destroying the threat before it reaches our borders. While the United States will
constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not
hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting
pre-emptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our
people and our country.
(Bush, 2002: 6)The principle was unremarkable. However, it is plausible to speculate that much of
the international hostility to the US and British invasion of Iraq had more to do with
unease at America’s near-unilateral exercise of force than with disagreement over the
case at issue. The events of 9/11 had the consequence of awakening the world at large to
two major, equally unwelcome, facts. First, it was obliged to recognize the reality of
an extraordinary, relatively novel and apparently global terrorist menace driven pre-
eminently by religious motivation. Second, the existence of a hegemonic superpower
could no longer be disputed. And that hegemon was ready, willing and arguably able to
take forceful action globally at its own discretion in defence of its own definition of the
requirements of international security. Welcome to a new world order.
The United States government was warned, by its own Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, no less, that if one invades a country, liberates its people and deposes the sitting
regime, in effect, however briefly, one owns that country and must assume responsibility
for its future. The full implications of this eternal truth were not sufficiently appreciated
by the invaders in 2003. Suffice it to say that the task of the would-be liberator is rarely
easy, particularly if understanding of local culture and politics is lacking. At the time
of writing, the strategic story of the US-led venture in Iraq is not over. Even the victory
in Afghanistan in 2001 appears less complete today, as much of the south of the country
has reverted to Taliban control and local warlords pursue their traditional criminal
activities.
By the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, several questions
pertaining to the structure and functioning of world politics beg for the strategic
historian’s attention. The perilous activity of prediction is postponed until Chapter 20 of
this text, but for now it is important to identify some of the greater uncertainties, the
resolution of which must shape the decades ahead.
Will the United States tire of an interventionist policy and strategy? ‘No more Iraqs’
could well become a popular phrase, directly reminiscent of the former bumper sticker
demand: ‘No more Vietnams’. If the United States should decline to behave as a
hegemon, which is to say as a leader as well as a servant of that elusive entity, the
international community, who, if anyone, will do the controversial heavy lifting for world
order? Strategic history is made by societies and cultures, not, certainly not only, by
strategic logic.
Next, have the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union seen the definitive end of
active great power rivalry, with its potential for interstate warfare on a major scale? Or
has such rivalry simply been temporarily in abeyance? Is world politics just awaiting the
arrival of a state, or states in coalition, ready and willing to challenge American primacy?
The answer to this question bears strongly on judgements about a prudent defence
posture for the twenty-first century. If all one’s enemies in the future are going to be non-
state and irregular in character, or relatively minor local powers at most, that is one thing.
9/11 and the age of terror 239