Plus: What foreign-policy matters are most important to you and why?
Welcome to Up for Debate. Each week, Conor Friedersdorf rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
In the 2024 election, candidates will debate U.S. foreign policy toward China, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, Mexico, and beyond. What foreign-policy matters are most important to you and why?
Send your responses to conor@theatlantic.com or simply reply to this email.
For and Against a Cease-Fire
In The Washington Post, Shadi Hamid advocates for a cessation of hostilities in the Middle East, pending negotiations:
First, Hamas must agree to release hostages and commit to halting rocket fire into Israel. In exchange, Israel would agree to stop its bombardment of Gaza as well as any ground incursions into Gazan territory.
Once this first step is taken, a cease-fire would allow for further negotiations... These talks should be led by the United States, with the active support of governments in communication with Hamas... These countries should demand that Hamas offload its governing responsibilities in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority … Just as it is unrealistic to ask Israel to accept an unconditional cease-fire, so, too, is the notion that Hamas can be “eradicated”… Truly eliminating the organization—one with hundreds of thousands of supporters and sympathizers—would require mass killing on an unprecedented scale.
In The Atlantic, Hillary Clinton describes a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that she helped negotiate in 2012, and explains why she opposes calls for a cease-fire in today’s conflict:
In 2014, Hamas violated the cease-fire and started another war by abducting Israeli hostages and launching rocket attacks against civilians. Israel responded forcefully, but Hamas remained in control of Gaza. The terrorists re-armed, and the pattern repeated itself in 2021, with more civilians killed. This all culminated in the horrific massacre of Israeli civilians last month, the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust …
[Hamas has] proved again and again that they will not abide by cease-fires, will sabotage any efforts to forge a lasting peace, and will never stop attacking Israel … Cease-fires freeze conflicts rather than resolve them … In 2012, freezing the conflict in Gaza was an outcome we and the Israelis were willing to accept. But Israel’s policy since 2009 of containing rather than destroying Hamas has failed. A cease-fire now that restored the pre–October 7 status quo ante would leave the people of Gaza living in a besieged enclave under the domination of terrorists and leave Israelis vulnerable to continued attacks. It would also consign hundreds of hostages to continued captivity.
At The Homebound Symphony, Alan Jacobs argues that the cost of things is seldom plainly stated:
Especially in time of war, few political commentators take even the first step towards this vital honesty, which is to admit that someone will be hurt. Significantly fewer still take the next step, which is to acknowledge the extent of [the] pain — they will make their calculations based on the best-case scenario, or indeed something rather better than that… Almost every policy has higher costs than its supporters want to admit, and if readers see the probable consequences, they may well decide that the game isn’t worth the candle.
At Gideon’s Substack, Noah Millman argues that a moral imperative as basic as “stop genocides” compels us to prioritize solutions that are actually effective. He worries that people gravitate toward moralistic but unrealistic stances because doing so “absolves them of the terrible possibility that whatever they do could not only fail, but be counterproductive.”
In his telling, having the right intent is not what’s most important:
Hamas is a group with clear genocidal intent; that’s obvious after October 7th if it wasn’t before. Israel is a country that was born in response to genocide. Does that mean Israel should have carte blanche to do whatever it deems necessary to destroy Hamas? No… because Israel’s proper response is a prudential question, a judgment call. Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas is justified, yes, but that doesn’t mean jus in bello considerations go out the window, nor does it mean that every justified action will lead to good outcomes. And good outcomes are what matters...
Does that mean the world is obliged to put pressure on Israel to end the fighting, given the horrific humanitarian situation unfolding in Gaza, the massive loss of innocent life, and the real potential for ethnic cleansing or even genocide? Again: No. That’s also a prudential question, also a judgment call, one that has to be evaluated based on likely outcomes. Pressure could be counterproductive, prompting no change in Israeli action now and greater Israeli intransigence in the future. If pressure were effective, meanwhile, it could lead to an equivocal outcome in the war that results in worse fighting, and a more terrible vengeance, in the near future. I’m not saying either of those conclusions are certain... I’m just saying that there’s no moralistic framework to decide these things, no clean-handed policy to apply that is certainly right because it is rightly intended.
A Case for Equality
In a speech to The Federalist Society, Bari Weiss argues that there is peril in the concept of equity as distinct from equality of opportunity:
For Jews, there are obvious and glaring dangers in a worldview that measures fairness by equality of outcome rather than opportunity. If underrepresentation is the inevitable outcome of systemic bias, then overrepresentation—and Jews are 2 percent of the American population—suggests not talent or hard work, but unearned privilege. This conspiratorial conclusion is not that far removed from the hateful portrait of a small group of Jews divvying up the ill-gotten spoils of an exploited world.
But it is not only Jews who suffer from the suggestion that merit and excellence are dirty words. It is every single one of us. It is strivers of every race, ethnicity, and class. That is why Asian American success, for example, is suspicious. The percentages are off. The scores are too high. The starting point, as poor immigrants, is too low. From whom did you steal all that success?
An Unexpected Convert
In UnHerd, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who famously left Islam for atheism, explains her turn to a new religion:
Why do I call myself a Christian now?
Part of the answer is global. Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.
We endeavour to fend off these threats with modern, secular tools …And yet, with every round of conflict, we find ourselves losing ground …
But we can’t fight off these formidable forces unless we can answer the question: what is it that unites us? The response that “God is dead!” seems insufficient. So, too, does the attempt to find solace in “the rules-based liberal international order”. The only credible answer, I believe, lies in our desire to uphold the legacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That legacy consists of an elaborate set of ideas and institutions designed to safeguard human life, freedom and dignity — from the nation state and the rule of law to the institutions of science, health and learning.
It seems to me that a belief in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a credible answer to what most unites us, or could unite us—to whatever extent hundreds of millions can be united.
Jennifer Burns, a history professor at Stanford, is the author of books on Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. While being interviewed by the economist Tyler Cowen, this exchange occurred:
Cowen: Many of us observing history have the sense that the intellectual tradition within the American right has been in decline for several decades. (A) Do you agree? (B) If so, what, most fundamentally, is driving that change?
Burns: I think it’s a less vigorously intellectual culture. One thing I sometimes face with undergraduates is, they’re genuinely surprised when I say, “Well, yes, the conservatives had all the ideas in the 20th century. The conservatives really made an impact because they came up with all these ideas that were really powerful and important.” It doesn’t really compute because the conservatism they’ve grown up with is not driven by ideas in any meaningful way … conservatism became an establishment, and then you have a set of greatest hits, and you have a variety of ways you can make your living within this establishment, provided you adhere to the greatest hits. There’s not a ton of incentives to do things differently. I do think there’s a lot of ideological ferment on the right or amid conservatives right now. It’s heavy on ideas. It’s often in internet forms that are not deep engagement with ideas, I would say, in the same way as when you’re reading books and magazines. I think it’s faster and more rapid.
It’s really interesting. There’s much more competition in the realm of ideas than there was. Besides reading a book or going to college, you can get ideas — they’re coming out of everywhere, coming out of the ether. I think that’s going to lend less coherence. You can have a lot of people who are intellectual leaders of smaller tribes rather than having a couple of the big leaders that everyone’s heard of — Friedman, Hayek, this and that.
I just think we’re in a more fragmented place. I tend to attribute it to the media environment we’re in, which probably isn’t going away anytime soon. So the question is, can we live and thrive in this fragmented-attention ecosphere, or are we going to recreate something akin to the three big networks [laughs] to filter and manage all the information we have?
I think we’ll see that evolve, or not, over the next 50 years.
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