U.S. Foreign Policy and the Politics of Apology

Loramy Gerstbauer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315465111
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Acts of contrition and transitional justice—admission of wrong, apology, and reparations—have become fashionable in the discourse of international affairs. Using a case-study approach that inspires student discussion of concrete examples, this text addresses important questions about the politics of apology in relation to some of the most controversial cases of US foreign policy over the past fifty years: Vietnam, Nicaragua, and the most recent war in Iraq. Loramy Gerstbauer offers an original, transdisciplinary, and accessible argument for the practical value of contrition, forgiveness, and reconciliation in international relations while examining why the United States has been a less than contrite nation and offering a prescription for how to change this state of affairs.

Chapter 1

Apology and Contrition in International Relations

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world—tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and more mistrust. …

I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

(Barack Obama, Remarks by the President on a New Beginning 2009, White House Office of the Press Secretary)

So begins President Barack Obama in his address in Cairo, Egypt, on June 4, 2009, a speech intended to set a new course for United States’ relations with the Muslim world or at the very least to distance Obama from the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In this speech, President Obama cites the amazing achievements of Islamic civilization, countering negative stereotypes. He also celebrates the greatness of the United States, declaring that the superpower is more than the stereotype of a “self-interested empire”. He acknowledges the sins of the U.S. and the broader western world against Islamic peoples and nations—from the Crusades and colonialism to Cold War proxy wars—that have contributed to hostility. Likewise, he notes the reality of the September 11th attacks and the forces behind it, justifying U.S. actions in Afghanistan. Finally, more than just saying nice words proclaiming a desire for better relations, Obama makes concrete policy pledges, such as to close Guantánamo Bay within the year and to prohibit the use of torture by the United States.¹

Here is a sitting U.S. president speaking at a major university in Egypt, with the expressed goal of seeking a new beginning and setting a new path for relations between the United States and Muslims around the world. This is a speech with a goal of reconciliation. Obama makes no explicit apologies for U.S. actions, yet this speech is still a rare example of contrition, or remorse for one’s wrongdoing, by a state. He admits that the U.S. makes big mistakes and humbly reaches out to the other. You don’t get political points for humility and admitting you or your nation did wrong. Or do you? What factors might encourage or impede the U.S. to act apologetically, with contrition or humility? Does such a thing make sense for a superpower, or any nation-state? If so, when and why? These are the central questions of this book, with a specific focus on serious wrongdoing in U.S. foreign policy with enemy nations.

Serious wrongdoing by a state calls out for acknowledgement and for efforts to move a society or relationship between countries from a past of violations to a future of peace and reconciliation. Scholars have used the language of apology, forgiveness, and transitional justice to describe these efforts. I use the term “contrition” to express how a state makes amends for its past wrongdoing. While ideals of peace and justice are involved, these movements are inherently political.

Germany is the premier example both of serious foreign policy transgressions—World War II—and of making amends via the Nuremberg Trials of 1945–1946 and an array of apologies, reparations payments, and other expressions of political remorse. At the end of the Cold War in 1989 the legacy of Nuremberg was revived, and many countries including Canada, Britain, and Australia, began to examine their historical wrongdoing to other nations. The U.S. has been slower to come to the table. Even though U.S. actions in Nicaragua and even Vietnam are not on par with Germany’s Nazi past, they call into question the commitment of the U.S. to norms of international justice and human rights.

The widely held belief within the United States is that the country is a force of good in the world, championing human rights and democracy and acting with good intentions. The United States is also the most powerful country on the planet, superseding all others on numerous measures of state power but especially militarily. Couple “right” with “might” and the idea of ever having to say, “I’m sorry”, especially for serious wrongdoing, seems at best unnecessary and at worst harmful or degrading. What need, value, or gain could there possibly be?

In The Guilt of Nations, Elazar Barkan claims that “admitting responsibility and guilt for historical injustices … has become a liberal marker of national political stability and strength rather than shame” (2000, xxix). Might it be that acknowledgement of its own wrongdoing and other aspects of contrition could actually be a source of power for the United States, even strengthening its own and others’ perceptions of its status as a force for good?

