the like. I think the valuable part. But it did strike me there were a couple of other, number of things i wanted to talk about. John also talks about the history of the developmedevelopme nt of the u. N. Charter and points out the american participaparticipa nts in the u. N. Charter those involved in the drafting didnt believe that it would need this this they wouldnt have the restriction it has come to have fun u. S. Behavior that if we needed to do something to maintain International Stability and security theres nothing in the charter they thought which would stop us from doing so. The truth is and if i was a realist i would say the u. N. Charter hasnt stopped us so therefore why not go ahead and accept the fact and probably make them more robust argument based upon the founders of the drafting founders and say look we never signed up to this as being this kind of restriction and whats more our practice has followed that along. I suppose the answer to that is americans because we are Democratic People like to have legitimacy. This issue of having others agree with you that you are doing the right thing is not unimportant but i think it also puts into one of the things that i think her haps john was writing the book now as opposed to a year ago you would have to wonder about it. In the book there is an optimism about the fact that parties are not interested in territorial acquisitions. We have certainly seen the case of russia. Thats not the case and we worry on a constant daily basis about whether thats true for if chinese. We have a lot of territorial claims on islands and big islands and small islands, lots of islands and their neighborhood that they have not given up. So then the question is whether or not the u. N. Charter is understood and provides a useful paz or at least gives their desires and acquisitions as little legitimacy than otherwise. If we open the door like john suggests one wonders about what the practical effects on those powers thinking about what they can do on an international stage. Theres kind of an optimism about the great powers that pervades the book and one has to wonder whether that optimism is warranted or whether its warranted in the decades ahead. This brings the back to my final issue or question is john talks about forcing the new International Order that he is proposing and he tosses out the idea of analogous to the council of europe of democracies. When you look at for example which i think is a fine interpretation of that consult which is in kissingers diplomacy book kissinger points out essentially that there are two elements to why that system worked. The first one had to do with the coherence between the continental powers and the kinds of regimes they were and what they felt was legitimate. The second element of course was in terms of the balance of power element depended upon Great Britain and london taking an active handed maintaining it. But as we know castlereagh failed in that regard and basic leg did Everything Possible to stay away from that active role. That brings us to today where there is a in about whether we have a council of democracies whether the United States a would have the willpower to provide that kind of leadership. We certainly have dealt about it over the last few years and the second thing of course is these other democratic great powers be they germany britain japan the case that they are spending as much on their military so one wonders about their effective ability to maintain International Order. Just as a practical matter while i accept johns argument about the nature of the flaws of the Current System i wonder how effective the mechanism for maintaining what he opposes will be. Manning ferris always generate the internationalist theory. I remember my good friend generated his book about the seven different ways we can have or eight ways to have authority weathers offshore balancing or whatever it is. I only save top its really great but im in the world of what is the force structure look like wax what is the force structure for the different views we have because we are not that mobile. The interesting question for john is what you perceive as the force structure that would be used and then how do you see the concept of title x in title l yes you look at russia . There is a a lot of these of wht we call it a title l using of surrogates not an open recognition above title x. So we gave you some food for thought so i guess we should allow you to respond. A lot of interesting questions and points i dont think i have enough time to respond to all of them so i will respond to some of them so we have time for audience questions. In response to professor lewis point about the cost benefits being hard i think thats true. I dont think its a reason to reject the approach. Its right to say its going to be difficult to put in practice but it does remind me of the early criticism of costbenefit analysis. Its ongoing and getting louder and mutter. Some of arguments today about how do you do environmental regulation . How do you value human life versus precautionary issues such as Global Warming . How do you know theres a certainty that a life was saved . There is a huge brocker see over at the white house and the office of management and budget that tries to do this but there is one interesting paper that showed across the federal agencies that do costbenefit analysis each agency had a different value for human life. They were all calculating it differently when deciding which regulations to issue. Its going to be very hard. I think its the right start and hopefully when we start doing it we will get better at it. At least it would allow us to identify the easy pieces where the system doesnt allow us to ask the point. You could say there would have been a million lives saved if we used five or six thousand troops so at least we could read those and the harder ones that are closer to the balance being equal would be very hard. I agree with that and i take your point that no one is going to thank us. I think dan jesselyns International System as it is now as tragic. Theres a huge disincentive to ever lift a finger to help any of these countries to intervene anywhere. The resources involved are going to be so expensive. Why should any nation undertake this thankless task with export of what h. Try to show the book is maintaining the system is as much of the benefit of the United States as well as her allies and the system that i argue for will have enormous free rider problems because if we create the force structure and take this role which is actually the opposite of where the mystery and is now going i think we are actually pulling back from parts of the world if we enhance our position. We retool the armed forces to play this more which actually meets at that more of the naval and airpower and less land power which is in the tradition of American Force structure but if we go towards this force structure that intervenes to keep the balance of power intact and stop these kinds of affairs you dont need them. You dont agree. If we do that thats going to call for increases in defense spending in the drawdowns we are seeing under both the president and congress seeming to agree on it right now. That is part of the tragedy of the way the system works now is that no nation should have an incentive to produce this kind of Law Enforcement or peacekeeping or this level of war. Harveys point i think he is quite right that one thing that i lack is a theory of use and tell him and use postbellum and i think one thing is very artificial about the way we study wars that we actually think as we read the same subjects of their different roles for each one. These posts belem is a law that governs reconstruction in the south. And so part of the analysis is the plan. Janet adkins is then the ibms talking about how to reconceptualize allies in war. I think they all have to be connected. You have to have a common analysis for all three and that you should naturally think of them as separate in this date and certainly the reasons you go to work should shape the rules once youre in the war i completely agree. That is actually the next set of work to get to. Just one idea would you if you are going to take this kind of efficiency approach to war, then it should allow you to use all kind of war fighting techniques, which will be very doubtful. One would be the kosovo war, the graphite backbends to belgrade, which is a violation of laws is purely civilian infrastructure. But then under that area must increase civilian thing like food production, electricity, Telecommunication Networks can the markets would have some piece that got to the military. I dont want to interrupt, but with the idea of cyberyou might be requiring for the military and thats the way it demonstrating the way to make a distinction of combatant and noncombatant. There may be ways for cybertake, but your issue is. To me that example shows actually you could attack certain kinds of infrastructure without destroying them. But it was a purely military, but it is connected because of the way he wanted to fight the war to achieve a certain narrow and, which was sent to feeding and conquering serbia, which is to get it to the kosovo. If that is the case, cyber also were kosovo today trying to persuade them to leave kosovo. What if we shut down the stock market for wheat . No lives lost. It would be painful. Much better than dropping real bombs it seems to me. That is a civilian and so it seems to me if he did employ this kind of global approach that brought together all three types of laws of war, you would have to reexamine some of the principles of the other ones because they are dictated. The last one to quickly get to garys point before we turn it over to the question, answering discussion is a lot of great points there. On the u. N. Charter, i do think it may not stop us all the time, but its a disincentive. I think it is a much bigger deal in other countries you do to take one example of the libyan intervention example, this administration wanted to get u. N. Authorization to intervene in the delayed intervention i must until the rebellion was wiped out. Today you are a better expert at this than i. , but people sometimes say our delay about the more radical elements to have a bigger voice than the libyan rebellion. Now maybe president obama the Obama Administration didnt want to intervene anyway and was using the charters. Who knows. It seems to me that they seem quite committed to it. The Obama Administration for not intervening more directly in syria. Maybe on the margin is another theme that gets added to the war will be illegitimate and my two resistance. And the iraq war, germany, france, some of our supposed allies use the u. N. Charter is a reason not to help us in the iraq invasion. But i think youre quite right. Its hard to find cases where it is the sole dictating reason why we might not have intervened, but i think it is an additional political cost to going towards a disincentive when some of these wars i think actually the system would be better off if we did go. Another thing i think is right is what does the future look like if you move away from the u. N. Charter system, what is the institution that quite . Europe was just like an analogy to the past. One thing that is successful as our colleague came up with this idea with the nonproliferation initiative, which has a kind of system, but theres no formal place where they meet. The governments coordinate their actions politically to try to stop the proliferation of wmd to elegy, as i understand quite successfully. I would think there would be the way to go, to study those successful, informal methods of cooperation. They are not vetoing faders and that is the model you could go visit status and success we should study that and use it as