9/11 and the Past and Future of American Foreign Policy
Author(s): Melvyn P. Leffler
Source: International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 79, No. 5
(Oct., 2003), pp. 1045-1063
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Royal Institute of International Affairs
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9/II and the pastand future
of American foreign policy
MELVYN P. LEFFLER*
Just over a year ago, in mid-September 2002, the Bush administration released a
formal statement of its national security strategy. It ignited a storm of controversy. 'The United States', reported the Guardian, 'will not hesitate to strike
pre-emptively against its enemies ... and will never again allow its military
supremacy to be threatened by a rival superpower."' In an editorial three days
later, the newspaper excoriated the Bush strategy. It 'is arrogant, patronizing,
complacent, amazingly presumptuous-but above all aggressive.'2Although other
influential media outlets like The Economistand the Financial Times gave more
nuanced responses, most European newspapers suggested that something new,
profound and ominous was being introduced. 'We must face facts,' said Le Monde
Diplomatique.'A new imperial doctrine is taking shape under George Bush.'3
In the United States as well as in the UK and Europe, a stream of critical
articles poured forth, arguing that the new strategy was the product of a group
of neoconservative hawks, including Vice-President Dick Cheney and Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who since the early 199os had been advocating strategies of unilateralism, pre-emption and military hegemony. Their
plan, wrote David Armstrong in Harper'sMagazine, 'is for the United States to
rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of
domination.'4
Although the initial controversy over Bush's national security doctrine has
now been dwarfed by debate over the war in Iraq, this article makes an attempt
* This article is a revision of the author's Harmsworth Inaugural Lecture, delivered at Oxford University
on 20 May 2002. I am grateful for stimulating conversations with John Arthur, Adam Roberts, John
Thompson, Niall Ferguson, Anne Deighton, Gareth Davies, Jay Sexton, Richard Carwardine, Stephen
Tuck, Michael Cox and Rosemary Foot, and for the suggestions of Frank Costigliola, Robert Litwak,
John Gaddis, Geir Lundestad, Stein Tonnesson, Robert MacMahon and Phyllis Leffler.
I
2
Guardian, 21 Sept. 2002, p. 22.
Ibid., 24 Sept. 2002.
3 Included in a story on European reactions to the Bush national
security doctrine, http://.salon.com/
for more nuanced treatment, see The Economist,
news/feature/2002/09/24overseas_reaction/print.html;
26 Sept. 2002; Financial Times, 22-23
Sept. 2002.
4 David Armstrong, 'Dick Cheney's song of America', Harper's
Magazine, Oct. 2002; see also e.g. Tom
Barry and Jim Lobe, 'The men who stole the show', special report, Oct. 2002, http://www.fpif.org/
papers/02men/index_body.html.
InternationalAffairs 79, 5 (2003) 1o45-Io63
Melvyn P. Leffler
to step back and ponder more broadly the roots, the meaning and the implications of the national security policies of the Bush administration in the aftermath
of 9/I I. What are these policies? To what extent do they constitute something
new and bold? Do their divergent threads add up to a coherent strategy? Is the
national security policy of the Bush administration likely to last and, if not, how
might it be reconfigured?
I shall argue that it is important to take a nuanced approach to the Bush
administration's national security doctrine. We shall see that all the elements of
the strategy have antecedents, some of which are old, some of more recent
vintage. When it is looked at carefully, moreover, the motives become more
understandable and the separate threads of policy appear wiser and more
textured than is usually acknowledged. But, notwithstanding continuities in the
threads of the strategy and notwithstanding their individual attributes, the overall doctrine does not constitute a bold vision. In fact, the Bush doctrine departs
radically from the ways in which American administrations of the twentieth
century have conceptualized and articulated appropriate responses to acute
dangers. Overall, the Bush strategy is a flawed vision, and, for reasons I will
explain, is not likely to endure.
The strategy
The most striking aspect of the 22-page national security document is not the
emphases on military power, military superiority and military pre-emption.
Those features are there, to be sure, but they do not dominate. In fact, the document emphasizes the quintessential American values of freedom and democracy.
It begins: 'Our nation's cause has always been larger than the Nation's defense.
We fight, as we always fight, for a just peace-a peace that favors liberty.'5
What is interesting about this framework is the scant attention paid to US
interests. In the first section of the paper, the authors state that 'The US national
security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that
reflects the union of our values and our national interests.'6 But there is no
careful elucidation of interests. Instead, attention is focused on America's 'core
beliefs'-the rule of law; free speech; equal justice; respect for women. Ideals
subsume interests. 'Our principles', the document emphasizes, 'will govern our
government's decisions.'7
After these prefatory remarks, the authors of the document set out their
national security strategy. Many observers believe that the gist of the document
is about power, unilateralism and domination, but the titles of each section
suggest a more complex and even conflicted agenda. Section III of the paper,
the first substantive section, is about strengthening 'alliances to defeat global
5 'The National Security Strategy of the United States of America', 17 Sept. 2002, p. 4, http://
www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html
(hereafter cited as 'National Security Strategy').
6
Ibid., p. 3.
7 Ibid., p. 4.
1046
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
terrorism'. The subsequent sections are entitled: 'work with others to defuse
regional conflict'; 'prevent our enemies from threatening us, our allies, and our
friends with weapons of mass destruction'; 'ignite a new era of global economic
growth ... '; 'expand the circle of development
by ... building the infrastruc-
ture of democracy'; 'develop agendas for cooperative action with other main
centers of global power'; and 'transform America's national security institutions
to meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century'.8
As these subtitles illustrate, the authors of the document do not disregard the
significance of poverty and injustice. 'In many regions,' they emphasize, 'legitimate grievancesprevent the emergence of a lastingpeace. Such grievances ... must
be addressed.'9The national security strategy emphasizes that, in order to tackle
these grievances, the United States must engage with the world to promote
higher productivity and sustained economic growth. Unabashedly, the Bush
administration declares: 'The lessons of history are clear: market economies, not
command-and-control economies ... are the best way to promote prosperity
and reduce poverty.'?0
So far I have said very little about threats and power, and readers may be
surprised. But the significance of the document resides in its capacity to link
some of the most familiar themes in American history-freedom, democracy
and entrepreneurship-to new perceptions of threat and a new inclination to
exercise power. There can be no doubt that the men and women of the Bush
administration revel in their own realpolitik. They believe that they grasp
threats far better than either their predecessors or their contemporaries. They
think they know how to exercise power more wisely and, if necessary,
unilaterally. In fact, the most striking feature of the national security strategy of
the Bush administration is its marriage of democratic idealism with the exercise
of pre-emptive power.
Fears and threats
Many great debates rage in the literature on international relations. One debate
focuses on whether nations act to balance power or whether they act to balance
threats." Another controversy asks whether power shapes policy or whether
the perception of threat determines the accretion of power.'2 In the case of the
Bush administration, the evidence that we now have suggests the salience of
threat perception. Fear has shaped policy.
Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz might have long desired to assertAmerican
hegemony, but there is no reason to believe they would have gained the degree
of influence that they now possess had it not been for the events of 9/I I and the
8
For a list of the section headings, see ibid., p. 3.
9 Ibid., p.
5.
10 Ibid.,
p. I2.
