This "contract" remains so long unmoved as the motive for entering into it, that is, fear of hurt or hope of gain, subsists. But take away from either commonwealth this hope or fear, and it is left independent (Chap. II. Sec. 10), and the link, whereby the commonwealths were mutually bound, breaks of itself. And therefore every commonwealth has the right to break its contract, whenever it chooses, and cannot be said to act treacherously or perfidiously in breaking its word, as soon as the motive of hope or fear is removed. For every contracting party was on equal terms in this respect, that whichever could first free itself of fear should be independent, and make use of its independence after its own mind; and, besides, no one makes a contract respecting the future, but on the hypothesis of certain precedent circumstances. But when these circumstances change, the reason of policy applicable to the whole position changes with them; and therefore every one of the contracting commonwealths retains the right of consulting its own interest, and consequently endeavours, as far as possible, to be free from fear and thereby independent, and to prevent another from coming out of the contract with greater power. If then a commonwealth complains that it has been deceived, it cannot properly blame the bad faith of another contracting commonwealth, but only its own folly in having entrusted its own welfare to another party, that was independent, and had for its highest law the welfare of its own dominion.--Spinoza Political Treatise (translated by Elwest) 3.14.
This post was prompted by Andrew Sabl's fine restatement (at Niskanen) of the nature and use liberal institutions in light of the fact that when "the core institutions of liberal democracy are threatened, it is necessary—as it usually isn’t—to examine why they exist and why they are valuable." It's an important, creative, and original piece, and it makes me think that now that we're confronting the possible collapse of liberal project, some of the best theorizing about (let's call it) non-ideal liberal theory is possible. But not unlike Jacob Levy's recent essay (recall my discussion), Sabl's piece not does discuss the international dimension in which liberalism operates. (This may be due to the fact that Niskanen seems to be a think-tank oriented toward American domestic politics.) That's a problem because I want to discuss the unraveling of NATO.
Even so, it's useful to draw on Sabl's insights when discussing NATO, and it may help us formulate a better liberalism for the future. Sabl identifies six features of modern liberal institutions. What follows is all quoted from his essay (but in abbreviated format, so don't blame him for any confusion):
- a modern institution must be large-scale and anonymous; it must allow us to benefit from the contributions of strangers, not just intimates. It must operate by managing conflict and diversity rather than wishing it away. And it must be open to steady improvement, either by learning and reform within a society or—a source of improvement neglected by much political theory—by observing and borrowing other societies’ best practices.
- modern liberal institutions owe their past development and present stability to their ability to serve the interests of all members of society (by promoting in some sense equal opportunity.)
- a modern liberal institution promotes indefinite and multiple values and purposes, rather than giving priority to any one (or none);
- modern liberal institutions value diversity and conflict up to a point; and their first preference in dealing with agents who threaten to bring about truly dangerous conflict is to marginalize and discredit them, limiting their influence and impact, rather than resorting to direct coercion;
- modern liberal institutions need not reflect a prior plan, nor a post-hoc consensus: they typically arise largely accidentally, and persist in the face of sharp disagreement (or, more commonly, mere ignorance and unconcern) as to their essential nature and proper working.
- modern liberal institutions occupy controverted jurisdictions: each has partisans who want to expand its turf at the risk of impinging on others’.
It's clear at once that NATO does not really fit feature (i), but remarkably and surprisingly enough it does fit the other features quite well. (I won't argue this here, and open to challenge.) Now, I treat NATO as one of the key, constitutive institutions that made the liberal order (Pax Americana) since 1950 possible.* That is, I see it as a liberal mechanism to escape, perhaps temporarily, the state of nature that characterizes international politics by way of a mutual contract (recall this piece on Sabl and Hume). It secured American, transatlantic hegemony, and thereby prevented the possibility of a rival military power, and it provided collective security against external threats (primarily the USSR) and internal threats (primarily communist revolutions) while tolerating quite a few dictatorships in its midst. It's this security arrangement that by reducing political uncertainty and regulating and constraining would-be-conflicts made possible all the huge, collective gains from the evolving liberal economic orders since and, en passant, created a fairly captive market for US arms. (Thus this is not to deny a reciprocal relationship in that economic interests promoted NATO, and that American economic and intellectual power were a cause of its military power, etc.)
