Social Science Research Council

Security Studies After September 11

By Mustapha Kamel Al-Sayyid

Reading US newspapers as well as international relations journals these days, one gets the impression that the course of humanity has completely changed following the dramatic events of September 11, 2001. The reader is reminded that the world after that date is very different from what it was before three American airliners hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while a fourth one fell mysteriously in Pennsylvania, presumably on its way to the White House. The same claim is made also with respect to security studies. The US military campaign in Afghanistan is said to have opened a new chapter in military history and security studies as well. On closer inspection, however, one finds the same old arguments are presented this time, although with minor adaptations to take into account new actors, new issues and a new world situation.

Take the May-June 2002 issue of Foreign Affairs, which presents its reader with the new security doctrine advocated by Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense, and two commentaries by two experts of strategic studies. The first one teaches at Washington's prestigious Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University that gave the Bush Administration two of its powerful assistant secretaries of Defense and State. The other advises the Democratic Party on such matters from a position at the Brookings Institution. However, the basic premises in their essays are the same. Threats to US security could be effectively dealt with basically through military means.(1) Their differences relate only to how US forces should be organized to face so-called 21-century challenges.

This kind of thinking is not confined only to US Establishment, or to US academic publications. One finds the same line of thinking in far away places, particularly in Israel under Ariel Sharon who has only Israel's army to be the instrument of subjugating the Palestinians and getting them to accept Israeli continued occupation of their territories. Many Indian leaders within the Bharatiya Janata Party believe that the only solution for the troubles India has in Kashmir is through a decisive battle with Pakistan, in which Pakistani leaders would learn the lesson of not ever challenging India's sovereignty over Kashmir. This also would put an end to any domestic turmoil in the Indian part of Kashmir.

Security studies in other parts of the world echo unfortunately much of what is being said and taught in the US. The importance of this renewed belief in the superiority of military force as the means to settle complex security disputes resides in the contagious effect of US strategic doctrines in other parts of the world. However, a critical examination of this renewed belief is not only indispensable for other regions of the world that face security situations different from those of the US, but it is also absolutely necessary for the US herself. Such militarist doctrine will prove to be counter-productive in the near future exactly as it did in the past.

Those US experts who advocate this doctrine never worry about the causes of threats to US security. In fact, they reject completely the notion of threat, replacing it by the notion of capability. What is important in their view is not what type of threats the US is perceived to be facing, but what the US is capable of doing. Therefore, the limit is not rules of international law or deterrence from a rival power, or even principles of friendly relations among countries, but the sky is the limit. In other words, what the US could marshal in terms of technological, material, human, financial, diplomatic and media power. Therefore, the goal of regime change has been adopted unquestionably as a legitimate objective of US military action in different parts of the world, from Serbia in Central Europe to Afghanistan in South Asia to Iraq in the Gulf region, and who knows may be Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Libya and any other country that the master of the White House and the old time cold warriors in his administration do not find to their liking. The US would like to create an international order to its liking. Any regime that dares to disagree with the wishes of the master of the White House should be removed. No matter whether such country truly constitutes a threat to the US. The formidable global media power of the US would take care of this trivial issue. And let us forget about the UN Charter, drafted by the US leading victors in the Second World War, which prohibits interference in internal affairs of other countries. It was drafted when the world was not dominated by a single super power.

A closer examination of this doctrine would soon reveal to any sensible person the erroneous assumptions and dangerous implications of the doctrine for the US security as well as that of other nations. The major assumption in this doctrine is that victory in this the type of asymmetrical wars, believed to be more common in the 21st century, could be obtained by the use of military means. Latest news from Afghanistan, including the assassination of the Afghan vice-president, besides the failure of US troops to capture major leaders of the Taliban regime or of the so-called Islamic International Front of Osama Bin Laden, demonstrate quite the opposite. Fourteen months of intensified Israeli occupation of territories that should be governed by Palestinian Authority left Ariel Sharon government with no other option but complete separation of Israel from both the West Bank and Gaza in order to put an end to Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, so long as Israeli governments are not willing to allow the Palestinians to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination. The use of force as a way of settling political conflicts would incite the weaker party to look for ingenious ways of resisting the superiority of the military powerful party. Advanced information and military technologies offer those who possess them definite advantages, but expose them also to vulnerabilities that would be sought by the weaker party in these asymmetrical confrontations.

Moreover, relying on the notion of capabilities as a basis for drawing the military strategy of powerful nations would substitute the principle of friendly relations by the principle of permanent war as the foundation of the world order. Under this military strategy, the US would envisage launching military campaigns against not only Iraq, but also Iran and North Korea, countries that both figured on the list of "Axis of Evil" as imagined by President George W. Bush. Later on, the US could take on other countries believed to be harboring "terrorists". The UK should also consider settling its dispute with Robert Mugabe by invading Zimbabwe. George Bush Sr. envisaged a New World Order based on the respect for human rights and the rule of law. A decade later, his son seems to be inaugurating a world order based on the "Law of the Jungle."

A more realistic understanding of the causes of domestic and international conflicts is therefore required as a solid foundation for security studies in the post-cold war world. The economic, social, cultural and political causes of these conflicts should be fully taken into account. World peace will be effectively guaranteed only when such causes are dealt with using economic, social, cultural and political methods.


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Notes:

1. Donald Rumsfeld. "Transforming the Military;" Eliot Cohen. "The Tale of Two Secretaries;" Michael E. O'Hanon. "Flawed Masterpiece." Foreign Affairs (May-June 2002): 20-63.

Mustapha K. Al-Sayyid is professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Developing Countries at Cairo University, and he also teaches at the American University in Cairo. He previously taught at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the University of California Los Angeles. Al-Sayyid was a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2002. His areas of specialization include the politics of development, foreign aid, human rights, and civil society. A prolific writer in Arabic, English, and French, Al-Sayyid has published extensively on civil society, political change, and ideology. His articles have appeared in World Policy, Middle East Journal, Washington Quarterly, and Maghreb-Mashreq. He has contributed regularly to the Human Development Report of Egypt, and has recently participated in the team of experts who wrote the first issue of the Arab Human Development Report. In this report, he dealt with the question of political participation in the Arab world. He has served on the board of several human rights organizations in Egypt as well as on the board of the Arab Political Science Association (1992-2001).