6th ECPR General Conference

Open Section.

Panel: Critical perspectives on practices of U.S. foreign policy and American identity construction in world

politics.

Reykjavik, August 2011

Civilization and violence in US foreign policy (2001-2003)

Diego Santos Vieira de Jesus*

Abstract: Based on the notion of productive power developed by Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall,

this article aims to explain why the concept of "civilization" is flexible enough to prevail as a modern

regulative ambition in the context of redefinition of global boundaries. The main argument indicates that

the flexibility of this concept is the result of a historically contingent necessity of spatiotemporal

localization of difference to preserve the integrity of the self and its self-knowledge in relation to its own

understanding of what objectivity must be. The dilemmas and contradictions in the fight against new

threats are solved, and the disciplinary action on the Other is justified. The consolidation of the notions of

progress and "good government" in the concept of "civilization" – opposed to "tyranny" in rogue states

and "radicalism" of terrorist threats – resulted from the necessity to protect the cohesion of U.S. identity.

Keywords: civilization, productive power, United States, Iraq, identity

In the 19th

century, the concept of civilization – defined by John Stuart Mill as

material development in terms of economic and technological progress and ―good

government‖ based on fair and efficient political and juridical systems (Keene 2002, 112) –

oriented the imperialist conquest of peoples that were considered ―not advanced‖. This

concept discriminated non-Europeans and allowed the resolution of contradictions between

two legal and institutional structures at the international level: a voluntarist and

decentralized ―European‖ order, characterized by tolerance towards political and cultural

difference and by respect for the authority of independent and legally similar states; and a

decentralized ―extra-European‖ order, characterized by the division of sovereignty, the

defense of individual rights over property and the diffusion of particular models of

imperialist powers‘ societies over local political and social systems (Keene 2002, 5-6). The

characterization of non-Europeans as ―wild‖ or ―barbarian‖ peoples that should be

* Doctor in International Relations and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil. dsvj@puc-rio.br .

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converted to the European patterns solved the dilemma of interaction with difference by

discriminating it (Walker 2005, 2). Diversity was objectified and disciplined with the

purpose of preserving the cohesion of the identity of European imperialist countries.

The strong division between an intra-European order based on tolerance and an

extra-European order based on civilization was blurred in the 20th

century, with the

interpenetration of the two models of order in the context of enlargement of the ―society of

states‖ and in the constitution of a ―globalized‖ order: the recognition of sovereignty and

political and cultural tolerance towards non-European communities and the diffusion of

―civilization‖ in Europe after the catastrophe caused by Europeans themselves in that same

century. Nevertheless, this recognition was conditioned to the assimilation of civilization

standards, based on the abandonment of the idea of racial superiority that legitimated the

bifurcated order in the past (Keene 2002, 9-10). With the questioning of European ―self-

confidence‖ in the diffusion of its patterns of society after two World Wars in the continent

and the collapse of the intense division between both orders, the concept of ―civilization‖

preserved the main aspects of progress and ―good government‖, abandoned the racial

discriminatory conception and remained as an objective to be pursued by the whole

humanity (Keene 2002, 137-139).

Today, the multiple changes of this concept did not mean its abandonment as a

regulative modern ambition, even in the context of reconfiguration of global contours. With

the redefinition of the boundaries of modern political life and the growing challenge to the

segmentation between the national and the international levels in the 21st century, the

political space where authority is exercised enlarges beyond the state, and those artificial

borders still demarcate antagonisms, even though they are not where they used to be

(Walker 2005, 1). Globalized politics still operates in a metaphysics of presence and

absence, and notions of progress and ―good government‖ – parts of the concept of

―civilization‖ and defended by liberal democracies – are diffused in opposition to the

philosophies of radical groups and non-liberal regimes, which are conceived as ―rogue

states‖ that must be submitted to ―domestication‖ in the modern structures of authority in

order to preserve the stability of the international system, where great powers such as the

United States exercise their power.

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Based on the notion of productive power developed by Michael Barnett and

Raymond Duvall (2005, 55)1, this article aims to explain why the concept of "civilization"

is flexible enough to prevail as a modern regulative ambition in the context of redefinition

of global boundaries. The main argument indicates that the flexibility of this concept is the

result of a historically contingent necessity of spatiotemporal localization of difference to

preserve the integrity of the self and its self-knowledge in relation to its own understanding

of what objectivity must be. The dilemmas and contradictions in the fight against new

threats are solved, and the disciplinary action on the Other is justified. The examined case

deals with the enlargement of U.S. political space beyond its frontiers. The consolidation of

the notions of progress and "good government" in the concept of "civilization" – opposed to

"tyranny" in rogue states and "radicalism" of terrorist threats – results from the necessity to

protect the cohesion of U.S. identity. The right to intervene in order to protect innocent

citizens from their government in the Third World is legitimated, and the separation

between preventive and preemptive action is blurred in Bush Doctrine. I will incorporate

Jahn‘s (2000) discussion about the combination of the concept of freedom with unequal

notions of state construction, which offers justification for intervention based on the

defense of liberal principles.

