U.S. Terrorism, International Security, and Leadership: Toward a U.S.-EU-Russia Security Triangle

The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States marked the beginning of a new era in world politics. (1) Since then the international academic community has sought to devise plans to face the global threat of terrorism. In a world of increasing interdependence, security issues require collective responses to protect the democratic states against extremist groups, religious fundamentalists, or rogue states. With American leadership, the international community's search for security and stability should start with several fundamental questions that Hans Morgenthau posed four decades ago: is the purpose of America? What does America stand for? What distinguishes it from other nations. (2) Above all, America has the military muscle and means, and has shown willingness, to act. The post-cold war framework will emerge from the general guidelines of American grand strategy. Yet, this framework might impose a certain reorientation of American foreign policy priorities. The terrorist blow that caused the loss of thousands of lives has reminded everyone that world politics still bears features of the Hobbesian world of primitive instincts, intolerance, extremist and irrational behavior, and inability to engage in constructive political discourse. What is more, the attacks have dramatically put into question the applicability of American policies, principles, and values on a worldwide basis. They have also raised the need for a framework to build strategic alliances among the key geopolitical partners in their quest for security. In this article I will focus on the Union (EU) and Russia for several reasons. First, the EU is a product of a long integrative process, an effort the United States supported with the Marshall Plan in the post-World War II era. Second, since then, EU-U.S. relations have reached a degree of collaboration, despite differences, that allows them to act jointly against common threats. Third, the EU is creating the blueprint for a superstate with intergovernmental and supranational characteristics and is bound to play an active role in world politics. The creation of a Rapid Reaction Force will enable the EU to pursue European policies on the old continent. The United States is bound to support the integration because its failure might Balkanize the security landscape. In that case America would be expected to intervene once again. Fourth, the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union resulted in the emergence of Russia as the most powerful successor state, whose development and process in democratization significantly affect and global security. At the strategic level a partnership with the EU and Russia will allow the United States to focus on the new challenges to international security. American Foreign Policy, an Overview Historically, American foreign policy motives have ranged from isolationist to universalist based on the ultimate moral imperative for leadership. One could identify those trends within a paradigm that extends from political realism to altruistic pluralism. The current post-11 September conditions raise questions concerning the imperatives of American foreign policy and the consequences of American strategy for the world. The two polar opposites of American foreign policy exemplified by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson serve as a framework for defining America's role in the new millennium. Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy constituted an operational application of American realpolitik, while Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy choices revealed an altruistic motive to shape a world system according to American ideals and values on a consensual basis. (3) Conventional wisdom has focused on four alternative strategies that the United States may pursue: unilateral preeminence, restraint, selective engagement, and cooperation. (4) In the post-cold war era, the challenge that arises out of the old dichotomy is whether American foreign policy itself should be readjusted to the new geopolitical reality, in a way that would provide sound world leadership and at the same time meet allies' expectations of equal partnership. …