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The
Arrogance of Powell?
By JONATHAN
POWER
February 7, 2001
LONDON - In the original draft of his best selling
autobiography the new U.S. Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, wrote, "I believe in the bully's way of going to
war…I'm on the street corner, I got my gun, I got my
blade, I'ma kick you' ass". In the end Powell deleted the
line, deciding "it sounded a little, shall we say, ethnic
and a little too Bronx". At the moment attention is
focused on the other side of Powell's character- his
aversion to intervention overseas.
This, indeed, is a man who draws lines where others
fear to tread- who was prepared to argue to his then
boss, president George Bush senior, that the U.S. should
not go to war against Iraq to reverse the conquest of
neighbouring Kuwait. And who, later in the conflict,
exploded right in the face of his immediate superior,
Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney, when Cheney intimated
that the U.S. should be prepared to use nuclear weapons
in the war against Saddam Hussein that America and its
allies eventually launched.
Yes, bold and outspoken though the man is, is he
prepared to work to put the machinery of imperialism and
war making that is the lot of an unopposed superpower out
of order? I do not think so. President Bill Clinton
bequeathed three important policy juggernauts, which now
go at such a speed that Powell, even if he were willing,
would find it all but impossible to derail. The first was
Clinton's decision to increase defence spending, even
though the U.S. already outspends all its allies added
together and outspends Russia by a factor of twenty. The
second was Clinton's policy of "democratic enlargement"
which was, in effect, a Brezhnev Doctrine in reverse:
states that are authoritarian may become democratic, but
democracies will not be allowed to slip back. This led to
the expansion of Nato eastward, involving a rigorous and
expensive military commitment to all of Europe, east and
west. And it was complemented by Clinton's third
innovation: an apparent desire to outmanoeuvre Russia in
the oil-rich Caspian basin, an area that until recently
was part and parcel of the Soviet Union and which today
remains an economic lifeline for Russia. By the end of
the Clinton era, Russia felt half encircled.
For Powell a man who, from what we know of him, seems
determined to avoid belligerency and to push the cause of
disarmament, it will be extraordinarily difficult to rein
in the sheer momentum that is built into the life style
of any great power, and in the almost unique era of a
lone superpower is all but unstoppable.
Nothing illustrates the American superpower malady
more than its fixation with anti-missile defence. The new
Administration seems determined to pursue the chimera of
perfect defence (against whom it has not made clear) at
the cost of destroying long standing understandings,
confidence building and, not least, a solemn
international treaty- the net effect of which, quite
counterproductively, will be to make America confront
more antagonism and animosity that it would if it simply
accepted the status quo. No wonder its European allies
are determined to reverse this policy. But all this does
is seemingly antagonise Washington to the point where it
is now petulantly but angrily denouncing Europe's
intention to build its own unified defence forces,
partially independent of Nato.
"The prime threat to the security of modern great
powers is …themselves. Their greatest menace lies in
their own tendency to exaggerate the dangers they face
and to respond with counterproductive belligerence." This
was the astute conclusion of Stephen Van Evera of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in his recent
monumental book "Causes of War". America seems intent on
repeating the mistakes made by the great powers of Europe
since medieval times which, believing that security was
scarce, initiated policies that became a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Modern great powers have been overrun by unprovoked
aggressors only twice, but they have been overrun by
provoked aggressors six times, who have responded to the
victim's fantasy-driven defensive bellicosity. Wilhelmine
and Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Napoleonic France and
Austria-Hungary were all destroyed by dangers that they
themselves provoked with their efforts to escape from
exaggerated or imaginary threats to their safety.This is
a slippery slope that this Administration is already well
down thanks to its inheritance from Clinton and, judging
from Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld's comments in
Munich last week-end, it is determined to keep sliding
downwards. Powell is the only one in the new
Administration who has both the perception and the
authority to start to challenge it. But it is not yet
clear if he wants to, or if he does whether it would cut
any ice with President George Bush. It would be a fight
for the soul and sense of America.
I can be reached by phone +3775
351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2001 By
JONATHAN POWER
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