Colossus (61 page)

186
. Swomley,
American Empire
, p. 1.

187
. Gaddis,
We Now Know
, pp. 179, 182. Cf. Lowenthal,
Partners in Conflict
, pp. 28–30.

188
. Not least because, unknown to the Americans, the Russians had sent tactical nuclear missiles to Cuba, which could have been used to annihilate any invading force.

189
. The best account of the crisis is Fursenko and Naftali,
One Hell of a Gamble
.

CHAPTER 3: THE CIVILIZATION OF CLASHES

1
. Statement by Osama bin Laden, October 7, 2001,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1585636.stm
.

2
. Woodward,
Bush at War
, p. 131.

3
. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “Two Years of Gibberish,”
Prospect
, September 2003, pp. 30–33.

4
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” pp. 11–13.

5
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 56.

6
. Yergin,
Prize
, pp. 195–97, 204.

7
. Ibid., p.393.

8
. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 344.

9
. Yergin,
Prize
, p. 401.

10
. Ibid., pp. 403f, 410–16, 427f.

11
. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p.345.

12
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 81.

13
. Gaddis,
We Now Know
, p. 164.

14
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 72.

15
. Ibid., p. 240f.

16
. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 31.

17
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 14f.

18
. Ibid., p. 15.

19
. Kinzer,
All the Shah’s Men
, p. 205.

20
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 25.

21
. Louis and Robinson, “Imperialism of Decolonization”

22
. Gaddis,
We Now Know
, p. 169.

23
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 25.

24
. Gaddis,
We Now Know
, p. 175.

25
. Yergin,
Prize
, p. 508f.

26
. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p.346.

27
. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 32.

28
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 81.

29
. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 34.

30
. See, e.g., Reich, “United States and Is-rael,” pp. 227, 241.

31
. Ibid., p. 228.

32
. Reich, “United States and Israel,” p. 232.

33
. Ibid., p. 234.

34
. Ibid., p. 234f.

35
. Ibid., p. 229f.

36
. Lundestad,
“Empire,”
p. 90. Cf. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 36.

37
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 66; Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 347.

38
. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 346.

39
. Priest,
Mission
, p. 84f.

40
. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 64f.

41
. Ibid., p. 62.

42
. Ibid., p. 82.

43
. Ibid., p. 69.

44
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 23f.

45
. Maddison,
World Economy
, p. 151, table 3–21.

46
. Lundestad,
“Empire,”
p. 97.

47
. Power,
“Problem from Hell,”
p. 234.

48
. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 347.

49
. Ibid. See also Haass,
Intervention
, p. 28.

50
. “Declaration of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and the Crusaders February 23, 1998,”
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-fatwa.htm

51
. “Conversation with Terror,”
Time
, January 11, 2001.

52
. See also the purported letter published on November 24, 2002,
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,845725,00.html
, and the message broadcast on al Jazeera on February 11, 2003.

53
. Huntington,
Clash of Civilizations
. Cf. Lewis,
Crisis of Islam
.

54
. Lewis,
What Went Wrong?
, p. 159.

55
. Burleigh,
Third Reich
.

56
. See Christopher Hitchens, “Against Rationalization,”
Nation
, October 8, 2001. Hitchens used the phrase “fascism with an Islamic face.”

57
. Marshall,
Demanding the Impossible
, p.284.

58
. Pettiford and Harding,
Terrorism
, p. 36.

59
. Conrad,
Secret Agent
, pp. 65–68.

60
. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 21f.

61
. John Keegan, “Diary,”
Spectator
, October 13, 2001. During the later stages of the Second World War, five thousand Japanese pilots killed themselves flying kamikaze (“divine wind”) missions. At Okinawa nearly five thousand American sailors were killed, and such attacks sank no fewer than thirty-six vessels. Nor was this the only suicide tactic the Japanese adopted as the Pacific war turned against them. They also trained suicide divers—
fukuryu
or “crouching dragons”—whose mission was to swim out and attach mines to approaching landing craft.

62
. Pettiford and Harding,
Terrorism
, p. 116.

63
. United States Commission on National Security/21
^st
Century,
New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century—Major Themes and Implications
, September 15, 1999;
http://www.nssg.gov./Reports/NWC.pdf.

64
. Martin Wolf, “Frightening Flexibility of Terrorism,”
Financial Times
, June 3, 2003.

65
. On the basis of the 1993 Federal Budget Request: International Institute of Strategic Studies,
The Military Balance, 1992–1993
, p. 17.

66
. Ibid., p. 218.

67
. “September 11 Death Toll Revised,” Associated Press, June 11, 2003. It is now estimated that 2,940 people died in the World Trade Center attacks, 189 in the Pentagon attack and 44 when a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

68
. Looney, “Economic Costs.” This proved much too pessimistic.

69
. See the debate in University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, “What’s Next? The Economic Effects of September 11,”
http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/news/gsbchicago/win02/features/effectsl.htm.

70
. By way of comparison, the insurance losses caused by the severe flooding in Central Europe in 2002 amounted to $2.5 billion. The death toll of the earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan that same year was around 2,000. See the
Economist
, May 24, 2003.

71
. There were nearly 1,000 terrorist incidents in Europe between 1991 and 1996, compared with just 241 in the years 1997 to 2002, a fall of 75 percent.

72
. “There can be no military solution to the problem [of Palestine],” retired CENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni told a journalist in 2002. “You know, there is no military solution to terrorism either”: Priest,
Mission
, p. 11f.

73
. The statistics are of course controversial. I have consulted the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories,
http://www.btselem.org
.

74
. While there is no conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime gave assistance to al Qa’eda, it did support Abu Nidal and Hamas. Saddam also aided the Iranian group Mujahedeen-e-Khlaq and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

75
. Smith,
Talons of the Eagle
, p. 5ff.

76
. Haass,
Intervention
, p. 26f.

77
. Pettiford and Harding,
Terrorism
, p.135.

78
. Woodward,
Bush at War
, p. 38.

79
. Schirmer, “U.S. Bases in Central America.”

80
. Mead,
Special Providence
, p. 31.

81
. Haass,
Intervention
, p. 25f.

82
. Schirmer, “U.S. Bases in Central America.”

83
. Priest,
Mission
, p. 95.

84
. Ibid., p. 71.

85
. By the mid-1990s these forces would have undertaken over two thousand operations in 167 different countries: Coker,
Conflicts
, p. 20.

86
. Priest,
Mission
, p. 45f.

87
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, p. 318.

88
. Haass,
Intervention
, p. 30f.

CHAPTER 4: SPLENDID MULTILATERALISM

1
. I am grateful to Mr. Arria for permission to quote what I hope will one day be the title of a memoir by him about his time at the Security Council.

2
. Woodward,
Bush at War
, p. 333.

3
. The number is controversial. The United States claimed that its “coalition of the willing” numbered forty-nine. However, one independent survey on March 28, 2003, could confirm the support of only thirty-seven countries, with a further ten countries apparenly, though not explicitly, supportive. Only Britain, Australia and Poland sent fighting forces to Iraq, though another ten countries offered small numbers of noncombat forces, mostly either medical teams and specialists in decontamination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.-led_coalition_against_Iraq#Invasion_coalition
.

4
. The phrase is usually ascribed to the Marquess of Salisbury, but his minister George Goschen seems to have used it more often. Salisbury regarded isolation as highly dangerous and preferred to embed Britain in a network of alliances and understandings.

5
. By June 1998, according to the UN, the United States owed about $1.5 billion in dues and assessments. This was made up of $298 million owing for the 1998 regular budget and $271 for the regular budgets of prior years, as well as $95 million for peacekeeping operations in 1998 and $871 million for peacekeeping in previous years: Christopher S. Wren, “Unpaid Dues at the U.N. Could Cost U.S. Its Vote,”
New York Times
, June 28, 1998. Under the Helms-Biden compromise of 1999 the United States agreed to pay slightly under half its arrears in return for a series of reforms of the UN and the other affiliated institutions.