LOS ANGELES — In Moscow and Genoa this past week, the faint outlines of a reactive global containment policy toward America emerged.
In Russia, Beijing and Moscow signed a "friendship and cooperation" treaty. And in Italy, at the summit of the G8 group of industrialized nations, strong objections again surfaced over the so-named U.S. national missile defense.
In the past, U.S. internationalists worried about the possibility of a creeping American isolationism. Now the worry is about a creeping American unilateralism: If America can do it (build a vast missile defense), then, by golly, let's do it. It's certainly not an irrational worry: After all, the Bush administration has already trashed the international arms control process, including, shockingly, the valuable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and, in effect, the venerable Antiballistic Missile Treaty.