Seven
BUSH’S NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY:
A CRITIQUE OF UNITED STATES’
NEO-IMPERIALISM
William C. Gay
Many individuals domestically and internationally who strive for peace and
justice are concerned about the new National Security Strategy issued by the
George W. Bush Administration in September 2002.1 William Galston, for
example, writes in a recent issue of Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly:
A global strategy based on the new Bush doctrine of preemption means
the end of the system of international institutions, laws and norms that
we have worked to build for more than a half a century. To his credit,
Kissinger recognizes this; he labels Bush’s new approach “revolutionary” and declares, “Regime change as a goal for military intervention
challenges the international system.”2
Does the new Bush doctrine end the international legal system? Is the new
Bush doctrine making policy declarations that are unprecedented in United
States history?
While I share many of the concerns critics are expressing about the new
national security strategy, I contend that the more serious issue is not the ways
in which this strategy represents a departure from those of prior United States
presidential administrations but the actual practices of the Bush administration
that appeal to this strategy. I will indicate how this new national security strategy does not represent much of a shift in policy, capability, or practice. Instead, this strategy Bush is using the strategy as an enabling device for a disturbing resurgence of United States global imperialism that serves interests
that are actually opposed to the political rhetoric of the value of nations aiming for democracy and a market economy. I conclude by commenting on pursuing genuinely democratic values. I suggest that if the United States were
truly committed to democratic values, then any military interventions would
require the prior consent of the people. Otherwise what the United States refer
to as “bringing democracy” to a people will be more like a militarily enforced
authoritarianism that too closely resembles old-style exploitive imperialism.
2
Index
[In the paragraph above, in the third sentence, which you took out of
passive voice, remove “this strategy” so it reads “Instead, Bush is…” In the
last sentence the first verb should be “refers.” You make an inquiry at the end
of the penultimate sentence. Regarding direct and representative democracy, I
put in quotation a passage you could use. I think it is a bit long; you can decide whether to simply leave the text as is, use the new text, or edited the new
text. Here it is: “While in a direct democracy this consent should involve a
referendum on whether to go to war that a majority of those who vote support,
in a representative democracy, such as the United States, the legislative representatives of the people should express this consent in a vote on a declaration
of war that that is supported by a majority of the total number of the legislators who vote.]
The National Security Strategy document lapses into fundamental logical
fallacies. George W. Bush opens with a three page statement he signed on 17
September 2002, followed by thirty-one pages of text. By my count, Bush’s
rhetoric-filled preface contains eight question-begging epithets and a minimum of four false statements. The following text contains twenty-two question-begging epithets, nine instances of special pleading, and over a dozen
false statements. The document also has over a dozen references to weapons
of mass destruction, but directly or indirectly refers to preemptive military
strikes only five times. Some of the indirect references are euphemistic, including phrases such as “destroying the threat before it reaches our borders”
and “proactive counter proliferation efforts” to designate a preemptive military attack.3 In this regard, members of the Bush administration are like almost
all political and military leaders in their misleading use of the language of
war.4
[I think I will pass on your inquiry where you wonder if I might give examples of false claims. To do so would be to make further claims that could
be viewed as requiring support, and I think that to do so would lengthen this
aside unduly.]
If students submitted such highly fallacious work in an entry-level college course that stresses complying with basic principles of critical thinking,
they would deserve a failing grade. Unfortunately, political documents, on
which hinge the fate of the earth, do not adhere to the standards of logic; so, I
will forego giving primacy to a logical critique of this national security strategy. Instead, I will turn to an assessment based on a comparison of the Bush
administration with prior administrations.
1. Not a New Policy
Index
3
Many Americans think that the Bush administration’s national security strategy represents a departure from past policy of the United States government.
Even the national security strategy document admits:
[I think something like the original “However” is needed at the beginning of
the above sentence to show that the new strategy rejects the popular view.
You could use a phrase like, “On the contrary,” for this purpose.]
