Part One: U.S. strategy in the 21st century: leadership through hegemony
Chapter II: Role and Place of the USA in the Twenty-first Century in the Research of American Political Scientists and Scholars of International Affairs
Ronald Steel: “Security is Mortals’ Chiefest Enemy”
Ronald Steel put it nicely: “The most troublesome concepts are the ones we take for granted. This is not only because they are familiar but also because they are embedded in our way of thinking. They roll off our tongues without our ever stopping to think what they really mean. We come to take them as established truths, like Biblical injunctions.”31
One of these concepts is “national security.” The concept itself emerged in connection with the National Security Act of 1947, which provided the basis for establishing the National Security Council. Somewhat later, the Eberstadt report featured the phrase “national security in terms of world security.” The latter term was not explained; its meaning was taken to be “obvious.” The implication was that “national security” included “defense.” Following the book by Walter Lippmann (1943) that first mentioned the “idea of national security,” the term “defense” was understood to mean resistance to an “invading power,” while “national security” did not mean just resistance to aggression but also a policy that takes into account potential threats. This understanding of the term connected “security” to “national power.” It follows, in Steel’s view, that a regional power would have a regional perimeter of security, while a global power would have a global one.
“For this reason, security gets unhinged from its geographical moorings. It becomes a function of power and an aspect of psychology. It becomes internalized. It is not a specific reality, and it does not exist entirely in space. It is a function of definition, and can be defined broadly or narrowly. Small and weak states define security narrowly; large and powerful ones define it broadly. Security, then, is a reflection of a nation’s (or at least of a nation’s elite’s) sense of its power. It is a powerful operating mechanism, and at the same time an abstraction.” (41)
In the Americans’ minds, the sense of security quickly became transformed into the sense of danger of a global kind, appearing as the threat of the Soviet Union’s Communist ideology spreading throughout the world. As a result, there was no place on the globe where real security existed. Even in those places where the Soviet Union’s influence was absent, there were Communists or their sympathizers. It was this sense of danger that fed the Truman doctrine.
Steel shows the reader how the concept of national security became filled with ill-defined terms such as “vital,” “desirable,” “critical” or “peripheral” interests, or “international peace.” The interpretation of these terms led to all interests becoming “vital.” Later it turned out they were not so “vital” after all, as it happened, for example, with South Vietnam.
Despite all this, all these terms with multiple meanings led to the forming of the concept of “national security,” separating it from the concept of “defense.” “Defense is precise, national security is diffuse; defense is a condition, national security is a feeling.” (43) In other words, defense is tied to the state as the monopolist of military power; national security is tied not just to the state but also to the national state.
In Soviet times, scholars of international affairs criticized the American doctrine of national security for its failure to reflect the interests of the entire nation. It was interpreted as reflecting only the interests of the bourgeois state because the nation, i.e., the American people, could not be interested, for example, in the U.S. aggression against Vietnam. In other words, Soviet scholars clearly distinguished national interests from interests of the state as applicable to “imperialist states.” It is remarkable that Steel’s criticism is similarly developed. How does he apply it to contemporary material?
To begin with, he identifies two facts: (1) After the end of the war, the role of the military factor in international politics became relatively smaller; and (2) the economic processes tied to the internationalization of the world economy are reducing the government’s role. (43-44)
Steel reminds the reader that during the Cold War years, the universally accepted paradigm of international relations was the theory of realism, or the theory of power politics, in which the principal subject is the state, providing security to its citizens.32 He remarks reasonably that at the same time, in some parts of the world, states were falling apart (e.g., in Central Africa), or becoming instruments of “drug lords” and local oligarchies (e.g., in parts of Latin America), or they were ruled by a family or “clan” (as in many countries of the Middle East and the Third World). Therefore, instead of providing security to their citizens, these states actually constituted a threat to them. Steel asks what are the state’s obligations in that case and emphasizes that this question is not an abstract one. “In recent years we have seen the disintegration of established states, such as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, and the hollowing-out of others that exist only at the convenience of outside forces that sustain their ruling regimes, as in the former African colonies of France. Even in parts of the industrialized world, the state is sometimes incapable of providing security for some of its citizens. One has only to look to the slums of our major cities for confirmation of this sorry fact—or even to affluent areas, with their guarded gates and private police forces, for confirmation.” (44)
It doesn’t mean, says Steel, that the state is incapable of providing security. It is simply that this function becomes secondary from the perspective of the people’s economic life. To the foreground come private economic players who are responsible for investment, jobs, wages, and production. “Within the economic realm, we are approaching the condition described by Karl Marx (albeit under different circumstances) where the state is withering away.” (44-45)
In the spirit of certain theorists of globalism, Steel goes on to develop his thesis about the decline of the state’s role. “Governments are being reduced to the role of traffic cops, ensuring that everyone follows the regulations that are, of course, written by and for the most powerful corporations.” (45)
“In some places this process has gone so far that the state can hardly be said to exist at all. By this I do not mean such ‘narco-states’ as Colombia, Mexico, Burma, and Pakistan, where drug lords rule independent fiefdoms. Rather, I have in mind Russia, where the new giant corporate entities (themselves former state enterprises stolen from the people by their former managers and the new Mafia entrepreneurs) control the government and refuse to pay taxes to a state that they consider, quite understandably, the servant of their ambition. In effect, the role of such a state is to keep the population in line, deflect criticism of commercial operations by engaging in military diversions, such as the war in Chechnya, and keep out competitors.” (46)
Though Russia is indeed an obvious example, she is not unique. This is true of the industrial world as well, to a greater or smaller degree. The main point is that national security in its traditional meaning has lost its significance.
