Real Peace

...In fact, van den Haag himself shows that the dispute over deterrence is largely beside the point...

...We must scan the globe the way the Soviets do," he writes...

...That is why even administrations like the present one are ultimately forced to clasp causes like "arms control" or "human rights" to their bosoms...

...Perfect peace--the absence of conflictmis impossible, because we live in a world of competing nations...

...I read this book with a keen sense of d/j~ vu...

...Since the Democrats' problem in this regard is well known, let us for a moment consider the case of the Republicans_9 Can one imagine, seriously, that the sober, balanced appraisals in Real Peace are the kind of thing that would lead habitues o f the rubber chicken circuit in Texarkana or Walla Walla to ring doorbells for Ronald Reagan...

...As its subtitle promises, The Death Penalty is arranged as an extended debate, and it is certainly a more balanced contest than my own halfhearted debate...

...Second, they regard even marginal increases in defense spending as strategically meaningless, and some go so far as to claim that they would be excessively provocative...

...And by emphasizing arms buildups to the exclusion of almost all other forms of national power, it has made a costly and serious mistake...

...position on grain sales to the Soviets (this, after sponsoring an embargo), or the Thatcher government's posture on the pipeline...

...The book begins with an important conceptual distinction between what the author calls "real peace" and "perfect peace...

...But what he is actually saying here may be lost to Mark Falcoff is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute...

...Nixon's vision of NATO cooperation outside of Europe seems even more unlikely...

...In this written format, van den Haag's crisp analytic rejoinders are often devastating, while, bereft of stage atmospherics, Conrad's Jeremy Rabkin is assistant professor of government at Cornell University...

...Conrad insists that most citizens are too decent to need the behavioral reinforcement of the lex talionis, while most murderers are too irrational to heed it...

...A few months before the 1980 presidential elections, Richard Nixon published a thick, carefully documented treatise on the international situation with the rather provocative title, The Real War...

...By rattling sabers and by the use of overblown rhetoric, it has frightened allies and promoted a tactical convergence between its Democratic critics and its mortal enemies far to their left...

...But on the most basic questions we in the West seem farther apart than ever...

...He reports that in previous encounters, he has pressed a variety of "abolitionist" advocates with this challenge: If you were persuaded that every execution would deter or prevent 500 subsequent murders, would you still urge the abolition of the death penalty...

...Van den Haag disables himself by disclaiming any reliance on the moral "desert" of murderers in his case f o r the death penalty...

...But it is, he insists, the only one that will world...

...rhetorical appeals fall rather f l a t . But if Conrad fumbles his side of the debate, it is not clear that van den Haag has really established his own position...

...And in the event, I succeeded to a large degree-allowing the ACLU's man to run away with our college audience.I spoke for defensible distinctions, he argued from passionate convictions, and, after all, it was no real contest...

...In his own introduction to the volume (entitled "Death But Not Torture") van den Haag had urged that "methods of execution that may be painful, such as electrocution, or present an unavoidable psychological burden, such as gassing, ought not to be used" because even advocates of the death penalty "should favor the elimination of unnecessary cruelty...

...I was confident that I could demonstrate that capital punishment was morally distinguishable from "murder," whatever its ultimate "justice...

...Such must be based, he writes, "on the strength of arms and strength of will sufficient to blunt the threat of Soviet blackmail...

...For when all is said and done, and regardless of the fact that the Soviets do incontrovertibly murder, cheat, and lie, the present configuration of world power forces us to coexist and deal with them...

...Nixon, in which the reader is treated to a tour d'horizon of the international situation, with a double order of croissants, plenty of hot coffee, and not much opportunity to get a word in edgewise: The former President is a master of his subject, and in that sense he still commands our attention...

...Nixon is surely right to point to the very considerable economic and political advantages which, potentially at least, the West could bring to bear 34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1984 either with regard to the Soviets or the Third World...

...The problem is not "structural," but moral...

