The Principles of Power, or the Power of Principles

February 4, 1968
Plainfield

The Principles of Power, or the Power of Principles

The Government, particularly the President, knows best! Why then should we be anxious about the principles of power applied by governments whenever they can in their dealings with other nations? In international affairs, policies have only a marginal relationship with morality. Or so the “realist” tells the “idealist.” On the other hand, the whole tradition of Western culture points out that relationships between nations, as well as persons, should be measured in moral dimensions.

Staggering complexities are discovered when attempting turn on illumination for the shadowy pockets of right and wrong as a nation tries to find the ways of survival and progress in a world such as ours. The motive to speak on this subject arose of course from the seizure by the North Koreans of the Pueblo, the American spy ship and the imprisonment of the crew. There is still considerable fog obscuring what actually happened in those Asian waters. One remembers the U2 incident a few years back when President Eisenhower first denied and then admitted that the United States had sent the U2 on a reconnaissance flight over the Soviet Union. As both the denial and subsequent admission were both public statements, we know that our government as well as others, uses falsehood when believed necessary to further the self-interest of the nation.

So we have the "credibility gap" between the real acts and intentions of governments and what the acts and intentions are professed to be.

Since the capture of the Pueblo, various world governments are going through the ritual dances of accusation and counter-claim. The United Nations provides a forum whereby each of the great opposing blocs celebrate their self-righteous ceremonies of outraged innocence. Yet we know that a large gap divides the shrill public voices and the private and subtle discussions. Furthermore it is the private conferences which may lead to a diplomatic and political solution to this grave issue. The United Nations public meeting seems generally admitted to be an occasion scheduled to provide opportunities for behind-the-scenes negotiations.

If we conducted our individual affairs or private contracts in an atmosphere where the public is deceived in order to provide the setting for solving problems, we would be functioning illegally, immorally or at the least, improperly. Yet in spite of professed loyalty by any one of us to "open covenants, openly arrived at," actually our present comfort is the hope that secret negotiations, shrewd bargaining happening behind elaborate although obscuring screens may lead to the release of the Pueblo and its crew without engagement in another war which no one could win.

I. First of all, those of us who attempt to apply an oversimplified morality to the affairs of nations must somehow recognize the complexities of foreign affairs. We live in a world where nations apply the principles of power. They always have.

Hamlet said to Rosencrantz, (ACT II, sc. 2), "for there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." Strong nations have always acted on the belief that there is nothing good or bad but national self-interest makes it so. There are many elements that create power – a large population occupying an area adequate for its numbers, industrial resources and continuing technical development, and some skill in putting together resources and labor, including the development of persons function ably as managers. The U.S. has had or developed these qualities more than any nation. But others including the U.S.S.R. are not far behind, if behind at all.

When such power exists as with the United States, the U.S.S.R., and to lesser degrees with other nations, this power is used. Because in every nation the population wants the maximum possible advantage, governments act to maintain a power edge over other nations whenever they are able to do so – to ward off threats to security, to protect sources of raw materials, to maintain at home and to promote abroad the professed national goals of the particular nation. Historically, alliances between nations have usually formed to achieve unity on some objectives. Once called, "balance of power" in the years since the end of WW2, this attitude has acquired the name, "Cold War," and more recently as the possibilities of [a] nuclear-chemical annihilating World War intensify, the phrase "balance of terror" seems to be used increasingly.

In the transactions between nations because it is generally believed that full and frank disclosures of negotiations and bargaining concessions will tend to disrupt the internal feelings of a nation, power politics is conducted many times secretly. Frequently there are public denials of what has been agreed to privately. Not only in the confrontations between nations, but also on all levels of internal government, municipal, county, state, nation, political decisions will be heavily influenced or decided by those who have power.

Many times the idealist grieves that such is the case. He urges that all decisions be made on the basis of reason, freedom, the dignity of all, the open basis of full democratic discussion and the greatest good for the largest number. The fact is however, that many successful political leaders do cherish high ideals but continuation of their leadership hinges on their ability to control the reins of political power.

Dag Hammarskjold, late Secretary General of the U.N., who had much experience with knowing the power of strong nations, wrote in MARKINGS (p.147), "The most dangerous of all dilemmas: when we are obliged to conceal truth in order to help the truth be victorious. If this should any time become our duty in the role assigned to us by fate, how strait must be our path at all times if we are not to perish,"

In the Christian scriptures (Luke 16 1/8), Jesus tells the parable of the unjust steward, who when his position was in jeopardy, bribed his employer's debtors in order to insure personal security. Reinhold Niebuhr and others have interpreted this parable in the sense of modern power politics. The realists, the power-manipulators, the masters of political influence prevail over the idealists who hold high the great visions of openness, inquiry, mutual understanding and the democratic method. The realist says to the idealistic – you dream great dreams, but this is not the kind of world we live in. Some day people may respond to your high moral exhortations, but in the world today, we realists are protecting your dreams. We protect your dreams by applying the principles of power in order to achieve the most livable compromise to get the good that is possible at a given time.

II. How now, bright idealist? Just for example, consider those purposes in the U.U.A. constitution which have some relevance to the power of principles:

to cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to man;

to affirm, defend, and promote the supreme worth of every human individual personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships;

to implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace.

I believe these principles thoroughly. But I know of no nation in the world which gives such principles a higher order of priority than national security, economic superiority, and the maintenance in power of the given government. The first duty required of the politician is to get re-elected, the old aphorism goes, and it is not far from the reality, I'm sure the principles enumerated would not be attacked, certainly not in our own country. Nevertheless, a story told by James Reston applies:

In the State Department, the Foreign Service officers have a fable. The grasshopper, worried about getting through the Winter, sought advice from the cockroach, who seemed to thrive in cold weather. The cockroach instructed the grasshopper that on the night of the first frost, find a warm spot [near the] back of a radiator, turn yourself into a cockroach and stay there happily until Spring. The grasshopper was puzzled, "But how do I make myself into a cockroach?" "What do you mean, ‘how?’ Look," said the cockroach, "I'm merely giving you policy guidance."