See esp. Stephen M. Walt, The originsof alliances(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
I
12
See esp. Fareed Zakaria, From wealth to power: the unusual originsof America's world role (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, I998).
Io47
Melvyn P. Leffler
impact those events have had on all top officials in the administration, including
the president himself, his secretary of state, Colin Powell, and his national
security advisor, Condoleezza Rice. It is not the fascination with power, but fear
for survival, that has shaped the strategic decisions of the Bush administration.'3
Before 9/I , President Bush and his advisers feared terrorism, but they did
little to deal with it. Upon taking office, they were informed by intelligence
analyststhat terrorism was a great threat to national security, that a mass casualty
event in the United States was a possibility, that Al-Qaeda had the intention and
was developing the capability to strike inside the United States.I4Between 1993
and I998, fifty-four Americans had been killed in terrorist attacks. Then, in
February I998, Osama bin Laden issued his instruction to kill Americans: 'To
kill Americans and their allies-civilians and military-is proclaimed an individual
duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do
it.' 5 In 1998, twelve more Americans were killed in terrorist attacks;in 1999, five
more; in 2000, another nineteen.16 Inside Afghanistan under the protection of
the Taleban, al-Qaeda was training more than 15,000 terrorists in the late g99os.17
Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their colleagues were altogether aware of
the dangers posed by Al-Qaeda, of the threats to kill Americans, and of the
plethora of terrorist groups operating around the world and in the United States
itself The CIA knew that these groups were now nurturing one another; that
they were increasingly adept at exploiting new technology and taking advantage
of porous borders; that they sometimes shared intelligence and logistics, trained
together, and collaborated in planning and executing attacks.i8
Yet despite their knowledge, Bush's advisers were unable to thwart the
impending catastrophe. It was a failure of imagination, a failure to put the dots
of information together, as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz ruefully acknowledged.I9
The events of 9/ i, therefore, did not change everything; 'most fundamentally,' explained Condoleezza Rice, '9/I crystallized our vulnerability.'20 'A
new reality was born' on September I i, said Secretary of State Powell, a reality
that linked terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and rogue or failed states.2I
13 For the views of offensiverealists,see JohnJ. Mearsheimer,Thetragedy greatpowerpolitics(New York:
of
Norton, 200I).
14 See the testimonyof Paul Wolfowitz and RichardAnnitage in SenateSelect Committee on Intelligence
and the House PermanentSelect Committee on Intelligence,'Jointinquiryhearingon counterterrorist
center', I9 Sept. 2002, http://www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin(hereaftercited as 'Jointinquiryhearing');
Bob Woodward, Bushat war(New York: Simon & Schuster,2002), pp. 34-5.
15 For the instruction,see Fred
Halliday, Twohoursthat shooktheworld(London:Saqi,2002), pp. 218-19.
i6
For the numbers,see 'Jointinquiryhearing',p. 9.
I7 For the
importanceof Afghanistanas a trainingground,see the statementsby AymanAl-Zawahiriand
andtheMiddleEast
terrorism
Osamabin Ladenin BarryRubin andJudith Colp Rubin, Anti-American
(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,2002), pp. 47-9, 155.
i8 National
SecurityCouncil, 'Nationalstrategyfor combatingterrorism',Feb. 2003, pp. 6-I0, http://
usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/strategy/.
19
Testimonyby Wolfowitz, in 'Jointinquiryhearing',pp. 8ff. pressconferencewith Donald Rumsfeld,29
Jan. 2003, CNN, http://web.lexis-nexis.com/executive.
20
CondoleezzaRice, 'A balanceof power that favorsfreedom', I Oct. 2002, http://www.manhattaninstitute.org/html.
2,
Testimonyby Colin L. Powell, 'The administration's
position with regardto Iraq',House Committee
on InternationalRelations, I9 Sept. 2002, p. 2, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2002/I358I.htm.
1o48
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
Thereafter, fear shaped strategy, elevating pre-emption to a new degree of
importance. When the stakes and consequences appear small, explained former
CIA director Robert Gates, policy-makers seek a high degree of assurance
before acting. But if one expects another major attack on the United States, the
'risk calculus' changes dramatically.22The events of 9/ I demonstrated to officials
that terrorists who declare their intent to kill Americans and attack the United
States would plan for years, stealthily assemble their assets and take action when
opportunity allowed. There would be no warnings. 'Where's the evidence of
imminent threat?'exclaimed Wolfowitz before a joint congressional inquiry into
the events leading up to 9/I .23 After September i i, he stressed, 'we have a
visceral understanding of what terrorists can do with commercial aircraft, in a
way that seemed remote and hypothetical before. We cannot afford to wait
until we have a visceral understanding of what terroristscan do with weapons of
mass destruction, before we act to prevent it.'24
As a result, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz argued the case for pre-emption. 'It is
difficult', acknowledged Rumsfeld, 'for all of us who have grown up in this
country, and believe in the principle that unless attacked, one does not attack,'
to accept the notion of pre-emption. 'The question', he then went on to muse,
'is in the 2Ist century, with biological weapons ... that could kill hundreds of
thousands of people, what does one do? Does one wait until [one is] attacked, or
does one look at a pattern of behavior, a ... fact pattern and draw a conclusion?'25
Pre-emption was the inescapable conclusion, but pre-emption alone did not
dictate the new military posture of the Bush administration. Defence officials
also wanted new military capabilities to reassure allies and deter enemies.
Should deterrence fail, they wanted to be able to wage war swiftly and defeat
adversaries decisively. Of course, they preferred not to fight, not even to be
challenged. US forces, the strategy statement emphasized, should be 'strong
enough to dissuade potential adversaries' from even trying to equal or surpass
American power.26
Power was not an end in itself. Bush's advisers wanted to mobilize power to
thwart threats, foster peace and build freedom. 'After 9/I I,' Condoleezza Rice
stated, 'there is no longer any doubt that today America faces an existential
threat to our security-a threat as great as any we faced during the Civil War,
World War II, or the Cold War.'27 The threat emanates from the nexus of
terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and aggressive tyrants in command of
rogue states. Faced with this threat, Bush's national security strategy is said by its
spokespersons to offer a 'bold vision' that 'captures new realities and new
22
23
24
Quoted in an articleby JeffreyGoldbergin New Yorker,Io Feb. 2003, and excerptedin 'Saddamand Al
Qaeda', http://www.iconservatives.org.uk/saddam_and_al_qaeda.htm.
Testimony by Wolfowitz, in 'Jointinquiryhearing',p. 22.
Paul D. Wolfowitz, 'Remarksat the 38th Munich Conference, 2 Feb. 2002', p. 3, http://
also see Wolfowitz's interview with Frontline, I2 June 2002,
www.expandnato.org/mun/wolf.html;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/interviews/wolfowitz.html.
25 Rumsfeld, pressconference,
26
27
29Jan. 2003, CNN, pp. 2-3.
'National SecurityStrategy',p. 20.
Rice, 'A balanceof power', p. 2.
1049
Melvyn P. Leffler
opportunities'. American power, they conclude, 'must be used to promote a
balance of power that favors freedom'.28
Historical roots
The Bush administration prides itself on marrying power and values. 'There is
an old argument,' emphasized Condoleezza Rice, between realistsand idealists.
