Hegemony or Survival

Chomsky argues in this 2003 work that the United States government has pursued a grand imperial strategy for more than half a century, seeking permanent global dominance through military force. He contends that this drive for hegemony poses an existential threat to human survival, particularly as weapons of mass destruction proliferate and the militarization of space advances.

Chomsky opens with biologist Ernst Mayr's speculation that "higher intelligence" may not be favored by natural selection, framing the book's central question: whether the human species will use its intellectual capacities to destroy itself. As 2003 began, multiple indicators suggested this concern was realistic: A near-miss nuclear war from 1962 had just been revealed, the Bush administration had blocked UN efforts to ban the militarization of space, and preparations for war on Iraq proceeded despite unprecedented worldwide opposition. He identifies two "superpowers" on the planet: the United States and world public opinion (4).

The book traces elite efforts to control public opinion in democratic societies. Chomsky cites journalist Walter Lippmann's call for "the manufacture of consent" (6) and public relations pioneer Edward Bernays's description of propaganda as "the very essence of the democratic process" (8). These impulses, he argues, were institutionalized through vast propaganda industries, exemplified by the Reagan administration's Office of Public Diplomacy, which one official described as "a huge psychological operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in denied or enemy territory" (8).

Beyond its borders, Chomsky argues, the US relied on more direct means. He examines the Reagan administration's declared "war on terror" in Central America during the 1980s. In Nicaragua, where the Sandinista rebels had overthrown the US-backed Somoza dictatorship, Washington subjected the country to international terrorism that left it in ruins. In other Central American countries, US-equipped security forces carried out even worse atrocities, since there was no independent army to defend the population. A Jesuit conference concluded that the resulting "culture of terror" (10) served to domesticate the expectations of the majority.

Chomsky characterizes the September 2002 National Security Strategy as a declaration of permanent global hegemony. He distinguishes between preemptive war, which might fall within international law, and the Bush administration's doctrine of preventive war: the use of force to eliminate an imagined or invented threat. International law specialist Richard Falk judged the Iraq war to be "a Crime against Peace of the sort for which surviving German leaders were indicted, prosecuted, and punished at the Nuremberg trials" (13). Chomsky argues the basic principles trace back to World War II-era planning, when US strategists concluded the country would seek "to hold unquestioned power" in the postwar world.

The invasion of Iraq, Chomsky contends, was designed to establish preventive war as a new norm. A propaganda campaign launched in September 2002 depicted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as an imminent danger and insinuated his responsibility for the September 11 attacks. Within weeks, roughly 60 percent of Americans regarded Saddam as an immediate threat, and by March 2003, almost half believed he was personally involved in 9-11. After the invasion, it was publicly acknowledged that Iraq had served as "the petri dish" (21) for the new doctrine.

Chomsky documents Washington's contempt for the UN Security Council, noting that Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Council it could "always go off and have other discussions" (32) while justifications shifted constantly. He traces broader hostility to international law: The US rejected key provisions of UN ceasefire Resolution 687, including its call for eliminating weapons of mass destruction from the Middle East, a coded reference to Israel's nuclear arsenal.

He challenges the celebrated "new era of humanitarian intervention" in the 1990s. On East Timor, he argues there was no humanitarian intervention: When President Bill Clinton informed the Indonesian military in September 1999 that Washington would no longer support their crimes, they immediately withdrew, demonstrating that US backing could have been rescinded at any point during the occupation. On Kosovo, he argues the NATO bombing preceded the mass ethnic cleansing rather than responding to it, with NATO commander Wesley Clark acknowledging the Serbian reaction was "entirely predictable" (57). Meanwhile, US arms transfers to Turkey in 1997 exceeded the combined total for the entire Cold War period before Turkey's counterinsurgency campaign against its Kurdish population, and by 1999 Colombia replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US military aid amid widespread atrocities by government-linked forces.

