But even greater changes were taking place in Asia. Few could have predicted, or at least few did, that Japan, Korea, Taiwan and now most of Southeast Asia would take off economically in the way that they have. Their example is having a profound effect on the way the world is configured and on the way that it is managed. In the past a nation might employ military might to acquire economic advantages—fertile land, oil fields, or water rights. But because of the Asian miracle, it is possible that much of the post-cold-war world may be different. The success of Asian states suggests that few of the resources that are vital to economic success in the modern world can be seized. Rather, they must be created, for they are largely human and institutional in nature. An effort to seize them will destroy them. For a sullen, subjugated people is not the work force that will bring a modern nation greatness. Indeed, this is the great dilemma that Beijing faces as it prepares to assume control of Hong Kong.
It may be that the Middle East is one of the last areas of the world where the wars of the past still make sense. Obviously, it would pay a state in the Middle East to seize a major oil field if the aggression were to stand. States in the Middle East also lack water. One can imagine water wars there. More might be lost than would be gained but there is a sort of traditional logic to the struggle. Indeed, there is some evidence that the root cause of the 1967 war was water.
In much of the rest of the world, however, except perhaps in a few contested areas—the Spratly Islands might be one—states are not trying to seize resources from others. Aggression no longer pays in the way that it did in the past. That is a major change in world history and Asian states can take much of the credit for shifting mass and elite views.
Meanwhile, another form of traditional warfare has reemerged—wars of national consolidation. As brutal as the struggle in Yugoslavia is—and the pictures on television remind us of the brutality every day—it is not too different from the wars of national consolidation that took place through Western Europe from the 15th century forward or from the wars in this century between Greece and Turkey or between Israel and the Palestinians. Throughout Central and Eastern Europe new nations are being born and it would be a miracle if the process were completed without violence.
The dilemma the outside world faces in dealing with such conflicts is that there appears to be no easy way to exert constructive influence. Wars of national consolidation involve passions that are not easily controlled by foreign pressure or diplomacy. Unless one takes the position that no borders should be changed regardless of how illogical they may be, it is hard to know what constitutes aggression in many of these struggles, which are often triggered by unexpected developments.
Without question, continuing violence in the former Soviet Union will trigger Western fears of a revived Russian threat. The ethnic tensions dividing Russia and its neighbors could explode at any moment, perhaps bringing to power authorities in Moscow determined to rebuild Russia’s military strength. Even in that event, however, the West would not face the return of the traditional security threat from Moscow that the world has known since 1945. Moscow has lost its forward military position in central Europe, its ideological allies in Eastern Europe have been totally discredited, and the task of maintaining internal unity will drain Russian energies for years to come. What is of immediate concern to the West is the final disposition of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Civic disorder in Russia could create opportunities for renegade military units to steal or sell nuclear weapons. The Clinton administration should accord the highest priority to efforts to reach agreement with Moscow for the accelerated destruction of as many nuclear warheads as possible under START and subsequent agreements.
In the years ahead several factors are helping steadily to erode the advantage the great powers have traditionally enjoyed over their smaller rivals. The first is the spread of weapons throughout the world. It is too often neglected that the era of Western political dominance in world affairs was also a period when it was heavily armed and the rest of the world was almost completely disarmed. In such circumstances, it is not hard to dominate others. Thus, by controlling the machine gun, the West could inflict enormous casualties without suffering very many in return. The model for war was the British conquest of the Sudan. The British with superior weapons killed 11,000 Sudanese and suffered 48 dead, of whom 3 were British officers and 25 were British enlisted men. During the many wars the British fought in Africa, even though the bulk of the troops were always African, British officers controlled the machine gun and were under orders under no circumstances to let one fall into the hands of the enemy.
The wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam demonstrated that although it is within the capability of Western states to win a war—the Soviets or the Americans could always have won had they used the full measure of their power—they could no longer win at a cost they or their allies were willing to pay because the enemy was so well armed. Of course, the Soviets or the Americans could have used weapons that would have obliterated the other side but these same weapons would have also destroyed their reputation worldwide. Had the Soviets or the United States used such weapons in either Afghanistan or Vietnam, one might have said that the cost of victory was loss of the cold war in Asia and Europe.
The Gulf War was a modern Sudan. The United States and its allies completely destroyed the opposing army while suffering only a few hundred casualties. But before we are too celebratory, we should consider this paradox about the war: Because Saddam Hussein was so heavily armed, he dared to take on the largest military power in the world and in the end, although he grossly underestimated U.S. men, women, and equipment, he was correct in his belief that his military power was sufficient to deter the United States from conquering his entire country because of fear of casualties. Given that fear, once again proven and quite understandable in a democracy, one must question whether any future target for the West’s massive power will follow a strategy as self-defeating as the one adopted by Saddam Hussein. Iraq allowed the United States to maximize the effect of its military power by refusing to attack when U.S. forces were at their weakest. It took on a coalition that included three of the largest and most efficient armies in the world. It committed an act of aggression so egregious that not a single nation in the world publicly approved of what Iraq had done.
There are other reasons that explain the decline in the use of force besides the fact that the spread of weapons has served as an international equalizer. In large parts of the world, but primarily in the countries that are militarily and technologically the most sophisticated, there has been a decline in chauvinism even if there is at the same time often a rise in nationalism. By this distinction I mean that even if many are more proud of their country than ever before, there has been a decline in a popular belief that one’s own culture is so superior to that of another that it justifies killing someone who does not participate in it. The shift in positions on such matters is astonishing. In World War II the U.S. Government and the American news media worked hand-in-glove, as documented by John Dower in his book on racial attitudes in World War II, War Without Mercy, to demonize the Japanese, who were often portrayed as some form of subhuman. The most elite organs of the American press participated willingly in this crude propaganda, which was mirrored in a reverse fashion in the Japanese press, which, however, was totalitarian. By the time of the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. news media, like most Americans, may have been cheering for an American victory, but it was also on the scene to make sure that civilians were not being unnecessarily targeted. Indeed, the Pentagon’s most important ally in its effort to prove that U.S. forces were not targeting civilians was CNN, whose correspondents were on the scene.