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 ome
years ago the BBC's satirical political sitcom, Yes, Prime Minister,
was built around a defense-ministry document of the highest secrecy.
"It would be disastrous if this were to fall into the hands
of the enemy," the Machiavellian bureaucrat, Sir Humphrey,
told his boss.
"You mean
— the Russians?" asked the prime minister innocently.
"No, No,
the treasury!" replied an impatient Sir Humphrey.
Only three
months ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in the doldrums.
He was believed by the media to have lost the respect of the military
by pushing a military-reform program that alienated the services
by threatening their favorite weapons systems. One webzine even
instituted a Rumsfeld deathwatch forecasting his resignation.
Today, in the
aftermath of 11th September, Rumsfeld bestrides this petty world
of Washington like a colossus.
He is the Bush
administration's man in charge of the war now sweeping the Taliban
into oblivion. He is generally credited with having championed inside
the administration the bold military strategy that has achieved
such a rapid and thorough victory. And he has proved an impressive
public spokesman for administration strategy during both the early
"slow" period of sustained bombing and the recent blitzkrieg.
It was a rout.
Something had to be done.
By the Taliban?
No, no, by the U.S. State Department!
So a bold counterattack
on the Pentagon chief was promptly launched last Sunday by the New
York Times Magazine in the form of a long favorable profile
of Secretary of State Colin Powell as the man in charge of winning
the war.
As a member
of the National Security Council and a close adviser to the president,
Mr. Powell naturally deserves his share of credit for the success
of the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan. But the NYT profile,
by the distinguished correspondent Bill Keller with extraordinary
cooperation from Mr. Powell and a cast of eminent persons that includes
former President George Bush, goes well beyond recognizing this
contribution. It portrays the secretary of state as the organizing
genius behind the strategy — a wise and prudent figure who
ensured that the U.S. has the necessary support of a vast multi-national
coalition; who prevailed over the hotter heads that wanted to target
Iraq (but who also says just enough about the Iraqi threat to be
able to claim he supported an attack if that should turn out to
be the policy adopted); and who is generally battling other Cabinet
members and aides like Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice who supposedly
fail to realize that the U.S. needs allies and alliances to gain
its international objectives.
Indeed, except
for a handful of references to the rout of the Taliban, it reads
exactly like an article conceived and largely written when the Northern
Alliance was bogged down, the bombing campaign seemed to be failing,
the Pentagon was accused of blundering into a "quagmire,"
and the secretary of state was urging the admission of "moderate"
Taliban elements into a broad-based Afghan coalition.
The problem
with Colin Powell's emphasis on alliances, of course, is that as
the war against terrorism continues, it will be progressively harder
to keep allies on board. Some countries which were ready to join
in overthrowing the Taliban (an almost uniquely unpopular regime
internationally) will be less ready to invade or bomb Iraq. Or Somalia.
Or Iran. Or Syria. The political Left in countries like France and
Germany will become increasingly critical of the "hyper-power,"
Uncle Sam, if the U.S. presses on with its campaign. And there will
be demands from the U.N. that America subordinate its war aims (and
other foreign policies) to the wishes of the "international
community." Indeed, the desire in Europe to forge its own superpower
identity, with its own defense force and foreign policy, will probably
push most of the European allies into a position where they strive
to emphasize their differences with the U.S. — and thus to
gradually withdraw from the common antiterrorist effort.
If that happens,
some U.S. strategists may urge that the U.S. simply push ahead with
policies based on our own national interest regardless of whether
or not any allies are on board. That might be necessary, but it
would not be ideal. Americans like to have allies — it helps
them to feel their cause is just and thus to press on with foreign
interventions through early difficulties. But if Europe is no longer
on board, where will America get dependable allies?
As it happens,
one of the less-noticed realities of the modern world is the growth
of a multi-ethnic English-speaking world culture. This new informal
multinational structure is composed mainly of nations in the old
British Commonwealth but it is dominated in almost every respect
by the U.S. It brings together nations as different as Jamaica,
Canada, India, and Australia through the informal links of language,
business investment, immigration, films, books, and democratic legal
and political institutions rooted in Magna Carta. It has been given
a powerful boost by the information revolution and the internet
which, between them, increase the importance of cultural similarity
and decrease the value of geographical proximity. And whenever an
international crisis occurs, it becomes immediately clear that this
so-called Anglosphere shares a common sense of strategic interests.
Americans have
noticed that Britain's Tony Blair has been forward in offering military
assistance and in pleading the American case against Osama bin Laden.
Fewer people have noticed that Australia was actually the first
nation to offer the U.S. military help. India was being wooed by
the U.S. as an Asian counterweight to China even before September
11. And, of course, Canada is no longer second to Mexico as Mr.
Bush's favorite good neighbor. Mr. Powell is almost uniquely qualified
in personal terms to put together an enduring international coalition
based on the English-speaking world. He is the son of West Indian
immigrants. He is the recipient of an honorary British knighthood
(bestowed for his role in the Gulf War.) He could articulate the
case for the English-speaking world as the basis of a new American
world alliance structure as few since Churchill. And if Europe continues
to seek its own rival superpower status independent of the U.S.,
that may suddenly become the diplomatic thing to do.
If, however,
Mr. Powell's cautious preference for the conventional wisdom prevails,
well, maybe the queen could give Donald Rumsfeld a knighthood.
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