First, build the coalition. Then, think what to do
Sep 20th 2001
TWO days after the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York and the simultaneous assault on America's military nerve centre, the Pentagon, President George Bush declared the United States to be “at war” with international terrorism. He enjoined America's soldiers, and with them the American people, to “get ready” for military conflict and for further sacrifice. At the memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral for the close to 6,000 victims of the bloodiest terrorist assault in history, the leader of the world's most powerful country declared that this conflict, “begun on the timing and terms of others...will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing.”
Mr Bush picked his words to send a message of resolve not just to America but to the world. But what does it mean to be at war with terrorism? Who are the enemy? What are the right tools, and what is the best strategy, to fight them with? If this is indeed to be the first war of the 21st century, is victory possible against an enemy that demands neither territory nor any other recognisable war booty, and seeks only the maximum possible destruction with no calculation of restraint? And what might such a victory look like?
Mr Bush's immediate target is clear. This week he called on the Taliban, the rulers of Afghanistan, to hand over Osama bin Laden, the fugitive terrorist leader they have long sheltered—or else. He wanted Mr bin Laden, he said, “dead or alive”. Other western intelligence agencies concur with the initial judgment of America's: that all the evidence gathered so far points to Mr bin Laden as the prime suspect.
But even getting at him, let alone the loosely-knit and widely-dispersed terrorist network over which he presides, will not be easy (see article). Earlier this week, a high-level Pakistani delegation, given special United Nations dispensation to break the international embargo and travel to Afghanistan to try to talk the Taliban into handing him over, left Kabul empty-handed. Amid calls for Afghanistan to renew its jihad (“struggle” or “holy war”) against America, the country's highest-ranking Islamic clerics, summoned by their leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, to respond to the mounting pressure from the outside world, said that Mr bin Laden should leave voluntarily. Mr Bush is unlikely to wait long before striking back at the man and the organisation he suspects of causing the greatest number of casualties on American territory in a single day since the civil war, and at the country that harbours him. On September 20th, 100 extra American war planes were moved to the Gulf in preparation for action.
In that strict sense, America is not only sounding, but acting, as if it is going to war. Reserves are being called up. Congress has passed a resolution giving the president power to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against any individual, organisation or country that played any role in last week's attacks, and allowing for pre-emptive strikes to prevent any more. It has already appropriated $20 billion for that purpose, on top of the $20 billion assigned for rescue and clean-up operations at home. Public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of military action against terrorists, though more nervous of using force against states that sponsor them.
It could be London, Paris, Canberra...AP
International opinion is a little more varied. Even those countries that back America to the hilt are calling for coolness and deliberation before military action is taken. Others, such as Russia and China, want nothing to be done without the approval of the UN Security Council.
But NATO responded last week by invoking, for the first time in its 52-year history, Article 5 of its founding treaty, which declares the attack on America to be an attack on the alliance as a whole, and enables America to call on its allies for military support. And few would argue that America does not have the legal right, under Article 51 of the UN charter, to strike back at its tormentors. The United States is naturally reserving the right to take unilateral action; but talks are under way with many countries, from America's close allies in Europe to Islamic Pakistan and some of the countries of Central Asia and even farther-flung Australia, to gather the military support, access to bases and over-flight rights that America may need.
Retaliation may indeed be justified and necessary—if only to persuade the world, and especially other would-be terrorist groups, of the strength of America's determination to fight back after such devastating attacks on its territory, its values and its institutions. But the struggle America is preparing to wage will be long, complex and dangerous. President Bush has made it clear that this is not just a war against the terrorists responsible for last week's atrocities, but against terrorism itself.
Needed: allies inside Islam
That is why this will be unlike any other war America has fought. Mr Bush has called it a “crusade”, a word with just the bruising overtones that some Islamic extremists have used in the past to justify their murderous assault on America and all it represents. Yet the president has no intention of declaring war on the Islamic world. On the contrary, he is now hoping for direct help from a number of its governments, from the Middle East to Asia, in isolating and eventually eliminating groups, such as Mr bin Laden's, that use Islam as a cover for their crimes. However, both he and his senior officials have given warning that America will go after not only terrorist groups but also the governments that sponsor or support them.