The poststructuralist perspective (Campbell 1997; Walker 1993, 2005; Weber 1995)

is based in a Foucauldian perspective and stresses that discourses about "reason" or "truth"

are generated as exercises of control in specific political circumstances. It also indicates

that logocentric mutually-constituted structures and binary oppositions in language and

thought such as inside / outside can be arbitrary and should not be taken for granted. Those

structures and oppositions establish limits to the capacity of considering alternative world

views and difference is continuously marginalized and conceived hierarchically in

reference to a non-problematic and privileged Self in a perspective of inferiority, negation

and objectification (Walker 2005, 4-6). The spatial divisions that exclude otherness are

crystallized in the international level by the paradigm of sovereignty, which disciplines

ambiguity and contingency in order to differentiate and standardize the location in which it

works (Campbell 1997). Foreign policy makes ―external‖ certain events and actors in

consonance with practices which constitute the domestic sphere. Dangers are located in

other political communities (Campbell 1997), and the challenges they represent are seen as

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threats to the supposedly well-defined and stable identity of the state, which contains those

challenges and preserves its integrity and self-knowledge in relation to its own

understanding of what objectivity is (Walker 2005, 2).

In the next section, I will show that Keene‘s discussion is insufficient to analyze the

transformative mechanisms of the notion of ―civilization‖, which allow its maintenance as a

regulative ideal. I will also defend that mainstream IR theorists and constructivists neglect

or under explore the role of this concept in the formation and the consolidation of modern

international system. Those experts are limited in their capacity to explain its intense ability

to change and reify specific forms of power. After this section, I will overcome those

limitations defending that the demarcation of identity is constructed by the systematic

exclusion of difference in a disciplinary dynamics of subjectivity. The concept of

―civilization‖ was situated in a sovereign interpretive center and adapted in specific

spatiotemporal circumstances in order to organize different communities hierarchically.

With linear interpretations of time and segregation of diversity outside the borders,

difference was allocated in inferior positions in a universal scale of development based on

the level of approximation to the ―civilized‖ political and social organization. When

diversity is marginalized, the sovereign stability is preserved, and violence is legitimated in

multiple ways to deal with difference. Before final considerations, the blurring of the limits

between prevention and preemption in Bush Doctrine is examined in the case of US action

in Iraq in the context of legitimization of military action in order to ―civilize‖ rogue states,

defend liberal principles and preserve the stability in the expansion of U.S. political space.

The role of “civilization” in the configuration of the modern international system

Keene critically rereads Grotius‘ writings and gives attention to some concepts that

were abandoned in the simplifying orthodox interpretations of his work, but were

fundamental to colonialist and imperialist practices: the divisible sovereignty and the

private property in the law of nations, articulated by the assertion of authority of European

states in the extra-continental world and the appropriation of unoccupied lands. Keene says

that a Grotian conception of the international system is more related to the constitution of a

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non-Westphalian, hierarchical political and legal order in the extra-European environment

than to Bull‘s ―international society of sovereign states‖ (1977). While in Europe a

structure of norms defined non-intervention and territorial integrity as principles of

interstate relations in order to minimize political and cultural conflicts and the pressure

from sub-state forces and hegemonic powers, the interest in maximization of gains in the

extra-European world created decentralized systems of governance and stimulated the

development of individual rights in colonial settings in North America and the

strengthening of imperial primacy in commercial deals with East Indies‘ elites. The main

consequence was the gradual legitimate acquisition of those elites‘ prerogatives by the

Europeans, the source for the implementation of ―civilization missions‖ Keene 2002, 42-59,

146).

The concept of ―civilization‖ strengthened the orientations towards the sharing of

sovereignty and the protection of individual property rights in the non-Westphalian world

and it also allowed the comprehension, at the first moment, of the functioning of the extra-

European order in the interaction of these concepts with the orientations that govern the

relations between ―civilized‖ and ―non-civilized‖ peoples and the stabilization of the

boundaries between both orders. Through the century, this notion has been seen as a

process towards an ideal conception of social organization that should be pursued by

everyone all over the world. With the indiscriminate violence in Europe during two World

Wars and the association of barbarian behavior with totalitarian and militarist ideologies,

the universal diffusion of ―civilization‖ – social intercourse, respect for the human rights,

socioeconomic progress – occurred simultaneously to the dissemination of tolerance,

particularly with limitations on the use of force and general respect for sovereign equality

and independence of non-European peoples.

This simultaneous propagation has brought internal challenges, such as the search

for equilibrium between state rights and citizen rights, but it has not meant the

abandonment of Westphalian arrangement: the inviolability of state authority has always

been compromised by the possibility of the division of sovereignty, and this propagation

has not promoted innovation when it positioned the ―civilization‖ as an objective of the

international order. According to Keene, there is no general crisis of legal and institutional

structures at the international level at that moment, but the strengthening of contradictions

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that have persisted since the 19th

century. Even though the discriminatory racial method to

solve the paradox between the Westphalian and non-Westphalian orders has been

abandoned in a ―globalized world‖ at the end of the 20th

century and there is a gradual

interpenetration between them, the purposes of the international order are consolidated in

the bifurcated modern thought between the promotion of tolerance and the adoption of the

concept of ―civilization‖, since tolerance has become a general principle and the diffusion

of civilization standards has not been refuted (Keene 2002, 143-145).

Some aspects of the old concept of ―civilization‖, such as the notions of progress

and ―good government‖, remain intact in the 21st century, and this concept is plastic enough

to incorporate the condemnation of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and

terrorist activities. This flexibility guarantees its persistence, so that civilization keeps being

an objective to be pursued, even when constant global transformations take place. Although

Keene says that the malleability of the concept is very important and shows that its capacity

of mutation and adaptation guarantees its persistence as the narrative that indicates the

direction for modernity and a ―world of peace‖, the main factors that justify this flexibility

are marginalized in his work. Keene exposes the institutional and normative structure of

this segmented order where practices of differentiation still operate and the dual thought

between tolerance and civilization still persist. However, he only shows the capacity of

resistance of ―civilization‖ and does not show the defining mechanisms of the mutability of

this concept. The under-theorization about those transforming mechanisms limits Keene‘s

work as an exposition of a narrative of the dynamics of state incorporation in a divided

international order and the selection of mechanisms to solve the internal contradictions of

this order. The author does not examine, for example, aspects that can strengthen the

concept of civilization in the solution of those dilemmas in the context of the expansion of

the political space beyond the boundaries of the state.

To search explanations for this flexibility in IR mainstream is a useless task,

because those perspectives simply neglect the main aspects of civilization in the formation

and the consolidation of the modern international system or take for granted a limited and

static conception of civilization, which makes difficult the understanding of its adaptative

and transformative capacity. Realist perspectives, for example, examine the rationalization

of state actions based on material interests that are not questioned in an ideational vacuum2

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or operate with the notions of ―good government‖ and ―good economy‖ in an opportunist

way, defending that those notions are only legitimating mechanisms of given interests of

self-interested dominant groups3. Realists postulate generalizations about a uniform ―power

politics‖ (Jahn 2000, 7-9), and their abstraction in relation to specific spatiotemporal

developments in the constitution of states and the international system makes the

understanding of the flexibility of the concept of ―civilization‖ difficult, because it neglects

the examination of historically contingent dynamics of stigmatization of difference with the

purpose of the maintenance of sovereign integrity.

Liberal thinkers say that the notions of social and economic progress and fair and

efficient political systems in the civilization notions are important, but they appealed to a

universalizing teleology that made ―free‖ and ―mature‖ subjects everyone who was

submitted to the structures of modern authority. It is very clear in the Kantian regulatory

narratives, that say that universal reason is internalized in the modern subject, capable of

―walking towards a world of peace‖ when he realizes the ―universal within himself‖ –

which segregates the ―immature‖. This shows the constitution of a regime on the ―truth‖

about the world with the main purpose of preserving mechanisms of power, projecting

aspects of the ―modern man‖ to other times and places to construct ―myths of origin‖,

narratives on how human beings converted themselves into ―modern subjects‖ (Walker

2005). Liberal thinkers say that permanent elements of ―civilization‖ are important, but

under theorize the defining factors of its adaptations to specific spatiotemporal

circumstances and see the overcoming of the conflicts between liberals and non-liberals by

indicating reason and morality as solutions for those challenges. Therefore, diversity is

conceived as a problem that must be solved (Jahn 2000, 29).

Constructivist perspectives have the merit to capture the complexity of the dynamic

process of constitution of social identities, developed contingently by the interaction of

domestic and international events (Hall 1999). This interaction justified, for example, the

imperialist race as the expression of a ―national competition‖: great powers saw each other

as threats to their own projection of national-bourgeois collectivity in the transformation of

the periphery, but the nationalist and racist conquest of other societies allowed that self-

identified communities soften the irreconcilable differences of social domestic cleavages

and protect the bourgeois identity from the strengthening of the working class (Hall 1999,

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221-247). When Hall shows the generative and transformative capacity of the agents, the

author examines how transformations at the level of individual and collective identity

generate stimuli for the imperialist sharing and investigates the variations on the cultural

and institutional transmission of civilization models. However, Hall objectifies actors in the

periphery as recipients of systemic change and reifies the marginalization of those actors.

The author is still a hostage of state sovereignty: when he conceives the state as a

historically favored institutional form in the expression of identity, he gives the state

ontological centrality. This institution is seen as the ultimate end of national self-

determination efforts. I will try to develop an alternative perspective that examines the

flexibility of the concept of ―civilization‖, but that does not fall into the trap of reification

of modern rituals of presence and absence in the separation between particular and general,

specifically in the context of the expansion of the political space beyond state borders.

The civilization, the systematic exclusion of difference and the legitimization of

violence

The flexibility of the concept of ―civilization‖ can be examined in the dynamics of

the construction of the political space by the dominant conception of the ―Modern

International‖ (Walker 2005). In this conception, mechanisms that limit, segment and

mobilize multiples forms of power operate. There is also a doubled procedure of exclusion

that constitutes and reproduces the ―Other‖ as a negation of the identity and that also works

as a category of thought that does not allow the identification of processes of segregation

and subordination of difference by the exclusion of what is outside of this ―International‖.

The logic of ―inside / outside‖ – characterized by the establishment of abstract and arbitrary

borders that bring obstacles between identity and difference and a totalizing logic that

marginalize outsiders – was possible as the result of the difference between ―modern‖ and

―non-modern‖, understood in the historical breakup with the ―premodern‖ and the

―postmodern‖ and in the geographical breakup with other peoples that were considered

―wild‖ or ―barbarian‖, that should be submitted to the ―domestication‖ in the modern

structures of authority. The merits of this alternative perspective are the possibility of

9

destabilization of those mutually constitutive categories and the critics to the modern

logocentric practices of binary opposition.

The preservation of the sovereign integrity, for example, was possible by the

establishment of a hierarchy in specific spatiotemporal circumstances, in which the modern

subject is seen as a sovereign interpretative center, a ―privileged and better reality‖ or a

non-questioned presence, and the ―Other‖ is conceived in reference to this center in a

perspective of inferiority, as a negation of this identity and objectified in a process of

production of the external world by the subject. Simultaneously, the ―Modern

International‖ shows a specific spatiotemporal articulation of the relations between

sovereign states as expressions of particular cultures and peoples and of the international

system as an expression of a universally conceived humanity. The incorporation and the

subjectivation of the world to the ―modern world‖ and the exclusion of ―other worlds‖

develop this way. This leads to a specific resolution of political and philosophical options

that must be recognized and to the establishment of clear limits to the capacity of

considering other possibilities. Modernity is constituted as a ―specific cultural form‖,

separated from other specific spatiotemporal forms of life in a second process of exclusion:

an ―outside‖ of the production of modern subjectivity is created, and the modern

suppositions on sovereignty and the international system – characterized by the

marginalization of difference – guarantee its continuity, because they maintain the absence

of non-modern elements (Walker 2005).

This poststructuralist perspective brings out the power and the eventualization. In a

Foucaultian perspective, this approach highlights that discourses of knowledge about

"reason" or "truth" do not refer to foundational concepts, but are created as exercises of

control in specific historical circumstances. By drawing on the Derridean deconstruction

method, it is possible to show how arbitrary and particular the binary structures that

constitute language and thought might be, as well as the possibility of destabilization of

mutually constitutive categories between inside and outside. In a poststructuralist approach,

many communities in which we live are conceived as outcomes of the modern thought –

such as a sovereign state, for example – and operate mechanisms of exclusion. They

converted socially constructed circumstances into natural conditions. In this sense, the

reproduction of borders can be conceived as a political discourse that established what we

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can speak, think and be with the use of "geometries", space divisions that marginalizes

difference. Paradigms like sovereignty discipline the ambiguity, the problems and the

contingency of history in order to differentiate and to standardize the place where it

operates (Campbell 1995). So there is no ―natural‖ community because there is no "natural"

foundation of those social groups and associations. They are not stable concepts, because

they lack a pre-established ontological significance, and can be understood as

intersubjective constructions, effects of discursive and symbolic practices. Their authority

can be conceived as a political performance and it performs with the objective of the

preservation of the ontological and practical status of those communities (Weber 1995).

By adopting this perspective, we can see, for example, that the "foreign policy" –

with lowercase initials – of a state can be seen as a political performance that produces

borders and hierarchies. In this sense, instead of seeing frozen and ahistorical borders, the

poststructuralist perspective can focus its attention on the creation and the consolidation of

boundaries that constitute the modern subject, the state, the international system and the

Modern International. We can theorize about "foreign policy" as a political practice that

turns into "external" some events, actors and circumstances, localized in opposition to a

supposed pre-given and uncontested social entity, but that is actually constituted by the

practices which also create the inside, the domestic dimension and the state itself. It is a

part of a diverse process that inserts the man into an organization of inside and outside,

which sees the dangers in terms of threats that emerge from other places. The challenges

and the dilemmas of international politics are translated as threats to a supposedly pre-given

and well-defined identity such as the state. The "Foreign Policy" – with uppercase initials –

has its base on the state, reproduces the formation of identity created by "foreign policy"

and contains challenges to identity. It is linked to the reproduction of identity constitution

and the containment of challenges to this identity (Campbell 1997).

The authorization to segregate at the borders of the modern subject, the sovereign

state, the states system and modernity itself reproduces not only the conception of the

―Other‖ as a negation of the ―Self‖, but the exclusion of alternative way to the modern form

of production of subjectivity in specific historical and spatial circumstances. It is possible to

understand the flexibility and the consequent resistance of the concept of ―civilization‖ as a

modern regulative ambition: when it disciplines subjectivity and limits the identity in

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particular spatiotemporal contexts, the conception of the ―Modern International‖ allows the

fixation and the reproduction of civilization patterns and the creation of differentiated

spaces inside itself. It also specifies what the ―civilized society‖ can be, talk and think. In

the dynamics of the systematic exclusion of difference, the civilization notions are located

as an ideal of social organization. While the main elements of social and economic progress

and ―good government‖ are preserved, those notions can be adapted according to the

particularities of each space and time in order to give effect to hierarchies that allocate

difference spatiotemporally and guarantee the stability and the integrity of the dominant

identity. Concomitantly, non-modern forms of production of subjectivity are isolated in

order to allow that the identity of ―civilized‖ modern peoples strengthens its self-knowledge

and its unity in relation to its own understanding of what objectified difference must be.

