Want to know where the US is heading in the next 5 years, should the Republicans stay in power? You need look no further than PNAC, the Project for a New American Century.
PNAC has planned, in not so many words, an American hegemony, starting with the 'pacification' of the middle East. It was started by a group of neoconservatives, including Paul Wolfowitz, and was instrumental in the most recent US national defense plans.
If you read through their "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document, chilling words such as "At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible" are peppered through it.
It's a scary read, covering topics such as "fight[ing] and decisively win[ning] multiple, simultaneous major theater wars", expanding their presence in southeast Asia, a greater military presence in the Pacific, permanent military bases in the Persian Gulf, and a commitment to quickly building up stockpiles of nuclear weapons. In fact, a drawquote in the articles states this:
The Clinton Administration's adherence to the 1972 ABM Treaty has frustrated development of useful ballistic missile defenses.
Scary stuff.
This article covers things quite well as well.
Time to re-read Enders Game to see how that whole "take over the world" thing turned out.
Of course, if this is just a bunch of wackos that's fine, as long as it's not something endorsed or followed by the administration. There are a lot of manifestos out there, ranging from white domination to giant mole men taking over the world, and while the concept of mole men scares the hell out of me, I'm not more concerned from this one (yet) than the others.
Course, that sort of Manifest Destiny thinking is pretty common down there...
-- Posted by >> Arcterex » Tuesday, July 29, 2003 10:17 AMIf this was just some wackos, that'd be fine... but this is something that's entrenched in the US Administration. If you look at the list of authors on that linked PDF, you'll see at least one White House cabinet member there -- Paul Wolfowitz. Dick Cheney has recruited many of his aides from the PNAC camp, and Rumsfeld was an early supporter of the group.
Much of the PNAC reports have made their way into official US foreign policy -- which is a scary, scary thing.
-- Posted by >> Darren » Tuesday, July 29, 2003 10:34 AMPost a comment
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