Apart from Afghanistan itself, America's list of “the usual suspects” in the terrorism business has long included Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba. Since last week's attacks, the deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, has talked of “ending” states which sponsor terrorism. If it refused to hand over Mr bin Laden and his associates, Afghanistan's regime would be one obvious target.
Might Iraq be another? In the past there have been reported links between Iraq and Mr bin Laden. So far, there is no clear evidence of Iraqi involvement in last week's carnage. If more were to emerge, America would have little compunction about attacking a regime that is thought to be rebuilding its illegal chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons.
Yet most of the states on America's list—Iraq stands out as the exception—have condemned last week's attacks. For the first time in more than 20 years, worshippers in Iran failed to chant “Death to America!” at the start of their Friday prayers. Words of condolence come naturally in the aftermath of ferocious acts of terrorism. Yet this could be a chance for America to find common ground with old foes such as Iran to end some of their official and unofficial support for groups with terrorist connections—a first victory, perhaps, for America's will to prosecute this new war.
Will Mr Bush's chosen tools be diplomacy or force? He will need both. Military pressure—and possible military strikes—on Afghanistan would not just assuage Americans' demands for retaliation, but might help to deter some governments from further aid to Mr bin Laden's group or others bent on terrorism. Yet his senior aides admit that military strikes—even a whole series of them—cannot win a war with an aim as all-embracing as this one. Indeed, unless America is prepared to alienate wide swathes of the moderate Muslim world, by launching military attacks against any country suspected of having terrorists somewhere on its territory, the direct military options available to America may soon come to seem rather limited.
Pinprick missile attacks against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical-weapons plant in Sudan, launched by President Bill Clinton in 1998 after attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, did nothing to deter Mr bin Laden and his followers. Neither have Russia's scorched-earth tactics against rebels (Russia calls them terrorists) in Chechnya, which have reduced that country to rubble. And would the targets be the 1,000 or so operatives thought to be in Mr bin Laden's al-Qaeda network worldwide, or the wider universe of terror organisations, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Palestine? If simply killing terrorists were enough, Israel would by now be the safest country on earth.
Amid all the talk of war, it has been left to Colin Powell, the secretary of state, to spell out the beginnings of a broader strategy. He has called for “a campaign that goes after not just retaliatory satisfaction, but goes after eliminating this threat by ripping it up, by going after its finances, by going after its infrastructure, by making sure we're applying all the intelligence assets we can to finding what they are up to.” And the measure of its success? “No more attacks like this against the United States and our interests around the world.”
In this campaign, as in the narrower military one that is about to be unleashed, America will need allies. But to qualify as a friend of America's, revulsion and words of moral support will not be enough. Mr Powell has talked of a “new benchmark”: how governments now respond to America's requests for help in the war against terrorism “will be a means by which we measure our relationship with them in the future.”
Cold war parallels
In many ways, the nearest parallel to America's new thinking is the determination to contain communism that marked the cold war. This was an equally all-embracing struggle that had military, diplomatic, economic and ideological elements. Of course, the cold war was also a classic military stand-off which ended when the Soviet block finally threw off communism. Islam, by contrast, is here to stay, and many of its adherents are as shocked as the rest of the world at the barbarity of the crimes just committed in its name. Still, as a way of viewing the outside world, the fight against terrorism may now come to represent for America what the cold war did for much of the second half of the 20th century: a means of ordering defence priorities and national budgets at home; a way of organising military, political and diplomatic power abroad; a new focus for old institutions and an organising concept for new ones. Above all, a way of telling friend from foe.
Some have understood this more clearly than others. America has been particularly pleased with the support it has received from Pakistan. That country's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, was quick to offer America assistance, both in pressing the Taliban to give up Mr bin Laden and in offering America use of its air space and other support. Pakistan, through its links with Afghanistan, will have a major role if military efforts are made to dislodge the Taliban from power.
By helping America, Pakistan is taking a risk (see article). Its own Islamic militants have close connections to Afghanistan's mullahs, and American military action could cause a backlash inside Pakistan. But Mr Musharraf understood that this was the moment he had to choose sides, and has made sterling efforts to induce his people to accept that.
