US National Security Strategy Research Articles

Whiteness as War by Other Means: Racial Complexity in an Age of Failed States

This paper examines contemporary debates around the US Census, US National Security Strategy, and various documents of postmodern war doctrine to delineate a mutation in domestic social order that is consistent both with the end of civil rights and with US planetary ambition. At one level this paper serves to critique a liberal progressive-activist tendency in the US that remains preoccupied with the very racial oppositions that such a tendency also ironically condemns. The contemporary juridical ethos finds its political analogue not in a post-white “cosmopolitan legal order,” as many would hope, but in the new absolutism of `World-American' rule. At a second level, then, this paper seeks to complicate and challenge US planetary ambition by describing what is ultimately an autogenic form of warfare, a declaration within civil society of a war between the US and itself. The pervasive fractalization of civil rights based forms of domestic social order, and equally, the new minoritarian condition of whiteness, provide apposite bases from within which to rethink race politics in an age of failed states.

National security strategy for U.S. water

Being adept at crafting national policy inherently demands that those at the table have a deep and comprehensive understanding of problem areas, and of historical details associated with progress that has been made, and that which has yet to be made. Undertaking the task of crafting national strategies, or engaging in policy discussions without possessing the prerequisites can predictably produce a variety of nationally degrading effects. Those effects include mounting public costs associated with irrational policy mis-adventures, lost opportunity costs that may not ever be recoverable, remediation costs, and costs associated with detrimental impacts on select demographies, or whole populations. Such is the story of US National Security Strategy for the Water Sector. When crafting a national policy schematic to encompass the 'water sector,' the manner in which water is to be available, the types of, and quantities of water needed for human consumption - cannot be items in a side-parlor discussion, nor can key environmental considerations that have the potential to affect the quality and quantity of water the human race will need. Solutions are difficult to conceive and much less implement, in large part due to an imposing public perception that high complexity has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, and that complexity presents an insurmountable eventuality. Such a perception has carried on creating a monolithic sensation, a mental impression, and a standing and unchallenged political justification for inaction in the face of multiple escalating challenges, with the titanic potential to amount to great national consequences. This body of work recounts certain shortfalls in the analyses - used to conceive and place into service, the US National Security Strategy for the Water Sector. Additionally, a reformed and renewed 'cooperative engineering' orientation capable of delivering an efficient, effective, beneficial and complete National Security Strategy policy framework in introduced - drawn from the need for tightly coupled interoperability amongst multiple variables/entities in the national strategy spaces, policy spaces and the operational spaces, with strong considerations of historicals.

The Miracle of Generative Violence? René Girard and the Use of Force in International Law

AbstractIn this article, I apply René Girard's theory of generative violence to the international law relating to the use of force. I argue that texts of international law make gestures of referral towards an immanent normativity on the fettering of divine violence. The means to this end is a form of sacrificial violence that seeks to promote the preservation and cohesion of the ‘international community’. The structuring of this violence through international law and its repeated staging reproduces the relationship of prophecy to miracle. Empirically, I draw mainly on excerpts from the 2006 US National Security Strategy.

The Neoliberal Geopolitics of Food Security: The Case of Indonesia

The centering of development in post-9/11 US national security strategies, combined with the restructuring of the US state's foreign development apparatus, promise deep changes in understandings and practices of food security and its relationship to development and processes of neoliberalization, securitization, and militarization. Long a stated objective within US foreign aid programs, especially those based around food aid, recent strategic shifts have rescripted food security as a basic need that should be met through the market, and as a proxy measurement for good governance. By the same token, food insecurity becomes a measure of poor governance and a contributor to political instability and persistent underdevelopment, laying the groundwork for international terrorism and criminal activity. This paper examines the altered contexts and practicalities of US food aid in Indonesia, as the relationship between such assistance and broader projects of sub-imperialism and neoliberalization, in Indonesia and in Southeast Asia more generally, must be interrogated. US development and geopolitical strategies identify Indonesia as both a strategically important ally in the global war on terror and a vulnerable state, prone to deteriorating security and governance. Under post-9/11 security and development strategies, development and humanitarian assistance centered on food aid and improved food security have become primary components of US policy in and toward Indonesia. I ground my discussion in two case studies: security-oriented food-for -work programs in Jakarta and the militarization of food aid in post-tsunami Aceh province.

European Views of Preemption in US National Security Strategy

The 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States and the 2006 expanded version describe the broad strategic goals that have become known as the Bush Doctrine: military primacy, global transformation, preemption, and a willingness to act unilaterally. Europeans, like American critics of the Bush Doctrine, worry about the unfortunate juxtaposition of the unachievable goal of completely ending tyranny throughout the world, the confusion between preemptive war and preventive war, the use of 9/11 as a pretext for unilateralism, and the document’s preface declaring, “This is a wartime national security strategy . . . .” From the perspective of most Europeans, these overly broad goals are in sharp contrast with the European preference for multilateralism and consensus. These elements of the Bush Doctrine, and their applications in Iraq, have radically altered the extensive post-9/11 sympathy and support for the American response to the threat of terrorism. The focus of this article is on the transatlantic divide over preemption, and it is therefore important to distinguish between the two chapters of the National Security Strategy (NSS) where preemption is discussed. In both the 2002 and the 2006 versions the first reference is in Chapter III, titled, “Strengthen Alliances to Defeat Global Terrorism and Work to Prevent Attacks Against Us (sic) and Our Friends.” Both versions of Chapter III focus on global terrorism and terrorists as non-state actors. The 2002 version states:

Performing security: The imaginative geographies of current US strategy

Political geographers have recently focused their attention on the performative nature and imaginative geographies of US security strategies. This work has illuminated a number of mechanisms through which geographical knowledge has been interpreted and reformulated to support specific political agendas. This paper builds upon and develops the insights of these recent studies, arguing that current US security strategies are constructed around a policy of integration, whereby states are encouraged, through a range of measures, to mesh with attitudes and perspectives on the world. It assesses the ways in which these integration strategies are being performed, through an analysis of US National Security Strategy documents, the works of writers such as Kagan and Barnett, and the imaginative geographies and popular geopolitical representations of the US and its enemies. This paper contends that these practices combine to produce the effects that they name, bringing to life an imaginary geography that mirrors and supports the particular logics of the US-led ‘war on terror’. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Problem of Uncertainty in Strategic Planning

Much has been made about the defining role of uncertainty in strategic planning since the end of the Cold War. For all of its importance, however, recognition of uncertainty poses a dilemma for strategists: in predicting the future, they are likely to be wrong; but in resisting prediction, they risk clouding the rational bases for making strategic choices. Overconfidence in prediction may lead to good preparation for the wrong future, but wholesale dismissal of prediction may lead a strategist to spread his resources too thinly. In pursuit of flexibility, he ends up well prepared for nothing. A natural compromise is to build strategies that are robust across multiple alternative future events but are still tailored to meet the challenges of the most likely future events. Recent US national security strategy has veered from this middle course and placed too much emphasis on the role of uncertainty. A more balanced approach would address a wide range of potential threats and security challenges, but would also incorporate explicit, transparent, probabilistic reasoning into planning processes. The main benefit of such an approach would not necessarily be more precise predictions of the future, but rather greater clarity and discipline applied to the difficult judgements about the future upon which strategy depends.

A Black Feminist Analysis of Responses to War, Racism, and Repression

In March 2003, the US government launched a military invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was one more phase of the US National Security Strategy doctrine that promises militarism, war, and disruption in various sovereign states. These wars abroad and the unprecedented powers of government and police agencies in the USA represent powerful intersections of patriarchal authority, racism, militarism, and elitism. Africana communities have a long history of resisting repression both directly and indirectly related to US foreign policy. Social scientists writing from a black feminist perspective have described how such mutually constructing forces of race, class, gender, and nation have influenced the lives of people of color, women, and the poor in American society and have highlighted the historical and sociological importance of resistance by these oppressed groups. Specifically, this paper addresses ways in which a black feminist analysis and praxis offer useful perspectives on activism concerning issues of peace and justice post 9—11—2001.

