Get Ready for Pax Americana
By John Hughes
Is it far-fetched to believe there is a master blueprint for America’s future, a grand plan or design in the minds of our leaders? Conspiracy theories aside, there is, at least in international relations, the beginning of one, hailing from the (some would say “neo”) conservative end of the spectrum.
Star wars, anyone? Or, how about cyber wars? Or, failing those futuristic calamities, how about three simultaneous, independent wars conducted by one country?
It could happen. It’s part of the plan. And you can read all about it.
It’s not a joke. It’s the Project for the New American Century.
The Project for the New American Century was created in 1997 with a clear agenda for American involvement in the world. Signing off on this Project, as influential members, were future key members of the Bush Administration, like Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz. These three men have had an enormous impact on the disposition of the current administration. Put simply, the PNAC can reliably be considered a topographical map for foreign policy within the current administration.
A study in global aggression as servant of American might.
The Project can be studied as an articulation of American international strategy for now and the near future. The strategy is one of spectacular military growth and development, at the service of global aggression.
“At present,” the Defense Report states, “the United States faces no global rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.” In the Statement of Principles, which calls for a revival of “the essential elements of the Reagan Administration’s success,” a pivotal question is asked: “Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?”
Within the Statement, reference to the principles and interests of nations other than ours is limited to those that echo the principles and interests of the United States. The mission of this government should be, according to the Defense Report, “shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests.” The US should “shape things for the better.” Other countries should adopt those principles and interests, or be subject to coercion at the hands of overwhelming power.
A mighty lofty mission.
The Project for the New American Century proposes four core missions as decisive to this endeavor. Those four are as follows:
· Homeland Defense. This proposal was published a year before the September 11, 2001 murders, which event “prompted” the creation of a new “Office for Homeland Security.” The proposal focuses on nuclear deterrence as the best defense, and says that the United States “must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter US military action.” The counteraction would be accomplished primarily through the creation of “safer and more effective nuclear weapons” (sic) in a far-reaching global system.
· Large Wars. The Report states that the standard of the past decade, the maintenance of capability for the US to engage in two major wars simultaneously, “is more likely to be too low than too high.” In order to build “the American peace,” the US needs to be able to “protect, independently, US interests in Europe, East Asia and the Gulf at all times.” We’d need to be able to conduct three major wars simultaneously. This would necessitate a considerable expansion of the size of the United States Armed Forces.
· Constabulary Duties. As in, constable to the world. These duties, different from a “peacemaker” role because more potentially violent, are exemplified by the continuing no-fly-zone air operations over northern and southern Iraq which continued for a decade before the war. They entail readiness for combat in “smaller-scale contingencies,” other than a major war. They require a long-term force independent of those required for the three major wars, and they would be “configured for combat” and committed indefinitely to presence in a particular region of the world.
· The Transformation of US Armed Forces. This is the commitment to the furthering of technological and tactical advantages, and begins with the creation of a system of global missile defenses, moves into unmanned aircraft, and develops into the possible creation of a fifth branch of the military, the “United States Space Force” capable of “global strikes from space.” It means superior weaponry, communications and mobility, and may also include superior use of computer viruses on the Internet, as cyber-warfare. The Report calls for the US to “divine ways to control the new ‘international commons’ of space and cyberspace” through military means.
These four core missions of tremendous military expansion come with an initial, start-up price tag which the Defense Report projects to be $75 to $100 billion over four years. We all know what happens with initial projections of costs. The Report assures that the expense will continue at a high level thereafter.
American “moral clarity” for the world.
The Report proposes this vast and sweeping development as a means to the end of worldwide projection of American “moral clarity,” and the maintenance of a “global security order.” It believes unequivocally that the US can tell the good from the bad. Remembering that recent history has seen this country support and finance such individuals as Duvalier, Hussein, Marcos, Pinochet, the Shah of Iran, and Somoza, one might wonder on what the assumption of moral clarity is based.
After the government makes its prognostication on a foreign regime, whether they are friend or foe, the neo-conservatives, according to their Report, plan to manage the bad guys through military intervention while protecting the white hats. We are the “guarantors” of “American principles and prosperity” worldwide. If we guess wrong on a regime or leader, as we did with the aforementioned tyrants and with Osama bin Laden, it has historically engendered more war, not less. The Defense Report does not discuss methods for more refined or restrained discernment.
The Report also refers to the option of “unseat(ing) hostile leaders” of governments. There is not a mention as to exactly how hostile they must be before we unseat them, or of what our limit is, for unseating how many leaders in a given time period.
At one point, the Report states: “America’s adversaries will continue to resist the building of the American peace.” There is an evident lack of curiosity as to why this is so.
Pax Americana. Good for America, good for the world.
Throughout the Defense Report, there is repeated reference to the current, “friendly” world order and its extension, as “Pax Americana.” Two of the primary authors of the report, Donald Kagan, a scholar of classical culture, and Steven Donnelly, are well aware that this phrase echoes an ancient one, “Pax Romana.” No one believes that the United States and the Roman Empire are exactly the same in all particulars. But, perhaps it was an unwittingly haunting use of a term which conjures an old world order founded in a country which spent so much energy on extending influence and conquering, that it failed to notice gradual, imperceptible rot from within, until it was too late.
At no point on the website was Vital Source able to discover an agenda for addressing poverty, illiteracy or human rights within any nations. Perhaps it is thought that American principles and interests having hegemony in the world would be the best program for addressing these.
Read it for yourself.
