Previously Published on The Huffington Post, on the 4/24/2013

During the opening rounds of a gun debate in London, beamed globally by Google Plus, I thought I was doing quite well. I started by telling the audience, brought together by Intelligence Squared, that I recently was showing off photos of my grandchildren in a doctor’s waiting room, when they brought tears the eyes of a grandma sitting next to me. She told me, “My grandson was cleaning his gun, and he killed his father.” Think about it for a moment. Poof, one life was lost, a child lost his father, there is a terrible guilt, and the grandmother has to live with a grandson she hates and loves. Now, multiply this thirty-two thousand times, eleven times more people than we lost in the World Trade Center attacks which traumatized the nation, six times more than we lost total in the war in Iraq, and you see we’re talking about a very, very serious problems. We’re not talking about the quality of the Duchesses’ hats, or even organic food. We’re talking about a huge amount of life lost each year.

Next, I added that those who argue the Second Amendment states that individuals have a right to bear arms need to have their glasses checked. The Second Amendment states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It is odd that those who argue that we should go by and live by the text of the Constitution regularly and grossly misquote it. Note that the fact that the Constitution does not recognize an individualized right to bear arms is the reason the NRA was very careful not to take this issue to court until very recently because in all the cases that were brought to the Supreme Court over two hundred years, without exception, the court did not recognize an individualized right to bear arms. Only in 2008, the Roberts Court, the same court which just gave corporations an unlimited right to bribe politicians, the same court which gave the elections to Bush despite the fact that Gore had the majority vote, claimed for the first time in American history, that there is an individualized right to bear arms. All we need is one more liberal judge and we can correct this tragedy.

Finally, I responded to those arguing that citizens need to be armed so that they could take to the mountains and fight a tyrannical government. If one truly fears that this could take place in the United States, one should not wait until the government falls but now join civil societies, conduct classes in public affairs, and organize voters to protect our democracy. Turning to fire fighters after it collapses means civil war and major blood shed, of the kind we now see in Syria.

I thought I was doing okay, but I was not prepared for the next challenge.

Peter Hitchens argued, “The fundamental point is this, do you take away the fundamental liberties of all, do you assume the guilt of all, because some people cannot handle that freedom properly? Imagine if you did, how many other freedoms would have to be taken away?” He kept coming back to the point that passing a law to ban the private ownership of guns presumes all people are guilty. Otherwise, why not let them have their guns? He closed with, “I am very disturbed by the ideas that my government thinks I can’t be trusted to do so [own a gun] and denies me the freedom to do so. It is a fundamental breach of the presumption of innocence. I am assumed to be of criminal intent and criminal mind not to be responsible enough, not to be able to take decisions on my own account of such an important thing.” Shortly thereafter, a vote was taken and the motion I was arguing in favor of, that “the right to bear arms is a freedom too far,” did not carry.

I should have responded that laws in general are made for knaves. Good citizens are assumed to do what is right on their own. There is no assumption of guilt when we require people to drive 25 miles an hour in residential neighborhoods and next to schools or to carry insurance, when we ban throwing toxic wastes into lakes and rivers and require fathers to pay child support for their kids, if they can afford it. We assume that decent human beings will do all these things because they know they are right and apply these laws only to those who for one reason or another pay no mind to others and the common good. John Stuart Mills, one of the greatest, if not the master, of all liberal philosophers established the harm principle. Your liberty is legitimately limited when exercising it harms others. Guns clearly fail this test. Even die-hard libertarians should favor laws that limit gun ownership in ways that protect the right to live, the most basic right of all, for one and all.

Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor of International Relations at The George Washington University and author of Hot Spots: American Foreign Policy in a Post-Human Rights World, published by Transaction.

Originally Published on the National Interest, on April 23, 2013

Originally Published on the National Interest, on April 18, 2013

It is easy to understand why so many mavens are trying desperately to conceptualize cyber warfare, drones and transnational terrorists in yesterday’s terms. However, the dissonance has grown to a point where we are forced to look for new concepts and principles rather than try in vain to fit a new reality into obsolete paradigms. We often act like someone who can’t squeeze a size-fourteen foot into a size-nine boot—and would rather cut off the toes than find a larger pair.

True, if we discard and adopt new principles as frequently as we replace footwear, principles will cease to carry much normative heft. However, currently we suffer from a severe case of the opposite problem: We forget that laws were not etched in stone and that all constitutions are living documents. After all, segregation was once legal in the United States, women could not vote until 1920 and the federal right to privacy did not exist until the mid-1960s.

