The Spanish road
By William S. Lind
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posted February 24, 2003
John Boyd defined strategy as the art of connecting yourself to as many other power centers as possible while isolating your enemy from as many other power centers as possible. By that definition, Saddam Hussein appears to be a better strategist than the Bush Administration. Since the U.N. weapons inspectors renewed their work in Iraq, Saddam has managed to forge de facto alliances against war with France, Germany and Russia. He appears to be developing a positive connection with the inspectors themselves, with the U.N., and possibly with a majority of members of the U.N. Security Council. In contrast, the Administration in Washington has isolated itself from several of its oldest allies, provoked a serious split in NATO, and left itself very much on the defensive in the face of an inspections process that continues to find no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq -- and thus no causus belli for the U.S.
Is this simply ineptitude, or is something larger going on here? I suggest the latter. For some time, elements in the Administration have been looking far beyond Iraq. They have spoken with increasing openness about re-making the entire Middle East, installing "democratic" governments that would be friendly not only to the United States but to Israel (I put "democratic" in quotes because genuinely democratic elections in most Middle Eastern countries would put radical Islamist regimes in power, which is not the outcome the new Wilsonians have in mind). America is to become not just "the only superpower" but a "hyperpower" which no one can hope to resist. China is to be cowed by an arms race she cannot afford; non-state elements will fall to American Special Forces; the U.N. will be a tool of American world dominance. America will be the new Britain, perhaps the new Rome.
Or, more likely, the new Spain. The Spanish analogy is not one most Americans will know, nor one the new Wilsonians will much care for. But it may prove apt.
 Emperor Charles V |
The quest to create the "universal monarchy," which was the earlier term for "the only superpower," began in earnest with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the father of King Philip II of Spain. Charles ruled virtually all of Europe, except France. His kingdoms included Spain, which had the first true world empire. Fueled with the gold and silver of the New World and possessing an army so successful that it went unbeaten for more than a century, Spain offered Charles and then Philip the potential of ruling the world. You may recall that Armada business, when King Philip decided to end the impudence of an upstart island, England, and its Protestant queen, Elizabeth I. That did not go quite according to plan -- somewhat like our current business in Afghanistan -- but no matter; so rich was Spain that when the Armada was destroyed, Philip just built another one.
What finally stopped Hapsburg Spain and, later, France under Louis XIV and Napoleon and Germany under Hitler from establishing the universal monarchy was a fundamental characteristic of the international state system: whenever one nation attempts to attain world dominance, it pushes everyone else into a coalition against it. That dynamic, not any love for Saddam, is what is behind German and French opposition to the Bush Administration's plan for war with Iraq. That is what is drawing others, including Russia, into supporting the French and the Germans. The Dutch ambassador to the United States was recently quoted in the Washington Post as saying he is concerned about a "monopoly of power without checks and balances. Self-assertiveness and an arrogance of power, that is a troubling thing."
In fact, the Dutch ambassador is wrong: there are checks and balances, and we are now seeing them start to work. The failure of American strategy, and America's growing self-isolation, are guaranteed so long as Washington aspires to world hegemony. The very nature of the international state system assures our quest for universal monarchy will fail, the same way all have failed. And our "unbeatable" military will find itself beaten, just as the Spanish army was beaten at Rocroi, by someone it thought would be a pushover.
The real question is not whether the American
drive for world hegemony will succeed; it will not. The question is why we are
attempting it in the first place. 
William S. Lind is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism.
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