If Pakistan is ever to get out from under its mountain of debt and achieve a degree of political stability, it needs the economic support of the West. Japan has already suggested it may resume some of the aid to Pakistan that was cut off after the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998. America may do the same. And at a time when Pakistan's great rival, India, has been seeking a new connection with America, Mr Musharraf has a much-needed opportunity to strengthen his own American links. Help with the war against terrorism could earn Pakistan some American sympathy in its argument with India over Kashmir. At the least, Pakistan's response to the events of the past week may have corrected what Pakistan saw as a dangerous western tilt towards India. But Pakistan, like other countries, can expect to come under pressure to clamp down on its own extremists.
Other countries will face hard decisions, too. Israel and the Palestinians have been pressed to accept a ceasefire and open talks that could dampen down their months of fighting; America wants nothing to get in the way of its efforts to rally Arab support to the anti-terrorist cause. Saudi Arabia has long supported America's presence in the Gulf, while trying to protect its own regime by funnelling money to fundamentalist groups, including some in Pakistan. This has indirectly helped to finance outfits like Mr bin Laden's. Pressure to end this practice could put Saudi Arabia's stability at risk. But difficult calculations will have to be made by many governments—including America's.
Puzzlingly, for an administration that came to office vowing to nurture old friendships and alliances, Mr Bush's team had seemed to spend its first months doing the opposite. Its decision to abandon the Kyoto protocol on global warming irritated many of its friends. So did its readiness to set aside the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, and its reluctance to accept the constraints of multilateral arms-control agreements. America, it seemed, was prepared to operate on its own: happy if others wanted to tag along, unconcerned if they did not. Will this now change?
Holding on to friends
The Bush administration is already making better use of the international tools that are available. Although America will not submit its military plans to the UN Security Council for approval, it has moved quickly to speed payment of its long-standing financial arrears to the organisation, giving its new ambassador, John Negroponte, a cleaner diplomatic slate for gathering support in the fight against terrorism. The strong condemnation of the terrorist attacks by both the Security Council and the General Assembly has been appreciated. Among the UN conventions already on the books or under debate are a number designed specifically to combat terrorism. These include one, adopted in 1999, to help end the financing of terrorist organisations. America is likely to press more countries to put their names to this.
If nothing else, the assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have demonstrated to Americans that they cannot simply look to their own defences and forget the world outside. An international terrorist onslaught needs an international response. Can America pull together such a coalition, and sustain it? Over the next few weeks there will be more at stake than Afghanistan and Mr bin Laden.
Right now, America seems to have more staunch friends and sympathisers than Mr Bush knows what to do with. France's president, Jacques Chirac, and Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, were both in Washington to confer with Mr Bush this week. These are allies who not only posess the most deployable military forces in Europe, should America need them, but also have influence in parts of the world, from Europe to the Middle East and Asia, that will be equally useful if America's diplomats are to turn the coalition of sympathisers into something more useful and enduring.
Yet there is still worry about the possibility of America going it alone. Despite the strong political and emotional support provided by the allies over the past week, a number of European politicians have said that this does not amount to a “blank cheque” for anything America may now wish to do. Both Mr Chirac and Mr Blair will have wanted to impress on Mr Bush this week the need for a measured and proportionate response, and for a readiness to listen to the concerns of allies. The wider and less discriminating America's military attacks are, should they come, the harder it will be to keep some of America's European allies on board. Yet, if cracks were to appear in the support for America from its NATO allies, the effects could be disastrous—for both. The worry in Europe is that this danger may be less obvious to the administration in Washington than it is to onlookers in London, Paris or Berlin.
Assuming that these dangers can be avoided, how might the change in America's thinking affect the balance of its relations with the other two big powers, Russia and China? Both have long shared America's concern with the fundamentalist threat emanating from Afghanistan, and have condemned last week's attacks. Yet both have their differences with America. Will this be taken as a time to narrow these, or exploit them?
Russia's reaction has been ambivalent. Its defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, was quick to refuse America access to military bases in Central Asia on the borders with Afghanistan—too quick, given that these bases are in supposedly sovereign countries. Uzbekistan has since sounded more ready to accommodate any American requests for help; Tajikistan, more closely under Russia's thumb, has said little.
Yet Russia's diplomats can also see some opportunities for their country in co-operating with America. Russia has long bristled at western criticism of its brutal war in Chechnya, and is clearly hoping that this will now subside if it makes common diplomatic cause with America against Islamic terrorism. It remains to be seen whether Russia will also now temper its support in the Security Council for lifting sanctions on Iraq.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, had already agreed to talk to America about new understandings that might amend the ABM treaty and allow America room to explore anti-missile defences. Although such defences could not have stopped the recent terrorist attacks, America is unlikely to abandon its quest for them. Indeed, its concern about future threats from unpredictably violent countries and people who are attempting to acquire long-range missiles is naturally going to intensify. So too will pressure on Russia to tighten the loopholes in its export controls that have repeatedly allowed missile and related technologies to slip through the net.
