Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Point Of Attack 20

I would just like to say, first of all, final thank you all of you for coming, but also to barbara for helping us all think, not just about one thing or another, but a bottle of that thank you. [applause] welcome everybody. Thanks for bringing the weather to American Enterprises is today. My name is gary smith on her resident scholar and attract the maryland security for studies at aei. Todays event which is cosponsored by the Federalist Society is a Panel Discussion of john yoos latest book point of attack preventive or International Law and global welfare. Our format today will be quite simple. John will start off with an overview of the books thesis and then we will followup with their group panelist comments and ill with their two panel is coming tonight might throw in a pointer to as well. Following that we will open up the floor to your questions and have a good robust discussion i am sure. Before turning the mic over to john let me briefly introduce her to guest panelist Michael Lewis and Harvey Risher coughed. As you can see from the biographical materials you have at hand both of that distinguished careers. Michael is currently professor of law law at ohio northern is diversity a former naval pilot harvard law graduate and more importantly a graduate of the navys top gun program. Michael has written extensively in areas of the laws of war and the laws of war is applied to the current war on terrorism. Harvey currently chairs the ada Advisory Committee on law and National Security and a former professor at the National War College and served as the chair of the College Strategy department. Among other important posts he assailed he was the Legal Counsel to the fbis Deputy Director in the late 90s and has had his hand in drafting several National Security related residential directives. Thank you both for joining us today. Now let me introduce john yoo. John has been teaching law at the university of californiaberkeley law school for 20 years, more than 20 years and has been a colleague at aei for the past decade former Deputy Assistant attorney general locker law clerk to Justice Thomas and the author of five major volumes and scholarly articles on president ial power at the laws of war and International Law. His most recent book the one we are talking about today yoo point of attack is like his other books and that john is not shy or retiring his nor do johns books for courage. Who else could be a visiting scholar at aei and to write the search in iraq whose idea on the spaces might not have been as important as we carried aei claimed and who else would dare to argue that the lower shame is problematic precisely because it discourages the use of force rather than encourages it. I can see john being offered to record contract with the idea of making john lennon is give peace a chance and give war a chance. Like all of johns books point of attack is a deeply serious work and has great merit in pushing his readers to think under the most deeply held assumptions. In short while provocative point of attack is provocative enough that sounds making all of us ask the important questions in thinking more seriously about what the answer should be when it comes to enhancing global prosperity and security. John over to you. Thanks kerry for that introduction. Its a great pleasure to be here at aei. Its been my home away from home for the last 10 years and like all homes away from home that people are happier here. The food is better here. Its just too expensive for me to live here. [laughter] but its been a great 10 years predates my tenth anniversary at aei and this book actually is the product of that 10 years which i started working on it when i came here after the iraq war and this is my effort to try to make sense of the iraq war and the Afghanistan War and the other complex we have been going through the country. Its also great to have gary as the moderator because he is the perfect person. He is one of the few people who shares an intense interest in the framers and National Security and intelligence. I would be remiss if i didnt say i had stolen one of garys great ideas from his dissertation for my last book on Thomas Jeffersons views on executive power. Gary has the view that jefferson actually had quite a robust approach to the presidency in practice but not in theory. Actually i tried to disseminate that idea and you were the first one i think to realize that and to explore it. Its also a great pleasure to be here with mike lewis and harvey. Mike was on the frontlines and harvey is that the war college on the rear lines i guess in our war effort. Its great to be with them both and i look forward to the discussion. I just want to make one recognition that my mentor for many years judge Lawrence Silverman is here and hes very angry at me for writing this book. He claims i have stolen the idea from him. With many other things i admit i did steal it from him but he didnt publish it fast enough. So i got there first. I just want to pay special mention to him because hes someone i started working for right after law school and the combines many of us on the panel interest of National Security and file which is to rare i think. He was an inspiration for this book and entirely responsible for its fault i might add. I just want to lay out the simple thesis and then maybe Start Talking about russia and crimea. And maybe about east asia. We will have another panel about east asia. The simple thesis and i think the russian invasion of crimea just to highlight this is that the Current International legal system of collective security i think has failed. The one that centers around the United Nations and the u. N. Security council, the primary rule is that the use of force in International Law is illegal and even criminal unless its in selfdefense or when authorized by the u. N. Security council. I think historically that world and its reliance on just war theory actually is incorrect. The effort and this was really the work of Woodrow Wilson and establishing the league of nations the idea that this world this criminalization of war hearkens back and builds on the just war tradition that ran from cicero all the way through the great medial thinkers and actually if you go back and look at the just war tradition in just war theory which they wrapped up in a catholic legal theory in the church. The just war theory actually is much more nuanced and talks about lots of things we talk about today like humanitarian intervention, preventive and preemptive war and place to go well beyond the simple idea that any use of force other than selfdefense is illegal. I also think its a too shall make, so just as a matter as countries have not followed this idea just war or criminalized selfdefense historically and i think they are doing it today and at the u. N. Charter itself institutionally. There have been plenty of wars since the u. N. Charter. They have never been authorized by the u. N. And were not in selfdefense. The u. N. I think has been powerless, fairly powerless to stop it. Again the invasion of ukraine is a good example. Part of it as a robust part of it is the institution that if you require the full agreement of the permanent members of the Security Council to authorize measures against any kind of aggression and china and russia sit on the Security Council, they are going to veto any effort to respond to the invasion of right media or military engagements that might arise in the South China Sea or in asia. It just renders actually not the rule and in denying the practice but institutionally the u. N. Charter or the americanled effort to create a system to manage complex after world war ii just doesnt work and it has failed. Its not going to work for the future. That doesnt mean great powerful war is an inevitability or something that we cant respond to or control actually the other remarkable thing is during this period after world war ii the amount of death and destruction