New York Times 3.8.1992
A
One-Superpower World
By Patrick E. Tyler
Special
to The New York Times
WASHINGTON,
March 7 – In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting phase,
the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission
in the post-cold-war era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed
to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.
A
46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon
for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this
month, states that part of the American mission will be “convincing potential
competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more
aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”
The
classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose
position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military
might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.
To
perpetuate this role, the United States “must sufficiently account for the
interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging
our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic
order,” the document states.
With
its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon
document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective
internationalism, the strategy that emerged from World War II when the five
victorious powers sought to form a United Nations that could mediate disputes
and police outbreaks of violence.
Though
the document is internal to the Pentagon and is not provided to Congress, its
policy statements are developed in conjunction with the National Security
Council and in consultation with the President or his senior national security
advisers. Its drafting has been supervised by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the
Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Policy. Mr. Wolfowitz often represents the
Pentagon on the Deputies Committee, which formulates policy in an interagency
process dominated by the State and Defense Departments.
The
document was provided to The New York Times by an official who believes this
post-cold-war strategy debate should be carried out in the public domain. It
seems likely to provoke further debate in Congress and among America’s allies
about Washington’s willingness to tolerate greater aspirations for regional
leadership from a united Europe or from a more assertive Japan.
Together
with its attachment on force levels required to insure America’s predominant
role, the policy draft is a detailed justification for the Bush
Administration’s “base force” proposal to support a 1.6-million member
military over the next five years, at a cost of about $1.2 trillion. Many
Democrats in Congress have criticized the proposal as unnecessarily expensive.
Implicitly,
the document foresees building a world security arrangement that pre-empts
Germany or Japan from pursuing a course of substantial rearmament, especially
nuclear armament, in the future.
In
its opening paragraph, the policy document heralds the “less visible”
victory at the end of the cold war, which it defines as the “integration of
Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation
of a democratic ‘zone of peace.’”
The
continuation of this strategic goal explains the strong emphasis elsewhere in
the document and in other Pentagon planning on using military force, if
necessary, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of
mass destruction in such countries as North Korea, Iraq, some of the successor
republics to the Soviet Union and in Europe.
Nuclear
proliferation, if unchecked by superpower action, could tempt Germany, Japan and
other industrial powers to acquire nuclear weapons to deter attack from regional
foes. This could start them down the road to global competition with the United
States and, in a crisis over national interests, military rivalry.
The
policy draft appears to be adjusting the role of the American nuclear arsenal in
the new era, saying, “Our nuclear forces also provide an important deterrent
hedge against the possibility of a revitalized or unforeseen global threat,
while at the same time helping to deter third party use of weapons of mass
destruction through the threat of retaliation.”
The
document is conspicuously devoid of references to collective action through the
United Nations, which provided the mandate for the allied assault on Iraqi
forces in Kuwait and which may soon be asked to provide a new mandate to force
President Saddam Hussein to comply with his cease-fire obligations.
The
draft notes that coalitions “hold considerable promise for promoting
collective action” as in the Persian Gulf war, but that “we should expect
future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis
being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general agreement over the
objectives to be accomplished.”
What
is most important, it says, is “the sense that the world order is ultimately
backed by the U.S.” and “the United States should be postured to act
independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated” or in a crisis
that demands quick response.
Bush
Administration officials have been saying publicly for some time that they were
willing to work within the framework of the United Nations, but that they
reserve the option to act unilaterally or through selective coalitions, if
necessary, to protect vital American interests.
But
this publicly stated strategy did not rule out an eventual leveling of American
power as world security stabilizes and as other nations place greater emphasis
on collective international action through the United Nations.
In
contrast, the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military
power whose leaders “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential
competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.”
The
document is known in Pentagon parlance as the Defense Planning Guidance, an
internal Administration policy statement that is distributed to the military
leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to instruct them on how to prepare
their forces, budgets and strategy for the remainder of the decade. The policy
guidance is typically prepared every two years, and the current draft will yield
the first such document produced after the end of the cold war.
