The Challenge for the United States in the Post-11 September Era: An Overview

History can be rife with post mortems, but current analyses and assessments, involving multiple strategies, are more uncertain. This characterizes the situation for the United States in the post-11 September era.

The Cold War is over. George Kennan's Mr. X article described containment as the overarching strategic concept of that era. It was straightforward and reasonably well understood at home and abroad and had some predictability. It had a certain simplicity about it: to contain and deter Soviet expansionism. Most of the disputes, threats, and problems the United States faced during this period were assessed within this broad coherent strategic framework.

How different, complex, and complicated is the situation today. The ashes of the World Trade Center, the pervasive threat of terrorism globally, the development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and the U.S. vulnerability to direct attack within its borders make the future uncertain and policy decisions difficult because guideposts are lacking.

The key flash points that the United States faces in the short term—Iraq, Iran, the Arab-Israeli dispute, Afghanistan, and North Korea—will involve an immense commitment of resources, resolve, and steadfastness on the home front and new ways to cope with new dangers in the environment of global terrorism.

The Persian Gulf and the Middle East

In the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, peace is a strategic necessity for the United States. Our initial involvement goes back to World War II; 1968 is a key date. With the British announcement of their withdrawal east of Suez, the Nixon administration had to decide what to do. The National Security Council meetings in which this writer was involved as assistant secretary of the Middle East and South Asia considered three options: not to become involved and to remain largely disengaged, to initiate a full-blown military presence at least matching that of the British, or to do something more or less in between.

The decision was for the United States to undertake at the outset a modest military presence and at least fill partially the vacuum left by the British. The objective was to help ensure the stability and security of the region, which was considered very important if not vital to American interests and sought to deny the Soviets the opportunity for expansion.

Since 1968 U.S. policy has changed with changes in the region. There was the hoped-for cooperation between Iran under the shah and Saudi Arabia during the 1970s. There was the tilt toward Iraq in the 1980s as a balance to Iran. This was followed by "dual containment" in the 1990s. The results were mixed. The United States had to involve itself three times during this period in light of regional threats: the Iran-Iraq War (1980-89), the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1991, and the recent war against the Saddam Hussein regime. Ironically, during this period the Arab-Israeli peace process moved haltingly but successfully: two disengagement agreements brokered by the United States between Egypt and Israel, a similar agreement between Syria and Israel, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, and the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement.

In this post-11 September, post-Saddam period there is an opportunity—indeed an imperative—for the United States to lead, not for imperial reasons, but in order to develop a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous regional and global environment and to prevent terrorist attacks at home and abroad. It is an awesome and daunting undertaking, but there is no better alternative.

America will remain the number one target of terrorism if for no other reason than its overwhelming political, economic, and military power. To be successful we need to understand and act on the basis that power repels but power also attracts. We will be tested time and again, but we are not in the midst of another Vietnam. Moreover, while there is need for...