Here's a rough translation of the national security manifesto President Bush unveiled Friday: Shoot first, ask questions later.
The key section of the manifesto discusses the Cold War doctrine of deterrence and why it doesn't work in the age of terrorism. The section makes three points. First, compared to the old Soviet politburo, rogue-state leaders who sponsor terror are "more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people." Second, whereas the Soviets saw weapons of mass destruction as a last resort, today's rogues "see these weapons as their best means of overcoming the conventional superiority of the United States." Third, "deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents" and "whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death."
In other words, we now face an enemy that seeks advantage over us not through the ability to exceed us in material strength, but through its willingness to exceed us in ruthlessness. How do we adjust to this enemy? The intuitive, if unpleasant, answer is to pare our scruples to even the fight a bit. But Bush doesn't want to admit this. Instead of embracing the blunt Cold War realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, Bush redefines terms to conceal his moral compromises.
1. Imminent threats. Until now, the manifesto observes, "Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of pre-emption on the existence of an imminent threat—most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack. We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries."
How? By loosening the definition of "imminent." The catastrophic weapons favored by today's enemies "can be easily concealed and delivered covertly and without warning," says the document. "The greater the threat … the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."
In short, "imminent" no longer means knowing when the enemy will strike, or even what the enemy will do. "Imminent" now means that the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by our enemies must be stopped, by unilateral American military action if necessary, because these weapons inherently pose an imminent threat.
The manifesto stipulates, "The purpose of our actions will always be to eliminate a specific threat to the United States or our allies and friends. The reasons for our actions will be clear, the force measured, and the cause just." But this is linguistic trickery. Instead of specifying the threats against which you'll attack pre-emptively, you assert vaguely that those threats will be specific. Instead of giving clear reasons, you assert that your reasons will be clear. Instead of quantifying the force you'll use, you say your force will be properly measured. You leave the rules vague so that in practice, by filling in the blanks later, you get to make up the rules as you go along.
2. Self-defense. The manifesto says the United States will focus on "defending the United States, the American people, and our interests at home and abroad by identifying and destroying the threat before it reaches our borders." To justify unilateral action against such threats, the document frames this policy as part of "our right of self-defense." But this stretches the meaning of both "self" and "defense." Don't American interests abroad, under Bush's definition, include Israel's security? If our borders don't define the self we're committed to defend, and if the violation of those borders doesn't define the difference between offensive and defensive action on our part, what does?
3. Interests and values. According to the manifesto, "The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests." But the only thing distinctly American about this proposition is its pretense that our interests and values are identical. Nations choose their interests over their values all the time. They go easy on dictators to protect profitable commerce. They prop up friendly but repressive governments.
The United States under Bush isn't much different. Our new moral compromise is that we're putting stability and order before reform. "Today, the world's great powers find ourselves on the same side—united by common dangers of terrorist violence and chaos," says the manifesto. "America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones." Specifically, "the United States and Russia are no longer strategic adversaries," and we're cooperating with China "where our interests overlap, including the current war on terrorism."
The manifesto gives familiar lip service to the importance of Russian and Chinese reform, but the whole point of the new doctrine is that reform is no longer primary. Fighting terrorism is. That's why the document doesn't mention Chechnya or the repression of Chinese minorities in the name of fighting terrorism. It frames a simplistic anti-terrorist alliance of "civilization," including "moderate and modern government, especially in the Muslim world." Does that mean Muslim governments such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are moderate toward the United States but corrupt or repressive at home?
4. Multilateralism. The manifesto makes a show of embracing the United Nations and other international institutions. It pledges, "America will implement its strategies by organizing coalitions—as broad as practicable—of states able and willing to promote a balance of power that favors freedom." But what does this mean? If you aren't willing to engage in military action that in the view of the U.S. "favors freedom," your inclusion in the coalition isn't "practicable." This is unilateralism dressed up as multilateralism. We're happy to work with you, as long as you'll do it our way.
The document reaches the height of its blindness to irony in a paragraph pledging
to ensure that our efforts to meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry, or prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept. We will work together with other nations to avoid complications in our military operations and cooperation, through such mechanisms as multilateral and bilateral agreements that will protect U.S. nationals from the ICC.
In other words, we'll cooperate with regimes that make sure we don't have to cooperate.
What is the justification for all these compromises? According to the document, "History will judge harshly those who saw this coming danger but failed to act. In the new world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action." But this is a backward-looking policy disguised as a forward-looking policy. It focuses on what history has already judged harshly. Bush is afraid that if we don't err on the side of shooting first and asking questions later, what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, will happen again.