To support this thesis, Steel adds examples from the fields of religion and cultural science. The idea here is that people define themselves not only as citizens of a particular country but also as belonging to a certain religion or civilization which transcends state borders. This sometimes leads to situations in which citizens “may view their own state as their enemy.” (ibid.) For example, he mentions the situation in Algiers and also reminds the reader of the events in Philadelphia where American police and troops firebombed several city blocks occupied by the MOVE group.
Steel also points out that inside modern societies, there is a war going on between traditionalists and modernists, between those who absorb technological and social change and those who fear and oppose these innovations. He doesn’t go as far as identifying the class stratification of society, but he does come very close to understanding how the interests of a particular strata of society may differ from the interests of the state. This topic, by the way, is completely ignored by the contemporary political elite in Russia.
In light of all that was said above, the question arises: What traditional threats to security does the United States face? (Traditional means threats coming from other states.) In other words, which states can threaten America? Steel finds no such states either in the industrial world or the Third World. “Russia is a deeply wounded state that was always weaker than we believed and that will take decades to recover even a semblance of its former power. For a long time it will remain the sick man on the fringes of Europe: a problem but not a threat.” (48)
As for China, it is unclear whether she will be a boundless market or an endless problem. Considering the balance of problems and achievements and China’s current development, she is not likely to choose the course of aggression unless provoked. (49) In fact, the United States faces “few threats” coming from other states. No one is laying claims to U.S. territory. The USA is not overly dependent on foreign trade. Washington has many allies that “we don’t really need.” The Pentagon has established a lot of military bases abroad that are not there for the purpose of defense. “Because of its economic and military strength, its physical resources, its loyal population, and its privileged geographical position, the United States can afford to ignore a good deal of the turbulence in much of the rest of the world.” (49)
Despite all this, politicians make a long list of potential threats to U.S. security. There is nothing surprising in this, for “that is one of the things they are paid to do.” (ibid.) There even exists a class of specialists who are preoccupied with the management of global security. This manifests itself in a large number of political speeches, strategy scenarios, and Pentagon wish lists. The most amazing paper is the one prepared by the Department of Defense in 1992 that argued that the United States must “discourage the advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” (ibid.)
But this is precisely something on which both Europeans and Japanese can agree because this approach enables them to spend less on their own defense. The Europeans, for instance, agreed eagerly to expand NATO because that is what the United States wants.
This leadership strategy is an expensive one. NATO expansion alone is scheduled to cost some $100 billion to upgrade East European armed forces. No wonder Wall Street likes it. We continue to spend militarily at Cold War levels. Currently, it costs about $100 billion a year to “reassure” the Europeans against unspecified threats, and another $45 billion or so to provide the same reassurance to the Japanese and Koreans. Today more than 50 percent of all discretionary federal spending is still devoted to national security, even in the absence of an enemy. While other nations invest for production, the United States borrows for consumption—and in the process becomes further indebted to the trade rivals whose interests it seeks to protect. (50)
The time has come to establish a balance between national foreign policy and national security, to make our resources match our obligations. “The American people want the nation to be strong and to stick by its ideals. But they are not interested in grandiose plans of global management.” (ibid.) Steel concludes that a national security policy that does not account for these considerations is inadequate, unrealistic, detached from reality, and doomed to failure. (51)
He personally believes that the USA does have “critical” interests, but they are relatively few in number. They amount to the need to protect the country from destruction and preserve the social institutions and the form of government. Secondary interests lie in the sphere of expanding the market-economy core, protecting the environment, and maintaining the peace process in the regions connected to America by cultural and political ties. The third level of interests lies in promoting the spread of democracy, not because it contributes to security in any superficial sense, but because it reflects American values.
Steel concludes that the USA should not wear itself thin with grandiose plans, but rather approach all problems realistically; that is, by proceeding from real needs rather than imagined ones.
Security, after all, is not a condition, but a feeling and a process. It is also an abstraction. We may feel secure while being in danger, and we may be secure while feeling otherwise. Steel quotes Macbeth to make his appeal: “Let’s not get to the point where ‘Security is mortals’ chiefest enemy.’”
I classify Steel as a realist-“isolationist” of the left-liberal persuasion.
31 Ronald Steel, “The New Meaning of Security,” U.S. National Security: Beyond the Cold War, 40.
32 Note that this theory was founded by H. Morgenthau, A. Wolfers, et al. Nonetheless Steel is not quite correct. Paradigms did change during the Cold War; e.g., the “idealist” school dominated during the Johnson and Reagan administrations.
The 21st Century: The World Without Russia
(Philosophical-sociological Essay)