from great power wars has fallen to a love thats unheard of in Human History that by whole order of magnitude that is what we have experience experienced from great power of wars has fallen to a level never seen before or since the peace of westphalia and the modern nationstate system. Theres an incredible record that i dont think it has anything to do with International Law. A few historians and political Scientists Say theres a number of Different Reasons but one primary one is clearly Nuclear Weapons. Makes it harder and more expensive and dangerous for the great powers to come to confli conflict. The balance between the superpowers for much of the cold war actually had a suppressing conflict between the great powers and since the collapse of the soviet union the rights of the states as a hegemonic supplier of peace and stability of free trade around the world has also reduced great power conflict. The great source of war, the two world wars to kill the most people in Human History both started in europe and were between european powers and spread to the rest of the world. Despite russias and actually russias invasion of ukraine is a good symbol of what had preceded it. Until russias invasion of Ukraine Ukraine and there were no deaths from combat in europe. There have been no unilateral withdrawal of new orders in europe by force. The one era that produced all these complex that caused so much of the deaths over the last two or 300 years plus became a peaceful place. I was primarily responsible for Nuclear Weapons, the bipolar struggle between the u. S. And the soviet union but ultimately since then the u. S. Role in maintaining a Certain International order. At the same time there are threats to that order which are being posed by what we used to call rogue nations. The fancy term now revisionist nations like iran and maybe china clearly russia. Challenges caused by this proliferation of wmd Technology Device of International Terrorism and even large humanitarian catastrophes. These are all challenges to the International System that is produced is great. Back of peace and prosperity and this is gary is quite right to say give war a chance which i would have given a title of this book but p. J. Orourke already had taken and i actually look it up on amazon. The kind of wars undersupplied because of this band and International Law and the use of force other than selfdefense actually prevents the western allies in the United States from intervening in smaller places to shore up the International System. Rwanda, kosovo and iraq, these are all places and began the ukraine, the South China Sea. These are areas where the system actually prevents or discourages nations from using force where we might want to because it the gains of the world are going to be much higher than any cost of conflict. Under International Law if it is pose complex would be illegal. I think an International System or set of rules and International System ought to encourage the powers to use force to control those kinds of threats to the International System. It doesnt need to worry about the war between the great powers were International Law does not much effect and the piece is cap for other reasons anyway. We will make us one last way to understand. This is similar to the way law and economics but about contract law or tort law where there may be a rule saying you should keep promises are you should obey contracts with the law actually encourages you to breach the contract if you can do something thats more efficient that actually is of greater benefit. If thats something that lawyers bought over for many decades until under the influence of judge Richard Posen are in the 70s at the university of chicago this began to prevail and has become the law in many jurisdictions. Its a similar approach to International Law. It should be one that countries can breach if it makes the world better off after the war. Let me turn now to what this means about russia in place to respond to russia, the focal point for the discussion. Although it doesnt have to be pretty think washington seems paralyzed looking at it from california. The beltway seems paralyzed about what to do in response to the invasion of ukraine. Part of that might have to do with we do with the candidates shouldnt International Institutions to cooperate because there are several prominent members who are opposed to any effort. Here are some things i think we could do to respond to russia which we have and which i think would be consistent with this approach of International Law but which may well be seen as troublesome and potentially even illegal under the u. N. Charter. The first thing i would say is the United States should currently the s. T. A. R. T. Treaty which limits 1550 Nuclear Weapons places when it comes to Nuclear Arsenals even though russia is not really projecting power around the world anymore and the u. S. Has a lot of other global responsibilities for peace and stability. It doesnt make sense for the United States to treat russia as an equal right to terminate the treaty and the Nuclear Arsenal can float to whatever it needs to be for our security obligations rather than any kind of commitment. Obviously the second thing and its almost describing a position president obama took in malaysia. How hes going to try to hit single foreign policies are not doubles and certainly not homers. It seems to be in the ukraine right now we are just looking at a call for strikes because the only military aid we are given to ukraine is meals ready to eat. Even under president carter when the soviets invaded afghanistan we did more than give the afghan rebels food. Seems to me another thing we could do and this would actually be very difficult under the charter under the sub of the rules would be fine but the gift military aid to ukraine and like president carter did in afghanistan supply any rebels that there might be in the crimean region so they can have russian control. Another thing to do would be to restore the antiballistic missiles that the aplomb administration pulled out of september added diplomatic offering. That clearly failed. If russia wants to go around invading its neighbors the United States could send a strong signal to support its allies without any boots on the ground or in a, but with russia by putting the systems of. They worked before the abm system and help the russian soviets go bankrupt and jujitsu the fall of the soviet union union, why not give it another try . And the last thing i would say is we should end our cooperation with russia on syria. I dont see why the u. S. Should be a partner with russia and action which is having the effect of propping up the Syrian Regime and switching the momentum of the civil war towards the assad regime. Lastly i think this is the more difficult to see this happening quickly but it could happen in a longerterm is institutional create an alternative to the u. N. And create an alternative to the Security Council where we dont give permanent fetus to a theater and governments like russia and china. A concert of democracies where you still need an institution of process to legitimize the use of force then create one. It doesnt have to be focused around the u. N. And the charter. They can be focused around those countries that are democracies and have open markets and have the same values as the United States. So with that thank you very much and i look forward to comments. Thank you offer coming out and aei for having me here. I think professor yoo is absolutely right that the u. N. Security council is broken that the permanent veto is going to prevent the use of force in places where the use of force would improve Human Welfare. He had mentioned that the number of great power wars and the people that died in great power wars has diminished to near zero since the institution of the United Nations but at the same time the number of internal struggles of civil wars low intensity conflict around the world has gone way up as have the number of