World Policy Journal
Volume XX, No 3, Fall 2003

JFK’s Strategy of Peace
Theodore C. Sorensen ^*

 

On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy delivered what many believe was the finest speech of his presidency. Its title was “The Strategy of Peace,” the occasion commencement day at American University, a venue carefully chosen: the university is known for its dedication to public service, for the global reach of its student body, and for its focus on international affairs, including a program on conflict resolution—in short, a very American university. Kennedy’s address prompted a range of responses. In Britain, the Manchester Guardian called it “one of the great state papers of American history.” In a move without precedent, the Soviet leadership permitted its publication and broadcast in Russian, almost in full. At home, by contrast, critics dismissed it as advocating “a soft line that will accomplish nothing...a dreadful mistake.” Yet in retrospect, President Kennedy’s central points seem as important, relevant, and realistic today as they proved to be in the decades following his address.

It was my privilege to be among the listeners that June day at Reeves Athletic Field in northwest Washington, having come directly from Air Force One, which returned that morning from Hawaii. Only the day before, in Honolulu, the president was urging the National Conference of Mayors to help calm the civil rights crisis that flared during that historic, hectic summer. Back in Washington, I sat there, tired, somewhat unwashed. The president, being the president, had stopped at the White House to shave. But, otherwise, it was a nonstop marathon. At American University, Kennedy called, as no predecessor ever had, for a reexamination of America’s attitude toward the Soviet Union, toward the Cold War, toward peace itself. “What kind of peace do we seek?” he asked. “Not a Pax Americana, forced on the world by American weapons of war....” His appeal for sanity and restraint clearly stemmed from the events of the previous October—human history’s most dangerous 13 days—when the sudden secret emplacement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought the world to the brink of incineration. President Kennedy had been able to secure the removal of those missiles without firing a shot and without violating international law.

The following summer was in its own way nearly as momentous. After speaking at American University on June 10, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which prohibited wage discrimination against women. On June 11, he oversaw the successful admission of the University of Alabama’s first two black students, facing down Gov. George C. Wallace’s theatrical threat to “stand in the doorway.” On nationwide television that same evening, the president called for an end to all legalized racial discrimination, soon thereafter sending Congress the century’s most comprehensive civil rights legislation. That same week he announced the establishment of a “hotline” linking Moscow and Washington. On June 23, he began the visit to Germany that culminated three days later in West Berlin, where he saluted the courage of its citizens, concluding his remarks by affirming, “As a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich Bin Ein Berliner!’”

Less than a month later, the president signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the first major arms control agreement of the nuclear age. He had prepared the way in his call at American University for a comprehensive test ban, which he followed by announcing a U.S. moratorium on atmospheric tests. Those extraordinary weeks recalled, at least for this participant, the lines from Wordsworth: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; but to be young [and in the service of that president] was very heaven!”

A Strategy of Peace
The Limited Test Ban Treaty and the “hotline” agreement were only two of many treaties signed by Kennedy during his brief years in office. Among them were agreements establishing the Inter-American Development Bank, fixing the neutral status of Laos, and setting global ground rules for civil aviation, nuclear energy, trading in wheat, diplomatic privileges, and cultural exchanges. At American University, he envisioned an effective system of world law requiring not “that each man love his neighbor, only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.” As he put it, “Even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to keep those treaty obligations that are in their own interest.” He also called for substantial strengthening of the United Nations, first by ensuring its solvency, then by making it a more effective instrument for peace, “a genuine world security system... capable of solving disputes on the basis of law.”

President Kennedy, in short, wanted the United States to lead by force of example, not by force of arms, by the multilateral use of our diplomacy, not the unilateral use of our weaponry, by sending abroad American food, not American guns, by relying on smart diplomats more than smart bombs. As a World War II veteran, he saluted the “greatest generation” for establishing the postwar institutions that helped keep the Cold War cold: the United Nations, the NATO alliance, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, among others. He shared Jefferson’s “decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” and learned by listening.

In the very different world of his time, Kennedy knew that the United States was respected for its values, its fairness, its generosity, for the opportunities it offered the less well born, and for its great institutions of learning. He often said that any outbreak of war would represent the failure of all his hopes and policies, both at home and abroad. “This generation of Americans,” he said at American University, “has already had enough of war.... We do not want war.... The world knows that the United States will never start a war...but we will do our part to build world peace.... Confident and unafraid, we labor on, not toward a strategy of annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace.” Acknowledging fundamental conflicts between ourselves and the Soviets, he added, in his most quoted line, “If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity; for in the final analysis...we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future; and we are all mortal.”

