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Hello preemption, adieu
deterrence
By Ehsan Ahrari
President George W Bush's newly released
document, The National Security Strategy for the United
States of America, issued on September 20, declared in
no uncertain terms that the doctrine of deterrence - the
bedrock of superpower relations during the Cold War
years - is history.
Instead, the dual doctrines
of "preemption" and "proactive counterproliferation"
will guide America's national security policy (rogue
states, your time is up). The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization will be expanded to the hilt (Russia
beware), and the People's Republic of China will be
negotiated with on adjustments in its policy of
political pluralism, human rights and, more to the
point, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction
(China, be careful).
The National Security
Strategy (NSS) is a very important document since it
spells out the overall strategy of the United States
vis-a-vis different regions of the world, enumerates a
number of global security issues of primary concern to
Washington, and elaborates its policies regarding those
issues. Another significance of the NSS is that the
Pentagon uses it to develop the National Military
Strategy, which, in turn, becomes the basis for
developing secret war plans. The US Congress has
required every president to produce the NSS every year
since the passage of the landmark Goldwater Nichols Act
of 1986. Even though it has not been developed every
year since then, whenever it has been issued, it has
probably been one of the most significant documents
spelling out national security policies of a sitting
president.
All formal declarations of policies
reflect the dynamics of the domestic and international
environments to which they intend to respond. In this
sense, the current NSS is no exception. Given that the
Bush administration's global war on terrorism is
continuing, albeit with mixed success, in Afghanistan,
terrorism is the second most significant goal listed,
and was preceded only by the goal of championing human
dignity. At the same time, since unilateralism has been
the preferred modus operandi of Bush for his past 20
months in office, it is the fourth significant listed
objective, and is preceded by the objective of working
"with others to defuse regional conflicts".
Perhaps the most significant and equally
controversial objective of the NSS is the one of
preventing "our enemies from threatening us". In the
section that elaborates on this objective, the Bush
administration abandons "deterrence", which was the
bedrock of America's national security policy during and
even after the end of the Cold War. The rationale for
that abandonment - which may charitably be labeled as
muddled - is the contentious argument that the so-called
rogue states would not be deterred now as the Soviet
Union was during the Cold War years. The NSS states that
the rogue states are sponsoring "terrorism around the
world". Such a depiction, which even the US intelligence
agencies do not support, has already been used to make
the argument for toppling Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq.
Deterrence is replaced by the doctrine of
preemption, whose operationalization in the immediate
future is the doctrine of proactive
counterproliferation. It is interesting to note that the
Bush administration uses a circular argument regarding
preemption. It correctly notes that it is not a new
option to counter threats to America's national
security. It goes on to observe that that the United
States "will not use force in all cases to preempt
emerging threats, nor should nations use preemption as a
pretext for aggression". But in the very next sentence
it adds, "Yet in an age where the enemies of
civilization openly and actively seek the world's most
destructive technologies, the United States cannot
remain idle while dangers gather." In other words,
Washington reserves the right to aggressively preempt
what it determines as threats to its national security.
The written critiques of the NSS seem to have
glossed over the significance and threatening nature of
the confluence between preemption and
counterproliferation. The near-term application of these
doctrines will be "regime change", as the United States
is gearing up to effect in Iraq. But in the
not-so-distant future, those doctrines are also likely
to be applied to Iran and North Korea, for both
countries have very active nuclear programs and highly
developed missile programs. These two countries, along
with Iraq, were mentioned in the Rumsfeld Report of
1998, which has been regarded from the very early days
of the Bush administration as the most prescient clarion
call regarding emerging threats against the security of
the United States, and which served as the chief basis
for Bush to insist on the necessity for building the
national missile defense (NMD) systems even before he
entered the White House. It will also be recalled that
the US decision to build the NMD systems was the chief
reason why the US also unilaterally abandoned the
Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which served as
the chief foundation for nuclear arms reduction between
the United States and former Soviet Union.
Regarding Russia, the imprints of Condoleezza
Rice - Russia specialist, National Security Council
Advisor and chief architect of the NSS - are quite
apparent. While the NSS emphasizes common interests with
Russia on fighting global terrorism and strategic arms
reduction, it also notes "differences that still divide
us". There is little doubt that Russia-Iran nuclear
cooperation is very much on the mind of Bush officials
when the NSS characterizes Russia's record in combatting
the weapons of mass destruction as "dubious".
In
describing relations with mainland China, the Bush
administration notably omits the phrase "strategic
relationship", which the NSS document uses in describing
US-Russia and US-India ties. Instead, it states that the
US-China relationship "is an important part of our
strategy to promote a stable, peaceful and prosperous
Asia-Pacific region". The language of the NSS is
comparatively more critical of China than Russia by
stating, "In pursuing advanced military capabilities
that can threaten its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific
region, China is following an outdated path that, in the
end, will hamper its own pursuit of national greatness."
That document also identifies America's commitment to
self-defense of Taiwan, human rights and
nonproliferation as "areas of profound disagreements"
between Washington and Beijing.
The NSS, in the
final analysis, is a codification of all the policies
that the Bush administration has been pursuing for the
past 20 months. Its chief strength is that, in the
explication of its worldview, its aspirations, and in
expressing its repudiation of a number of global
security issues, it is far clearer than the NSS issued
during the presidency of Bill Clinton. For America's
friends and potential adversaries, as well as its foes,
the dual doctrines of preemption and proactive
counterproliferation will serve as sources of moral or
even legal dilemma and consternation, respectively. But
to think that those doctrines will ultimately deter even
the so-called rogue states into forswearing attempts to
acquire their own weapons of mass destruction is an
exercise in masterful naivete.
Survival (or in
the case of the rogue states, regime survival) is the
most basic instinct and the chief motivating factor for
all nation-states. International relations theorists
regard those instincts as part and parcel of their
"vital interests". By denying the right to prolong their
survival through the dual doctrines of preemption and
proactive counterproliferation, the Bush administration
has only dared the rogue states to intensify their
efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Hence,
perhaps quite unwittingly, those doctrines promise to
make the world a more dangerous place now than it was
during the Cold War years. At least then, both
superpowers were constraining each other's exuberant
impulses to dominate.
Ehsan Ahrari,
PhD, is a Norfolk, Virginia, US-based strategic
analyst.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co Ltd.
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