Western politicians are all too inclined to believe that the experience of the post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union demonstrates that nationalism is inherently dangerous. A closer investigation suggests the opposite. Yugoslavia is not the rule but the exception. For example, Hungary, apart from a small minority of extreme nationalists, has learned to accept the territorial losses of seventy years ago under which some two million Hungarians live in Romania, 600,000 in Slovakia, 400,000 in Yugoslavia and 200,000 in Ukraine. The Hungarians understandably insist on fair treatment for their diaspora. But they are a sufficiently mature democracy to understand that the principle of ‘all Hungarians in one state’ would lead to catastrophe.[86]
Similarly, although there are forces in Russia which would like to exploit the situation of the twenty-five million Russians living outside Russia in states which were once part of the Soviet Union, so far this has been a matter of rhetoric rather than reality. Although the Russian minorities certainly face some problems, it seems unlikely that most of them feel sufficiently threatened to wish to destroy the states of which they are now part: indeed, in many cases they voted for the independence of those states from the USSR.[87]
To what extent does the case of the breakaway Chechen Republic and the ensuing crisis cast doubt on the principle of nationhood as a sound basis for stable order? The Chechens certainly have solid claims to self-determination: they are a nation with their own language and religion and have long striven for independence since being forcibly absorbed within the Russian Empire in the last century. The argument that the West should overlook — or even support — the brutal military action taken to crush Chechnya in order to keep Russia together and Mr Yeltsin in the Kremlin is deeply flawed. It is not for us to determine the shape of Russia; states cannot ultimately be kept together by force, they have to create the conditions for national and regional minorities to stay within them; and when the West overlooks the abuses of human rights and breach of international (CSCE) treaty obligations which have occurred, we undermine the forces of democracy in Russia, not assist them. There is, of course, no neat democratic solution to the problems which plague the sprawling entity that is Russia. But its component peoples have the right to be treated with respect — even if, as is alleged of the Chechens, some of their members are involved in criminal activities. And if ultimately the Chechens wish to go their own way, Russia will gain nothing by seeking to prevent their doing so.
Of course, as with Chechnya, the history of past struggles influences the present. It is not my purpose to suggest that all nationalisms are good, let alone safe. But much is blamed on them which is attributable to other problems — in general, primitive political cultures retarded by communism and, in particular, lack of respect for human rights and democracy. Moreover, the record of supra-nationalisms is at least as mixed as that of nationalisms proper and their potential far more dangerous.
ADVANCING FREEDOM
This brings me to my fourth suggested tenet of a conservative foreign policy, which is that we should persistently seek to advance freedom, democracy and human rights across the world. The reasons why are, above all, practical. Democracies do not by and large make wars upon each other. Regimes which respect human rights at home are more likely to forswear aggression abroad. In practice, even the most cynical practitioner of realpolitik judges the threat from different quarters not only according to military technology but also according to the nature of the regime. It is, for example, at least as much because North Korea is a totalitarian dictatorship as because it apparently possesses a nuclear capability that its behaviour has rightly caused so much concern. The values of freedom give even culturally different countries a common understanding of the need for restraint, compromise and respect. That is why it is an essential part of foreign policy to encourage them.
The so-called Reagan doctrine, which Ronald Reagan developed in a speech to both Houses of Parliament in 1982, demonstrated just how potent a weapon in international politics human rights could be. His view was that we should fight the battle of ideas for freedom against communism throughout the world and refuse to accept the permanent exclusion of the captive nations from the benefits of freedom.[88]
This unashamedly philosophical approach and the armed strength supporting it transformed the political world. President Reagan undermined the Soviet Union at home by giving hope to its citizens, directly assisted rebellions against illegitimate communist regimes in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, and facilitated the peaceful transition to democracy in Latin American countries and the Philippines. Of course, previous American governments had extolled human rights, and President Carter had even declared that they were the ‘soul’ of US foreign policy. Where President Reagan went beyond these, however, was in making the Soviets the principal target of his human rights campaign, and in moving from rhetorical to material support for anti-communist guerrillas in countries where communist regimes had not securely established themselves. The result was a decisive advance for freedom in the world.
In this instance, human rights and wider American purposes were in complete harmony. But do human rights have an independent value in foreign policy? There are two classic attacks on the idea that they do. The conservative critique is that a human rights policy amounts to a dangerous intrusion on the sovereignty of other countries; and the liberal thesis is that it is flawed because based upon an inadequate conception of human rights.
Of the conservative view, one can say that it is a partial truth that we should take into account in formulating policy. Societies plainly differ in their social and economic development, their religious traditions, their political consciousness. Where a fledgling democratic movement really exists, we can foster and encourage it — and to a limited degree protect it against government suppression by protests, public diplomacy, and similar measures. Where there is no such popular movement locally (or where it is limited to a few Western-educated intellectuals in the capital), we cannot implant democracy from outside. However, although we must necessarily pick and choose the cases where Western influence can usefully accelerate a peaceful transition to democratic ways, some abuses of human rights, notably torture, are so flagrant, so egregious, and so offensive by any national or cultural standard, that we will always be justified in opposing and deterring them. The main question in such cases is how best to do so — by economic pressure, or by speeches and motions in international forums, or by quiet diplomacy. In any event, a conservative human rights policy, applied as it must be with prudence and discrimination, will always fall short of a crusade.
The liberal criticism is that Western human rights policy, by concentrating on such ‘procedural’ rights as freedom of speech or freedom from arbitrary arrest, neglects the more important ‘substantive’ rights such as freedom from hunger or the right to a decent education. The international documents to which appeal is generally made on questions of human rights themselves illustrate this drift of thinking. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) not only affirms, as I would, that everyone has the right to life, liberty, equality before the law, property and so on: it also affirms the ‘right’ to an adequate standard of living and education and to social security — which are plainly in a quite different category. Other subsequent documents go even further. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) includes the ‘right to work’, the right to the ‘continuous improvement of living conditions’, the right to be ‘free from hunger’ and ‘the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health’.
86
See Jonathan Sunley’s pamphlet
87
These issues are examined by Neil Melvin in