For Kissinger, it's not so much a question of universal moral and ethical principles; it is primarily a question of taking care of America's national interests in a world compromised by human nature's inherent pursuit of power.

Idealism, on the other hand, believes that mutual interest creates a natural harmony between nations. Its proponents support the development of international structures and organizations to limit any nation-state's irresponsible quest for power. In neoliberal fashion, the idealist McNamara adds that the world is more interdependent than the old European world of independent nation-states. Modern idealists point to the Internet, the mass media, the shared environment, and globalized trade and investment as evidence of a different and more integrated world--a world anxious to promote peace by nonmilitary means.

The power politician acknowledges these contemporary realities but does not believe they are the fundamental keys to peace. For the idealist, on the other hand, it's not just about national interest and "power-balancing" between nations. McNamara points to the ability of nations to cooperate at times for their mutual benefit. This, he believes, proves that peace can be achieved without war. Only as a last resort does the idealist use force, and even then, in most cases, it is by multilateral agreement in the international sphere.

CAUSES FOR CONCERN

McNamara's fears of the future arise from the catastrophic loss of life that occurred in the century just past. Wilson's Ghost calls up the specter of the moralist president in the role of prophet. Following the war in 1919, Wilson said: "Liberalism must be more liberal than ever before, it must even be radical, if civilization is to escape the typhoon. . . . I do not hesitate to say that the war we have just been through, though it was shot through with terror of every kind, is not to be compared with the war we would have to face the next time."

Wilson's words were eerily prescient. The succeeding 1939-45 world conflict and its atomic conclusion massively eclipsed the First World War, unfathomable as it was in its carnage. The international wars that followed only served to demonstrate the apparently uncontrollable human capacity for technological development in delivering death.

The threat of nuclear holocaust looms large in McNamara's 21st-century scenario. Accordingly he believes that two imperatives, moral and multilateral, must guide U.S. foreign and defense policy in this century. The moral imperative requires that the U.S. government establish as a major goal of foreign policy "the avoidance in this century of the carnage--160 million dead--caused by conflict in the 20th century." The corresponding multilateral imperative requires that the United States recognize that it "must provide leadership to achieve the objective of reduced carnage but, in doing so, it will not apply its economic, political, or military power unilaterally, other than in the unlikely circumstances of a defense of the continental United States, Hawaii, and Alaska." Further, he believes that foreign policies across the globe should adopt the same moral imperative, as is currently the case in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

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