Alternative Insight

Unilateralism
A Road to Possible Defeat


The United States encouraged globalism in an effort to achieve peace, prosperity, and security. Now, the unilateral and ultra-nationalist policies of the United States are encouraging a realignment of the world power blocs. The major world powers are developing social, political, and economic alignments that protect their interests and no longer have the U.S. serving as the major protector of those interests. By ignoring regions vital to its economic progress and nations vital to its security, the United States is compromising its economic progress and damaging its security. America is becoming more distant from traditional allies and becoming more involved in the perpetual conflicts of problem nations.

America's Unilateral Thrust
The U.S. has previously requested moral and logistic support from other nations for its military operations. For America, these requests have only been a desirable option. If the assistance had not been provided, the U.S. would have probably acted unilaterally. Recent U.S. unilateral actions have been well documented. Briefly,

Despite the global thrust, countries still operate in their own interests. The United States is no exception. By taking a contrary position to the major world powers on international treaties that affect the survival of the entire globe, such as happened in the U.S. position on the Kyoto global warming protocol, America suggests it has unique interests that propel it to act alone. Until 9/11, the United States had not been attacked on its territory, making it distrustful of a chaotic world that had seen intensive strife. Now, 9/11 has defined a unique situation for the United States. In the words of Secretary of State Powell: "The Cold-war has ended and now the post Cold-war period has ended."

The United States exhibits features that distinguish it from other nations. These features create a pattern of behavior that leads to unilateralism. Unilateralism is part of America's psyche. It is driven to act alone and often relishes the challenge. The youngster in the film "Home Alone," celebrates his accidental separation from his family, manages by himself to win battles with evil-doers, and singularly overcomes obstacles. He could well represent America.

The U.S. appropriates more for its military than the combined next nine largest defense budgets. The overwhelming superiority of U.S. military power, derived from decades of excessive spending, makes the United States reluctant to totally share that power. It believes it deserves to have the principal balance of power rather than being solely part of a community of totally shared power. In NATO, the U.S, invested a portion of its defense resources in combination with others. These combinations have created a defense force that responds to common initiatives of the total partnership. Recently, and notably, with the U.S. leading, NATO shifted from its declared posture of defending countries against attack to defending interests by attack. Yugoslavia suffered the first blow from the change in NATO's direction. U.S. involvement with NATO provides military support for actions in which America has a common interest with European nations. Nevertheless, the United States still reserves the right to behave in unilateral military actions against those who affect only U.S. interests.

The U.S. is physically, and to some extent, culturally separated from the major industrial powers of the world. The separation leads to unilateral thinking.

The productive economy demands exports of goods and capital. Although the U.S. has concluded many trade treaties, it often exercises unilateral initiatives to control resources and favor its markets.

America has frequently stated that it will lead the world into peace--but has it? Its peace and prosperity depend upon its dominance. This dominance includes the social and political to assure the economic. America's myriad of material products, fast food chains, entertainment, etc. require overseas outlets for expansion. Their unique American nature demand re-arrangements of priorities, modifications in life styles, changes in mindset, in cultural patterns, and in thought to achieve worldwide acceptance. U.S. dominance has demanded total acquiescence with its plans--you are either with us or against us. The dominance disturbs peace and prosperity. The weak succumb to the power, but not without resentment. This resentment is reflected by Indian novelist Arunhati Roy, who wrote in Britain's Guardian, September 2001 and has also quoted by Martin Walker in The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2002, What Kind of Empire?

"He (Osama bin Laden) has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy; its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of 'full spectrum dominance,' its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think."

When power falters, the weak seize the moment. People want to identify with winners. When they foresee a change, they react and the winner's fall can be steep. The economic base of the United States is showing signs of deterioration. The world community that depended upon the economic engine of the United States as a stimulant for its own prosperity is taking notice. It is preparing actions which will relieve it from close attachments to the U.S. economic system.

The World Realignments
A European view of American policies is illustrated by a cover of the widely read German weekly magazine
Der Spiegel. The cover portrays The Bush Warriors in America's Crusade Against Evil. The European Union is slowly expanding its organization so that Europe becomes one nation composed of many nation states. These nation states are being bound by a common set of rules that govern their relations with one another. The European countries talk of forming their own defense force, independent of NATO and America's might. They have instituted a common currency--the Euro--which forecasts a diminishing importance of the American dollar. The East Asian Tigers have shifted their attachments from the static Japanese economy to the growing Chinese economy. By not devaluating its currency during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, China proved to its neighbors that it values their economic health and can lead Asia to financial stability. Unlike America, China continually makes friends and not enemies.