The United States long maintained the option of preemptive actions to
counter a sufficient threat to our national security . . . . To forestall or
prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries the United States will, if
necessary, act preemptively.5
Since the beginning of the nuclear era, the United States has never had a
“No First Use” policy. At a time when the threat of weapons of mass destruction is touted by the United States government, we need to remind ourselves
that the first United States policy on nuclear weapons was a policy of use. 6
Atom bombs were used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, as a different but more effective means to execute the practice of “obliteration bombing” inaugurated in World War II, such as was done as done in Leipzig and
Dresden, Germany.7 Obliteration bombing refers to the intentional targeting of
civilians to instill terror. Then, throughout the Cold War, the United States
maintained within the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) a policy of
first use of tactical nuclear weapons. The list goes on. We need to be careful
about how terms such as weapons of mass destruction are used. Too often, we
have a case of special pleading where our weapons are “defensive” and our
opponents “threaten” us with weapons of mass destruction.8
[Is the article “the” needed before “NATO”? It sounds strange to me.]
My point here is descriptive, not prescriptive, with respect to the United
States retaining the option of first use. From a moral perspective, this position
has obvious limitations, as Steven Lee has so effectively shown. He notes:
What are the moral issues raised by first use policy? It is, of course, a
moral imperative to keep the risk of nuclear war, and the risk of aggression, as low as possible. Thus, a first use policy would be morally preferable only if it was a more effective deterrent. As the usability paradox
suggests, however, the judgment of deterrence effectiveness must take
account not only of the risk of aggression, but also the risk that a conventional war would escalate to the nuclear level.9
Unfortunately, just as political documents are not held to the standards of
logic, even so policy statements are not restrained by principles of morality.
2. Not a New Capability
4
Index
Many Americans think that the Bush administration’s national security strategy requires capabilities not possessed previously by the United States military.
After all, we are fighting a supposed “war on terrorism” that requires different
methods than conventional war. The national security strategy puts the issue of
capability in the following way:
The United States must and will maintain the capability to defeat any attempt by an enemy—whether a state or non-state actor—to impose its
will on the United States, our allies, or our friends.10
I am afraid the capability that the United States needs in its war on terrorism requires a quantitative increase in killing, not a qualitative change in
capability. As David Luban observes in another recent article in Philosophy
and Public Affairs Quarterly:
The aim of war is not to kill the enemy—killing the enemy is the means
used to achieve the real end, which is to force capitulation. In the War on
Terrorism, no capitulation is possible. That means that the real aim of the
war is, quite simply, to kill or capture all of the terrorists—to keep on
killing and killing, capturing and capturing, until they are all gone. 11
The United States has long had the capability of killing and will continue to do
so but without any defined end in sight.
Assessing capability is different than assessing policy declarations. Since
World War II, the United States has always had the capability of a first
strike.12 As I observed in an earlier essay on the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative (popularly known as “Star Wars”):
Assessment of systems should not occur in abstraction from their possible use. Since they can be used to help initiate attack or to help respond
to attack . . . the designation . . . defensive introduces a vacuous contrast
that can be quite deceptive. Just as the Defense Department is in charge
of war, even so defensive systems are instruments of war.13
The United States already had the capability to kill terrorists and can now
designate the execution of this capability as a war on terrorism. Likewise,
since the United States government controls the politics of definition, the
United States government can define the war on terrorism as defensive. Over a
decade ago, Robert Holmes observed:
Index
5
The killing of children does not become less reprehensible because done
from a plane, by soldiers trained in warfare and acting under orders from
a duly elected leader than when done clandestinely by men acting on
their own or in concert with a few conspirators.14
3. Not a New Practice
Many Americans think that the Bush administration’s national security strategy involves practices not undertaken by prior administrations. It initiates
preemptive military action and does not restrain its actions based on a lack of
United Nations support. The Bush administration acts unilaterally. It overthrows governments and assassinates political figures in other countries.
I do not believe that the Bush administration is engaging in new practices. But my position could be challenged because the Bush administration is
changing some definitions to present its actions to sound as if they are in line
with practices of previous administrations. The new national security strategy
states:
Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy
of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat . . . We must adapt
the concept of immanent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.15
Here, Bush admits a history of preemptive military strikes. The difference is
that he wishes to expand the scope of what counts as a threat that warrants a
preemptive attack.
Despite this difference, the historical record plainly shows how the United States has regularly taken preemptive military action. Since World War II,
almost every United States President has ordered initiation of military action.
