Principalities & Powersrnbv Samuel FrancisrnAfter the Cold Warrn(This column was originally delivered asrnthe keynote speech at a Chronicles’ conference,rn”Overcoming the Schism: EuropeanrnDivisions and U.S. Policy,” held inrnChicago on May 8.)rnYou would never guess that the ColdrnWar is over. Almost all commentatorsrnon foreign policy start off their speechesrnor articles by performing an obligatoryrnknee bend to the “end of the Cold War”rnand then continue to talk about our foreignrnpolicy as though the Cold War werernstill going on. They still chatter aboutrn”America’s global responsibilities”; theyrnstill worry about the scale of U.S. militarv’rndefenses; they still dither and dabble inrnworld affairs, perhaps even more recklesslyrnthan in the 1950’s and 60’s.rnWe still dole out immense sums ofrnmoney in foreign aid to various clientrnstates; we still maintain the Cold War alliancesrnwith Asian and Latin Americanrnstates that were set up as a global defensernsystem, and in NATO we have even expandedrnthe alliance to undertake an undefinedrn”new mission.” Occasionally,rnwe stop to realize that our major adversaryrnin the Cold War no longer exists, butrnwe have not even begun to think about,rnlet alone act upon, the vast implicationsrnof the Soviet collapse. Most of all, wernstill conduct our foreign policy on thernunquestioned assumption that the UnitedrnStates faces a serious threat to its vitalrninterests and national security, evenrnthough no one seems to be able to tell usrnwhat that threat is. Indeed, Americanrnforeign policy in the post-Cold War periodrncould perhaps be defined as a “searchrnfor a new enemy,” since only the existencernof an enemy could justify the continuationrnof the basic framework of ColdrnWar foreign policy.rnIn fact, the end of the Cold War representsrna new era in American foreignrnpolicy of the kind that we have not seenrnsince 1914. After that year, our foreignrnpolicy was exclusively defined by thernneed to defend the United States againstrna real or perceived enemy—the Kaiser,rnthe Axis, or the Kremlin. As a result,rnmost of us have simply lost the capacity’rnto think about foreign policy in the absencernof an enemy, and, to paraphrasernwhat Voltaire said of God, if an enemyrndoes not exist, it would be necessary torninvent one. Moreover, foreign policyrnprofessionals possess a powerful vestedrninterest in identifying an enemy andrntelling us how we ought to defeat or containrnhim. If they do not get paid for doingrnthat, then they have no other function,rnand many of my colleagues in ColdrnWar, Inc., have had to undertake somernfancy footwork to adjust their professionalrnlives to a Cold War-less world.rnThere have been several candidatesrnfor the new enem}—Saddam Hussein,rnSomalia’s late warlord MohammedrnFarah Aidid, and more recently variousrnBalkan or Arab leaders v’ho have poppedrnup on the screen much like the cut-outsrnof 1930’s gangsters that the FBI still usesrnfor target practice at its training academy.rnClearly, the basic personality of the enemyrnis always Hitier, and he alwas exhibitsrnthe same demonic cruelty, thernsame maniacal aggressiveness, and thernsame psychotic ambitions as DerFiihrer.rnBut sometimes today the enemy is castrnnot as a personalit)’ but as a force —Islamicrnfundamentalism or transnationalrncrime, which is usually lumped togetherrnwith international terrorism, and all ofrnwhich are then identified with domesticrnwhite separatists and militia groups. Islamicrnfundamentalism seemed for arnwhile to be a ver’ credible enemy, especiallyrnafter the World Trade Centerrnbombing in 1993, but it soon faded afterrnthe Oklahoma City bombing. Transnationalrnorganized crime is perhaps a morernplausible enemy, although it too lacks arnconvenientiy defined face. Drug smuggling,rnarms smuggling, and people whornsmoke cigarettes on international airrnflights seem to compete for the role ofrnthe foe against whom our militar)-, political,rneconomic, and intelligence resourcesrnmust be mobilized. A few yearsrnago, Massachusetts Senator John Kerryrnexplicitly identified transnational crimernas the new enemy. “The overall internationalrnorganized crime threat to ourrninterests is more serious than v’e had assumed,”rnSenator Kerr’trembled. “Organizedrncrime is the new communism, thernnew monolithic threat.” All that is lackingrnis a large photograph of the insidiousrnDr. F’u Manchu.rnLibertarians who refused to see an enemyrnin the Soviet Union argued that anrnenemy was invented for the purpose ofrnjustifying the vast enlargement of the federalrnstate in the wake of World War IIrnand for the perpetuation of the state machineryrnestablished during the earlierrnconflict. But even if their premise, thatrnthe Soviets were really not an enemy, isrnwrong, their conclusion contains a greatrndeal of truth. The recognition by thernAmerican foreign policy establishmentrnin the 1940’s that the Soviets were arnthreat (as belated as it was and as blindedrnas the establishment had been by its reliancernon the counsel of outright traitorsrnlike Alger Hiss, Harr)’ Dexter White, andrnLauchlin Curr)’) was followed by a resolutionrnto fight communism in the samernway as New Deal liberals had tried tornfight domestic social problems. In announcingrnthe Truman Doctrine inrn1947, Truman claimed that “The seedsrnof totalitarian regimes are nurtured byrnmiser}’ and want. They spread and growrnin the evil soil of poverty and strife. Theyrnreach their full growth when the hope ofrna people for a better life has died,” and inrnl965 Lyndon Johnson boasted of hisrnplans to construct what he called “thernTVA on the Mekong,” presumably tornliberate the Vietnamese peasants fromrncommunism in the same way that thernTVA was supposed to liberate Tennesseernpeasants from bootlegging and snakecharming.rnThe strategy by which ColdrnWar liberals sought to fight communism,rnthen, was simply an extension ofrntiieir strategy for domestic social reform,rnand it promised much the same rewardsrnfor the bureaucratic and managerialrnelites that were to supervise it.rnThe insight of James Burnham, in hisrntrilogy on communism in the 1940’s,rnthat communism simply used “bad socialrnconditions” to advance its own powerrnwas missed by those establishmentrnleaders who were otherwise influencedrnb’ Burnham. They exploited his premisernthat the Soviets were engaged in arn”struggle for the world” to construct andrnperpetuate a foreign policy apparatusrnthat was committed to preserving and enhancingrnits own bureaucratic leveragernand to making certain that the strugglernfor the world w ould last forever, or atrnleast until they started receiving theirrn36/CHRONICLESrnrnrn