[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 158 (Thursday, November 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11936-S11938]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE REAL NEW WORLD ORDER

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to commend Charles Krauthammer 
for his fine article in the November 12 issue of The Weekly Standard, 
titled ``The Real New World Order.'' Not only does Mr. Krauthammer's 
article present the flawed assumptions and philosophical underpinnings 
of the foreign policies of the Clinton administration--particularly his 
denunciation of that administration's fealty to the notion of an 
overriding international order defined by treaties and designed to 
insulate the world from the burden of American hegemony--but also the 
demands placed upon the administration of George W. Bush in the wake of 
the events of September 11. It is a compelling piece, and deserves 
notice.
  Krauthammer's article was written prior to the dramatic events of the 
past week in Afghanistan. That some of his analysis is out of date in 
light of the battlefield successes of the so-called Northern Alliance 
does not, however, detract from the validity of the main thesis he 
presents in his typically articulate and knowledgeable style. 
Krauthammer argues that the United States, as a result of the terrorist 
attacks that killed thousands of Americans, is confronted with an 
epochal opportunity that, if seized, will facilitate one of the most 
far-reaching transformations in the history of international relations. 
Rather than facing the rising tide of anti-Americanism postulated to be 
the natural result of the United States' unique status as the world's 
sole superpower, much of the world has actually aligned itself with 
U.S. interests in the face of an elusive enemy brandishing an 
apocalyptic view of the current global structure, radical Islamic 
fundamentalism.
  The developments of the past several days have caught many of us off-
guard. Little that was known about the Taliban indicated that it would 
countenance its own defeat as swiftly as has occurred. I do not believe 
that could have happened had the President not made clear, in word and 
deed, his commitment to prevail over that brutal regime and the 
terrorist organization it protects and that was responsible for the 
terrible events of September 11. The imperative of victory not yet 
achieved, however, remains. The momentous reaction of the world's major 
regional powers, as well as of governments throughout the Middle East, 
to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will prove 
ephemeral should we fail to continue to wage this war, and to define 
its parameters, with the determination and clarity evident in the 
President's splendid address to the nation before the joint session of 
Congress.
  I commend Charles Krauthammer for this thoughtful and compelling 
article, and highly recommend it to my colleagues in the Senate.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the 
Krauthammer article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Weekly Standard, Nov. 12, 2001]

                        The Real New World Order


             the american empire and the islamic challenge

                        (By Charles Krauthammer)

     I. The Anti-Hegemonic Alliance
       On September 11, our holiday from history came to an abrupt 
     end. Not just in the trivial sense that the United States 
     finally learned the meaning of physical vulnerability. And 
     not just in the sense that our illusions about the permanence 
     of the post-Cold War peace were shattered.
       We were living an even greater anomaly. With the collapse 
     of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and the emergency of 
     the United States as the undisputed world hegemon, the 
     inevitable did not happen. Throughout the three and a half 
     centuries of the modern state system, whenever a hegemonic 
     power has emerged, a coalition of weaker powers has 
     inevitably arisen to counter it. When Napoleonic France 
     reached for European hegemony, an opposing coalition of 
     Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria emerged to stop it. 
     Similarly during Germany's two great reaches for empire in 
     the 20th century. It is an iron law: History abhors hegemony. 
     Yet for a decade, the decade of the unipolar moment, there 
     was no challenge to the United States anywhere.
       The expected anti-American Great Power coalition never 
     materialized. Russia and China flirted with the idea 
     repeatedly, but never consummated the deal. Their summits 
     would issue communiques denouncing hegemony, unipolarity, and 
     other euphemisms for American dominance. But they were 
     unlikely allies from the start. Each had more to gain from 
     its relations with America than from the other. It was 
     particularly hard to see why Russia would risk building up a 
     more populous and prosperous next-door neighbor with regional 
     ambitions that would ultimately threaten Russia itself.
       The other candidate for anti-hegemonic opposition was a 
     truncated Russia picking up pieces of the far-flug former 
     Soviet empire. There were occasional feints in that 
     direction, with trips by Russian leaders to former allies 
     like Cuba, Iraq, even North Korea. But for the Russians this 
     was even more a losing proposition than during their first 
     go-round in the Cold war when both the Soviet Union and the 
     satellites had more to offer each other than they do today.
       With no countervailing coalition emerging, American 
     hegemony had no serious challenge. That moment lasted 
     precisely ten years, beginning with the dissolution of the 
     Soviet Union in December 1991. It is now over. The challenge, 
     long-awaited, finally declared itself on September 11 when 
     the radical Islamic movement opened its world-wide war with 
     a, literally, spectacular attack on the American homeland. 
     Amazingly, however, this anti-hegemonic alliance includes not 
     a single Great Power. It includes hardly any states at all, 
     other than hostage-accomplice Afghanistan.
       That is the good news. The bad news is that because it is a 
     sub-state infiltrative entity, the al Qaeda network and its 
     related