Less than four months after announcing the Limited Test Ban Treaty, John Kennedy was dead, slain by an assassin: “Brightness fell from the air.” The tangled tensions of the Cold War persisted for another 30 years. But the groundwork for its termination had been laid, and a major corner turned, at American University.

Today’s Strategy of War
Unfortunately, Washington in recent years has turned the Kennedy strategy of peace backward to (in his words) a strategy of annihilation; away from treaties and international law, away from the United Nations and our traditional allies, away from arms control and the pursuit of peace. We now confront a world planted wall to wall with weapons we helped sow: new and more terrible weapons like the new nuclear “bunker buster” of which our Pentagon boasts, and new methods of warfare, such as intentionally “decapitating” an enemy through the assassination of its leaders or by putting a price on their heads. The terrifying nuclear arms race of the Cold War is over, but the prospect of nuclear destruction has not ended. The former Soviet Union’s nuclear stockpiles are loosely guarded, while its scientists are courted by rogue states and terrorists. There are no nuclear secrets, and chemical and biological weapons—the poor nation’s weapons of mass destruction—are proliferating beyond our ability to know, much less control.

Our victory in ousting Iraq’s dictator is interpreted by some countries to mean that the only credible way to deter an American attack is to acquire a nuclear arsenal. Should there be a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, Israel and Egypt, China and Taiwan, or North Korea and the United States, its lethal fallout will be carried by wind and water to every corner of our planet. Yet even our own Pentagon is said to be thinking the previously unthinkable, of using nuclear weapons in battle.

Having launched one war without U.N. approval, without hard evidence of an imminent danger to our people and interests, without the sanction of international law, we now have to worry that other states, large or small, will utilize that precedent for an armed attack on their neighbors or adversaries. In the past century, threats to world peace arose mostly from major European states whose qualities we knew or thought we knew, notably Germany, Yugoslavia, and Russia. In the new century, these threats seem more likely to come from the Southern Hemisphere, from Asia, Africa, or South America, not from their governments so much as from shadowy, informal groups capable (as we now know) of inflicting destruction on the American mainland.

There is no relief in sight, nor is there any obvious answer to terrorism. We cannot attack every country in which zealots might secretly train or hide, because that list would include almost every nation, including our own. Nor can we, as some urge, declare war on Islam because of a small handful of fanatics, since its disciples number more than one billion, most of them proud of Islam’s glorious past, its devotion to peace, and its humanitarianism and tolerance, all of whom are antagonized by loose talk among some Americans of a new “crusade” to convert the heathens to Christianity.

Alas, loose talk has not been uncommon after the seemingly swift collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In fact, the declared doctrine of preemptive strikes, without legal justification or credible evidence, is gratuitous manna for terrorists who specialize in just such strikes. If our example becomes contagious, we descend into the law of the jungle in which every warlord has his own weapons of mass destruction.

Reportedly, those who favor this new doctrine of unilateral preemption and its use to impose democracy on other countries, call it “the new realism.” Yet what is more unrealistic than to believe that this country can unilaterally decide the fate of others, without a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, or for the judgment of world institutions and our traditional allies? Only the arrogance of power and ignorance of history could lead any American to believe that our vast military superiority confers upon us moral superiority as well.

If our objective is to win wars that we ourselves start, then we are doing well so far, but not so well if we are to honor John Kennedy’s strategy of peace. Most Americans do not like to hear this. America is on the march. We have won. Winners have the right to flex their muscles. Many in both political parties compete in their hawkishness, deriding as naïve or even as unpatriotic those who differ. The uneasiness with bloodletting that followed Vietnam has been replaced by a new infatuation with war, a preference for invasion over persuasion. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we have turned our back on treaties lauded by President Kennedy, notably the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty he so eloquently sought at American University 40 years ago.

The talk now in Washington is that America alone is somehow exempt from international law, that we alone can determine who in the world is evil, that America alone has the political and economic model for all other nations, and that America alone can take on terrorism, AIDS, and global evil because this is “the American century,” dominated by our military might.

