Rogue State - United States Usage

United States Usage

As early as July 1985, President Reagan had asserted that "we are not going to tolerate … attacks from outlaw states by the strangest collection of misfits, loony tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich," but it fell to the Clinton administration to elaborate this concept. In the 1994 issue of Foreign Affairs, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake claimed "the reality of recalcitrant and outlaw states that not only choose to remain outside the family but also assault its basic values. Lake labeled five regimes as "rogue states": North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Iran and Libya. In theory, at least, to be classified as a rogue, a state had to commit four transgressions: pursue weapons of mass destruction, support terrorism, severely abuse its own citizens, and stridently criticize the United States. While four of the listed rogue states met all these transgressions, Cuba, though still known for severely abusing its citizens and its strident criticism of the United States, no longer met all the transgressions required for a rogue state and was put on the list solely because of the political influence of the American Cuban community and specifically that of the Cuban American National Foundation. Syria and Pakistan, two nations which were hardly regarded by the United States as paragons of rectitude, avoided being added to the list because the United States hoped that Damascus could play a constructive role in the Arab-Israeli "peace process," and because Washington had long maintained close relations with Islamabad—a vestige of the Cold War.

Three other nations, Serbia and Montenegro, Sudan and Afghanistan, would also be treated as rogue states as well. The US State Department at times labeled Serbia and Montenegro as a rogue state solely because Slobodan Milosevic, who served as President of Serbia between the years 1989 and 1997, had violated the rights of some of his nation's citizens.

In August 1995, the Croatian military forced Serbian Armed Forces, withdraw from Croatian territory ethnically cleansing the Serbian population in the process, and NATO now focused its attention on launching a major offensive operation against Serbian Armed Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On August 30, 1995, 1995 NATO air campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina was initiated and Serbian Armed Forces soon withdrew from the vicinity of Sarajevo. On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed and the Yugoslav Wars temporarily ended for a few more years.

The United States employed several tools to isolate and punish rogue states. Tough unilateral economic sanctions, often at congressional behest, were imposed on or tightened against Iran, Libya, Cuba, Sudan, and Afghanistan. The United and selectively used air-power against Iraq for years after the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991. Cruise missiles were fired at Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in September 1998. In February 1999, NATO launched a massive air-bombing campaign in Serbia. In June 1999, after enduring three months of heavy NATO bombing, the Milosevic regime withdrew from Kosovo.

The Central Intelligence Agency supported a variety of covert actions designed to depose Saddam Hussein, while Congress approved the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 aimed at providing Iraqi opposition groups with increased financial assistance. Several leading Republicans who would occupy high positions in the George W. Bush administration publicly urged President Clinton in February 1998 to recognize the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as the provisional government of Iraq. Some of these critics, including Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Zoellick, hinted that U.S. ground forces might ultimately be required to help the INC oust Saddam. In all of these anti-rogue efforts, however, Washington found it exceedingly difficult to persuade other nations (with the partial exception of Britain) to support its policies of ostracism and punishment.

In the last six months of the Clinton administration, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced that the term "rogue state" would be abolished in June 2000, in favour of "states of concern," as three of the rogue states (Libya, Iran and North Korea) no longer met the four transgressions which defined a rogue state. In October 2000, Milosevic was ousted from power and the US officially reopened its embassy in the Serbia and Montenegro. The final international sanctions against the nation, which had been in place since the passage of United Nations Security Council resolution 724 in December 1991, were lifted in January 2001 and in 2006, Serbia and Montenegro officially dissolved into two separate states. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the Taliban from power and the US government, which no longer saw the nation's government as a threat, drastically relations with the country. The regime of Saddam Hussein was overt following after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq and relations with Iraq dramatically improved afterwards. Libya was removed from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list in 2006 after achieving success through diplomacy. Relations with Libya also became more mutual following the eight month Libyan civil war in 2011, which resulted in the National Transitional Council ousting longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from power. In October 2000, Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president who played a leading role in the instigating the Yugoslav Wars, was ousted from power and the US officially reopened its embassy in the Serbia and Montenegro. The final sanctions against the nation were lifted in January 2001 and in 2006, Serbia and Montenegro officially dissolved into two separate states.