I wrote a few posts ago about a talk by Mark Kurlansky, author of “Nonviolence: the history of a dangerous idea”. I’ve now read the book. I wasn’t very impressed by the talk, and I’m afraid I wasn’t very impressed by the book, either.

The argument in the book is basically that nonviolence – which is an active alternative to violence rather than merely the absence of violence – is morally preferable to violence and ought to replace it. Insofar as that is an argument at all, it is one I am interested in, naturally. (It is striking to read arguments from the 1920s and 1930s about how war is positively a good thing, by contrast.)

But where the book goes wrong is that it is content simply to assert a preference for nonviolence over violence, without properly examining what it takes to make that preference a reality. Federalism, of course, is the result of precisely that examination, and there is previous little federalism in this book.

Federalism and pacifism are different things, as Lord Lothian observed here – http://www.federalunion.org.uk/archives/pacifism.shtml – and there is a small commentary from me here, too.

The book left me thinking a little more, though, about federalism is preferable to pacifism. Obviously, there is Alexander Hamilton’s comment (in Federalist Paper number 6) that “To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties situated in the same neighbourhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.”

But I think it is also possible to explain why pacifism does not work, in addition to the empirical observation that it doesn’t. The answer, turning to game theory, is that pacifism is not an evolutionary stable strategy.

The evolutionary stable strategy is a concept coined by the mathematical biologist John Maynard Smith to describe a pattern of behaviour within a population that is preferable to any other pattern of behaviour. A population that follows its ESS will be more successful than a population that does not, so that any population will tend to follow the ESS rather than anything else.

The classic demonstration of an ESS lies in the problem of hawks and doves (which actually suits the analysis of pacifism rather well). A population is composed of two types of individual: hawks, which will fight whatever the circumstances; and doves, which will never fight at all.

A population composed entirely of doves will be vulnerable to invasion by hawks, who will fight members of the dove population and exploit them to get what they want. Importantly, though, a population of hawks is also vulnerable to invasion by doves. A group of cooperating individuals will prosper even while they are subject to attack by the hawks around them. Logically, there must be a point where the ratio of hawks to doves is optimal. Too many doves and there is an opportunity for some more hawks to fight their way in: too many hawks offers scope for some more cooperation to replace some of the conflict.

By way of an example of what this means in practice, think about a department store. Most people pay for the goods they buy (i.e. they are doves) while a few people will steal them (i.e. the hawks). Now, while it might seem preferable for the shop if nobody stole, in practice it turns out better for the shop to cope with a small amount of theft. They even have a word for it: shrinkage. This may seem odd but is actually quite sensible. The measures needed to prevent all theft outright would probably cost too much money and would certainly deter a lot of shoppers – who would want to be strip-searched upon leaving John Lewis? – so there turns out to be a limit on how far shoplifting can be reduced; on the other hand, of course, too much stealing will drive the shop out of business. There is a balance to be struck, and the ideal amount of shoplifting (from the shop’s point of view) might turn out to be greater than zero. (This is not to be taken, though, as encouragement from this blog to go out and steal).

What you would expect to see, then, in human society is the co-existence of cooperative and confrontational strategies. The balance between the two might vary over time – the occasional rise and fall of pacifist movements such as the Albigensians and the Anabaptists, chronicled in Mark Kurlansky’s book – but a balance it will remain. The growth of pacifist movements does not presage and will not lead to the growth of pacifism. The spread of pacifism will reach its limits within human society.

However, this is not reason for despair. The point is that federalism is based on an understanding of the limits of pacifism and proposes a way to rise above those limits. We understand what causes cholera, and can cure and prevent it too.

The prevention of wars cannot be left to human society – that’s what the ethology and game theory reveals – but it depends instead on human institutions. Disputes within and between communities will inevitably arise, and the temptation to resort to force to resolve those disputes will arise also. Institutions are needed to preclude that use of force. Nonviolence without those institutions will get nowhere.

An epitaph for the Blair era was published today by Chatham House, the respected and independent foreign policy think tank. “Blair’s foreign policy and its possible successor(s)”, written by outgoing Director Victor Bulmer-Thomas, pulls no punches in setting out Blair’s achievements and failures. It makes a sobering read. (You can read it here.)

The headlines were attracted to Professor Bulmer-Thomas’ assertion that the invasion of Iraq was “a terrible mistake”, but it is one of those comments that is hardly news. He goes on to suggest that “a rebalancing of the UK’s foreign policy between the US and Europe will have to take place.” This is more nearly news, and is a thoroughly wise and welcome comment.