a model to build a new kind of cant did of democracies. If you get rid of the charter and replace it with nothing, i think youll have these problems of whenever any wars legitimate they will say when they intervened to force legitimate. Russians are saying the division of ukraine is legitimate under international blogs because they are protecting russian citizens. It sounds a lot like what hitler said in 1938, two. So i think as a person who has did you further development of the idea, but also very hard because it gets into the nittygritty details of how you design the phone system. Open it up to questions from our gas. Please identify yourself and then ask a question. In the back. Mr. , you have been at team in developing a way of doing business, particularly when you vote preventive illegal torture for the Bush Administration. Of course it was approved by your seniors. Im not just just naming you. Maybe youve gotten to american citizenship. Adding a mac not the u. S. Citizen. Im just kidding. Is this book also to create this kind of thinking, which is in my opinion a totally barbaric intervention . In fact, most of the people throughout the world would not stand for it. Maybe you can convince the radical right wingers that they would probably follow it with a finally have to get out and theyve been told that thank you, we didnt need you anyway. Actually, i dont think this theory is going to apply to radical rightwingers. These days my sense of american politics is that the right wing of the Republican Party actually wants to withdraw from the world fast, that if you look at debris and policy representative of that wing of the party, Republican Party, it strikes me very much like an 1830s in the United States and other western these. But i think they are radical and they really want to change american policy. They think the United States that do nothing in response to ukraine and nothing in response to the rise of china. They would say we have put a lot of money into maintaining peace. To make it get out of this . Nothing. Nobody gives us many thanks for saving lives anywhere. Only to discredit them when we actually do go towards. So i dont think it is a radical rightwing idea. You are quite right it is some people criticize and replacing the u. N. Charter system is barbaric because it is going to invite great power, competition again in neocolonialism again. I actually think jerry is right. That era and those countries are no longer Strong Enough or interested enough. France agreed written in germany using force to try to rehab pose and i think the u. S. Is different. I think the u. S. Is an exceptional country and that even though it has gone toward places to maintain the system, it is not an empire like the British Empire or the french empire or the chinese empire. It is not interested in taking over territory. It does seek to get other countries part of the system and suppress conflicts. In that respect, and has asked that seven of fire, but it is different in the sense that it doesnt try to run other countries. If you look at the wall street journal today on the front page, it demonstrates that 43 to 45 perverse isolationist policies. The United States for an policy since roosevelt, teddy, fdr has almost had strains of isolationism versus interventionism. Its been a classic dilemma and a whole range of Foreign Policy of values to trace back to the founders and the different evolutions. So one of the things i debate here is weve been extremely expansive tory or involved in the last 12 years and we are clearly, there is a sentiment in the republic as john is saying. As pulling back, what is the net and if it were cost and what is happening right now. So you are not happy in those countries now because it means you do not pine. The issue of the United States response at the strategic level. So when john talked about the missiles. What you really but that is saying is you want to get the russians and the european a clear sense that the United States will be serious. We have different ways of doing that. Telling the russians to pay the cost if you continue to do this and that we are areas that is not the way cheval and internationalization. How you do that is the struggle. How you intervened to make it clear to them and the european that we really want to get into a fighting war. One of the ironies in the United Nations is we havent had a nuclear exchange. If you ask the biggest surprise, shelling will say one of the greatest International Public policy is hes one of the creators of destruction. They have 25 Nuclear Powers. At issue is we are now at an interesting Tipping Point, right . The Tipping Point is creating a real dissent on current set of incentives and as for how we understand intervention. The area into a world where you came from, the idea for Nuclear Powers and the geographical area given the propensity for extraordinary order really makes everyone nervous. So that is a big issue about this book that we would be a principled notion of intervention, particularly and the Nuclear World where we are very concerned about having a whole range of new countries go nuclear and then we all stared each other other saying will happen . That is quite an extraordinary Tipping Point that starts the conversation. One other thing with regard to the claim asserted underminded the u. N. Charter or removing the u. N. Charter as barbaric and would not be some thing they would accept. While this is not entirely online, but a good portion of what john is talking about is the justifiable use of force to prevent humanitarian catastrophes, which has a lot in common with responsibilities to protect. I know that his theory is not the same and he would not want to say would want to be compared entirely to that. The responsibility to protect being debated in the United Nations except did at least in some way as a modification of the limitations on the use of force. In