To: stockman_scott who wrote (76089 ) 2/21/2003 11:10:13 AM From: JohnM Read Replies (1) | Respond to Back to this article from Stanley Hoffman in the latest issue of the American Prospect.By Stanley Hoffmann prospect.org The extraordinary vendetta conducted (largely but not exclusively by John Bolton, Bush's controversial undersecretary of state) against the International Criminal Court revealed not just the administration's paranoia -- conjuring nightmares of a malevolent United Nations indicting innocent American soldiers and officers -- but also how punitive it could be against countries (allies or not) unwilling to meet its demands. A discerning reader might object that many of my new exceptionalists are no more than realists drunk with America's new might as the only superpower. This is true, but that headiness makes all the difference. Whereas the hallmark of past realists -- theorists and diplomats such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, even Henry Kissinger -- was the kind of discerning prudence and moderation that Thucydides once praised, the new voices are nothing if not excessive and triumphalist. Somewhat subtler is the claim of benevolent imperialism, developed in particular by the policy analyst Robert Kagan, who has called the United States "a Behemoth with a conscience." In an article in which valid criticisms of current European policy are mixed with a great deal of condescending hubris, . . . The phenomenon of terrorism is extraordinarily heterogeneous. If terrorism is defined as deliberate, deadly attacks on the innocent, it must encompass not only "private" suicide bombers but also state terrorism -- from carpet bombings to totalitarian police tactics. And it must encompass the multiplicity of reasons for the resort to terrorism: a will to self-determination (as in the case of the Palestinians or the Chechens), a fight over territory (as in Kashmir), a form of domestic action against a repressive regime (in the Sudan, in the Algeria of the 1990s), a religious holy war (al-Qaeda) and so on. Obviously one size doesn't fit all, yet responding to acts of terrorism and ignoring their causes could well contribute to the global destabilization sought by the terrorists. In sum, the Bush doctrine proclaims the emancipation of a colossus from international constraints (including from the restraints that the United States itself enshrined in networks of international and regional organizations after World War II). In context, it amounts to a doctrine of global domination. It is blind hubris to assume that we will "improve" the world by projecting on others a model of democracy that has worked -- not without upheavals -- in the rich and multicultural United States but has little immediate relevance in much of the rest of the world. The successful "regime change" in Germany and Japan after World War II is no model. It required a prolonged occupation and followed a devastating total war. These are not the circumstances today. Today what we would see as a selfless or benevolent policy of democratization would be received as a policy of satellitization and clientelism. And how long would the American public support a strategy of frequent preemptive uses of force -- and concomitant "wartime" restrictions on liberties at home? Sooner rather than later, Americans would suffer from battle fatigue, especially if officials continue to tell them that their nation is both the most powerful in history and the most threatened. A world that is tamed by American might but whose imperial master has little enthusiasm for peacekeeping operations and little patience with nation building would be doomed. To have a chance of stability, an international system dominated by one superpower would require a code of cooperation among its states, with restraints on the mighty as well as the weak. Otherwise, the United States will appear more threatening to the rest of the world than the enemies we hope to defeat. But, alas, all the new exceptionalism offers is a mix of force and faith -- a huge force that is often unusable or counterproductive and a grandiose faith in the appeal of an American model that is actually as widely resented as admired. Empire, or the dream of empire, has invariably gone to the heads of the imperialists. Today's American dream of a benevolent empire is sustained by an illusion of the world's gratitude, but in fact it rests only on America's ever more flattering self-image. Given its preponderance in all forms of power, hard and soft (to use Harvard University Dean Joseph Nye's useful distinction), the United States is bound to remain the most important state actor in the world. But it does have a choice. In the words of Pierre Hassner, "The choice is between an attempt at authoritarian, global U.S. rule tempered by anarchic resistance, on the one hand, and, on the other, hegemony tempered by law, concert and consent."
