Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 7 – In a broad new policy statement
that is in its final drafting phase, the Defense Department asserts that
America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to
ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or
the territories of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the
highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick
Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American
mission will be “convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to
a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests.”
The classified document makes the case for a world
dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive
behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations
from challenging American primacy.
Rejecting Collective Approach
To perpetuate this role, the United States “must
sufficiently account for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to
discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the
established political and economic order,” the document states.
With its focus on this concept of benevolent
domination by one power, the Pentagon document articulates the clearest
rejection to date of collective internationalism, the strategy that emerged
from World War II when the five victorious powers sought to form a United
Nations that could mediate disputes and police outbreaks of violence.
Though the document is internal to the Pentagon and
is not provided to Congress, its policy statements are developed in conjunction
with the National Security Council and in consultation with the President or
his senior national security advisers. Its drafting has been supervised by Paul
D. Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Policy. Mr. Wolfowitz often
represents the Pentagon on the Deputies Committee, which formulates policy in
an interagency process dominated by the State and Defense Departments.
The document was provided to The New York Times by an
official who believes this post-cold-war strategy debate should be carried out
in the public domain. It seems likely to provoke further debate in Congress and
among America’s allies about Washington’s willingness to tolerate greater
aspirations for regional leadership from a united Europe or from a more
assertive Japan.
Together with its attachment on force levels required
to insure America’s predominant role, the policy draft is a detailed
justification for the Bush Administration’s “base force” proposal to support a
1.6-million member military over the next five years, at a cost of about $1.2
trillion. Many Democrats in Congress have criticized the proposal as
unnecessarily expensive.
Implicitly, the document foresees building a world
security arrangement that pre-empts Germany or Japan from pursuing a course of
substantial rearmament, especially nuclear armament, in the future.
In its opening paragraph, the policy document heralds
the “less visible” victory at the end of the cold war, which it defines as the
“integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security
and the creation of a democratic ‘zone of peace.’”
The continuation of this strategic goal explains the
strong emphasis elsewhere in the document and in other Pentagon planning on
using military force, if necessary, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in such countries as North Korea,
Iraq, some of the successor republics to the Soviet Union and in Europe.
Nuclear proliferation, if unchecked by superpower
action, could tempt Germany, Japan and other industrial powers to acquire
nuclear weapons to deter attack from regional foes. This could start them down
the road to global competition with the United States and, in a crisis over
national interests, military rivalry.
The policy draft appears to be adjusting the role of
the American nuclear arsenal in the new era, saying, “Our nuclear forces also
provide an important deterrent hedge against the possibility of a revitalized
or unforeseen global threat, while at the same time helping to deter third
party use of weapons of mass destruction through the threat of retaliation.”
U.N. Action Ignored
The document is conspicuously devoid of references to
collective action through the United Nations, which provided the mandate for
the allied assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and which may soon be asked to
provide a new mandate to force President Saddam Hussein to comply with his
cease-fire obligations.
The draft notes that coalitions “hold considerable
promise for promoting collective action” as in the Persian Gulf war, but that
“we should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting
beyond the crisis being confronted, and in many cases carrying only general
agreement over the objectives to be accomplished.”
What is most important, it says, is “the sense that
the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S.” and “the United States should
be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated”
or in a crisis that demands quick response.
Bush Administration officials have been saying
publicly for some time that they were willing to work within the framework of
the United Nations, but that they reserve the option to act unilaterally or
through selective coalitions, if necessary, to protect vital American
interests.
But this publicly stated strategy did not rule out an
eventual leveling of American power as world security stabilizes and as other
nations place greater emphasis on collective international action through the
United Nations.
In contrast, the new draft sketches a world in which
there is one dominant military power whose leaders “must maintain the
mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger
regional or global role.”
Sent to Administrators
The document is known in Pentagon parlance as the
Defense Planning Guidance, an internal Administration policy statement that is
distributed to the military leaders and civilian Defense Department heads to
instruct them on how to prepare their forces, budgets and strategy for the
remainder of the decade. The policy guidance is typically prepared every two years,
and the current draft will yield the first such document produced after the end
of the cold war.
