Seize the Moment Read online

  If an issue affects vital national interests, a major power will throw even the strongest economic ties overboard in order to prevail. In both world wars, nations that traded with each other killed each other’s citizens by the millions. At the height of the cold war, many argued that trade with the Soviet Union would sate the Kremlin’s appetite for expansion. While trade can serve as an important added restraint on potential aggressors, it can never substitute for hard-headed deterrence based on military power. None of the West’s credits and investments in the 1970s dissuaded the Kremlin from ordering the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

  Those who propound the irrelevance of military power vastly overstate the influence of economic power. The world’s rising economic giants—Germany and Japan—have exploited their huge foreign exchange reserves and industrial competitiveness. They have gained control of foreign markets, dominated key bilateral trade relationships, and have set the pace for the economic integration of Europe and the Pacific rim. But on political and security issues, economic power does not amount to geopolitical leverage. The collapse of communism in East Germany, rather than Berlin’s economic payoffs to Moscow, led to the unification of Germany. Despite Germany’s and Japan’s critical need for Gulf oil for economic survival, both countries were impotent in the Gulf crisis, totally dependent on the United States and our allies in the Persian Gulf War to protect their interests. Saddam Hussein, after all, could not have been bribed to leave Kuwait.

  This does not mean that economic power is irrelevant. As the cold war has waned, military security threats have diminished, thereby elevating the relative importance of economic issues. But matters of national security retain a higher priority in absolute terms. Economic power contributes only indirectly to a nation’s security by generating wealth to channel toward that end. While an essential prerequisite, economic power still represents only one of several necessary variables in the equation of national power.

  The myth of the decline of America. The image of the United States as a declining great power remains dear to the hearts and minds of many academics. They argue that America, hamstrung by domestic budget and foreign trade deficits and obsessed with consumer consumption, stood on the sidelines during the great events of 1989. Their premise is that all great powers experience periods of expansion, stability, and decline. They have traced this pattern through the rise and fall of Spain, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain and claim to have detected the telltale symptoms that the United States is on the same path of inevitable decline.

  While drawing such comparisons may be an interesting exercise in intellectual gymnastics, it creates false parallels and reveals shallow reasoning. With the discrediting of Marxism, we should reject all other arguments based on economic determinism. Great powers have risen and fallen for reasons other than economic ones. International influence depends not only on economics, but also on such intangibles as leadership, political skill, ideological and cultural appeal, domestic unity and will, and even blind luck. History does not move according to a fixed trajectory, but rather ebbs and flows. Many great powers consigned to the ranks of declining powers have risen from their deathbeds.

  Those who advance this myth ignore the fact that the United States retains a dominant position in the world economy. It still has the highest overall productivity, has the strongest scientific and technological base, and ranks near the top in per capita income. The often-cited decline in America’s share of the global economy—from 50 percent in 1950 to 25 percent in 1990—misreads reality. After World War II, Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan lay in ruins, while the United States continued on its wartime boom. U.S. dominance represented a temporary distortion of normal economic balances, certain to be corrected as the world recovered from the war. In fact, America’s current 25 percent share of world GNP—an impressive achievement by any measure—mirrors its proportion before World War II. U.S. GNP today is almost twice as great as Japan’s, three times as great as the former Soviet Union’s, and four times as great as Germany’s.

  Many who discern a declining America are guilty of wishful thinking. They do not want to see the United States play a leadership role, promote its values and ideals, or serve as an example for others to follow. They should ask themselves this fundamental question: If the United States does not lead, who should? The only other nations with the potential resources to do so are Japan, China, Russia, and Germany. The United States not only has the resources to lead, but also has what all the others lack—the absence of any imperialistic aspirations or designs on other nations.

  Today, as the only country that possesses global economic, military, and political power, the United States stands at the apex of its geopolitical power. If its status as the world’s only superpower erodes, that will result from choice, not necessity.

  • • •

  The high expectations of a new era of peace and freedom in 1989 were crushed by the hard realities of 1990. The world saw its hopes for a more peaceful phase in world history dashed by a cascade of events from renewed repression in the Soviet Union to aggression in the Persian Gulf. Though developments around the world dealt severe blows to the dreams of 1989 in a new world order, these hopes were finally buried in the sands of Kuwait in 1990.

  After playing off the reformers against the hard-liners and vice versa for five years, Gorbachev decisively rejected accelerated reform and allied himself with holdovers from the old regime in 1990, choosing reaction over reform. An improviser, not a strategist, he could not bring himself to bite the bullet on allowing private ownership of property and instead pursued the impossible objective of creating a halfway house between a market and planned economy. Having broken faith with the reformers, who then rallied to his rival, Russian federation president Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev aligned himself with the reactionaries, who backed him not because of political loyalty but because they needed a front man to conceal their control of the levers of power.

