U.S. global military dominance

U.S. global military dominance, as analyzed by Noam Chomsky, is not simply a measure of military strength but a policy project: securing strategic resources and access, preserving freedom of action, and making American power visible enough to deter resistance. The September 11 attacks did not create this project, but the response to them offered an opportunity to extend it—through new bases in Central Asia, a wider military reach around the Persian Gulf, and a renewed claim to act on Washington’s own terms.

Strategic geography and military reach

Before the war in Afghanistan, the United States already maintained a network of bases oriented toward the Persian Gulf, stretching from the Pacific to the Azores. Diego Garcia was described as its most secure base. Chomsky argues that the establishment of major American bases in Central Asia changed this geography: for the first time, the United States had a substantial military presence in the region, and intervention there could be undertaken more readily if Washington judged it appropriate.

The strategic map in this account is also a map of resources. The world’s principal energy reserves lie chiefly in Saudi Arabia and across the Gulf region, with significant resources in Central Asia as well. Afghanistan itself is characterized as a minor piece on that larger board, but proposed pipelines through the country had for years figured in American efforts to control access to Central Asian resources. The new bases, in Chomsky’s interpretation, served both to support a contemporary “Great Game” favorable to American-dominated multinationals and to complete the military encirclement of major energy reserves.

Continuity and the claim to unilateral action

Chomsky places the policy after September 11 within a longer pattern rather than treating it as a sudden departure. In 1993, Bill Clinton informed the United Nations that the United States intended to act multilaterally when possible and unilaterally when necessary. Madeleine Albright reiterated the position, and in 1999 Defense Secretary William Cohen described reliance on unilateral military power to defend vital interests. Those interests included securing unimpeded access to essential markets, energy sources, and strategic resources; in practice, Chomsky notes, Washington could define the reach of its own authority.

He nevertheless distinguishes George W. Bush’s approach as a further escalation that had alarmed allies. The sudden drive to assemble a coalition after the attacks might soften the rhetoric, he argues, without changing the underlying policy. Coalition members were expected to support the United States quietly and obediently, not to share in decision-making. Washington, meanwhile, reserved the right to act as it chose and avoided invoking international institutions where the law would require their role. For Chomsky, the test of multilateralism is therefore not the number of governments enlisted, but whether they can constrain or participate in the use of American power.

Power, political interests, and public consent

The account also connects military expansion to policy at home. Chomsky argues that the Bush administration would try to use the crisis to advance militarization, including missile defense and the militarization of space; weaken social-democratic programs; divert attention from the effects of globalization, environmental problems, and health-insurance concerns; and transfer more wealth to a small number of people, including through the removal of corporate obligations. He describes the effort to subordinate society and suppress public debate as part of the same political agenda, not as a separate consequence of foreign policy.

After September 11, governments used the attacks to introduce or intensify repressive measures, while democratic states including the United States invoked the atmosphere of fear and demands for patriotism to discipline their own populations and enact measures Chomsky characterizes as anti-popular. He argues that the Bush administration used the opening to pursue policies serving the narrow interests of large corporations, to an exceptional degree. The domestic and military dimensions thus reinforce one another: a crisis presented as a security emergency can enlarge state power abroad while narrowing debate and redirecting resources at home.

Deterrence, allies, and the consequences of dominance

Chomsky reads the new Central Asian presence alongside the administration’s ambition to consolidate an already overwhelming military superiority and secure global dominance by other means. During a visit to the United States, Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urged the administration to consider Arab reactions to its strong support for Israeli repression. Chomsky recounts that American officials answered that they did not care what he or other Arabs thought. A senior official invoked the scale of the Afghanistan campaign to demonstrate American capacity; a former military official argued that firmness would earn respect and prevent further challenges. The episode presents deterrence not as an incidental effect of military action but as a message addressed to other governments.

Chomsky acknowledges that the purpose of the Afghanistan bombings cannot be established from confidential documents, which he says are unavailable. He nevertheless considers it reasonable to infer that demonstrating what the United States could do to states that failed to observe its rules was among the central objectives. He draws a comparison with the bombing of Serbia, which Tony Blair and Bill Clinton explained in terms of preserving NATO’s credibility. In Chomsky’s reading, the relevant credibility was that of the United States and its principal arms client, not of the alliance’s smaller members. These are presented as strategic interpretations, not as documentary proof of hidden decisions.

The consequences extend beyond military posture. Chomsky argues that the attacks strengthened the hand of governments seeking to suppress opponents: Russia joined the counterterrorism coalition in hopes of continuing its atrocities in Chechnya; China took a similar opportunity; and Turkey offered troops for the new phase of the American war on terror, with its prime minister citing American support for Turkey’s campaign against its Kurdish population. Israel, he adds, recognized that it could intensify its repression of Palestinians with stronger American backing. The pattern, in his account, is a reciprocal license: a state’s alignment with the coalition can be used to recast its own coercive campaigns as counterterrorism.

His explanation of the hostility that feeds this cycle likewise points to strategic interests rather than a clash of cultural essences. The United States, he argues, supports corrupt and brutal governments that obstruct democracy and development in order to protect its interests in Middle Eastern oil. Following the attacks, Muslim respondents questioned by The Wall Street Journal also cited American policy toward the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and Iraq as sources of heightened anger. Chomsky contrasts these explanations with commentators’ more reassuring claims that resentment arises from hatred of freedom or cultural weakness. The broader implication is that military dominance may expand the capacity to compel, but cannot by itself resolve the grievances and political conditions that help reproduce conflict.