A New Phase in American History:

New Politico-Military and Economic Challenges  

Anthony Harrigan  

      The writer of this monograph is the author, co-author or editor of twenty books. He has lectured at Yale University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Colorado and the National War College.

      No one can predict the way a country or civilization will be challenged. Few economic observers forecast the Great Depression. Earlier—in the 1880s—few, if any, observers of the United States thought the country would face an isthmian crisis or have to worry about a naval challenge in the Pacific.

      Japan was not even a tiny cloud on the global horizon. Americans did not think of their country as a Pacific power. Then came the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt who was called on to face up to challenges within this hemisphere and in the Far East. Great Britain too didn’t imagine until the Franco-Prussian war that it would face a German challenge to its naval supremacy and its colonial holdings from Africa to the Chinese mainland.

      In the latter part of the 20th century, Americans were aware that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict put them in a difficult and dangerous position. Muslim terrorists had surfaced as a major international threat in connection with that conflict. But it never crossed American minds until the first World Trade Center bombing that this distant conflict would wreak havoc on the American mainland. Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon and America was awakened as it was by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sixty years earlier. Suddenly, Americans realized that they had entered a terrible new era, an era of vulnerability and unjustified hostility by Muslim forces in many parts of the world.

      The effect and meaning of these attacks is still being absorbed, with the full dimensions of the hostility still a subject of intense study. Already it has been necessary for the United States to go to war to defend itself against a Middle Eastern country that sought weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of attacking the American people. We can be thankful that the American government and people were galvanized in time to strike down the Middle Eastern regime that aimed at our ruin. But no one at this point can tell how far the hateful response to the United States will extend or whether the Iraqi threat is part of a much bigger threat that will require future American military operations on a tremendous scale. Are there any truly “moderate” Muslim regimes or will there be any ten or twenty years from now? Is Muslim hostility irrevocable? Is the hostility basically religious or political or a lethal combination of these elements? Part of the answer may depend on whether Iraq can be reconstructed in a way that eliminates the hostility in post-Saddam Iraqi society.

      To be sure, militant Islam is not a new force in history. Much of the Western world, old Christendom, was conquered by Islam between the 600s and 1600s. Spain was a conquered province of Islam from shortly after the death of the Prophet until the late 1400s. Today, the military threat is alarming. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Iran may have them soon.

      A specially alarming aspect of the threat is the wealth Muslim forces have available to project the threat. It is well-documented that a good portion of the vast oil wealth of Saudi Arabia has been put at the disposal of the enemies of the United States—even as the kingdom professes to be a friend of the U.S. Saudi Arabia has been playing a double game for some time, feeding money to the terrorists in order to prevent militant attacks on the Saudi royal family which, in fact, owns the country. Many persons have an interest in continued dependence on Saudi oil. To negate the influence of former U.S. officeholders will require tremendous public pressure, and the American public is not aware of the political connections.

      One of the problems facing the United States in the near term is how to deal with Saudi Arabia. There is, first of all, the matter of America’s dependence on Saudi oil. For 30 years, thoughtful Americans have called for energy independence, but nothing has been done to achieve that goal. There are vast reserves of oil in Alaska and the Arctic regions of Canada. But highly organized environmentalists have blocked access to Alaskan oil that the nation needs now more than ever. And no effort has been made to tap the oil in the Arctic: Hence the ongoing dependence on Saudi oil. Very cleverly, the Saudis have corrupted our political system, getting former U.S. officeholders on corporate boards that have an interest in continued dependence on Saudi oil.

      A political upheaval in Saudi Arabia, which is likely, will force the issue. But the economic dislocation for the U.S., Japan and other countries will be colossal. It could plunge the American economy into chaos. It is important, therefore, that the United States get access to Iraqi oil for the short run and that oil reserves be built up on a scale larger than ever imagined. If there is upheaval in Saudi Arabia, it would be impossible for the U.S. to intervene to rescue the royal family which is out of control, oppressive and corrupt. The United States must be prepared to consider all options. One option would be for the United States to intervene, not to rescue the royal family, but to ensure access to the oil. In other words, the U.S. should be prepared to seize and control the Saudi oil fields until a responsible government is installed.

      Action of this sort, despite the need of almost the entire world for the uninterrupted flow of oil, undoubtedly would bring down on the heads of Americans the wrath of a number of nations, certainly the nations mistakenly described as “allies.” America’s action undoubtedly would be attacked as “imperialism” by its leftist enemies, though it would be no such thing. The United States would not be turning Saudi Arabia into an American colony. Colonialization was the aim of European and Japanese colonialists of the l9th and early 20th centuries. In any case, the cry “Imperialist” is a dirty word in our time, a handy stick with which to bash Westerners, though imperialism in the British empire brought to African and Asian lands the best government they ever had—a system of law and order which vanished when these lands gained an independence they were unprepared for.

      Dr. Paul Kennedy, director of Yale’s International Security Studies, (Washington Post, April 20, 2003) has already charged American “hawks” with an “expansionist policy” and characterized the United States venture into the Middle East as imperialist. American intervention in Iraq can’t properly be characterized that way. However, he made a good point with respect to the notion, already translated into policy, that American-style democracy can’t be imposed on Middle Eastern countries with very different values and traditions.

      Throughout our history we have dealt with countries that lacked American-style republican governments. It would be easier for the U.S. if the Middle East and other regions were democratic, but that isn’t necessary. All that is necessary is that countries which have a potential for threatening us refrain from making threats or adopting a fanatical anti-American ideology. Aside from the practicality of such relationships, it is important to understand that republican governance cannot be translated into every setting. Undoubtedly, all people want to be free of the kind of bloody dictatorship that Iraq suffered but that doesn’t mean that all peoples are fit for liberty. In his book on politics, Aristotle made this very point.

      If the Middle Eastern countries, save Israel, plus the nations of West and South Asia, prove themselves incapable of organizing themselves and functioning as Western-style democracies, the United States will have to limit its aims and actions to specific strategic threats and problems. Dr. Kennedy asked the question: “Can we really afford the missionary zeal to remake the Middle East in our own image?” To this question, I would say “No.” The U.S. has strategic problems in other areas, chiefly a trade deficit which is the root cause of American de-industrialization and a weakening domestic economy.

      Adoption of a strategic economic policy to halt and reverse America’s industrial and economic decline in no way should prevent the maintenance and extension of an interventionist foreign and military policy built on President Bush’s preventive action doctrine. All strategic threats and problems should be promptly addressed. Happily, the United States has the power to do just that. It is important to bear in mind that strong foreign and military power rests ultimately on a strong industrial and economic base.

      No one in either party is willing to address the subject of American de-industrialization and its causes. Commentators talk about the shutdown of factories but don’t cite the real cause. The cause, of course, is American reliance on imports, chiefly from China. American companies can’t survive competition from a country where factory workers earn twenty cents an hour and where prison factories turn out masses of goods for export to the United States. Every day Chinese ships unload hundreds of containers filled with low-cost manufactured goods. Indeed it is amazing that any American factories remain open. U.S. companies in an effort to survive, have moved their manufacturing offshore to China, Malaysia, Mexico, and other countries where wages are low and environmental controls are almost non-existent. The result is that the United States is dying as an industrial society and, in time will become an economic colony of China. In time, the United States won’t be able to support a strong, modern military. This situation is as much a strategic challenge for the United States as weapons of mass destruction in the hands of our enemies.

      The United States must halt the flow of foreign-manufactured goods into the country as well as foodstuffs. At the same time, Congress should crack down on American companies that have shifted production to low wage countries with the aim of selling their products in the American market and they should be subjected to severe new taxes. Those taxes should be imposed until these companies repatriate their production facilities and once again hire Americans as workers in their plants. American people and their lawmakers must recognize that the American market is a vital strategic asset that must be protected.

      Thus, the United States faces a dual strategic challenge in the next few years. The Duke de Valderano, former chairman of the Foundation for the Study of Terrorism, has said “I foresee a hundred years’ war against Islam,” citing the possibility that our attempts to impose a democratic model on Iraq actually may produce “another Islamic Fundamentalist Republic like Iran with Sharia Law.”

      As noted earlier, no one could have envisioned that the United States would be confronted with this new array of challenges and problems, though America has experienced a steadily deepening involvement with a wider world. The Founding Fathers could not have imagined the new republic being confronted with the problem of Tripoli-based pirates by the time Thomas Jefferson became president. History is a chronicle of surprises, and nations, if they are to continue, must respond effectively to the surprises that occur. The same thing is true in the lives of individuals. At 25 one cannot conceive of the problems that must be addressed when one is 50 or 75. Both individuals and nations need extraordinary resilience under conditions of adversity in order to endure.

      As in all areas of life, it is necessary to examine history in order to understand how other people in other times faced up to tremendous challenges. Certainly the United States and Western nations need to search out the ways in which Westerners in medieval and post-medieval times were able to hold back the Islamic assault. And the American people must at the same time study the ways our people responded to the economic disaster that was the Great Depression. Understanding of what must be done to effect change is basic to responding effectively to the undermining of our national economy.

      As one reviews the phases of American history—the frontier, the Great Depression, world war, Cold War, and now, military intervention in distant global regions, one has to adjust one’s thinking to new realities. And given the acceleration of history in the past century, the need for rapid adjustment is acute, albeit very difficult; one no sooner gets familiar with one phase of history before another phase comes into being.

      A new phase of history is certainly emerging for several European countries. It is unquestionably historic that Poland, Denmark, and, possibly, a number of East European nations may assume peacekeeping duties in Iraq. And Germans, though ruled out as peacekeepers in Iraq, are fighting the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan. That is a very promising development. If indeed we are truly facing a hundred years’ war against Islamic fundamentalism committed to terrorism and hostile state acts against the Western world, the U.S. though the spearhead of resistance, will need authentic allies.

      The British historian Michael McCormick cites this need in his book The Origins of the European Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2001) saying that “inherited mental categories” may no longer explain new realities. Americans, for instance, have to adjust rapidly from the imperatives of the Cold War to the new imperatives of preemptive military action in the Middle East and possibly, other global regions.

      There is a tremendous amount for Americans to comprehend as they face the dangerous world of the 21st century. They are capable of doing so, however. As I pointed out at the outset, they faced the surprising new world of the 20th century and successfully dealt with the internal and external problems and threats. They are no less resilient and resourceful in the opening phase of the 21st century. The challenges are enormous, but their victory in the war in Iraq shows that they have the right stuff.     Ω