Athens, 18 March 2003: Addressing 250 European national parliamentarians, government representatives and security experts at the first session of the WEU Assembly colloquy on “Europe and the new US Security Strategy”, Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute, California, said that the two central points of the new US doctrine – primacy and pre-emption – were both counterproductive and unsustainable over time.

He also said that the current Administration’s rhetoric might be far more outspoken than that of its predecessors but it was pursuing the same policy of global hegemony. The Bush Administration was more prone to intervention, but the use of preventive threat and unilateral intervention had been elements of US foreign policy since the end of the cold war.

He explained that the new doctrine was already proving counterproductive as it was increasing WMD and missile proliferation rather than reducing it. He cited North Korea and Iran as examples of countries that would now accelerate their efforts so as to be in a position where they could threaten to retaliate if the US considered intervention.

The doctrine, he continued, would be unsustainable over time because it would be impossible to intervene in every country currently working on nuclear, biological, chemical or ballistic programmes. Also, he argued, the US population would not support such intervention if there were not a clear and imminent danger to national security.

Public support would quickly wither as soon as military action encountered difficulties.

Eland added that historically, policies to achieve global hegemony had failed. The US was expending vast resources on maintaining its military might. It accounted for about 40% of global defence expenditure, but only for around 30% of global GDP. It could only be a matter of time before this overstretch gave rise to consequences, one of which might be that other countries would take over. It was possible this could even be the EU!

The US had not thought through its role in international affairs, he said. Instead of dealing with a growing number of adversarial states through military deployment and intervention, the US should go back to a policy of deterrence, restraint and containment. It was necessary to stick to President Bush’s initial goal of wiping out Al Q’aida.