Unless you blinked, World War III already
came and went. No nuclear weapons were unleashed, as predicted
by the old-school in defining WWIII. But the warning shots
were fired in New York, Kenya, Yemen, Iraq and elsewhere
around the globe. A paradigm shift happened instead of
all-out nuclear war. The United States declared War on
Terrorism, which has no strategic boundaries to target
with our massive and critical weapons. Instead, the SuperPower
(some describe it as a MegaPower) of the United States
juggernaut deployed around the world to begin the fight
in what is being called World War IV.
The United States today is the only truly
global power. Its military reach extends to every corner
of the world. Its economic achievements fuel international
trade and industry. Its political and cultural traditions
and values appeal to people around the world. And while
no one questions America's paramount position, many raise
the issue of how the United States is trying to transform
this unique power into sustainable influence.
September 11th may have marked the end
of the age of geopolitics, defined by containment and
balance of power. It also signaled the advent of a new
age - the era of global politics, primarily focused on
global threats. It has become a demarcation point for
U.S. foreign policy, now rooted in the two new phenomena
of the times catastrophic terrorism and American uni-polar
power. Although America's pre-eminence began with the
collapse of the Soviet Union over a decade ago, until
Nine-eleven the United States did not see itself as a
global policeman. Nine-eleven made it clear the United
States had enemies capable and willing to inflict substantial
damage to its interests at home and abroad.
These new threats to US and global security
necessitate a rethinking of the organizing principles
of international order, say analysts. But America's new
assertiveness in setting standards, determining threats
and using force many find harmful to the fabric of the
international community and political partnerships. This
new preventive doctrine negates the sovereignty of other
nations by insisting on the right of the US to interdict
other nations in advance of an act of aggression. The
doctrine announced by the US is based on perception, possibilities,
something that might happen or could happen. It announces
the right of America to take up arms against another.
States have never abandoned the right
of preemption, nor have proponents of multilateralism
always acted under the framework of the United Nations.
It is only recently that anyone has claimed the United
Nations was the sole legitimator of international action.
European states did not disagree several years ago when
the United States and NATO acted in Kosovo without a UN
sanction. Theorists argue that if there is superpower
that throws its weight around, the result will be an incentive
for other powers to gather together to check the hegemon.
China is a rising power, and there is at least the possibility
of Russia making some sort of resurgence. To avert such
developments, US policies could go beyond an almost exclusive
focus on achieving security through force.
Among rogue states, those most aggressively
seeking to acquire or develop WMD and their means of delivery,
are Iran and North Korea, followed by Libya and Syria.
It is also the case that these states are among those
the US identifies as state sponsors of terrorism. The
Bush Doctrine aims not just to prevent the spread of WMD,
but also to "roll back" and ultimately eliminate
such weapons from the arsenals of rogue states, and ensure
that the terrorist groups they sponsor do not acquire
weapons of mass destruction.
In 2001 the US State Department identified
seven countries -- Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya,
Sudan, and Syria -- as sponsors of international terrorism.
Prior to 2003 Iraq was a sponsor of anti-Israel terrorism.
Among the terrorist groups that maintained offices in
Baghdad are the Palestine Liberation Front and the Abu
Nidal Organization. Iraq also supported the Mujahedin-e-Khalq's
terrorism against Iran.
The primary target of Iranian-sponsored
terrorism is peace negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians. Iran provides the terrorist groups Hizballah,
HAMAS, the Palestine Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command with weapons,
funding, training, logistics, and safe haven. Iran is
encouraging these groups to increase terrorist attacks
on Israeli civilians. Iran also supports terrorist groups
operating against Algeria and Turkey and permits Uzbek
terrorists to broadcast over Iranian radio. Syria is another
country that supports terrorist groups opposed to Israel.
Syria gives safe haven and support to Fatah-the-Intifada,
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command, HAMAS, and the Palestine Islamic Jihad. Damascus
serves as the primary transit point for weapons from Iran
to Hizballah terrorists in Lebanon.
Sudan has expelled some terrorists, but
it continues to harbor associates of the Afghanistan-based
Al-Qaida terrorist organization, led by Usama bin Laden.
Sudan also protects terrorists from the Egyptian group,
al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the
Palestine Islamic Jihad, and HAMAS. Libya continues to
maintain links to terrorist groups like the Palestine
Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine-General Command. Of the other state sponsors,
North Korea is reported to have sold weapons to Philippine
terrorists. And Cuba provides safe haven for Basque ETA
terrorists. Cuba also has longstanding ties to Colombian
terrorist groups.
In his State of the Union speech in January
2002, President Bush said "Well be deliberate,
yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events,
while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws
closer and closer. The United States of America will not
permit the worlds most dangerous regimes to threaten
us with the worlds most destructive weapons."
In a major speeches defining the Bush
Doctrine delivered on 01 June 2002 at West Point, Bush
placed his ideas in historical context: "For much
of the last century, Americas defense relied on
the cold-war doctrines of deterrence and containment.
