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LAND IN THE
MIDDLE
America's journey to holy
war
By Cheng Yawen
Part
1: Another China: The awakened giant
 In
observing the strategic orientation of a country and the
security situation of the world, though specific and
eye-catching incidents have to be taken into the
observer's view, that which decides the historical
course of human beings is, as pointed out by French
historians from the Annals School, "the historical
structure" that is winding and flowing down, ie, the
historical current itself, while the big events are but
a spray in the current.
To understand human
security and world history after the United States'
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
importance should be attached to what was said by Alfred
Thayer Mahan, an American sea-power theorist, a military
expert as well as a well-trained historian: in
formulating the state's strategy, close coordination
should be ensured between the long-term view and
short-term needs. A sudden incident is likely to change
a country's orientation, but once the short-term needs
have been addressed, the state should again consider the
long-term view.
The "long-term view" Mahan
mentioned is in fact the strategic cultural tradition
and mentality. In the long-term international
competitive relations among the big states, the relative
stability of state interests, geographic environments,
population structure and state of economic development
often result in an inertial strategic thinking mode,
which may be called the strategic cultural tradition or
strategic mentality. Accordingly, this article will, on
one hand, review the great events and historical
currents, to point out the "internal veins" of history
itself, and on the other hand, will analyze how the
great events have contributed to, altered and reinforced
the historical currents.
America under the
influence of God
Let us first deal with Mahan's
"long-term view". The history of a country can well
explain its present state, and only if America's
strategic cultural tradition is well understood can we
know better its present strategic decisions. I am
especially interested in the role of religions in
shaping the unique strategic cultural tradition of the
US. While reading American history, a clear impression
arises that the US-style strategic mentality is
distinctly branded with religious marks. If we do not
pay attention to this, we cannot be aware of the
profound "holy war" complex behind the strategic
decisions of previous US administrations.
"Justice" vs "evil". Let us start with
the State of the Union address delivered by US President
George W Bush on January 30 in which he explicitly
claimed that Iran, Iraq, North Korea and their allies
form an "axis of evil", and said that the United States
will not watch idly as these dangerous regimes threaten
it with the world's most destructive weapons. Hardly had
he used the expression "axis of evil" than opposing
views from all countries were aroused. Beside the three
countries mentioned, which voiced the strongest
criticism, other countries, such as China, Russia, South
Korea, and even the European Union, also expressed their
grave concerns. Even beyond the influence that the
expression of "axis of evil" exercises on global
political relations now, it is worth reflecting on the
mindset behind Bush's use of this term.
The easy
branding of other states as "evil" reminds us of a
previous US president, Harry Truman, who, on March 12,
1947, fully prepared to check the Soviet Union,
energetically preached in an address to Congress that
"at the present moment in world history nearly every
nation must choose between alternative ways of life ...
one way of life is based upon the will of the majority,
and is distinguished by free institutions,
representative government, free elections, guarantees of
individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and
freedom from political oppression. The second way of
life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly
imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and
oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed
elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms." He
also claimed that "nearly every nation must make a
choice ... either they stand with us, otherwise they
will be regarded as opposing us". This address, later
called "Truman Doctrine", marked the beginning of the
more than 40-year Cold War.
The Cold War has now
elapsed, though leaving behind the cognitive modes
displayed in the Truman Doctrine. A simple analysis may
reach the following conclusions: 1) in this world there
existed the opposition of "justice" and "evil" in the
world, the United States representing the "justice" and
the Soviet Union the "evil"; 2) between "justice" and
"evil" every nation must either chose "justice" or
"evil", and there could be no other alternative; 3) in
face of the "evil", "justice" had no possibility of
compromise, but only a life-and-death rivalry between
them.
The Truman-style holy-war mentality,
"either with the USA or with the USSR", has found echoes
in George W Bush more than 50 years later. Look at what
Bush said after the terrorist incident of September 11,
2001, and you will be surprised to find how similar it
is to Truman's remarks. On the ninth day after the
attack, Bush delivered an address before a joint session
of Congress, just as Truman had in his time, and asked
foreign governments to make a choice. He said: "Either
you are with us, or you are with the terrorists ... from
this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or
support terrorism will be regarded by the United States
as a hostile regime." And on October 8, 2001, he said in
a radio speech: "Every nation has a choice to make. In
this conflict, there is no neutral ground," and asked
the whole world to support the United States to launch a
holy war against terrorism. These speeches after the
September 11 incident now are frequently referred to as
"Bushism".
To be neutral is immoral. Thus said
John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state in the US
administration of president Dwight Eisenhower, the
American fighter of the Cold War, and today Bush is
saying the same thing. All of them, Truman, Dulles and
Bush, professed "the mode of living of the United States
of America and the civilized world". From Truman, Dulles
through to Bush, is there a clear clue that has run
through the US-style strategic cultural tradition? I
tend to believe that this thinking mode that too hastily
divides "justice" and "evil" is a specific strategic
thinking habit that has long functioned in US history
and has been displayed in the past half-century in a
very pronounced manner.
Either positive or
negative, there is absolutely no middle ground. This
simple dichotomy about the world is naturally associated
with Manicheism. (1) Religious thinking often easily
produces the dichotomies between "light" and "darkness".