That isn't the new world we're entering. The new world is the one rationalized by Bush's manifesto: a world in which great powers wink at each other's misconduct, every threat is imminent, self-defense means pre-emptive action abroad, interests are dressed up as values, and cooperation means cooperating with the United States. We don't know what history will judge harshly about this era, but there's a good chance it'll be the compromises we embraced to rectify the mistakes of Sept. 11. Perhaps those compromises are necessary. Covering them up surely isn't.
Notes From The Fray Editor:
Before they get lost forever in the flood of Ballot Box posts, reprinted below are some of the major manifestoes offered by our regular posters. And LS's Belushi-esque slam.
Remarks From The Fray:
Saletan claims that Bush's version of Multilateralism says, in essence, "We're happy to work with you, as long as you'll do it our way."
This is, sadly, the way we've done things as far back as I can remember - not surprisingly, Bush is just using a much less subtle approach. I believe our collective American arrogance has finally reached its zenith, and Bush's manifesto is the ready-to-pop zit coming to a head.
-- LS
(To reply, click here.)
It wasn't easy for Bush to screw up the overwhelming post-9/11 international support for eradicating terrorism, but he seems to be accomplishing it. He had nearly unanimous support among nations, and among Americans, for the war in Afghanistan and the broader war to disable al Qaeda wherever they might be found. That war--the most important war--clearly requires the support of the world if it is to succeed.
And what has he done since acquiring that support? Approach the United Nations seeking support for a war against Iraq, and then tell them that if they don't agree with him, they're "irrelevant" and will be ignored. As a result, the governments of all nations, save for a couple, viewed Bush with contempt. Not satisfied with the level of alienation achieved so far, he comes up with a manifesto seeking to seal the deal.
What does that manifesto say? In a nutshell it says that the United States will attack any country, at any time, if a president and his advisors conclude that the target country may pose some unspecified threat to us in some unspecified way and at some unspecified time. Are weapons of mass destruction the "trigger" that will gain a nation a place on the target list? There are dozens and dozens of nations fitting that bill. Nations around the world are left to wonder. Will some of those nations be among those whose cooperation we need in rooting out terrorists? Will they continue to do it when treated with contempt?
The bottom line is that Bush seems to be treating this subject like any other political issue. Short term, the political calculus must be that the GOP's supporters simply adore the "new sheriff in town" approach Bush is telling the world about, and that keeping the debated centered on war drums will prevent anyone from thinking about anything else through the November elections.
Long term, well, there is no long term--no sane person could think that further alienating nations throughout the world can serve us in the important anti-terror war we face. Bush seems to feel no need to acknowledge that we can't simply blast our way out of the terrorism problem. In an age where a handful of people with just the right germs can cause us enormous harm, one would think that some thought would be put into determining how we can ratchet down the level of hatred toward America that is so prevalent throughout the world. Telling the world that we will attack countries willy-nilly for vague "reasons" that can't even be articulated hardly seems to be a recipe for improving our image throughout the world.
Most Bush supporters proudly proclaim that they don't give a hoot about such things. But as they do that, the madrassas of the world are breeding more and more terrorists, and Bush's in-your-face arrogance gives the mullahs some nice new material to work with. It also virtually guarantees that more nations will tell us to get stuffed when we need their help in tracking down and nabbing the bad guys. Good election strategy? Maybe. Good long-term policy? No way.
-- TC3
(To reply, click here.)
The essence of Bush's new security manifesto and the rest of his foreign policy is that the United States is the world's only superpower and we will take full advantage of it to do whatever we want to. Others may complain, but there is nothing that they can do about so it. We will try to get them to support us, but what is important is that we will do what we do.
The downside of this policy is that countries that have traditionally been our allies and thankful for our overwhelming strength may decide that that strength is not in their best interests after all. From their perspective the common enemy of the Soviet Union is gone and so to the need for protection from United States.
The question then comes down to how costly it will to us be when other countries only see us no longer see as their friend, but as simply a powerful country that has to be dealt with. I suspect that it will be a lot more costly than the Bush administration realizes.
-- ds7878
(To reply, click here.)
If we take Bush's Manifesto at face value, there is only one conclusion to which it can logically be extended. By taking it as an axiom that the United States is the world's bastion of freedom, reserving to itself the right to define the enemies of freedom, and holding to itself the responsibility of maintaining the one commodity that is most conducive to the proper economic functioning of a free society, oil in other words, the Bush Manifesto implicitly proposes a world controlled by the desires of the United States. It is no accident that the places where attention is directed in the war against terrorism are Muslim countries, under which the vast bulk of the world's proven oil reserves reside.