As Spinoza teaches (see above), it is very difficult to maintain an alliance when a common enemy disappears (no fear) or when individual gain seems unlikely. With the collapse of the USSR, fear disappeared. (NATO was not just founded in opposition to USSR, of course; it was also designed to keep the Germans down.) But that's almost 30 years ago (wow I am getting old). And while it tried to define new missions for itself, inertia and the win-win liberal economic order kept it going.
Now, by the time of the end of the Cold War nearly all of its members were liberal democracies or aspiring to become one, so one may well have responded to Spinoza by suggesting that common values can also keep an alliance together. (There is a whole literature on the claim that liberal democracies don't go to war with each other [recall my post on the pre-history of this meme in Addison and Kant].) That claim does not rely on other liberal commitments. (For example, Marxists were once happy to assume that Marxists would be friendly to each other; absolutist monarchies were known to support each other against all kinds of uprisings, etc.) I think shared values can be a strong tie, but as we're learning liberal democracies may, in fact, evolve such that their values seem to be conflicting/inimical to each other. I think that's happening.
For, we're witnessing the unraveling of NATO in front of our eyes: this week Germany decided to withdraw some of its troops from a Turkish airbase, after the Turks refused access to the base by German parliamentarians. A few months ago a Turkish minister was refused access to a campaign rally (involving the Turkish referendum) and evicted from the the Netherlands. These days European journalists are routinely detained in Turkey on some charge or another. Nominally, these are all NATO allies. It's hard to say what is cause and effect but ever since the Taxim square crackdown, European clear reluctance to let Turkey start final, EU accession talks, the EU and Turkey have been moving increasingly far apart and Turkey is sliding into petty tyranny.** This matters because in the Syria civil war, the proxies supported by various interested NATO allies (primarily Turkey, USA, and France) were effectively fighting each other.
The previous paragraph all describe issues that have developed during President Obama's tenure, so this is not a bash-Trump-post. But if the US had an interest in keeping the NATO alliance together we would not see this increasing escalation of friction over differences. Yet, throughout his campaign, President Trump has been -- to put this politely -- lukewarm over the future of NATO; his recent unwillingness to reaffirm article 5 (the core commitment to mutual defense) means that the mutual trust presupposed in NATO is evaporating. Officially, Trump wants to renegotiate the financial terms of NATO, but that de facto entails a willingness to walk away from it (recall my recent post that rationalizes Trump's foreign policy). This is not just idle speculation, for Trump's actions are being interpreted as such most prominently by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Let me wrap up by returning to Sabl's list in light of NATO's development and present crisis. I think (ii) needs to be rephrased in terms of belief (so: modern liberal institutions owe their past development and present stability to their ability to serve the perceived interests of all). I think (v) is right, but in his piece, Sabl overlooks the significance of some level of mutual trust (or, if one prefers, social capital). Nationalist-liberals (like Mill) or nationalist critics of liberalism (recall Haivry & Hazony) tend to point to the nation as a source of such trust. The nationalists are wrong in thinking that the nation is the only or best source of such trust (religions and other sources of shared value may be equally capable), but I think too many contemporary liberals have forgotten that dispositions that allow us to maintain some sense of unity need to be cultivated on an ongoing basis (recall) and cannot be left (and this builds on Sabl) to the market or to ideals of justice un-grounded in reactive attitudes. This requires effective (and potentially collective) leadership. And, finally, this shows (iv) really presupposes that none of the agents (or group of the agents) has effective veto-power or are indispensable to the functioning of the institution as the USA is in NATO.***
*Here I do not evaluate the effects of Pax Americana on the (African and Latin American) peoples of the Southern Atlantic. So while I treat a liberal international order as desirable, I do not mean to suggest it is harm/injustice-free; on the contrary, it generated a lot of deplorable behavior.
**This is not to excuse Erdoğan, but it's clear that once EU entry became unlikely, the Turkish government's commitment to parliamentary democracy has been in decline.
***Of course, the very last point shows that (i) presupposes not just large-scale and anonymity, but also something like a price-taking model.
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