  The renewed ascendancy of the hard-liners quickly checked progress toward a more cooperative U.S.-Soviet relationship. After signing the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty, Moscow brazenly violated its provisions, claiming that several armored divisions were exempt from treaty restrictions because they had been resubordinated to the Soviet Navy and Strategic Rocket Forces security units. In the START talks, Kremlin negotiators backpedaled on a succession of key compromises and obstructed the completion of the treaty for more than a year. Meanwhile, the relentless Soviet strategic forces modernization program continued unabated. More ominous, top Soviet leaders resuscitated Stalin-era rhetoric, accusing the United States of seeking to subvert their country. Though Gorbachev had denounced the “era of stagnation” under Brezhnev, he launched his own “era of reversion.”

  In Eastern Europe, euphoria gave way to a grim recognition of sobering realities. The odds against successful reform were stacked against the new democracies. A lack of domestic capital, willing foreign investors, modern technology, and well-trained managers was compounded by the loss of traditional markets and the danger of simultaneous hyperinflation and mass unemployment. To complicate matters further, all these problems had to be solved while politicians who had more experience in Communist prisons than democratic parliaments put into place entirely new political systems. While the anticommunist revolutions of 1989 represented a great step forward, they were only a first step on the long road to stable democratic government and market-based prosperity.

  In third world regional conflicts, peace remained illusive. After the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan, resistance forces liberated 80 percent of their country but failed to topple the Communist government in Kabul. Hunkered behind its Soviet-built fortifications and bankrolled with its $3-billion annual aid allotment, Kabul opted for stalemate instead of a just political settlement. In Cambodia, negotiations between the warring parties bogged down as their Communist leaders insisted on achieving through the fine print of an agreement what they had failed to win on the battlefield: unco
ntested power. In El Salvador, peace talks stalemated as the guerrillas tested U.S. staying power and escalated attacks and civil strife.

  Elsewhere, promising developments went sour and hopeless situations grew worse. In the Philippines, the Aquino government betrayed its commitments to adopt market reforms and end corruption. The transition from the Marcos to the Aquino regime seemed only to replace one hand in the till with another. In Sri Lanka, ethnic warfare between the Tamils and the Sinhalese grew ever more violent. In South Africa, President Frederik W. de Klerk pressed ahead with reform, but the death toll from black-on-black violence climbed to more than five thousand, over five times the number of blacks killed by the apartheid regime in the past ten years. In Liberia, savage revolutionaries overthrew a brutal dictatorship and then turned on each other. In the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, communal violence continued, as Israeli military police killed over eight hundred Arabs and Arabs killed sixty-five Israelis. In Lebanon, the tortured life of a once-prospering country no longer even made the headlines.

  Saddam Hussein dealt the final blow to the high hopes of 1989 for a new world order with his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. His aggression violated every tenet of the “new era” in world affairs: a barbaric dictator flouted international law and world opinion by conquering and annexing militarily a weak neighbor. It brought back memories of Hitler and Stalin picking off small European countries one by one.

  • • •

  In 1991, we risked forgetting the hard lessons of 1990 amid the euphoria of the victory in the Persian Gulf and the defeat of communism in the Soviet Union.

  President Bush masterfully orchestrated the world’s response to Saddam Hussein’s aggression. Sturdily supported by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, he recognized the grave threat to Western interests and promptly deployed the military force needed to deter further Iraqi aggression. He skillfully forged a global coalition and won U.N. Security Council approval for the use of force. He mobilized sufficient forces to achieve a rapid and decisive victory and repeatedly articulated the rationale for U.S. actions in terms of our strategic interests and moral values. He set forth a clear list of political demands and explored every diplomatic channel from the Soviet Union to the Arab League to try to achieve them without war. When he ordered our troops into battle, he resisted the temptation to micromanage the military effort. After he achieved his fundamental military objectives and even after he shielded the Kurds from Saddam Hussein’s wrath, he avoided the quagmire of playing kingmaker in Iraqi internal politics. Though some believe he stopped too soon, it was a textbook case of superb presidential crisis management and wartime leadership.

  Had we not intervened, an international outlaw would today control more than 50 percent of the world’s oil. While the United States could survive if necessary without Persian Gulf oil, Western Europe and Japan could not. What happens to the economies of the other industrial democracies directly affects the health of our own economy. We therefore could not have afforded to allow Iraq to control access to Gulf oil and blackmail the world through its choke hold on our oil lifeline.

  A far more momentous event than the Persian Gulf War followed five months later: Soviet communism committed suicide. Karl Marx once wrote that all great historical events happen twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. When the old Bolsheviks took power in the revolution of October 1917, they ushered in an era of unprecedented tragedy for the Russian and non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union. When neo-Bolsheviks tried to overthrow Gorbachev in a coup in August 1991, they finally fulfilled one of Marx’s prophecies: their putsch collapsed after a farcical three-day run on center stage.

