David Warren: U.S. No Longer Cares What Others Think (Payback is a…)

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | April 26, 2003 | David Warren

[quidnunc]

It strikes me that something fairly big is happening, fairly quietly, in Washington. It amounts to a new diplomatic strategy, post-Iraq — of the kind which, given American power, generates in and of itself a "new world order". (The father talked; the son acted.) It emerges less from conscious thought than from years of frustrating trial and error, brought to a head in the Security Council just before the invasion of Iraq. And it begins to reveal itself as a way of dealing with immediate difficulties in Iraq and elsewhere (most immediately, North Korea).

But though not the product of committee foresight, I think it may emerge as the most important single element within the "Bush doctrine" that has been assembling itself since the morning of 9/11, and which may long outlive the administration of President George W. Bush. It may even penetrate into the U.S. State Department, over time.

Until someone has invented a more pretentious expression, I will call this the new "we don't care" policy. It consists of responding to major rhetorical and diplomatic challenges, including organized campaigns against U.S. interests choreographed through the United Nations, with something like total indifference.

But let me explain, not indifference to the challenge, but indifference to the argument given with the challenge. The U.S. will take note of the opposition, and act to defeat it, but without publicly arguing with it. Actual discussion on matters of significance is reserved to allies.

Example: yesterday, when the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, cut a verbal Gordian knot, by stating very simply that the U.S. would not allow a theocratic regime to arise in Iraq. One might deduce that it wouldn't matter whether the thing were voted or not voted, before or behind a façade of "democracy"; or one might fail to deduce that. Either way, the thing itself is repugnant, and the U.S. will stop it happening.

Example: earlier this week, when the secretary of state, Colin Powell, was asked unambiguously by media whether the U.S. intended to "punish" (their word) France for her recent behaviour over Iraq, and he replied in one word: "Yes."

One had to refer to other officials to gather that this would be done most likely by cutting France out of the consultation process in NATO and among other U.S. allies, and by "disinviting" France to other trans-Atlantic fora, thus isolating the Chirac regime diplomatically even within Europe.

-snip-

[driftless]

I'm always amused by protests from foreigners and even some Americans about how our actions is this or that crisis will "inflame" certain countries and its citizens and cause them to think negatively about us. My thoughts have usually been on the order of "well what have these protesting countries done to help solve the crisis", and I'm afraid my other very strong feeling is for all these protesters to "get stuffed". I really don't care what they think, because I know that they are mostly guided by base self-interest and couldn't care less about solving a particular crisis if it does not benefit them.

We have very allies that we can trust to help us, and it seems that we now have a few less allies unless they change their attitudes. France continues to dig a deep hole for itself. Very shortly it might find itself in one that is too steep to climb out of.

[Howlin]

That's more like it!

[sweetliberty]

"but, we're making a list!"

I'd sure like to see this "we don't care" approach used by conservatives against liberals. Imagine how it would take the wind out of their sails were they to assault us with words that are expected to send us cowering in guilt and we respond with "we don't care; y'all just keep on ranting and raving because it is what you do, and we will do the right thing because it is what WE do."

[Howlin]

MR. ROSE: Okay, but I've heard there will be consequences because they were tough for you. I mean everywhere you would turn after the vote on (inaudible) they weren't on your side and with you; they were against you, against the United States. Are there consequences for standing up to the United States like that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes.

[RWG]

I will call this the new "we don't care" policy...it is really the we care about what happens to the US.

[cardinal4]

Wow! I have been out of the loop. Im glad there will be some retribution, and I hope its public. Better yet, I hope to find out the Clintons were secretly meeting with the Chirac govt to undermine the Bush admin.

[A. Pole]

I will call this the new "we don't care" policy...it is really the we care about what happens to the US.

Do we?

[sweetliberty]

"Now that attitude is official policy. I like it!"

Me too! Perhaps the era of sensitivity training is winding down. Hehe...

[sweetliberty]

"How about calling the policy "strategic indifference"?

Not bad.

[meenie]

A move by the United States to look out for its interests instead of kow-towing to group interests as the UN represents is welcome. There seems to be a tendency for the US to stick its nose into too many foreign controversies, though. We cannot solve all the world's problems nor should we be trying to. Our financial resources cannot sustain the rate of intervention we have seen in the last couple of decades.

In order to sustain a strong defense capability, we cannot fritter our resources away like we have in the Balkans, Haiti, etc. We won the cold war by forcing the Russian Bear to overextend themselves. We now face the possibility of doing the same to ourselves. We cannot ignore the huge trade and government deficits we now see. Our military, due to high tech, has to have a strong financial base to support it.

[sweetliberty]

This is a really good article.

[Faraday]

Lying, diplo-speak, papering over differences, ignoring realities...these harvested ever increasing terrorist attacks, culminating in 911. The great triumph of the Bush foreign policy is that it cuts through all of this with truth telling and clear national self-interest. The Kyoto Treaty was rejected. The ABM treaty was abrogated. The UN is put on the defensive, (while ignoring the UN's inanities like the South Africa conference.) The ICC is not only not endorsed, but exposed as anti-American in nature. And most importantly, we say what we'll do, and do what we say. This is leadership, pure and simple. Those with sense follow.

[Kadric]

How about Foreign Utilitarianism

[Nick Danger]

Its ultimate purpose is to call bluffs.

I think there is more to it than that. Everything the author says makes sense, but so does this:

The idea that a new, enlightened future is taking shape in Brussels, where diplomats schmoozing each other over wine and Brie have made war a thing of the past, has become an almost dangerous obsession among those whom, until someone has invented a more pretentious expression, I will call "Euroweenies", or alternatively, "weasels."

We have seen serious people, who ought to know better, looking down their long snouts at us, huffily explaining that "dialog has replaced war," and that we Americans are all cowboys and knuckle-draggers for thinking otherwise.

This haughty fiction can maintain itself so long as it never encounters an outsider who won't play by its rules. The entire strategy falls on its face, however, when "he who is to be subdued" refuses to engage in "dialog."

Too many in Europe seem to have forgotten that there are still such people in the world. Hans Blix was so impressed by Saddam Hussein's willingness to engage him in "dialog" that it never occurred to Blix that he was being played like a fiddle. His entire effort became one of expanding the "dialog," for its own sake. The process had become an end unto itself; results almost did not matter.

So long as European leaders believe this pleasant fiction, they will never take steps to adequately defend themselves militarily.

It is better for them, and us, if the country that confronts Europe with the "I got yer dialog right here" scenario is the United States, instead of, say, China in 2022.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

Why do you keep posting this? .."IS it SAFE?" = HILLARY on Armed Services Committee.. Just because its a big story or what?

[Crusader21stCentury]

HEH...HEH...HEH....but, we're making a list!

And checking it twice....
We're gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Uncle Sam is comin... to town.

LOL

[geedee]

How hilarious....of course LEADERS care NOT what people THINK or FEEL (after evaluating a situation/issue).....LEADERS do what is RIGHT

And all that from a MORON!

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

Perhaps if you take an inverse of an Osama Bin Ladin quote you can get phrase for this new policy;

The "World" is a paper tiger.

[PeoplesRep_of_LA]

Hey geedee, I added your info as my tag line. Spread the word!

[NYCop]

U.S.A. Foreign Policy post 9-11