Observe the new Great Imperium

Columnist M B NAQVI analyses how the new system of running world affairs works.

There is every indication that the Americans are determined to attack Iraq with a view to changing the Saddam regime there. The kind of extraordinary pressure that America has been putting on the UN to pass the toughest possible resolution so as to force Iraq to say ‘no’ is telltale. The fact is that Iraq has accepted the maximum demands that the Americans and others had put earlier. But it has made no difference. The American logistic efforts for military operations against Iraq have been well underway for many months. Whether the US has succeeded in dragooning the Saudi and the Qatari regimes to bend and allow military operations against Iraq from their soil is not wholly clear. At all events, American bases are said to be critical for their purpose. Americans have therefore put maximum pressure. That these Arab are unwilling to participate in anti-Iraq operations has been abundantly clear. Hence, the coercive diplomacy by the only superpower.
All this is in aid of the American aim that America has set for itself. It conceives, it as an open-ended war that has already secured many geopolitical successes for America. In short order, there has been a regime change in Afghanistan and a nominee of American Administration has been installed in Kabul as the ‘democratic’ ruler of new Afghanistan by its conqueror. It is a different matter that Hamid Karzai’s, the US stooge’s personal security has become a Pentagon’s worry. But Afghanistan has been converted into a huge American base. And for Afghanistan’s security, as a base, among other objectives, the US has had to advance into Central Asia where it has at least two proper bases in the neighbourhood and facilities elsewhere, including permission to overfly their air spaces and other emergency facilities not amounting to airbases properly socalled. For the rest American diplomacy and ambassadors of corporate America are everywhere in Central Asia.
The remarkable thing about this aggressive expansionism is its theoretical underpinning. The US President George W. Bush has been, with remarkable frankness, adumbrating the principle of preemption. Iraq is its example. The doctrine says that it may be that a state has not committed any aggression or other transgression but that does not matter. If the US has come to the conclusion that its is a trouble-making regime in, say Iran or conceivably China, the US is entitled to go and take it out. This astonishing doctrine itself rests on certain other assumptions and intentions. The US believes that its military is number one in the world; there is no rival to US military prowess. The intention that goes with this assessment is, and the US has made no bones about it, that no other power would ever be allowed to rival it. The US intends to be the strongest military power over the whole globe and reserves the right to pre-emptive war. It is a major and worrying proposition.
Gone are the days when the US rather humbly — for itself — recognised the power of the Soviet Union and relied on the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. The implication of deterrence was that the US is not the sole master of the earth; there is a rival in the name of Soviet Union. It kept its nuclear arsenal updated and went on theoretically proliferating it for a variety of reasons, vertically in later stages. The technical aim was to deter Soviet Union from attacking which was supposed to have a superiority in conventional armaments. The US reserved the right of obliterating large swathes of the Soviets and its satellite states by nuking them first. That, despite a few alarms such as 1962 Cuba crisis, the superpowers refrained from testing each other’s strength. For one thing, there was no core interest of the US that clashed with Soviets. The Soviets implicitly respected all American interests wherever they happened to be and did not actually challenge them, though they tried to encircle or counter them by a regime nearby that would take the Soviet aid and have sympathy for it.
But the Soviets made such moves with a considerable degree of timidity and discretion, not taking it to a point anywhere where the Americans would turn around and physically resist. There were certain proxy wars, the main ones being Korean and Vietnam. Both sides acted with extreme discretion: the Americans did not cross the 38th parallel with foot soldiers for fear of Vietnam calling in the Chinese to help them. The same was the conclusion to be drawn from Korean war; after this war, America had traded a land war in Asia. The American aggression took the form of massive aerial bombardment which necessitated Vietnam to call in Soviet aid in the shape of surface to air missile and other high technology gadgets to be able to resist the Americans. Throughout the cold war the ground rules were clear and were formally observed in which neither side confronted the other militarily — long before they were written down and CBMs (confidence building measures) instituted as a result of interminable Vienna talks and other negotiations.