people dying in those conflicts all over the world. The idea of saying you can improve American Enterprises<\/a> is today. My name is gary smith on her resident scholar and attract the maryland security for studies at aei. Todays event which is cosponsored by the Federalist Society<\/a> is a Panel Discussion<\/a> of john yoos latest book point of attack preventive or International Law<\/a> and global welfare. Our format today will be quite simple. John will start off with an overview of the books thesis and then we will followup with their group panelist comments and ill with their two panel is coming tonight might throw in a pointer to as well. Following that we will open up the floor to your questions and have a good robust discussion i am sure. Before turning the mic over to john let me briefly introduce her to guest panelist Michael Lewis<\/a> and Harvey Risher<\/a> coughed. As you can see from the biographical materials you have at hand both of that distinguished careers. Michael is currently professor of law law at ohio northern is diversity a former naval pilot harvard law graduate and more importantly a graduate of the navys top gun program. Michael has written extensively in areas of the laws of war and the laws of war is applied to the current war on terrorism. Harvey currently chairs the ada Advisory Committee<\/a> on law and National Security<\/a> and a former professor at the National War College<\/a> and served as the chair of the College Strategy<\/a> department. Among other important posts he assailed he was the Legal Counsel<\/a> to the fbis Deputy Director<\/a> in the late 90s and has had his hand in drafting several National Security<\/a> related residential directives. Thank you both for joining us today. Now let me introduce john yoo. John has been teaching law at the university of californiaberkeley law school for 20 years, more than 20 years and has been a colleague at aei for the past decade former Deputy Assistant<\/a> attorney general locker law clerk to Justice Thomas<\/a> and the author of five major volumes and scholarly articles on president ial power at the laws of war and International Law<\/a>. His most recent book the one we are talking about today yoo point of attack is like his other books and that john is not shy or retiring his nor do johns books for courage. Who else could be a visiting scholar at aei and to write the search in iraq whose idea on the spaces might not have been as important as we carried aei claimed and who else would dare to argue that the lower shame is problematic precisely because it discourages the use of force rather than encourages it. I can see john being offered to record contract with the idea of making john lennon is give peace a chance and give war a chance. Like all of johns books point of attack is a deeply serious work and has great merit in pushing his readers to think under the most deeply held assumptions. In short while provocative point of attack is provocative enough that sounds making all of us ask the important questions in thinking more seriously about what the answer should be when it comes to enhancing global prosperity and security. John over to you. Thanks kerry for that introduction. Its a great pleasure to be here at aei. Its been my home away from home for the last 10 years and like all homes away from home that people are happier here. The food is better here. Its just too expensive for me to live here. [laughter] but its been a great 10 years predates my tenth anniversary at aei and this book actually is the product of that 10 years which i started working on it when i came here after the iraq war and this is my effort to try to make sense of the iraq war and the Afghanistan War<\/a> and the other complex we have been going through the country. Its also great to have gary as the moderator because he is the perfect person. He is one of the few people who shares an intense interest in the framers and National Security<\/a> and intelligence. I would be remiss if i didnt say i had stolen one of garys great ideas from his dissertation for my last book on Thomas Jeffersons<\/a> views on executive power. Gary has the view that jefferson actually had quite a robust approach to the presidency in practice but not in theory. Actually i tried to disseminate that idea and you were the first one i think to realize that and to explore it. Its also a great pleasure to be here with mike lewis and harvey. Mike was on the frontlines and harvey is that the war college on the rear lines i guess in our war effort. Its great to be with them both and i look forward to the discussion. I just want to make one recognition that my mentor for many years judge Lawrence Silverman<\/a> is here and hes very angry at me for writing this book. He claims i have stolen the idea from him. With many other things i admit i did steal it from him but he didnt publish it fast enough. So i got there first. I just want to pay special mention to him because hes someone i started working for right after law school and the combines many of us on the panel interest of National Security<\/a> and file which is to rare i think. He was an inspiration for this book and entirely responsible for its fault i might add. I just want to lay out the simple thesis and then maybe Start Talking<\/a> about russia and crimea. And maybe about east asia. We will have another panel about east asia. The simple thesis and i think the russian invasion of crimea just to highlight this is that the Current International<\/a> legal system of collective security i think has failed. The one that centers around the United Nations<\/a> and the u. N. Security council, the primary rule is that the use of force in International Law<\/a> is illegal and even criminal unless its in selfdefense or when authorized by the u. N. Security council. I think historically that world and its reliance on just war theory actually is incorrect. The effort and this was really the work of Woodrow Wilson<\/a> and establishing the league of nations the idea that this world this criminalization of war hearkens back and builds on the just war tradition that ran from cicero all the way through the great medial thinkers and actually if you go back and look at the just war tradition in just war theory which they wrapped up in a catholic legal theory in the church. The just war theory actually is much more nuanced and talks about lots of things we talk about today like humanitarian intervention, preventive and preemptive war and place to go well beyond the simple idea that any use of force other than selfdefense is illegal. I also think its a too shall make, so just as a matter as countries have not followed this idea just war or criminalized selfdefense historically and i think they are doing it today and at the u. N. Charter itself institutionally. There have been plenty of wars since the u. N. Charter. They have never been authorized by the u. N. And were not in selfdefense. The u. N. I think has been powerless, fairly powerless to stop it. Again the invasion of ukraine is a good example. Part of it as a robust part of it is the institution that if you require the full agreement of the permanent members of the Security Council<\/a> to authorize measures against any kind of aggression and china and russia sit on the Security Council<\/a>, they are going to veto any effort to respond to the invasion of right media or military engagements that might arise in the South China Sea<\/a> or in asia. It just renders actually not the rule and in denying the practice but institutionally the u. N. Charter or the americanled effort to create a system to manage complex after world war ii just doesnt work and it has failed. Its not going to work for the future. That doesnt mean great powerful war is an inevitability or something that we cant respond to or control actually the other remarkable thing is during this period after world war ii the amount of death and destruction from great power wars has fallen to a love thats unheard of in Human History<\/a> that by whole order