'To oversimplify, realists downplay the importance of values ... Idealists emphasize the primacy of values ... As a professor,' she went on to say, 'I recognize
that this debate has won tenure for ... many generations of scholars. As a policymaker, I can tell you that these categories obscure reality.'29
She is quite right. The history of American foreign relations is not about the
struggle between power and ideals, as it is so often portrayed, but about their
intermingling. America's ideals have always encapsulated its interests. America's
ideology has always been tailored to correspond with its quest for territory and
markets. In short, power, ideology and interests have always had a dynamic and
unsettled relationship with one another.30 But these relationships are more
nuanced and complex than most people think. Power sometimes has been constrained by legislative-executive battles and the spectre of a garrison state;31
expansion has been circumscribed by the exigencies of domestic politics, racial
attitudes and republican ideology;32 unilateralism has been tempered by the
realization that alliances and multilateral strategies could be adopted if they
advanced American interests.33
Ibid., p. i; 'National Security Strategy', p. 3.
Rice, 'A balance of power', p. 4.
30 See
esp. the literature on manifest destiny, empire and the open door; for manifest destiny, see e.g. Albert
K. Weinberg,
Manifest destiny: a study of nationalist expansion in American history (Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1935); for a more recent assessment, see Anders Stephanson, Manifest destiny:
American expansion and the empire of right (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995); for empire, see e.g. Peter S.
VA: University Press of
Onuf, Jefferson's empire: the language of American nationhood (Charlottesville,
28
29
William Earl Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American global empire(Lexington, KY:
2000);
University Press of Kentucky, 1992); for the open door, see the classic work by William A. Williams,
Virginia,
The roots of the modern American empire (New York: Random House, I969), and The tragedy of American
diplomacy (New York: World Publishing,
1959).
3 For constraints on the exercise of
power imposed by state capacity, see e.g. Zakaria, From wealth to power.
For fear of a garrison state, see Michael J. Hogan, A cross of iron: Harry S. Truman and the origins of the
national security state, 1945-1954 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I998); Aaron Friedberg, In the
shadow of the garrison state: America's anti-statism and its Cold War grand strategy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press,
32
2000).
see e.g. Kinley Brauer, Cotton versus conscience: Massachusetts whig politics and
KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1967); Frederick Merk,
southwest expansion, 1843-1848 (Lexington,
Manifest destiny and mission in American history: a reinterpretation (New York: Knopf, I963); William Earl
Weeks, Building the continental empire: American expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War (Chicago, IL:
Ivan R. Dee, I996), esp. pp. I40-66; Thomas Hiatala, Manifest design: American exceptionalism and empire,
2nd edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 215-54; Robert L. Beisner, Twelve against
I968); Robert David Johnson, The peace
empire: the anti-imperialists, 1898-1900oo (New York: McGraw-Hill,
For constraints
on expansion,
progressives and American foreign relations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, I995); for a
and illuminating account of the role of politics, see Ernest R. May, The making of the Monroe
provocative
Doctrine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, I975); for race and American foreign policy, see
e.g. Reginald Horsman, Race and manifest destiny (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, I98I).
33 Even Thomas
warning against
Jefferson, whose first inaugural address reified George Washington's
talked of marrying the United States to the British fleet should
alliances and entrapments, subsequently
1050
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
So today, in many respects, Bush's national security strategies are more firmly
rooted in the past than most people think. They are also more complex and
more conflicted than either supporters or critics believe. The quest for military
superiority, for example, is hardly new or noteworthy. Throughout its early
history, the United States relied on the British navy to ward off European foes
while deploying superior power on land against the Spanish, Mexicans and
Native Americans.34 When they had to, American policy-makers mobilized
additional force to deal with vexatious foes, as, for example, when Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison built a small navy to cope with the attacks of the
terrorists of their day, the so-called Barbary pirates.35 Frightened by the rise of
German naval power in the early twentieth century and always chafing at British
naval supremacy, the United States built a modem navy of its own and then
demanded naval parity in the aftermath of the First World War.36 After the
Second World War, chastened by the lessons learned from America's failure to
build to treaty limits and by the attack on Pearl Harbor, Truman's intention was
to preserve US military superiority.37 Although he was ready to discuss international control of atomic weapons, he sought to retain America's nuclear
monopoly for as long as possible.38
Although many contemporaries and historians defined US Cold War policies
in terms of containment and deterrence, America's real strategy was to pursue a
preponderance of power.39 US Cold War policies were always designed not so
much to contain Soviet power and influence as to roll them back, and to
Franceretainpossessionof New Orleansand the territorywest of the Mississippiriver. See Howard
to 1913(Wilmington,DE: Scholarly
ofpower:a historyofAmerican
Jones, Crucible
foreignrelations
Resources, 2002), pp. 48-53; for the ambiguities,inconsistenciesand pragmatismin Jeffersonian
of Thomas
diplomacy,see Robert Tucker and David L. Hendrickson,Empireof liberty:thestatecraft
Jefferson
(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,I990). After repudiatingthe Treatyof Versaillesand the Leagueof
Nations, the Republicanadministrationsof the I920S preferreda course of independentinternationalism
to one of isolationism.See Joan HoffWilson, American
businessandforeignpolicy,1920-1933 (Lexington,
KY: Universityof KentuckyPress, 197I). Even textbook writershave begun to use this characterization,
ratherthan isolationism,for the period of the Republicanascendancybetween Wilson and Franklin
a historyof USforeignrelations(New York: McGraw-Hill,
Roosevelt. See HowardJones, Questfor security:
I996),
pp. 348-69.
34 See e.g. BradfordPerkins,The Cambridge
relations:
thecreation
of a republican
historyof Americanforeign
empire.
empire,1776-1865(New York: CambridgeUniversityPress,I993); Weeks, Buildingthecontinental
For the role of the military,see Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski,Forthecommondefense:a military
historyof the United States of America (New York: Free Press, I994), esp. pp. 137-57.
35 Millett and Maslowski,Forthecommondefense,pp. 104-6; Michael L. S. Kitzen, Tripoliandthe United
Statesat war(London:McFarland,I993), esp. p. 86; StephenTucker, 'MrJefferson'sgunboatnavy',
American Neptune 43, April I983, pp. I35-41.
36
in LatinAmerica(ChapelHill, NC:
Nancy Mitchell, Thedangerof dreams:GermanandAmerican
imperialism
Universityof North CarolinaPress, I999); Roger Dingman, Powerin thePacific:theoriginsof navalarms
limitation, 1914-1922 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, I976); Thomas H. Buckley, The United
Statesandthe Washington
1921-1922 (Knoxville,TN: Universityof TennesseePress, I970).
Conference,
37 See esp. Truman'sspeechesemphasizingthe retentionof US power, in Publicpapersof thepresidents:
Harry
S. Truman, 1945 (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, I96I), pp. 401-13, 428-38, 546-60.
38 Gregg Herken, Tliewinningweapon:theatomicbombin the Cold War(New York: Knopf,
1980), pp. 15I70; McGeorge Bundy, Dangerandsurvival:choicesaboutthebombin thefirstfiftyyears(New York: Random
House, I988), pp. I61-96.
39 Melvyn P. Leffler,A preponderance
of
andthe Cold War
power:nationalsecurity,the Trumanadministration,
(Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversityPress, I992), esp. pp. I5-19, 355-6o.
