[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 That some of his analysis is out of date in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.
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