Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act, is a column from today’s
Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070303.DOUG03/TPStory/International/columnists
Who will step in when America's Globocops stop policing?
PARIS -- I still think I have a T-shirt from the early nineties which shows a senior member of the Bush family, done up in Arnold Schwarzenegger garb, below the word "Globocop." Not very clever, but enduringly popular. Whether you support or abhor the view that the United States is, or should be, the "world's policeman," it has long been a phrase that can only really be applied to America.
February of 2007 may be remembered as the moment when that cliché turned mouldy and fell off the shelf. In a series of dramatic and subtle changes over the past few weeks, the U.S. has lost its central place in global law and order.
As I wrote last week, those European leaders who had been most co-operative with the war on terror are now backing away, frightened by the gross errors committed in the rendition-flights scandals, which are threatening to unseat senior officials and entire governments -- as they did in Italy last week. Prime Minister Romano Prodi saved his skin with a confidence vote this week, but he seems to have done so by distancing himself even further from his American allies, engaging in an angry and defiant exchange with Washington this week over the extradition of CIA agents who face criminal charges in Italy.
The events culminated with this week's announcement by Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, that she would be sitting down and negotiating with Iran and Syria, two countries that had heretofore been placed in the solitary-confinement cells of Washington's policy prison.
In the U.S., this was seen as a dramatic change of strategy. But on this side of the Atlantic, it was almost universally portrayed by diplomats and editorialists as a complete capitulation to the "European approach," which is based less on tough justice and more on compromise with one's moral opponents.
Is the U.S. being forced to act more like a social worker than a cop? Perhaps, because more important allies than Italy drifted away this month. Britain announced that it is retreating from its co-operation with the U.S. in Iraq and in some aspects of the war on terror. And later this year it will have a new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who aides tell me is eager to set himself apart from Tony Blair by looking away from the Atlantic (at least until the 2008 presidential election).
The Germans, despite having a conservative and nominally pro-American Chancellor, also made a dramatic turn last week. When Russian president Vladimir Putin made a menacing anti-American speech in Munich, calling for a return to the power politics of the Cold War, the German response seemed to give credence to his views -- the views of a man who supplies the lion's share of Germany's oil and gas. (At least furious American officials felt that this was what Germany had done, which amounts to the same thing).
But why would all this drifting away be taking place now? Look at a fairly startling poll taken by the BBC two weeks ago which interviewed more than 18,000 adults in 18 countries. Only 29 per cent said they saw the influence of the U.S. as "mainly positive" -- down from 40 per cent two years ago. Fifty-two per cent saw American influence as "mainly negative" -- the first time in the poll's history that a majority of the world's people had a pessimistic view of America.
This sort of opinion might not matter in Washington, but it matters to politicians in those countries where majority opinion has turned against the U.S. Increasingly, they can't afford to be seen as friends of Uncle Sam.
So America is ceasing to be the SWAT team of the world. Many of us will instinctively cheer this development, assuming it means that the United Nations and the International Criminal Court and NATO win more sway over world affairs and Washington will become more conciliatory, especially after the next election. But this would be missing the significance. To understand, look at the last time this happened.
The phrase "world's policeman" was first used in its current sense, as far as I can tell, in 1969 by White House officials. Richard Nixon, facing a growing catastrophe in Vietnam, angry voters, rising anti-Americanism and mounting economic troubles, announced a new Nixon doctrine: Rather than using its military to actively oppose communism and support democracies , the U.S. would withdraw its own troops and instead provide arms and money to countries that could help its aims. America, Mr. Nixon and his aides said, wouldn't be "the world's policeman" any more.
It was a shift from the aggressive idealism of the early Cold War to the calculating "realism" of the new era -- in effect, it marked the moment when the U.S. began supporting the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other non-democratic countries. And, by walking away from the "policeman" role, it marked the moment when the U.S. planted the seeds of extremism in many of today's trouble spots, such as Afghanistan and Iraq.
Has that strategy returned? Consider Seymour Hersh's article A Strategic Shift in this week's New Yorker. In Lebanon, he writes, the U.S. "has co-operated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."
That's one effect of the end of Globo-cop. Another was seen after Mr. Putin made his inflammatory Munich speech: He flew to the capitals of the Middle East, striking a series of nuclear and oil deals and engaging in the sort of beat-cop work that the Americans may be abandoning.
Why a Middle East tour? One of his supporters and confidants, General Leonid Grigoryevich Ivashov, explained to the Russian media that Mr. Putin was stepping into the vacuum created by U.S. decline, offering the world a welcome service.
"It indicates Russia's entry into the zone of American influence," he said. "But Russia today has a much greater potential in the Middle East than the United States, Britain, NATO and so on."
He explained that the people of the Middle East, Africa and Asia will be warmly welcoming Russia's assumption of the global policing role. "They were waiting for Russia not just in the world, waiting for Russia's say, its persistent and just say -- the world has long waited for this justice. . ."
Why does the world need Russia's policing? He offered an explanation that had echoes from continents away and centuries past: manifest destiny. "Russia, to a certain measure, tends to become a spiritual leader of Christianity and of the religions or civilizations."
So perhaps we have, at last, a less arrogant America in the world -- as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
If, as Saunders reports, for the Europeans this (the beginning of America’s withdrawal from
unilateralism) was
”almost universally portrayed by diplomats and editorialists as a complete capitulation to the "European approach," which is based less on tough justice and more on compromise with one's moral opponents” then the Euros are dumber than they look.
