TRADE WAR, SKRIPAL, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

© Mindaugas Bonanu

Like the rest of humanity, I have no way of identifying the instigator of the attempted assassination of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter. But I venture some reasoning, just to clear the field of fantasies and focus on real problems.

It is true that personalities unwelcome to the Kremlin sometimes meet with serious and mysterious pathologies. One of the famous cases is that of Viktor Yushchenko, a candidate for the presidential elections of Ukraine in 2004, in an election campaign during which, inter alia, Putin travelled seven times to that country to support Yushchenko’s competitor Yanukovych.

Others include: Alexander Litvinenko, the exiled former official of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) and critic of Putin, poisoned to death with polonium in London in 2006; journalist Anna Politkovskaya, distinguished for her services on the war in Chechnya, gunned down in Moscow, also in 2006; Boris Berezovsky, the most influential of Russian oligarchs at the time of Yeltsin, another exile critical of Putin who died in unclear circumstances in London in 2013; and Boris Nemtsov, head of the Soyuz Pravykh Sil [Union of Right Forces] party, assassinated in 2015.

However, it is incomprehensible what interest Moscow could have in eliminating Skripal, risking an international crisis. Why kill an individual already regularly released in 2010, as part of an exchange of arrested “spies” with the United States? What other terrible revelations could there be eight years later and after having been questioned – immediately and at length – by the competent services?

And then, why eliminate him with such a sophisticated means as nerve gas, the origin of which could be traced? Would not it have been better to simulate a car accident? A tile on his head? Have a pistol shot or the classic arsenic, both so anonymous, perhaps gone out of fashion?

On the other hand, neither is it clear why Skripal should be eliminated by some “Western” service. There is no shortage of motivations for further increasing tension with Moscow and, if necessary, bigger and more emotional ones can be invented for public opinion.

The truth is that in cases like these the imagination can have free rein. Could Skripal have been poisoned by other players interested in increasing tension between Russia and the “West”?

Let us speculate: could those responsible not have been North Korean agents interested in neutralising Russian pressure towards an agreement with the United States, or agents of ISIS or of the Assad regime? Or Chechen separatists? Or also, why not, could it not have been the sophisticated killers of an occult “Spectre” of businessmen linked to the military-industrial complex who used the nerve gas?

Actually not only do I not have the means, but also I am not even interested in knowing who poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter. From the point of view of world history and the interests of ordinary citizens, this is irrelevant. I do not need a judicial truth to know that – if they so wish – States can act without scruples, kill and slaughter. Reason of state exists, but good States do not exist.

To give another example, I remember well that in July 1985 the French secret services blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, which was protesting against nuclear explosions in French Polynesia, causing the death of a man. President then was “companion” Mitterand … of the Union de la gauche.

Two of the saboteurs of the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure were arrested by the New Zealand police, tried and sentenced to ten years. The French Defence Minister was forced to resign, but New Zealand, placed under economic blackmail by France, was forced into an agreement whereby the two assassins were first transferred under French custody, then released and finally given a promotion.

What happened to the Rainbow Warrior is crystal clear, unlike the Skripal case and in general of real historically relevant plots, which have the unfortunate characteristic of remaining secret in the phase of preparation, but of revealing themselves in implementation; coups d’état are an easy example of it.

So I willingly leave investigations to the competent bodies and conjectures to the devotees of spy stories and the conspiracy theorists of every sort, who already have the pre-packaged answer according to their personal paranoias and political sympathies.

The personalisation and Manichaean division of political players into good and bad – of course the villains are cunning and treacherous, although doomed to defeat – belong to a view of the world that is infantile and easily manipulated.

Something else is important in this filthy affair, whoever the instigators: the flurry of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats from NATO countries and of NATO diplomats from Russia. For many commentators, together with the looming trade war between the United States and China, this affair seems to be the prelude to a new Cold War.

However, care must also be taken not to arrive at hasty conclusions that can distract attention from the underlying issues.

It may be recalled that in 1986 the United States expelled 80 Soviet diplomats after the arrest of a Russian-American journalist in Moscow, and the Soviets, in turn, reciprocated. Nevertheless, the following year Reagan and Gorbachev signed the treaty on medium-range missiles and three years later the Second Cold War was officially declared over.

And then, in 2001, the United States and Russia expelled 53 diplomats each, but – despite other major problems – this did not prevent the two powers from continuing to collaborate in the “war on terror”, and Putin saying of the American president, during the celebrations of the anniversary of the foundation of St. Petersburg: “We have many points of coincidence of our views on many issues. And it is precisely these things that enable me to call president Bush my friend, not only personally – because personally I do like him a lot –, but as my counterpart and the President of a friendly nation”.

Of course, we need to contextualise … and this is the point.

The use of the term “Cold War” – without further qualifications – was very popular for the entire post-World War II period but also misleading, and the same applies to the current framework of relations between Russia and the “West”.

I think the periodisation proposed by Fred Halliday in his book The making of the Second Cold War is correct: it distinguishes the First Cold War (1946–1953), oscillatory antagonism (1953–1969), détente (1969–1979) and the Second Cold War (from 1980 and ending de facto with the Reykjavík summit between Gorbachev and Reagan in October 1986).

The phase of oscillatory antagonism was characterised by negotiations and repeated attempts to reduce tensions between the two sides, each of which failed due to events in part outside the control of the two powers, but which necessarily involved both and pitted one against the other.

It was therefore a phase that combined aspects of the Cold War with aspects of détente and which, unlike the latter, would be clearly defined more in retrospect than when it was in vigour.

Well, all in all, it is this that the relations between the United States and Putin’s Russia resemble: so much so that jihadist terrorism (and for Russia, in particular, Chechen terrorism) is a common enemy; and the energy flows from Russia to Western Europe would have been unthinkable during the First Cold War (these flows began during détente and were among the reasons for the postponement of Soviet reforms and the paradoxical “resource curse” still affecting the Russian economy).

There is also a fundamental reason why we must be very careful about likening contemporary relations between Russia and “West” to the Cold War, which was a contrast between different social systems: capitalist imperialism on the one hand and totalitarian pseudo-socialism on the other.

In the 21st century, neither Soviet nor Maoist “communism” exist any longer. We only have capitalisms, and those of Russia and China are also imperialisms (in the proper and structural sense that leaves aside a more or less aggressive policy; at least for Marxists, this should be obvious).

Posing the question as if it were the Cold War is a way to fuel tension and confusion. Or to create the consolatory illusion of reliving old “glorious” times: something even more erroneous when one considers – moreover – that Putin and Trump are both placed to the right of the political spectrum: traditionalists, nationalists, authoritarians, militarists and sexists.

However, it is since the Ukrainian crisis and the annexation of Crimea that the pendulum has tended towards the freeze: the current diplomatic crisis is part of the picture, but we cannot rule out the easing of tension. We will see.

As for the protectionist initiative of the Trump administration, this was long awaited.

So, coincidence between the two facts? Yes, most likely. Also because moving towards Cold War at the same time with Russia and China would be quite stupid, and it would be even more stupid to do this while threatening or actually undertaking a trade war with allies.

Can we speculate that behind the poisoning of Skripal there is the Machiavellian European Commission, which intends, in this way, to prevent Trump from kissing Putin’s cheek? Or that it is a ruse of the opponents of Brexit? The list of possible plots can be lengthened.

There is no doubt that there is negotiation with China and that in March it initially responded moderately to US tariffs, promising concessions; in the meantime, it appears that the European Commission and Gazprom are coming to an agreement to close a very expensive antitrust case dating back to 2011; the meeting in Washington proposed by Trump to Putin during the congratulatory call for the third re-election of the Russian president (so, two weeks after the poisoning of Skripal) remains to be defined.

In my opinion, the crucial question is that when well contextualised, far from being the result of the strategy of a director, the scenography of relations with Russia seems quite botched and susceptible to very different developments.

It is true, however, that this it is not just a question of fortuity. It is the kind of situation that highlights the inherent contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy.

The protectionist impetus responds to demands of domestic legitimation – based on electoral promises –, but is in contrast with the international division of labour and the reproduction of US capital on a global scale. A conflict is taking shape between US international economic policy and its policy of alliances and national security.

Protectionism is also a way to avoid implementing serious socioeconomic reforms in the United States. Behind the contradictions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy is the latent conflict between it and the population of ordinary North American citizens, including the white male workers who voted for him.

For the world, this is much more important than stories of spies, arsenic and old ideological lace.

TEN REFLECTIONS AND A COMMENT: THE CYCLE OF FEAR IN THE MIDST OF THE ANTHROPOCENE, by Roberto Savio and Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

It is now clear that we are in a period of transition, even if we do not know where we are headed. It is evident that the political, economic and social system which has accompanied us since the end of the Second World War is no longer sustainable.