In the early 1960s, David Horowitz, an editor of
Ramparts, in his book From Yalta to Vietnam: American
Foreign Policy in the Cold War, used "Manichean
world view" to refer to McCarthyism, which developed as
an anti-communist mania in the 1950s. McCarthyists
simply classified nations and people in the world into
two types, those for and those against communism. Those
who agreed with senator Joseph McCarthy and his
followers were dubbed anti-communist, while those who
did not were labeled communists. The abhorrence and
hatred against the communist "pagans" not only ignited
enthusiasm in the United States for the Cold War, but
also initiated a big influential movement in the country
to eliminate "internal enemies". How much substantial
difference in ways of thinking and the practical mode of
action can we find between Bushism and the
Trumanism/McCarthyism of 50 years ago?
A
nation ruled by "God". Though the distinction
between "justice" and "evil" is the usual manifestation
of a religious world view, we cannot simply say that
anyone who tends to distinguish things by "light" and
"darkness" and acts accordingly is exclusively under the
influence of religion. Is it really religious factors
that have caused Truman, Bush and others to be engrossed
in categorizing the world into "justice" and "evil"?
It is common sense that Americans have their
religious beliefs. The US presidents, the supreme
executive leaders, must swear solemn oaths on a Bible in
front of them at their inaugural ceremonies, and in
terms of their own beliefs almost none of them does not
believe in God. Most US presidents have had clear and
strong religious convictions, in the 20th century in
particular.
At his first inaugural address,
Eisenhower initiated the practice of starting with a
prayer. He said that unless the government was
established on heartfelt religious convictions, it would
be meaningless. He took up the big stick of
"containment" from Truman, considering it "God's will"
to impose sanctions against communism. David Horowitz
called what Eisenhower adopted in the struggle with
communism an eccentric "Manichean language".
Richard Nixon, the US president who stepped down
in dismay after the Watergate scandal, was also a
faithful believer in God. In his memoirs and political
works written after his resignation, he repeatedly took
pride in the United States of America as a nation ruled
by God, deeming that America's prosperity was derived
from Americans' belief in God. President Jimmy Carter in
the late 1970s was also a pious believer in God, and
even made a special "praying chamber" in the White
House, and introduced praying activities into the very
center of US politics.
In terms of faith in God,
the current US president is not different from his
predecessors. After the September 11 incident, his
immediate reaction was to embark on a "crusade" against
Osama bin Laden and Islamist terrorism. The plan of
Operation Enduring Freedom was initially given the name
"Infinite Justice". The religious meanings of "crusade"
and "infinite justice" are known to all. Although both
the president and the Department of Defense opted for a
different code name, in light of Sigmund Freud's
psychoanalytic theory, the immediate subconscious
reactions truly reflected their essential views.
The religious complex of the US presidents is
but the tip of the iceberg once we probe deeper into the
US historical and cultural tradition. By examining
America's past, we will realize how firmly rooted is the
distinction between "justice" and "evil" and the related
political phobia.
The notion of "the American
nation" is inseparable from religious beliefs, in terms
of its origin and development. About 400 years ago, a
large number of Puritans moved to North America from
Western Europe, and one of the causes for this was
religion. Protestant Puritans had suffered all kinds of
oppression in Britain, their motherland, and on the
European continent. In order to pursue religious freedom
they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled down in the
New World.
With the increase of population and
the diversification of religious beliefs, these people
were not able to avoid other forms of religious tyranny,
and religious struggles resumed. The situation was grave
prior to the War of Independence in the North American
immigrant community: where the Protestants dominated,
the Catholics would be oppressed, and vice versa. Thomas
Jefferson, one of the forefathers of the United States
and the "democratic soul" of the country, strongly
called for religious tolerance and separation of
religion from politics. After unremitting struggles, in
1777 the Virginia Congress drafted the Bill for
Religious Freedom, which was not passed in the
Confederate Congress until 1785 under the strong
prodding of James Madison. The spirit of religious
freedom and religious tolerance began to be gradually
established.
This difficult course through which
Jefferson strove for religious freedom might help us
understand the influence of religious beliefs on the US
Congress. On the first Thanksgiving Day after the
Puritans reached Plymouth on the Mayflower, they held a
solemn ceremony to thank their Christian God for the
opulent New World, the land, their families and
everything they had, believing all of these were of
God's making, though it was the native Americans who
taught them how to plant corn and other plants and
fertilize the land.
To this day, Americans'
religious complex is still very obvious, and even
stronger than that of the Europeans under the influence
of traditional Christianity. Recent statistics show that
not only ordinary people but also the elites hold strong
religious beliefs. Though in recent years religious
beliefs have tended to become somewhat weaker, their
influence cannot be neglected. While visiting China not
long ago, in his speech at Qinghua University, Bush
mentioned expressly that "America is a nation guided by
faith. Someone once called us 'a nation with the soul of
a church'. This may interest you - 95 percent of
Americans say they believe in God, and I'm one of them."
Another aspect of the separation of religion
from politics. Many might be puzzled by the
hysterical anti-communism sentiments that have
manifested themselves since the late 1940s. At that
time, when the Chinese Communist Party gained control of
most of China, Britain, France and other European
countries, adopting a realistic stance, were ready to
recognize the new Chinese government. In the United
States, however, the new government met all-out
obstruction. This attitude, differing from other Western
policy circles, to the new Chinese government and
Communism flowed, to a great extent, from the "crusade"
mentality which, in turn, is based on American religious
beliefs.
The United States is a country where
religion and politics are separated. Theoretically,
religion will not interfere with political practice.
However, this non-intervention of the religious
organizations into politics does not mean that the
religious mentality will not exercise influence on the
political behaviors. Though the influence is formally
indirect, what is the real significance of the
distinction between "direct" and "indirect"?
The
strategic cultural tradition of any country will be
under the influence of the national cultural tradition
as a whole. American culture is constituted mainly by
two elements: one is the material civilization, ie, the
commercial culture, which stresses actual military and
economic interests, embodied in the emphasis on the
actual state interests; the other is the religious
civilization, ie, the elements of the Christian culture,
from which came the American concern with ideology. This
is more conspicuously present in the United States than
in Europe, and also marks a major difference vis-a-vis
China, Japan and other countries, which feature strong
secularization.
In fact, the two elements are
not unbridgeable, but rather can supplement and support
each other to bring out the best.
All
monotheism-based beliefs, Islam, Christianity, and other
religions, have an inherent repulsion toward other
beliefs, which is particularly obvious in the history of
Christianity. The absolute worship of "God" and the
utter abhorrence of "Allah" triggered Christian
"crusades" one after another in Europe during the last
millennium.
Nowadays the exclusiveness in
Christian culture is not so noticeable because of the
secularization process. It should be noted that the
tolerance of Christian culture toward other religious
beliefs might have largely been due to its absolute
predominance. Christian culture displays its tolerance
when no one challenges it. In fact, the same thing
happened several hundred years ago in the Ottoman
Empire, a political entity in which the Islamic
civilization was absolutely predominant, and which
allowed the believers of other religions, including Jews
and Catholics, satisfactory freedom. But once a religion
senses pressure and challenge from other cultures, can
it retain its tolerance? The rise of Islamist terrorism
in the modern world after the disruption of the Ottoman
Empire is a clear answer. The same mentality is also
typical of the Christian faithful. When Christian
culture senses the impact from other cultures and
beliefs, and Americans sense the presence of an
opponent, can Christian culture as a whole, and
Americans in particular, remain unperturbed?
Apparently, the tolerance of the American nation
is limited. It can be tolerant until other countries
pose challenges or it senses that other countries are
becoming its potential opponents. When the Soviet Union,
a communist, heretical country, emerged to face the
United States as a victor after World War II, Truman's
immediate reaction was to override it and maintain
American features and modes of life. US containment
against the Soviet Union was thus very similar to the
European crusades against the Islamic world.
At
the same time, the orthodox posterities of the British
immigrants have never given up their efforts to
establish a culture in which Christianity has a leading
position. In terms of "combining into one" or "dividing
one into two", the American mainstream culture advocates
"combining into one", ie, establishing one culture as
the mainstream. Thus, there is no surprise that some US
conservatives repulse "cultural studies" prevalent in
Britain, the United States and other countries, for
non-mainstream and non-Western views have increasingly
posed challenges against the mainstream position of
Western culture.
The American nation has
inevitably inherited the European "crusade" complex. As
American scholars Seymour Martin Lipsett and Gabriel
Salman Lenz have pointed out, the temperaments of
Protestant and Evangelical believers are more likely to
make people follow absolute values. Politically, they
tend to think that the social and political events are
wars between God and Satan, and compromise is unlikely.
For a predominantly Protestant nation, it is more than
natural for the United States to develop the "crusade"
complex in countering communism. Without the backing of
profound religious sentiments, it is hard to imagine
that in the modern world a major confrontation between
convictions, ie, ideologies, may arise, and an "evil"
imagination associated with other alien cultures and
beliefs may be easily engendered.
According to
James O Robert, an American scholar, the classical
American mythology embraces the following correlated
elements: 1) the United States of America is
unparalleled in civilization and morality and superior
to any other countries and nations in the world, while
those nations that do not believe in God are "evil",
inhumane and anti-humanity; 2) the United States, the
incarnation of "justice", is destined to assume the
obligations to promote its superior and unique
civilization and values. Hence, it must unremittingly
undertake Christian expeditions everywhere in the world
to wipe out all kinds of "evil" forces; 3) to spread the
American civilization and values, the United States is
entitled to employ all possible tools, including nuclear
weapons. The above three points are directly related to
Americans' beliefs in God.
Fault lines and
"in search of monsters to destroy". In 1912, when
the Progressive Party was organized by Theodore
Roosevelt, the representatives to the national assembly
convention stood up and sang the popular holy song:
"Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with
the cross of Jesus going on before." Roosevelt gave a
speech and closed with a ringing call: "With unflinching
hearts and undimmed eyes we stand at Armageddon, and we
battle for the Lord."
Roosevelt's words are of
course religious. If the United States of America
represents "justice", "light" and "kindness", then what
are those nations that do not accept America's
"justice", "light" and "kindness"? How is America to get
along with them? History tells all clearly about
America's choice: all countries and nations that do not
accept but rather oppose the American culture and values
are "evil" pagans and enemies, who must be subjugated.