Terrorism in all its other forms, from Basque separatists to Tamil nationalists, is a silent issue. It's not hard to see that, because there is no economic benefit to rationalizing those situations, there is little interest in defining those threats as imminent. And in principle, as the underlying message of the Manifesto suggests, we do not perceive any threats there because they do not satisfy the requirements. They are only dangerous to local, rather than global, concerns and are thus not party to the vital interest of the United States, having defined itself as the arbiter of global danger and the authority on which types of terrorism are critical and which are not.
It is no secret that the Bush administration is chock-a-block with advisors and decision-makers who see international political action as fundamentally an exercise in State power. The guy with the most, biggest, and fastest guns gets to make the rules. And gets to make the rules. And gets to make the rules. There is a Damon Runyon story in which a particularly large thug...not having it in front of me, I'll just make up the details...is engaged in a game of craps. He has the dice, and his point is six. He rolls over and over again. No six comes up. Finally he craps out, rolling a seven. He turns to everybody at the table, and says, "It's a six." A couple of players complain. He repeats, "It's a six." He flexes his muscles and looks around the table. Finally everybody agrees the seven is really a six, and he scoops up his money and leaves.
Only time will tell whether the Congress, the Judiciary, the People, and the rest of the nations of the world will go along with the Bush Administration's plan to define the targets, the numbers, the rules of the game, and the meaning of words as they go. As T. S. Eliot noted, the world ends not with a bang but a whimper, and so far not even a whimper has been heard over topsy-turvy language like Bush's most recent favorite saw: "We need to go to war to keep the peace."
Say what?
Of course, the Damon Runyon story was written in a different age and time. Today, some fifteen year old kid sitting in the corner with a Glock would just pop a cap in the big mug as he walked toward the door.
-- James N. Ackerman
(To reply, click here.)
Mr. Saletan articulates and makes clear a sense of uneasiness that I have had for some time about the Bush Administration's policies since the aftermath of September 11 regarding what is usually referred to as the "war on terrorism." I agree with his primary point that President Bush is using language that whitewashes the necessary evils the U.S. and other nations may have to consider to effectively contain terrorism. I do not necessarily disagree with the need for unpopular but necessary proactive containment. I would willingly trade a loss of popularity for loss of life. (Although Professor Wright would say that I am shortsighted for doing so).
More poignant for me, however, was the way Saletan brought out how Bush has widened his objectives concerning our containment efforts from a war on terrorism to a war for the much broader concept of homeland security. Terrorists are a threat to homeland security, of course, but by defining the enemy by WHAT is threatened rather than WHO is doing the threatening, Bush opens up potential objects for containment to a much wider and indirect set of targets than terrorists.
The advantage to this, I suppose, is that we can be more proactive if we widen our thinking as to who constitutes "the enemy." That was the thrust of the Bush Doctrine as the President first proposed it. Unfortunately, recognizing that we are facing a new type of threat has not prevented the U.S. from trotting out the same old solutions for it to date. We have invaded and toppled the government of the country we believe helped train the terrorists responsible for September 11 and that was certainly harboring one of the most potent anti-American terrorist leader/organization in existence. We have yet to say that we have effectively contained that organization. However, our next step was to define an "axis of evil" of new threats to our security and the security of the world. Since our fight is against terrorism, one might suppose that the likes of - oh, say - al-Qaida, Hamas, and the Colombian Drug Lords would be good candidates for that infamous triumvirate. No, again it was three sovereign nations/governments and we are now on the brink of invading one of them - Iraq - and overthrowing its leader.
This new manifesto of President Bush's, I must sadly confess, fits well with the morphing of the Bush Doctrine into the BuSharon Doctrine. As Mr. Saletan aptly states, under this doctrine "great powers wink at each other's misconduct, every threat is imminent, self-defense means pre-emptive action abroad, interests are dressed up as values, and cooperation means cooperating with the United States." The Bush Doctrine warned foreign powers, "support terrorism and we will not like you." The BuSharon Doctrine warns, "we do not like you, so you are supporting terrorism." To the extent that we ever really had them, we are on the brink of losing both our moral AND our strategic advantage in the fight to contain terrorism by losing focus and widening our "war" into its traditional and ugly form of conflict among nations. President Bush may lose in the short-term at the polls over the economy. However, I believe history will judge this so-called national security manifesto as his greatest debacle for having the opportunity to make the U.S. a positive difference on a true world problem and then failing to act in anything beyond the narrowest nationalist response.
