By Boutros Boutros-Ghali, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Desmond Tutu
Commission publications fall into three categories: Reports of the Commission, Reports to the Commission, and Discussion Papers. Reports of the Commission have been endorsed by all Commissioners. Reports to the Commission are published as a service to scholars, practitioners, and the interested public. They have undergone peer review, but the views that they express are those of the author or authors, and Commission publication does not imply that those views are shared by the Commission as a whole or by individual Commissioners. Discussion papers are similar to Reports to the Commission but address issues that are more time-sensitive in nature.
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Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict
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Copyright 1998 by Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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In 1994 Mikhail S. Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, reflected on a decade of intensive involvement with political leaders all over the world. One of his outstanding conclusions was the large extent to which they see "brute force" as their ultimate validation. His observation, based on abundant experience, highlights a long-standing, historically deadly inclination of leaders of many kinds from many places to interpret their mandate as being strong, tough, aggressive, even violent. For all too many, this is indeed the essence of leadership.
Gorbachev, in control of a vast nuclear arsenal, not to speak of immense power in conventional, chemical, and biological weapons, was wise enough not to interpret his own leadership in terms of brute force. Yet there is no shortage of leaders who do. They will have massive killing powers at their disposal in the twenty-first century. This is true not only of national leaders but also of subnational groups.
Large-scale conflict between groups requires the deliberate mobilization efforts of determined political leaders. Without leadership, groups in similar adverse circumstances -- for example, profound socioeconomic inequality, political oppression, and even deep intergroup animosity -- do not spontaneously resort to warfare to obtain redress. They tend to seek nonviolent means of improving their conditions and resolving conflicts. Yet incendiary leaders can readily bypass such efforts and mobilize their followers to hatred and violence.
By the same token, this observation highlights the critical importance of international leadership for effective prevention of deadly conflict. That is why the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict emphasizes ". . . although the prevention of deadly conflict requires many tools and strategies, bold leadership and an active constituency for prevention are essential for these tools and strategies to be effective." Yet, this kind of bold and effective leadership is too often found wanting in the face of today's deadly conflicts.
Unfortunately, we know far more about the role of leaders in stimulating ethnic and communal conflict than in diminishing it. It is crucial to understand the critical determinants of leadership for prevention of violence between human groups and nations. Scholars specializing in the study of leadership and foreign policy decision making have generated useful concepts and approaches that may be applied to specific problems encountered by political leaders when confronted by the challenges of prevention. Moreover, the world can learn valuable lessons from the reflection of thoughtful, experienced leaders who have earned respect for their dedicated efforts on behalf of peace with justice.
The Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict invited five world leaders, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Desmond Tutu, to consider leadership and preventing deadly conflict. Each offers a different perspective, yet all conclude that an individual leader's choices are crucial to creating the conditions that enhance or undermine peace.
This volume highlights the capacities of international leaders. These leaders can help mobilize great financial or military resources, build international coalitions, and create a constituency for prevention. The Commission believes that prevention should be on the agenda of every head of state and government meeting and all foreign and defense ministerial gatherings. The international community should champion and reward good governance, especially in countries struggling towards greater democracy.
International leaders can call attention to the problem of intergroup violence and tap into latent public inclination toward prevention. They have the scope to explain the need for prevention. They can help build the political will necessary to mount an effective response to complex emergencies and to help people prevent violence before it erupts. Addressing this point in his essay, former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali highlights the need for vision, communication, and cooperation.
Conflict prevention is not just a one-time act, but a broad orientation, a pervasive way of thinking and relating to other leaders. Former U.S. President George Bush stresses the importance of building relationships and maintaining credibility so that in times of crisis allies can be persuaded, not bullied, into cooperation to achieve a common goal.
Leaders close to potential conflict can help educate the public about nonviolent ways to settle disputes. In his essay, Mikhail Gorbachev addresses nonviolent responses to the breakup of the Soviet Union. He points out that modern leaders need to change their outlook; because of the shadow of nuclear weapons, the use of massive force cannot necessarily be a first resort. Instead, a modern leader needs the intellectual and moral authority to persuade rather than to compel.
At times the choice for peace means dealing with difficult, even dangerous and cruel leaders. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter explains why he believes it is necessary to engage international political outcasts in the search for peace. He reflects on how understanding the perspective of such leaders -- without abandoning his own beliefs -- has helped him advance peace negotiations and save lives in several instances.
Successful leaders often speak the language of moral suasion. Archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, Desmond Tutu, asks why people worldwide respect Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, and the late Mother Teresa. Archbishop Tutu observes that great leaders have personal credibility, solidarity with the people they are leading, and an ability to nurture the best in others.
The leadership needed to prevent deadly conflict is not confined to the political sphere. Leaders of other powerful institutions can make a profound difference: e.g., religious, business, and media leaders. Indeed they can have a moderating effect on unwise political leaders.
Leadership must come to mean drawing on the best resources: intellectual, technical, and moral as well as material resources; being thoughtful, well informed, active, creative, and respectful to others in helping to clarify great dangers and ways of coping, and providing a moral and operational basis for dealing constructively with international problems.
There are illuminating examples in the violent twentieth century. The authors in this volume stand out. Similarly, Harry S Truman, George Marshall, and Jean Monnet looked beyond the devastation of the Second World War and the underlying hostilities to envision a Europe in which regional competition would transcend adversarial boundaries and traditional rivalries. They foresaw that large-scale economic cooperation would facilitate not only postwar recovery but also long-term prosperity and international peace.
Bringing this vision to fulfillment required creative efforts to educate the public, mobilize key constituencies, and persuade reluctant partners. Maintaining this support required courageous use of scarce political capital.
An enduring constituency for international engagement can be fostered through measures that identify public inclinations toward engagement and reinforce these impulses with clear rationales, approaches, and successful examples. It helps to have analogies from familiar contexts of home and community. Such efforts are more likely to succeed if leaders from multiple sectors are involved: government, media, business, and civil society.
A useful model is provided by the experience in public health over several decades. A strong constituency for preventing deadly diseases has emerged. This has led to improved rates of immunization, better diet and exercise practices, and reduced cigarette smoking, and in turn to diminishing the casualties of a variety of diseases. This approach to leadership and public education can be usefully applied to the worldwide problems of conflict.
One of the primary goals of the Commission has been to make leaders more aware of the opportunities for preventing deadly conflict. By presenting the insightful reflections of five distinguished leaders from diverse backgrounds, we hope this volume will make a significant contribution.
David A. Hamburg
Cyrus R. Vance
Cochairs
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
The century now stumbling toward its close is, by common acknowledgment, the bloodiest in history. To understand the causes of conflict and to turn back this tide of violence are the most immediate necessities facing humankind as the twenty-first century comes into view.
Yet the twentieth century also has produced history's most admirable instances of international cooperation. The nations of the world have created systems, institutions, doctrines, and agreements designed to prevent, contain, and resolve conflict and to make the resort to warfare less likely over the long term. The record of achievement over the decades is astonishingly long: arbitration treaties; the concept of collective security; disarmament conventions; the growth of international law; the International Labor Organization, the League of Nations, and the United Nations; the Geneva and Genocide conventions; alliances and coalitions against aggression; the recognition of the role of economic and social development; the global drive for democratization; and the recent continuum of global conferences designed to address the causes of deprivation and confrontation. Taken together, historians are bound to regard this record as an epic effort to deal with the age-old scourge of war.
Today we are in the midst of a struggle to deal with the new face of conflict that has emerged in the aftermath of the Cold War. There is a vital need to regain momentum toward an expanded and increasingly effective international system. It is at just such a point as this, now as in decades past, that leadership becomes more crucial than ever. As the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin put it, "at crucial moments, at turning points, when factors appear more or less equally balanced, chance, individuals and their decisions and acts, themselves not necessarily predictable -- indeed, seldom so -- can determine the course of history."
Leadership, of course, is much more than "individuals and their decisions and acts." Leadership as a quality may be more innate than acquired, but some qualities and characteristics can be identified and consciously brought to bear during complex and difficult times like the present.
No one leads by fiat in the modern world. Vision and the ideas through which it is defined are crucial. Ideas are what mobilize people and galvanize them to join in an action for shared benefit. Every leader must explain the concept behind a decision or act, and that idea may well take on a life of its own, even to the point of exceeding the control of its originator.
From where should ideas be derived? The propensity to rely on past authority is an inherent human trait and is indispensable to the stability of society. Virtually every major religion, culture, or political system is designed so that decision makers will look backward, back to a sacred text, back to a founding political document such as a constitution or charter, back to the precedent established in common law or to a statute enacted long before the case at hand arose. In times when change is slow, precedent can often be a sufficient principle by which to guide a society. But in a revolutionary time such as this, marked by the acceleration of events, decisions must not be based so much on precedent as on their prospective impact. In these circumstances, leadership must be able to conceive of original and path-breaking ways to make progress. We cannot be content to live on the accumulated wisdom of the past. Old ideas must be repackaged and infused with new substance to meet the changing needs of the present. When the imagination produces new ideas and points toward new directions, another dimension emerges.
Ideas and concepts can carry a message far in time and space. After a reporter noted a phrase that I used during a trip to Africa, I found myself described in the press as the originator of the concept of "underdog conflicts." The concept highlights the imbalance in the international community's intense concern for a conflict in one place (usually in the developed world) and neglect or disregard for a far more devastating situation somewhere else (usually in a developing country). This phenomenon is morally indefensible and detrimental to efforts by many leaders to reduce the level and frequency of conflict worldwide. The concept of underdog conflicts deserves much more attention.
But ideas are not in themselves enough. Ideas must be woven together into a viable and coherent strategy. Each controversy, conflict, or diplomatic problem will generate or respond to a particular idea or set of ideas. But the ideas must fit into a larger scheme. Individual ideas, which may appear to be workable in specific cases, may fail to solve the problem and may even worsen it in the absence of a viable and coherent strategy.
The history of the international involvement in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, for example, could be written in terms of its multiplicity of concepts: "peacekeeping," "preventive deployment," "lift and strike," "safe areas," "close*B air support," and others. But that experience demonstrated that a comprehensive and fundamentally coherent overall strategy must be used to define and test the validity and practicality of various ideas. Without such a strategy, concepts will not serve to resolve conflicts; they will simply add a layer of ideas that themselves may be incompatible and contend against each other.
Even a viable and coherent strategy cannot be fully effective unless it is communicated to the public in a way that will gain their support, and it is put into effect cooperatively with others. As with so many other aspects of world affairs today, communication and cooperation, both age-old activities, must be conducted under vastly changed circumstances.
Communication between leaders and peoples in this media-saturated age has increasingly become a matter of entertainment, theater, and ceremony. Images reach people almost instantly and influence their attitudes and decisions more powerfully than more precise and comprehensive written assessments. This places a heavy responsibility on leaders, the media, and individuals: leaders must ensure that communicative powers are not abused, the media must ensure that all aspects of an issue are explored fairly, and individuals must insist upon solid information beneath the unavoidably superficial character of today's communication. Above all, leaders must speak out to set the record straight. Unless they do, distortions of reality can become part of the accepted interpretation of the past and mistaken lessons can be drawn by future generations.