The new doctrine of preemption is based on permanent global superiority in the nukes. This is as good as tearing up the whole nonproliferation regime that the US diplomacy has formally followed for the last 30 years. The non-proliferation treaty did, after all, enshrine the aim of five recognised Nuclear Powers would eventually work toward universal nuclear disarmament. The hope was that some day, a nuclear weapons free world would emerge just as other measures were in hand for ridding the world of the mass destruction weapons of chemical, biological and other varieties. In the nuclear field, all non-recognised nuclear powers were to be persuaded, bamboozled or coerced into acceding to a non-nuclear state. Now is a wholly new territory. The world is back to competitive nuclear build up by all the 190 plus states of the UN, vying with each other to become nuclear powers — in theory and eventually in practice. There is now no moral basis on which any other country can be asked to stick to nonproliferation aims — if logic has any relevance to international activities. And as if this was not forbidding enough, the nonproliferation regime for the lesser nations actually rests on the declared US aim that it will not let any other nation overtake it in military strength, though some or many may, or would try. Doubtless it cannot be gainsaid that the US is the most powerful nation today; its strength cannot be challenged by anyone singly or even in combination with certain others. Look around and see if there are any states which are planning to rebel against this unipolar world in which the US is acting as a universal Hegemon. You will see none. Apparently there is no one who is prepared to stake the claim, or make the effort, to rival the US in military strength. Is this a natural state of affairs that can last?
Any acquaintance with human affairs and history would seem to suggest that such a permanence of a single powers’ domination for the rest of the world has generally not lasted for too long. There were other empires in history. But each lasted for a time. A power rose, expanded and became ‘glorious’ — for a time. And then the decline set in. All empires declined after a while. Would the Great Imperium that the US of 2002 is embarked upon last for ever? Not unless all laws of nature and society have changed. As many competent writers have pointed out that it would be followed by decline through overstretch. One would also suggest that the concept of overstretch must be seen in terms of political dynamics. Other human beings tend to resent and rebel. Some would want to become a rival if they have some element of strength and some would want to rebel against being essentially a slave. That is how overstretch comes into operation. The Hegemon tries to put down rebellion first here then there and so on — until its own finite resources of canon fodder, nerve or morale, and wealth begin to be felt as too much stress on the supply of available goodies for the privileged. The proliferation by others has to be ruthlessly contained and suppressed in the beginning by trickery and later by force. There is no reason to suppose that the new American Empire would last for ever.
We might like to tarry a while here and look closely at the reactions to the American push for support from the UN and the rest of the world. German Social Democratic leader Gerhard Schroeder has just won an election on the plank of resisting the American wishes. It is a major international event which should be taken as a warning and a symptom. It is perhaps a tiny beginning. More will come as days go by. The French President Jacque Chirac, is no less opposed to US hegemonic drive, if also with greater diplomatic finesse and flexibility, has sounded somewhat more conciliatory in tone but not in content. He too does not think that the Americans are right in embarking upon a regime change in Iraq preemptively. Others oppose American moves not for the love, or a different assessment of Mr. Saddam Hussain’s regime in Iraq. Anyone will be hard put to it to find many sympathisers of Mr. Saddam Hussain outside Arab world. What the people object — and that objection is shared by China Russia and scores of other nations, including incidentally Pakistan — is the principle of preemption. Punishing a state before it has committed any cognisable transgression is against all norms of morality and international law. If this principle is accepted it would open the floodgates to many states to go and attack a relatively weaker state in the neighbourhood and impose a regime change if the latter does not oblige. That doctrine will lead to an anarchic situation in the whole world in which might would be right. All the development of international law in accordance with the notions of equality of all states, fairness in international dealings would be negated. All would go back at least a thousand years in international affairs. The UN would be superfluous.
The world is also wondering about the Bush administrations’ style of functioning. He has reversed the old methodology of having a long staff but talking sweetly. Mr. Bush junior cannot take the trouble of using soft words He would like to be blunt. He begins with others: “either you are with us or against us”. The diplomatic finesse he has shown in dealing with other members of the UN Security Council — China, Soviet Union, France and Germany included - is a case in point. No holds were barred. Even poor Lebanon was told that henceforth it will not get the dole of $ 10 million because it has not done what the US wanted it to do within its territories, along its borders with Israel which had been under Israeli occupation or mollycoddled Israel’s Maronite proxies. Pakistanis have experience of the nature of American diplomacy as a result of which they had to perform a U turn on Afghanistan and even partially also the Kashmir jihad.
