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by
Noam Chomsky
October
11, 2003
First
Published on ZNET
The
past year has been a momentous one in world affairs. In the normal rhythm, the
pattern was set in September, a month marked by several important and closely related
events. The most powerful state in history announced a new National Security
Strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently: any
challenge 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, which would be "the first test [of the
doctrine], not the last," the New York Times observed after the invasion,
"the petri dish in which this experiment in pre-emptive policy grew."
[1] And the campaign opened for the mid-term congressional
elections, which would determine whether the administration would be able 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 the US as "a revisionist state seeking to parlay its
momentary advantages into a world order in which it runs the 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 US itself, 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, which vigorously opposed the conception. Within a few months, polls
revealed that fear of the United States had reached 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's announced 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 have been reiterated frequently since. Even before the US
entered the war, planners and analysts concluded that in the 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 United States" in a
"Grand Area," to include at a minimum the Western Hemisphere, the
former British empire, and the Far East, later extended to as much of Eurasia
as possible when it became clear that Germany would be defeated. [2]
Twenty
years later, elder statesman Dean Acheson instructed the American Society of
International Law that no "legal issue" arises when the US responds
to a challenge to its "power, position, and prestige." 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 factor in bringing the world close to
nuclear war only a few months earlier, and resumed immediately after the Cuban
missile crisis was resolved.
A
similar doctrine was invoked by the Reagan administration when it rejected
World Court jurisdiction over its attack against Nicaragua. State Department
Legal Adviser Abraham Sofaer explained that most of the world cannot "be
counted on to share our view" and "often opposes the United States on
important international questions." Accordingly, we must "reserve to
ourselves the power to determine" which matters fall "essentially
within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States" -- in this case,
the actions that the Court condemned as the "unlawful use of force"
against Nicaragua; in lay terms, international terrorism.
Their
successors continued to make it clear that the US reserved the right to act
"unilaterally when necessary," including "unilateral use of
military power" to defend such vital interests as "ensuring
uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies and strategic
resources." [3]
Even
this small sample illustrates the narrowness of the planning spectrum.
Nevertheless, the alarm bells sounded in September 2002 were justified. Acheson
and Sofaer were describing policy guidelines, and within elite 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-Powell and their associates are
officially declaring an even more extreme policy. They intend to be heard, and
took action 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 spectrum dominance" by military programs that dwarf those of
any potential coalition, and have useful side effects. One is to socialize the
costs and risks of the private economy of the future, a traditional
contribution of military spending and the basis of much of the "new
economy." Another is to contribute to a fiscal train wreck that will, it
is presumed, "create powerful pressures to cut federal spending, and thus,
perhaps, enable the Administration to accomplish its goal of rolling back the
New Deal," [4] 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 international effort to strengthen the Biological Weapons
Convention against germ warfare," advising allies that further discussions
would have to be delayed for four years. [5] A month
later, the UN Committee on Disarmament adopted a resolution that called for
stronger measures to prevent militarization of space, recognizing this to be
"a grave danger for international peace and security," and another
that reaffirmed "the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of poisonous
gases and bacteriological methods of warfare." Both passed unanimously,
with two abstentions: the US and Israel. US abstention amounts to a veto:
typically, a double veto, banning the events from reporting and history.
A
few weeks later, the Space Command released plans to go beyond US
"control" of space for military 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
"instant engagement 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 produce the
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 and allied forces have a
limited forward presence," [6] thus reducing the need
for overseas bases that regularly arouse local antagonism.
Similar
plans had been outlined in a May 2002 Pentagon planning document, partially
leaked, which called for a strategy of "forward deterrence" in which
missiles launched from space platforms would be able to 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 without warning 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 "to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in
a foreign city." [7] The world is to be left at mercy
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 arms control measures, dismissed with barely a word in the
National Security Strategy; and its commitment to an extremist version of
long-standing doctrine.
