THE NECESSARY AND THE CHOSENAuthor(s): RICHARD N. HAASSSource: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 88, No. 4 (July/August 2009), pp. 167-168Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20699635 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 04:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ForeignAffairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.55 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:11:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Letters to the Editor

which foreign and domestic groups are

lobbying for which interests and policies. But we are offended by the implication that when ones own foreign policy views fail to prevail in the democratic process, the result can only be explained by the nefarious influence of "foreign agents."

RONALD D. ASMUS

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Statefor

European Affairs, iQgj-2000 JEREMY D. ROSNER

Special Adviser to the President and

Secretary of Statefor NATO Enlargement Ratification, 1007-08

States and the Bush administration then had on their plate, all the likely problems a war would trigger, and the absence of

a compelling answer to the question,

Why now? The second clarification involves just

what is meant by "war of necessity" and

"war of choice." Wars of necessity are

essentially unavoidable. They involve the most important national interests, a lack of

promising alternatives to the use of force, and a certain and considerable price to be

paid if the status quo is allowed to stand.

Examples include World War II and the Korean War.

By contrast, wars of choice tend to

involve interests that are less vital and the existence of viable alternative policies, be

they diplomacy, inaction, or something else. The wars in Vietnam, Bosnia, and

Kosovo (and the Spanish-American War a century before) were all wars of choice.

To be sure, there is unavoidable subjec tivity in these characterizations. That said, the distinction between wars of necessity and wars of choice is not one between

wars that are judged to have been good and wars that are judged to have been bad or between those seen as successes

and those seen as failures. History's judg ment as to whether a war was worth

fighting or fought well has no bearing on what kind of war it was. Thus, the

first Iraq war, undertaken by President

George H. W. Bush in 1991, would have remained a war of necessity even ifit had

proved to be far more costly or less success

ful. It just would have been a costly war of necessity. Similarly, the second Iraq war, initiated by George W. Bush just over a decade later, would have remained

a war of choice even if the human and

economic costs had proved to be more

THE NECESSARY AND THE CHOSEN

To the Editor: I want to express my appreciation to

Zbigniew Brzezinski for his generous review of my book War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars ("A Tale of Two Wars," May/June 2009). Praise from someone of Brzezinskis stature is

praise indeed.

I do, however, want to make sure that

two matters central to the book are clear.

The first concerns the Iraq war initiated in 2003. It is true that my opposition to this second Iraq war was not fundamental,

largely because I assumed (along with

virtually everyone else) that Iraq possessed at least some weapons of mass destruction.

But even so, and as I note more than once

in the book, I was "60/40" against the decision to go to war. (I go on to say that

had I known then what is known now, that

Iraq no longer possessed weapons of mass

destruction, my stance would have been

90/10 against.) My position at the time

(one expressed in many memos I wrote as

director of the State Department s policy planning staff) was one of skepticism about the need to go to war given all the United

FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? July/August 2000 [167]

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.55 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:11:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Letters to the Editor

modest and the accomplishments greater. It just would have been a relatively inex

pensive war of choice. Outcomes and the

balance between results and costs shape our verdict of policies, but hindsight is not

required to understand what was done

and why.

Why does all this matter? When it comes to wars of necessity, it does not.

By definition, such wars must be fought. But wars of choice place added burdens on decision-makers because of the often

considerable human, military, and eco

nomic costs associated with going to war.

Such wars should be fought only after the most rigorous assessments of the

likely costs and benefits of action?as

well as of the likely costs and benefits of

implementing other policies. The right answer is not to rule out all wars of choice

but to understand that they need to be rare so as to ensure that there is still the adequate

will and ability to fight wars of necessity when they materialize.

RICHARD N. HAASS

President, Council on Foreign Relations

Although Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751, "We are, as I may call it, scouring our

planet, by clearing America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a

brighter light," little credit is due to young George Washington s hatchet work. Fire in the hands of Neolithic man had already transformed the ecology?and the albedo?

of Australia and the Americas eons before.

In recent decades, Foreign Affairs readers

(and editors) have seen the nuclear winter melt down, the energy crisis metastasize

into an oil glut, and the population bomb

implode. This breathtaking string of global systems modeling fiascos leaves some

analysts asking why climate models are deemed sacrosanct when variables as

critical as the sensitivity of the climate to the doubling of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere have failed to converge on

uncontroversial values.

RUSSELL SEITZ

Cambridge, Massachusetts

THE NEXT TOP MODEL?

To the Editor: David Victor, M. Granger Morgan,

Jay Apt, John Steinbruner, and Katharine Ricke ("The Geoengineering Option," March/April 2009) date geoengineering to the twentieth century, but it has been an

integral part of the landscape of history.

Foreign Affairs (issN 00157120), July/August 2009, Volume 88, Number 4. Published six times annually

(January, March, May, July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065.

Subscriptions: U.S., $44.95; Canada, $56.00; other countries via air, $79.00 per year. Canadian

Publication Mail-Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Foreign Affairs, P.O. Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL

32142-0235. From time to time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers

information about products or services that we believe will be of interest. If you prefer not to receive

such information, please contact us at the Palm Coast, FL, address indicated above.

[168] FOREIGN AFFAIRS ? Volume88No.4

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.55 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:11:56 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions