Armed Intervention: Can armed intervention serve as an effective tool of mitigating future conflict either between states or within states?

Firstly, the term “armed intervention” needs to be clarified. The US Department of Defence defines it as: The deliberate act of a nation or a group of nations to introduce its military forces into the course of an existing controversy. (US Department of Defence, 2014). This distinguishes it from the other main type of interventions that are more passive in nature, such as censure motions, sanctions and boycotts. The other operative word is mitigate. It can mean prevent or to make less severe.

Armed intervention has been absolutely effective as a tool in mitigating future conflict between states and in particular between blocs of states where there is a sense of collective identity and interdependence. Where armed intervention into intra-state conflict possesses clear goals and competent leadership, it is an effective tool in mitigating potential future conflict. In the instances where the armed intervention has lacked clear goals or competent leadership or both, it has failed catastrophically.

Armed intervention as a tool in international relations is perfectly legal and is found in Chapter Seven, Articles 39 - 54 of the UN Charter (Tanca, 1993).  The idea is that the threat of armed intervention by outside forces into an existing or potential conflict acts as a conflict deterrent. A potential aggressor does their sums and then decides that the ultimate cost of aggression outweighs the benefits of the planned aggression, thus a potential future conflict is mitigated.

Armed intervention as a conflict mitigation tool has its simplest and most effective expression in collective security agreements such as NATO and the now defunct Warsaw Pact. An attack on one member state was and is treated as if it is an attack on all member states. So instead of fighting just Poland or West Germany, you end up fighting their friends as well. The North Atlantic Treaty, which is the basis for NATO, expresses this quite clearly (NATO, 1949).

Armed intervention as a tool in mitigating potential conflict between states can be at the request of the UN or it can be a unilateral act. Whilst it is preferred that armed intervention happens at the behest of the UN, there are examples where armed intervention has happened without active UN participation. The 2003 US and its “Coalition of the Willing” invasion of Iraq being perhaps the best known example of where armed intervention to mitigate a potential future inter-state conflict took place outside of, and at times with the active opposition of, the UN.

The Russians are more frequent exponents of unilateral armed intervention to mitigate conflict and have intervened militarily into conflicts within states that lie along the southern border of modern Russia, with: 2014 Crimea, 2008 Georgia, and 1979 Afghanistan making a short list of recent Soviet/Russian unilateral armed interventions.

In this regard, armed intervention has absolutely mitigated future inter-state conflict. NATO as a collective security organisation has historically used and continues to use the threat armed intervention to deter aggression. Clearly because World War Three wasn’t fought out in Europe the deterrent was successful. This is the simplest and most successful form of armed intervention serving as an effective tool to mitigate conflict.

 Furthermore, NATO as an organisation has proven so successful at mitigating conflict that a number of former Warsaw Pact member nations such as Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine have either joined it or have established close ties with NATO. These nations clearly view membership of or established diplomatic ties with NATO as mitigating future aggression from Russia (Government, 2014).

Armed intervention to mitigate conflict within a state is considerably more fraught. The definition of what is and isn’t a successful mitigation of conflict is harder to achieve. Is an armed intervention successful at mitigating future conflict if it simply reduces the amount of violence already occurring, and thus prevents an all out civil war from happening? Or does the definition of success only apply when conflict is brought to an end and thus all future conflict is mitigated by the armed intervention? Armed interventions have fulfilled both definitions of mitigating future intra-state conflict.

The use of armed intervention within states often involves a more complex sequence of events, in that ideally there has to be a request for intervention made by one or both of the parties involved in either an existing or potential conflict (Tanca, 1993). With a number of factors to be considered, amongst them humanitarian issues, the question of sovereignty and whether or not it is appropriate to intervene at all, the entire doctrine and ethics behind armed intervention as a tool for mitigating intra-state conflict very quickly becomes very complicated as the quote below illustrates.  (Coady, 2002) ^{(Daniel Rice & John Dehn, 2007)}

“As each new conflict appears in the in-boxes of policymakers, the first question is whether this particular crisis warrants international engagement.  The answer is a measure of "political will," a complex calculation of national security, political, economic and diplomatic interests; moral values; public support for action; and capacity for effective engagement - all filtered through policymakers' individual perspectives. (Steinburg, 2009).

However, the practice of armed intervention into intra-state conflict to mitigate future conflict is another creature entirely.  As I said in my introduction: If the intervention is well planned, has competent commanders and has clear goals it is more often than not successful as a tool in mitigating conflict.

The British intervention in 2000 into the Sierra Leonean Civil War is almost a textbook example of how to intervene militarily to mitigate an intra-state conflict. The British gave their intervention the name Operation Palliser, which was a rescue of United Nations peacekeeping personnel after they were trapped by rebel forces.  The UN had deployed peacekeeping forces UNAMSIL (United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone) which were less than competently lead and had manifestly failed to mitigate the conflict.

Once British forces under the command of Brigadier Sir David Richards were in Sierra Leone, the interventions goal changed into an event that brought about the ending of the Sierra Leonean Civil War (Evoe, 2008). A UN led armed intervention had failed as a tool to mitigate conflict, whereas a British armed intervention that was competently led, which was initially limited to rescuing UN peacekeepers contributed substantially to the ending of the conflict.  The change in goals was not a factor because of the competency of the British armed interventions leadership.

 The goals of the intervention morphed into conflict resolution once British forces were on the ground and engaged in combat with the Sierra Leonean rebels. The presence of British forces supporting the Sierra Leonean government and UNAMSIL tipped the balance in favour of the government enabling it to win the conflict. Post-intervention Sierra Leone whilst not entirely without conflict has been a significantly more stable nation than it was before. The potential for future intra-state conflict was effectively mitigated by the armed intervention of British forces.

Another example of armed intervention being extremely useful as a tool to mitigate future intra-state conflict is the Australian led and commanded intervention in 1999-2000 under UN auspices into East Timor (Della=Coma, 2012). The East Timorese had expressed a desire to form their own nation. After a process discussed by Della Coma, and coinciding with the fall of the Indonesian dictator Suharto, this was granted following a vote that over 80% of the population had supported.

The goal of the intervention was to ensure the transition of East Timor (Timor Leste) from being a province of Indonesia (Central Intelligence Agency, 2014) to a fully functioning sovereign state. To achieve this Australia intervened militarily at the request of the UN. The title of this intervention is: International Force for East Timor (INTERFET) it was led by General Peter Cosgrove.

There was at face value the potential in Timor Leste for an intra-state conflict occurring with pro-Indonesian militia and rogue elements of the Indonesian military opposing independence. The goal of the intervention was to prevent an intra-state conflict from occurring and to assist the Timorese to achieve their goal of self- determination. In this regard, INTERFET has been an unambiguous success. Since formal independence from Indonesia in 2002, Timor Leste has become a member of the UN and enjoyed relative peace and stability.

There are times where an armed intervention has simply failed. Invariably, failure has occurred because the intervention had unclear goals and poor leadership. In Rwanda the poor leadership was shown to extend all the way to the UN General Secretary. The UN had troops on the ground when the Rwandan Genocide occurred in 1994. They had been there to help implement a peace agreement between the Rwandan government and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front. The UN apparently “knew something was up”. With the genocide in progress and the ability to intervene militarily to mitigate if not halt the genocide, a vote was taken by the UN to do nothing. At least 10 Belgian peacekeepers died trying and failing to protect Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana   (Harsch, 2004).

A UN investigation into the genocide was scathing in its findings: "The responsibility for the failings of the United Nations to prevent and stop the genocide in Rwanda lies with a number of actors, in particular the Secretary-General(Kofi Annan), the [UN] Secretariat, the Security Council, UNAMIR and the broader membership of the United Nations"  (Harsch, 2004).

There is the saying: Failure is an orphan. In the case of the failure of the Rwandan intervention to achieve conflict mitigation, failure wasn’t an orphan at all. In fact if anything, it seems to have had collective parenting in terms of those who had helped create the failure which resulted in genocide.

There is an armed intervention that, to me, doesn’t really fit into either category as a success or a failure and in fact seems to be both, depending on your politics. The US 2003 invasion of Iraq as an armed intervention had the stated aim of destroying Iraqi capacity to wage war on its neighbours e.g. repeat the invasions of Kuwait and or Iran and thus mitigate future inter-state conflict. In this regard the intervention has been wildly effective as a tool to mitigate future conflict in that Iraq in 2014 is not even remotely a military threat to its neighbours.

The quagmire opens when we consider events post-intervention when, depending on your parameters, intra-state conflict has broken out and the armed intervention instead of mitigating the conflict, has caused it.

Having said this, and to give background to the intervention, we must remember that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had an undeniable history of chemical weapons use both in intra-state conflict against the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, and in inter-state conflict against Iran. Iraq was also known to have been in possession of Scud tactical ballistic missiles, which it had used on Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and on Israel and Saudi Arabia during the successful intervention by the US and its allies in a UN sanctioned armed intervention to remove it from Kuwait some ten years earlier. These weapons are known as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s).

The official definition of a WMD is: Chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons capable of a high order of destruction or causing mass casualties and exclude the means of transporting or propelling the weapon where such means is a separable and divisible part from the weapon  (US Department of Defence, 2014) (United Nations, 2003).

So Iraq had “form” as an international problem; a rogue state. President George W. Bush had included Iraq in his “Axis of Evil”, alongside Iran and North Korea as states supporting terrorism and seeking to proliferate the possession and use of WMD’s. The US and its allies, Britain and Australia, claimed to have evidence that Iraq was in possession of WMD’s (Sweiringa, 2013) and this was in breach of UN Resolution 1441 (United Nations, 2002). The case for an armed intervention to mitigate future conflict between Iraq and her neighbours seemed quite simple. And it is undeniable that the armed intervention has been an effective tool in mitigating future inter-state conflict. Iraq is unlikely in the extreme to invade anyone for quite a long time.

The problems and arguably failure began once Saddam and his regime were removed. The Iraqi WMD’s that were the justification for the armed intervention were never found. Mistakes were made in terms of troop strength, and the goals of the intervention changed once it emerged that Iraq was depauperate in terms of WMD’s (Thompson, 2011). Iraq always admitted to having had WMD’s prior to the Kuwaiti invasion, but denied their possession in 2003 (Thompson, 2012).  

With no WMD’s having been found in Iraq post intervention, the goals changed to “bringing democracy” to the Iraqi people, whether they wanted or even needed it. (Robert H. Reid and Rebecca Santana, 2011). Echoes of the Vietnam War “In order to save the village we had to destroy it”. In order to protect Iraq from a despot the US and its allies had to destroy it as a functioning state.

The US and its allies very quickly found themselves participants in an intra-state conflict. Not only were they participants in an intra-state conflict that the armed intervention was clearly not mitigating, there was the very real fact that in removing the regime of Saddam Hussein, the armed intervention had actually caused the intra-state conflict in the first place. Causing a conflict is clearly a failure to mitigate it.

 Whether the armed intervention to mitigate the Iraqi potential for conflict in any shape or form is successful, I think depends on where you draw the line. Iraq has no offensive capacity. I think that given the stated objective of the armed intervention was to mitigate Iraqi offensive potential for inter-state conflict, then by these parameters, the armed intervention has been a success. However, it does have ongoing and unmitigated intra-state conflict. Sectarian and ethnic conflicts that the Hussein regime had succeeded in mitigating are now being resolved on the battlefield of intra-state conflict.

If we take a standpoint of overall collective effectiveness, armed intervention when it is competently led and has clear goals is an effective tool for mitigating future conflict in both inter and intra-state conflicts. Had NATO and its threat of armed intervention on behalf of member states not been an effective response to potential conflict originating in the Soviet dominated Warsaw Pact, then arguably World War Three would have occurred. Even unilateral armed interventions such as the US and its Coalition of the Willing armed intervention into Iraq in order to permanently mitigate Iraqi offensive potential, work.