The Bush Doctrine Revisited: The 2006 National Security Strategy of the USA

In its 2006 National Security Strategy, the USA reaffirms the controversial doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence as crucial in the ''war on terror'' proclaimed after the attacks of 9/11. But it does not provide a detailed examination of pre-emption. The questions left open in the 2002 US National Security Strategy as to what will trigger pre-emptive action, when action against non-State actors will be permissible and what degree of force will be proportionate in pre-emptive action are still unre- solved. The promise that ''The reasons for our actions will be clear, the force measured and the cause just'' does not offer much in the way of specific guidance. It is very striking that in this context, the US strategy makes no reference to inter- national law or to the role of the UN Security Council. The other main focus of the strategy is on the ''promotion of democracy'', but it does not go so far as to assert any legal right to use force for this purpose, and it makes only passing reference to humanitarian intervention. The EU 2003 Security Strategy provides a marked con- trast in that it does not adopt the doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence, does not expressly identify ''rogue States'' and does profess respect for international law and for the role of the UN. Other States have not generally shown themselves willing to accept a Bush doctrine of pre-emptive self-defence. They agree that there are new threats facing the world from international terrorists and the danger of prolifer- ation of weapons of mass destruction, but the 2005 World Summit showed clearly that there is no general acceptance of pre-emptive action. Moreover, the International Court of Justice still follows a cautious approach to self-defence. The 2006 National Security Strategy largely reaffirms the doctrines of the earlier 2002 Strategy, but whereas the focus in the 2002 Strategy was on the threat posed by Iraq and North Korea; attention has now shifted to Iran and Syria, accused of being State sponsors of terror by Hizbollah and Al-Qaida. The article ends with a discussion of the recent conflict in Lebanon: this raised the crucial question whether the war on terror gave Israel a wide right to use force, even a pre-emptive right. The conflict highlights dramatically the practical significance of the divisions on the scope of the law of self-defence with regard to action against non-State actors, pre-emption and proportionality.

Preventive Force in US National Security Strategy

The Bush administration's 2002 National Security Strategy touched off a vigorous debate in the United States and abroad, which intensified with the war in Iraq, over what appeared to be a novel, broad assertion of the right to use force to prevent latent threats from emerging, particularly threats associated with terrorism and nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. But the use of preventive force – and the debate over its legality and wisdom – predate the Bush administration's post-11 September 2001 strategy. A careful examination of the history, rationale, costs and benefits of using preventive force suggests that, while rare, preventive force has a legitimate role to play in tackling some of the most dangerous security problems facing the United States and the wider international community.

The Demise of US Spacepower: Not with a Bang but a Whimper

Spacepower is a critical element supporting the US national security strategy. As more nations gain access to technology, there is growing concern that space capabilities will be increasingly vulnerable to attack. However, a more insidious problem looms. For the last decade, the development and acquisition of US national security space systems have become more and more troubled with cost overruns and schedule delays. This grave situation has caught the attention of national security leadership and the US Congress. Panels of experts have proposed a litany of remedies. In this paper we explain and illustrate the importance of enhancing space power to better support national security needs and caution that many of the proposed acquisition solutions address symptoms, not the primary cause. As history as shown…if the US offers an inviting target, it may well pay the price of attack. With the growing commercial and national security use of space, US assets in space and on the ground offer just such targets. The US is an attractive candidate for a ‘Space Pearl Harbor’.1 This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.2

