Dilemmas Of Dominance

The past year has been a momentous one in world affairs. In the normal rhythm, the pattern was set inSeptember, a month marked by several important and closely related events. The most powerful state in historyannounced a new National Security Strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently: anychallenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme.

At the same time, the war drums began to beat to mobilize the population for an invasion of Iraq, whichwould be "the first test [of the doctrine], not the last," the New York Times observed afterthe invasion, "the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew." And the campaignopened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would determine whether the administration would beable to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.

The new "imperial grand strategy," as it was aptly termed at once by John Ikenberry, presents theUS as "a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a world order in which it runsthe show," a "unipolar world" in which "no state or coalition could ever challenge"it as "global leader, protector, and enforcer. These policies are fraught with danger even for the USitself, he warned, joining many others in the foreign policy elite.

What is to be "protected" is US power and the interests it represents, not the world, whichvigorously opposed the conception. Within a few months, polls revealed that fear of the United States hadreached remarkable heights, along with distrust of the political leadership, or worse. As for the test case,an international Gallup poll in December, barely noted in the US, found virtually no support for Washington'sannounced plans for a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies": in effect, the US-UK"coalition."

The basic principles of the imperial grand strategy trace back to the early days of World War II, and havebeen reiterated frequently since. Even before the US entered the war, planners and analysts concluded that inthe postwar world the US would seek "to hold unquestioned power," acting to ensure the"limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs.They outlined "an integrated policy to achieve military and economic supremacy for the UnitedStates" in a "Grand Area," to include at a minimum the Western Hemisphere, the former Britishempire, and the Far East, later extended to as much of Eurasia as possible when it became clear that Germanywould be defeated.

Twenty years later, elder statesman Dean Acheson instructed the American Society of International Law thatno "legal issue" arises when the US responds to a challenge to its "power, position, andprestige." He was referring specifically to Washington's post-Bay of Pigs economic warfare against Cuba,but was surely aware of Kennedy's terrorist campaign aimed at "regime change," a significant factorin bringing the world close to nuclear war only a few months earlier, and resumed immediately after the Cubanmissile crisis was resolved.

A similar doctrine was invoked by the Reagan administration when it rejected World Court jurisdiction overits attack against Nicaragua. State Department Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer explained that most of the worldcannot "be counted on to share our view" and "often opposes the United States on importantinternational questions. " Accordingly, we must "reserve to ourselves the power to determine"which matters fall "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States" -- in thiscase, the actions that the Court condemned as the "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua; in layterms, international terrorism.

Their successors continued to make it clear that the US reserved the right to act "unilaterally whennecessary," including "unilateral use of military power" to defend such vital interests as"ensuring uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic resources."

Even this small sample illustrates the narrowness of the planning spectrum. Nevertheless, the alarm bellssounded in September 2002 were justified. Acheson and Sofaer were describing policy guidelines, and withinelite circles. Other cases may be regarded as worldly-wise reiterations of the maxim of Thucydides that"large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept what they must." In contrast, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Powelland their associates are officially declaring an even more extreme policy. They intend to be heard, and tookaction at once to put the world on notice that they mean what they say. That is a significant difference.

The imperial grand strategy is based on the assumption that the US can gain "full spectrumdominance" by military programs that dwarf those of any potential coalition, and have useful sideeffects. One is to socialize the costs and risks of the private economy of the future, a traditionalcontribution of military spending and the basis of much of the "new economy." Another is tocontribute to a fiscal train wreck that will, it is presumed, "create powerful pressures to cut federalspending, and thus, perhaps, enable the Administration to accomplish its goal of rolling back the NewDeal," a description of the Reagan program that is now being extended to far more ambitious plans.

As the grand strategy was announced on September 17, the administration "abandoned an internationaleffort to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention against germ warfare," advising allies thatfurther discussions would have to be delayed for four years. A month later, the UN Committee on Disarmamentadopted a resolution that called for stronger measures to prevent militarization of space, recognizing this tobe "a grave danger for international peace and security," and another that reaffirmed "the 1925Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of poisonous gases and bacteriological methods of warfare." Bothpassed unanimously, with two abstentions: the US and Israel. US abstention amounts to a veto: typically, adouble veto, banning the events from reporting and history.

A few weeks later, the Space Command released plans to go beyond US "control" of space formilitary purposes to "ownership," which is to be permanent, in accord with the Security Strategy.Ownership of space is "key to our nation's military effectiveness," permitting "instantengagement anywhere in the world… A viable prompt global strike capability, whether nuclear or non-nuclear,will allow the US to rapidly strike high-payoff, difficult-to-defeat targets from stand-off ranges and producethe desired effect… [and] to provide warfighting commanders the ability to rapidly deny, delay, deceive,disrupt, destroy, exploit and neutralize targets in hours/minutes rather than weeks/days even when US andallied forces have a limited forward presence," thus reducing the need for overseas bases that regularlyarouse local antagonism.

Similar plans had been outlined in a May 2002 Pentagon planning document, partially leaked, which calledfor a strategy of "forward deterrence" in which missiles launched from space platforms would be ableto carry out almost instant "unwarned attacks." Military analyst William Arkin comments that"no target on the planet or in space would be immune to American attack. The US could strike withoutwarning whenever and wherever a threat was perceived, and it would be protected by missile defenses."Hypersonic drones would monitor and disrupt targets. Surveillance systems are to provide the ability "totrack, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city." The world is to be left atmercy of US attack at will, without warning or credible pretext. The plans have no remote historical parallel.Even more fanciful ones are under development.

These moves reflect the disdain of the administration for international law and institutions, or armscontrol measures, dismissed with barely a word in the National Security Strategy; and its commitment to anextremist version of long-standing doctrine.

In accord with these principles, Washington informed the UN that it can be "relevant" byendorsing Washington's plans for invading Iraq, or it can be a debating society. The US has the"sovereign right to take military action," Colin Powell informed the January 2003 Davos meeting ofthe World Economic Forum, which also strenuously opposed Washington's war plans. "When we feel stronglyabout something we will lead," Powell informed them, even if no one is following us.

Bush and Blair underscored their contempt for international law and institutions at their Azores Summit onthe eve of the invasion. They issued an ultimatum - not to Iraq, but to the Security Council: capitulate, orwe will invade without your meaningless seal of approval. And we will do so whether or not Saddam Hussein andhis family leave the country. The crucial principle is that the US must effectively rule Iraq.

Since the mid-1940s, Washington has regarded the Gulf as "a stupendous source of strategic power, andone of the greatest material prizes in world history" - in Eisenhower's words, the "moststrategically important area of the world" because of its "strategic position and resources."Control over the region and its resources remains a policy imperative. After taking over a core oil producer,and presumably acquiring its first reliable military bases at the heart of the world's major energy-producingsystem, Washington will doubtless be happy to establish an "Arab façade," to borrow the term of theBritish during their day in the sun. Formal democracy will be fine, but only if it is of the submissive kindtolerated in Washington's "backyard," at least if history and current practice are any guide.

To fail in this endeavor would take real talent. Even under far less propitious circumstances, militaryoccupations have commonly been successful. It would be hard not to improve on a decade of murderous sanctionsthat virtually destroyed a society that was, furthermore, in the hands of a vicious tyrant who ranked withothers supported by the current incumbents in Washington: Romania's Ceausescu, to mention only one of animpressive rogues gallery. Resistance in Iraq would have no meaningful outside support, unlike Nazi-occupiedEurope or Eastern Europe under the Russian yoke, to take recent examples of unusually brutal states thatnevertheless assembled an ample array of collaborators and achieved substantial success within their domains.

The grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out "preventive war": Preventive, notpre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war may sometimes be, they do not hold for preventivewar, particularly as that concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force toeliminate an invented or imagined threat, so that even the term "preventive" is too charitable.Preventive war is, very simply, the "supreme crime" condemned at Nuremberg.

That is widely understood. As the US invaded Iraq, Arthur Schlesinger wrote that Bush's grand strategy is"alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as anearlier American president said it would, lives in infamy." FDR was right, he added, "but today itis we Americans who live in infamy." It is no surprise that "the global wave of sympathy thatengulfed the United States after 9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance andmilitarism," and the belief that Bush is "a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein."