Senior Defense Department officials have said the
document will be issued by Defense Secretary Cheney this month. According to a
Feb. 18 memorandum from Mr. Wolfowitz’s deputy, Dale A. Vesser, the policy
guidance will be issued with a set of “illustrative” scenarios for possible
future foreign conflicts that might draw United States military forces into
combat.
These scenarios, issued separately to the military
services on Feb. 4, were detailed in a New York Times article last month. They
postulated regional wars against Iraq and North Korea, as well as a Russian
assault on Lithuania and smaller military contingencies that United States
forces might confront in the future.
These hypothetical conflicts, coupled with the policy
guidance document, are meant to give military leaders specific information
about the kinds of military threats they should be prepared to meet as they
train and equip their forces. It is also intended to give them a coherent
strategy framework in which to evaluate various force and training options.
Fears of Proliferation
In assessing future threats, the document places
great emphasis on how “the actual use of weapons of mass destruction, even in
conflicts that do not directly engage U.S. interests, could spur further
proliferation which in turn would threaten world order.”
“The U.S. may be faced with the question of whether
to take military steps to prevent the development or use of weapons of mass
destruction,” it states, noting that those steps could include pre-empting an
impending attack with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or “punishing the
attackers or threatening punishment of aggressors through a variety of means,”
including attacks on the plants that manufacture such weapons.
Noting that the 1968 Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is
up for renewal in 1995, the document says, “should it fail, there could ensue a
potentially radical destabilizing process” that would produce unspecified
“critical challenges which the U.S. and concerned partners must be prepared to
address.”
The draft guidance warns that “both Cuba and North
Korea seem to be entering intense periods of crisis – primarily economic, but
also political – which may lead the governments involved to take actions that
would otherwise seem irrational.” It adds, “the same potential exists in
China.”
For the first time since the Defense Planning
Guidance process was initiated to shape national security policy, the new draft
states that the fragmentation of the former Soviet military establishment has
eliminated the capacity for any successor power to wage global conventional
war.
But the document qualifies its assessment, saying,
“we do not dismiss the risks to stability in Europe from a nationalist backlash
in Russia or effort to re-incorporate into Russia the newly independent
republics of Ukraine, Belarus and possibly others.”
It says that though U.S. nuclear targeting plans have
changed “to account for welcome developments in states of the former Soviet
Union,” American strategic nuclear weapons will continue to target vital
aspects of the former Soviet military establishment. The rationale for the
continuation of this targeting policy is that the United States “must continue
to hold at risk those assets and capabilities that current – and future –
Russian leaders or other nuclear adversaries value most” because Russia will
remain “the only power in the world with the capability of destroying the
United States.”
Until such time as the Russian nuclear arsenal has
been rendered harmless, “we continue to face the possibility of robust
strategic nuclear forces in the hands of those who might revert to closed,
authoritarian, and hostile regimes,” the document says. It calls for the “early
introduction” of a global anti-missile system.
Plan for Europe
In Europe, the Pentagon paper asserts that “a
substantial American presence in Europe and continued cohesion within the
Western alliance remains vital,” but to avoid a competitive relationship from
developing, “we must seek to prevent the emergence of European-only security
arrangements which would undermine NATO.”
The draft states that with the elimination of United
States short-range nuclear weapons in Europe and similar weapons at sea, the
United States should not contemplate any withdrawal of its nuclear-strike
aircraft based in Europe and, in the event of a resurgent threat from Russia,
“we should plan to defend against such a threat” farther forward on the
territories of Eastern Europe “should there be an Alliance decision to do so.”
This statement offers an explicit commitment to
defend the former Warsaw Pact nations from Russia. It suggests that the United
States could also consider extending to Eastern and Central European nations
security commitments similar to those extended to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and
other Arab states along the Persian Gulf. And to help stabilize the economies
and democratic development in Eastern Europe, the draft calls of the European
Community to offer memberships to Eastern European countries as soon as
possible.
In East Asia, the report says, the United States can
draw down its forces further, but “we must maintain our status as a military
power of the first magnitude in the area.”
“This will enable the United States to continue to
contribute to regional security and stability by acting as a balancing force
and prevent the emergence of a vacuum or a regional hegemon.” In addition, the
draft warns that any precipitous withdrawal of United States military forces
could provoke an unwanted response from Japan, and the document states, “we
must also sensitive to the potentially destabilizing effects that enhanced
roles on the part of our allies, particularly Japan but also possibly Korea,
might produce.”
In the event that peace negotiations between the two
Koreas succeed, the draft recommends that the United States “should seek to
maintain an alliance relationship with a unified democratic Korea.”
Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent the
Re-Emergence of a New Rival’
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, March 7 – Following are excerpts from
the Pentagon’s Feb. 18 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal
Years 1994-1999:
This Defense Planning guidance addresses the
fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external
empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global
pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been
shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi
aggression – the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S.
global leadership. In addition to these two victories, there has been a less
visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of
collective security and the creation of a democratic “zone of peace.”
• • •
DEFENSE STRATEGY OBJECTIVES
Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of
a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere,
that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.
This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy
and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a
region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to
generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the
territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.
There are three additional aspects to this objective:
First, the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a
new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they
need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect
their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account
sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage
them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established
political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for
deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role. An effective reconstitution capability is important here, since it
implies that a potential rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a
predominant military position in the world.
The second objective is to address sources of
regional conflict and instability in such a way as to promote increasing
respect for international law, limit international violence, and encourage the
spread of democratic forms of government and open economic systems. These
objectives are especially important in deterring conflicts or threats in
regions of security importance to the United States because of their proximity
(such as Latin America), or where we have treaty obligations or security
commitments to other nations. While the U.S. cannot become the world’s
“policeman,” by assuming responsibility for righting every wrong, we will
retain the pre-eminent responsibility for addressing selectively those wrongs
which threaten not only our interests, but those of our allies or friends, or
which could seriously unsettle international relations. Various types of U.S.
interests may be involved in such instances: access to vital raw materials,
primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and
ballistic missiles, threats to U.S. citizens from terrorism or regional or
local conflict, and threats to U.S. society from narcotics trafficking.
• • •
It is improbable that a global conventional challenge
to U.S. and Western security will re-emerge from the Eurasian heartland for
many years to come. Even in the highly unlikely event that some future
leadership in the former Soviet Union adopted strategic aims of recovering the
lost empire or otherwise threatened global interests, the loss of Warsaw Pact
allies and the subsequent and continuing dissolution of military capability
would make any hope of success require years or more of strategic and doctrinal
re-orientation and force regeneration and redeployment, which in turn could
only happen after a lengthy political realignment and re-orientation to
authoritarian and aggressive political and economic control. Furthermore, any
such political upheaval in or among the states of the former U.S.S.R. would be
much more likely to issue in internal or localized hostilities, rather than a
concerted strategic effort to marshal capabilities for external expansionism –
the ability to project power beyond their borders.
There are other potential nations or coalitions that
could, in the further future, develop strategic aims and a defense posture of
region-wide or global domination. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding
the emergence of any future potential global competitor. But because we no
longer face either a global threat or a hostile, non-democratic power
dominating a region critical to our interests, we have the opportunity to meet
threats at lower levels and lower costs – as long as we are prepared to
reconstitute additional forces should the need to counter a global threat
re-emerge ….
REGIONAL THREATS AND RISK
With the demise of a global military threat to U.S.
interests, regional military threats, including possible conflicts arising in
and from the territory of the former Soviet Union, will be of primary concern
to the U.S. in the future. These threats are likely to arise in regions
critical to the security of the U.S. and its allies, including Europe, East Asia,
the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and the territory of the former Soviet
Union. We also have important interests at stake in Latin America, Oceania, and
Sub-Saharan Africa. In both cases, the U.S. will be concerned with preventing
the domination of key regions by a hostile power
….
