Masters of Illusion American Leadership in the Media Age Phần 7 pptx

The New York Times, “The Bush administration, seeking to overcome Chi-nese opposition to its missile defense program, intends to tell leaders inBeijing that it has no objections to the c

The secret of the American missile defense shield proposal is that it’s aimed

at China and Russia and that it’s part of a major shift in overall U.S defensepolicy Reagan introduced the concept this way, but each president since hasfound it expedient to mislead the public about the shield, insisting that it isaimed at terrorist states and that it is a minor part of existing U.S strategy.Whatever the reasons for the deception, the media and the public have beensmart enough to recognize that the implications of the shield go far beyondterrorism, and that if the shield is to be justified, it must be on another basis.Honesty about this has become crucial because the clumsy deception is now

so confusing the international security environment that America’s attempt

to build the shield and change it’s defense strategy may cause us to stumbleinto a serious war The secret is becoming dangerous in itself

Nuclear arms control and national missile defense are the joint response tothe emerging dangers of nuclear war But we must recognize that the nuclearnon-proliferation effort is in tatters According to the Director General ofthe International Atomic Energy Agency, nearly forty countries are nowfamiliar enough with nuclear technology to make bombs (although onlyabout nine are thought to have done so), and the non-proliferation treatyitself is fundamentally flawed in its provisions because it permits countries

to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel and to reprocess fuel rods oncethey’ve been used – both techniques being not essential for an electric powerprogram, but both essential to bomb making.5

We have been relying on Mutual Assured Destruction to deter nuclearwar But this is a strategy best suited to a bipolar confrontation – like theCold War – and increasingly risky in today’s different environment Nuclearproliferation diminishes the credibility of MAD because we cannot be surewhom to counter-attack, and credibility is the essence of MAD – otherwise

a potential aggressor is not deterred That Russia continues to modernize itsnuclear striking forces despite national hardship demonstrates that it has nointention of relying instead on conventional weapons and the abolition ofweapons of mass destruction China makes no bones about its commitment

to becoming a nuclear superpower and has devised a market communist nomic system that can support its ambitions With even less of a foundationthan Russia’s or China’s, other nations are building nuclear weapons Thereare certain to be more nuclear weapons in more unstable hands tomorrowthan today and our past reliance on MAD is no longer credible in deterringtheir employment

eco-In the summer of 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld fied the building of an American national missile defense shield as follows:

justi-“Imagine what would happen if a rogue state were to demonstrate thecapability to strike U.S or European populations with weapons of mass

destruction A policy of intentional vulnerability could give this state the

power to hold us hostage.”6

The Bush administration here followed the same path of political leastresistance that its predecessor did, tying a national missile defense shield

to a rogue-state justification In doing so it risked the same appearance ofinconsistency that bedeviled the Clinton approach For a national defenseshield cannot be justified on rogue-state grounds

Why, then, is it done? Clinton may have had adopted this justificationknowing that it was inadequate, and in the ill-disguised hope that the shieldwould be discredited and abandoned

This was not Bush’s motivation, however Probably the administrationfeared that it could not win enough liberal support for the shield if China andRussia were revealed as the targets of the shield, and hoped that conservativeswould see the intended threat while liberals could be won over by the roguestate argument

But the weakness of the justification for the shield was quickly perceived.For example, commentators abroad objected to the junking of the Anti-Ballistics Missile Treaty (ABM) that necessarily accompanied the plan tobuild an antiballistics missile shield “The ABM Treaty has been the set-

tled policy of the US for nearly 30 years .” wrote an Australian

commenta-tor, adding, “One US commentator likens the US to a ‘blind Samson, tearingdown the very arms-control temple it built.”7The argument was well made –why should a treaty with Russia, a cornerstone of MAD, be junked just tobuild a defense against a possible attack by a few missiles from rogue states inthe Crescent of Fire? Where was the evidence of capability by North Korea,Iraq, or Iran to make such an attack on the United States or Europe? Therewas little or none And if there was so little threat, why junk MAD, a policydesigned to prevent a really big threat – that of a nuclear exchange betweenRussia and America?

The rogue state argument was disingenuous, hinted the press For

example, an editorial in The Economist, appears to accept the rogue state

argument, speaking of “rogue rockets ,” but then adds that “America’s

hopes must rest on preferring honest arguments over specious ones.”

The editorialist suspects that the rogue state argument is specious, and says

so.8The story then became more bizarre The Bush administration, stung

by criticisms of its justification of NMD as a response to rogue states, sought

to shore up support for NMD by the strangest of political tactics It seems

to have gotten turned around on its basic strategy According to a report in

The New York Times, “The Bush administration, seeking to overcome

Chi-nese opposition to its missile defense program, intends to tell leaders inBeijing that it has no objections to the country’s plans to build up its smallfleet of nuclear missiles, according to senior administration officials.”9

One senior official said that in the future, the United States and Chinamight also discuss resuming underground nuclear tests if they are needed

to assure the safety and reliability of their arsenals Such a move, however,might allow China to improve its nuclear warheads and lead to the end

of a worldwide moratorium on nuclear testing Both messages appear tomark a significant change in American policy For years the United Stateshas discouraged China and all other nations from increasing the size orquality of their nuclear arsenals, and from nuclear tests of any kind Thepurpose of the new approach, some administration officials say, is to con-vince China that the administration’s plans for a missile shield are not aimed

at undercutting China’s arsenal, but rather at countering threats from called rogue states.” Soon thereafter, still trying to salvage its justification ofNMD as aimed at rogue states, American officials told reporters “that onceChina has more missiles in its arsenal, it should be less concerned about

so-Mr Bush’s missile defense system – because China would have a sufficientnumber of missiles to overwhelm any American missile defense now beingcontemplated.”10

This is the topsy-turvy world of political diplomacy The American ernment, seeking to avoid the increasing Chinese buildup of nuclear missilecapability, sets out to dissuade the Chinese from this course by building anational missile defense But out government fears it will not gather enoughpolitical support and so it disguises the intent of NMD as being directed atrogue states

gov-When commentators challenge this fairly obvious deception, the can government refuses to admit its subterfuge, but instead tries to shore it

Ameri-up by, of all things, encouraging the Chinese to build their nuclear missilearsenal better and faster in order that our missile shield would not be adeterrent to them! Somehow, from trying to deter the Chinese from build-ing more missiles aimed at us, our government found itself doing exactlythe opposite

Here, in a witches’ brew, two factors combined to put our government in

a backwards posture – first, the political necessity of defending a falsehoodtempted our political leaders to abandon our own real purposes; and second,the logic of MAD – to strengthen your enemies to parity of weaponry withyou – reasserted itself in the ensuring confusion about the real aims of ourNMD policy

