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The law of the
jungle
By Stephen Blank
When
the Bush administration announced last year that it
would wage preemptive war against not only terrorists
but also against members of the "axis of evil" or, by
implication, any state aspiring to deploy weapons of
mass destruction, it ignited a firestorm of criticism
and complaint. Since then much ink has been spilled
decrying America’s supposedly habitual penchant for
using force, disdain for multilateral institutions,
cowboy policies, etc. The furor is not so much about
defense against terrorists; after all, any government
that had advance warning of a terrorist attack and sat
on it would be derelict in its responsibilities. Many
governments threatened by terrorism - America, Israel,
Great Britain in Northern Ireland, India, etc - have
either taken the fight to the terrorists’ home base or
made clear that they would do so, with generally
insignificant fallout (except for Israel, the perpetual
victim of double standards in world politics).
But when Washington announced that it would
preempt states seeking to gain weapons of mass
destruction, this proclamation seemed to have crossed
the line to trigger-happy unilateralism. Washington
seemingly arrogated to itself alone the right to decide
who might have such weapons and spurned the institutions
of multilateral security which supposedly showed so much
promise in the 1990s, the heyday of globalization.
However, since then, several states in Asia have
announced their intention to follow Washington at least
part of the way or have flirted with doing so. Russia
has let it be known that it might make preemptive
strikes against Georgian territory and has already done
so ostensibly to prevent Chechen terrorists from
attacking Russian targets.
Israel has done this
and much more, resorting, even more than Russia has
done, to a strategy that sanctions the targeted
assassination of terrorist leaders. Meanwhile America
has supported Israel and now appears to be inclining to
support Russia (Under-Secretary of State Richard
Armitage admitted in Moscow that it would be difficult
for Washington to oppose such strikes against
terrorists). Indian officials have also called for this
strategy, and more recently Australia’s Prime Minister,
John Howard, proclaimed that Australia would strike
preemptively at terrorists known to be planning
operations against Australia. His Foreign Minister,
Alexander Downer, even called for amending Article 51 of
the UN charter that guarantees to states the right to
act in self-defense. Finally, Japan’s minister of
defense announced the right to strike at North Korean
missile bases if the DPRK loads fuel into missiles
targeted at Japan.
Admittedly, these examples,
like the American one, show the tendency of politicians
to misuse language and confuse preemptive strikes to
terminate an enemy capability for warlike actions (eg,
Israel in 1967) and preventive war intended to prevent
the acquisition of certain capabilities (eg, the likely
war against Iraq).
But what we see here is more
than a case of follow the leader, in this case
Washington. Although once Washington announced its new
doctrine and critics, not unfairly, warned that this
would give other states a pretext for acting in much
more ambiguous circumstances than outright self-defense,
the Israeli, Australian, and Japanese actions, and
perhaps India’s too, show something more fundamental.
Even before September 11 and certainly
afterwards it should have been clear that multilateral
institutions did not and could not ensure security
either regionally or globally. The EU’s record in the
former Yugoslavia was almost as ignominious as that of
the UN and the latter’s record in Rwanda and subsequent
conflicts in and around Zaire was worse than that. NATO
performed sub-optimally in Kosovo because the alliance
was held together by the lowest common denominator and
its operational strategy was consequently deformed. Nor
has the UN shown itself able or willing to enforce its
own resolutions in Iraq or even arrive at a working
definition of terrorism.
Today we can see that
the Security Council, rhetoric aside, remains an
instrument of major players’ policies where
high-sounding and sonorous rhetoric cloaks a cynical and
traditional pursuit of national interests and naked
attempts to compel America to make greater payoffs to
states to get them to participate in the defense of
their own security and best interest.
If,
contrary to much pontification, multilateralism cannot
meet the test of reality, states must take their
responsibility to their citizens seriously. The global
system remains, in Kenneth Waltz's words, "a self-help
system", and the wars of the post-Cold War period show,
as former Chief of Sweden’s General Staff Owe Wiktorin
said, "As a result of Bosnia and other armed conflicts
we have come to accept war on European territory. The
message is, in particular for a small nation, that if
you do not take care of your security, no one else may
care."
September 11 showed that his advice
applied as well to major states. The fiasco of Iraq
defying 12 years of UN resolutions and governments still
clamoring for more time and toothless resolutions backed
up by inspections that are bound to fail since their
progenitors want them to fail can hardly restore faith
in the UN or other supra-national institutions that will
provide security. Therefore states at risk have begun to
realize that not only must they threaten their enemies
but also they must act in their own self-defense.
Alliances count for little and coalitions must be led or
else they become excuses for inaction.
Of
course, it is hardly comforting to be told that we live
in a jungle and must take appropriate precautions. But
ultimately an appreciation of real dangers based on
empirical observation provides greater safety than the
illusions of merely theoretical reflection. Those
denunciations of the American strategy, though sometimes
accurate in some of their criticisms and warnings, fail
to realize that the resort to preemptive strikes or to a
strategy of preventive war is not the cause of
international chaos or the pretext behind which it
hides. Rather it is the logical outcome of a system that
invokes peace while inviting war.
Today,
reliance upon a multilateralism that has never succeeded
means that those who invoke this faith validate
Nietszche’s observation that faith means not wanting to
know.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of
international security affairs residing in Harrisburg,
PA.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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