Former Soviet Union
The former Soviet state achieved global reach and
power by consolidating control over the resources in the territory of the
former U.S.S.R. The best means of assuring that no hostile power is able to
consolidate control over the resources within the former Soviet Union to
support its successor states (especially Russia and Ukraine) in their efforts
to become peaceful democracies with market-based economies. A democratic
partnership with Russia and the other republics would be the best possible
outcome for the United States. At the same time, we must also hedge against the
possibility that democracy will fail, with the potential that an authoritarian
regime bent on regenerating aggressive military power could emerge in Russia,
or that similar regimes in other successor republics could lead to spreading
conflict within the former U.S.S.R. or Eastern Europe.
• • •
For the immediate future, key U.S. concerns will be
the ability of Russia and the other republics to demilitarize their societies,
convert their military industries to civilian production, eliminate or, in the
case of Russia, radically reduce their nuclear weapons inventory, maintain firm
command and control over nuclear weapons, and prevent leakage of advanced
military technology and expertise to other countries.
• • •
Western Europe
NATO continues to provide the indispensable
foundation for a stable security environment in Europe. Therefore, it is of
fundamental importance to preserve NATO as the primary instrument of Western
defense and security as well as the channel for U.S. influence and
participation in European security affairs. While the United States supports
the goal of European integration, we must seek to prevent the emergence of
European-only security arrangements which would undermine NATO, particularly
the alliance’s integrated command structure.
• • •
East-Central Europe
The end of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the
Soviet Union have gone a long way toward increasing stability and reducing the
military threat to Europe. The ascendancy of democratic reformers in the
Russian republic, should this process continue, is likely to create a more
benign policy toward Eastern Europe. However, the U.S. must keep in mind the
long history of conflict between the states of Eastern Europe and those of the
former Soviet Union ….
The most promising avenues for anchoring the
east-central Europeans into the West and for stabilizing their democratic
institutions is their participation in Western political and economic
organizations. East-central European membership in the (European Community) at
the earliest opportunity, and expanded NATO liaison …..
The U.S. could also consider extending to the
east-central European states security commitments analogous to those we have
extended to Persian Gulf states.
• • •
Should there be a re-emergence of a threat from the
former Soviet Union’s successor state, we should plan to defend against such a
threat in Eastern Europe, should there be an alliance decision to do so.
East Asia and the Pacific
… Defense of Korea will likely remain one of the most
demanding major regional contingencies …. Asia is home to the world’s greatest
concentration of traditional Communist states, with fundamental values,
governance, and policies decidedly at variance with our own and those of our
friends and allies.
To buttress the vital political and economic
relationships we have along the Pacific rim, we must maintain our status as a
military power of the first magnitude in the area. This will enable the U.S. to
continue to contribute to regional security and stability by acting as a
balancing force and prevent emergence of a vacuum or a regional hegemon.
• • •
Middle East and Southwest Asia
In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall
objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve
U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil. We also seek to deter further
aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect U.S. nationals and
property, and safeguard our access to international air and seaways. As
demonstrated by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, it remains fundamentally important
to prevent a hegemon or alignment of powers from dominating the region. This
pertains especially to the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, we must continue to
play a role through enhanced deterrence and improved cooperative security.
• • •
We will seek to prevent the further development of a
nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent. In this regard, we should work to
have both countries, India and Pakistan, adhere to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty and to place their nuclear energy facilities under
International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. We should discourage Indian
hegemonic aspirations over the other states in South Asia and on the Indian
Ocean. With regard to Pakistan, a constructive U.S.-Pakistani military
relationship will be an important element in our strategy to promote stable
security conditions in Southwest Asia and Central Asia. We should therefore
endeavor to rebuild our military relationship given acceptable resolution of
our nuclear concerns.
Latin America
• • •
Cuba’s growing domestic crisis holds out the prospect
for positive change, but over the near term, Cuba’s tenuous internal situation
is likely to generate new challenges to U.S. policy. Consequently, our programs
must provide capabilities to meet a variety of Cuban contingencies which could
include an attempted repetition of the Mariel boatlift, a military provocation
against the U.S. or an American ally, or political instability and internal
conflict in Cuba.
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