Security First

By Amitai Etzioni

Yale University Press, st£14.99

Given the present debate in the US on withdrawal from Iraq, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the continuing determination of the Bush government to foster democracy in the region, this is an important and timely book. Etzioni, who is now a professor of International Relations and a leader of the Communitarian Movement was Professor of Sociology at Columbia for 20 years, has been an advisor to the White House in the past and is regarded as one of America's leading intellectuals.

In his new book (the full title is Security First ... for a muscular, moral foreign policy) he argues that US Foreign Policy should focus on a few essential goals instead of the far wider aims now being pursued.

Instead of assuming that democratising nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan will turn them into reliable friends, Etzioni says the US should focus on basic security needs -- the most important of which is preventing nuclear weapons getting into the hands of terrorists.

This book is valuable not least because of the hard lessons now being learned in Iraq.

Holding a free election is not sufficient to establish a democracy. Attempts at what Etzioni calls Long Distance Social Engineering rarely work, because the locals do not feel that they own the project.

Developing a democratic culture takes more than one generation. Sudden liberation is often followed by a dramatic upsurge in organised crime and anti-social behaviour.

The murder rate in Russia doubled after the fall of Communism. Similar trends are observable in China. The fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan was followed by increases in paedophilia, prostitution and drug production. The present chaos in Iraq can be partly explained by this, and by the brutal rivalry between groups who want to be the first to restore order and security, but on their own terms. Creating a new basis for social order is rarely easy. It took generations in most western countries, and it is unlikely to come about much more speedily in the Middle East.

All of us have a darker side which must be restrained, and each society must reach its own moral consensus on who should impose the necessary restraint, and to what degree. Etzioni believes that societies often answer these questions by turning to their religious beliefs.

There are violent and peaceable elements in every religious belief system. One must be discouraged and the other encouraged. Each must develop within its own religious tradition. It cannot simply be transplanted from one tradition to the other.

A focus on regime change limits US options and leaves it open to the accusation of hypocrisy when it is seen to be less keen to change the regimes of its less salubrious friends than of its enemies.

Instead of promoting regime change, Etzioni believes the US should focus on education and, in particular, on Islamic education, giving financial assistance to schools which promote a non-violent version of Jihad. It is an open question whether such US aid would be welcomed in the way it is intended. It might be wiser to channel it through an international organisation.

Etzioni believes pre-emptive US military intervention should be confined to extreme situations where there is imminent or actual genocide. Overthrowing tyrants is not a sufficient justification.

His other big concern is the risk that nuclear weapons might get into the hands of terrorists. This is not the same as properly constituted states acquiring nuclear weapons, although that too should be prevented.

Etzioni is critical of the nuclear deal the United States made with India, and is worried about it undermining the moral clarity of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

He believes the focus should be on deproliferation, on persuading all countries (including the United States, United Kingdom and France) to reduce or eliminate their own stocks of nuclear weapons, on criminalizing the sale of nuclear weapons material, and denaturing sensitive materials, as well as preventing new countries acquiring nuclear weapons.

He believes the US spends too much on Homeland Security and not enough on making safe the nuclear arms material left over after the break up of the Soviet Union.

This book, to be released in Ireland next month, has relevance to Europe. The EU's own Security Strategy of 2003 also puts terrorism, failed states and organised crime, at the top of the agenda. Etzioni reminds us that even the most powerful nations need to be humble, realistic and rigorously selective in choosing their foreign policy goals. Eliminating all risk is impossible. We must concentrate on mitigating the most serious ones.

John Bruton, a former Taoiseach, is EU Ambassador to the United States

- JOHN BRUTON