There is also a deeply moral responsibility that leaders bear in their efforts at communication. This involves advocacy for those individuals, peoples, and events that are "orphaned" by the global media in general. The poverty-beset individual, the desperate family, the beleaguered minority, the ghastly conflict that the press overlooks -- all these will be voiceless unless the leader speaks for them.
In this age of communication, words are tantamount to deeds. The old distinction between what is said and what is done no longer holds up. Leaders therefore need to understand the vast power of their utterances and be ever-more responsible communicators as a result.
Democratization -- one of the greatest projects of our time -- deepens the need for good leadership. In an age of near total communication, pressures grow for ever more direct democracy. The outcome often can be government by opinion poll, where leadership becomes followership, or, conversely, demagogic authoritarianism. Representative democracy provides both accountability to the public and an arena for responsive and creative leadership. Such challenges to leadership can be observed today in the many examples of countries seeking to democratize. In such cases true leaders understand that undemocratic means must not be used to achieve democratic ends, for such attempts can never successfully serve the long-term interests of leaders, peoples, or the future of their countries.
Cooperation is also a concept transformed by contemporary change. Cooperation is no longer one option to be weighed against the advantages of "going it alone." Globalization means that no major problem can be effectively and enduringly dealt with unilaterally. The great conflicts of the twentieth century have demonstrated the overriding necessity of cooperation and coordination among states and peoples. The idea of unilateral action in response to conflict has progressively been scaled back until it realistically can apply today only to limited conflicts, and even then only for a limited time.
Cooperation in the first instance must be achieved internally -- an objective that has always been harder to achieve in democratic societies, and those societies today are proliferating. The complexity of modern life also has multiplied the number of players and groups within a country who must have a say in matters of international affairs, issues that no longer can be regarded as the province of a special elite but that are now correctly understood to be inextricably intertwined with the domestic issues of everyday life. Just as these factors have complicated the job of coordination within a single country, they have on a larger scale made coordination among international partners more difficult and time consuming. At the same time, these factors of complexity can also be positive, offering more channels and greater opportunity for more deeply rooted, enduring, and effective solutions. It is the task of leadership to resolve the complexity and realize the opportunity.
Not every conflict can be solved by cooperative means. Courage also is essential if the leader is to succeed in the task of turning vision into reality. There are implacably dangerous enemies of peace and human dignity at large in the world. Unless there is the will to act when the situation demands action, war will become more not less frequent, and new horrors and atrocities will be unleashed on the world. When the ability to act is evident, and when courage is perceived in a leader and in a people, the chances that diplomacy can work are immeasurably enhanced. But courage may also mean pursuing efforts that require accepting the risks of failure while allowing others to receive the tributes of success.
Political intuition is, for me, the summum bonum of all these leadership qualities. Leaders must sense where, when, how, and with whom progress can be made.
Political intuition requires timing. When have warring parties reached a susceptible moment of fatigue? When will the public demand or reject action and how does that public opinion fall into phase, or fail to do so, with the needs of the moment, politically, diplomatically, and militarily? The moment -- when it appears -- must be seized.
Political intuition requires an awareness that "everything counts," that no issue is too small or too remote to be potentially significant. In international affairs this means that a truly global outlook is required. The superpowers had such an outlook during the Cold War, but have become more selective in their foreign policy interests since then. It is highly important that leaders regain the sense that even small and far-off details eventually can have vast and far-reaching implications. The new perspective offered by "chaos theory," that the beat of a butterfly's wing can lead to a typhoon in another continent, can apply to matters of statecraft as well as to matters of meteorology.
Without diminishing in any way the importance of law and institutions, the time has come to recognize that the age-old qualities of leadership have not been given enough recognition recently. The best institutions are of little use in the absence of true leadership. On the other hand, an outstanding leader can make effective use of virtually any basically sound institutional system.
Western emphasis on structures of government has added important new dimensions to the study of statecraft and the management of states. But good leadership continues to be essential to the long-term success of governance, even though leadership may today be measured in different terms.
Perhaps the time has come to give fresh recognition to the ancient wisdom that placed such strong emphasis on the qualities of leaders. In considering governance, the scholars and statesmen of the non-Western traditions of Islam, India, and China, among others, paid relatively scant attention to structure. Matters such as the separation of powers, cabinet government, or the electoral system were of little or no interest. What mattered from their perspective were the qualities of the leader. In uncounted volumes on statecraft in these ancient traditions, entire chapters are devoted to attributes of leadership such as benevolence, knowledge of foreign tongues, mental discipline, and physical stamina and ability. Examples, like the ability to ride a horse at breakneck speed while shooting an arrow at a far-off target, might be drawn from reality while at the same time standing metaphorically for the required skills of statecraft.
Today, as in the past, leadership remains an essential ingredient at all levels of human life. In this time of historic transition, we urgently need leadership that, while constantly and closely attuned to the rapidly changing pulse of human affairs, can project a comprehensive, coherent, and compelling vision of human society, communicate that vision convincingly to the world's peoples, foster its implementation through cooperative endeavor, and make and follow through on the hard decisions that will inevitably arise. The quality of leadership we engender -- globally, nationally, and at the grass-roots level -- will determine the kind of world we live in, and the state of the world that future generations will inherit.
George Bush
During the four years of my presidency, both the world in which we live and the way in which we Americans relate to it were transformed. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world's only remaining superpower. At the same time, not only how -- but even whether -- we should exercise this unique status began to be questioned in our own country. This process of reexamination and reassessment continues as we work toward a new consensus about America's role in the world.
It is not surprising that this redefinition of America's relation to the world remains a work in progress. In contrast to the post–World War II period (and more like the period after World War I), there is no single external threat that focuses our attention, galvanizes us into action, and speeds the formation of a new consensus about our interests, role, and responsibilities in the world beyond our borders. But even at this point, two things already are clear. The first is that the outcome of the debate and the content of the new consensus will be of profound importance not only to our own country and its well-being, but also to the peace and stability of the world. The second is that the United States and, in particular, American leadership must play a unique and indispensable role in the prevention of deadly conflict in the post–Cold War world. This essay provides me the opportunity to explain why I am convinced of the correctness and importance of both points.
There is widespread agreement that the end of the Cold War was a triumph for the United States and the West; but even several years later, there is little consensus about its meaning and implications for the future. As a result, it is not surprising that we call the period in which we now find ourselves the "post–Cold War" world, defining it as much by reference to what it is not and by what is behind us, as by what it is and by what lies ahead of us.
A few features of the post–Cold War environment already are clear. First and most obvious, our victory in the Cold War -- not only the fact that we won it but how we won it -- transformed what might be called our "security environment." This occurred in the fundamental sense that the very real threats to our national security interests and core values we faced for a generation have disappeared for the foreseeable future. Notwithstanding all the issues and problems we confront in the post–Cold War world, none compares to the dangers -- including the specter of nuclear annihilation -- we faced during the Cold War. The simple but remarkable fact is that, for the first time in my adult life, the United States no longer faces a direct military threat to its vital interests.
Second, and perhaps less obvious, the end of the Cold War offers new possibilities. It opens the way for the diffusion of market economies and democracies around the world, including into areas that had been cut off from freedom and free choice for a generation. Relieved of the fear that actions we might take could spark a superpower confrontation -- or worse -- it also gives us a new freedom of action. We have been presented with historic opportunities to shape an international order that better reflects our values and serves our interests. These opportunities allow us to showcase what we Americans stand for and believe in while -- we hope -- exercising the good judgment to resist the temptation to lecture others about how they need to become more like us.
Third, the end of the Cold War has not led to a kind of international Garden of Eden that some had envisaged. On the contrary, the post–Cold War world has turned out to be much messier and more unstable than many of us had expected -- or at least had hoped. Deadly conflict persists, and its frequency has, if anything, increased. We face not the "end of history," but the march of history. We see not the "end of ideology," but the resurgence of intolerant nationalism, religious fanaticism, and bloody ethnic strife, often fueled by the proliferation of deadly weapons and unrestrained terrorism. But in contrast to the situation that typically prevailed during the Cold War, our vital interests appear to many not to be directly at stake in these conflicts and controversies. They clearly are problems, but it is not nearly as clear that they are, or ought to be, our problems.
In brief, the end of the Cold War presents a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, we have a new freedom of action to deal with the problems and seize the opportunities of the post–Cold War world. On the other hand, by successfully ending the Cold War, many would argue that we have accomplished our mission, met our responsibilities, and secured our objectives. Although they would acknowledge that there may well still be problems in the world, including the prevention of deadly conflict, they would say it is now time for them to be someone else's problems.
TOWARD A NEW FOREIGN POLICY CONSENSUS
In such circumstances, it perhaps is not surprising that, in ways reminiscent of the period following World War I, the American people -- and many of our leaders in both parties -- seem to have become afflicted with a severe case of what I would call foreign policy ambivalence. We seem to be increasingly ambivalent about being engaged in the world, to say nothing of exercising international leadership. This is especially the case when many of our allies seem somehow ungrateful for all the burdens we bore during the Cold War, and cannot be depended upon always to do what we ask of them. At the same time, we also are becoming increasingly ambivalent about using our military forces, when the costs and risks of doing so seem so clear, and consequences of inaction seem distant and elusive.
It is as though having won the Cold War, we "lost" not only our enemy but also our foreign policy bearings in the sense that there no longer is a broad consensus in this country about the purposes and organizing principles of our foreign policy. Given this ambivalence, it should not be surprising if the pressures to spread (if not shed) the burdens of international leadership we shouldered during the Cold War seem nearly irresistible; yet at the same time we give voice to the impulse to redress the injustices and relieve the suffering that we find in abundance in the post–Cold War world. And so we hear a cacophony of voices. On one side is a growing chorus insisting that this problem is one with which the Europeans should deal, and that one is properly the concern of the Africans, and that other one is no concern of ours. On the other side is another loud chorus insisting that as the world's leading democracy and only superpower, we cannot stand aside but must "do something" to resolve this crisis, end that conflict, rebuild this nation, or bring the blessings of democracy to that one.
Put differently, for the first time in a generation, we face an apparent choice between international engagement and leadership on the one hand, and a retreat into isolationism and unilateralism on the other. It is, however, a false choice unless we really are prepared to squander the opportunities and responsibilities we face, and accept whatever kind of world results.
Isolationism is not a real option because the world is becoming increasingly interdependent. This growing interdependence, moreover, is unstoppable. Some might argue, however, that since we are the world's sole superpower, we can largely insulate ourselves from these trends so that they will not affect us very much. Now it probably is true that we could do better than most if we were to turn our backs on the world and concentrate on tending our own garden. But the fact is that despite our great wealth and power, our own fate -- in ways both grand and mundane, from the goods and services we use to the flood of illegal drugs that threatens our lives -- also is becoming increasingly intertwined with the fate of others. Indeed, it has become a commonplace among commentators to observe that the distinction between foreign policy and domestic policy is becoming increasingly blurred, if not arbitrary and artificial.
