America seems intent on repeating the mistakes made by the great powers of Europe since medieval times which, believing that security was scarce, initiated policies that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Modern great powers have been overrun by unprovoked aggressors only twice, but they have been overrun by provoked aggressors six times, who have responded to the victim's fantasy-driven defensive bellicosity. Wilhelmine and Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Napoleonic France and Austria-Hungary were all destroyed by dangers that they themselves provoked with their efforts to escape from exaggerated or imaginary threats to their safety. This is a slippery slope that this Administration is already well down thanks to its inheritance from Clinton and, judging from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's comments in Munich last week-end, it is determined to keep sliding downwards.
Powell is the only one in the new Administration who has both the perception and the authority to start to challenge it. But it is not yet clear if he wants to, or if he does whether it would cut any ice with Bush. It would be a fight for the soul and sense of America.
Jonathan Power is a freelance columnist based in london.
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