THE RISING EAST
Distinctive shift in U.S. policies noted since 9-11
By RIchard Halloran
Americans spent the past week commemorating the searing events of Sept. 11 two years ago even as they continued to grope for a sense of how the nation has changed since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
Associated Press file photos
Amid a hundred uncertainties, a distinctive shift seems to have occurred in United States foreign policy and security posture: America is no longer the Eurocentric nation it was from the end of World War II through the Cold War to what is now known as 9-11.
France, Germany and Russia — led by (top photo) Jacques Chirac, left, and Gerhard Schroeder, and (above) Vladimir Putin — together represent a counterbalance to the United States on the global stage, explaining in part the United States' political distancing from Europe.
This doesn't mean that the United States has swung around to become Asiacentric despite the fascination with China and the intrigue of Islam in South and Southeast Asia. Rather, the focus today is on an Americentric attitude toward the rest of the world.
President Bush set the tone a year ago: "There is an overriding and urgent mission here in America today, and that's to protect our homeland."
Subsequently, poll after poll has shown that Americans are more intent on the economy and healthcare than on the war against terror and Iraq.
Americans are not reverting to their historical isolationism but the surveys indicate by small margins that Americans are willing to see other nations take the helm in navigating roiling waters. The United States has been willing, for instance, to let China take the lead in persuading North Korea to give up its plans for a nuclear arsenal.
Moreover, the United States may come to rely less on formal treaties than it has for the past half-century. Rajan Menon, a political scientist at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, says in a thought-provoking paper: "The familiar, seemingly eternal — and, let it be said, extraordinarily successful — alliances that anchored American grand strategy during the Cold War are destined for extinction."
"America will revert to a pattern it has followed for most of its history, operating in a world without fixed, long-term alliances and pursuing its interests and safeguarding its security in cooperation with a range of partners," Menon writes.
"The United States will be best served by agile and creative statecraft that looks beyond but does not exclude traditional friends and solutions, and that musters alignments and coalitions that vary according to the context."
In the Eurocentric era, the U.S. was a major player in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, stationed many troops in Europe, and appointed prominent people to be ambassadors in Europe. That alliance, however, has been shattered by surging anti-Americanism in France and Germany that goes deeper than differences over Iraq.
"The Franco-German-Russian combination has the attributes of a great power able to balance the United States on the global stage," says John Hulsman of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, "with France providing the political and ideological leadership, Germany the economic power, and Russia the military wherewithal."
As it has distanced itself from Europe, the United States has formed the Department of Homeland Security, established the military Northern Command, and enacted the controversial Patriot Act to tighten internal law enforcement, possibly at the cost of some civil liberties.
Until the Northern Command was formed, responsibility for U.S. defense rested with the European, Atlantic, Pacific and Strategic Commands, their names reflecting their areas of operations. (Strategic meant bombers, missiles, and submarines armed with nuclear warheads.)
Today, the Northern Command's area of operations is the nation's home front. Its charter includes the land, sea, and air approaches to the country, the command says, "and encompasses the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, and the surrounding water out to approximately 500 nautical miles." The defense of Hawai'i and U.S. territories in the Pacific, however, remain the task of the Pacific Command.
The next logical step would be for Washington to improve often tenuous U.S. relations with Canada and Mexico because America must have reliable allies on its northern and southern borders. President Bush started down this path early in his term but got sidetracked by 9-11.
A new start has been made. Secretary Thomas Ridge of Homeland Security said in Washington recently: "Security at our borders is more robust and comprehensive than ever before. Smart border accords have significantly improved our coordination and our cooperation with Mexico and Canada. We've also trained and hired new inspectors and border patrol agents."
Still, many Canadians and Mexicans complain that Americans ignore them. Perhaps President Bush, if he is re-elected, or a new U.S. president should appoint ambassadors to Ottawa and Mexico City of a stature equal to those in London or Tokyo to say that America intends to be a better neighbor.
