The Bubble Of
American Supremacy
By George Soros
The Atlantic Monthly
23 November, 2003
It
is generally agreed that September 11, 2001, changed the course of history.
But we must ask ourselves why that should be so. How could a single
event, even one involving 3,000 civilian casualties, have such a far-reaching
effect? The answer lies not so much in the event itself as in the way
the United States, under the leadership of President George W. Bush,
responded to it.
Admittedly, the
terrorist attack was historic in its own right. Hijacking fully fueled
airliners and using them as suicide bombs was an audacious idea, and
its execution could not have been more spectacular. The destruction
of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center made a symbolic statement
that reverberated around the world, and the fact that people could watch
the event on their television sets endowed it with an emotional impact
that no terrorist act had ever achieved before. The aim of terrorism
is to terrorize, and the attack of September 11 fully accomplished this
objective.
Even so, September
11 could not have changed the course of history to the extent that it
has if President Bush had not responded to it the way he did. He declared
war on terrorism, and under that guise implemented a radical foreign-policy
agenda whose underlying principles predated the tragedy. Those principles
can be summed up as follows: International relations are relations of
power, not law; power prevails and law legitimizes what prevails. The
United States is unquestionably the dominant power in the post-Cold
War world; it is therefore in a position to impose its views, interests,
and values. The world would benefit from adopting those values, because
the American model has demonstrated its superiority. The Clinton and
first Bush Administrations failed to use the full potential of American
power. This must be corrected; the United States must find a way to
assert its supremacy in the world.
This foreign policy
is part of a comprehensive ideology customarily referred to as neoconservatism,
though I prefer to describe it as a crude form of social Darwinism.
I call it crude because it ignores the role of cooperation in the survival
of the fittest, and puts all the emphasis on competition. In economic
matters the competition is between firms; in international relations
it is between states. In economic matters social Darwinism takes the
form of market fundamentalism; in international relations it is now
leading to the pursuit of American supremacy.
Not all the members
of the Bush Administration subscribe to this ideology, but neoconservatives
form an influential group within it. They publicly called for the invasion
of Iraq as early as 1998. Their ideas originated in the Cold War and
were further elaborated in the post-Cold War era. Before September 11
the ideologues were hindered in implementing their strategy by two considerations:
George W. Bush did not have a clear mandate (he became President by
virtue of a single vote in the Supreme Court), and America did not have
a clearly defined enemy that would have justified a dramatic increase
in military spending.
September 11 removed
both obstacles. President Bush declared war on terrorism, and the nation
lined up behind its President. Then the Bush Administration proceeded
to exploit the terrorist attack for its own purposes. It fostered the
fear that has gripped the country in order to keep the nation united
behind the President, and it used the war on terrorism to execute an
agenda of American supremacy. That is how September 11 changed the course
of history.
Exploiting an event
to further an agenda is not in itself reprehensible. It is the task
of the President to provide leadership, and it is only natural for politicians
to exploit or manipulate events so as to promote their policies. The
cause for concern lies in the policies that Bush is promoting, and in
the way he is going about imposing them on the United States and the
world. He is leading us in a very dangerous direction.
The supremacist
ideology of the Bush Administration stands in opposition to the principles
of an open society, which recognize that people have different views
and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth. The supremacist
ideology postulates that just because we are stronger than others, we
know better and have right on our side. The very first sentence of the
September 2002 National Security Strategy (the President's annual laying
out to Congress of the country's security objectives) reads, "The
great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism
ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedomand a single
sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free
enterprise."
The assumptions
behind this statement are false on two counts. First, there is no single
sustainable model for national success. Second, the American model,
which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because
our success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of
the global capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.
The Bush doctrine,
first enunciated in a presidential speech at West Point in June of 2002,
and incorporated into the National Security Strategy three months later,
is built on two pillars: the United States will do everything in its
power to maintain its unquestioned military supremacy; and the United
States arrogates the right to pre-emptive action. In effect, the doctrine
establishes two classes of sovereignty: the sovereignty of the United
States, which takes precedence over international treaties and obligations;
and the sovereignty of all other states, which is subject to the will
of the United States. This is reminiscent of George Orwell's Animal
Farm: all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
To be sure, the
Bush doctrine is not stated so starkly; it is shrouded in doublespeak.
The doublespeak is needed because of the contradiction between the Bush
Administration's concept of freedom and democracy and the actual principles
and requirements of freedom and democracy. Talk of spreading democracy
looms large in the National Security Strategy. But when President Bush
says, as he does frequently, that freedom will prevail, he means that
America will prevail. In a free and open society, people are supposed
to decide for themselves what they mean by freedom and democracy, and
not simply follow America's lead. The contradiction is especially apparent
in the case of Iraq, and the occupation of Iraq has brought the issue
home. We came as liberators, bringing freedom and democracy, but that
is not how we are perceived by a large part of the population.
It is ironic that
the government of the most successful open society in the world should
have fallen into the hands of people who ignore the first principles
of open society. At home Attorney General John Ashcroft has used the
war on terrorism to curtail civil liberties. Abroad the United States
is trying to impose its views and interests through the use of military
force. The invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the
Bush doctrine, and it has turned out to be counterproductive. A chasm
has opened between America and the rest of the world.
The size of the
chasm is impressive. On September 12, 2001, a special meeting of the
North Atlantic Council invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty for the
first time in the alliance's history, calling on all member states to
treat the terrorist attack on the United States as an attack upon their
own soil. The United Nations promptly endorsed punitive U.S. action
against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. A little more than a year later the
United States could not secure a UN resolution to endorse the invasion
of Iraq. Gerhard Schröder won re-election in Germany by refusing
to cooperate with the United States. In South Korea an underdog candidate
was elected to the presidency because he was considered the least friendly
to the United States; many South Koreans regard the United States as
a greater danger to their security than North Korea. A large majority
throughout the world opposed the war on Iraq.
September 11 introduced
a discontinuity into American foreign policy. Violations of American
standards of behavior that would have been considered objectionable
in ordinary times became accepted as appropriate to the circumstances.
The abnormal, the radical, and the extreme have been redefined as normal.
The advocates of continuity have been pursuing a rearguard action ever
since.
To explain the significance
of the transition, I should like to draw on my experience in the financial
markets. Stock markets often give rise to a boom-bust process, or bubble.
Bubbles do not grow out of thin air. They have a basis in realitybut
reality as distorted by a misconception. Under normal conditions misconceptions
are self-correcting, and the markets tend toward some kind of equilibrium.
Occasionally, a misconception is reinforced by a trend prevailing in
reality, and that is when a boom-bust process gets under way. Eventually
the gap between reality and its false interpretation becomes unsustainable,
and the bubble bursts.
Exactly when the
boom-bust process enters far-from-equilibrium territory can be established
only in retrospect. During the self-reinforcing phase participants are
under the spell of the prevailing bias. Events seem to confirm their
beliefs, strengthening their misconceptions. This widens the gap and
sets the stage for a moment of truth and an eventual reversal. When
that reversal comes, it is liable to have devastating consequences.
This course of events seems to have an inexorable quality, but a boom-bust
process can be aborted at any stage, and the adverse effects can be
reduced or avoided altogether. Few bubbles reach the extremes of the
information-technology boom that ended in 2000. The sooner the process
is aborted, the better.
The quest for American
supremacy qualifies as a bubble. The dominant position the United States
occupies in the world is the element of reality that is being distorted.
The proposition that the United States will be better off if it uses
its position to impose its values and interests everywhere is the misconception.
It is exactly by not abusing its power that America attained its current
position.
Where are we in
this boom-bust process? The deteriorating situation in Iraq is either
the moment of truth or a test that, if it is successfully overcome,
will only reinforce the trend.
Whatever the justification
for removing Saddam Hussein, there can be no doubt that we invaded Iraq
on false pretenses. Wittingly or unwittingly, President Bush deceived
the American public and Congress and rode roughshod over the opinions
of our allies. The gap between the Administration's expectations and
the actual state of affairs could not be wider. It is difficult to think
of a recent military operation that has gone so wrong. Our soldiers
have been forced to do police duty in combat gear, and they continue
to be killed. We have put at risk not only our soldiers' lives but the
combat effectiveness of our armed forces. Their morale is impaired,
and we are no longer in a position to properly project our power. Yet
there are more places than ever before where we might have legitimate
need to project that power. North Korea is openly building nuclear weapons,
and Iran is clandestinely doing so. The Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan.
The costs of occupation and the prospect of permanent war are weighing
heavily on our economy, and we are failing to address many festering
problemsdomestic and global. If we ever needed proof that the
dream of American supremacy is misconceived, the occupation of Iraq
has provided it. If we fail to heed the evidence, we will have to pay
a heavier price in the future.
Meanwhile, largely
as a result of our preoccupation with supremacy, something has gone
fundamentally wrong with the war on terrorism. Indeed, war is a false
metaphor in this context. Terrorists do pose a threat to our national
and personal security, and we must protect ourselves. Many of the measures
we have taken are necessary and proper. It can even be argued that not
enough has been done to prevent future attacks. But the war being waged
has little to do with ending terrorism or enhancing homeland security;
on the contrary, it endangers our security by engendering a vicious
circle of escalating violence.
The terrorist attack
on the United States could have been treated as a crime against humanity
rather than an act of war. Treating it as a crime would have been more
appropriate. Crimes require police work, not military action. Protection
against terrorism requires precautionary measures, awareness, and intelligence
gatheringall of which ultimately depend on the support of the
populations among which the terrorists operate. Imagine for a moment
that September 11 had been treated as a crime. We would not have invaded
Iraq, and we would not have our military struggling to perform police
work and getting shot at.
Declaring war on
terrorism better suited the purposes of the Bush Administration, because
it invoked military might; but this is the wrong way to deal with the
problem. Military action requires an identifiable target, preferably
a state. As a result the war on terrorism has been directed primarily
against states harboring terrorists. Yet terrorists are by definition
non-state actors, even if they are often sponsored by states.
The war on terrorism
as pursued by the Bush Administration cannot be won. On the contrary,
it may bring about a permanent state of war. Terrorists will never disappear.
They will continue to provide a pretext for the pursuit of American
supremacy. That pursuit, in turn, will continue to generate resistance.
Further, by turning the hunt for terrorists into a war, we are bound
to create innocent victims. The more innocent victims there are, the
greater the resentment and the better the chances that some victims
will turn into perpetrators.
The terrorist threat
must be seen in proper perspective. Terrorism is not new. It was an
important factor in nineteenth-century Russia, and it had a great influence
on the character of the czarist regime, enhancing the importance of
secret police and justifying authoritarianism. More recently several
European countriesItaly, Germany, Great Britainhad to contend
with terrorist gangs, and it took those countries a decade or more to
root them out. But those countries did not live under the spell of terrorism
during all that time. Granted, using hijacked planes for suicide attacks
is something new, and so is the prospect of terrorists with weapons
of mass destruction. To come to terms with these threats will take some
adjustment; but the threats cannot be allowed to dominate our existence.
Exaggerating them will only make them worse. The most powerful country
on earth cannot afford to be consumed by fear. To make the war on terrorism
the centerpiece of our national strategy is an abdication of our responsibility
as the leading nation in the world. Moreover, by allowing terrorism
to become our principal preoccupation, we are playing into the terrorists'
hands. They are setting our priorities.
A recent Council
on Foreign Relations publication sketches out three alternative national-security
strategies. The first calls for the pursuit of American supremacy through
the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action. It is advocated by
neoconservatives. The second seeks the continuation of our earlier policy
of deterrence and containment. It is advocated by Colin Powell and other
moderates, who may be associated with either political party. The third
would have the United States lead a cooperative effort to improve the
world by engaging in preventive actions of a constructive character.
It is not advocated by any group of significance, although President
Bush pays lip service to it. That is the policy I stand for.
The evidence shows
the first option to be extremely dangerous, and I believe that the second
is no longer practical. The Bush Administration has done too much damage
to our standing in the world to permit a return to the status quo. Moreover,
the policies pursued before September 11 were clearly inadequate for
dealing with the problems of globalization. Those problems require collective
action. The United States is uniquely positioned to lead the effort.
We cannot just do anything we want, as the Iraqi situation demonstrates,
but nothing much can be done in the way of international cooperation
without the leadershipor at least the participationof the
United States.
Globalization has
rendered the world increasingly interdependent, but international politics
is still based on the sovereignty of states. What goes on within individual
states can be of vital interest to the rest of the world, but the principle
of sovereignty militates against interfering in their internal affairs.
How to deal with failed states and oppressive, corrupt, and inept regimes?
How to get rid of the likes of Saddam? There are too many such regimes
to wage war against every one. This is the great unresolved problem
confronting us today.
I propose replacing
the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action with preventive action
of a constructive and affirmative nature. Increased foreign aid or better
and fairer trade rules, for example, would not violate the sovereignty
of the recipients. Military action should remain a last resort. The
United States is currently preoccupied with issues of security, and
rightly so. But the framework within which to think about security is
collective security. Neither nuclear proliferation nor international
terrorism can be successfully addressed without international cooperation.
The world is looking to us for leadership. We have provided it in the
past; the main reason why anti-American feelings are so strong in the
world today is that we are not providing it in the present.
George Soros is
the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the founder of a network of
philanthropic organizations active in more than fifty countries. This
essay is drawn from his book of the same name, to be published in January
by PublicAffairs.
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Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; December 2003; The Bubble of American Supremacy;
Volume 292, No. 5; 63-66.