US & South Asia - Articles

9/11 and the United States

   Whether the 9/11 attacks on the United States effected an epochal change in the international system, is arguable. What is unarguable is that this event has transformed the manner in which the US looks upon the outside world. 9/11 questioned the untenable belief that the US could insulate itself from the insecurities afflicting the international system; it also revealed its vulnerability to international – more correctly, transnational –terrorism. That apart, 9/11 created the prevailing sense of psychological insecurity in the US. Homeland (internal) security has acquired a new significance, permitting the Bush administration to effect quantum additions to the US defence budget, which is now larger than the combined defence budgets of all the countries in the world put together. Its ruling elite is convinced that a military solution is possible to obtain its political objectives; this explains American efforts to garner domestic and international support for attacking Iraq, despite the obvious moral bankruptcy of this policy and the series of reservations expressed by its European allies and other countries in the world. It is possible, however, that President Bush wants to be seen again as “doing something,” as he wished to do immediately after 9/11, by channelling American fears and outrage to launch his war against terrorism.

   However, Michael Howard has warned against dignifying the 9/11 “emergency,” requiring the mobilisation of police forces and intelligence agencies as a “war against terrorism.” The creation of a “war psychosis” confers the status of belligerent upon the terrorists and entitles them to the protection of the Geneva Conventions; this is currently unavailable to the prisoners captured in Afghanistan. At present, the war against terrorism is being waged on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Reportedly, the Americans are pleased with the cooperation they are receiving from the Pakistan army, since Taliban/al Qaeda elements are being arrested in fair numbers and shipped off for incarceration in Guantonomo. The war against terrorism is by no means over. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are at large; neither has the al Qaeda organization been destroyed – it has only scattered across the world, making its discovery and elimination much more problematical. It is possible to urge, consequently, that this war has just begun, and would need to be waged in several parts of the world.

   A case is apparent, therefore, for greater international coordination to fight this war to a successful conclusion. This is exactly what the US is not doing. Dragooning its European allies to join the coalition formed to displace the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is one thing, but to obtain their willing cooperation, along with that of the several countries where the al Qaeda elements have scattered, to join a sustained campaign against terrorism is quite another matter. The latter requires patient diplomacy and a concerted intelligence effort to eliminate a determined enemy. Pursuing these modalities would not be easy. On the other hand, extending the war against terrorism to attacking Iraq would certainly deflect attention from these issues; but would also channel American opinion, again, to focus upon another hate figure, Saddam Hussein, in the same manner of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. This would, undoubtedly, be in the short-term interests of Washington.

   Over the longer term, however, the world should feel rightly concerned with the unilateralist streak manifested in post 9/11 American foreign policy. Iraq is not a singular example. There are several other instances of the US having either walked away from or disrupted major international agreements that reflected the “sense of the world” on various global issues. For instance, it has not joined the International Criminal Court or the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, or the biodiversity treaty, or the ban on antipersonnel landmines, or the on-going efforts to establish a verification mechanism for the Biological Weapons Convention, or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or exports of small arms. Further, it has one-sidedly abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to permit its deployment of missile defences and has eviscerated the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention of any meaningful content. These unilateral measures have all but destroyed the painfully constructed international arms control regime. The irony is that the Bush administration has traversed this unilateral path and de-linked its perceived strategic interests from that of the international community in a milieu where it needs unstinted international cooperation to wage the war against terrorism. This cooperation cannot be obtained by coercion and may be unavailable if the US pursues unilateralism in its self-interests, but seeks multilateral support against transnational terrorism. An awareness of this contradiction has not informed the US foreign policy, post-9/11.

   More seriously, the downturn in the American economy cannot be disguised. Its presentiments were there before 9/11, but the adverse trends in the economy have been accentuated by the on-going crisis in the hotel, travel and aircraft manufacturing industries; this had cascaded on to other segments of the economy. A spate of scandals relating to fudged accounts and threatened insolvency cases have further eroded business sentiments in the country. The latest in the chain of bad news is the imminent filing of a Chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy suit by United Airlines, ostensibly to reorganize and undertake structural reforms in the company, which is needed to repay its creditors and reduce its present losses. But the shock waves of this premier airline filing for bankruptcy, along with other industrial giants like Enron, will affect the US economy adversely, and have serious repercussions on the world economy.

   A mixed picture, therefore, emerges regarding the activist leadership role donned by the US post-9/11. The contradictions in its policies are plainly evident and will, most likely, widen over the remaining years of the Bush administration. How well the US allies and other countries in the international community adjust to its mood-changes, whilst influencing it to moderate or relinquish its ill conceived policies, will be crucial to peace and stability in the international system.