Senator Edward M. Kennedy's Induction Remarks

Remarks © 2002 by Edward M. Kennedy

Cambridge, MA, October 5, 2002 - Thank you, Leslie Berlowitz, for that generous introduction, and thank you - all the members of this extraordinary Academy - for this great honor.

I only wish that my parents could see me now. I know my mother would be very, very proud of this honor you are giving me - and my father wouldn't believe a word of it.

The Academy was founded two centuries ago in the tradition of the highest ideals of our young democracy. John Adams, John Hancock and others established this distinguished community of ability and ideals -- a place where the best minds could convene and recommend measures to improve public policy and benefit the lives of all our citizens. They envisioned an American center for the arts and sciences, and I know that they would be very pleased today with the Academy's achievements.

President Kennedy was proud to be inducted into the Academy in the Class of 1955. Years later at the White House, he hosted a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere. In welcoming his guests that evening, he said, "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Jack would say the same thing, I'm sure, about the Academy today.

This Academy was founded at a time of great uncertainty and challenge. Important as that challenge was for our country, the founders understood that America could not afford to neglect the arts and humanities in the nation's life. Our literature and poetry, our music and dance, our paintings and sculpture help to define us as a people. They are not an extension of our national life; they are its expression.

As Adams said, "I must study politics and war that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy...in order to give their children the right to study painting, poetry and music."

Much has been written of Adams in recent years. Thanks, in large part, to David McCullough, the nation's second President has earned a prominence and respect that even he could not have imagined. His vision so many years ago is at the very heart of American values today. We study his writings and aspire to his example. As future generations of Americans look back on this time in our history, we want them to know that we, too, had the courage and wisdom to meet the challenges of our day - that we defended the principles of democracy and freedom, and preserved our founding ideals and our national sense of purpose.

Today we face a new threat of war, one that will change the way America is viewed by its allies and adversaries. The question of whether our nation should attack Iraq is playing out in the context of a more fundamental debate that is only just beginning - an all-important debate about how, when and where in the years ahead our country will use its unsurpassed military might.

Last month, the Administration unveiled its new National Security Strategy. This document addresses the new realities of our age, particularly the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks armed with the agendas of fanatics. The Strategy claims that these new threats are so novel and so dangerous that we should "not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively."

The Administration's discussion of self-defense often uses the terms "pre-emptive" and "preventive" interchangeably. However, in the realm of international relations, these two terms have long had very different meanings.

Traditionally, "pre-emptive" action refers to times when states react to an imminent threat of attack. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian forces mobilized on Israel's borders, in 1967, the threat was obvious and immediate, and Israel felt justified in preemptively attacking those forces. The global community is generally tolerant of such actions, since no nation should have to suffer a certain first strike before it has the legitimacy to respond.

By contrast, "preventive" military action refers to strikes that target a country before it has developed a capability that could someday become threatening. Preventive attacks have generally been condemned. For example, the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was regarded as a preventive strike by Japan, because the Japanese were seeking to block a planned buildup by the United States in the Pacific. The coldy premeditated nature of preventive attacks and preventive wars makes them anathema to well-established international principles against aggression. Pearl Harbor has been rightfully recorded in history as an act of dishonorable treachery.

Historically, the United States has condemned the idea of preventive war, arguing that it violates basic international rules against aggression. But at times in our history, preventive war has been seriously advocated as a policy option.

In the early days of the Cold War, some U.S. military and civilian experts advocated a preventive war against the Soviet Union. They proposed a devastating first strike to prevent the Soviet Union from developing a threatening nuclear capability. At the time, they said the uniquely destructive power of nuclear weapons required us to rethink traditional international rules.

That debate ended in 1950, when President Truman ruled out a preventive strike, arguing that such actions were not consistent with our American tradition. He said, "You don't 'prevent' anything by war...except peace." Instead of a surprise first strike, the nation instead dedicated itself to the strategy of deterrence and containment, which successfully kept the peace during the long and frequently difficult years of the Cold War.

The argument that the United States should take preventive military action, in the absence of an imminent attack, resurfaced in 1962, when we learned that the Soviet Union would soon have the ability to launch missiles from Cuba against our country. Many military officers urged my brother to approve a preventive attack to destroy this capability before it became operational. Robert Kennedy, like Harry Truman, felt that this kind of first strike was not consistent with American values. He said that a proposed surprise first strike against Cuba would be a "Pearl Harbor in reverse. "For 175 years," he said, "we have not been that kind of country." That view prevailed. A middle ground was found and peace was preserved.

As these two cases show, American strategic thinkers have long debated the relative merits of preventive and preemptive war. Although nobody would deny our right to pre-emptively block an imminent attack on our territory, there is disagreement about our right to preventively engage in war.

The circumstances of our new world require us to rethink this concept. The world changed on September 11th, and all of us have learned that it can be a drastically more dangerous place. The Bush Administration's new National Security Strategy asserts that global realities now legitimize preventive war and make it a strategic necessity.

The document openly contemplates preventive attacks against groups or states, even absent the threat of imminent attack. It legitimizes this kind of first strike option, and it elevates it to the status of a core security doctrine. Disregarding precedents of international law, the Bush Strategy asserts that our unique military preeminence exempts us from the rules we expect other nations to obey.

I strongly oppose any such extreme doctrine and I'm sure that many of you do as well. Earlier generations of Americans rejected preventive war on the grounds of both morality and practicality, and our generation must do so as well. We can deal with Iraq without resorting to this extreme.

It is impossible to justify any such double standard under international law. Might does not make right. America cannot write its own rules for the modern world. To attempt to do so would be unilateralism run amok. It would antagonize our closest allies, whose support we need to fight terrorism, prevent global warming, and deal with many other dangers that affect all nations and require international cooperation. It would deprive America of the moral legitimacy necessary to promote our values abroad. And it would give other nations an excuse to violate important principles of civilized international behavior.

The Administration's doctrine is a call for 21st century American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept. It is the antithesis of all that America has worked so hard to achieve in international relations since the end of World War II.

Obviously, this debate is only just beginning on the Administration's new strategy for national security. But the debate is solidly grounded in American values and history. I know that all of you in this distinguished Academy will be part of it, and I look forward to your contributions.

It will also be a debate among vast numbers of well meaning Americans who have honest differences of opinion about the best way to use U.S. military might. The debate will be contentious, but the stakes - in terms of both our national security and our allegiance to our core beliefs - are too high to ignore.

On this and on so many other challenges we will face in the months and years ahead, I know that this Academy will help us all to live up to the ideals established by the founders of our country two centuries ago.

Thank you very much.