The 1992 Pentagon plan aimed to block any rival to US dominance.

Evidence

This article was followed by a report prepared for the Pentagon by neocon Paul Wolfowitz (at the request of Dick Cheney) with the help of Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, Zalmay Khalilzad, and others. The Defense Planning Guidance report was not intended for public consumption but was leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post. The document stated that the first objective of the United States should be to “prevent the re-emergence of a new rival.” It must “establish and protect a new order” so that potential competitors would realize that “they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.” In short, a Pax Americana should be established on the military, political, and economic fronts. Even advanced industrialized nations would be discouraged from seeking to “overturn the [US] established political and economic order.” It followed from this that the United States would act alone if it needed to, in a unilateral manner, with no questions asked. This, the report stated, would guarantee world stability in a way that neither the UN nor any other multilateral coalitions could. In order to maintain world stability, the report continued, the United States had a right to wage preemptive war on any aggressor. … What is noteworthy about the document, though, is that the enemies it named were diverse, and the list of national interests was broad. These included “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil; proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, threats to US citizens from terrorism or regional or local conflict, and threats to US society from narcotics trafficking.” Thus, “terrorism” was named as only one among several threats faced by the United States. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 441

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘good versus bad Muslim designation follows support for US empire’ thread from earlier chapters — the preemptive-war doctrine operationalizes empire as its own justification. — connects to: The 1992 Defense Planning Guidance openly proposed unilateral US global hegemony; The 1992 Pentagon planning report explicitly planned US global dominance and preemptive war; The Bush Doctrine aimed to prevent any rival power challenge, not just terror — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 497 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• The 1992 Pentagon planning report explicitly planned US global dominance and preemptive war #corroborates (1.00)
• The Bush Doctrine legalized preemptive war against any potential US rival. #expands (0.85)
• The Bush Doctrine aimed to prevent any rival power challenge, not just terror #corroborates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 497