Liberal peace as unending war?

Introduction

When Patrick Henry, one of the founding fathers of The United States of America, passed his famous speech „Give me liberty, or give me death!“,1 he symbolically anticipated that this key idea that lead to the Revolutionary war, would still be a clue to unending conflicts more than two centuries later. It only proves that man in his essence doesn’t change and longs for the same in any period of history.

The intention of this text is to question, through a short historical look back and hindsight of some thoughts of relevant political philosophers, if liberal peace is a legitimate ambition, if its measures are applicable and goals reachable. It doesn’t intend to fully analyze the complexity of the examined problem because it understands that this is not possible on such a range. But it does aspire to in a small way problematize the ambitions of the liberal peace current and inquire its validity.

The historical change

If we look back through the course of human history, more specifically at recent history, we can witness that the means by which interests were enforced, have changed dramatically. While the nineteenth century was dominated by great empires, spreading their colonial power throughout the world, fighting for new markets and increased influence, the first two decades of the twentieth century saw, particularly due to the outcome of World War I. the emanation of new national states. These were formed on the basis of a newly formulated right of self-determination of nations.2 Thus great empires were split and new nations mainly in central Europe were constituted. The same trend continued in the early second half of the twentieth century, when decolonization followed the above mentioned trend. Shortly, new nations were formed as a result of a new world policy.

A state was understood to be the key player in the world system. A sovereign state, recognized by other states, guarding its internal and external rights and entering into relations with other states.3 Conflicts were traditionally resolved either by diplomacy, or war. Even earlier, by marriages between ruling families. Or other means. These have evolved. Nevertheless, war was seen as a legitimate way how to resolve conflicts.4 They ended by victory, capitulation or a truce. With a treaty. And the outcomes of the war was respected. Until the next war. These international customs have gone through a dramatic change after World War I., and World War II., when war was declared undesirable and conflicts were to be settled peacefully in the future.5 Clausewitz´s view of war as a “continuation of state policy by other means”6 was rejected.

International organizations were formed to ensure that destructive world conflicts would never again occur. Schuman and Monet laid the principles of the future European Union, the Council of Europe was found not even mentioning the United Nations. With these changes, the growing technological development, the globalization, the information revolution and, in a whole, the “flattening of the world” as Thomas Friedman described it,7 the necessity of national states ceased to be understood as indispensable.

While at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was the formation of national states and the recognition of the right to self-determination that were understood as key tools to the enforcement of democracy and freedom, a new world policy is being passed today. The elimination of national states is viewed as an instrument for world peace. The new idea is that with a unified world, where there are no boundaries to conquer, no nations to be rivals, no armies to fight, no national interests but global instead, there will be no reason for wars. It is the idea of liberal peace, a thorough universalistic concept that pursues the unification of the world. The idea that was clearly formulated in Immanuel Kants Perpetual Peace or the latter democratic peace theory. But this idea brings many risks, which will be dealt with in the following paragraphs.

Absence of responsibility

The first risk coming from the dissolvement of national states is the lack of liability. While the traditional understanding of modern democracy lays on the notion that the source of power are the people who elect their representatives under the theory of social contract,8 liberal understanding withdraws from the liability of elected representatives. No more are they responsible for their actions, because with the loss of national sovereignty - the new world trend in the interest of liberal peace - they no longer can be called responsible for the results of their work. With the unification and globalization of the world and the key role of non-elected world organizations, the real power of domestic politicians is weak. And so cannot be asked to take measures in the enforcement of state interests.9 The question that underlies all this can sound – isn’t this what political representatives really want, to be free of responsibility? To pass it on to higher structures? In either case, it is not a question of choice, such cooperation is nowadays inevitable.

The ambition to universal truth

With the unifying world comes the need of one policy to be pursued. It is the idea of liberal peace. With it come the necessary values and entities which are to be carried out in the world. Democracy, freedom, human rights, elections, democratic institutions and many more. Although the north atlantic civilization, and states belonging to this cultural circuit, is today still the dominant one,10 many question if it has the right to pursue the expansion of these and other values to those areas, which do not belong to it.11 It is especially the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq which made many inquire, not only if this claim of universal truth is real but, even if possessed, if it is righteous to be spread by force. And even if this forceful expansion is not contradictory to the promoted values. Especially to freedom and liberty. It is argued that the neoconservative doctrine, lying behind the export of democracy and liberal peace from the western world is too daring when claiming that it has found the universal key to world peace and human happiness.12 Which should be democracy.

