George W. Bush’s unilateralist tendencies contradict his father’s vision, and threaten American goals in the long term

by Ansel Halliburton
More than a decade ago, history changed course faster than anyone could have predicted. The Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain lifted, and Soviet power crumbled just two years later. The Cold War ended and the world entered a new, uncertain era. Then-U.S. President George H. W. Bush seized the opportunity to proclaim a “new world order,” which was to be characterized by unprecedented international cooperation and peace. True to his words, the United Nations, international law, and international trade each have flourished since the end of the Cold War.

The president’s vision seemed promising until September 11, 2001. When terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the course of history took an unexpected turn once again. Few doubted that the devastating attacks on America would have far-reaching consequences for the entire world, and as the U.S. government built a global coalition against terrorism, a new order began to take shape.

Like his father, George W. Bush is trying to construct a new world order at a turning point in history. The new new world order, however, is entirely different from what George H. W. Bush proposed. Where Bush the father declared, “A world where the United Nations, freed from Cold War stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders,” Bush the son speaks of combating an “axis of evil.” The present Bush Administration has determined to make American power the dominant force in world politics, and that the U.S. will do unilaterally what it cannot accomplish multilaterally. During its first year in office, the Bush Administration acted alone in scrapping the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and promoting national missile defense over the protests of the international community.

Unilateralism continued to characterize U.S. policy in the wake of the terrorist attacks. In his State of the Union speech on January 29, President Bush characterized Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” His rhetorical flourish touched off a firestorm of international debate, but, more importantly, it placed weapons proliferation on the same tier as terrorism. The list of potential U.S. military targets has been extended beyond terrorist groups to states developing and selling weapons of mass destruction. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld defended the President’s “axis of evil” rhetoric, calling it “useful” to put a moral spotlight on the three regimes, while not revealing any immediate plans for military action.

The combination of U.S. unilateralism and the extension of the war on terror to include weapons proliferators is a potent mixture, and it marks a departure from previous policy. Frustrated with slow progress on U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons cutbacks, the Bush Administration has advanced a policy of “unilateral but parallel” force reductions. At the same time, it has revisited the idea of “usable” nuclear weapons, attempting to build a new concept of deterrence for the post-Cold War era. In practice, this reliance on unilateralism has irritated allies and adversaries alike.

DETERRENCE FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM?

While the security environment changed dramatically since the demise of the Soviet Union, nuclear deterrence policies have remained in limbo because of deadlock with Russia, as well as disagreements inside the White House and the Pentagon. Even though the U.S. and Russia are no longer adversaries, both countries maintain thousands of nuclear weapons poised to strike each other. China also possesses a limited strategic nuclear arsenal with sufficient range to strike the U.S. Apart from the usual suspects, an estimate produced by the National Intelligence Council and published by the CIA in December concluded that by 2015, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq-the three “axis of evil” states-could have ballistic missiles of their own capable of striking U.S. territory.

Portions of the Defense Department’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), leaked to the press in January, describe the potential use of U.S. nuclear weapons against seven countries, including the so-called “axis of evil.” Members of the media and advocacy groups have focused narrowly on this fact, interpreting the NPR as a step toward lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

The actual situation, however, is more complex, and the media’s simplified interpretation does not do the NPR justice. The review was undertaken to reassess U.S. strategic nuclear forces in the new security environment. It established a broad strategy and force structure rather than specific target lists or exact numbers of warheads. At a January 9 Pentagon news conference on the NPR, J.D. Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, described the need for a “capabilities-based force” which could meet the demand for “greater flexibility for a range of contingencies that will be harder to know” in the future.

The September 11 attacks, and the U.S. military deployments that followed, lend credence to Crouch’s view. Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization blamed for the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, is a stateless and highly diffuse organization. (Indeed, it learned many of its tactics, ranging from organizational compartmentalization and secrecy to evasion of spy satellites, from the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.) The Pentagon, often accused of fighting the last war, was not oriented toward this type of threat. In fact, the NPR concedes that nuclear weapons have little role in fighting the terrorist threat, and the force structure it recommends relies heavily on improved conventional forces and intelligence capabilities for that purpose.

It can be argued that in the 1990s the U.S. demonstrated its total dominance of conventional warfare. In a matter of days, U.S. military might, projected to the other side of the world, all but obliterated the Iraqi army, previously one of the world’s largest. In 1999, U.S. air power was decisive in the NATO campaign in Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, winning the war without deploying any ground forces at all. After these experiences, and the knowledge of the overwhelming power of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, few are likely to challenge the U.S. openly. While the NPR rightly refers to the deterrent effect of America’s strong conventional forces, this deterrent is still oriented toward more conventional threats.

POLICY FAILURE

Although the Bush Administration’s defense policies are unlikely to win America any new friends, they will likely succeed on some level due to the sheer preponderance of U.S. military power. Unfortunately, by pursuing unilateral policies, the U.S. may win the battle, but lose the war.

Assistant Secretary Crouch said the goals of U.S. nuclear strategy would be to “assure, dissuade, deter and defeat”-to assure allies, to dissuade competition, to deter use of nuclear weapons, and to defeat adversaries. By this measure, U.S. policy meets only half of its own criteria. The U.S. will be able to defeat any nuclear or conventional adversary in the foreseeable future, and updating nuclear strategy for the new security environment helps to create new forms of deterrence for the post-Cold War world. But U.S. policy surely is not reassuring its allies. Relations with Russia are strained periodically, and many of America’s European allies are concerned over the Bush Administration’s unilateralist bent. Most importantly, dissuading proliferation is more difficult than merely outmuscling Russia or China. (India, and Pakistan are not expected to threaten the U.S. directly, and consequently have been left out of the defense establishment’s calculus.)

The authors of the Nuclear Posture Review tried to take the long view on nuclear weapons, but they didn’t quite succeed. A more farsighted view of the consequences of current U.S. policy as represented by the leaked NPR, national missile defense, and withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, would show that the U.S. is unilaterally shooting itself in the foot.

While Russia has followed President Bush’s unilateral lead in cutting strategic nuclear weapons, this is likely to have happened “with or without arms control,” according to the National Intelligence Council report-the same report President Bush relied on for his “axis of evil” speech. Hence, any claims to the success of “unilateral but parallel” reductions are bunk. The U.S. will always possess enough nuclear weapons to obliterate would-be proliferators, and the NPR does nothing to change this fact. Diplomatic engagement is more likely to produce better results than new defense policies. Unfortunately, engagement seems to be off the table for now: President Bush’s State of the Union remarks did not go over well in Iran, Iraq, or North Korea-the three countries the National Intelligence Council identified as the major ballistic missile threats to the U.S.

More importantly, the Bush Administration’s focus on missile defense and nuclear proliferation ignores the much more immediate threat of terrorism. A functional missile defense shield would not have prevented the September 11 attacks. The Pentagon’s attention should remain on defeating known terrorists.

The threat of ballistic missiles from the “axis of evil” is real, but it is not as imminent as that of terrorism, and it can be better handled through other means, and without disrupting the delicate counter-terrorism coalition. De-emphasizing proliferation issues and embracing multilateral dialogue would restore the credibility of U.S. diplomacy and allow it to focus on more important issues, such as terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bush Administration must resist the temptations of building an America-centric world order and using its powerful position to act unilaterally. Although short-term goals can be achieved unilaterally, such strategies undermine America’s long-term interests by weakening its alliances and diplomatic relations.