PAX Americana after 911

By Tom Wheat

Article Review #1

Poli. 2

Submitted to Professor C. Pompan

SRJC

The Article, “New Defense Priorities,”[1] by Mary H. Cooper, outlines four key ideas about what constitutes, both the political agenda of the armed forces and the executive branch and its attempts to implement a modernization program to deal with the new emerging threat of this new millennium, asymmetrical warfare.[2] 1.) Firstly, the US doctrine of Preemptive strike,[3] characterizes the US’s frustration, that overwhelming military superiority cannot act alone as the sole defense of the country.  Secondly,  2.) US modernization schemas are not a radical departure from either Clintonesque policies, despite the prior force downsizing, due to implementation of joint strike force programs or from military procurement and development policies exercised during the Cold War. 3.) Hence the present US defense establishment has adopted an approach towards the utilization of tactical nukes on the battlefield, and an increasing role in the military and intelligence agencies in clandestine activities both abroad and on US soil. 4.) The final factor Cooper talks about is the role of missile defense and nuclear arms proliferation, i.e., missile defense may constitute a proliferation incentive among traditional sources of confrontation, further compounding the asymmetrical enigma the US is currently facing TODAY.

Cooper, writing for the Congressional Quarterly Researcher, argues that the US’s current unilateralist mentality stems from its inability to prevent asymmetrical warfare, under its current doctrine of deterrence, and reflects the administration’s current stance toward Iraq. However, its doctrine of preemptive strike undermines the credibility of international legal institutions, like the UN. ““It is not only politically unsustainable but diplomatically harmful,” writes G. John Inkenberry, a political science professor at Georgetown University. “And if history is a guide, it will trigger antagonism and resistance that will leave America in a more hostile and divided world.” 

“Most countries are deterred from attacking us, even if they have nuclear weapons, by the fact that we also have nuclear weapons and could do considerable damage to them," says Peter W. Galbraith, a professor at the National War College, which trains senior Pentagon officers… "Deterrence - the promise of massive retaliation against nations - means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend," the president said at West Point. "If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long. [O]ur security will require all Americans to . . . be ready for pre-emptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives." The most recent Quadrennial defense review, completed right after the terrorist attacks, also reflected this view, that the US should, ““deter and defeat adversaries who will rely on surprise, deception and asymmetric warfare to achieve their objectives," said Rumsfeld.” Steven J. Nider [4] of the Progressive policy institute, called the report, ‘maddeningly vague.”

Furthermore, David Carr argues in his article, "The Futility of ‘Homeland Defense,’ " The Atlantic
Monthly, January 2002, pp. 53-55., that the US can never be safe from asymmetrical conflict or terrorism unless it significantly alters its free trade policy.[5]

As it stands now the DOD has received the largest budgetary increase since the Reagan Star Wars era. “For next year, the Senate last month approved a record $355.4 billion military-spending measure for fiscal 2003 - a 10 percent, or $34.4billion, increase over 2002.*” Cooper argues: in order for modernization, and joint strike capabilities to be solvent in the theatre of warfare, requires a political shift in priorities from, programs that favor political agendas, towards those that have long-term viable military applications.

According to Andrew F. Krepinevich Executive Director, Center For Strategic And Budgetary Assessments[6] in his Testimony Before The Senate Armed Services Committee, April 9, 2002, has argued that, “the Defense Department’s modernization strategy today Remains much the same as it was during the Cold War era, with its emphasis on large-scale, serial production of relatively few types of military systems and capabilities." ..Unfortunately, it [Bush administration] has not yet developed either a transformation strategy or a process to ensure that Transformation will come about. This is most clearly demonstrated in the absence of plausible service and joint war-fighting concepts for addressing the new, emerging critical operational goals, and finds its ultimate expression in the administration’s program and budget priorities,.."

The political fallout of the terrorist attacks has resulted in the call by the US General of the newly created Northern Command that an increased role by the military in domestic surveillance is necessary in order for the US to provide for its security from future attacks. Cooper suggests that this policy at the moment conflicts with the 1878 Posse Comitatus law[7] and that the Bush administration may seek to repeal the statute. “Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, who heads the Northern Command, created after Sept. 11 to boost domestic security, is among a handful of military brass who advocate amending the law to enhance the military's contribution to homeland defense.”(Cooper, Mary. “New Defense Priorities,” CQ Researcher – online edition, September 13^th  2002)[8] Furthermore, the role of FEMA, and the National Guard are also being debated on capital hill as to whether the doctrine of State’s Rights can lend sufficient argument as to who should best micromanage ‘homeland security.’

Harvard’s: “Galbraith is less supportive of the administration’s $7.8 billion request for the national missile-defense program, which Congress is expected to approve in full. [26] In his view, a far better use of those funds would be to develop technologies to detect nuclear weapons and inspect everything that enters the country.”  Steven Weinberg[9] a noble laureate in Physics has argued that the current missile defense program cannot defend against an accidental launch of one of Russia’s poorly guarded nuclear arsenals and that pursuit of the program may result in the increased proliferation of nuclear weapons. (CQ Researcher) Bush’s unilateralism is officiated most strongly visa via his withdrawal from established ABM treaties and may lead to an erosion of coalitional support among traditional European allies. “Bush has strained transatlantic relations by rejecting several international agreements that enjoy broad support in Europe — including the Kyoto treaty to slow
global warming, the U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the treaty creating the new International Criminal Court...military action to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has injected a new source of tension between the United States and its military allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”(Cooper, CQ Researcher)[10] Former Defense Secretary, William Perry argues that what may be necessary to combat these twin threats, proliferation and terrorism, is a more robust and revived form of US containment policy, supplemented by limited deterrence.[11]

The US’s current diplomatic strategy of unilateralism, and preemptive strike stem from the frustrations of an overwhelmingly superior military super power’s inability to confront asymmetrical warfare from the standpoint of its competing agendas concerning free trade and national security. Furthermore the US must accept that genuine hostility  is engendered in the third world by our support for the current  free trade regime, i.e.,  short term solutions involving support and foreign assistance to repressive autocratic regimes to safeguard that trade, leading to future confrontations continues the downward hegemonic spiral of an empire in eclipse. The US can go as  the old saying goes, ‘lead, follow, or get out of the way.’ If free trade ideology is allowed to conflict with national defense priorities, the draconian substitute of Military domestic surveillance, will only hasten the demise of our  ‘free republic.’