Senior
Defense Department officials have said the document will be issued by Defense
Secretary Cheney this month. According to a Feb. 18 memorandum from Mr.
Wolfowitz’s deputy, Dale A. Vesser, the policy guidance will be issued with a
set of “illustrative” scenarios for possible future foreign conflicts that
might draw United States military forces into combat.
These
scenarios, issued separately to the military services on Feb. 4, were detailed
in a New York Times article last month. They postulated regional wars against
Iraq and North Korea, as well as a Russian assault on Lithuania and smaller
military contingencies that United States forces might confront in the future.
These
hypothetical conflicts, coupled with the policy guidance document, are meant to
give military leaders specific information about the kinds of military threats
they should be prepared to meet as they train and equip their forces. It is also
intended to give them a coherent strategy framework in which to evaluate various
force and training options.
Fears of Proliferation
In
assessing future threats, the document places great emphasis on how “the
actual use of weapons of mass destruction, even in conflicts that do not
directly engage U.S. interests, could spur further proliferation which in turn
would threaten world order.”
“The
U.S. may be faced with the question of whether to take military steps to prevent
the development or use of weapons of mass destruction,” it states, noting that
those steps could include pre-empting an impending attack with nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons or “punishing the attackers or threatening punishment of
aggressors through a variety of means,” including attacks on the plants that
manufacture such weapons.
Noting
that the 1968 Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is up for renewal in 1995, the
document says, “should it fail, there could ensue a potentially radical
destabilizing process” that would produce unspecified “critical challenges
which the U.S. and concerned partners must be prepared to address.”
The
draft guidance warns that “both Cuba and North Korea seem to be entering
intense periods of crisis – primarily economic, but also political – which
may lead the governments involved to take actions that would otherwise seem
irrational.” It adds, “the same potential exists in China.”
For
the first time since the Defense Planning Guidance process was initiated to
shape national security policy, the new draft states that the fragmentation of
the former Soviet military establishment has eliminated the capacity for any
successor power to wage global conventional war.
But
the document qualifies its assessment, saying, “we do not dismiss the risks to
stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or effort to
re-incorporate into Russia the newly independent republics of Ukraine, Belarus
and possibly others.”
It
says that though U.S. nuclear targeting plans have changed “to account for
welcome developments in states of the former Soviet Union,” American strategic
nuclear weapons will continue to target vital aspects of the former Soviet
military establishment. The rationale for the continuation of this targeting
policy is that the United States “must continue to hold at risk those assets
and capabilities that current – and future – Russian leaders or other
nuclear adversaries value most” because Russia will remain “the only power
in the world with the capability of destroying the United States.”
Until
such time as the Russian nuclear arsenal has been rendered harmless, “we
continue to face the possibility of robust strategic nuclear forces in the hands
of those who might revert to closed, authoritarian, and hostile regimes,” the
document says. It calls for the “early introduction” of a global
anti-missile system.
In
Europe, the Pentagon paper asserts that “a substantial American presence in
Europe and continued cohesion within the Western alliance remains vital,” but
to avoid a competitive relationship from developing, “we must seek to prevent
the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine
NATO.”
The
draft states that with the elimination of United States short-range nuclear
weapons in Europe and similar weapons at sea, the United States should not
contemplate any withdrawal of its nuclear-strike aircraft based in Europe and,
in the event of a resurgent threat from Russia, “we should plan to defend
against such a threat” farther forward on the territories of Eastern Europe
“should there be an Alliance decision to do so.”
This
statement offers an explicit commitment to defend the former Warsaw Pact nations
from Russia. It suggests that the United States could also consider extending to
Eastern and Central European nations security commitments similar to those
extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab states along the Persian Gulf.
And to help stabilize the economies and democratic development in Eastern
Europe, the draft calls of the European Community to offer memberships to
Eastern European countries as soon as possible.
In
East Asia, the report says, the United States can draw down its forces further,
but “we must maintain our status as a military power of the first magnitude in
the area.”
“This
will enable the United States to continue to contribute to regional security and
stability by acting as a balancing force and prevent the emergence of a vacuum
or a regional hegemon.” In addition, the draft warns that any precipitous
withdrawal of United States military forces could provoke an unwanted response
from Japan, and the document states, “we must also sensitive to the
potentially destabilizing effects that enhanced roles on the part of our allies,
particularly Japan but also possibly Korea, might produce.”
In
the event that peace negotiations between the two Koreas succeed, the draft
recommends that the United States “should seek to maintain an alliance
relationship with a unified democratic Korea.”
Special
to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 7 – Following are excerpts from the Pentagon’s Feb. 18 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999:
This
Defense Planning guidance addresses the fundamentally new situation which has
been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the
internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an
ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international
environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its
coalition allies over Iraqi aggression – the first post-cold-war conflict and
a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two victories,
there has been a less visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a
U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic “zone
of peace.”
•
•
•
DEFENSE
STRATEGY OBJECTIVES
Our
first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the
territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the
order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant
consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we
endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources
would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These
regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet
Union, and Southwest Asia.
There
are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the U.S. must show the
leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise
of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role
or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests
of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our
leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order.
Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors
from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. An effective
reconstitution capability is important here, since it implies that a potential
rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a predominant military position
in the world.
The
second objective is to address sources of regional conflict and instability in
such a way as to promote increasing respect for international law, limit
international violence, and encourage the spread of democratic forms of
government and open economic systems. These objectives are especially important
in deterring conflicts or threats in regions of security importance to the
United States because of their proximity (such as Latin America), or where we
have treaty obligations or security commitments to other nations. While the U.S.
cannot become the world’s “policeman,” by assuming responsibility for
righting every wrong, we will retain the pre-eminent responsibility for
addressing selectively those wrongs which threaten not only our interests, but
those of our allies or friends, or which could seriously unsettle international
relations. Various types of U.S. interests may be involved in such instances:
access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens
from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from
narcotics trafficking.
•
•
•
It
is improbable that a global conventional challenge to U.S. and Western security
will re-emerge from the Eurasian heartland for many years to come. Even in the
highly unlikely event that some future leadership in the former Soviet Union
adopted strategic aims of recovering the lost empire or otherwise threatened
global interests, the loss of Warsaw Pact allies and the subsequent and
continuing dissolution of military capability would make any hope of success
require years or more of strategic and doctrinal re-orientation and force
regeneration and redeployment, which in turn could only happen after a lengthy
political realignment and re-orientation to authoritarian and aggressive
political and economic control. Furthermore, any such political upheaval in or
among the states of the former U.S.S.R. would be much more likely to issue in
internal or localized hostilities, rather than a concerted strategic effort to
marshal capabilities for external expansionism – the ability to project power
beyond their borders.
There
are other potential nations or coalitions that could, in the further future,
develop strategic aims and a defense posture of region-wide or global
domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any
future potential global competitor. But because we no longer face either a
global threat or a hostile, non-democratic power dominating a region critical to
our interests, we have the opportunity to meet threats at lower levels and lower
costs – as long as we are prepared to reconstitute additional forces should
the need to counter a global threat re-emerge ….
REGIONAL
THREATS AND RISK
With
the demise of a global military threat to U.S. interests, regional military
threats, including possible conflicts arising in and from the territory of the
former Soviet Union, will be of primary concern to the U.S. in the future. These
threats are likely to arise in regions critical to the security of the U.S. and
its allies, including Europe, East Asia, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and
the territory of the former Soviet Union. We also have important interests at
stake in Latin America, Oceania, and Sub-Saharan Africa. In both cases, the U.S.
will be concerned with preventing the domination of key regions by a hostile
power ….
Former Soviet Union
The
former Soviet state achieved global reach and power by consolidating control
over the resources in the territory of the former U.S.S.R. The best means of
assuring that no hostile power is able to consolidate control over the resources
within the former Soviet Union to support its successor states (especially
Russia and Ukraine) in their efforts to become peaceful democracies with
market-based economies. A democratic partnership with Russia and the other
republics would be the best possible outcome for the United States. At the same
time, we must also hedge against the possibility that democracy will fail, with
the potential that an authoritarian regime bent on regenerating aggressive
military power could emerge in Russia, or that similar regimes in other
successor republics could lead to spreading conflict within the former U.S.S.R.
or Eastern Europe.
•
•
•
For
the immediate future, key U.S. concerns will be the ability of Russia and the
other republics to demilitarize their societies, convert their military
industries to civilian production, eliminate or, in the case of Russia,
radically reduce their nuclear weapons inventory, maintain firm command and
control over nuclear weapons, and prevent leakage of advanced military
technology and expertise to other countries.
•
•
•
Western
Europe
NATO continues to provide the indispensable foundation for a stable security environment in Europe. Therefore, it is of fundamental importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western defense and security as well as the channel for U.S. influence and participation in European security affairs. While the United States supports the goal of European integration, we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly the alliance’s integrated command structure.
•
•
•
East-Central
Europe
The
end of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union have gone a long
way toward increasing stability and reducing the military threat to Europe. The
ascendancy of democratic reformers in the Russian republic, should this process
continue, is likely to create a more benign policy toward Eastern Europe.
However, the U.S. must keep in mind the long history of conflict between the
states of Eastern Europe and those of the former Soviet Union ….
The
most promising avenues for anchoring the east-central Europeans into the West
and for stabilizing their democratic institutions is their participation in
Western political and economic organizations. East-central European membership
in the (European Community) at the earliest opportunity, and expanded NATO
liaison …..
The
U.S. could also consider extending to the east-central European states security
commitments analogous to those we have extended to Persian Gulf states.
•
•
•
Should
there be a re-emergence of a threat from the former Soviet Union’s successor
state, we should plan to defend against such a threat in Eastern Europe, should
there be an alliance decision to do so.
…
Defense of Korea will likely remain one of the most demanding major regional
contingencies …. Asia is home to the world’s greatest concentration of
traditional Communist states, with fundamental values, governance, and policies
decidedly at variance with our own and those of our friends and allies.
To
buttress the vital political and economic relationships we have along the
Pacific rim, we must maintain our status as a military power of the first
magnitude in the area. This will enable the U.S. to continue to contribute to
regional security and stability by acting as a balancing force and prevent
emergence of a vacuum or a regional hegemon.
•
•
•
Middle
East and Southwest Asia
In
the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the
predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to
the region’s oil. We also seek to deter further aggression in the region,
foster regional stability, protect U.S. nationals and property, and safeguard
our access to international air and seaways. As demonstrated by Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait, it remains fundamentally important to prevent a hegemon or
alignment of powers from dominating the region. This pertains especially to the
Arabian peninsula. Therefore, we must continue to play a role through enhanced
deterrence and improved cooperative security.
•
•
•
We
will seek to prevent the further development of a nuclear arms race on the
Indian subcontinent. In this regard, we should work to have both countries,
India and Pakistan, adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to place
their nuclear energy facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency
safeguards. We should discourage Indian hegemonic aspirations over the other
states in South Asia and on the Indian Ocean. With regard to Pakistan, a
constructive U.S.-Pakistani military relationship will be an important element
in our strategy to promote stable security conditions in Southwest Asia and
Central Asia. We should therefore endeavor to rebuild our military relationship
given acceptable resolution of our nuclear concerns.
•
•
•
Cuba’s
growing domestic crisis holds out the prospect for positive change, but over the
near term, Cuba’s tenuous internal situation is likely to generate new
challenges to U.S. policy. Consequently, our programs must provide capabilities
to meet a variety of Cuban contingencies which could include an attempted
repetition of the Mariel boatlift, a military provocation against the U.S. or an
American ally, or political instability and internal conflict in Cuba.