of magnitude that is what we have experience experienced from great power of wars has fallen to a level never seen before or since the peace of westphalia and the modern nationstate system. Theres an incredible record that i dont think it has anything to do with International Law<\/a>. A few historians and political Scientists Say<\/a> theres a number of Different Reasons<\/a> but one primary one is clearly Nuclear Weapons<\/a>. Makes it harder and more expensive and dangerous for the great powers to come to confli conflict. The balance between the superpowers for much of the cold war actually had a suppressing conflict between the great powers and since the collapse of the soviet union the rights of the states as a hegemonic supplier of peace and stability of free trade around the world has also reduced great power conflict. The great source of war, the two world wars to kill the most people in Human History<\/a> both started in europe and were between european powers and spread to the rest of the world. Despite russias and actually russias invasion of ukraine is a good symbol of what had preceded it. Until russias invasion of Ukraine Ukraine<\/a> and there were no deaths from combat in europe. There have been no unilateral withdrawal of new orders in europe by force. The one era that produced all these complex that caused so much of the deaths over the last two or 300 years plus became a peaceful place. I was primarily responsible for Nuclear Weapons<\/a>, the bipolar struggle between the u. S. And the soviet union but ultimately since then the u. S. Role in maintaining a Certain International<\/a> order. At the same time there are threats to that order which are being posed by what we used to call rogue nations. The fancy term now revisionist nations like iran and maybe china clearly russia. Challenges caused by this proliferation of wmd Technology Device<\/a> of International Terrorism<\/a> and even large humanitarian catastrophes. These are all challenges to the International System<\/a> that is produced is great. Back of peace and prosperity and this is gary is quite right to say give war a chance which i would have given a title of this book but p. J. Orourke already had taken and i actually look it up on amazon. The kind of wars undersupplied because of this band and International Law<\/a> and the use of force other than selfdefense actually prevents the western allies in the United States<\/a> from intervening in smaller places to shore up the International System<\/a>. Rwanda, kosovo and iraq, these are all places and began the ukraine, the South China Sea<\/a>. These are areas where the system actually prevents or discourages nations from using force where we might want to because it the gains of the world are going to be much higher than any cost of conflict. Under International Law<\/a> if it is pose complex would be illegal. I think an International System<\/a> or set of rules and International System<\/a> ought to encourage the powers to use force to control those kinds of threats to the International System<\/a>. It doesnt need to worry about the war between the great powers were International Law<\/a> does not much effect and the piece is cap for other reasons anyway. We will make us one last way to understand. This is similar to the way law and economics but about contract law or tort law where there may be a rule saying you should keep promises are you should obey contracts with the law actually encourages you to breach the contract if you can do something thats more efficient that actually is of greater benefit. If thats something that lawyers bought over for many decades until under the influence of judge Richard Posen<\/a> are in the 70s at the university of chicago this began to prevail and has become the law in many jurisdictions. Its a similar approach to International Law<\/a>. It should be one that countries can breach if it makes the world better off after the war. Let me turn now to what this means about russia in place to respond to russia, the focal point for the discussion. Although it doesnt have to be pretty think washington seems paralyzed looking at it from california. The beltway seems paralyzed about what to do in response to the invasion of ukraine. Part of that might have to do with we do with the candidates shouldnt International Institutions<\/a> to cooperate because there are several prominent members who are opposed to any effort. Here are some things i think we could do to respond to russia which we have and which i think would be consistent with this approach of International Law<\/a> but which may well be seen as troublesome and potentially even illegal under the u. N. Charter. The first thing i would say is the United States<\/a> should currently the s. T. A. R. T. Treaty which limits 1550 Nuclear Weapons<\/a> places when it comes to Nuclear Arsenals<\/a> even though russia is not really projecting power around the world anymore and the u. S. Has a lot of other global responsibilities for peace and stability. It doesnt make sense for the United States<\/a> to treat russia as an equal right to terminate the treaty and the Nuclear Arsenal<\/a> can float to whatever it needs to be for our security obligations rather than any kind of commitment. Obviously the second thing and its almost describing a position president obama took in malaysia. How hes going to try to hit single foreign policies are not doubles and certainly not homers. It seems to be in the ukraine right now we are just looking at a call for strikes because the only military aid we are given to ukraine is meals ready to eat. Even under president carter when the soviets invaded afghanistan we did more than give the afghan rebels food. Seems to me another thing we could do and this would actually be very difficult under the charter under the sub of the rules would be fine but the gift military aid to ukraine and like president carter did in afghanistan supply any rebels that there might be in the crimean region so they can have russian control. Another thing to do would be to restore the antiballistic missiles that the aplomb administration pulled out of september added diplomatic offering. That clearly failed. If russia wants to go around invading its neighbors the United States<\/a> could send a strong signal to support its allies without any boots on the ground or in a, but with russia by putting the systems of. They worked before the abm system and help the russian soviets go bankrupt and jujitsu the fall of the soviet union union, why not give it another try . And the last thing i would say is we should end our cooperation with russia on syria. I dont see why the u. S. Should be a partner with russia and action which is having the effect of propping up the Syrian Regime<\/a> and switching the momentum of the civil war towards the assad regime. Lastly i think this is the more difficult to see this happening quickly but it could happen in a longerterm is institutional create an alternative to the u. N. And create an alternative to the Security Council<\/a> where we dont give permanent fetus to a theater and governments like russia and china. A concert of democracies where you still need an institution of process to legitimize the use of force then create one. It doesnt have to be focused around the u. N. And the charter. They can be focused around those countries that are democracies and have open markets and have the same values as the United States<\/a>. So with that thank you very much and i look forward to comments. Thank you offer coming out and aei for having me here. I think professor yoo is absolutely right that the u. N. Security council is broken that the permanent veto is going to prevent the use of force in places where the use of force would improve Human Welfare<\/a>. He had mentioned that the number of great power wars and the people that died in great power wars has diminished to near zero since the institution of the United Nations<\/a> but at the same time the number of internal struggles of civil wars low