the final outcome documents, they tied it to approval. The initial idea was to say, if the Security Council does not, here are raised that force can be used by regional organizations for the improved welfare in much the same way as any of the examples which john is talking about and that is sent in the world has it proved as being barbaric. You can amend or softened the edges of the u. N. Charter without being internationally reject it. I might add just a part and also the doctrine that our current nation was strongly pursuing because you want some thing, a principal way to save lives in American Power or western power to do it. Just one other comment. This is the American Enterprise. Just a sort of historical note, interventionism is quite bipartisan in this country. It was in a republican break ingrained that went into the balkans and that went into north africa. So if we are we have a bipartisan tradition that would be barbaric. You cant have it, jeremy. I want to ask about the theory of welfare in respect to crime area but from the other side. It seems to me entirely possible if you look at this from a very abstract global welfare point of view to say the citizens of crimea are better off because theyve now been into a Richer Country and a stronger country in a country with a much more effective Central Government in any way to maturity or russian team to be happy. So why cant putin say on the theory, it preaches the u. N. Charter, but it was an efficient breach. Easy answer. It is not clear to me that people in that region oneaday. One thing you would like to emphasize this to people who live there. It is hard to tell because there was an election, but it was soviet election, 99 voted for the annexation. The only choice was to in an annex right now are doing an annex a little slower. I went to pricier because it is very plausible, but the majority of people and train to favor this. It is clear that people in ukraine didnt favor this. But its not clear which is the constituency that matters and you might say this is just an inherent problem with global welfare. You cant actually do it call all the time. Yours have to wonder, are we considering the people in rwanda or have the neighbors via. I totally take your point. The last chapter tries to grapple with the failed state [inaudible] [laughter] it starts well after page five. [laughter] so in that chapter, try to figure out what this means because the two big phenomenon post1945 world, the huge drop in deaths from interstate war, but enormously in civil wars, almost to the point that they are almost replacing the deaths from interstate wars, interstate wars. So i think that is a problem that you have people perhaps living together in states which are not viable states and so the other statistic that is very named mr. In the past 70 years, and United States is promoting mens has been the disintegration of states into smaller states. The number of state almost tripled. Many people in the United States. You might remember 1990, 1991, the Bush Administration is the devolution of the soviet union and former use audio. In iraq actually and so i actually make the case this is consistent with your criticism but actually global welfare is maximized when you let people of common ethnicity and religion live together if they actually are going to be better off, part of it is up to their own wishes. Some of the harm in some of the deaths from civil wars is trying to maintain relations who dont want to be together. Global welfare that in some countries come apart. This is where i disagree with some aei scholars is the best solution for iraq was to devolve into three independent countries based around the religious affiliation. Other people thought it is better to keep the country together as a unit. To see if thats actually going to be the case. What the record show that john yoo and Vice President biden are now in this violent agreement. The other, which was the son so the other events i would say that is sort of striking us a look at this, many people could say the post1945 is actually 50 colonies nation. So the decolonization hopes for the state. So then umass the schneider problem, which went unit that she felt comfortable making the vote for which you want to do for public tv. Maybe the people in crimea feel this way, the wellknown fact is all modern state are as a result of the use of force. You know, with something called 1862 next 1865 if i remember correctly. The United States because of the use of force. If you look at england come if you a brat, the briefs or if youre a scotsman and prefer to see your english. No, it is scotch. I didnt voluntarily join this group. Almost every entity has result in the small prussia is the one that generated. So when you start unpacking this issue, the logical way of course, canada because we have federalism. And if quebec decided to vote itself out of its confederation, i dont in ottawa use force because they use violence. They misuse the ballot box. Ottawa wouldve had to have said this is the will of the individual of this group. Then the question is, with all the small entities, how did they sustain themselves in the genius of the american logic, which is another book, which is the phil bobbitt analysis and the market state. We just need to state that reinforces these economic issues. The problem is the value problem. These different states in different ethnic groups have come with different values. So ive no interest in moving to china given the values. I may have no interest in india and pakistan or afghanistan, given who will take their religious views on those people. Im not interested in that. I believe that the wall of separation of church and state is almost unheard of in the rest of the world. That is really what is at stake at this issue when we start thinking through what purpose to intervene in what you what protection you intervene. Thank you, professor