What this (the first stirrings of
neo-isolationism, if you like) really is a return to the
Nixon doctrine of America first.
I refer Army.ca members to Walter Russell Mead’s
Special providence. To use Mead’s analogue, America is shifting from a populist,
Jacksonian, to a more cautious,
Jeffersonian view of its place in the world. (Which is why I resurrected this thread.)
(It is important not to glamorize the
Nixon doctrine. President Nixon presided over two significant disasters in American policy: America’s defeat (no other word, I’m afraid) in Viet Nam and the subordination of Breton Woods to transitory political issues. The latter, arguably, did mote lasting harm than the former – although,
I believe that the full effects of America’s defeat in Viet Nam may not be felt until they are magnified by the impact of another defeat in Iraq.)
Saunders is right to raise the caution flag re: Russian assertiveness – but I believe he has the wrong target. The Russians may, in their own self interests
should, try to act a regional spoilers, here and there, but Russia remains a declining power; it is the Chinese who are on the rise. China’s current rise –there have been others – will not be smooth, neither were the rises (and falls) of Rome, the Mughals, the Spanish, the Brits and the Americans. There will be crises and setbacks as China stumbles its way to the top.
What about Canada?
I will reiterate what I have been harping on in these threads: crises = opportunity, but only for those who are ready and willing to seize them. Canada is neither.
We have, over the past
decade of darkness, to be sure, but beginning in earnest around 1970, been conducting an exercise in
unilateral disarmament. Regardless of the dangers – and they were real in ‘69/’70 when that
dumbkopf Trudeau began his campaign to convince Canadians to renounce the St Laurent/Pearson world view, and they were real again in 1995 when Chrétien emasculated an already weak military – Canadians, not just politicians and not just Québecers, have renounced the idea of being
ready to exploit opportunities because they are, broadly and deeply, not
willing to be leaders because leading implies risk taking and we, Canadians, are unwilling to risk our entitlements. Canadian debates about foreign policy and
grand strategy always remind me of Kissinger’s description of academic feuds. They are so bitter, he opined, because the stakes are so low! So it is with Canada: we forswear the gains (in every sector of our lives/society) which leading
will bring because of the short term pain our ‘free’ health care (or other
sacred trust social programmes)
might risk because some resources might have to be shared with our strategic priorities.
Canada could, at a modest cost, (2% of our $1 Trillion and growing GCP, year after year after year) play important leadership roles in the world – in areas which the US is vacating. Specifically:
In revitalizing the United Nations’
political machinery for crisis management. Although (see just below) the UN cannot manage military interventions beyond
some Chapter VI peacekeeping missions, it is uniquely well suited to manage the political processes necessary to allow peacemaking and subsequent peacekeeping missions to succeed. The decline in American
influence directly benefits the UN, Canada can and should help the UN to exploit its
potential gains by helping the UN to reform its political tools.
In revitalizing
international peacekeeping. With, in most cases, the UN doing the political work there is still a need for international peacekeeping. In some instances the UN can and should manage these operations but in
most cases these operations are likely to be beyond the administrative, logistical and
command capabilities of that organization. It is highly unlikely that the UN can ever be reformed in the ways necessary to give it the administrative, logistical and
command capabilities required – by its very nature and by its own rules the UN is condemned to administrative ineptitude, institutionalized corruption and operational paralysis. What is needed is a series of
coalitions of the willing, each custom tailored for a specific crisis. NATO is, right now, the framework of choice for forming these coalitions but NATO has some increasingly evident problems. It is too large and, for that reason, deep – possibly permanent – fissures have developed amongst the Europeans and between the European factions and the North Americans. A small, less formal – more flexible, ‘organization’ is required to ‘steer’ coalition building. Canada should be part of that small ‘organization.’
NATO is not dead and it should not be allowed to die. It has unique strength and virtues which can be shared with coalitions. But, the NATO monopoly should be challenged. Everything always works better when it is challenged by competition. There should be a smaller, looser competitor to NATO. It already exists, in part, in the ABCA (
Australia,
Britain,
Canada,
America) related fora. These groups – most of which include New Zealand, too – are small, loose/flexible,
nimble and are (were, anyway when I was involved) able to ‘lead’ NATO in areas like standardization – especially procedural standardization. (I think I can safely say that 85% of what NATO did in C3I standardization in the ‘80s and ‘90s was done in ABCA and then brought to NATO as, essentially, a
fait accompli.) The ABCA is, however, too small – it would benefit from some new blood: Singapore is almost a member, now,
I think – I’m pretty sure they monitor ABCA work very closely. India should be drawn, slowly but surely, into the group. Ditto NATO members Denmark, Netherlands and Norway. That would produce a military G-10 of sophisticated, democratic,
militarily capable nations – see
Ruxted and the UN’s own discussion of militarily capable.
The goal?
To give real, positive effect to the UN’s
raison d’être:
“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war ... to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small ... to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained ... to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” These are laudable, even noble goals which the UN has, consistently, failed to accomplish. Canada could, should help to rectify that litany of failure – if we are willing to face the challenge and embrace the opportunities.
Prime Minister Harper talks and talks and talks about Canada being a leader – are Canadians listening? If they are, do they believe? If they believe will they pay the price?
In my view: no. No and NO.