So far, Russia has been part of the problem. Can it now become part of the solution? Mr Putin may yet be hoping that, in return for Russia's co-operation in the war against terrorism and a readiness to strike a new strategic bargain over nuclear weapons and missile defences, America will heed Russian concerns by delaying or abandoning any plans to bring the Baltic states into an enlarged NATO.
The Chinese reaction has been even more ambivalent. As expected, China has called formally for America to act only with the approval of the UN Security Council (where China, like Russia, has a veto). Yet it is unlikely to press the matter. It has a keen interest in ending Afghanistan's role as a haven for Islamic terrorists, not least because it sees that as the source of much instability around the region, including in its own Xinjiang province. And it has an interest in improving ties with America after the collision in April between a Chinese fighter and an American surveillance plane off the Chinese coast.
China, too, has its own agenda. This week it pointedly called for America to help in its fight against “separatism”—a dig at continued American support for Taiwan. Despite official promises to the contrary, Chinese firms are as active as ever in supplying illicit technology to dodgy customers who may one day add to the threat the world now faces. America would like more co-operation from China in the fight against terrorism. But few people doubt that, in the longer run, America and China will remain rivals in Asia.
Outward, look
America has been redefined by disaster three times in the past 75 years. The first was in 1929, when the Wall Street crash began a decade of depression at home and isolationism abroad. That was halted by the second disaster: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Eventually, once war ended, the country saw 50 years of unparalleled domestic wealth and international engagement. This could be the third shock. There is clearly a risk that America could turn inward, driven by emotional horror at the evil the outside world can do. Yet, to judge by the first rallying of both government and people, almost the reverse is happening. America is seeing this tragedy as a reason to provide renewed leadership, to become engaged abroad, and to look resolutely outward for friends.
Sep 20th 2001
TWO days after the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York and the simultaneous assault on America's military nerve centre, the Pentagon, President George Bush declared the United States to be “at war” with international terrorism. He enjoined America's soldiers, and with them the American people, to “get ready” for military conflict and for further sacrifice. At the memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral for the close to 6,000 victims of the bloodiest terrorist assault in history, the leader of the world's most powerful country declared that this conflict, “begun on the timing and terms of others...will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing.”
Mr Bush picked his words to send a message of resolve not just to America but to the world. But what does it mean to be at war with terrorism? Who are the enemy? What are the right tools, and what is the best strategy, to fight them with? If this is indeed to be the first war of the 21st century, is victory possible against an enemy that demands neither territory nor any other recognisable war booty, and seeks only the maximum possible destruction with no calculation of restraint? And what might such a victory look like?
Mr Bush's immediate target is clear. This week he called on the Taliban, the rulers of Afghanistan, to hand over Osama bin Laden, the fugitive terrorist leader they have long sheltered—or else. He wanted Mr bin Laden, he said, “dead or alive”. Other western intelligence agencies concur with the initial judgment of America's: that all the evidence gathered so far points to Mr bin Laden as the prime suspect.
But even getting at him, let alone the loosely-knit and widely-dispersed terrorist network over which he presides, will not be easy (see article). Earlier this week, a high-level Pakistani delegation, given special United Nations dispensation to break the international embargo and travel to Afghanistan to try to talk the Taliban into handing him over, left Kabul empty-handed. Amid calls for Afghanistan to renew its jihad (“struggle” or “holy war”) against America, the country's highest-ranking Islamic clerics, summoned by their leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, to respond to the mounting pressure from the outside world, said that Mr bin Laden should leave voluntarily. Mr Bush is unlikely to wait long before striking back at the man and the organisation he suspects of causing the greatest number of casualties on American territory in a single day since the civil war, and at the country that harbours him. On September 20th, 100 extra American war planes were moved to the Gulf in preparation for action.