In
accord with these principles, Washington informed the UN that it can be
"relevant" by endorsing 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 of
the World Economic Forum, which also strenuously opposed Washington's war
plans. "When we feel strongly about 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 on the eve of the invasion. They issued an ultimatum - not
to Iraq, but to the Security Council: capitulate, or we will invade without
your meaningless seal of approval. And we will do so whether or not Saddam
Hussein and his 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, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history"
- in Eisenhower's words, the "most strategically 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-producing system,
Washington will doubtless be happy to establish an "Arab façade," to
borrow the term of the British during their day in the sun. Formal democracy
will be fine, but only if it is of the submissive kind tolerated 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, military occupations have commonly been successful. It would be
hard not to improve on a decade of murderous sanctions that virtually destroyed
a society that was, furthermore, in the hands of a vicious tyrant who ranked
with others supported by the current incumbents in Washington: Romania's
Ceausescu, to mention only one of an impressive rogues gallery. Resistance in
Iraq would have no meaningful outside support, unlike Nazi-occupied Europe or
Eastern Europe under the Russian yoke, to take recent examples of unusually
brutal states that nevertheless assembled an ample array of collaborators and
achieved substantial success within their domains.
The
grand strategy authorizes Washington to carry out "preventive war":
Preventive, not pre-emptive. Whatever the justifications for pre-emptive war
may sometimes be, they do not hold for preventive war, particularly as that
concept is interpreted by its current enthusiasts: the use of military force to
eliminate 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 an earlier American
president said it would, lives in infamy." FDR was right, he added,
"but today it is we Americans who live in infamy." It is no surprise
that "the global wave of sympathy that engulfed the United States after
9/11 has given way to a global wave of hatred of American arrogance and
militarism," and the belief that Bush is "a greater threat to peace
than Saddam Hussein." [8]
For
the political leadership, mostly recycled from more reactionary sectors of the
Reagan-Bush I administrations, "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 of
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and terror. But that too is
not a major problem. Higher in the 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, and institutionalizing 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 "new norm of international law" by exemplary
action. Distinguished commentators may then explain that law is a flexible
living instrument, so that the new norm is now available as a guide to action.
It is understood that only 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 the trouble, and an imminent threat to our survival and
ultimate evil. Iraq qualified on all counts. The first two conditions are
obvious. For the third, it suffices to repeat the orations of Bush, Blair, and
their colleagues: 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 own citizens 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 evil should 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 had
committed these terrible crimes and won the war with Iran, with decisive US
help. We must continue to support him because of our duty to help US exporters,
the Bush I administration explained. It is impressive to see how easy 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 soon as their friend
committed his first authentic crime: disobeying (or perhaps misunderstanding)
orders by invading Kuwait. Punishment was severe -- for his subjects. The
tyrant escaped unscathed, and his grip on the tortured 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 the Gulf war as he crushed rebellions that might have
overthrown him. The chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times
explained that "the best of all worlds" for Washington would be
"an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein," but since that
goal seems unattainable, we must be satisfied with second best. The rebels
failed because Washington and its allies held that "whatever the sins of
the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for his
country's stability than did those who have suffered his repression." [9] All of this is suppressed in the commentary on the mass
graves of the victims of Saddam's US-authorized paroxysm of terror, crimes that
are now offered as justification for the war on "moral grounds." [10] It was all known in 1991, but ignored for reasons of
state: successful rebellion would 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, another traditional problem.. From early September 2002, grim
warnings were issued about the threat Saddam posed to the United States and his
links to al-Qaeda, with broad hints that he was involved in the 9-11 attacks.