-- The Bell
(To reply, click here.)
(9/23)
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Notes From The Fray Editor:
Before they get lost forever in the flood of Ballot Box posts, reprinted below are some of the major manifestoes offered by our regular posters. And LS's Belushi-esque slam.
Remarks From The Fray:
Saletan claims that Bush's version of Multilateralism says, in essence, "We're happy to work with you, as long as you'll do it our way."
This is, sadly, the way we've done things as far back as I can remember - not surprisingly, Bush is just using a much less subtle approach. I believe our collective American arrogance has finally reached its zenith, and Bush's manifesto is the ready-to-pop zit coming to a head.
-- LS
(To reply, click here.)
It wasn't easy for Bush to screw up the overwhelming post-9/11 international support for eradicating terrorism, but he seems to be accomplishing it. He had nearly unanimous support among nations, and among Americans, for the war in Afghanistan and the broader war to disable al Qaeda wherever they might be found. That war--the most important war--clearly requires the support of the world if it is to succeed.
And what has he done since acquiring that support? Approach the United Nations seeking support for a war against Iraq, and then tell them that if they don't agree with him, they're "irrelevant" and will be ignored. As a result, the governments of all nations, save for a couple, viewed Bush with contempt. Not satisfied with the level of alienation achieved so far, he comes up with a manifesto seeking to seal the deal.
What does that manifesto say? In a nutshell it says that the United States will attack any country, at any time, if a president and his advisors conclude that the target country may pose some unspecified threat to us in some unspecified way and at some unspecified time. Are weapons of mass destruction the "trigger" that will gain a nation a place on the target list? There are dozens and dozens of nations fitting that bill. Nations around the world are left to wonder. Will some of those nations be among those whose cooperation we need in rooting out terrorists? Will they continue to do it when treated with contempt?
The bottom line is that Bush seems to be treating this subject like any other political issue. Short term, the political calculus must be that the GOP's supporters simply adore the "new sheriff in town" approach Bush is telling the world about, and that keeping the debated centered on war drums will prevent anyone from thinking about anything else through the November elections.
Long term, well, there is no long term--no sane person could think that further alienating nations throughout the world can serve us in the important anti-terror war we face. Bush seems to feel no need to acknowledge that we can't simply blast our way out of the terrorism problem. In an age where a handful of people with just the right germs can cause us enormous harm, one would think that some thought would be put into determining how we can ratchet down the level of hatred toward America that is so prevalent throughout the world. Telling the world that we will attack countries willy-nilly for vague "reasons" that can't even be articulated hardly seems to be a recipe for improving our image throughout the world.
Most Bush supporters proudly proclaim that they don't give a hoot about such things. But as they do that, the madrassas of the world are breeding more and more terrorists, and Bush's in-your-face arrogance gives the mullahs some nice new material to work with. It also virtually guarantees that more nations will tell us to get stuffed when we need their help in tracking down and nabbing the bad guys. Good election strategy? Maybe. Good long-term policy? No way.
-- TC3
(To reply, click here.)
The essence of Bush's new security manifesto and the rest of his foreign policy is that the United States is the world's only superpower and we will take full advantage of it to do whatever we want to. Others may complain, but there is nothing that they can do about so it. We will try to get them to support us, but what is important is that we will do what we do.
The downside of this policy is that countries that have traditionally been our allies and thankful for our overwhelming strength may decide that that strength is not in their best interests after all. From their perspective the common enemy of the Soviet Union is gone and so to the need for protection from United States.
The question then comes down to how costly it will to us be when other countries only see us no longer see as their friend, but as simply a powerful country that has to be dealt with. I suspect that it will be a lot more costly than the Bush administration realizes.
-- ds7878
(To reply, click here.)
If we take Bush's Manifesto at face value, there is only one conclusion to which it can logically be extended. By taking it as an axiom that the United States is the world's bastion of freedom, reserving to itself the right to define the enemies of freedom, and holding to itself the responsibility of maintaining the one commodity that is most conducive to the proper economic functioning of a free society, oil in other words, the Bush Manifesto implicitly proposes a world controlled by the desires of the United States. It is no accident that the places where attention is directed in the war against terrorism are Muslim countries, under which the vast bulk of the world's proven oil reserves reside.
