[A-List] A STRATEGY FORETOLD

["Mark Aidan Jones" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*** FRONTIER JUSTICE: No. 9 | A STRATEGY FORETOLD ***

(Editor's note: Frontier Justice is a weekly column written alternately by
Tom Barry and John Gershman, foreign policy analysts at the Interhemispheric
Resource Center, chronicling instances of U.S. unilateralism and its assault
on  the multilateralism framework for managing global affairs. It is part of
the new Project Against the Present Danger. These columns are now indexed on
the  www.presentdanger.org site at:
http://www.presentdanger.org/frontier/2002/index.html. This column is
excerpted from a policy report available in its entirety at
http://www.fpif.org/papers/foretold.html)

By Tom Barry

September 11 did not change everything. It certainly did not change the
security strategy that a network of hawks and neoconservatives has been
promoting since the early 1990s.

One year after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington the Bush
White House released its National Security Strategy document. The radical
overhaul of U.S. defense posture as outlined in the strategy document
synthesized was no surprise. High officials in the Pentagon have since the
beginning of the Bush administration made clear their intent to overhaul
U.S. foreign and military policy in the very ways outlined in the National
Security Strategy statement of September 2002.

America's new National Security Strategy report is a succinct presentation
of a strategy of military dominance that rejects the policies of deterrence,
containment, and collective security. Instead, the new grand strategy
stresses offensive military intervention, preemptive first strikes, and
proactive counterproliferation measures against rogues and other enemies.
Put simply, the U.S. security strategy is no longer one of defense and
reaction but offense. As President Bush states in his introduction to the
strategy document: "The only path to peace and security is the path of
action."

The path of action as sketched out in this radical new view of what's needed
to keep America secure echoes two earlier strategy documents. One was
written in 1992 by Pentagon analysts Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Security of
Defense) and I. Lewis Libby (now Vice President Cheney's chief-of-staff)
called the Defense Policy Guidance document, and the other more recent
strategy document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces
and Resources for a New Century was produced by the neoconservative Project
for the New American Century (PNAC).

When the excerpts of the draft version of the Defense Policy Guidance leaked
to the New York Times, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) was horrified and denounced
the document as a prescription for "literally a Pax Americana." Written by
two relatively obscure political appointees in the Pentagon's policy
department in the aftermath of the Gulf War, the draft DPG called for U.S.
military preeminence over Eurasia by preventing the rise of any potentially
hostile power and a policy of preemption against states suspected of
developing weapons of mass destruction.

In 1997, the two authors of this military doctrine of military preeminence
and preemptive strikes-Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby-were among the 25
signatories of the Statement of Principles of the neoconservative front
group called the Project for the New American Century. Other signatories who
are now also prominent figures in the current administration included their
boss, former DOD Secretary Cheney, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald
Rumsfeld, Paula Dobriansky, and Peter Rodman.

In September 2000, PNAC issued its strategic plan on how America should
exercise its global leadership and project its military power. Among the key
conclusions of PNAC's defense strategy document were the following:

· "Develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American
homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power
projection around the world."
· "Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace," and
pave the way for the creation of a new military service--U.S. Space Forces--
with the mission of space control."
· "Increase defense spending, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total
defense spending annually."
· "Exploit the 'revolution in military affairs' [transformation to
high-tech, unmanned weaponry] to insure the long-term superiority of U.S.
conventional forces."
· "Need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new
sets of military requirements" complaining that the U.S. has "virtually
ceased development of safer and more effective nuclear weapons."
· "Facing up to the realities of multiple constabulary missions that will
require a permanent allocation of U.S. forces."
· "America must defend its homeland" by "reconfiguring its nuclear force"
and by missile defense systems that "counteract the effects of the
proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction."
· "Need for a larger U.S. security perimeter" and the U.S. "should seek to
establish a network of 'deployment bases' or 'forward operating bases' to
increase the reach of current and future forces," citing the need to move
beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia to increased permanent military
presence in Southeast Asia and "other regions of East Asia." Necessary "to
cope with the rise of China to great-power status."
· Redirecting the U.S. Air Force to move "toward a global first-strike
force."
· End the Clinton administration's "devotion" to the Anti-Ballistic Missile
treaty.
· "North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or similar states [should not be allowed] to
undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies, or threaten the
American homeland itself."
· "Main military missions" necessary to "preserve Pax Americana" and a
"unipolar 21st century" are the following: "secure and expand zones of
democratic peace, deter rise of new great-power competitor, defend key
regions (Europe, East Asia, Middle East), and exploit transformation of
war."

Thomas Donnelly, the document's principal author and recently PNAC's deputy
director (until he was recruited by Lockheed-Martin), expressed the hope
that "the project's report will be useful as a road map for the nation's
immediate and future defense plans." His hope has been realized in the new
security strategy and military build-up of the current Bush administration.
Many of PNAC's conclusions and recommendations are reflected in the White
House's National Security Strategy document, which reflects the "peace
through strength" credo that shapes PNAC strategic thinking.

The Bush administration has opted for a security strategy that is aggressive
and which prioritizes the use of military to deliver weapons of mass
destruction. In his introduction to the strategy document, President Bush
states that this American peace will be maintained "by fighting terrorists
and tyrants." Moreover, "as a matter of common sense and self-defense,
America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully
formed."

This new strategy of rapid militarization at home, a permanent and expanding
U.S. military presence abroad, and a policy of first strike defense against
perceived enemies is one that was foretold. The military strategists,
neoconservative analysts, and military-industrial lobbyists spent the 1990s
preparing the strategy of U.S. military preeminence that the Bush
administration is now implementing under their direction.

(Tom Barry <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> is a senior analyst with the
Interhemispheric Resource Center (online at www.irc-online.org) and
codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus.)

Also see:

Tom Barry and Jim Lobe, "Foreign Policy: Right Face," FPIF Policy Report,
http://www.fpif.org/papers/02right/index.html)

Project for the New American Century
http://www.newamericancentury.org/