The United States may never actually know when the war on terrorism is over, former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen said in his keynote address to the annual meeting of the Truckload Carriers Association. The end will come with a lessening of the dangers to Americans brought about by a protracted war fought mostly by police instead of a few decisive military encounters. The TCA meeting was held in Orlando, Florida, March 9 to 12, 2003.
Terrorism can be contained and the number of incidents reduced, but the underpinnings of terrorism may be almost impossible to eradicate. This is because those involved in terrorism see the very things that make the US a pluralistic, free nation to be a threat. The freedoms of US citizens frighten those who want to hold on to the values and practices of past centuries, he said.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has produced the opportunity for the global spread of democratic capitalism, Cohen said. The problem inherent in this possibility is that not every nation or ethnic group wants the opportunity to live and act like the citizens of California. In many cases, religious and cultural practices — the need to hold on to the past — are so strong that some groups hold hatreds so strongly that they would rather dig fresh graves than heal old wounds, he said.
Old grudges, new technology
Both situations seem to exist side-by-side, Cohen said. In Europe and South America, democratic capitalism is arising at an astonishing rate. Capitalism is even taking hold in China in ways that have the prospects of being followed by democracy. At the same time, and even in the same places, live people who are willing to kill themselves and each other in the name of culture or religion. Some pundits counsel against trying to settle these old grudges, because US involvement might lead to terrorist reprisals. “That argument is flawed, because reprisals will happen anyway,” he said. “The terrorists are coming, because free societies are inherently vulnerable to exploitation of their openness.”
One of the problems with these old hatreds is that they are fueled with modern technology and spread with modern, global communications. Technology is no shield against extremism. “In fact, we may one day return to the stone age on the gleaming wings of science,” Cohen said.
Countering such a worldview requires the formation of coalitions of like-minded nations and cultures. The United States cannot win the war alone. In all likelihood, the only nation that the US could attack in a completely unilateral manner would be Cuba. For every other place on the globe, other nations would be required to help in a collective effort, Cohen said.
To operate on a global scale, the US needs the cooperation of other nations for basing rights, for over-flight rights, for all sorts of other support activities. “We cannot wage an effective war against a distant nation solely on our own,” Cohen said.
Stress coalition building
Building coalitions will be among the most important tasks for future diplomacy, he said. While many nations act as though terrorism is a danger to the US alone, the fact remains that every free nation is at risk. “The danger from terrorism travels through the world like ink through tissue paper,” Cohen said.
The United States must accept the reality of its leading position in the world, but it needs to conduct its foreign policy as if the world revolves around multiple centers of power, Cohen said. Each of those centers can be manipulated in subtle ways to gain an advantage in the war on terrorism. “However, manipulation of multiple centers of power requires the patience to lead by pulling others forward instead of settling for the satisfaction of pushing others from behind,” he said.
The US has unmatched hard power, the kind of military and economic power that no other nation can match. Knowing that, the nation must take advantage of its soft power — the culture, the ideas, the freedoms, the willingness to help other nations, to lift them by the power of ideals that makes the country great, Cohen said. Presenting only the hard power of the United States will cause other countries to align themselves in ways intended to block the intent of the US. “Even allies will conspire to bring down a nation that they perceive to have become too powerful,” he said.
Personal relations, national interests
This produces a paradox, Cohen said. The way to build coalitions is to build personal relationships with the leaders of other nations. However, nations must never personalize their vital interests. Leaders can change rapidly, so nations need to build policy on fundamental goals and values. “Nations have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies; they only have permanent interests,” he said.
The United States is powerful. It has forces forward deployed throughout the world. Those deployments serve the purpose of meeting potential threats and also provide background against which the US can shape world events, Cohen said. Speaking in his role as former Secretary of Defense, he noted that US forces are the gold standard that all other nations use to measure military accomplishments. No other force comes close, not even large combinations of forces from a number of other nations.
US forces maintain their leadership position as a result of a national security strategy document that is prepared at least every four years. That strategic plan requires reading tealeaves to try to predict the threat posture facing the nation in the future. Such a plan is necessary, because it takes 10 to 12 years to develop and deploy a new military system.
The economic outlook for the US depends greatly on the success of the war on terror, Cohen said. The economy worldwide is relatively stagnant with a few points of rapid growth. China may be growing 8% a year, but the US is the engine that drives the world economy. A faltering US economy has an impact on every other economy in the world. Most other nations are exporters that rely on selling goods in the US for their economic growth. The US likes those imports, because they help hold inflation in check.
Unfortunately imports provide one of the avenues for terrorists to get into the country. And the question becomes how much openness and how much economic activity the county is willing to give up in return for security, he said.
Cohen cautioned the truckload carriers not to take the good things of American life for granted lest the nation be required to earn those things all over again.
