Rogue states are placed on the same level as terrorist networks and criminal organisations. This revolutionary American doctrine is convinced of the fact that, as a result of globalisation, the immediacy of human communications and the new techniques of mass terrorism, the urgency of pre-emptive strikes abolishes the laws of war, as well as any respect for another country’s sovereignty. Two new countries have been added to the black list of the Axis of Evil: the Yemen, the breeding ground of Al-Qaida, and Nigeria, where the Islamists may well end up appropriating the immense oil reserves. In an interview with Minotaure magazine (spring 2002), geopolitician Guillaume Dasqué made the following comment:
Coming from a country endowed with a powerful sovereignty (the USA), these sudden changes denature the essence of both international law and the relations between different states by introducing a new imbalance between those capable of conducting global policing operations and the others.
In fact, this ‘new’ strategy of American imperialism is utterly archeofuturistic, since there is nothing really new about it. It embodies a revolutionary return to the conceptions that prevailed from Antiquity to the end of World War I. In the eyes of the neoconservatives, the American territory represents a sort of ‘sanctuarised police station’ or neo-medieval fortress, from which the Lord conducts his campaigns to maintain order on his vassals’ lands. The USA is thus abolishing the very same rules that it itself established after 1919 through the founding of the UN and embracing European notions instead, whereas Europeans, especially the French and the Germans, are adopting the legalistic ideology of a ‘legitimised self-defensive war’.
The Americans are returning to the good old principle of pre-emptive attack used by the Romans for more than five centuries against the troublesome barbarians who they fought beyond their own limes; by Louis XIV against a small, subversive and free Holland; by Napoleon in his ambition to ‘liberate’ the peoples of Germany and Italy from the clutches of dangerous tyrants; by the Austro-Hungarian empire in its desire to neutralise Serbia; etc. The examples are beyond count. Through the notion of ‘humanitarian intervention’ ever so dear to Bernard Kouchner, this doctrine has, to some extent, rubbed off on France as well, the difference being that, in the French mentality, the campaign in question must first be sanctioned by the UN.
The problem is that, despite their apparent power, the Americans can rival neither the Roman empire nor Napoleonian France in terms of their power relations with the surrounding peoples. Currently governed by a group of neoconservatives whose capacity for strategic programming is as limited as President Bush’s intelligence and political culture, the USA is high on its factitious power. The latter’s technological sophistication, which they so stupidly idolise, is not a miracle potion that could enable it to dominate the world in the face of the archaic and eternal forms of war. The difficulties that the Americans have encountered in Iraq, their geopolitical failure in Afghanistan, their setback in Somalia and their defeat at the hands of general Giáp in the open Vietnamese terrain (which has not been forgotten in any way) have proven to the whole world that they lack the necessary human means to successfully implement their new imperialistic military doctrine. The reason for this is that they are either not or no longer able to use their ground troops with the necessary degree of effectiveness to pacify the territories that they control. Their capacity to conduct strikes and their technological supremacy are both compelling, yet still remain highly insufficient.
Disguised as a ‘preventive international police’, in no way does this doctrine strive to establish a secure and humanistic super-state of global law under American control. Prosaically, its ambition is rather rooted in the cynical construction of an empire in the traditional and Roman sense of the word, comprising various federated and obedient peoples that act as its auxiliaries (all thanks to its ‘coalition’ concept).
Two difficulties surface at this stage:
1) Apart from Great Britain, the above-mentioned auxiliaries are microscopic on a military level, especially Poland and Spain, whose armies lack any achievements worth mentioning;
2) Militarily speaking, the USA would not even be able to bring a middle power into line. Taking on a country that has a ‘deficient sovereignty’ and that belongs to the Axis of Evil would only be a successful endeavour if the USA targeted a tiny and defenceless state. The Americans would never, for instance, dare attack Pakistan, Iran or even Syria. By contrast, a military intervention against Cuba cannot be excluded. The extravagant claims expressed by the neoconservatives (and vehemently denounced by genuine and serious American nationalists) cast the darkest shadows upon American diplomacy.