The effects of this procedure of double exclusion are the development of a linear

interpretation of history – which locates ―non-civilized‖ or ―less civilized‖ communities in

a different time from the ―civilized‖ – and the positioning of diversity in an external space

to the frontiers of ―civilization‖. Organized in ―stages of development‖ (Jahn 2000, 118-

122), the social and cultural difference – labeled as ―dysfunctional‖ or ―barbarian‖ – is

situated in marginalized positions in universal ―scales‖ of proximity to the ―civilized‖

political and social organization. The resulting undertaking is the implementation of a

totalizing project of progressive assimilation in the modern structures of authority by

multiple cultural and political strategies, in which those ―barbarians‖ or ―rogue‖ elements

are seen as potential receivers of the cultural elements from the ―civilized‖ societies. When

this categorization is naturalized, the solution of dilemmas and contradictions in the

interaction with difference is reached, and justifications for civilization action on this

diversity, seen as ―inferior‖, are created. Authority and the use of violence with

mechanisms that build unequal relations between distinct communities are legitimated.

In the contemporary world, many leaders show that they think it is necessary to

discipline terrorist organizations and states that harbor them or develop weapons of mass

destruction. In this context, the defense of social and economic advance, ―good

government‖ and human rights is consolidated in the flexible concept of ―civilization‖, but

the concept is adapted with the strengthening of democratic values and the aversion to

terrorism and incorporates the nonproliferation efforts in a context of redefinition of the

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limits of political life. The spillover of political space where authority is implemented

beyond the state borders provoked the destabilization of the rigid demarcation between

domestic and international spheres. However, this transformation of borders did not

suppose that their role as a regulatory ideal has been overcome: the artificially determined

limits were flexible enough to define authority on space and demarcate antagonisms, even

though those borders are not where they used to be. The modern discourse limits the

perception that, even if there is engagement with diversity beyond the national borders,

practices of differentiation and segmentation are still reproduced, particularly based in the

adapted versions of civilization patterns. Even if there are transitions from state

particularisms to a supposed unified conception of ―globalized politics‖ by the concept of

―modern International‖, a metaphysics centered in the presence and the absence still

operates and the existence of the ―International‖ in its entirety is marginalized (Walker

2005, 6). The flexibility of the concept of civilization follows the flexibilization of the

borders of the ―International‖, solving the contradictions in facing new threats and

legitimating the application of mass violence.

The growing complexity of this violence appears in distinct ways in the relations

with difference, such as the negation of this diversity, which transforms violence into a

necessary instrument in the establishment of limits that marginalize ―rogue‖ actors; the

mediation with difference, which allows a gap for exceptionalism when certain forms of

life are categorized as non-acceptable; the authorization of diversity, when supposed

―freedom‖ is conditioned to the authority of the state; and the use of a linear and

universalizing interpretation of history, that submit subjects to the authorities constituted in

the ―Modern International‖. Despite its obsolescence in its traditional ways, violence

persists and legitimates in multiple ways in a context of suspension of rights and

distinctions between states in relation to the prerogative to intervene. Many of those

interventions have the main purpose of forced inclusion of cultural difference in the

standards of liberal and democratic society in order to promote peace and stability in the

international system (Jahn 2000, 149).

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The expansion of the “civilization”: the legitimization of violence in Bush Doctrine

The global spillover of U.S. political space after the end of the Cold War is the most

explicit example of the destabilization of the borders between domestic and international

spheres and the reconfiguration of the limits of the International. As the practices of

differentiation are alive in this expansive process, the adoption of a flexible definition of

homeland security – which supposes the cessation of rights and the possibility of

intervention in problematic spots all around the world – is justified by the necessity to

defend U.S. integrity in the exercise of authority on global space in opposition to non-

liberal political systems that, in U.S. leaders‘ vision, represent threats to the stability of

international order. Even though the extinction of bipolar order has given the U.S. the status

of ―winning power‖ that could redefine the borders of International and a more ―benign‖

international order was built right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, new polarizations

emerge. Particularly after the September 11th

terrorist attacks – characterized by U.S.

leaders as ―attacks on civilization by barbarians‖ (Bowden 2002) –, new regulatory ideals

emerge, such as the effort against non-state actors that destabilize order and are not limited

by international rules – such as terrorist organizations – and the condemnation of actions

taken by ―rogue states‖, which defy universal security regimes, specially nonproliferation

regimes.

In Bush administration‘s view, ―rogue states‖ like North Korea, Iran and Saddam

Hussein‘s Iraq – labeled by the president as parts of an ―Axis of Evil‖ in 2002 – could not,

differently from the Soviet Union, be contained only by the threat of nuclear retaliation. At

that time, the members of U.S. Executive perceived that rogue states‘ leaders were more

prone to accept risks, even if those risks involved the sacrifice of lives of their population

and the wealth of their nations. Besides, they think that the basis for success of previous

initiatives – a mutually understood diplomatic vocabulary and permanent communication

channels – is very difficult to establish with rogue states, which widens the possibilities of

wrong calculations and misunderstandings, and that those potential adversaries hope that

14

the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems can limit a U.S.

intervention in regional conflicts (Kartchner 2002, 274-275).

