PNAC’s American Empire: Aggressive Desires for Power and Freedom

Paradigm for peace applied to Russia, Ukraine and the US: Proposal for a peaceful Pathway forward

PART 3. THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE: NEEDS FOR POWER AND FREEDOM

Part 3B. PNAC’s American Empire: Aggressive Desires for Power and Freedom

We hear constantly in mainstream media that Russian President Vladimir Putin craves conquest and a revival of the Russian Empire. You can almost hear an evil Russian laugh!

But has it occurred to US policy and media makers that perhaps they’re guilty of psychological projection? In other words, they see their own desires for empire in Putin, rather than in themselves, because it’s too hard for them to take the truth that their own aims are for a continuation and expansion of the American Empire? Either that, or they’re just lying through their teeth to try to deceive the world about who’s guilty of craving and building empire. After all, it’s the US who has 800 military bases around the world, not Putin.

As William Blum writes in his chapter on American Empire in Killing Hope:

Following its bombing of Iraq in 1991, the United States wound up with military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Following its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States wound up with military bases in Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia.

Following its bombing of Afghanistan in 2001-2, the United States wound up with military bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Yemen and Djibouti.

And that is the way the empire grows —a thousand bases and other military installations in every corner of the world, ready to be mobilized to put down any threat to imperial rule, real or imagined.

Blum’s chapter, besides describing American Empire in the physical form of the enormous quantity of these military bases worldwide, includes numerous quotes from the White House and Pentagon in memos as well as presentations to the Council on Foreign Relations showing policymakers’ psychological determination to maintain and expand American domination of the world, in all forms, including information dominance and space domination, and with a special emphasis on preemptive action and the display of “raw US power across the globe,” even if there are no security threats.[1]

Based on what I know of Putin’s words and his actions in Georgia, Crimea, Syria, and Ukraine, I have not seen any indicators that he’s seeking conquest or empire at all. However, he is putting his foot down to the spread of US empire in Russia’s neck of the woods. To those who wear biased lenses of life and see Russia as evil, Russian self-defense automatically appears as aggression.

As we’ll discuss in another part of this essay on Power and Freedom, Putin’s 2021 essay and 2007 Munich speech are both falsely accused of revealing his belligerence and conquistador desires. Not only are these accusations false, but the essay and speech don’t come close to the exuberant belligerence, hegemonic goals, and shameless excitement over US conquest and a “Pax Americana” as revealed in the document written by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC): “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.” It was written in September 2000, one year before 9/11, and 9/11 was like putty in the hands of these domination-dreamers, who have used it as a pretext to relentlessly advance their goals. This document in turn was a further development of the infamous 1992 Defense Planning Guide, written by Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad.[2]

The words and goals of this document may seem innocuous lying there on flat pieces of paper, but they’re alive and well, they’re three-dimensional, come-to-life, they’re thriving and are being fed by US policymakers with a fatty diet rich in funds and weapons. I challenge anyone to prove that Putin’s 2021 essay or his 2007 Munich speech exhibits even one-twentieth of the eagerness for domination that appears in PNAC’s document.

In my unpublished works, I write about PNAC’s document at length, but here I’ll try to condense the material and describe only a few representative examples of lines from PNAC’s document so that you can compare PNAC’s goals with Putin’s goals as described in his essay and speech. Here are some quotes from PNAC’s document:

If America does not shape this new epoch, we can be sure that others will shape it for us—in ways that neither further our interests nor reflect our ideals.[3]

This attitude of “shape them before they shape us” is not necessarily a reliable indicator of actual circumstances and truth. It’s more likely an indicator of a psychological state, a habit of viewing the world with a skewed perspective based on the limits and contours of one’s own psychology.

The “shape them” attitude could also create a negative Pygmalion effect in that its negative expectations about others can lead the US to take conquest-and-threat-oriented actions—such as expanding NATO—that in turn bring out negative behaviors in others who feel provoked into greater measures of self-defense. The negative thoughts and assumptions of this attitude can bring to life the very negativity and belligerence in their opponent that they are supposedly seeking to prevent.

