September
11, 2003, 9:55 a.m. The
End of the “End of History”
9/11
beginnings.
he "end of history" ended on September 11, 2001. You remember
the end of history. It was the title of an article, and later a book,
by Francis Fukuyama, suggesting that with the end of the Cold War, liberalism
had defeated its one remaining ideological competitor. Fascism had been
destroyed with the allied victory in World War II. Now Communism had joined
it on the ash heap of history.
To be fair to Fukuyama,
he acknowledged in his book The
End of History and the Last Man that, despite the progress of
"a universal and directional history" leading to the end state
of liberal democracy, there were many parts of the world in which liberal
democracy had not yet triumphed. Nonetheless, he argued, there was an
increasing acceptance of the idea that "liberal democracy in reality
constitutes the best possible solution to the human problem."
The corollary to the universal triumph of liberal democracy was "globalization,"
the irresistible expansion of global capitalism that would create worldwide,
interdependent markets Advocates of globalization concluded that interdependence
and cooperation had replaced competition in international affairs and
that the result would be more or less spontaneous peace and prosperity.
Political scientists and economists alike agreed that this was the most
important characteristic of our epoch, against which geography and culture
didn't stand a chance.
But it is useful to remember that the last time the world was as "interdependent"
as it was at the end of the 1990s was on the eve of World War I. Then
too, optimism reigned. In his 1911 book, The
Great Illusion, Norman Angell argued that the liberal, European-led
economic system now pervaded the world and had become stable. In such
a system, war had become so costly and devastating as to be unthinkable.
In his memoir The
World Crisis, Winston Churchill mocked this optimism as manifest
during the Agadir crisis of 1911, which although it was peacefully resolved,
marked another milestone on the road to Armageddon:
"[War] is
too foolish, too fantastic, to be thought of in the 20th Century ....Civilization
has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade
and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, liberal
principles, the Labour party, high finance, Christian charity, common
sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure?
It would be a pity to be wrong."
Just as the liberal
optimism of the late 19th and early 20th century was swept away in August
1914, so the liberal optimism of our time was swept away by 9/11. In both
cases, an allegedly permanent liberal international system did not prove
to be permanent after all.
9/11 revealed the complacency of the 1990s. Some had warned that there
was a gathering storm, but these warnings went unheeded. The conventional
wisdom of the time held that the proper way to attack terrorism was to
eliminate poverty and its other "root causes" such as the Arab-Israeli
conflict.
9/11 revealed an emerging geopolitical reality: that the world's most
important fault line is not between the rich and the poor, but between
those who accept modernity and those who reject it. In a controversial
article for Esquire (entitled "The
Pentagon's New Map") and a series of briefings, my colleague
at the Naval War College, Tom Barnett, has described a world divided between
a "Functioning Core" and a "Non-Integrating Gap."
The former, where "globalization is thick with network connectivity,
financial transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security,"
is characterized by "stable governments, rising standards of living,
and more deaths by suicide than murder." The latter, where "globalization
is thinning or just plain absent" is "plagued by politically
repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder,
and — most important — the chronic conflicts that incubate the
next generation of global terrorists."
According to Barnett, "Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are pure products of
the Gap — in effect, its most violent feedback to the Core. They
tell us how we are doing in exporting security to these lawless areas
(not very well) and which states they would like to take 'off line' from
globalization and return to some seventh-century definition of the good
life (any Gap state with a sizable Muslim population, especially Saudi
Arabia)." Why is this?
Al Qaeda terrorists did not fly airplanes into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon because they were poor, but because they saw what the
United States represents as a threat to their worldview. The Future
of Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula After the Fall of Baghdad, a recent
book by one of Osama bin Laden's closest associates, makes crystal clear
that the source of al Qaeda's war against the west is based on a fundamental
rejection of liberal democracy and capitalism.
The author is Yussuf al-Ayyeri, also known as Abu Muhammad, who was killed
during a gun battle with Saudi security forces earlier this year. As quoted
by
Amir Taheri, al-Ayyeri argues that secular democracy is far more dangerous
to Islam than any previous manifestation of modernity. The danger of democracy's
"seductive capacities" is that they persuade Muslims that they
are in charge of their own destinies and can, accordingly, shape policies
and pass laws in violation of the sharia.
He goes on to argue that democracy can also "make Muslims love this
world, forget the next world and abandon jihad." Democracy in a Muslim
country would lead to economic prosperity, which, in turn, would make
Muslims "reluctant to die in martyrdom" in defense of their
faith. Al-Ayyeri gives voice to the Gap, and that voice supports the contention
of those who say that "they hate us" for what we are rather
than for what we do.
If 9/11 revealed this new geopolitical order, it also made it possible
to envision and ultimately to implement the necessary strategy to deal
with it. Before 9/11, some had argued that it would be necessary to go
after the terrorists in their lairs, but such an approach was not politically
possible. When Osama bin Laden was merely blowing up U.S. embassies in
Africa or attacking individual U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf region,
the options available to the United States were limited. It is no doubt
true that President Clinton could have done much more to counter al Qaeda,
but he could never have done what President Bush was able to do after
9/11.
The post-9/11 strategy is based on the idea that the only way to effectively
deal with the dangers arising from the Gap is for the countries of the
Core to intervene in the Gap with the goal of reducing it. The president
seems to accept contention that ignoring the Gap or, at most, seeking
to "manage" it merely reduces further what little connectivity
the Gap has with the Core and renders it more dangerous to the Core over
the long haul.
If the Gap is not reduced, the Osama bin Ladens and the Yussuf al-Ayyeris
will keep coming. That was the message that President Bush sought to convey
to our friends and allies in his speech of September 7: that Iraq is the
central front of the war against terrorism, the Gap's main export to the
West, and that if Europe, for instance, does not pitch in to help stabilize
Iraq, the Gap may very well strike at Europe as it has at the United States.
The post-9/11 strategy also recognizes that a liberal world order does
not just occur through the actions of a global "invisible hand."
Instead, it depends on the willingness and capability of a "hegemonic
power" to provide the collective goods of economic stability and
international security. In other words, the liberal world order that so
many people take for granted does not just arise spontaneously; the conditions
for peace and prosperity must be created and maintained by the United
States or some other hegemonic power.
As Sam Huntington has observed:
A world without
US primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less
democracy and economic growth than a world where the United States continues
to have more influence than any other country in shaping global affairs.
The sustained international primacy of the United States is central
to the welfare and security of Americans and to the future of freedom,
democracy, open economies, and international order in the world.
If the United States
lacks the will to use its power to stay the course in Iraq, with or without
allies, if it permits the terrorists to rest and rearm in the sanctuary
of the Gap, then 9/11 will come again.
— Mackubin Thomas Owens is an NRO contributing
editor and a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, RI.
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he "end of history" ended on September 11, 2001. You remember
the end of history. It was the title of an article, and later a book,
by Francis Fukuyama, suggesting that with the end of the Cold War, liberalism
had defeated its one remaining ideological competitor. Fascism had been
destroyed with the allied victory in World War II. Now Communism had joined
it on the ash heap of history. 
