Understanding US Foreign Policy 

To understand US foreign policy you really need to understand one important overarching doctrine. It is called the Wolfowitz Doctrine and was named after it’s co-author Paul Wolfowitz. He is a former President of the World Bank, a US institution based in Washington, former US Ambassador to Indonesia and former US Deputy of Defense in the George Bush administration. He is noted as a leading neo-conservative and was a major architect of Bush’s Iraq policy which as the whole world knows was/is an outstanding success with victory declared by Bush in a breathtaking ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003. Another leading neo-conservative Donald Rumsfeld who served in both the Gerald Ford and GW Bush administrations named Wolfowitz as the man responsible for bring up Iraq after the 9/11 attacks with Bush. Wolfowitz was forced to resign as president of the World Bank after 2 years amidst scandals.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine is the name given to the initial version of a Defense Planning Guidance document that was supposed to be kept secret but was leaked to the New York Times sparking controversy. The document stated that the US would use pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from any other nation to prevent that nation rising to super power status. Such was the outcry that the document was hastily rewritten by another neo-conservative former Vice President Dick Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, who famously withered into ignominy following his embarrassing and spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to prove to the United Nations Assembly that Iraq ( and Saddam Hussein) had ‘weapons of mass destruction’. The document was criticised as ‘imperialist’ but was embraced by George W Bush. The late Sen. Edward Kennedy said that no other nation can or should accept this doctrine.

Major tenants of the document are:

1. Superpower Status

The doctrine announces the US as the world’s only remaining superpower following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War and that the main objective is maintaining that status. This requires the US to prevent any hostile power from rising and dominating a region and becoming a global power. This involves deterring or defeating attack from whatever source, strengthening and binding defence arrangements with like-minded countries precluding any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our interests.

2. US Primacy

The doctrine establishes the US leadership role in the new world order.

3. Unilateralism

The doctrine downplays the value of international coalitions

4. Pre-emptive intervention

The doctrine establishes the US right to intervene when and where it believed necessary.

5. Russian threat

The doctrine highlights the possible threat posed by a resurgent Russia speculating that Russia may wish to reincorporate former Soviet Union territories Belarus, Ukraine and perhaps others. It recognises that Russia is the only power on earth that could destroy the US.

6. Middle East

The doctrine establishes the US commitment to the security of Israel and preventing a hegemon or alignment of powers from dominating the region.

So you can see now why the world is at war. Wherever the US gets involved chaos is created. The US does not care about the consequences for and in a country that it wishes to influence or impose regime change upon. We just have to look at Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq to see the result of intervention. Now Syria is the confrontation area the US seeks because the confrontation now directly involves Russia. It is about confronting Russia off and forcing it to submit to US hegemony. It’s why Vladimir Putin is demonised as a tyrant (remember how within hours of the downing of MH17 the narrative was that Putin himself was responsible with ghastly photographs of him in magazines like Time/Newsweek, without any evidence to back this up and still without a conclusive investigative report about the crash despite the west having the black boxes and there being 15 months since the crash)  because what he is doing is making Russia proud once more reflected in his soaring popularity at home, something US politicians just dream about. Additionally there is an ‘edginess’ to US relations with China demonstrated by sailing a US warship into the newly created islands territorial zone that China has built up in the South China Sea. While the US can get away with crushing smaller middle eastern countries both Russia and China are powerful nations, nuclear armed and that are establishing their own spheres of influence. This is directly contrary to the Wolfowitz Doctrine so we must expect more and more lies from Washington demonizing, if not confronting, both Russia and China in the future.

Malcolm Eves