It is what Francis Fukuyama had on his mind when he published his work The End of History and the Last Man.13 The history and competition of ideologies is over, democracy is to rule the world. But from the sixties in the past century a new direction of thought has emerged, being enforced by Charles Taylor. In his work Multiculturalism: Examining The Politics of Recognition, published in 1994, he convincingly argues that no culture has the right to understand itself as a better one than the other, mainly because it sees itself through its proper values and so is unable to recognize and appreciate the values of other cultures and civilizations.14

While Taylor´s view confronts the universal claim to truth with a relativist paradigm it ignores what Aristotle was aware of, later backed by Thomas Aquinas, Augustine and other thinkers.15 That is that the essence of man is equal to all and although cultures and civilizations may differ in forms, the essence stays the same.16 That is where Patrick Henry´s words come back into play. A man stays the same. The question that although arises when in accord with such a standpoint is alarming. If there is universal truth, does a civilization believing that it possess it have the right to enforce it onto others? Dismissing for the moment the fact that this claim for possession of a universal truth, in the form of a political doctrine, can be erroneous, this is a disturbing objection. What if liberal peace is not the answer? And how do we find out?

Seemingly the economic mind of Friedrich August von Hayek offers, in the tradition of classical economy of Adam Smith and his followers, the answer hidden in liberty and freedom. In the same way as only the best product establishes itself on a free market, only the best, and through the transcendental argument necessarily truthful, ideology, will establish itself in the different systems and in the world system itself.17 If this claim is correct, then we must conclude that enforcement of any doctrine is erroneous. That the best we can do to support liberal peace is to permit free competition of ideologies and if our assumption is correct, then our view (talking from the western civilization point of view), will win.

Enemy and friend

Turning back to Chandler´s argument,18 it is useful to focus on the way, how the german thinker Friedrich Nietzsche understood the concept of power. His vision of power comes from his conception of man as an ente desiring to improve itself, to progress, to break through. Whatever the means, whatever the costs.19 It is, in a way, similar to the view of the struggle on the free market. An idea of freedom, of liberty. Although in Nietzsche´s view it is rather selfish.

Although it may seem that Nietzsche’s thoughts have little to contribute to the discourse on liberal peace and its impact on the existence or annihilation of wars, the opposite is true. Because it was Carl Schmitt, who partially revived his conclusions.

While the traditional wars were fought, as was mentioned earlier, between territorially defined states, where boundaries were more or less known and obvious, the army or enemy in general was clear and the goals were set, in liberal peace, which is to be the consequence of the ongoing world war, this is not to be so. Dangers which emanate from this view of world order are prophesized by Carl Schmitt. It is crucial to concentrate, when dealing with this matter, on his understanding of friend and enemy.20 Carl Schmitt, like Nietzsche, understands power to be rising, growing stronger and getting bigger, through the presence of an opponent, allowing competition. With the existence of such a rival, power must be intensifying and growing continuously, otherwise the opponent will dominate. But what happens, if there is no opponent? Then happens what happens to Nietzsche’s man. Where there is no competition, no rivalry, no opponent, no enemy, there is no power. From this emerges the conclusion that a rival must never be destroyed. That the competition between friend and enemy must always exist. Otherwise there is no power at all.21

But there are two main dangers, if we agree with Schmitt´s assumption, to the destruction of the enemy, which enables our growth of power. It is either the physical or different destruction of the present ente forming our enemy, or a claim of a non-existing enemy through the idea of universalism. Where there is only one doctrine, one people and one flow of ideas, there is no enemy. But no competition as well. And implicitly no power.

Criminalization of enemy

But this would be by all means the last step in the pursuit of liberal peace. First, the enemies must be either, looking back at the previously two manners of how to get rid of enemies, destroyed or accepted by their assimilation. As empirical evidence of present world shows us, the war on terror is being fought under the first view.22

But the conditions are somewhat different in comparison with the traditional understanding of war.23 The enemy is not clear. It doesn’t occupy any concrete boundarized territory. It doesn’t have official representatives with faces and possibilities for negotiation. It doesn’t respect customary international law. It doesn’t enter into open combat. It is hidden.

