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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

lunarchick - 09:48am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9735 of 9749)
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Fred Halliday Sunday September 23, 2001

There are, in broad terms, two conventional stances that arise in regard to international issues - complacency disguised as realism and irresponsibility posing as conscience. These poles have been evident in regard to the major cases of humanitarian intervention in the 1990s (Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo) and are present in much of the debate on the causes of globalisation and world inequality. They are present in very specific form in the question of what can be the future political system in Afghanistan.

For hard-headed realism, the international is a domain of power, mistrust and recurrence of conflict. This is the way the world, or God, or the market make it, and there is not much you can do. The most dangerous people are the do-gooders who make a mess of things by trying to make the world a better place: foreign aid, human rights, a lowering of the security guard, let alone education in global issues, are all doomed to failure.

Last week, in a typical realist calumny, one that allows legitimate international action only to states, President Bush cast responsibility for the terror attacks on, among others, NGOs (he had to spell out that this meant 'non-governmental organisations'). More ominous are the voices, now pushing a realist agenda, that were already under starter's orders on the morning of 11 September and are now in full canter: identity cards, immigration controls, National Missile Defence. In the field of cultural speculation, the great winner has been the theory, first espoused by Samuel Huntington in 1993, that says we are entering an epoch that will be dominated by 'the Clash of Civilisations'.

The alternative view to realism has its own, equally simplistic, answers. This assumes that there is a straightforward, benign way of resolving the world's problems and that there is one, identifiable and single, cause of what is wrong. Two centuries ago, the cause was monarchy and absolutism, then branded as the cause of poverty, ignorance and war; over the past two centuries, it has been capitalism and imperialism; now it is globalisation. More specifically, the USA is held responsible for the ills of the world - global inequality, neglect of human rights, militarism, cultural decay. It is not always clear what the 'America' so responsible is - this Bush administration, all US administrations, the whole of 'corporate' America, Hollywood or, in the implication of 11 September, the whole of the American people and, indeed, all who choose to work with, or visit, or in anyway find themselves in the proximity of such people.

Both of these positions are, perhaps, caricatures, yet the themes they encompass are evident, and will be even more evident, in the crisis that has engulfed the world. There are, however, some core issues where, perhaps, an element of reason about international affairs may be sustainable.

First, history: much is made of the antecedents. Some involve the Crusades, others jihad, but the image of the Crusades means little to those outside the Mediterranean Arab world; jihad is quite an inappropriate term for the proper, Koranic, reason that the armies of Islam sought to convert those who conquered to Islam.

As for the Cold War, it has contributed its mite to this crisis and, in particular, to the destruction of Afghanistan but in a way that should give comfort to few. One can here suggest a 'two dustbins' theory' of Cold War legacy: if the Soviet system has left a mass of uncontrolled nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and unresolved ethnic problems, the West has bequeathed a bevy of murderous gangs, from Unita in Angola to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

A second issue that is present is that of culture. It takes two to have a 'Clash of Civilisations' and there are those on both sides who are using the present conflict to promote it. Huntington's theory misses what is the most important cause of the events

lunarchick - 09:52am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9736 of 9749)
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Beyond bin Laden

The future of Afghanistan itself should lie at the root of Western political thinking http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,556553,00.html

lunarchick - 09:56am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9737 of 9749)
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+ Wolfowitz said the US should attack the Beqaa Valley, from where the Hizbollah 'Party of God' militants attacked northern Israel. He also singled out Iraq for punishment, saying that no campaign against terrorism could call itself serious while Saddam Hussein was in power.

The tensions worsened. Powell listened in silence; he disliked war without objectives. Bush asked a few questions. Rumsfeld said nothing. Wolfowitz pressed his case; Powell became angry; he raised his voice beyond its usual calm and said: 'If you go this way, you will wreck the alliance.' Bush rounded on him: 'The US has the right to defend itself.'

lunarchick - 09:58am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9738 of 9749)
lunarchick@www.com

Contents: http://www.observer.co.uk/0,6903,,00.html

lunarchick - 10:07am Sep 23, 2001 EST (#9739 of 9749)
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talkingpoint@bbc.co.uk America retaliates: What are its options?

The US is preparing, diplomatically and militarily, to retaliate for the attacks against New York and Washington. How far can diplomacy go? What can military strikes achieve? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/default.stm

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