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In other words, the new American imperialist doctrine is intellectually seductive, skilful and suited to our current world, but this applies solely to its intellectual and theoretical aspect, not the practical one. The new American executives are rediscovering the old imperial doctrines that mirrored ancient Europe’s realistic approach to power. They do so in a most naïve fashion, as if they were big children, and fail to comprehend the latter’s essence. Stemming from Protestant biblical sects, these neoconservatives lack the historical intelligence and strategic perspicacity that typify the Jewish people, the very people that they admire so much and long to protect at any cost, believing themselves to be the Jews’ rightful messianic successors.
Current American leaders (who should not be confused with any other US elites) make the severe mistake of overestimating themselves, while simultaneously underestimating the extraordinary anti-American enmity that they have awakened on a global scale, even outside the borders of Muslim countries. The new American will is but a fancy — the fancy of a declining world power.
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The USA will find itself unable to realise its dream of superseding the Roman Empire in its role of global police force under the guise of international morality and ‘antiterrorism’. For China is present, watching the Americans just as it watches us Europeans. The war that the USA wages against Iraq is a kind of fallacious theatre: the latest manifestation of the American pseudo-power, which mobilises more than half of its armed forces without actually succeeding in resolving the problem it faces (exacerbating it even) is certainly a good reason for certain strategists to wonder whether the great nuclear power embodied by the USA will not end up collapsing instantly in the event of an outbreak of genuine war.
The mistake made by the Europeans is that they consider the USA to be a ‘superpower’, a notion invented by our stupidly anti-American French diplomacy. In actual fact, America is weak, especially on the military level, and only comes across as being powerful, thus resembling the Roman Empire of the 4th century.
B. ‘Unilateralism’ or ‘Unequal Bilateralism’?
Robert Kagan, who is both a Machiavellianist and a theoretician of the NAI, justifies this new form of imperialism through the UN’s impotence and utopian ‘international agreement’, since the UN is incapable of maintaining order. Bush followed in his footsteps when expecting post-war Iraq to be temporarily overseen by the USA, not the UN. In his essay entitled Power and Weakness, Kagan castigates those naïve enough to believe that law and order should not be maintained through the justice of the strong but the legalism of the weak, insisting that the latter could, on the contrary, only lead to anarchy and anomie. As an example, he mentions the film High Noon, in which the cowardly locals attempt to drive the courageous avenger away so as to avoid enraging the bandits.
From the traditional American perspective, the new form of imperialism is both highly pragmatic and moralising: only the USA has the power to actually force the world to respect what is Good (democracy and freedom), for it embodies the very essence of all the Forces of Good on Earth (the so-called Manifest Destiny, which the Americans, as God’s protégés, allegedly enjoy). Gary Schmidt, the executive director of the Project for the New American Century (an institute focused on strategic research), gave the following explanation in The Los Angeles Times (08/04/20
03):
If the USA lacked the courage to take action, no other country would have the necessary political will and military means to take on the world’s villains.
Thomas Donnelly, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute, points out:
It is necessary to introduce fundamental changes to international institutions, which applies to both the UN and NATO, so as to re-establish the connection between the passing of international law and its effective implementation.
In other words, to be entirely clear about things, the USA is to become the sword arm of a UN organisation governed by the Americans themselves. Furthermore, in order to be implemented, international law must always be validated by the USA, which, as the world’s sole superpower, should be alone to enjoy the right of veto at the Security Council and thus be able to sway any decision, even when a majority opposes it.
This maximalism is taken even further by Richard Perle, a man who contributed to the onset of the war in Iraq (Perle also happens to be the former advisor of Donald Rumsfeld, the former American Secretary of Defence who was forced to resign in early April 2003 because of his involvement in financial corruption affairs relating to the armament industry). In his view, the UN’s achievements in matters of security are ‘quite simply abject’. He gives the following examples: it was the USA and not the UN that liberated Eastern Europe and enabled the collapse of the USSR, just like in South Korea in 1951, where Communism was made to retreat; it was also Israel, not the Blue Berets, that managed to beat back the Arab attacks in 1967 and 1973; as for Great Britain, it reclaimed the Malvinas2 on its own, without any UN involvement. These arguments are, however, absolutely specious since, in accordance with its own charter, the UN is not required to intervene whenever a direct attack targets a given country on its own soil, which was the case with South Korea, Israel and Great Britain. For the ‘falcons’, Chirac’s ‘multipolar system’ is fallacious, utopian, impotent and protective of tyrants, and is but a sign of arrogance on the part of the French, who long to maintain their position in the Security Council and throw a spanner in the works of the American avenger. They question the following fact: when it comes down to it, do France, Russia, Germany and China actually have the means and will to overthrow despotism? In this regard, one must admit that their argument is a rather valid one. Since 1945, have the Blue Berets and the various UN peacekeeping forces representing the famed ‘international community’ ever achieved anything?
William Wohlforth, another ‘falcon’ ideologist, argues against the multipolar Franco-Russian view of the world:
On the contrary, it is unipolarity that offers the best guarantee of peace and security. The greatest danger lies in American retreat. […] Thanks to its power, the USA is more at liberty to ignore the international system than any other country. But since this very system has been erected around the USA itself, the demand for US involvement is constant. The more efficiently Washington responds to such demands, the more durable and pacifistic this international system will prove to be. (Le Figaro, 10/04/2003)
The ideological views advocated by the neocons are thus confirmed: the collective security system is to become one with the American will, since the USA alone holds the necessary power and is the sole guarantor of the prevalence of Good over Evil. What we are faced with here is thus a bizarre hybrid not only between universalistic biblical messianism and power politics, but also between naivety and brutal realism.
This messianism has been theorised by James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA under Clinton who has since joined ranks with the Bush administration. Woolsey is the perfect embodiment of the Uncle Sam figure, the Bible in one hand, a colt in the other. He gives a confounding answer to all those who would object and say that this unilateralist vigilantism might not end well, that the Americans are not always necessarily driven by righteous and saint-like sentiments, that American military strikes tend to result in considerable damage, that the most sordid economic interests often come into play and that, last but not least, the NAI may well end up drifting into some form of archeo-imperialism akin to the one embraced by Caesar, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. For Woolsey’s response is identical to the Muslim justification of Islamic jihad.
Keeping an absolutely straight face, Woolsey explains that ‘God watches over America’, a land that has been ‘blessed by God’ since, metaphysically speaking, ‘America always has the best possible intentions’. (The CIA’s!) American puritans have simply adopted the Gott Mitt Uns slogan. Thinking of their country as a genuine Israel, they subordinate their entire foreign policy to a theocratic legitimisation, just as the Muslims do. It therefore comes as no surprise that the American policy in the Middle-East is seen by Muslims as a war of religion (yet those naïve neoconservatives are still taken aback).
This theological providentialism, however, which presents America as the very instrument of God, has an answer to every objection, including questions such as: ‘How does one account for the fact that the USA, while overthrowing certain despots, often supports and establishes other tyrannical rulers through its foreign policy?’; ‘Is American moralism not merely the comely mask that conceals the America’s imperialistic ambitions’? Not at all, according to Michael Leeden, a neoconservative essayist, who had this to say when interviewed by The New York Times (07/04/2003): ‘America has always been to dictators the most disloyal of allies’. In his eyes, it is for temporary tactical reasons that the US has associated with, established and not taken action against dictators such as Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Franco, Pinochet, nor against any of the current rulers in Muslim countries and the various Asian or South American military dictatorships (all of which are more or less despotic); he asserts that it has never been a matter of protecting American interests. As soon as the opportunity arises, the valiant Americans always reinstate Good, freedom and democracy. Leeden concludes his statement with the following words: ‘We always return to the warpath in our defence of freedom. The war in Iraq is the most recent proof of this’. How moving. One is left wondering whether such statements are actually hypocritical or sincere. The appalling truth is that such claims are, surprisingly, often honest.
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Indeed, as a result of the divine benediction that has always presided over American foreign policy, all instances in which the US Air Force bombards and kills civilians, including the horrific massacres committed during World War II, are described as being ‘mistakes’ or ‘necessary evils’. The end justifies the means, just like in Lenin’s case: the definitive triumph of Good over Evil justifies temporary suffering. Evil cannot, therefore, be encountered on the American side. When wreaking death, the American sword of God kills to ensure mankind’s salvation. In this respect, the American foreign policy is driven by similar legitimising principles to those of Islam, Communism and the French revolutionaries of the Vendean wars.
On the other hand, this new unilateralist doctrine seems to contradict the ‘multipolar’ discourse embraced by France and Russia, as well as the UN’s desire to introduce a global rule of law in harmony with Kantian utopias. And yet the USA does not renounce the prospect of a global state at all. It is simply not the kind that one might be inclined to expect. America does strive for a global state, but one that submits to its own will. The Americans long to achieve the following objective: being the sole entirely independent and omnipotent power on earth (just like God), the USA is to stand above all countries, governing an obedient Rest of the World, i.e. an agglomeration of countries that adhere to the UN. Instead of being labelled ‘unilateralist’, this position should rather be described as ‘unequal bilateralism’.
The latter is a genuine reformulation of the Roman imperial doctrine, expanded to apply on a global scale. This worldwide empire is meant to be governed by the New Rome (the USA), which acts as both the protector and the suzerain of the foederati, a global ensemble of vassal nations that could never acquire the power of the Centre and thus contest its legitimate position of gobernator universalis, i.e. ‘the w
orld’s helmsman’.
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The problem with this new world order is that it is inapplicable. The NAI misestimates its own capacities in a most woeful fashion, particularly when ignoring the relevant economic and demographic data. Indeed, the latter have led to the fact that, globally speaking, the power of the United States has been decreasing incessantly, slowly but surely, for a period of thirty years. There is yet another factor that has been neglected: the presence of China, a country which, by 2020, will most probably have managed to become a superpower rivalling, if not surpassing, the USA, thus taking us back to a state akin to the Cold War (1945–1991).
In fact, American unilateralism (or rather ‘unequal bilateralism’) is as utopian in character as the French notion of a legalistic and multipolar world governed by the UN. Wisdom would have us seek a third path. The latter could only be found in the Metternichian theory of a Concert of Great Powers (1815), which is founded upon three paradigms:
1) The world was, is and ever will be a jungle in which power will always shape legality. However, this jungle must be disciplined;
2) No world power could ever achieve a status of absolute dominance, as demonstrated by the tragic end that befell the Napoleonic saga;
3) International security policies can only be rooted in temporary alliances characterised by a balance of power.
If we are to succeed in countering the disastrous American foreign policy, therefore, we cannot resort to mere moral arguments, neo-Kantian legalism of the Franco-Belgian or German kind, hymns to the glory of the UN (which will always be the ‘thingy’ denounced by de Gaulle, a sound opinion that Washington has now adopted) and anti-American demonstrations in the street. The real solution lies in the actual establishment of counter-powers to American hegemony, both on an economic and military level. Silently, China and India are working to achieve this very purpose. Beyond the endless musings regarding the birth of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis, everyone anticipates its actual creation. What is noteworthy is that every single UN Secretary General has come from a small country lacking international influence, and not a single one has ever had a strong personality. One must wonder why this is always the case. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General who valiantly attempted to resist the American power grab, lacked the necessary means to assert his authority.
A Global Coup Page 2