 | Zbigniew Brzezinski |
By declaring war against "terrorism" as if it were one uniform entity, the United States may be undercutting its ability to eliminate the problem, said Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, during a March 25 talk on campus.
In fact, pursuing the current course may actually increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the United States, contended the statesman, who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and on the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University. He spoke on campus as a guest of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.
"At this juncture of history, particularly in the wake of 9/11, American policy worldwide is guided by a fundamental misdiagnosis regarding the defining challenge of our time ... which I submit to you is a massive, unprecedented global political awakening that is generating in its wake a great deal of political turmoil, of which terrorism is a manifestation as well as a symptom," Brzezinski told the standing-room-only crowd in Luce Hall.
Until recently, political activism was "a minority phenomenon," said Brzezinski, noting that such factors as the spread of literacy and the impact of the Internet have created "aspirations, unrest, envy [and] turmoil" among people worldwide.
"Much of that is abetted, in my view, by the ongoing globalization, and we -- that is, America -- are the principal vehicle of this globalization," said Brzezinski. "We are economically intrusive. We are culturally seductive.
"But the unsettling impact of America on the world works at cross-purposes with America's interests as the number-one global power and with international stability," he told the audience, because it is spawning a "comprehensive doctrine that merges anti-Americanism with anti-globalization."
Focusing on terrorism without understanding these underlying issues, he contended, is like talking about eradicating lung cancer without mentioning tobacco or smoking, or saying that the Blitzkrieg, rather than German Nazism, was the biggest problem of World War II. Like the Blitzkrieg, he said, "Terrorism is a technique for killing people. It is a technique for intimidating people."
"Terrorism is spread by the objective and subjective historical and political conditions in specific and diverse parts of the world. ... It manifests itself in different ways, directs itself against different targets and has different political motives," he said, pointing to the divergent makeup and motives of groups such as the Irish Republican Army, the Basque Separatist group and Hamas.
Terrorism is not a "universal reality which is identical, which can be defined as terrorism with a global reach," contended the statesman. "And the answer to it cannot simply be a declaration of war on terrorism with a global reach. ...
"If we do not know who they are, where they come from, we will not only find it difficult to exterminate them, we will find it impossible to undermine them politically and socially," he said. "We have to know the symptoms, the pathology, the roots of the problem, and only then can we define the necessary force to deal with that specific aspect of global turmoil and find the political means to isolate it."
While terrorist groups may have some things in common, Brzezinski declared, "It is in our interests to particularize [terrorism], and to deal with it in terms of specific settings, because the last thing we want is an international global terrorist network." He said that the United States should be on guard against contributing to this possibility through its own "anxiety" or by being "manipulated" into taking stances against even more terrorist groups worldwide.
"I'm not particularly anxious to have terrorism imported into the United States from other parts of the world," he said.
Nevertheless, Brzezinski told the audience, "We as a people, we as a nation, we as 'the' power have to recognize that, henceforth, insecurity is going be the national reality. The days of national security, of sovereign security, are over. We are joining the world in that reality.
"Therefore it follows from that, that global security has to be a key element of our quest for national security," said Brzezinski. "Global security is a seamless web of expanding interdependence, and it's in our interest not to undermine it, but to institutionalize it. And yet, I'm concerned that our current policy, and particularly the way we diagnose our global reality, may in fact increase the probability of sporadic terror attacks on the United States."
Brzezinski suggested that the United States look at its involvements in that region of the world stretching from the Suez Canal to Pakistan -- an area he described as "religiously inflamed, ethnically conflicted, densely populated, demographically explosive, massively poor but rich in energy" -- and ask if it has sufficient resources to handle those crises alone. "I fear if we look at the scale and complexity, the answer is that we probably do not," he contended.
"We need Europe," declared Brzezinski, "and the unification of Europe is in our interest because it increases the probability that Europe will become more engaged globally, because a divided Europe is going to be passive." To build that partnership, he said, the United States must create a "shared vision" with the European nations. "We will not create a shared vision if we say to our friends, as we have been saying the past year and a half over and over again: 'If you're not with us, you're against us.'"
The United States must also find ways to deal with its "growing crisis of credibility" worldwide due to the intelligence failures that have been uncovered in the wake of the war against Iraq, he added.
"A policy of preemption implies a preemptive attack on someone else because we know what someone else is about to do to us. And that means knowledge, that means intelligence," he said. "But if you don't have intelligence, then the doctrine of preemption is a doctrine of preemption on suspicion..." That, he contended, "is a formula for an international law of the jungle.
"I'd much rather spend $1 on intelligence than $10 on homeland security," he told the audience.
Brzezinski told the audience that his hope is that the United States will return to its "policy of the last 40 years or so," which is based on "moderation and consensus and, ultimately, bipartisanship."
"This is the first time we have a policy based on extremism," he said.
-- By LuAnn Bishop
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