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Hegemony solves proliferation
The Boston Globe 8 [July 24, Lexis]
AS BARACK OBAMA travels abroad this week, he is finding a world that still wants America to be engaged, but no longer necessarily waits for America to take the lead. The challenge for the next president is to understand how much has changed and how America can best pursue its national interests in such a different international environment. It isn't just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have changed the world, nor other aspects of the Bush legacy that have weakened America's power and position. The world itself has changed. Ours is the era of global interconnectedness. The fate of the average American is increasingly connected to the fate of people around the world creating unparalleled opportunities but also great dangers from which no nation can be immune. Ours is also an era of increasingly diffuse power, as more powers rise to demand influence and a say over global affairs and more actors of many different kinds affect the course of global politics. Such a world requires a new kind of leadership - one that is clear on how, when, and with whom America leads. Call it strategic leadership. A leadership that understands that while much of the world still believes that international peace and prosperity are most likely to be achieved if Washington plays a significant and constructive role, key actors no longer simply defer to or automatically prefer what America wants. A leadership that focuses on effective action rather than who is in the lead. A leadership that relies on clear judgment as much as demonstrating resolve. A leadership that grasps that however great our power, America cannot meet today's challenges all on its own. Strategic leadership requires a commitment to statecraft as both an alternative and a complement to military force. Although diplomacy has its limitations, US strategic interests are often best served by leveraging its potential for enhancing security, reducing tensions, resolving conflicts, achieving peace, and transforming adversarial relationships. With regard to nuclear proliferation, for instance, the best hope lies not in striking possible proliferators, but in working with countries around the world to renew the essential bargain at the core of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. On this issue, America will have to lead, by reducing reliance on nuclear weapons and committing to seeking a world free of nuclear weapons. Only then can it convince others to do likewise and gain the benefits of nuclear power without risking wider proliferation of nuclear weapons and capabilities. Strategic leadership demands a strong military, but also the wisdom to know when and how to employ it. For example, US withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq cannot be a military withdrawal from the region. A regional military posture that deters adversaries and reassures allies must remain in place. The conflict in Afghanistan must get greater priority. But so too must diplomatic initiatives. Militarily and diplomatically, the United States needs regional and European partners to do their part. America should take the lead where it can play the most constructive role and support others when their roles are most promising.
Heg Solves Terrorism
US Intervention is key to prevent another terrorist attack
Korb 3 [Lawrence Project Director of Council Policy Initiative, Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/National_Security_CPI.pdf]
For centuries, international law has accepted that a state need not suffer an attack before it can lawfully take action to repel an imminent danger. Legal scholars condition the first use of force on the presence of an imminent threat.We need to adapt this imminence requirement to today’s realities.The terrorists and tyrants that inhabit the globe will not use conventional means, such as armies, navies, and air forces, to attack us. They plan to rely on “asymmetric warfare”—the use of terror tactics and perhaps even weapons of mass destruction,weapons that will be carefully concealed ,secretly delivered, and employed without warning.In this new threat environment, the inherent right to self-defense enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter includes the right—I would say the legal and moral obligation—to act to protect American interests.To conclude otherwise would be to turn the charter into a suicide pact. In a perfect world, preventive action would be unnecessary. But in the admittedly flawed world of today, it is not enough to act only in response to past aggression. Even a number of “just war” theorists understand that such a reactive strategy plays into the hands of Osama bin Laden and his sympathizers. I agree with many of our religious and moral leaders who say that war should be fought only as a last resort, but preventive action is plainly defensive when it is motivated by a reasonable belief that a serial aggressor, such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is equipping itself with the means to carry out further aggression.
U.S. hegemony prevents terrorist use of WMDs
Schmitt 6 [Gary, Resident scholar and director of the Program on Advanced Strategic Studies at the American Interprise Institute, [ The Weekly Standard, Vol. 11 No. 22, February, Lexis]
The core argument itself is not new: The United States and the West face a new threat--weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists--and, whether we like it or not, no power other than the United States has the capacity, or can provide the decisive leadership, required to handle this and other critical global security issues. Certainly not the United Nations or, anytime soon, the European Union. In the absence of American primacy, the international order would quickly return to disorder. Indeed, whatever legitimate concerns people may have about the fact of America's primacy, the downsides of not asserting that primacy are, according to The American Era, potentially far more serious. The critics "tend to dwell disproportionately on problems in the exercise of [American] power rather than on the dire consequences of retreat from an activist foreign policy," Lieber writes. They forget "what can happen in the absence of such power."
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