Issues: Military Influence on U.S. Foreign Policy

The NSS declares that "The enemy is terrorism -- premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against civilians...We make no distinction between terrorists and those who knowingly harbor or provide aid to them." To rid the world of this evil, the administration's "immediate focus" will be on terrorists with global reach, especially any organization or state sponsor of terrorism attempting to acquire WMD or their precursors. Moreover, the United States will identify and destroy such threats through unilateral action, if necessary, and will "exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively." The NSS also proposes a "war of ideas" that will stigmatize terrorism; support "moderate and modern government, especially in the Muslim world, to ensure that ideologies that support terrorism do not find fertile ground in any nation"; and use "public diplomacy...to kindle the hopes and aspirations of freedom of those in societies ruled by the sponsors of global terrorism."

• Introduction
• Sections 1 & 2. Overview, Aspirations
• Section 3. Strengthen Alliances
• Section 4. Work With Others
• Sections 5 & 6. Weapons of Mass Destruction; Free Markets and Free Trade
• Sections 7, 8, & 9. Expand the Circle of Development Agendas for Cooperative Action; Transform America's National Security Institutions
• Summary Comments
• A Thumbnail Comparison of the Last Clinton and First Bush National Security Strategies

Comment: Some 35 organizations are on the list of global terrorists that the United States has put in its cross-hairs. Yet more than one year after launching attacks against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the fate of most leaders of both organizations remains largely unknown.

The "Bush doctrine" of the right of preemptive, unilateral self-defense against those attempting to acquire a particular warfighting capability removes the traditionally accepted justification for preemption: that the threat be imminent. The mention of WMD "precursors," many of which have legitimate uses unrelated to weapons and warfare, reinforces the discontinuity of the new "doctrine" from past international practice.

The second interesting aspect of this section is the declared "war of ideas." Many believe that the core of the U.S. "victory" in the Cold War was as much moral as it was political ideology -- and can be replicated. Communism was "evil"; democracy was "good." But the Cold War ideological struggle was a competition between differing statist systems of political and economic incentives more than a moral confrontation. It was essential secular. Thus its chief arena of action was political-military and economic.

In the "war against terror," the United States largely faces sub-state organizations motivated by religious conviction. Additionally, the countries in which the administration sees this new struggle being waged have little if any real experience with democratic institutions. The recent Pakistani "elections," whose fairness was compromised by pre-election maneuvers by President Musharraf, saw religious parties sympathetic to Taliban ideas garner 45 seats in the National Assembly -- up from two in 1997. This suggests that the United States will have a very hard time winning the ideological war. Indeed, one fear is that the Taliban and al Qaeda will regroup and reorganize in Pakistan.

Moreover, some in the Bush administration have asserted that the guiding ideology of Saudi Arabia, Wahabism, is antithetical to western ideas and values. A fair question is what does this portend for future U.S.-Saudi relations?

This analysis was prepared by Col. Dan Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.). Dan, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, is FCNL's Senior Fellow on Military Affairs..

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