American hawks have many supporters in Congress, business circles and the press, and have a huge support network, especially American arms dealers are hardcore supporters of hawks.
In the United States, the Pentagon is Inging Zhao, and Rumsfeld is an eagle in Ying Chao. First, he is older and was born in 1932. Second, he has a relatively old seniority. He served as Secretary of Defense twice, which is unparalleled in the Pentagon. Third, he was a veteran of politics and the Cold War long ago, and his hawkish stance never started today. In today's American politics, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz are called hawkish "Troika". These three "eagles" hover over the hill of George W. Bush, affecting the national defense policy and military strategy of the United States today.
The main theoretical viewpoints of hawks
1. "American empire" and "unilateralism"
Since the end of the Cold War, a strange phenomenon has appeared in the world: the slogan "Down with American imperialism", which swept the world for decades in the last century, has disappeared. On the contrary, Americans themselves have talked about the word "American Empire". According to the article of foreign policy expert Kools, the "American Empire" is at the peak of the world in four aspects: first, the United States is the only superpower in the world; Second, the world's first high-tech military power and the leader of the world military revolution; Third, it is the largest and most advanced economy in the world economy and the locomotive to promote globalization; Fourth, it is a model of global "soft power" and a disseminator of world popular culture. Russian scholars have commented that since the end of the Cold War, American political circles have been dominated by hegemonic ideas. In the United States, "imperial thinking" used to be a negative word, but now it has become a positive word.
America's pursuit of super hegemony will inevitably love "unilateralism". The unilateralism denied by George W. Bush is becoming the basic national policy of the United States by George W. Bush. Wolfowitz, the theoretical designer of unilateralism, said that in order to promote a certain idea and achieve a certain goal in the world, the United States sometimes does not rule out joining some single international alliances, but "when collective action cannot be implemented, the United States should act independently." To put it bluntly, we can use the United Nations when we need it, and simply put it aside when we don't. In this way, the United States can get rid of many constraints, fight whoever it wants, and fight whenever it wants, which is more worry-free and more agile. Wolfowitz said bluntly: "The political leadership of the United States should be higher than that of the United Nations."
World public opinion believes that the Iraq war is a "bad precedent" for the United States to pursue "unilateralism." Once this case is opened, it will be difficult for the United Nations to impose some restrictions on the willful military actions of the United States in the future.
Kissinger thinks: "The international system in 2 1 century will include at least five powerful forces-the United States, Europe, China, Japan, Russia and perhaps India." However, Rice said that the "multipolar world" is the devil that divides the world. It led to two world wars in the 20th century and the 50-year cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, so it is not a good thing to mention "multipolar world" in today's world. Today, the world should not be divided into many poles. There is only one pole in global politics, and the United States is the pole of freedom, peace and justice. The United States has the right to use force against countries that "make people suffer."
2. "Absolute superiority" and "absolute security"
Hawks have an unshakable proposition: the United States must seek and maintain its "absolute superiority" in the military to ensure its "absolute security." Rumsfeld was the commander-in-chief who tried his best to carry out this policy proposition. As early as the Clinton era, a group of experts headed by Rumsfeld formed the Rumsfeld Report. The report concludes that the United States should step up the deployment of the National Ballistic Missile Defense System (NMD). After George W. Bush entered the White House, the deployment of the "National Ballistic Missile Defense System" became one of his first considerations.
After Rumsfeld returned to the Pentagon, in addition to quickly launching the "National Ballistic Missile Defense System" plan, he also quickly instructed the Ministry of National Defense to launch another plan to secretly develop a "space bomber." Hawks believe that "space has become the most important war zone." The development of the "space bomber" is to seek the "absolute advantage" of the United States in the future space war. Once this "space bomber" is successfully developed, it can be launched with a rocket like a space shuttle, cruising at an altitude of hundreds of kilometers, and can avoid the attacks of all air defense weapons in the world. It can be used not only to directly attack enemy satellites in orbit, but also to quickly throw precision-guided bombs at ground targets in all corners of the world in times of war.
What is "absolute advantage"? Another way of saying it is to bully the weak. After the Cold War, the wars launched by the United States were all asymmetric wars of "the eagle catches the chicken". In the past, in the case of confrontation between the two sides, even if the United States went to war against a weak opponent, there would always be some "worries." There is no such thing now. It's safe to fight. As long as the United States is determined to fight who, there is no doubt that it will win. So the more fun you play, the more fun you want to play.
3. "preemptive strike" and "preventive strike"
"9? After the "1 1" incident, the United States fell into the "9. 1 1" phobia. Driven by this "besieged" mentality, hawks believe that "attack is the best defense" and strongly advocate "preemptive strike" against "potential" hostile countries and "preventing terrorism from threatening our people and our country".
Under the domination of the above hawkish theory, the military strategy of the United States in the new century is full of the color of going its own way, and the subjective arbitrariness of taking military action against other countries has increased sharply. In the Iraq war, the main reason for the United States to participate in the war was to insist that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" and called it the greatest threat to the United States. But before the war, UN inspectors went to Iraq for repeated verification and found no evidence. After the war, the United States sent a large number of inspectors to investigate and found no evidence. The "Intelligence Gate" incident fully exposed the overbearing style of American hawks. According to hawks, the Iraq war has been won and Saddam Hussein's regime has been destroyed. That's all that matters. As for the "reasons" for joining the war, so what? So what?
4. "Shock" and "decapitation"
The basic meaning of the theory of "shock and awe" is that the war in the information age no longer pursues "adowa" the enemy. On the contrary, we should try our best to reduce the degree of hard damage and hard damage in the war and shift the focus of the war to quickly destroy the enemy's fighting will. This is the "shortcut" to victory in the war.
That is, make full use of the speed, precision weapons and information advantages possessed by the US military, strike the enemy with extremely strong precision and destroy the enemy's core target at the start of the war, which will quickly lead to the psychological collapse of enemy personnel and give up resistance, so as to achieve the effect of "defeating the enemy by clever warfare". Rumsfeld praised this theory. After returning to the Pentagon, he brought the theory of "shock and awe" into the Ministry of National Defense and became his "basic idea" to guide the Iraq war.
"Shock" is different from "deterrence". "Deterrence" is scary, and "shock" is a real fight. Moreover, "shocking" is not a general attack, but a heavy punch, hitting the key point, giving the enemy a devastating blow, and striving to stun and deceive the enemy at one stroke. General Horner recalled that during the Gulf War, the U.S. Air Force under his command knocked out the ground navigation radar that commanded Iraqi pilots in one fell swoop, and the Iraqi pilots immediately became a mess and quickly lost their combat capability.
The theory of decapitation is closely related to the theory of shock. "decapitation" action is the most effective "deterrent" means. The so-called "decapitation" is the "head" of the head of state of a belligerent country. The hawks were very dissatisfied with the result of the last Gulf War. They believe that the Gulf War "failed to complete the task" because "the Iraqi dictator is still on the stage" and "the Iraq issue has not been completely solved", which is a "great regret" left by the Gulf War. In the Iraq war, the hawks took killing Saddam Hussein and overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime as their primary goal from pre-war planning to every specific combat action.
The highest ideal of hawks
American hawks are so aggressive, what is their highest ideal? That is to "shape the world" according to the will of the United States. American hawks believe that the United States, as "the most powerful democracy in 2 1 century", "shoulders the obligation to spread political and economic liberalization like the arrival of the savior".
American hawks want to use the American model to "shape the world", but both western philosophy and eastern philosophy tell us that all the wishful thinking in the world is just imaginary "beauty", and once it enters the field of practice, things will never be so simple. The strategic goal of the United States in this Iraq war is to "reshape the territory of the Middle East", which will not be as simple as the United States imagined.
Some commentators said that the United States "won quickly and ate slowly" in Iraq.
Information from Iraq shows that American officers and men who have been unable to leave Iraq for a long time do not like the aggressive Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and even resent him. A soldier told the reporter who interviewed him, "If he were here now, I would ask him to step down immediately."