On January 5 in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff to president Donald Trump, defended the administration’s alarming embrace of military intervention in Venezuela and imperialistic aspirations more broadly on the global stage:
The United States of America is running Venezuela. By definition, that’s true. Jake … we live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.
Call it what you will—“might makes right,” kratocracy, realpolitik—Miller’s statements should trouble anyone committed to the American tradition of liberty, which began with the declaration that “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
Miller is right about one thing, however: There are “iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” And, at least according to John Locke, those “iron laws” have a lot to teach us about international relations, if we would only take the time to read his works and take him at his word.
International Relations as State of Nature
Of course, reading John Locke and presuming he meant what he wrote cuts against the long-standing trend of presuming he meant the exact opposite. Suffice it to say, I am neither a Straussian nor a postliberal, but they are welcome to enlighten us as to whatever secret, esoteric meaning I may be missing. Historical quibbles aside, my reading of Locke here should be evaluated on its own merits.
Critics like Patrick Deneen, Adrian Vermeule, and Yoram Hazony claim Locke’s state of nature is merely an illusory thought experiment that has never existed, meant to undermine traditional religious anthropology and political philosophy. But anyone who bothers to read Locke’s Two Treatises on Government knows that isn’t true. Locke identified an actually existing sphere that remains in a state of nature to the present: international relations. “It is often asked as a mighty objection,” notes Locke, “where are, or ever were there any men in such a state of nature? To which it may suffice as an answer at present, that since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was, nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that state.”
Now, perhaps Miller might object at this point that this is exactly what he was saying. Indeed, Locke even stipulates:
I have named all governors of independent communities, whether they are, or are not, in league with others: for it is not every compact that puts an end to the state of nature between men, but only this one of agreeing together mutually to enter into one community, and make one body politic; other promises, and compacts, men may make one with another, and yet still be in the state of nature.
“See!” our modern Machiavellians might say, “even John Locke thinks that the ‘iron law’ of the world is the rule of the stronger over the weaker. After all, in a state of nature, life is ‘nasty, brutish, and short’ for those without the strength to defend themselves. Treaties, international law, and trade agreements were made to be broken by superpowers like us.”
But “nasty, brutish, and short” is Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature concept, not Locke’s. Indeed, Locke clarifies, “The promises and bargains for truck, &c. between the two men in the desert island … are binding to them, though they are perfectly in a state of nature, in reference to one another, for truth and keeping of faith belongs to men, as men, and not as members of society.” He then appeals to the 16th-century Anglican theologian Richard Hooker in defense of his position, demonstrating his continuity, in this case, with Christian Scholasticism, in contrast to Hobbes, who never misses an opportunity in his Leviathan to criticize the “Schoolmen.” Locke even warns that “he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power, does thereby put himself into a state of war with him.”
What, then, did Locke mean by a “state of nature,” and how did he think it applied to international relations?
John Locke’s State of Nature
For all the attempts to read the Straussian tea leaves in Locke, he is actually quite plain in his speech and defines his terms precisely. By a state of nature, he means when people live in “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.” The important condition here is “within the bounds of the law of nature.” This is a concept so traditional and Christian that it goes back at least to Justinian’s Institutes, which states, “Under the law of nature all men were born free. Manumission and slavery were both unknown.” As if anticipating a Machiavellian misreading, Locke continues to note that this is a “state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another.” Appeals to the superiority of one’s raw strength cannot negate this natural equality.
So what is stopping Locke’s state of nature from being, as Hobbes put it, a “War of every man against every man”? Natural law. After once again quoting Hooker, Locke continues, “But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence.” How? “The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” He grounds this theologically in our “being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker,” and he derives from this a social obligation:
Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Thus, if the international order is a state of nature, it is, in fact, beholden to “iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time”—not “might makes right” but the natural law. In Christian moral theology, the content of the natural law traditionally aligns with basic, Ten Commandments morality, written on the human heart and known through reason and conscience: Do not murder; do not steal; do not lie; and so on. This is the case for Locke as well, who examines these commandments in substance and later even explicitly cites the Bible with regard to the command to honor one’s father and mother as an example of natural law. A direct conclusion from this is that, for Locke, forcibly annexing the territory (such as Greenland) of another sovereign nation (such as Denmark) would be a violation of the “iron laws of the world” rather than a demonstration of them.
Locke then stipulates that “the execution of the law of nature is, in that state, put into every man’s hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation.” Thus, we can see here a justification for international human rights tribunals, such as the Nuremberg trials, in cases where national leaders violated the laws of nature, even if their own national laws allowed such evils. So, too, this same logic justifies treaties of nations, such as NATO, designed to keep rogue nations, such as Russia, with imperialist aspirations in check.
True Superpower
All this from Locke might even justify one nation bringing to justice an illegitimate ruler of another, such as Maduro in Venezuela, for violating the human rights of his own people, ignoring the will of the electorate, and threatening the sovereignty of neighboring nations, such as Guyana. Unfortunately, none of those reasons were cited for the capture of Maduro, nor is he being tried by an international tribunal. For Miller, the only needed justification is that we can. The only laws that matter are whatever laws the strong decree.
However, if Locke is right, as in this case the American founders thought he was, it is not in our national interest to violate the United States’ founding principles by ignoring the natural law in international relations. Perhaps through its erratic behavior the Trump administration will achieve its admirable goal of NATO standing more on its own two feet, rather than member states depending too heavily on the U.S. But Locke’s international insights should lead us to caution: We may find them standing against us, and we are much weaker when we stand alone.
According to Locke, actors can band together in a state of nature through “promises” or “compacts.” The longer we follow Miller’s mistaken understanding of the world, the more we cede legitimacy on the world’s stage to other superpowers of dubious moral status, such as China and Russia. For the sake of our national creed and national interest, we ought to prefer an international order overly dependent on an American superpower to one where our longtime allies are forced to turn to our enemies for trade and stability. In order to prevent the latter circumstance, we need to take Locke at his word and see how “the iron laws of the world” enjoin true superpowers not to self-aggrandizement and the will-to-power but “to preserve the rest of mankind.”
Such, after all, is the only “superpower” worth being.
