A disturbing unilateralist trend in the Bush administration's foreign policy has been confirmed by last week's announcement that it is to withdraw from the draft protocol policing the spread of biological warfare capabilities. Following its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and threatened abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so as to pursue its nuclear missile defence plans, this trend now seems to define the new administration's approach. It must be taken seriously by its allies, partners and antagonists around the world.
Announcing the decision, the US chief negotiator at the biological warfare conference in Geneva said the draft protocol "would put national security and confidential business information at risk". The administration believes the protocol would put US interests at a particular disadvantage through an intrusive verification regime. President Bush himself set this tone and style when he explained the decision last February similarly to reject the Kyoto Protocol. It is further confirmed by indications outlined in a series of special articles in this newspaper last week that the US will go ahead with its anti-ballistic missile testing programme even if Russia and China object to scrapping the ABM treaty and its European allies resist this course.
That such an approach carries deep costs as well as destabilising risks for the world's security and welfare should be made clear to the Bush administration. Although the end of the Cold War has left the US as the only superpower, it has also reduced the salience of military superiority and increased that of economic interdependence. This means the US has become more reliant on the goodwill of the rest of the world to pursue its own interests.
It therefore makes little sense to retreat into a more isolated and unilateral stance. Nor will much goodwill be earned by adopting a policy of selective multilateralism. Allies and partners in Europe resent such a self-serving approach at a time when their overall relations with the US are becoming more equal in economic, political and security terms. That will make it easier for Russia and China to find support for their objections. It will also encourage the so-called rogue states to respond politically. All this would leave the world less stable and the US more vulnerable to challenge - precisely what a unilateral approach is designed to prevent.
A much better course for the US would be to pursue a co-operative and multilateral approach to guaranteeing its security, through new treaties rather than a simple assertion of strategic superiority. It will be up to its friends to convince the Bush administration that this is so, more guaranteed to protect its own interests. There are many voices within the US saying this - not least in the Congress, now controlled by the Democrats, but also in the general population.
Ireland's voice should not be silent in this respect. This State's solid record on nuclear disarmament questions, close relations with the US administration and peoples and current seat on the UN Security Council should give it the courage of its convictions in asserting the merits of a co-operative and multilateral approach. The best friends are those from whom unpalatable but good advice can be accepted..