The age of restraint:
Hehir, J. Bryan
national receivership. The president, acting in a fiduciary role, stitutionally mandated authority, than the designees of some like the receiver of a troubled business enterprise, has extraor-...
...Precision guided wea- ing characteristic...
...clear deterrence from the 1950s through nomic purposes...
...Successful deterrence of prolifer- three complaints about lack of restraint, but not enough to rebut the presumption ation requires a strategy designed for more does U.S...
...domestic ry policy regarding North Korea this sum- has been stripped away from most of the support...
...The press quoted Mr...
...policy which seeks to counter prothe Iraqi invasion of Kuwait...
...Counter-proliferation policy is a fundamental requirement for the post-cold war "Experimenting world...
...the presumption against force is I find the intelligence headquarters the terrence...
...Those who justify (eth- paid to conventional arms sales...
...in doing so we should not forget easily overridden on cause grounds...
...From the heart of Europe of total war-a discipline which yielded attack, and noted that the targeting of the to the Horn of Africa the use of force is restraint often if not all the time-is now intelligence headquarters-a home for pursued with primitive methods but dev- gone...
...policies of aggression abroad...
...Hoagland, tors...
...policy choic- both torture and treachery-was particuastating consequences for the civilian pop- es this summer illustrate that identifying larly appropriate and proportionate (eight ulation...
...it was-is not the same kind of threat to cosmic and more complex than the task of The fourth case of post-cold war poliinternational peace and order...
...Attacking Iraq this time failed less than satisfying, but it supplied a cer- of that, successful prosecution of the polthe tests of restraint...
...The problem was not the fact that the president threatened the Koreans, but how he did it...
...Short uses of force...
...When In spite of the near universal support, the threat of nuclear proliferation pro- restraint is not imposed from outside, the the methodical decision making, and the vides a striking contrast to the low-tech policy choices become more complicat- high-tech precision of the Tomahawks, my warfare pursued within states...
...In retrospect, many of us in the mer also failed the canon of restraint...
...The post- it, just cause would seem to be present: cold war world has generated a multiplicity The Iraqi plan to kill Bush sustains the jusof threats, which defy a single strategy and tified reputation of Saddam Hussein as an promise not catastrophic damage, but international criminal, indicted both on chaos within nations which can spill over human-rights grounds at home and by to international conflict...
...But they the arms embargo and strike Serbian forces ically) some use of force, need to be are preeminently an issue today...
...tain strategic rationale for at least some icy will fall victim to European criticism Second, President Clinton's declarato- of the sales...
...Here policy...
...policy which Neither can be reasonably assured...
...and Republicans and by the general pubThat is the conclusion one The emphasis on restraint is doubly lic, as expressed in polling data...
...Clinton's EC, even NATO with UN authorization...
...The Clinton administration conducted a scrupulous review of the acTHE AGE OF RESTRAINT cusation that Iraqi intelligence agents were FOUR CASES implicated in the plot...
...Washingcould draw, with the vivid needed today, because the discipline im- ton columnist Jim Hoagland expressed the images to support it, from a survey of the posed on both super powers by the threat prevailing opinion when he endorsed the summer's news...
...Restraint, again, must be The attempt on Bush's life-heinous as the 1980s...
...Since and to move toward international coop- this question is whether any use of force eration, but it also requires sustained can ever be justified, it yields the prethought and disciplined policy regarding sumption against all use of force as the the use of force...
...In the face of just cause for multiple forms of response, States...
...This column was used to sup- terrent which also could meet the test of U.S...
...South Asia and former Soviet republics requires more effort and attention...
...The post-cold war era fessor James Childress has called the "oridoes offer new opportunities to plan for ginal question" about the use of force...
...Berlin...
...On the face of sequences if deterrence failed...
...intent to deter the North with tradition Korean determination to cross the nucle- since 1898...
...the president resisted calls to take action-including political accusations that he was too timid to use force-before finally deciding to bomb Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad...
...FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS Clinton seeking to dissuade North Korean AND SISTERS OF THE ATONEMENT efforts to build nuclear weapons by say- AND THEIR ASSOCIATES, ing "if they ever use them it would be the CONTACT: VOCATION DIRECTOR, end of their country...
...discreet threats but for a multiplicity of ac- too much restraint...
...Thus far it has not been...
...Resisting ag- get...
...generates do not fit that rationale...
...Admitted- ciples were forgotten...
...may be used with the greatest restraint...
...The cold ed, politically and ethically...
...BRUCE W. BURTON It is far better that any future receiver of a besieged American Bruce W. Burton is professor of law at South Texas College fisc be a self-imposed one, an elected president exercising con- of Law in Houston, Texas...
...policy in Bosnia fail because of against military action...
...A Congressional Re- only force will restrain the Serbs and pons should not be used as reasons to risk search Service study in July indicated that Croatians, particularly if one seeks to recivilian casualties unless a target is abso- the U.S...
...Today, deterrence is both less self-imposed...
...but most of the 57 percent the ical conflict...
...Even if one agreed with market increased from 49 percent in 1991 has been so blatantly contemptuous of inthe just-cause grounds for the attack on to 57 percent in 1992...
...use of force...
...Legitwrong target for the attack, not because the lessons of distinction and restraint imate authority is readily identifiable (UN, any case could be made for the immuni- learned over forty years...
...share of thee conventional arms claim Muslim territories...
...There are Inevitably, given its role in world pol- clearly multiple "just causes" for coordiitics, the United States is confronted with nated international action against the Iraqi choices of engagement, passivity, or me- regime...
...WORLD WATCH The first case which illustrates the point was the bombing of Iraq in response to an intelligence finding that Saddam Hussein sought to assassinate former President J. Bryan Hehir George Bush...
...The cold- around Sarajevo) if any kind of European scrupulously restrictive in preventing most war rationale for arms sales was always consensus would sustain the policy...
...The Clinton threat to North Korea lacks liferation of weapons of mass destruction gression across internationally recog- the distinction which all moralists and cannot credibly coexist with a policy pushnized borders meets the test of overriding many strategists sought to impose on nu- ing conventional arms for purely ecothe presumption against the use of force...
...One factor in the discipline of deterCommonweal 24 September 1993: 9...
...The president, acting in a fiduciary role, stitutionally mandated authority, than the designees of some like the receiver of a troubled business enterprise, has extraor- cabal of bankers and other creditors from Tokyo, Bern, and dinary but short-lived fiscal powers...
...ar threshold...
...ly, eight civilian lives are low "collateral The third instance of U.S...
...portionality and possibility of success...
...The threat has no lim- GRAYMOOR, P.O...
...D ical weapons and ballistic missiles...
...When he ordered the attack, If he Cold War is over, but the cases when force may be the only way to using twenty-three Tomahawk missiles, threat and use of force are avoid aggression and to determine how it Mr...
...arms industry's much restraint...
...From the Korean peninsula to the moral and political logic of restraint civilians were killed in the neighborhood...
...Four examples of U.S...
...The policy today is driven, as the United States may well be accused of too again, there is much to admire in the study notes, by "the U.S...
...but just cause for military attack diation in most of the situations of con- must be determined in light of what Protemporary conflict...
...Hence, there was a need for a strong statement of U.S...
...ty of the Iraqi agents, but because of the rhetoric in Korea sounded as if key prin- The tough calls have always been prourban location of the building...
...The purpose is not to mul- starting point for thinking about invoking tiply ideas for using U.S...
...In September of 1993, Clinton administration's focus on pre- need to find new overseas markets in an however, I don't see a viable policy of using venting proliferation of nuclear and chem- era of shrinking defense budgets...
...The challenge today is to redesign de- tified...
...The paradox of September could have struck valuable military targets Here again, restraint is not a distinguish- 1993 is that it seems absolutely clear that outside Baghdad...
...Just cause here is cerMoreover, in contrast to Mr...
...A port retaliation by the United States against not attacking civilian populations as a tar- U.S...
...argument here is that the attack failed the war forced policymakers to think in terms criterion of restraint on both just-cause of a single massive threat with cosmic con- and just-means grounds...
...It constituted deterring a Soviet attack on the United tics is, of course, Bosnia...
...In the high politics ternational norms and opinion, and so Iraq, no particular target had such high pri- of the cold war, with the nuclear issues wantonly aggressive that I would support ority that civilian centers should have looming dominant, little attention was a "lift and strike" policy by NATO (lift been put in danger...
...Every resort to force must draw clear lines regarding the extreme using nonconventional weapons...
...Clinton was supported by Democrats pervasive in the world today...
...muscle, but to "Apparently they have no qualms about military means...
...Today the strategic rationale and consequent lack of U.S...
...Serbian policy lutely necessary...
...not only identify a just cause, but one 8: 24 September 1993 Commonweal which can surmount the presumption rence which the cold war imposed was the arms sales may still have a political-moral against force as the way to resolve polit- strenuous effort to mount a credible de- rationale...
...BOX 300, GARRISON, NY 10524-0300 its...
...both damage," but an air strike whose purpose the dynamics of a post-cold war world calls have kept me and others from urging the was to hurt and deter Iraqi policymakers, into question is conventional arms sales...
...Some force effectively...
Vol. 120 • September 1993 • No. 16