[[Page S11937]]

     terrorists around the world lack an address. And a fixed 
     address--the locus of any retaliation--is necessary for 
     effective deterrence. Moreover, with the covert support of 
     some rogue regimes, this terrorist network commands 
     unconventional weapons and unconventional tactics, and is 
     fueled by a radicalism and a suicidal fanaticism that one 
     does not normally associate with adversary states.
       This radicalism and fanaticism anchored in religious 
     ideology only increased our shocked surprise. We had given 
     ourselves to believe that after the success of our classic 
     encounters with fascism and Nazism, then communism, the great 
     ideological struggles were finished. This was the meaning of 
     Francis Fukuyama's End of History. There would, of course, be 
     the usual depredations, invasions, aggressions, and simple 
     land grabs of time immemorial. But the truly world-historical 
     struggles were over. The West had won. Modernization was the 
     way. No great idea would arise to challenge it.
       Radical Islam is not yet a great idea, but it is a 
     dangerous one. And on September 11, it arose.
     II. The American Mind
       It took only a few hours for elite thinking about U.S. 
     foreign policy to totally reorient itself, waking with a jolt 
     from a decade-long slumber. During the 1990s, American 
     foreign policy became more utopian and divorced from reality 
     than at any time since our last postwar holiday from history 
     in the 1920s. The liberal internationalists of the Clinton 
     era could not quite match the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact 
     abolishing war forever for sheer cosmic stupidity. But they 
     tried hard. And they came close.
       Guided by the vision of an autonomous, active, and norm-
     driven ``international community'' that would relieve a 
     unilateralist America from keeping order in the world, the 
     Clinton administration spent eight years signing one treaty, 
     convention, and international protocol after another. From 
     this web of mutual obligations, a new and vital 
     ``international community'' would ultimately regulate 
     international relations and keep the peace. This would, of 
     course, come at the expense of American power. But for those 
     brought up to distrust, and at times detest, American power, 
     this diminution of dominance was a bonus.
       To understand the utter bankruptcy of this approach, one 
     needs but a single word: anthrax. The 1972 Biological Weapons 
     Convention sits, with the ABM treaty and the Chemical Weapons 
     Convention, in the pantheon of arms control. We now know that 
     its signing marks the acceleration of the Soviet bioweapons 
     program, of which the 1979 anthrax accident at a secret 
     laboratory at Sverdlovsk was massive evidence, largely 
     ignored. It was not until the fall of the Soviet Union that 
     the vast extent of that bioweapons program was 
     acknowledged. But that--and the post-Gulf War evidence 
     that Iraq, another treaty signatory in good standing, had 
     been building huge stores of bioweapons--made little 
     impression on the liberal-internationalist faithful. Just 
     before September 11, a serious debate was actually about 
     to break out in Congress about the Bush administration's 
     decision to reject the biological weapons treaty's new, 
     and particularly useless, ``enforcement'' protocol that 
     the Clinton administration had embraced.
       After the apocalypse, there are no believers. The Democrats 
     who yesterday were touting international law as the tool to 
     fight bioterrorism are today dodging anthrax spores in their 
     own offices. They very idea of safety-in-parchment is 
     risible. When war breaks out, even treaty advocates take to 
     the foxholes. (The Bush administration is trying to get like-
     minded countries to sign onto an agreement to prevent 
     individuals from getting easy access to the substrates of 
     bioweapons. That is perfectly reasonable. And it is totally 
     different from having some kind of universal enforcement 
     bureaucracy going around the world checking biolabs, which 
     would have zero effect on the bad guys. They hide 
     everything.)
       This decade-long folly--a foreign policy of norms rather 
     than of national interest--is over. The exclamation mark came 
     with our urgent post-September 11 scurrying to Pakistan and 
     India to shore up relations for the fight with Afghanistan. 
     Those relations needed shoring up because of U.S. treatment 
     of India and Pakistan after their 1998 nuclear tests. Because 
     they had violated the universal nonproliferation ``norm,'' 
     the United States automatically imposed sanctions, blocking 
     international lending and aid, and banning military sales. 
     The potential warming of relations with India after the death 
     of its Cold War Soviet alliance was put on hold. And 
     traditionally strong U.S.-Pakistani relations were cooled as 
     a show of displeasure. After September 11, reality once again 
     set in, and such refined nonsense was instantly put aside.
       This foreign policy of norms turned out to be not just 
     useless but profoundly damaging. During those eight Clinton 
     years, while the United States was engaged in (literally) 
     paperwork, the enemy was planning and arming, burrowing deep 
     into America, preparing for war.
       When war broke out, eyes opened. You no longer hear that 
     the real issue for American foreign policy is global warming, 
     the internal combustion engine, drug traffic, AIDs, or any of 
     the other transnational trendies of the '90s. On September 
     11, American foreign policy acquired seriousness. It also 
     acquired a new organizing principle: We have an enemy, 
     radical Islam; it is a global opponent of worldwide reach, 