I051
Melvyn P. Leffler
transform the Kremlin's approach to international politics.4? Although George
Kennan's long telegram of February 1946 and his Mr X article in ForeignAffairs
are the most renowned documents of the Cold War, the first national security
strategy statement of the United States, written by Kennan and approved by the
president in spring I948, called for more than containment. 'Our basic objectives',
wrote Kennan, 'are really only two: a. to reduce the power and influence of
Moscow ... ; and to bring about a basic change in the theory and practice of international relationsobserved by the government ... in Russia.' These objectives were
inscribed in NSC 68, the most famous strategy document of the Cold War era.4I
Throughout the Cold War the aim of the United States was to have the
capacity to fight more than one war successfully and to be able to seize the
offensive when necessary. In NSC 68, the Truman administration emphasized
that containment required the United States to 'possess superior overall power
in ourselves or in dependable combination ... '. Without such military strength,
a policy of 'containment', said NSC 68, 'is no more than a policy of bluff.42
The term 'containment' was placed in quotation marks in the document
because it was never simply about blocking further Soviet expansion; nor was
deterrence simply about thwarting a Soviet attack. Containment, in the words
of NSC 68, was a policy of 'calculated and gradual coercion'.43 Inherent in its
logic was the notion of risk-taking: taking action, often unilaterally, that was
designed sometimes to thwart Soviet advances and sometimes to roll back
Soviet influence. The intent was 'to wrest the initiative' from the Soviet Union;
the axiomatic belief, again to use the famous words of NSC 68, was 'that the
cold war is in fact a real war'.44
Seeing themselves challenged by growing Soviet military power, by a
reckless regime in Beijing and by revolutionary nationalist impulses throughout
the Third World, the administrations in Washington from Truman to Reagan
calibrated the use of military force to complement and supplement other strategies for waging the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower
Doctrine and the Carter Doctrine all contemplated the deployment of force to
counter Soviet advances. Not all of them prescribed pre-emptive military
action. But Eisenhower's deployment of forces to Lebanon, Johnson's military
intervention in the Dominican Republic and Reagan's attack on Libya, as well
as Kennedy's blockade of Cuba and Nixon's bombing of Cambodia and Laos,
all possessed unilateral, pre-emptive qualities.
So what, if anything, is new about the Bush administration's national strategy
statement? Critics characterize the allusions to unilateralism, pre-emption and
40 See esp. the recent book by Gregory Mitrovich, Underminingthe Kremlin:America'sstrategyto subvertthe
Soviet bloc, 1947-1 956 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).
4! Thomas H. Etzold and
John Lewis Gaddis, eds, Containment: documentson Americanpolicy and strategy,
1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. I76, 436-42.
42
Ibid., pp. 40I-2.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid., p. 448; for risk-taking, see Leffler, Preponderanceof power, pp. I8-19, 208-19, 262-3, 354-63, 3964Io, 438-50, 488-92, 502-IO.
1052
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
military superiority as new, daring and provocative, but only because they now
remember the Cold War as a benign struggle between a hapless foe with an antiquated ideology and a crippled economy. That ignores, however, the fact that
at the time participants thought they were engaged in a dynamic, dangerous and
contingent conflict.
If the quest for military superiority is not so different from what it was during
the Cold War, neither is the strategyof pre-emption. 'Preemption', stressedRice,
'is not a new concept. There has never been a moral or legal requirement that a
country must wait to be attacked before it can address existential threats ... The
United States has long affirmed the right of anticipatory self-defense-from the
Cuban missile crisis in I962 to the crisis on the Korean peninsula in I994.'45
Here again, Rice is quite right in stressing continuities. Pre-emption has a
long tradition in American history. In I904 President Theodore Roosevelt
announced a new corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, unilaterally asserting the
right of the United States to intervene militarily in the western hemisphere to
preserve order. 'Pre-emptive imperialism' was designed to thwart prospective
European interventions and protect the national security of the United States.
The United States intervened repeatedly in Cuba, the Dominican Republic,
Nicaragua and Haiti. In Nicaragua, US troops remained from I912 to 1933
(with one brief interruption); in Haiti they stayed from I915 to I934; in the
Dominican Republic from I916 to 1924.46
Pre-emption, then, is not new; but it has a place of special importance in the
thinking of Bush's defense advisers. It is 'fundamental', Wolfowitz told a joint
congressional committee. 'This is not a game we will ever win on defense.
We'll only win it on offense.'47
Although this attitude is often portrayed as unique to a group of neoconservative hawks who have infiltrated the Bush administration, the truth of the
matter is that the proclivity towards an offensive strategy, towards pre-emption
and counterproliferation, had been evolving for a decade and had mustered bipartisan support long before Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz became household names.
In a partially declassified presidential directive of I995, Bill Clinton put his imprimatur on a new United States counterterrorism policy. The policy of the
United States, the directive said, is 'to deter and preempt, apprehend and prosecute ... individuals who perpetrate or plan to perpetrate terrorist attacks'. The
United States, the directive went on to say, would seek to identify '... states that
sponsor or support such terrorists, isolate them and extract a heavy price ... .48
In I999 Clinton's Department of Defense appointed a bipartisan commission
on national security in the twenty-first century. It was chaired not by
45 Rice, 'A balance of
power', p. 3.
46
Frank Ninkovich, The United States and imperialism(Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 9Iff. Samuel Flagg
Bemis long ago characterized it as 'protective imperialism'. See Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Latin American
policy of the United States: an historicalinterpretation(New York: Harcourt, Brace, I943).
47
Testimony by Wolfowitz, I9 Sept. 2002, 'Joint inquiry hearing', p. 12.
48 Presidentialdecision directive
39, 'US policy on counterterrorism', 21 June 1995, esp. pp. I, 3, 9, http://
www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd39.htm.
1053
Melvyn P. Leffler
neoconservative hawks but by Gary Hart, a liberal Democrat, and Warren
Rudman, a moderate Republican. Reporting long before 9/I I, their commission
envisioned a more chaotic world. Some states, the report concluded, would
fragment; others would fail. Ethnic and religious violence would increase; suppressed nationalisms would flower; terrorist groups would proliferate; weapons
of mass destruction would spread. Consequently, the United States would
become 'increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland'. In that
environment, the American government would not be able to rely on traditional alliances. Deterrence, the report stressed, 'will not work as it once did'.
The United States, therefore, required military capabilities 'characterized by
stealth, speed, range, unprecedented accuracy, lethality, strategic mobility,
superior intelligence, and the overall will and ability to prevail'.49
Such reports and others make it clear that the strategic thinking associated
with the Bush administration was emerging in a variety of forms well before
9/II. Almost everyone in the United States who carefully examined national
security issues in the 990os grasped the growing threat of terrorism, the links
with failing and rogue states, and the spectre of an attack on the United States
with weapons of mass destruction. Many and diverse people called for preventive action. Many struggled, however reluctantly, with pre-emptive scenarios.
