Abstract
Bolton according to readers
In “The World According to Bolton” (July/August 2005 Bulletin), David Bosco does an admirable job of trying to rescue John Bolton's arguments from his personality. Bosco contends that although Bolton might have a distasteful demeanor, he nonetheless states concerns that resonate with many Americans. However, even though Bosco's article is largely evenhanded, it does not adequately show that Bolton's fears are based on substance. For example, the concern that customary international law would somehow cause the abolition of the death penalty, even if the United States wanted to keep it, is simply wrong.
Moreover, while the Bolton nomination can be used as a prism to separate American foreign policy thinking into a spectrum of its constituent parts, this does not mean that Bolton himself would be a good U.N. ambassador. Bosco downplays the importance of the position by asking how many Americans can remember their recent U.N. representatives. But, similarly, the fact that most Americans can't name all nine Supreme Court justices doesn't mean that each justice isn't important.
The real question is: What does the Bush administration want to accomplish through the United Nations, and is Bolton the diplomat who can achieve those goals? The United States needs someone who can muster the support of allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in the resolution of future crises. “We also need someone who can effectively manage the U.S. Mission staff in addressing crucial issues such as Security Council reform. Can Bolton do this? Does he even believe that working through the United Nations is a worthy exercise? Are we nominating him to make the United Nations effective or because we don't like the United Nations?
I appreciate Bolton as a prism. I am very concerned about Bolton as a diplomat.
Christopher J. Borgen
Assistant Professor of Law
St. John's University
School of Law
Jamaica, New York
David Bosco's thoughtful analysis of the controversy over President George W. Bush's nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is right on target in identifying Bolton as a hardcore American nationalist, an endangered species in the top ranks of the U.S. government. That's why Bolton has stood out so much. Even his attempts to bully subordinates into bending intelligence findings were in the service of his fist-shaking threats of military action. This behavior even exceeded the tolerance of an administration that embraces preventive military action.
But the fundamental problem with Bolton's primeval nationalism is not, as Bosco claims, that it is sometimes realistic. It is that it is wholly unrealistic. The United States, with 5 percent of the world's population, contains the world's most powerful military and economy. But limits to that power have always existed–evidenced most recently by the quagmire in Iraq.
The Clock
Today, the United States needs the help of the remaining 95 percent of the world to achieve its aims and preserve national security. The purpose of the United Nations is to generate cooperation for the objectives that its members consider legitimate. A nationalistic U.N. representative from any country who unreservedly proclaims its merits and the correctness of its policy cannot effectively elicit that cooperation. This is why after Bolton's extremism wore out its welcome at the State Department, it was a cardinal error to nominate him for the U.N. post.
Amb. (ret.) Jonathan Dean
Adviser on International Security Issues
Union of Concerned Scientists
Washington, D.C.
UPDATES
I scream, you scream
Israel may be borrowing a page from the U.S. nonlethal weapon playbook. In early June, the Israeli military broke up a violent anti-security barrier demonstration by means of “the Scream.” The device is thought to be similar to the long-range acoustic device (LRAD), a nonlethal weapon currently being used by the U.S. Army to deter insurgents in Iraq (“Pumping Up the Volume,” November/December 2004 Bulletin). Like the LRAD, the Israeli weapon emits a deafening shriek. “The intention is to disperse crowds with sound pulses that create nausea and dizziness,” the Israel Defense Forces told the Toronto Star (June 6). The Israeli Army has not ruled out using the Scream to remove settlers from Gaza and the West Bank.
WMD: Straight to DVD
In late May, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) released Last Best Chance, a film starring former Sen. Fred Thompson. The flick is the latest in the spate of post-9/1 1 terrorism-themed docudramas that aim to educate the public, a trend Josh Schollmeyer reported on in “Lights, Camera, Armageddon” (May/June 2005 Bulletin). Completely eliminating the middleman (that is, Hollywood), NTI independently produced Last Best Chance, in which fictional terrorists obtain weapon-grade nuclear material. The movie is available for free at lastbestchance.org.
Former Sen. Fred Thompson (right) in Last Best Chance.
I am one of 59 former diplomats who co-signed a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee protesting the choice of John Bolton to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. The job requires a leader who can negotiate and compromise to achieve agreements that serve U.S. aims–especially for U.N. Security Council decisions, which any of the permanent five (P-5) members can veto.
As one of the negotiators of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), I know the negotiating skills such a position requires. I am also familiar with Bolton's refusal to compromise in recent NPT-related negotiations. At a 2004 preparatory meeting with other NPT parties, Bolton took positions in preparation for the 2005 NPT Review Conference that rejected earlier U.S. agreements at past review conferences. Bolton's 2004 rejection of 1995 and 2000 NPT consensus agreements continued at the important 2005 review conference. His unwillingness to compromise produced sharp disagreements even with many of our allies, and the 2005 conference failed, damaging the nonproliferation regime.
Bolton did not lead the U.S. delegation at the 2005 NPT conference, but he provided guidance from Washington–his successor at the State Department had not yet been confirmed. But the failure of the review conference, including the failure of the P-5 to achieve a common position, clearly weakened the NPT.
As David Bosco notes in his excellent article, Bolton shepherded the Proliferation Security Initiative–a useful non-treaty instrument to help prevent the illicit transport of weapons-usable nuclear material and equipment across borders. President George W. Bush proposed the idea, and Bolton developed it, most importantly with friends and allies. There is no formal treaty and the standards are not signed. So consensus on a written text was not needed. Achieving such a consensus of the P-5 on the text of important U.N. Security Council matters won't be nearly as easy. Can Bolton do it?