Terrorism in all its other forms, from Basque separatists to Tamil nationalists, is a silent issue. It's not hard to see that, because there is no economic benefit to rationalizing those situations, there is little interest in defining those threats as imminent. And in principle, as the underlying message of the Manifesto suggests, we do not perceive any threats there because they do not satisfy the requirements. They are only dangerous to local, rather than global, concerns and are thus not party to the vital interest of the United States, having defined itself as the arbiter of global danger and the authority on which types of terrorism are critical and which are not.
It is no secret that the Bush administration is chock-a-block with advisors and decision-makers who see international political action as fundamentally an exercise in State power. The guy with the most, biggest, and fastest guns gets to make the rules. And gets to make the rules. And gets to make the rules. There is a Damon Runyon story in which a particularly large thug...not having it in front of me, I'll just make up the details...is engaged in a game of craps. He has the dice, and his point is six. He rolls over and over again. No six comes up. Finally he craps out, rolling a seven. He turns to everybody at the table, and says, "It's a six." A couple of players complain. He repeats, "It's a six." He flexes his muscles and looks around the table. Finally everybody agrees the seven is really a six, and he scoops up his money and leaves.
Only time will tell whether the Congress, the Judiciary, the People, and the rest of the nations of the world will go along with the Bush Administration's plan to define the targets, the numbers, the rules of the game, and the meaning of words as they go. As T. S. Eliot noted, the world ends not with a bang but a whimper, and so far not even a whimper has been heard over topsy-turvy language like Bush's most recent favorite saw: "We need to go to war to keep the peace."
Say what?
Of course, the Damon Runyon story was written in a different age and time. Today, some fifteen year old kid sitting in the corner with a Glock would just pop a cap in the big mug as he walked toward the door.
-- James N. Ackerman
(To reply, click here.)
Mr. Saletan articulates and makes clear a sense of uneasiness that I have had for some time about the Bush Administration's policies since the aftermath of September 11 regarding what is usually referred to as the "war on terrorism." I agree with his primary point that President Bush is using language that whitewashes the necessary evils the U.S. and other nations may have to consider to effectively contain terrorism. I do not necessarily disagree with the need for unpopular but necessary proactive containment. I would willingly trade a loss of popularity for loss of life. (Although Professor Wright would say that I am shortsighted for doing so).
More poignant for me, however, was the way Saletan brought out how Bush has widened his objectives concerning our containment efforts from a war on terrorism to a war for the much broader concept of homeland security. Terrorists are a threat to homeland security, of course, but by defining the enemy by WHAT is threatened rather than WHO is doing the threatening, Bush opens up potential objects for containment to a much wider and indirect set of targets than terrorists.
The advantage to this, I suppose, is that we can be more proactive if we widen our thinking as to who constitutes "the enemy." That was the thrust of the Bush Doctrine as the President first proposed it. Unfortunately, recognizing that we are facing a new type of threat has not prevented the U.S. from trotting out the same old solutions for it to date. We have invaded and toppled the government of the country we believe helped train the terrorists responsible for September 11 and that was certainly harboring one of the most potent anti-American terrorist leader/organization in existence. We have yet to say that we have effectively contained that organization. However, our next step was to define an "axis of evil" of new threats to our security and the security of the world. Since our fight is against terrorism, one might suppose that the likes of - oh, say - al-Qaida, Hamas, and the Colombian Drug Lords would be good candidates for that infamous triumvirate. No, again it was three sovereign nations/governments and we are now on the brink of invading one of them - Iraq - and overthrowing its leader.
This new manifesto of President Bush's, I must sadly confess, fits well with the morphing of the Bush Doctrine into the BuSharon Doctrine. As Mr. Saletan aptly states, under this doctrine "great powers wink at each other's misconduct, every threat is imminent, self-defense means pre-emptive action abroad, interests are dressed up as values, and cooperation means cooperating with the United States." The Bush Doctrine warned foreign powers, "support terrorism and we will not like you." The BuSharon Doctrine warns, "we do not like you, so you are supporting terrorism." To the extent that we ever really had them, we are on the brink of losing both our moral AND our strategic advantage in the fight to contain terrorism by losing focus and widening our "war" into its traditional and ugly form of conflict among nations. President Bush may lose in the short-term at the polls over the economy. However, I believe history will judge this so-called national security manifesto as his greatest debacle for having the opportunity to make the U.S. a positive difference on a true world problem and then failing to act in anything beyond the narrowest nationalist response.
-- The Bell
(To reply, click here.)
(9/23)