Year 501 Copyright © 1993 by Noam Chomsky. Published by South End Press.
Chapter 2: The Contours of World Order Segment 7/14
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Mounting difficulties in controlling the allies led to Kissinger's 1973 admonitions. The "major problem" in the Western alliance, he felt, was "the domestic evolution in many European countries," which might lead to an independent course. The development of Eurocommunism aroused new concerns -- which Kissinger shared with Brezhnev, who also was not pleased by the call for a "democratic path to socialism" that opposed "all foreign intervention." Kissinger cited post-fascist Portugal and Italy as situations that, "while not the result of détente or of Soviet policy," posed political problems for the US: "We cannot encourage dialogue with Communist parties within NATO nations," he informed US Embassies, whether or not they follow "the Moscow line": "The impact of an Italian Communist Party that seemed to be governing effectively would be devastating -- on France, and on NATO, too." Consequently, the US must oppose the rise of the Communist party in Portugal after the collapse of the fascist dictatorship (which had posed no problem), even if it were to follow the Italian Eurocommunist model. "It was feared that Eurocommunism would make Western communist parties more palatable and attractive to the publics of Western countries," Raymond Garthoff writes in his comprehensive study of the period: the US "gave a higher priority to...protecting the Western alliance and American influence in it" than to "weakening Soviet influence in the East."23

Again, we see the dual problem: the combination of democratic developments that escape corporate control, and decline of US power. Neither is acceptable; jointly, they pose a grave danger to "security" and "stability."

By the 1970s, the problems were becoming unmanageable, and a sharply different course was initiated, to which we return in the next section. They persist into the 1990s. An illustration is the controversy over a secret February 1992 Pentagon draft of Defense Planning Guidance, leaked to the press, which describes itself as "definitive guidance from the Secretary of Defense" for budgetary policy to the year 2000. The draft develops standard reasoning. The US must hold "global power" and a monopoly of force. It will then "protect" the "new order" while allowing others to pursue "their legitimate interests," as Washington defines them. The US "must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order," or even "aspiring to a larger regional or global role." There must be no independent European security system; rather, US-dominated NATO must remain the "primary instrument of Western defense and security, as well as the channel for U.S. influence and participation in European security affairs." "We will retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but also those of our allies or friends"; the United States alone will determine what are "wrongs" and when they are to be selectively "righted." As in the past, the Middle East is a particular concern. Here "our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil" while deterring aggression (selectively), maintaining strategic control and "regional stability" (in the technical sense), and protecting "U.S. nationals and property." In Latin America, the primary threat is Cuban "military provocation against the U.S. or an American ally," the standard Orwellian reference to the escalating US war against Cuban independence.

"Western European and third world diplomats here were sharply critical of some of the language in the document," Patrick Tyler reported from Washington. "Senior White House and State Department officials have harshly criticized" it as well, claiming that it "in no way or shape represents U.S. policy." The Pentagon spokesman "pointedly disavowed some of the central policy statements" of the document, noting, however, that "its basic thrust mirrors the public statements and testimony of Defense Secretary Dick Cheney." This constitutes a "tactical withdrawal" by the Pentagon, Tyler suggests, prompted by the "reaction in Congress and from senior Administration officials." Quite possibly Administration criticisms also reflect concerns over the alarms that the document set off in many capitals, and their harsh criticism too is a tactical withdrawal. Cheney and Undersecretary for Policy Paul Wolfowitz "endorsed [the] principal views" of the document, senior officials acknowledged. There was also criticism in the press, notably from Times foreign policy specialist Leslie Gelb, who objected to the "daydreaming about being the world's policeman" and one "disturbing omission": "the document seems to be silent about any American role in insuring Israeli security."24

To what extent the other members of the club will accept the suzerainty of the enforcer who pledges to "account sufficiently for their interests" is an unsettled question. In the present case, protests and concerns over cost led the Administration to revise the plan a few months later, replacing traditional themes by tepid clichés -- at least for public consumption. Meanwhile France and Germany moved to implement a Franco-German military corps independent of NATO, over intense US opposition. France also blocked US efforts to extend the NATO alliance (including the related North Atlantic Cooperation Council) to include Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. US officials allege that "the French don't want an American-led NATO to take on further responsibilities in Eastern Europe" and perpetuate the alliance, the Wall Street Journal reported.25

The debates reflect a real foreign policy dilemma. With its economy in relative decline and its social base in serious disrepair, particularly after a decade of Reaganite borrow-and-spend abandon, is the US in a position to maintain the hegemonic role it has played for half a century? And will others accept a subordinate role? Will they be willing to pay the costs, as the US exploits its comparative advantage in military force to maintain the particular version of global order demanded by the domestic power interests, costs that the US is no longer in a position to sustain itself? It is not clear that the other rich men will agree to employ the US as their "Hessians," as widely advocated in the business press during the build-up to the Gulf war, perhaps along with its British lieutenant. The latter is also in social and economic decline but "well qualified, motivated, and likely to have a high military profile as the mercenary of the international community," the military correspondent of the London Independent comments -- again, a regular theme during the Gulf war, accompanied by much triumphant breast-beating among British jingoists, dreaming of the good old days when they had "the right to bomb niggers" with no whining from the left-fascists.26

To understand the discussion, it is necessary to decode the conventional euphemisms in which it is framed ("responsibility," "security," "defense," etc.). The code words disguise a basic question: Who is going to run the show?


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23 Garthoff, Détente, 487f.

24 Excerpts, NYT, March 8; Patrick Tyler, NYT, March 8, 11; Barton Gellman, WP Weekly, March 16-22, 1992.

25 Patrick Tyler, NYT, May 24, 1992. Frederick Kempe, "U.S., Bonn Clash Over Pact with France," WSJ, May 27, 1992.

26 See DD, introduction. Christopher Bellamy, International Affairs, July 1992.