     armed with an idea, and with the tactics, weapons, and 
     ruthlessness necessary to take on the world's hegemon; and 
     its defeat is our supreme national objective, as 
     overriding a necessity as were the defeats of fascism and 
     Soviet communism.
       That organizing principle was enunciated by President Bush 
     in his historic address to Congress. From that day forth, 
     American foreign policy would define itself--and define 
     friend and foe--according to who was with us or against us in 
     the war on terrorism. This is the self-proclaimed Bush 
     doctrine--the Truman doctrine with radical Islam replacing 
     Soviet communism. The Bush doctrine marks the restoration of 
     the intellectual and conceptual simplicity that many, 
     including our last president, wistfully (and hypocritically) 
     said they missed about the Cold War. Henry Kissinger's latest 
     book, brilliant though it is, published shortly before 
     September 11, is unfortunately titled Does America Need a 
     Foreign Policy? Not only do we know that it does. We know 
     what it is.
     III. The New World Order
       The post-September 11 realignments in the international 
     system have been swift and tectonic. Within days, two Great 
     Powers that had confusedly fumbled their way through the 
     period of unchallenged American hegemony in the 1990s began 
     to move dramatically. A third, while not altering its 
     commitments, mollified its militancy. The movement was all in 
     one direction: toward alignment with the United States. The 
     three powers in question--India, Russia, and China--have one 
     thing in common: They all border Islam, and all face their 
     own radical Islamic challenges.
       First to embrace the United States was India, a rising 
     superpower, nuclear-armed, economically vibrant, democratic, 
     and soon to be the world's most populous state. For half a 
     century since Nehru's declaration of nonalignment, India had 
     defined itself internationally in opposition to the United 
     States. As one of the founders in 1955 of the nonaligned 
     movement at Bandung, India helped define nonalignment as 
     anti-American. Indeed, for reasons of regional politics 
     (Pakistan's relations with China and with the United States) 
     as well as ideology, India aligned itself firmly with the 
     Soviet Union.
       That began to fade with the end of the Cold War, and over 
     time relations with the United States might have come to full 
     flower. Nonetheless, September 11 made the transition 
     instantaneous. India, facing its own Taliban-related 
     terrorism in Kashmir, immediately invited the United States 
     to use not just its airspace but its military bases for the 
     campaign in Afghanistan. The Nehru era had ended in a flash. 
     Nonalignment was dead. India had openly declared itself ready 
     to join Pax Americana.
       The transformation of Russian foreign policy has been more 
     subtle but, in the long run, perhaps even more far-reaching. 
     It was symbolized by the announcement on October 17 that 
     after 37 years Russia was closing its massive listening post 
     at Lourdes, Cuba. Lourdes was one of the last remaining 
     symbols both of Soviet global ambitions and of reflexive 
     anti-Americanism.
       Now, leaving Lourdes is no miracle. It would likely have 
     happened anyway. It is a $200 million a year luxury at a time 
     when the Russian military is starving. But taken together 
     with the simultaneously reported Russian decision to leave 
     Cam Ranh Bay (the former U.S. Naval base in South Vietnam, 
     leased rent-free in 1979 for 25 years), it signaled a new 
     orientation of Russian policy. On his trip to European Union 
     headquarters in early October, President Vladimir Putin made 
     clear that he sees Russia's future with the West--and that he 
     wants the West to see its future including Russia.
       This shift is tactical for now. America needs help in the 
     Afghan war. Russia can provide it. It retains great influence 
     over the ``-stans,'' the former Soviet Central Asian 
     republics. From their side, the Russians need hands off their 
     own Islamic problem in Chechnya. Putin came in deal. In 
     Brussels, he not only relaxed his opposition to NATO's 
     expansion to the borders of Russia, not only signaled his 
     willingness to compromise with the United States on missile 
     defense, but broadly hinted that Russia should in essence 
     become part of NATO.
       Were this movement to develop and deepen, to become 
     strategic and permanent, it could become one of the great 
     revolutions in world affairs. For 300 years since Peter the 
     Great, Russia has been unable to decide whether it belongs 
     east or west. But in a world realigned to face the challenge 
     of radical Islam, it is hard to see why Russia could not, in 
     principle, be part of the West. With the Soviet ideology 
     abandoned, Russia's grievances against the West are reduced 
     to the standard clash of geopolitical ambitions. But just as 
     France and Germany and Britain have learned to harmonize 
     their old geopolitical rivalries within a Western structure, 
     there is no reason Russia could not.
       Cam Ranh Bay and Lourdes signal Russia's renunciation of 
     global ambitions. What remain are Russia's regional 
     ambitions--to protect the integrity of the Russian state 
     itself, and to command a sphere of influence including its 
     heavily Islamic ``near abroad.'' For the first decade of the 
     post-Cold War era, we showed little sympathy for the first of 
     these goals and none for the second. We looked with suspicion 
     on Russia's reassertion of hegemony over once-Soviet space. 
     The great fight over Caspian oil, for example, was intended 
     to ensure that no pipeline