This was not the first time that politically motivated deception aboutstrategic purposes tripped up our government; and it was not to be the last,

as we saw in our discussion of the confusion of objectives in the aftermath

of the Second Gulf War But stumbling into urging China to increase morerapidly its ability to attack America with nuclear missiles must be a highpoint of confusion into which deception has led our government

The vibrant and much-needed debate – over national missile defenseand its advisability as part of a strategy to displace MAD in dealing withthe changing nuclear arms balance – that was occurring in the summer of

2001 in the press, in the halls of Congress and in the recesses of the defenseagencies of Washington was ended suddenly on September 11, 2001, andhas not been resumed Thus, terrorist attacks derailed for years the mostimportant public discussion being conducted in the world

Meanwhile, the need for a missile defense shield is rapidly growing out a missile defense shield the United States has no effective means ofpersuading China to direct its rising aspirations into peaceful channels.Without a shield, we have only MAD – an increasingly flawed policy ill-suited to changing conditions in the world and therefore likely to result in

With-an unwWith-anted war

THE BUSH DOCTRINE

In September 2002, the White House issued a document entitled “ TheNational Security Strategy of the United States.”11It expressed in simple anddirect language what has come to be called the Bush Doctrine – preemptionand military supremacy:

r “To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries the UnitedStates will, if necessary, act pre-emptively

r “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries frompursuing a military buildup in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power

of the United States.”12National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has elaborated on the documentseveral times, saying at the time of its issuance, “if it comes to allowinganother adversary to reach military parity with the United States in the waythat the Soviet Union did, no, the United States does not intend to allowthat to happen.”

But military supremacy and preemptive war are not the only very cant elements of this document In fact, it is not a national security strategy

signifi-at all, but rsignifi-ather an entire stsignifi-atement of American foreign policy

For example, its first section is not titled “ The National Security Strategy

of the United States,” as a reader would expect from the title of the document,but rather, “Overview of America’s International Strategy The second andthird sections discuss defense policy, but the following sections go muchfurther Section VI is titled “Ignite a New Era of Global Economic Growththrough Free Markets and Free Trade.” Section VII is titled “Expand theCircle of Development by Opening Societies and Building the Infrastructure

of Democracy.”

Here we have the full Bush Doctrine, the full foreign policy of America:

r to defend our country via military superiority and preemptive war, whennecessary, and

r to rebuild the world, or as much of it as we can, in our own image – as afree enterprise democracy

Defense Policy Should Not Be Tied to an Overreaching Foreign Policy

In a very significant way, the Bush Doctrine is a mistaken policy It’s a ous overreach, as we demonstrate in later chapters America has the opportu-nity to adopt Strategic Independence – a coherent, forward-looking, sensibledefense policy stressing military strength and independence of action But it

danger-is important danger-is that we not let a poorly developed, inconsdanger-istent and utopianforeign policy interfere We recognize that this is the opposite of what mostspecialists and analysts argue should be the case The position they advocatehas a distinguished lineage, since the Renaissance, and is that the geopoliticalstrategy of the nation should direct its defense strategy – that war should

be an instrument of foreign policy In our view, in the instance of Americatoday, this is clearly wrong.13When a country has the sort of foreign policyour leaders ordinarily articulate – full of high-sounding phrases and imprac-tical objectives drawn from our public culture, then foreign policy cannot

be a secure guide to anything But at least we can defend ourselves tively, so long as we don’t let the confusions of our foreign policy disruptour thinking about defense

effec-A better response than the administration’s would be to focus on ourdefense alone, leaving broader goals to persuasion and support, rather than

to force and direction – we call this approach Strategic Independence, areturn to a policy followed successfully for two decades by our countrybetween the end of World War II and the development by the Soviet Union of

a full-range nuclear missile capability in the mid-1960s A special issue ariseswith respect to the administration’s call for preemptive war; something that

fits within the framework of Strategic Independence, but must be exercisedwith extreme caution Another special issue involves the value of nationalmissile defense, which plays a significant role in Strategic Independence.The formalization of the Administration’s posture in the Bush Doctrine

is a milepost indicating how far America has come since September 11, 2001.Before that time, in the Clinton Administration, we were down sizing ourmilitary quickly The Bush Administration planned to slow or even reversethe build down, but 9/11 precipitated the Bush Doctrine that provides apolicy strikingly different from even that proposed by Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld earlier in 2002 At that time, Rumsfeld gave no hint of themilitary superiority goal in the Bush Doctrine He described preemption asonly an inexpensive tactic to deal with terrorists and rogue states while theUnited States was building down its military, not building up to militarysupremacy.14

The Bush Doctrine is a huge shift from the policies with which many of

us grew up – isolationism until we were forced into World War II, and thencontainment of the Soviets that we achieved as part of an alliance The shiftappears to have been brought about by the threat of terrorists using weapons

of mass destruction, but in reality has been promoted for more than a decade

by several experts.15It has major implications for our relations to Russia andChina also, as we’ll see in later chapters

The Bush Doctrine is a step in the right direction for America, but it isalso a significant overstep – two steps too far It is a costly error to assert thatour country will seek clear military superiority over any potential rival; and

it is an even more costly error to attempt to remake much of the world inour own image If the Administration has gone too far in these two ways,then what is the alternative? In our view the best alternative is to return to

a strategic posture of the United States in the first two decades of the ColdWar – a period of our Strategic Independence – in the search for peace incoming decades

of actions Given such a rare opportunity, it is prudent to try

Changing priorities can be accomplished without appearing to alter ourcore policy Current management of the terms of engagement can be tweaked

by shifting priorities, not by junking the terms and starting over Giving amuch higher priority among the terms to Strategic Independence doesn’trequire that we scrap ballistic missile ceilings nor foreswear arms reductions;

it doesn’t even require that we abandon MAD But it does cancel what hasbeen our primary reliance on MAD; substituting for it greater reliance onStrategic Independence MAD wasn’t a strategy for all seasons It arosefrom the conjunction of a specific set of historical circumstances that haveirreversibly changed with nuclear proliferation

What is required for America now to successfully assert Strategic pendence is:

Inde-At the military level, a counterterrorism capability and a missile defensecapability to join our current conventional and nuclear capabilities; and, atthe broader level, the

r economic strength to pay for these things;

r technological superiority to enable them; and

r political will to maintain Strategic Independence.

