As weird as it seems in the current everybody-hates-us environment, back in the ‘90s political pundits argued that the US’s popularity demonstrated an American exception to balance of power theory. See, according to standard geopolitical theory nations should ally themselves in such a way as to thwart the most powerful interventionist state. Like the law of reversion to the mean, the balance of power tendency increases in strength as geopolitical power increases, making enemies of allies and causing empires to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. A classic example is the British army in North America, they defeated the French and Indians for (and with) their colonists, but having defeated their enemy, their ally, the colonists, no longer threatened, rebelled.
Other than to the minority of us who were alarmed (disgusted?, horrified?) by the Bush Doctrine precursor, the Kosovo intervention, the US’s growing power in the ‘90s seemed to give the USA a get-out-of-history-free card. Post-9/11 was a perfect time to reconsider: here’s an attack allegedly masterminded by an organization that was created during a US-backed victory in Afghanistan. Later, when Iraq “threatened” Saudi Arabia, al Qaeda offered to defend Saudi Arabia, but was rebuffed, since the US was already on duty. Who would have won if Saddam and al Qaeda fought? Who cares? According to a Cato Institute study, Iraq could have taken over Saudi Arabia and raised oil prices, and still it would have been cheaper than the Gulf War. Throw in the 9/11 attack, the second Gulf war, and (if we’re to believe McVeigh), maybe, the OC bombing and it’s a no-brainer: Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne rephrased the obvious, if counter-instinctual, foreign policy implied by the law of the balance of power and called their suggested policy “offshore balancing.”
Back in the ‘80s, as most AWC readers know, the US government spent billions of dollars quasi-covertly funding international jihad in Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia and Yemen, respectively, provided the most and second-most foot soldiers. Saudi Arabia also provided US matching funds, and Pakistani intelligence (later creators of the Taliban) directed the training programs.
Last week UPI (“Revealed: the nationalities of Guantanamo”) released the “tentatively determined … nationalities” of 95% of the terror-war prisoners that the Pentagon is holding in Cuba. Most of the 619 alleged anti-American terrorists were seized in Afghanistan, but some were captured among the US’s Muslim allies in Bosnia, and elsewhere. 38 nationalities are represented. Interestingly, only 80 – or 13% – of the prisoners are Afghans. The top three nationalities represented – Saudis, Yemenis, and Pakistanis, in that order – exactly match the degree of involvement of those nations as US allies in the Afghan jihad. Of the 539 non-Afghans, 160 – or 30% – are Saudis, 85 are Yemenis, and 82 are Pakistanis. Those 3 groups make up more than half of the non-Afghan total, with citizens of other US allies comprising most of the rest. Meanwhile, President Bush’s “axis of evil” is represented by a single Iraqi.
Strange but true:
– Citizens of the US’s Afghan jihad allies make up over 300 times as many of the suspected anti-American terrorists than do citizens of the “axis” nations.
– There are as many white Australians and Bahraini royals in the Cuba clink as there are citizens of all of the “axis” nations combined.
– There are twelve times as many citizens of the freedom-loving US ally Kuwait locked up as there are Iraqis, Iranians and Koreans combined.