The Same Old Song: The 2006 National Security Strategy Posted by Gordon Adams

I can’t close out this round of guest blogging without discussing the newly released national security strategy. The release may be new, but the lyrics and tune are quite familiar. The new strategy is largely a retread of the old one, with some reshuffling and a data dump from the past four years.

The verses have been shuffled a bit. Compared to the 2002 strategy, today’s “first pillar” of US national security strategy is: “promoting freedom, justice, and human dignity – working to end tyranny, to promote effective democracies, and to extend prosperity through free and fair trade and wise development policies.” Democracy has now become the key to every other goal: international stability, an end to regional conflicts, ending terrorism, and ensuring economic growth. The American national religion is now the global religion, even to the point of the strategy adopting Morton Halperin’s flagship concept – the Community of Democracies. And there is a new focus on “ending tyranny,” with specific countries targeted by the strategy: Iran, the DPRK, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Burma, and Zimbabwe. Interesting choices – no Central Asian country made the list.

In some ways, this is nothing new. Ronald Reagan wanted to expand democracy; Bill Clinton made enlarging the family of democracies a centerpiece of his policy, as well. Democracy is, by and large, a good thing; only tyrants (and neo-authoritarian regimes like Russia) think it is dangerous.  And, neither the US nor any other country has a great track record at making it happen, especially outside the industrialized, well-educated, middle class world of countries, most which (Japan, Germany, the Czech Republic) already had some experience of democracy.

Moreover, the list of success stories for this goal, as cited in the strategy, is a bit thin, even questionable. Afghanistan – elections, yes, and war lords, narcotics, and a rising resistance from Taliban remnants. Iraq – well, more on that in a moment. Then we go into the weeds of “progress toward”democracy: Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt (where the US promotion campaign has basically been told to take a hike), Kuwait, and Morocco, all said to be “pursuing agendas of reform.” From there, we are down to otherwise unidentified countries in continents – Africa (including Uganda’s President-apparently-for-life Yoweri Museveni?), Latin America (where democracy was already pretty well rooted), and Asia.

Democracy is not enough to guarantee stability, especially without a solid middle class and a strong economy to support it. The strategy recognizes this, but does not focus most of the foreign assistance programs on that goal, with the exception of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which does not cover countries that pose any strategic challenge or risk for the United States. The development assistance programs of USAID go completely unmentioned in the strategy, an odd omission.

Most of US foreign and security assistance funds focus on countries that do pose strategic risks or problems for the US – Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, Colombia, Afghanistan, Iraq. When the fiscal rubber hits the national security strategy road, it is not focused on democracy, but on terrorism and proliferation and supporting friendly states of strategic importance to the US, frequently regardless of their democratic nature. As I have discussed in other blogs, direct funding to support democracy does not match the rhetoric – it is quite small and very scattered in the budget.

Except for Iraq, where there is a big bundle of funding for governance and rule of law. The President’s budget documents and the defense strategy review virtually ignored Iraq – it was mostly funded in the $92 b. supplemental funding bill the House just passed, and the defense review flew over Iraq on the way to the “long war.” The national security strategy cannot avoid Iraq, however. But the optic it takes on Iraq is curious, not a strategy so much as a look in the rear view mirror: isolate “enemy elements,” “clear areas of enemy control,” build security forces, restore the infrastructure, reform the economy, build the institutions. We have, of course, poured nearly $400 b. into these goals and patrolling the country, with some of them clearly remaining well out of reach. 

To make it worse, there is no mention of the central political problem in Iraq – sectarian disagreement and conflict, verging on civil war. From the point of view of the national security strategy, there is only an “Iraqi government,” there are no sectarian communities with militias, just an unspecified “enemy.” The myopia could not be more complete and the inability to grasp the central tensions our occupation has unleashed more worrisome. We are definitely “back to the future” here.

Although democracy now comes first in the strategy, terrorism is not far behind. Here, the key concept is “the battle of ideas,” with the rag-tag extremists like Osama Bin Laden raised to the level of a global ideological threat equivalent to communism. Bin Laden as Karl Marx has a “klang” to it. Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are bad guys, for sure, but an ideological threat outside the Muslim world? Hardly. 

The strategy dismisses the argument that terrorist organizations draw support and participation from the consequences of poverty – but cites only the 19 hijackers as evidence, not suicide bombers, or the unemployed of the Islamic world. It rejects the notion that US policy might be one reason for anger in the Middle East region, though, as Michael Scheuer has told us, we ignore the consequences of seventy years of US involvement in the Middle East at our extreme peril. And it rejects any connection between Islamic unhappiness and Israeli-Palestinian issues. Someone with no sense of history and a strong background in public relations clearly wrote this section of the strategy. 

And finally, this document is deeply rooted in the preemption doctrine of 2002, assertively so. Preemption is linked to the dangers of proliferation: “we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack…[W]e cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. This is the principle and logic of preemption.” 

Set aside the argument that deterrence is no longer enough to counter proliferation and nuclear attack; this is a classical deterrence formulation. But, as in the 2002 document, it leaves the US as the chooser of where the danger lies and when is the moment to strike, even the selection of the evidence that justifies the use of force. We blew that one in Iraq. 

But, the target today, is Iran, which gets a lot of attention in the new strategy document, as it has in the growing public debate over how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. The US goal as stated in the strategy is truly “rear view mirror,” and even more clearly stated than in 2002. The Iranian regime has to chance its policies, “open up its political system, and afford freedom to its people. This is the ultimate goal of U.S. policy.” Sounds like regime change, and sounds familiar. Fortunately, diplomacy seems better developed in this case than in the case of Iraq.

All-in-all, this is the same old song, as often happens with second term strategy statements, especially when many of the key drafters have been held over from the first term. There are few “mid-course corrections here,” little acknowledgment of mistakes. Yes, there is a call for greater international cooperation, but the doctrinal basis of the document suggests that cooperation is largely still based on the notion that leadership consists of the US setting the strategy and goals, and the others come along for the ride. It could be a rough three years.

Comments

[Jeff Younger]

Set aside the argument that deterrence is no longer enough to counter proliferation and nuclear attack; this is a classical deterrence formulation. But, as in the 2002 document, it leaves the US as the chooser of where the danger lies and when is the moment to strike, even the selection of the evidence that justifies the use of force. We blew that one in Iraq.

I dispute your judgment that "we blew that one in Iraq." Setting that argument aside also, I must ask: who else but the nation-state itself can determine what constitutes a threat to its vital national interests? Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations states

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

In other words, no signatory to the UN Charter gives away the authority to conduct military actions in self-defense as the state alone see fit, but those actions are subject to action by the Security Council, ex post.

Further, preemptive war always been accepted as legitimate self-defense at least since the Treaty of Westphalia, while preventative war can be legitimate subject to the "just intent" standard, qua jus ad bellum. In both cases, the practical exigencies (mainly time and military risk) would surely overtake any "oversight" by other bodies, like the UN, anyway.

In every case ex ante, we will still be left with the "US as the chooser of where the danger lies and when is the moment to strike, even the selection of the evidence that justifies the use of force."

[William Fettes]

Nice write up. The NSS revisit is another attempt to legitimise US carte blanche, but articulateing "standards" and means that the US would never allow for any other states, and which cannot be universalised unless we are all willing to open the door to much more global conflict.

The fact we have nought but waning American exceptionalism to prevent such a disastrous eventuality, is instructive about how helpful the NSS is to collective security goals.

Also, in response to the comment above, AFAIK there's a big difference between carte blanche for preventative war and anticipatory defence. There is no need to cite Westphalia as that's irrelevant. We simply look at the general article 51 right and the consensus view of customary law as per Caroline - which demands:

'a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation,'

AS LONG AS IT IS PROPORTIONAL:

'since the act justified by the necessity of self-defence, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it.'

Iraq, in no way, fits the criteria. It does not come under the general Charter principle of last resort, it did not leave no means or moment for deliberation, and the fact is that regime change certainly wasn't porportional to mere grey areas in WMD capability.

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