We have seen armed intervention mitigate potential future conflict in intra-state conflicts in places as diverse as Sierra Leone and Timor Leste. Whilst the conflicts and the armed interventions were very different in nature, they worked for the identical reasons that I have repeated throughout this essay: competent leadership and clarity of goals. With Rwanda as an  example of an armed intervention failing, both of these essential qualities were absent.

So to answer the question: Can armed intervention serve as an effective tool of mitigating future conflict either between states or within states? Armed intervention can and does serve as an effective tool of mitigating future conflict either between states or within states.

 References

http://mfa.gov.ua/en/about-ukraine/euroatlantic-cooperation/ukraine-nato Accessed May 13 2014

http://nation.time.com/2012/09/06/iraq-how-the-cia-says-it-blew-it-on-saddams-wmd/ Accessed May 15 2014

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2011/12/17/iraq_a_war_of_muddled_goals_painful_sacrifice/ Accessed May 16 2014

 http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/commentary/stopping-mass-atrocities-responsibility-to-protect-in-action.aspx Accessed May 15 2014

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-east-asia/op-eds/della-giacoma-timor-leste-everybody-needs-good-neighbours.aspx Accessed May 12 2014

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/?zoom_query=intervention&zoom_sort=0&zoom_per_page=10&zoom_and=1 Accessed May 15 2014

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/data/w/7970.html Accessed May 9 2014

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2011/12/15/the-biggest-mistake-in-american-military-history/ Accessed May 20 2014

 http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_59378.htm?selectedLocale=en Accessed April 24  2014

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/howard-ignored-official-advice-on-iraqs-weapons-and-chose-war-20130411-2hogn.html Accessed May 15 2014

http://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/new/documents/cluster_document.pdf Accessed May 16 2014

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/monusco/ Accessed May 15 2014

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm Accessed May 1 2014

 http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/pwks45.pdf Accessed May 8 2014    

https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/2602/fulltext.pdf?sequence=1   Accessed May 7 2014

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tt.html Accessed May 7 2014

Tanca. A “FOREIGN ARMED INTERVENTION IN INTERNAL CONFLICT”. 1993. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Dordrecht, Netherlands

A Critical Analysis of Classical Realism

Classical Realism is also known as Realpolitik. Because the tenets of Classical Realism are well known, I will not inlcude them here. Classical Realism has a number of defining characteristics: “denotes a certain hard-headed, unromantic, uncompromising attitude towards the world, which manifests itself in a brutal honesty and candor in the assessment of human motives and the portrayal of human affairs (B, 2001).”  The pragmatism, the amorality, the willingness of its practitioners to get their hands dirty are all strengths of Classical Realism because they give it an inherent adapatability.

When we take the quotes below into consideration it isn’t hard to see why Classical Realism works. The pragmatism means that rather than wanting the world to fit our ideals, that we work within the reality of it. This Pragmatism is best exemplified by Napoleon: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Morgenthau puts it this way:  Whatever the ultimate aims of international politics, power is always the immediate aim. Napoleon was only too happy for his opponents to win his battles for him. It is an example of Classical Realism willingness to use an opponents weaknesses against them. Morgenthau is much blunter and simply tells us the goal of the exercise. The goal is one thing, how we achieve it is another.

Özlem Punar (Punar) argues that contrary to Classical Realism’s pessimissm in regards to supranational bodies such as the UN, that organisations such as the UN do work and cites this as proof that Classical Realism doesn’t work. There is of course a glaring problem with Punar’s criticism: The UN’s ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty ) intervention in Libya during its recent civil war has been argued as being an example of the successful application of Classical Realism. Harry Kazanis (Kazanis, 2011)  argues that the intervention was an exercise of Classical Realism that achieved humanitarian and economic goals.

There was also that problem that with Kissinger[1] and Morgenthau active as a diplomat and a foreign policy advisor respectively, the US has assiduously used the UN Security Council to achieve its goals.  The pragmatists used the embodiment of the counter argument to their theories in order to achieve their goals. Thus proving that Classical Realism does work.  If Classical Realism doesn’t work and the UN is proof of this, then why were Classical Realists able to use it to achieve goals? Which leads us to the next point.