Pre-emption, Deterrence, and Self-Defence: A Legal and Historical Assessment

The policy of the United States, outlined in the 2002 National Security Strategy, whereby the US claims a right under international law to engage in pre-emptive use of force to prevent a rogue state's development of nuclear weapons, or any weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is unnecessary and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. This conclusion is reached through a comprehensive and intensive assessment of the normative reactions of politically effective actors to China's development of nuclear weapons during a two-year period between the Cuban Missile Crisis and China's first test in October 1964. While pre-emptive use of force against China, a rogue state, was considered by both the United States and most likely by the Soviet Union, neither used force to prevent it developing nuclear weapons. Since a policy of pre-emptive use of force was unnecessary for either state's self-defence, it would have been unlawful under customary international law. Given that the current strategic scenario of states vis-à-vis rogue states is the same under most circumstances, notwithstanding the existence of international terrorist networks, the article concludes that the proposed claim of the United States is, prima facie, unnecessary to its self-defence, and therefore unlawful under customary international law of self-defence. It shifts the burden of proof to policymakers claiming that all rogue states can be lawfully prevented through pre-emptive use of force from acquiring nuclear weapons, to establish that a particular state cannot be deterred from the use of nuclear weapons. Though the preventive war claim of the US National Security Strategy 2002 may turn out to be an effective strategic bluff in limiting WMD proliferation, the wisdom of the threat should not be confused with the illogic of preventive war.

Editor's introduction: Academic and Policy Perspectives on the 'War on Terrorism'

This issue of Irish Studies in international Affairs is dominated by contributions to the debate on the US 'War on Terrorism' post11 September 2001. It draws from papers presented at last year's annual conference of the RIA's National Committee for the Study of International Affairs and from some others submitted directly to the journal, and the articles collectively represent a good cross section of the ongoing international debate. Academics have a particular role to play in this context. Without making any claim that academics have a uniquely objective perspective to bring to events, it can be argued that good academic writing can play an important part in the public debates around the appropriate policy responses to global conflict and terrorism. In such a highly polemical and often emotional debate it can be difficult for actors on all sides to be self-critical or to acknowledge failures, and yet it is essential that the public discourse contains such contributions from both supporters and opponents of the position led by the US and British governments. Mr Gijs de Vries, then newly appointed EU counter-terrorism coordinator, opened the 2004 conference in Dublin. Counter-terrorism is an area where academic work is only just emerging. Many commentators have suggested that the EU, because of its own history and institutional make-up, has a more complex view of the causes of terrorism and of the required policy responses than the current Bush administration in the US. There are certainly signs that this is so in a comparison of the 2002 US national security strategy and the 2003 EU security strategy. However, it is less clear if any differences in approach have emerged in practice. The contributions of David Hastings Dunn and Karin Fierke set out contrasting analyses of the global debates. Dunn focuses on an analysis of changing US aims and strategy in the period since 2001. Fierke, drawing on the literature within critical security studies, argues that we need to examine the assumptions on upon which the War on Terrorism is built and the extent to which these assumptions are contributing to the further construction of conflict and the terrorist threat rather than ameliorating the problem. Francesco Cavatorta looks at the perspectives of radical Islamic groups, a point of view frequently ignored or simply caricatured in the public debate on terrorism; while Luis Moreno looks at the particular case of the Spanish reaction to the Madrid bombings of March 2004 and analyses the relationship between the bombings and the immediately following change of government in Spain. Richard

Aid and conflict: the policy coherence challenge

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In a BBC documentary radio broadcast (27/11/03), Justin Forsyth, Oxfam Policy Director, expressed the concern of leading UK charities about a potential shift in resources from poverty‐oriented programs in, say, Bolivia, Peru, or the Philippines, towards reconstruction in Iraq. Similarly, Patrick Cronin, Vice President of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted that budget allocations for the US Millennium Challenge Account had shrunk from US$1.7 billion to US$1.3 billion to US$0.8 billion, given the demands of Afghanistan and Iraq reconstruction. More aid has been promised than delivered. For example, a decade ago at the International Conference on Population and Development, industrialised countries committed to contribute US$5.7 billion to family planning and reproductive health programs. By 2001, they had only contributed only US$2.5 billion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, world military expenditures have been rising since 1998 and accelerated sharply in 2002, increasing by 6 percent in real terms to US$794 billion in current prices, accounting for 2.5% of world GDP, and US$128 per capita. Aid receives only seven percent of the resources absorbed by the military worldwide (US$56 billion versus US$794 billion). According to Malaria Journal study authors Vasant Narasimhan and Amir Attaran, US$1.5 billion is needed each year to ensure that the WHO Roll Back Malaria Program launched by WHO in 1998 succeeds. Online at www.malariajournal.com (visited April 2003). See also Michael Renner and Molly O'Meara Sheehan, ‘A Strategy for Defense’, International Herald Tribune, 3 June 2003. The term civil war tends to connote that the conflict is intra‐state. This is not always the case with the new local wars. World Development Indicators Data Base (World Bank); figures for 2002. The 2002 survey results were released in June 2003. They are available online at http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20114414 The US National Security Strategy of September 2002 includes a section on development assistance as an integral part of the war against terrorism. It highlights the vulnerability of weak states to terrorist networks. Forty‐eight poor countries mostly located in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia that, according to a World Bank Taskforce, have not assembled the basic prerequisites for development and exhibit poor or deteriorating policy performance indicators. Of course, the quality of aid is important: poorly targeted or poorly administered aid helps no one and may even induce, prolong, or re‐ignite conflict. For a gentle treatment, see Radelet (2003 Radelet S 2003 Will the Millennium Challenge Account Be Different? in Lennon ATJ (ed.) The Battle for Hearts and Minds Washington Quarterly Reader. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). This is not surprising since, until recently, aid policy has not focused on conflict prevention. Economics Focus: ‘The Price of Peace’, The Economist, April 24, 2004. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, between 1993 and 2002 the growth of military expenditures was far higher in developing countries than for the world as a whole (3%): it reached 38% in the Middle East; 30% in Africa; and 23% in Asia. Developing countries currently absorb two thirds of arms deliveries by rich countries. See also Grimmett (2001 Grimmett RF 2001 Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations US Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, 16 August [Google Scholar]). They spent US$43 billion on arms imports in 1999, according to the United States Department of State. They also note that defence development would be consistent with the ‘tough love’ approach to aid that the United States currently favours, as illustrated by the criteria‐based allocations of the Millennium Challenge Account. The MDGs are described at http://www.development goals.org Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobert Picciotto Robert Picciotto is a Visiting Professor at King's College, London and Director, Global Policy Project. Robert Picciotto is a Visiting Professor at King's College, London and Director, Global Policy Project.

A Prayer for Marie: Creating an Effective African Standby Force

On 16 April 1994 in Cyahinda, Rwanda, 3,500 unarmed Tutsi men, women, and children packed into a small Catholic church, and 4,000 more crowded into surrounding church buildings, to escape from the Rwandan army and its death squads. Discovering their whereabouts, the death squads came with guns, machetes, and clubs, surrounded the parish buildings, and attacked the helpless families within. In a methodical and almost leisurely manner, they systematically murdered one day's quota, only to return the following three days to complete the killing. At the end of four days, 5,500 unarmed men, women, and children lay dead. Among them was Marie, a six-year-old girl who had been tortured and raped. She had bled to death after having her legs cut through above the knees with a machete. (1) There were nearly 100,000 Maries in 1994 Rwanda--children who faced an unimaginable death. This horror was repeated time and time again over the course of 13 weeks, when approximately 800,000 people were massacred in Rwanda's genocide. By August 1994, three million Rwandans had been internally displaced, and more than two million had fled to neighboring countries--out of a total pre-war population of approximately seven million. Women and children suffered most from the aftermath of the genocide, with an estimated 47,000 children orphaned, and up to 500,000 women raped. (2) Unimaginably, this occurred as the international community watched with a fixed, if not disinterested eye. After the Rwanda genocide, the United Nations released a report which concluded that a small outside force--perhaps as few as 5,000 soldiers--could have intervened and stopped the slaughter in its early stages. The failure of the United States and the international community to act is one of the most shocking instances of indifference in history. While the Rwanda tragedy is unparalleled with regard to the killers' speed and efficiency, there is nothing new about violence on the African continent. In fact, no region of the world has seen a greater number of foreign or US military interventions in the past decade than Sub-Saharan Africa. Since 1991, US forces have conducted 31 contingency operations in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. (3) In terms of almost every meaningful measurement--the number of countries with internal disputes, the number of UN peacekeeping missions, the number of civilian casualties, the number of displaced civilians, or the monetary cost to the international community--Africa has been the most likely location for the requirement for armed humanitarian intervention over the past ten years. (4) Why Africa Matters to the United States The current US National Security Strategy (NSS) addresses the African paradox. The strategy describes Africa as a land of promise and opportunity, but also as a land beset with disease, war, and desperate poverty. The NSS goes on to say that the current situation in Africa poses a threat to a core value of the United States--preserving human dignity--and to a strategic priority--combating global terror. As a result, the National Security Strategy makes a bold commitment: The United States will work with others for an African continent that lives in liberty, peace, and growing prosperity. That said, Africa remains at the bottom of any list of America's vital interests. Does the evidence justify this low priority? Africa matters far more today to US interests than it did before 11 September 2001, and America's gaze needs to include this vast continent in its present national security landscape. As the campaign against global terrorism unfolds, we find Sub-Saharan Africa clearly among the terrorists' playing fields. Just as the failed state of Afghanistan spawned terrorist camps in the 1990s, so has Africa's plight led to increased terrorist activity. Consider: * Dr. Jakkie Cilliers writes in African Security Review that 2,800 Algerians were trained in Afghanistan, making Algeria the third biggest contributor of foot soldiers to international terrorism after Saudi Arabia and Yemen. …

