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...ensure stability for capitalist expansion. This struggle reflected within the military/industrial complex over a range of issues, including the nature of intervention, the need for allies, weapons systems and the arms market.
Debates over foreign policy began with the demise of the Soviet Union. Globalization, however, produced additional divisions as national security became disconnected from the economic strategy of transnational corporations. Furthermore, how to readjust the military/industrial complex to the needs of global capitalism has generated significant differences. As the Institute for National Strategic Studies pointed out: `Almost everywhere, countries face the task of harmonising their foreign economic policies with their national security strategies. China and Russia both -ace this challenge, as do the Europeans and the Japanese. So does the United States.' (1)
The Bush doctrine
These debates were clearly evident during the presidential campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The Bush approach centred on narrowing the definition of vital interests and was critical of the Clinton/Gore strategy of nation building, involving US troops in Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia. The Clinton/Gore globalist policy sought stability through undertaking a broad range of military and civil engagements, backed by a solid alliance of stakeholders. For Bush, however, the mission was to `deter and win wars' rather than engage in `vague, aimless, and endless deployments'. (2) His ideas were linked to the two regional war strategy, which became the dominant military strategy after the break-up of the USSR. It was built on the need of the US to be able to fight two regional wars at the same time, and focused mainly on the containment of Iraq and North Korea. At the time, this approach was closely associated with Colin Powell, secretary of state, who believed that the military was ill equipped for the demands of civic contingencies.
In the words of Adam Siegel, senior analyst at Northrop Grumman, one of the big four defence corporations: `The war-fighting mission does not require analysis of governmental corruption, police brutality, organized crime, international development funding [and] what is happening in the local economy.' (3) Such questions were, though, affecting real military operations. Siegel continued:
What will be the population's voting patterns? Where will refugees try to rebuild houses? Will the local schools open on time? These are real examples that this author has seen Brigade commanders ask their intelligence officers in Haiti and Bosnia. (4)
This entangling web of relationships, fostered by the concerns of the globalists, was just too much for Bush and Powell who wished to draw a circle around US vital interests. Both believed nation building should not be part of the military's mission, as can be seen in the administration's reluctance to become deeply engaged in rebuilding Afghanistan.
The Bush/Powell approach marked a cautious retreat from globalist over-extension, but the terrorist attacks of September 11 enabled hegemonists within the administration to push for a more aggressive and expansionist policy. This is evident in the increased influence of secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, vice-president Dick Cheney and policy advisor Richard Perle. Key to their thinking is that the US must act first and foremost to guarantee its own geopolitical security whenever necessary. No longer in retreat from global engagement, they freed the administration from the constraints of its own strategy. This opened the door to a new consensus that solved a number of key problems faced by the original Bush/Powell policy. Straightaway, vital interests could be defined in terms of a broad array of problems that included engagements with state and non-state threats sweeping over a crescent from the Middle East to the Philippines. Intervention did not have to be based on starving children and ethnic cleansing, but on the danger of international terrorism. Multilateral partnerships were reduced to secondary importance, or even judged unnecessary, since the US, as the world's only superpower, could act unilaterally. Winning victories was what would make countries line up behind US leadership. Generally, Powell is in agreement with this broader approach but still argues for building alliances. On the other hand, Bush is perfectly comfortable with a unilateralist stance.
Hegemonists view the world differently from mainstream globalists. They argue that, rather than a shared empire for world capital, global integration should mainly benefit the US. For hegemonists, global business is just one factor among many. The power to arrange global affairs to ensure geopolitical security for the US is perhaps even more important in a world where integration is giving rise to the so-called `clash of civilisations'. In the ideological terms of Samuel Huntington, it is the West--a civilisation whose core values are said to be the Christian family, the free market and individual rights--against the rest. As Huntington writes, `Faith and family, blood and belief, are what people identify with and what they will fight and die for'. (5) The US needs to lead this battle, with or without allies, to ensure its place in the world. Such essentialism goes beyond transnational economic pragmatism; it views globalization as a project of US hegemonism, not of multilateral integration.
The attacks of September 11 produced a partial consensus between hegemonists and globalists on the nature of security threats, but not on how to combat them. Both sides agreed that the most important danger was terrorism as carried out by state and non-state actors, and that winning a broadly defined `war on terrorism' was essential. Yet important differences remain. Unilateralist policy is to send troops to half a dozen countries without concern for allied support. The globalists, who have long advocated a proactive policy as opposed to simple containment, are committed to proceeding only with multilateral agreements. Such differences quickly erupted over Bush's `axis of evil' which ignored regional realities concerning Iran and North Korea, and resulted in a partial retreat by Bush.
The attempt to impose sole US hegemony in a global system is saturated with instability and problems. The immediate fear is that Bush is over-extending US capabilities too quickly, without sufficient political or military backing. His projected first step, to overthrow Saddam Hussein using the Afghan military formula, swiftly raised alarm. Instead of the Northern Alliance, the Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south would supply ground troops while the US ran the air war. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey opposed this plan, fearing the emergence of an independent Kurdistan and a Shi'ite alliance with Iran. Such fears ate dismissed by the unilateralists who insist that the Turks and Saudis would really welcome a US victory, but just can't say so. In the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the prolonged refusal to engage in meaningful diplomacy gave Sharon the green light to destroy the Palestinian Authority. The high-stakes gamble that Palestinian resistance can be defeated and thus bring about a return to the pre-Oslo status quo is an illusion that can only lead to greater violence and instability throughout the Middle East. Europe, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries are demanding a new peace process before considering action against Iraq, thereby limiting US unilateralism in the Middle East.
In Asia, the Bush attempt to undermine the `sunshine policy' (so named by the South Korean government) on the reunification of Korea runs counter to aspirations throughout the region. The real concern here is to maintain the 37,000 US troops in South Korea as a linchpin of the US military presence in Asia, more for the sake of containing China than North Korea. This reflects the powerful influence of the anti-China lobby in the US which views the Chinese as strategic competitors. The Center for Studies of Chinese Military Affairs at the National Defense University warns:
With economic and political ties to China, a unified Korea could be drawn into a yuan-dominated regional market to counter Japan's economic and potential military influence. Even more important, however, the rationale for United Nations and American troops in Korea would be gone, furthering China's goals of becoming a regional hegemon and pushing the United...
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