The complex customs of warfare have changed. But so have the attitudes. While traditionally, respect existed between the two (or more) opponents, this is absent in the global war. While traditionally, peace treaties and truces were signed and kept, this is not so anymore. No negotiations are permitted with terrorists. They are not viewed as enemies in the traditional understanding. They are not potential future partners, who could support the current rivals in future wars against a common enemy. They are not enemies who can be permitted to stay alive. No. They are to be destroyed, killed, annihilated and smashed. This is the new notion in the manner of pursuit of liberal peace. And it is what keeps the unending war going on.24 Because neither side can stop to rest, to ask for peace. It must be fought to the absolute end of one side. Like Hitler´s Third Empire. Conquered in the capital city of Berlin.

These are the consequences of the idea of liberal peace. That anyone, anything opposing it is not seen as a partner enemy but as a criminal enemy. With no respect, no rights, no possibilities. The most minor examples of this attitude are the incidents in Abu Ghraib.25 The prisoners were not seen as people, as competitors, but as criminals and major enemies, not worthy of anything. Another example is the Guantánamo Bay prison, in which imprisoned men are held without any recognized rights.26 This is due to the notion that they are not legitimate enemy fighters, they are conceptualized as illegal combatants, and so don’t have the right to be treated according to the Geneva conventions.

Worldwide conflicts

In the past two decades, we have witnessed several conflicts, which were waged under the ideology of liberal peace and the domination of the Western civilization. Among these can be named the conflicts in Serbia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. And there could be more in the future. When the former president of USA George W. Bush presented on his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 his “Axis of evil”, having on his mind Iran, Iraq and North Korea, he indicated, where future interventions may take place. But the question stays the same. What right does any player in international relations have to enforce his view of the preferred world order?

The public answer was formulated as a need to spread democracy and ensure safety. But not everyone believes this to be the real goal. One notion is that these interventions, which are in present time viewed as counterproductive and irrational,27 are taken out under a teleological vision of liberal peace, progress, dominance of the West and a transcendental need for the pursuit of universal good. Of course some ideological background is present, but it was Hardt & Negri who formulated the inconvenient notion that the beginning global war is to become a struggle for control and power without limits, to ensure social and economic dominance.28 And it is this pragmatic viewpoint that seems to be making more sense.

This global war is to be fought on a global scale, omitting the existence of nation states. These are to be marginalized step by step while the executive, legislative and judiciary powers, and so the decision making process, are to be moved to a supranatural level.29 With this ongoing process, without sudden changes, which have in the past been the seedbeds of revolutions30 national states will be deconstructed in the same way, as they have emerged after the two World Wars. As we can witness, major changes in the past century in the world order come after global conflicts - world wars, respectively the Cold war.

After the Cold war, Fukuyama´s End of history was largely debated. But the existing application of world peace was to be postponed, due to severe differences between different parts of the world. Heterogeneous cultures, customs, philosophies, modes of thought, different histories, languages, religions and many other factors have become an obstacle in the run for a universal, global world, which is key to the realization of liberal peace.

We can witness two main ways, how to deal with these obstacles. One is the doctrine of multiculturalism, the idea that all cultures are equal and that in fact, there is no diversity and the clue is the effort to accommodate to the differences, by, among other measures, forming a global culture and merging all cultures into one universal one.31 The other way is the ambition to destroy those cultures, represented by national states, who refuse to accept the culture, which the Western civilization considers to be the right one – its own. As Hardt & Negri haven’t hesitated to reveal, this now already started global war is to be seen as an imperial civil war.32

This is what Chandler comments on33 when noting that the liberal view is only capable to see the world in the terms “us” and “them”. Under this impression, the need to act is of course a necessity. But again, we can´t ignore the still omnipresent assertions: Is a united, homogenous, global world possible? Is such a world capable to exist peacefully? Is power a necessity, and what will happen, if it will not be exercised? Is the claim of universal truth a legitimate one and analogically an implication of a right to a reduction of liberty and freedom? And in either case, what value is more worthy – freedom or truth?

As can be noted, the idea of liberal peace can´t be seen as an universal answer but tends to arouse more questions and rather alarming ones.

Liberal peace as an unending war?

The joining of liberal peace and unending war seems to be a contradictive one, an oxymoron in its basis. But it is not so for Foucauldian critics like Jabri and others for whom “liberal peace can only mean ‘unending war’ to pacify, discipline and reconstruct the liberal subject”.34 Under the impression that present military actions, wars, conflicts and other, are a result of liberalism and its naturally regulatory and coercive ambition.35

It is not impossible to understand the fact that when annihilation of an enemy becomes a goal, although it may not be explicitly and publicly stated, no war can be ended until this goal is met. On either side. But as was stated before, when the enemy is unclear, hidden, dispersed and not fighting on traditional war grounds, this goal may be, and is proving to be, impossible, or very difficult to achieve.

Moreover, such a view of an enemy may have as a consequence its globalization. This is what according to Devji happened36 with Al-Qaeda. Although this organization had and still has very severely limited means, its nature and its goals, which are limitless and universal, give it a global dimension. And so its fight, its ambition is global and universal as well. And the question lays the same: how to fight such an opponent? And if it is viewed as an enemy37 how can it be defeated without annihilation? The answer is clear – it can´t. But is such an aspiration accomplishable?

Conclusion

There is little to be concluded on the assertion that liberal peace leads to unending war. The word unending plays an important role here. If Schmitt was not mistaken, the future of an unending war against an enemy, which can´t be destroyed due to its nature of unclearness, dispersion and universalism, lays ahead of us if we are to enforce liberal peace. Liberal peace without doubts leads to conflict. And it is to be fought on a global level. The question lays, if this conflict can be won and so terminated. According to Foucault´s biopolitical view and Schmitt’s concept of friend and enemy, it can´t, and so it is unending.

This text tried to problematize the ambition to view the ideology of liberal peace as a legitimate one. It tried to problematize the right to enforce any ideology irrelevant of the fact if it is right or not. The question of the ambition to claim what is right, the ambition to universal truth. The key problematizing factor was freedom, with which this text was started by Patrick Henry´s words. It is the first answer we must find, if we are to think about the enforcement of liberal peace (under the condition that we are sure of its righteousness and applicability) – does anyone or anything have the right to violate the freedom of an alien subject?

Only after the first answer comes the second question if liberal peace leads to unending war. This text concludes that it does. But it considers the first question to be of greater importance.

Sources

• ARISTOTELES. Politika. Jan Laichter : Praha, 1939.
• BURKE, Edmund. Úvahy nad revolucí ve Francii. Praha : CDK, 1997.
• CLAUSEWITZ, Carl von. On War [online]. [USA] : Project Gutenberg, 2006 [cit. 2010-27-01]. Dostupný z WWW: <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm#2HCH0003>.
• Colonial Willamsburg Official Site [online]. [USA] : The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, c2010 [cit. 2010-27-01]. Dostupný z WWW: <http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/giveme.cfm>.
• DEVJI, Faisal. Landscapes of the Jihad:Militancy, Morality, Modernity. London : Hurst, 2005.
• FRIEDMAN, Thomas L. Svět je plochý:Stručné dějiny jedenadvacátého století. Praha : Academia, 2007.
• FUKUYAMA, Francis. Konec dějin a poslední člověk. Praha : Rybka Publishers, 2002.
• HARDT, NEGRI. Michael, Antonio. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London : Penguin, 2006.
• HAYEK, Friedrich August. Cesta do otroctví. Brno : Barrister&Principal, 2008.
• CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. Security Dialogue. 2009, vol. 40. s. 243-262.
• NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Tak pravil Friedrich Nietzsche. Olomouc : Olomouc, 2001.
• PLECHANOVOVÁ, Běla. Úvod do mezinárodních vztahů. Praha : Institut pro středoevropskou kulturu a politika, 2003.
• SCHMITT, Carl. Pojem politična. Brno, Praha : CDK, Oikoymenh, 2007.
• SCHMITT, Carl. Teorie partyzána. Praha : Oikoymenh, 2008.
• TAYLOR, Charles. Multikulturalismus: Zkoumání politiky uznání. Praha : Filosofia, 2002.

1 Colonial Willamsburg Official Site [online]. [USA] : The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, c2010 [cit. 2010-27-01]. Dostupný z WWW: <http://www.history.org/almanack/life/politics/giveme.cfm>.

2 Under the newly formulated right for the selfdetermination of nations as was stated in the 14 points of Woodrow Wilson presented at the Congress session on 8 January 1918.

3 PLECHANOVOVÁ, Běla. Úvod do mezinárodních vztahů. Praha : Institut pro středoevropskou kulturu a politika, 2003. p. 34nn.

4 PLECHANOVOVÁ. Úvod do mezinárodních vztahů. p. 56nn.

5 See for example Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928) or the Chart of UN (1945).

6 CLAUSEWITZ, Carl von. On War [online]. [USA] : Project Gutenberg, 2006 [cit. 2010-27-01]. Dostupný z WWW: <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm#2HCH0003>.

7 In his work „The World is Flat“: FRIEDMAN, Thomas L. Svět je plochý:Stručné dějiny jedenadvacátého století. Praha : Academia, 2007.

8 Formulated and developed by thinker like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others.

9 David Chandler, James Q. Whitaker Special course, 3 december, UK FSV.

10 Understood mainly from the economical and military point, although not doubting other.

11 Thinkers like Charles Taylor, Michel Foucault, Carl Schmitt, Jürgen Habermas and others.

12 Postmodern relativist thinkers reject the existence of universal truth or of anything certain. But even classical thinkers, based on Aristotle, Thomas Aquino, Kierkegaard and other, who believe in objective truth, question the right to spread this truth by force while omiting individual freedom.

13 The 1992 published book is an expansion of Fukuyama´s 1989 essay „The End of History?“,which was published in the journal „The National Interest“.

14 TAYLOR, Charles. Multikulturalismus: Zkoumání politiky uznání. Praha : Filosofia, 2002. p. 44nn.

15 These and other philosophers and thinkers base their systems on metaphysics and transcendental views, where objective truth is seen as existing and recognizable. Classical philosophy, until René Descartes, took this as basic starting point of any future claims.

16 See for example ARISTOTELES. Politika. Jan Laichter : Praha, 1939. p. 32.

17 It is Smith´s „invisible hand of the market“, on which Hayek bases some of his key conclusions. Compare: HAYEK, Friedrich August. Cesta do otroctví. Brno : Barrister & Principal, 2008.

18 CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. Security Dialogue. 2009, vol. 40. p. 243-262. p. 252.

19 NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Tak pravil Friedrich Nietzsche. Olomouc : Olomouc, 2001. p. 98nn.

20 SCHMITT, Carl. Pojem politična. Brno, Praha : CDK, Oikoymenh, 2007. p. 26.

21 SCHMITT. Carl. Pojem politična. p. 45.

22 Conflicts waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and other conflict areas such as Cuba, North Korea, Venzuela or Kosovo.

23 PLECHANOVOVÁ. Úvod do mezinárodních vztahů. p. 56nn.

24 CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p 251nn..

25 The well medialized harrassement of prisoners in Iraq jail by US forces.

26 Currently, it is being dissolved, but previously it was built in this territory due to legal advantages for the US side.

27 The public opinion turn point is repeatedly being confirmed in ongoing public polls.

28 HARDT, NEGRI. Michael, Antonio. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. London : Penguin, 2006. p. 14. Cited in: CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p.250.

29 The tendency to suppress national powers is evident when qualitatively analyzing the current integration processes. The latest accomplishment in this sense is the EU ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Other examples are those which procure to deal with a variety of topics on a supranational level, for example global warming, poverty, famine or other.

30 The work of Edmund Burke Reflections on the Revolution in France offers an inspiring argumentation on this topic. Compare: BURKE, Edmund. Úvahy nad revolucí ve Francii. Praha : CDK, 1997.

31 TAYLOR, Charles. Multikulturalismus: Zkoumání politiky uznání. p. 56nn.

32 HARDT, NEGRI. Michael, Antonio. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. p. 3-4. Cited in: CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p.

34 CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p. 254.

35 CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p. 248.

36 CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p. 249.

37 DEVJI, Faisal. Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity. London: Hurst, 2005. cited in: CHANDLER, David. War Without End(s): Grounding the Discourse of `Global War'. p..

38 In Schmitt´s understanding.