intensity conflict around the world has gone way up as have the number of people dying in those conflicts all over the world. The idea of saying you can improve Human Welfare<\/a> by intervening in these conflicts in preventing these complex from having that kind of humanitarian disasters that they become in many cases is a legitimate use of force but its a hes a force that is absolutely for the by the u. N. Charter now unless we can get russia, china and United States<\/a> to all agreed the same time that this is a place where we want to use force. The only other exception of that would be article li selfdefense and in most cases that does not apply. Another point that professor yoo makes in his book is that there is at least an undercurrent of nations that have thursday practice indicated a willingness to go beyond where the u. N. Charter says they are supposed to go. In terms of using force to prevent either humanitarian crises or other kinds of disasters so whether it be tanzania intervening in uganda or vietnam and cambodia or india and bangladesh all of which were unilateral interventions, or a collective intervention like nato in kosovo where you had a group get together and decide we need to stop the humanitarian crisis in coase above. Those have all been criticized at some level or another but they have also all been praised as some level or another for the kinds of goods they have done. The central theme or one of the central themes to the book though is to say how do we figure out when the war is going to be a net benefit to Human Welfare<\/a>. It has a law and economic sense to it and its saying you have to calculate here at the benefits that are going to accrue from using force here. Here are the lies that will be saved and here are the lives that will be improved as a result of doing whatever happens whether it be libya, syria, iran etc. And while that is the think a laudable idea in practice its going to be very difficult and i think we can look at perhaps the best way of looking at things is perhaps the pair dramatic example which would be rwanda. Everybody looks back and says how could 800,000 to 2 Million People<\/a> being killed with machetes and smallarms in the late 20th century while all of europe and the rest of the world stood by and watched . It seems that cries out for intervention but looking at the one intervention that has happened in the last few years, libya, is a good example of the indeterminacy of the good that is done and i guess what i mean by that is that whenever you intervened and the intervention is a nice word but what youre doing is killing people. You are going to go in and kill people whether it be the libyan command control and Communications People<\/a> or the air defense people or some of the Libyan Special<\/a> forces or Ground Forces<\/a> that we attacked, you were going to kill those people and sometimes you are going to kill the wrong people. Youre going to kill civilians. You are going to have Collateral Damage<\/a>. The french and british were criticized for the amount of Collateral Damage<\/a> that killed civilians when they were going after the command and control in tripoli. So you are going to be able to hone up and say these are actual people that died that should not have. Now you tell me who you saved and i dont know how we can tell exactly how many people were saved in libya. I dont know exactly what the estimates are for the best you can do is come up with a historical counterfactual saying if we had not done this is what would have happened. You are going to have to convince skeptics and other nations that are opposed to the action that does this in fact would have been the case. I guarantee you that had intervened in rwanda if you were going to turn around and try to commence the world that you saved 800,000 lives by being in her wand that theres no way anyone would have believed you. It would have been a neocolonialist act by the french the belgians and the americas to reestablish control over a lost colony. No one would have believed that the saved 800,000 lives by doing so. The counterfactual nature of this means that while i agree that there is value to intervention that intervention should be undertaken on a number of occasions, that if you do so you have to be very cleareyed about the fact that nobodys going to thank you for doing it. Nobodys going to look back and say it was a great thing that you did that. Nobodys telling us that for libya. Nobody is telling us that for iraq and so as long as you dont expect people to thank you and as long as you dont expect people to fully support everything you do because for political, geopolitical reasons i guarantee that russia china and others will criticize any of those actions you take. You have to be prepared to accept that and do the best you can backup the claim that hears the counterfactual that we avoided. See excellent, thank you so much john. Let me thank aei. Saudis great to have a form he here. They are is deeply committed to the John Stuart Mill<\/a> principle having open debate about interesting and hard subjects. These are my remarks alone and dont represented the groups im involved with. This is quite fascinating for me because on johns tenth anniversary he has revealed himself to be a canadian, international idealist interventionist. Which is fascinating and the book which i find in earlier work would have found compelling was the current ambassador of india to the United States<\/a> samantha power. That happens all the time. So why is that . It is because first of all its a classic john yoo piece of work. He reread the classics. The romans, the greeks, august and periods almost in open beginning of the International Law<\/a> that basic teachings. He comes to a different conclusion about what is embedded in the doctrine and that doctrine allows him to make an argument of why you can have a principle of prevention tied to morality. Morality is tied to much more preclassic pose in her conception or conception of costbenefit analysis though he marries economic theory to International Policy<\/a> based on the principle of global goods so its a very creative argument putting together literature you dont normally seem together its classic yoo. Is it good or bad . Like Everything Else<\/a> that depends so as my colleague to the left has actually been at the point of the spirit john rejects the concept of just side bellum apart from his tradition and therefore our traditional though we teach it as you go through the steps with her just cause or comparative justice or authority is their right intention is there probable success what is the last resort to use force in the proportionality. He really honed in on that. But he doesnt talk about the classic doctrine about how we make distinction of personality combatants and noncombatants in the other absent part which im sure john has become a poster every two weeks of book will be produced is there something we called postbellum so the great line about postbellum disco crossline which is the issues where john wants to intervene in our very hard internal issues and we will get to this notion but most of them civil wars as that complex and morality is hard for americans to stand on the side and watch particularly for many of us who will have the teeth experience of world war ii. The irony irony of what scowcroft says intervening in these cases doesnt solve them. It gives you, you win the right to try to sell them in the intervention because the assumption is that the people you are intervening with well embrace the ideas and values do we carry as americans and the values of what we understand the world should be. That is somewhat unclear actually and not only that but the assumption of johns book is a stay at the high level of what the values values are in their interest is how far can you go . One of the great cleavages in the world system is how do you treat women like we have gone through quite a struggle inside the United States<\/a> for equality and equal rights but if