Zitat:Die Welt sicher machen für die Demokratie
Was wir jetzt tun müssen. Die zehn Regeln für das amerikanische Imperium des 21. Jahrhunderts - Essay
von Robert D. Kaplan

Während die Vereinigten Staaten gegen Ende des Winters 2003 ihre Invasion des Irak vorbereiteten und zehntausende Soldaten in den Mittleren Osten entsandten, waren in 65 Ländern der Erde Spezialkräfte des Special Operations Command der US-Army im Einsatz. In Nepal bildeten sie Regierungstruppen für die Jagd auf maoistische Rebellen aus; auf den Philippinen war geplant, die Zahl der Special Forces für den Kampf gegen die Abu Sayyaf-Guerilla zu erhöhen. Und dann war da noch Kolumbien - ein von Epidemien erschüttertes und unbeschreiblich gewalttätiges Land, das über ungenutzte Ölquellen verfügt und für amerikanische Interessen von immenser Wichtigkeit ist.
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Zitat:A new way of projecting American power - The number of troops based abroad will be reduced

Little is being said in public and, for the moment, most of the changes are imperceptible. Yet they amount to an extraordinary reassessment of the way US forces will be positioned around the world. Washington will continue to plan for wars anywhere around the globe. However, most troops will be positioned in the US, rather than in forward bases on various continents.

US military planners are engaged in two complicated processes. The first entails a rearrangement of existing US military bases around the world, partly to complete the readjustment begun a decade ago when the threat of international communism ended and partly to reduce political dependency on any host nation.

The deployment of US troops in Europe was originally designed to meet the threat of a Soviet invasion. That threat has disappeared but tens of thousands of US forces remain in Europe, largely because neither the Europeans nor the Americans want to tackle the sensitive question of their withdrawal. The recent war in Iraq, however, changed the situation. Washington discovered that, while it could use these troops and their equipment in the Middle East, it could not fly them over the territory of some countries that opposed the war.

US attention is now moving to the former communist countries of eastern Europe where the stationing of US troops makes greater sense. The use of airfields and ports in Romania or Bulgaria provides easy access to the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the areas where the USA is most likely to be engaged in future warfare.

A similar process is taking place in the Middle East. Immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Washington announced that it would withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia. The official explanation was that these troops were no longer required; the real reason is that Washington is keen to free itself from dependence on the Saudi regime. Indeed, the entire pattern of US deployment in the Middle East suggests that the USA is preparing for the possibility that the Saudi monarchy will eventually collapse. Since the terrorist attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001, the Pentagon has poured billions of dollars into the creation of new bases in the smaller Arab sheikhdoms around the Gulf. The strategy makes sense on two counts.

First, the smaller Arab monarchies remain dependent on the US for protection and should the Saudi regime collapse, the USA would be able to contain any radical Muslim government that may appear in its wake.

Second, the most spectacular change of strategy came with the idea of creating 'virtual' military bases around the world - staging posts for US troops - rather than long-term, fixed installations where US forces are stationed for decades. The US has invested heavily in new transport aircraft - vast monsters that can airlift whole units, complete with all their equipment, in a matter of days to any corner of the globe. The result is that the USA does not need many fixed bases; all it requires is the certainty that some areas around the world can be used as staging posts for the airlift of US forces whenever necessary. This scheme has the added advantage of precluding political disputes, for the stationing of US troops can create huge difficulties. In contrast, the conclusion of agreements about the possible use of staging posts in case of crises can pass unnoticed. Few are aware that Washington has already created a constellation of such 'virtual' military bases on the territories of all the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, conveniently close to Iran, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and China.

Zitat:America versus the world

Greatest danger, or greatest hope?

Nov 6th 2003
From The Economist print edition

Yes, America is different. But it always has been. Mostly, the difference is good for the world, not bad

UNTIL a little over two years ago, the fashionable topic for debate in conferences, opinion pages and even bars around the world was whether globalisation was really Americanisation, and whether that was a good or a bad thing. Now, few pundits anguish about whether their countries are having to become more like America. The fashionable source of anxiety in both Europe and Asia is whether America is becoming so different from everywhere else that it is becoming a problem for the world, not a solution. It is not just a reckless Bush administration leading America astray, in other words. On this view, the United States is now inherently assertive and unilateralist, and so can no longer be trusted to lead the world. Instead, it should be feared.

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Zitat:Bush und Blair meißeln ihre Spur in die Geschichte
US-Präsident und sein britischer Kollege haben eine strategische Allianz geschmiedet, die nicht nur den Nahen Osten verändert hat
von Thomas Kielinger

London - Es war Freitagabend, der 19. Dezember, jener dramatische Tag, an dem Libyen in Tripolis und auf Arabisch die Absicht bekannt gab, seine Programme zur Herstellung von Waffen der Massenvernichtung einzustellen. Entsprechend der zwischen Washington und London abgesprochenen Choreographie gab als Erster Tony Blair diese Nachricht an sein Publikum weiter, im Fünf-Minuten-Abstand gefolgt von George W. Bush in Washington.
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Zitat:Democratic Realism

An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World
By Charles Krauthammer
Posted: Thursday, February 12, 2004

SPEECHES
2004 Irving Kristol Lecture
AEI Annual Dinner (Washington)
Publication Date: February 10, 2004

A Unipolar World

Americans have an healthy aversion to foreign policy. It stems from a sense of thrift: Who needs it? We’re protected by two great oceans, we have this continent practically to ourselves and we share it with just two neighbors, both friendly, one so friendly that its people seem intent upon moving in with us.
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Yes, as in Germany and Japan, the undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It’s not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world--oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism. It’s not one man; it is a condition. It will be nice to find that man and hang him, but that’s the cops-and-robbers law-enforcement model of fighting terrorism that we tried for twenty years and that gave us 9/11. This is war, and in war arresting murderers is nice. But you win by taking territory—and leaving something behind.
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Zitat:USA umwerben EU und Nato
¸¸Neue Nahost-Initiative kein Ersatz für Friedensprozess"

Brüssel - Die amerikanische Regierung ist bereit, im Rahmen ihrer neuen Initiative für demokratische Reformen im Nahen und Mittleren Osten sehr weitgehend auf europäische Vorstellungen einzugehen. Bei einem Besuch in Brüssel erklärte Marc Grossman, Staatssekretär im US-Außenministerium, Washington wolle mit seinen Plänen für den ¸¸Größeren Mittleren Osten" keinem Land ¸¸etwas aufzwingen". Vielmehr würden ¸¸die besten Ideen aus der Region selbst kommen." Ausdrücklich widersprach Grossman europäischen Bedenken, der US-Vorstoß solle von den blockierten Verhandlungen um einen Nahost-Frieden ablenken.....