A substantial portion of the book examines the 1962 Cuban missile crisis as a case study in leaders' willingness to risk catastrophe for credibility. Chomsky reports that the world came "one word away" from nuclear war when Soviet submarine officer Vasili Arkhipov blocked an order to fire nuclear-armed torpedoes. President John F. Kennedy refused to publicly commit to withdrawing US nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey or to pledge not to invade Cuba, even though he privately acknowledged most people would consider this "a very fair trade" (78). The crisis grew directly out of Operation Mongoose, "the centerpiece of American policy toward Cuba from late 1961" (83), which included a timetable for overthrowing the Cuban government. The real motive for Washington's hostility was Cuba's "successful defiance" (90), its existence as an example of independent development that might inspire others.

Chomsky draws a parallel with the US war against Nicaragua, which the World Court ruled in 1986 constituted the "unlawful use of force." The US rejected the ruling and escalated its campaign until Nicaragua became the poorest country in the hemisphere. Reagan-era officials involved in these operations, including John Negroponte, Elliott Abrams, and Otto Reich, were later appointed to positions in the Bush II administration without mainstream commentary on their records.

The Bush II administration, Chomsky argues, followed a domestic "script" replicating the Reagan era: massive military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy, creating deficits that would force cuts to social programs. The Iraq war was undertaken with full awareness it might increase terrorism and WMD proliferation. CIA director George Tenet reported that the probability of Iraqi-linked terrorism would rise to "pretty high" in the event of a US attack. These risks were considered insignificant compared to the primary goals: maintaining political power at home and enhancing US control over the world's energy resources.

Chomsky documents contempt for democracy during the mobilization for war. In countries designated "New Europe" for supporting the US, public opposition often exceeded that in France and Germany, dismissed as "Old Europe." Turkey's elected government was berated when it followed the wishes of 95 percent of its population in refusing to allow an attack from its borders; Pentagon planner Paul Wolfowitz condemned the Turkish military for not overriding the democratic government.

Turning to the Middle East, Chomsky examines Israel's role as a US strategic asset, tracing the alliance from 1958 through the 1967 war, which destroyed Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and the nonaligned movement, a bloc of states outside both Cold War power camps. He argues Israel chose confrontation over peace when it rejected Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's full peace offer in 1971 in favor of territorial expansion. Chomsky contends the US has consistently blocked diplomatic settlement, and describes the Camp David 2000 proposals as dividing the West Bank into cantons comparable to the Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa, fragmented enclaves denying genuine sovereignty.

Chomsky centers a chapter on the principle of universality: applying to oneself the same standards applied to others. He contends that official US definitions of terrorism were abandoned because, applied consistently, they would designate the US a leading terrorist state. If the bombing of Afghanistan constituted a just war, he argues, then Cuba and Nicaragua had far stronger grounds for attacking the United States.

The final chapters address threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and the militarization of space. Chomsky describes US Space Command plans for "full spectrum dominance" and argues that missile defense is widely recognized as an offensive weapon. The Bush administration rejected enforcement mechanisms for the Biological Weapons Convention and opened the door to new nuclear weapons, prompting warnings of cascading proliferation through China, India, and Pakistan.

Chomsky concludes by identifying "two trajectories in current history: one aiming toward hegemony, acting rationally within a lunatic doctrinal framework as it threatens survival; the other dedicated to the belief that 'another world is possible'" (236). He finds grounds for cautious hope in the evolution of a human rights culture and global justice movements. In the 2004 afterword, he reports that the invasion increased the threat of terror, with Middle East expert Fawaz Gerges calling it "simply unbelievable how the war has revived the appeal of a global jihadi Islam that was in real decline after 9-11" (240). The collapse of all official pretexts led to a revised National Security Strategy lowering the bar to aggression: from requiring evidence of WMD to requiring only "intent and ability" to develop them. A Gallup poll in Baghdad found that only 1 percent of respondents believed the US invaded to bring democracy.