The United States has threatened and taken military action every decade for
many decades. Recent examples include, among others, Grenada, Panama,
Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti. With the Bush administration, we can add Afghanistan and Iraq to the list. While the mainstream media do not say much
critical of these interventions, some professional groups have taken on this
responsibility. Concerned Philosophers for Peace is an organization that has
tried to expose and assess such military actions; over the last twenty years, it
has published five issues of its newsletter on these military actions, and several individual articles and special sections in other issues of the newsletter.16
4. New Readiness to Intervene Militarily
6
Index
So, if the new national security strategy in many ways represents continuity in
policy, capability, and practice, how is it different? I contend that the significant difference is in the new readiness of the Bush administration to execute
military interventions. The dissolution of the Soviet Union may have been a
necessary condition for this shift, but it was not sufficient. The Bush administration is dismantling the strategy of the deterrence wing of national security
strategists and is implementing the strategy of the war-fighting wing of national security strategists. Not only in words but also in deeds, the Bush administration has abandoned the self-deterrence that prevailed throughout the Cold
War. The shift is not only expressed in policy but also in action.
Only a decade ago, this position was neither policy nor practice, though
it was advocated by the war-fighting wing of the strategic community who
wanted a theory of victory not curtailed by self-deterrence.17 Anatol Rapoport,
famous for his work in game theory, connects this position with the ways in
which the strategic community altered revulsion to war in the latter half of the
twentieth century. He states:
Whatever inhibitions against the use of war as an instrument of national
policy may have been generated by the “de-romantization” or “deglorification” of war throughout most of our century, these inhibitions
were apparently neutralized by the concomitant “intellectualization” or
“rationalization” of war.18
The Bush administration’s national security strategy explicitly rejects deterrence as an adequate means of protecting the interests of the United States.
Section 5, titled “Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and
Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction,” makes the assertion:
Deterrence based only upon the threat of retaliation is less likely to work
against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks, gambling with
the lives of their people and the wealth of their nations.19
The approach of Bush’s war on terrorism is self-defeating. In David Luban’s article in Philosophy and Public Affairs Quarterly, he also observes:
Of course, no one expects that terrorism will ever disappear completely.
Everyone understands that new anti-American extremists, new terrorists,
will always arise and always be available for recruitment and deployment. Everyone understands that even if Al-Qaeda is destroyed or decapitated, other groups, with other leaders, will arise in its place. It follows,
then, that the War on Terrorism will be a war that can only be abandoned, never concluded. The War has no natural resting point, no mo-
Index
7
ment of victory or finality. It requires a mission of killing and capturing,
in territories all over the globe, that will go on in perpetuity. It follows as
well that the suspension of human rights implicit in the hybrid war-law
model is not temporary but permanent.20
Continuing loss of lives will be coupled with continuing loss of human
rights. The Bush administration places its version of national security above
the traditional understanding of a democratic society as one in which basic
human rights are respected and protected.
In his article on “Human Rights,” David Boersema notes the both the
Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States “incorporated the concept of natural rights into the framework of governmental systems.”21 In a related article, Ioanna Kuçuradi contends that human rights articulate “ethical principles for the treatment of individuals” and “ethical demands” for the laws and policies of social organizations and governments.22
Kuçuradi, like Boersema, connects the giving prominence to human rights
with the emergence of the United Nations. Of particular importance in this
regard is the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” that was passed by the
United Nations in 1948.23 Subsequent conventions have made additional and
more explicit assertions about civil and political rights (1966), economic, social, and cultural rights (1966), and women’s rights (1979). Alison Dundes
Renteln echoes these views in her prior and even more extensive article on
human rights. In her article, she treats explicitly the applicability of human
rights even to military interventions, wars, and civil conflicts. Since the United
States has been a signatory to these declarations and conventions, when the
Bush administration fails to follow these fundamental principles of human
rights in its “war on terrorism,” democratic values are eroded.
[Somehow the reference for Alison Dundes Renteln got omitted. At the
end of the antepenultimate or penultimate sentence above, add note #24.
Then, in the remainder of the essay increase each note number by one, beginning with the Plato reference in the next paragraph being note #25.]
