Holding back the dogs of war

Sitting in Paris as the US’s first ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson reflected on how the new US government could avoid the errors of European “despots” who kept their people subjugated through war and debt.

Writing to James Madison, he observed that the US constitution had at least checked “the dog of war” by transferring “the power of letting him loose from the executive to the legislative body, from those who are to spend to those who are to pay”.

At the same time, however, the US constitution designates the executive as the “commander in chief”, a power that presidents have invoked to use military force without congressional authorisation on more than 200 occasions. President Barack Obama relied on that power when he told both Congress and the people that he had the authority to order limited strikes on Syria without going to Congress.

By simultaneously claiming that authority and seeking congressional authorisation to use it, Obama enters a small class of leaders who actively seek to constrain their own power. That is because he sees his historical legacy as that of a president who ended wars and made them harder to start, instead reinvesting America’s resources in its own people. He opposed the Iraq war in 2003 and promised in 2008 that he would end the unlimited “war on terror”.

Does it make sense for leaders to take decisions regarding the use of force to the people?

British prime minister David Cameron came up short when he turned to parliament to authorise participation in strikes against Syria. French president François Hollande faced intense criticism for agreeing to participate in the strikes. And Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who volunteered to participate in a military coalition, is facing domestic opposition to his Syria policy.

There are several arguments for not allowing the people’s representatives to intervene in the complicated foreign-policy dance between force and diplomacy. For starters, there is the traditional idea that politics ends at the water’s edge, where messy domestic disagreements are supposed to give way to the abstraction of one state with a unified national interest.

And, as Obama has just discovered, having a legislature that clearly does not want to go to war weakens the executive’s hand in international negotiations. Timing is another problem. Legislative processes are slow and often tortuous, while international diplomacy can change overnight.

Moreover, diplomacy thrives on backroom deals of the kind that US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov struck over Syria’s chemical weapons. In high-stakes negotiations, the last thing the players need is public debate about the cards each of them holds.

Still, Jefferson had it right. Though turning to the legislature may prove to be inconvenient, frustrating, and even counter-productive, it is the right thing to do, for three reasons. First, the use of force is costly in terms of lives, money, and leaders’ energy and attention. The people pay these costs, so their representatives should decide whether to incur them.

Second, it is never more important for a democracy to follow its procedures and uphold its principles than in an armed conflict involving non-democracies. The Syrian people, oppressed and brutalised by their own government, should see that the American people have a different relationship with their leaders.

Finally, a core component of democracy is a set of rules and procedures designed to require public officials to justify their policies with reasons that can be accepted or countered in public debate. When contemplating foreign military intervention, leaders must explain their actions in ways that make clear how their country’s strategic and moral interests are at stake — for example, how unbridled aggression and hideous suffering can fester and spread.

Two centuries after Jefferson, states are no longer merely coloured shapes on a map; they are transparent and open territories home to millions of fellow human beings. It is thus ever more important that the people of one country participate in the decision to attack the people of another.

* Anne-Marie Slaughter is president and CEO of the New America Foundation and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2013.

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