On the other hand, as mentioned above, the
cultural superiority and destiny world view in fact is
also subject to the logic of power. That is to say,
though belief conflicts, or "clashes of civilization",
as Harvard University Professor Samuel Huntington put
it, do exist, the clashes between beliefs and
civilizations are also a reflection of the wrestling
between power and interests. American strategic culture
manifests itself in two objectives: 1) permanently and
firmly protect the predominant position of the United
States in the world, either in the field of culture and
ideology, "soft power", or actual military and economic
strength, "hard power"; 2) once a country or a
civilization might pose a threat to the predominant
position of the American nation in culture, economy,
politics and military affairs, they will be considered
enemies and checked without hesitation.
Besides
"holy war" against its enemies, the US-style holy
mentality often searches and demonizes "enemies". Faced
with a "pagan" enemy, what course to follow for the
United States? The natural choice is to undertake an
expedition and holy war against the "evil" enemy. This
is a habitual mode in praxeology. First, a moral
proclamation is made from a commanding position, then
the practical means are employed, consisting of
containment or even military strikes against the "evil"
enemy.
John Quincy Adams proudly addressed
Americans on the 1821 Independence Day: "She [the United
States] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to
destroy." If that happened, "she might become the
dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the
ruler of her own spirit." However, "in search of
monsters to destroy" became exactly part of the
strategic cultural tradition of the American nation, and
the "crusade" complex was revived and flourished on the
fresh land of the New World after being dormant for
several hundred years on the European continent. It has
to be noted, however, cultural and moral dominance is
the major root of the clashes in the world and human
misery, which, nevertheless, can hardly be noticed by
the American nation. In 1901, Mark Twain asked in an
article: "Shall we go on conferring our civilization
upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give
those poor things a rest?" The writer's heckle is
obviously unlikely to beget self-reflection by his
complacent and haughty compatriots.
Absolute
security, cultural expansion and unipolar order
Big states intrinsically tend to expand their
powers, and this is truer for a nation with a profound
holy-war complex. The more than 200-year history of the
American nation is but one of continuous expansion,
though prior to World War I, it pursued the foreign
policy of isolationism and had no intention to expand
globally. After World War II, when Franklin Roosevelt
and Harry Truman ushered the country into the world, it
grew into the strongest country and expanded its
national interests to all over the globe. The
"destination" view had completely changed its spatial
conception, the traditional isolationist ideas had
waned, and it since World War II US foreign policy has
been to shift from Americanism to globalism, launch a
global "holy war" and establish its absolute
predominance.
When the Cold War came to an end,
the United States proclaimed victory; when Francis
Fukuyama's The End of History was published, what
applause it received! The 40-year Cold War ended with
the Soviet Union in chaos, greatly reinforcing the
unique myth of American culture and values. The holy-war
mentality is an important part of US tradition, though
it is not the whole picture. Its influence has extended
after the Cold War. Having accumulated from more than
200 years' history of clashes, wars and expansion, it
cannot be discarded easily, for its enormous inertia
will keep Americans from getting off the track of a
foreign policy set by history.
Those who deem
that the end of the Cold War will result in a complete
change in America's strategic pursuit are short-sighted,
for the strategic orientation designed by US strategists
and the actual policies the government has carried out
since the end of the Cold War are unmistakable signs.
In the first place, let us have a look at the
views and the schemes of the influential American
strategists, of whom four are listed here: Richard
Nixon, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Huntington and Joseph
Nye.
Richard Nixon. For America's global
strategy during the post-Cold War era, Nixon, as
president, had a three-point program, to which special
importance should be attached. First, to the question
whether the United States will continue to lead the
world, Nixon gave a definite answer. In 1999: Victory
Without War, a book published in 1988, when the Cold
War had not ended, he proposed that the United States
must assume the "destiny" to "lead the world", and in
the remaining 12 years in the 20th century, the chief
mission of the United States was to "shape" the US-led
peace in the next century. In order to achieve this
goal, the United States must throw off the United
Nations when necessary. Second, after the end of the
Cold War, Nixon maintained that the United States should
retain its strategic achievements, "to seize the moment"
and achieve more. In terms of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) and the US-Japan alliance, Nixon had
totally different views from others. In the 1990s he
repeatedly stressed that NATO should be expanded instead
of being debilitated, so that the United States could
play an even more prominent role and assume a new
mission. For Nixon, NATO was American's main link with
Europe and should never be cut off. He also proposed
that NATO expand eastward and actively support Poland,
the Czech and Slovak republics, Hungary and other new
democratic nations to achieve the goal of a complete
entry into NATO. At the same time, he energetically
supported strengthening the US-Japan alliance, saying
that the United States and Japan should step into the
next century in concert. Third, on the issue of the
military security level in the post-Cold War era, he did
not approve of the view that economic security overrode
military security. In Seize the Moment, he
repeatedly refuted the view that the importance of
military strength had decreased in diplomatic
decision-making after the Cold War, and pointed out that
power politics still relied on military force.
Zbigniew Brzezinski. Like Nixon,
Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter
administration, thought that America's strategic pursuit
in the post-Cold War era had not essentially changed;
what should be changed was the specific direction and
the local aim, some of the specific strategic moves
should be adjusted, while the global strategic layout
was still the same. His conceptions were comprehensively
reflected in his 1996 book, The Grand Chessboard,
in which he stressed that the post-Cold War United
States should reset the geopolitical compass, while
continuing to maintain its established positions in
terms of sea power, seize the time to set the grand
Eurasian chessboard, establish the strategic sustaining
point and control or guide the Eurasian geostrategic
chess players and embrace them into the control of the
strategic conceptions of the United States.
