FOLLOW THE JUDAS GOAT :

Below the Beltway : Unilateralism Revisited (John B. Judis, 8.12.02, American Prospect)

Except for a brief respite after September 11, the Bush administration has supported what conservatives call "unilateralism" but really a variant of 1920s isolationism. The isolationists of the 1920s did not reject overseas intervention; they just rejected intervening through alliances or on behalf of concerns that didn't reflect the most narrow and immediate definition of the national interest. Bush's unilateralism was on display before September 11 in his withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and in his infatuation with national missile defense.

Bush's new doctrine is a rejection not only of multilateral diplomacy but of diplomacy itself. It reflects the administration's skepticism that it could ever win diplomatic support for its aims, and its confidence that it can achieve through its military superiority what it cannot accomplish through diplomacy. The Bush administration could still be proven correct in Iraq, where it faces a leader with a long record of diplomatic incompetence and military miscalculation. But it could also be courting disaster. On one hand, if Bush decides to invade against the advice of his own military and in the face of opposition from Europe and America's Gulf allies, he could be taking needless chances with American lives and with the stability of the
entire region. A Bush invasion of Iraq, combined with the administration's tilt toward Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the pro-occupation Likud Party, could plunge the Mideast into chaos and hand Islamic radicals a victory previously denied them by the United States. On the other hand, if the Bush administration, faced with opposition, finally forgoes an invasion and settles for the kind of partial measures the Clinton administration embraced, it will have squandered animportant chance to pressure Saddam into allowing arms inspectors back into his country. Either way America loses.

Bush's unilateralism can have even more dire consequences in the long term. The administration's disdain for international treaties will make it impossible for the world's nations to meet threats such as global warming or the spread of disease that can only be addressed through international accords. American unilateralism will also encourage the emergence over the next decades of rival power blocs in Asia and Europe. There are already stirrings in Europe, although any action would have to await the completion of European Union enlargement. If Europe and a China-led Southeast Asia arrayed themselves against the United States, that could bring back the international disorder that prevailed before World War I. The result would not necessarily mean a world war, but regional trading blocs and bitter proxy disputes that could lead to regional wars in those parts of the world that remain mired in autocracy and poverty.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this essay is that Mr. Judis seems to be disfavorably comparing the peaceful, inexpensive isolationism of the 1920s with the bloody, prodigiously expensive and counterproductive internationalism that prevailed under Woodrow Wilson and from 1941 to 1989. The period during which America engaged the world, wrapped itself in international organizations and treaties, and pursued the foreign policy goals of its allies instead of itself was one of the most murderous in human history. One has trouble imagining that Mr. Judis seriously considers that to have been a good thing, though his avowed fear of a united Europe and, even more bizarre, of a China-led Asian Axis seem of a piece with the kind of short-sighted paranoia that gave us WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 19, 2002 8:19 AM