Terrorist organizations – many of which are harbored and financed by rogue states –

express their rejection to U.S. authority and have a demoralizing effect on Western liberal

governments, showing their inability to protect their own citizens and provoking a value

shock when they attack innocent people. The preoccupation with this threat is motivated

not only by the corrosion of social and political tissue, but also by the fact that the

exclusion of private agents from the privilege of using armed force is one of the main

aspects in the constitution of contemporary international system: even though the borders of

modernity are redefined, the state has the monopoly on the legitimate use of force, that not

only guarantees its survival, but also secures the continuity of international order. When

they use social and political violence, terrorist organizations are criminalized and put in the

category of ―evil doers‖ (Nogueira 2003, 94-98), and rogue states that finance and protect

those organizations also are because they harbor and help groups that destabilize this order.

When it questions the efficacy of U.S. institutions and the values of its society and

defies globally the authority of the superpower in a widened political space, the diversity

represented by rogue states and terrorist organizations is translated into a threat to a

―civilized‖ identity, a ―danger‖ that emerges from external spaces categorized as ―wild‖ or

―barbarian‖. In this context, the strengthening of the notions of progress and the defense of

human rights in the concept of ―civilization‖, the explicit condemnation of terrorist actions

and the repudiation of WMD proliferation reinforce the opposition between liberal and

democratic principles that characterize U.S. society and radical and authoritarian

philosophies of rogue states and terrorist groups. The understanding of these ―threats‖ as

the negation of sovereign ―civilized‖ U.S. identity has the double function of strengthening

the integrity of U.S. society and marginalizing alternative ways to the ―civilized way‖ in

relation to the production of subjectivity.

According to ex-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, open borders and societies

facilitate terrorist attacks, and the ownership of WMD by rogue states has the main purpose

of coercion and intimidation. When they searched those systems instead of promoting the

well-being of their own populations, those states were labeled as ―dangerous‖, ―erratic‖ and

―cruel‖. Members of Bush administration reiterated that the leaders of those states

15

neglected their populations, seen by U.S. leaders as ―hostages of their own leaders‖. In the

name of the defense of ―freedom‖ and of the protection of citizens that were ―victims‖ of

―tyranny‖ and ―oppressive governments‖, violence is legitimated to guarantee the

protection of populations and institutions of the U.S. and their allies.

In light of the growing complexity in the management of international security with

those new challenges, the effects of this legitimization were clear in the insertion of greater

flexibility to U.S. strategic planning in documents like the Quadrennial Defense Review

(2001) and the Nuclear Posture Review (2002), particularly with the strengthening of

strategic cooperation with Russia and other great powers in the fight against those threats

and the greater emphasis on homeland security, preparation to deal with ―asymmetric

threats‖ and better capacities – nuclear weapons integrated to non-nuclear offensive

systems, active and passive defenses and revitalized infrastructure to maintain these

systems. In National Security Strategy (2002), Bush administration made clear the intention

to deploy preemptive actions based on the right of self-defense and, in a secret appendix to

the National Security Presidential Directive 17 (2002), reinforced the importance of

preemptive attacks against states or terrorist groups that were almost acquiring WMD

(Kimball & Kucia 2003).

The Iraqi non-acquiescence to past UN resolutions on disarmament, its supposed

links with terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the oppressive character of the

political leadership widened suspicions on Iraqi real intentions, in a way that the urgent

removal of this government was seen by U.S. leaders as a legitimate way to preserve the

stability in the system. Previous events showed that intervention could be necessary,

because Iraq could not be trusted in other occasions. For example, at the end of the Iran-

Iraq war (1980-1988), Iraq had a foreign debt of 80 billion dollars and neither could nor

wanted to dismantle their war machine. President Saddam Hussein had the intention to

expand its position in the Arab world. In July 1990, Kuwait has been accused of causing

the low oil prices, selling more than the quota set by OPEC. Iraq wanted to expand its shore

to the Persian Gulf, and its leader claimed that the establishment of the borders of the Arab

world, made by Europeans in the early twentieth century, had been arbitrary. Moreover, the

country had a debt of about 10 billion dollars with Kuwait and did not see how to pay this,

specially after the war with Iran. Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait of having drawn oil on

16

the wells of South Rumaillah, claiming that part of that oil reserves were in Iraqi territory.

Iraq has thus decided to invade Kuwait in 1990. Then U.S. President George Bush sent

troops to the Persian Gulf, and the UN Security Council imposed an economic boycott,

unanimously condemning the invasion. In response to the embargo and military

mobilization, Iraq proclaimed its annexation of Kuwait and ordered the arrest of foreigners

living there to use them as human shields against any threat of attack.

It must be remembered, however, that relations between U.S. and Iraq were not

always hostile. During the 1980s, after the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis in

Tehran, the U.S. saw Saddam Hussein as a useful regional counterweight to the Ayatollah

Khomeini in the region. When Iraq launched the war against Iran in 1980, the Reagan

administration provided Saddam Hussein with weapons and money. Relations were in

crisis in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and the UN imposed economic sanctions. This

conflict has promoted the rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria and the mobilization

of troops in Saudi Arabia against Iraq and the alliance between the U.S. and the Soviet

Union in a military conflict. As the crisis grew, rising oil prices increased U.S. pressure for

the UN to authorize the use of force. The insistence of Saddam Hussein on linking the

withdrawal from Kuwait to the creation of a Palestinian state revived the intifada in the

territories occupied by Israel. After the various failed attempts of a diplomatic resolution,

the UN authorized the use of force if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait until January 15,

1991. The armed conflict in the Persian Gulf began the next day. An air attack started the

"Desert Storm" Operation. Saddam Hussein tried to bring a character of holy war to the

conflict, calling on Iraqis to wage "the mother of all battles", but the religious and

ideological fervor was not enough to win the military superiority of the coalition. In late

February, the coalition forces invaded Kuwait and southern Iraq, without meeting

resistance. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered, and Bush announced victory and

ceasefire.

At the end of conflict with foreign forces, Iraq descended into civil war: rebellion of

the Kurds in the north, the Shi‘ites in the south and rival factions of the Ba'ath Party in the

capital. Moreover, after the first Gulf War, Iraq under Saddam Hussein would have violated

both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Biological Weapons Convention,

according to the UN inspectors. The country had already used weapons of mass destruction:

17

during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi troops used chemical weapons including mustard gas and

sarin nerve agent against Iranian soldiers. They also launched such weapons on towns in

the neighboring country and used them against the Kurds in the north. After the war, the

Security Council has consolidated economic sanctions against Iraq, establishing a buffer

zone for the Kurds in the north and the Shi‘ites in the south. It also established international

inspections of weapons to prevent Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his arsenal of weapons

of mass destruction. Then U.S. president Bill Clinton tried to contain Saddam Hussein with

a mix of sanctions and weapons inspections, but concluded that the Iraqi president had to

leave power. The administration of George W. Bush took this issue especially after

September 11, saying that Saddam Hussein had a history of attacking its neighbors, used

chemical weapons, supported terrorist groups, challenged the resolutions of the UN

Security Council and sought to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq composed, along with Iran

and North Korea, what Bush called the "Axis of Evil." These states, in his opinion, showed

that international standards of conduct were not sufficient to stop the inappropriate

behavior. Even though there was no evidence that Iraq was in the imminence to attack U.S.

forces – action that would justify a preemptive action –, Bush administration used the lack

of precision in the doctrine of preemption in the identification of the level of ―imminence of

threat‖ and deployed a preventive action labeled as preemptive to explore the existing

strategic advantages. This administration wanted to end Iraqi capacity to perpetrate threats

and eliminate its motivation to conduct these threats by changing the regime (Freedman

2003, 106).

The main elements of the Bush doctrine reflected the hegemonic view of his

administration, evident specially after the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Daalder &

Lindsay 2005, 115-121), such as the preservation of power and leadership in the country,

the focus on rogue states and terrorist organizations and the need to act ―preemptively‖. For

members of the Bush administration, the promise of massive retaliation against nations

means nothing against terrorist networks without citizens to defend, nor the U.S. could rely

on agreements signed by states they considered as "tyrants." Bush defended the readiness

for preemptive action – the state would act against an imminent threat before they were

fully defined – based on the idea that, the greater the threat, the greater was the risk of

inaction. So the use of proactive actions in ensuring self-defense would be more attractive.

18

The president said he would work to get international support for military actions, but the

country would not hesitate to act alone if necessary to exercise the right of self-defense

(Daalder & Lindsay 2005, 119-121). The National Security Strategy of 2002 placed the

American power in the center of the strategy and signaled that it stemmed from a

combination of unparalleled military strength with the incorporation of freedom and

democracy. The goals would be to build good relations with major powers and to extend

the peace encouraging open societies on every continent. The essence of the strategy was to

use the unprecedented power to remake the world in America's image. Its nucleus would

defeat the "enemies of freedom" based on the idea that the core values of democracy and

free enterprise would prevail so that the threats were eliminated (Daalder & Lindsay 2005,

121-124).

In this approach, the Bush strategy represented an innovation less in its goals than in

the form proposed to meet them. The doctrine of preemption has become the focal point of

discussions with a view of the effective abandonment of the consensus that put deterrence

in the heart of American foreign policy. Experts have criticized this doctrine because it

would have made public something that was an option for along time. As a declaratory

policy, preemption would tend to leave the door open for others who would claim the same

right. Other countries could use the same argument to cover up their national security

objectives and have a pretext for aggression. One of the most controversial parts was the

conceptual confusion between preemptive – started when the country is in danger of attack

– and preventive war – launched before the state is the imminent threat, seeking to stop the

threat before it appears. Much of the Bush rhetoric – including the rationale for the Iraq war

– was consistent with the notion of preventive, not preemptive war. The latter was

considered by international law as a legitimate form of self-defense, while the former is not.

