The war in Iraq has introduced new dimensions of thinking on international security issues. These can be summarized as the "four P's and one D": the president, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, pre-emption, the People's Republic of China and "decapitation."
US President George W. Bush's personality and his understanding of policy-making are the primary reasons behind the US-led attack on Iraq. Bush's successors may not follow his unilateralist tendencies as a pivotal principle in handling international relations. His unilateral actions have created a rift in US-European relations.
In the Iraq war, NATO has failed to repeat its 1999 action of bypassing the UN Security Council to bomb Kosovo. The second Gulf War has caused NATO to split into two confrontational groups headed by France on the one hand and the US on the other, forcing other member states to take a stance.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration modified its national security strategy. Reasoning that retaliating only after the nation has been attacked by terrorist organizations amounts to suicide rather than to self-defense, the government has developed the concept of pre-emption, to be used when it considers it necessary. The US-led war on Iraq represents the implementation of this idea.
One reason for the US attack on Iraq is the need to prevent the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, as well as to prevent chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. After the US-Iraq war, the international community will tighten its control over the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The US will also adopt tougher measures to deal with North Korea's development of such weapons. But it is not likely to attack North Korea.
During the Korean War, China was condemned as an invader. In the first Gulf War, it abstained from voting when the Security Council authorized the use of military force. This time, while the US was planning to attack Iraq, China kept a low profile, but stepped back behind the anti-war front. It had no intention of using its veto power, but nor did it publicly toe the France-Russia-Germany line to form an anti-war alliance. Most nations have taken up a position similar to that of Beijing, rather than strongly opposing the war as France and Germany have done.
China's reluctance to offend the US does not mean that US-China relations will necessarily improve greatly, but it does suggest that they will develop in a direction that is favorable to Beijing. Faced with security problems on US soil, reconstruction in Iraq and the nuclear threats of North Korea, Bush will refrain from viewing China as the primary rival to the US.
The goal of the US war on Iraq is to oust the Saddam Hussein regime, not to destroy Iraqi military power. Shortly before the ultimatum deadline passed, the Bush administration had acquired intelligence on the locations of high-ranking Iraqi leaders, including Saddam. It then decided to attack with F-117 warplanes and Tomahawk cruise missiles soon after the ultimatum expired in an attempt to get the war over and done with quickly by adopting a "decapitation" strategy to minimize casualties among the innocent.
The US Department of Defense's Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, released in July 2000, predicted that China will adopt a similar head-hunting strategy against Taiwan.
One important lesson to be learned by Taiwan from the US-Iraq war should be that of the need to protect and strengthen Taiwan's policy-making and command centers.
Lin Cheng-yi is director of the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica.
Translated by Jackie Lin
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs