Читать книгу America's Betrayal Confirmed - Elias Davidsson - Страница 12

Political Columnist Charles Krauthammer explained in 1991 that “economic power is a necessary condition for a great power status. But it certainly is not sufficient, as has been made clear by the recent behavior of Germany and Japan, which have generally hidden under the table since the first shots rang out in Kuwait.” He then insisted that U.S. global military deployment

is in many ways an essential pillar of the American economy. The United States is, like Britain before it, a commercial, maritime, trading nation that needs an open, stable world environment in which to thrive. In a world of Saddams, if the United States were to shed its unique superpower role, its economy would be gravely wounded. Insecure sea lanes, impoverished trading partners, exorbitant oil prices, explosive regional instability are only the more obvious risks of an American abdication. Foreign entanglements are indeed a burden. But they are also a necessity.{25}

Krauthammer’s view was endorsed by Thomas Friedman, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and former advisor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Friedman expressed his view in an unusually frank manner in the New York Times:

For globalism to work, America cannot be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is… The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist - McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonald-Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. {26}

General Alfred M. Gray, who served as the 29th commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps between 1987 and 1991, offered further justifications for asserting U.S. global hegemony:

The Underdeveloped World’s growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations will create a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies. These insurgencies have the potential to jeopardize […] our access to vital economic and military resources. This situation will become more critical as our nation and allies, as well as potential adversaries, become more and more dependent on these strategic resources. If we are to have stability in these regions, maintain access to their resources, protect our citizens abroad, defend our vital installations and deter conflict, we must maintain within our active force structure a credible military power projection capability with flexibility to respond to conflicts across the spectrum of violence throughout the globe.{27}

Such views were crystallized in an official, but classified, document leaked to the New York Times, which published excerpts thereof in 1992.{28} The document was drafted by Dick Cheney, then Defense Secretary, and Paul Wolfowitz, his Under Secretary for Policy. The policy statements in this document were developed “in conjunction with the National Security Council and in consultation with the President.” The document is known in Pentagon parlance as the “Defense Planning Guidance” and is also known as “The Wolfowitz Doctrine.”

America’s first objective in the post-cold-war era, as defined by the authors of this document, was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.” They mentioned, however, three additional aspects to this objective: (1) Establishing and protecting a new international order; (2) Discouraging advanced industrial nations from challenging U.S. leadership; and (3) Maintaining mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from “even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”

Another objective mentioned in the document was for the U.S. to “retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international relations.” Such interests include the “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking.”

While the document stated unmistakably the goal of the United States to remain the sole and leading superpower, it did not reveal the priorities assigned to the various interests that underpinned imperial policies. Placing side by side the need to ensure “access to vital raw materials” with the need to combat “threat to U.S. citizens from terrorism” manifested probably less the confused mind of the authors than their intent to confuse.