Nowhere is the lag in legal and ethical frameworks more obvious than in the notion that lethal force can only be used against a declared enemy if an attack is imminent—that is, if there is evidence that it is about to occur in short order. However, in a world where a cyber attack launched from the other side of the world has the potential to instantly—and without any visible warning—bring down not only IT systems but also critical infrastructure such as power stations and water supplies, new criteria for what constitute legitimate preventive defensive measures are desperately needed.

The same holds for terrorism. Because terrorists pose as civilians up until the moment they strike, counterterrorist forces seeking to prevent attacks and save innocent lives must intervene before terrorists reveal their true colors. This means acting before attacks are considered “imminent” by the old rules.

Similarly, the constant lip service paid to the increasingly obsolete concept of sovereignty undermines U.S. efforts in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. By enshrining the myth of absolute sovereignty, we give Afghan President Hamid Karzai endless fodder for stoking nationalism and lashing out against NATO forces when they act without his clearance—for supposedly violating his country’s right to self-governance. The fact is, Karzai was installed by the United States and would not have survived long without our protection. Washington pays an estimated 91 percent of Afghan security expenditures. The Afghan economy is heavily subsidized by the United States and its international partners, with 90 percent of its public expenditures coming from donors. We need a new definition for nations and regimes that survive thanks to blood we shed and monies we expend. A tempered or conditional understanding of sovereignty is necessary for working with those who refuse to act as reliable junior partners.

Most elementarily, we need to ditch the notion that we can only fight terrorists within declared theaters of war. Terrorists operate easily across borders; so must those who pursue them. True, Congress should maintain the right to authorize the use of lethal force outside our borders. Given that many hold that the current authorization for the use of military force is too vague, the president should ask Congress to reauthorize the campaign against terrorists, wherever they are found. Hopefully, even a divided Congress can agree on that much. However, there is little merit in the notion that we cannot take out Al Qaeda’s leaders and their associates because they are not in a country on some preapproved list.

To paraphrase (because I abhor violence) Shakespeare: first retire all the lawyers. Let’s convene a conclave of thoughtful people who have demonstrated that they can think in ethical terms, but who also take into account the new international reality. Let them lead a public dialogue on the new principles that should guide our use of force outside our borders. When this yields some new shared moral understandings, then it will be time to invite the lawyers back into the room.

Amitai Etzioni served as a senior advisor to the Carter White House; taught at Columbia University, Harvard and The University of California at Berkeley; and is a university professor and professor of international relations at The George Washington University. His latest book is Hot Spots: American Foreign Policy in a Post-Human-Rights World.

Originally Published on Huffington Post, on 4/15/2013

Sixty-five years ago it was far from obvious that Israel would survive; it was even far from obvious that a Jewish state would be created in the first place.

In 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for a resolution calling for the division of British-controlled Palestine into two states — one of which would be a Jewish state and one of which would be predominantly Palestinian. Specifically, Palestine would be divided into seven sections, three Jewish and four Arab, with Jerusalem placed under international administration. Jewish representatives accepted the deal; however, both the Arab League as well as the Palestinian organizations rejected the plan.

In the same year, I attended a most remarkable meeting. I was quite aware that I was only invited because I was a member of Mapai (labor party). And, those who convened the meeting wanted to have “someone young” because “after all, it was their future we will be discussing.”

The meeting, which took place early in March 1947, was composed of leaders of Mapai, at the time the most powerful party of the Yishuv. Its leader, David Ben Gurion, headed the informal government with the Yishuv. Those assembled were exploring the position these leaders would stroke later that month at a meeting in Jerusalem. The subject: should the Yishuv settle merely for a homeland under continued British rule (couple with more leeway for intracommunity decisions), or should we dare hold out for true independence — for statehood? In other words, should the Yishuv risk losing the possible, in favor of going for the deal?

The issue was rapidly coming to a head after years of tense negotiations. Numerous proposals had been advanced concerning the disposition of Palestine after World War II. Britain had been governing Palestine since World War I. Faced with growing unrest, Jewish defiance of British rules, some Jewish terrorism, and Arab riots, Britain was growing weary of maintaining its rule. In 1947, Britain dumped the future of Palestine in the lap of the United Nations. Ben Gurion and other Mapai leaders were exploring which of the several proposals before the United Nations they were going to fight for. The offer that seemed the most attainable (although not very much so) was a fair measure of self-government for the Jewish community; the least plausible was statehood.

Ben Gurion opened this part of the meeting by stating with much gusto, as if speaking to a much larger audience, “It is time to finalize our decision one way or the other.” He added bluntly, “the time is right for us to take the ultimate risk and demand and fight for the formation of a full-blown state. Anything less will not allow us to realize the dream of Zion, to defend ourselves, to ensure that there will be a land any Jew in the world who seeks refuge will be able to come to unencumbered; that we shall never again be taken like lambs to the slaughter.”

Moshe Shertok spoke much more softly. “I realize of course the wonder of having a state all our own. But we could get there gradually, in stages. For now we should limit ourselves to asking for a Jewish homeland within the framework of the British ‘Mandate,’ which we should insist be extended and truly implemented. Here, we can base ourselves on the British promise included in the Balfour Declaration, which calls for a Jewish homeland, not for a state. This way we are much more likely to win the support of the United Nations and not unnecessarily provoke the Arab nations that surround us.”

Ben Gurion reacted impatiently, almost angrily. He argued, with a rising voice, “The time is now. The British Empire has been weakened as a result of the war. The British people are anxious to focus on rebuilding their land and not squandering their resources by holding on to a piece of desert in the Middle East, especially if we make the occupation of Palestine more costly for them. While we may be the first British colony to push them out, I hear rumblings from India and other British colonies, even French ones; the days of empires are numbered.”

Ben Gurion continued: “There are reasons to believe, as difficult as this is to imagine, that even the USSR will support us in the UN, hoping that the Jewish state will be left-leaning and support them.” After a brief pause, just as someone else was about to speak up, Ben Gurion added, “The British are now negotiating with the U.S. government for a huge loan, and in the U.S. we have more leverage than in Britain.”

Shertok responded, “Goldman [a major leader of the American Jewish community] empowered me to let it be known that American Jewish community feels that we should not act impulsively; we should proceed very cautiously.” Ben Gurion muttered something dismissively that sounded to me like “…these ’shtetl’ [ghetto] Jews.”

There was considerable give and take. Someone wanted to know if a really tiny Jewish state would be more acceptable to the United Nations; what if it was limited to the area along the Mediterranean coast?

Many in the room were nodding their heads in approval. They seemed to me to favor Shertok’s position but to hold Ben Gurion in great respect, mixed with just a touch of fear.

For a while a heavy silence hung in the room. Then Ben Gurion stood, straightened up, and lifted his head just a bit more than necessary. He looked above the heads of those assembled, toward a place only he could see, and stated resolutely: “I am sure the time has come, and no such opportunity may arise again for centuries, for the dream of the Jewish people to come true. I demand statehood, and we will have to take it from there.” He then added almost mysteriously, slowly, in a deep voice, “Netzach Israel Lo Yeshaker” (a nonliteral translation: “Israel’s destiny will not be denied”).

Nobody protested, nor was a vote conducted. Soon thereafter, Ben Gurion’s and Mapai’s postion was embraced by the representatives of the Jewish community in Palestine. Israel was born.

For more information, see Amitai Etzioni’s book My Brother’s Keeper.

Originally Published in The National Interest, on 4/15/2013

Chinese Translation available here.

If someone could get jumping-bean secretary of state Kerry off of his jet long enough to preside over a review of U.S. foreign priorities, he might discover why we are in such a pickle in our dealings with North Korea—and what might be done. It is a nation that openly threatens the United States and its allies—not less than with nuclear attacks—and all we can say is, “well, the kid seems to be bluffing.”

Talking heads on TV keep reassuring each other that North Korea is not suicidal. Washington is scaling back military exercises in the area and urging South Korea to be cautious—and to be sure that if attacked their response will be proportional and not escalatory. True, the United States did send some untested missile-defense units to the region and to Alaska, and moved some other military assets around. But altogether, this is not much of a response.

The reason we must be so circumspect is that Kim Jong-un has us over a barrel. It is common knowledge that he can flatten Seoul and may well be able to overrun South Korea. If he proceeds, Washington will be left with very few and very tough options: either using nuclear arms or engaging in a large-scale conventional war, drawing on our worn-out army in a faraway country—all this just as our economy requires retrenching.

The United States finds itself so cornered because of an overly ambitious foreign policy and the absence of clear priority setting. Washington keeps investing in forcing regime changes and promoting democratic governments across the globe—at huge human and economic costs, with very meager results—as is all too evident in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Instead, promoting security should be the first order of business, and preventing the spread of nuclear arms must top these concerns.

What does this all have to do with North Korea? If the United States applies the “Security First” doctrine (which I spell out in a book with the same title) to China, it would stop lecturing it about human rights (which yielded very little), rest demands that it let its currency float, and park the long list of demands laid out under the rubric of making China into what, in our judgment, is a “responsible stakeholder” in the U.S.-defined world order. Instead, Washington would make it clear that its first, second and third priority is to prevent a nuclear arms race in the region. It would remind China that if North Korea keeps threatening its neighbors, then Japan may well develop nuclear arms of its own (given the large amount of plutonium it already has, it could do so very quickly). The United States would indicate that given the importance it attributes to security, it would respond very favorably to various Chinese concerns, if only China would use its considerable leverage to defang the North Korean military nuclear program. For instance, Washington would commit to not moving U.S. troops beyond the demilitarized zone to the border of China, should the North Korean regime collapse and the two Koreas become united. The United States might even consider letting all of the new Korea to serve as a buffer zone, free from foreign troops.

Meanwhile, we must reconsider what we are not doing in the Middle East. Are we quite sure that we have figured out what must be done so that we shall not face another North Korea-like situation there in the near future?

Amitai Etzioni served as a senior advisor to the Carter White House; taught at Columbia University, Harvard and The University of California at Berkeley; and is a university professor and professor of international relations at The George Washington University. His latest book is Hot Spots: American Foreign Policy in a Post-Human-Rights World.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Darwinek. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Originally published in Salon, on 4/5/2013

There is more than may appear in President Obama’s plan to cut the social safety net in his new budget proposal. The offer, on the face of it, reflects a significant violation of a major liberal creed, discarding the strongest liberal political card and Obama’s peculiar negotiation style of making major concessions at the opening of a give-and-take session. But it also reflects the sad but true fact that the dynamics of American politics cannot be understood in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans. Party labels aside, the nation is still being ruled by what I call a majority “conservative party.”

If Democrats and Republicans were the true divide, the meager gun control measures recently introduced in the Senate would have the majority needed to pass. After all, there are 53 Democratic Senators (and two Independents who generally side with them). Moreover, this time, the threat of a GOP filibuster is not to blame. Yet the Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, removed the assault weapons ban from the draft bill because some 15 Democratic senators, in effect, supported the conservative pro-gun position, making up — with the Republican senators — that majority “conservative party.” Thanks to this party, the same legislative defeat is about to befall liberal proposals to curtail high-capacity magazines. This leaves only better background checks on the table, but these, too, will inevitably be rendered ineffective by the conservatives via the underhanded gutting of enforcement (more about this shortly).

Social security and gun safety are but a couple of the numerous issues on which conservatives in Washington get their way and the minority liberal party loses out. Most recently, every Republican and 33 Democratic conservatives came together to repeal a tax on medical devices, a major source of funding for Obamacare. And on Dec 28, the conservative party — 42 Republicans, 30 Democrats and 1 Independent senator — voted to extend the foreign intelligence law known as FISA, opposed by civil libertarians. We should further expect that the conservative party will keep winning on many fronts, from greatly limiting all new investments in education to unduly slashing social spending.

Originally published in The Huffington Post on 4/5/13

NPR’s social science maven reported that President Obama may have undermined the success of gun control legislation when he stated that “We don’t live in isolation, we live in a society. A government of, and for, and by the people. We are responsible for each other.” Americans, Shankar Vendantam stated, care about individual rights and liberty, not the common good. As evidence he cited a research paper by MarYam Hamedani and her associates called, “In the Land of the Free, Interdependent Action Undermines Motivation,” showing that when researchers evoke concepts of the common good — the subjects did less well on various tasks than when no such concepts were evoked.

Much of the paper relies on the notoriously unreliable concept of psychological priming, contrived situations, and extremely trivial stimuli and responses. Thus, in one of the paper’s experiments, students were asked to unscramble anagrams of communitarian words (e.g., “accommodate” or “coordinate”) and then were given very difficult anagrams — their motivation being measured in terms of how long they attempted to solve the puzzles. A second study by the authors had students role-play a job applicant “skilled at working with others,” and then measured how long they would squeeze a handgrip — a short squeeze was taken to show that communitarianism had undermined their motivation! In both cases, the authors found a measurable decline in motivation of the students when compared with various control groups.

Such “priming” has come under fire from many researchers who have been repeatedly unable to replicate these kinds of findings. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate, who at one point favored priming experiments, has recently expressed serious doubt their legitimacy, urging priming researchers to thoroughly address the charges of many skeptics, or else there may be a “train wreck looming” for the field.

An additional problem is that the tasks that the researchers asked students to perform were all individualistic ones. They did not explore how such prompting affects behavior when the task at hand requires teamwork, as is the case for much of work and life. There are a number of studies reporting that those with communitarian tendencies achieve greater success when working as teams (Lillian T. Eby & Gregory H. Dobbins, 1997), have greater work group commitment (Michael Clugston, Jon P. Howell & Peter W. Dorfman, 2000), and exhibit more behaviors associated with citizenship (Linn Van Dyne et al., 2000) than do their more individualistic peers. Such findings suggest that communitarian values have a positive effect on people’s motivation to collaborate and achieve team-based objectives.

This conclusion is supported by other studies show that people are more motivated to contribute their time and effort if they believe they are being helpful and promoting the common good (Martha E. Kropf & Johnny Blair, 2005) . Furthermore, studies of voting show that the most important factor determining whether or not a person will vote is his or her sense of civic duty. And studies on recycling show that people are motivated to recycle not so much for themselves and their kids but for all of us.

More supporting evidence for the efficacy of communitarian calls to action can be found in public opinion polls. For instance, a 2006 poll found that “American voters are increasingly worried about rising materialism, self-interest, and unethical behavior in our society” and strongly desire a government that focuses on the common good and basic dignity of all Americans. For instance:

• Sixty-eight percent of voters strongly agree that the “government should be committed to the common good and put the public’s interest above the privileges of the few” (Eighty-five percent agree overall).[...]
• Seventy-three percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Independents, and 67 percent of Republicans strongly agree with a common good focus for government. A similar percentage of voters (68 percent) strongly agree that “government should uphold the basic decency and dignity of all and take greater steps to help the poor and disadvantaged in America” (Eighty-nine percent agree overall).

[...]
• Eighty percent of voters strongly agree that, “It’s our moral and social responsibility to be good stewards of our land, air and water and leave the environment better than we found it.”

NPR quotes MarYam Hamedani as concluding that, “When you look at American culture, independence is really foundational. From the founding documents of our nation to the heroes and the stories we tell, we really focus on the independent individual.” Well, this is hardly the only way to read American history, society, and culture. For instance, in his account of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood writes that, for the American republicans, “True liberty was ‘natural liberty restrained in such a manner, as to render society one great family; where every one must consult his neighbour’s happiness as well as his own.’ In a republic ‘each individual gives up all private interest that is not consistent with the general good, the interest of the whole body.’”

EJ Dionne Jr., in his book Our Divided Political Heart, finds that American history reveals a tension between the values of individualism and community. Americans have strongly favor liberty and individual rights but strongly recognize the value of community, responsibility, and civic virtue. The founders referred to these values as liberalism and republicanism, and the effort to balance and reconcile them is what truly characterizes America.

Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor of International Relations at The George Washington University and author of Hot Spots: American Foreign Policy in a Post-Human Rights World, published by Transaction.

Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies, Amital Etzioni is interviewed by the People’s Daily  in China for the 21st edition. Roughly translated, a discussion regarding, “Wary of Japan off “peace Feathers” (International Perspectives).”

Read the orginal Chinese version here.

If anyone had doubts that the much ballyhooed 2011 pivot to Asia was not much of a move, and that all the hot spots continue to be in the near, not far, east (east viewed from an American vantage point), the recent news should have removed these doubts. Reports suggest that the first international trip the President is planning to make at the start of his second term will include stops in Israel, the West Bank and Jordan. Secretary of State John Kerry was on the phone with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders even before he reached his desk. Making peace here is said to be one of the only two international issues that President Obama is emotionally engaged in and sees as part of his legacy. (The other is equally quixotic: moving toward zero nukes – by further reducing the strategic arms the US and Russia are holding, thus “inspiring” other nations to follow.)

Read More here.