But his father and his advisers, an older generation of more gentlemanly policy-makers, such as James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, side with Powell.Now, however, the Rumsfeld camp has the momentum. "Take Capitol Hill," says Dana Priest, the author of The Mission, a study of how the US military is an empire unto itself. "The Pentagon maintains a large lobbying operation there while, at least until Powell, the State Department has just disdained selling itself." Buttressing Defense is the "iron triangle" of itself, Congress and the big defence contractors, guaranteeing the sun never sets on the Pentagon budget.Today, that budget is $400bn, roughly 20 cents of every tax dollar, compared to a single cent for State. These huge resources translate not only into weapons, but an apparatus of specialists dwarfing those of conventional diplomacy. The Pentagon divides the world between five regional commanders in chief, whose headquarters resemble colonial administrations. As The Mission notes, the smallest joint command, for Latin America, has a staff of 1,100 – "more people than deal with Latin American matters at the departments of State, Commerce, Treasury and Agriculture and the Pentagon's own joint staff combined".War has only strengthened the spotlight on the Pentagon. And after the war comes the peacekeeping – but who else can provide the necessary number of competent peacekeepers but America's armies?Rivalry between the Pentagon and State is nothing new.
George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger, secretaries of State and Defense under Ronald Reagan, were for ever at each other's throats. But never, surely, has there been such a heavyweight match-up.Had Alma Powell not persuaded her hugely popular husband not to run against Bill Clinton back in 1996, Powell might have become the first black President. By dint of his ability, his charm and his life story – the Jamaican immigrant's son who made it to the top – Powell is the rare individual who can exorcise that ancient American demon of race, and make his countrymen feel good about themselves.As for Rumsfeld, forget about theorising over whether policy in Washington has been hijacked by a neo-conservative clique It has And he has powerful allies at every turn. Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy, must be the most influential departmental No 2 of modern times. Then there is Rumsfeld's friendship with Dick Cheney, stretching back almost 30 years to their days in the Ford administration.
Today Cheney is arguably the most influential Vice-President in US history, constant counsel to a President who preached foreign policy "humility" during his election campaign, but who has yet to meet the international treaty he doesn't want to rip up.Rumsfeld is a persistent, nagging micro-manager. He came to the Pentagon determined to re-assert civilian control over a military high commmand that invariably got its way under Clinton. He operates on the bully's principle: when your opponent is down, kick him again, just to make sure.In the 1970s, when he served as Gerald Ford's White House Chief of Staff and then Defense Secretary, Rumsfeld was the only person to claim Kissinger's scalp in a bureaucratic fight. After his brace of battlefield victories, who would now bet against a third over the Pentagon bureaucracy, revamping the armed forces for a new age of hi-tech, high-mobility warfare, and re-ordering US bases around the world?But the outcome of the struggle is not pre-ordained, nor are matters quite what they seem It might appear that Rumsfeld is making all the running.
