The Foreign Service Journal, June 2005

us and how other countries set their respective security strategies. Focusing on Symptoms Giving priority to the symptoms of world disorder is not only ineffective, but counterproductive to our own security. Terror is not an “ism.” It is a tactic, one used by organizations (sometimes supported by states) to pursue broader political aims. Weapons of mass destruction have always been just that — weapons, developed by states and organizations for a larger purpose, such as deterrence, projection of power or assertion of sovereignty. The invasion of Iraq and the overall war on terror both illustrate this dilemma. Going after Saddam Hussein before the job was finished on Osama bin Laden was a fundamental miscalculation. Regardless of their connection (which all available data suggest was, at most, arm’s-length), prosecut- ing the Iraq war directly and specifically distracted us from pursuing al-Qaida. There is overwhelming evidence that troops, special forces, CIA assets and Civil Service personnel were drawn out of Afghanistan to prepare for Iraq, reducing significantly the forces available and ready to pursue al-Qaida in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And as anyone with gov- ernment service knows, the attention span of senior officials is limited by the same time and energy constraints that affect all humans; accordingly, terrorism fell to the second tier as soon as the White House decided to invade and occu- py Iraq. Worse, our massive misunderstanding and mishandling of ethnic and religious tensions in Iraq contributed to the chaos that followed the war, forcing U.S. troops to remain there far longer than anticipated. We have become the occupiers, the alien virus that has invaded the host Iraqi body. As a result, Iraq and terror are now connected in a way they were not two years ago. Indeed, the National Intelligence Council concluded recently that Iraq is now the principal training ground for terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida. Or to quote from a 2004 Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies report: “During the past year Iraq has become a major distrac- tion from the global war on terrorism. [It] has now become a convenient arena for jihad, which has helped al-Qaida to recover from the setback it suff e red as a result of the war in Afghanistan. With the growing phenomenon of suicide bombing, the U.S. presence in Iraq now demands more and more assets that might otherwise have been deployed against various dimensions of the global terrorist threat.” The need to keep more forces in the Persian Gulfregion for a longer time than planned is stressing not only the U.S. Army, but our entire military. Currently, we are calling to active duty nearly 185,000 National Guard and reserve forces at a time. And our stated commitment to ward off all possible security threats means we will need even more troops, which will be more widely dispersed as other adver- saries take them on globally. Overstretch will be the result. The administration’s repeated supplemental funding requests for this effort are having serious negative conse- quences for the budget deficit, squeezing funding for domestic needs. In turn, our mounting deficits have a destabilizing effect on the dol- lar and the willingness of other governments to hold U.S. Treasury notes, with long-term consequences for the U.S. economy and our global leadership role. In short, Washington is alienating its friends, allies and neutrals around the globe. No rhetoric and no public relations effort can conceal the reality that the U.S. is unpopular today virtually around the world. Underlying Global Trends A new and more hopeful long-term security vision is badly needed if our growing insecurity is to be reversed. That vision needs to be based on the recognition that there are three major, interrelated global trends under way that are fueling the threats of terrorist attacks and the prolifera- tion of WMD. First, as the World Bank has warned, is the emergence of three classes of nations: the globalized, the “new globalizers” (e.g., China, India and Mexico) and the “poor” (the swath of underdeveloped countries from southern Africa to the tip of Indonesia). Or call them the “haves,” the “soon-to-haves” and the “have-nots.” Societies in that last category suffer from high rates of unemployment, population growth and hopelessness, rendering them a fertile breeding ground for security threats. This linkage may well constitute the most critical, yet underappreciated, security issue facing the U.S. Our current strategy of policing “the gap” (to use Thomas Barnett’s term) is simply not working. To meet the security threats generated there, we need broad international engagement in new forms of assistance, international finan- J U N E 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59 Dedicating the entire architecture of national security to combating terrorism and WMDs has actually made matters worse.