Author: Christina Pazzanese
Affiliation: The Harvard Gazette
Organization/Publisher: The Harvard Gazette
Date/Place: January 21, 2020, U.S.
Type of Literature: Interview
Word Count: 1994
Keywords: The U.S’ Presidents, Foreign Policy, Morals, and Neoliberalism
Brief:
In this interview, Joseph Nye answers some of the questions related to his recent book: “Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy From FDR To Trump”. Nye is, above all, one of the most prominent contemporary theorists of neoliberalism, he established by his writings many theoretical terms and approaches that have taken their place in the international relations field. He explains here the role that morals have played for each US president since World War II. Many incentives prompted the author to address this issue, some of them are related to the school that he is defending, and some are related to many controversial behaviors that have been pursued by Trump since his arrival to the White House, as many people see the latter as an irresponsible leader who reiterates lies, takes risks with the lives of Americans, and ignores human rights issues in other countries. In his book, Nye is keen on distinguishing between the national interest and the personal interests of the president and gives many examples of controversial cases in this regard (Trump and the Ukrainian case) in which it is difficult to determine objectively whether the act was moral or not. Moreover, Nye believes that moral foreign policy is not only related to good intentions but also combines three dimensions: intentions, the means that are used, and the consequences; the balancing between these three dimensions is what gives us an objective assessment of whether the political behavior is ethical or not. The author believes that presidents must balance between the Wilsonian liberalism (Idealism) and Machiavellian pragmatism (Realism), warning of the danger of a total inclination for one of them. Also, he notes the inability to flee from this duality, especially when it comes to the public’s assessment of the president’s policy. For example, people previously complained about Carter’s great interest in human rights, while many now complain about Trump’s neglect of this issue, and American history has known many similar examples: “you can have differences about how much human rights or values you want in your definition of a national interest.” In order to assess how ethical are the decisions, Nye gives importance to the context in which the controversial decisions of presidents revolve, or what he calls “contextual intelligence.” Truman, for example, who dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, saw his act as a right choice (Despite the US winning of war) because the world in that time was not aware of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons; the same person refused later to use atomic weapons in the Korean War in order to save himself from losing the war. In addition, the author attaches importance to the personality of the leader, as it plays an important role in the extent of his commitment to the moral action or not. In this regard, he expresses great admiration for the personality of President George Bush Sr., who better established a balance between the moral act and the US interest at the moment when the Berlin Wall fell. Finally, Nye believes that the US should take the lead (despite its declining global supremacy) on many contemporary issues such as climate change and global financial stability because she is the only actor who can spare everyone the negative impacts of these issues. These are issues of a global moral nature that would further the US’ standing and national interests as well.
By: Djallel Khechib, CIGA Senior Research Associate