Amorality is a strength of Classical Realism because it gives freedom of action. There are no artificial constraints on actions that can be taken in pursuit of goals. In other words: Do whatever it takes to get the job done. The amorality is clear in Kissinger: The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer and Machiavelli: “Politics have no relation to morals”. Thus, amorality is a recognition that in order to achieve the desired and paramount outcome of security that there are times “that good men need to do bad things”. 

Classical Realism’s qualities as a theory, the aspects of which I have listed above and with which its critics have so many problems do have its apologists. Brian Leiter (Leiter, 2010) certainly has no problems arguing the case for it. Morgenthau (Morgenthau, 1948) certainly makes his argument for Classical Realism. Brian A. Keaney (Keaney, 2006)  agrees with Morgenthau.

David. L. Perry criticises Classical Realism as a ”Repugnant Philosophy” (Perry, 1995)  because it does operate in an “ethics free zone”. Yet in the same article we find this quote: “Even as persistent a critic of government secrecy as Sissela Bok nonetheless grants that deception can occasionally be justified in national defense: "Honesty ought not to allow the creation of an emergency by the enemy, when deception can forestall or avert it. . . . Whenever it is right to resist an assault or a threat by force, it must then be allowable to do so by guile." We cannot have things both ways Mr Perry. Either something is immoral and is rejected or it is immoral and accepted. If the critics keep contradicting themselves there is only one conclusion that can be reached.

And the criticism by Perry et al clearly relates to the willingness by practitioners of Classical Realism to get themselves “dirty”, in other words “practice what they preach”. This is exemplified by the Iran-Contra Affair, where the US was selling arms to the Iranians who were obstensibly their enemies at the time in order to fund their friends, the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Kissinger said: “Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral”. Utopian ideals are fine, but the world manifestly isn’t a Utopia. It is observably what Classical Realism holds it to be: nasty, amoral, and hypocritical. A desire for a Utopia doesn’t bring it about. That takes hard-nosed work.

Howard Zinn (Zinn, 1997) has as his main criticism of Classical Realism because it isn’t Utopian. Yet at no point does Classical Realism even pretend to enter the neighbourhood of Utopianism. It can be argued, and Zinn inspite of his above stated criticism, certainly does, that US foreign policy post World War 2 and in particular during the Cold War has been entirely Classical Realist in nature. In other words: US foreign policy during and after the Cold War has been anything but Utopian in nature. Zinn concedes that the Classical Realists who advised and were diplomats for the US government during this period in fact won the Cold War (New (Keaney, 2006)mann, 2010).

Being able to change the rules to suit yourself and your objectives because you aren’t particularly concerned with ethics is a clear strength. Morgenthau says: “Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action.”  This also neatly illustrates the inherent structural adaptability of Classical Realism, which brings us back to the pragmatism. Wishing the world to be other than the way it is is the equivalent of changing the facts to fit the theory. Classical Realism changes the theory to fit the facts.

The above points illustrate what even most fiercest of its critics acknowledge and is indeed the only logical conclusion: that Classical Realism works. Why does Classical Realism as an Internation Security theory succeed in ways that the other theories don’t? Because Classical Realism is pragmatic, is amoral, has the willingness of its practitioners to get their hands dirty, all of which gives it an inherent adapatability.

             
Bibliography

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/0029-4624.35.s1.10/pdf

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1113461

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1113461

http://search.un.org/search?ie=utf8&site=un_org&output=xml_no_dtd&client=UN_Website_en&num=10&lr=lang_en&proxystylesheet=UN_Website_en&oe=utf8&q=Kissinger&Submit=Go

http://search.un.org/search?ie=utf8&site=un_org&output=xml_no_dtd&client=UN_Website_en&num=10&lr=lang_en&proxystylesheet=UN_Website_en&oe=utf8&q=Kissinger&Submit=Go

http://www.e-ir.info/2011/06/06/intervention-in-libya-example-of-%E2%80%9Cr2p%E2%80%9D-or-classic-realism/

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/Perry/repugnant.html

https://www.academia.edu/1085370/The_classical_realist_argument_that_the_fundamental_features_of_international_relations_never_change

Zinn. H. “The Zinn Reader: Machiavellian Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Means and Ends” page 336

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[1] http://search.un.org/search?ie=utf8&site=un_org&output=xml_no_dtd&client=UN_Website_en&num=10&lr=lang_en&proxystylesheet=UN_Website_en&oe=utf8&q=Kissinger&Submit=Go

Plans for 2014

It is now late January so this doesn't quite qualify as a New Years Resolution.

This year I turn 49, so it's safe to say that I'm well past the point where I have less years to live than I already have lived.

I recently walked part of The Great South West Walk in South West Victoria. Only three days before being forced off due to extreme heat and an almost lethal forest in the very likely event of there being a fire in it. I love walking. It gives a wonderful space to think.

This year I will row and run a marathon....that's 42.5 km. I'm more likely to row a marathon first than  run one due to my ability to run all that far isn't good. Having said that I intend to increase my walking speed on the treadmill until I am running and then extend the distance. I will also complete the GSWW...on my 5th attempt. This time I will travel very light and walk a marathon or there abouts a day. It turns out that Pakenham is just over that distance from my place, so is Frankston. Thus I can put my goals into effect.

I am reworking my concept of the "cheat meal". I'm turning it into the reward meal. Rather than filling myself up on fats & carbs by eating something like pizza or fish & chips and feeling completely kack, I'm going to indulge in something I genuinely enjoy such as sushi or sashimi or a nice big steak. Thus the meal helps me to achieve my goals.

My goal this year is to achieve what I also wanted: Fitness Model status. I will do this through a mixture of weights and cardio. So lots of rowing and walking with the weights done mostly at home. And now that Selina is pregnant I will return to yoga after my morning meditation. Lots of clean eating. It is only giving up that will prevent me from achieving my goals.

Four Days on The Great South West Walk

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Machiavelli takes state-craft and stage-craft, politics and theatre, to be parallel in so far as politics is, for him, the play of appearances, masks, actors and emotions. Does this diminish the seriousness and significance of politics?

The answer I would give to this question is: No. In no shape or form does the parallel between theatre and politics diminish the seriousness and significance of politics. In fact quite the opposite is true. Machiavelli is best known as the writer of what has been described as “a handbook for tyrants”. It is quite well known that Machiavelli served about thirteen years in ambassadorial and military roles during the Florentine Republic. What isn’t often mentioned or apparently all that well known in our time of Machiavelli, is that he was also a dramatist and a poet of high repute and that his fame as a political pragmatist that eclipsed his contemporary fame as a dramatist came posthumously. At the time Machiavelli was writing plays he was also engaging in and witnessing precisely the behaviour that provided the material he deals with as subject matter that he quotes at length and uses as examples in “The Prince”. My point in stating this is that Machiavelli did not see a functional difference between politics and theatre. And it can be argued that neither have a lot of other people before and since Machiavelli, with the Athenians Aristophanes and Aeschylus, the Romans Petronius, Seneca and Lucius Apuleius and the American Graham Green all writing intensely political pieces of theatre[1]. 

Towards the end of his life, after he had served his beloved Florence as a diplomat, militia commander and politician, Machiavelli wrote the comedy “La Mandragola”: “The Mandrake”. At least one writer is of the opinion that in “The Mandrake”, Machiavelli explored much the same ethical and political territory as he did in his seminal treatise “The Prince”, albeit in a decidedly different manner[2] with an exploration of Virtù and Fortuna being central themes in both works[3]. “The Mandrake”, I believe served to wet the Florentine intellectual appetite for Machiavelli’s masterpiece. We must remember that Machiavelli wrote almost as many works of fiction and plays, (nine of them), as he did political manuals, histories and commentaries, (fourteen of them). There may be no coincidence in the timing between the performance of “The Mandrake” and the publication of “The Prince”. And that “The Mandrake” was released and performed before “The Prince” was printed and long before it gained its reputation and notoriety and indeed could well have served as an primer of sorts for the more serious and intellectually drier “The Prince”. Machiavelli had other political works published before both “The Mandrake” and “The Prince”, and none of them achieved the heights of popularity and relevance of these two works. Machiavelli was already known and indeed famous as a dramatist and historian and it certainly would have been common knowledge that he had written something both different, and to use a modern metaphor “game changing”, he had after all been effectively workshopping “The Prince” with his friends for a generation. The release of two works with such similar themes so close together and not have it planned, to me, to almost beggar belief.

