Power and Ethics in International Politics - Introduction
Power and Ethics in International Politics
Introduction
Wolfgang Bücherl
"Political and humanitarian actors are uncomfortable bedfellows" - Sadago
Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
On April 29th and 30th, 1999, European and American editors of foreign
policy magazines met with policy-makers in international politics for their second
transatlantic roundtable to discuss the implications of power and ethics in
international politics at the end of the century. NATO-military action against
Serbia in the Kosovo crisis has given this issue a special relevance and
dimension in recent months. As a result of this intervention, the very important
question has been raised of whether NATO's actions in Kosovo represent a
new security order, and if so, if this security agenda allows for differences in
American and European views regarding ethics and foreign policy, and which
international order can offer legitimacy to humanitarian intervention.
The new security agenda
The new security agenda is far from certain: Rather than defining "a"
security agenda, we are finding ourselves sketching out various security
agendas. For Western states the 1990's have brought about a re-definition of
national agendas. Furthermore, the European Union states in particular are
struggling to find a common security agenda to supplement their national
security agendas.
Stressing the state in this respect sheds light on a continuous debate in
international relations theory: How relevant is the state today for shaping the
international security agenda? Or the other way round: Have multilateral and
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supranational institutions not dismantled the state as the determining actor in
international security? This is not to mention impact of issues such as "drugs
and thugs" - organized crime, narcotics trafficking, transnational terrorism, and
refugees which put state authority in international and domestic security to the
test.
Despite all Cassandra-like voices regarding the waning position of the state
in international relations, participants in the roundtable held the view that states
remain vital actors for international security. They are not black boxes in
international relations, but rather represent norms and values of their respective
societies and elites. They also have the prime military, economic and political
instruments for enforcing order at their disposal - a fact which can be studied
every time when multilateral institutions suffer from internal blockage because
participating states refuse to cooperate within them.
However, multilateral institutions have started to cover an ever increasing
area of international security. Therefore, and because the international security
order is still determined by various national agendas, it is hard to define "a"
world-wide international security agenda, let alone a security order. The
participating editors did not manage to find consensus over this issue, largely
because it was controversial who determines that order. Is the current
international security order nothing but Pax Americana? What role do Russia,
the European Union or China play? Is a international security order not equally
shaped by actors like so-called rogue states or terrorists, who refuse to comply
with any kind of order, be it Pax Americana or Pax UN?
The European Security Agenda
So what is commonly referred to as the emerging international security
agenda seems to be more of a Euro-American approach to security in Europe.
Most participants regarded the Balkans as the litmus test for the ability of nation
states in Europe and North America in realizing a reliable order of international
security in a regional context. The development of a European order will require
Power and Ethics in International Politics - Introduction
Europeans to build up the capacities and structures to maintain it. But the
formation of a European order of security is still open for discussion: How
should such an order be structured? Are coalitions of the willing effective
enough? What place should Russia have? How will we reconcile soft security
and hard security requirements?
Like the situations in Bosnia and in Kosovo have shown, the EU has just
started to prepare intellectually for the implications of maintaining a security
order in Europe. The requirements concerning administrative conduct, political
leadership and public debate for establishing and maintaining a security order
are starting to become more obvious.
Perhaps, from the hindsight of twenty more years, the Yugoslavian wars
might appear instrumental for shaping a common European security agenda
and order, and the integration of the WEU into the EU might be revealed as a
decisive step.
The Ethics of American and European Foreign Policy
It is not difficult to discover an ethical claim in American foreign policy.
Embedded in American exceptionalism, ethics - or a better term - morals, form
the missionary component of US foreign policy, designed to spread the
message of democracy and tell the world about the success of the American
experiment. Especially the Clinton administration has made efforts to combine
the message of democracy with the market economy because it seems that the
combination of the two has brought down Communism and is the best way of
transforming societies. However, the application of American-style democracy is
often more rhetoric than real in certain countries, because of the differences in
social and political values or social structure. The conviction, that democracies
do not go to war with each other does not always hold true because young
democracies and democracies in transition are often prone to the temptations of
"hard-handed" foreign policy. European participants in the roundtable criticized
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the American commitment to democracy promotion as being inconsistent, citing
the example of China.
In Europe, the relevance of ethics in foreign policy has just started to enter
political and public debate. Although certain countries like France or Britain
traditionally have something like a mission in foreign policy, these missions
were more of an overall cultural nature (spreading civilization, for instance).
Other countries, like the Scandinavian countries, traditionally have incorporated
the issue of human rights into their foreign policy agenda. The European Union
has always preferred to see itself as a civil power - an approach which is more
related to the means of achieving certain foreign policy goals rather than its
aims. This lack of a common "ethical" goal can be related to the difficult
mechanisms of achieving consensus internally in a field which is the domain of
national governments. Today, with the lessons of the Bosnian and Kosovo wars
in mind, the European Union is entering a field where it must find consensus
regarding the means and goals of an ethical European foreign policy. As it was
the case in the debate about the legitimacy of NATO's Kosovo war, such a
debate will have to entail the question to what extent the aims satisfy the
means. With regard to the current situation, the enforcement of human rights
and western-style democracy in all Europe, especially in the Southeast, could
become a common goal. In order to achieve greater convergence in this field,
some participants suggested the formation of a core group of states in Common
Foreign and Security Policy.
Changing Politics, Changing Ethics?  Humanitarian Intervention
and the Use of Force
With the Kosovo case in mind there arises the question of whether there are
circumstances which lead international actors to support or at least not to resist
humanitarian intervention. In other words, what makes international actors dilute
the presumption of the exclusive power of the effective authorities to represent
a population or a constitutionally relevant segment thereof, at least in relation to
certain issues and for a certain period? International law knows several such
Power and Ethics in International Politics - Introduction
cases of "dissociation" where a government effectively loses control over a
population or the legitimacy it needs to control it. The circumstances thereof
have to be clearly defined and cases like Kosovo, Rwanda, or Sierra Leone
have served as examples. However, there remains the open question, who is
entitled and powerful enough to define such circumstances and how clearly they
can be defined at all. If thought to the end, such reflections would lead us to
establishing an international constitution. The United Nations has lost much of
its standing in the recent past, therefore participants argued about how it could
be reinforced, or if an international court should be established instead.
Most participants agreed that in international practice, humanitarian action
cannot be disassociated from political action. The protection of the individual by
actors from outside touches upon the sovereignty of the respective authorities
who would in fact be responsible for protecting its citizens. Also, with respect to
the intervening community (or communities), humanitarian action cannot be
separated from politics. Such action draws upon the resources of the
community and in democratic communities humanitarian intervention in another
community can hardly be sustained if there is no public consent.
Discussion at the roundtable centered around the issue of whether the
absence of war in the previous decades has made it more difficult, especially in
Western European societies, to gain consent over the use of force. While some
warned that post-modern societies could become "soft", others raised the
criticism that the decision of NATO leaders to go to war over Kosovo had not
been substantially endorsed by the people. One reason for public reluctance
and opposition could have been the common public perception that NATO had
entered the conflict without a clear strategy. The hope that the war could be
over after a few days turned out to be an illusion and made the public doubt that
NATO leaders had a viable concept of how to win the war and establish a
lasting peace thereafter.
So even if the war came to an end in June, the conclusion of the roundtable
is still valid that before a humanitarian intervention, decision-makers should
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define the means and ends of their action and also define alternatives in case
their initial strategies fail.