Samuel Huntington. This well-known
professor of politics at Harvard University put forth in
1993 and refined in 1996 his theory of civilization
clashes. He pointed out that in the world after the Cold
War the major civilizations might undergo severe clashes
due to differences in cultures and values. To deal with
this, the United States should give up the cultural
tradition of universalism, and make efforts to unite the
civilized Western nations to fortify the defensive
capability of Western civilization against the other
civilizations.
Joseph Nye. Nye served as
assistant secretary of the Department of Defense in the
first administration of president Bill Clinton. He
strongly maintained that the United States was destined
to lead the world. Regarding specific courses of action,
he thought that the United States should use both hard
and soft tactics; while reinforcing the "hard forces" in
military affairs and economy, "soft power" should also
be stressed, ie, to make use of and spread democracy,
freedom, human rights and other values. Like Huntington,
he attached great importance to the roles played by
cultural elements (including religion) in international
politics. However, contrary to Huntington, his
propositions are still presented in terms of
universalism.
While the authors just mentioned
mostly blend traditional liberalism with the realist
principles of strength, neo-conservatism, which
advocates the realization of the national interest in
carrying out "moral politics", has been gaining ground
in American society since the 1980s and its influence on
actual politics is becoming stronger. According to an
analysis by Zhang Ruizhuang of Tianjin University, its
characteristics are as follows: it aims to enlarge
America's predominance and establish a US-led world
order; it aims to spread American culture and values to
all human beings, with anyone who refuses America's
"kindness" becoming the target of American "morality";
in order to achieve America's national interests and
spread American civilization, military forces may be
deployed if necessary, and so on.
These are the
designs of the strategists, but what have the
politicians done? It might be easily found that
America's global strategy in the past decade since the
end of the Cold War has been essentially deployed
following these schemes. Under the two Clinton
administrations, Nixon's and Brzezinski's geopolitical
propositions were nearly put into effect, and not only
were NATO and the US-Japan alliance not put offstage by
the end of the Cold War, they were reinforced in their
functions; control over Eurasia was not eased, but
bridled even more tightly; in addition, the Clinton
administration enthusiastically used every opportunity
to propagandize American culture and values. In his
visit to China in 1998, Clinton showed great patience in
indoctrinating students with the superiority of US
democracy, human rights and freedom of religious beliefs
in his speech at Beijing University.
Bush, in a
speech at Qinghua University during his visit to China
last February, exuberantly talked about the superiority
of the American culture and religion. Huntington's
"clashes of civilization", from the opposite direction,
has solidified the American nation's determination to
carry out cultural assimilation. Moreover, the Clinton
administration embarked on the program to establish
national missile defense (NMD) and theater missile
defense (TMD) systems, expecting to set up a strong
encirclement over the United States, attempting to
pursue its absolute security. After Bush took office and
before September 11, 2001, his administration brewed the
abolition of the ABM Treaty, from which it can be seen
that its strategic intention to pursue the absolute
security of the United States is no different from that
of the Clinton administration.
Attention should
be especially paid to the important position of the
cultural and ideological elements in the foreign
policies of the post-Cold War era. Nixon considered all
his schemes to be derived from God's guidance;
Brzezinski was on tenterhooks over the weakening of
Americans' beliefs; Nye's "soft power" cannot be cleared
from the suspicion of a cultural holy war; while
Huntington's counteraction to the holy war seems to have
a negative effect.
Consequently, the global
order the United States aims to establish is in fact a
cultural unipolar order, ie, what it means to establish
is a world in which American culture takes the
absolutely dominant position, which very much resembles
the holy-war complex of the religious expansions of
Christianity and Islam. In the light of this, the
unipolar order that the United States seeks to establish
is not only a military and political unipolar world, but
also a cultural unipolar world, so that in fact it is a
multidimensional complex. As a result, America's
unipolar pursuit is the integration of the national
interests and ideology: the construction of the cultural
unipolar order conduces to the solidification of
political and military predominance, which, in turn,
conduces to the realization of the unipolar cultural
order.
So we should not be deluded by the
neo-conservatives' alleged interest in human rights and
morality and justice. Though America's global pursuit
contains considerations of the interests of all the
human beings, this is not its main strategic pursuit.
The critical concerns of its "morality politics" or
"ideology" are its own national interests, for it is a
natural tendency under the anarchic state of the
international community for a state to pursue its
absolute security and predominance. For any state the
pursuit of its own security is primary and absolute;
behind the eloquence about civilization, progress,
morality and justice is concealed the instinct of
self-protection - the only difference is that different
means are used by different countries.
Strategic orientation after September
11
The events of September 11, 2001, no doubt
have had a momentous influence on the whole world. The
ensuing anti-terrorism operations, the readjustments of
all countries' focus and the frequently talked-about
terrorist threat suddenly made people and even the most
experienced experts on international political issues
feel as if they were "in a new world". Nevertheless, has
the collapse of the World Trade Center really resulted
in the reconfiguration of international relations and a
new political era?
