диссертация (1169605), страница 10
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Academic FeodorVoitolovsky wrote about “Instability in the World System” drawing attention toБогданов А. Американская гегемония ифакторы системной нестабильности в XXI веке.// Международные процессы. - 2014. - Т. 12. - № 3. С. 8-22.68Shakleina T. A Russian Perspective on the Twenty-First Century Challenges / Challenge and Change. GlobalThreats and the State in Twenty-First Century International Politics. N.C. Noonan, V. Nadkarni, eds. Macmillan,2016, pp. 39-69; Shakleina T. Russia in the New Distribution of Power / Emerging Powers in a ComparativePerspective. The Political and Economic Rise of the BRIC Countries. Ed. by Vidya Nadkarni and Norma Noonan.N.Y.: Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 163-188.6741some of the factors that were driving the transformation of the world order andthreatening to upend it69.
Another Russian expert, Eduard Batalov, wrote that thecollapse of the Yalta world order amidst the continued march of globalization hasled to a crisis of global leadership, which was occurring at the same time asmultidimensional momentum was shifting from the West (the US and its allies) tothe East (the BRICS countries). All of this was contributing to the reformation ofthe world order, he concluded70.In accordance with the global megatrends that were just described, itshouldn’t be surprising that observers impartially describe the US’ unipolarhegemony as being under threat. Two of the most constructive commentatorswriting about this process are Richard Ned Lebow and Simon Reich, who exploredall of this in depth for their book “Good-Bye Hegemony!: Power and Influence inthe Global System” 71. The authors confirm the observations of their predecessorsand take an even more critical route by proclaiming that the US’ hegemony wasnever real to begin with and was just a deceptive trick of perception carried out bythe US’ military-industrial complex.
Since American power is waning, they say,the US should embrace multilateralism and internationalism in order to morepeacefully and stably transition from Washington’s fading global order into thenew one that is yet to come but is presently being built. Instead of hard power, theUS should focus more on soft and indirect means of promoting its influence.This correlates a lot with what T. V. Paul wrote in his book about“Accommodating Rising Powers: Past, Present, and Future” 72.
The Canadian IRscholar believes that the present times are ultra-sensitive and that the US, as thechallenged (and some could even say, declining) global hegemon must be verycareful not to provoke or be tricked into a war by some of the rising powers, sinceВойтоловский Ф.Г. Нестабильность в мировой системе // Международные процессы. - 2009. - Т. 16. - № 4.С. 4-16.70Баталов Э. Современные глобальные тренды и новое сознание // Международные процессы.
- 2012. – Т.10. - № 1. С. 4-17.71Simon R., Lebow R. Good-bye Hegemony! Power and Influence in the Global System. Princeton UniversityPress, 2014, pp. 15-50.72Paul T. V. Accommodating Rising Powers Past, Present, and Future. Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 3-28;293-313.6942this could be unprecedentedly destructive given the high degree of interconnectionall across the world. T. Paul relies on many historical examples in showing howthis could peacefully be done, but also in highlighting the pitfalls that haveoccurred in the past when war broke out as a result of the “Thucydides Trap”.Overall, his work can be summarized as a call for accommodation and not violentcompetition (hence the name of his book), but he’s also wise enough to know thatthis is easier said than done, and that history is replete with numerous examples ofthe difficulties that this entails.This theoretical backdrop is crucial to remember at all times because itforms the conceptual basis on which the “New Middle East”, “Greater MiddleEast”, and “New Greater Middle East” strategies were formed.In April 2004, the US unveiled a strategy called the Greater Middle East,which amounted to the incorporation of all of North Africa, the entire traditionalMiddle East and Central Asia, and parts of South Asia Initiative73.
The BrookingsInstitute wrote at the time that this region “stretches from Morocco to Pakistan”.The purpose behind expanding the definition of the Mideast was ostensibly topromote region-wide democratization, according to the report. The expansion ofthe region’s defined scope is important because it will set the stage for the US’theater-wide strategy, including the regime change “Arab Spring” events.This observation therefore suggests that the “Axis of Evil” moniker and itsexpanded Syria-Iraq-Iran concept which sits at the geographic fulcrum of the“Greater Middle East Initiative” wasn’t based solely on Bush’s “values” in seekingto “democratize” and “rein in” so-called “rogue states”, but had a clear-cutNeorealist agenda behind it of promoting American geopolitical power.
Thistwisted fusion of Neorealism and Neoliberalism was termed the “Bush Doctrine”,and the strategy that it embodied was articulated in the National Security Strategies73Wittes T. The New U.S. Proposal for a Greater Middle East Initiative: An Evaluation. The Brookings Institution,10 May 2018.
Web. 1 July 2018. http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2004/05/10middleeast-wittes.43of 200274 and 200675, as well as being glowingly elaborated on at length in RobertGordan Kaufman’s “In Defense of the Bush Doctrine” 76.The author applauded what he termed as the President’s “moral democraticrealism” and attempted to rebuke the unpopular leader’s many critics by disguisingBush’s naked power pursuit as a “moral” proselytization of “democracy”, thoughregrettably coming off no different than the 19th-century colonialists who preachedthe need to “civilize” “backwards” peoples.
It also didn’t help any that Bushhimself proclaimed in 2005: “I am driven with a mission from God'. God wouldtell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And thenGod would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did.” 77 Bearingthis infamous phrase in mind, it’s a legitimate point to wonder whether Bush andhis PNAC neoconservative “deep state” backers were influenced to a large degreeby Christian fundamentalism, which may have contributed to their wantonmilitancy in the Mideast and the inadvertent promotion of Huntington’s “Clash ofCivilizations” narrative among the global mainstream audience.Apart from the possible religious-civilizational influences on the BushDoctrine’s formation, one less controversial observation about it is that this policyembraces the concept of preemptive military action.
A famous specialist onAmerican military policy wrote that “it was only in June 2002 that President Bushproclaimed outright an expansive policy of pre-emptive military action, whichmoved towards the preventive or even precautionary use of force, as a response tothe threat of weapons of mass destruction associated with international terrorism”,proving that the focus on preemption became so obsessive that it crossed the lineinto the trigger-happy mindset of a so-called “precautionary use of force”,understood as being a severe overreaction and the paranoid imagining of latent74The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.
September 2002. Web. 1 December 2017.http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2002/75The National Security Strategy. The White House. March 16, 2006. Web. 1 December 2017. http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nss/2006.html76Kaufman R. G. In Defense of the Bush Doctrine. Lexington, KY: U of Kentucky, 2007, pp. 87-101.77MacAskill E. George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq. The Guardian.
7 Oct. 2005. Web. 1December 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa.44threatening scenarios everywhere across the world 78. In pertinence, andremembering the neoconservatives’ years-long plan to have the US invade Iraq,it’s only expected then that they’d concentrate their attention in this respect on thatMideast country. The prevailing theme expressed by R. Allison in respect to theBush Doctrine demonstrated similarity to the views expressed later by P.
Pillar. Itmeans that there is visible ideational and strategic (and tactic) continuity inAmerican international behavior79. The Bush Doctrine’s preemption actions can beseen not only through its conventional military operations against Afghanistan andespecially Iraq, but also through its clandestine unconventional ones in eventuallypaving the way for the “Arab Spring”.In 2005, the “Cedar Revolution” occurred in Lebanon, resulting in a changeof government and a drastic change in relations with Syria.
The pretence for thisde-facto Mideast Colour Revolution (proto-“Arab Spring” rehearsal) was that theSyrian government had allegedly been behind the assassination of former LebanesePrime Minister Rafic Hariri. The result of this mass mobilization movement wasthe expulsion of the Syrian military from Lebanon, where they had been positionedsince 1976 to try to maintain the peace during and after the Lebanese Civil War 80,and a weakening of Damascus’ regional influence and ability to protect itself froma possible conventional Israeli attack.The situation is not as clear-cut as it was presented to the global audience,however. The investigative online journal CounterPunch examined all aspects ofthe “Cedar Revolution” to conclude that the Syrian government most likely hadnothing to do with the assassination, and that the pro-Western and Western-fundedNGOs active in Lebanon had carried out a Colour Revolution to serve foreigninterests81.
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