Although Strategic Independence may seem inconsistent with militarysupremacy in theory, it’s very much like it in practice This is because tohave real independence of action, we must not have a rival of equal strength

If we do, then we must have allies, and we lose our independence of action.But this does not mean that we must match the strategic capability of eachrival item by item – a danger in the concept of military supremacy; instead,

we should oppose large numbers of missiles in an adversary’s hands with acombination of weaponry that will frustrate and overcome our adversary’sstrength To define our goal, as does the Bush administration, as having

so much military power that an adversary cannot equal or surpass it is toconfuse our proper objective and to suggest that we will participate in anarms race This is unnecessary and potentially very costly

An objection to Strategic Independence is that it seeks absolute securityfor the United States and that absolute security for one party is absoluteinsecurity for others – because the secure party can act with impunity Thus,

in seeking absolute security for itself, the United States undermines securityeverywhere else and destabilizes the international scene Certainly, manycountries in the world assert today that the United States does whatever itwishes, regardless of others, and that freedom of action can be attributed tothe supposed security it feels as the world’s sole superpower

But this objection, though sophisticated and with a superficial plausibility,

is without merit

First, the United States should seek Strategic Independence not because

it is currently invulnerable as the world’s sole superpower, but for preciselythe opposite reason – that it is very vulnerable, as the events of September

11, 2001, made distressingly clear

Second, Strategic Independence does not seek absolute security for theUnited States, only sufficient security to provide freedom of action in ourdefense

The objection would have merit, however, if, as is a dangerous possibility,American leadership overreaches and seeks not reliable defense, but thecapability of remaking the world

Preemption: An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure

On May 12, 2003, a group of bombings killed some twenty-one persons,including seven Americans in Riad, Saudi Arabia Said a Saudi spokesman

to a television reporter soon thereafter, “We knew something was brewing

We had raised our terror alert We had them under surveillance It’s just aquestion of how do you know when they will strike?”

Well, they did strike

Did the Saudi official have to wait for the damage to be done? Or should

he have arrested them first?

Sadly, the Saudi official omitted a crucial step: Recording the incidents andobservations that led him to conclude, “We knew something was brewing.”

He likely believed that the evidence wasn’t specific enough to warrant suchrigorous treatment; which, in the end proved to be a fatal error

Ordinary everyday traffic provides a simple analogy here How many of

us, while driving on a crowded highway, sense that a car in the lane next to

us is about to change lanes even though no turn signal is displayed? Howoften is such “intuition” correct? Almost always

The reason is that our brains record imperceptible clues about the worldaround us that we aren’t even aware of such as the driver’s expression, aslight turn of head, a minor change in speed, a split second swerve andcorrection to the left It is no different in war – but lives depend on beingable to recognize, record, and analyze these changes to our environment andenemy behavior

How did this individual conclude “something was brewing”? Most likelysmall changes in behavior occurred that, if compared to historic clues before

similar attacks in the past, would have been shown to be strikingly similar.The official’s lack of discipline and awareness of his environment shouldsurely have cost him his position.

This is the key issue of preemption; it applies on both the personal andthe national basis

It seems to us that the Saudi security services should have acted in advance,saved the people’s lives, and borne the criticism from civil rights activists –which would have been rendered far less damaging in light of a thoroughanalysis of environmental clues Also it seems to us that our nation must dothe same in the world; act, save our people, and bear the criticism

Preemption is an element of Strategic Independence – an uncommonpolicy, to be used only infrequently The currently popular notion that warshould always be a last resort seems self-evident to many who don’t think

it through carefully In fact, the opposite is often the case – that is, somekinds of war should be not a last resort but an early one Force, applied

at the right time – early, before the attacker is prepared – is often botheffective and inexpensive Exhausting other means of attaining an objectivecan mean, ironically in certain cases, that ultimately a war results that ismuch longer, harder, more expensive, less certain, and more horrible forcombatants and noncombatants alike, than otherwise Preemptive war hassignificant promise if used correctly

Preemption extends to other dangers to American lives than those of rorism only For example, Donald S Burke of the Johns Hopkins BloombergSchool of Public Health wrote about preparing for a pandemic as follows:

ter-“ it may be possible to identify a outbreak at the earliest stage The

new mindset should be one that focuses upstream on the earliestevents, emphasizing prediction and prevention before a pandemic begins.”Although we don’t usually think about terrorism or warfare as a kind ofpandemic, it is just as much a public health problem as bird flu, and can beresponded to in the same way

Had the Western powers acted preemptively against Hitler in 1936, thenthe conflict would have been very small and quickly ended World War II, as

we shall see below, would not have been necessary But preemption is alsosubject to the risk of serious misuse, and so must be employed rarely andonly when a significant danger looms – and by presidents of our countrywho are experienced in foreign affairs and able to make the proper judg-ments By employing preemption in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, PresidentBush put the question of preemption at the top of political discussion inAmerica

WORLD WAR II WAS AVOIDABLEWorld War II was almost certainly avoidable, had we acted in a preemptiveway as the danger became apparent Hitler took power in Germany in 1933and soon after began to rearm The Western democracies knew of this soonthereafter The persecution of the Jews by the Nazis was soon underwayand was well known in the United States in the late 1930s In 1936, in defi-ance of the Versailles treaty that had ended World War I, Hitler occupied theGerman Rhineland The Rhineland was German territory adjacent to Francethat was demilitarized after World War I Hitler’s first use of Germany’sexpanded army was to enter the Rhineland and reabsorb it into Germany.French, and British leaders debated what response to make; possibly theydiscussed the matter with the Americans They decided to make none.

It was learned after the war that Germany military leaders were so vinced that they couldn’t have handled French and British opposition, tosay nothing of American, that they were preparing to depose Hitler Butwhen Hitler got away with the gamble; when the British and French andAmericans did nothing; then Hitler’s hold on Germany tightened; the oppo-sition in Germany was demoralized, and World War II became virtuallycertain

con-In the Pacific, the Japanese fired on a U.S gunboat, the Panay, in Chinesewaters in December 1937, and we chose not to respond strongly Fouryears later, with Japan increasingly aggressive, and Germany triumphant

in Europe, we embargoed oil to Japan, forcing Japan to decide on war orpeace They chose war, and somehow surprised us with an attack at PearlHarbor

Now it should be said that we were not armed for war in 1936 or 1937

So in a sense, we couldn’t have successfully preempted either Germany

or Japan alone But we could have preempted both Germany and Japan if

we had been armed, and we should have been; and we could have done sowith allies (France and Britain), had we exerted leadership at the time

Had we preempted Nazi Germany in 1936 and Hitler had been deposed,

so that World War II never occurred, then there would never have been

a great war, France would not have been overrun, the battles of Britainand the Atlantic would not have been fought, the Soviet Union would nothave been invaded, the Holocaust would not have occurred Pearl Harborwould not have been attacked; there would have been no Bataan deathmarch; and no atomic bomb None of these events, the clear evidence

of the value of having prevented the war, would have occurred Had theGerman invasion of the Soviet Union not occurred, few today would have

believed that something so brutal would have been possible; had the caust not have occurred, few would have believed today that something sohorrible had been averted Had there been no world war, few would havethought that some three hundred thousand American lives were saved bypreemption.