you do a certain ethnic group group they are protective of house they see women which is not in particularly in accord with the way we understand the violation of equal rights so what values and how far do you want to push what we see as the American American<\/a> way division of their many parts of United States<\/a> that are resisting the american way. Where do you stand on abortion . Where you stand on a whole range of issues . Do we want those values . What is the logic of this so when you start at that level of distraction and you then have to drive down into the specifics that is where the devil is in the details. We have not been good at nationbuilding. They have been good at nationbuilding when we occupy and whether we like it or not the american way of war is that its Unconditional Surrender<\/a> which is historical of what we did in world war i and were to. The irony is we win the wars that lose the negotiations. Thats also what that means for the evolution of where we are with afghanistan and iraq today. I found the book extremely fascinating as always really putting forward a whole range of arguments to go forward but the logic is really where does one understand when one wants to intervene from the common good. The caroline products as the convention doctrine that carolina case than the actual phrase which was quoted in the book which refers to a phrase he almost never see in literature. Here are first to canadian rebels. You never hear the canadians or people who starve the answering machines rather than being rebel. The actual doctrine which is just wanting to the ambassador necessity was instant overwhelming leaving no choice of means and no moment of liberation and the British Force<\/a> supposing the necessity of the moment authorized the United States<\/a> be involved in nothing unreasonable or excessive which is solve bellum must be limited by that necessity and cap clearly within. Then it was very simple because the object was clear. They blew up the ship. The object of prevention at the National Level<\/a> is much more different than blowing up the ship. I leave you with this famous Dane Daniel Paul<\/a> problem and we agree with innate United Nations<\/a> having trouble being effective is the problem with the nationstate is that its too good to deal with ethnic problems and problems of identity and its too small to do with transnational problems like the warming of them are meant of the open environment. We dont have a mechanism. Nonetheless the state is proven to be almost extraordinarily resilient because now i believe the state is the monopolization of the legitimate use of coercive force within a territory and argument is john is asking for if you take the larger analysis you would like america to be the entire state alone. We will do it unilaterally but as you know its harder for that hypocrisy is to restore firepower around the world. That is that the paradox of the book which is it sets the principle of morality but it doesnt have a mechanism of understanding want to exercise that principle in the end but with the world look like based on that particular understanding in your sense . I will end with we are at agree with wilson was an extraordinary idealist but the firsttime elected a president who had a ph. D. In Political Science<\/a>. With that i will turn it back to the debate. See as somebody who has a ph. D. In Political Science<\/a> i fully appreciate the fact that i should never be president. John has given me the license to be the moderator so im going to be actually during its cute tidbits into the discussion. One of the nice things about john spoke is the degree which he unpacks in a graceful way for scholarship and leadership on just war tradition and shows the poverty of where it has been taken over the last century and particularly the last couple decades. It does remind me that in some respects talking about just war theory or talking about war, it becomes very analogous to policing. Military efforts as keeping order. Obviously this is within the context of the roman empire. But there is sort of an analogy to johns argument about the world of the United States<\/a> and other democracies when it comes to policing the world and when it comes to wmd and terrorism and the like. Its a valuable part of the book. It did strike me there was a couple of other, number of things i wanted to talk about but i dont want to hog the mic. John also talks about the history of the development of the u. N. Charter and points out its conclusively shown the american participants in the u. N. Charter involved in drafting didnt believe that it would be this they wouldnt have the restriction that it has come to have on usaid here. We need to do something to maintain International Stability<\/a> and security. Theres nothing in the charter they thought which would stop us from doing so. The truth is and if i was a realist i would say the charter has not stopped us so therefore why not just go ahead and accept the fact and probably make a more robust argument based upon the founders, the drafting founders to say look we never signed up to this as being this kind of restriction and whats more our practice has followed that along. I suppose the answer to that is that americans because Democratic People<\/a> like to have legitimacy and so this issue of having others agree with you that you were doing the right thing is not unimportant. But then i think that also flips into one of the things i think perhaps john was writing the book now as opposed to a year ago you would have to wonder about. The book theres an optimism about the fact that great powers are not interested in territorial acquisitions. We have certainly seen in the case of russia thats not the case and we worry on a constant daily basis about whether thats true for the chinese who have a lot of territorial claims on islands and big islands, small islands, lots of violence in their neighborhood that they have not given up. So then the question is whether or not the u. N. Charter as understood doesnt provide a useful pause or at least gives their desires and their acquisitions the littlest legitimacy than otherwise. If we open the door as john suggests one wonders about the practical effects on those powers thinking about what they can do on the international stage. Theres an optimism about the great powers that pervades the book in one has to wonder whether that optimism is warranted or whether its warranted in the decades ahead. Which brings me back to my final issue or question. John talks about forcing the new International Order<\/a> that he is proposing and he tosses out the idea of analogous to the council of europe, the consul of democracies. But when you look at for example which i think is a fine interpretation of that conflict which is kissingers diplomacy book kissinger points out essentially there are two elements of that. The first one had to do with coherence between the continental powers happened to do with the kinds of regimes they wanted and what they thought was legitimate. The second element of course was that in terms of the bounds of power element that effort, that systemdependent upon Great Britain<\/a> and london taking an active hand in maintaining it. But as we know capsoff they failed in that regard and the brits did Everything Possible<\/a> to stay away from that active role. That brings us to today where there is a about whether or not if he did have a council of democracies whether the United States<\/a> a but have the willpower to provide that kind of leadership. We certainly have doubts about it over the last few years and the second thing of course is that these other democratic great powers germany, britain, japan is not the case they are spending much on the military so one wonders about the effects on their ability to help maintain International Order<\/a>. This is a practical matter. While accept johns argument about the nature and the flaws of the Current System<\/a> i wonder how effective the mechanism for maintaining what he