The Liberal Philosophy Of War According To Michael Howard

If it is true, as Michael Howard claims, that nowadays almost all Anglo-Saxon political thinkers are liberals, then his argument, first published in 1978, promises to be and remain highly relevant. In the new foreword to this third edition, Howard expressly makes the claim that ‘Sadly little seems to have changed, either in the aspirations of the liberal conscience, or in their unintended results’. There runs a liberal lineage from Britain’s invasion in Egypt (1882) to the American war in Iraq (2003), a lineage of violence that has to be accounted for. Why is it that liberals fight wars? What is the liberal philosophy of war?

This is the puzzle that Howard addresses in his splendid, and splendidly short, text on War and the Liberal Conscience. And a puzzle it is. Most liberals, after all, are against war for a variety of reasons. They have a negative moral valuation of it, from Erasmus, whose condemnation was emotionally charged, to Norman Angell, who argued the case against war on utilitarian grounds. War is not justified because it upsets international trade and finance in an increasingly interdependent world. Reason militates against war. Therefore, if wars are still fought, it must be due to the vested interests of the aristocratic class anachronistically upholding a warrior ethic and the damned balance-of-power system, or, alternatively, in the perception of socialist-liberals, due to the policies of the capitalist ruling classes. If only the people were left in charge of foreign policy, no more wars would be fought. Howard is highly critical of this liberal argument, for two key reasons.

First, he argues, the people have often welcomed war with thankfulness and joy – much to the disappointment of liberal intellectuals. From the Crimean War to the First World War (and beyond), the masses turned out to be less reasonable than assumed, which is a thorough challenge for liberal philosophy, but for which it has a ready answer: more education should do. But, says Howard, this is an inadequate answer. The problem is not too little reason, but too much rationality in society. Mass industrialised societies breed dissatisfaction in the people so that they are easily lured to populist and militarist movements and ethics. They cry for war, not (only) because of it. Second, liberals have their own reasons to go to war. Liberalism is not in principle pacifist, and it becomes less so the more it adopts a utilitarian or consequentialist ethics (and thus moves away from Erasmus, at most a proto-liberal anyway). If a nationalist movement or a minority is fighting its lawful but authoritarian government, should liberals not assist it, by military means if need be? If a liberal polity faces a non-liberal adversary, does that not sanction the use of force? If a fascist power threatens to prevail in Europe, should British liberals then intervene in European affairs?

As history took its course, this at one time genuine dilemma was increasingly resolved in favour of the embrace of a ‘liberalised’ conception of the medieval notion of just war; and with the Cold War, liberal interventionism got out of bounds, Howard contends. Liberal procedural values (non-violence) appear to have become less important than liberal substantive values (human rights, democracy). While this is a fair, albeit con- testable, choice for liberals to make, its perversion during the Cold War (and after) is not justifiable within liberal philosophy. With the enemy dehumanised, and autocratic allies elevated to the status of ‘honorary democracies’, Cold War liberalism should have had a hard time recognising itself – another example of a regretful ‘unintended consequence’. Given the focus on war, Howard understandably has less attention for the changing nature of peace that accompanies liberalism’s ascent. Yet, he makes an interesting observation, also in this respect, that begs for further elaboration. Early liberals, like Bentham, saw publicity and compulsory arbitration as a means to ensure the peaceful settlement of international disputes. These principles featured prominently in the League of Nations system that was developed after the First World War.

After the Second World War, with the development of the United Nations system, peace was thought to depend much more on the domestic nature of states. The internal affairs of nations were thought to affect peace as much as their international acts. Indeed, Nazi Germany had not only been a threat to peace for what it did abroad but equally for what it did, and what it was, within its borders. Peace, accordingly, was no longer an inter-state feature, but increasingly a ‘thick’ community feature. The liberal solution to the problem of war creates its own problems. This much Howard would probably agree with. It is less obvious if Howard would agree that the balance of power system that preceded liberalism, and which he favours, was an equally problematic and war-prone construct. I think not. The jury is still out if Howard is right.

At the very least, he draws a humble lesson from the necessity of diplomacy, diplomats and precarious balances of power, namely that it shows that ‘peace has to be established. . . that it has to be tackled afresh every day of our lives; and that no formula, no organisation and no political or social revolution can ever free mankind from this inexorable duty’. Even though Howard’s analysis is skewed in favour of a study of British and American liberalism, to the detriment of continental variants, I highly recommend this wonderful piece of scholarship to any prospective reader.