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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Stephen Kinzer<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:24.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The world of threats to the US is an illusion<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>By Stephen Kinzer</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'> Globe Staff April 12, 2015 <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><img width=371 height=236 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D13B22.31B57F00" alt="Description: A Japanese officer watches as a Landing Craft Air Cushion transports US Marines and sailors and soldiers from Japan during a joint military exercise in California in 2014."><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>A Japanese officer watches as a Landing Craft Air Cushion transports US Marines and sailors and soldiers from Japan during a joint military exercise in California in 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Geography is our greatest protector. Wide oceans separate us from potential aggressors. Our vast homeland is rich and productive. No other power on earth is blessed with this security.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Our other asset is the weakness of potential rivals. It will be generations before China is able to pose a serious challenge to the United States — and there is little evidence it wishes to do so. Russia is weak and in deep economic trouble — not always a friendly neighbor but no threat to the United States. Heart-rending violence in the Middle East has no serious implication for American security. As for domestic terrorism, the risk for Americans is modest: You have more chance of being struck by lightning on your birthday than of dying in a terror attack.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Promoting the image of a world full of enemies creates a “security psychosis” that misshapes our view of the world. It tempts us to interpret defensive steps taken by other countries as threatening. In extreme cases, it pushes us into wars aimed at preempting threats that do not actually exist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue'><a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/31/are-threats-bigger-than-ever/a8x0ACNjrRwAv6K1OikGDP/story.html?p1=Article_Related_Box_Article"><span style='text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=371 height=248 id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image002.jpg@01D13B22.31B57F00" alt="Description: http://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_371w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/09/24/BostonGlobe.com/National/Images/9b70d03a49234ac686a9c1920265bcbd-9b70d03a49234ac686a9c1920265bcbd-0.jpg"></span></a></span><span class=MsoHyperlink><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><u><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue'><a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/31/are-threats-bigger-than-ever/a8x0ACNjrRwAv6K1OikGDP/story.html?p1=Article_Related_Box_Article">View Story </a><span class=MsoHyperlink><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><u><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue'><a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/31/are-threats-bigger-than-ever/a8x0ACNjrRwAv6K1OikGDP/story.html?p1=Article_Related_Box_Article">Michael Cohen: Are threats to US bigger than ever? No</a><span class=MsoHyperlink><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><u><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:blue'><a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/01/31/are-threats-bigger-than-ever/a8x0ACNjrRwAv6K1OikGDP/story.html?p1=Article_Related_Box_Article">The reality is that international affairs these days are actually pretty easy. </a><span class=MsoHyperlink><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Arms manufacturers profit from the security psychosis even more directly than militarists. Americans take our staggeringly large defense budget almost for granted, and lament continuously that other countries do not build as many exotic weapons systems as we do. Finding new threats is always good business for someone.</span><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>With the United State so dominant in global politics, it’s time to secure this low-threat world. Our strategic goal should be to keep our country as safe as it is now. That means bringing troublemaking countries out of their isolation. Ignoring their interests, or seeking “full-spectrum dominance” to assure that they cannot rise, provokes reactions that will be bad for us in the long run.<span style='color:white'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Last year, after the U.S<span style='color:#1F497D'>. </span>began encouraging upheaval<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span>and helped a successful right-wing violent coup against a democratically elected government in Ukraine, NATO decided to “suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation” with Russia. Moments of crisis, however, are precisely the times when contact is most urgent. We took advantage of Russia when it was powerless a quarter-century ago. Future peace requires taking its security concerns seriously rather than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Our policy toward China is less aggressive, but beneath its surface is often a presumption that one day there must be a showdown between our two countries. The recent deal between Western nations and Iran is being sold as the taming of an enemy — although Iran is not our enemy. Neither is Cuba, despite the warnings of revanchists in Washington and elsewhere. Nor are most of the enemies-for-a-day that we eagerly seek, from Sandinistas in Nicaragua to Houthis in Yemen.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>I recently asked a United States Navy officer what threats he believed the United States might confront in the future. To my astonishment, he answered, “Venezuela.” The South American country is in political crisis and careening toward bankruptcy. Its combat navy counts six frigates and two submarines, none of them seaworthy. Yet last month President Obama designated Venezuela an “extraordinary threat to US national security.” The search for enemies can lead to odd places.<span style='color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='color:black'>Especially when the U.S. 1 % and their corporate media make those definitions based on their wish list of what countries they would like to undermine in order to further enrich themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>This impulse is not peculiarly American. Feeling threatened strengthens group solidarity. Some thinkers have gone so far as to suggest that since societies become more united and resolute in the face of enemies, those that have none should find some.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>“It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love,” Freud wrote, “so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.” Nietzsche believed the nation-state’s “profound appreciation of the value of having enemies” produced a “spiritualization of hostility.” A young country especially, he said, “needs enemies more than friends: in opposition alone does it feel itself necessary.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>When Americans see threats everywhere, we fall into this trap. Believing we are besieged is strangely comforting. To recognize how safe we are would require a change of national mindset that we seem reluctant to make.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>