“(A)lmost every political creed was adequate for winning independence. Liberal democracy (the United States in 1776, Eastern Europe in the 1980s and ‘90s), Communism (China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba), racism (the Boers of South Africa), militarism (any number of South American states), theocracy (Iran and Afghanistan in the 1980s), and even monarchy (Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century) all proved adequate foundations on which to base self-determination. … If force remained the essence of power and the final arbiter in politics, then the British today would rule India, the United States would preside over South Vietnam, the apartheid regime would survive in South Africa, the Community Party would rule over the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union would rule over Eastern Europe. That none of these things is the case testifies to the capacity of cooperative power to defeat superior force.” (Jonathan Schell in “No More Unto the Breach: Why War is Futile” in Harper’s Magazine, March 2003)
The U.S. does not seem to have learned that lesson, as the bulk of its forces are currently bogged down abroad, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan. Further, the Bush administration proposed a FY ’06 Department of Defense budget of $419.3 billion. The figure represented a 4.8 percent increase over the previous year’s proposal. The U.S. has the largest military budget in the world. Russia is second at $65.2 billion.
The present U.S. military policy is the fruit of the National Security Strategy, also known as the Bush doctrine, released in 2002. However, the strategy itself – including the insistence upon preemptive strikes – has been in the works for many years, long before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Sections of the Bush Doctrine are taken almost verbatim from a document released in 2000 by the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank. The project calls for “American global leadership” and “a new century favorable to American principles and interests.”
The Project, convened in 1997, is built largely upon the 1992 defense strategy developed by then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. That strategy called for “U.S. preeminence” and a drastic increase in defense spending. “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century,” released in September 2000, is the Project’s flagship document and serves as the groundwork for the Bush Doctrine. “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” calls for the use of preemptive strikes, first-strike nuclear capability, production of mini-nukes, unilateral military action and increased military presence in the Middle East, South Asia, Korea and elsewhere. (See “Pax Americana: Peace through Destruction” in The Other Side, May 2003.)