When the Cold War or the "Long Peace" ended, the United States had already begun a decade of interventionism. Our military either by land, by air or by sea, invaded, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Haiti, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Sudan. But these were just preliminary. The main event was the open-ended, no-end-in-sight, no-exit-strategy global war on terror or as some call it the "Long War."
Failure in Somalia did little to detract from our self-delusional-view that the United States was beyond challenge. We were told by our leaders and we believed we were an indispensable nation and our chief responsibility was to preside over globalization. Pax Americana. Our self-assigned duty was to establish and enforce our self-defined-norms for international order. As with Rome of old we assumed an existence of unlimited reserves of power---economic, political, cultural and though last, above all, military. As Rome's leaders were horribly mistaken so were our leaders.
We thought ourselves to be the "sole superpower."
The problem was what we called the Department of Defense, did not actually do defense but power projection. On September 11, 2001 the Pentagon was prepared for any number of contingencies in the Balkans, or Northeast Asia, or the Persian Gulf. It was just not prepared to protect our nation's eastern coastline. Our well-trained and equipped military were ready to defend Seoul or Riyadh but Manhattan was left to fend for itself.
When it came to defending American interests, anything and everything took precedence over guarding our own perimeter. After 9/11 the Bush administration's primary focus was Pax Americana. This was to be done by persuasion if possible or force as required to bring the Islamic world into conformity with American norms.
And we wonder why we are hated by much of the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment