U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Right

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/* Written  3:40 AM  Jul 11, 1994 by weyker@xxxxxxxxxxx in igc:soc.cult.burma */
/* ---------- "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Right" ---------- */
"The effects of selfishness on U.S. foreign policy"
by Shayne Weyker, University of Maryland College Park
Comments welcome at weyker@xxxxxxxxxxx
Reproduction permitted for non-commercial uses only.

               Part 1: The Question

Is it right and prudent for governments to focus attention only on
issues in its own people's interests at the expense of issues that
benefit the larger world community? 

For simplicity's sake, I will ignore for the moment the very real
problem of government's failure to work for the real needs of the
people because of a narrow focus on short-term financial interests
and interests of the politically powerful groups in society. For
right now the question is, should we as a nation do what's best for
us or what's best for everyone?

               Part 2: A Useful Example

A specific example might be useful here. Tim Wirth, U.S.
Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, has recently advocated
renewed dialogue with the singularly corrupt and abusive military
government of Burma/Myanmar. He does this on the belief that
reducing pressure for improvement human rights would help get the
military government of Burma to fight a tough ground war that would
remove from power the drug lord Khun Sa, the man at the head of
much of the country's very large heroin industry and a personal
army in the thousands that doubles as a rebel army for the ethnic
minority Shan people. Once defeating him, the U.S. optimistically
hopes that the military in Burma will then give up their drug
income and destroy their country's heroin industry. 

Wirth wants to prioritize human rights in this case below another
global issue, the drug problem. And it's possible to see what
factors led him to this position. Mr. Wirth has had a long personal
interest in the drug problem. There seems to be a window of
opportunity of Burma's government to wipe out Khun Sa now that
other rebel groups have signed truces. There's been a frustrating
lack of progress on human rights in Burma in the last few years
(pressure from the world has been undermined by China, Thailand,
and other neighbors). And finally, China's likely willingness to
use their strong influence to pressure Burma's military government
into destroying heroin production somewhat reduces the strong
likelihood that the Burmese military will stay in the heroin
business.

But there's always an excuse for acting in a self-interested manner
if you want to find one. With Burma we have the choice of trying to
get better treatment for millions of Burmese from systematic
murder, rape, torture, beatings, slavery, starvation and other
inhumanities as well as demand respect for recently held free and
fair elections. Or we can give up this effort in return for a
possible reduction of a some thousands thousand in the number of
heroin addicts in our own country due to a possibly reduced supply
from Burma. Maybe a some thousands more can be denied access to
affordable heroin worldwide, at least for a few years until other
places begin to produce heroin and bring the price back down some.
And maybe heroin-related crimes will go down some for a while. In
any event, many heroin users will simply find a new drug of choice
if their favorite gets too expensive.

               Part 3: What The Example Tells Us:
                       Self-interest distorts foreign policy

Given the above description, it's a pretty easy choice to fight for
human rights rather than against drugs. Unless, that is, you
believe that a government has a strict duty to help its own
citizens as much as possible and that helping foreigners in need is
wrong if doing so requires not helping Americans in need, even if
the quantity and quality of the Americans' distress is much less.

The drug trade, terrorism, global warming and ozone depletion,
overpopulation, nuclear proliferation, and some other global issues
differ from issues such as human rights in which there's "nothing
in it for us". There is little self-interest to be gained (in the
short-term at least) by improving other nations' human rights,
social equality, bio-diversity, and local environmental situations.
There are long-term benefits "for us" of having more democratic
nations (democracies don't fight wars with other democracies) and
more species diversity (which is a goldmine of future medical
discoveries and insulates the ecology against disasters) but these
are rarely given much weight by politicians, so democracy and
species diversity are effectively "selfless" issues.

Thus we can expect that even when it is known that much more good
for all could be accomplished by working on the "selfless" issues,
that our government will not do this, choosing instead to put
priority on the "selfish" issues. When forced to choose, Our
government will put what benefits (some) Americans ahead of what
does the most good for the most people. Thus we will see a lot of
effort on nuclear nonproliferation, terrorism, drugs, ozone
depletion, climate change and other "selfish" global issues while
"selfless" issues like social justice, human rights, and local
environmental issues are slighted.

               Part 4: Gilpin notes dangers of a policy distorted
                         by self-interest. 

Political Scientist Robert Gilpin, argued something analogous to
this in 1987. The difference was that he noted that the selfishness
of countries driven by voters to improve the economic welfare of
their citizenry would eventually undermine the cooperation between
nations and prevent individual national sacrifices, both of which
are required for future economic stability and growth worldwide.
Seeing a future filled with trade wars and economic depressions as
states went into a spiral of retaliations against each other, he
believed that we had to start sacrificing in the name of future
economic growth.

Like Gilpin, I think trade wars ending in depression are a bad
thing for humanity. Unlike Gilpin, I'm ambivalent about strong
economic growth and doubt whether it should be the holy grail of
our efforts in policy making.
 
I will be the first to admit that economic growth has a string of
things to recommend it even to those who hate to measure good in
terms of money.
It opens up a whole universe of increased opportunity and comfort
to people, albeit unequally and with some disappointment that
happiness is not proportional to how much stuff one has.
It can reduce the incentives behind population growth when it draws
the world's poor out of farming and into industry. 
It can, if the new wealth is spread out enough, seriously reduce
the tendency to use domestic political violence in order to bring
about change (or prevent it) because more people now have something
to lose if the economy is hurt by the fear and uncertainty that
goes with political violence.
It can, eventually, aid respect for the environment as people stop
worrying about necessities like food, clothing, and shelter and
start to complain about the disease, discomfort, and ugly
surroundings caused by pollution. 

               Part 4A: The problems with replacing self-interest
                         with the goal of economic growth for all.

But that very same economic growth has ugly consequences, however. 
It depletes nonrenewable resources, which will become sources of
recession and international conflict as they run out. 
It transforms wilderness into subdivisions, parking lots and toxic
wastelands. 
In many poor countries it involves taking land from native peoples.
It accelerates our already wholesale extinction of plants and
animals. 
It often aggravates social inequality--further dividing the poor
against the rich and those who serve them.
And as economists and conservatives will tell you, social equality
and environmental protection both tend to prevent rapid economic
growth. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

               Part 5: If economic growth isn't the way out from
                       self-interest, what is? 

I think we *should* be more willing to sacrifice, but not for
economic growth. We should be doing it in order to make all
humankind, now and in the future, better off as a whole. *That's*
something worth sacrificing for. 

And remember Gilpin's warning, the failure to sacrifice for the
common good now means everyone will be worse off later. Obviously,
this isn't true only for economics. 

The failure to pay the price needed to achieve progress towards
equality and human rights in many areas of the world has spawned a
whole generation of terrorists raised in an environment of
hopelessness and rage. And this just as the spread of nuclear and
other technologies of mass-destruction have made terrorists
infinitely more fearsome than their historical counterparts. 
The failure to sacrifice some economic growth for environmental
protection in less developed countries may mean that our children
and grandchildren are left with a decimated heritage of species in
a world of flooded coastal cities, massive new deserts, gutted
forests, and sunlight that will hinder plant growth and kill many
more people with skin cancer.

Ignoring or helping to perpetuate extremely unjust regimes in other
countries will also set up an ugly future dilemma. After the unjust
(and therefore by necessity repressive) government kills, jails, or
radicalizes all the moderate opposition, we will then have to
choose between an intolerably repressive government and a bunch of
violent radicals who have come to hate us and everything we stand
for. Indeed, sometimes the repressive government falls despite our
continued support. This is what happened in Russia and Iran, and
what is likely to happen in Algeria.

Ignoring or perpetuating local environmental degradation can
strongly contribute to civil war as people who depend on that
environment for food and income become increasingly desperate and
unwilling to share with one another. A case of this can be seen in
Sudan. Such a backlash may eventually harm us if we have to get
involved to break it up with troops or sanctions. Doing so means
endangering our troops, losing money, or becoming the target of
terrorism by one or both sides. Note the link between Sudan and the
Trade Center bombers.

               Part 6: The principles of a selfless
                       foreign policy.

Making humankind better off as a whole requires considering
humankind as a whole when making policy. We absolutely must put
more emphasis on helping the people of this world who are
brutalized by poverty or violence, wherever they live. We can no
longer serve our own people's minor needs at the expense of other
people's or future generations' vital ones. To do so is not just
morally wrong, it is unwise.

Unfortunately, there are some complexities involved even for those
motivated by the best interests of all people. Conflicts *between*
issues within the global agenda will still exist in some cases.

Is everyone better off in the long run with a repressive China that
can make the "one child per family" policy stick, or a democratic
China that will be forced to abandon the policy by the voters and
then take desperate measures to try and support its people during
a renewed population boom? China and its rivals India and Russia
all have nuclear weapons. This is an ugly dilemma I see no answer to.

Similarly, think of the rush by Germany and others to recognize new
states inside Yugoslavia with the apparent goal of improving human
rights and social justice conditions for the peoples (Croats,
Muslims, Slovenes) who would become the majorities in these new
states. The problem was that this was done without first getting
inronclad commitments from the leaders of these new states for the
guaranteed protection for (Serb and other) minorities in those new
states. This has been identified as one of the main causes for the
outbreak of civil war in Yugoslavia and all human misery that comes
with it.

Wanting to do the most good for everyone now and in the foreseeable
future will not always and everywhere lead one to promote human
rights and environmental protection. Many other things harm people
badly in large numbers besides abusive governments and degraded
environments: war, disease, famine, nuclear/chemical/biological
terrorism, economic depression, crime, and overpopulation to name
a few. Even when "our own" and "others" are counted equally, it may
still *sometimes* be the case that something like preventing a long
war, preventing overpopulation in an already desperate country, or
greatly reducing the probability of a nuclear weapon being used
against a city can be rightfully expected to do more good than
reducing some government's abuses of its people.

But one must stop and answer three questions before one can
legitimately make the excuse that choosing to put scarce resources
into the "selfless" issue is really less beneficial to all than
choosing the "selfish" issue.

1) Are we exaggerating the benefits for ourselves in the "selfish"
issue or understating the benefits for the others in the "selfless"
issue? This temptation is very powerful and lurking behind every
decision we make. It must be fought with constant and powerful
advocacy for the benefits for the others.

2) Have we exhausted the other means we have to prevent these
greater harms in ways that don't involve sacrificing others human
rights? Drug addiction could be fought with increased spending on
treatment, for example.

3) Did we underestimate the risks to ourselves and others in
choosing the to emphasize the selfish issue? Have we factored in
the likely backlash effects? 

Only if these three questions can be answered truthfully in ways
that favor the selfish choice can that choice be acceptable.

               Part 7: Is there reason to hope for change?

It's not like we don't know how to sacrifice. We were willing to
sacrifice many of our soldiers' lives, become directly or
indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the
third world, and forego the opportunities represented by trillions
of dollars of our money, all in order to contain communism. One
would hope we could muster a tiny fraction of that willpower to
help people the world over live free from fear and despair. My hope
is that we can find the leadership to drag people's attention away
from their own lives so they will be willing to sacrifice again.


Shayne Weyker
weyker@xxxxxxxxxxx