Canada's Addiction to American Security: The Illusion of Choice in the War on Terrorism
1. America's Addiction to Security and Public Safety Despite the absence of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, American officials are becoming increasingly addicted to achieving perfect security and absolute safety in the midst of an unwinnable war on terrorism. Success will remain elusive because, over time, more groups and individuals with expanding lists of grievances will acquire the power to inflict levels of damage considered by political leaders to be unacceptable. In essence war is becoming privatized (Nye 2004) (3) through the democratization of technology and knowledge (Friedman, 2001), (4) miniaturization of weaponry and lethality, increasing accessibility and transferability of weapons of mass destruction, and a rising number of competing terrorist groups with religious, political and financial motivations to terrorize. Even more disturbing are trends towards the privatization of political power. The Madrid train bombings in March 2004 revealed that a relatively straightforward attack by a small group of terrorists could have a significant impact on the outcome of a democratic election and play a major role in the immediate withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq. The Philippine government withdrew their troops in July 2004 in response to the kidnapping of a single truck driver in Baghdad. These "successes" reveal that terrorists have acquired a measure of political power that far exceeds the influence of hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters in Spain and the Philippines who were demanding the same outcome (an early withdrawal from Iraq), but failed. Mass protests in Katmandu after the murder of twelve Nepalese workers in Baghdad provoked both an apology from the government in Nepal for failing to secure their release, and an explanation from officials that they received no offer from the kidnappers--the implication being that had such an offer been made the government would almost certainly have negotiated with the terrorists. The Kuwaiti government paid a $500,000 ransom for the release of seven Indian and Kenyan employees of a Kuwaiti company involved in post-war reconstruction in Iraq. (5) Several Egyptian, Jordanian, and Turkish companies agreed to cut short their constructions operations in Iraq in exchange for the release of kidnapped employees. (6) In August 2004, terrorists threatened to kill two French journalists as a protest against legislation in France banning the wearing of Muslim headscarves in public schools. The kidnappings provoked a flurry of French diplomatic activity resulting in the release of the hostages in December, 2004. (7) Apparently even the strongest critics of the U.S.-UK led war in Iraq are not immune from kidnapping and extortion. More recently, the Italian government was forced to address accusations that $1 million was paid for the release of two aid workers in October 2004, and significantly more to obtain the release of Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, after a controversial rescue operation in March 2005. (8) Negotiating with terrorists is standard operating procedure for governments eager to avoid a public backlash against policies that are too closely associated with an unpopular war, and an even less popular American president. But these concessions (and others to follow) will guarantee that more kidnappings, bombings and killings will occur as coalitions of insurgents and terrorists cooperate to build on political victories and financial windfalls. (9) Consider the following illustration of the privatization of political power in Iraq today--the overwhelming consensus across the international community is that success in Iraq requires an end to the insurgency and a credible and sustained effort by a broad-based, "multilateral" coalition of states supporting an unwavering commitment to post-conflict reconstruction, counter-insurgency, liberalization, and democratization. Yet despite this multilateral consensus, supported by unanimously endorsed UN Security Council Resolutions 1483 and 1511, unilateral self-interests motivated by domestic political imperatives to protect their own citizens and troops remain the most powerful determinants of whether states join (or remain in) the U. …
Addicted to security - Globalized terrorism and the inevitability of American unilateralism
MAJOR EVENTS SUCH AS THE END OF THE COLD WAR, the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the US war in Afghanistan (2001) and the Iraq war led by the US and the UK (2003) provide excellent opportunities to re-evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of competing theories of international relations, the accuracy of different predictions about the future derived from these theories and the utility of alternative policy recommendations derived from these predictions. The errors that plagued optimistic expectations about the emergence of global stability after the Cold War, for example, were based in part on questionable assumptions about the emerging power and influence of democratic values, international institutions and global liberal regimes. These regimes were expected to impose sufficient discipline on state actors to prevent repeated defections from collective action and ultimately to control international violence.(1) It was apparent to many others, however, that the decline of bipolar strategic rivalry was not sufficient to provide multilateral institutions with the coercive power they needed to compel states and other actors to co-operate consistently.(2) Both optimists and pessimists agreed that the system had undergone fundamental change, but their predictions were often mutually exclusive.Perhaps the clearest illustration of premature closure of inquiry is Charles Kupchan's prediction that America's unipolar moment "will not last... The rise of other powers and America's waning and unilateralist internationalism will combine to make America's unipolar moment a fleeting one." The rise of Europe and, Kupchan argues, "America's diminishing appetite for global engagement" will compel the US to "fortify the homeland and rein in overseas commitments in an attempt to cordon itself off from such threats."(3) Far from turning inward, however, ongoing deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo and Liberia, major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and related financial and military commitments to post-war reconstruction in these countries confirm that Washington is not only increasing its overseas commitments but is willing to engage in the most sweeping and expansive intervention, democratization and reconstruction projects since 1945. Moreover, the splits in Europe resulting from divisions over the Iraq war, in which 14 of 19 NATO members ultimately supported the American position, do not bode well for Kupchan's predictions about the emergence of a sufficiently unified and powerful Europe to replace US hegemony.If erroneous predictions about the demise of unipolarity and the emergence of multilateralism as a staple of American foreign and security policy are wrong, then by extension the theories put forward to account for these predictions are equally suspect.The purpose of this article is to provide a more realistic account of US responses to emerging threats of terrorism and proliferation in the aftermath of 11 September, and a more accurate set of predictions about the future of American foreign and security policies in the decades to come. Sections 1 through 4 will develop the article's primary thesis: namely, that the domestic and international forces at play today are creating a security environment in which American officials will become increasingly committed to (and politically dependent on) a set of priorities in which security trumps everything. Critics of US foreign policy should therefore move beyond the simplistic (and excessively optimistic) assumption that these American security imperatives are only temporal in nature, simply a product of a conservative-hawkish White House and Cabinet led by a Republican president who just managed a victory in the 2000 election. That assumption is dangerously superficial; terrorism and proliferation have become facts of life for American citizens and by extension for any current or future US government. The US will continue to be threatened by and to experience the devastating physical and psychological consequences of globalized terrorism. …
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.