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RedditIII. MILITARIST APPROACH Unlike pacifism and legalism, militarism poses a practical danger of immense proportions. Excessive reliance on the military will backfire badly, further imperiling the security of Americans and others, spreading war and destruction far afield, as well as emboldening the government to act at home in ways that weaken US democracy. So far the Bush Administration has shown some understanding of these dangers, going slowly in its reliance on military action and moving relatively cautiously to bolster its powers over those it views as suspicious or dangerous, so as to avoid the perception of waging a cultural war against Islam. The White House has itself repeatedly stressed that this conflict is unlike previous wars, that nonmilitary means are also important, that victory will come in a different way and that major battlefield encounters are unlikely to occur.
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Turkey's Finest Hour?
Richard Falk: The sick man of Europe gets a jolt of life, but will it last?
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Questionable Verdict
Richard Falk: Even the most naive American voter cannot be expected to see the morally, legally and politically questionable death sentence given to Saddam Hussein a milestone in the Bush Administration's illegal war in Iraq. As the milestones pile up, so do the bodies.
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Gone Nuclear: How the World Lost Its Way
Richard Falk, Mary Kaldor, Randall Caroline Forsberg & George Perkovich: As the world reacts to news of North Korea's underground nuclear test, a crucial anniversary is observed: Twenty years ago at the Reykjavik Summit, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev outlined a vision for a non-nuclear world. What went wrong? In this Nation forum, four experts from the nonproliferation movement discuss how to put disarmament back on the world's agenda.
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The UN After Lebanon
Richard Falk: The UN's mixed record on the war in Lebanon proves we should lower our expectations of what it can meaningfully achieve.
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The Circle of Responsibility
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Storm Clouds Over Iran
Richard Falk: The confrontation with Iran is a wakeup call to states that possess nuclear weapons: In a world of nuclear apartheid, multilateral disarmament is the only course of action that can succeed.
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Gaza Illusions
Richard Falk: Disengagement represents a dangerous step backward in the struggle to find a just peace for Israelis and Palestinians and leaves many core issues unresolved.
Beyond this, there is speculation that there will be a second stage of response that will include a series of countries regarded as hostile to the United States, who are in possession of weapons of mass destruction but are not currently related to global terrorism in any significant fashion. These include Iraq, Libya and possibly even Syria, Iran and Sudan. To expand war objectives in this way would be full of risks, require massive military strikes inflicting much destruction and suffering, and would create a new wave of retaliatory violence directed against the United States and Americans throughout the world. If military goals overshoot, either by becoming part of a design to destroy Israel's enemies or to solve the problem of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the war against global terrorism will be lost, and badly.
Just as the pacifist fallacy involves unrealistic exclusion of military force from an acceptable response, the militarist fallacy involves an excessive reliance on military force in a manner that magnifies the threat it is trying to diminish or eliminate. It also expands the zone of violence in particularly dangerous ways that are almost certain to intensify and inflame anti-Americanism. It should be kept in mind that war occasions deep suffering, and recourse to international force should be both a last resort and on as limited a scale as possible.
But there is a fourth response, which has gained support among foreign policy analysts and probably a majority of Americans.
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