In that strict sense, America is not only sounding, but acting, as if it is going to war. Reserves are being called up. Congress has passed a resolution giving the president power to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against any individual, organisation or country that played any role in last week's attacks, and allowing for pre-emptive strikes to prevent any more. It has already appropriated $20 billion for that purpose, on top of the $20 billion assigned for rescue and clean-up operations at home. Public opinion is overwhelmingly in favour of military action against terrorists, though more nervous of using force against states that sponsor them.
It could be London, Paris, Canberra...AP
International opinion is a little more varied. Even those countries that back America to the hilt are calling for coolness and deliberation before military action is taken. Others, such as Russia and China, want nothing to be done without the approval of the UN Security Council.
But NATO responded last week by invoking, for the first time in its 52-year history, Article 5 of its founding treaty, which declares the attack on America to be an attack on the alliance as a whole, and enables America to call on its allies for military support. And few would argue that America does not have the legal right, under Article 51 of the UN charter, to strike back at its tormentors. The United States is naturally reserving the right to take unilateral action; but talks are under way with many countries, from America's close allies in Europe to Islamic Pakistan and some of the countries of Central Asia and even farther-flung Australia, to gather the military support, access to bases and over-flight rights that America may need.
Retaliation may indeed be justified and necessary—if only to persuade the world, and especially other would-be terrorist groups, of the strength of America's determination to fight back after such devastating attacks on its territory, its values and its institutions. But the struggle America is preparing to wage will be long, complex and dangerous. President Bush has made it clear that this is not just a war against the terrorists responsible for last week's atrocities, but against terrorism itself.
Needed: allies inside Islam
That is why this will be unlike any other war America has fought. Mr Bush has called it a “crusade”, a word with just the bruising overtones that some Islamic extremists have used in the past to justify their murderous assault on America and all it represents. Yet the president has no intention of declaring war on the Islamic world. On the contrary, he is now hoping for direct help from a number of its governments, from the Middle East to Asia, in isolating and eventually eliminating groups, such as Mr bin Laden's, that use Islam as a cover for their crimes. However, both he and his senior officials have given warning that America will go after not only terrorist groups but also the governments that sponsor or support them.
Apart from Afghanistan itself, America's list of “the usual suspects” in the terrorism business has long included Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Sudan and Cuba. Since last week's attacks, the deputy secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, has talked of “ending” states which sponsor terrorism. If it refused to hand over Mr bin Laden and his associates, Afghanistan's regime would be one obvious target.
Might Iraq be another? In the past there have been reported links between Iraq and Mr bin Laden. So far, there is no clear evidence of Iraqi involvement in last week's carnage. If more were to emerge, America would have little compunction about attacking a regime that is thought to be rebuilding its illegal chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons.
Yet most of the states on America's list—Iraq stands out as the exception—have condemned last week's attacks. For the first time in more than 20 years, worshippers in Iran failed to chant “Death to America!” at the start of their Friday prayers. Words of condolence come naturally in the aftermath of ferocious acts of terrorism. Yet this could be a chance for America to find common ground with old foes such as Iran to end some of their official and unofficial support for groups with terrorist connections—a first victory, perhaps, for America's will to prosecute this new war.
Will Mr Bush's chosen tools be diplomacy or force? He will need both. Military pressure—and possible military strikes—on Afghanistan would not just assuage Americans' demands for retaliation, but might help to deter some governments from further aid to Mr bin Laden's group or others bent on terrorism. Yet his senior aides admit that military strikes—even a whole series of them—cannot win a war with an aim as all-embracing as this one. Indeed, unless America is prepared to alienate wide swathes of the moderate Muslim world, by launching military attacks against any country suspected of having terrorists somewhere on its territory, the direct military options available to America may soon come to seem rather limited.
Pinprick missile attacks against terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical-weapons plant in Sudan, launched by President Bill Clinton in 1998 after attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, did nothing to deter Mr bin Laden and his followers. Neither have Russia's scorched-earth tactics against rebels (Russia calls them terrorists) in Chechnya, which have reduced that country to rubble. And would the targets be the 1,000 or so operatives thought to be in Mr bin Laden's al-Qaeda network worldwide, or the wider universe of terror organisations, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Palestine? If simply killing terrorists were enough, Israel would by now be the safest country on earth.
