Re: the limits of unilateralism

At 12:24 PM +0100 14/3/02, Arno Tausch wrote:
>now, a colleague from the heritage foundation (usually not an institution,
>quoted by world system scholars) - jack spencer, a very reknown defense
>analyst from the u.s. republican camp, de-sects the strategic weaknesses of
>the US in great detail and offers very interesting insights into the
>weaknesses of american global power.....
>
>
>i hope you folks know to read texts that might not, perhaps, correspond in
>language and content to the personal credos of the majority of the world
>system school. but if you abstract from the political agenda, inherent in
>that text below, the deeper message of the text from the perspective of
>world system SCHOLARSHIP is quite interesting - america's hegemony comes to
>a finish, most probably earlier than expected, and that america's global
>reach in effect has led to serious over-extension problems known to
>comparative world systems research already from earlier periods of waning
>global hegemony, like the NL or GB before.
>
>so read that piece:
>
>http://www.heritage.org/mandate/priorities/chap10.html
>
>the article also neatly tells us implicitly in effect, that unilateralism
>will reach its limits, and that - more than ever before.

maybe i don't quite know how to read it, but i read it as a statement 
that military strategy since the end of the cold war was mistaken or 
non-existent, that new challenges -- having slayed the dragon, the us 
now finds itself in a pit of vipers -- arise which, if not faced up 
to, will mean decline. hence, the need to re-think and re-do, 
including interestingly -- in the context of the now public Nuclear 
Posture Review, given that the document was prepared probably in late 
2000 -- the need for "low yield tactical nuclear weapons" with, 
amongst others, quite a clever justification for it, namely that such 
weapons, unlike conventional, would incinerate wmd's, meaning 
chemical and biological agents, rather than spreading them out.

i thought it was of a piece with the us space command's vision for 
2020 (1997), as well as the cia's long term world demographic trends 
(jul 2001), and the earlier global trends 2015.

in effect, these strike me as action documents -- if the us doesn't 
do x, y and z, then it can look forward to the prospect of decline. 
since decline is not good, then the us needs to take steps to 
forestall it.

forestalling it may well be impossible in the long term, but in the meantime...

kj khoo