According to Amnesty International, exponentially growing inequalities have practically taken us back to the levels of Queen Victoria’s days: however, today on a global level. Ten years ago, 652 people possessed the same wealth as 2.3 billion people. Now they number just eight.

According to International Labour Organisation projections, the eighteen-year-olds of today will retire with an average pension of 632 euros.

Despite official statements, and surrounded by general indifference, we are reaching the limit of a 2 degrees centigrade increase in the temperature of the atmosphere since 1854, which is considered the limit beyond which our planet will suffer irreversible changes.

Finance has become detached from the economy creating a world of its own, the only one with no international control bodies, where financial transactions in a day are forty times higher than the production of goods and services around the entire planet. Since 2009, the major banks have paid over 800 billion fines as a result of illegal operations.

Political participation has fallen from an average of 86%, in 1960, to 63.7% today.

While an in-depth analysis of the situation would be extremely complex and involve all aspects of our life, it is possible to identify important – and at the same time simple – points of reflection on which to dwell together.

Reflection 1

The crisis has deep roots.

In 1973, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a global governance plan – designed to reduce inequalities among its members – known by the name of New International Economic Order. The plan was born with the support of the United States (even if launched by Mexico and Algeria).

The post-war international system – of which the United Nations is part, for example – had come about on the initiative of the United States, the main winners of the Second World War, which was interested in preserving peace and development after a war in which it lost 405,000 soldiers out of a population of 132 million people. Germany lost more than five million out of 78 inhabitants, of which over two million civilians, against 8,000 in the United States and nearly thirteen million in the USSR).

The United Nations was created with Washington’s commitment to contribute 25% to the budget, which illustrates the difference with today, when Trump is threatening to withdraw.

But until the 1981 summit in Cancún, which brought together the twenty-two most important Heads of State in the world (excluding the communist camp), we lived in the illusion of the end of inequality, based on a world democracy where the majority of countries decided the course to follow for the common good.

Newly-elected president Reagan took part in Cancún and announced that the United States no longer accepted being subjected to the rules of an abstract world democracy. The United States – he said – is not a country like the others, and would go back to deciding its own international and trade policy. Margaret Thatcher was also at the same meeting, becoming the European counterpart of Reagan.

A different vision of the world was born: “Society does not exist. Individuals exist (Thatcher); “It is not factories that pollute, but trees” (Reagan). Poverty produces poverty, wealth produces wealth. So the rich should be taxed as little as possible, because they distribute wealth.

Reflection 2

In 1989, a few years after Cancún, the Berlin Wall came down: it was the end of ideologies, the straitjackets that had led us to Nazism and Communism.

The core idea was that we must be pragmatic. Politics had to solve concrete problems, not pursue utopias. But the solution of a given problem without being part of a total vision of society – right or left, it does not matter – is actually called utilitarianism, and politics aimed at administration rather than at ideas distances political participation and increases corruption.

Without ideal programmes, the importance of the politician’s personality, possibly telegenic, increased and was measured on TV and not in public squares. Marketing, not ideas or programmes, became the main instrument for electoral campaigns.

Reflection 3

At the same time, neoliberal globalisation came into play as a single thought without alternatives (Thatcher’s There Is No Alternative – TINA; it is interesting to note that, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the term globalisation had never appeared in the media).

This globalisation was based on the socioeconomic and political model of the so-called Washington Consensus, the development paradigm imposed by International Monetary Fund, World Bank and US Treasury. It envisaged the adoption of the following reforms: macroeconomic stabilisation, liberalisation (of trade, investments and finance), privatisation and deregulation.

It eliminated national protection barriers everywhere, reduced non-productive expenditure (education, health and social assistance) and promoted free competition among States. It is famous the definition of it given by Kissinger: “The new paradigm of American supremacy”. Developing countries experienced it as submission to economic rules imposed by the North. But Kissinger did not see that once the way to free competition had been opened, China and other countries would emerge.

Reflection 4

The reaction of the left to the single thought was the “Third Way”, successfully proposed by Tony Blair: it was time to abandon the old ideas of the left and ride the globalisation, accepting the lack of alternatives.

Social democracy, from Blair to Renzi, seeks to transform itself into a transversal party which also embraces the centre, with an active policy on concrete facts and no outdated ideological cages.

In fact, in this way the left has lost its popular base, and the 2008 crisis, caused by the absence of controls on American banks and then come up to Europe (with the left in government almost everywhere), has eliminated its capacity to redistribute surplus.

Workers, middle classes in crisis and victims of globalisation seek new defenders and vote for Le Pen (France), Farage (Britain), Wilder (Netherlands) and so on, up to choosing Salvini and the Five Star Movement (Italy).

Reflection 5

Numerous historians believe that greed and fear have been among the main engines of change in history.

In his latest book, Nel nome dell’umanità, Riccardo Petrella argues that these engines were implemented using three “traps”: in the name of God, in the name of the Nation and in the name of Profit. There is no doubt that since the fall of the Berlin Wall the values of globalisation (competition, profit, individualism and exaltation of wealth), together with the disappearance of social justice (solidarity, transparency, equity, etc.) from political debate, have created an ethics based on greed.

And twenty years later, in 2009, the economic and financial crisis – first in the United States (on real estate speculation) and then in Europe (on sovereign bonds) – has opened up a second cycle: that of fear.

Reflection 6

The cycle of fear which is in full swing (without having abandoned greed and while the three “traps” are once again in use) has created a new right which is not about ideas, but is based on emotions.

Brexit and Trump are easy-to-see phenomena, but the real phenomenon is much deeper. We are in a liquid society that is not structured on ideologies or classes. And in this society it is easy for leaders who ride fear and greed to leap into the limelight.

The 2009 crisis joined up with mass immigration from countries invaded by the West to depose their dictators and automatically introduce democracy. (Nevertheless, the disintegration of Yugoslavia – a modern and European country – after the death of Tito should have been a warning.)

It is not democracy that is ushered in, but chaos, civil wars, blood and destruction.

In 2003, George W. Bush began the invasion of Iraq. In 2011, civil war broke out in Syria, becoming soon a clash among Arab powers, Europe, the United States and Russia (as a result: six million displaced and half a million dead). In 2013, Sarkozy pushed an invasion into Libya.

From the ruins of Iraq, ISIS was born – terrorism in the name of God, for a return to original Islam (Wahhabism, financed worldwide by Saudi Arabia with 80 billion dollars in the last twenty years). Fifteen years before, the veterans of the US-funded war against Russian occupation in Afghanistan had gathered under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden in another organization, Al Qaeda, making the first attack in history on North American soil, in 2001.

As El Roto, famous cartoonist of El País, says: “We send them bombs, and they send us migrants”.

Two “traps” are triggered on the arriving refugees: in the name of God and in the name of the Nation.

Now, in Europe, identitarian and sovereignty parties are the second political force, ahead of socialist parties. If European elections were held today, the radical right would gather forty million votes. It is in power in Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, but it also conditions the governments of the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Germany itself (since Alternative für Deutschland won 92 seats).

In Hungary, Orbán has launched the so-called “illiberal democracy”, Poland has denounced the secularism of the European Union and called for a huge march with populists and sovereignists from all over Europe, to the cry of “In the name of God”. The Visegrád Group (Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and now also Austria) has denounced the yielding of Europe to Islam and created an East-West rift of Europe, which joins the North-South rift on the vision of the economy: austerity or solidarity.

But there is something new: the United States intervenes in Europe openly supporting nationalist and xenophobic right-wing parties, which at the same time look not only to Trump, but also to Putin (who is also intervening in the European elections), considering him a point of reference.

As a result, in a rapidly aging Europe (in Italy, for example, young people between the ages of 18 and 25 account for only 3% of those entitled to vote), immigration has become a great populist and xenophobic right-wing banner.

Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund has launched a warning: Europe needs to absorb 20.5 million immigrants in the short term, so that it can support its pension system and maintain productivity levels. Statistics show that immigrants contribute to the system more than they cost; they constitute the great majority of new small businesses and their dream is to be quickly integrated into the European system.

But there is no debate on immigration and what categories of immigrants to welcome. They are now all seen as dangerous invaders, intent on destroying the European identity, on crime and as taking work away from European citizens, victims of intense unemployment. Even Trump, in a country made up of immigrants, has made immigration control one of his warhorses.

A tragic phenomenon is that young people, many less than retirees, are no longer politically active. In history, young people burst onto the political scene to change the world they find. If they had voted, Brexit would not have happened. But the political system – of the elderly – ignores them. In Italy, the Renzi government allocated 30 billion euros to save four banks. In the same year, the total in the budget for young Italians was two billion.

