Remarks on Accepting the Hans J. Morgenthau Award*
Toward a Twenty-First–Century Concert

Richard N. Haass

Ladies and gentlemen, to receive the Morgenthau award is a great honor. Like many of you in this room, I cut my teeth on Politics Among Nations. Morgenthau is widely heralded as the apostle of realism and for good reason. But even more he remains remarkable for the sheer rigor and clarity of his thought. The fact that 2004 marks the 100th anniversary of Morgenthau’s birth only adds to my pleasure at being here with you this evening.

There are three other factors, though, that I would like to mention.

First, it is wonderful to be recognized the same evening that Hank Greenberg receives the Kennan award. Hank is a patriot to his core and one of this country’s leading corporate statesman. He is living proof that you can do good at the same time you do well. He has done a sensational job for the shareholders of AIG and for the country. Hank has directly, through his ideas, and indirectly, through his philanthropy, affected the course of U.S. foreign policy not only in Asia but also throughout the world and affected it for the better. One more thing. I would be remiss (that’s a euphemism for dumb) if I did not point out that Maurice Greenberg is also honorary vice chair and one of the pillars of my own organization.

Second, it is a tribute to receive an award that has gone to two of my one-time bosses, George Shultz and Colin Powell; to former colleagues Tom Pickering, Jim Baker, and Jeane Kirkpatrick; to the former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, David Rockefeller; and to my dear friend Sol Linowitz. I am pleased my wife, Susan, is here tonight to witness all this; I am only sorry my parents are no longer alive. For those of you who are familiar with Yiddish, this would have been a moment of great kvelling.

Third, let me return the favor and pay tribute where it is due. It is not every day I praise another foreign affairs organization. But I want to do just that tonight. After 30 years, the National Committee on American Foreign Policy is going strong. This is a very good thing for all of us. The National Committee stands out as an oasis of nonpartisanship and serious thought about this country’s purposes in the world. I want to salute the National Committee’s president, George Schwab, and its chairman, Bill Flynn.

Until recently I served as the envoy of Secretary Powell and President Bush to the Northern Ireland peace process. I didn’t make total peace, but I did make a terrific friend. Time and time again Bill Flynn showed himself to be someone of great courage, wise counsel, and intense commitment. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to thank him publicly for his service to his country.

The title of my remarks tonight is “Toward a Twenty-First–Century Concert.” Let me apologize now to any of you who came here tonight under false pretenses. I will not be discussing Mozart or Haydn. The good news is that I won’t be doing any singing either. I speak of a “concert” in the sense derived from experience some two centuries ago in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. As some of you in this room will recall, the leaders of the world at the time—the leaders of Prussia, England, France, Russia, and Austria–Hungary—met in Vienna and other European cities to develop informal rules of the road to guide the conduct of international relations. They produced what Henry Kissinger has described as “an international agreement about the nature of workable arrangements and about the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy.”

The goal of Castlereagh, Metternich, Talleyrand, and their counterparts was to avoid the sort of major power war that had characterized European affairs; the key principle was a common understanding to avoid interfering in one another’s internal affairs. The result was the Concert of Europe and decades of relative peace on the Continent.

The question I have set for myself tonight is whether it might be desirable and possible to establish something similar in our time. As you have no doubt surmised, my short answer is “yes.”

Let me be clear. When I say “similar” I do not mean to suggest that today’s world is structurally similar to that of two centuries ago. To the contrary. Then there was a truly multipolar world. Today’s world, in addition to being defined by global flows of people, ideas, dollars, drugs, germs, guns, gases, goods, and services, is far more unipolar, especially in the military realm. Then there was a balance of power; today international relations are characterized more by an imbalance of power. Nor do I mean similar in terms of purposes. The purpose of a twenty-first–century concert would not be to resist calls for self-determination but to manage the challenges intrinsic to globalization and to deal with the most pressing threats to the common security and prosperity.

This last point suggests that there is an important parallel between the concert of the early nineteenth century and the potential concert of today: namely, the notion of the principal powers of the era agreeing to restrain their competition; take one another’s interests into account; and, where possible, work together on behalf of common purposes. To do so they will need to overcome what Hans Morgenthau might have described as their natural inclination to compete.

The good news is that the current and projected U.S. advantage in many aspects of power works to reduce this inclination to struggle, as no clear prospect exists for any one country or group of countries to challenge the United States for supremacy any time soon. This discrepancy in strength, however, is not in itself sufficient for a modern-day concert to materialize.

The other centers of power in today’s world—an increasingly united Europe, Russia, China, Japan, and India, as well as such countries as Brazil, South Korea, and South Africa— must see that entering into a concert is in their interests as well. To put it another way, they must conclude that their own interests will fare better if they choose to cooperate with the United States and with one another rather than compete.