Amid all the talk of war, it has been left to Colin Powell, the secretary of state, to spell out the beginnings of a broader strategy. He has called for “a campaign that goes after not just retaliatory satisfaction, but goes after eliminating this threat by ripping it up, by going after its finances, by going after its infrastructure, by making sure we're applying all the intelligence assets we can to finding what they are up to.” And the measure of its success? “No more attacks like this against the United States and our interests around the world.”
In this campaign, as in the narrower military one that is about to be unleashed, America will need allies. But to qualify as a friend of America's, revulsion and words of moral support will not be enough. Mr Powell has talked of a “new benchmark”: how governments now respond to America's requests for help in the war against terrorism “will be a means by which we measure our relationship with them in the future.”
Cold war parallels
In many ways, the nearest parallel to America's new thinking is the determination to contain communism that marked the cold war. This was an equally all-embracing struggle that had military, diplomatic, economic and ideological elements. Of course, the cold war was also a classic military stand-off which ended when the Soviet block finally threw off communism. Islam, by contrast, is here to stay, and many of its adherents are as shocked as the rest of the world at the barbarity of the crimes just committed in its name. Still, as a way of viewing the outside world, the fight against terrorism may now come to represent for America what the cold war did for much of the second half of the 20th century: a means of ordering defence priorities and national budgets at home; a way of organising military, political and diplomatic power abroad; a new focus for old institutions and an organising concept for new ones. Above all, a way of telling friend from foe.
Some have understood this more clearly than others. America has been particularly pleased with the support it has received from Pakistan. That country's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, was quick to offer America assistance, both in pressing the Taliban to give up Mr bin Laden and in offering America use of its air space and other support. Pakistan, through its links with Afghanistan, will have a major role if military efforts are made to dislodge the Taliban from power.
By helping America, Pakistan is taking a risk (see article). Its own Islamic militants have close connections to Afghanistan's mullahs, and American military action could cause a backlash inside Pakistan. But Mr Musharraf understood that this was the moment he had to choose sides, and has made sterling efforts to induce his people to accept that.
If Pakistan is ever to get out from under its mountain of debt and achieve a degree of political stability, it needs the economic support of the West. Japan has already suggested it may resume some of the aid to Pakistan that was cut off after the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 1998. America may do the same. And at a time when Pakistan's great rival, India, has been seeking a new connection with America, Mr Musharraf has a much-needed opportunity to strengthen his own American links. Help with the war against terrorism could earn Pakistan some American sympathy in its argument with India over Kashmir. At the least, Pakistan's response to the events of the past week may have corrected what Pakistan saw as a dangerous western tilt towards India. But Pakistan, like other countries, can expect to come under pressure to clamp down on its own extremists.
Other countries will face hard decisions, too. Israel and the Palestinians have been pressed to accept a ceasefire and open talks that could dampen down their months of fighting; America wants nothing to get in the way of its efforts to rally Arab support to the anti-terrorist cause. Saudi Arabia has long supported America's presence in the Gulf, while trying to protect its own regime by funnelling money to fundamentalist groups, including some in Pakistan. This has indirectly helped to finance outfits like Mr bin Laden's. Pressure to end this practice could put Saudi Arabia's stability at risk. But difficult calculations will have to be made by many governments—including America's.
Puzzlingly, for an administration that came to office vowing to nurture old friendships and alliances, Mr Bush's team had seemed to spend its first months doing the opposite. Its decision to abandon the Kyoto protocol on global warming irritated many of its friends. So did its readiness to set aside the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, and its reluctance to accept the constraints of multilateral arms-control agreements. America, it seemed, was prepared to operate on its own: happy if others wanted to tag along, unconcerned if they did not. Will this now change?
Holding on to friends
The Bush administration is already making better use of the international tools that are available. Although America will not submit its military plans to the UN Security Council for approval, it has moved quickly to speed payment of its long-standing financial arrears to the organisation, giving its new ambassador, John Negroponte, a cleaner diplomatic slate for gathering support in the fight against terrorism. The strong condemnation of the terrorist attacks by both the Security Council and the General Assembly has been appreciated. Among the UN conventions already on the books or under debate are a number designed specifically to combat terrorism. These include one, adopted in 1999, to help end the financing of terrorist organisations. America is likely to press more countries to put their names to this.
If nothing else, the assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have demonstrated to Americans that they cannot simply look to their own defences and forget the world outside. An international terrorist onslaught needs an international response. Can America pull together such a coalition, and sustain it? Over the next few weeks there will be more at stake than Afghanistan and Mr bin Laden.