Modern authors such as Michael Kirby in his essay “On Political Theatre”[4] agree with Machiavelli.  Kirby establishes clear connections between political theatre and politics itself in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Nazi Germany when theatre was very much an approved and indeed central method of political expression, propaganda and indoctrination by both regimes.  Kirby goes onto discuss the protest movement of the Vietnam Era in the United States and the significant role that theatre played in it. To quote Kirby: “Art does change the way people think, and new ways of thinking may eventually cause changes in laws and government.” And theatre is undeniably art. To quote Kirby further: “John Houseman ascribed a "seminal effect" to theatre…the theatre audience was relatively small, the impact of theatre as a medium was somehow greater and more powerful than other media.” And Kirby and Houseman are far from being alone, with Tara Bracco in her article “The Power of Political Theatre” which appeared in The Brooklyn Rail in September 2008 discussing the depth of impact that political theatre has when it comes to discussing political issues of the day. The single most compelling paragraph in the article, and one that is, I believe, utterly relevant to Machiavelli is (my emphasis):

“Unlike film or television where it is too easy to hit the mute button, theatre requires the audience to come face to face with its characters. Theatre shows the depths of these characters, their circumstances, and what motivates them to take specific actions. I never understood the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until I saw the plays Golda’s Balcony and My Name Is Rachel Corrie. My history books just presented factual events and outcomes. These two plays showed the human elements driving this conflict and why tensions exist.”

Machiavelli saw and indeed deliberately used the immediacy and impact of theatre to make political comment. Whilst “The Mandrake” is a comedy, it still discusses Virtù and that makes it political, because according to Kirby and Bracco all theatre is inherently political. Theatre can be used as a tool for conveying ideas and opinions in ways that books cannot. We have all experienced the fundamental difference between reading about something and actually seeing it. With theatre we get to see what is on the page, we have our comfortable distance removed. The purpose of theatre, Kirby and Bracco argue, is to make us think and that is exactly what Machiavelli wants us to do. Machiavelli wants us to struggle, to think, to discuss. Go to a performance of theatre and after the performance you will see groups of people discussing the performance, Machiavelli knew about and relied on this phenomena in order to promote the spread and acceptance of his ideas. Politics is known to occur in just such groups, which is why totalitarian regimes such as the USSR, Communist China and Nazi Germany all controlled and used theatre[5]. 

In the present we have television and the Internet supplanting live theatre as the dominant vehicle for political theatre. There is no doubt in my mind at least, that live political theatre is still very much possessed of impact and that the move from a physical theatre to an electronic one, is marginal with identical outcomes occurring from both forms of political media.  In 1998 Warren Beaty made a movie titled “Bullworth”. I happen to view “Bullworth” as a first rate piece of political theatre. “Bullworth” which has an American senator of the same name as a central character and explores such themes as political honesty, accountability and the power of minorities, of what would be possible if conventional restraints of having to make compromises and satisfy vested interests were set aside. In the course of researching this essay I have learnt that President Obama has expressed a longing to “go Bullworth”[6]. Obama has expressed a longing to be able to say and do the sort of things that Warren Beaty as Bullworth says and does, and to be utterly candid and uncompromising in his dealing with people.