  The plotters were a Soviet version of the gang who could not shoot straight. When they decided to depose Gorbachev, they failed to understand how much his reforms had changed Soviet society. A freer press, laxer controls on social and political organizations, and free elections at the republic and local levels had toppled key pillars of the totalitarian order. Even the instruments of force—the army and the KGB—no longer responded to orders without questioning their legitimacy. The coup plotters were Stalinists who no longer commanded a Stalinist system.

  They were not the only casualties of the revolution. Gorbachev as the central figure in Soviet politics and Moscow as the center of the Soviet empire also suffered devastating blows. The Soviet president, whose authority had eroded during six years of start-and-stop reform and economic deterioration, lost much of his remaining political standing by virtue of having appointed all the coup’s ringleaders to their high positions. In the aftermath of the coup, Yeltsin and the leaders of the other Soviet republics eclipsed Gorbachev as the authors of the Soviet future, and virtually all of the non-Russian nations took advantage of the paralysis at the center to assert their political independence. They forced the center to take a series of steps—such as cutting nuclear arms and curtailing aid to client regimes—that the precoup government had opposed. Though Gorbachev returned, it was a hollow and temporary victory.

  After the tumultuous events of 1989, 1990, and 1991, the time has come for America to reset its geopolitical compass. We have a historic opportunity to change the world. While many of our traditional security concerns have faded with the end of the cold war, many new political and economic issues have assumed a new importance. Our top priority must be to redefine America’s global mission and reformulate its strategy.

  • • •

  After the Communist victory in Vietnam in 1975, many believed the United States could achieve nothing of value in the world. After the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, many argued that we had nothing left to achieve. After the victory in the Persian Gulf in 1991, many concluded that we could achieve anything. After the new Soviet revolution in 1991, many asserted that America’s leadership was no longer needed. All these views miss the mark. Today, for the first time, the United States stands as the world’s only complete superpower. The key is how we choose to use this unprecedented power.

  The Persian Gulf War highlighted America’s unique position. No other country could have mobilized the world to defeat Saddam Hussein. Western Europe, economically powerful but politically fragmented, acted individually, not collectively. Japan, an economic heavyweight but military lightweight, only barely met its financial pledges. Germany, limited by its constitution and preoccupied with the bills for reunification, remained peripheral. The Soviet Union, struggling with its internal crises, reluctantly followed America’s lead, but only diplomatically and not militarily. Only the United States, supported by Britain and France among the major powers, possessed the combination of economic, military, and political power needed to meet the challenge.

  In the war’s aftermath, two rival American traditions—isolationism and internationalist idealism—clashed again. Isolationists argued that the United States should quit serving as the world’s 911 emergency number. Some of those on the isolationist left denounced aspirations to make America the world’s policeman and demanded that resources be kept at home to solve pressing problems such as the underclass, drug addiction, and AIDS. Others argued that because of our faults at home, we were not worthy to lead abroad. Those on the isolationist right insisted that the defeat of communism eliminated the rationale for a global U.S. presence, that foreign aid wasted money on ungrateful foreigners, and that “America should come not just first but first, second, and third.” In this unholy alliance, both counseled a retreat into comfortable isolationism.

  The United States has too much at stake to heed that advice. Isolationists say, “Come home, America.” But the security of our home in this politically, economically, militarily, and ideologically interdependent world is affected by changes everywhere. Walking away from global challenges will carry a dangerous price. History may once again produce nations aspiring to regional or global dominance. Proliferation of nuclear and ballistic missile technologies renders the oceans obsolete as buffers against aggression. With imports and exports com
prising over 20 percent of our economy, our prosperity depends on international stability. Most important, an America withdrawn into isolationism would not be true to itself. Our values, derived from our religious tradition, demand public as well as private virtue. This does not imply an unlimited commitment to right every wrong, but does involve a moral imperative to use our awesome capabilities as the world’s only superpower to promote freedom and justice in areas where our interests and our ideals coincide.

  Idealistic internationalists argued that the United States enjoyed a unique opportunity to create a “new world order.” Some insisted that we should launch a crusade to advance the democratic revolution around the world and that imposing democracy on Iraq through military force would have represented a vital initial step. Universal democracy, they argued, would not only guarantee the respect of human rights but would also ensure peace because a democratic state has never started a war. Others viewed the role of the United Nations as the key to victory in the Gulf War and called for the United States to make collective security and international law the centerpieces of its foreign policy. Their goal was not just a better world, but a perfect world.

  These noble aspirations are unrealistic. Those who call for a global democratic crusade ignore the limits of our power. Recognizing these limits does not mean that we should shrug off forces struggling to advance democracy or that we should give a green light to dictators poised to strike against fragile democratic regimes. But we do not have sufficient power to remake the world in our image. Even in the West, democratic government has existed for only two hundred years. Nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America cannot develop overnight the traditions, cultures, and institutions needed to make democracy work. What works for us may not work for others. In these regions, democratic government does not necessarily mean good government. It could lead to majority repression of minorities and to mob rule that would make authoritarian rule enviable by comparison.