Right now, America seems to have more staunch friends and sympathisers than Mr Bush knows what to do with. France's president, Jacques Chirac, and Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, were both in Washington to confer with Mr Bush this week. These are allies who not only posess the most deployable military forces in Europe, should America need them, but also have influence in parts of the world, from Europe to the Middle East and Asia, that will be equally useful if America's diplomats are to turn the coalition of sympathisers into something more useful and enduring.
Yet there is still worry about the possibility of America going it alone. Despite the strong political and emotional support provided by the allies over the past week, a number of European politicians have said that this does not amount to a “blank cheque” for anything America may now wish to do. Both Mr Chirac and Mr Blair will have wanted to impress on Mr Bush this week the need for a measured and proportionate response, and for a readiness to listen to the concerns of allies. The wider and less discriminating America's military attacks are, should they come, the harder it will be to keep some of America's European allies on board. Yet, if cracks were to appear in the support for America from its NATO allies, the effects could be disastrous—for both. The worry in Europe is that this danger may be less obvious to the administration in Washington than it is to onlookers in London, Paris or Berlin.
Assuming that these dangers can be avoided, how might the change in America's thinking affect the balance of its relations with the other two big powers, Russia and China? Both have long shared America's concern with the fundamentalist threat emanating from Afghanistan, and have condemned last week's attacks. Yet both have their differences with America. Will this be taken as a time to narrow these, or exploit them?
Russia's reaction has been ambivalent. Its defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, was quick to refuse America access to military bases in Central Asia on the borders with Afghanistan—too quick, given that these bases are in supposedly sovereign countries. Uzbekistan has since sounded more ready to accommodate any American requests for help; Tajikistan, more closely under Russia's thumb, has said little.
Yet Russia's diplomats can also see some opportunities for their country in co-operating with America. Russia has long bristled at western criticism of its brutal war in Chechnya, and is clearly hoping that this will now subside if it makes common diplomatic cause with America against Islamic terrorism. It remains to be seen whether Russia will also now temper its support in the Security Council for lifting sanctions on Iraq.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, had already agreed to talk to America about new understandings that might amend the ABM treaty and allow America room to explore anti-missile defences. Although such defences could not have stopped the recent terrorist attacks, America is unlikely to abandon its quest for them. Indeed, its concern about future threats from unpredictably violent countries and people who are attempting to acquire long-range missiles is naturally going to intensify. So too will pressure on Russia to tighten the loopholes in its export controls that have repeatedly allowed missile and related technologies to slip through the net.
So far, Russia has been part of the problem. Can it now become part of the solution? Mr Putin may yet be hoping that, in return for Russia's co-operation in the war against terrorism and a readiness to strike a new strategic bargain over nuclear weapons and missile defences, America will heed Russian concerns by delaying or abandoning any plans to bring the Baltic states into an enlarged NATO.
The Chinese reaction has been even more ambivalent. As expected, China has called formally for America to act only with the approval of the UN Security Council (where China, like Russia, has a veto). Yet it is unlikely to press the matter. It has a keen interest in ending Afghanistan's role as a haven for Islamic terrorists, not least because it sees that as the source of much instability around the region, including in its own Xinjiang province. And it has an interest in improving ties with America after the collision in April between a Chinese fighter and an American surveillance plane off the Chinese coast.
China, too, has its own agenda. This week it pointedly called for America to help in its fight against “separatism”—a dig at continued American support for Taiwan. Despite official promises to the contrary, Chinese firms are as active as ever in supplying illicit technology to dodgy customers who may one day add to the threat the world now faces. America would like more co-operation from China in the fight against terrorism. But few people doubt that, in the longer run, America and China will remain rivals in Asia.
Outward, look
America has been redefined by disaster three times in the past 75 years. The first was in 1929, when the Wall Street crash began a decade of depression at home and isolationism abroad. That was halted by the second disaster: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Eventually, once war ended, the country saw 50 years of unparalleled domestic wealth and international engagement. This could be the third shock. There is clearly a risk that America could turn inward, driven by emotional horror at the evil the outside world can do. Yet, to judge by the first rallying of both government and people, almost the reverse is happening. America is seeing this tragedy as a reason to provide renewed leadership, to become engaged abroad, and to look resolutely outward for friends.
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