Hal Brands, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has written a thought provoking essay, titled The Age of Amorality: Can America Save the Liberal Order through Illiberal Means? He leads off the essay with a cogent question from Reinhold Neibuhr, written in 1946, “how much evil we must do in order to do good?” This, I think, is a very succinct statement of the human situation. Brand makes the point that the preservation of the liberal order and the liberal values for which the United States stands will sometimes involve “illiberal means.” We end up supporting countries, for example, that are far from perfect to achieve the balance of power we need.
Brand posits several principles with which I generally agree:
1. Morality is a compass, not a straitjacket. In the name of moral integrity, political sustainability and strategic self-interest, America’s statecraft should point toward a world consistent with its values. But the United States cannot paralyze itself by trying to fully embody those values in every tactical decision. Above all, it must practice as well as possible the values it advocates. Lived example speaks far louder than words and pronouncements. A "sinning preacher" carries no weight.
2. The United States should remember that taking the broad view is as vital as taking the long view. Support for democracy and human rights is not an all-or-nothing proposition. In this context, I believe the case for cooperation versus the alternative of cutting relationships with India is correct despite its not exhibiting appropriate tolerance of Muslims under the increasingly Hindu-nationalistic Modi government.
3. We need to recognize that "marginal improvements" matter. We won’t convince leaders in the UAE or Turkey or China to commit political suicide by abandoning their domestic models lock stock and barrel more or less overnight but our leverage reinforced by our example at home can help mitigate illiberal actions by, for example, seeking the release of political prisoners or by making elections a bit fairer.
4. We need to be patient and recognize we can’t achieve major change all at once. Often, we must allow history to take its course. That is what we did in confronting the Soviet Union; that is what we should do today in confronting the issues of China. Co-existence with China is essential, not just to avoid catastrophe, but to take advantage of the benefit that synergistic relationships with China can provide.
I am of course describing a balancing act requiring acute judgment. It evolves to a company level as well. Take Procter & Gamble as an example. In Saudi Arabia, where P&G had an important business founded in the 1950s, women were not permitted to work in the same room as men as late as the 1980. So what did P&G do? How could we abide by the law and still respect and take advantage of women who wanted to work? We had women in one office and men in another and had them communicate and collaborate by phone. It was far from ideal but it was manageable. We stayed in Saudi Arabia, continuing to foster gender equality. We believed and hoped that in time the law would change. Today, that law has changed and men and women share common work spaces.
Similarly, Procter & Gamble has faced a very difficult decision whether to continue to operate a core business in Russia. To date, we have decided we should, despite Russia's having a regime whose values and actions we absolutely disagree with. But weighing the options, we have decided that provided our employees remain safe, closing all of our operations--resulting in the significant loss of assets, harm to thousands of employees and deprivation of quality brands to consumers-- would result in more harm than whatever good it might produce. This decision will probably remain under continuing review.
There is a challenge here. A difficult one. There are "slippery slopes" in balancing the trade off of values and pragmatic actions required to stay alive. Staying with P&G as an example, if we found the only way we could stay in business would be to pay bribes to the government, I do not believe we could stay in business. If we were obliged to discriminate against some employees in a way that denied their safety, I do not believe we could stay in business. If for some reason, we were not able to make products that were safe for consumers to use, we could not stay in business. There are red lines which cannot be crossed. Defining them demands judgement of the highest integrity and continuing review to be sure that to the best of our ability we are doing the right thing.
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