A geopolitical analysis of The Clinton Administration's 1995 National Security Strategy - Research Paper Example

?A Geopolitical Analysis of The Clinton Administration's 1995 National Security Strategy Context The national security strategy of 1995 Clinton administration was listed out in a document titled, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement, published by the White House in February 1995 (The White House, 1995). The context of the formulation of this new strategy was the changes in the international power equations, especially, “the end of the Cold War” (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). Once the Cold War ended and the perceived communist threat to America and the world subsided, a change was felt necessary in the security approaches of the US (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). The new strategy had its attention more focused on the “ethnic conflicts” which were on the rise all over the world and also the challenges raised by the so-called “rogue states” (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). Another major aspect of the change that was reflected in the NSS 1995 was the shifting of attention of the US from the communist nations, towards a wider geopolitical realm, to say, the whole world. Geo-politically, the two major concerns, which have prompted the formulation of a new security strategy for the US, had been “the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction” and the “political instability in many countries and regions” caused by population explosion and “environmental degradation” (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). It was evident that the US was redefining its national security concerns on geo-political lines rather than the previous practice of seeing national security in relation with the ideological realm, especially communism. The immediate yet indirect threats to global political stability from certain regions and nations based on geopolitical issues like ethnicity, and environment were seriously accounted for, the first time in US history. The new National Security Strategy was prepared “in accordance with Section 603 of the Goldwater- Nichols Defense Department Reorganization Act 1986 (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). The declared key objectives of this strategy document had been, “to sustain our [America’s] security with military forces that are ready to fight, to bolster America's economic revitalization [and] to promote democracy abroad” (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). The first two objectives represented the natural security concerns of any nation but the third objective was specific to America with its long history of intervening in the matters of other nations with a vision of a global super power. And the attention imparted to link the economic development of the nation with the security aspect is again unique to the US. This is an indicator of the geo-political stand that this country has been adopting ever since its establishment as a rich and powerful nation. The dependence of the US economy on weapon trade, oil, and other natural resources (scarce inside the nation and available in plenty in the third world and the Middle East) can be one reason why concepts of security become entangled with internal matters of foreign countries and regions for this nation, thus giving national security a distinct global geopolitical edge. For example Saudi Arabia has been “the largest customer for US military hardware” (Cohen, 2003, p.356). Similarly, the greatest labor force that America has to run its industries has been flowing from Mexico (Cohen, 2003, p.135). And “the United States invaded Haiti in 1915 to protect U.S. investments and properties in a military occupation that lasted until 1934” (Cohen, 2003, p.107). Making of the NSS The National Security Strategy document is prepared by the US government administration beginning the process with a “preferred approach to national security” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.6). The “process of initiating, controlling, developing, writing, and publishing the NSS” is entrusted with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, who also is the head of the National Security Council (Bartlotto, 2004, p.7). It is a group of staff of the National Security Council, named the Executive Secretariat that prepares the NSS (Bartolotto, 2004, p.7). The whole process of preparing a National Security Strategy document is initiated when the President gives out a National Security Decision memo and also delineates which cabinet departments are to take part in the process (Bartolotto, 2004, p.8). Hence the NSS document can be termed as an “interagency product” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.5). Being a “political document and Presidential agenda”, this document is influenced by the opinions voiced by “interest groups” and also by the “public opinion” in general (Bartolotto, 2004, p.8). But the role of the President and his subjective political approaches in giving form to the NSS document also has to be acknowledged and this role is played out in many aspects as is discussed below: There are four important factors to a systematic study of the development of the NSS and all of them center on the President. First, the President’s leadership style, his personality and character as critical determinants of how the Oval Office functions with respect to national security policy and process. Second, how the President views the powers and limitations of the office and how he sees his role in furthering its prestige and power. Third, the President’s mindset (view of the world) regarding U.S. national interests and the international security environment and how these affect the national security policies and strategic posture his administration attempts to put into