Security first: ours, theirs and the global order's.

• Author: Etzioni, Amitai
• Position: United States national security

BOTH NEOCONSERVATIVES and liberals have overestimated the extent to which one nation, even a superpower with United Nations support, can re-engineer regimes. Neoconservatives believe forced democratization is possible; liberals believe in the transformative power of foreign aid, debt relief, trade concessions and support for reformers. The tragic reality is that both approaches to long-distance, large-scale social engineering have failed in most cases.

One cannot stop genocide without bringing home body bags (as the Dutch found in Srebrenica). Brutal international realities often require following a "second-worst" course to avoid the "first-worst" one--our choices are not always between the best and the second best. In short, ask not what international order you desire, but what international order you can achieve.

Dimitri Simes made the same point in the last issue of The National Interest:

The idea that foreign policy decisions require hard-headed analysis and difficult choices is apparently offensive to those who believe that international affairs is a morality play and the United States is a global hegemon entitled, and indeed obliged, to right what they see as global wrongs. But being realistic about American options and dilemmas is not an obstacle to morality.... Principled realism has moral foundations all its own. It avoids squandering lives and scarce resources (including political will, not just economic assets and military might) in the pursuit of illusory goals, the delays that result from unrealistically ambitious goals (for instance, opposing a unilateral withdrawal by Israel from Gaza because a negotiated one is preferred) and promises that cannot be realized (such as turning Middle Eastern nations into "shining democracies" by "flipping Iraq")--all of which in turn avoid losing credibility abroad and at home.

THE DEMISE of democratization as a rationale for U.S. foreign policy is all too evident. However, one can only now discern which leitmotif is to replace it. Using the principle of the "primacy of life", I propose what might be termed a "security first" approach.

Security here refers to conditions--both domestic and international--under which most people, most of the time, are able to go about their lives, venture onto the street, work, study and participate in public life (politics included) without acute fear of being killed or injured. It does not mean a utopia in which no crime or violence exists, and indeed to pursue "full-fledged" security puts us on a slippery slope toward a police state. Hence, this approach does not favor curtailing basic freedoms for marginal security gains in London, Madrid or New York.

A security first approach is centered on the assumption, increasingly borne out by events not only in Iraq but also in places like Russia, that security is a prerequisite for successful democratization. Among many Americans, there is a tendency to view security as antithetical to individual and civil rights and to warn that in the quest for security a nation may end up a dictatorship. These are indeed valid concerns. However, one should not overlook the primacy of the right to life. To not be killed, maimed or tortured are basic human rights, enumerated

in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Also, Life precedes Liberty (and the Pursuit of Happiness) in the American lineup of core values.

Much of ethics deals with ranking two goods rather than determining which is right versus which is wrong. Lives and legal-political rights are two such goods. One is naturally inclined to hold that the government can protect both, and there is truth there: The better life is protected, the stronger the support for non-security rights. But, when the two do conflict...