5. Conclusion: Neo-Imperialism without the Ring of Gyges
In the Republic, Plato uses the story of the Ring of Gyges to show how the
lure of invisibility illustrates the desire to do wrong with impunity. Plato
thinks that, since we lack such a ring, we settle for a situation intermediate
between the extreme of ourselves being able to do wrong with impunity and
ourselves suffering wrong with no means of redress.24
If an individual were strong enough, a ring of Gyges would be unnecessary. One could take what one wants, one could do what one wants, and no
one could do anything about it. This scenario is quite similar to the one described by Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan. For Hobbes, in the state of na-
8
Index
ture, such a situation leads to the “war of all against all.”25 We know well that
under his system, once nations form, supposedly to protect the lives of their
citizens, the different nations stand relative to one another in the same relation
as did individuals in a state of nature. Instead of a community of nations, we
have nation states standing in a potential, if not actual, war of all against all.
One of the purposes of establishing a common authority with the capability of enforcing its dictates is to end the state of war. Within their borders,
nation states have long been able, many times for decades or even centuries, to
achieve such peace (negative though it often is). Internationally, no common
authority has yet to be forged by means of the consent of nations, though many
leaders have worked to strengthen the United Nations in the hope that it might
some day function in this manner. The other route is imposition. Imposition of
such authority with the capability of enforcement is non-democratic. The usual
term in political philosophy and political science for the non-democratic pursuit of global hegemony is imperialism.
The Bush administration is implementing a neo-imperialism that does
not listen to dissenting voice abroad or even at home and that acts unilaterally
when other nations do not join forces with the United States. The national
security strategy even states, “[w]e will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary,
to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively.”26 The Bush administration may at times use clandestine operations in a manner analogous to
the possibilities offered by the ring of Gyges. The Bush administration is quite
prepared to pursue its interest in full public view because it feels confident
that it can take military actions with impunity. No more “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but “speak loudly and swing that big stick.” Or, as Robert
Kaplan puts it in his book Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, which reads like a manifesto for the Bush doctrine, “In the twentyfirst century, . . . we will initiate hostilities . . . and we will justify it morally
after the fact.”27
[Kaplan’s book title needs to be in italics, Warrior…Ethos.]
If American citizens want to promote democracy around the world, instead of seeking to impose democracy, then regime change may need to begin
at home. While we should not exploit the absence of self-deterrence that the
current mono-polar world facilitates, we likewise do not want to return to the
self-deterrence that was attained at the price of the “balance of terror” during
the bi-polar Cold War. That form of self-deterrence was not only insufficient
but also dangerous. Instead, what we need is a multi-polar world that promotes
not only mutual deterrence but also, and maybe for the first time, real democracy determining United States foreign policy and international relations.28
True democracy would require that the civilian population actually control foreign policy and international relations in some meaningful way. Such a
world could then attain the prospect that neither the United States nor any
Index
9
other country would engage in unilateral military intervention, either overt or
covert. As Immanuel Kant realized over two centuries ago, whenever the consent of citizens is not necessary for waging war, genuine peace is not possible.
He supported the formation of “republican states,” commonly referred to as
democratic nations.29 In such a world, neither the United States nor any other
country would any longer engage in the economic domination and exploitation
of other nations.30 The achievement of real democracy would truly usher in a
new national security strategy and a new world order worthy of these titles.
NOTES
1. “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America” 17 September 2002, http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html (accessed 25 May 2006).
2. William A. Galston, “The Perils of Preemptive War,” Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly, 22:4 (Fall 2002), p. 3.
3. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, pp. 6 and 14
respectively.
4. Cf. William Gay, “The Language of War and Peace,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 2, ed. Lester Kurtz (San Diego, Calif.: Academic
Press, 1999), pp. 303–312.
[For consistency, we should put my name as William C. Gay in Note #4.]
5. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 15.
6. William C. Gay and Michael Pearson, The Nuclear Arms Race (Chicago,
Ill.: American Library Association, 1987), p. 42.
[For consistency, we can leave my name as is, though the actual book does not use my
middle initial. If you are adding middle, the middle initial for Pearson is A.]
7. John C. Ford, “The Morality of Obliteration Bombing,” War and Morality,
ed. Richard A. Wasserstrom (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1970).
8. William C. Gay, “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Global Studies Encyclopedia, eds. Ivan Ivanovich Mazour, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Chumakov, and William
C. Gay, (Moscow: Raduga, 2003), p. 537.
[Do the listing of editors in Note #8 the same as you decide to do for us in Note #6 in
Chapter 2. The book has I.I. Mazour, A.N. Chumakov, and W.C. Gay. Again, Chumakov uses Alexander for the Roman spelling of his first name.]