place. Lastly, the President’s ability to bring the first three components to bear upon the National Security Establishment so as to synthesize and integrate its efforts toward coherent policy and relevant options (Bartolotto, 2004, p.8). In the NSS 1995, Clinton’s vision of greater global role for America is acted out and it is declared that “our economic and security interests are increasingly inseparable” (Shue and Rodin, 2007, 95). Another point that the President (Bill Clinton) stressed was the “democratization of nondemocracies” (Shue and Rodin, 2007, p.96). Primarily, the National Security Strategy document is meant to address the US Congress, which is its ultimate audience (Bartolotto, 2004, p.3). The National Security Strategy document also has to “speak to “so many audiences” including the US officials, the US citizens and to the world (Bartolotto, 2004, p.8). And in general, the document can be viewed as one addressing the whole nation, the United States of America. The NSS report is envisaged to bring about “greater civilian control of the military and its planning” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.4). It was also seen as a step to “link the national strategic vision to the annual Presidential budget” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.4). The text, as a whole, has been trying to present to the Americans and to the world, how the US under the then president-ship, will politically engage with the rest of the world. The NSS document has had three general aims- “one, it furnishes a historical perspective to past strategic structure; two, it delineates the interest of the United States; three, it analyzes the threat and objectives of the United States, and the means to achieve these” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.3). Another function of the NSS report is to synchronize the functioning of different agencies in office so that system-level and policy-level coherence is achieved (Bartolotto, 2004, p.5). The political aspect of this document has been also to accomplish the authority of the President (Bartolotto, 2004, p.5). Last but not least, the NSS report also has a covert objective “to create intellectual consensus vetted through the election campaign and party platform” (Bartolotto, 2004, p.7-8). Considering all these aims and objectives, the content of this document has been expected to include: (1) The worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are vital to the national security of the United States. (2) The foreign policy, worldwide commitments, and national defense capabilities of the United States necessary to deter aggression and to implement the national security strategy of the United States. (3) The proposed short-term and long-term uses of the political, economic, military, and other elements of the national power of the United States to protect or promote the interests and achieve the goals and objectives referred to in paragraph (1). (4) The adequacy of the capabilities of the United States to carry out the national security strategy of the United States, including an evaluation of the balance among the capabilities of all elements of the national power of the United States to support the implementation of the national security strategy. (5) Such other information as may be necessary to help inform Congress on matters relating to the national security strategy of the United States objectives (Bartolotto, 2004, p.3-4). Wider context The wider political and social context of the National Security Strategy report 1995 was the changed global geopolitical equations in the context of the fall of Soviet Union and communism, the new peace initiatives in the Middle East under the leadership of the US, and the end to apartheid in South Africa with the support of the US (The White House, 1995, p.3 of preface). It has been remarked in the text of NSS 1995 with great relief that “the cold war is over” (The White House, 1995, p.1). This text was prepared also in the context of rising “transnational […] terrorism, narcotics trafficking, environmental degradation, natural resource depletion, rapid population growth and refugee flows” (The White House, 1995, p.1). Yet another underlying context was the growth of transnational corporate economy, which necessitated the US administration to find new avenues in the third world for its expanding corporate establishments (Hawthorne and Winter, 2002, p.286). The text of the National Security Strategy report 1995 has begun its argument based on two major premises- one, the communist threat is greatly diminished; two, the role of the US as a global leader has to be re-asserted (The White House, 1995, p.7). Democracy and free market has been delineated as the ultimate values that the US stood for, in the text (The White House, 1995, p.3 of preface). The three major concerns of national security strategy have been listed as a) having a mighty and strong military and also cooperation in the field of security with other nations, b) venturing to open up protective foreign markets for free trade and c) helping establish the US version of democracy throughout the world so that external threats to the nation is reduced to a minimum (The White House, 2004, p.2-3). The democracy that the US has been talking about has to be specifically called the US version of democracy just because, “the operative US version of democracy, when used to legitimize the invasion and/or occupation of various disobedient countries, is usually asserted as “market democracy”, with an equal emphasize on multi-party elections [… ] and “free trade”” (Vanaik, 2007, p.230). The NSS 1995 report in its initial pages has listed out the steps taken by the US in specific international contexts towards achieving the above stated objectives (The White House, 1995, p.5). The text has been further divided into two parts where, the first part speaks about the “strategy of engagement and enlargement” and the second part is about “how the [US] Administration is applying this strategy to the world's major regions” (The White House, 1995, p.5). The content The report has explicitly stated that being “the world’s premier economic and military power, and with the strength of …[the nation’s] democratic values”, the US “must exercise global leadership” (The White House, 1995, p.7). The foreign policy of the nation has been described in two words as that of “preventive diplomacy” (The White House, 1995, p.7). In this text, every future global action of the United States is demanded to be made in the best interest of the “long-term national” objectives (The White House, 1995, p.7). These ultimate national interests have further been codified into two major categories, namely, “physical defense and economic well-being” (The White House, 1995, p.7). The report has stressed the need of maintaining and strengthening the “security relations” that the US had with other nations and also international arms control (The White House, 1995, p.8). A “credible overseas presence” of the US military has been described as the key geopolitical strategy to be adopted so that no new security threats arise to the US internationally (The White House, 1995, p.9). And by extending military help to its ally nations, this geopolitical upper hand is to be further enhanced (The White House, 1995, p.9). To attain this end, specific actions are designed which include, “training programs, combined exercises, military contacts, interoperability and shared defense with potential coalition partners, as well as security assistance programs that include judicious foreign military sales” (The White House, 1995, p.10). One controversial point revealed by this document in relation to terrorist threat has been that in response to the intelligence information that Iraq had planned to assassinate former President, Bush, the Clinton administration had “ordered a cruise missile attack against the headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service in order to send a firm response and deter further threats” (The White House, 1995, p.11; Chapman, 2009, p.43). The need to fight drug trafficking and maintaining US supremacy in outer space ventures has also been stressed in the text (The White House, 1995, p.11-12). All these specific actions are in coherence with the US self-assertion that it is a global leader with a right and responsibility to interfere in all other nations’ affairs. The question of “when and how to employ US forces” has also been elaborately discussed in the text (The White House, 1995, p.12). The use of military forces has been suggested as an option “in responding to key dangers —those posed by weapons of mass destruction, regional aggression and threats to the stability of states” (The White House, 1995, p.12). It is also reminded that in the third case mentioned above, military involvement has to be opted only in view of the resources at hand (The White House, 1995, p.12). The NSS document has highlighted the role of public support and the balancing of the costs and stakes in any such action (The White House, 1995, p.13). Controversial treaties (infamous for their discriminatory nature to the third world nations and their people) signed during the tenure of Bill Clinton, including North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Uruguay round of GATT, have been presented in the NSS document as achievements towards a free market economy (The White House, 1995, p.20). The interventions that the US made-both diplomatic and military- in other nations with a claim of supporting democracy have also been listed in this text including the support given by the US in Guatemala and Cuba to the anti-communists against the communist regimes (The White House, 1995, p.23). In the section about strategy implementation, the report has expressed more explicitly its geopolitical goals by detailing its approaches to different regions and their nations (The White House, 1995, p.25-32). For example, the report has envisaged strengthening the diplomatic and military cooperation with Europe so that the geopolitical goal of a strong allies in a major continent of the world, and wider labor and capital markets for Americans can be fulfilled (The White House, 1995, p.25). Strengthening of NATO in Europe has been yet another major strategy implementation aspect in this text because a stronger NATO would ensure greater political power for the US all over the world (The White House, 1995, p.25). By supporting the economic reforms process in Russia and Ukraine, the text has shouldered the responsibility of ensuring that these nations never go back to communism and become a geo-politically challenging region for the US (The White House, 1995, p.27). Arms control and economic reforms have been cited as the major issues demanding engagement by this text as far as East Asia and the Pacific were concerned (The White House, 1995, p.28). Treaties like NAFTA that provide cheap labor to the US business capital and support to the regimes considered as democratic by the US as against the leftist movements and regimes, are the major points of action delineated in this text for the Western hemisphere (The White House, 1995, p.29). Regarding Midlle East, the text has admitted that the US interest in the region is driven by a need of “free flow of oil” (The White House, 1995, p.30). This interest is to be protected by maintaining the long-standing military presence of the US in the region, according to this text (The White House, 1995, p.30). This is yet another geopolitical intervention that has global and long-term consequences. By declaring, “private firms are natural allies in our efforts to strengthen market economies”, the NSS text has justified all the geopolitical interventions that America has made by overtly and covertly supporting the actions of multinational corporations around the globe (The White House, 1995, p.24). The report has in its conclusion warned not be careless and isolationist about global affairs by thinking that cold war is over (The White House, 1995, p.33). It has called for greater global engagement and enlargement in view of the new challenges including terrorism and the need for fresh markets and resources for the US capital (The White House, 1995, p.33). Geopolitical approach and code The geopolitical world-view that this text reflects is one that places the US at the center of the world. This world-view is extended to suggest that US is the only nation in the world that is the ultimate model of “democracy, liberty, civility [and] pluralism” (The White House, 1995, p.2). One of the three central goals of the NSS itself has been put forth as “to promote democracy abroad,” which essentially has to be the American version of democracy as discussed above (The White House, 1995, p.1 of preface). One geopolitical implication of this statement can be that the US is naturally entitled to take a proactive stand in bringing about the US version of democracy in any nation, any region in the world. The annual preparation and publication of the NSS text itself has to be seen as “an act of geopolitics” (Flint et al., 2009, p.605). This is so because it is an act “that maintains the US political system, and the banal understanding of the nation-state, and places the president at the center of the foreign policy agenda” (Flint et al., 2009, p.605). This is so also because, as Flint et al. (2009) have pointed out in the case of US Presidential State of the Union speeches, the NSS also “is used to portray the United States as a benevolent political power, to identify particular threats or dangers, and classify regions or countries in colorful terms that imply particular necessary, if not inevitable, actions” (605). Bill Clinton’s first term in which the particular NSS discussed in this paper was prepared was based on a “declinist” geopolitical paradigm (Flint et al., 2009, p.609). The geographic element in the geopolitical code of the US can be found in this text to be changing from a Cold War centered one, in which only the communist regions mattered, into a more wide-spread regional concern, including all the continents and nations of the world (Flint et al., 2009, p.626). Also the geopolitical code has been incorporated with more “globalist and more positive phrasing” (Flint et al., 2009, p.627). Europe is mentioned as a possible strong ally, Middle Eastern region as an area demanding more engagement, China is depicted as a rising threat, North America is mentioned in the context of economic self-interests, and Iraq is mentioned specifically in the form of a rogue nation (The White House, 1995). In this way, there is more diversity and international coverage in the geopolitical code of the country in this 1995 NSS document (The White House, 1995). The Middle East and the pre-communist regions have found more number of mentions in the text as they are considered as more geo-strategically important regions (The White House, 1995). As this is a text that has emerged during the transition period from Cold War to American hegemony, it has in certain ways challenged the basic Cold War ideas (The White House, 1995). For example, by supporting Russia and Ukraine in their economic reforms, by re-aligning the focus of attention to the Middle East, and by trying to deal with Cuba and the communists in the South American countries by putting forth a United American economic alliance, the NSS has changed the way in which hegemony was sought (The White House, 1995). Instead of military might alone, this document has stressed the equal importance of military power and economic interventions (The White House, 1995). By bringing in environment and democracy as major concerns, the NSS text has opened a debate for justification of American actions in the third world nations (The White House, 1995). It has been observed that the “Atlantic and Pacific geopolitical positions [of the US] enable it to link the Maritime European and Asia-Pacific Rim geopolitical regions” (Cohen, 2003, p.95). The “geopolitical features of the United States” has been found to “include its Historic Core, Current Political Capital(s), Ecumena (area of economic and population concentration), Effective National Territory (ENT), Empty Areas and Boundaries” (Cohen, 2003, p.97). The NSS 1995 also has been aware of these features hopeful of better engagement and enlargement in both these realms. And this was the document that set out a new era for the foreign policy of the United States as the focus shifted from military action to economic intervention- an effective tool of world domination. References Bartolotto, LTC J.K. (2004). The origin and developmental process of the national security strategy, USAWC Strategy Research Process, Pennsylvania: U.S. Army War College. Chapman, B. (2009) Military doctrine: a reference book, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Cohen, S.B. (2003) Geopolitics of the world system, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. Flint et al., (2009) Mapping the dynamism of the United State’s geopolitical code: the geography of the state of the union speeches, 1988-2008, Geopolitics, Vol.14, No.4, pp.604-629. Hawthorne, S. and Winter, B. (2002). September 11, 2001: feminist perspectives, North Melbourne: Spinifex Press. Shue, H. and Rodin, D. (2007) Preemption: military action and moral justification, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The White House. (1995). A national security strategy of engagement and enlargement, Retrieved from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/national/nss-9502.pdf Vanaik, A. (2007) Selling US wars, Northampton: Interlink Books. Read More