The Foreign Service Journal, May 2016

18 MAY 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The Nature of the Beast This is exactly the point at which a kind of Hippocratic oath for statesmenmight be a better guide to policy than the urge to do good. Is the nature of the regime in the respective country a matter of vital interest to the United States, or is it not? My personal view is that the essence of vital national interest is defense of the homeland against armed or economically crippling attack from abroad. A regime that undertakes or advocates such attacks, or harbors and supports those who do, is operating in a Hobbesian system, and should be treated accordingly. Short of such a threat, however, domes- tic developments in a foreign country will rarely affect American vital national inter- ests. Thus, actions to effect regime change should not be undertaken unless there is reasonable certainty that they will not do more harm than good. There is a certain inherent legitimacy in acting with appropriate force to defend one’s vital interests. There is no inherent legitimacy in using force to overthrow an established government, even a bad one. Before undertaking such an action, three questions need to be answered satis- factorily: (1) Howwill the action be made legitimate? (2) Are those undertaking it able and willing to bring enough power to bear to achieve the overthrow expedi- tiously and with limited harm to the gen- eral population? (3) What is the probability that the people of the country will be better off, rather than worse off, as a result? Legitimacy in such cases is what I would call “process” legitimacy. The United Nations is the institution that can provide it, and a Security Council resolu- tion the means. An essentially unilateral “coalition of the willing” will not do. Getting such a resolution will generally be difficult, and it should be. The grounds must be weighty enough to overcome the presumption that states do not interfere in the internal affairs of other states. It would be irresponsible to seek such a resolution unless one were certain of being able to bring sufficient power to bear to accomplish the objective without inordi- nate loss of life among the people affected. A people may be fully justified in over- throwing a corrupt, authoritarian regime, but encouraging them to assume the risks of doing so gives the outside power some responsibility for what follows. The United States never recognized the incorporation of the Baltic states into the Soviet Union during the ColdWar, but it was responsible enough also to never let them think that it would be able to help thembreak away. The greatest uncertainty may lie in try- ing to predict whether the result of regime overthrowwill leave the population better off or worse off. But the question cannot be answered if it is not asked, something the United States has often failed to do. There is enough expertise available here and in other countries to address such questions, and to put together a course of action that leads to the reason- able conclusion that the affected country can be left better off. But the question needs to be asked in advance, not during or after the event. And if the answer is not affirmative, the outside powers need to have the integrity to step back, lest they domore harm than good. ISIS and Syria: Paved with Good Intentions In Syria, the Obama administration did the opposite of doing no harm. It declared publicly in 2011 that Assadmust go, while greatly underestimating his ability to resist; overestimating the strength, cohesion and morale of the moderate opposition; and failing to appreciate the danger posed by the radical opposition. That opposition, in the formof the so-called Islamic State group (ISIS), has emerged as the genuine threat to fun- damental U.S. interests that Assad never was. ISIS has amply demonstrated that it is willing to organize attacks on the U.S. homeland, or at least to harbor or support those who would. America’s ineffectual support for the overthrow of Assad did not create ISIS; but together with its failed democracy- building effort in Iraq, Washington did help create the power vacuum into which ISIS moved. The United States now faces increas- ingly hard and unpleasant choices in Syria. Its preferred outcomes—defeat of ISIS and removal of Assad—are potentially mutually contradictory and can only be achieved by bringing a lot of force to bear. There is little stomach in the United States for any substantial ground force involve- ment in this civil war, in no small part because there is little confidence that such involvement would produce a desirable outcome. America’s preferred proxies, the moder- ate opposition to Assad, are unable or unwilling to fight ISIS, and will be crushed by any likely successor regime in Syria. The Assad regime is willing to fight ISIS, but equally determined to fight the other groups opposing it. In aligning itself with the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, Washington has found a group that is willing to fight ISIS, and capable of doing so effectively—but only in the context of advancing the Kurdish desire for a homeland, if not a state of their own. This desire for self-determination sets up a direct conflict with Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian interest in preserving their territo- rial integrity. And our provision of military assistance to the Kurds puts the United States on a potential collision course with the vital interests of a NATO ally.