Since the creation of the United Nations in 1945, we have risen from 2.5 billion inhabitants to 7.5 billion today. The growth will stop only in 2050, when we will number 9.5 billion. Either we find an agreement on governability and immigration that we need, or we will have to shoot immigrants, as some have already proposed.

CHINA AND RUSSIA IN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S “NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY”, by Michele Nobile

IN DUE LINGUE (Inglese, Italiano)
IN TWO LANGUAGES (English, Italian)

With this piece – which was preceded by “US foreign policy and Trump’s contradictions: questions of method” –, Michele Nobile begins to deepen the analysis of the Trump administration’s foreign policy starting from the recently published National Security Strategy. [the Editorial staff of Red Utopia]

INDEX: Foreword - 1. Defining the problem of national security - 2. The theory of democratic peace in previous administrations - 3. The worldview of 2017 NSS and critique of the theory of democratic peace - 4. China and Russia in previous NSS - 5. China and Russia in 2017 NSS: threats to national security - 6. Relations between China and Russia in American strategy - 7. Provisional conclusion

Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping. Beijing, November 9, 2017 © Nicolas Asfouri

Foreword

At the end of 2017, the Trump’s administration published its National Security Strategy (NSS), the report that the President of the United States is required to present annually to Congress. It is legitimate to ask what interest a document such as an NSS can have since it certainly contains no military action plans, not even in general terms.

An NSS is the result of compromises within the administration and is often overtaken by unforeseen developments; on the other hand, the availability of the means envisaged for achieving stated objectives can also exceed the duration of the administration that produced it – and not just by a few years.

The doubts increase in the face of a president like Trump – contested by foreign and military policy experts in his own party – and the series of sackings or resignations of high-level staff, both as a result of disagreements with the president and imposed by the results of investigations.

Of the thirty 20th-century Secretaries of State, Rex Tillerson is one of the six who have remained in office for the least time, and in the post-Cold War period only Lawrence Eagleburger lasted less. The Trump administration is on its third National Security Advisor in just over a year, while in the space of eight years Clinton and Bush Jr. had just two and Obama three.

Besides, it cannot be said that the Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser appointed by Trump – Mike Pompeo, appointed as director of the CIA, and John Bolton, formerly ambassador to the United Nations under George W. Bush – are characters indicative of a moderate orientation: they are decidedly “hawks” chosen exclusively because of their political proximity to the president.

Furthermore, while all versions of the NSS pay a ritual homage to “American values”, it sounds strange to read in a document introduced by Donald Trump that “the United States rejects bigotry, ignorance and oppression” and that it is committed to defending the rights of women and girls (2017 NSS).

In more substantial terms, as widely predictable in some points, for example on Russia and on NATO, the 2017 NSS appears in contrast with the fears and hopes raised by Trump before his election. One can thus question the extent to which the document reflects the president’s thinking and therefore how reliable it is.

It is remarkable that Trump’s message preceding the latest NSS speaks of “rival powers” aggressive towards American interests in the world, but without naming China and Russia; then, in his speech of December 18, 2017 presenting the document, Trump cited the phone call from Putin thanking him for the intelligence that the CIA was able to provide concerning a major terrorist attack planned in St. Petersburg, but also said that the United States faces “rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth”, specifying that, “based on my direction, this document has been in development for over a year. It has the endorsement of my entire Cabinet”.

It is not at all unusual for an NSS to be published beyond the terms prescribed by law, but this latter sentence appears as a superfluous clarification, a reassurance that seems to imply the opposite.

As for the rest, the discourse differs from the NSS only in its even more triumphalist tones and for the self-celebration of the presumed identification of the People with the president, elected with almost three million votes less than competitor Hillary Clinton:

“But last year, all of that began to change. The American people rejected the failures of the past. You rediscovered your voice and reclaimed ownership of this nation and its destiny.

On January 20, 2017, I stood on the steps of the Capitol to herald the day the people became the rulers of their nation again. (Applause.) Thank you. Now, less than one year later, I am proud to report that the entire world has heard the news and has already seen the signs. America is coming back, and America is coming back strong”.

Report on the national security strategy was established in 1986 by the Goldwater-Nichols Act: since then seventeen have been published. Well, if you compare 2017 NSS with those which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is clear that it is a very original document, almost on a par with the 2002 NSS of Bush Jr., who formulated the doctrine of “preventive war”.

While it is not possible to deduce from an NSS exactly what an administration will do and when, general indications can nevertheless be drawn about the perception of threats to national security and the attitude with which they are intended to be addressed.

The 2017 NSS contains relatively little about human rights and the promotion of democracy – a fact which may gratify the sympathisers of president Putin and North Korea’s supreme leader –, but the prospect it outlines, which in emphatic terms one might say grand strategy, is no less dangerous than the decision that led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Perhaps even more so, in terms of relations with the nuclear powers of China and Russia and for reasons that are not only due to the constraints posed by the Congress, but are intrinsic to the concept of America First as defined by Trump.

The vision of the world contained in the 2017 NSS is substantially in line with that of Trump; however, in its realisation this same vision can lead to considerable fluctuations and confusion in the conduct of US foreign policy not only because of internal opposition, but because it is internally contradictory: this could be the reason for personal disagreements in the Administration, in which different parts push on the poles that constitute the contradiction.

The structure of 2017 NSS is made up of a message from Trump himself, an introduction and four chapters related to as many pillars of national security, plus a chapter that applies the strategy in the regions of the world.

Formally, each chapter presents some priority actions to achieve the objectives indicated, which is a novelty that appears to give concreteness, but which in reality is only stylistic; and also the four pillars or objectives – protecting the American people, promoting prosperity in America, preserving peace through force and advancing America’s influence – are banalities present in every NSS.

The peculiarity of this document must be sought in the way in which those objectives are concretely defined, above all in the definition of the problem of national security and threats.

1. Defining the problem of national security

The message signed by Donald Trump that serves as a preface to 2017 NSS is an arrogant revendication of the Administration’s alleged successes, including having “crushed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorists”, which, however, was claimed by all the players involved just before Trump took office.

The list of problems inherited from the previous administrations is long: “rogue states”, international terrorism, aggressive powers, uncontrolled immigration, criminal cartels, unequal distribution of defence costs between the United States and allies, impropriety in economic relations.

Against this background, the successes boasted with a triumphalist tone are even more evident: the Trump administration is already “charting a new and very different course”. The president stands as a saviour of the Fatherland, as the one who restored confidence in American values and America’s position in the world – “after one year, the world knows that America is prosperous, America is secure, and America is strong” (2017 NSS).

However, a note of alarm is sounded both in Trump’s message and in the text of the NSS itself: “The United States faces an extraordinarily dangerous world, filled with a wide range of threats that have intensified in recent years”. Apparently it seems a contradiction, but the alarmist note performs several functions.

First of all, keeping the alarm about terrorism and the “rogue states” high is a necessity intrinsic to the doctrine of war and preventive military operations, which is now one of the options for action openly indicated by all US administrations, albeit with different formulas.

Formalisation of this doctrine is a distortion of jus ad bellum (the right to engage in war), with implications also for jus in bello (the rules regulating the conduct of war, for example concerning the treatment of prisoners and civilian populations).

Even in a very broad and very debatable interpretation of the norms of international law, one of the binding criteria – and not the only one – which can justify a military action that anticipates an enemy attack is that of the imminence of aggression.

However, no matter how far it is cloaked in formal references to the needs of self-defence, in the logic of preventive war formalised since 2002 NSS the concept of the imminence of attack is freed from specific temporal and material references, and therefore emptied of real meaning.

The main justification for war and preventive military operations has become the possibility and intention that entities defined as terrorist or “rogue state” procure weapons of mass destruction; this is also tantamount to affirming that for these entities the possession of weapons of mass destruction coincides with the certainty of their use in an indeterminate future and place. War or preventive military operations are thus justified a priori.

…

…

In Trump’s introductory message to the NSS, the unequal sharing of security burdens between the United States and the allies is indicated as one of the reasons that has encouraged opponents to take dangerous actions – the point is then reiterated in the document. Obviously, it is not at all the alliances themselves that are called into question, but the terms with which the other States contribute.

However, the list of faults does not stop here. It covers the whole of the 90s, including the Administrations of Bush Sr. and Clinton, and implicitly also those of Bush Jr. In 2017 NSS, criticism of the idea that US military superiority was guaranteed is fundamental, as is criticism of the Wilsonian (after Woodrow Wilson, president from 1913 to 1921) concept of “democratic peace” which, although articulated in different ways, has been at the centre of the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the end of the Cold War.