...Van den Haag tries to wriggle out of the challenge by insisting that torture would not be a greater deterrent than death, but he offers no evidence to support this counterintuitive claim...

...Witness, for example, the U.S...

...Besides, the organizers were billing the debate as "The Death Penalty: Justice or Murder...

...Ernest van den Haag is an unapologetic advocate of the death penalty and, as readers of The American Spectator are doubtless aware, an extremely able polemicist...

...Begun some time before the hostage crisis in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, it had the good fortune to appear in bookstores just about the time that the national mood was turning sharply against the isolationismcum-pacifism which passed for American foreign policy during the first three Carter years...

...When all is quiet in the Third World all is not necessarily well...

...two, through a more closely coordinated policy toward the Third World...

...Our author admits that he is outlining a policy which will require a patience and a perseverance utterly uncharacteristic of our political culture...

...First of all, the author spends far more energy exposing the errors and follies of what might be called the CranstonJesse Jackson-Jonathan Schell school of international relations...

...Nixon have in mind when referring to the latter...

...Whereas The Real War is like a very long and sometimes turgid lecture, Real Peace resembles nothing so much as a series of five or six snappy breakfasts with Mr...

...Perhaps the chief interest of The Death Penalty is what.it suggests about the limitations of our public debate on the subject...

...That in turn requires a posture which combines strength, firmness, and a permanent willingness to negotiate our differences--what Mr...

...To many Europeans, however, it is simply intolerable...

...For example, in one context both "superdove" and "superhawk" approaches to a problem are examined and found wanting...

...Yet even so, it is difficult to imagine any future administration--regardless of its inclinations--proceeding along the lines which Real Peace recommends...

...To some degree, The Real War helped to set the agenda for the 1980 presidential debate on international issues, and in that sense may have in some small way contributed to President Reagan's victory...

...The mere search for agreements to sign for their own sake virtually iavites further Soviet aggression...

...There is no national consensus on arms control, East-West trade, human rights, even immigration policy, and one is not likely to come into existence in the foreseeable future_9 At least, not as long as the rewards for politicians (and the media people and pollsters who light their way) are greater in undermining the foreign policy efforts of any administration than helping them succeed...

...Second, President Reagan is pointedly congratulated from time to time on reversing this or that parlous Carter policy...

...To which one should add, inevitably, the postVietnam trauma which (though the passage of time and subsequent events in the Indochinese peninsula should have ameliorated) is still very much with us...

...in that world, weapons cannot be disinvented nor political differences wished away...

...Of course, when we look abroad the problem is just that much more difficult...

...The dominant wing of our foreign policy establishment--in spite of some welcome remissions--still wants to ask the world, particularly the Third World, for permission to exist (and does so in nearly every issue of Foreign Policy...

...Nixon's present views on the Cold War...

...Those familiar with the writings of Walter Laqueur, Elie Kedourie, Richard Pipes, Edward Luttwak, or much of the European strategic literature would have found little remarkable in these views, but coming from a former President of the United States, and the one chief executive of the last generation generally agreed to have the greatest flair for and experience in the formulation of foreign policy, they could not be ignored...

...What Mr...

...Or putting it more directly, if van den Haag is squeamish about courtordered torture, how can he begrudge Conrad his moral reservations about capital punishment...

...Nor will it mean very much if we do not have the support of our allies and also Japan...

...For some, like Sweden, it is both...

...His treatment of the second point is particularly interesting...

...Thus before we can reach an agreement with the Soviets, we first have to Convince them that it is in their interests to make one at all...

...The West must learn how to practice preventive political medicine...

...Although some of the themes of The Real War reappear in Real Peace, the books are quite different in tone and content...

...It is apparent to whom the former category applies...

...This sounds reasonable enough--to an American reader...

...L i k e so much of the contemporary public debate, most of the argument in The Death Penalty centers on the deterrent effects of the death penalty...

...The book consists of alternating chapters by Conrad and van den Haag, with each given space to rebut the other's major arguments and then to reply to rebuttals...