This is where the United States comes in. The United States for its part must demonstrate that it will use its primacy in a manner that benefits others as well as itself. This will require not simply a renewed consideration of the ends of American foreign policy but also the means; how we act as a country at times will count for as much as what we do.

Why should the United States seek a concert? The basic reason is simple: For all its absolute and relative power, for all its political, economic, and military reach, the United States can do no better in the world without the participation and support of others, and there are some things that the United States on its own cannot do at all. Americans should not want to see the emergence of a world in which others sit on their hands and opt out of working with the United States to meet challenges that affect us all; even less do we want to see a world in which other power centers work against us and focus their energies on one day competing with the United States. We similarly want to avoid a world in which armed intervention becomes the rule rather than the exception.

What, then, might be the basis of a contemporary concert? I can imagine a good many potential building blocks, including the promotion of open societies, market economies, and an open world trading system. Tonight I will focus on three.

The first begins with the assertion that citizens as well as governments have rights. This principle is enshrined in various international documents. But beyond that are the arguments that governments ought not to be allowed to massacre their own people and that weak governments should not be allowed to permit massacres to take place on their own territory even if they are not carrying out the massacre. Governments have the responsibility not only not to kill their own people but to make sure their people are not killed. Ideally, a concert would embrace not only this principle but the necessary consequence: that other states and the international community at large have a right and a duty to act to protect innocent life when it is jeopardized on a large scale.

The second idea falls within the realm of terrorism and reflects the view that states should not carry out terrorism or allow their territory or their resources to be used by those who do. By terrorism I mean the intentional killing of innocent men, women, and children for political purposes.

A third potential element of a contemporary concert would make clear that states have the responsibility not to facilitate in any way the spread or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in general and nuclear weapons in particular. Actually, this formulation does not go far enough. Ideally, states would commit to do everything in their power to frustrate the proliferation of all weapons of mass destruction and modern delivery systems such as ballistic missiles.

The first of these ideas, the idea that states should not massacre their own or allow their own to be massacred, was at the core of the American and European response to the tragedy in the Balkans. The intervention was premised on the notion that Mr. Milosevic should not be allowed to carry out wide-scale ethnic cleansing, much less murder, of his own populations, that sovereignty did not confer upon him that right. Related to this conclusion is the notion that the international community has the right or even obligation to act if a state fails to meet its obligation to protect its own people.

There is considerable support for this idea, particularly throughout Europe. But this support is hardly universal. In particular, both China and Russia (and to some extent India) worry that such a norm could be used against them by establishing a precedent for international involvement in what each views as its own internal affairs.

The challenge for the United States and others subscribing to the principle of humanitarian intervention it as a pretext or license for military and other forms of intervention in what has traditionally been seen as falling within the sovereign purview of states. This will require making clear that the threshold for intervention is high; a large number of people must be in danger, and the threat must be acute. All forms of intervention and not just the military must be considered. Consensus on these points would represent an important accomplishment: It would at least hold open the prospect of major power action, something that in turn might help dissuade leaders from undertaking policies that would place populations at risk.

The second potential basis of a concert, the idea that states ought not to be in the business of terrorism, was at the core of the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan. As you will recall, it wasn’t the Taliban that carried out 9/11. There were no Afghans among the 19 on the planes that killed 3,000 innocent people. But it was the Taliban who allowed Afghanistan to be the base for Al Qaeda. And there was a widespread if not quite universal sense that that was unacceptable, which then led to international support for the military removal of the Taliban from power.

Considerable support exists for the notion that terrorism is wrong. But I would not exaggerate the depth or breadth of this consensus. There is no agreement on what constitutes terrorism. My definition—the purposeful killing of innocents for political purposes—would not necessarily be everyone else’s. And there is no consensus on what is the correct remedy when terrorism is carried out by a state or a state allows its territory to be used by terrorists.

That said, the goal ought to be to get wide acceptance of the notion that no form of purposeful killing of innocents is permissible in today’s world, whatever the cause. Branding terrorism so defined as wrong is important. It is the equivalent of calling for the abolition of slavery or the outlawing of genocide. At times it is important to get an intellectual consensus about an activity. After that consensus is reached, you can then argue in the specific case about what to do. But without such a consensus, you are much less likely to forge a common policy.

The third potential pillar of a contemporary concert is opposition to the spread of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in particular. Here a good deal of commonality exists. One must begin with the Nonproliferation Treaty itself, a treaty that certifies only five countries—the United States, Russia, China, Britain, and France—as legitimate nuclear weapons states and commits those five to reduce and ultimately eliminate their own stockpiles of nuclear weapons. There are as well many other agreements, including bans on testing and various supplier groups, created to keep critical materials and technologies out of the wrong hands.