Holo-Instead, in preventing World War II by some military action, some fewAmerican soldiers might have died in the Rhineland, and there would havebeen those political opponents of the president who insisted that Hitlerwould never have actually unleashed a great war In fact, so strong was thespirit of denial in the western democracies that even in 1938 British primeminister Chamberlain was still insisting that he had obtained from Hitler atthe Munich conference “peace in our time peace with honor.”16

Either action would have either prevented World War II, or caused it tooccur prematurely from the point of view of Germany and Japan when ourvictory would have been more certain, faster and less costly

Would action by the American military to stop Germany in the Rhineland

or Japan in China have been preemption? Yes, because in the case ofthe Rhineland, there was no attack on American forces and Hitler made

no threat against the United States; and in the case of the Panay, wherethere was an overt attack on an American naval vessel and two Ameri-can sailors were killed, the Japanese government quickly apologized andpaid compensation.17So for us to have embarked on a military responsewas to have preempted the aggressors, not responded to an assault on ourforces

Preemption Could Have Prevented 9/11

There is another more recent example During President Clinton’s term inoffice, years before the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center,the president was apprised of an opportunity to kill Osama bin Laden by

an attack by our covert operations people Osama bin Laden was associatedwith the first World Trade Center bombing, then with the bombings of our

embassies in east Africa, then with the bombing of the USS Cole, but we made

no effective response to any of these events Here was an opportunity to getthe man before he did more damage to us Generally, when our country hasenemies, and knowing about them, still allows them to gather strength, then

we suffer for it But President Clinton failed to approve the request and theopportunity passed Had the opportunity been seized and bin Laden killed,there would probably have been no 9/11 attack, and thousands of our fellowcitizens would be with us still

Another opportunity was offered just before September 11, 2001 RichardMiniter reports that “By the end of August, a plan was hammered out togive the CIA some $200 million to arm the Northern Alliance, a rebel groupthat opposed the Taliban and bin Laden. The boldest part of the plan

was an elaborate effort to arm the Predator, a small, unmanned, remotelycontrolled plane that (Richard) Clarke had long hoped to persuade the

Air Force to equip with Hellfire missiles. Now, with intelligence reports

of pending attacks on Americans – one intelligence analyst, citing cepts from Afghanistan, believed that al Qaeda could strike over the July

inter-4 holiday – and threats to his own life, President Bush was determined tobypass the usual objections.”18On September 4, 2001, the National Secu-rity Council approved the plan to strike bin Laden It had been in theworks for months The National Security agency called on the Secretary ofDefense to plan for military options “against Taliban targets in Afghanistan,including leadership, command-control, air and air defense, ground forces,and logistics.” The NSA also called for plans “against al Qaeda and asso-ciated terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, including leadership, command-control-communications, training, and logistics facilities.” President Bushwas expected to review the plan on September 10, but he was out of theWhite House that day The meeting was rescheduled for the afternoon ofSeptember 11.19

The point, of course, is that we failed to preempt the bin Laden attack, andperhaps in anger at this, President Bush seized on the World Trade Centerattack to declare “war” on terrorists

Do lost opportunities and successful preemptions in history suggest thatpreemption should be a part of our response to a dangerous world? Thereare strong arguments against it – including that preemption can be misused

or mistaken with possibly tragic results And there is a special dilemma thatany president who proposes preemption must resolve Like any preventativemeasure, preemption, if it is successful, can never be proven to have been 100percent necessary This means that in order to employ it, the president mustengage in a highly rigorous analysis of the situation that makes it clear thatthe probability of a future threat from this source is very high (see our riskanalysis later in this chapter) This makes it a highly risky tactic politically –but the American people are now mature enough to understand the tactic ifexplained properly and intuitive enough to recognize when certain warningsigns ring true Nonetheless, the potential for political suicide remains; and

we predict that only the truly great and the truly reckless presidents willattempt to harness its power

To understand where the minefields are in such a tactic, we should ognize that ordinarily in politics a pound of cure is always preferable to anounce of prevention This is because the pound of cure is offered only whenthe need is apparent, while the need for the ounce of prevention can only

rec-be argued for People who don’t want to make any expenditure or effort onprevention need only deny the need; and if preventive measures are takenanyway, and are effective, opponents will insist that there was never anydanger in the first place Fair-minded people won’t be certain, and sincethe danger didn’t actually materialize, can’t be convinced of the need forprevention The result is that a successful campaign of prevention is likely

to have few friends and some strong enemies Most politicians will prefer towait until the need is evident – to opt for the pound of cure

Preemption is prevention in geopolitics and subject to the same dynamic

WHEN TO PREEMPTFor preemption to be fully accepted, it’s not enough to have a foreignleader who declares that America is his enemy; who arms to be able tofight us; who slaughters his people (Hitler began by murdering Germancitizens who were Jewish; Saddam killed Kurds and Shiites by the thou-sands) None of this is enough for many people They argue in effect thatthere is no justification for resort to force until force has been used against us

In the case of all the Jews and other people of Europe who died at the hands ofthe Nazis before Hitler declared war on us in December 1941, does this meanthat those who oppose our use of force accept some responsibility for theirdeaths?

Suppose that President Clinton had approved the effort to kill Osama binLaden in the 1990s and it had been successful We know now that a resultwould likely have been to avoid the disaster of 9/11, but that’s hindsight.Before the tragedy occurred, who imagined it? Not even Hollywood fanta-sized such an event How would President Clinton have justified to critics themurder of a man only suspected, not tried and convicted, of involvement interrorist attacks on us? He couldn’t have pointed to the World Trade Centerdisaster as the reason because no one would have imagined it, or believedhim if he had foreseen it Critics would have demanded evidence that theattack was likely, that it was imminent, that it would be successful, thatthere were not other, less violent ways to avoid its occurring We would havesearched among the rubble in which bin Laden’s body lay to find the plansfor some horrid attack in order to justify our action Would we have found

them? Not likely Then the president would have been subject to criticismfor using deadly force where it was not needed.

Where does the critic’s string of logic – which many people in our countryand the rest of the world espouse – lead? It begins by arguing that we shouldnever resort to force first; that we must always be attacked, and only thendefend ourselves Suppose that in 1941 we were attacked by Japan, then asour response gathered force, Japan had offered to cease fighting and makesome reparations to us alone, would we then have been required by this rule

of moral action to abandon our allies and cease the war – leaving China,Britain, France, and the Netherlands to their fate? Probably, because by thestandards of those who oppose conflict at nearly all costs we could nothelp those who later became our allies until we were attacked by our allies’enemies It was this string of logic that led America to stay so long out ofthe international conflicts that became the two world wars that we createdgreat losses for ourselves in ultimately winning them

CALCULATING THE RISKThere has been discussion over the centuries about the circumstances underwhich preemptive war should be permissible They stress the immediacy of

an attack by the adversary, clear evidence of the intent to attack, the lack ofany other alternative, and that the force used should be proportional to thethreat In effect, the notion is that a nation can defend itself by preemptiononly at the time that the attack is imminent and that only to the extentnecessary to deflect the attack

These standards, although plausible, would not have prevented the horror

of World War II or the Holocaust By the time that the Western powers wouldhave been authorized by these standards to preempt Hitler, the Nazi statewould have been so strong that only the full rigor of World War II wouldhave been sufficient to destroy Nazism Similarly, in the Pacific Americacould not have acted, according to these standards, until the Japan fleet was

on its way to Pearl Harbor in December 1941 – a time sufficient – had wehad proper intelligence about the coming attack and so ourselves attackedthe Japanese fleet en route to Hawaii – to prevent our naval disaster at PearlHarbor, but certainly far too late to have avoided the Pacific War with Japan

In effect, the standards proposed for preemptive war make preemption solely

a tactical resort – all strategic consequence is removed from it The nationacting preemptively must let its adversary arm itself fully, chose its time andmethod of attack, and even then can only parry the blow (the rule is that thepreemptive action must be directly proportional to the attack anticipated)

Today, when states are vigorously seeking to build nuclear arsenals, andperhaps biological weapons as well, to wait for the potential adversary tofully arm itself before responding could and is likely to be suicidal Hence,there is a strong argument for strategic preemption – to avoid a great conflict

in the future

Preemption is the method by which a strong power can protect itself fromthe rise of enemies who are likely at some point to attack it It is a way toreduce the losses ultimately sustained

The analysis is extremely difficult because enemies both disclose and denysimultaneously (as did Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, and others) their aggressiveintentions They disclose their intended attacks to rally their supporters;they deny them to mislead us, knowing that there is a strong opposition inour country and among our allies to any act of preemption

This is the paradox of preemption – that if it is successful, it can never

be proven beyond doubt to have been necessary and is always subject tocriticism that it wasn’t really necessary However, truly great presidents whoare dutiful students of history will use their worldly knowledge to describeother situations that shared important characteristics (that might not beobvious on first glance) as well as other risk factors that heighten the danger

to convince Americans that there is a huge risk in doing nothing That is allthat need be proved Americans are coming of age They are now matureenough to accept that as long as they don’t feel they are being oversold.This is also true of the war in Iraq, for which it might seem that weapons ofmass destruction in Saddam’s hands might have justified preemptive war.Certainly President Bush said so But if we found them, it wouldn’t provethat preemption was necessary, for our critics insist that they could havebeen found and eliminated by peaceful means – by UN inspection teamsand the weight of world opinion

In fact, the question of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is notabout the justifiability of preemptive war, but is instead about the honesty

of the president Finding weapons of mass destruction will not persuadethe opponents of preemptive war, who will simply argue that the weaponswould not have been used by Saddam But finding such weapons wouldrestore credibility to President Bush, who cited them as a key reason for war.Thus it is that accepting a doctrine of preemptive or preventive warrequires a very high degree of political maturity in a democracy and avery high degree of trust between the citizens and the president For anyresort to force is unfortunate and likely to be decried, especially whereeven if it is successful, it can never be afterwards shown that it had beenneeded

SUCCESSFUL PREEMPTIONSThere are successful examples of preemption in global political history.

Napoleon

In 1807 when Napoleon was at the height of his power, and England stoodalone against him, “an English secret agent reported that an arrangementhad been reached whereby Napoleon was to seize the Danish fleet ” therebychallenging England’s control of the seas Only a few years earlier Napoleonhad made extensive preparations to invade England but was prevented fromdoing so by the English fleet Now, again he was preparing to challengeEngland on the seas; the seizure of the Danish fleet “was to be a preliminary

to a joint invasion of England with the help of the Russians.” The Britishgovernment sent a fleet into Danish waters to compel the surrender of theDanish fleet “This act of aggression against a neutral state (Denmark),”Churchill wrote, “aroused a storm against the Government. But events

vindicated the promptitude and excused the violence of their action. Had

the British Government not acted with speed the French would have been

in possession of the Danish Navy within a few weeks.”20

in six thousand marines and overthrew the Council In hours of fighting,nineteen Americans died and unknown numbers of Cubans and Grenadi-ans The American invasion was condemned around the world as preemp-tive unilateralism, but a year later an election was held, a centrist coalitionwon, and government was returned to the hands of the hundred thousandislanders

Preemption and Nuclear Weapons

Preemption has been especially problematical in the arena of nuclearweapons In general, America has repeatedly failed to employ preemption

to protect itself from nuclear threats from abroad

The Soviet Union, 1948

First, in 1948 as the Soviets were about to get the atomic bomb: “ when

America was on the point of losing her monopoly of the atomic bomb, asleader of the opposition in the British Parliament, Churchill was gravelyalarmed and in 1948 favored the threat and – if need be the reality –

of a pre-emptive strike to safeguard the interests of the Free World.”21Wedecided against preemption; the result was a long Cold War and nuclearstandoff that appears today to have had a favorable result, but as we shall in

a later chapter, the issue is not yet fully resolved

Even in the late 1940s and early 1950s, a nuclear attack by the Russians wasmuch closer than most Americans realize, since revelations from members

of Stalins circle in recent years now suggest that in 1953, armed with nuclearweapons, Stalin was preparing to attack the west, but died or was murderedbefore the attack commenced His motivation was clear At a meeting ofthe top officials of the Soviet Union just before his death in 1953, Stalincommented with contempt in his voice – “when I’m gone the imperialists(the Americans) will eat you up like blind kittens.”22Stalin died before hecould rectify the situation, and what he predicted is exactly what happened,although it took until 1990 for the Soviet Union to collapse

SOVIET UNION, CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, 1962Second, in 1962, when the Soviets put nuclear tipped missiles in Cuba andKennedy threatened a preemptive war, the Soviets backed down We discussthis dramatic incident in more detail later

Soviet Union, President Johnson, 1963 and Beyond

Third, in 1963 when the USSR was about to get intercontinental deliverysystems so that it could hit the United States with nuclear arms (withouthaving to base them in Cuba, on our doorstep), Presidents Kennedy andJohnson both refused to make a preemptive strike, and thereafter we nar-rowly avoided nuclear war on several occasions

Iraq, President George W Bush, 2003

The final results of the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 await the passage

of time It was originally justified as an effort to prevent Iraq from buildingnuclear weapons, something that turned our not to be correct But judgedpurely as an act of preemption (it was much more than that strategically)the president’s action had strengths and weaknesses:

r It was successful in overthrowing the Iraqi government which was theobject of our concern; and

r It eliminated any risk of attack on us or our allies by that Iraqi government.But there were also significant limitations, including

Inadequate explanation and justification for our actions (including inventingjustifications)

Exaggerated Iraq’s involvement in the 9/11 attack;

Falsely claimed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that were adanger to the global community;

Confused our intentions – were they to conduct a quasi-judicial process of tigation, indictment, trial and punishment, involving only those directly involved

inves-in the attack; or to engage inves-in a military campaign to drive our enemies from havens?

safe-Also, the Administration switched strategic purpose in midstream: fromregime change to changing the world by bringing democracy to the Arabworld But we weren’t well prepared for the new mission – our military isnot an appropriate instrument for nation-building abroad

In general, in Pericles’ formulation: Bush knew what needed to be done,but not how to explain and justify it satisfactorily

Preemption is one of the most difficult topics in thinking about how todefend our country Used properly, preemption can be enormously valuable

in protecting ourselves; used wrongly it can bring about great tragedies.Because of the risk, should our country simply eschew preemption? We’vebeen doing that in general, but it would have been a good thing to haveavoided World War II and the holocaust; and a good thing to have avoidedthe World Trade Center tragedy; and both could have been avoided bypreemptive actions

CHAPTER 13: KEY POINTS

1 The best approach for America in today’s world of very divergentthreats is to return to our defense policy in the early years of ourcountry, and again in the early years of the Cold War – a policy ofStrategic Independence

2 Strategic Independence consists of:

r a focus on the defense of the United States without being drawn intobroader goals;

r avoidance of an arms race with a rival power (s) via a flexible strategicresponse;

r preemption to deal with terrorists and states in the Crescent of Fire,especially the threat of attacks on us or our allies using weapons ofmass destruction; and

r sufficient conventional forces to allow us to decide and act on ourown behalf

3 Preemption could have avoided World War II; and it can help us defendourselves now; but it must be used with great caution because it is sub-ject to dangers of misuse and it is easily misunderstood as to motives

4 The Bush Doctrine is a major step toward Strategic Independence butdeparts from it in important ways

America as Mature Superpower

AMERICAN MILITARY EFFECTIVENESSThe major lesson for other countries from America’s changed attitudetoward its defense strategy, and specifically from the Second Gulf War andits aftermath is that the United States is able to defend itself effectively – it is

no paper tiger We have however developed an extremely effective military;one of which Americans are increasingly proud

A few years ago, in the period between the two Iraqi wars, the Minister ofDefense of a major European power at a dinner conversation commented

on his meetings with the American military leadership and his assessment oftheir performance in Iraq in the early 1990s “You’d be amazed at how goodthese Americans really are these days,” he said “They’re committed, hard-working, very professional There’s nothing else to match them in the worldtoday I’m just amazed It’s a totally different situation from the Americanmilitary in the Vietnam War.”

He was right, and his judgment has been confirmed again in the ond Iraqi War That a significant outcome of the Iraq engagement was

sec-to demonstrate American military effectiveness is confirmed by the nowrevealed desire of the French military forces to participate in the invasion(although they were refused the opportunity by French political leaders forreasons that had much to do with the political rivalry between France/EC onone side and the United States on the other) French military officials wereinterested in joining in an attack because they felt that not participatingwith the United States in a major war would leave French forces unpre-pared for future conflicts A French general, Jean Patrick Gaviard, visitedthe Pentagon to meet with Central Command staff on December 16, 2002 –three months before the war began-to discuss a French contribution of tenthousand to fifteen thousand troops and to negotiate landing and docking

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rights for French jets and ships.1 The initial demonstrations of Americanmilitary prowess were in smart weaponry, fire power and speed of action.Later demonstration was of the ability to wage urban warfare with limitedcasualties The demonstrations are a warning to potential adversaries fromsmall to large (from Syria and Iran to Russia and China).

Much happened between the Vietnam War and the First Iraqi War,between 1974 and 1990, to improve the effectiveness of our military, par-ticularly in the Army Briefly, we abandoned conscription and went to anall volunteer force; in so doing, we largely rid our military of drugs (indramatic contrast to our civilian society); we changed the general orders ofthe Army to stress individual initiative by officers in combat situations – forexample, the general orders now provide that the primary responsibility of asubordinate officer is to carry out the INTENT of his commanding officer’sinstructions – not the letter of the orders, but their intent And we began

a new regime of leadership training intended to forge tight bonds betweenofficers and soldiers – no more of the sort of fragging (when soldiers shottheir officers) that occurred in Vietnam In addition, somehow we managed

to establish a culture in our military leadership of flexibility and innovation.This is remarkable

REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS

In the concluding stages of the Cold War Secretaries of Defense HaroldBrown and Bill Perry decided that America shouldn’t try to compete withthe Warsaw Pact in quantity of force but should try instead to master them

by greater quality This gave impetus to the technological revolution thatbecame the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) “ the US military is

entering one of those periods of technological advance that come along everyfew generations, when there is a quantum leap in the family of technologiesand operational concepts that push warfare into completely new realms.”2RMA involves not only smart missiles that can find their targets, but theinformation and communication revolution with its big impact on the orga-nization of the military It’s another weakness of the media that it focuses onthe new technology of warfare, and not the much more important issues ofthe capability of command and execution Americans are thereby encour-aged to believe that if we continue to introduce technological innovations

in warfare, we will remain effective militarily, although this is only part ofthe story Another part of the story is the difficult process of modernizingcommand and control For example, when a sergeant in Afghanistan calls in

a B-52 from Omaha for a strike, what do each of the layers of command in

between do – are they all redundant now? If so, they will resist the change inhow battles are directed Not only is the technology of the RMA a challenge,but modernizing the culture of the military as well.