...As Mr...

...Van den Haag does find merit in these studies but concedes that it has not yet been "proved statistically in a conclusive manner that the death penalty does deter more than alternative penalties...

...I didn't exactly think of myself as a champion of the death penalty at the time, but I didn't want it said that everyone on our campus agreed with the ACLU...

...perhaps he will yet do so...

...As in the ongoing national debate on this subject, the two sides in this book seem determined to skirt the central issues at stake...

...Nixon is perfectly aware of the fact that the Western alliance is coming a bit apart at the seams, and he suggests three ways to strengthen i t - - one, militarily, by increasing NATO's conventional forces...

...Nixon writes that fear of tl3e Soviets alone is not enough to sustain the alliance...

...Instead, van den Haag appeals to "common sense" and to an uncommonly sophisticated argument about the way in which the threat of extreme sanctions can effect attitudes and behavior in various unconscious or indirect ways...

...Nixon outlines would doubtless position any future Republican (or Democratic) administration quite advantageously once it took office...

...But getting elected is more than nine-tenths of all political wisdom...

...It is a serious problem, but one no American policy can adequately treat...

...In outlining a negotiating strategy with the Soviets, President Nixon stresses two factors--linkage to specific issues, and a willingness to make that linkage implicit rather than to shout it from the housetops...

...Nixon reminds us of the longer European experience in the Third World and urges us to draw upon it, citing with approval the role France recently played in Chad (and, presumably, Lebanon...

...Nixon and readers of this journal, during the last fifteen years almost all of the major foreign policy questions in the United States have become domestic--that is to say, partisan-issues...

...What chances of success would they have if applied to today's international environment...

...But, he adds, "this should be combined with a mixture of prospective rewards for good behavior and penalties for bad behavior that gives the Soviet Union a positive incentive to keep the peace rather than to break it...

...all but a few careful readers--namely, that the Reagan Administration has failed in its own way to seize the middle ground between confrontation with and appeasement of the Soviet Union...

...No sireee, it's that old-time religion that gets 'em every time...

...For reasons well-known to Mr...

...How do they differ from those of the Reagan Administration (and its critics...

...unfortunately one can have nothing else...

...He scornfully dismisses those statistical s t u d i e s - - n o t a b l y by economist Isaac Ehrlich--purporting to show that the execution of murderers can measurably reduce the murder rate...

...Hard-headed negotiation and contact with the outside world can weaken it...

...He tells us that he does "share retributivist feelings about what is deserved morally," but "retributivism," he insists, "cannot be right or wrong: it is a feeling and feelings just are...

...One is the relative parity of nuclear arsenals, which would presumably deprive either side of a meaningful victory in the event of an all-out war...

...Moreover, if the intended beneficiaries of the Carter Doctrine on the Persian Gulf were scrambling to distance themselves from it almost within minutes of its enunciation, what chance is there that _9 ~1 t . on Issues of far lesser import to them but greater moment to us--say, Central America--we can count on their cooperation or even their benevolent neutrality...

...True enough, but that is not the issue_9 Fear of the Soviets is, in fact, what at this stage is undermining the alliance-fear, compounded by illusion, wishful thinking, and in some cases, deliberate ~ deception...

...But they do this, please note, only after first having denounced both, and thereby losing valuable ideological ground which is twice as costly to make up...

...But the conservative reaction--and really, that is often all it is--is neither very helpful nor very persuasive...

...Or Jack Kemp...

...But even the best performance at the conference table will be for naught if the efforts of U.S...

...Third, and perhaps most important, the administration is never directly attacked for any policy---everything is by indirection...

...By ignoring them, or downplaying their geopolitical significance, the Carter Administration was missing the entire point of the Soviet challenge...

...And the other is the disadvantageous position of the Soviet Union at home and abroad--an economy that does not work, rebellious subjects on its Western boundaries, and far-flung international commitments which are costly and in some cases very thinly spread...

...Precisely what are Mr...

...Real Peace outlines what our European policy should have been like these last ten years, what in fact Europeans are always telling us they want from us--namely, coherence and continuity_9 But Mr...

...The message of The Real War was simple: The Third World War was already underway, being waged in dozens of twilight struggles around the globe, largely in Third World countries most Americans could not locate on a map...

...Conrad puts this admission in better perspective, however, by challenging van den Haag to embrace torture as potentially an even more effective deterrent than simple execution...

...negotiators are not backed by the Congress and the American people, as in the case of the Paris Peace Accords on Vietnam...

...If additional torments are "unnecessary" to deter would-be murderers, how can van den Haag be so sure that executions--as opposed, say, to lifeterms in prison--are really necessary...

...Nixon calls real peace (probably "achievable" or "realistic" peace would be closer to his meaning)is possible, however, if we manage to take the profit out of war...

...In the future we must keep them from igniting at all...

...No reviewer should have to remind the former President how utterly insular and provincial the NATO nations have become, and this in spite of their acute dependence--far greater than our own--on imports of energy and strategic raw materials...

...Obviously, there are reasons for such behavior...

...Thus van den Haag continually returns to the deterrence argument, for here "one can have facts, not opinions...

...Afghapistan is merely the most recent example...

...To articulate the kind of foreign policy Mr...

...Real Peace undeniably spells out a complete foreign policy, one t h a t - - i f articulated by any public figure less personally controversial than Richard Nixon--would merit serious consideration by both our political parties and the broader foreign-policy public...

...For most European countries, the Third World is either a force to be feared or appeased, or a resort area for its liberal conscience...

...and three, through the more consistent application of our combined economic power for political and geopolitical purposes...

...John P. Conrad, an academic criminologist, describes himself as an "old-fashioned liberal" (and yes, an ACLU member " f o r many years...

...The potential for unrest in a country often smoulders just below the surface...

...But the French approach is a special one, and in any case not likely to be extended outside its own historic sphere of cultural influence...

...Up to now, we have only moved to put out the fires of revolution once they started...

...Surely not the John Birch Society...

...Now we are in a new election year, and a new book by President Nixon is upon us...

...Van den Haag carries this positivist argument so far that at one point he casually exTHE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1984 35...

...Nixon calls "hard-headed d~tente...

...To begin with the alliance proper: He cites approvingly a study by the London Economist which found that it would be possible to improve significantly the posture of NATO's conventional forces with only a "modest" increment in allied defense budgets--about four percent a year...

...We no longer know how to use our assets because we no longer agree upon what our foreign policies are supposed to do--except avoid immediate discomfort...

...Now, it is easy to see why this subtext is not immediately apparent...

...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1984 33 Mr...

...First, they prefer to use that money to shore up their own deficitridden welfare states...

...That is a subject about which President Nixon knows a great deal, and about which he could probably write a very good book...

...I determined to offer a dispassionate, analytical counter to my opponent's demagoguery...

...And third, Europeans are convinced that, come what may, the Americans will ride to the rescue should their judgment of Soviet intentions prove wrong...

...A few years ago I was myself recruited into a public debate on the death penalty with a representative of the ACLU...

...Nixon sees it, the Soviets are torn between cutting the deal they need with the West, and attempting still further to tilt what they call "the balance of forces" by intervening in the Third World...

...Or for that matter, Richard Nixon, were he to begin his political career again...

...More economic aid now could reduce the possibility that we would be called on for more military aid later...

...Conversely, "confrontation and isolation strengthen a dictatorship...

...but then again, whom else could Mr...

...There are two forces at work which have the effect of moving the Soviet Union, at least potentially, toward real peace...

...All admitted this would not change their position and Conrad, too, after some squirming, takes his stand with these abolitionists from "principle...

...Nixon's notion of a revitalized NATO, eagerly or reluctantly embracing worldwide responsibilities and obligations--whatever its intellectual merits--strikes me as frankly fantastic...

...About the moral "seriousness of crimes," he maintains, "one may have opinions...