Amb. (ret.) George Bunn
Stanford Institute for International Studies
Stanford, California
On March 7, Citizens for Global Solutions launched the Stop Bolton campaign and stopbolton.org, not just to oppose John Bolton, but to illustrate the critical need for an effective U.N. ambassador. In contrast, while David Bosco properly illustrates Bolton's personal and ideological liabilities, he greatly understates the U.N. ambassador's influence on U.S. foreign policy. His conclusion–“immediate fears of U.S. internationalists [about Bolton] are probably exaggerated”–ignores the divisive role Bolton could play both at the September U.N. reform summit and in potential standoffs with rogue states.
This summit is a historic opportunity to advance a comprehensive U.N. reform agenda, including such U.S.-backed proposals as a Democracy Fund, a new Human Rights Council, and a Peace-Building Commission. Should he become U.N. ambassador, Bolton's lack of credibility and finesse would render him ineffective at the summit and limit America's ability to help craft an effective, relevant United Nations for the twenty-first century.
In an even bleaker setting, the U.N. ambassador might have to present the U.S. case for action against threats from North Korea or Iran. In such instances, Bolton's reputation for advancing his own agenda and politicizing intelligence would become a tremendous obstacle in building the international consensus needed to confront such crises.
It's because tasks such as these are so important that Bolton is wrong for the job (although his personality and philosophies don't help), firmly rooting the fears of internationalists in reality.
Don Kraus
Executive Vice President
Citizens for Global Solutions
Washington, D.C.
Christopher Borgen makes an important point about customary international law. In theory, he is correct that a state that consistently objects to an emerging norm of customary law can exempt itself from the effect of that law. So, for example, if the United States makes clear its belief that the death penalty is not a violation of international law, it should not be bound. But precedent for this exception is thin and confused; plenty of states have objected to emerging norms without getting the benefit of an exemption. Moreover, the exception requires that the objecting state consistently and unambiguously object to the norm. In the weird world of customary law, silence, delay, or even simple inconsistency can constitute consent. I suspect most Americans would find this a strange way to become legally bound. Customary law is short on democratic accountability.
Amb. Jonathan Dean contends that John Bolton's version of realism is unrealistic today. I tend to concur. But let's not forget that for all his limitations, Bolton has on occasion recognized that the United States needs help. He solicited it by helping to create the Proliferation Security Initiative.
Borgen, Dean, Amb. George Bunn, and Don Kraus all argue persuasively that Bolton is a poor choice for U.N. ambassador. I wholeheartedly agree. My concern is that Bolton–with his outlandish personality and penchant for hyperbole–has become such an easy personal target that committed internationalists have often forgotten to argue the hard questions about sovereignty in a globalizing world and to recognize that Bolton's worldview is not nearly as absurd as his management style.
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What makes a man?
It was pleasing that Josh Schollmeyer wrote in his book note (March/April 2005 Bulletin) that my biography, Edward Teller: The Real Dr. Strangelove, “captures what no other observer–impartial or otherwise–ever has: Teller's humanity.” I do feel, however, that I should contest his view that I was “consumed by armchair psychology.”
Controversial physicist Edward Teller.
In the final years of his life, along with contortions of self-justification, Teller was painfully honest about his unhappy childhood and his consequent vulnerability to rejection. He described how he was smothered by an overprotective mother, how he arrived at secondary school gifted but humorless, and how for six years he was “practically a social outcast,” continually teased and bullied. His fear of rejection continued at Göttingen and Leipzig universities in Germany, where Teller's vulnerability was so exploited by one colleague that it reduced him to “apologizing for living,” according to physicist Hans Bethe.
Teller only achieved some equilibrium when he arrived in the United States–a big fish in the little pond of pre-war American physics.
He blossomed in this atmosphere, where he was well-respected for his warmth and enthusiasm. But that fragile equilibrium was disrupted in his early dealings with J. Robert Oppenheimer. After helping establish Los Alamos, Teller thought he would be named head of the lab's theoretical division. Instead, Oppenheimer gave the job to Bethe, whom Teller recruited to the project.
The tragedy for both men was that Teller could only see the decision as a personal rejection. In Bethe's view, “[It repeated] the experience of rejection both at school and university. It's from this point on you get the extreme reactions to people and situations.” Teller's relationship with Oppenheimer never recovered, degenerating into the hatred and mistrust that affected the course of nuclear arms development for decades.
In my view, the events speak for themselves. Little armchair psychology is involved other than the recognition that the child is the father of the man.
Peter Goodchild
Dunchideock, England
Congressional immorality
The Bulletin's July/August 2005 collection of essays (“60 Years Later: Would You Have Dropped the Bomb?”) commemorating the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki recognizes a frightening reality six decades later. The bomb has captured our imagination and has been embraced (unfortunately) as a wonder weapon for the cause of goodness, a slayer of fictional beasts, malevolent aliens, and rogue asteroids. In the past, fiction writers, dramatists, and advertisers diluted the horror of the bomb, but today this “contamination” has even infiltrated the halls of Congress.
Now that the Senate has resolved the filibuster/constitutional crisis over judicial nominations, I want to comment on the improper and amoral use of the phrase “nuclear option” by the media and some members of Congress. This attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor should be reevaluated in light of the reality of nuclear weapons. The misuse of “nuclear” in this context is unconscionable. Counting long-term radiation-related fatalities, more than half a million people died from the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And considering the worldwide fatalities from thousands of nuclear tests and human guinea pig experiments–not to mention the large number of people who have died from diseases related to the production of these weapons–it is inexcusable to dilute the seriousness of this legacy by labeling a political dispute “nuclear.”
The ghosts of this almost-forgotten holocaust demand at least this small token of respect.
Jeffrey Mason
Waldorf, Maryland