But such international efforts are clearly inadequate. The nuclear club has expanded to at least eight or possibly nine countries. Moreover, even that number could increase and come to include actors other than states such as Al Qaeda. There is no consensus on how to view these exceptions; nor is there agreement on what to do about those states such as North Korea (which may already possess nuclear weapons) and Iran (which appears to want them).

It is difficult to imagine any higher priority than arriving at a common approach to these issues. Not only is the prospect of a terrorist group or unstable regime in possession of nuclear weapons a nightmare, but it will require collective—indeed, near universal—effort if these challenges are to be met successfully. This is the reality of the age we live in: Global problems increasingly require global solutions. At a minimum, a concerted approach would involve closing the loop-hole in the Nonproliferation Treaty that allows countries to become virtual nuclear weapons states without violating the treaty. A distinction must be made between the right to possess a civilian nuclear power program and the right to have control over nuclear fuel. Ideally, the major powers would also begin to consult on what should be done when states are discovered to be developing nuclear weapons.

Will all the major powers agree to everything I have called for? Of course not. But it is important to start discussing these issues now and to build a foundation for common policies. This should make it less difficult to reach a common position if and when crises arise. If you like, call it preemptive diplomacy.

But no amount of prior consultation will guarantee consent and cooperation in specific circumstances. Blank checks are as rare in diplomacy as in other walks of life. A concert requires not simply agreement on principles but commitment to a process. Stated differently, a concert is not just about principles and norms; if it is to have meaning, it must also be about policy.

There ought to be a commitment to seeking the broadest possible agreement before undertaking an action, particularly one involving military force. This translates into an effort to have the UN Security Council endorse the contemplated action. If this appears or proves to be impossible, it would not be the end of the road. The United Nations is one but not the only source of multilateralism and legitimacy. The relevant regional organization would be the natural next step, after which one would turn to coalitions of the willing, constructed as broadly as possible. Only as a last resort would a major power act unilaterally.

It can be argued, for example, that it was good and right that NATO provided the political as well as military foundation for armed intervention in Kosovo when no consensus in the United Nations was forthcoming. And, as we have seen, UN failure to approve action can have terrible consequences; one need only recall here Cambodia or Rwanda.

What is clear is that there is no getting around a case-by-case approach. At the same time, it is important to weigh the case for acting in a particular context when no consensus among the major powers exists against the long-term interest of developing a concert and encouraging the emergence of a world in which the major powers work at common and not cross purposes.

There may be some useful guidelines for navigating this unavoidable tradeoff. It is important to give a fair chance and ample time for consensus to emerge. Consultations must be genuine and not simply an effort to insist on an already-determined policy. A decision to opt out of formal multilateralism should be made only when there is an urgent need to act. The case must also be of sufficient weight or seriousness to justify acting. This is especially true when the intervention is military in nature. Preemptive or, more accurately, preventive uses of military force should remain an exception. Whenever the United States or another power elects to go its own way, it should go to great lengths to explain itself, in private beforehand, publicly in the aftermath. And the country in question should return as soon as possible to the formal diplomatic fold, undertaking subsequent actions with the greatest possible global or regional involvement.

In the end, a perfect concert is not within our reach. The United States is not the conductor; the world is not composed of players under our sway. But we can achieve a world in which great powers cooperate more than compete, in which multilateralism is a more accurate reflection of reality than is multipolarity, in which the major powers focus their power less on one another and more on the transnational challenges that affect one and all.

I’ll conclude by returning to Hans Morgenthau: “International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power,” he wrote. “Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim.” On one level, he is right, for all politics takes place in a context defined by power. But, on another level, Morgenthau needs to be adapted for today. Unlike previous eras of recent history, the principal struggles in the modern world are not between the major powers. To the contrary, because of globalization, the principal challenges in today’s world are to the major powers. This is why forging a concert is, to borrow from Morgenthau, very much in defense of the national interest.

Thank you.

About the Author

Ambassador Richard N. Haass, former deputy director of policy planning at the State Department, is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In Memoriam

The Executive Committee of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy expresses its deepest condolences to Joan Peters on the loss of her mother, Cora Ebeling.

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*Remarks made to the National Committee on American Foreign Policy on the occasion of receiving the Hans J. Morgenthau Award on March 16, 2004.

Photos of the Presentation of the Han J. Morgenthau Award to Richard N. Haass
Photos of the Presentation of the George F. Kennan Award to Maurice R. Greenberg