yoo. Extraordinarily interesting discussion and i look forward to reading the book. One of my favorite relations as john stewart bells in the midof the airtight analysis. So how do you deal with the problem of the British Empire in india . Been a slightly out of context, the rule of reciprocity of the variance will not participate. Im not, you generate analysis, which i think is parallel, which would pull in a lot of other very distinguished thinkers, more largely on the generally liberal side. Certain and not the conservative side of the analyses. Individuals would certainly fall under this category as well. I was very struck by your comment just now the hewers spacious at the number of state that they are because many of them are artificial and once in their another. This leads me to think that the mere image when you get a civil word nowadays, the u. N. Or another group of Russian Peacekeeping reinforce the existing state. That is what they are therefore another conflict continues because the source of peace proposals never end up resolving the problem. The prolonged the war. So i take your point entirely by International Law preventing intervention. International law encourages a certain kind of intervention, the kind of intervention that doesnt actually bring the war, that does the left england to create the united kingdom, disavow paris to create friends commended doesnt create germany. So does International Law cut both ways but the antiintervention and also prointervention. I think it is a really great point. I think some not then respond that there are games in the world. Decolonization is one. The spread of free markets is another. If you have an International Free market, thats another reason you dont have to stick together. You dont need a customs unit anymore. The other one is taking this approach, this idea of looking at United States is a provider of security and stability around the world is another key ingredient to why you see country split apart. Harvey is quite right. War has been a motivating or for the creation of nations and nations have used it as a reason to get bigger. If the United States as they are as they are, in a shed, for example, you are guaranteed that a piece. By this prussia to me to have all the principalities and terrors anymore . So thats the United States policy of spreading free trade, guaranteeing International Stability is causing these collapses of nations. You are quite right i share your criticism. The International Law semitic in the type. It is trying to reverse its natural decentralization of governments around the world and sometimes react that way if the government, to which i do keep countries. Gary mentioned this part so there were more people there. They did produce this area of security. It did not look like anywhere near the numbers of people thought we actually need to be on the ground to protect the population. If you looked at earlier examples like those of low. My argument was the problem with trying to to the occupation was the these warned groups of civil wars, no one forces them to reach any kind of agreement. It is impossible for them to trust each other, and possible to sign an agreement and live up to it. And that is with the u. S. And the surge did, it became the enforcer of the agreement. And sunnis in iraq, it becomes the enforcer in other civil war environments because then they can make it a peace agreement, and someone has to keep it. But that doesnt mean you have to have huge forces involved either, right . Thats why maybe keeping the 10,000 troops in iraq after the withdrawal or keeping a force in afghanistan rather than pulling out really could contribute to stability in those countries. And to me, thats the lesson to draw from the surge. And thats a narrower use of American Force, right . Thats not going to be as violent and as destructive as full occupation with, you know, that favors a proportion. I cant remember, you know, one u. S. Soldier for every x number [inaudible conversations] no, no, no. So the issue that you pose which i think john has addressed is that so i asked the war colleges, do you think america is a revolutionary power or a status quo power . And thats the irony, but the issue of when you look at what weve been doing in iraq and afghanistan as one of my marines said, were doing expeditionary counterterrorism which is a contradiction in terms. Because unless you have a center of gravity on the location that you can trust and has that legit legitimacy of the system, you are on a very difficult err rand. Because youre errand. Because youre building on sand. And thats the issue that this book raises. If youre going to be doing these interventions, or understand the principle. But the postbellham problem is who is your he create mate legitimate entity left on that geographic alter story that will assert and have legitimacy to have order inside that geographical area to control force . That is the problem in afghanistan now, that is the problem in iraq. Its a core, as i said, the varying problem of no legitimate, and we are in a very difficult box because of that. In and thats, thats both a yoo problem and our problem generating with those principles which was based on very sound principles, very noble things. Thats why this is almost more of an idealist than a realist. Oh. Ive got a question. So one comment, and i wont defend the surge [laughter] other people can do that. But just on this issue of how, i mean, on the sort of, i mean, there is the sentiment in the book which is a little bit of we can get by doing these things with less force than perhaps weve done in the past, and just sort of the classic line is, you know, if we had only let the iraqi army stay in place, then, you know, we wouldnt have had to be so deeply involved. But the truth is, and this is true for other interventions, the iraqi army didnt exist. I mean, there was no iraqi army left. It was a