Dr. S. M. Rahman The reactionary power propensity has been particularly represented by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, whom Robert Jensen in his article entitled N-Weapon abolition requires death of US Empire has described as Reckless Hawks, as compared to Obama, Biden and Clinton, who are Reasonable Hawks. Hawks nevertheless The reckless lot is psychotic, wher-eas the reasonable ones are cynical. What is that impels US policymakers - Republicans and Democrats - to follow Wilsonian security paradigm as against Jeffersonian. Dismayed by the over-ambitious and awfully disastrous pre-emptive US doctrine propounded by George Bush and Co, the new incumbent Obama has been advised by the pundits and statesmen to steer the US foreign policy a bit different from that of his predecessor. Walter Russell Mead based on the Carter analogy argued in the recent issue of Foreign Policy that: Obama needs to reconcile a transcendent Wilsonian vision of US foreign policy, with a competing Jeffersonian worldview that focuses on the pitfalls of imperial overstretch. Next is Zbigniew Brezezinski, a Hawkish policy propeller who served as Security Advisor to President Carter just as Henry Kissinger was to Richard Nixon. How to take full control of Eurasia, after the end of Cold War, was Brezezinskis strategic ambition in order to perpetuate USAs absolute control over the world through a power chessboard paradigm. He is a bit critical of Obama - perhaps being 'wishy-washy and raising a lot of expectations rather than strategic breakthroughs. According to Brezezinski, Obama needs to be tenacious and energetic, and also be able to realise the goals he has already elaborated. Left to himself, perhaps, Obama would have followed what Nixon did in the context of Vietnam under the advice of Henry Kissinger. It was although a painful decision, but he did extract the US from the Vietnam morass, as the useless war was exceedingly becoming unpopular, besides creating an economic nightmare, entailing colossal budget deficit. Undoubtedly, Obamas oscillation between power and prudence is due to the mounting pressures of the Hawkish groups - the remnants of Bush era and the military industrial complex, which promotes military interventions, as its market strategy. The merchants of death have led to the transformation for the world, as if it were a replica of Greek tragedy. At the end of World War II, the US emerged as an undisputed global power through its acts of nuclear barbarism on Japan, not due to military requirements, but to convey a message indirectly to the Soviet Union to accept a step lower than that of America in the 'power-pecking order of the world. Is it not a pathological and dehumanised sensibility that depicts the US strategic mindset? A military historian has calculated that there were 39 incidents of nuclear blackmail, of which 30 were made by the US officials. This, in essence depicts the true face of the so-called civilised US, which Bush was so boastful about in justifying his pre-emptive military doctrine that essentially was predatory in nature, to defend the most exploitative economic system of capitalism and the Wests over-accentuating greed to consume a disprop-ortional share of the global wealth. What else is globalisation? Nevertheless, strategic contentment is not what the US and its allies tend to pursue. Despite the affluence and military power - USA had attained - the State Departments policymakers in 1947 (as quoted by Robert Jenson) very explicitly conveyed: To seek less than preponderant power would be to opt for defeat. Preponderant power must be the object of US policy. Preponderant power essentially is that America rules the world. That the US calls the strategic shots and determines the terms of the global economy, to others, who cannot reconcile to the domination, must be prepared to face annihilation. No other system would be acceptable and, therefore, throughout the cold war the myth of Communism was created to make the gullible public phobic about the dreadful ideology. But it was not the media onslaught that led to the fall of the Soviet Union. The strategic blunder did it, which it committed by invading Afghanistan, not realising that the Afghan territory is predisposed to sucking great empires - sort of eastern version of Bermuda Triangle. The legacy of military intervention is much deeper into the recesses of US mindset. The greatest strategist, General George Kennan, in his secret memo in 1948, had very forcefully advocated: The day is not far off when we will have to deal in strategic power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. Therefore, Bush rhetoric to justify the invasions, like the promotion of democracy, respect for human rights and preservation of western values, are the gimmicks the empire builders use as icing on the geopolitical cake they bake, to trample the sovereignty of nations and provide access of American companies to their resources, exclusively for the US and its allies and not for others. This is what neo-colonialism is all about. At least the old colonialists had some responsibility towards the colonialised but for the neo-colonialists, it is power without responsibility and for the sufferers, it is exploitation without redress. It is in this context, one can see how ruthlessly drone attacks are made in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, without any accountability and who-cares approach. The most treacherous weapons like bunker busters were used to break the will of Afghans but even though their territory was smashed to pieces, their souls remained intact. They are as adamant to achieve freedom, no matter how ruthless and devastating is the US militarys counterinsurgency, to justify the induction of more and more soldiers for launching a new surge. The US track record of compulsive war-mongering is indeed mind-boggling. From 1945 to 1999, it had conducted all-out military interventions against over 70 nations, to serve USAs domination and cook up enemies to justify the aggression. After the peril of communism receded into the background, the US military was in search of new threats. Several spectres of 'doom came to the fore: 'rogue states, weapons of mass destruction and most dangerous of all Islamic terror. (Beyond the War on Terror by Nafaz Mosaddeq Ahmed) Obama in his National Security Strategy (NSS) is too keen to contain the fiscal deficit, which is likely to reach $1.5 trillion. Containing the deficit requires avoiding 'over-reach. Its good for you, Mr Obama, to realise after the debacle and a colossal economic loss. As a face-saving device, he reiterates: To disrupt and defeat Al-Qaeda and its affiliates remains the key strategic objective of the US, which is to be achieved through a judicious use of American power both military and civilian. In his NSS, the US President has narrowed down his ambition by saying that the war is not against Islam but Al-Qaeda. Obama should ponder about who created Al-Qaeda? The world cannot be hoodwinked by the gobbledygook or semantic rigmaroles. If exit from Afghanistan is, too, painful to acknowledge, or withdrawal call it process or whatever. But define it. How and when? The dialogue with the Afghans is the imperative. Evasiveness is moral cowardice. The writer is secretary general, FRIENDS. Email: friendsfoundation@live.co.uk