Only a just peace, based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual, can truly be lasting.
-Barak Obama, 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
Reading some of the comments and critiques of Obama's Nobel Lecture, I've gotten the impression many were missing the most important parts of it, and not only some of those Republicans who saw little difference from what Reagan, Bush or Palin might have said, but even many Progressives who have seemed to interpret the President's words as somehow an endorsement of The Bush Doctrine or of American Exceptionalism.
Many of these critics though, are misinterpreting the early part of the speech, and are ignoring the real heart of the speech, which lays out Obama's belief not in Just War Theory, but in Just Peace Theory, an important teaching of Obama's faith, as a member of the United Church of Christ. Below, a closer look at what the President actually said, and how what is now being called The Obama Doctrine has been informed by his faith.
The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture
I'll begin with the speech. One thing it certainly is not is an endorsement of "American exceptionalism".
One thing Obama makes clear is that, if a war can be justified, it must be justified not on American interests, but rather on the basis of a defense of fundamental, and universal rights. He does express pride in the role the United States has played in fighting for such rights (though not specifically through war--in this first quote he was speaking more of successes of our efforts to build up international institutions):
The ideals of liberty, self-determination, equality and the rule of law have haltingly advanced. We are the heirs of the fortitude and foresight of generations past, and it is a legacy for which my own country is rightfully proud.
And more specifically on the role of our armed forces:
The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.
But Obama views these values--of liberty, self-determination, equality, and rule of law; of democracy, freedom, and prosperity--not as merely American values, but as universal ones. And thus, we as a nation are not entitled to any "exceptionalism", as we are equally bound by our responsibilities to others:
America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don't, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention -- no matter how justified.
and, more specifically in regard to war fighting:
Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.
Obama does go on to argue that war might be justified in circumstances beyond the traditional "just war" notion of self-defense, but only if it is on humanitarian grounds, in defense of these universal rights:
This becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self-defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor. More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later
But Obama does not invoke Just War Theory as a standard in order to argue for the legitimacy of any current war, but rather to note it's historical importance, out of respect to the "philosophers, clerics and statesmen" who throughout history have sought "to regulate the destructive power of war". He also goes on to immediately point out how little was achieved, and how often even these restrictions were ignored:
For most of history, this concept of just war was rarely observed. The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who look different or pray to a different God. Wars between armies gave way to wars between nations -- total wars in which the distinction between combatant and civilian became blurred. In the span of 30 years, such carnage would twice engulf this continent. And while it is hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.
Obama is not simply endorsing past just war theory here, but calling for us to do better.
I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.
And one way in which he asserts we can do better is by building this "just peace", which will help to avoid the tragic choice of war:
I have spoken to the questions that must weigh on our minds and our hearts as we choose to wage war. But let me turn now to our effort to avoid such tragic choices, and speak of three ways that we can build a just and lasting peace.
If there is one thing that really stands out, in the thinking that drives all of this, it is this notion of a just peace. Ultimately, the Obama doctrine is not really about war, or "just war". It is about the conditions under which we are able to achieve a just peace. And it is in defining this idea that he is most explicit about the universality of the underlying values, which are not in his mind in any way uniquely American or Western:
This brings me to a second point -- the nature of the peace that we seek. For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.
It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War. In the wake of devastation, they recognized that if human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.
And yet all too often, these words are ignored. In some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development. And within America, there has long been a tension between those who describe themselves as realists or idealists -- a tension that suggests a stark choice between the narrow pursuit of interests or an endless campaign to impose our values.
I reject this choice. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Pent-up grievances fester, and the suppression of tribal and religious identity can lead to violence. We also know that the opposite is true. Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace. America has never fought a war against a democracy, and our closest friends are governments that protect the rights of their citizens. No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests -- nor the world's -- are served by the denial of human aspirations.
So even as we respect the unique culture and traditions of different countries, America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal.
