If we back off now, we may be in worse shape later
Editor’s note: Gordon Baldwin was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, shortly after graduating from Cornell Law School. After completing basic training, he was commissioned as a first lieutenant and assigned to the International Law branch of the Judge Advocate General’s office at the Pentagon. Following that, he taught international law at the Army Judge Advocate General’s School. In 1957, the University of Wisconsin recruited him to teach international law.
Baldwin was the Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in 1963-64, a Fulbright professor in Egypt, Iran and Cyprus in the late 1960s and early 70s, and held the position of counselor on international law in the U.S. State Department from 1975-76.
Baldwin was the director of officer education for UW–Madison’s ROTC program from 1971-99.)
Gordon Baldwin, emeritus law professor, says foreign policy cannot be made in the streets. He also believes foreign policy has to be made by those who are politically accountable, and if the American people don’t like what President Bush is doing, they should vote him out. (Photo: Michael Forster Rothbart)
Baldwin says if the United States is going to use force in Iraq, it has to be overwhelming.
“There’s no point in being reticent. If we back off and do what the demonstrators in the streets appear to be urging, we may be in worse shape than we are now. It might be even more deadly,” says Baldwin.
“The administration would lose credibility at home and around the world, and Saddam and his ilk would remain in power. They may not be an immediate danger to the United States, but wouldn’t there be a great danger tomorrow? One has to deal with the situation as it exists at this time,” he says.
Baldwin supports the administration’s policy of coercion against Iraq, and says the threat of force, to be at all useful, has to be credible.
“Not all threats have to be implemented. Bush has said he hasn’t decided yet, and I take him at his word. The government of Iraq has the power to back off, to make changes and prevent a war. They apparently aren’t going to do any more than they’re doing. They certainly have been very shrewd, and nations are good at delaying things. They have delayed the use of force so far, so we’ll see,” he says.
While Baldwin doesn’t criticize those who exercise their First Amendment rights by demonstrating against the war, he believes their efforts are ineffective.
Baldwin points out that there has been only one major conflict in which this nation was reasonably unified, and that was World War II. In all the others, he says — the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, for example — the nation was sharply divided.
“I don’t think one should be surprised that the American public has disagreements on foreign policy. It is just part of the constitutional order. Our system gives the president the power to exercise force. There have been 200 occasions in American history when presidents have sent armed forces into harm’s way without a congressional declaration of war or immediate consent.”
How far should the United States go with use of force? Baldwin thinks all the way.
“We haven’t threatened use of our nuclear weapons, and I don’t think that appears to be necessary. I’m not oblivious to the economic costs and to the risks of flouting world opinion and a U.N. vote. That is, of course, the problem that Bush faces,” he says.
Baldwin doesn’t feel that the approval of other countries is a necessary component of a foreign policy decision.
“We can afford, at least in the short run, to reject world opinion. It’s not unusual for a nation to decide to do what it thinks its foreign policy interest requires it to do without getting U.N. approval,” he says.
Baldwin describes Iraq as a mosaic of cultures and religious beliefs and a country that could be very fragmented.
“I don’t have any hopes that they would suddenly become a Western-oriented, democratic society. It just hasn’t been in their history. We can hope that, because it is a highly educated group of people, they can shape their own destiny,” he says. At this point, we need them to disarm and comply with the U.N. resolutions.”