Many of the charges "dangled in front of [the media] failed the laugh
test," the editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists commented, "but
the more ridiculous [they were,] the more the media strove to make
whole-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 of Americans came to regard Saddam Hussein as an
imminent threat to the US. Soon almost half believed that Iraq was behind the
9/11 terror. Support for the war correlated with these beliefs. The propaganda
campaign proved just enough to give the administration a bare majority in the
mid-term elections, as voters put aside their immediate 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 a powerful Reaganesque finale to a six-week war" on
the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on May 1. 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 the US. 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 no credible evidence was provided for the alleged link
between Saddam Hussein and his bitter enemy Osama bin Laden and that the charge
was dismissed by competent observers. Also immaterial is the only known
connection between the victory and terror: the invasion appears to have been a
"huge setback in the `war on terror'," by sharply increasing al-Qaeda
recruitment, as US official concede.
More
astute observers recognized that Bush's carefully-staged Abraham Lincoln
extravaganza "marks the beginning of his 2004 re-election campaign,"
which the White House hopes "will be built as much as possible around
national-security themes." The electoral campaign will focus on "the
battle of Iraq, not the war," chief Republican political strategist Karl
Rove explained" : the "war" must continue, if only to control the
population at home. Before the 2002 elections, he had instructed Party
activists to stress security issues, diverting attention from unpopular
Republican domestic policies. All of this is second-nature to the recycled
Reaganites now in office. That is how they held on to political power during
their first tenure in office, regularly pushing the panic button to evade
public opposition to the policies that left Reagan the most unpopular living
President by 1992, ranking alongside Nixon. [11]
Despite
its narrow successes, the intensive propaganda campaign left the public
unswayed in more fundamental respects. Most continue to prefer UN rather than
US leadership in international crises, and by 2-1, prefer that the UN, rather
than the United States, should direct reconstruction in Iraq.
When
the occupying army failed to discover WMD, the administration's stance shifted
from "absolute certainty" that Iraq possessed WMD to the position
that the accusations were "justified by the discovery of equipment that
potentially could be used to produce weapons." Senior officials suggested
a "refinement" in the concept of preventive war that entitles the US
to attack "a country that has deadly weapons in mass quantities." The
revision "suggests instead that the administration will act against a
hostile regime that has nothing more than the intent and ability to develop
[WMD]." [12] The bars for resort to force are significantly
lowered. This modification of the doctrine of "preventive war" may
prove to be the most significant consequence of the collapse of the declared
argument for the invasion.
Perhaps
the most spectacular propaganda achievement was the lauding of the president's
"vision" to bring democracy to the Middle East in the midst of a
display of hatred and contempt for democracy for which no precedent comes to
mind. One illustration was the distinction between Old and New Europe, the
former reviled, the latter hailed for its courage. The criterion was sharp: Old
Europe consists of governments that took the same position as the vast majority
of their populations; the heroes of New Europe followed orders from Crawford
Texas, disregarding an even larger majority, in most cases. Political
commentators ranted about disobedient Old Europe and its psychic maladies,
while Congress descended to low comedy.
At
the liberal end of the spectrum, Richard Holbrooke stressed "the very
important point" that the population of the eight original members of New
Europe is larger than that of Old Europe, which proves that France and Germany
are "isolated." So it does, if we reject the radical left heresy that
the public might have some role in a democracy. Thomas Friedman urged that
France be removed from the permanent members of the Security Council, because
it is "in kindergarten," and "does not play well with
others." It follows that the population of New Europe must still be in
nursery school, judging by polls. [13]
Turkey
was a particularly instructive case. The government resisted heavy US pressure
to prove its "democratic credentials" by overruling 95% of its
population and following orders. Commentators were infuriated by this lesson in
democracy, so much so that some even reported Turkey's crimes against the Kurds
in the 1990s, previously a taboo topic because of the crucial US role -- though
that was still carefully concealed in the lamentations.
The
crucial point was expressed by Paul Wolfowitz, who condemned the Turkish
military because they "did not play the strong leadership role that we
would have expected" and did not intervene to prevent the government from
respecting near-unanimous public opinion. Turkey must therefore step up and say
"We made a mistake…Let's figure out how we can be as helpful as possible
to the Americans." Wolfowitz's stand is particularly instructive because
he is portrayed as the leading figure in the crusade to democratize the Middle
East.