No doubt, the September 11
disaster abruptly swerved the US government's and
public's attention, and to strike back at the terrorists
who conspired the attack and organize a worldwide
anti-terrorist alliance became the main task of the
United States. The sudden shift in focus of the only
global superpower naturally affected other countries and
organizations in a world rapidly moving toward
globalization. Therefore, it indeed resulted in a
reconfiguration of international relations on the basis
of whether one chooses to support America's
anti-terrorism actively or just passively deal with it.
Those nations such as China, Russia and so on that
formerly were not on good terms with the United States
became its "friends" during the anti-terrorist period,
and relations of the major powers in the world seemed to
be on "honeymoon". From an instant view, the world
seemed changed. But have a look at America's strategic
decision after September 11, and everything will be
clear.
Since September 11, 2001, the Bush
administration's key strategic decisions and actions
have been the following:
1) In early October
2001, the US launched a large-scale anti-terrorism
operation in Afghanistan; on January 29 Bush officially
declared the Afghan anti-terrorism operation temporarily
over, but that at the same time the worldwide
anti-terrorism operation of the United States had just
begun, and that it was still on the verge of war.
2) On December 13, Bush declared unilateral
withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.
3) From July
2001 to March 2002, the United States undertook six
flight interception experiments for its NMD system, with
four successes and two failures, and this year
engineering and construction of the first anti-missile
positions was started in Alaska.
4) On January
30, Bush averred that North Korea, Iran, Iraq and their
allies were an "axis of evil", and later repeatedly
alleged that necessary operations would be undertaken
against those that make and use weapons of mass
destruction.
5) In March, despite China's strong
opposition, the Bush administration allowed Tang
Yaoming, the defense minister of Taiwan, to visit the
United States and held high-level meetings with him; at
the same time, in the Nuclear Posture Review submitted
by the US Department of Defense to Congress, China,
Russia and a few other countries were listed as targets.
All of the above-mentioned strategic measures,
except the first, have kept a close continuity to US
foreign policies before September 2001, and neither do
they differ greatly from the global strategy in the
Clinton administration. Even the expression "axis of
evil", having appeared in an article by now National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice before Bush's
inauguration, is but a copy of the "rogue states" notion
adopted by the Clinton administration.
In
addition, some recent trends are worth noting. For
instance, after a short warming, US-Russian relations
chilled again after the end of Afghan anti-terrorism
operation. America's abandonment of the ABM Treaty was
against the will of Russia, its anti-terrorist friend.
In fact the move was completely different from many
people's expectation that the United States would change
its unilateralism after the September 11 incident. In
terms of US-Israel relations, strong pressure on Israel
has slackened to the present indifference to Israel's
incursions into Palestine; and the slightly eased
US-Europe relations again stuck into a stalemate after
the anti-terrorism operation due to America's
declaration of its intention to attack Iraq, and the
US-European strategic conflict was again ignited;
finally, the temporary mitigation in Sino-US relations
fell back to the level of the air-collision incident due
to America's permission to Tang Yaoming's visit and the
publication of the Nuclear Posture Review, intentionally
or unintentionally. During Bush's visit to China in
February, he did not even mention the three Sino-US
joint communiques or the "one China" principle, and what
is more, even during the military strike against the
al-Qaeda organization and the Taliban regime, the United
States did not relent even a little on the Taiwan issue.
All of these remind us of Mahan's "short-term view" and
"long-term view".
A popular explanation of
September 11 is that this horrifying disaster again
strikingly revealed the conflicts between non-religious
and religious civilizations. Bin Laden and the Taliban
represent the old religious culture, while the United
States and the West represent the new burgeoning
non-religious culture. It appears reasonable prima
facie; on second thoughts, however, can it make a
cogent explanation of the religious implications in what
Bush blurted out after the September 11 incident, to
launch a "crusade" against Islamic anti-terrorism, and
what the Pentagon initially called the operation,
"Infinite Justice"? We cannot say September 11 and the
subsequent anti-terrorism operation are clashes between
religious civilizations, neither can we say that, as far
as the United States is concerned, the religious
mentality has not functioned in its actions.
Under the US-style holy-war mentality, it should
have surprised none when Bush declared last December
that the ABM Treaty would be officially abolished six
months later. Special attention should be paid to the
continuity of the Bush administration's foreign policies
before and after September 2001. In fact, its intention
to abolish the ABM Treaty and set up the NMD system, its
inclination toward Taiwan, the upgrading of its
strategic cooperation with India, and other major moves
had been put into action before September 11. Though
interrupted, once the "short-term exigent need" was
dissolved, the "long-term views" immediately were
revived.
In fact, withdrawal from the ABM Treaty
is an organic part and a natural step in the integral
and continuous arrangements of America's global strategy
after the Cold War. During the Cold War, the United
States and the Soviet Union signed and abided by the ABM
Treaty, the main reason being the balance in their
nuclear weapons and armed forces. Since the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc more than a
decade ago, Russia has become a country that badly needs
America's help, and thus, making use of the advantageous
situation, "seizing the moment" as Nixon put it, the
United States was determined to withdraw from the ABM
Treaty to enlarge and consolidate its strategic position
as the only superpower.
September 11 did not and
could not completely change the tradition of America's
strategic culture and its established global strategy;
on the contrary, as one of the historical tributaries,
it has blended into the "historical structure" and
reinforced the downward historical trend, which is
collectively embodied in the "axis of evil". This was
further defined by Bush, but does not belong to him
alone. What it reflects is the basic view of the
American public. The vicious terrorist incident on
America's mainland not only changed the public's
knowledge about their own safety and caused their
unprecedented emphasis on internal security, but also
resulted in an overflow effect, intensified the holy-war
complex to carry out a global anti-terrorism operation.
As far as the US government is concerned, the pathos
awareness of its people after September 11 has also
created conditions for achieving its global strategic
goal through anti-terrorism. The United States may still
use the just pretext of anti-terrorism to carry forward
its global strategic arrangement.
The Bush
administration's global strategy has been licked into
shape after wavering, stumbling and adjustment. The main
strategic considerations are as follows:
1) To
ensure the absolute security of the US mainland, and
prevent new incidents similar to the September 11
terrorist attack; at the same time establish the
US-centered unipolar world and never allow any
challenges to the leading position of the United States.
2) To carry out unswervingly the NMD program to
set a tight encirclement over the US mainland; to
abolish the ABM Treaty to clear ways for carrying out
the NMD program; to take the time to control the
geostrategic hub in Eurasia and further encroach on the
strategic space of China and Russia, which may pose
challenges to US hegemony; to put heavy military and
political pressure on those countries that are against
America's will but hold important strategic positions.
Through these actions, America's strategic predominance
among the main powers in the world will be
enlarged.
3) By virtue of the powerful propaganda
media and other means, to produce cultural and moral
pressures on the part of the world beyond the United
States and the West, continuously publicize American
democracy, freedom and values of human rights, demonize
the countries that resist American culture and values,
and reduce their moral space for survival, especially
Islamic countries such as Iran, Iraq, and so on.
4) To put into use all forces, including nuclear
weapons, in order to maintain national security and
interests of the United States and carry forward its
global strategic aims.
5) To continue
maintaining the policy of war marginalization, and take
the moral and just pretext of anti-terrorism and
anti-dissemination of weapons of mass destruction to
clear out worldwide strategic barriers and firmly carry
out containment of or military strikes against those who
oppose America's will.
Except for the last, all
of these aims are the same as before September 11, and
thus the integrity of the "short-term consideration" and
"long-term view" has been achieved.
The
world, more peaceful or not?
There are many
uncertain elements in the world. It is hard to tell
definitely where the American nation's holy-war
mentality and its efforts to establish the unipolar
order on the globe bode well or ill for humankind in the
future.
What should be realized regarding
America's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and its
strategic pursuit is that, for a big world power with a
certain historical tradition, its determination and will
to carry forward its established strategic intention
must not be underestimated. Since Truman established the
strategic mentality of global holy war more than 50
years ago, the American nation has put into effect its
long-established holy-war tradition by applying it to
the whole world. This strategic cultural tradition has
successively been embodied in Eisenhowerism, Nixonism,
Fordism, Reaganism, Bushism (senior), Clintonism, and
now in Bushism (junior). The strategic experiences and
strategic pursuit accumulated in the past 200 years and
especially the past half-century by the American nation
cannot be forfeited in President Bush's hands and he
surely will make use of all usable chances and times to
carry on the new "Christian expedition" and the modern
holy war.
The abolition of the ABM Treaty, the
balancer of global strategies, naturally means a new
shuffle in the world strategic situation, and the
balance of the main forces in the world will inevitably
change. For the United States, this means attaining
absolute security and predominance, with an advanced and
powerful nuclear arsenal, to establish the unparalleled
NMD system through the abolition of the ABM Treaty. Thus
on the one hand, it retains its nuclear deterrence,
while on the other it dramatically reduces the deterrent
capability of other nuclear countries, which also means
the enlargement of America's strategic predominance and
that the strategic gap since the end of the Cold War has
been further widened between the United States and other
main powers in the world.
The upset of the
global strategic balance propped up previously by the
ABM Treaty will certainly exacerbate the contradictions
and conflicts between the United States and other main
powers in the world. When a state alleges that it may
attain "absolute security" or is likely to attain
"absolute security", it inevitably means that other
countries will be in a situation of "absolute
insecurity". Obsessed with their pessimistic illusion
about their own security, the countries that have
strategic contradictions will be gripped by a taut
uneasiness due to the complete loss of their capability
to counterbalance the United States. How to resist and
counteract US hegemony will become their major concern.
Up to now, in the wrestling between absolute
security and insecurity, unilateralism and
multilateralism, signs of cooperation between the weak
sides have not been noticed. The possibility, however,
cannot be excluded. If cooperation were achieved among
the European Union, China and Russia and other nations
that are suffering from America's pressure, doubtlessly
the global order would be repositioned. During this
process if the United States failed to show tolerance or
effectively split such alliances, the whole world would
inevitably go through a period of disorder. In terms of
state relations, the conflicts between the major powers
in the world - the US and Europe, China and the United
States, Russia and the United States - would probably be
aggravated. Of course, even as other powers united to
deal with the US hegemony, the United States would still
adhere to its established strategic arrangements and
would never try to resume the ABM Treaty.
The
ABM Treaty has been torn into shreds, nuclear
predominance enlarged, and the world strategic balance
broken. Other foreseeable possible occurrences are:
1) Clashes between cultures (civilizations)
could be aggravated. September 11 may be taken as a
verification of Huntington's prediction, ie, the
implacable clashes between the global universalism of
Western culture and the native trends of thought of
Islamic culture. It has to be pointed out that the
pressure against the non-Western culture that resulted
from the universalism of Western culture is rooted in
the military and economic predominance of the United
States and the Western world. Universal culture requires
a universal power and universal power requires a
universal culture. The intensification of bloody clashes
between Hindus and Muslims in India explicitly remind us
of the prospects of US-style military and cultural holy
war.
2) The speed and extent of the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction could
accelerate and deepen. While maintaining the most
powerful weapons of mass destruction itself, the United
States lists others who attempt to make and store
weapons of mass destruction as the "axis of evil", and
endeavors to launch a global modern-style holy war that
not only will ignite the defiant sentiments of those on
the list and cause them to improve their weaponry to
resist America's blackmail, but will also worsen the
sense of insecurity of those who are on bad terms with
the United States.
3) Terrorist activities might
escalate globally. Not all terrorist activities can be
wiped out by force; they might increase because of the
intensified sense of despair of the states of
non-Western civilization resulting from the absolute
strength of the United States, and at the same time,
those countries that adopt a cooperative stance with the
United States might also become the targets of terrorist
attacks.
It is still hard to foretell whether
the above occurrences will have an impact on the future
predominance and national security of the United States.
The abolition of the ABM Treaty is either Prometheus'
fire or Pandora's box.
Sino-US relations: A
gloomy future
The core contradiction that
restricts the progress of Sino-US relations is generally
considered to be the Taiwan issue. This writer does not
quite agree with this. The structural elements that
prevent major breakthroughs are, on the one hand, the
conflicts between the two countries' major national
interests and, on the other, American ideology and its
obsession with morality and justice.
Since the
Chinese Communist Party's taking power half a century
ago, the American nation has been clamoring about the
"China threat". The Cold War between the capitalist and
socialist camps from the end of the 1940s to the early
1970s stirred an intensive imagination about the "evil"
of communist China, which drove the United States to
hysteria to the point of launching an ideological and
even military holy war against China and communism. In
the grip of this mentality, the Korean and Vietnam Wars
successively broke out in the early 1950s and the
mid-1960s. Though the "evil" myth about China had
changed a little since the establishment of Sino-US
relations in the late 1970s, the collapse of the Soviet
Union and China's Tiananmen incident in the late 1980s
brought America's view about China back to where it had
been 50 years before. Given the human-rights diplomacy
of the United States since the 1990s, the insinuation
toward China in Bush's "axis of evil", together with the
forceful development of neo-conservative trends, whether
the United States wants to launch a new holy war against
China is no longer a question worth discussing.
Gripped by the holy-war mentality, the Taiwan
issue has become a crucial one in Sino-US relations. The
American nation, treating Taiwan as an actual and even
nominal state, takes it as an extremely important
strategic move to prevent mainland Chinese from
recapturing Taiwan by force to restrict the expansion of
the "evil" non-Western cultural power of the Communist
Party. In the Clinton administration, though the United
States had basically completed its military deployment
in Asia by elevating military cooperative relations with
the peripheral states around China, it had explicitly
adhered to the "one China" principle, posing an
"obscure" strategy on the Taiwan issue. After Bush took
power, however, this situation greatly changed. The
words and actions before September 11 and after the
anti-terrorism operation, such as declaring the
intention to protect Taiwan by force, improving the
scale and level of arms sales to Taiwan, allowing its
defense minister to visit the United States and holding
senior meetings with him, have evidently been favorable
to Taiwan. In China's view, these greatly raise the
costs and complexity of any future solution to the
Taiwan issue, and also mean that Taiwan might be likely
to separate from "one China", actually or nominally,
which goes far beyond the bottom line of China's
national security.
In working to solve the
Taiwan issue, China has sensed hopelessness in obtaining
America's support and understanding. Moreover, Bush
explicitly or implicitly listed China as one of the
allies of the "axis of evil" countries, the new Nuclear
Posture Review listed China as one of the countries that
could be struck by nuclear weapons in an emergency, and
the abolition of the ABM Treaty and the establishment of
NMD and TMD systems will raise America's strategic
deterrence against China and weaken its strategic
deterrence against the United States, all of which will
be likely to be interpreted by China as the widening of
the Sino-US strategic imbalance, the deterioration of
China's national-security environment and a challenge
posed against China's national sovereignty and
territorial integrity.
In the increasingly grim
situation of America's strategic attack, the broken
bottom line of national security and the loss of a sense
of security, it will be difficult for China not to
switch back to conservative politics and be forced to
become an actual "strategic rival" of the United States
in East Asia. In that case, considering China's
strength, a global arms race might be possible between
China and the United States.
As far as the East
Asia is concerned, however, China will certainly try to
build up its predominant force in this region and start
a desperate struggle against the United States when the
bottom line of national security is broken. If this
should happen, not only will Taiwan and the Chinese
mainland be damaged, but the whole of East Asia will
also be in danger. As for the United States, it is
doubtful whether it can achieve its strategic goal as
imagined. There will no winner in the nuclear time,
which is still true up to now.
Note:
1.
Manicheism, or Manichaeism, is a syncretistic, dualistic
religious system originated in the 3rd century by the
Persian prophet Mani (c 216-c 276), aka Manicheus,
combining Zoroastrian, Gnostic and other elements.
(© Heartland. Translated by Yao Ximing. This
version has been edited by Asia Times
Online.)
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