The arrogance of the imperial mind

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Science & Society Summer 2003

THE ARROGANCE OF THE IMPERIAL MIND

by Gregory Elich

"America is in danger," provocatively begins the latest book by Donald
Kagan, history and classics professor at Yale University, and his son,
Frederick W. Kagan, assistant professor of military history at the U. S.
Military Academy at West Point.* The book argues that "military weakness,
combined with the desire to ignore unpleasant international realities, has
led America to abandon control of the international scene," allowing the
emergence of "powerful hostile states and coalitions," and leaving the
United States unprepared should a major threat to world peace arise. It is
an astonishing thesis, given that the vast preponderance of military power
in the world is held by the United States, and given that country' s
frequent resort to force.

The first half of the book is devoted to an account of British diplomatic
history during the years extending from the end of the First World War to
the entry of German troops into the Rhineland in 1936. While admitting that
no historical analogy can be exact, the authors' intent is to illustrate
their claim that the USA now occupies a position resembling that of Great
Britain during the 1920s. A steep postwar contraction of its military
forces left Great Britain incapable of meeting both its "commitments" (that
is, keeping the colonies under heel) and its "responsibilities," shown by
its "unwillingness and inability to use adequate military force." The
failure to embark on military adventures, the Kagans claim, sent a signal
of weakness, which eventually culminated in Hitler's rise, and the Second
World War. Similarly, they assert, "timidity" and U. S. military "weakness"
has allowed hostile powers to flourish today, leaving the United States
unprepared if China launches "a policy of expansion and hegemony," Russia
rearms, Iraq "strikes again," or Iran seeks "hegemony."

The second section, 'The New World Order,' concerns U. S. foreign policy
during the post-Reagan period, arguing that the United States has "an
obligation to lead" the world. Analyzing the examples of the Gulf War,
interventions in Somalia and Haiti, confrontation with North Korea and
military actions in the Balkans, the authors bemoan what they see as a
policy of U. S. "preference for `economic leverage' and `negotiated
settlements' to the effective and necessary use of armed might." It is
difficult to reconcile this argument with the historical record, and in
marshaling supporting facts the Kagans exhibit a casual approach to
historical research. At its most trivial level, sloppy research is
exhibited by their continual misspelling of the name of the
no-longer-obscure Bosnian town of Srebrenica, and placing the Croatian
army' s Operation Storm five months too early at March 4, 1995. More
significantly, they strive to hammer the round pegs of history into the
square holes of their thesis.

As it would require a book to catalog all of this book's distortions and
misrepresentations, only a few examples can be mentioned. The authors claim
that "removing all U. S. nuclear weapons from Korean soil" in 1992 was an
"American olive branch" (and thus a regrettable sign of weakness). No olive
branch this, as military thinking at the time held these weapons to be
obsolete, prompting President Bush's removal of U. S. tactical nuclear
artillery shells from South Korea in 1992 simultaneously with similar
reductions in Europe. The Gulf War had demonstrated the greater tactical
utility of high-yield "smart" bombs over uncontrollable nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, reports indicate that strategic aircraft-borne nuclear weapons
remained in the American arsenal in South Korea.

Predictably, the authors feel that the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in North
Korea was used for weapons development. Following several inspections by
representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),
"Pyongyang . . . denounced [an] IAEA official as an `agent of the CIA' and
refused to cooperate with the IAEA at all," which implied an attempt to
cover up a weapons program. In fact, ongoing inspections were halted only
when the North Koreans discovered that inspectors were indeed gathering
military intelligence and passing it along to U. S. officials. Although the
inspections soon resumed, confrontation escalated. Plans for a U. S.
assault on North Korea never came to fruition, the authors write with
evident disappointment, because the "happy conclusion" that North Korea
would be defeated was outweighed by fears over the likely "carnage," thus
staying the hand of U. S. violence. "American victory, in 1994, was never
in doubt. The question at all times was `How much would it cost?' The
answer to that question was always `Far too much.' And so the Clinton
administration regularly sought to avoid military confrontation, even when
diplomacy was failing." The millions of ordinary Koreans who would have
paid with their lives for that "American victory" concern the authors not
at all. Korean lives meant nothing to the Clinton administration either,
for it wasn't U. S. recalcitrance that prevented the Korean peninsula being
plunged into war. As American forces amassed for a military assault in June
1994, then-President of South Korea Kim Young-Sam warned U. S. ambassador
James Laney that another war would turn all of Korea into a bloodbath and
that South Korea "would not move even a single soldier" in support of the
U. S. war. Kim then phoned President Clinton, arguing with him for 32
minutes before Clinton finally relented. That, plus former President Jimmy
Carter's timely diplomatic intervention defused the threat of the Clinton
administration's "diplomacy" by bombs. For the authors, the failure to bomb
North Korea was intolerable. North Korea had "violated the rules on
international order to achieve its ends and avoided punishment by the
world-class power" of the United States. Evading its "world
responsibilities," the United States "flinched for fear," and "turned to
appeasement rather than risk confrontation." Such emotive language is
frequently employed throughout the text.

A crisis over the nuclear issue arose once again on the Korean peninsula
when the Bush Administration falsely accused North Korea of admitting to a
nuclear weapons program. This deliberate misrepresentation, coupled with
the Bush Administration's inclusion of North Korea in its dubious "axis of
evil" and as a potential target in policy papers advocating the use of
nuclear weapons, derailed the 1994 agreement that had settled the earlier
conflict. The final blow to the agreement came when Washington halted its
monthly shipments of heavy fuel oil, the only provision of the 1994
agreement that the United States had not yet violated. The cutoff compelled
North Korea to announce that it would resume construction of its plutonium
nuclear plants to make up for the resulting energy deficit. Washington
responded by cutting food aid and pressuring nations in the region to sever
economic ties with North Korea.

Turning to the Balkans, the authors point out that "Yugoslavia's federal
constitution provided for a rotating presidency, and a Croat was due to
take his turn on May 15, 1991." True enough, but then the Kagans add: "The
incumbent Serb, however, refused to be replaced. This was in effect a
Serbian coup d' etat." Contrary to this claim, the incumbent Serb, Borisav
Jovic, did step down, leaving the post of president vacant. Stipe Mesic,
the Croat who was scheduled to assume the post, was not allowed to do so
because he had announced that as president he would act to break apart
Yugoslavia. Already he had participated in decisions involving illegal arms
shipments to secessionist forces in Croatia. Nor do the authors mention
that Western threats and pressure forced Yugoslavia to accept Mesic as its
president. As the secessionist crisis intensified, Mesic's obstruction
included blocking the work of the government by refusing to convene a
session of the presidential council. By the time Western states recognized
the secession of Croatia and Slovenia, Mesic announced to the Croatian
Parliament, "I have fulfilled my Task - Yugoslavia is no more." The
historical record contrasts sharply with the Kagan's "Serbian coup d'etat."

As secessionist war flared in Croatia, "the Europeans rejected any use of
force," and "limited their actions to sending in unarmed volunteer monitors
in white uniforms that made them look like ice cream vendors," the authors
comment in sarcastic vein. In fact, Western European nations did rather
more. Western nations, primarily Germany and Austria, provided massive arms
shipments to secessionist forces in Croatia and Slovenia. German advisors
even took part in the fighting by handling Armbrust anti-tank missiles
themselves. Western threats to impose sanctions and take military action
forced Yugoslavia to cease defending its territorial integrity, thus
launching the cycle of secession that would ultimately cost the lives of
tens of thousands and produce as many as two million refugees. Western
policy actually closely coincided with that advocated by the authors,
lacking only bombs falling on Belgrade. For the Kagans, there is no problem
so complex that it can't be solved by killing people.

Their mendacious imagination frequently conjures wild fantasies. "The air
force of the Yugoslav Federation attacked Bosnian towns," they declare. In
1994, "Pyongyang threatened to invade South Korea." Such fanciful claims
have no basis in fact. Nor are the Kagans reluctant to misrepresent. "Soon
the Serbs controlled two-thirds of Bosnia," they write, implying
territorial conquest. For historical reasons, Muslims in Bosnia were
primarily urban and the mainly rural Serbs always resided on two-thirds of
the territory of Bosnia. By ignoring this point, the authors seek to paint
a more menacing picture.

A sustained NATO bombing campaign against Bosnian Serb forces from August
30 through early September 1995 brought a peace agreement, they write. In
fact, the Bosnian Serb Assembly announced its acceptance of Western peace
terms three days prior to the bombing. Agreement would have come much
sooner had it not been for U. S. insistence that Bosnian Serbs would not be
permitted to establish links with Yugoslavia similar to those the Bosnian
Muslim-Croatian Federation had already established with Croatia. Agreement
became possible only when the United States temporarily dropped that demand
just long enough for a peace agreement to be signed. The Kagans will have
none of that. It was bombing that did the trick. "Air attacks had brought
an end to fighting and encouraged the hope that the threat of force,
combined with diplomacy, would work again in the future, if needed." Here
we come to the point of this lesson, and why the authors must insist that
it was bombing three days after acceptance of peace that ended the war.
This must be seen as an example offering "the hope" for future application
of military power as an instrument of policy.

