MORAL HIGH GROUND
By Ángel Gómez. Originally published on the website of the Academy of Military Arts and Sciences (ACAMI)
The European landscape is dotted with tens of thousands of castles that rise vigilantly atop hills and mountains. Along the coasts of much of the world, intermittent watchtowers stand guard on every minor elevation that might command the shoreline and warn of the arrival of pirates.
The command of the high ground has always been a military axiom; even warships have their own “castles”. Surely, Sun Tzu was not the first to recommend seizing the heights or to discourage attacking uphill. That which is prominent dominates what lies beneath, though it is, of course, exposed to the gaze and scrutiny of all. Great power, as we know, comes with great responsibility.
Over the last century, control of the heights became command of the air, and in recent decades, of outer space. The principle remains unchanged: to accumulate potential energy in order to minimize the effort required to unleash kinetic force against an adversary lying in a subordinate position. The ramp built by the Tenth Legion “Fretensis” under Lucius Flavius Silva to conquer Masada from the Jewish rebels still bears witness after two millennia to the arduousness of attacking from below.
Julius Caesar applied this principle during the siege of Alesia too. The citadel —much like Spain´s Numantia eighty years earlier— stood atop a mound that made assault difficult. The proconsul chose to use the surrounding elevations to encircle the Gallic walls with his own, ensuring his positions were also dominant over defenders who might attempt a sortie.
The universality of the principle is such that it has transcended the military and the physical. The expression “to take the moral high ground” notably lacks a direct equivalent in Spanish —hence, for example, the enduring “Black Legend.” The moral high ground reflects the ability to adopt a position of moral superiority from which to dominate interactions with others. If there is an expression of soft power, it is precisely this moral superiority.
Moral superiority is the greatest source of soft power. Drawing on reputation and trust, it establishes a network of alliances and markets in which one’s products enjoy the added value of coming from above, from the superior. Its customs and currencies become the standard. Its politics always seem to be ahead, simply because the right path is defined by the one it takes and the right timing is when it chooses to take it.
This moral superiority translates tactical advantage into the strategic and political arena. Hence the constant obsession with securing it for oneself and denying it to any potential adversary. Peoples have always distinguished between “us” and “them,” between the civilized and the barbaric. In the chronicles of the Battle of Little Big Horn —where Custer and his Seventh Cavalry held their last stand atop a hill only to succumb to a vastly superior force of Americans— the latter are labeled, as was customary in the narratives of the time, as “savages.”
The power of names to exclude others from debate or coexistence is a topic deserving of its own essay.
Moral superiority is useful both in peace and in war, in offense and in defense. It offers so many advantages that, over time, those who possess it often forget that these advantages derive from their position, not from their own inherent abilities. They come to expect the same benefits even when the playing field is leveled. They assume that the moral high ground lays wherever they are, even when one strays from it. The rules dictate: I always win.
China occupied such a position across much of the world for centuries. Its internalization of moral superiority is inscribed in the very characters of its name: the Middle Kingdom. Everything was to flow from and towards Chang’an, the capital city at the time. China saw and defined itself as a civilization, in contrast to others being mere cultures —again, more or less “barbaric” or “savage.”
Once more, the power of language.
Yet, the strength of the Asian colossus was rarely channeled into conquest. A country that builds walls does not intend to expand beyond them. Nor does a nation that destroys its own unrivaled fleet out of fear of contamination by barbarism. China’s heartland remains today sort of an island, surrounded by the highest mountains, the deepest oceanic trenches, and the most impenetrable jungles and deserts.
Europe, for its part, continues to live in the inertia and illusion of its (few) golden centuries. Our history books recount each era according to the geography in which we were relevant, as if the rest of the world had yet to be born. Yet, for a long time, this privileged Eurasian peninsula was but a marginal corner.
Today, we still measure time from our own meridian, but countries like India assert their independence by setting a time zone five and a half hours apart from the former Empire —no whole hours that might make them appear subordinate to Westminster. We Europeans are focused in a mirror that requires ever greater distortion to reflect us at the size we wish to see ourselves. The old continent can no longer dispense of its reading glasses, and they are anything but fit to look afar or ahead.
Our self-styled moral superiority compels us to legislate and regulate what we do not manufacture, not quite realizing that our watchtower has eroded in the eyes of others. The most recent example of this erosion is found in our near South, in the Sahel, which rejects us yet still aspires to live here.
On the current world map, when each country’s main trading partner is represented, many more now display the five-starred red flag than those that show the tricolor one of fifty. Invariably, they run trade deficits with China. Yet neither a surplus in the exchange of goods and services necessarily implies ascendancy, nor does a deficit indicate a loss of attractiveness.
The world has grown accustomed to American leadership, to the Pax Americana —which was never more than relatively peaceful. The ultimate test of success is to triumph in Hollywood or on Wall Street, for, as Sinatra crooned, “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” Cars, computers, or ships may increasingly be manufactured elsewhere, but talent continues to flow to Ivy League universities, to the point where most of their research papers bear foreign signatures.
In most countries, regardless of the number of stars on their trading partner’s flag, it is still more likely to find a Budweiser than a Tsingtao, Tom Cruise is better known than Hu Ge, and jeans are more popular than hanfu.
The high ground —or, for that matter, the moral high ground— is not relinquished without very good reason. Only arrogance or desperation could induce one to willingly forfeit such an advantage. For decades, the United States has enjoyed this privileged position. It is the country everyone seeks to study or work in, to conduct research or hunt for opportunity. A nation that expanded like a gas, filling the continent that housed it, and whose influence crossed the two oceans that bound it.
It would therefore be highly surprising if the United States were willing to sacrifice the ascendancy it undoubtedly enjoys, reversing its policy of offshoring and outsourcing to labor “paradises” (not so for the workers), now that risks are rising and returns are diminishing.
There are, however, some factors that explain this. Not least is the instinctive fact that, in the face of danger, we all tend to root our feet firmly and lower our center of gravity. China’s growth must be no doubt perceived as sufficiently threatening to American hegemony that it shrinks available margins. There is no longer room for generosity. Everything is too critical to be left to the (otherwise supreme) market —not even to allies. Some perceive that the time has come to bring the wounded and the horses inside the circle of wagons and bristle the defenses; a strategic reshoring, recurrent in the country’s history.
These are not times of turmoil, but of paradigm shift. The Ignatian maxim of “not making changes in times of desolation” does not apply, yet there are still no new rules to adapt to. The entire architecture that has supported global governance is crumbling before our very eyes, and it is unlikely that its pieces will even serve as building material for the new design.
In addition to his famous “trap,” Thucydides left us the enduring maxim of political realism: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Today, the great powers —and those who imagine themselves to be— vie with one another, and others will suffer collateral damage in this clash of titans. A game of musical chairs is beginning that will reshape the global board.
In the tectonic shift now underway, some plates will rise while others will sink. The moral high ground will be redefined with new values and principles. In this context, leadership, flexibility, and the ability to find the new summit will be essential —and the more tightly we cling to old concepts, the harder that ascent will be.
