Posted on 02/13/2002 5:43:46 PM PST by Pokey78
America's global power has no historical precedent, but its room for manoeuvre is limited
Those who have argued that America's war on terror would fail to defeat terrorism have, it turns out, been barking up the wrong tree. Ever since President Bush announced his $45bn increase in military spending and gave notice to Iraq, Iran and North Korea that they had "better get their house in order" or face what he called the "justice of this nation", it has become ever clearer that the US is not now primarily engaged in a war against terrorism at all.
Instead, this is a war against regimes the US dislikes: a war for heightened US global hegemony and the "full spectrum dominance" the Pentagon has been working to entrench since the end of the cold war. While US forces have apparently still failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, there is barely even a pretence that any of these three states was in some way connected with the attacks on the World Trade Centre. What they do have in common, of course, is that they have all long opposed American power in their regions (for 10, 23 and 52 years respectively) and might one day acquire the kind of weapons the US prefers to reserve for its friends and clients.
With his declaration of war against this absurdly named "axis of evil", Bush has abandoned whatever remaining moral high ground the US held onto in the wake of September 11. He has dispensed with the united front against terror, which had just about survived the onslaught on Afghanistan. And he has made fools of those, particularly in Europe, who had convinced themselves that America's need for international support would coax the US Republican right out of its unilateralist laager. Nothing of the kind has happened. When the German foreign minister Joschka Fischer plaintively insists that "alliance partners are not satellites" and the EU's international affairs commissioner Chris Patten fulminates at Bush's "absolutist and simplistic" stance, they are swatted away. Even Jack Straw, foreign minister of a government that prides itself on its clout in Washington, was slapped down for his hopeful suggestion that talk of an axis of evil was strictly for domestic consumption. Allied governments who question US policy towards Iraq, Israel or national missile defence are increasingly treated as the "vassal states" the French president Jacques Chirac has said they risk becoming. Now Colin Powell, regarded as the last voice of reason in the White House, has warned Europeans to respect the "principled leadership" of the US even if they disagree with it.
By openly arrogating to itself the prerogative of such leadership - and dispensing with any restraint on its actions through the United Nations or other multilateral bodies - the US is effectively challenging what has until now passed for at least formal equality between nations. But it is only reflecting reality. The extent of America's power is unprecedented in human history. The latest increases will take its military spending to 40% of the worldwide total, larger than the arms budgets of the next 19 states put together. No previous military empire - from the Roman to the British - had anything like this preponderance, let alone America's global reach. US officials are generally a good deal more frank about the situation than their supporters abroad. In the early 1990s, the Pentagon described US strategy as "benevolent domination" (though whether those who have recently been on the receiving end of US military power, from the Middle East to Latin America, would see it that way seems doubtful). A report for the US Space Command last year, overseen by US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, rhapsodised about the "synergy of space superiority with land, sea, and air superiority" that would come with missile defence and other projects to militarise space. This would "protect US interests and investment" in an era when globalisation was likely to produce a further "widening between haves and have-nots". It would give the US an "extraordinary military advantage".
In fact, it would only increase further what became an overwhelming military advantage a decade ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the experience of Bush's war on Afghanistan has rammed home the lessons for the rest of the world. The first is that such a gigantic disproportion of international power is a threat to the principles of self- determination the US claims to stand for on a global scale. A state with less than one 20th of the earth's population is able to dictate to the other 95% and order their affairs in its own interests, both through military and economic pressure. The issue is not one of "anti-Americanism" or wounded national pride (curiously, those politicians around the world who prattle most about patriotism are also usually the most slavish towards US power), but of democracy. This is an international order which, as the September 11 attacks demonstrated, will not be tolerated and will generate conflict.
Many doubt that such conflict can amount to anything more than fleabites on an elephant, which has demonstrated its ability to crush any serious challenger, and have come to believe US global domination is here for good. That ignores the political and economic dimensions (including in the US itself), as well as the problems of fighting asymmetric wars on many fronts. In economic terms, the US has actually been in decline relative to the rest of the world since it accounted for half the world's output after the second world war. In the past few years its share has bounced back to nearly 30% on some measures, partly because of the Soviet implosion and Japanese stagnation, and partly because of America's own long boom. But in the medium term, the strain of military overstretch is likely to make itself felt. More immediately, the US could face regional challenges, perhaps from China or Russia, which it would surely balk at pushing to military conflict. Then there is the likelihood of social eruptions in client states like Saudi Arabia which no amount of military technology will be able to see off. America's greatest defeat was, it should not beforgotten, inflicted by a peasant army in Vietnam. US room for manoeuvre may well prove more limited than might appear.
When it comes to some of America's richer and more powerful allies, the opposite is often the case: they can go their own way and get away with it. The Foreign Office minister Peter Hain argued at the weekend that being a steadfast ally of the US didn't mean being a patsy, pointing as evidence to the fact that Britain was able to maintain diplomatic relations with two out of three of President Bush's axis of evil states.
The test of his claim will come when the US government turns its rhetoric into action and demands British support for a full-scale assault on Iraq (as yesterday's Washington drumbeat suggests could be only months away), or the use of the Fylingdales base in Yorkshire for its missile defence plans. Tony Blair has demonstrated none of the limited independence shown by earlier Labour prime ministers, such as Harold Wilson, and all the signs are that he will once again agree to whatever he is asked to do on Britain's behalf. If he is going to stand up to the global behemoth, he's going to need some serious encouragement - both inside and outside parliament.
I hope you'll stick around long enough to defend the Queen Mother from her detractors.
Germany was different they were a highly industrialised nation, slap bang in the middle of Europe.
