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http://www.antiwar.com/rep/utley4.html
Answering the 'Wolfowitz (Bush)
Doctrine' on American Empire
by Jon Basil Utley
8/24/01
How did the "world's only super power" become so isolated and fearful?
The "Wolfowitz Doctrine" is named for the No. 2 man at the Defense Department and key Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld confidant, Paul Wolfowitz, former director of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, known for his support of NATO expansion and the attack on Serbia.
As the New York Times explained it, the Wolfowitz Doctrine argues that America's political and military mission should be to "ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge. With its focus on this concept of benevolent domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest rejection to date of collective internationalism."
Its core thesis, described by Ben Wattenberg in the April 12, Washington Times, is "to guard against the emergence of hostile regional superpowers, for example, Iraq or China. America is No. 1. We stand for something decent and important. That's good for us and good for the world. That's the way we want to keep it."
Even though there is truth to the claim of Americans' fundamental decency, since Athenian times democracies have been woefully unable to run empires. American foreign policy is made by Congress in response to sensationalist TV news and domestic ethnic voting blocks, not with a view to national interests, but rather in response to the short term need for money and votes for the next election. That is the reason many foreigners see American military interventions as inconsistent and hypocritical. Most American don t care about foreign policy. Consequently it is controlled by the few who do care.
Imagine how long the Roman empire would have lasted if there had been a Visigoth or Egyptian lobby pushing its agenda on Roman foreign policy. The Roman Empire resulted in the end of the Roman republic and freedom. The English empire failed when the electoral franchise grew so much that new voters could thwart the elites' rule. Still, many American conservatives who argue that government can't even properly run a nursery have fallen for the concept that it can run the world.
Further confusing American interests, there are also elements in Washington that look at real or imagined threats abroad with great favor. The old military-industrial complex has grown to become the overwhelming military-industrial-congressional establishment. Its power is reflected by the difficulty of closing unnecessary bases and the wasteful weapons purchasing process, as evidenced by ordering weapons before they are fully tested, e.g. the ill-fated Osprey helicopter, manufactured in 42 states and congressional districts.
Yet we imagine wars without casualties, with exciting "bang-bang" for evening TV, and with no hurtful consequences for our interests. Foreigners are not going to oblige us, but more likely will wage wars of terrorism from unknown quarters, possibly even with horrendous biological weapons currently being developed.
Ruling the world is not even a "conservative" position. "It is policy" writes William Ruger for Reason Magazine ("Foreign Policy Folly,"June 2001), "that will threaten rather than preserve many of America's traditional values, such as individual liberty, small government and anti-militarism. As has been pointed out by a number of historians, war and preparing for war are the soils that nurture the growth of state power, burdensome taxation, conscription, and militarism. If American conservatism should stand for anything, it should be the goal of limited government. Yet the primacist policies offered here guarantee the opposite: a
