Washington - bully in a china shop
TANG SHI PING
THE end of the Cold War brought a cold reality: Not since Genghis Khan's Mongolian armies swept across the Eurasian heartland between the 13th and 14th centuries, has the world had one great power so dominant that it has no peers in sight for the foreseeable future.
What is more frightening is that unlike the Mongols who had to depend on horses and human foot, the United States can reach every corner of the globe with satellites, missiles and aircraft carriers.
Contrary to the golden rule of 'balance of power' in international politics, the world community has done little to balance the lone superpower for much of the past decade, not only because it would have been extremely costly and difficult to do so, but also because many countries hoped and believed that the US, as a country firmly rooted in liberal democracy, would be a benign hegemon that would take other states' interests into account, even as it acted in its own interest.
Under Presidents George Bush senior and Bill Clinton, America did more or less act as a benign hegemon. Mr Bush sought and obtained United Nations support before taking on President Saddam Hussein. Mr Clinton supported international treaties such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and Kyoto Protocol.
Both of them understood that in order to prevent a coalition of states from balancing the US, it must not become a bully in a china shop.
The 2000 election changed all that. President George W. Bush, surrounded by a group of like-minded hardcore realists (actually, they are not mere realists, they are offensive realists), believes that both the senior Bush and Mr Clinton's way of exercising self-restraint when exercising power was a squandering of America's pre-eminence.
To make up for the lost decade and to reshape world order, the Bushites took a radical turn in American foreign policy. Since taking over the White House, they have not only abandoned CTBT, killed the Kyoto Protocol and scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but they have also not failed to insult the world community in doing so, saying that those treaties were not in America's national interest.
For the first time since the Cold War's end, the US has aligned its own interests against those of the international community.
Sept 11 forced the Bushites to rein in their offensive realism, but only temporarily. They later took Sept 11 as a great strategic opportunity for advancing their vision of an America which enforces rules in the world, by force and by America alone if necessary.
Under the cover of fighting terrorism, the Bushites have outlined a national security strategy with 'pre-emption' at its core. They contend that the US has the inherent right to attack any country at any time, so long as it believes that country to be a clear and present danger to the US, without offering convincing evidence to the world community.
The logic behind this outrageous sacrilege of the right to self-defence is that: To reshape a world order to its liking, the US will punish or annihilate any state which does not support the new order. The war on terrorism has become a war to bring about the Bushites' vision of Pax Americana.
We are witnessing a profound tragedy unfolding: Just when most of us thought our world had evolved into something more civilised, the leading superpower is no longer interested in abiding by the rules it made but insists that the world obey a 'new' set of rules which move us back to a future where might is right.
This development is a challenge to the very foundations of our international system, unseen since the rise of Napoleon and Hitler.
Under these circumstances, France, Germany, Russia and China, as the four countries that can apply any kind of credible restraint to the US, must build upon their common stand against the non-UN sanctioned, US-led invasion of Iraq. They must form an axis of restraint to counter the axis comprising the US, Britain and Australia.
This 'axis of restraint' must call for a UN debate and vote on the legitimacy of the invasion. It may also want to call for a revision of the UN Charter to define the right to self-defence more rigorously.
The axis must also insist that once Mr Saddam has gone, the transition government in Iraq must be under UN, not US, jurisdiction.
It must insist that the US and its allies, being most directly responsible for the destruction, must bear the largest part of the cost of rebuilding Iraq.
Rebuilding contracts must be open to international bids, not awarded automatically to American companies.
Lastly, the US must be warned against expanding its war against the 'axis of evil' to Iran and North Korea.
Indeed, to pre-empt a US strike against Iran, the 'axis of restraint' must be prepared to offer Iran political, economic and military assistance, so that a hyperpower no longer playing by the rules may not control both sides of the Persian Gulf and Hormuz Strait.
The struggle between the 'axis of restraint' and the US-led axis is not a struggle between good and evil, but rather a struggle between the civilised and the uncivilised.
When the younger Bush is replaced by a president who understands that the responsibility of enormous power is to act, not just in America's interest, but in the interest of the world community, the 'axis of restraint' should then take a more cooperative approach and work with the US to shape a better world.
The purpose of restraining the US is not to isolate it, but to bring it back in line with the international norms it long cherished.
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Tang Shi Ping is deputy director of the Centre for Regional Security Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing. He is also a co-director of the Sino-American Security Dialogue. |