This seems to me the central point of the speech. If these values are truly universal, then no nation can rightly claim "exceptionalism". He goes on to talk about promoting this peace first through diplomacy, not force. And then, he goes further near the end, and talks as well about economic justice also being an important part of this peace:
Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
But the core of the Obama doctrine is the notion of a "just peace". With this, he essentially rewrites "just war" theory--replacing justifications based on narrow self-interest and self defense with broader responsibilities for the interests (and indeed rights) of all, but also inverting it so that we are forced to think first and foremost, not about when we are permitted to war, but about what we must do to achieve a just peace.
A Brief History of Just Peace Theory
I was fascinated to discover, with a bit of googling, some important background on the origin of Obama's notion of a just peace. This is from the website of his church, the United Church of Christ:
The Just Peace Church vision is a hallmark of United Church of Christ theological identity.
For nearly two decades, the Just Peace Church program has been a grassroots movement of UCC congregations committed to corporately naming and boldly proclaiming a public identity as a justice-doing, peace-seeking church.
The movement traces its history to the 1985 General Synod, when a Just Peace Church Pronouncement called upon all settings of the UCC to be a Just Peace Church, underscoring the words of Dr. Robert V. Moss, the second president of the UCC, who wrote in 1971, "We now need to put as much effort into defining a just peace as we have done in the past in defining a just war."
The General Synod defined "just peace" as the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence. The pronouncement called the church to a vision of shalom rooted in peace with justice and placed the UCC General Synod in opposition to the institution of war.
And according to the 1985 Pronouncement (pdf) mentioned above:
Summary
Affirms the United Church of Christ to be a Just Peace Church and defines Just Peace as the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence. Places the United Church of Christ General Synod in opposition to the institution of war.
Background
The Thirteenth General Synod called upon the United Church of Christ to become a Peace Church and the Fourteenth General Synod asked a Peace Theology Development Team to recommend to the Fifteenth General Synod theology, policy, and structure for enabling the United Church of Christ to be a peacemaking church. This pronouncement is based on insights from all three of the historic approaches of Christians to issues of war and peace—pacifism, just war, and crusade—but attempts to move beyond these traditions to an understanding rooted in the vision of shalom, linking peace, and justice. Since Just War criteria itself now rules out war under modern conditions, it is imperative to move beyond Just War thinking to the Theology of a Just Peace.
I won't reproduce the whole document here, though I'll quote it extensively, but it is well worth reading all of it. And I will say, that anyone who truly believes there is not much difference between Obama's doctrine of "a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual", Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" (which in practice involved funding and supporting insurgency, and even death squads, against our communist "enemies"), and Bush's "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" (combined with unilateralism, and preemptive war), simply hasn't been paying enough attention to what Obama has been saying all along.
For one, the UCC teachings on "friendship" are directly contrary to the ideas of unilateralism (or for that matter exceptionalism):
C. The Fifteenth General Synod affirms friendship as essential to a Just Peace.
- We affirm the unity of the whole human community and oppose any use of nationalism to divide this covenant of friendship.
- We reject all labeling of others as enemies and the creation of institutions that perpetuate enemy relations.
- We affirm diversity among peoples and nations and the growth and change that can emerge from the interchange of differing value systems, ideologies, religions and political and economic systems.
- We affirm nonviolent conflict as inevitable and valuable, an expression of diversity and essential to healthy relationships among people and nations.
- We affirm all nations developing global community and interchange...
And then, there is an emphasis on justice:
D. The Fifteenth General Synod affirms justice as essential to a Just Peace.
- We affirm all nations working together to insure that people everywhere will be able to meet their basic needs, including the right of every person to:
a. food and clean water,
b. adequate health care,
c. decent housing,
d. meaningful employment,
e. basic education,
f. participation in community decision-making and the political process,
g. freedom of worship and religious expression,
h. protection from torture,
i. protection of rights without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or national or social origin.
- We affirm the establishment of a more just international order in which:
a. trade barriers, tariffs, and debt burdens do not work against the interests of poor people, and developing nations,
b. poor nations have a greater share in the policies and management of global economic institutions.
- We affirm economic policies that target aid to the most needy: the rural poor, women, nations with poor natural resources or structural problems, and the poor within each nation.