But the corollary of this commonplace all too often is overlooked: although the current international security environment is quite favorable to U.S. interests, we could make no worse mistake than to take it for granted. We saw signs of such an unconscious complacency in the 1992 presidential campaign, and again in the 1996 campaign. None of the candidates was challenged to articulate -- much less defend -- his vision of America's role in the (still-emerging) post–Cold War world, or his key foreign policy priorities, or simply where and for what he stood on key international issues. On the contrary, speaking to these issues became a sort of political liability. I believe our country was the poorer for not having had the candidates debate foreign policy, less because such debate would have affected the voters' choice and the outcome of the election than because its absence has encouraged a confusion about, and sense of drift in, this nation's roles and responsibilities in the post–Cold War world.
The fact is that although the present international environment may be good, it also is somewhat fragile, even brittle. Without continuous attention and maintenance, it can turn sharply and abruptly against our interests. That makes the job of sustaining the current international environment not a favor we do for others, or simply an idealistic effort to make the world a "better place," but a task that the combination of circumstances and our enlightened self-interest thrusts upon us. Unless the United States is prepared to leave it to others to defend our interests and stand up for what we believe in, we in fact have no choice but to remain engaged and continue to lead.
These are not new lessons. In this century, we have fought two world wars and one cold war. We were victorious in all three. But we have not always been as successful in "winning the peace." In the aftermath of World War I, we faced a collision between Wilsonian idealism and traditional American isolationism. Isolationism prevailed. The United States withdrew from international engagement and, in doing so, not only squandered much of what had been won in the bloody trenches of France, but also fertilized the ground in which the seeds of World War II took root. That experience demonstrated that it is worse than naive to believe that a country can inoculate itself from interdependence by retreating into isolationism. On the contrary, when we followed that misguided course, it led not to a lasting peace but all too quickly to another world war.
With courage and sacrifice, and at great cost in blood and treasure, we led the allied forces to victory in World War II. In the aftermath of that conflict, we soon faced a choice between a return to American isolationism and American leadership of the free world facing a growing Soviet menace. This time -- with the painfully learned lessons of the interwar period in mind, but primarily prodded by an aggressively belligerent Soviet Union -- bipartisan American internationalism won out and, building on that consensus, we embarked on a course that culminated in our victory in the Cold War.
The simple fact is that we can no more opt out of the external world and "mind our own business" in the post–Cold War world than we could after World War I or World War II. History tells us that following the siren song of neoisolationism ultimately serves neither our interests nor our values: we may be able to postpone a foreign policy day of reckoning, but we cannot avoid it. The United States literally cannot "abdicate" its role as international leader in the post–Cold War world because there is no one else -- no other country and no institution -- that could fill the role. Although we cannot and should not make every problem our own, we need to be clear that when and where we choose not to lead, chances are that no other country or institution will fill that vacuum. Put simply, no one and nothing else will take our place, because no one and nothing else can.
IS UNILATERALISM AN OPTION?
If isolationism is not a realistic option, some argue that we nevertheless can and should pursue a "go it alone" approach, that "unilateralism" is the right policy for the United States in the post–Cold War world. It is tempting.
After all, the argument goes, we not only are the world's only remaining superpower, but the threats we face now are far fewer than (albeit also much different from) those that arose from the superpower confrontation during the preceding fifty years. When we must become engaged (however reluctantly) with the world beyond our borders, we surely have the wherewithal to take care of ourselves and our interests by ourselves. We do not need anybody else and should not have to work for their support and cooperation or compromise to secure it.
Besides, the argument continues, exercising "leadership" is steadily becoming more frustrating and less rewarding. We find that, with the end of the Cold War, our overwhelming military power no longer translates quite so well into equally overwhelming political influence. Although we also remain the world's largest and most powerful economy, we are not economically predominant in the same way that we remain militarily pre-eminent, particularly in a world of growing economic interdependence. Our security partners -- who are also our economic competitors -- seem to be less "reliable" in the sense that they do not dependably do what we ask just because we ask them; or, put more crudely, we no longer can take their support for granted. In brief, this argument concludes we can do whatever we need to by ourselves; we do not need to exercise American leadership in order to protect our interests, and it simply is not worth the bother.
The simple fact, however, is that unilateralism would be no wiser or more feasible a course than isolationism for our country in the post –Cold War world. Sometimes we have little practical alternative to obtaining the cooperation of like-minded nations. Imagine, for example, trying to mount Desert Storm -- one of the largest military operations since World War II -- without the active support not only of Saudi Arabia, but of countries in and outside the region that provided basing and transit rights. More broadly, imagine the lasting damage that would have been done to a broad range of American interests if we had launched massive attacks against Iraq without the active support and participation of the vast majority of the Arab world, or without the benefit of UN Security Council resolutions, which commanded overwhelming support around the world.
But the case for American leadership rather than unilateralism is more fundamental and far-reaching than such immediate operational considerations. First, and most obvious, if we do not work to obtain the willing cooperation of others in any given instance, and instead ignore their concerns and sensitivities, we are less likely to secure their support the next time when we might need it even more. More fundamentally, if we ignore others until we need them and then bully them into "cooperating," we will be suspected by countries around the world of the very ambitions for hegemony and aggrandizement that are the antithesis of American leadership and that would work to undermine its effectiveness. Second, the need for international cooperation and support is not an issue that arises only in times of crisis and conflict. By investing in building and sustaining relationships -- by leading without bullying -- and by being reliable, we are more likely to advance our political, economic, and security interests on a broad front, day in and day out.
Third, as I will detail below, the support of the American people increasingly depends on the willingness of friends and allies to share the risks and burdens with us in the post–Cold War world when immediate threats to our own national security are difficult to discern, and when we need to become involved even though our vital interests do not appear to be directly engaged.
Let me be clear. We always must be prepared to act alone when our interests and circumstances require that we do so. And, as the world's sole superpower, we have options for acting unilaterally that are denied to most others. But because we are the world's only superpower, other countries -- both friends and potential adversaries -- look to see where they think we are headed as they set their own policies. We saw that in Somalia when we organized an international humanitarian relief effort in 1992 and, most dramatically, when we led an international coalition to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. This focus makes a leadership role for the United States not only available but almost inevitable. The real question is whether and how we exercise such a role. The way in which our country answers that question can have enormous implications for containing and preventing deadly conflict in the post–Cold War world.
THE IMPORTANCE OF AMERICAN LEADERSHIP
What I mean by leadership is just that: identifying, organizing, and leading coalitions of like-minded friends and allies in the service of shared interests. It does not mean doing everything by ourselves, any more than it means acting only when it serves our immediate, narrowly defined self-interest. The hallmark of leadership is "engagement," joining with others rather than going our own way or acting for those who will not meet their own responsibilities. Such leadership rests on a foundation of American self-interest -- shaping the international order in ways that advance our interests and reflect our values; but we must exercise that leadership in a way that makes clear to all that we are not embarked on a quest for hegemony or aggrandizement.
The essence of U.S. leadership is presidential leadership. In foreign policy even more than domestic policy, only the president can set this country's objectives, establish priorities among them, and integrate them into a coherent whole. Likewise, only the president can identify, organize, and lead the international coalitions. But perhaps most important is the recognition that success at home is indispensable to effectiveness abroad, that the first task in exercising international leadership is to fashion and sustain support in the Congress and among the American people. That too, is a job which only the president can do.
Nothing illustrates more vividly the case for American leadership than the Gulf War. The first major post–Cold War opportunity to fashion a new world order presented itself soon enough when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Desert Storm stands as a classic example of the need for, and results of, effective American leadership. The same experience demonstrates that a central component of any serious contemporary strategy for the prevention of deadly conflict is continued American engagement.
We could have acted unilaterally to defeat and reverse Iraqi aggression in the sense that we had the military wherewithal to do most of the job ourselves (although, as noted above, it would have been immensely more difficult and costly). And though I felt certain that I could count on our staunchest allies, I was prepared to go it alone if that proved necessary. It was clear, however, that both the immediate situation and the aftermath of the war would benefit immensely if we acted as part of an international coalition. That is, my actions were guided by the belief that not only whether we succeeded, but also how we proceeded, would both shape the immediate results and establish precedents that would have more long-lasting implications for the future prevention of deadly conflict.
The end of the Cold War made possible the engagement of the United Nations in the Gulf crisis. Conversely, the Iraqi invasion posed a critical test for the United Nations, one it had to pass or suffer severe damage to its capacity to deal with the emerging problems of the post–Cold War world. At the same time, it was clear to me that standing up to Saddam was not a job for the United Nations to do itself. The United Nations was never designed to mount major military operations, and it surely would fail if it tried. (It goes without saying that I never would have put our large force under any UN command.) I also knew better than to yield to the temptation -- to which our country sometimes has succumbed -- to use the United Nations as a dumping ground for problems that are too hard or messy for us to deal with, and then blame the United Nations for not solving them; nor would I make the opposite error of subordinating our vital interests to the "will" of any international organization.
What was needed instead was for the UN Security Council to demand that Iraqi aggression be reversed and punished, and to authorize its member states to ensure that those demands were honored. It would then fall to the nations of the world to determine whether they had the collective will and wherewithal to enforce the Security Council's resolutions, or whether their caution and inaction would instead reduce those resolutions to empty rhetoric. I considered it to be the responsibility of the United States to ensure that the answer was the former, and not the latter, by organizing and leading the Gulf War coalition.
The role played by the Soviet Union was central. First, the Soviets could block all UN resolutions by exercising their Security Council veto. Second, no matter what resolutions the Security Council approved, it was essentially up to Moscow -- as Iraq's long time political sponsor and military supplier -- whether Baghdad's isolation would be complete or whether the international community would split on how to respond to Saddam. Third, Moscow was faced with a very difficult political situation. Not only was the Soviet Union owed billions of dollars by Baghdad, but its hundreds of citizens in Iraq serving as civilian and military advisors were hostage to Iraqi intimidation. These very real-world circumstances made it that much harder for Moscow to take a courageous stand against Saddam.
In the end, the Soviet Union stood tall under the courageous and visionary leadership of President Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. In doing so, they made possible a response to Iraqi's invasion of Kuwait that remains a shining example of what can be accomplished when great nations transform what was once a confrontation among adversaries into cooperation among friends. The old habits of the Cold War were jettisoned, to be replaced by new-found practices of cooperation. The UN Security Council finally was allowed to operate the way its designers had intended it to respond to threats to international peace and security. (I also should note that the Security Council resolution authorizing member states to use "all means necessary" to end Iraqi aggression was critically important in subsequently getting our own Congress to acquiesce in the use of force.)
That the Cold War no longer was the defining issue in our lives mattered enormously in explaining this result, but that obvious fact should not be allowed to obscure two other things that helped persuade the Soviet Union to play such a constructive role. The first was that the Cold War not only was over, but that we ended it in a way that did not leave the Soviets with an enduring sense of bitterness and humiliation: had we gloated about our victory, had we danced on the ruins of the Berlin Wall, it is much less likely that the Soviet Union would have joined with us against its former ally in August 1990.
