Bakersfield Californian

VIEW POINT: Bush should worry about other nations adopting pre-emptive war strategy

By MARK A. MARTINEZ, Ph.D.

Sunday / January 23, 2005

During the presidential election President Bush threw down the gauntlet and told the American people that he is a “war president” who has made tough decisions in an environment of threat and catastrophe. He made it clear that since 9/11 our world has changed and that we must engage our enemies before they strike first.

Suggesting that he is a modern Disraeli or Napoleon, President Bush argued that pre-emptive war and aggressive unilateralism are necessary steps to maintain stability in our new world. The problem with this view is that targeting civilians is not new to humanity or in the annals of warfare.

Put more bluntly, the fundamental nature of international politics has not changed over the millennium, and nothing that occurred on September 11, 2001 alters this.

Indeed, since Thucydides wrote about the Pelopennesian War in 430 B.C., groups and empires have had to remain vigilant and prepare for battle. Fear, anarchy, and a steady diet of war were the result. History provides us with numerous examples of great civilizations living with fear, terror and insecurity. From the mighty Romans, who had to deal with Hannibal pounding at the gates of Rome, to an Asian continent doused with fright and panic wrought by Genghis Kahn and his successors, anxiety and fear have been basic staples of international politics.

In the “modern era” Napoleon Bonaparte upset and then rearranged the European balance of power. The brutality and aggression of the Napoleonic Spanish campaign was so grand it gave rise to a new form of warfare – guerilla tactics that helped lay the foundation for modern terrorism. Indeed, the goal of the Spaniards was never to defeat the better equipped and more modern armies of Napoleon. They simply wanted to outlast conquerors who sought to bring liberal ideas like democracy to their land. In the meantime, insecurity and brutality continued as basic staples of international relations.

The industrial age and two world wars later helped states develop the capacity to build weapons of mass destruction on a grand scale. The Cold War contributed to a delicate balance of terror, and was complemented by scores of state and non-state terrorist sponsored activities. However, the thing to keep in mind here is that terrorism is not new and didn’t suddenly appear on the world stage

In fact terrorist attacks are quite common to history and are no stranger to friends and enemies alike. From Chechnya, to Sri Lanka, to Ireland, to Spain and Latin America, the shadow of terrorism has had many sources and faces. Our own KKK, and other home-grown extremist groups, teaches us terrorism is neither novel nor capable of toppling governments.

And this is an important point: while the threat of terrorism is real, and evokes images of catastrophe, it doesn’t threaten the survival of any great state.

Nonetheless, the Bush administration operates as if this is a unique time in human history –as if terrorists have the capacity to collapse our state. They don’t. The true unique development of our age is that Americans once believed we were immune to the forces of history, and that dramatic effects of September 11^th mean we should now become a garrison state.

However, to privilege American fears because of terrorisms staged effect, its source, or its tactics is short-sighted and, quite frankly, undermines our capacity to fight it. By putting the American public in a perennial state of panic, the Bush administration has pushed through a unilateral agenda that takes us back to the dark days of empire and dynasty. By using 9/11 as both a sword and a shield to justify aggressive unilateralism in Iraq (Afghanistan was both necessary and justified) the Bush administration has ignored a solid history of American-led diplomatic and political agreements that helped make our world more secure.

In particular, President Bush ignores that our proudest ideological, moral, and political achievements have come not from the point of a bayonet but from our ability to convince others to follow our lead. Discounting the cumulative accomplishments of treaties signed at Westphalia, Vienna, Bretton Woods, and elsewhere, the Bush administration demeans and disparages agreements that worked to solve international disputes from antiquity and, in the 20^th century, convinced the world that America was committed to causes beyond a global imperium.

Nonetheless, policy-makers in the Bush administration argue that “new demons” make the president’s efforts visionary, even Napoleonesque. We are told we will be better for the effort. This as we make inglorious attempts to pass the hat, find support with our saber-rattling in Iran, stumble through faltering alliances, and undermine our economic security (watch for the coming dollar-deficit boomerang).

In the end we must remember Napoleon’s undoing lay not in his military tactics at Waterloo, but was a product of how he encouraged Europe to unite against him. Annoyed – because he was, after all, bringing freedom to the “unfree” – Napoleon learned the larger lessons of international politics when the great powers turned the tables on him and used nationalism and fear to their benefit.

We need to ask ourselves what happens when states like China, India, or Russia do likewise and use pre-emptive and aggressive unilateralism in their spheres of influence. It will be at this time we learn that President Bush’s historical contemporary may not be Napoleon, but rather Don Quixote.

Mark A. Martinez holds a doctorate degree and is an associate professor of political science at Cal State Bakersfield.