“What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils, for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.”

–Edmund Burke

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained”

–James Garfield

Note: I originally wrote this piece in 2008 when I was a US European Command Deputy J5. I have done some light editing, primarily in format and grammar. I’ve divided the long paper into a series for easier reading on a blog. The National Security Strategy referenced  here is dated, but I think the overall content is still valid and important in today’s environment.

US National Security Strategy

One of the key objectives in American policy today is to spread democracy. It is clearly articulated in the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States and followed by the State Department and the Department of Defense in their policy, plans, and actions.

The 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States references the following statement from the 2002 version.

The United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere. These nonnegotiable demands of human dignity are protected most securely in democracies. The United States Government will work to advance human dignity in word and deed, speaking out for freedom and against violations of human rights and allocating appropriate resources to advance these ideals.

It then goes on to state:

To protect our Nation and honor our values, the United States seeks to extend freedom across the globe by leading an international effort to end tyranny and to promote effective democracy.

And then:

The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way to provide enduring security for the American people.

This strategy has three potential problems.

First, democracy may not be the best option for a country at a particular time. The strategy potentially confuses a form of government with the ends—human rights and liberty—the government will deliver. It may be possible and even desirable, in some cases, to use different forms of government to deliver the desired end. Regardless of our best intentions, we may not be able to create a democracy everywhere. Moreover, we may not be able to create a democracy anywhere. Democracies and freedom may be something that people can only create for themselves.

Second, the document assumes that if the US can create global democracy, it will provide security. While this sounds good, it does not necessarily follow that democratic governments throughout the world will result in enduring security. Not all threats to national security will come from nation-states—Al Qaeda proved that. While I am not sure the nation-state system has ended, there are clearly transnational threats, as well as non-state actors. In addition, some of the most difficult national security issues may not even come from states or even non-state actors. Global warming, energy, declining international competitiveness, excess debt, and decaying infrastructure may be far more dangerous than Al Qaeda or its offshoots.

Third, not all democracies will follow equally harmonious paths. Even democracies will have divergent ideas over ideas. Democracies will also compete for resources and economically. While these competitions and disagreements may not lead to war, they can erode US influence and prosperity.

The 2006 National Security Strategy never really lays out strategic ends. At most, it talks about a vague idea of national security, as noted in the quote above. The rest of the document really talks about means, not ends. If one were to read the strategy, the strategic end would seem to be to ensure the US is not attacked again. While that is clearly a strategic goal, there is one that is even higher. It is to protect the US center of gravity.

Clausewitz, the first to clearly use the term center of gravity, defined it as “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.” What are the hub or hubs around which all else revolves that gives the United States its power? I think the US center of gravity lies not in something tangible, but rather in an idea. I think it strikes to the heart of what it means to be an American. It is why people from virtually every corner of the globe seek to become Americans.

Thomas Jefferson eloquently expressed this idea in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

In this seminal statement, we find three critical principles:

1. The unalienable rights of humanity—Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
2. Power flows from the people to the government, not from the government to the people. Government exists only at the consent to the governed.
3. The rights of humanity should drive the actions of government. Government should take no action to constrain these rights and should work to preserve them against those that would constrain them.

These principles draw people to the United States. They shape our society and its institutions. They form the idea is our center of gravity—free citizens that mutually consent to form a union in order to promote liberty, human rights, and common prosperity.

We can be physically attacked and survive. Indeed, we have before. The danger really lies in losing or corrupting the ideal and our liberty. Succinctly put, the end of US National Security is to ensure our way of life. This means, of course, protecting our citizens from attack. But it also means ensuring our economic well-being, our liberty and our republican form of government.

Thus, the 2006 promotion of democracy seems right in line with protecting the US center of gravity. However, first impressions may be deceiving.

Note the strategy clearly references human rights and liberty, and then states that democracies are the best form of government to protect these rights. On the surface, that sounds eminently reasonable. After all, isn’t the United States a democracy and hasn’t it proven that it works? Isn’t a democracy the natural form of government for humanity? Can the US create democracies in other countries? This paper will consider these questions and then make a policy change recommendation to focus on human rights and the rule of law rather than a specific form of government.

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