The second important factor was the close relationship I had established with Mikhail Gorbachev, a relationship matched by those Jim Baker had with Eduard Shevardnadze and my other senior advisors had with their Soviet counterparts. I am convinced that this network of relationships -- both national and personal -- was indispensable in persuading Moscow that the interests it had at stake in the Persian Gulf ultimately converged with our own, and that our two countries ought to work in close concert.
In fact, I think this point is generalizable. I constantly "worked the phones," calling around the world in the days and weeks following Saddam's invasion. Jim Baker, Dick Cheney, and Brent Scowcroft did the same. As I made these calls, it was brought home to me time and again that the personal relationships the president has with his counterparts can make all the difference when the chips are down. They are critical when the United States calls on its friends and allies to join with it in making tough decisions that are unpopular with the leaders' key constituencies. That experience also underscored the fact that personal relationships are long-term investments. They constitute invaluable sinews of leadership that must be developed and strengthened over time, nurtured precisely when they are not needed so that they are there, available, and strong when they are needed.
With benefit of hindsight, much of what happened following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait -- from the immediate, decisive reaction of the United States, to securing the condemnation of the international community, to the large-scale application of military force by a broad-based coalition -- has been treated as self-evident, if not inevitable. But that 20/20 hindsight ignores how controversial those decisions were at the time. Not only that, it also makes the mistake of viewing what was at stake as reduced to a single U.S. interest.
Beyond question, preserving secure access to energy, both in the short term and over the longer term, was of critical importance both to us and to every other modern industrialized nation. But even that issue was not the narrow one of Iraqi control of Kuwaiti oil reserves. There would be far-reaching implications for the oil markets and consumption worldwide that would depend on how the entire Gulf region -- starting with Saudi Arabia -- assessed the implications of the Iraqi invasion and our response to that act of aggression.
More important, oil was far from the only issue. The future of the Middle East peace process and, more broadly, relations between Israel and the Arab nations, also was at stake. In addition, a precedent was established -- both inside the region and beyond -- for what future would-be aggressors could look forward to if they chose to follow in Saddam's footsteps. That is, there would be a price to pay; they could not wreak havoc with impunity. Just as important, I hoped that a precedent was being set for the role the United States would play as the post–Cold War world was beginning to take shape.
All these stakes -- not just oil -- were put on the table when Iraq crossed into Kuwait. The world watched to see what the United States would do -- not only whether it would defend its vital interests but also whether it would stand up for what it believed in. For all these reasons, I knew immediately that we could not simply stand by and let Saddam's aggression succeed.
Our response, Operation Desert Storm, reflected the integration of American interests and American values, not a choice between them. It was vivid evidence that U.S. leadership is and will remain indispensable both for protecting our interests and for achieving a world order that better reflects our values. Moreover, from a purely pragmatic perspective, it underscored that our moral authority is an indispensable element of our leadership. That is why I find debates about whether we should pursue a foreign policy grounded in "realism" or instead one guided by "idealism" often miss an essential point. To be effective, the exercise of American leadership in the post–Cold War world must be noble as well as self-interested, because if we are seen to be motivated only by our immediate, narrow interests, we will increasingly find ourselves isolated and alone.
The effective exercise of American leadership requires both the capabilities that we as a superpower uniquely possess, and the will to use those capabilities. But leadership and strength alone are not enough. Leadership is the handmaiden of good policy, not its substitute. The hallmarks of good policy, in turn, are credibility, consistency, and selectivity.
Credibility is an idea that is simple to express and a quality that is easy to squander. The simple idea is that allies and adversaries alike must believe that we mean what we say and will finish what we start. This idea remains as valid today as it did during the era of superpower confrontation, because credibility remains the essence of deterrence and dissuasion in the post–Cold War world, just as it did during the Cold War.
The sense of confidence and trust other countries had in us and our dependability was invaluable as we made preparations to expel Saddam from Kuwait. The example of Saudi Arabia provides a vivid illustration. As serious a threat as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait posed for Saudi Arabia, accepting massive deployments of foreign military forces on its territory also raised immense difficulties for Riyadh. The worst of both worlds for King Fahd would have been to pay the enormous political price that these foreign deployments would entail, only to discover that the United States did not have the will to see things through to the end (which, in the view of many in the Arab world, we had failed to do in Iran and Lebanon). Rather than risk such an outcome, the Saudis might be tempted to try to make their own peace with Saddam.
I completely understood the dilemma that the Saudis felt they confronted, and tried to reassure King Fahd through the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, as we discussed with him the prospect of large-scale military deployments:
It is almost impossible to exaggerate not only the value of U.S. credibility, but also its vulnerability to serious damage when our rhetoric runs ahead of our capabilities or our will. When friends lose confidence in us, or when potential adversaries lose their respect for us, deterrence is diminished and both the threat to our interests and the risks of miscalculation increase. When our credibility is undermined, the need to demonstrate next time that we mean what we say is bound to be greater. And the process of restoring credibility, in turn, can easily increase both the probability and costs of deadly conflict.
Nothing will undermine our credibility faster than to appear to be in a state of constant flux about our objectives, commitments, assurances, policies, strategies, and threats. Rather, friends and adversaries alike must be convinced that the policy we pursue in any given case is guided by core principles rather than being an ad hoc response to the events of the moment. They need to believe that we make commitments carefully, but honor and stick with those we do make. Strengthening that sense of predictability can help reduce the chances of miscalculation and, in doing so, the risks of deadly conflict.
But as the Gulf War case demonstrated, consistency in policy does not guarantee success, or ensure that deadly conflict can be prevented or avoided. In the weeks and months leading up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, we used multiple channels to deliver a clear, consistent, coherent message to Baghdad, and reinforced it with complementary messages being delivered by our friends and allies. In one sense, it was all to no avail because Saddam brazenly disregarded our warnings. But in another sense, it paid some near-term -- and possibly some longer-term -- benefits. The track record we established provided a valuable foundation on which we were quickly able to construct the Gulf War coalition. It also constituted a valuable lesson in American consistency and credibility that future would-be aggressors may now be more likely to heed.
Being consistent is not the same as reflexively responding to every problem and provocation. Unless we are selective, if we do not pick our fights with care, we will quickly dissipate our capacity for leadership. This is one of the reasons why we should not behave as though we are the world's policeman. We cannot assume we are responsible for righting every wrong, or for defending against each and every threat to world order. Were we to attempt to do all these things, we would surely fail.
SOME POLICY CONSIDERATIONS IN THE USE OF FORCE
We therefore need some guidelines for deciding when and where to become involved. Let me suggest a few. One rule of thumb would be that we should intervene only when important U.S. interests and values are at stake. A second would be that we should intervene only when participation by the United States can make the critical, political and/or military difference. A third, closely related, guideline would be to choose cases in which there is a high probability of being successful.
This last point may warrant some elaboration. First, in international politics as elsewhere, success breeds success, but when it comes to international politics, this truism means that success in one situation reduces the chances that U.S. commitments will be tested elsewhere in ways that threaten confrontation and conflict. Second, it suggests that when the United States does decide to become involved, we need to be prepared to do whatever is required to succeed. That is, we should do everything we can -- both with respect to the commitment of resources and the circumscription of mission -- to increase the probability of success.
This principle of "selectivity" is nowhere more important than when it comes to questions involving the use of military force. Friends and foes alike must know that we will use our power when we must, but we will use that power wisely and not recklessly. They likewise must believe that once our forces are committed, we will do what is required to prevail. If, in this way, our friends and allies are convinced of our dependability, and potential adversaries are convinced that we are determined to finish whatever we start, then it will be less likely that we will actually need to employ force.
An important corollary is that, particularly when it comes to questions involving the commitment of U.S. military forces, we should not start down that road unless we are confident that we are prepared to travel down it as far as is necessary to succeed. In essence, this means that once we cross that line, the only "exit strategy" we should contemplate is one that flows from having achieved our objectives. It follows that the goals we are seeking should be clear, and that there be a definable linkage between the application of force and the achievement of those objectives. Perhaps most important, the consequences of escalation, should that become necessary, need to be assessed with the utmost care and deemed acceptable before the president makes the initial decision to employ force.
For these reasons, I believe it is a mistake to treat military force as a last resort, which exists somehow outside policy. We need instead to treat the use of force as an integral part of policy and strategy, not because it is a decision to be taken lightly, but so that it does not become a self-fulfilling last resort. I am convinced that if military force is regarded as something that can only be brought into the equation after it seems that everything else has been tried and nothing else has worked -- that is, force is to be considered only if and when policy has failed -- we are more likely to face the stark choice between using force and failing to achieve our objectives. Conversely, if a leader is prepared to contemplate the use of force, and makes this known against the background of credible and consistent policy, the likelihood that force will actually have to be used is reduced. Paradoxical as it may seem, a clear and convincing willingness to use force when necessary can be key to the prevention of deadly conflict.
PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP IS ESSENTIAL
The president cannot lead for long unless the public is behind him, especially when it comes to issues involving the commitment of U.S. forces. But this fact simply serves to underscore that one of the critical dimensions of presidential leadership is to take the initiative to build support by explaining to the country and the Congress what is at stake and why the United States must act, rather than passively gauging the level of support and making hard choices on the basis of public opinion polls. This is why I worked so hard -- notwithstanding the risks -- to obtain a Congressional resolution of support for my decision to use military force to reverse Iraqi aggression. (But here I must add that it would be very damaging to America's ability to conduct its foreign policy if the Congress continually tried to usurp the constitutional powers of the president.)
It also should be noted that it simply is not true that the American people no longer will support policies that put American lives at risk. As the deployment of our military forces to places as varied as Panama, Somalia, and the Persian Gulf make clear, the American people can and will support such policies. What is true is that before they will back such decisions, they must understand what we are trying to accomplish, and must be convinced that what is at stake is important enough to put American lives on the line. Again, that is a job only the president can do.
At the same time, my four years as president provided constant reminders that the work of leadership on the domestic front often is even more difficult and frustrating than on the international front. As noted above, it has become harder since the end of the Cold War to make the case to the American people about why the United States not only must remain engaged in the world, but also must continue to lead. At the same time, domestic priorities, many of which were subordinated to our security concerns during the Cold War, are clamoring for attention. For related reasons, the Congress is less likely to defer to the president on foreign policy in general, and is less likely to be supportive of him on any particular foreign policy issue.
Put simply, exercising strong foreign policy leadership just isn't very popular. The political benefits to the president of foreign policy leadership are fewer, and the political risks are greater, than they have been for at least a generation. But just as there is no practical alternative to American leadership of the international community, there is no practical alternative to presidential leadership of the American people. Whether we are speaking of the United States or the president, the concept of a "passive" leader is an oxymoron.
