Iraq | The War Weakened the U.S.
About the Author: Richard Barnet is a founder of
the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, D.C.-
based think tank, and has written twelve books on foreign
policy. His most recent book is The Rocket's Red
Glare: War, Politics, and the American Presidency.
When Operation Desert Storm ended in the
triumphal hundred-hour ground war, George
Bush's mysterious slogan "New World Order"
suddenly took on meaning. The United States is
now the only global military superpower, and
the new political arrangements in the Middle
East, whether formally negotiated or not, will be
in large measure a Pax Americana. The United
States will be more assertive in pressing for an Israeli-
Arab settlement, and, with the realignment
of forces in the region, some progress may well
be made. Saudi Arabia is now firmly in the
American camp. Syria has been accorded the
status of an honorary former terrorist state and
is using its new financial support from coalition
partners to build up its military forces. Iran is
biding its time. Cheap oil is here to stay until the
next crisis, and the quick and efficient destruction
of much of Iraq and Kuwait may well lift the
United States out of recession.
What sort of New World Order will be built
on all this? The war in the Gulf has already
changed the political culture of the United
States. "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome
once and for all," President Bush exulted
at a White House appearance. The United States
finally fought a big war against a plausible, if inflated,
enemy; won decisively; and the public ap-
Richard Barnet, "An Illusion," Harper's Magazine, May 1991.
Reprinted with permission.
plauded. The Pentagon's reticence about fighting
wars that risk estranging the military forces
from the civil society has given way to justifiable
pride in a war well fought, and to new confidence
that the administration will stop the budget
cuts and borrow enough money to finance
the permanent preparation for an endless series
of high-tech wars across the planet.
Last January 1991 the country was divided
about the risks of the war and, to a lesser extent,
the morality of resolving the crisis by killing tens
of thousands of Iraqis who themselves are the
victims of Saddam's crimes. The stunning victory
has blown away al thought of risk, and, for
all but a tiny minority, success has settled the
moral questions, too. It will be easier now to
convince the public that the escalating misery in
the poor countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America is essentially a continuing military problem.
"Will the war that worked bring
about a fundamental change
in the U.S. role in the world?
I think not."
Does this mean that the United States is now
embarked on a worldwide military crusade for
the New World Order? Is our top export now to
be high-tech war, our slogan "Have smart
bombs, will travel"? In his remarks to the Economic
Club of New York, before the ground war
began, President Bush suggested that American
leadership in fighting the Gulf War would result
in "vastly restored credibility" for the United
States that could be translated into more "harmonious"
relations with its major industrial competitors.
In other words, the leverage over the allies
that the United States enjoyed during the
Cold War but lost when the Soviet Union
dropped out of the global conflict can now be
restored by the United States' becoming the policeman
in strategic areas of the Third World.
This notion of America's role in the world is re-
Iraq 99
fleeted in high-level Pentagon statements about
the missions of the armed forces published several
months before Iraq invaded Kuwait. General
A. M. Gray, commandant of the Marine
Corps, wrote, three months before the invasion
of Kuwait, that the United States must maintain
"a credible military power projection capability
with the flexibility to respond to conflicts across
the spectrum of violence throughout the globe."
This shift in the political culture will have an
effect on the U.S. budget. The "peace dividend"
lies buried in the desert. But will the war that
worked bring about a fundamental change in
the U.S. role in the world? I think not. It is hard
to think of sites for future wars that feature all
the essential conditions that made the Gulf War,
despite the numbers of troops and the financial
cost, the most splendid of littie wars: Saddam's
brutal aggression against a small, defenseless
country without even a shred of a plausible legal
claim; a villain out of central casting, with nuclear
ambitions and a weakness for poison gas,
who at both the negotiating table and on the
battlefield revealed an unerring instinct for his
own jugular; in the absence of Soviet opposition;
a treeless battlefield ideal for high-tech slaughter;
shared oil anxieties stronger than the economic
rivalries dividing the United States, Japan,
and Europe; countries rich enough to pay the
warriors not only to fight a "free" war but also to
rebuild what they destroyed.
"The afterglow of victory is not
enough to restore the sinews of
nationhood."
The politically sophisticated generals who
crafted the Gulf operation, having restored the
reputation of the armed forces, are ino hurry to
risk it again. They understand that other political
crises will not offer such promising terrain and
that long, inconclusive, and disappointing wars
are just as dangerous to the health of the United
States' military now as they were before President
Bush exorcised the demons of Vietnam.
Nor are Germany and Japan, the principal
beneficiaries and reluctant financiers of the U.S.
war effort, willing to support the United States
in a crusade against evil regimes around the
globe. Once the real economic costs, the disastrous
environmental effects, and the long-term
political fallout of the war are assessed, the
United States' major industrial competitors are
likely to be more restrained in supporting future
crusades for world order orchestrated by this nation—
even to the limited extent that they have
cooperated in this one. The more the United
States assumes the posture of the Lone Ranger
and continues to treat the United Nations as a
flag of convenience, the more guarded they will
be.
Economic Constraints
For all the bravado in Washington about the
dawn of the second American century, making
war will not be the primary basis of national
power in this new century. Having neglected its
technological and industrial base, the United
States is now extremely dependent on shortterm
foreign capital. If the United States, Europe,
and Japan continue to move toward competitive
trading blocs, such an economic world
order cannot be policed by American military
power.
The American role in the New World Order
will ultimately be determined by economic constraints.
The growing vulnerability of the U.S.
economy, its dependence on foreign capital, its
failure to invest in roads, bridges, schools, and
civilian technology are now taking such a dramatic
toll on civil society that unless the investment
priorities are radically changed, American
influence will inevitably decline. The Soviet
Union, it should be remembered, disappeared
as a global political actor at the very moment
when it was at the pinnacle of its military power.
Despite the promilitary sentiment sweeping the
United States, it may not be politically possible
for an American president to lead the American
people into the next century as the new Sparta:
100 Current Controversies
The United States is the only advanced industrial
nation without national health insurance. It
is number one in the percentage of the population
behind bars. And it has a murder rate unequaled
anywhere in the world that keeps statistics.
As the President himself noted in his victory
speech to Congress, during the one hundred
hours of the ground war more Americans were
killed by gunfire on our city streets than in the
Kuwait-Iraq theater of operations. The afterglow
of victory is not enough to restore the sinews of
nationhood, and as these weaken so does the
real power of the United States to influence the
New World Order. For the crucial battles of the
new century, our industrial competitors concentrate
on their economic bases, while the United
States, seemingly unable to understand the shifting
foundations of national power, risks being
caught in a time warp of an American century
that is long gone.
