[Peace-discuss] They seem more like Klingons or Romulans to me...

[ppatton at uiuc.edu]

For those of you who aren't Star Trek fans, the humor in my
heading may be incomprehensible.  I apologize.  On a more 
serious note, this article contains the interesting 
observation that "Mr. Kerry is running to the right of how he 
would govern. His heavily liberal record is that of an 
internationalist."  I hope Martin is right.

Beware the Vulcans: Why this US Vote is so Critical
by Lawrence Martin

In his book The Rise of the Vulcans, James Mann writes of 
what he calls one of the most significant foreign policy 
documents in decades. Written in 1991 by the Pentagon's 
Zalmay Khalizad, the paper set forth "a new vision for a 
world dominated by a lone American superpower, actively 
working to make sure that no rival group or group of rivals 
would ever emerge."

Formal alliances were to be downgraded, and collective 
security given short thrift. American muscle would be the 
arbiter of the new world order.

Mr. Khalizad was part of a pack of Pentagon hard-liners -- or 
Vulcans, as some of them liked to call themselves -- that 
included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Though it is generally accepted that 9/11 triggered the 
changes in the world's power dynamic, these men had been 
plotting since the late 1960s, as the even-tempered Mann book 
reveals, to bring an end to great power diplomacy and the 
collective security system.

The Khalizad document became their bible and, when Ralph 
Nader handed the Republicans the White House in 2000, they 
began implementing its tenets. If they win the election this 
fall -- the most high-stakes election in memory -- they will 
try to finish the job.

The influence of the Vulcans has been pivotal. As the Cold 
War closed and their manifesto was being written, there were 
other options open to the United States. As they did after 
the Second World War, the Americans could have chosen to 
strengthen multilateral organizations and forge a new concept 
of collective security. They could have scaled back their 
overseas power and devoted resources to domestic afflictions. 
Some in Washington advocated big defense-spending cuts, with 
the savings going toward making America the real shining city 
on the hill -- one without the poverty and the glaring 
inequalities and the health-care shortages. But the cuts 
would have left the Pentagon with only 10 times the might of 
its average competitors, as opposed to 20. The Vulcans wanted 
20.

George W. Bush took office speaking of the need for alliances 
and power-sharing. "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll 
resent us," he said of the world's other nations. But when he 
surrounded himself with supporters of the Khalizad document, 
the die was cast. Unilateralism became a buzzword. The Iraq 
war -- largely a product of the enthusiasms and exaggerations 
of Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz -- signaled 
that the old balance-of-power system was going up in smoke, 
replaced by the new one-superpower world view.

For the United States, the irony is considerable. It has long 
held claim to being one of the great democracies. But what, 
as the critics ask, is democratic about one country running, 
if not subjugating, a world of more than 200 nations?

The election in November is so critical because it will be 
seen as either ratification or repudiation of Vulcan 
unilateralism. On the face of it, the Democratic Party is 
hardly proposing radical change. John Kerry is fuzzy on Iraq 
and no dove on military spending. He ludicrously plans on 
increasing the already-hyperventilating Pentagon budget, 
making it the biggest in history when the military capacity 
of the enemy -- pockets of terrorists as opposed to giant 
armies and arsenals -- is the smallest in history.

But Mr. Kerry is running to the right of how he would govern. 
His heavily liberal record is that of an internationalist. A 
victory by him would signal a major attitudinal shift. As he 
makes ringingly clear, he wants to rebuild alliances, 
reinvigorate the concept of collective security and make 
America respected in the world again.

While Mr. Bush must be somewhat chastened by the "weapons of 
mass destruction" fiasco, by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, 
and by the thousands of deaths his war has engendered, he 
would see victory as vindication. Other nations would recoil. 
They would fear more politics of confrontation, more 
polarization, more war. Hatred for America would escalate.

There would be no search for a new internationalism favored 
by Canada and other nations because, as The Rise of the 
Vulcans makes clear, the Vulcans' underlying philosophy is 
that they need not reach accommodation with anyone.

They are an odd breed, these men. They hate dictatorship, 
unless they're doing the dictating.

© Copyright 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc 
__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Research Scientist
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-344-5812
homepage: http://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ppatton/www/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
__________________________________________________________________