For the political leadership, mostly recycled from more reactionary sectors of the Reagan-Bush Iadministrations, "the global wave of hatred" is not a particular problem. They want to be feared,not loved. They understand as well as their establishment critics that their actions increase the risk ofproliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terror. But that too is not a major problem. Higher inthe scale of priorities are the goals of establishing global hegemony and implementing their domestic agenda:dismantling the progressive achievements that have been won by popular struggle over the past century, andinstitutionalizing these radical changes so that recovering them will be no easy task.

It is not enough for a hegemonic power to declare an official policy. It must establish it as a "newnorm of international law" by exemplary action. Distinguished commentators may then explain that law is aflexible living instrument, so that the new norm is now available as a guide to action. It is understood thatonly those with the guns can establish "norms" and modify international law.

The selected target must meet several conditions. It must be defenseless, important enough to be worth thetrouble, and an imminent threat to our survival and ultimate evil. Iraq qualified on all counts. The first twoconditions are obvious. For the third, it suffices to repeat the orations of Bush, Blair, and theircolleagues: the dictator "is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons [in order to] dominate,intimidate or attack"; and he "has already used them on whole villages leaving thousands of his owncitizens dead, blind or transfigured….If this is not evil then evil has no meaning."

President Bush's eloquent denunciation surely rings true. And those who contributed to enhancing evilshould certainly not enjoy impunity: among them, the speaker of these lofty words and his current associates,and those who joined them in the years when they were supporting the man of ultimate evil long after he hadcommitted these terrible crimes and won the war with Iran, with decisive US help. We must continue to supporthim because of our duty to help US exporters, the Bush I administration explained. It is impressive to see howeasy it is for political leaders, while recounting the monster's worst crimes, to suppress the crucial words:"with our help, because we don't care about such matters." Support shifted to denunciation as soonas their friend committed his first authentic crime: disobeying (or perhaps misunderstanding) orders byinvading Kuwait. Punishment was severe -- for his subjects. The tyrant escaped unscathed, and his grip on thetortured population was further strengthened by the sanctions regime then imposed by his former allies.

Also easy to suppress are the reasons why Washington returned to support for Saddam immediately after theGulf war as he crushed rebellions that might have overthrown him. The chief diplomatic correspondent of the NewYork Times explained that "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be "an iron-fistedIraqi junta without Saddam Hussein," but since that goal seems unattainable, we must be satisfied withsecond best. The rebels failed because Washington and its allies held that "whatever the sins of theIraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his country's stability than did those whohave suffered his repression." All of this is suppressed in the commentary on the mass graves of thevictims of Saddam's US-authorized paroxysm of terror, crimes that are now offered as justification for the waron "moral grounds." It was all known in 1991, but ignored for reasons of state: successful rebellionwould have left Iraq in the hands of Iraqis.

Within the US, a reluctant domestic population had to be whipped to a proper mood of war fever, anothertraditional problem.. From early September 2002, grim warnings were issued about the threat Saddam posed tothe United States and his links to al-Qaeda, with broad hints that he was involved in the 9-11 attacks. Manyof the charges "dangled in front of [the media] failed the laugh test," the editor of the Bulletinof Atomic Scientists commented, "but the more ridiculous [they were,] the more the media strove to makewhole-hearted swallowing of them a test of patriotism."

As often in the past, the propaganda assault had at least short-term effects. Within weeks, a majority ofAmericans came to regard Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to the US. Soon almost half believed that Iraqwas behind the 9/11 terror. Support for the war correlated with these beliefs. The propaganda campaign provedjust enough to give the administration a bare majority in the mid-term elections, as voters put aside theirimmediate concerns and huddled under the umbrella of power in fear of the demonic enemy.

The brilliant success of "public diplomacy" was revealed when the President "provided apowerful Reaganesque finale to a six-week war" on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May1. The reference, presumably, is to Reagan's proud declaration that America was "standing tall"after conquering the nutmeg capital of the world in 1983, preventing the Russians from using it to bomb theUS. Reagan's mimic was free to declare -- without concern for skeptical comment at home - that he had won a"victory in a war on terror [by having] removed an ally of Al Qaeda." It is immaterial that nocredible evidence was provided for the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and his bitter enemy Osama binLaden and that the charge was dismissed by competent observers. Also immaterial is the only known connectionbetween the victory and terror: the invasion appears to have been a "huge setback in the `war onterror'," by sharply increasing al-Qaeda recruitment, as US official concede.