A More Christian Foreign Policy, Part I

Minding Your Own Business

The foreign policies of most nations in the West represent a clutch of disasters. An extremely good and forceful case can be made for the West being judged to be the world's harridan, shrewishly lecturing every other people and nation on how they should conduct their affairs. This is a direct legacy of Enlightenment thinking which has enshrined so-called human rights as being the fundamental authority above all governments and powers in the world. To all practical intents and purposes human rights equal god in the pagan Christian world-view.

The political and foreign policy ramifications of such a world-view are illustrated in part by Napoleon under the aegis of the French Revolution. The world was to have “liberty, equality, and fraternity” whether it liked it or not—and the French regiments where there to make sure that it did. We believe there is principially very little difference between Napoleon's attempt to make the world safe for human rights and attempts within the US to make the world safe for democracy. Both alike have been driven by a revolutionary rights-based ideology that works deliberately to threaten and undermine other nation-states. Both alike appeal to a "higher law" which justifies (to their mind) the rectitude of interfering in the affairs of other nations.

It is important that Christians do not get sucked in to this prevailing consensus. We believe the Unbelieving modern view of international relationships in the West is unworkable in practice and rotten in its fruits. For example, every action taken by the US on the world “stage” has bad outcomes and negative unintended consequences. If the US supports the cause of the Palestinians, it arouses the ire of radical groups like Hamas and other extremist Muslim organizations, which need the US and Israel to be bogey-men, so they can hold their populations in thrall. They will do all they can to undermine the “peace process”. But when the US supports Israel, it enrages the entire Arab world. The US is damned if it does, and damned if it does not.

North Korea provides another example. If the US takes aggressive steps against North Korea, it arouses the anger of China, which fears an unstable border with North Korea. If it does not take firm steps, it risks emboldening US enemies and possibly places South Korea under threat. Once again, it is a no-win situation.

The matter is no better with its “allies”. If the US takes firm leadership, its allies get offended for not being sufficiently consulted. If it does not move out ahead, its allies criticise it for not doing enough. The liberal wings of the US polity are starting to face this now. They had become ashamed of President Bush, thinking that he had offended far too many allies, reducing the mana of the US to very low levels. They wanted the US to be more respected, particularly in Europe. They believed that the US needed a more reasoned and measured and consultative president. Has the US become more respected amongst its allies under Obama? Not at all. He is increasingly being seen by traditional US allies as vacillating, weak, and ineffectual. He talks a big game, but cannot play.

Our view is that these problems are inextricable to foreign policies based upon Unbelieving ideologies of human rights and the spurious internationalism they produce.

Christian foreign policy theory rests on very different foundations. To start with, the Christian faith has a doctrine of the State in which its duty and function is limited, focused, and proscribed by God Himself.

It is the duty of a State to punish evil doers within its jurisdiction. But, it is not the duty of a State to punish evil wherever it is found in the world. It has no authority to wield the sword against evildoers in other nations. This doctrine of carefully proscribed and limited power and a limited sphere of legitimacy of the State prohibits offensive warfare. Regardless of how evil or malicious or oppressive or murderous another State or nation may be, other nations and governments have no authority to punish or force such “rogue States” to stop or change. Even state-sanctioned genocide does not justify another government's intrusion of armed force, for no other government has lawful God-given jurisdiction. This holds true regardless of how many resolutions a spurious “international community” might confabulate to cook up.

Of course in this imperfect and fallen world, governments can find all sorts of pretexts for interfering in the affairs of another sovereign nation. Emotive appeals to justice, defending oppressed peoples, and upholding universal human rights can be effective cloaks to less salutary motives, or allegations thereof. There are not many folk who seriously doubt that the two Gulf Wars, for instance, were promulgated for reasons of maintaining security of oil supply to the West, despite being cloaked as assisting the invaded citizens of Kuwait and latterly the oppressed citizens of Iraq.

But, some will object, surely we have an obligation to go to the defence of the invaded, non-aggressive nation? Have we not been taught from our mother's knees to defend the weak and the vulnerable against bullies and aggressors? Correct. But who or what has that duty with respect to people in other nations?

In a fallen world, evil, rapine, murder and oppression occur. It must be accepted as a fact-of-fallen-life. No civil state, as God's minister, has any authority, calling, or jurisdiction to attempt to punish evildoers outside of its realm, regardless of whether the evil doers are governments, corporate entities, or individuals. No civil state has any authority to put its military in harm's way by interfering in the affairs of other nations. It may claim such authority, or its voters may be enticed into thinking they can approve it, but it remains nonetheless an illicit arrogation of power. Because it goes beyond the appointment of the Lord, its end results produce greater evils still.

It is, however, the duty of the State to protect its own resident citizens against armed aggression and attack. Strong defensive military capability and preparedness is a fundamental duty of the State and of all its citizens. Those who attack the people of a nation should face a relentless and utterly ruthless defensive response. If a government is fulfilling its divine obligations to maintain an adequate defence the cost to an aggressor of attacking a nation must always far outweigh any hoped-for benefit. The Christian view of war is that it is a necessary and righteous act, but only when it is punishing an evildoing people or government which threatens the lives of citizens and subjects.

Thus, it was the duty of the government of Kuwait to defend its people against the armed aggression of Iraq. If the government had spent Kuwaiti petro-dollars on securing appropriate military technology, and it it had sufficiently educated, armed and trained its people rather than installing gold plated taps in the luxury mansions of the elite they would like never have been invaded in the first place. If the government of Kuwait failed in one of its most basic duties and responsibilities, why should any other government or “coalition of the willing” have an obligation to act and thus put the lives of its own citizens at risk?

A government is defalcating and failing if it enters into arrangements or treaties or covenants with other nations which require those governments to share responsibility for the defence of its own citizens, or makes the government responsible to assist the defence of the citizens of another country.

The fundamental posture of a Christian nation, then, is that of an armed-to-the-teeth defensive neutrality.