The Foreign Service Journal, February 2005

moment.” Since Sept. 11, 2001, the debate has turned on whether the United States must maintain a dominant position throughout the globe in order for Americans to be safe and secure here at home. The Bush administra- tion has succeeded in persuading the public that American security is threatened by the existence of unde- mocratic regimes. Accordingly, pre-emptive military action against such regimes is warranted, even if those nations pose no direct threat to American security. The perception that autocracy leads to global instabili- ty, which, in turn, threatens the United States, has dra- matically lowered the threshold governing the use of force. As stated in the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy, the doctrine of pre-emption — more accurately described as prevention — holds that America “will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.” But if threats to the United States are to be pre-empted, it is not immediately clear how grave they are, or might have been. Who decides which future or potential threat is most urgent? Why pre-empt Iraq but not North Korea? What about Iran? Syria? Pakistan? In the end America may find itself paradoxically encouraging world instability by attempting to control the internal affairs of countries that have neither the means, nor the inclination, to seriously disrupt American security. The preventive war aspects of the Bush-Rice Doctrine are inherently dismissive of the continued value of deter- rence. Again, given Rice’s academic experience during the ColdWar —when the brutally hostile, nuclear-armed, undemocratic regimes of the Soviet Union, and later China, were prevented from ever attacking the United States, or any of our major allies, solely by dint of our threat to retaliate if they did so— this is strange. It is dou- bly striking that Rice herself, as late as January 2000, believed that deterrence was the best means for dealing with Saddam Hussein. Rogue states, she explained in Foreign Affairs , might develop WMD, but they must understand that such weapons could never be used, because to do so would “bring national obliteration.” The trauma of 9/11 did nothing to alter this central reality, but it should have focused our attention on the most pressing threats to national security. Deterrence still works against state actors, including even bizarre tyrants like North Korea’s Kim Jong Il. Deterrence is manifestly incapable of preventing non-state actors such as al-Qaida from perpetrating acts of terrorism. By calling for the removal of undemocratic regimes, the Bush administration has set a very dangerous standard governing the use of force, one that threatens to replace undemocratic regimes with undemocratic non-state actors operating within the chaos of post-war environ- ments. Theory into Practice Rice will be responsible for translating the Bush administration’s commitment to the transformational effect of democracy into practical policies. She will also be responsible for explaining these policies to her coun- terparts abroad. She may ultimately be more successful than President Bush has been, and, if she is, it may be more a function of style than of substance. Many out- siders look upon the president as a stubborn unilateralist who doesn’t care what others think. It will now be up to her to convince the world that we do care, even if we don’t. This is the very essence of diplomacy. Still, her task is complicated by the fact that an inter- ventionist America is viewed with suspicion and fear abroad. Many foreign governments worry that the United States does not intend to be tied down by treaties, or beholden to multilateral institutions, if vital U.S. interests are at stake. Because the United States spent most of the past 60 years defending others, particularly democratic states in Europe and Asia, these practices contributed to the mistaken notion that the United States would always subsume even its own national interest in the defense of an abstract greater global good. The concern around the world today is not that the United States acts unilaterally, but rather that such actions, inadvertently or inevitably, will someday threaten the very nations that this power was once used to protect. In a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in June 2003, Rice seemed not to comprehend the level of international unease toward U.S. power. “Power in the service of freedom is to be welcomed,” she explained, “and powers that share a commitment to free- dom can — and must — make common cause against freedom’s enemies.” As the events of the past two years attest, the world does not work that way. Rice’s good intentions will not be sufficient to ease international con- cerns about unfettered American power. The Central Challenge In her article in Foreign Affairs , published in early 2000, Rice castigated the Clinton administration for its F O C U S 48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 5