As the definition of "imminent threat" was inaccurate, it opened up space for the blurring of

the boundary between preemption and prevention. Moreover, a number of practical

concerns arose due to the possibility that the preemptive use of force could precipitate the

use of weapons of mass destruction by opponents Daalder & Lindsay 2005, 124-126).

Dockrill says that ―[p]reemptive attack can be defined as an attack that supposedly

takes place ‗at some point between the moment when an enemy decides to attack—or more

precisely, is perceived to be about to attack—and when the attack is actually launched‘—

19

the case for the ‗anticipatory self-defense‘ scenario. As opposed to preemption,

‗prevention‘ or preventive war ‗intends to deal with a problem before it becomes a crisis‘,

rather than ‗in the heat of a crisis‘ ‖ (2006, 346). The author also says that, if the Bush

Doctrine was implemented selectively and only when the enemy was not strong enough to

resist, it would focus strictly not on preemption, but on prevention. Additionally, if

preemption could not be justified in the face of a real imminent threat – such as the nuclear

program of North Korea, for example –, the utility of preemption could be problematic

(Dockrill 2006, 351). As those two terms could be subject to wide interpretation and be

used almost interchangeably by some leaders, the legitimacy of the use of force could be

revolutionized, because, with the emphasis on preemption, the Bush Doctrine would not

necessarily go against the basic principles about such use, but could act in a preventive

manner (Heisbourg 2003, 79). However, since the U.S. argued that the anticipatory self-

defense would justify preventive policies, the adoption of a strategy that incorporates

preventive war would set an undesirable precedent, undermining normative restraints on

when and how states could use force (Kegley Jr. & Raymond 2003: 385-391).

Although after Saddam Hussein‘s defeat no link between this leader and al Qaeda

was completely proved and Iraq did not have WMD, the border between prevention and

preemption was blurred in the light of authorization of new forms of intervention, based in

the necessity to ―civilize‖ rogue states and limit their potential intentions and capacities.

Moral and humanitarian considerations were evocated to legitimate action, and it was

possible to apply violence to preserve the stability of U.S. political space in expansion.

Although the U.S. is still resistant to an attack in Iran because of the greater probability of

retaliation, the 2003 military action on Iraq allowed the still incipient implementation of a

―traditional solution‖ to discipline ―barbarians‖: a new project of representative sovereign

―civilized‖ state that can diffuse liberal principles in the Middle East. When this state is

reconstructed, the borders of Modern International are redefined and strengthened.

Final considerations

Operation Iraqi Freedom removed Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist regime from

power in 2003, and since then the country became a battlefield in the global war against

20

terrorism. Former Saddam Hussein‘s supporters, who conducted attacks on coalition forces,

allied tactically and operationally with foreign and Islamic extremists, some linked to Ansar

al-Islam and al-Qaeda. The line between insurgency and terrorism became more subtle, and

attacks on civilians were increasingly common. Extremists linked to al-Qaeda claimed

responsibility for explosions of car bombs, including those that arose in the International

Committee of the Red Cross. After the attacks of the Coalition to the base of Ansar al-Islam

in northern Iraq, members of the group fled and regrouped in Iran. Many returned to Iraq

and acted in anticoalition operations. Other terrorist groups maintained presence in Iraq as

the Mujahadin-e-Khalq, which received military support from Saddam Hussein, and the

Kurdistan People's Congress, which promoted attacks against Turks in Turkey, despite the

discourse of non-violence.

In order to guarantee the integrity of its enlarged political space, the U.S. tries to

―civilize‖ rogue states, in part based on the supposition that international terrorists could

not survive without the protection of those states, and to territorialize the fight against new

threats trying to circumscribe the world to the Modern International, as we can see in the

fight against Islamic extremists associated to al Qaeda in Iraq. At the same time, the

concept of "civilization" was flexible enough to prevail as a modern regulative ambition in

the context of redefinition of global boundaries. This concept was plastic enough to fulfill

the historically contingent necessity of spatiotemporal localization of difference to preserve

the integrity of the US identity and its self-knowledge in relation to its own understanding

of what the Other must be.

In the case of the enlargement of U.S. political space beyond its frontiers, the

consolidation of the notions of progress and "good government" in the concept of

"civilization" – that is seen as opposed to "tyranny", "radicalism" and ―irrationality‖ – came

from the necessity to protect the cohesion of U.S. identity. The right to intervene in order to

protect innocent citizens from their government in Iraq was legitimated, and the separation

between preventive and preemptive action was blurred in Bush Doctrine. The ethos of

survival keeps conferring modern political communities power and control over their

relationship with outsiders (Nogueira 2003, 97), independently on where the borders of this

Modern International are situated.

21

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1 ―Productive power, by contrast, is the constitution of all social subjects with various social powers through systems of

knowledge and discursive practices of broad and general social scope. Conceptually, the move is away from structures,

per se, to systems of signification and meaning - which are structured, but not themselves structures - , and to networks of

social forces perpetually shaping one another. In that respect, attention to productive power looks beyond - or is post-

structures‖ (Barnett & Duvall 2005, 55). 2 See, for example, Waltz (1979). 3 See, for example, Morgenthau (1967).