It remains to be seen how well members of the international community will be able to come together to deal not only with threats to peace and security, but also to the requirements for peacekeeping, the vacuums created by failed states, and so forth. The answer will depend in part on their ability and willingness to meld national perspectives into a workable and effective international response. Likewise, the jury is still out on whether the United States will continue to exercise the kind of international leadership -- political, economic, military, and moral -- on which the success of the new world order rests, or whether insistence on greater burden-sharing, combined with the strong claims made on scarce resources by serious domestic needs, become transformed into undisciplined and rampant burden-shedding.
What is beyond question is that members of the international community will be able to come together to deal with these and other issues only if the United States continues to exercise leadership. What is equally beyond question is that the exercise of presidential leadership and the exercise of American leadership are inextricably connected. The president must continue to do the hard but indispensable work of leading the nation so that it can continue to lead the world. To do otherwise not only would result in America shirking its unique responsibilities, but also would result in an international order that threatens rather than advances U.S. national interests, and that assaults rather than reflects the values we cherish.
Jimmy Carter
From Living in Faith by Jimmy Carter. Copyright 1996 by Jimmy Carter. Reprinted with permission of the author and Times Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
After I was defeated for reelection in 1980, it was a real temptation for my wife Rosalynn and me simply to stay close to our home in Plains, Georgia, and care for our farmland. But we decided instead to embark on a new career. We wanted my presidential library to be more than just a repository for my official records, so we began plans for The Carter Center, an international peacemaking organization to be headquartered in Atlanta.
Our early vision of The Carter Center was just a vague hope that we could combine our secular and religious interests in worthwhile projects. At the time, I was still deeply concerned about the Middle East peace process, which my administration had helped begin at Camp David, and frustrated that the effort to follow up with the Palestinians, Jordan, and Syria had been largely abandoned by the Reagan administration. My hope was that, in some way, I could use my knowledge and experience in addressing this and other conflicts in the world and, with approval from Washington, perhaps Rosalynn and I could become involved in some mediation efforts. In the early 1980s, our visits to the Middle East were officially encouraged, and I always gave full reports to the secretary of state and the White House. On occasion, I would also meet secretly with Palestinian leaders.
I soon began to realize that there were many needs other than peacemaking that could not be met by the U.S. government or other official agencies. Increasingly, our center became a neutral forum within which diverse and even hostile groups could meet to explore common approaches to problems.
The scope of our interests has continued to expand, and we now see the inseparability of peace, justice, freedom, democracy, human rights, environmental protection, and the alleviation of physical suffering. Our work is almost entirely among the poorest and most needy people, in the United States and in many other nations. In every Carter Center program, Rosalynn is a full partner with me, and she has been in charge of our efforts in the field of mental health. Under her leadership, more than 60 formerly uncooperative organizations now come together annually to share their common ideas and goals.
When we decided to establish The Carter Center, we sought help and advice from many sources. I visited more than 50 benevolent foundations, occasionally receiving financial support and always benefiting from information about needs we might fill that other organizations were not addressing. We also brought in former associates from my administration, experts from Harvard and George Mason universities, and peacekeepers from the United Nations to give us advice on mediation techniques and ways of learning about the many relatively unpublicized conflicts in the world.
We wanted to involve the faith communities in some of our causes, and we assembled leaders from different religious groups to discuss how our center might serve them and act as a catalyst to expand our combined work. At one large meeting, we hosted representatives from about 20 Christian denominations, plus groups of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Baha'is, and members of other faiths. Despite the many differences among us, there were two issues on which we could all agree: one was peace, and the other was the prevention and alleviation of suffering. From this has grown our Interfaith Health Program, within which many faith groups now share ideas and experiences through regional meetings, periodicals, and World Wide Web pages on the Internet.
The Carter Center has been operating in an especially interesting and important time on the international scene. With the end of the Cold War, we in the United States no longer face intense competition with a powerful Soviet Union for hegemony or influence in almost every region of the world. There is a void in international leadership, which offers us a comparatively blank slate on which to imprint the finest aspects of our nation's ideals. As a Christian, I think we can prove that it is possible to support the religious or spiritual values of compassion, sharing, and peace along with the democratic principles of freedom, equality, human rights, and self-rule.
THE UNITED STATES AND THE PEACE OPTION
When given the opportunity, though, our country has not always chosen to adopt the option of peace. During the last few years, the United States has been involved in many wars, one way or another. We gave at least tacit approval to Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982, then sent in U.S. Marines and bombed and strafed the villages around Beirut. We invaded and defeated Grenada. We invaded and destroyed a good portion of Panama. And on a more massive scale, we orchestrated the Persian Gulf War. In none of these cases did we first exhaust the opportunities for peaceful resolution of the dispute.
We Americans are proud of our military achievements, and war almost invariably brings instant popularity to the president, who changes in the public perception from a beleaguered civilian administrator to a dynamic commander-in-chief when our brave young men and women go into combat.
Yet with a deep and consistent commitment to peace, a powerful and admired America could have a tremendously beneficial influence on troubled regions of the world and could help both to resolve and to prevent needless wars. Many political (but not necessarily military) leaders disagree with these ideas and consider them weak, naive, and overly idealistic. But in our work for The Carter Center, we witness firsthand the eagerness of people in war-torn or suffering nations for the peaceful interposition of American power. Such involvement would often be unsuccessful and frustrating, at times even politically unpopular. But peace efforts are closely related to all our ideals and moral values: human rights, freedom, democracy, and the alleviation of human suffering. Even when such efforts end in failure, they can greatly improve the reputation and influence of our country in areas of the world that do not share our own high opinion of America.
For some reason, Americans tend to see conflicts in terms of friend/enemy, angel/devil. This view is one of the major impediments to realizing our global potential as a champion of peace.
Consider a few well-known names on the international scene, including Anwar Sadat, Yasir Arafat, Kim Il Sung, Emile Jonassaint, Fidel Castro, and Hafiz al-Assad. These are, or were, all powerful, famous, nondemocratic rulers. All these men have at times been misunderstood, ridiculed, and totally condemned by the American public, and some of them deserve it. But like it or not, someone must be willing to deal with these kinds of leaders if we are to avert future wars and human suffering.
Most Americans now think of Egypt's Anwar Sadat quite favorably, but I remember that when he visited us in the White House for the first time in 1977, the vast majority of Americans looked upon almost all Arabs, including the Egyptian president, with great suspicion or animosity. Later, with his historic visit to Jerusalem, his agreement to the Camp David Accords, and the treaty with Israel, he became a heroic peacemaker -- and, finally, a martyr to peace.
CONSIDERING THE VIEWS OF OTHERS
All too often, conflicts and wars arise when we fail to consider the views of others or to communicate with them about differences between us. In my personal life, I sometimes find it difficult to understand those with whom I disagree or those who contradict me. Strangely, I find it easier to put myself in the position of an adversary when I am involved in negotiations as a mediator or even as an antagonist. It seems natural in those circumstances for me to attune my mind away from myself and to a more objective point of view. As president during the intense days of the Cold War, for instance, I would sit in the Oval Office, glance at a big globe, and try to view the world as Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev did -- living in a closed society, surrounded by frozen seas, powerfully armed enemies, and doubtful allies. The insights gained from this reflection helped me in negotiating, when I tried to alleviate his concerns while still pursuing the goals of my own country.
I used to argue vociferously with the Russian leaders about human rights. It was disturbing for me, as president, to hear Andrei Gromyko, the foreign minister of the Soviet Union, say, "We don't have any human rights violations in our country. Everybody in the Soviet Union has a place to sleep, adequate medical care, and a job." I couldn't argue when he quoted our own statistics about the number of Americans who were homeless, lacked adequate health care, or were unemployed. Gromyko's argument was that these were examples of our failure to recognize our citizens' human rights.
Obviously, the Soviet citizens were assigned jobs, they had to live where they were told, and they didn't have the right to voice their opinions, choose their own leaders, avoid summary convictions and punishment, move to another country, or even know the facts about their own society or the outside world. These are gross violations of human rights as Americans define them. But it was not easy for either Gromyko or me to accept an expanded definition of human rights. We each had a convenient definition, one that caused us few twinges of conscience. Differences like these must be recognized and understood when negotiating with adversaries -- without abandoning our own beliefs and principles.
Over the past 16 years, we at The Carter Center have adopted a number of principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations. One of the most basic is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat. The fact is that in most cases -- though not all -- there is enough common ground between adversaries to avoid violence and to permit people to live as neighbors, even if their differences are not resolved. However, there must be a basic desire for peace, enough respect for opponents to communicate with them, a willingness to reexamine one's own beliefs, and the personal and political courage to employ the principles of dispute resolution.
Provided I can obtain permission from our top government officials and believe that my efforts might be helpful, I feel no reluctance about having personal contact with people who have been branded as oppressive, dishonest, or even guilty of launching wars of aggression.
LESSONS OF ETHIOPIA -- DEALING WITH PARIAHS
A typical but troubling example of these experiences came late in the 1980s when I was asked by the International Red Cross and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to help resolve a problem with the Ethiopian Communist dictator, President Mengistu Haile Mariam. Tens of thousands of Somalian and Sudanese refugees had filled camps in Ethiopia, and the relief agencies reported that Mengistu was not permitting them to deliver food, water, and medicine. Since I was already in East Africa on Carter Center projects, I traveled to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. At the time, the United States rightly had withdrawn its ambassador from the country in protest against the government's policies.
Mengistu welcomed Rosalynn and me to Addis and invited us to stay at the palace of the late emperor Haile Selassie. (It was generally believed that the 83-year-old emperor had been smothered in bed by Mengistu's revolutionary forces in 1975.) So far as we knew, no American officials had ever visited Mengistu, but we found him to be frank with us and apparently willing to resolve the impasse with the international organizations. Through an interpreter, he explained that he was quite willing to see supplies go to the refugees but that the agencies had refused to permit deliveries by Ethiopians. It took only a brief discussion for him to accept our suggestion that his troops carry the supplies but that representatives of the international agencies monitor the procedure. This solution proved acceptable to all parties.
While there, I also suggested that peace talks be commenced between the Ethiopian government and their chief adversaries, revolutionaries from Eritrea and Tigre, in a war that had lasted more than two decades and caused more than a million deaths. Mengistu agreed, and extensive discussions were later conducted, with Italian officials trying to resolve the Ethiopia-Tigre dispute and The Carter Center negotiating between the Eritreans and Mengistu's officials.
Later I was asked by Israeli officials to intercede with Mengistu to secure emigration permits for about 3,500 Ethiopian Jews, known as Falasha, or "exiles," who were being prohibited from leaving Ethiopia to go to Israel. I learned what I could about them before approaching the Ethiopian leader. This was the remainder of a group of about 15,000, the others having been transported to Israel some years earlier. The Falasha claim to be descendants of Menelik I, son of the biblical King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and many of their worship practices have remained unchanged since the times of the Prophets. Their Scriptures are not in Hebrew but in another ancient Semitic tongue, and the Falasha still offer animal sacrifices. When I broached the subject of the Falasha's emigration with Mengistu, he agreed to release them provided the government of Israel made a direct request. Eventually this was done, and the Falasha were united in the Holy Land.
I knew that Mengistu was well educated and had received some of his training in the United States, but he always insisted on speaking Amharic, conversing with me through an interpreter. Later an American told me about an interesting event that occurred when he was visiting Mengistu. When a waiter came into the office to take orders for refreshments, the interpreter and the president both requested "chi," while the Westerner, desiring the same drink, said "tea." The visitor wondered aloud about the difference, and Mengistu said casually in English, "Well, there must be an etymological explanation."
When the Tigrean guerrillas took Addis Ababa in 1991, Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe, where he still lives in exile despite attempts by his successors to extradite him to be tried for murder.
I have been willing to deal with Mengistu and others considered international pariahs, since government officials would not communicate directly with them and they are often the only ones who can resolve a serious problem. In most cases, they are eager to have some contact with the Western world, and their status as international outcasts makes them quite reluctant to alienate me by lying.
Certainly some of the people with whom I've dealt have been dictators, killers, and violators of human rights. No one could defend the moral codes of such people or claim that ethical distinctions among governments cannot or should not be drawn. I realize that the primary "code" of some political leaders is simply to continue enjoying the benefits of power.
The question is, what do we do about it? Do we refuse to talk to such oppressors and simply impose sanctions or trade embargoes on their nations in an effort to apply pressure on them? If so, we deprive the children in those countries of food and medicine, causing needless suffering of innocents. The dictator himself doesn't suffer, and his children and grandchildren get all the food and medicine they need. One unwanted result of such trade embargoes is that we sometimes make a hero of the dictator who is defying the American giant, while he blames his nation's ills on the embargo itself. This has been the result of our unfortunate and counterproductive policy toward Cuba.
The alternative is to focus on pragmatic goals: to prevent war, to reduce suffering, and to open up and bring positive change to cruel or repressive regimes. Often this can be done only if we are willing to communicate with the people in power, however unsavory they may be. Only our willingness to have a dialogue enables us to find room for compromises that can save lives and even, in some cases, induce the dictators to mend their ways.
One of the most intense negotiations in which I have been involved occurred when, with approval from the White House, I went to Haiti on Saturday, September 17, 1994, with Senator Sam Nunn and General Colin Powell to try to prevent an armed invasion of the island by 30,000 U.S. troops who were poised for action. Haitian military leaders, headed by General Raoul Cedras, had overthrown the elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was living in exile in the United States. An old and distinguished man, Emile Jonassaint, was serving temporarily as president.
It was the policy of the United States to communicate only with Haitian leaders whom we recognized, and this meant that, officially, Aristide and his cabinet (all in exile) were the sole official government. The U.S. ambassador in Port-au-Prince was prohibited from exchanging a written note or even indirect messages with Jonassaint and members of his cabinet. But we were free to discuss the issues with anyone in Haiti.
Many times I assume that a person is untrustworthy, since he is known to have broken promises in the past. In these cases, I attempt to understand what is in his best interest, analyze our own goals, and then try to connect the two. If I can convince the leader that what we want to achieve is also best for him, then we have a good chance for agreement. In my experience few leaders have broken the promises that they have finally made.
Sometimes I find that leaders we brand as "evil" are willing to work seriously with us for the sake of peace. North Korean president Kim Il Sung was such a person. When I was serving on a submarine in the Pacific Ocean during the Korean War, I blamed him as the one who had caused the conflict. I approached our meeting in 1994 with trepidation and some degree of animosity, but I found him to be a man who wanted to end the nuclear crisis and begin a fruitful series of discussions with the United States.
Much the same situation existed with General Cedras in Haiti. He was seeking a way out of a political and military quagmire. But because he and his political associates had been branded as totally evil and excluded from direct communication with the U.S. government, he had no way to redeem himself or to correct an evil situation.
I can't claim that I changed the hearts of Kim or Cedras, or that I "redeemed" them in any spiritual sense. That is not the point of our peacemaking efforts. The point is to change their approach to a problem, their behavior.
Although forgiveness is taught in the Bible, I don't draw a parallel between this religious principle and these activities of The Carter Center. We are not in the business of forgiving anyone. We only attempt to resolve crises and prevent the repetition or continuation of illicit acts.
HAITI
In Haiti, the key issue was whether the acting president, his cabinet, Cedras and his top staff, and the head of the state police would all resign from office and allow the return to power of the elected president. A previously negotiated agreement plus two UN Security Council resolutions spelled out the precise terms, and all had to be honored. We negotiated for hours with General Cedras and the other military and political leaders, but there were always remaining obstacles to a final agreement. We reached deadlock on several key issues. Cedras was willing to resign voluntarily the following year, but not immediately or under pressure. The top military officials also demanded that Aristide officially issue a bill of amnesty. None was willing to leave the country, maintaining that sending any citizen into exile was a violation of the Haitian constitution. At about three o'clock on Sunday morning, we decided to adjourn our session to get some rest and reconsider our proposals.
I find it helpful to establish some kind of personal relationship with key adversaries, so I made a point of engaging Cedras in a more relaxed conversation. As our small group was leaving the room, he told me that he had not been home for several days, and that he had missed the tenth birthday of his youngest son. I sympathized with his inability to act as a proper father, and we recalled that Rosalynn and I had met him and some of his children four years earlier, when we served as monitors of the election in which Aristide became president. At that time, Cedras was in charge of security for the election.
Although we were never informed of exactly when the military attack would be launched, everyone knew that an American invasion was imminent. I thought it would not come before Monday evening. Quite early Sunday morning I called Rosalynn just to tell her that I was OK but that we were not making any progress in the negotiations. She said, "Jimmy, you need to talk with General Cedras's wife, because she has a great influence on him." So we made arrangements to visit their home, and our negotiating team arrived there at eight o'clock.
We were introduced to the Cedras's 17-year-old son, I autographed a photograph of their 13-year-old daughter and me, taken during the 1990 election, and I gave a pocketknife as a birthday present to their youngest son. Then the general's wife dismissed the children. It was immediately obvious to us that the petite Yannick Cedras was a powerful force in their family.
While we and her husband remained silent, Mrs. Cedras told us that she had been up all night getting ready for our visit. She complained fervently that Americans didn't acknowledge the grandeur of Haiti. She pointed out that Haiti was the oldest black republic on earth; that it had become independent in 1804 when a small group of slaves under inspired leadership defeated the French army, the finest in the world, and drove the French from Haiti. She deplored the poverty of her country and the divisions that had created strife among the people. She said that her father and grandfather had been offered the presidency of Haiti but had refused to go into politics; they wanted to serve the people in other ways. She also said that the Haitians have great pride, and there was no way that foreign invaders could come into their country without any self-respecting Haitian offering his or her life in its defense.
She had seen an American special forces team surreptitiously surveying their house and believed that it would be one of the first targets when the invasion came. Mrs. Cedras told us that the previous night she had brought her three children to the room where we were sitting, and they had taken an oath that they would not leave their home but would stay there and die. Finally she said, "There is no way that we will yield." Her presence was overwhelming, and when she finished speaking, all of us remained silent for a minute or two.
Obviously, we thought our mission had failed. I thanked Mrs. Cedras for her frankness and her forceful presentation, and then nodded to General Powell. As the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was highly respected by the Haitian military leaders. He said that there were two choices a commander could make when facing overwhelming forces. Either he could commit suicide, in effect, by sacrificing his life and the lives of all those who trusted him, or he could exercise judgment and wisdom by yielding to the superior forces and preserving his life and his troops for another day.
Then I pointed out the difference between waging peace and waging war. Peace is much more difficult, I said, because it is more uncertain, continuing, and complex. It is easier to say, once and for all, "I know that the forces we face are overwhelmingly superior, but I will give my life for my country, and I'll also permit my family and many of those who look to me for leadership to die with me." I assured General Cedras that he and his military associates would be treated with respect, as we had promised in the written document over which we had been negotiating.
There was a long and very uncomfortable silence, but Mrs. Cedras finally looked at her husband and nodded silently. Then he said, "OK, we'll meet you in our headquarters in about an hour." This was just one step toward success, but it was a crucial one. I'll never understand completely, but I believe the key factors in the Haitians' decision to resume talks were the inexorability of a massive invasion, their desire to prevent bloodshed, and our pledge that their top military officers would be treated fairly and permitted to work with the leaders of the invading force until the time specified for President Aristide's return to Haiti.
However, back with the military leaders, we were still unable to reach agreement after several hours. Then, Cedras's key assistant burst into the room and announced that U.S. paratroopers were boarding planes to attack Haiti. This news was astonishing to us. The Haitian generals accused us of having misled them by preventing their preparations for an invasion while we professed to be talking peace. Cedras and his associates said that they were breaking off the discussions and leaving to marshal their troops. As a last, desperate ploy, I suggested that we lay the issues before Acting President Jonassaint, so that the civilian leaders could make the final decision.
They reluctantly agreed, and we quickly left through a back door of the large building and entered several armored cars. We drove around an enormous square, filled with thousands of angry demonstrators, to the presidential palace.
Emile Jonassaint was universally ridiculed in America as an aged puppet of Haiti's military dictators. But Rosalynn and I had met him when we had been in Haiti to help monitor two elections, and we knew him as the longtime chief justice of the Haitian Supreme Court and the author of the nation's first democratic constitution. He obviously had the respect of both the civilian and military leaders of the "provisional" government. I explained to Jonassaint and his key cabinet leaders the issues on which we had not been able to agree, while General Cedras and his military associates listened attentively. Knowing that the invasion had already been launched, Jonassaint said simply, "The decision has been made. Haiti chooses peace, not war." Some of his cabinet officers objected strongly and threatened to resign, but he was firm in his commitment. It was his personal courage that prevented a massive military confrontation in Haiti.
By telephone, President Clinton and other top U.S. officials approved our faxed agreement and cleared it with President Aristide, who was in Washington. Finally, after 61 planes loaded with paratroopers had been on the way to attack for more than an hour, Emile Jonassaint and I signed the agreement. President Clinton then aborted the operation and ordered the U.S. planes and paratroopers to return to their base.
The next morning, after our team had returned to Washington, a massive military force entered Haiti peacefully, with General Cedras assisting the U.S. commanders to preserve order in the country. Subsequently, I helped to arrange for the Cedras family to move to Panama before President Aristide was scheduled to return. We also ensured that proper compensation was made for the property that the Cedras family agreed to abandon.
The crisis was resolved, and the elected leaders returned to Haiti the following month to assume office.
NORTH KOREA
Earlier in 1994, a serious problem had developed halfway around the world when North Korea persisted in its plans to process high-grade uranium, which could be used for warheads in nuclear weapons. When inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency were expelled from the country, the global community became deeply concerned, and the United States initiated an effort in the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against North Korea.
For three years, North Korea's President Kim Il Sung had been asking me to come to Pyongyang so that he could explain his position. Now I was informed by Chinese and other experts that North Korea was likely to go to war if the sanctions resolution was approved. They could not accept the branding of their country as an outlaw nation and of their revered, almost worshiped, president as a criminal. The U.S. State Department had been unwilling to approve my intercession, but President Clinton finally gave me permission to make the effort.
Rosalynn and I went first to Seoul to reassure the South Korean leaders about our intentions; then we crossed the demilitarized zone, went to Pyongyang to meet with Kim and other leaders, and returned to South Korea. We were the first people in 43 years to make this round trip.
During our hours of private conversation in Pyongyang, it was obvious that President Kim was willing to find a way to resolve the differences that had caused the crisis. We knew him as a Communist dictator who had precipitated the Korean War and kept his people almost completely isolated from the outside world for more than 40 years. But now we heard him extol the virtues of the Christian missionaries who had saved his life when he was a prisoner of the Japanese, promise to cease processing nuclear fuel, express a strong desire for good relations with the United States, and offer to return the remains of all Americans buried in his country during the Korean War.
Although at the time I had no way to confirm his sincerity, I knew that all these commitments would soon be put to the test through Kim's own actions and official U.S.–North Korea negotiations. In addition to being transmitted to Washington, the agreements were announced to the world in a CNN International telecast. It seemed that our mission was completely successful. Not only did the North Koreans agree to cease processing nuclear fuel and to permit the international inspectors to return, but the North Korean president also authorized me to invite South Korean president Kim Young Sam to an unprecedented summit meeting.
Unfortunately, within a month, Kim Il Sung was dead, and, with uncertainty in North Korea about his successor, some of his personal commitments have not been fulfilled. Despite this setback, steady progress has been made to resolve the nuclear issue and some other urgent problems. However, North Korea is still a closed society, and memories of the Korean War leave bitter resentments among those on the Korean peninsula, in the United States, and elsewhere who suffered grave losses during the conflict.
Sometimes our peace efforts involve situations in which the leaders refuse to deal with government officials. Another problem is that almost all of the major wars now taking place in the world are civil conflicts, not hostilities between sovereign nations. It is often not feasible for U.S. officials or UN representatives to communicate with a revolutionary group attempting to change or overthrow a regime to which our ambassador is accredited or which is a member of the United Nations. So it falls to representatives of The Carter Center or other nongovernmental organizations to serve as the contact point between the warring parties. Since we maintain our unofficial status, representing only The Carter Center, we are generally acceptable even to the most sensitive or suspicious groups.
Obviously, it is important to be careful not to disturb sensitive political situations, and to avoid any encouragement of human rights abuses or violations of peace. It is a firm policy of The Carter Center not to duplicate or compete with efforts by others, and I obtain personal approval from the president of the United States before initiating a peace effort in which our nation is involved. We always make clear to adversaries that our goal is simply to resolve the issue, and we seek commitments from them to cease all activities that violate human rights or international law.
There are more wars today than ever before. At The Carter Center we monitor them all -- usually about 110 conflicts at any given time. Some are fairly dormant, but about 70 erupt into violence each year. Thirty are what we call major wars, in which more than a thousand deaths have occurred on the battlefield. In modern times, there are almost ten civilian deaths, including many women and children, for each soldier killed. The casualties can be horrendous, as we have observed in Bosnia. Many Americans don't realize that in a number of other countries -- including Burundi, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sudan -- they have been much greater.
THE CARTER CENTER'S PRINCIPLES FOR PEACEMAKERS
Experiences like the ones that we had in Haiti and Korea illustrate, in successes and in shortcomings, some of the peacemaking principles we have developed over the past decade or so at The Carter Center:
The Carter Center works with many others not only to seek peaceful resolution of conflicts but also to attempt to resolve the root causes of despair by increasing the production of basic food grains, improving health care, and supporting the growth of democracy. At The Carter Center, we don't believe that any peace effort, even if it is successful, will be lasting unless people have some control or influence over their own government. If dictators continue to be in charge, they are very likely to persecute their people and deprive them of equal treatment under the law. Eventually, another war will break out. In many countries, we have helped monitor democratic elections, to ensure that they are honest, fair, and safe, and that the results are trusted and accepted by the people.
Often military adversaries vying for political power are so filled with hatred that they cannot bring themselves to seek peace through direct or indirect communication. Even when both sides come to realize that they can't prevail on the battlefield, they still reject our offers to shuttle back and forth between them. In a few cases, free elections provide an alternative. When proposing this, we often rely on self-delusion -- a major factor in politics. Almost anyone seeking an elective office is convinced: "If the process is honest and the voters know me and these other jokers who are candidates, surely they will vote for me."
The Carter Center has developed a reputation for ensuring either that an election will be completely fair or that any fraud will be exposed and condemned. Our initial invitation to serve as monitors often comes from a ruling party that has achieved office through military force and wants us to authenticate its democratic victory, which it usually assumes will be inevitable. Sometimes the initiative comes from adversaries who suspect that the incumbents will try to steal the election. When all the major parties want us to monitor the procedure and we feel that our services are needed, we agree to participate. Although we never seek any legal authority, we gain great influence to correct problems as they develop because both sides soon realize that our public condemnation of their improprieties can be quite damaging and that our judgment on the legitimacy of the election will be accepted as final by the international community.
I consider this service vital in many cases, either to prevent or resolve a conflict or to ensure that, with freedom in a new democracy, the will of the people will improve the policies of a formerly authoritarian and abusive government. Only in a democratic country can real, lasting peace take root.
Mikhail Gorbachev
David Hamburg and other American friends have long been urging me to take on the theme of nonviolent leadership. But I never had the time and was also held back by the thought that not everything in my experience speaks for the "nonviolent orientation" of people who have been honored and burdened to lead states, parties, and mass movements in our turbulent times. From the start, my political credo has been the accomplishment of aims through nonviolent means, but we have to acknowledge that the idea of the inseparability of power and force continues to dominate the minds of most of our contemporaries.
Here in Russia, the public reserves the highest esteem for Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Stalin -- the rulers who crushed resistance to their plans by fire and sword, be they the conquest of territories for Russia, European-style modernization, or the building of socialism. Actually, the case is the same throughout the world. Genghis Khan remains the greatest state figure for Mongols, Napoleon for the French, and warlike Frederick the Great for the Germans. In the United States, too, one of the most respected presidents is Abraham Lincoln, not so much for his elimination of slavery as for his resolve to enter the Civil War to prevent the separation of the Southern states and preserve the integrity of the country.
Let us imagine, however, that Lincoln had to make his decision in a country strewn with silos and launching facilities for ballistic missiles with thousands of nuclear warheads, and with dozens of atomic power plants! In this case, the criteria that justify the use of military force for the achievement of political aims -- however reasonable and lofty they might be -- are not applicable. Ever since humanity was doomed to live with the looming threat of nuclear apocalypse, it needed a different philosophy of policy and political leadership. However, as Albert Einstein stated bitterly, everything in the world changed after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki except our way of thinking.
Half a century has passed since then, and it cannot be said that the warning of the great physicist has not been heard. During the Cold War, the confronting military blocs exhausted one another by sophisticated struggle on every possible front, and several times found themselves on the brink of a third world war. However, the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States, and other nuclear powers had enough wisdom and responsibility (the survival instinct also played a role) to refrain from the fatal step. In the 1980s, thanks to the new thinking, it became possible to start reducing nuclear arsenals.
Nonetheless, the threat remains, and not only because the existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons are sufficient to eliminate everything living on this earth many times over. The research and development of new means of mass destruction continue. Quantitative improvements in and accumulation of the so-called conventional weapons have long ago put them in the same lethal rank as nuclear weapons. But, however dangerous all these instruments of Moloch are, the worst danger is posed by the cult of force which continues to reign over people's thinking and emotions.
It would be half the problem if this was expressed only in the aforementioned admiration of great conquerors and despots. But we see that force constantly tramples on law in individual societies and in the international arena. Growing crime, political and criminal terrorism, and armed conflicts -- interethnic, social, and interstate -- transform security into the most essential need of modern man, almost as essential as the need for daily bread. This is a symptom of a serious malady with which humanity enters the third millennium.
What is most frustrating is that leaders, failing to find effective political means to settle conflicts and prevent conflict situations, increasingly resort to state violence as a way to fight individual and group violence. Having developed a taste for "leadership by force" (hereafter, I will use this term for brevity), they at times become the high priests of the cult of force and resemble a textbook cowboy who starts shooting when something is not to his liking. Yet, the only thing more dangerous than a terrorist is a terrorist state.
The problem becomes incredibly difficult when we consider that in our times there remains a need to use force in a situation where other methods cannot lead to a proper result. Nobody condemns a person who counters a bandit's attack, acting within the limits of what is considered in the criminal codes of all states as self-defense. This, naturally, refers to actions not only of individuals, but of communities, nations, and states. Therefore, the main point is that the use of force, when unavoidable, must correspond to the extent of the danger. Before force becomes unavoidable, the entire arsenal of political instruments accumulated by humanity in the course of its difficult history must be used.
Though an unconditional advocate of nonviolence, I do not identify it with the willingness to turn the other cheek when one is slapped. People must defend themselves, those close to them, their families, their motherland, and their values by all means available. But at the same time, we must always remember how fragile the world is that we have inherited, and how it can be devastated by any careless, thoughtless, or harsh action. Quite probably, the survival of humanity largely depends on our ability to improve the institutions and the art of policymaking, so as to dislodge force from the positions it still occupies out of necessity or misunderstanding.
These are the considerations which inspired me to present my views on "nonviolent leadership" -- especially concerning the settlement of armed conflicts. I will, of course, mainly discuss the lessons learned from my own experience. But, I will also share my ideas on where to search for solutions to the acute problems that now face the world community, in other words, on what political leadership we need entering the twenty-first century. This is not a handbook for students, nor a manual for novice politicians, nor an essay for the edification of the coming generations, but simply a re flection on one of the most important, if not the most important, of contemporary themes.
ON THE MEANING OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
It is worthwhile to begin with some general comments. While at the Department of Law in Moscow University, I came to know the classic works of political thinkers, such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Montesquieu, Jefferson, our own Herzen, and Chernyshevsky, and of course, the founders of Marxism. I also drew a lot about the nature of power from fiction. Then for decades I learned through practice while climbing the steps of the party and state hierarchy. My own experience convinced me that it is much more effective (not to mention more pleasant for leaders and followers) to solve administrative tasks not by decree but by persuasion.
This, in my view, is the fundamental characteristic of political leadership. Certainly, it represents a type of power, but it is a power based predominantly on intellectual and moral authority and not on the authority of the leader's throne or chair. This is the power of persuasion not of the fist, not a necessity to obey blindly the superior force, but an inner need to follow the advice you yourself consider reasonable and correct.
It is superfluous to mention that this method of power wielding has been known from ancient times. Wise rulers, even while possessing all means of force, preferred to explain and entice rather than simply coerce. Yet, political leadership should be considered as a phenomenon of our epoch. It is not incidental that it emerged as an idea and became a subject of numerous academic studies mainly in the postwar period. I attribute this to the acceptance and broad dissemination of democratic values and institutions. In the past, leadership was a matter of good will by wise sovereigns -- their benevolence toward their subjects. Today, it is a principle that stems from the leaders' responsibility to those who entrusted them with power. Monarchs were leaders by virtue of their mind and character, but presidents and party heads must be leaders by virtue of laws and conditions of contemporary social and political life.