The comments by US official Kendall Myers last month on the so-called special relationship – “We typically ignore them and take no notice” – are borne out in this authoritative analysis of Blair’s ten years. Within Europe, of course, the UK can exercise influence: across the Atlantic, let us be honest, it can’t.

Back to Iraq, Professor Bulmer-Thomas goes back to the speech by Tony Blair in Chicago in April 1999, at the time of the Kosovo war, where he laid out his view of the preconditions for military action. He brands that speech “naïve”, with “little or no reference to history”. The decision to invade Iraq, says Bulmer-Thomas, “drove a horse and cart through the ‘doctrine of international community’ … proclaimed in the Chicago speech.” The attempt to found British foreign policy on principles failed when it came up against the determination, if not desperation, on the part of the American neo-conservatives for war. (This blog remarked on the contrast between the Chicago speech and the decision for war here.)

Closer to home, looking at the question of Europe, it is one thing to call for a rebalancing of British foreign policy, another thing to say that it has been a success so far.

To be fair to Blair, the attempt by anti-Europeans to stir up opposition to membership of the EU has failed. Sir James Goldsmith in 1997, William Hague in 2001 and Robert Kilroy-Silk in 2005 all tried to make Europe a central issue in the general election and they all failed. Kilroy-Silk, for example, got less than 6 per cent in what he thought would be his best constituency. There is little public appetite for less Europe than we have at present.

But there is at present little public appetite for more Europe, either. Bulmer-Thomas suggests that 9/11 marked a turning-point, with different European countries each seeking national relationships with America in their response to the terrorist attacks rather than a European relationship. Certainly, the divide between Blair and Chirac over Iraq made it much harder for them both credibly to insist that Europe needed the constitutional treaty in order to have a stronger common foreign policy. If they could not agree on Iraq, why should they need to agree on anything else?

I am struck, though, by the date. Bulmer-Thomas observes that, by the autumn of 2001, “the United Kingdom shied away from joining the Eurozone and ‘Brussels’ was increasingly portrayed as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.” At this time – the summer of 2001 – Blair was supposedly leading his Britain in Europe campaign that was supposed to change the way that the British people thought about Europe. It changed nothing: it merely entrenched existing prejudices. If Blair wanted to leave Britain a more enthusiastic EU member state, he has failed.

Professor Bulmer-Thomas says that “Blair can take credit for the fact that Britain is no longer the outlier when it comes to Europe”. Bosh. Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his prime minister (and twin brother) Jarosław deserve rather more credit for making Britain look normal. To be fair to Bulmer-Thomas, he continues the sentence “but British influence is strictly limited and the British public is still uncomfortable in its European skin.”

Looking forward, Bulmer-Thomas sees opportunities for a more pro-European policy in the future. What US governments want, he writes, “is a European Union that can make a real contribution to the international political and security agenda, and any European government with the diplomatic skills to deliver EU support will be hugely appreciated.” Atlantic and European interests are not in conflict: a united Europe is a better partner for America.

(By the way, before some readers of this blog get too excited, I think the phrase “European government” here means a government in Europe - e.g. of Britain or France - rather than a government of Europe, although I suppose the latter meaning is not excluded altogether.)

Where all this leaves Tony Blair is still in doubt. He will be remembered for Iraq rather than for anything else. All these speeches he gives these days, intended – according to his staff – to define his legacy and the current visit to the Middle East will be rather fruitless compared with the deployment of soldiers to Basra. Remember the optimism back in 1997, and look where it has ended up.

Professor Bulmer-Thomas writes that “Tony Blair has learnt the hard way that loyalty in international politics counts for very little.” Well, the British people have learnt that lesson the hard way; I remain doubtful how much Tony Blair himself has learnt.

The report from the Iraq Study Group that was published last week (read it here) bookends a rather inglorious period in American foreign policy. The era of policy-making by the neo-cons (using the term, as Alberto Majocchi insists, in its English meaning rather than in the French sense) was opened by the so-called National Security Strategy of September 2002 (which you can read here), and this Iraq report brings it to a close.

The ambition in the National Security Strategy was manifest: the world was riven by a struggle between freedom on the one hand and terrorism on the other. The United States had the mission of challenging and confronting terrorism wherever it was found. Chapter 2 of the strategy opens with this quote from President Bush:

“Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong. I disagree. Different circumstances require different methods, but not different moralities.”

The ISG report takes a very different approach, all because of Iraq.

The NSS was published as part of the build-up to war, attempting to place the promised invasion (promised, that is, by the arch-hawks in the Bush administration) in a wider ideological context. That war has led to very different circumstances, where the methods and even the moralities are now changing. The assumption all the way through the NSS is that there are no effective limits to American military power: the insurgents in Baghdad, Fallujah and elsewhere prove that assumption wrong.

Given that the Americans are unable to win the war in Iraq, the ISG report searches for a way out. Different commentators have drawn different conclusions from the ISG proposals, but if the two options before the Congressional elections last month were “stay the course” and “cut and run”, I think the ISG is suggesting staying rather than going.

True, they want to end the presence of American soldiers in the front line of combat by the first quarter of 2008, but they see also the need to increase substantially the number of troops embedded in the Iraqi army, along with substantially increased military and civilian aid for the Iraqi government. Niall Ferguson, in his book “Colossus”, suggests that the Americans need to come to terms with the fact that they have acquired an empire and need to govern it accordingly: while not using that language, the ISG essentially agrees. It is noted that, of the more than 1,000 staff at the US embassy in Baghdad, only 33 people speak any Arabic and only six are fluent. The report calls for “professional language proficiency and cultural training” to have “the highest possible priority”. That sounds like staying the course to me.

They choose this course of action, grim as it may be, because the alternative is worse. The consequences of a rushed withdrawal from Iraq could be, they fear, the collapse of the entire country, sucking in Iraq’s neighbours to try and look after their own interests in the ensuing anarchy. They don’t say this, but the parallel with Indochina is not the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 but the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. American military intervention smashed the institutions of a state and nothing was done to put anything back afterwards. A truly terrifying prospect: no wonder the Americans don’t want to leave in a hurry.

However, this commitment to stay also leaves them stuck, for they are dependent on the Iraqi government if there is to be any progress. The administration is corrupt, incompetent and divided. Funds for reconstruction cannot – we already know – be properly accounted for; this report notes that the red tape needed to fight corruption prevents money from being transferred to where it is needed. Each government ministry has its own armed militia (the Facilities Protection Service) to guard, in theory, its own buildings, but to guard, in practice, its own minister’s interests. No wonder the country is dominated by armed gangs: they are funded by the very government itself.

The ISG report demands change on the part of the Iraqi government itself, but they are rather short of means to deliver change. The more they say, to the American people, that it is important not to abandon Iraq in a hurry, the less they can say to the Iraqi government that they might. The heart of the problem is that the ISG has two audiences: a domestic audience in the United States, and a foreign audience in Iraq. The NSS was based on the assumption that these two audiences had the same interests: the debacle in Iraq proves that they don’t.

In terms of the consequences for American strategy as a result of this report,

American strategy will be turned upside down, of course, if this report is implemented. The invasion of Iraq was based on the assumption that American power was sufficient and would prevail. Indeed, Tony Blair’s Chicago speech in 1999 suggested that being able to win was a necessary precondition for a war being justified in the first place. The occupation of Iraq shows that this assumption is not true. (In fact, concern for the morale and fitness of the US armed forces is one of the major concerns of the ISG and several of its proposals are geared specifically to this end.)

Having proceeded on the basis that America could reshape Iraq and the wider Middle East on its own, the suggestion now is that America needs the help of the wider Middle East in order to preserve anything resembling civil order in Iraq. In particular, Syria is offered the return of the Golan Heights and Iran recognition of its theocratic style of government in return for cooperation. The reports suggests an incentive for Iran in the form of “The prospect of a US policy that emphasizes political and economic reforms instead of (as Iran now perceives it) advocating regime change.” An end to muscular Christianity, no less.

It would be wrong to jump too far ahead, though. This is not yet a change in policy, but rather a proposal for a change in policy. No doubt George W Bush will try to avoid adopting this report in full – there is a patronising tone in places, dictating what the president himself should do personally – but it is hard to see how he can avoid following most of it. It is clear that Iraq’s neighbours are deeply involved in Iraqi politics now – their interests are at stake, how can they not? – and so any settlement is going to depend on their involvement. From having refused to deal with Iran and Syria, George W Bush will become dependent on them.

The original complaint about Saddam Hussein was that he was a threat to the whole region. It should not be a surprise then that to replace him requires a regional solution.

A discussion last week between A C Grayling and Mark Kurlansky on the subject “Fighting Talk: Pacifism, War and International Relations” raised the question of whether things are getting better or worse. Is there more war and violence in the world these days, or less?

Mark Kurlansky, author of such works as Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, and, most recently, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, suggested that things are getting worse – look at the carnage in Iraq, for example – demonstrating that violence does not solve problems and suggesting that people should be more willing to give non-violence a try.

