[lit-ideas] Motive, and the quality of foreign policy

On Page 6 of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau writes, "History shows no
exact and necessary correlation between the quality of motives and the
quality of foreign policy.  This is true in both moral and political terms.

 

"We cannot conclude from the good intentions of a statesman that his foreign
policies will be either morally praiseworthy or politically successful.
Judging his motives, we can say that he will not intentionally pursue
policies that are morally wrong, but we can say nothing about the
probability of their success.  If we want to know the moral and political
qualities of his actions, we must know them, not his motives.  How often
have statesmen been motivated by the desire to improve the world, and ended
by making it worse?  And how often have they sought one goal, and ended by
achieving something they neither expected nor desired?

 

"Neville Chamberlain's politics of appeasement were, as far as we can judge,
inspired by good motives; he was probably less motivated by considerations
of personal power than were many other British prime ministers, and he
sought to preserve peace and to assure the happiness of all concerned.  Yet
his policies helped to make the Second World War inevitable, and to bring
untold miseries to millions of people.  Sir Winston Churchill's motives, on
the other hand, were much less universal in scope and much more narrowly
directed toward personal and national power, yet the foreign policies that
sprang from these inferior motives were certainly superior in moral and
political quality to those pursued by his predecessor. Judged by his
motives, Robespierre was one of the most virtuous men who ever lived.  Yet
it was the utopian radicalism of that very virtue that made him kill those
less virtuous than himself, brought him to the scaffold, and destroyed the
revolution of which he was a leader.  

 

"Good motives give assurance against deliberately bad polices; they do not
guarantee the moral goodness and political success of the polices they
inspire.  What is important to know, if one wants to understand foreign
policy is not primarily the motives of a statesman, but his intellectual
ability to comprehend the essentials of foreign policy, as well as his
political ability to translate what he has comprehended into successful
political action.  It follows that while ethics in the abstract judges the
moral qualities of motives, political theory must judge the political
qualities of intellect, will, and action."

 

Comment:  This seems obvious and yet much that appears in the press
emphasizes motive.  At the end of my note considering Morgenthau's
categories of Political Theory in relation to Fukuyama's End of History, I
consider the normalization of U.S. relations with Libya as an example of
Political Realism - an act I suspect Morgenthau would approve of.  Not only
is it good in itself in that it provides a potential for drawing a previous
enemy into friendly relations in a region where friends seem few and far
between, but it provides a diplomatic "next step" after Ahmadinejad's Letter
- namely it conveys better than words the message that if you want to be on
better terms with the U.S. then do what Libya did: get rid of your nuclear
weapons, quit supporting terrorism, and we will normalize relations with
you.   

 

The few news reports I saw on TV this evening were mostly critical of Bush's
(although I assume the idea was Rice's) motives in letting the evil author
of the Lockerbie bombing off the hook.  One report showed an angry relative
of someone who was killed in the Lockerbie explosion criticizing the
normalization of relations with Libya with words that were in effect calling
the decision morally reprehensible.  I did a Google search and the
international news reports seemed more favorable.  A negative home-press is
a potential problem with acting on Morgenthau's principle in regard to
considering the political action as action more important than considering
the motive that inspired the action - especially if the motive is a belief
in the efficacy of realpolitik. 

 

Lawrence

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