The idea of contrition in international relations is relatively new territory and has garnered both praise and concern. Public apologies and other forms of contrition have become somewhat fashionable, not only from celebrities but also from politicians and entire nation-states. Theologian Walter Wink declared, “The extension of forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation to whole nations is one of the great innovations in statecraft in our time” (1998, 54). Yet, while contrition may be in vogue, it is still rare and, especially at the level of interstate politics, has many detractors. We know from personal experiences that contrition is fraught with complexity. No doubt this is multiplied in the world of global politics. Contrition might make a nation look weak, anger its constituency, cause more strife, or create expectations for unwarranted reparations. Charles Krauthammer argues that leaders need to be decisive; nuanced assessments and second-guessing of policies just give fuel for critics (2004). Another fear is that there is too much wrongdoing by everyone, everywhere and that contrition just opens up a can of worms; where does it stop? (Beauchamp 2007). There is also a concern that contrition can be an easy out for states, whose leaders might (as in interpersonal relations) say nice things to make everyone feel better and then not follow up with substantive change. Or maybe contrition just is not necessary between states. Diplomacy and restoration of good relations can happen without it. Perhaps the past is best left in the past and swept under the proverbial rug.

Indeed, in some of the cases examined in this book, the U.S. is restoring good relations with former enemies even without substantial contrition. If the past can be smoothed over through new trade deals, tourism, or just the passage of time, why is contrition of any importance? Especially if wrongdoing is present by multiple actors (which is usually the case), why dig up the past? On the other hand, what are the potential costs of not adequately dealing with the past? In addition to international enmity, these costs may include ongoing domestic divisions or a failure to learn important lessons that impact policymaking.

In this chapter I will unpack this concept of contrition, first by examining its recent and unorthodox presence in the field of international relations, particularly in relation to the idea of transitional justice and accompanying work on apologies and forgiveness. After that I will define the ingredients of contrition and discuss several examples.

Transitional Justice and the Relevance of Contrition

Scholars are not very good at explaining why and when nations are contrite. Because there are few examples of contrite states, many studies look at Germany’s post-World War II interstate relations. Many have compared Germany and Japan, yet we still cannot adequately explain why the two states have dealt with their pasts so differently (Forsythe 2011a, 555). Compared to Germany, Japan has paid very little in compensation and reparations for its abuses and has only recently begun to make genuine apologies. Maybe Germany is just an anomaly, yet even within Germany contrition varies over time (Lind 2008). What factors influence contrition and how?

Those who study Germany and Japan often ground their work in the concept of transitional justice; this concept also provides the central grounding for this book and for the justification of contrition’s relevance in international politics. Transitional justice is about how states deal with legacies of human rights violations and mass violence.² Overall, transitional justice is concerned with the right mix of policies and instruments, such as truth commissions, criminal trials, reparations, amnesty, lustration, etc., to deal with past atrocities as a state “transitions” to a new order that upholds the rule of law and human rights.³ However, a review by human rights scholar David Forsythe pointedly remarks that the transitional justice literature is no longer just about transitions (to democracy) but might apply even to actions of a mature democracy (2011a). Chilean diplomat and scholar Jorge Heine observes that the shift between Presidents Bush and Obama was akin to other transitional justice situations in other parts of the world and that one tool—truth commissions—is now used in advanced democracies, such as Canada (2011, 571). In fact, the whole term “transitional justice” is off kilter; not only is transitional justice about more than transitions, it also is not solely concerned with the claims of justice. Although in international relations traditional concerns of justice such as criminal trials, individual accountability, and reparations still hold sway, increasingly “softer” concepts and concerns about forgiveness and reconciliation matter.⁴ The following quote by peace and conflict scholar John Paul Lederach addresses four essential ingredients of reconciliation: truth, mercy, justice, and peace.

Truth is the longing for acknowledgement of wrong and the validation of painful loss and experience, but it is coupled with mercy, which articulates the need for acceptance, letting go, and a new beginning. Justice represents the search for individual and group rights, for social restructuring and for restitution, but is linked with peace, which underscores the need for interdependencies, well-being and security.