PNAC asserts:

At present the United States faces no global rival. America’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible. There are however, potentially powerful states dissatisfied with the current situation and eager to change it, if they can, in directions that endanger the relatively peaceful, prosperous and free condition the world enjoys today. Up to now, they have been deterred from doing so by the capability and global presence of American military power. But, as that power declines, relatively and absolutely, the happy conditions that follow from it will be inevitably undermined.[4]

Notice that nearly every sentence in that quote is an assumption, not a fact. For example, why would a change by another nation necessarily be a turn for the worse? Why, as US power declines, will happy conditions be undermined? Whose happy conditions? I’m assuming not the one-quarter of Americans suffering from mental illness.[5]

And why is US military power given credit for the “relatively peaceful” conditions the world enjoys today rather than blamed for all the violence and despair in which much of the world has been submerged? Why not blame the military and war for all the broken and obliterated families, the refugee crisis, and the horrendous poverty caused by war and taxes to support the military and the weapon industry?

PNAC crows:

The end of the Cold War leaves the US Navy in a position of unchallenged supremacy on the high seas, a dominance surpassing that even of the British Navy in the 19th and early parts of the 20th century. With the remains of the Soviet fleet now largely rusting in port, the open oceans are America’s.[6]

Do you notice the gloating about the rust and about the oceans being America’s? And why do they say the oceans are America’s? And even if they are, what’s so great about that? Is the US going to be in charge, then, of detoxifying oceans, forbidding oil tankers from sailing, protecting whales, and banning sonar that harms marine life? Or are they just going to sail about in their destroyers and carriers looking for a fight?

PNAC explains:

The true cost of not meeting our defense requirements will be a lessened capacity for American global leadership and, ultimately, the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity.[7]

Prosperity? Are these authors oblivious to American poverty, environmental disasters, understaffed hospitals, and struggles to pay heating bills and exuberant health care costs not covered by insurance? Are they oblivious to the poverty of time caused by people who have to work several jobs, by families where both parents must work full-time and part-time jobs, whether they want to or not, just to make ends meet? Seems to me Americans are losing a lot of tax money supporting the US government-subsidized weapon industry and US-led wars.

And why not worry about the poverty in other nations? Why is the global security order supposed to be uniquely friendly to the prosperity of those Americans who are already prosperous? What kind of system is that? Sounds very gluttonous to me. If the US is getting prosperous and others aren’t because of this system, isn’t the system essentially transferring wealth from the poor to the rich? PNAC’s document appears to contain a noticeable degree of self-centered avarice and greed for wealth, territory, and control.

The most glaring, even startling feature of PNAC’s report is the preoccupation with world dominance. PNAC’s desire for dominance seems to spring from a motivation that goes far beyond a defensive fear of being dominated. Throughout the document, the words “preeminence,” “dominance,” and “superiority” are sprinkled so liberally that the theme of dominance seriously appears to be an unhealthy obsession.

PNAC’s document speaks of the “worldwide archipelago of US military installations” of America’s bases and troops abroad: “they are the cavalry on the new American frontier.”[8] So the US borders are now over there? The people of Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America are all now merely subjects of the US living on the American frontier?

PNAC appears to be promoting US interference in as many nations as possible. PNAC writes, “it is important that NATO not be replaced by the European Union, leaving the United States without a voice in European security affairs.”[9] Without a voice? Is the US supposed to have a voice? Aren’t those separate nations? If Americans don’t even have a voice in US foreign policy, why should US policymakers have a voice in European security affairs?

PNAC also writes that there’s greater regional coordination and possible developments into an alliance amongst nations of Southeast Asia through efforts of the Asian Regional Forum. PNAC maintains that this coordination must be strengthened with the United States at its core.[10] It’s like having a neighbor who insists on visiting each home on the street to be at the core of their family decision-making. Isn’t there any sense of shame about being a self-centered busybody?

In the most self-centered way possible, PNAC believes the security of the entire world should be in line with US interests, which means the interests of certain elite social and business circles, and writes: “today the task is to preserve an international security environment conducive to American interests and ideals . . . and to preserve American preeminence.”