Iran, Iraq and North Korea are members of the Third World all there technology is based on the West and on Russia, and Chinese, there weapons are second or even third rate.
They are more a threat to there own people than to us.
As for tolerating evil we tolerate it, after all we tolerated the evil that was Communism because it helped us in the War against Germany, and we tolerated the evil that was Hitler in the 30s because we thought he would make a great brake between us and the Soviets.
re : These terrorists threaten us all because we represent the very opposite of what they want. To expect them to simply leave us alone is the height of naiveté.
LOL me naive.
Are we talking about Terrorist or Nations we don’t like.
And they are not one and the same. There is no direct prove that any of those nations had anything to do with the terrorist attack against America.
They are targeted because they have been thorns in Americas side, and America wants them gone.
re : Our rightful place is at the forefront of the charge.
We don’t have a rightful place, our troops apart from a few elite units will be tasked with operation cleanup, or as we joke today operation busboy.
I have taken part into many busboy operations in one third world country after another, to welcome more.
American military power stretches the globe, there military budget is bigger than the EU, Russia and China combined.
If they want to police the world and that is what it is, not a war of liberation against a real dangerous enemy like Hitler’s Germany and the Japanese Empire, well let them, but I don’t want Britain involved, but will cost the life’s of men and Money and do you think we will even get a mention, or a thanks for helping, read the threads here, as far as they are concerned the role of our troops is to police up the mess left behind.
Hope you stay for a while, not many Brits freeping anymore.
Cheers Tony
LOL heavens forbid we punish only the guilty.
When America replaces the regimes of Iran and Iraq what then.
I don’t want Britain to be involved in the rebuilding of those nations. President Bush does not want to be involved ion the rebuilding of those nations, so what will happen, apart from a bloody Balkans type war, that could drag Turkey in.
The Americans to protect the Oilfields will have to commit large numbers of troops to maintain order.
If you think the Israelis have it hard in the West Bank and Gaza just imagine that whole area full of different bandit gangs, Jihad gangs and autonomies groups all fighting each other and taking pot shots at the Americans.
That is why they want us involved, that is why they want Europe in on this. The row between the British and American high command awe because the Americans wanted British troops to take part in stability operations while they dealt with the terrorists, its the stability operations which will take the largest casualties.
This war against terrorism, against WMD, and WMC proliferation and the WOD, they will all turn into giant policing operations.
Cheers Tony
Are all of your arguments accumulations of bumper sticker sloganeering?
Both these leaders have never shown any other behaviour except self interest.
When we attacked Iraq during the Gulf war, Saddam while lobbing conventional missiles at Israel did not use any Chemical or Biological weapons because he did not want the focus of attention to switch from liberating Kuwait to attacking him.
We have the deterrence it worked with the Soviet Union, and I remember the days when we were told that the Kremlin was controlled by Madmen, who were determined on world conquest, I believed the second bit but never the first. Also my the time these nations have built a ICBM capable of hitting America or Europe the MDS will be in place, after all that was why so much time and money has been spent building it
If we are going to go to war against Iraq, Iran and North Korea, what about Russia and China, after all Putin is pulling away from the West and China has made anti American threats.
The real threat is the terrorist and the WMC threat.
Instead of all this nation building and world policing we should just quietly go after the real threat.
As for terrorists getting hold of WMD and WMC there is more of a threat of the weapons being supplied from ex Soviet sources than from Iraq and Iran.
A fraction of the cost it takes to go to war could be used to destroy the huge stocks of both types dotted round the former Soviet Union.
Cheers Tony
Yes like Noriaga of Panama, Saddam of Iraq, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigerai, Galtieri of the Falklands and others of that ilk, the CIA had nothing to do with supporting criminal thugs and helping them into power right across the globe.
I have nothing against American attaemopts at nation building since the 1950s, in fact most of the time as a fellow right winger I supported those methods even the illegal black ops,apart from the illegal drug link operations. I thought maybe they were a little to close to the bone, but as the saying goes people in glass houses should not throw stones.
Cheers Tony
I am not kidding.
To many people confuse ruthless actions with that of a madman’s actions.
Many leaders have made an attempt to remove foreign leaders, using assassination, including past British and American governments and neither would I consider to be Mad.
As for using gas on the Kurds, while you and I would condemn that course of action from a moral view point from a military view point it made perfect since, he had the weapon and the means to deliver it and there was no way the Kurds could strike back. From a COIN point of view it was a bad call since it would destroy any hearts and mind operations, but Saddam is not interested in being liked only feared.
America and Europe are different, Saddam is a blood thirsty realist, he will use any means to achieve his aim, which is self survival, Saddam is built in a Stalinist mode.
Any attack against us will result in a massive retaliation against him and Iraq, he has never shown any interest in going out in a blaze of glory.
As I said before the real threat is the terrorist with the WMC.
The real defence is intelligence and lots of it, and that means HUMINT, and when a terrorist unit is detected using absolute ruthlessness in wiping it out.
Cheers Tony
"We wont win, another vietnam, no 'coalition'..blah blah blah."
This Euro way of thinking makes me sick to my stomach. We have had to save these wimps time and time again and if we sit on our hands and watch our enemies taunt us and develop weapons that they intend to use then even these Euro thinkers will end up right next to us in a heap of bodies.
ratcat, do you actually think foreign govt are repeating the exact dialog they have with the U.S.? In my opinion, a nation who has a population that isnt exactly friendly to the U.S. isnt going to go raving about how they are in it 100% to their own people. Behind the scenes I would imagine cooperation unseen in recent history. Its a country trying to play it smart.
The French may read it, probably more than the brits do, but the Guardian is right up there socialist street.
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