As political theatre, Bullworth raises the important questions of politically reliable constituencies and why is it that politicians cannot be more honest and transparent. Once again we are being asked to think by an absent interrogator via the medium of theatre. Without giving too much of the plot away, the reason why Bullworth can be candid in ways that Obama clearly cannot, no matter how much he might wish to, is because he has taken a contract out on himself which has to be fulfilled within three days, thus with no future Bullworth can be honest in ways impossible for others. “Bullworth” has always left me smiling at the honesty inherent in it. Warren Beaty who is both the Director and Leading Actor in “Bullworth” takes us to a place we are never going to go and then expresses recognisable political truths.  An example being: at one point Bullworth during the course of the weekend, is asked by African American voters who have habitually voted Democrat why after the race riots in Los Angeles in 1991 “Why nothing ever happened after Bush & Clinton both visited in the aftermath of the riots?” The reply is both brutally honest and politically accurate: “Like you guys are ever going to vote Republican. Or pay for 30 second spots during elections[7].” The point made, is that the African Americans by being politically dependable, have rendered themselves powerless.

Machiavelli has successfully blurred the difference between stage and politics and effectively reached out across the centuries. We watch, we engage with the subject, we think and then, if the play write is successful, we have our political assumptions changed or at the very least opened to intelligent questioning. Likewise with the recent and incredibly successful series “House of Cards”, which explores the rise of American congressman Francis Underwood can be seen as political theatre, in that it seeks to portray a version of events that take place in the American Congress. Whether House of Cards is accurate has been the subject of much debate online. What is clear though is that it has caused abundant thinking to happen with a search of “analysis of House of Cards” producing 27 400 results. The questions raised in myself and others by the actions of the clearly Machiavellian central character, Francis Underwood, is whether power corrupts or whether you need to be inherently corrupt in order to seek power? Even the morals of Machiavelli as expressed by Underwood in the House of Cards are being opened up to questioning. Once again we are engaging in politics and political questioning via the medium of the stage. 

 

Another answer to the question of Machiavelli’s approach to politics. Is to be found in the phrase often attributed to Machiavelli “the end justifies the means”, but almost certainly by the Roman writer Ovid or the phrase by Leon Trotsky: “The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end[8].” And it is accepted that for Machiavelli, all means justify the end. Theatre as a medium of political instruction is, for Machiavelli, simply another means to his end, which is the acquisition and preservation of power.

In reading “The Prince” I have very much gained the impression that Machiavelli simply did not care how his student learnt the lessons contained within it, what mattered to him is that the lessons were learned. There is a certain deep psychological wisdom in viewing politics as theatre in that it provides a buffer between the, at times, messy consequences of politics and the perpetrator of politics. In viewing events unfolding around ourselves as being nothing more than the play of appearances, masks, actors and emotions we build ourselves a sanctuary of sorts. In this Machiavelli shows himself to be a deeply attentive student of human nature. He also in my opinion displays an affection for his student. I think it matters to Machiavelli that whilst his opinions and teachings are amoral, that there is no undue harm done to his student. Everyone else, however is fair game.

So to conclude. No, I don’t think that Machiavelli’s view of there being parallels between politics and theatre lessens the impact of politics at all, if anything it enhances it. Machiavelli made intelligent use of the tools at hand which included the theatre as a means of exploring and expressing his political theories. This is totally in line with the pragmatism so clearly evident throughout The Prince. At the very least, Machiavelli knew that the use of theatrical parallels would sustain the interest of an audience due to the central position occupied by theatre in the level of society that Machiavelli was writing for. I think it is accepted enough to not need referencing that the upper classes have for the majority of history attended and patronised the theatre. Thus the use of theatrical and political parallels and the view that theatre and politics were the same creature wearing different guises, in no way reduces the impact or importance of politics.

                                                  Finis

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[1] Petronius “The Satyricon. Aeschylus: The Oresteia. Aristophanes: The Knights & The Assembly. Lucius Apuleius: The Golden Ass. Graham Green: The Quiet American. 

[2] http://www.enotes.com/topics/niccolo-machiavelli/critical-essays/niccolo-machiavelli

[3] http://www.emachiavelli.com/Machiavellian%20Rhetoric.htm

[4] Kirby. M “On Political Theatre”  The Drama Review. Volume 19 1975

[5] Kirby. M “On Political Theatre”  The Drama Review. Volume 19 1975

[6] http://theweek.com/article/index/244319/what-it-would-mean-if-obama-goes-bulworth

[7] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

[8] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/leontrotsk154770.html