We Tilt at Windmills as World War Looms

Is the world drifting towards a new global war? From this week the dominant super-power, America, will for three months pass through the valley of the shadow of democracy, a presidential election. This is always a moment of self-absorption and paranoia. Barack Obama and John McCain will not act as statesmen but as politicians. They will grandstand and look over their shoulders. Their eye will stray from the ball. Meanwhile, along history's fault line of conflict from Russia's European border to the Caucasus and on to Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, diplomats are shifting uneasily in their seats, drums are sounding and harsh words are spoken. The world is now run by a generation of leaders who have never known global war. Has this dulled their senses? Dan McNeill, an American general, was recently interviewed in Kabul on how to beat the Taliban. He was not the first to conclude that this could not be done militarily but only by "winning hearts and minds". The problem, he said, lay in the answer to the question, "Whose hearts and minds?" Was it those of the Afghan people or was it rather those of the American Congress and voters? Both Obama and McCain have claimed that the war in Iraq has been allowed to distract attention from the war in Afghanistan. This is different from the neoconservatives, who felt the war in Afghanistan was a distraction from the more important war in Iraq. America now thinks it has won in Baghdad and must return to Kabul - and possibly even Tehran. At the same time it must face the possibility that these conflicts may in turn be a distraction from the reemergence as world powers of Russia and China, who are already gaining the initiative in Iran and Africa. Moscow is also precipitating a nationalist resurgence in eastern Europe and among Russian minorities in the Caucasus. The question is critical. Has the West misjudged the fault line of an impending conflict? Its global strategy under George Bush, Tony Blair and a ham-fisted Nato has declared the threat to world peace as coming from nonstate organisations, specifically Al-Qaeda, and the nations that give them either bases or tacit support. Western generals and securocrats have elevated these anarchist fanatics to the status of nuclear powers. Policing crime has become "waging war", so as to justify soaring budgets and influence over policy, much as did America's military-industrial complex during the cold war. Might it be that a raging seven-year obsession with Osama Bin Laden and his tiny Al-Qaeda organisation has blinded strategists to the old verities? Wars are rarely "clashes of civilisation", but rather clashes of interest. They are usually the result of careless policy, of misread signals and of mission creep closing options for peace. Terrorists, wherever located and trained, can certainly capture headlines and cause overnight mayhem, but they cannot project power. They cannot conquer countries or peoples, only manipulate democratic regimes into espousing illiberal policies, as in America and Britain. By grossly overstating the significance of terrorism, western leaders have distracted foreign policy from what should be its prime concern: securing world peace by holding a balance of interest - and pride - among the great powers. To any who lived through the cold war, recent events along Russia's western and southern borders are deeply ominous. Moscow initially spent the 17 years since the fall of the Soviet Union flirting with the West. It had been defeated and had good reason for disarming and putting out feelers to join Nato and the European Union. It took part in such proto-capitalist entities as the G8. In the case of Nato and the EU it was arrogantly rebuffed, while its former Warsaw Pact allies were accepted. Moscow was told it would be foolish to worry about encirclement. A nation that had never enjoyed democracy should content itself with basking in its delights. Russians in the Baltic states and in Ukraine should make their peace with emerging governments. The political clutter of the cold war should be decontaminated. Suddenly this has not worked. The world is showing alarming parallels with the 1930s. Lights are turning to red as the world again approaches depression. The credit crunch and the collapse of world trade talks are making nations introverted. Meanwhile, the defeated power of the last war, Russia, is flexing its muscles and finding them in good working order. On Thursday Gordon Brown told his troops in Afghanistan that "what you are doing here prevents terrorism coming to the streets of Britain". He cannot believe this any more than do his generals. Afghanistan poses no military threat to Britain. Rather it is Britain's occupation and the response in neighbouring Pakistan that fosters antiwestern militancy in the region. Like the impoverishment of Germany between the wars, the stirring of antiwestern and antiChristian sentiment in the Muslim world can only be dangerous and counter-productive. Yet we do it. The Taliban are fighting an old-fashioned insurgent war against a foreign invader and recruiting Pakistanis and antiwestern fanatics to help. They have succeeded in tormenting Washington and London with visions of a destabilised nuclear Pakistan, a blood-drenched Middle East and an Iran whose leaders may yet turn to jihad. For Brown - or the American presidential candidates - to imply that these conflicts with the Muslim world are making the world "safer" is manifestly untrue. Worse, it distorts policy. Rather than calming other foes so the West can concentrate on the conflicts in hand, it is pointlessly stirring Russian expansionism to life. There is no strategic justification for siting American missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. It is nothing but right-wing provocation. Nato's welcome to Georgia and Ukraine, for no good reason but at risk of having to come to their aid, has served only to incite Georgia to realise that risk while also infuriating Moscow. Russia is well able to respond recklessly to a snub without such encouragement, so why encourage it? The more powerful state - America - surely has an obligation to show the greater caution. Any strategic decision, such as the goading of Moscow, must plan for its response. Nato's bureaucracy, lacking coherence and leadership, has been searching for a role since the end of the cold war. That role is apparently now to play with fire. Western strategy is dealing with a resurgent, rich and potent Russia. It has played fast and loose with Moscow's age-old sensitivity and forgotten the message of George Kennan, the American statesman: that Russia must be understood and contained rather than confronted. The naive remarks welcoming Georgia to Nato by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, show a West far detached from such analytical truths. Any student of McCain or Obama, of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, or of the leaders of Britain, France and Germany, might conclude that these are not people likely to go to war. They are surely the children of peace. Yet history shows that "going to war" is never an intention. It is rather the result of weak, shortsighted leaders entrapped by a series of mistakes. For the West's leaders at present, mistake has become second nature.