Here, a clarification is in order. In our times, it is customary to refer to political leaders as not only those in power, but also heads of parties and movements that significantly influence the course of state affairs. At times, the true master of destinies can be a person without formal power (Deng Xiaoping is an obvious example). This is why it seems necessary to distinguish between operational and strategic leadership. By definition, the former involves the solution of daily and on-going managerial tasks, while the latter calls for paving society's way to the future. The demand for strategic leadership particularly grows during transitional periods, when the sources feeding the old system are exhausted and new activities, reforms, or even revolutions are needed.
Much of the success rests on the person who, by the will of providence, is summoned to "lead" in this transitional period. According to the Marxist tradition, the personality's role in history is predetermined by objective laws of social development. The leader can somewhat accelerate or slow down the march of historical necessity, but no one is able to stop it. In principle, this is hard to argue with. The question is how to measure the "freedom to maneuver" limited by necessity. Over the years, I became convinced that historical determinism unjustly humbles the human being and his abilities to carve his destiny according to his intelligence (whether for the better or worse, is another question).
The best evidence of this are three leaders whose activities wrought a decisive influence on the entire history of the twentieth century: Lenin, without whom the October revolution would not have occurred and today's world would not have had the invaluable Soviet experience with all its pluses and minuses; Roosevelt, who found the way to guide capitalism from the deepest systemic crisis and move, in essence, toward convergence; and Gandhi, who proclaimed nonviolence as the only reasonable method of political action in the modern period, thereby anticipating Einstein's call for a change in our mode of thinking.
Operational leadership responds in a timely way to the painful syndromes of domestic and international life, first and foremost, and to the settlement of conflicts and collisions of interests. Strategic leadership places prevention of conflicts as its main objective. Concentration on concerns of today cannot but affect planning for the future, while, in the same way, planning for the future equally distracts from the management of current affairs. Keeping a balance between the two is probably the highest art of a politician. A few have been fortunate to master it.
Soberly assessing my experience of political leadership, I see the reason for the difficulties that arose in 1990–1991 precisely in the failure to completely combine tactics with strategy and smooth the reforms. I remain convinced that political freedom and democracy, formation of a market and socially oriented economy, elimination of confrontation between military blocs in the international arena, and Russia's integration in the world community -- the changes that were begun by perestroika -- eventually play a beneficial role in the future of my country and of the world. But at that time, in the early 1990s, perestroika's innovative effect on a society chained for decades by a totalitarian system was similar to an oxygen intoxication. Meanwhile, the disparity between the design and the first results of the reforms was exploited by separatists, radicals, and bureaucrats in order to deprive the reformist center of public support. The developments took a dramatic course, which I see not so much as the "will of providence," as the miscalculation of the political leadership.
However, I want to repeat that the main job is done, and the way to the future is paved. My generation fulfilled the mission that confronted it as best it could. How promptly and skillfully our mistakes will be corrected and the opportunities created by us exploited depends on political leaders of the twenty-first century.
AFGHANISTAN: OUT OF THE BLIND ALLEY
Ninety percent of the art of political leadership, as I said already, is the ability to resolve conflicts and to settle conflict situations. Social and state bodies generate them in multiple quantities. Taxation and the distribution of budgetary resources are accompanied by fierce rivalry among various groups. All sorts of collisions are perennially present between the center and the regions (republics, states, territories, provinces), among the regions themselves, and between the regional authorities and local self-governing bodies. Much trouble is also caused by the sporadically emerging differences among the branches of government -- legislative, executive, and judicial. In our times, when the influence of electronic mass media is not less than and might even be greater than the influence of the traditional branches of government, it takes a great deal of effort to settle misunderstandings related to the lack of or, on the contrary, abuse of the freedom of the press.
The prosperous countries, to say nothing of the poor ones, are engaged in the continuous struggle for the rights of women, youth, disabled people, and minorities. While the Crusades of Christian warriors and Islamic jihad against the "infidels" have remained in the medieval past, religious animosity has not exhausted its ominous potential. Much effort is required to secure normal coexistence based on principles of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience. Complex, sometimes daunting tasks require those in power to serve as arbiters in disputes between nations and communities. I will touch upon this theme later. Now I want to address what is unquestionably the most difficult and crucial task of political leadership: the settlement of interstate conflicts, or simply put, peacemaking.
The twentieth century has been the most bloody century in the history of humanity, frustrating high hopes that the progress of civilization would eliminate barbaric means of solving disputes between people and peoples. The two bloody world wars were followed by dozens of so-called local wars, which, given the destruction and loss, can amount to a third world war.
The decline, due to new thinking, of confrontation between nuclear superpowers and military-political blocs, gave rise to the hope that a more just and stable world order could be created. Initial reductions of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons even inspired some analysts to assert that from now on environmental dangers will take the lead in threatening humanity.
This conclusion is not unreasonable. Indeed, nobody can confidently rule out today the prospect of a total environmental disaster. Other global problems, such as the depletion of energy resources, overpopulation, the spread of AIDS, the flaring of epidemics, drugs, and terrorism, are also serious. All these problems demand utmost vigilance, worldwide concentration of efforts and resources, and rapid renovation of social, economic, and political institutions, if we want to survive and preserve a great civilization that was built by the labor of many generations.
However, the events in recent years have demonstrated that the military danger continues to be first among the most insidious dangers to humanity. Contrary to the hopes of many, Clausewitz's famous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means has not become outdated. In the best case, it has become meaningless with respect to the prospects for a total nuclear conflict. But as far as the so-called conventional weapons are concerned, we see that they are being resorted to on almost every occasion. As the accumulation of these weapons grows throughout the world and they become available to all, it is not hard to assume that the number of armed conflicts will rise in the foreseeable future -- at least until the production and sale of these weapons are curtailed.
Therefore, prevention and settlement of interstate armed clashes remains the most important task of political leadership. In this regard, one should bear in mind two basic kinds of conflicts. The first and the most widespread are clashes based primarily on territorial disputes between medium-size and small states of more or less equal strength. In such cases there is great potential for mediation (arbitration) on the part of international organizations or great powers.
Another kind of conflict is a protracted war of one of the great powers against a small or medium-size state, or against its own autonomous unit wishing to secede. In such cases the peacemaking potential of what can be referred to as the "international factor" is much narrower; hence the role and responsibility of national political leadership increases. The most vivid examples of this conflict in the second half of the twentieth century were interventions by France in Algeria, the United States in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. As I personally was involved in the settlement of the last conflict, I will try to draw some lessons from that experience.
In our times, as we witnessed more than once, aggressive behavior by any state can cause much consternation. However, international stability depends to a decisive degree on the great powers. When such powers resort to unjustified use of military force, either out of greed, political miscalculation, or mistaken belief in their messianic role, the situation worsens, and primarily for them.
While the real reasons and specific causes for military action (casus belli) in the above conflicts were very different, all three evolved according to the same scenario, providing strong evidence of our inability to learn from other people's experience. Though Americans could not have forgotten the Algerian massacres and the Soviets could not have erased the image of the debacle in Vietnam, neither was hindered from beginning its own foreign adventures. Apparently, they were recklessly avoiding the thought that something like that could happen to them. They were so blinded by their own force that they did not consider the existing disposition of forces in the international arena.
In the environment of hard confrontation of military-political blocs, as soon as one side got stuck in a more or less lingering conflict, the other one rushed like a hawk to weaken it with all available means. The Algerian Front of National Liberation was receiving a lot of material and other assistance from the Soviet Union, Arab countries and the Muslim world. North Vietnam was fighting against the United States with Soviet weapons and was banking on support from China, the Nonaligned Movement, and public opinion in Europe and in the United States. Similarly, in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union had to deal not only with mujahideen, but also with the United States, the North Atlantic alliance, Islamic states, and Eurocommunism. Even the peace movement, which was formed with Moscow's energetic support and was fed by it, did not refrain from criticism and condemnation.
If at the first phase of the invasion into Afghanistan, Soviet leaders could nourish hopes for a favorable outcome, it became clear after two to three years that we would be stuck for a long time without any chances of resolving the matter in our favor. As the United States generously supplied the anti-Kabul opposition groups with money and weapons, Afghanistan turned into a whirlpool, sucking in and crushing our manpower and making the related huge expenditures increasingly unbearable for our country. In general, this war was one of the causes for the economic and political crisis that necessitated perestroika.
The situation was further worsened by our society's silent and humble reconciliation with this years-long adventure. Unlike the case of Vietnam for the United States, no strong antiwar movement appeared in the USSR. The reason was not only that the lack of glasnost and hard-line political pressure ruled out any massive protest. Our public was not aware of the scale of our spending and losses since it received the strictly rationed and propaganda-processed information on actions of the so-called limited contingent of Soviet troops, "the international assistance to the friendly people of Afghanistan," and so on. Of course, rumors were bringing news about the growing number of zinc coffins with the repatriated remains of Soviet soldiers. But the public reacted limply, without emotions, as if paralyzed by some narcotic.
This, in my view, gives rise to one of the necessary conditions of nonviolent leadership -- maximum openness of the actions of those in power. Public wisdom, instinct, and a sense of self-preservation can in due time warn leaders against careless steps that would be paid for later by the whole country. To neglect such a "protection valve" is the same as to turn off the security system in a building full of valuables.
Obviously, public opinion has its own temper. It can be unfair, capricious, and uncertain. The main problem is that various social strata and groups pass their verdict on this or that issue based on their own interests and "angle of vision." In such cases, it is very important not to mistake a private position for the prevailing one. However difficult it might be to "read" and understand public opinion correctly, such efforts are always rewarded lavishly. I have always been convinced that a direct and two-way connection between authorities and society is a requirement for successful resolution of any problem, and especially of war.
As for those who had started the war (the decision was initially made by Brezhnev, Ustinov, Andropov, and Gromyko and was only afterwards formalized by the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]), did they realize that they made a grave mistake? I think that they did, and quite soon. In discussions of the ever-worsening Afghan situation, of the need to allocate additional funds for supplies of weaponry and to increase the number of Soviet troops involved, sober assessments were voiced and notes of pessimism were heard. But those in power never even considered the idea of publicly admitting that they made a mistake that must be corrected. Even though in that system such an admission would not have been necessarily followed by the resignation of the government, it would have damaged the halo of infallibility drawn by propaganda around the CPSU and its leaders.
Who in general ever wants to take responsibility for blood spilled in vain? It is not incidental that such conflicts are seldom ended by those who start them. As a rule, this task is left for the next generation of leaders.
The need to, roughly speaking, "bolt" out of Afghanistan became evident to our party-and-state elite by the late 1980s. Having entered the leadership circle and gained access to more extensive information, I became more convinced of this. I have to say that on the eve of being elected the General Secretary of the Central Committee, while setting the order of priorities to be dealt with, I considered the Afghan settlement among the first. Then, having occupied the leader's chair and having ga