Dick Cheney, the architect of the modern world order

Born in 1941 in Lincoln (Nebraska), Richard Bruce Cheney embodies the continuity of honors course United States. Cheney went through all levels of the State. He was Chief of Staff of Gerald Fordsix-time congressman from Wyoming, Secretary of Defense with George H. W. Bush and, finally, vice president with his son.

At each stage he consolidated a vision. The Executive Branch had to act without complexes and, if necessary, above international standards, although not so much based on postulates of realpolitik as well as neocon ideals with which (paradoxically) he did not identify.

He was the outstanding disciple of American political realism, the one who maintained that national security justified almost everything.

His brilliant management at the head of the Pentagon during the 1991 Gulf War catapulted him as an effective strategist. The international coalition expelled sadam hussein of Kuwait in a few weeks and consolidated the military hegemony of the United States after the Cold War.

Cheney emerged from that victory decorated and, above all, convinced that “surgical” wars were the new diplomatic instrument par excellence.

His next stage, as CEO of Halliburton, one of the largest oil companies in the countryplaced him at the heart of the industrial and energy complex that decades later would mark his mandate.

September 11, 2001 gave Cheney her historic moment. While Bush was evacuated from Air Force One, he took operational control of the country from the White House bunker. There, between screens and red phones, the doctrine that defined an era was forged: the War on Terror, collective espionage as a countermeasure to terrorism and the redefinition of a non-state enemy after the fall of the USSR.

His influence was such that many analysts considered him the real brain of the Bush administration. And, during the first months after the attacks, the United States seemed to thank him that bureaucratic coldness that gave a sense of order in the face of chaostrustworthy in turbulent times.

Let’s think about the contrast with Spain, the management of 11-M and the poisoned debate and division that still exists over it. That doesn’t exist in the United States. With the exception of a handful of conspiracy theorists, the entire society reacted and thinks in the same way regarding 9/11.

“His obstinacy, almost theological, made him a symbol of an arrogance that was viewed with suspicion in much of Europe”

This political and social neatness regarding this event is the result of Cheney’s effective management.

But history ended up turning against him. His unwavering defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq (based on the flimsy existence of weapons of mass destruction) became one of the United States’ greatest strategic wounds. Neither the weapons appeared nor the country managed to stabilize.

The civilian casualties, the economic cost and the moral discredit of Washington marked the decline of the neoconservative project. Cheney never admitted the mistake. He maintained to the end that Saddam’s fall was “just and necessary.”

That obstinacy, almost theological, made him a symbol of an arrogance that was viewed with suspicion in much of Europe.

The other debatable legacy was internal. Under his supervision, mass surveillance programs and “enhanced” interrogations multiplied, a euphemism that history translated simply as torture in “secret” prisons. Cheney considered transparency a luxury of peacetime.

The result was a profound deterioration in public confidence and the opening of an ethical debate on how far a State can go in the name of security.

Spain knew this version of Washington closely. With José María Aznar In La Moncloa, the link with the Bush-Cheney administration reached an unprecedented degree of harmony. A thriving Spain joined the “coalition of the willing” in Iraq, authorized the use of bases and airspace, and participated in subsequent reconstruction.

“The personal relationship between Cheney and Aznar survived even Zapatero’s victory in the 2004 general elections”

In exchange, Washington (with Cheney as a direct link) included ETA and its network on the US lists of terrorist organizations, a gesture that Aznar always claimed.

The personal relationship between the two survived even the political change. In 2005, now out of power, Aznar was invited to dinner at the vice president’s official residence, a symbolic nod while the new government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero He withdrew troops and strained the relationship with the White House.

That dinner sums up the Cheney style well: politics as a network of personal and strategic loyalties, beyond diplomatic courtesy. For the vice president, Spain had proven to be a reliable ally while sharing his vision of the world.

It was the logic of the unipolar era of 1991-2014. Who did not accompany Washington was irrelevant.

Today, with a United States that hesitates whether to focus on China or continue being the global power it has always been, Cheney’s legacy is once again a matter of reflection. His vision of a strong Executive Branch anticipated, in some way, the subsequent security policy (especially of Trumpalthough also Obama).

It also left a more diffuse mark. The belief that the international order can be reconfigured at the will of those who have the strength.

But, above all, it made two enormous strategic errors by bogging down the United States in two conflicts, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, which absorbed immense resources that (in perspective) should have been dedicated to its true rival, China, and not to fight terrorists or Taliban in the confines of the civilized world.

Passed away this week at the age of 84, his figure closes a cycle. It represented the latest version of the Cold War applied to a world that no longer existed: diffuse enemies, endless wars, unlimited surveillance.

But he also embodied a determination and coherence that current Spanish leaders cannot even dream of.

*** Yago Rodríguez is a military and geopolitical analyst, and director of The Political Room.