(Lederach 1997, 29)

Lederach argues that these four must be in balance for reconciliation to occur. Yet, while politics is consumed with justice, ideas of mercy or contrition seem out of place. Daniel Philpott argues that the liberal peace—one that focuses on law, just institutions, and human rights—is the global orthodoxy. Reconciliation—which is wrongly perceived as missing those ingredients in favor of healing practices and utopian harmony that sacrifices justice—is the global heterodoxy (Philpott 2010, 95–96). This book is written in the heterodox vein, which means that it supports the idea that what some in international relations consider “softer” concepts—such as reconciliation, contrition, and forgiveness—are complementary components of a full understanding of transitional justice.

Thus, the concepts of apology and forgiveness are also of interest for this book and can be viewed essentially as subsets of transitional justice. Studies of forgiveness concentrate on philosophical, ethical, and practical policy-related questions of political forgiveness. While the concept of forgiveness seems remote from political life, some scholars are seeking to move forgiveness beyond just religious connotations to recognize its social and political meanings.⁵ We can think of forgiveness as an “ethic” rather than a speech act, since we don’t see states or state leaders actually verbalizing “I forgive you”. Indeed, there are potentially big problems with that scenario. We do, however, witness state apologies. They are increasingly common with examples including President Clinton’s apology to the Hawaiians, Queen Elizabeth’s apology to the Maori people, and President George H. W. Bush’s apology for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (Brooks 1999; O’Neill 1999).⁶ Those who study state apologies and those who study forgiveness in politics barely refer to one another’s work, and yet their concerns overlap considerably. The overlap includes debate about what constitutes genuine forgiveness (or apology); how these concepts relate to other transitional justice concerns such as reparations or trials; who can offer or receive forgiveness or apology; and, ultimately, the possibilities and limits of applying forgiveness and apologies—that is, when they are not appropriate or might even cause harm.

What Is Contrition?

No single word or process can really account for the richness and complexity involved in moving a society from a past of violations to a future of peace and reconciliation. It is not surprising that scholars address this complexity as philosophers, theologians, political scientists, peace scholars, and international legal or human rights experts and use different language, concepts, and theory. While I may occasionally use other terms, I have chosen the word “contrition” because it is not heavily used in the political science literature and is therefore somewhat baggage free. Apology is perhaps the closest and most recognized alternative (and thus used for this book’s title), but it should be clear by now that contrition encompasses more than apologies. Forgiveness is often unfairly associated only with religious processes. Transitional justice has been too often focused on justice without including the “softer” concepts described earlier. Reconciliation can imply too much. For one, it must involve both parties. Contrition has an end goal of reconciliation, but one party, such as the U.S., can act with contrition and still not obtain reconciliation, which depends on the other party. My focus in this book is on contrition by the United States. Contrition by the other party is relevant insofar as it may influence U.S. behavior.

Overall, those who study contrition and its various aspects see potential and value in contrition while acknowledging that it is often problematic or inadequate in its pursuit. Like Walter Wink and Elazar Barkan, mentioned above, many scholars see the move toward contrition by states as a positive development that is part of the post-Cold War revival of the Nuremberg legacy, seeking to hold states and individuals to account for their wrongdoing. This revival resulted in the first international tribunals to occur since World War II—one to address the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and one to address the ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, also in the early 1990s. These ad hoc international tribunals ultimately spurred the creation of the International Criminal Court in 2002. This post-Cold War period also witnessed a huge rise in the number of truth commissions. Trials, truth commissions, reparations, apologies—these are all part of the toolbox of transitional justice, defined expansively by Daniel Philpott as “the sum total of activities that states and citizens undertake to redress past political injustices in order to restore political orders both shortly after peace agreements or regime transitions have taken place as well as long into the future” (2010, 114, note 1). ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Apology and Contrition in International Relations
• 2 United States Relations with Enemy Nations—Setting a Context
• 3 The United States and War in Vietnam
• 4 Counterrevolution in Nicaragua
• 5 The 2003 Iraq Invasion and the War on Terror
• 6 How and Why Contrition Matters
• Appendix: U.S.–Enemy State Relations Since 1950
• References
• Index