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The unprecedented September 11 terror attacks on the United States have prompted the country to reconsider and adjust its national security strategy. One year after the event, the national security strategy of the United States has taken shape, with unilateralism and preemptive use of force at its core.
Experts in Washington believe that this new strategy, reflecting both the new national security environment the US faces and the intrinsic conservatism of the Republican administration of US President George W. Bush, will significantly influence the current world order.
One of the most important factors influencing the Bush administration as it formulated its national security strategy is what it calls "the new security environment in the 21st century,"in which the nature of the threats to the United States has significantly changed compared with the past.
In the Cold War era the United States based its strategies on containment of the singular and explicit threat it faced from the Soviet Union. As the end of the Cold War ushered in a new era the US faces multiple and uncertain threats.
After the Sept. 11 terror attacks the United States pinpointed terrorism and weapons of mass destruction as the biggest threats. With constant warnings from government officials that the United States will incur huge losses if terrorists obtain weapons of mass destruction, combating terrorism has become the centerpiece of Washington's national security strategy.
The new strategy puts unprecedented attention on reinforcing homeland security. After going through two world wars virtually unscathed and never having seen its homeland attacked by foreign forces, the United States was profoundly shocked on September 11, 2001 when that heartland was struck. Hundreds of millions saw it on television.
The terror attack not only shook Americans' confidence in their homeland security, but also exposed serious security shortcomings.In the aftermath of the terror attacks, prevention of further terror attacks on US soil became the top priority of the Bush administration.
In its Quadrennial Defense Review Report presented to Congress on Sept. 30, last year, the Defense Department put the defense of the country as its primary mission, a shift from past military strategies that paid more attention to overseas military goals.
Underscoring the new priorities, the Pentagon announced in April the creation of the Northern Command to coordinate responses to terrorist attacks within the nation's borders. Under previous command arrangements, set up after World War II, responsibility for defending US territory was shared among numerous commands overseeing US military actions around the world.
In an effort to prevent terrorists from penetrating into the United States, the Bush administration has taken a series of measures to tighten immigration control and beef up border security in the past year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under criticism for its performance before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is undergoing a major reorganization in an apparent bid to alter its fundamental mission, from conventional crime fighting to countering terrorism.
In the biggest government reshuffle for half a century, Bush proposed in June the creation of a Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department to bring all or parts of 22 federal agencies under one roof. A bill on this new agency is widely expected to gain congressional approval before November's mid-term election.
The priority of anti-terrorism has also been reflected in the Bush administration's foreign policy in the past year.
On Sept. 20, 2001, Bush delivered this message to the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." That doctrine --"almost amounting to the declaration of American hegemony" in the words of Michael Hirsh, former Foreign Editor of Newsweek -- has redefined US relationships around the world.
In the past year, this doctrine has helped the United States significantly improve its relationship with Russia and Pakistan. The ups-and-downs in Washington's relations with Saudi Arabia and Bush's labeling of Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as an "axis of evil" were both the outcomes of the doctrine.
Meanwhile, Bush has used the war against terrorism to justify his "preemptive strike" strategy. In his speech at West Point on June 1, Bush said a new strategy, instead of the Cold War doctrines of deterrence and containment, was needed to deal with the new threats.
Bush said deterrence - the promise of massive retaliation against nations - "means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend." He also warned that it would be too late if the United States waited for threats to fully materialize.
"We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge," he said, calling on Americans to be "ready for preemptive action when necessary." This strategy will be written into Bush's first national security strategy report expected to be presented to Congress this fall.
In contrast to the former Clinton administration's strategy of participation in international affairs and expansion of the market economy to safeguard the US position as the sole superpower in the world, the Bush administration relies more on the country's military might to consolidate the unipolar world.
From its very inception the Bush administration actively sought to increase military spending, with this year's military budget reaching a record high of 379 billion dollars, and pursued the deployment of a missile defense system. "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge," Bush said in the West Point speech.
The Sept. 11 event offered the Bush administration an opportunity to show off and expand its military force. The United States launched a military strike in Afghanistan less than one month after the terror attacks, and then sent soldiers to several Central Asian countries and expanded its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region so as to prevent the emergence of potential competitors.
Believing that the United States can go by its own rules because of its pre-eminent military and political power, the Bush administration has pursued a foreign policy widely criticized for unilateralism, asserting US interests without respect for multilateral agreements.
The United States refused to ratify and even threatened to withdraw from several international treaties on issues such as theban on nuclear tests, biological weapons control, missile defense,global warming and the International Criminal Court. These examples have demonstrated that even the need to fight terrorism has not changed the Bush administration's unilateralism and the intensified talk in Washington about a military strike on Iraq offers only another worrisome example.
Experts here now begin to use the word "neoimperial" to describe the Bush administration's strategy of reliance on military power and a unilateral pursuit of US interests.
G. John Ikenberry, professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice at Georgetown University, wrote in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine that this nascent neoimperial grand strategy, different from the mainstream strategies since the 1940s, threatens to rend the fabric of the international community and islikely to fail.
(Xinhua News Agency September 10, 2002)
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