proposes will be. Many theorists always generate the international theory. Aaron burr my good friends generated his book about the seven different ways and eight ways to exercise authority whether offshore balancing or whatever it is and its really great that im in the world of what is the force structure look why . What does the fore structure for the different views you have because we are not that mobile. The interesting question for john is what you perceive as the force structure that would be used in then how do you see title l because if you look at russia theres a lot of use of locally called title l using surrogates open recognition of title x so we can use food for thought. I guess we should allow you to respond. [laughter] that was a lot of interesting questions and points that dont have enough time to respond to all of them so i will respond to some of them so they will have time for audience questions and so on. In response to professor lewiss point across benefits being hard i think thats true. I dont think its a recent i dont think its a reason to reject that approach. Its right to say it will be difficult to put it into practice. It does remind me of the early criticism of costbenefit analysis in the rated tory state. People make similar arguments today about how do you do environmental regulation . How can you value human life versus precautionary measures about pollution or Global Warming<\/a> and those involve the exact same kinds and how do you know there was research and a life to be saved. There is an interesting paper that showed across the federal agencies that do costbenefit analysis of each agency has different value for human life. They are all calculated differently when they decide which regulations to issue. I completely concede that but i think its the right start and hopefully when we start doing it we will get better at it and it would allow us to identify the easy cases which we dont, where the system doesnt allow it. Libya is the harder case but rwanda seems like the easy peace. There you could say there would have been a million life saved if you hadnt use five or 6000 troops so at least we could pick off the ones that we agreed and the harder ones that are closer to the balance being equal would be very hard. I agree with that and i take the point that no one is going to thank us. The International System<\/a> as it is now is kind of tragic because there is a huge disincentive to ever lift your finger to help any of these countries to intervene anywhere. Kerry makes the point that the resources involved are going to be so expensive. Why should any nation undertake this thankless task sex part of what i try to show the book is maintaining the system is much to the benefit of United States<\/a> too as well as our allies. The system will have an armistice free rider problem because we do create the force structure. We take the opposite of where the administration now is going. I think we are actually pulling back from parts of the world if we enhance our position in retool retool the armed forces to replay this which make up more of a naval airpower and less land power which is the traditional American Force<\/a> structure but the force structure that intervenes to keep the balance of power inta intact. I know you dont agree but if we do that will call for increases in defense spending in the drawdowns we are seeing that both the president congress seemed to agree on right now. That is part of the tragedy of the way the system works now is that no nation should have an incentive actually to produce this kind of whether its Law Enforcement<\/a> are peacekeeping with this level of work. To Harveys Point<\/a> i think hes quite right about one thing i is a theory of you some bellum and postbellum and one thing that is artificial about the way we study wars that we actually think of those as three subjects. There are different rules for each one and you are supposed to when you start a war throw out the reasons he started the row war and use the law of the warfighting and once you are done without a tough it out and then you get to reconstruction law. He is postbellum is the law that covered reconstruction south during the civil war. Part of the analysis carried forward included the plan. Jeremy brett kinison made off reconceptualizing the laws in work but i think they ought to be connected. They have to have a common analysis for all three and you shouldnt actually think of them as separate and distinct. Certainly the reasons you go to war should shape what you were going to use once youre in the war so i completely agree. I think thats actually the next work to get to. One idea would be that if you are going to take this efficiency approach toward then it should allow you to use all kinds of warfighting techniques which will be very bountiful under their use and develop more and more example would be the closable warrant and air force dropped graphite weapons onto electrical grid in belgrade which is a violation of the laws of war. Attacking this securely civilian structure. Food production, electricity, Telecommunication Networks<\/a> and markets would all have some piece of the military that you could attack them. The ever want to interrupt but we are toying with the idea in cyberthat you might be requiring people to create a separate cyberconnection for the military and not use the dualuse it as a way of demonstrating the distinction of combatant and noncombatant there may be ways of imposing that in cyber. To meet the closable example shows that you could attack certain kinds of that structure without destroying them but it wasnt purely military but it was connected because of the way you wanted to achieve a narrow and which was at defeating and so if that is the case close about today we are trying to persuade them to leave kosovo. What if we shut down their stock market per week. No lives lost. It would be much better than dropping real bombs it seems to me that under the current laws we can no longer do that. It seems to me if you did this global approach that brought together all three types of blogs of war you would have to reexamine some of the fundamental principles because they are dictated by what he went to war in the first place. The last one i want to quickly get to garys point before returned over to question answering discussion. There are a lot of great points there. On the u. N. Charter i do think it may not stop us all the time but its a disincentive and harms, think its a much bigger deal in other countries but to take one example of the libyan intervention example of this administration wanted to get you in authorization to intervene in libya and they delayed the intervention until the rebellion was wiped out in today you are a better expert at this than i but people sometimes say that our delay allowed the more radical elements to add a bigger voice in the libyan rebellion. Now maybe the Obama Administration<\/a> did want to intervene anyway and was using the charter is a convenient excuse. Who knows . It seemed to me they were quite commit to it. Its also ceria the of u. N. Authorization is the reason upon the demonstration has given for not intervening in syria. I do think it is having some effect. Maybe on the margins is just another thing that gets added that the spores going to be a legitimate and a political resistance. In the iraq war germany and france some of our supposed allies use the u. N. Charter is a reason not to help us in the iraq invasion. I think you are quite right. The sole dictating reason why we may not have intervened. I think its an additional political cost to going to war. Its a disincentive. When some of these wars would be better off if we did go to work. You are right whats is the future look like if you move away from the u. N. Charter system . The concert of europe is an analogy to the past. One thing that is successful as our colleague john bolton came up with the idea for Nonproliferation Initiative<\/a> which has a system but theres no formal