In some cases, those strategies still apply. But new threats
also require new thinking. Deterrencethe promise
of massive retaliation against nationsmeans nothing
against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizen
to defend.... Containment is not possible when unbalanced
dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver
those weapons or missiles or secretly provide them to
terrorist allies.... We cannot defend America and our
friends by hoping for the best. We cannot put our faith
in the word of tyrants, who solemnly sign non-proliferation
treaties, and then systematically break them. ... If we
wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited
too long. . . . [T]he war on terror will not be won on
the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt
his plans, and confront the worst threats before they
emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to
safety is the path of action. And this nation will act."
In a prime time news conference on October
11, 2001, President Bush called Afghanistan the "
first battle in the war of the 21st century. ... how long
will this last? This particular battlefront will last
as long as it takes to bring al Qaeda to justice. It may
happen tomorrow; it may happen a month from now; it may
take a year or two."
Norman Podhoretz argues that America should
militarize the clash of civilizations, as it is George
W. Bushs mission to fight World War IVthe
war against militant Islam. Podhoretz credits Eliot
Cohen with the phrase World War IV. Podhoretz
suggests that after September 11th, "having previously
been unsure as to why he should have been chosen to become
President of the United States, George W. Bush now knew
that the God to whom, as a born-again Christian, he had
earlier committed himself had put him in the Oval Office
for a purpose. He had put him there to lead a war against
the evil of terrorism."
James Woolsey stated on 02 April 2003
at a speech at UCLA that the war on Iraq is the opening
of a much-to-be-desired "Fourth World War" and
that the governments of Iran and Syria are "America's
enemies" in this war. Woolsey stated that "We
are fighting "World War IV, a war that will last
longer than World Wars I or II. As we move toward a new
Middle East," Woolsey said, "we will make a
lot of people very nervous," including Egypt and
Saudi Arabia. "We want you nervous," said Woolsey.
"We want you to realize that now, for the fourth
time in 100 years, this country and its allies are on
the march and that we are on the side of those whom you
- the Mubaraks, the Saudi Royal family - most fear. We're
on the side of your own people." A few days later,
Woolsey suggested that "In World War IV, as was true
in WW III, we must understand that different enemies require
different tactics. South Korea in 1950 could only be saved
by American military power, but Poland in the '80s required
a very different touch. Freedom in Iran may well arrive
in Polish guise."
Vice President Dick Cheney said on 13
May 2003 that "Clearly, we are locked in the kind
of the struggle that will continue for a good many years,
that calls upon the very best in the United States military....
The only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to
destroy it. There's no treaty can solve this problem.
There's no peace agreement, no policy of containment or
deterrence that works to deal with this threat. We have
to go find the terrorists.... the only sure way to security
and stability and the protection of our people and those
of our friends and allies is to go eliminate the terrorists
before they can launch any more attacks. And this President
is absolutely bound and determined to do that."
The US has adopted a forward strategy
of freedom in the Middle East. President George W. Bush
announced the policy on 06 November 2003, at a twentieth
anniversary celebration of the National Endowment for
Democracy. He celebrated the success of countries from
Eastern Europe to Latin America, to parts of Asia and
Africa that have moved from dictatorship to democracy.
"In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at
Westminster Palace and declared the turning point had
arrived in history. He argued that Soviet Communism had
failed, precisely because it did not respect its own people...."
But, President Bush said, "In many nations of the
Middle East, countries of great strategic importance,
democracy has not yet taken root ... "The questions
arise: Are the people of the Middle East somehow beyond
the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and
children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism?
Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to
have a choice in the matter? I for one do not believe
it. I believe every person has the ability and the right
to be free. ... The advance of freedom is the calling
of our time."
President George W. Bush says, the greatest
security for the U.S. and for all countries comes from
the advance of human freedom: ". . . because free
nations do not support terror. Free nations do not attack
their neighbors. Free nations do not threaten the world
with weapons of mass terror. Americans believe that freedom
is the deepest hope and need of every human heart. And
I believe that freedom is the right of every person. And
I believe that freedom is the future of every nation."
The cause of freedom led the United States and a coalition
of nations to liberate Iraq. Now, says Mr. Bush, the coalition
is working to help the Iraqi people build a democratic
country that is at peace with its neighbors -- an Iraq
free of oppression, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism.
The great democratic movement got underway
in the 1970s. Portugal, Spain, and Greece held free elections.
By the 1980s, there were new democracies in Latin America,
and free institutions were spreading in South Korea, Taiwan,
and elsewhere in Asia. By the end of 1989, every Communist
dictatorship in central Europe had collapsed. In 1990,
the South African government released Nelson Mandela from
prison; four years later, he was elected president. In
1991, the Soviet Union broke up, and many of its newly
independent republics began moving toward democracy.
It's not a new idea but it is a new doctrine
in practice. It is a change from decades of the practice
of foreign policy in the United States where, because
of the Cold War and the conflict with the Soviet Union,
the US pushed democracy around the world depending upon
how it affected the power struggle with the Soviet Union,
which meant that the US would be friends with a dictator
if that dictator was an enemy of the Soviet Union. The
Administration is hoping that if the US can successfully
establish a democracy in Iraq, that will have a demonstration
effect. The people in the next-door countries who are
in similar circumstances would feel that they deserve
the same kind of thing. When there is local ferment and
pressure, the US can come in and insist that the government
not fire on crowds. This would begin the movement internally
in all of these countries towards democracy.
|