The public culture is beginning to recognize the RMA, driven in part bythe gee-whiz impact of the new technology of warfare as illustrated for theAmerican people by television But again, public culture both simplifies andexaggerates “Geared to fight traditional wars against conventional enemies,”writes a pundit, “our military must make significant, and in some cases,radical changes in the way it organizes, equips and operates its forces if weare to win the war on terrorism.”3

This observation simplifies the battle against terrorism by suggestingthat a primary part of our response is military This isn’t the case; much

of our response to terrorism involves security, diplomacy, and geopolitics.Furthermore, the observation exaggerates what needs to be done – it isnot at all necessary to make radical changes in the way we organize, equipand operate all or most of our forces simply in order to suppress terror-ism In fact, large-scale conventional war continues to be a major concern

in the future, in part because of the crucial importance of denying statesupport to terrorist groups This was, of course, a motive for our invasion

of Iraq

The observation is within the classic pattern of our public culture – it

is an overstatement, making the point that we need more terror-fightingcapability, which is accurate, but combining it with the implication that

we should give up our traditional defenses (leaving ourselves vulnerable,though this is not admitted) through the presumption that the new threat,terrorism, is the only, or the most important threat Instead, we requiremultiple capabilities in our military: to fight nuclear wars; conventionalwars; guerrrilla wars, insurrections, and terrorist provocations

Stephen Biddle informs us that material factors (weaponry and itsamounts) “are only weakly related to historical patterns of victory anddefeat. A particular nonmaterial variable – force employment or the doc-

trine and tactics by which forces are actually used in combat – is centrallyimportant .”4

He continues: “A particular pattern of force employment – the ern system – has been pivotal in the twentieth century and is likely toremain so .”5 “The modern system is a tightly interrelated complex

mod-of cover, concealment, dispersion, suppression, small unit independentmaneuver, and combined arms at the tactical level, and depth, reservesand differential concentration at the operational level of war. The mod-

ern system insulates its users from the full lethality of their opponent’s

weapons Militaries that fail to implement the modern system have beenfully exposed to the firepower of modern weapons. The net result has

been a growing gap in the real military power of states that can and cannotimplement the modern system.”6

In essence, the key elements of what Biddle calls the modern system arethe ability to protect one’s own forces from today’s overwhelming fire powerwhile permitting mobility to one’s forces, all the while either pinning down

or destroying the enemy’s forces with fire concentration

Because quantities of material are not determinative in warfare, one must

be careful of projecting effective military strength of nations based on size

of economy alone It is not the size of the American economy that makes

us a global superpower It is the enhanced (since Vietnam) capability of ourmilitary leadership at all levels, including our ability to employ in expertfashion modern systems of force employment that combined with our ability

to arm and supply materially our forces (a function of the large size of oureconomy) that gives us our military strength

A significant danger is a bureaucratic rigidity in the American forces.Historically, we are susceptible to this It is a political struggle to close basesand open new ones It is difficult to redeploy forces on a permanent basis.For example, U.S Army forces are being redeployed with fewer left in Europebut better configured for rapid redeployment.7

There is, however, considerable opposition to this We have alreadypointed above to the likely resistance within the multiple links of the chain ofcommand in our military to direct communications between combat-levelleadership and support units

THE MYTH OF WAR WITHOUT CASUALTIES

“Effectively prosecuted, modern war [offers] the opportunity for decisivesuccess without having to use decisive force.”8 This is because of smartweapons, and is the flawed notion behind the start of the Iraqi war with

“shock and awe.” We were awed by our weapons and expected them to havebeen equally awe-inspiring to our adversaries The insurgents found a way

to neutralize them by adopting what are classic guerrilla tactics; forcing usinto a form of conflict in which we much take casualties The notion of a warwithout casualties is, of course, another expression of the wishful thinkingthat pervades our public culture

A word is necessary here about the Kosovo conflict, from which the mostcommonly drawn conclusion is that Western air power virtually alone forced

a recalcitrant Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo Thus, the argument is that

America can via airpower maintain stability in much of the world This is avery attractive proposition because both costs and casualties can thereby bekept low.

However, this conclusion has now been convincingly challenged byPentagon studies of the effectiveness of the western bombing of Kosovoand Serbia itself The damage done from the air, even with smart bombs,

to the Serbian military on the ground was in fact very limited, due toSerbian use of dummy weapons and installations and concealment of actualweapons

What actually caused the Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo is still cealed by the governments involved, but it appears to have been the combi-nation of the threat of Western ground attack and Russian pressure on Serbiadue to commitments made by the West to the Russians, which Russia didn’twant to imperil by supporting Serbia The solution was not gained by airpower, but by great power intervention and by the threat of ground attack.The air campaign provided the ostensible cause needed by the politiciansinvolved on all sides – the apparent reason for Serbian withdrawal and forwestern victory Had the West had to drive the Serbs out of Kosovo on theground, casualties would have been substantial and the American will sorelytested

con-What we can achieve with military power that does not risk our takingcasualties is not sufficient to deter or deflect opponents in many situationsthat matter to us, and there is no strong evidence to the contrary Iraq is

a very good example The deposition of Saddam’s regime was by groundattack

A FULL-RANGE MILITARY

An effective military that permits us flexibility in response to various sortsand combinations of threats is critical to our defense Today, we distinguishbetween nuclear, conventional and terrorist threats as if they were distinct,requiring different types of force configurations, and certain to remain sep-arate in the future This is unrealistic A combination of all will probablyconfront us in the future, and in many permutations:

r A conflict with a major power in which our adversary uses nuclearweapons, large-scale conventional forces and irregular (guerrilla or ter-rorist) units; or

r A conflict with a nonstate network of terrorists, in which small-scalenuclear weapons are used and the conventional forces of supporting states

A military with full-range capability and modernized command and trol is essential for the flexibility of response that Strategic Independencerequires.

con-THE CASE AGAINST STRATEGIC INDEPENDENCEOpponents of Strategic Independence claim:

1 Strategic Independence, with its reliance on military force to deter war,only increases the risk of war;

2 Potential adversaries are more likely deterred by peaceful expressionsthan threatening ones;

3 A less bellicose method – to wit, MAD – is more effective

It would be wonderful if we lived in the sort of world in which our disarmingincreased the likelihood of peace; in which MAD could deal with nuclearproliferation; and in which turning the other cheek dissuaded adversaries –but we do not, and can’t afford the pretense of our public culture that we

do Hence, a more proactive defense strategy is necessary, and StrategicIndependence is preferable to our current posture

Strategic Independence has no hidden agenda It’s not a vehicle for ican imperialism In fact, Strategic Independence as a grand strategy requires

Amer-us to disengage from conflicts only distantly related to major power lenges We should not, in the context of Strategic Independence, be involved

chal-in many of the world’s flash pochal-ints The only purpose of Strategic dence is the defense of the United States

Indepen-“The only defense against [modern warfare] is the ability to attack,”General Marshall told Americans in his review of World War II.9 This isequally true half a century later and applies today as much to terrorist threats

as to those of the great powers But it is now outdated The ability to attack

is not stopping nuclear proliferation, and, as every country in the worldrecognizes, once a country has nuclear weapons no one else dare attack Theability to attack was, of course, deterrence, which Marshall sponsored Itworked for fifty years, haphazardly, as we demonstrate in this book But itworked Now it’s past its day, and Strategic Independence must replace it –that is, a real defense against nuclear weapons