PNAC must realize that people will naturally resist US domination, but instead of recognizing such resistance as an indicator that US global domination is a bad idea, PNAC urges us to fight even harder to control others. Of course, such US behavior will only augment the numbers of people who abhor the US and who seek to fight against the US, which has become nothing more than a clone-producing Evil Empire on-the-loose.

As if in anticipation of this, PNAC then prepares us for the unfortunate consequence that the United States will have to fight wars on multiple battlefronts simultaneously, all with the noble goal of the “happy conditions” of a Pax Americana, an American-led “peace.” To advance this mission, PNAC thinks the US should have an arsenal not only capable of defeating Russia, but, now that the Cold War is allegedly over, it should have an arsenal capable of defeating the arsenals of all the other nations and organizations combined who might attack.[11] Of course, with the US exporting weapons left and right as the number one weapons supplier in the world, the US will have to keep building up its own arsenal forever in order to stay ahead of the rest of the world combined.

PNAC asserts: “The United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars and also to be able to respond to unanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces.” Knowing that US policies of domination will lead to widespread hateful backlash, PNAC asserts that “anything less than a clear two-war capacity threatens to devolve into a no-war strategy.”[12] As if having no war would be so bad.

PNAC recognizes that US conventional power causes smaller states to seek more nuclear power, yet it sees the solution as continued US nuclear weapons preeminence—a continued nuclear arms race. “Whatever our fondest wishes . . . there is no magic wand with which to eliminate these [nuclear] weapons . . . deterring their use requires a reliable and dominant US nuclear capability.”

Denying the ability to rid the world of nukes because we don’t have a magic wand is like denying the ability to cook dinner because we don’t have a magic wand. Yes, of course there’s no magic wand, but it’s silly to think we can’t do anything without a magic wand because there is such a thing as human effort, and with human effort we can cook dinner and we can rid the planet of nuclear weapons.

But PNAC seems to think that the 4,000 nukes the US already has aren’t enough of a deterrent. After all, what nation in its right mind would be daunted by a mere 4,000 nukes, especially if some of them aren’t up-to-date? Therefore, PNAC advocates replenishing and further developing the US nuclear arsenal, a suggestion taken up by President Barack Obama’s administration which committed an initial $1.2 trillion to “revitalizing” the US nuclear arsenal. (Apparently, no magic wand is needed to replenish the nuclear arsenal.)

And, as already stated in Part 1 Life and Safety, PNAC expresses excitement about developing pocket-sized robots to let loose abroad, skin-patch pharmaceuticals to drug up US troops, and biological weapons “that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool. This is merely a glimpse of the possibilities inherent in the process of transformation.” Picture it. Biological weapons that aren’t terrifying but politically useful, especially once they mutate and turn on their creators and wipe out the species that was dumb enough to create them.

But seriously, what kind of evil minds would actually think about creating weapons that target a certain genotype and kill people based upon their DNA, upon a DNA sequence likely associated with certain ethnic groups? Perhaps that’s what US policymakers were doing in Ukraine at those biology labs reportedly found by Russian troops. Arranging for genocide. But this apparently wonderful transformation in warfare that’s awaiting us, the transformation to war “in space, ‘cyber-space,’ and perhaps the world of microbes” requires funding. “Until the process of transformation is treated as an enduring military mission—worthy of a constant allocation of dollars and forces—it will remain stillborn.”[13] It’s funny how they associate this transformation in weaponry with life, while the lack of development of the military arsenal is associated with being “stillborn.” I think if the military arsenal had been stillborn we’d all have more of a chance at life.

And it’s not just over terrestrial land that PNAC seeks US domination. The document exhibits a hunger for possession that stretches ever outward: “to ensure America’s control of space.”[14] In 1967, Great Britain, the USSR, and the US signed a treaty on the use of outer space which was in accord with the principles set forth in 1963 by the General Assembly: Outer space would be used for the benefit of all and no nation could claim any part of it.[15] But, as the Native Americans and several others have learned, the US government doesn’t keep its treaties. Instead, PNAC cites as a goal: “CONTROL THE NEW ‘INTERNATIONAL COMMONS’ OF SPACE AND ‘CYBERSPACE,’ and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control.”[16]

Displaying a flair for contradiction, PNAC calls space an “international commons” and, in the same breath, writes of the need for the United States to control these commons. Such a place sounds like a US territory, not an international commons. PNAC writes: “Unrestricted use of space has become a major strategic interest of the United States.” PNAC wants space to be unrestricted to the US yet restricted to others by the US.

It’s alarming that PNAC so casually takes it as given that “maintaining control of space will inevitably require the application of force both in space and from space….” [17] But such inevitability of force that stems from desiring to maintain control over space is thus an argument in favor of not seeking such control over space in the first place. Currently we’re having wars to ensure access to oil in case our policymakers need oil in a future war. Next we’ll be having wars in space in order to ensure control of weapons in space in case our policymakers have a future war in space. What’s next? I know: death for us all. And won’t people be surprised when heaven decides not to descend to Earth at the end of the world. Those deities will be moving on to another galaxy.

I think what’s striking about PNAC’s report is this naïve trust in the goodness, intelligence, and skill of the US government and an assumption that all good people around the world will naturally harbor a rosy, cozy feeling of that same trust in the United States, as they might towards a trusted parent or a faithful, beloved guard dog. The complementary other half of this belief is the conviction that those who do not naturally trust the United States as The Good Guy Who Can Dominate the World Fairly, Kindly, and Wisely must be malicious, rogue, bad guys who should be killed.

Why does PNAC always assume that the United States can do everything right and fairly? It’s like having an annoying relative or friend who thinks he knows more than you do and should always be in charge.

What PNAC members need to understand, and perhaps this is better conveyed through cooperative dialogue, is that people can distrust US policymakers, disagree with US policymakers, not want US infiltration or domination, abhor US foreign policies—and still be very good, moral, kind, and intelligent people.

PNAC seems to recognize that US efforts to continually be preeminent and expand in preeminence will provoke hostility, but it fails to see any other way around this problem, such as the honorable option of actually adhering to a treaty—the Outer Space Treaty of 1967—and not weaponizing space.[18]

If we step back a pace, it becomes clear that PNAC’s constant talk of preeminence and establishing US control over global security is an indicator, not of a thoughtful, effective plan, but of a mentality glued squarely to particular psychological patterns, including the political lenses described by Eduard Spranger and discussed in Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice. Individuals who see life through the political lenses, as opposed to any of the other lenses Spranger describes, perpetually see life and human relations in terms of domination, superiority, and inferiority.[19]

I also think PNAC’s mentality is indicative of OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—which is rooted in an essential fear of uncertainty, a fear that never goes away but that provokes all of these dysfunctional, obsessive, compulsive rituals—in this case, dangerous ones of weapons production and militarism—as vain attempts to reduce uncertainty and to feel psychologically secure.

Despite clear indications that PNAC’s psychological status is highly unrepresentative of Americans, imbalanced, and dangerous in a seat of power, PNAC strived to gain much more taxpayer money for the Department of Defense to bring to bloody fruition PNAC’s ideas, including the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. PNAC wants much more funding for the Department of Defense to make PNAC’s recommendations possible. It laments the fact that forces are not adequate to accomplish the US mission of maintaining and expanding this Pax Americana, but it admits that such a “process of transformation” and, presumably, the desired large increases in funding, are unlikely to come about soon “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”[20] Gee, I certainly hope that when PNAC was writing this in 2000 it wasn’t wishing for a 9/11 or coaxing it along.

In addition to its unhealthy preoccupation with domination, one of PNAC’s key deficiencies in thinking is this: instead of preventing fears of domination within others, PNAC wants to dominate others despite their fears and then respond to their fears by dominating them even more to make sure their fear doesn’t turn into resistance. It’s an extremely forceful approach and a disrespectful attitude toward other people. It displays great arrogance to claim that the US government knows more than other people what’s good for them. It displays an unfortunate degree of ignorance about the dynamics of human relations, and it displays a stunted capacity for such relations. This reduced capacity is probably largely connected with this “political lens” of viewing life, and it may be connected with childhood family dynamics. So while these individuals may be highly talented in some ways, their weaknesses are quite dangerous.