In a world where the children of darkness seem wiser than the children of light, the baffling question is not unlike that fable, "HOW can the power of principles prevail over the principles of power?" In a world of obviously imperfect persons and nations, we cannot make perfection prevail just by reiterating the power of principles, no matter how noble they are.

Some of you will believe that I am now quite cynical about high moral attitudes which should be the bond wherein nations may unite to achieve world peace and to maintain the human cause.

III. In a measure, yes, I am cynical, I see no evidence that the power of principles will be given entire priority over the principles of power. Justice in the political order is achieved by political means, even though inspired by principle. The kingdom of love and light is no closer to the realities of our times than Camelot was to the realities of its time.

Nevertheless, and I here admit a certain inconsistency – I believe that there must be prior standards of moral and intellectual disciplines which those who use political power should never be allowed to forget. When considering the principles of human dignity, the worth of human personality, our government and every other government must be reminded constantly that those who cannot see their neighbor’s need cannot fulfill their own. Again and again it must be asserted that large-scale war is not only self-defeating, but policies that bring nuclear war nearer are madness. The power of principles should function in us in such a way as to say "stop" when when nations become so confused morally that self-righteous fury is being permitted to escalate unchecked. We need to be constantly informed by the power of principles because hostility, aggressive passions, fear and insecurity ruin the ability of nations to know what actions actually are to their own self-interest. A comprehensive self-interest might create a pretty good world, economically and politically.

But today distinctions can be made between destructive self-interest and enlightened self-interest. And today an enlightened self-interest would seem to require promotion of that which should be obvious:

that poverty, hunger, and fear prevail in much of the world and must be confronted not by bombs but by resources of love;

that providing ways and means of limiting population growth while expanding food production are both necessary and may be far more essential to our long-range security than the biggest nuclear bomb or the most poisonous chemical;

that there is no authentic alternative to an increasing expansion of world-wide institutions of law and order;

that we are badly misinformed unless we acquire greater sensitivity to the way the world in general and our country in particular appears to others whose experience has been different:

a Viet-Cong guerrilla
a Soviet scientist
an African making the stride from tribalism to nationalism
a Burmese Secretary-General of the U.N.
a Latin American peasant, enslaved by poverty to the land-owner who possesses vast tracts of property.

Even when confronted by the principles of power as necessary in our imperfect world, there are frequently occasions when a wrong is so obvious that we are false to the power of principles to ignore them. Example: In Friday's NY Times, the front-page picture shows Brigadier Gen. Loan, national police chief of the Saigon government firing a pistol, close-range, at the head of a "suspected Vietcong terrorist in Saigon. The man wore civilian clothes and carried a pistol."

This wanton murder is wrong. Summary execution by a Saigon general of a suspect is morally wrong. No exigencies of power politics can explain this away. The fact that a Vietcong terrorist and murderous act is reported on the same page cannot offset our responsibility. The U.S. has no control over the Viet Cong. But the Saigon generals remain in power and affluence because our Government supports them and keeps them. If I fail to protest this execution without trial, then I share the stain on principles of human morality. And no assurances about the necessities of the application of political power can make me believe otherwise. And no war-cries for a holy crusade against Communism can change such transgressions against humanity into a patriotic policy.

There's a story told in the Christophers News Notes that has a homely application:

Hundreds of telephone conversations between London and Europe abruptly ended when a workman dug a hole outside a cafe in England. As the digger operated his mechanical shovel on a drain site, he little realized that he was severing thousands of connections on the continental cable. International telephone links were thrown into confusion. After a 10 hour delay, communications between Europe and England were restored. The workman said, "Where I am told to dig I just dig. No one told me to look out for a cable."

That's the Nuremberg syndrome – carry out orders regardless. Tolerate the General Loans and protest not. No expert State Department officer or Pentagon general can convince me that such barbarism is tolerable. And it is only a particularly vivid and publicized instance of the terrors and tortures against people in this wrong war.

There is also another moral measure to be applied against the principles of power. (See Erwin Canham, Christian Science Monitor 1/29/68). Behind every political power move today is the shadow of the thermo-nuclear cloud. If simple morality is not sufficient to reckon with the necessity of not fooling with such hazards, then simple, selfish desire for survival should be enough to enable us all, peoples and governments alike, to see that the old definitions of balances of power are both sadly outdated and extremely dangerous.

The “unimagined America” written by Archibald MacLeish in 1943 remains one of the notable statements of the dreams of a people for a better and happier world. But the dreams will die unless we participate. Aristotle observed (Nicomachean Ethics),

"And as in the Olympic games it is not the most beautiful and the strongest that are crowned, but those who compete (for it is some of these that are victorious). So those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and good things in life."

To summarize, the principles of power are in use in our world, always have been and will be for more time than any of [us] have left in this world. Yet there must be foundation principles of international morality so that when people and their rights are clearly and malevolently transgressed, everyone of us should say, "NO. This is wrong." Change your political directions and specific actions or you will not be in political office. The State Department or the Pentagon general or the President may be experts with considerable confidential and unrevealed information concerning policies and their development. Nevertheless they are our experts – we are not their mute and accepting audience unless moral inertia and intellectual laziness reduces us to political pawns. Insofar as we refuse to abandon all measures of control, when we continue to protest what we believe wrong, when we advocate what we believe to be right, then we are loyal to the power of principles as well as recognizing the present necessity of the principles of power.