Individual assessments and conclusions are not entirely irrelevant. Their totality forms world opinion. And sure enough the whole world has been asked to conform by an arrogant and holier than-thou Americans, using the UN as a condom: ‘it has to produce a tough resolution on Iraq that will enable the US to go and invade that country or else...’: the US would go it alone. This kind of triumphalist unilateralism is not new. It has been there for long but was not so crude or much in evidence. Earlier, it was hidden in the American diplomatic verbiage in talking recently to at least the major powers to take them along with itself and used to put discreet pressure on others to agree. Which they usually did. But now it is a simple crude and direct diktat even to the UN. It is being told either you are with us or against us.
At the time of writing, it is not clear if the UN will finally produce the desired tough resolution. There is some discreet and less crude resistance. It may or may not happen. Probably the linguistic skills will produce a draft that will satisfy the US. But what seems certain is that the US will go and make war on Iraq. The question is not so much whether this will happen or not happen. The real question is where does that leave the UN? The UN has shown to be an impotent body. Look at the recent events more closely. The UN was only effective when Big Five agreed. But now after this Iraq Crisis, the UN is even more and demonstratively impotent than it was three months ago. The UN was always an ineffective body if the five great powers were not unanimous. It was designed to be so. But now the US wants to be the sole power with a real veto. The vetoes of the other four powers are now becoming relics of the past. The US is getting tired of the UN and has shown the reality of its other votes; they are not so awful as many had supposed. What is awe inspiring is not that the US has overwhelming power. But what is breath taking is how does that country use it in its own transparently selfish purposes. The UN has been radically weakened on purpose, not that it was ever a or potent world authority. It borrowed its strength from P5 and the latter were gentlemanly. But what have the Americans declared today is that the UN is going to stay as it handmaiden or not at all. Once it refuses to do the US will, the latter might go the length of wanting to dismantle the whole of the UN system, although it is altogether too convenient and too useful. But it has been shown where the power lies and what would make the UN vital or lifeless. By the same token, international law has been shown to be a set of assumptions that the US may recognise, if it is expected to benefit in a given situation. Implied in it is that it can be thrown overboard if it does not so benefit; or if it is not of any help to attain its immediate objective.
It is useless to try and discern the real purpose behind the American behaviour. The crude methodology may not be as out of place as it seems to be. When one power has to break out of 50 years old mould of international relations, and soon, it cannot afford to be too polite; it needs to act with brusque vigour and determination. It is a time when US, in order to bolster its global supremacy, needs to control more of the resources of the world in hydrocarbons. Wherever the US has recently moved, the linkage with oil and gas is not absent. Even Afghanistan was not an exception in the sense that it was stepping stone to Central Asia where the resources of hydrocarbons are second only to Middle Eastern Gulf region. Today the centrality of Iraq’s crisis with America is also not unrelated to its oil reserves. For the rest, the action is in Iraq and Central Asia, while in the next phase other areas of the Persian Gulf such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran and others would come in. Already important American officials and observers are saying on the record that the Saudis are more foes than friends. The reason they assign is irrelevant for the moment. The broad sweep of American policies is to be seen for its linkage with the control of the most strategic resources: oil. The crude hurry and the brusque manner of the Americans are understandable in terms of the state of the world. The American economy is afflicted with all manner of troubles. Its capitalism is now exhibiting some of the sharp practices that have become common in corporate America. The present US administration itself is both linked to oil and war industries, on the one hand, and its leading personnel have built their careers and fortunes in corporate America, that is now coming under attack in domestic sphere, on the other. That is also one reason why spectacular actions abroad are expected to divert people’s attention from the domestic troubles of Mr. Bush Jr. This is what gives its typical flavour to the New World Order that is now emerging into view clearly.
There are many people around in the rest of the world who would not love to live in a world that is ruled ruthlessly by one arrogant imperial power. Time was —not so long ago — when people were looking forward to a world free of mass destruction weapons. It was to be a world where all nations would be treated with decency and courtesy. There would be an international law covering the whole globe. These things were thought to be necessary. Why? The idea was to have a world where economic and cultural progress would be made everywhere and humanity will live a little better life than the cattle living by their side. The flavour of the current New World Order is against all those dreams that have been shattered.
The question of questions is whether the great imperial enterprise of Bush Jr. would succeed in keeping the world down and under itself for a long time. Or it is possible, just possible, that even the current quasi-great powers — Germany, Japan, Russia, France, China, Canada or Australia — would act with a minimum of broad understanding to preserve the UN and the international law as it has evolved over the last five centuries by somehow tripping or side-tracking the American imperial drive.