The Assault on Reason by Al Gore

Author:Al Gore [Gore, Al]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2007-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

National Insecurity

Newton’s third law states, “For every action force there is an equal and opposite reaction force.” National security policy is very different from physics, but the principles of logic and reason turn out to be useful and relevant there, too. And something like Newton’s third law does seem to be a reality in international relations. When any nation is seen as trying to dominate others, there is a “reaction force” that pushes back.

The pursuit of “dominance” in foreign policy led the Bush administration to ignore the United Nations, to do serious damage to our most important alliances, to violate international law, and to cultivate the hatred and contempt of many in the rest of the world. The seductive appeal of exercising unconstrained unilateral power led this president to interpret his powers under the Constitution in a way that brought to life the worst nightmare of the Founders.

Any policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for al-Qaeda, but also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating terrorists who wish to harm and intimidate America. Instead of “dominance,” we should be seeking preeminence in a world where nations respect us and seek to follow our leadership and adopt our values.

Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is often its own reward. Going it alone may indulge a political instinct, but it is dangerous to our military—even without the commander in chief taunting terrorists to “bring them on.”

And the kind of unilateral power President Bush and Vice President Cheney imagine is, in any case, a strategic El Dorado. Just as their pursuit in Iraq has led to tragic consequences for our troops and the Iraqi people, the pursuit of a new interpretation of the presidency that ends up weakening the Congress, the courts, and civil society is not good for either the presidency or the rest of the nation. If the Congress becomes an enfeebled enabler to the executive and the courts become known for political calculations in their decisions, then the country suffers.

Wise generals and admirals throughout history have understood the dangers of preparing to fight “the last war” rather than the next one. Wise nations—and until recently, the United States was considered one—also understand the dangers of preparing to protect their national security only against old threats while ignoring new ones that are more dangerous. America’s classic national security agenda was built upon common efforts to resist aggression and to stop armed conflict. During our first two centuries, we witnessed wars among nations and violence on the scale of war within nations, for many reasons.

Claims of religious, ideological, racial, or ethnic superiority have precipitated major conflicts throughout history. Poverty has caused the collapse of expectations and made people desperate and then open to demagogic appeals. Leaders have sometimes used aggression against their neighbors as a way of redirecting tensions inside their own countries. The lust for power has often resulted in expansion, violence, and aggression.

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