- We affirm economic policies that will further the interests of the poor within each nation:
a. promoting popular participation,
b. empowering the poor to make effective demand on social systems,
c. encouraging decentralization and greater community control,
d. providing for the participation of women in development,
e. redistributing existing assets, including land, and distributing more equitably future benefits of growth,
f. reducing current concentrations of economic and political power, and
g. providing for self-reliant development, particularly in food production.
- We affirm nations transferring funds from military expenditures into programs that will aid the poor and developing strategies of converting military industries to Just Peace industries.
- We oppose the injustices resulting from the development of national security states that currently repress the poor in organizing society against an external enemy.
- We affirm a free and open press within each nation, without hindrance from government.
And finally, an emphasis on security from violence:
E. The Fifteenth General Synod affirms common security from violence as essential to a Just Peace.
- We affirm that national security includes four interrelated components:
a. provision for general well-being,
b. cultivation of justice,
c. provision for defense of a nation, and
d. creation of political atmosphere and structure in which a Just Peace can flourish and the risk of war is diminished or eliminated.
- We affirm the right and obligation of governments to use civil authority to prevent lawlessness and protect human rights. Such force must not be excessive and must always be in the context of the primary responsibility of the state in creating social justice and promoting human welfare. Any use of force must be based in the participatory consent of the people.
- We affirm that war must be eliminated as an instrument of national policy and the global economy must be more just. To meet these goals, international institutions must be strengthened.
- We affirm our support for the United Nations, which should be strengthened developing the following:
a. more authority in disputes among countries,
b. peacekeeping forces, including a permanent force of at least 5000, able to police border disputes and intervene when called to do so by the U.N.,
c. peacemaking teams, trained in mediation, conflict intervention, and conflict resolution,
d. support for international peace academies,
e. a global satellite surveillance system to provide military intelligence to the common community,
f. international agreements to limit military establishments and the international arms trade,
g. an international ban on the development, testing, use, and possession of nuclear and bio-chemical weapons of mass destruction, and
h. an international ban on all weapons in space and all national development of space-based defense systems and Strategic Defense Initiatives.
- We affirm our support for the International Court of Justice and for the strengthening of international law, including:
a. the Law of the Sea Treaty,
b. universal ratification of the International Covenants and Conventions which seek to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and
c. recognition of the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and removal of restrictions, such as the Connally Amendment, which impair the Court’s effective functioning.
- We reject any use or threat to use weapons and forces of mass destruction and any doctrine of deterrence based primarily on using such weapons. We also reject unilateral, full-scale disarmament as a currently accepted path out of the present international dilemma. We affirm the development of new policies of common security, using a combination of negotiated agreements, new international institutions and institutional power, nonviolent strategies, unilateral initiatives to lessen tensions, and new policies that will make the global economy more just.
- We affirm the mutual and verifiable freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons as the most important step in breaking the escalating dynamics of the arms race and call upon the United States, the U.S.S.R., and other nations to take unilateral initiatives toward implementing such a freeze, contingent on the other side responding, until such time as a comprehensive freeze can be negotiated.
- We declare our opposition to all weapons of mass destruction. All nations should:
a. declare that they will never use such weapons,
b. cease immediately the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons,
c. begin dismantling these arsenals, and
d. while the process of dismantling is going on, negotiate comprehensive treaties banning all such future weapons by any nation.
- We declare our opposition to war, violence, and terrorism. All nations should:
a. declare that they will never attack another nation,
b. make unilateral initiatives toward dismantling their military arsenals, calling on other nations to reciprocate, and
c. develop mechanisms for international law, international peacekeeping, and international conflict resolution.
Now it is important to remember of course, that just because Barack Obama is a member of this church, this doesn't mean that he necessarily agrees with everything in this document. But it does seem clear that this teaching on just peace has had some significant influence on Obama's approach to foreign policy, as it has been consistently laid out from the time he began running for president.
Consider The Obama Doctrine, an article by Spencer Ackerman in March of 2008.
But to understand what Obama is proposing, it's important to ask: What, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place?
To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust, the advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election. They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.