[[Page S11938]]

     went through Russia (or Iran), lest Russia end up wielding 
     too much regional power.
       That day may be over. Today we welcome Russia as a regional 
     power, particularly in Islamic Central Asia. With the United 
     States and Russia facing a similar enemy--the radical Islamic 
     threat is more virulent towards America but more proximate to 
     Russia--Russia finds us far more accommodating to its 
     aspirations in the region. The United States would not mind 
     if Moscow once again gained hegemony in Central Asia. Indeed, 
     we would be delighted to give it back Afghanistan--except 
     that Rusia (and Afghanistan) would decline the honor. But 
     American recognition of the legitimacy of Russian Great Power 
     status in Central Asia is clearly part of the tacit bargain 
     in the U.S.-Russian realignment. Russian accommodation to 
     NATO expansion is the other part. The Afghan campaign marks 
     the first stage of a new, and quite possibly historic, 
     rapprochement between Russia and the West.
       The third and most reluctant player in the realignment game 
     is China. China is the least directly threatened by radical 
     Islam. It has no Chechnya or Kashmir. But it does have 
     simmering Islamic discontent in its western provinces. It is 
     sympathetic to any attempt to tame radical Islam because of 
     the long-term threat it poses to Chinese unity. At the just 
     completed Shanghai Summit, China was noticeably more 
     accommodating than usual to the United States. It is still no 
     ally, and still sees us, correctly, as standing in the way of 
     its aspirations to hegemony in the western Pacific. 
     Nonetheless, the notion of China's becoming the nidus for a 
     new anti-American coalition is dead. At least for now. There 
     is no Russian junior partner to play. Pakistan, which has 
     thrown in with the United States, will not play either. And 
     there is no real point. For the foreseeable future, the 
     energies of the West will be directed against a common enemy. 
     China's posture of sympathetic neutrality is thus a passive 
     plus: It means that not a single Great Power on the planet 
     lies on the wrong side of the new divide. This is 
     historically unprecedented. Call it hyper-unipolarity. And 
     for the United States, it is potentially a great gain.
       With Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa on the sidelines, 
     the one region still in play--indeed the prize in the new 
     Great Game--is the Islamic world. It is obviously divided on 
     the question of jihad against the infidel. Bin Laden still 
     speaks for a minority. The religious parties in Pakistan, for 
     example, in the past decade never got more than 5 percent of 
     the vote combined. But bin Ladenism clearly has support in 
     the Islamic ``street.'' True, the street has long been 
     overrated. During the Gulf War, it was utterly silent and 
     utterly passive. Nonetheless, after five years of ceaseless 
     agitation through Al Jazeera, and after yet another decade of 
     failed repressive governance, the street is more radicalized 
     and more potentially mobilizable. For now, the corrupt ruling 
     Arab elites have largely lined up with the United States, at 
     least on paper. But their holding power against the radical 
     Islamic challenge is not absolute. The war on terrorism, and 
     in particular the Afghan war, will be decisive in determining 
     in whose camp the Islamic world will end up: ours--that of 
     the United States, the West, Russia, India--or Osama bin 
     Laden's.
     IV. The War
       The asymmetry is almost comical. The whole world against 
     one man. If in the end the United States, backed by every 
     Great Power, cannot succeed in defeating some cave dwellers 
     in the most backward country on earth, then the entire 
     structure or world stability, which rests ultimately on the 
     pacifying deterrent effect of American power, will be fatally 
     threatened.
       Which is why so much hinges on the success of the war on 
     terrorism. Initially, success need not be defined globally. 
     No one expects a quick victory over an entrenched and shadowy 
     worldwide network. Success does, however, mean demonstrating 
     that the United States has the will and power to enforce the 
     Bush doctrine that governments will be held accountable for 
     the terrorists they harbor. Success therefore requires making 
