Why Leaders Lie - Mearsheimer, John J_ [36]
A final example concerns the British aerial-bombing strategy against Germany during World War II. Beginning in the early spring of 1942, Bomber Command began a sustained area-bombing campaign, which guaranteed that many German civilians would die. The British government did not want to tell its public that it was purposely killing civilians, because this was a gross violation of the laws of war. Instead, officials lied and said that the attacks were confined to military targets, because “the intentional bombardment of civilian populations, as such, is forbidden.” As the historian Max Hastings notes, “From beginning to end of the war, ministers prevaricated—indeed, lied flatly again and again—about the nature of the bomber offensive.”11
WHY ELITES TELL LIBERAL LIES
One might think that there is little need to tell liberal lies, since most people intuitively understand that international politics is a nasty and dangerous business, and that countries sometimes have good reason to act in ways that are contrary to liberal norms or international law. While there is an element of truth in that argument, the fact is that most people still prefer to think—whenever they can—that their country is acting justly while their adversaries are not. Thus, leaders sometimes lie to cover up their country’s ruthless behavior because their publics simply do not want to hear the truth. The logic here is similar to the one that underpins nationalist mythmaking. Of course, leaders themselves are often moved to lie because they want to portray themselves as responsible and law-abiding members of the international community, and sometimes because they fear being brought to trial down the road. Even Osama bin Laden felt the need to explain why Al Qaeda was justified in killing thousands of civilians on September 11.12
The fact is that many people around the world identify with the well-established body of liberal norms and rules that are supposed to guide state behavior, and they want to believe that their government acts in accordance with them. Political theorist Michael Walzer captures this point when he writes: “The clearest evidence for the stability of our values over time is the unchanging character of the lies soldiers and statesmen tell. They lie in order to justify themselves, and so they describe for us the lineaments of justice.”13
Furthermore, as with nationalist mythmaking, leaders tell liberal lies to gain legitimacy abroad. But the payoffs here are likely to be just as small for the same reasons. Outsiders are likely to have a good appreciation of what actually happened in the events that are being lied about and therefore be hard to fool. Of course, it might occasionally be possible to deceive a lot of people in a friendly country who have strong incentives—be they ideological or strategic—for believing certain liberal falsehoods. In short, liberal lies are hard to sell abroad, especially when they involve recent events.
WHEN LIBERAL LYING IS LIKELY
Virtually all leaders—whether they head up autocracies or democracies—are wont to justify their behavior in terms of liberal norms and international law, even when their actions are principally motivated by the kind of hard-headed strategic calculations identified with realism. However, this penchant for liberal rhetoric does not create problems as long as a country’s behavior is consistent with both realist and liberal dictates, as it often is. For example, America’s participation in the fights against Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany in World War II was easily defensible on moral as well as strategic grounds. The same could be said of the United States’ decision to contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War, or to go to war against Iraq in 1991.