One hundred and forty years ago, Gen. Robert E. Lee remarked to Gen. James Longstreet, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we would grow too fond of it.” Wise words: too many Americans today are becoming too fond of war after two quick victories. Yet as the bitter aftermath in Iraq confirms, the claim of victory is followed by the protracted burden of occupation, with its human and material toll, its angry and resentful populace, and its soaring cost.

A New Strategy of Peace
All this must change. Americans have neither the heart nor the history for governing an empire and remaining on permanent war footing. It is time to reverse course and turn from a strategy of annihilation to a strategy of peace. Our proudest boast has long been that we are a nation of laws, and we need to renew that commitment worldwide.

A place to start—despite the political difficulties—is to reverse Washington’s opposition to the new International Criminal Court. This newborn court is the world’s first for adjudicating war crimes, charges of genocide, and crimes of aggression, as specified in a treaty signed in Rome that the United States helped devise. President George W. Bush not only refused to subscribe, but his administration now threatens to withhold military aid from any subscribing nation that fails to immunize American military personnel from possible war crimes charges, even though safeguards built into the treaty would prevent frivolous or political charges based solely on resentment of U.S. power from reaching the tribunal. The International Criminal Court is the very tribunal that should try Saddam Hussein and his lieutenants for their crimes against humanity—a course far preferable than trial by an American military tribunal that would be seen as “victor’s justice,” conducted largely for show. Since no other nation has so obvious a stake as our own in a stable world, free of crime and terror, no other nation could gain as much as ours from the new court’s successful establishment.

Second, to promote a world of law, we must reverse a similar mistake perpetrated in 1984 when the United States withdrew from full participation in another Hague tribunal, the International Court of Justice, or World Court, the judicial arm of the United Nations. Washington in 1984 refused to recognize the court’s jurisdiction when it agreed to hear Nicaragua’s charge that the United States had covertly mined Nicaraguan harbors. Americans are not well served in a world in which any nation can decide on its own whether it has grounds to attack its neighbor, or seize a neighbor’s natural resources. In the unruly world we now inhabit, stronger institutions of international justice would in fact make the United States a safer place.

Third, a world of law requires new efforts by lawyers and diplomats to complete the network of treaties that outlaw the use, possession, and distribution of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, or nuclear. Our own country’s Nunn-Lugar program for funding the safe storage and rapid destruction of former Soviet nuclear stockpiles should be replicated for all weapons of mass destruction in all countries. Moreover, negotiations should be initiated to enable the United States to amend and thus accept those treaties that we have mistakenly rebuffed, including those dealing with landmines, global warming, biodiversity, and human rights. In addition, jurists working under U.N. auspices need to devise legitimate and uniform standards for determining legitimate resort to force, including “humanitarian intervention.”

The fourth step toward a world of law, as President Kennedy affirmed 40 years ago, is to strengthen the United Nations, to place it on a sound financial foundation, to improve its procedures for settling disputes, to provide it with more peacekeepers, more weapons inspectors, more human rights monitors, and more international prosecutors. The United States cannot on its own maintain global peace, protect human rights, and promote disarmament. It needs the world organization as arbiter, convener, inspector, and advocate—and as the only multinational, multicultural organization that can deal effectively with terrorism.

Finally, we cannot establish a peaceful world of law unless we give equal attention to this century’s most important war, the war against global poverty. It is estimated that all the world’s children could be provided with adequate health care if we devoted to that goal less than half the money spent on our war in Iraq. U.S. funding of development and humanitarian assistance is now at its lowest level since 1945. We and other Western nations need to open our doors to agricultural and other commodities from the world’s poorest nations, whose exports have been squeezed from markets by Western dumping and subsidies.

A true world of law can be achieved in this century, if we commit our hearts and minds to the task. Previous generations of Americans have abolished slavery, child labor, and the poorhouse, and have decisively assisted campaigns against colonialism and apartheid. America’s rising generation now confronts the noblest of all challenges—the abolition of major war. In this, it can reach out to its contemporaries everywhere. For, in John Kennedy’s words, “In the final analysis...we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future; and we are all mortal."

Theodore C. Sorensen is of counsel at the international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. He was commencement speaker at American University on May 11, 2003, and the essay that follows is adapted from his address.