bunch of shiite conscripts led by sunni generals, and the idea that you were going to be able to sort of depend upon that force which had no legit macy to sort of legitimacy to maintain order. Im not wanting to pick a fight about that particular thing, but just to indicate that when you do, in fact, do these interventions, you almost inevitably end up taking the government down, youre inevitably left with being the government. And i think you do a good job in the book, by the way, actually you point out how much theres involved in that. One of the things i thought was striking, you do cover an immense amount of literature and interesting ways. One of the things that didnt seem to actually be sort of taken up in sort of a serious way was the Democratic Peace theory. I think a lot of the problems that youre pointing to, you know, and practicalities go away to the degree that, you know, democratic states dont go to war with each other. And they tend, you know, to wind up being more peaceful and more prosperous. But, of course, the radical implication of that is we should be in the business of regime change when it comes to other great powers like russia, iran, china. [laughter] so im just i dont mean to put you on the spot for something, you know, you obviously didnt write, but it does seem to me thats one sort of la kind that in the discussion. You know, its a great point. I have thought a lot about the Democratic Peace theory because the Democratic Peace theory, as you said, since was it the 18th century i think the ideas that the no democracy has gone to war with another democracy, a lot of it depends on how you define democracy because there was the war of 1812 which was ive always wondered how does the war of 1812 when we should have invaded and taken over canada, but we left the job undone. [laughter] there we go, canada again. [laughter] the articles of confederation actually have a clause inviting canada to join the union which was never exercised. They would have been smart to do so. All the smart ones just move here anyway. [laughter] we dont need the rest the canadians are to the americans what the greeks are to the romans. Were here to help explain how to run an em byer. Thats what the british is say about themselves, too, and the french. But i think the radical implication if it were true would be that we should try to convert as many countries in the world into democracies if possible because then they wont attack theres interesting reasons i didnt really adopt that. One, no one withs really sure why it works, theres no theory about why the Democratic Peace theory actually is true. Its a statistical, right, correlation, but theres no convincing theory that anyone agrees about on causation. So i didnt want to i had a lot of difficulty on what to do with it because theres different theories, but theres no real theory there. The other thing thats interesting about the Democratic Peace theory is that democracies dont go to war with each other, but they love attacking nondemocracy. If youre a democracy, your rate of war is higher than an autocracy because you attack nondemocracies and try to do what youre saying [laughter] yeah. But one of the central themes of your book is give what a chance, right . [laughter] so that actually, i think that actually, if you work to draw if you were to draw a project that tried to link the war after the war, the peace, that might be actually the third part would be if you really want, again, the nittygritty of what kind of regime are you going to try to help create after youve gone to war and after youve, and then after youve fought the war. And this does seem to be what we tried to do in iraq and afghanistan, do you try to go all the way in and restore it with a democracy . Then i think that does bear back on the first question. Because if its a question of costs versus benefits, you have to factor that into the overall costs of the war, and our experience in afghanistan and iraq if you really do want to take that kind of reconstruction role on and turning them that raises the cost of the war way up. And it actually, i would think actually in the end may produce a lot lower interventions where you can still save a lot of lives with a minimal amount of intervention if youre going to be agnostic about the regime youre going to leave after. So maybe that goes to your point about the iraq army. If we had invaded iraq, removed Saddam Hussein and then left, your cost of war would have been a lot lower for the United States, and maybe things things could have been equally bad, maybe they could have been worse, maybe they might have been just the same as theyre ending up turning out to be now. I dont, you know, i dont know. So this is, you know, john begins with the platonic canard that only the dead have seen the end of war. So if you believe the opening, its we can never eliminate it. But the issue that used to be with the [inaudible] to the notion of only democrats dont go to war, remember tom friedman [inaudible] dont go to war with each other, right . My recitation of authorities until now. [laughter] okay. Now youre you quoted plato. The issue is there was an underlying assumption thats deep in the dna of the west is that if you have Economic Development rises of middle classes, middle classes then support democratic institutions. Its a bad Barrington Moore argument because moore demonstrates its actually those relationships that form between the elite groups and the people that are receiving consent from can create a very dynamic economic market with a great deal of growth with a middle class that sells off democracy for economic stability which one might argue is russia and putins economic friends. And then the issue is that is fine, were willing we are willing to deal with you as long as you stay in your box. If youre willing to maintain the economic relationships with us and trade and partner, the long game is we