9. Steven Lee, “First Use,” An Encyclopedia of War and Ethics, ed. Donald A.
Wells (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996), p. 144.
10. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 30.
11. David Luban, “The War on Terrorism and Human Rights,” Philosophy and
Public Policy Quarterly, 22:3 (Summer 2002), p. 13.
12. Gay and Pearson, The Nuclear Arms Race, p. 41.
13. William C. Gay, “Star Wars and the Language of Defense,” Just War, Nonviolence and Nuclear Deterrence: Philosophers on War and Peace, eds. Duane L.
Cady and Richard Werner (Wakefield, N.H.: Longwood Academic, 1991), p. 250.
14. Robert Holmes, “Terrorism and Violence: A Moral Perspective,” Issues in
War and Peace: Philosophical Inquiries, eds. Joseph C. Kunkel and Kenneth H. Klein
10
Index
(Wolfeboro, N.H.: Longwood Academic, 1989), p. 118.
[The page number should be 119.]
15. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 15.
16. “Special Issue on The War against Iraq,” Concerned Philosophers for
Peace Newsletter, 11:1 (Spring 1991), pp. 1–16; “Special Issue on Bosnia and Somalia,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 13:1 (Spring 1993), pp. 1–20;
“Special Issue on Haiti,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 14:1 (Fall
1994), pp. 1–20; “Special Section on Kosovo,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace
Newsletter, 192 (Fall 1999), pp. 13–16; “Special Double Issue on Terrorism and War
in the 21st Century,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 21:1-2 (Fall and
Spring 2001), pp. 1–40; and “Special Double Issue on Assessing War against Iraq and
Terrorism,” Concerned Philosophers For Peace Newsletter, 14:1 (Fall and Spring
2002), pp. 1–40.
17. Colin Gray, “Nuclear Strategy: A Case for a Theory of Victory,” International Security, 4 (Summer 1979); cf. Strategic Studies and Public Policy: The American Experience (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982).
18. Anatol Rapoport, “Decision Theory and Game Theory,” Encyclopedia of
Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 1, ed. Lester Kurtz (San Diego: Academic Press,
1999), p. 548.
19. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 15.
20. Luban, “The War on Terrorism and Human Rights,” pp. 13–14.
21. David Boersema, “Human Rights,” Global Studies Encyclopedia, eds. Alexander N. Chumakov, William C. Gay, and Ivan I. Mazour (Moscow: Raduga, 2003),
pp. 240–245, esp. 244.
[The names of the editors are not in correct order; it should be Mazour, Chumakov,
and Gay. However, since the work is cited in Note #8 above, it probably should not
list the editors and only give the book title as in the next note.]
22. Ionna Kuçuradi, “Human Rights, from the Philosophical Point of View,”
Global Studies Encyclopedia, pp. 245–249, esp. 245.
23. United Nations, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” adopted and
proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948,
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html (accessed 26 May 2006).
[Here is where the omitted note needs to be and as #24 with the remainder of the notes
increased by one number. The reference is:
Alison Dundes Renteln, “Human Rights,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 2, pp. 167-178.
This abbreviated form can be used since the full citation of this book is given in Note
#18.]
24. Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1945).
25. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
26. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, p. 6.
27. Robert D. Kaplan, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan
Ethos (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 130–131.
28. Tatiana Alekseeva, “Living in the World of a ‘Unipolar System’: Alternatives and Trends,” Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Per-
Index
11
spectives, eds. William C. Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva (Amsterdam and New York:
Rodopi, 2004), pp. 9–20.
[This book lists us as William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva. For consistency, if you add
my middle initial, you should do with here what you did with Pearson in Note #6. The
middle initial for Alekseeva is also A.]
29. Immanuel Kant, “Zum ewigen Frieden,” Kants Leben und Werke, Band 8,
Abhandlungen nach 1781 (Berlin: n.p., 1923), p. 349; English tran., Perpetual Peace
and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1983), p. 112.
30. William C. Gay, “Economic Democracy: The Final Frontier,” Democracy and
the Quest for Justice, pp. 121–136.