Comments

[sharpstyx]

GWB and JSM are all about big business, war is big business and right now business is good. If we dont have someone to hunt, or fight, we will hunt for a fight. Thats what i believe all this georgia nonsense was about. Alot of people will have to get "real" jobs

[ILibertine]

To suggest that terrorists cannot "project power" is to ignore a matter called 9/11, or the (some say) inevitability of a small group of misfits obtaining a nuclear weapon. That would surely fit my definition of projecting power. Thus it would seem naive that a nation or group of nations would not attempt to establish protection from potentially disasterous circumstances; indeed we recognized this potentiality after the fact, i.e. too late. Yet we seem to have gone about this important matter in all of the wrong ways, to the great credit of our current leadership and its world-class blundering. But I would not attempt to disagree with all of Mr. Jenkins' points - as there are indeed ominous signs on the horizon - most troubling at the moment being the confusion in Pakistan. Historically, Russia is bound to rise again. The context of its eventual return to power will be determined by diplomacy and tactics that require our not being so absorbed with one issue (Iraq) that we cannot cope with the world as a whole and less of a go-it-alone attitude. Assuredly, events will not wait for us to have time to get around to them and, you are correct, wars do not (always) begin so much by intention as by mistaken signals, economic straits and megalomaniacal personalities in a witch's brew of coincidence. The antidote, if there is one, is wise men capable of reasoned brinkmanship. Is there a wise man (men) on the horizon?

[Otaku1031]

Purposes of accruing power? I believe it was Kissinger that said: "Power is the greatest aphrodisiac." Who needs Viagra when you can just start another war?

[Johnniedog]

Mr Jenkins,

You have hit the nail on the head. There is only one thing that did not get pointed out in your article. There is a Bible for conservatives, I forget the name, in which one of the rules states that you need a continuous war as part of the ruling strategy. The Republicans are following this book to the letter. Even the author of this Book has turned his back on the Right and admits he has made a mistake writhing it and releasing it to the Public. These people are complete nuts!!!! They will do everything they can to destroy this country before it is over. Now that they have destroyed the Economy, they will soon be telling the people of this country that they have to get rid of Social Security and Medicaid because we can not pay for it. JUST WATCH AND SEE!!

[johnbkk]

How is Osama these days? Haven't heard much about the effort to capture him of late.

[HeevenSteven]

It seems the size strength and readiness of the Soviet military was overstated throughout the cold war by the same paranoid military-industrial-complex that we have today telling use "Islamo-Fascism" is the biggest existential threat the west faces.

How is now that the downsized and demoralized Russian Military apparatus is such a renewed threat? And aren't they as well threatened by the Islamists on their very borders.

[YesWeCanada]

America is an extremely buff, violent, broke and increasingly desperate hardcore addict.
The USA is over 9.6 Trillion in debt.
Right now the U.S. is importing over 13 million barrels of oil every day.
United States " Oil - Production: roughly 5 million bbl/day.
The EIA has estimated that demand for oil in the United States would reach 28.3 million barrels per day in 2025.

USA defense spending in 2004 was 623 Billion.
The rest of the world combined spent 500 Billion on defense spending in 2004.

Do the math people. The th ugs will continue to get their fix by any means necessary.

[CEKChuck]

Really, try using paragraphs. I agree, that there are dangerous parallels between what is happening with Russia and the 1930s. Is Putin the next Hitler? Surely we are on watch for this. While I can't disagree that Western governments have hardly done anything right in foreign policy for years, couldn't it be that the West is arming Poland for precisely that reason; that Russia may pose a threat to it's neighbors as Nazi Germany did? And while terrorists cannot occupy another country, your premise that they cannot project power is dangerous and naive in it's narrow definition. A strengthening Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and a collapsing Pakistan (with their already dangerously suspect safeguards over their 44 nuclear warheads) make for an incredibly dangerous possibility of "projecting power".

[mscriblerus]

I entirely agree. Furthermore, the international environment we've fostered over the last eight years afford Russia a bevvy of hands off options. We blew an excellent opportunity to pivot away from cowboy diplomacy and reinvest ourselves into a broader more effective effort. Instead, we continue along like a spooked horse with blinders.

[Doofus]

Paragraphs, man, paragraphs.

You mean the world goes to hell every few years because
the US has elections? Who knew?

Apparently this 'democracy' stuff is too much trouble. Sorry.
We'll re-think it & get back to you. Of course, we will be
keeping our usual watchful eyes of your day-to-day
goings on & be ready to intervene should any of
you get too far out of line.

[vinny]

agree... freakin indent your big ideas...

[jbd]

Why couldn't the anti-missle sites have been put in Holland or Belgium? On top of that Iran has no capability to launch a missle that would hit the US. Why wouldn't the Russians be suspicious? Now we are adding more countries to treaties that will have trip wires that could start WW3. Bush is trying to seal his evangelical apocalypse vision before he leaves office.

[SamEllison]

Well said Simon. Though Rovian policies during the whole of the Bush admin has made this an eight year political campaign. All decisions were made with domestic political gain in mind. Screw America and thus the world they said and they did.

[tompoe]

"Yet history shows that "going to war" is never an intention."

It's hard, but you're going to have to deal with it. History now shows Bush intended to "go to war" and invade/occupy Iraq.

[vinny]

yeah... i was about to say this too... the history of war is ALL ABOUT power and the intention to acrue more power... look at every war ever waged...

for those wanting peace, we must understand the power structures and the operators who abuse them for their own greedy PURPOSES...

[MajorKong]

Going to war is often intended. The consequences of going to usually are not. Wars are like fires, once you start one they are hard to contain and often spread unpredictably.

Two examples from modern history: Nobody in 1861 or 1914 had a clue what they were getting into at the beginning.

[Doofus]

But, but... They did NOT know that they had 'NO clue', to paraphrase
Rumsfeld, and they were SURE their war would be over 'real quick',
and that 'they' would win, of course.