Nor is Strategic Independence a military strategy only To be successful itshould be supplemented by addressing the great problems of economic andsocial development abroad with a culturally sensitive approach – acceptinglimitations on the transference of our own economic and social culture toother nations

WHY STRATEGIC INDEPENDENCE SHOULD NOW DISPLACETHE CURRENT AMERICAN NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGYThe vast majority of Americans desire peace, but we differ about how toachieve it One group prefers continuing reliance on MAD – a balance ofterror that, it is hoped and believed, will compel logical leaders among ouradversaries to avoid war Another prefers that our defense be sufficiently

in our own hands that we can respond successfully to irrational actions bypossible adversaries

There is no reconciling these different preferences They demand verydifferent approaches We can’t have the vulnerability MAD requires andthe defensive security Strategic Independence promises simultaneously Soeither MAD must exclude Strategic Independence (SI) – or SI must sub-ordinate MAD Yet, we must acknowledge that complementarity and sub-stitution are dependent on context, and differ by adversary MAD cannotforestall China (or for that matter, but of far less danger to us at this moment,India and Pakistan) from building ballistic missile capabilities; nor does itoffer any way to reduce the toll of a nuclear exchange Only Strategic Inde-pendence provides hope for containing these risks Nuclear disarmament,another suggested alternative, has the disadvantages that it will make theworld free for conventional war and put America – which in this schemewould also have disarmed – at risk of nuclear attack by nations that cheat

on the disarmament agreements, or of attack by rogue states (as surrogatesfor the great powers that protect them) The goal should be SI, but wherecompelled we can accept MAD for cosuperpowers, and SI elsewhere

Continuing the current American defense policy means keeping ourselvesvulnerable to a nuclear attack from Russia at the present and from China inthe very near future The strategy of MAD presumes that neither Russia norChina will accept destruction at our hands as the price of an attack on us

or our close allies, and by extension will deter conventional aggression even

if our nonnuclear forces are drastically reduced For the moment, this may

be true of Russia, but it won’t stop China from seizing Taiwan or furtheraggression on its borders

We foresee a change in U.S policy to a transition path in which we copewith the growing risk of disaster by simultaneously being self-restrained tomollify the Kremlin’s and Beijing’s fears, while announcing our intention

to gradually build a comprehensive ballistic missile defense from ground orspace and take other actions necessary to assert Strategic Independence.The desirability of Strategic Independence to cope with low intensitydestabilizing events is obvious, buttressed by the possibility of contagion

Low-intensity conflicts can metastasize, proliferate and escalate into highintensity wars and global conflagrations Russia’s full spectrum arms mod-ernization, China’s bluster, Kim Jong Il’s provocations, intervention inDafur, flare ups between India and Pakistan all may trigger arms races, andbrinksmanship of the sort that raises the ante on belligerence And unfor-tunately, there is the growing risk that bilateral nuclear exchanges, couldspark a chain reaction incinerating North Korea, China, India, Pakistan,Russia, and the United States With the stakes this high, it would be unwisefor America just to speak softly, when it could nip the danger in the bud bycarrying a big stick.

The shift from a strategy grounded in MAD to Strategic Independence

is both motivated and made possible by the rapid transition that is takingplace among the world’s major powers The wider diffusion of technologyensures that more nations will acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles

In short, we face more nations with more nuclear weapons and more reasons

to use them Consequently, the danger of nuclear war may soon be greaterthan during the Cold War

We should seek to become a mature superpower In this role, we wouldtry to avoid entanglements abroad, but seek instead somewhat arm’s-lengthrelations with other powers in which we equitably engage other nations,reaping some of the advantages of power without becoming abusive Thiswill not make other nations love us – some will be envious, others vengeful –but we should expect to be respected Being a mature superpower requires

us to correctly perceive the new reality, to shun delusions of grandeur andcorresponding obligations, and to resist Utopian schemes, from right or left,

of imposing our economic and political order on the world Within theselimits we should encourage social justice and economic reform abroad.Finally, as a mature superpower we must reserve the right of self-defense,otherwise we will discover what we discovered after September 11, 2001 –that many, perhaps most, of the other nations of the world are prepared tolet us be a target for terrorists and then restrain our efforts at self-defense inorder to further their own national interests

It is because it has an internally consistent approach to the extremes

of our danger – to a nuclear exchange at one extreme and to terroristsattacks at the other – and flexibility to design responses to situations inbetween, that Strategic Independence is the preferred policy for us Our cur-rent policy (MAD, preemption, and denial) is inflexible and inconsistent incomparison, and therefore unreasonably risky

The desire for peace is not the exclusive property of people who engage inwishful thinking, or of those who advocate multilateralism or pacifism We

all desire peace – even us realists And it is possible – at least large-scale peace

is possible, even if small conflicts are necessary to get there We advocateobjectivity and Strategic Independence not so that we can have wars, butbecause we believe it is a path to peace – to more and deeper peace than isobtainable via any other course

At the end of World War II, General of the Army George C Marshall wrote

in his report on our victory to the president and the American people asfollows: “The security of the United States of America is [thankfully, again]entirely in our own hands. We have tried since the birth of our nation to

promote our love of peace by a display of weakness This course has failed

us utterly. The world does not seriously regard the desires of the weak.

Weakness presents too great a temptation to the strong .”10We concurwith General Marshall’s view

Years later, George Kennan wrote in his history of American Diplomacythat the public after World War I was not ready to fully accept the Wilsonianidea of a legalistic and moralistic rule of law governing the nations of theworld Kennan wrote: “Our own national interest is all that we are reallycapable of knowing and understanding and the courage to recognize that ifour own purposes and undertakings here at home are decent ones, unsullied

by arrogance or hostility toward other people or delusions of superiority,then the pursuit of our national interest can never fail to be conducive to abetter world.”11

This is the core of the legitimacy of Strategic Independence, and it sets avery high standard for America – not the lower one which would be set bythe leveling influence of a multinational approach

CHAPTER 14: KEY POINTSStrategic Independence involves

1 enhancing our conventional military power through the continuation

of the Revolution in Military Affairs;

2 enhancing our defense capability via a missile defense initiative;

3 acting preemptively when necessary;

4 using a combination of forces to deter or defeat an antagonist, but notrequiring military superiority over all possible antagonists at all times;

5 making our strategic decisions after consultation with other countries,but ceding to no other country or international body decisions aboutthe defense of our people; and

6 acting multilaterally whenever possible