Many grasped the reality that there were terrorist groups that were not likely to
be deterred as states had been deterred. Many accepted the awful reality that
technological developments, communications breakthroughs and porous
borders made attacks with biological and chemical weapons more likely, indeed
very likely. Experts might argue over the mix of policies, but few doubted that
innovations in weapons technology and military tactics were needed, as were a
vast array of preventive actions and pre-emptive options. The new threat-the
nexus of terrorism, failing states, rogue governments, suicide bombers and
weapons of mass destruction-made this mode of thinking unavoidable.50
Like many of the experts who wrote these reports, Powell and Rice have
stressed that pre-emption 'must be treated with great caution'. It is one tool,
said Colin Powell, in a toolbox filled with tools. The number of cases in which
it might be justified, insisted Condoleezza Rice, 'will always be small ... It does
not give a green light-to the United States or any other nation-to act first
without exhausting other means ... The threat must be very grave. And the
risks of waiting must far outweigh the risks of action.'5
49 The United States Commission on National
Security in the 2ISt Century, 'New world coming:
American security in the 2ISt century', 15 Sept. 1999, http://www.nssg.gov/Reports/
The quotations are on pp. 6, 7 and 8.
New_World_Coming/new_world_coming.htm.
so For illustrative reports and analyses, see the bipartisan report produced for Congress, pursuant to Public
Law 277, o05thCongress, Report of the National Commission on Terrorism, 'Countering the changing
Robert S. Litwak,
threat of international terrorism', http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html;
Rogue states and US foreignpolicy (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000); Richard N.
Haass, Intewention: the use of Americanmiilitaryforcein the post-Cold War world (Washington DC: Brookings
Institution Press, 1999).
5' Testimony by Powell, 6 Feb. 2003, Committee on Foreign Relations, p. 43; see Rice, 'A balance of
power', p. 3; also see her interview with New PerspectivesQuarterlyeditor, Nathan Gardels, 'Anticipatory
defense in the war on terror', 5 Sept. 2002, http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2002_fall/rice.html.
1054
policy
g/11 and thepast andfutureof Americanforeign
Nor do Rice andPowellbelievethatAmerica's
questformilitarysuperiority
of their
shouldpreventalliesandfriendsfrommobilizinggreatercapabilities
we
exhort-our
freedom
own.TheUnitedStates,Ricedeclared,
'invites-indeed,
lovingallies,suchasthosein Europe,to increasetheirmilitarycapabilities'.52
Nor do US officialsbelievethatroot causescanbe ignored.'We [have]got
'Andthatisn't
to actpreventively,'
Wolfowitztoldhiscongressional
inquisitors.
or
even
means.'53
onlyby militarymeans,
onlyby intelligence
Wolfowitz,Rice, Powellandtheircolleaguesembracethe ideaof a democraticpeace.They seek,by deployingAmericanpowerto crushterrorists
and
to
foster
to
American
economic
by mobilizing
strength
growth, expandthe
for
democratic
self-government
everywhere.Theirspeechesare
opportunities
infusedwith a missionaryzeal, with a convictionthat freedomis good for
forsocietiesandforthe international
individuals,
system.Theirconvictionsare
research
since
the
thatdemocratic
nationsdo
i98os
by
supported
demonstrating
tendto be morepeacefulwhentheydealwith one another.54
Freedom,peace,
orderandself-interest
areallintertwined.
of course,wasnotwhatBush,RumsfeldandPowellwanted
Nation-building,
to do when they took office, not even after9/II.55 But the doctrine of pre-
emptionandthe desireto removeSaddamHusseininescapably
pushedthemto
embracethe promotionof democracyabroad.They know thistaskis fraught
withuncertainty.
Theyknowthehistorical
experienceof theUnitedStateswith
promotionis a mixedone, with noteworthyfailuresaswell assome
democracy
As notedabove,the UnitedStatespre-emptively
intersuccesses.56
spectacular
vened andkept troopsin Haiti,Nicaraguaand the DominicanRepublicfor
decades-and the democraticlegacybequeathedwas utterlydisappointing.57
Nor was the US colonialrecordin the Philippinesmuch more successful.58
52
Rice, 'A balanceof power', p. 4.
'Jointinquiryhearing',p. 24.
54John L. Gaddis,'A grandstrategy',ForeignPolicy,Nov.-Dec. 2002; for a very thoroughpresentationof
the democraticpeace thesis,see Bruce Russett andJohn Oneal, Triangulating
peace:democracy,
andinternational
(New York: Norton, 2001).
interdependence,
organizations
55 Woodward, Bush at war,
pp. I92-3, 220, 237, 24I.
mission:the UnitedStatesandtheworldwide
56 For democracypromotion, see Tony Smith, America's
struggle
in thetwentieth
for democracy
century(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress, I994); see also Michael
and
Cox, G. John Ikenberryand TakashiInoguchi, eds, American
democracy
promotion:
impulses,strategies,
impacts(Oxford:Oxford UniversityPress,2000).
57Tony Smith concludesthat US interventionsand
occupations'offereda textbook case of what not to
do'. See Smith, America's
mission,p. 79. For illustrativestudies,see Louis Perez, CubaunderthePlatt
Amendment,
1902-1934 (Pittsburgh,PA: Universityof PittsburghPress,I986);Jose Hernandez,Cubaand
the UnitedStates:interventtion
andmilitarism,
1868-1933(Austin,TX: Universityof Texas Press,1993);
Bruce Calder, T7zeimpactof inttervention:
theDominicanRepublicduringthe US occupation
of 1916-1924
andthe
(Austin,TX: Universityof Texas Press, I984); MaryRenda, TakingHaiti:militaryoccupation
cultureof US imperialism,
1915-1940(ChapelHill, NC: Universityof North CarolinaPress,200I); Hans
Schmidt, The UnitedStatesoccupation
of Haiti, 1915-1934(New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers UniversityPress,
I97I); Ninkovich, UnitedStatesantdimperialism,
pp. 9I-14I; LesterD. Langley,Thebananawars:antinner
historyofAmerican
empire,1900-1934(Lexington,KY: Universityof KentuckyPress, I983). I am indebted
to Jay Sexton for a superbreview essayof the literature.
58For illustrativeaccounts,see Glenn Anthony May, Socialengineering
in thePhilippines:
theaims,execution,
antdimipact
colonialpolicy,1900-1913(London:Greenwood, 1980); StanleyKamrow,In our
of American
image:America's
empirein thePhilippines
(New York: Random House, I989); H. W. Brands,Boundto
53Testimony by Wolfowitz, I9 Sept. 2002,
o1055
Melvyn P. Leffler
After the Second World War, however, the performance of the United States
in Germany, Japan and Austria won great acclaim.59 Of course, the successes
had a lot to do with the domestic social processes in these countries, with their
values and institutions, and with external circumstances. Many experts on
postwar occupation policies do not think that these successes can be replicated
today in Third World countries.6?
Such pessimism, however, may be unwarranted. Several careful studies of US
military interventions in the twentieth century shed surprising new light on the
relationship between military intervention and democracy. Most US military
interventions, as you might expect, have no positive impact on target nations.
'Military interventions', concludes the political scientistJames Meernik in a study
of 27 cases, 'do not leave behind more democratic regimes.'But this conclusion gets
substantially modified when another variable is added: an explicit US commitment to promote democracy as a defining goal of the intervention. 'When the
United States is purportedly acting on behalf of democratic values,' Meernik
argues, 'interventions are much more likely to aid the cause of democracy.'6' In
a yet more elaborate and refined study of 90 cases, Mark Peceny demonstrates
that when the United Statesis unequivocally committed to democracy promotion,
countries 'that have experienced U.S.-sponsored elections are significantly
more likely to be democracies than states that have not shared this experience'.62
If these research findings withstand scrutiny, Bush's national security advisers
have reason to hope that their policies will produce more good than their critics
believe. This, however, assumes that they will focus on the goals of democracy
promotion and economic development.63 Condoleezza Rice says they will. The
United States will, she insists, fight 'poverty, disease, and oppression because it
is the right thing to do-and the smart thing to do'.64 The explicit goal of the
United States, according to the strategy document, is to double the size of the
world's poorest economies within a decade.65 Many Bush administration policy
(New York: Oxford UniversityPress,1992); Ninkovich,
empire:the UnitedStatesandthePhilippines
mission.I am indebtedto Jay Sexton for an
UnitedStatesandimperialism,
pp. 86-90; Smith,America's
excellent review of the literatureon the Americanrole in the Philippines.
59 Smith considersthe Americanrole in GermanyandJapanespeciallypraiseworthy.See Smith, America's
mission, pp. 147-76.
60John Dower, 'A warningfrom history',BostonReview,http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR28.I/
dower.html.Some of the leadingexpertson the occupationof Japansigned a statementwarningagainst
drawingparallelsbetweenJapanand Iraq.The historiansincludedDower, MarcSelden, HerbertBix,
Bruce Cumings, Norma Field and RichardM. Minear.Anne Deighton, a historianof occupationpolicy
in post-SecondWorld War Germany,circulateda similarpetition.
61JamesMeernik, 'United Statesmilitaryinterventionand the promotion of democracy',Journal
of Peace
Research33, Nov. 1996, pp. 391-402.
62 MarkPeceny, 'Forcingthem to be free', PoliticalResearch
52, Sept. 1999, pp. 549-82; see also
Quarterly
at thepointof bayonets
MarcPeceny, Democracy
(StatePark,PA: PennsylvaniaStateUniversityPress,1999).
63 For a more mixed assessmentof the Americanexperience,see the essaysin Cox et al., American
democracy
But a key reasonfor the mixed resultshasbeen the absenceof commitmentto the goal itself.
promotion.
America's
In this respect,see alsoJoshuaMuravchik,Exportingdemocracy:fufilling
destiny(Washington
DC: American Enterprise Institute, I991).
64 Rice, 'A balanceof power', p. 5.
65 'NationalSecurityStrategy',p. I 5.
Io56
g/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
prescriptions actually comply with the recommendations of the United Nations
Development Programme.66 The president and his advisers acknowledge that
these are the essential prerequisites for building a balance of power favouring
freedom.
A balance of power or a community
of power
If the administration's strategy has deep and diverse historical roots, and if it
reflects an awareness of the complex sources of terrorism, why, then, does it
merit criticism?
The answer to this question is to be found in its style, rhetoric and priorities,
in its proud espousal of'a balance of power' favouring freedom. My argument is
that a balance of power favouring freedom is a confused, even meaningless
concept. It is a concept that favours unilateralist thinking and military solutions.
It is also contrary to American traditions and incongruent with the challenges
that lie ahead.
When faced with existential challenges in the twentieth century, the United
States championed not a balance of power, but a community of power. As
Woodrow Wilson solemnly pondered American intervention in the First
World War, he said, 'peace cannot ... rest upon an armed balance of power.'
After the war, he insisted that the balance of power 'should end now and forever'.
Lasting peace, he maintained, required 'not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized common peace'.67
Wilson's alternative vision was of a community of power based on selfdetermination of peoples and the interdependence of nations. The central idea
of this treaty, he maintained, is 'that nations do not consist of their governments
but consist of their people'.68 People had the right to determine their own
government and to live without fear. They had the right to travel on the seas
freely and to trade on equal terms. They had the right to expect their governments
to preserve order, govern justly and thwart revolutionary impulses.69 Governments, in turn, had a responsibility to limit their armaments and work together
to preserve the peace. Peace would be made secure by the organized moral
force of mankind, mobilized through the vehicle of the League of Nations.70
The Wilsonian approach to world affairs was partly apocalyptic and partly
redemptive. Wilson saw immense dangers and espoused utopian solutions. His
66
Compare the Bush national security strategy recommendations with those in the 2002 United Nations
Development Report. See 'National Security Strategy', pp. I I-I6; United Nations Development
Programme, Human developmentreport2002: deepeningdemocracyin a fragmentedworld (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
67 For the quotations, see Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd, eds, The publicpapers
of Woodrow
Wilson, 6 vols (New York: Harper & Bros, 1927), vol. 5, pp. 3, 342; Arthur S. Link, ed., The papers of
Woodrow Wilson, vol. 40 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, I982), p. 536.
68 Baker and Dodd, Publicpapers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 5, pp. 594, 6oi.
69 Ibid., p. 3.
70 Link,
Papersof Woodrow Wilson, vol. 40, p. 535; Baker and Dodd, Publicpapers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 5,
p. 330.
1057
Melvyn P. Leffler
reactions to industrialism, imperialism, revolution and global conflict, indeed,
his response 'to modernity', writes the historian Frank Ninkovich, 'was doubleedged: extraordinarilyoptimistic and progressive on the one hand, yet afflictedby
a sense of extraordinary, perhaps unmanageable crisis on the other'.71 Imagining
unprecedented peril, Wilson bequeathed a singularly American response, disavowing the primacy of interest, affirming the benign influence of democratic
governance, and extolling the benefits of arms limitation, open trade, international law and collective security. He did not deny the importance of power,
but talked about a community of power. He would have been appalled by the
thought that peace and freedom could be coupled with traditional realpolitik.
I say that Wilson imagined unprecedented peril because it is far from certain
that such peril really existed. His critics saw no such dangers and repudiated his
vision.72 Yet in 1939 and I940, and then again in 1946 and I947, Wilson's
successors resurrected visions of similar dangers and offered similar solutions. In
the late I930s millions of Americans saw no threat to national security.73 Yet
Roosevelt imagined a world governed by the Axis powers and concluded that
the United States could not survive in it, at least not with its existing institutions
intact.74 And then again, in 1947, with the country facing no tangible threat to
its immediate military interests, Truman and his advisers envisioned a world
dominated by communist governments linked to the Kremlin and concluded
that such a world could not accommodate the preservation of freedom inside
the United States.75Both Roosevelt and Truman used language that exaggerated immediate threats to US national security. Yet their imaginative construction of apocalyptic scenarios has endured the verdict of history.76 Wilson,
Roosevelt and Truman all envisioned the spectre of a world pulsating with
discontented peoples and governed by arbitraryrulers-rulers indifferent to the
rule of law, driven by revolutionary fervour, eager to develop new weapons,
and inclined to war and domination. In such a world, neither free peoples nor
free nations could survive and prosper, not even the United States.
