Les signes du retour d’un débat escamoté ?

A la fin de la Guerre froide, en 1989-1991, certains crurent que les USA allaient entreprendre un grand débat de politique extérieure sur la possibilité d’un certain désengagement des affaires du monde. Il y avait une logique historique derrière cette idée, puisqu’on pouvait considérer que c’était la Guerre froide qui, après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, avait orienté la politique US vers l’engagement extérieur. Le débat n’eut pas lieu, essentiellement parce que la première guerre du Golfe (prémisses à partir d’août 1990) fournit assez d’arguments au complexe militaro-industriel pour faire pression dans le sens du maintien de l’engagement, bientôt soutenu par Wall Street qui lança la globalisation financière avec la présidence Clinton.

Aujourd’hui, quelques solides catastrophes plus tard dans l'aventure post-9/11, Justin Logan constate, dans The American Conservative du 17 décembre: «Argue Like It’s 1991 – The interventionist consensus breaks down, and an overdue debate begins.»

Logan, qui est du CATO Institute (centre libertarien modéré très opposé à l’interventionnisme), estime que plusieurs signes montrent que le non-débat de 1989-91 pourrait bien être en train de démarrer vraiment, 16 ans plus tard.

«But there are several signs that the interventionist consensus is coming under increased scrutiny. The first is the undeniable success of Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s campaign for president. Though still languishing in in the polls, Paul shattered the single-day Republican fundraising record by pulling in more than $4 million on Nov. 5. The campaign had been garnering major attention from a media that is certainly not favorably inclined ideologically, with Paul appearing on the “Tonight Show” and in other high-profile venues. Paul is running on two major policy issues: returning to the gold standard and reversing the U.S. policy of attempting to run the Middle East. It’s left to the reader to determine to which of those policies we should ascribe his success.

»There has also been a flurry of discussion in the foreign- policy community that hearkens back to the sweeping debate in 1991. Barry Posen, the head of the security studies program at MIT, penned an essay on grand strategy in the November/December issue of the The American Interest entitled “The Case for Restraint.” Posen’s argument includes three main proposals: “The United States needs to be more reticent about the use of military force; more modest about the scope for political transformation within and among countries; and more distant politically and militarily from traditional allies.”

»After making a thorough case for his strategy, Posen cannot resist noting in closing that the interventionist consensus arrived at after the Cold War has been tested and failed. By contrast, he proposes that America should “conceive its security interests narrowly, use its military power stingily, pursue its enemies quietly but persistently, share responsibilities and costs more equitably, watch and wait more patiently. Let’s do this for 16 years and see if the outcomes aren’t better.”

»While the essay elicited surprisingly positive comments from reformed neocon Francis Fukuyama as well as from others, it sent interventionists of all stripes into apoplexy. From the left, former Princeton professor John Ikenberry complained that “the Iraq war will be rendered all the more tragic if it leads America to pull back from its European and Asian security partnerships and its leadership in maintaining the institutional bases of global order.” Likewise, conservative Josef Joffe complained that Posen’s strategy amounts to the familiar bogeyman of “isolationism.” Joffe then turned President Reagan’s dictum about “peace through strength” on its head by arguing that “a great power must carry great burdens or else it stops being one.” By this feeble logic, America would be even greater by taking on more commitments.

»On the heels of Posen’s article came an essay in the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs by Columbia professor Richard K. Betts making the argument—unthinkable six years ago—that the defense budget is too big. Not including the supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States spends roughly as much on defense as does the rest of the world combined—and still almost all political figures insist we need to spend even more. Betts argues,“Washington spends so much and yet feels so insecure because U.S. policymakers have lost the ability to think clearly about defense policy.”

»Betts’s most devastating point is that even the increases in military spending that have been proposed by the most hawkish presidential candidates would be woefully inadequate for supporting their imperial foreign policies. He sees “a defense budget caught between two stools: higher than needed for basic security but far lower than required to eliminate all villainous governments and groups everywhere.” It is this disconnect that has precipitated the most striking development in the debate over American national security in recent years: the bold entry of uniformed U.S. military officers into the debates over grand strategy and foreign policy.

»Since the military lives or dies on the solvency of American foreign policy, it is understandable that the men and women who have been harmed most by the Bush administration’s foreign policy are feeling the need to weigh in. Although traditionally reticent about voicing their policy views in popular media, uniformed military personnel, both active duty and retired, have increasingly been speaking out. From Army Lt. Col. Paul Yingling’s article “A Failure in Generalship” in the Armed Forces Journal, to the pessimistic August New York Times article authored by seven officers stationed in Iraq, to retired Gen. John Abizaid’s recent comments that the United States could live with a nuclear Iran, military officers are entering the debates over foreign policy, perhaps concerned that the discussion as it stood was failing to provide the kind of strategy worthy of their sacrifice.»

Le débat sur le désengagement US, en général aussitôt dénoncé avec horreur comme un retour de l’isolationnisme par les interventionnistes, est une sorte de monstre du Loch Ness. Son ombre réapparaît épisodiquement mais la chose ne se concrétise pas. Ce n’est pas pour autant que ce débat n’est pas justifié ni même nécessaire et ces ratages peuvent aussi bien nourrir l’argument contraire : au plus ce débat est repoussé, au plus la situation des USA s’aggrave et exige qu'il soit effectivement lancé et conduit à son terme. De ce point de vue, les dernières années ont été bien significatives, bien lourdes, bien pressantes à cet égard.

Aux arguments et citations de Logan, on pourrait ajouter l’orientation d’Hillary Clinton ou l’une ou l’autre remarque d’un Robert Kagan, deux personnalités en général estampillées interventionnistes (liberal hawk pour Hillary, néo-conservateur pour Kagan).

Mis en ligne le 18 décembre 2007 à 09H59