"Even so," the book claims, "the peace achieved at Dayton showed the
costliness and timidity of previous hesitation to use force as a solution."
Quoting what they call "an experienced observer" - meaning a hack writer in
agreement with them - they claim that had military action been applied
earlier, President Clinton "could have ended the war and saved thousands of
lives." In actuality, thousands of lives could have been saved without
meddling by the United States. In 1992, before war ever broke out in
Bosnia, representatives of the three communities signed an agreement in
Lisbon establishing a political solution for Bosnia. U. S. Ambassador
Warren Zimmerman encouraged the Muslim representative, Alija Izetbegovic,
to renounce the plan he had just signed and to instead seek total control
of the republic. Disavowing the plan, Izetbegovic declared the secession of
Bosnia from Yugoslavia and issued orders for his forces to attack Yugoslav
troops in their barracks. U. S. intervention brought war to Bosnia.
Similarly, one year later, peace negotiations verged on success, when the
United States intervened to smash the process and put an end to the threat
of peace.

America is indeed in danger, as the authors contend. But the danger lies
not with foreign military threats. It lies with the manifestation of the
extreme right-wing ideology advocated by the authors. The title of the
closing section of the book, "America, Wake Up!", elicits a snide
association with the Nazi rally cry, "Germany Awake," given the authors'
advocacy of military domination. The book quotes approvingly Colin Powell's
reference to the United States as "the preeminent force for stability in
the world." Recently, the New Haven Register reported Donald Kagan as
saying that "the world is safest when nations like the United States have a
very strong preponderance of power of every kind - because we' re the least
likely to use it." Just how unlikely is the United States to use that power
can be gauged by examining recent history. This "preeminent force for
stability in the world" waged war against Vietnam at the cost of over two
million dead, bombed Cambodia, invaded Grenada and Panama, bombed Libya,
sponsored an invasion of Cuba and brought war to Nicaragua through proxy
forces. It engaged in the largest covert operation in history in its
support for Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, casting that nation into
medieval barbarity - a policy which recently redounded against the American
people. It provided aid and arms to the Khmer Rouge as they waged guerrilla
war following their ouster from power in Cambodia. It provided Iraq with
arms and satellite photos in support of its invasion of Iran that resulted
in 1.7 million dead. It fueled the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo by sending
arms to secessionist forces. It bombed Yugoslavia, utterly destroying its
economic structure. It killed a quarter of a million Iraqis during the Gulf
War, and untold thousands more through the imposition of sanctions. It
supported a military coup in Indonesia and encouraged the subsequent
slaughter of over half a million people. By no means is this list
exhaustive, but for the Kagans, all this is mere "timidity," exhibiting
weakness rather than the requisite escalation of military aggression.

One assumes the Kagans are happy men these days. The Bush administration
has requested an increase of $45 billion in defense spending for fiscal
year 2003, and plans to spend an astonishing $2.1 trillion on the military
over the next five years. The Bush administration has also ordered the
Pentagon to develop plans for the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons
in various hypothetical scenarios against Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North
Korea, Libya and Syria. The most aggressive elements within the
administration, led by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy
Paul Wolfowitz, have gained the upper hand, pushing the invasion of Iraq,
an action the Kagans strongly supported. New military involvement is
contemplated in several nations, all under the cover of the "war against
terrorism."

The book provides the ideological underpinning for those efforts, and
Donald Kagan has appeared as a witness before the House Armed Services
Committee. He and his ideas are not without influence, as Donald Kagan is a
member - along with Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz - of
the right-wing Project for the New American Century, which aims "to make
the case and rally support for American global leadership," and advocates a
"Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." He is also on
the advisory board of the New Atlantic Initiative, along with Rumsfeld and
Secretary of State Colin Powell.

This is not an easy book to read. Its style is characterized by
often-leaden prose and a liberal sprinkling of unattributed quotations
presented as pronouncements, forcing the reader to continually refer to the
notes to discover who is being quoted. Furthermore, the frequent
distortions instill doubts about the accuracy of information presented
regarding events that may be less familiar for the reader. The importance
of the book resides in its influence and the revelation of the mindset of
those shaping current U. S. foreign policy.

Gregory Elich

* While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to
Peace Today, by Donald Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 2000. $32.50; paper, $17.95. Pp. ix, 483.


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