U.S.-led crusade will disrupt the balance of global forces

Vladimir Degoyev Moscow State Institute of International Relations RIA Novosti Moscow

Many people see Sept. 11 as an epoch-making date in modern history but only time will show if this is so because the historic nature of events depends on both external and internal features.

The White House has a clear view of the situation: America was attacked and must reply to the attack harshly, effectively and on a global scale, so as to ensure its safety once and for good. A part of the U.S. political elite probably sees Sept. 11 as a Godsend, a unique chance to perpetuate the global leadership of the U.S. destined to lead the global struggle against terrorism. The U.S. clearly intends to walk by this unnaturally direct route. But nobody knows for sure where it may take it.

On the other hand, the Sept. 11 tragedy, which happened when the U.S. was at the peak of its might, may point to the beginning of U.S. decline. By proclaiming the war on international terrorism, Washington assumed responsibility of an incredible scale and unpredictable duration. It will call for maximum mobilisation of economic, military, political and moral- psychological resources of the country, which cannot be unlimited by definition.

Meanwhile, terrorism as a rational -- in a way -- method of attaining certain goals will exist for as long as these goals and the hope of attaining them exist. In other words, forever. This means that the U.S. may eventually have to pay with the loss of its status of the global leader for its leading role in this Sisyphean struggle against the evil of terrorism. It is not this fact that is frightening but the forerunners to it, meaning Washington's desperate attempts to confirm its omnipotence. It would be hardly reasonable (although this is done frequently) to rely on high technologies as the universal method of maintaining the superpower status. Terrorists are quick at learning to use high technologies.

The all-out war against terrorism will inevitably result in mega-high "incidental losses" and cannot be won in principle, not unless you are prepared to wipe out half the world's population in the process. The U.S.-led crusade against terrorism will result in chaos, absurdity and escalation of violence. And it will most probably lead to a change in the global balance of forces fraught with a third world war.

International terrorism is no longer a phenomenon but routine. It has become a fact of everyday life but this does not rule out the need to fight it. On the contrary, this makes the struggle, although long and difficult, a vital necessity. The terrorists themselves prompt us the rules of the game. If they unite in secret, corporate or transnational organisations, we need similar organisations to combat them. At least this promises more chances for success than the creation of a coalition of "righteous" states spearheaded against "evil" countries.

A similar method should be used in the struggle against terrorism in Russia. In other words, we need not carpet bombing but professional special operations with pinpoint strikes and minimum incidental losses. It is axiomatic, though, that military force is good in fighting terrorism but absolutely not enough in combating its sources.

The speed, scale and depth of evolutionary changes underway in the world are unprecedented and it would be extremely unwise to spur this process on because humankind cannot keep pace with it as it is.

Personal Responsibility of Political Leaders The price of political decisions and personal responsibility of leaders has grown immeasurably in the past few years. Not only unwise and unsubstantiated but also well thought-out actions can nevertheless have dramatic results. The trouble with the international situation is that consistent efforts to control it may be fraught with the inadvertent loss of control.

And the U.S., which wants to use its unique superpower status to organise and strengthen a new self-styled world system, should know this better than any other country. While pursuing above all its national interests, the Americans are objectively confronting chaotic and destabilising trends on the global and regional scale. This may be a far from bad way of preventing the world from chaotic Brownian movement in the absence of the second policeman to the world (the Soviet Union). But the tragic thing is that Washington entertains the illusion that it can establish and even "institutionalise" its global dictatorship under the pretext of fighting terrorism. From the viewpoint of logic, this illusion is fraught with the muscle overheating that felled the Soviet Union.

Of course, the U.S. still has a sufficient margin of safety and hence will hardly follow in the footsteps of the Soviet Union and its model of blitz dissolution of the empire. But it is facing a different kind of danger: the American man in the street and the elite are quickly heading for a self-induced fit of isolationism provoked by awareness of the unbearable weight of global domination. If the U.S. goes to another kind of extremes and retreats to itself, this will have extremely negative consequences on the planetary scale. Because the international mega-political situation does not tolerate vacuum.

This is why, although the public outrage at Washington's current behaviour may be justified, its rapid and complete refusal to bear the weight of global responsibility would be worse still. The world order built around the U.S. must and will be destroyed but this should be done gradually while other great powers would build up their ability and readiness to take regional obligations over from the U.S. The recent experience of the Soviet Union is a convincing proof of the destructiveness of revolutionary change in giant socio-economic and political structures.

In a way, the U.S. is doing Russia's work now because Russia does not have -- and nobody knows if it ever will have -- the strength, money or desire to do it. Kremlin's tolerance of the U.S. presence in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus is a kind of payment for this. But this cannot and must not last long.

Russia should help the U.S. to reduce the area of its domination with minimum damage to global security. This means that it should act extremely cautiously and avoid making clumsy and jerky movements. Instead, it should do its best to turn the weakening of the U.S. might and the restoration of Russia's strength into communicating vessels, to prevent the appearance of a vacuum of influence in the former Soviet Union and beyond it.

Russia that has overcome the effects of shock and become stable, predictable and democratic should suit all reasonable countries in the West and the East. The creation of a balanced world order is unthinkable without it but Russia must rise to this colossal task single-handed. Nobody will do this for her.