GLOBO-COP
WASHINGTON’S
FOREIGN POLICY -- AMERICA'S "LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS..."
MAKING ENEMIES, CREATING TERRORISM AND INVITING WEAPONS OF MASS
DESTRUCTION TO THE U.S. HOMELAND
Guest Commentary By: Owen S.
Whitman
2.1.98
(Links periodically updated and/or refreshed)
Tamarind Associates Inc.
Commercial
Intelligence Analysts, Strategic Alliance Consultants
For more than 50 years,
atomic weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been the centerpiece of
American foreign policy. During the justifiably paranoiac
years of the Cold War, nuclear arms were the "Big Stick,"
always in the background of virtually every major issue in East-West
competition and alliance relations. Thus, for the last half century the
primary concerns of U.S. foreign policy have, in one way or another, all
derived from considerations of the potential dangers of World War III and
the attendant fear of nuclear mass destruction to the American homeland. Now,
with the demise of the Soviet Union and Cold War, everything has changed. Moreover,
to many, American foreign policy, seemingly
adrift and unable to adapt to these wholly unanticipated and rapidly
unfolding events, is viewed as increasingly counter-productive, bellicose and
anachronistic.
The real risk, in
such a period of transition and policy vacuum, is that global events
could spiral into some unanticipated crisis with China, Russia or others.
Indeed, this scenario is plainly evident in the provocative and
counterproductive push to expand NATO, the March
1996, U.S. China confrontation over Taiwan and the increasingly rancorous
and divisive U.S. obsession with Iraq. Apparently
Egypt, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, France and the Vatican --
indeed, the vast majority of the U.N. -- presently hold a different
view from that of the current Anglo/U.S. position favoring
military force to coerce Iraq's behavior.
A source of
increasing frustration for "Cold Warriors" and
military leaders alike, vigorously defending unprecedented levels
of peacetime "defense" spending, diffuse and irrelevant
missions and counterproductive Cold War alliances, and those of government's
Political Class and bureaucracy with complementary (and dependent)
interests, is the growing realization that maintaining traditional U.S.
civil liberties and forestalling terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland
will require less American global military adventurism and the evolution
of a foreign policy emphasizing a more benign and less confrontational
diplomacy . Such policies will mandate U.S. restraint and the
avoidance, withdrawal even, from some foreign conflicts and
counter-productive Cold War alliances - NATO in particular. It is
interesting to note that while there has been a significant decline
in U.S. defense spending, it remains more than triple that of any single
potential adversary and greater
than the defense budgets of China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Russia
combined.
Indeed, one can
reasonably argue that the primary factor contributing to the broadly
perceived "terrorist" threat to the U.S.
homeland, is America's unrelenting, activist, international,
post-Cold War projection of force (i.e. military and related covert
operations) in an attempt to impose and maintain an uniquely
American vision of International Status Quo (a/k/a "New
World Order"). Indeed, the undeniable reality is that
past/present U.S. foreign policy is directly responsible for producing
what may become the greatest threat to the American homeland that Americans
have yet seen. Perhaps that sage social philosopher and popular cartoon
character, Pogo, best articulates the current policy paradox; "....we
have met the enemy and he is us."
Since America, today,
is the only nation actively policing areas outside its own territory, it
constantly presents itself as a natural target
for states and groups who -- with cause in many instances -- believe that their
regional aspirations and right to self determinism are being (or have been) thwarted by U.S. power.
It is hardly likely, for
example, that Middle Eastern activists would take the extreme step of
attempting to destroy the World Trade Center had the United States not been
identified for so long as the mainstay of Israel, the
Shah of Iran, other conservative (dictatorial) Arab regimes and the premier
source of a relentless cultural assault on Islam. It is also clear that
America's emerging vision of a global, U.S. economic and cultural
hegemony -- ultimately imposed and maintained by U.S. military force
-- poses a clear and present threat to all who would seek to challenge
the global status quo and uniquely American "New World
Order." America's decision to play "Globo-cop"
-- maintainer of international stasis and the status quo -- is an open invitation for
aggrieved states and groups to strike back. Common sense tells us that
the best way to keep people from believing that the United States is
responsible for their problems is to avoid being in their conflicts.
Such national restraint,
however, requires a paradigm shift in the
U.S. government's activist foreign policythink, and this
will be extraordinarily difficult for the policy bureaucracy. In fact, there are
few solutions to this increasingly tense philosophical/structural
situation that do not compromise the fundamental
strategic activism and internationalist thrust that has been the hallmark
of U.S. foreign policy for more than half a century.
The role of WMDs in
international conflict will change dramatically. Unlike pre-Cold War arsenals,
WMDs are no longer the product of cutting edge military weapons technology .
Indeed, the knowledge and materials required to produce such weapons (even
atomic) are ubiquitous. More to the point, such weapons are now the only
hope for second-class states and groups who wish to challenge the overwhelming
superiority of United States conventional military forces. It is logical to
assume, therefore, that WMDs will become the weapon of choice for
militarily second-class states and groups. Thus it follows that the primary
risk is no longer that such aggrieved entities would seek to directly engage
the U.S. military's markedly superior conventional forces; and that the most
logical "high yield, low risk" strategy is to maximize
"punishment" to the United States by wreaking havoc on
"softer" civilian & commercial targets within U.S.
homeland.
The relative importance
of the various types of WMDs has also changed. Biological weapons are now most
likely to be employed, with nuclear second and chemical ".... a distant
third..." Even more troubling is the reality that if aggressively pursued
by government, some of the most "effective" measures to deter WMD
attacks, within the United States, pose a clear and mortal threat to traditional American civil
liberties.
This is not a brief for
isolationism; we are beyond that. It is too late to defuse current foreign
resentments by simply withdrawing from the stage of world events. And even if
we could, this is not an acceptable course. Alienated groups and states will
not immediately stop blaming Washington for their problems.
It is crucial to
acknowledge, however, that many key security interests that complemented each
other during the Cold War no longer serve. Clearly, the core issue of
protecting traditional American freedoms and the homeland from attack is now
often in conflict with an activist U.S. foreign policy that presumes and
relentlessly mandates the dominance of American political values, global
economic interdependence, social Westernization and status quo in regions
beyond Western Europe and the Americas.
Again, we recognize that
the United States will not abandon its broader international political
interests. However, it must develop restraint, empathy and pragmatism --
especially in the Middle East where simple common sense dictates that
caution rules the day. Ultimately, the final test, litmus test if
you will, for American foreign policy will be how well it has
protected -- within the homeland -- the traditional Civil Rights and
Liberty of the American people, while avoiding the occurrence
of some politically contrived, man-made, desperation-driven
catastrophe within our borders.