SteveMetz
09-11-2007, 01:14 PM
As research for my book, I've been re-reading a series of short essays entitled "One Year On: Power, Purpose and Strategy in American Foreign Policy" from the Fall 2002 issue of The National Interest. I've been struck by how prescient some of the comments were:
"Too weak to oppose American power, yet fearing its exercise, most other nations may be expected to comply with our wishes. Nevertheless, the world's loss of confidence in the benign purview of American power might well turn out to be the principal legacy of the war on terror. It could turn out to be a high price to pay for victory."
Robert W. Tucker
"One of the problems that today confront American statesmen in dealing with the rest of the world is that the United States considers itself to be 'at war', but, with the obvious exception of Israel, no one else does...
The connection between, on the one hand, an act perpetrated by mainly Saudi conspirators using box-knives as their main weapon, and on the other the internationally proscribed manufacture of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein, has never been clearly established...
In focusing on 'rogue states' the Bush Administration may have settled for something within its military capacity, but in dealing with the consequences of that destruction it will need all the help it can get. Nor is there the slightest reason to suppose that such victories would eliminate, or even reduce, the threat posed by international terrorism. Arguably, they could increase it."
Michael Howard.
"Too weak to oppose American power, yet fearing its exercise, most other nations may be expected to comply with our wishes. Nevertheless, the world's loss of confidence in the benign purview of American power might well turn out to be the principal legacy of the war on terror. It could turn out to be a high price to pay for victory."
Robert W. Tucker
"One of the problems that today confront American statesmen in dealing with the rest of the world is that the United States considers itself to be 'at war', but, with the obvious exception of Israel, no one else does...
The connection between, on the one hand, an act perpetrated by mainly Saudi conspirators using box-knives as their main weapon, and on the other the internationally proscribed manufacture of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein, has never been clearly established...
In focusing on 'rogue states' the Bush Administration may have settled for something within its military capacity, but in dealing with the consequences of that destruction it will need all the help it can get. Nor is there the slightest reason to suppose that such victories would eliminate, or even reduce, the threat posed by international terrorism. Arguably, they could increase it."
Michael Howard.