Today, Bush sees his nation facing a similar crisis. 'We are in a conflict', he
declared, 'between good and evil ... In this way our struggle is similar to the
Cold War. Now, as then, our enemies are totalitarians, holding a creed of
power with no place for human dignity.' Like his predecessors, Bush insists he
Ninkovich, Wilsonian century,p. 12.
thefight against the League (f Nations
For opposition to Wilson's peace, see Ralph Stone, The irreconcilables:
(New York: Norton, 1970); William Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the searchfor an Americanforeign
policy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980).
73
Justus D. Doenecke, Storm on the horizon: the challengeto Americanintervention,1939-1941 (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); Wayne S. Cole, Americafirst: the battle against intervention,1940-1941
(Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, I953); Wayne S. Cole, Roosevelt and the isolationists,19321945 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, I983).
74 Ninkovich, Wilsonian century,
pp. 121-37; for the standard interpretation of Roosevelt, see Robert
Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Americanforeignpolicy, 1933-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press,
see also the short, incisive account by David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor:
I979),
pp. 233-3I3;
Roosevelt's Americaand the originsof the Second World War (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001).
75 Leffler, Preponderance power.
of
76 See Ninkovich, Wilsonian
Centutry,pp. I-16.
71
72
Io58
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
will not 'gloss over the brutality of tyrants'; his aim, he says, is to rally free
nations 'to a great cause'.77
But what is that cause? At times of peril, Bush's predecessors did not talk
about a balance of power. At the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy said
in his inaugural address, 'Let every nation know ... that we shall pay any price,
bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to
assure the survival and the success of liberty.' But then he expressed his hopes
for a new era of cooperation. 'Let both sides', he exhorted, 'join in creating a
new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the
strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.'78
If the nexus of terrorists,rogue regimes and weapons of mass destruction constitutes the next great 'existential threat', as Condoleezza Rice termed it, building
a 'balance of power favouring freedom' is a rather unusual American approach
to meeting unprecedented danger. It is also a confused approach. A balance of
power envisions equilibrium, while the Bush administrationyearns for hegemony.
A balance of power assumes a system of competing nation-states, usually sharing
similarvalues, while the United States today faces perils emanating primarilyfrom
subnational groups that detest the liberal, democratic, secular and free-market
ideology of the United States. A balance of power is linked historically to the
evolution of the Westphalian state system, a system defined by the principle of
non-intervention in the domestic affairsof other states, while American policies
now are designed to transform the domestic regimes of other states.79
When they invoke the language of power balancing, Bush's advisers obfuscate more than they clarify. Whose power is to be balanced? Today, no nation
or group challenges American power. America's vulnerability does not stem from
inadequate power. In fact, should the balance of power operate in its classical
form, it would trigger countermoves by states seeking to pose a counterweight
to America's expressed ambitions. Likewise, pre-emptive actions by the United
States will encourage other governments to take unilateral action of their own,
making for a less orderly and more dangerous world.8?
Woodrow Wilson called for a community of power precisely because he
foresaw that unilateral efforts to enhance security triggered arms races and
77 Bush's
speech at West Point, i June 2002.
78
Publicpapers of the presidentsof the United States:John F. Kennedy, 1961, 20 Jan. I961 (Washington DC:
Government Printing Office, I962), p. 2.
79 For definitions of a balance of
power, see K. J. Holsti, 'Balance of power', World encyclopediaof peace
(Oxford: Pergamon, I986), vol. I, pp. 85-8; Stanley Hoffmann, 'Balance of power', International
encyclopediaof the social sciences(New York: Macmillan Company/Free Press, I968), vol. I, pp. 50o6-9;
Martin Wight, 'The balance of power and international order', in Alan James, ed., The bases of
internationalorder(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp. 85-I 115.
o0See e.g. Charles Knight, 'Essential elements missing in the national security strategy of 2002', 9 Oct.
Michael E. O'Hanlon, Susan E. Rice and James B.
2002,
http://www.comw.org/qdr/02Ioknight.html;
I
Steinberg, 'The national security strategy and preemption', Brookings Institution policy brief no. 113,
Dec. 2002, http://www.brook.edu/comm/policybriefs/pbi
13.htm; and esp. Joseph S. Nye, Jr, The
the world's only superpowercan'tgo it alone (New York: Oxford University
paradox of Americanpower: tvlwhy
Press, 2002). Note even Henry Kissinger's awareness of these dilemmas: Henry Kissinger, Does America
need a foreignpolicy? (New York: Free Press, 2002), pp. 287-8; G. John Ikenberry, 'American grand
pp. 19-34.
strategy in the age of terror', Surwival,43, Winter 2001-2,
1059
Melvyn P. Leffler
multiplied perceptions of threat. He was not blind to the dangers lurking in a
world of nation-states, but he believed they were best dealt with through
multilateral institutions embodying notions of collective security. Wilson's
community of power meant limiting armaments, expanding economic
interdependence and, most of all, building norms, laws and institutions to
modulate the competitive instincts of nations and to avert the security dilemmas
that inevitably flow from unilateral actions, whether intended for good or evil.
Nowadays, scholars refer to these efforts in terms of the utility of 'soft
power'. 8 The Bush administration, as we have seen, is not unaware of the
utility of soft power. Indeed, it seeks to capitalize on the resonance of American
values, disseminate its marketplace principles and utilize its economic prowess
to mould a more peaceful world order. But balance of power thinking trumps
the administration'sunderstanding of soft power and inclines it to favour military
priorities. Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, got to the heart of the matter in February 2003 when he politely admonished Secretary Powell for the paltry funds allocated to the non-military aspects
of foreign policy. 'Even after a healthy increase in the last fiscal year,' Senator
Lugar pointed out, 'the U.S. foreign assistance, in constant dollars, has declined
about 44 percent since Ronald Reagan's presidency in I985 and about I8 per
cent since the collapse of the Soviet Union in I991.' The United States, Lugar
added, ranked last among the 21 major providers of aid to the developing world.82
Developmental assistance is not the only site of inconsistency between the
Bush administration's rhetoric and its actions, between its appreciation of the
multiple causes of terrorism and its tendency to rely on military solutions.
Although the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank
urge the elimination of agriculturalsubsidies, Bush and his advisers have moved
only haltingly in this direction.83Notwithstanding their commitments to enhance
women's rights and children's health in the poorest nations, they block most
public funding to agencies abroad that counsel abortion;84notwithstanding their
commitment to tackle poverty in the world's poorest countries, they actually
cut their initial 2003 fiscal year request for development assistance to Africa;85
notwithstanding their realization of the importance of the Palestinian-Israeli
war of attrition, they were reluctant to tackle this matter until the political and
diplomatic exigencies of the war in Iraq forced them to do so.86
and
8I Nye, Paradoxof American
restraint,
strategic
power,see also G. John Ikenberry,Aftervictory:institutions,
therebuilding
of orderaftermajorwars(Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversityPress,200I).
82
US Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, 'US Foreign Policy', 6 Feb. 2003, pp. 2-4, 6.
83 There is no emphasison this point in the nationalsecuritystrategystatement,althoughthe administration
is reportedto be pressuringEuropeannationsto reduce their agriculturalsubsidies.