A C Grayling, who was on the platform as the author of Among the dead cities, an exploration of the morality behind the area bombing campaigns of the second world war, had a more nuanced view, suggesting that in some ways things were getting better. He quoted Theodor Adorno, who had observed that mankind was becoming cleverer but no wiser: the guided missile has succeeded the spear.

I take a different view, though. There is some good evidence on the question.

First, there is an overall decline in the incidence of violent death. This is a matter of society in general, rather than war in particular. And over the centuries it has become much less common. This is shown both in the records of criminal activity within individual countries – falling to perhaps one hundredth of its mediaeval levels in Europe now, suggests Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate – and also by comparison with primitive societies that have been encountered during the 20th century. Jared Diamond’s descriptions of society in New Guinea in Guns, Germs and Steel include a litany of violent death among societies with no formal civil order.

Over time, the notion of civil order has grown. Criminal offences are punished by the state rather than by the victim taking revenge. The parts of the world where blood feuds remain are fewer and fewer. The extension of public order has reduced the extent of private violence.

Present-day Iraq, where things are getting worse, may seem like an exception to this, but actually it is an illustration of this. Kick away the props of public administration, and the roof of public order falls in.

Secondly, there is the extent of war. There is some positive news here, too.

Let us think about the resources absorbed by war. Looking back over the last 150 years, expenditure on the military is as low as it has ever been: around 2 per cent of GDP (Niall Ferguson reports this in The Cash Nexus). The sheer sums of money may seem huge, but then so is the modern economy.

Of course, expenditure grows during wartime, but wartime itself is becoming less common, too. Data collected by political scientists show a decrease in the number of wars involving the great powers as the centuries have passed, and in particular (according to Niall Ferguson) in Europe. This European experience has not been followed so closely elsewhere in the world, but I think that strengthens my point rather than weakening it.

My argument is that wisdom on this subject does indeed exist. It is possible to reduce the incidence of violence within society by instituting civil order. Iraq today is a visible demonstration of life when that civil order is gone. (Do not mistake this blog entry for any kind of defence of how that civil order was maintained, though.) And as with the society of individuals, so with the society of states.

Europe since 1945 is marked by an almost eerie absence of war. It is also marked by an unparalleled growth of a legal order among its states. Never before have different countries been so constrained in their relations with one another; never before have they been so peaceful. This cannot be coincidence.

Everyone knows what is meant by the rule of law, don’t they? Successive governments have stood by and defended the idea; federalists have tried to take it into the international sphere. But what, precisely, does it mean?

Remarkably enough, definitions of it have been few and far between; perhaps familiarity with it has bred contempt. My attention was drawn to a lecture by Lord Bingham, former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, in which he examined this question. It makes very fine reading, and you can read it here.

The heart of the idea is that the law applies to everybody, including the people who make and enforce it. Sovereign authority within the state is not unfettered. Federalism goes a step further to argue that sovereign authority outside the state should also be fettered in the same way. In Lord Bingham’s speech, this is his eighth consideration, international law.

The occasions when such an apparently commonplace notion becomes controversial are interesting indeed. There are two in the newspapers today.

The case of the late Alexander Litvinenko is one. It is not known who killed him, but fingers are currently pointing at elements of the Russian security services. A rather recondite weapon of choice, polonium 210, would be available only to a very few would-be assassins. Litvinenko himself was a former FSB agent and would have made a number of enemies who might have both motive and opportunity. And there have been many other similar cases in recent months in Russia itself. Correlation does not prove causation, I know, but the mind does start wondering.

Let us imagine that the police investigation points to the possible involvement of Russian officials in this affair? Will they be handed over for trial? Litvinenko was a British citizen, after all, and the British government can hardly be relaxed about what happened to him. Diplomatic relations with Russia are important, but so is the protection of the British public. How far might the British government push it?

Vladimir Putin, on becoming president of Russia, promised to establish a “dictatorship of law”. Maybe we will find he has only got half-way there.

The second case is the investigation into possible corruption in the arms deals with Saudi Arabia. It is rumoured that certain members of the Saudi royal family have made large amounts of money out of British arms exports, and they would be sorely embarrassed if this were to come to light in open court. Bribery, of course, is a criminal offence here, even if not in other parts of the world, and it may be that offences have been committed.

Reported today is a threat by the Saudi government to cancel the proposed purchase of Eurofighters if the criminal investigation is not abandoned. 50,000 jobs are said to be at stake. It would be a serious economic setback if the export contract were to be cancelled, but does that justify interfering with the course of the criminal law? The Daily Telegraph reports the concerns of politicians on both sides of the argument.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum?