Imperial Crisis and Domestic Dissent

Among leftist historians and writers on American foreign policy, one can observe a certain paradox in discussions about the current Bush administration. On the one hand, there is a powerful sense that we are in an exceptionally dangerous moment in international history and that the White House is taking our country on a new and alarming route. On the other hand, there is an acute awareness that American imperialism and a propensity for war are longstanding features of our national development. How can these attitudes be reconciled? What are the dynamics of contemporary policy formation, and how does current decision making relate to previous patterns? Finally, what role can historians play in educating the public and contributing to the growth of a resistance movement here in the United States?

What Is New About a Strategy of Preemption?

In the months following the attacks on September 11, 2001, the president and his top officials sent strong signals that national security policy would be dramatically changed. Having identified specific countries—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—as an axis of evil that could not be tolerated in a terrorist era, they began building a case for a military response. Their views were publicly codified in the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Although the thirty-one-page document was heavy on platitudes and familiar prescriptions, it contained a fresh warning:

Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of the innocents.... The overlap between states that sponsor terrorism and those that pursue WMD compels us to action.... The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction—and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.¹ (emphasis added)

At the time this document was issued, there was little doubt that Iraq had been selected as the first target. The only ambiguity was whether the U.N. Security Council could be persuaded to endorse this project. In either case, the Bush administration seemed determined to invade Iraq, and if this proved successful, to attack other nations accused of harboring or abetting terrorists.

Since the promulgation of the 2002 National Security Strategy, many mainstream foreign policy pundits have lamented the president's departure from previous norms. According to their narrative, U.S. policy during the Cold War was characterized by concepts of deterrence and containment. They suggest that in the good old days, the United States relied on diplomacy, cooperated with allies, respected the sovereignty of other states, abided by international law, and deferred to international institutions. Over decades, this approach yielded high prestige and practical results. By behaving in a prudent, principled, and pragmatic fashion, the United States had managed to peacefully vanquish the Soviet empire.

Of course, revisionist historians have long challenged this description. They have produced a formidable literature to demonstrate that the terms containment and deterrence are ideological constructs that have neatly masked an aggressive foreign policy in the language of national defense. In actuality, American interventions around the globe—whether in the form of rigged elections, military training and assistance programs, covert operations against undesirable governments, or the deployment of half a million troops to Southeast Asia—grew out of a bold, expansive agenda for organizing the world along principles favorable to the United States. In the service of that agenda, American leaders had frequently engaged in high-risk policies that antagonized others and exposed the nation to violent retaliation.

To understand why mainstream commentators see the Bush policy as something new, it is worth noting that the administration is going far...