treaty. Theres no formal place where they need. The governments coordinate their actions politically to try to stop the proliferation of wmd technology and are staying quite successful and i would think that would be the way to go to start studying those kinds of successful in formal methods of corporation. It doesnt have the russians or chinese involved and they are not vetoing north korean freighters with hidden Nuclear Material<\/a> on them. If that has been a success we should study that more closely and use that as a model to really build a new kind of concert of democracies. If you get rid of your charger you replace it with nothing and i think youll have these problems up whenever any war is legitimate everyone will say that may intervened when a war is legitimate. The russians are saying the invasion of ukraine is legitimate under International Law<\/a> because they are protecting russian citizens although it sounds what hitler said about the plan in 1938. I think of it as further development of the idea but also professor lewis says its very hard because he gets into the nittygritty details of how you design the followon system. Thanks john. We will open it up to questions or marquess and please identify yourself and ask a question. In the back. Mr. Yoo you have been very active in developing a new norm way of doing business particularly when you wrote the preventive torture memo for the bush administration. Of course it was approved and im not just blaming you. Ive just learned your a canadian citizen. I was born in canada but im a United States<\/a> citizen. I and just kidding. And knott is this book to create this kind of thinking which in my opinion is totally barbaric and what youre talking about. In fact most of the people throughout the world would not stand for it and maybe you can convince a few radical right wings in america and they would probably follow it. They would finally have to be kicked out. Thank you we didnt need you but anyway. Actually i dont think this theory is going to apply to radical rightwingers. These days my sense of american politics is that the rightwing of the Republican Party<\/a> actually wants to withdraw from the world fast, that if you look at grandpa was the representative of that wing of the party Republican Party<\/a> that strikes me very much like the 1930s in the United States<\/a> from democracies. They are radical and that they want to change american policy and they think the United States<\/a> have to do nothing in response to the ukraine and nothing in response to the rise of china and they would say we have put a lot of money into maintaining peace and what did we get out of the coaxial that nothing. Nobody gives a semithanks for saving lives anywhere. All we get his criticism like yours when we exited to go to war. So i dont think its a radical rightwing idea. You are quite right some people will criticize replacing the u. N. Charter system as barbaric because its going to invite great power, competition again and neocolonialism again and i actually think kerry is right. That era and those countries are no longer Strong Enough<\/a> for interested enough. They will see france and Great Britain<\/a> and germany really using force to try to to impose the system and i do think the u. S. Is different. I think the u. S. Is an exceptional country and that even though it has gone to warm places and maintained a system thats not an empire like the British Empire<\/a> or the french empire or the chinese empire. Its not interested in taking over territory to add to the borders of the u. S. It does seek to get other countries part of the system of economics and trade. In that respect it has aspects of an empire but its very different in the sense that it doesnt try to run other countries. See if you look at the wall street journal today the front page that demonstrates 45 of population prefers isolationist policies and United States<\/a> Foreign Policy<\/a> is since roosevelt has always had strains of isolationism versus interventionism. Thats been a classical limit and strange of values for nonvalues and traces it back to the founders and different evolutions. One of the things that debate here in the United States<\/a> is we have been extremely expansive tory involved an intervention in the last 20 years. Theyre clearly, theres a sentiment in the republic as john is saying to pull back. I was pulling back one will have to ask what is the net benefit or cost to nations . One of the examples pulling back is whats happening right now in crimea and the ukraine. Its really not, you are not happy if you are in those countries now because it means he did not have the response. The issue is what will be the United States<\/a> response at the strategic level . When john talked about the missiles i would take a step back. What that is saying is you want to give the russians and the europeans a clear sense that the United States<\/a> will be serious about stopping the expansion. We have different ways of trying to do that and thats what thats about telling the russians you have to bear the cost if you continue to do this and we are serious but thats not the way you should involve international relations. How you do that is the struggle. How you intervene to make it clear to them and to the europeans that they have to stop that we really want to get into a fighting more . One of the ironies of the United Nations<\/a> is that we havent had a nuclear exchange. If you ask shoveling but its been Tom Schelling<\/a> is was for the Biggest Surprise<\/a> he will say one of the biggest matters of International Public<\/a> policy was that when he was one of the creators of mutuallyassured destruction they thought by the turnofthecentury they would have 25 Nuclear Powers<\/a>. We dont. That issue is wearing out an interesting Tipping Point<\/a> and the Tipping Point<\/a> is creating a real set of incentives and disincentives for how we understand intervention and area of the world where you said you came from the idea of more Nuclear Powers<\/a> in a geographical area given the propensity for this extraordinary border that makes everyone nervous. Thats like the big issue about this book is that where would be a principle notion of intervention particularly in the Nuclear World<\/a> where we are very concerned about having the whole range of new countries go nuclear and then we are staring at each other saying what will happen when the statements made . That is an extraordinary Tipping Point<\/a> in our fact that this book starts the conversation of how you think about that. See one other thing, with regard to the claim undermining the u. N. Charter are moving the u. N. Charter as barbaric and would be something that most of the world would accept while this is not entirely in mind that a good portion of what john is talking about is the justifiable use of force to prevent humanitarian catastrophes which has a lot in common with responsibility to protect. I note that his theory is not exactly the same and he would not want to be compared entirely to that but the responsibility to protect is something that has been accepted at least in some ways as a modification of the limitations on the use of force. Unfortunately in the final outcome documents they again tied it to Security Council<\/a> approval but the initial idea behind our 2b was to say if the Security Council<\/a> does not act here are ways that force can be used by regional organizations were the improvement of Human Welfare<\/a> in much the same way as many examples that john is talking about and thats something that the world has approved and has not viewed as being barbaric","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia902209.us.archive.org\/6\/items\/CSPAN2_20140622_050000_Book_Discussion_on_Point_of_Attack\/CSPAN2_20140622_050000_Book_Discussion_on_Point_of_Attack.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20140622_050000_Book_Discussion_on_Point_of_Attack_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240620T12:35:10+00:00"}