China is becoming the focus of Asian economics and capital investment. Taiwan Semiconductor has invested $800 million in a semiconductor facility in Shangai. The same Shanghai has become the Wall Street of Asia, the financial capital for growing profits and worldwide capital. Russia cooperates as a silent ally to China's extended world role. Japan and America have strong but reducing roles in the Asian economies .

Due to declining populations in Japan and Europe, the growth of America's exports remain doubtful. America is losing the sustenance of its life--its markets. Trade data from AEA (formerly American Electronics Association) show that high-tech exports are down 20%, or $20 billion, for the first six months of the year, compared to the same period in 2001. Exports, as shown in the accompanying graph from the Foreign Trade Division, U.S. Census Bureau,have remained relatively stagnant for the last two years. The U.S. trade balance with China has been negative 43 billion dollars in the first six months of 2002. The authoritarian Chinese government can regulate wages and prices and provide a competitive advantage that American companies cannot equal. The competition to American exports is becoming fierce and the United States is not successfully meeting the challenge.

The United States has failed to give sufficient attention to its most likely markets for growth--Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. All of these continents are plagued by corruption, internal strife and poverty. The challenges for correction have been great, and these are the challenges which the United States should meet; concentrating efforts to improve the social, political and economic situations in the Third World, and as the Third World progresses, find markets for America's advantage. Brazil in South America, Nigeria in Africa and Egypt can all serve as dynamos for U.S. exports to Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. America uses capital, influence and military might to reconstitute governments around the world for political purposes that eventually have no rewards. America has failed to use its capital and influence to reconstitute the governments and authorities in Brazil, Nigeria and Egypt so they can serve the interests of their people and achieve progress that can yield rich rewards for the American system..

The Road to Possible Defeat
U.S. military dominance depends upon U.S. economic prosperity. If the U.S. is on a path to an economic decline, its military advantage will also begin to decline. U.S economic prosperity depends upon close cooperation with traditional allies, and the United States is alienating its traditional allies in Europe and Japan. These nations, which fueled the American economy in a symbiotic relationship of trade and capital investment, have recently demonstrated policies that counter policies of the previous relationships. Capital has flowed from the United States and played a role in an American stock market downfall. While alienating traditional allies, the U.S. has aligned itself with Israel and India, nations with problems that America has, for some strange reason, been willing to share.

Israel is engaged in a perpetual struggle with Arab nations. These are the same Arab nations that for centuries provided sustenance to Jewish thought and expression in Spain, Morocco, Iraq and other countries, and are now enemies of the Jewish collective. It is hardly likely that a small nation of 5 million Jews (and one million Palestinians) can win against an assembly of nations consisting of 1.3 billion Moslems, all of whom have become sworn enemies of Israel.

India's problem with its Moslem minority in Kashmir will eventually stimulate similar uprisings in its many provinces that are ruled by minorities. The patchwork of various nationalities that constitute India can easily fragment and erupt into perpetual violence.

Which country wants to be associated with perpetual conflicts that defy solution and envelop those who thrust themselves into the problems? Which country wants to support those who provide no benefit to its national interests, endanger those national interests and alienate the country from those who assist the country's national interests? The answer is the United States, with its unilateralist policies that make the rest of the world retreat to more sheltered surroundings.

The U.S. has taken a troubling and never ending path in its war on terrorism. Anti-terrorism warfare cannot be 100% effective against suicidal people. The U.S. method for combating the suicidal terrorism requires intensive brutality. The increased brutality increases the number of terrorists. The future of America's response to terrorism is the eventual deaths of multitudes of people, many of them innocent. In Iraq, for example, America's short-term solution of eliminating Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein might only lead to an eventual Iraqi leader prepared to avenge the previous attack on his country. The short-term solution forecasts a long-term problem.

Those who have most to gain from the new realignments in the world community are China and Russia. China is the recipient of vast amounts of capital that fuel its growing production machine. Russia is beginning to act as a bridge between Asia and Europe. Its vast natural resources and beneficial alliances with China are slowly, very slowly, leading Russia to again become an important power. America's cold war adversaries might eventually become the warm peace victors.

alternative insight
september
16, 2002

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