Increasingly I am coming to see this 21st century as race between hope and fear. The hope is very, very real, as I have attempted to establish in much that has appeared here and elsewhere, but a “victory” for fear could be the end of us all. America’s genius for most of its existence has been as a source for hope; Lincoln memorably cast us as “the last best hope of earth”. It becomes perhaps the supreme irony of this moment that our President has enlisted us in the legions of fear, while invoking the rhetoric of hope to cover and confuse. Nowhere is the muddled course of our present administration more apparent than in the “doctrine” of pre-emptive-preventive war. Simple logic declares it to be unworkable. If it allows us to attack Iraq on only our determination, it likewise empowers Pakistan to attack India, or China to attack Japan . . . or . . . or . . . and, of course, all of it vice-versa. It seems certain there must be a hidden codicil. (Indeed, if there isn’t, the administration proclaims itself to be mindless nearly beyond belief.) One wonders how much the codicil openly declares. It must state we fully understand the doctrine to be viable provided we are the only ones who get to make war on its basis. It will almost certainly state we will be committed to contrive a world in which we,and we alone, have the power to execute the doctrine. What will be less clear will be the courses we will pursue to effect that end, and not the least the lengths to which we will be prepared to go in realizing our goal. Investing in overwhelming military might seems certain. Maneuvering to gain control of “necessary” resources is likely. But to what extent will the codicil contemplate undermining potential rivals, whether ostensible enemies or allies? And that does not deal with direct and aggressive use of overweening military power to bolster our position, or compromise potential rivals, whether “friends” or “enemies”. To some extent of course, America pursued policies along the lines just proposed all during the Cold War. That confrontation with totalitarianism at once justified our actions to ourselves - and to our allies - and allowed us to deny alternate imperial constructions for what we were engaged in – denying them to ourselves as well. We engaged the Cold War on two fronts. One was collegial. That engagement explicitly sought to solve problems through working together with others. It looked to find and implement mutually beneficial solutions to problems between nations, although the benefit might at first extend to nothing other than a resolution without recourse to violence. After two World Wars, which arose in a world whose nations participated on the basis of the “Law of the Jungle”, it was decided that a continuation of that logic, with nuclear weaponry now in the wings, tempted fate far too egregiously. The United Nations, the Marshall Plan, NATO, SEATO, the European Common Market, a body of negotiated international accords on economic as well as political issues all became part of an effort the United States either led, participated in, or strongly approved. At the same time, a Soviet menace was recognized, and second front was opened with the policy of containment. In the end, for the common defense, whatever America deemed necessary for that second front, and could not or would not be provided by our allies, we would provide. The Cold War ended with a resounding victory for this twin engagement. The incapacities of the Soviet Empire to compete in a world that increasingly came to thrive by the informed creativity of its people brought that Empire down without the cataclysm of war – precisely the end everyone needed. America now faced a choice. The benefits of collegiality had been demonstrated on any number of fronts, and outstandingly in the economic arena. It had also brought about a cautious acceptance of America’s role in the world as the lone superpower, both military and economic. But the military dominance especially harbored problems. Unless America could maintain confidence in the just, benign and constructive use of its power, the nations of the world were, and are, unlikely to accept that dominance for long. The choice was to continue to emphasize collegiality, or to allow the coercive aspect and apparatus of containment to overrun, even overturn, its mandate, and begin a series of overtly aggressive engagements with the world. The first President Bush made the initial decision in favor of collegiality. Gulf War I presented us with a virtual miracle of accomplishment. But the second President Bush began by rejecting collegiality: abandoning Kyoto and the ABM Treaty, rejecting the World Court, absenting the US from the land mines convention, and from conventions on chemical and biological weapons. Then 9/11. In its aftermath, with “the forward defense of freedom”, and “pre-emptive war” the decision for collegiality was decisively reversed in favor of aggression, and explicitly extended to armed conflict. Some of this had merit, e.g. Afghanistan, but the rest, and especially Iraq, lack real merit. With the end of the Cold War the ostensible reasons for activities such as those I have proposed to be “part of the codicil” lost any validity, at least in terms that reflected “the better angels of our nature”. Increasingly the vast majority of our post Cold War actions could be seen, and are now coming to be seen, as imperialism. Absent an understood, and overwhelmingly accepted, justification, there is no other likely interpretation for our actions which will be plausible to anyone but ourselves. And it is increasingly clear, it will be plausible only to those of us still in thrall to the fears engendered by 9/11, and to Neocons in thrall to their own ideological intoxications. Neocons and their apologists, here and elsewhere, will argue that there is much in the policies they advocate that is simply in continuity with what has gone before. True enough to a point. It is the overarching strategic context that has changed. Cold War strategy yielded primacy to collegiality, while acknowledging the totalitarian threat of Russia and China by enlisting coercive power in the policy of containment. The Bush Doctrine cedes coercive force the dominant role through “the forward defense of freedom” and preemptive/preventive war, while relegating collegiality to a secondary role, as a useful adjunct, and often as mere “window dressing”. This fundamental change has been effected without formal acknowledgement, let alone the clear and unequivocal debate it merits. The core of neocon ideology is a world governed by the law of the jungle. Their policies and actions, from Rebuilding America’s Defenses – the signal document issued by the Project for a New American Century - to the National Security Strategy of the United States of 2002, which specifically invokes Pre-emptive/Preventive war, reflect this. “Old Fashioned” Imperialism, with an American accent, becomes the logical outcome, and I propose it is made explicit in a “hidden codicil” to National Security Strategy of the United States of 2002. A world in which sovereign nations participate according to the law of the jungle proceeds by the conceptualism which pitched us into two horrific world wars in the last century. America and the alliance we worked with for fifty years, sought to replace that with something better. However imperfectly it worked, it embraced an understanding of the dangers of the jungle, which no nation, no matter how strong, can avoid in a world that fights with Weapons of Mass Destruction. The neocons’ policies move contrary to such understanding. (Although, as suggested, they will pay it occasional lip service when they find it useful to defray alarms over their machinations.) In reality, their courses effect a profound change of direction in American policy which they seek to hide from us, leaving it unstated (except between themselves), or expressed in hidden codicils, where it and their courses will never be subject to critique and re-consideration, let alone the process of democratic assent. Our Cold War opposition was the very real, and very great, armed might of the Soviet Empire and of China. Our opposition now is a rag tag collection of fanatics, demonstrably lethal to much in their own world, whose greatest hope is that they can ignite a far larger conflict. To do this, they seek to exploit the angers, frustrations and resentments of the broad majority of their own people. That same broad majority, however, is confronted with another reality: the success of the developed world in providing unprecedented levels of material well being to a broad majority of its people. It becomes such that most citizens of the developed world look forward to achieving a decent life: to earning enough that they can think of marrying, raising a family, educating their children and retiring with a measure of comfort and security. It is by no means apparent that convincing the Arab and Muslim world that Osama bin Laden offers the best path to their future will be a “no brainer”. To accept the “wisdom” of Osama means essentially abandoning hope for what so much of the world has already achieved, and much more of it now appears to be moving towards. It is a contest the developed world can and should win. And for that, in a world that fights with Weapons of Mass Destruction, yielding armed confrontation “pride of place” appears to be a fool’s choice, and an opening to disaster. And to have yielded it almost without discussion or debate is unforgivable in a democracy. Message was edited by: ronr327