     an example of the Taliban. Getting Osama is not the immediate 
     goal. Everyone understands that it is hard, even for a 
     superpower, to go on a cave-to-cave manhunt. Toppling regimes 
     is another matter. For the Taliban to hold off the United 
     States is an astounding triumph. Every day that they remain 
     in place is a rebuke to American power. Indeed, as the war 
     drags on, their renown, particularly in the Islamic world, 
     will only grow.
       After September 11, the world awaited the show of American 
     might. If that show fails, then the list of countries lining 
     up on the other side of the new divide will grow. This 
     particularly true of the Arab world with its small, fragile 
     states. Weaker states invariably seek to join coalitions of 
     the strong. For obvious reasons of safety, they go with those 
     who appear to be the winners. (Great Powers, on the other 
     hand, tend to support coalitions of the weak as a way to 
     create equilibrium. Thus Britain was forever balancing power 
     on the Continent by supporting coalitions of the weak against 
     a succession of would-be hegemons.) Jordan is the classic 
     example. Whenever there is a conflict, it tries to decide who 
     is going to win, and joins that side. In the Gulf War, it 
     first decided wrong, then switched to rejoin the American 
     side. That was not out of affection for Washington. It was 
     cold realpolitik. The improbable pro-American Gulf War 
     coalition managed to include such traditional American 
     adversaries as Syria because of an accurate Syrian 
     calculation of who could overawe the region.
       The Arab states played both sides against the middle during 
     the Cold War, often abruptly changing sides (e.g., Egypt 
     during the '60s and '70s). They lined up with the United 
     States against Iraq at the peak of American unipolarity at 
     the beginning of the 1990s. But with subsequent American 
     weakness and irresolution, in the face both of post-Gulf War 
     Iraqi defiance and of repeated terrorist attacks that 
     garnered the most feckless American military responses, 
     respect for American power declined. Inevitably, the pro-
     American coalition fell apart.
       The current pro-American coalition will fall apart even 
     more quickly if the Taliban prove a match for the United 
     States. Contrary to the current delusion that the Islamic 
     states will respond to American demonstrations of 
     solicitousness and sensitivity (such as a halt in the 
     fighting during Ramadan), they are waiting to see the success 
     of American power before irrevocably committing themselves. 
     The future of Islamic and Arab allegiance will depend on 
     whether the Taliban are brought to grief.
       The assumption after September 11 was that an aroused 
     America will win. If we demonstrate that we cannot win, no 
     coalition with moderate Arabs will long survive. But much 
     more depends on our success than just the allegiance of that 
     last piece of the geopolitical puzzle, the Islamic world. The 
     entire new world alignment is at stake.
       States line up with more powerful states not out of love 
     but out of fear. And respect. The fear of radical Islam has 
     created a new, almost unprecedented coalition of interests 
     among the Great Powers. But that coalition of fear is held 
     together also by respect for American power and its ability 
     to provide safety under the American umbrella. Should we 
     succeed in the war on terrorism, first in Afghanistan, we 
     will be cementing the New World Order--the expansion of the 
     American sphere of peace to include Russia and India (with a 
     more neutral China)--just now beginning to take shape. Should 
     we fail, it will be sauve qui peut. Other countries--and not 
     just our new allies but even our old allies in Europe--will 
     seek their separate peace. If the guarantor of world peace 
     for the last half century cannot succeed in a war of self-
     defense against Afghanistan(!), then the whole post-World War 
     II structure--open borders, open trade, open seas, open 
     societies--will begin to unravel.
       The first President Bush sought to establish a New World 
     Order. He failed, in part because he allowed himself to lose 
     a war he had just won. The second President Bush never sought 
     a New World Order. It was handed to him on Sept. 11. To 
     maintain it, however, he has a war to win.

                          ____________________