think eventually youll have internal development and pressure for more democratic institution. Thats the assumption. Historically unclear to me if that working assumption is true, and then it becomes a different type of format. I remember one professor used to say convergence used to be in the United States. It was russia and brazil. Thats a different way of understanding mass integration as trying to figure out what to do with stability and odder. Thats sort of of the enigma for the book because you may have great stability with Economic Development and nondemocratic regimes. China. So this is one of the more interesting modernday phenomena that when i was in graduate school, we didnt think like that. We thought stages of growth was going to make for this middle class. That is proven not to be protect. The same thing we thought 30 years ago in graduate school that religion would fade out, that religious ways of thinking about the world was an old way of thinking about it. Absolutely incorrect. Whats happened over the last, you know, 30, 40 years. Also fascinating, explain that phenomena. I think were about ready to wrap up, but i want to give everybody a final word if they want it. Michael . Just one quick thing on china. As you mentioned the mcdonalds theory, i think chinas sea conflicts are going to rapidly check that one whether its china and vietnam, china and the philippines, any of those may well find themselves breaking that paradigm. And its the chinese reaction to the conflict that they are having with the various other states bordering the South China Sea are interesting because they are claiming its the democracies that are dangerous. The democracies like the philippines are dangerous because the people have this sway over their government, right . If the populace wants to go to war and youre democratically elected, you have very little choice but to go to war whereas the chinese dont have that problem, right . It doesnt matter what our populace wants, we will do what is right is the claim that they have head in the various standoffs theyve had with some of the other countries around the South China Sea. Obviously, the flip side of the Democratic Peace theory in some ways, but were thinking about it. Harvey, do you have a i just want to thank aei, whats great about john yoo, youre sort of like the acronym of the conservative movement. [laughter] he basically explains therell be more books based on his footnotes which is a classic ackerman move. So i look forward to coming back again, debating books six, seven and eight in this trilogy. Thanks. [laughter] as moderator, ive been insulted repeatedly. First i was called samantha power, then bruce ackerman, the ultimate one being canadian. Im never going to live this down. It may cause me to stop writing books altogether. [inaudible] thats true. One small point based on the headlines, today there was this poll out that harvey and gary referred to that said americans are weary of war, they dont want to pay for the big military, they dont want to intervene, and this combines our common interest in the presidency and National Security and International Law which is this is exactly the same attitude the United States had in the 1930s. You could almost take the poll results, actually, very similar to the interwar period in the United States attitude. And it may seem like were going to save money now, it might have seemed like 23491930s in the 1930s we were saving a lot of money on defense. It ended up costing the world a lot more. This is actually a moment where congress by itself cannot do the job. You really need president ial leadership to explain and justify to the country whats at stake. And i have to say theres not really i think franklin roosevelt, that is his finest moment is that he really did work on persuading the American People that they had to bear a burden to make sure the world came out a certain way. And i think thats the responsibility of the current president. I worry that theres a lot of war fatigue, but we are actually going to regret giving into it. Just final, final footnote, actually not so much in this current, i mean, the old today, but there was a similar one that came out in pew a couple months ago. I have a colleague here whos spending some time actually going through the pew data, and there is that headline which is, you know, wed rather leave the world alone. But ifl a4 g you ask is seconr third a question do you still want america to be the, you know, primo country, overwhelmingly its, yes. Do you want American Leadership . Theab answer is, yes. So implicit to get back to johns point which is theres still something to be worked with, that of a little bit of leadership not only of the president , and i must say as somebody who works rather closely with a lot of members of congress, its only this the recent, last couple months that youve got members of congress who are interested in reviving some of the discussions about what needs to be done when it comes to americas defenses. So, you know, so the trend line potentially is there if somebody picks up the mantle and runs with it. Listen, i want to thank everybody for coming out today on a miserable day in washington. Not that there are many great days in washington [laughter] but nevertheless, this particularly rainy one. I want to thank our panelists, harvey, michael and, of course, john. And i do highly recommend that you pick up johns book. Do not wait for the movie version, because theyll screw it up. Again, i do want to thank you all and thank our panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] we would like to hear from you. Tweet us your feedback. Twitter. Com booktv. Deborah hicks said down with book tv at Duke University to discuss her book. She talks about her efforts to transmit her love of learning and literature to a group of poor girls and cincinnati, ohio. Book tv is on the campus some of their bucks