Anger
at Old Europe has much deeper roots than contempt for democracy. The US has
always regarded European unification with some ambivalence, because Europe
might become an independent force in world affairs. Thus senior diplomat David
Bruce was a leading advocate for European unification in the Kennedy years,
urging Washington to "treat a uniting Europe as an equal partner," --
but following America's lead. He saw "dangers" if Europe "struck
off on its own, seeking to play a role independent of the United States." [14] In his "Year of Europe" address 30 years ago,
Henry Kissinger advised Europeans to keep to their "regional
responsibilities" within the "overall framework of order"
managed by the United States. Europe must not pursue its own independent
course, based on its Franco-German industrial and financial heartland.
In
the tripolar world that was taking shape at that time, these concerns extend to
Asia as well. Northeast Asia is now the world's most dynamic economic region,
accounting for almost 30% of global GDP, far more than the US, and holding
about half of global foreign exchange reserves. It is a potentially integrated
region, with advanced industrial economies and ample resources. All of this
raises the threat that it too might flirt with challenging the overall
framework of order, which the US is to manage permanently, by force if
necessary, Washington has declared.
Violence
is a powerful instrument of control, as history demonstrates. But the dilemmas
of dominance are not slight.
Noam Chomsky is an internationally renowned
Professor of Linguistics at MIT, and is America's leading dissident
intellectual. He is the author of many books, including most recently Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for
Global Dominance (Metropolitan Books, 2003), Power and Terror (Seven Stories Press, 2003), 9-11
(Seven Stories Press, 2001), A New Generation Draws the Line (Verso,
2000), The New Military Humanism (Common Courage, 1999), and The
Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel & the Palestinians (South
End Press, new edition 1999).
* There's Good
Reason to Fear US
* Iraq: Invasion
That Will Live in Infamy
* Campus
Activism and the Unpredictability of History
* The Case
Against US Adventurism in Iraq
* Why
Not Let Iran Institute Democracy in Iraq?
* What
Americans Have Learnt - and not Learnt - Since 9/11
* Noam
Chomsky On the Middle East and the US War on Terrorism
* Iraq
and the US Imperial Grand Strategy
1] David Sanger and Steven Weisman, New York Times, 10 April 2003.
2] Memorandum of the War and Peace Studies Project of the Council
on Foreign Relations, with State Department participation, 19 October 1940.
Laurence Shoup and William Minter, Imperial Brain Trust (Monthly Review
Press, 1977), 130ff.
3] Dean Acheson, American Society of International Law Proceedings
13, 14 (1963); Abraham Sofaer, U.S. Department of State Current Policy 769
(December 1985); President Bill Clinton, address to the U.N., 1993; Secretary
of Defense William Cohen, Annual Report, 1999.
4] Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers, Right Turn (Hill and
Wang, 1986). On Clinton’s contribution see Michael Meeropol, Surrender: How
the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution (University of
Michigan Press, 2000; updated 2003).
5] Peter Slevin, Washington Post, 19 September 2002.
6] Air Force Space Command “Strategic Master Plan (SMP) FY04 and
Beyond,” 5 November 2002.
7] William Arkin, Los Angeles Times, 14 July 2002; Michael
Sniffen, Associated Press, 1 July 2003.
8] Los Angeles Times, 23 March 2003.
9] Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 7 June 1991. Alan Cowell, New
York Times, 11 April 1991.
10] Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 4 June 2003.
11] Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), University
of Maryland, 18–22 April 2003.
12] Dana Milbank, Washington Post, 1 June 2003. Guy Dinmore and
James Harding, Financial Times, 3–4 May 2003.
13] Lee Michael Katz, National Journal, 8 February 2003. Friedman,
New York Times, 9 February 2003.
14] Frank Costigliola, Political Science Quarterly (Spring 1995).