Unfortunately, because those with the political lens will be the ones who care most about domination, they’re also more likely to dominate their fellow Americans and lead foreign policy. To prevent this from continuing to happen, we must act upon the realization that while those who view the world through Spranger’s political lenses can contribute to foreign policy discussion, they should in no way be in the driver’s seat, for their vision is highly skewed and will in all likelihood lead to car crash after car crash.

Chaired by William Kristol, PNAC’s members and signatories to their principles have included Robert Kagan; Donald Kagan, the Lithuanian-born father of Robert; Gary Schmitt, PNAC’s director; Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney; Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; National Security Council member Elliott Abrams, infamous for his role in US foreign policy towards Latin America during the Reagan administration;[21] Scooter Libby, who was Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff; Bush’s brother and Florida Governor Jeb Bush; Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and later President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz; Thomas Donnelly, a director and also principal author of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century” who has transformed his gender to become Giselle Donnelly; weapon manufacturer Lockheed Martin executive Bruce Jackson, who was a PNAC director; and President Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who was another director.

PNAC, at least by the name of PNAC, was established in 1997 and ceased to exist in 2006, but it had already achieved one of its goals in 2003: the US invasion of Iraq. It wanted the US to drop out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and Bush Jr. did that in 2002. It wanted higher military budgets, and the US president and congress are dutifully forking over ever-increasing amounts of our tax dollars, with a military budget this past year of three-quarters of a trillion dollars! It wanted a US presence in the Black Sea region, and US tax dollars are marching towards that end right now. It believes in “peace” through intimidation and the use and ever-expansion of the US military, and it’s getting that too.

In violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it wanted development of more nuclear weapons, and it’s getting that. It looks like it’s even getting its Space Forces, in violation of the Outer Space Treaty. PNAC’s document was written by Thomas Donnelly, a future Lockheed Martin executive, and the document stresses the importance of Lockheed Martin’s Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), designed to intercept medium-range ballistic missiles.[22] Sure enough, President Trump, dutifully in line with PNAC, installed THAAD in South Korea in 2018, amidst the extreme protest of thousands of South Koreans.

PNAC’s successor, Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), lasted until 2017 when its funding collapsed during the Trump administration. FPI also included Paul Singer and Dan Senor, both of Elliott Investment Management, Start-Up Nation Central, and the Manhattan Institute of Policy Research, which was founded by William Casey, who later became CIA director during the Reagan administration.

While they’re officially defunct, PNAC’s and FPI’s influence continues and their imbalanced psychological worldview persists. Their entire push for continued US militarization, including drone warfare, the continued expansion of US military control, and the worldview of the desirability of a pseudo-form of deadly peace through military threats and action have been playing out on the pages of US foreign policy.

PNAC’s two co-founders remain in influential positions. Amongst several other positions, William Kristol is an adviser to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, and Robert Kagan is the husband of Biden’s Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland, infamous for the leaked tapes during the time of the 2014 coup in Ukraine. Nuland was also former CEO of the Center for a New American Security, not to be confused with her husband’s Project for the New American Century.

Given PNAC’s influence on US foreign policy, how can US foreign policymaker fears with regard to power and freedom possibly be considered Defensive Roots of Violence? These are Aggressive Roots of Violence. The “shape them before they shape us” philosophy is a recipe for preemptive, threatening action. Not surprisingly, then, PNAC is seeking continued and expanding preeminence over the entire world. Certainly, PNAC’s goals must be threatening to so many other nations of the world, including Russia.

Again, while I personally feel very angry towards these people for advocating policies that have brought so much destruction and despair to so much of the planet, it’s important to genuinely try to temporarily understand their thinking in cooperative dialogue. While people such as this absolutely do not belong in the driver’s seat of foreign policy, which is where they are, we’ve got to see where their fears originate and find any valid grievances within their views. Whether the people we are angry with are Russians, neo-Nazis, or US policymakers, we have to try to understand their fears, as they see them. Because only then can we try to address both the rational and irrational fears in a way that is just and non-violent. In particular, how has our culture contributed to the formation in some Americans of irrational fears and a thirst for security rooted in physical intimidation of others?

Gary Schmitt, for example, who was the executive director of PNAC, has stated his belief that if the US is not militarily forceful against Russia, Russia will not be discouraged from future invasions. He’s an advocate of a confrontational approach with Russia, including the expansion of NATO up to Russia’s borders. He believes that Russia invaded Ukraine because the US was not forceful enough in kicking Russia out of Georgia in 2008. Therefore, the US must be tough to raise the costs for Russia so that Russia does not feel it’s worth it to invade other nations. He stated:

There will be no peace for Ukraine until and unless Putin sees the cost for his behavior as being greater than the rewards, and there will be no permanent stability in Eastern Europe absent NATO expansion. And neither of these can occur until the US puts aside the idea that the Russian government is just like any other government and accepts the fact that, in the absence of a strong American military presence, its competitors and adversaries will fill the vacuum.

Schmitt’s goals have been embodied within US foreign policy. He’s also advocated revoking US security guarantees to Western Europe unless Western European nations increase military spending to counter Russia. He advises the next Republican presidential candidate to “remember the wisdom of the Reagan buildup.”[23]

Schmitt’s statements send my blood pressure sky-high, but again, the point in cooperative dialogue would be to first try to understand him better, in a sincere and friendly manner. After getting into his shoes and even pretending we’re him with his thoughts and thinking of ourselves as kind and reasonable people with those thoughts, participants could then ask him plenty of questions. They could then work together to point out strengths and weaknesses in his point of view. It’s important to ask him plenty of strong questions with bold amiability to try to comprehend and also challenge and evaluate his logic, assumptions, and knowledge of circumstances with regard to the behavior of Russia, the US, Ukraine, and also Georgia. In the dialogue, he and others like him would then sincerely get into the shoes of those like myself who see human and international dynamics much differently.

Schmitt seems to believe, like other PNAC members, that it’s precisely the threat of US military force that causes other nations to behave. Without this threat, Russia and other nations would be on the loose, invading nations here, there, and everywhere. He doesn’t seem to feel that Russia invaded Georgia or Ukraine for any legitimate reasons, only to be an aggressive jerk. He uses that word “vacuum,” and it suggests that he sees Russia as just wanting to expand wherever it can, wherever there is a vacuum of power.

This “vacuum theory” seems to have been adopted by the US foreign policy establishment and by NATO without careful evaluation, just blind faith in its accuracy. It doesn’t seem to occur to Schmitt and his colleagues that Russia might have other reasons for military action, or that Russia might not want to expand power simply because there is a vacuum. From the little I read about Schmitt, it doesn’t seem to strike him that US foreign policymakers may have behaved poorly themselves and provoked Russia in multiple ways.

Ideally, in dialogue, we could find non-violent, non-threatening ways in which the US could have helped improve the situation so that the Russian military would not have felt the need to step in. The idea is not to intimidate Russia into staying within its borders, the idea is to change the circumstances so that Russia no longer feels an important need to launch a military operation because the situation has been resolved justly and humanely. This should be the approach to all so-called “enemies.” With regard to 9/11, the US approach should not be to intimidate terrorists into not terrorizing. The approach should be to address the legitimate grievances of terrorists so that they no longer feel the need to terrorize.

Hopefully, we could come to some agreement that shifts solutions from violent to non-violent, from forceful to logical, from self-centered to cooperative, and that puts in place policies that can give Schmitt valid reason to not fear a new Russia Empire and that can give people like me valid reason not to fear US Empire. And hopefully we can address the human dynamics, habits, and priorities within US culture and subcultures, especially the US foreign policymaking subculture, that create irrational fears and that provoke Americans to believe so desperately in the need to protect themselves by means of physical hostility and domination.