And:
During Bush's second term, a strange disconnect has arisen in liberal foreign-policy circles in response to the president's so-called "freedom agenda." Some liberals, like Matthew Yglesias in his book Heads In The Sand, note the insincerity of the administration's stated goal of exporting democracy. Bush, they observe, only targets for democratization countries that challenge American hegemony. Other liberal foreign-policy types, such as Thomas Carothers and Marina Ottaway of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, insist the administration is sincere but too focused on elections without supporting the civil-society institutions that sustain democracy. Still others, like Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, contend that a focus on democracy in the developing world without privileging the protection of civil and political rights is a recipe for a dangerous illiberalism.
What's typically neglected in these arguments is the simple insight that democracy does not fill stomachs, alleviate malaria, or protect neighborhoods from marauding bands of militiamen. Democracy, in other words, is valuable to people insofar as it allows them first to meet their basic needs. It is much harder to provide that sense of dignity than to hold an election in Baghdad or Gaza and declare oneself shocked when illiberal forces triumph. "Look at why the baddies win these elections," Power says. "It's because [populations are] living in climates of fear." U.S. policy, she continues, should be "about meeting people where they're at. Their fears of going hungry, or of the thug on the street. That's the swamp that needs draining. If we're to compete with extremism, we have to be able to provide these things that we're not [providing]."
This is why, Obama's advisers argue, national security depends in large part on dignity promotion. Without it, the U.S. will never be able to destroy al-Qaeda. Extremists will forever be able to demagogue conditions of misery, making continued U.S. involvement in asymmetric warfare an increasingly counterproductive exercise -- because killing one terrorist creates five more in his place. "It's about attacking pools of potential terrorism around the globe," Gration says. "Look at Africa, with 900 million people, half of whom are under 18. I'm concerned that unless you start creating jobs and livelihoods we will have real big problems on our hands in ten to fifteen years."
Obama sees this as more than a global charity program; it is the anvil against which he can bring down the hammer on al-Qaeda. "He took many of the [counterinsurgency] principles -- the paradoxes, like how sometimes you're less secure the more force is used -- and looked at it from a more strategic perspective," Sewall says. "His policies deal with root causes but do not misconstrue root causes as a simple fix. He recognizes that you need to pursue a parallel anti-terrorism [course] in its traditional form along with this transformed approach to foreign policy."
In short, you might even say Obama desires to replace this promotion of democracy through violence and fear, with efforts to promote friendship, justice, and security from violence.
What does this mean for Afghanistan?
Of course the elephant in the room, which seems to have impacted everyone's perception of Obama's Nobel speech, was the recent decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. How is this consistent with a just peace philosophy which is supposed to be in opposition to the institution of war?
Well, maybe it's not, altogether. But it is important to remember also that President Obama has been in office less than a year, has inherited two wars, and is in the process of getting us out of one, and, while increasing troops in the other, has also announced a timetable for ending that. But then why not get out more quickly, and why increase troops?
Very likely part of it is that Obama views the role of NATO troops now in Afghanistan, as being on something of a peacekeeping mission. One thing that stands out about the Just Peace teaching is that it is far from isolationist. If rights must be seen as global, then so must responsibilities. And thus, we can't simply withdraw from a situation like Afghanistan, without regard for the consequences for the people there. If too rapid a withdrawal would lessen security, and would leave more people victims of injustice and violence, that would not be furthering the goals of a just peace.
If you look at polls of public opinion in Afghanistan, they have generally supported the presence of US troops for these reasons. Just a few years ago, approval of the U.S. in Afghanistan was over 80%. But look at polls of what Afghans really want, and it's not democracy, it's jobs, economic growth, and security. And the greatest threats are seen as the Taliban and drug lords. (for polls, see here, here, here, here, here, and here). Obama has likely been persuaded, for now at least, that U.S can still play a constructive role in helping to provide "security from violence" to the Afghan population.
This assessment may prove to be wrong. And if U.S. troops don't do a better job then they have been lately of avoiding civilian casualties, I think it will be. But whether we agree or disagrees with this decision, we ought to still be able to appreciate the distinct differences from previous administrations, in the underlying values which have informed President Obama's approach to international affairs. While it may turn out that Obama has been too ambitious in committing additional troops, and underestimated the risks involved, it also should be understood that what drives his ambitions is the idea that "only a just peace, based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual, can truly be lasting."