James V. Schall of Georgetown University writes a compelling essay on the War on Terror in Policy Review:
A calm and reasonable case can and should be made for the possession and effective use of force in today's world. It is irresponsible not to plan for the necessity of force in the face of real turmoils and enemies actually present in the world. No talk of peace, justice, truth, or virtue is complete without a clear understanding that certain individuals, movements, and nations must be met with measured force, however much we might prefer to deal with them peacefully or pleasantly. Without force, many will not talk seriously at all, and some not even then. Human, moral, and economic problems are greater today for the lack of adequate military force or, more often, for the failure to use it when necessary.
This view goes against a certain rhetorical grain, but it is a fact that needs attention and comprehension. We are not in some new world-historic age in which we can bypass these "outmoded" instruments of power, however rhetorically fine it may be to talk that way. Human nature has not changed, neither for better nor for worse. Human institutions, whether national or international, have not so improved that they themselves cannot be threats to the human good. Who watches the watchdogs remains a fundamental, if not the fundamental, question of the human condition. It is an issue with philosophical, theological, and political dimensions.
Schall critiques Utopian projects in the following paragraph, but also, implicitly, warns against waging war for Utopian ends (e.g., the Wilsonian "war to end all wars"):
Still, we are not free not to think about this consequence that failure to act can make things worse. Nor can we deny that there is a comparative difference between "bad" things and "terrible" things. We can be as immoral and as inhuman by not acting as by acting. The history of lost wars is as important as the history of victorious ones, perhaps more so. The idea of an absolutely warless world, a world "already made safe for democracy," is more likely, in practice, to be a sign either of utopianism or of madness, and a world in which war is "outlawed" is more likely to mean either that we are no longer in the real world or that the devils and the tyrants--who allow us only to agree with them and do as they say--have finally won. We are naïve if we think that formal democratic procedures, lacking any reference to the content of laws, cannot have deleterious effects. A democratic tyranny is quite conceivable, many think likely, and on a global scale. Globalization is not neutral. Not a few of the worst tyrants of history have been very popular and have died peacefully in bed in their old age amidst family and friends.
And here is something that is relevant to this post:
There is considerable talk both in the West and in certain sections of the Muslim world about making Islam over into politically acceptable forms without altering any of what are considered its basic beliefs. This radical reconstruction of Islam, which identifies the current military attacks as coming from a minority "terrorist" movement and not from Islam in any genuine form, is said to be the main "neoconservative" project.
One can, I think, defend this program on prudential grounds. No one, including the churches, is willing to examine in a serious way the truth claims of Islam, not only its own understanding of Allah and of Judaism and Christianity, but also its practiced way of life and the direct relation of its religion and its politics. Until this latter effort is undertaken in a much more serious way, the prudential approach can be justified as a holding operation. But what is ultimately behind the effort to provide models and forms of "democratic" and "free" political systems is the effort to undermine those teachings and customs of Islam that cause the problem, the first of which is the claim of the truth of Islamic revelation and its understanding of the absolute will of God as arbitrary. In this sense, MacArthur was right. Political problems often have theological import at their basis.
A calm and reasonable case can and should be made for the possession and effective use of force in today's world. It is irresponsible not to plan for the necessity of force in the face of real turmoils and enemies actually present in the world. No talk of peace, justice, truth, or virtue is complete without a clear understanding that certain individuals, movements, and nations must be met with measured force, however much we might prefer to deal with them peacefully or pleasantly. Without force, many will not talk seriously at all, and some not even then. Human, moral, and economic problems are greater today for the lack of adequate military force or, more often, for the failure to use it when necessary.
This view goes against a certain rhetorical grain, but it is a fact that needs attention and comprehension. We are not in some new world-historic age in which we can bypass these "outmoded" instruments of power, however rhetorically fine it may be to talk that way. Human nature has not changed, neither for better nor for worse. Human institutions, whether national or international, have not so improved that they themselves cannot be threats to the human good. Who watches the watchdogs remains a fundamental, if not the fundamental, question of the human condition. It is an issue with philosophical, theological, and political dimensions.
Schall critiques Utopian projects in the following paragraph, but also, implicitly, warns against waging war for Utopian ends (e.g., the Wilsonian "war to end all wars"):
Still, we are not free not to think about this consequence that failure to act can make things worse. Nor can we deny that there is a comparative difference between "bad" things and "terrible" things. We can be as immoral and as inhuman by not acting as by acting. The history of lost wars is as important as the history of victorious ones, perhaps more so. The idea of an absolutely warless world, a world "already made safe for democracy," is more likely, in practice, to be a sign either of utopianism or of madness, and a world in which war is "outlawed" is more likely to mean either that we are no longer in the real world or that the devils and the tyrants--who allow us only to agree with them and do as they say--have finally won. We are naïve if we think that formal democratic procedures, lacking any reference to the content of laws, cannot have deleterious effects. A democratic tyranny is quite conceivable, many think likely, and on a global scale. Globalization is not neutral. Not a few of the worst tyrants of history have been very popular and have died peacefully in bed in their old age amidst family and friends.
And here is something that is relevant to this post:
There is considerable talk both in the West and in certain sections of the Muslim world about making Islam over into politically acceptable forms without altering any of what are considered its basic beliefs. This radical reconstruction of Islam, which identifies the current military attacks as coming from a minority "terrorist" movement and not from Islam in any genuine form, is said to be the main "neoconservative" project.
One can, I think, defend this program on prudential grounds. No one, including the churches, is willing to examine in a serious way the truth claims of Islam, not only its own understanding of Allah and of Judaism and Christianity, but also its practiced way of life and the direct relation of its religion and its politics. Until this latter effort is undertaken in a much more serious way, the prudential approach can be justified as a holding operation. But what is ultimately behind the effort to provide models and forms of "democratic" and "free" political systems is the effort to undermine those teachings and customs of Islam that cause the problem, the first of which is the claim of the truth of Islamic revelation and its understanding of the absolute will of God as arbitrary. In this sense, MacArthur was right. Political problems often have theological import at their basis.
