The author does warn, however, that the US's actions may not be agreeable with the international community. We have been doing whatever we have deemed necessary to rid the world of terrorism, but this may cause other nations to feel that we abuse our power and are hypocritical for some of our actions. His main question attains to whether or not this loss of respect/trust will be worth the price of a victory over terrorism.
Michael Howard's "What Friends Are For" basically states that the Bush Administration is turning our country into a bully and a loner. Howard feels that we are dealing with too big a problem by ourselves and that we will never reach our goals without the help of our allies. The article makes the point that other nations have been dealing with terror for decades and have learned to live with it. He feels that when Bush announced his war on terrorism, he was unclear as to his intentions. Many of our allies agreed that intelligence and police work must be improved, but had no idea that Bush meant he was declaring war. Howard feels that this is only upsetting the current state of the international community, which is fragile enough as it is. The article goes on to say that we are alienating ourselves from even our closest allies due to our new policy on self-defense. Bush has basically claimed the right to attack any foreign nation that has threatening weapon systems or any policy deemed hostile. This seems to undermine the decades of effort to structure the international law, most of which was written by the US. Howard does not try to say the Bush Administration's loss of confidence in the international order to guarantee America's national security goes without good reason; however, he does feel that we have taken on to much by ourselves. He does not feel that the US can handle this war on terrorism by itself, and must seek international assistance and, in some cases, approval so as not to lose all support in the future.
