As the United States cements its position as the arbiter of world affairs it has variously been described as the world’s only superpower, the new empire, even the new Rome. The US has brought Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq to heel in a succession of one-sided wars. The US administration has turned its back on multilateralism in favour of a doctrine of unilateral, pre-emptive retaliation. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, issued by the White House in September 2002, puts it succinctly: ‘America will act against … emerging threats before they are fully formed … In the new world we have entered, the only path to peace and security is the path of action.’
US military expenditure is now greater than the total spent by the next 20 military powers combined. The cost of occupying Iraq—acknowledged by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as being nearly $US1 billion a week—is, in annual terms, ten per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product. There are more than 400,000 US troops stationed overseas, with bases in about 100 nations. The collapse of the Soviet Union together with victory in the Afghan war has allowed the Pentagon to put boots on the ground in a range of countries once out of reach: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The view from Beijing—let alone Pyongyang—is one of increasing encirclement: US troops in Japan and South Korea to the east, in the Philippines to the south, in the central Asian republics to the west.
The US is arguably the most powerful empire the world has yet known, yet in Iraq, the US may have won the war but is rapidly losing the peace. The slide from ‘victory’ to a situation characterised even by Donald Rumsfeld as one of war should not come as a surprise. Following its victory in Afghanistan in 2001, the US military installed Hamid Karzai as president through a process of national consultation, as distinct from an election. But Karzai’s writ extends only in the capital and immediate environs.
Mohammad Ashraf, an Afghani with Action Aid, says that while Afghanistan has been promised $US4.8 billion in foreign funding for reconstruction it has received just $US1.9 billion, of which 80 per cent goes directly to the United Nations and non-governmental agencies for their expenses. Meanwhile unexploded cluster bombs remain a threat and warlords are once again in control across the country. As author Nicholas Nugent notes,