84 Kati Morton, 'Protectwomen,
HeraldTribune,4 March2003, p. 8.
stop a disease', International
85 US Senate,Committee on ForeignRelations, 'US ForeignPolicy', 6 Feb. 2003, pp. 33-4.
86 In the national
disputeis
securitystrategystatement,the lastsentence dealingwith the Israeli-Palestinian
illustrativeof the tendencytowardsaloofness:'The United Statescan play a crucialrole but, ultimately,
lastingpeace can only come when Israelisand Palestiniansresolvethe issuesand end the conflictbetween
them.' Little attentionis focused on preciselywhat the crucialAmericanrole might constitute.See
'NationalSecurityStrategy',p. 7.
io60
9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
At times of existential crisis in the past, at times when dangers seemed to
loom very large and very close, Bush's predecessors sought to tackle root causes
and establishlasting institutions. Wilson focused on the League; Franklin Roosevelt helped craft the IMF, the World Bank and the United Nations; Truman,
Eisenhower and Kennedy sought to fashion the political and economic instruments that nurtured the recovery of Germany and Japan and facilitated their
peaceful integration into the international system. In I947, at the most crucial
moment in the origins of the Cold War, when Truman, like Bush today, then
decided that the world was divided into good and evil-the president made the
crucial decision to focus on European reconstruction rather than American
rearmament.87 Notwithstanding America's abiding concern with calculations of
military power, its greatest triumphs in the Cold War stemmed from its capacity
to work with democratic allies and to design new international norms and
multilateral institutions to serve shared objectives.88
The point of these comparisons is not to glorify the past. Neither Wilson,
nor Roosevelt, nor Truman ever renounced the use of power, or relinquished
the freedom to act unilaterally, or countenanced serious infringements of US
sovereignty. But their apocalyptic fearsand messianic zeal prompted a very different matrix of policies. They, too, believed that America had a mission; they,
too, stirred that peculiarly American brew of power and ideals. But, ultimately,
their thought processes gravitated towards a community of power rather than a
balance of power. The difference in mindsets revealed by these contrasting
operational codes is fundamental. In seeking a balance of power favouring freedom, in questing for military hegemony, in trumpeting the right to intervene
unilaterally, in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, and other arms control and human rights conventions, Bush and his
advisers display a fundamental disdain for the norms, institutions and rules that
bind the community in whose interests they are ostensibly acting.89
But they should not be criticized for highlighting the threats that confront
humankind. Their fear of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists
or arbitrarygovernments is well founded; their belief that advances in technology abet the cause of terroristsis not erroneous; their understanding that porous
borders provide opportunities for sabotage is not irrational;their conviction that
weak states and rogue governments may provide safe havens for terrorists is
grounded in reality. Like Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, like Truman and the
cold warriors who succeeded him, Bush rightly sees peril lurking in the international environment.
87 Leffler, Preponderanceof power, esp. pp.
I47-5 1.
88John L. Gaddis, We now know: rethinkingCold War history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, I997), esp.
pp. 189-220; Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperationamong democracies:the Europeaninfluenceon US foreign
policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, I995); Ikenberry, After victory,pp. I63-214; Geir
Lundestad, Empire by integration:the United States and Europeanintegration,1945-1997 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, I998).
89 See the essays in David M. Malone and Yuen Foong Khong, eds, Unilateralismand
USforeign policy
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003).
Io6I
Melvyn P. Leffler
A solution does not require a choice between a balance of power and a
community of power. It is not a question of choosing power or paradise, as
Robert Kagan suggests in his recent best-selling book.90 It is not a question of
choosing a Hobbesian world or a Kantian world. A solution begins, first, with
the recognition that the community that came into existence after the Second
World War is endangered both from within and from without. If it is to
survive, its core values must be collectively reaffirmed; if it is to survive, new
norms and rules must be designed multilaterally, including those allowing for
the collective and pre-emptive use of force; if it is to survive, the hegemonic
role of the United States must be relegitimized. But the United States cannot
presume to give voice to the community's values if it ignores its rules; nor can it
expect the community to defer to its power if it threatens the interests of its
members. At the same time, the community cannot expect America to exercise
self-restraint in support of community rules, or to make sacrifices in support of
its values, if the community trivializes the risks, costs and dangers that inhere in
the US leadership role.
The challenges, therefore, are daunting. But the reason why we remember
Woodrow Wilson, FranklinRoosevelt, Harry Truman and others is not because
they designed perfect solutions to the challenges of their time, but because they
envisioned real peril, catalysed creative thought and contemplated new departures. Returning to balance of power thinking hardly seems like the imaginative
response required to meet the new dangers. It hardly seems like the way to
bring about the reconciliation of values and interests which is the purported
goal of the Bush administration.
But there is reason to be hopeful. As we have seen, Bush's policies are rooted
in the traditional American matrix of values, interests and power. These variables have a dynamic and unstable relationship to one another and can be
configured in different ways, with strikingly different implications. In the background of Bush's strategy lurks a recognition that pre-emption should not be a
first option; that root causes cannot be ameliorated by the application of force;
that a democratic peace can make for a more peaceful world; that multilateral
institutions can multiply the strength of freedom-loving nations. The potential,
therefore, exists for a different strategy; but its emergence will depend on the
policies of America's friends abroad as well as on domestic politics and
legislative-executive relations at home. There are indications, however, that
the American people would support a different matrix of policies, a blend that
might allow for the integration of balance of power thinking with a community
of power approach, a blend that might reconcile hegemony and community.
An elaborate assessment of public opinion in America during summer 2002,
almost a year after 9/I I, is suggestive. There was a huge upsurge in the American
perception of threat. When asked what was the most important lesson learned
from 9/I i, 6i per cent of Americans said the United States should collaborate
90 Robert Kagan, Paradiseand power: Americaand Europe in the new worldorder(London: Atlantic, 2003).
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9/11 and the past andfuture of Americanforeignpolicy
more closely with other countries to combat terrorism. An astonishing 88 per
cent favoured 'working through the UN to strengthen international laws against
terrorism and to make sure UN members enforce them'. Seventy-five per cent
desired to use force to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but only 20 per cent wanted
the United States to act alone in doing so. Seventy-eight per cent favoured
assistance to poor countries. Only 44 per cent wanted an increase in defence
spending.9
The data suggest that a reliance on pre-emptive and unilateralistmilitary power
is not inscribed in the DNA of the American people. In the past America's
greatest leaders, when faced with perceptions of existential threats, chose to
reconcile principles and power in favour of institutions, regimes, alliances and
norms that meshed America's interests with those of a larger community of
democratic allies. Wilson had a peculiar insight when he said the peace must be
secured by the organized moral force of mankind. How to translate that moral
force into pragmatic responses to the perils awakened by the attack on 9/I is
the challenge before us.
Bush's national security doctrine is not likely to do the job. While he has
alerted us to dangers that cannot be ignored and identified many strands of a
solution, he has invoked a balance of power vocabulary that trivializes the very
dilemmas he envisions. There is a different vocabulary in the American past from
which better answers can be constructed. There is a tradition that recognizes
that in the pursuit of national security, the use of American power and the
dissemination of American ideals must be reconciled with the needs of friends,
the sensibilities of adversariesand the well-being of the international community.
Without such a reconciliation, the moral force of humankind will not be
organized, and America's own quest for redemption in the face of apocalyptic
threat will not be realized.
9' Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 'A world transformed: foreign policy attitudes of the US public
after Sept. I I', http://www.worldviews.org/key_findings/us_9I
I_report.htm.
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