Global Terrorism and Military Preemption: Policy Problems and Normative Perils

The Bush administration has shifted from the six-decade US national security strategy of containment to one based on what is called forward deterrence. Consequently, the president now claims for the United States ‘the prerogative of using force preemptively and unilaterally, however its interests dictate’. This represents the most sweeping reformulation of US strategy in over half a century. The result, however, will only erode America's reputation and squander its ability to exercise leadership on pressing global issues.

New Research Agenda? Yes. New Paradigm? No.

Scholars of international relations continue to debate whether the events of September 11 necessitate a major rethinking of the field’s main paradigms. Although no consensus has emerged on this issue, there is a tendency ‐ perhaps »urge« is a better word ‐ to believe that such a paradigm shift is necessary. This urge arises from two sources. First, the events of September 11 evoke a sense of shock, and this shock produces an emotional inclination to believe that the developments of that day have therefore changed international politics in a fundamental way. Second, September 11 has induced policy makers in the United States to embrace a paradigm shift in the principle and practice of US foreign policy, a shift embodied in the new US national security strategy and manifest in the »war on terrorism«. This change in policy has naturally encouraged scholars of international relations to believe that a requisite change is needed in the field’s main intellectual frameworks. I contend in this essay that September 11 necessitates no such paradigm shift. All the major questions facing scholars prior to September 11, and the analytic perspectives used to address those questions, continue to be relevant today. To be sure, a host of new and urgent questions should now be on the scholarly agenda ‐ questions that I identify below. But these are questions that broaden our research agenda rather than ones that require a fundamental reconsideration of the foundations of that agenda. I use the term »paradigm« to refer to the foundational theoretical and conceptual perspectives that scholars self-consciously employ to analyze international politics. (Policy makers often employ them as well, but rarely in a self-conscious way.) My claim is not that the existing array of mainstream theoretical perspectives ‐ realism, liberalism, constructivism, and their variants ‐ is adequate or complete in any absolutist sense. On the contrary, the field of international relations has much room to grow. However, I do not believe that the events of September 11 make our current paradigms any more lacking than they were before the developments of that day.

The conduct of hostilities during Operation Iraqi Freedom: an international humanitarian law assessment

The war in Iraq thrust international law into the global spotlight as has no conflict since Vietnam.Jus ad bellumdebates grew increasingly heated as the launch of hostilities in March 2003 approached. Did Security Council resolution 1441 authorise Operation Iraqi Freedom (hereafter, OIF)? Perhaps the attack was an exercise of self-defence against state-support to terrorism. Did the purported doctrine of ‘preemptive self-defence’, enunciated in the 2002 US National Security Strategy, offer a legal justification? What of humanitarian intervention, democratisation or regime change? Or was the sole normative basis the one formally asserted by the United States and United Kingdom — breach of a ceasefire set forth in a Security Council resolution adopted a dozen years earlier? Thejus ad bellumbrouhaha resurfaced in April 2005 with the revelation that British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had issued a classified memorandum on the legality of hostilities that differed from the public justification he proffered, with OIF days away, just over a week later.

Inverse Engagement: Lessons from US-Iraq Relations, 1982-1990

February 2003 marked the 12th anniversary of the liberation of Kuwait by the United States and its global allies and their near-total victory over the military forces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Operation Desert Storm. However, much to the surprise of members of the first Bush Administration, academic scholars, military analysts, media pundits, foreign policy experts, and the average layman, Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq and continued to successfully defy the international community. Regardless of the military success of the US war with Iraq prosecuted by the second Bush Administration in 2003, Saddam's longevity should in itself serve as a significant warning to policymakers that something may be amiss in the formulation and execution of US foreign policy. In this article I reexamine the fundamental intellectual assumptions of what is known as engagement, the foreign policy doctrine that guided US behavior toward Iraq in the decade preceding Saddam's invasion of Kuwait. Despite the whol esale failure of engagement in Iraq before 1990, the fundamental assumptions that guided US engagement policies have remained largely unexamined. This failure to acknowledge historic mistakes raises the disturbing possibility that similar failures of engagement may occur in Washington's strategic relationships with other problematic international actors and rogue states. Engagement in Practice: US Relations with Iraq, 1982-1990 Engagement serves as a core policy doctrine of US national security strategy in the 21st century. (1) In practice, implementing engagement relies heavily on the manipulation of economic incentives, primarily in the areas of trade and finance, to influence the behavior of other states. Engagement uses economic interdependence, or mutual dependence, to create ties that bind states together. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye suggest that economic interdependence should be understood in terms of the power to influence, or the effects on each state of their trade linkages. Indeed, as many scholars have indicated, states have long recognized the truth that power generally flows from asymmetrical (or imbalanced) interdependence. (2) In keeping with this tradition, Keohane and Nye stress that when planning an effective diplomatic strategy, It is asymmetries in dependence that are most likely to provide sources of influence for actors in their dealings with one another. Less dependent actors can often use the interdepend ent relationship as a source of power in bargaining over an issue and perhaps to affect other issues. (3) At its core, economic statecraft is founded on the principle of asymmetrical power. In 1979 political turmoil in the Middle East forever changed the regional strategic landscape. In January of that year a groundswell of Islamist protesters drove the Shah of Iran from the Persian throne, in December the Soviet Union launched its ruinous war in Afghanistan, and in September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran. Thus, the Middle East stage was radically changed as the Reagan Administration entered the White House. In the minds of Ronald Reagan's foreign policy team, US national interests in the oil-rich Persian Gulf now faced two significant new threats: communist expansionism by direct military means from the Soviet Union and the spread of anti-US Islamic fundamentalism from Iran. With these two factors in mind, Iraq's sponsorship of international terrorism was seen as a lesser of evils, and therefore Baghdad was perceived as a potential partner that could serve US strategic interests in the region. In March 1982, the US government officially began engaging Saddam Hussein by removing Iraq from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The official reason was to recognize Iraq's improved record, (4) a claim that a Defense Department official later rebutted in stating, No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism.... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran. …

Terrorism and the Legality of Pre-emptive Force

The use of military force is only lawful if and to the extent that it comes under an accepted exception to the general rule prohibiting the use of force, i.e authorization by the Security Council and self-defence. Lawful self-defence requires the actual existence of an armed attack, or of a situation to be considered as equivalent to an armed attack. A threat may be so direct and overwhelming that one cannot require the victim to wait to act in self-defence until the attack has actually started. This principle of necessity and immediacy is still part of customary international law. The doctrine of pre-emptive strikes formulated in the recent US National Security Strategy proposes to adapt this concept to new perceived threats in a way that would constitute an unacceptable expansion of the right of anticipatory self-defence. Vagueness and the possibility of abuse of any broader definition requires maintaining the traditional strict approach. A change might result in the abolition of the prohibition of the use of force altogether. Opening up broader possibilities for anticipatory self-defence is not desirable. To face so-called new threats, recourse to the Security Council is preferable to unilateral use of force based on a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes.