¹ Ginsburg, Allen, America, published in Howl and Other Poems, The Pocket Poet Series #4 p. 32 (1980)Google Scholar

² Kagan, Robert, Power and Weakness, 113 Policy Review (June/July 2002) <http://www.policyreview.org/JUN02/kagan.html> (visited 14 August 2003). All citations are to the printer friendly version available on this website.+(visited+14+August+2003).+All+citations+are+to+the+printer+friendly+version+available+on+this+website.>Google Scholar

³ The Bush Administration is larded with neo-conservatives including: Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, I. Lewis Libby, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad and Vice-President Dick Cheney. For the past decade, the most prominent voices of neo-conservativism have included the Weekly Standard Magazine, and two Washington “think tanks:” the Project for a New American Century, and the American Enterprise Institute. Many of the Project for a New American Century's founders, and American Enterprise Institute members and fellows, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Libby, now occupy top government positions. The central thesis of the neo-conservative ideology they espouse is a belief in American exceptionalism. This belief manifests as contempt for multilateralism and a belief that, in light of America's overwhelming unipolar power, the United States cannot allow itself to be tied down by international agreements that diminish its freedom of action. Instead, neo-conservatives argue that the United States should vigorously use its vigorously to reshape the world by doing all it can to impose democracy on other countries–including by force if necessary. Neo-conservatives thus envision a benevolent hegemony backed by an American willingness to use decisive military force, with or without allies. For a tour of neoconservative ideology, see, Bruce Murphy, Neoconservative Clout Seen in U.S. Iraq Policy, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, (April 6, 2003); James Allen, A Classicist's Legacy: New Empire Builders, New York Times (May 4, 2003).Google Scholar

⁴ Indeed, one incident from the first Bush administration highlights how long these ideas have been in circulation, and how little traction they had gained before September 11, 2001. In 1992, Policy Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, then obscure pentagon political appointees, drafted the Defense Planning Guidance on America's military posture to the world. (hereafter “1992 DPG”) See, Patrick Tyler, Pentagon Drops Goal of Blocking New Superpowers, New York Times, (May 23, 1992). As initially drafted, the document committed the United States to blocking the emergence of any future global competitor, and explicitly indicated that the United States would adopt a course of unilateralism. Id. Essentially the document proposed pax Americana with the United States establishing permanent military dominance over much of Eurasia. In response to a public outcry (both domestic and international) the final version of the document softened this language beyond recognition, and instead indicated that the United States was committed to its allies and partners, and that diplomatic and economic tools were on a par with military power. Id. In short, the country squarely rejected Kagan's unilateralist approach. Despite this rejection, Wolfowitz's draft version of the 1992 DPG lived on. For example, the draft 1992 DPG was embraced as the starting point for the Project for a New American Century's 2000 report entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses, available at http://freedom2008.com/blog/archives/PNAC/PNAC.pdf, coauthored by among others, six key defense and foreign policy officials now serving in the Bush administration. With the advent of the second Bush administration, came the elevation of a group of neo-conservatives to positions of power. For example, Wolfowitz is now Deputy Secretary of Defense. These officials have revived the 1992 DPG, and have relied on Rebuilding America's Defenses as the blueprint for this Administration's unilateralist foreign policies. American unilateralism is thus a deeply ideological policy choice of the current administration, rather than the “natural” outgrowth of the world as it exists.Google Scholar

⁵ The United States, Great Britain and Spain withdrew a United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq after France, Russia, Germany, Mexico and Pakistan made it clear that they would vote against the resolution. In addition to diplomatic opposition, there were worldwide protests objecting to the war. For a sampling of the various protests, see, e.g., Egypt Protest, Voice of America (March 6, 2003) (reporting that over 1 million protested in Cairo); Tony Pugh, Washington Thronged by Antiwar Protestors, Phila. Inq. (March 16, 2003); Antiwar Protestors Take to the Streets, Eur. Wall St. J. (March 21, 2003); Brian Whitmore, Europe Sees Wave of Antiwar Protest, Boston Globe (March 21, 2003); Caroline Alphonso, Antiwar Protests Erupt Across the Globe, Globe & Mail (March 21, 2003); Antiwar Protestors Rally in Germany and Italy, L.A. Times (March 25, 2003); Jeremy Wagstaff, Jakarta Antiwar Protest Draws over 100,000, Stays Peaceful, Asian Wall St. J. (March 31, 2003); Thousands of People Reported Staging Anti-war Protest in Bulgaria, BBC (March 31, 2003); Antiwar Protests Intensify in Japan as Iraq War Begins, Asian Pol. News (March 25, 2003). These protests occurred in “coalition of the willing” states as well as in states opposed to the war. See, e.g., James R. Haggerty, UK Leaders Argue in Line with US Stance on Iraq but British Public Disagrees, Wall St. J. (Feb. 18, 2003) (reporting more than a million antiwar protestors in Rome, a million in London, 660,000 in Madrid and half a million in Berlin); At Least 200,000 Protest in Australia, L.A. Times, (feb. 17, 2003); Beth Carney, Britons March Against the War, Boston Globe (March 23, 2003); Robert Tomsho, Civil Disobedience Snarls Several American Cities, Big Rallies in Spain, Greece, Wall. St. J. (March 21, 2003)Google Scholar

⁶ Kagan, p. 4Google Scholar

⁷ Kagan, p. 4Google Scholar

⁸ Kagan, p. 3Google Scholar

⁹ During the cold war, mutually assured destruction meant that a nuclear war could have no winners.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For example, in 1984 large majorities of Americans were “convinced that it is time for negotiations, not confrontations” with the Soviet Union. See, The people, the debt and Mikhal, 47 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (November 1991) available at http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1991/n91/n91krass.html; see also, Dainiel Yankelovich, and John Doble, The public mood: Nuclear weapons and the U.S.S.R. 63 Foreign Affairs 33-46 (1986); Greg Diamond and Jerald Bachman, High School Seniors and the Nuclear Threat, 1975-1984: Politics and Mental Health Implications of Concern and Despair, 15 International Journal of Mental Health 210-241 (1985); Bernard M. Kramer, S. Michael Kalick, and Michael A. Milburn, Attitudes toward nuclear weapons and nuclear war: 1945-1982, 39 Journal of Social Issues 7-24 (1983).Google Scholar

¹¹ Kagan, p. 6.Google Scholar

¹² Kagan, p. 3Google Scholar

¹³ For example, in 1989, the Soviet armed forces were the world's largest military establishment, with nearly 6 million troops in uniform, 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 300 launch control centers, twenty-eight missile bases, and the largest submarine ballistic missile force in the world. In addition, the Soviet Union was spending an estimated US$1 billion annually on scientific research into advanced technologies with potentially great ASAT and ABM applications, including ground-based laser, particle beam, radio frequency, and kinetic energy weapons. See, Library of Congress, Soviet Union—A Country Guide, available at http://memory.loc.gov/frd/cs/sutoc.html.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Havel, Vaclav, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Agains the State in Central-Eastern Europe (1990). The essay The Power of the Powerless was written in 1978.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Not only did the form of power Havel describes end dictatorial regimes of East Germany, Hungary and many other eastern European states, it is also closely related to the Philippines people power, Ghandi's drive to free India, and countless past and present democracy struggles around the world.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Kagan, p. 6Google Scholar

¹⁷ Kagan, p. 12Google Scholar

¹⁸ Kagan, p. 8.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Kagan, p. 8.Google Scholar

²⁰ Id.Google Scholar

²¹ Id.Google Scholar

²² In his State of the Union speech, President Bush clearly accused Saddam Hussein of posing an imminent threat to the United States by stockpiling chemical and biological weapons in defiance of the United Nations. 2003 State of the Union Address, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html. These weapons allegedly included: over 25,000 liters of anthrax; more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent; upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. He also accused Saddam Hussein of seeking significant quantities of uranium, and attempting to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. The President was repeating allegations that various administration officials had been making for almost a year. See, The Bush Administration on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Capabilities August 2002-July 2003, compiled by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, available at http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/adminquoteshtml.htm The nuclear allegations were rapidly discredited by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency as based on forged documents. See, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update, available at http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Press/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml; Senator Requests FBI Probe of Forged Iraq Documents, USA Today (March 14, 2003). In his March 7, 2003 presentation to the Security Council, Dr. ElBaradei also refuted aluminum tubes allegation. Id.; see also, Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, Bush Aides Disclose Warnings From CIA: Oct. Memos Raised Doubts on Iraq Bid, Washington Post (July 23, 2003) (indicating that three months before the State of the Union Address, the CIA had warned the White House that those very nuclear weapons allegations were unsubstantiated.). The other weapons allegations proved to be old information recycled in alarmist accents. See, Joseph Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Follow the Threat Assessments, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (July 03, 2003), available at http://www.ceip.org/files/nonprolif/templates/article.asp?NewsID=5022. Indeed, months of diligent searching in post-war Iraq has failed to uncover any such weapons. President Bush also specifically stated that the United States had evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Those allegations have never been substantiated, and in fact, most experts agree that Saddam Hussein did not have links to al Qaeda.Google Scholar

²³ For a discussion of this question, see, Jurgen Habermas, Interpreting the Fall of a Monument, 4 German Law Journal 7 (1 July 2003) <http://www.germanlawjournal.com>..>Google Scholar

²⁴ Kagan, p. 7Google Scholar

²⁵ Kagan, p. 18.Google Scholar

²⁶ In a September 20, 2001 address to a joint session of Congress, President Bush announced: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” The full text of this speech is available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html. The President subsequently repeated this statement many times. See, e.g., Remarks by the President to the George Marshall ROTC Award Seminar on National Security, Virginia Military Institute, April 17, 2002, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020417-1.html.; Remarks by the President In Announcement on Financial Aspects of Terrorism, November 8, 2001, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011107-4.html.; Remarks on Improving Counterterrorism Intelligence, February 14, 2003 available at 2003 WL 13972993. Although this so-called Bush Doctrine was initially directed at foreign policy, Administration officials rapidly began using that same rhetoric domestically. White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer told Americans to “watch what they say.” When civil libertarians began to protest the curbing of constitutional rights, Attorney General John Ashcroft offered a forbidding rejoinder: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists.” The USA Patriot Act, which gave the government extensive new powers to spy, interrogate and detain those suspected of aiding terrorism, adds a further troubling dimension to this rhetoric labeling dissent as a form of treason.Google Scholar

²⁷ See, e.g., Mahbubani, Kishore, The Pacific Way, 74 Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 1995); Fareed Zakaria, Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew, 73 Foreign Affairs 109-26 (Mar/Apr 1994); Koh, “Does East Asia Stand for Any Positive Values?” International Herald Tribune, December 11-12, 1993. For an excellent response debunking these claims for “Asian Values”, see, Kim Dae Jung, Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Asia's Anti-Democratic Values: A response to Lee Kuan Yew, 73 Foreign Affairs 189-94 (Nov/Dec 1994) (Kim Dae Jung later became the President of South Korea); see also, Martin Lee, Testing Asian Values, New York Times, January 18, 1998); Amartya Sen, Human Rights and Asian Values: What Lee Kwan Yew and Le Peng Don't Understand About Asia, 217 New Republic (July 14, 1997). Sen accuses “Asian Values” proponents of selectively revising history to suit their political objectives and of ahistorically extrapolating backwards from the present to support their claims. Kagan is similarly selective in his use of the past to support his vision of the present and his plan for the future. Indeed, much the same way Asian Values advocates tried to ignore the fact that the democratic governments of Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines squarely rejected their contentions that “Asian Values” should trump human rights and constitutional guarantees, Kagan ignores the many strains of American thought that reject his vision for a unipolar world.Google Scholar

²⁸ Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations, 72 Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993). In this article, Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington articulated his vision of the post Cold War world—a vision that focused on the global ramifications of persistent cultural divisions. Huntington projected that Confucian civilization and Islamic civilization would increasingly be in conflict with the West and would thus be a major source of global instability. The article was later turned into a book entitled The Clash of Civilizations (1996).Google Scholar

²⁹ Kagan, p. 2.Google Scholar

³⁰ See e.g., Kausikan, Bilahari, Asia's Different Standard, 92 Foreign Affairs 21 (Fall 1993); Fareed Zakaria, Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew, 73 Foreign Affairs 109-26 (Mar/Apr 1994). For an excellent scholarly exploration of the claims for Asian Values, see Chaihark Hahm, Law, Culture and the Politics of Confucianism, 16 Colum. J. As. L. 253 (2003).Google Scholar