From StratFor
Georgia and Kosovo: A Single Intertwined Crisis
August 25, 2008
By George Friedman
The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance.
There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions and of U.S. and European perceptions of Russian capabilities. This context shaped the policies that led to the Russo-Georgian war. And those attitudes can only be understood if we trace the question of Kosovo, because the Russo-Georgian war was forged over the last decade over the Kosovo question.
Yugoslavia broke up into its component republics in the early 1990s. The borders of the republics did not cohere to the distribution of nationalities. Many — Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and so on — found themselves citizens of republics where the majorities were not of their ethnicities and disliked the minorities intensely for historical reasons. Wars were fought between Croatia and Serbia (still calling itself Yugoslavia because Montenegro was part of it), Bosnia and Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. Other countries in the region became involved as well.
One conflict became particularly brutal. Bosnia had a large area dominated by Serbs. This region wanted to secede from Bosnia and rejoin Serbia. The Bosnians objected and an internal war in Bosnia took place, with the Serbian government involved. This war involved the single greatest bloodletting of the bloody Balkan wars, the mass murder by Serbs of Bosnians.
Here we must pause and define some terms that are very casually thrown around. Genocide is the crime of trying to annihilate an entire people. War crimes are actions that violate the rules of war. If a soldier shoots a prisoner, he has committed a war crime. Then there is a class called "crimes against humanity." It is intended to denote those crimes that are too vast to be included in normal charges of murder or rape. They may not involve genocide, in that the annihilation of a race or nation is not at stake, but they may also go well beyond war crimes, which are much lesser offenses. The events in Bosnia were reasonably deemed crimes against humanity. They did not constitute genocide and they were more than war crimes.
At the time, the Americans and Europeans did nothing about these crimes, which became an internal political issue as the magnitude of the Serbian crimes became clear. In this context, the Clinton administration helped negotiate the Dayton Accords, which were intended to end the Balkan wars and indeed managed to go quite far in achieving this. The Dayton Accords were built around the principle that there could be no adjustment in the borders of the former Yugoslav republics. Ethnic Serbs would live under Bosnian rule. The principle that existing borders were sacrosanct was embedded in the Dayton Accords.
In the late 1990s, a crisis began to develop in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Over the years, Albanians had moved into the province in a broad migration. By 1997, the province was overwhelmingly Albanian, although it had not only been historically part of Serbia but also its historical foundation. Nevertheless, the Albanians showed significant intentions of moving toward either a separate state or unification with Albania. Serbia moved to resist this, increasing its military forces and indicating an intention to crush the Albanian resistance.
There were many claims that the Serbians were repeating the crimes against humanity that were committed in Bosnia. The Americans and Europeans, burned by Bosnia, were eager to demonstrate their will. Arguing that something between crimes against humanity and genocide was under way — and citing reports that between 10,000 and 100,000 Kosovo Albanians were missing or had been killed — NATO launched a campaign designed to stop the killings. In fact, while some killings had taken place, the claims by NATO of the number already killed were false. NATO might have prevented mass murder in Kosovo. That is not provable. They did not, however, find that mass murder on the order of the numbers claimed had taken place. The war could be defended as a preventive measure, but the atmosphere under which the war was carried out overstated what had happened.
The campaign was carried out without U.N. sanction because of Russian and Chinese opposition. The Russians were particularly opposed, arguing that major crimes were not being committed and that Serbia was an ally of Russia and that the air assault was not warranted by the evidence. The United States and other European powers disregarded the Russian position. Far more important, they established the precedent that U.N. sanction was not needed to launch a war (a precedent used by George W. Bush in Iraq). Rather — and this is the vital point — they argued that NATO support legitimized the war.
This transformed NATO from a military alliance into a quasi-United Nations. What happened in Kosovo was that NATO took on the role of peacemaker, empowered to determine if intervention was necessary, allowed to make the military intervention, and empowered to determine the outcome. Conceptually, NATO was transformed from a military force into a regional multinational grouping with responsibility for maintenance of regional order, even within the borders of states that are not members. If the United Nations wouldn't support the action, the NATO Council was sufficient.
Since Russia was not a member of NATO, and since Russia denied the urgency of war, and since Russia was overruled, the bombing campaign against Kosovo created a crisis in relations with Russia. The Russians saw the attack as a unilateral attack by an anti-Russian alliance on a Russian ally, without sound justification. Then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin was not prepared to make this into a major confrontation, nor was he in a position to. The Russians did not so much acquiesce as concede they had no options.
The war did not go as well as history records. The bombing campaign did not force capitulation and NATO was not prepared to invade Kosovo. The air campaign continued inconclusively as the West turned to the Russians to negotiate an end. The Russians sent an envoy who negotiated an agreement consisting of three parts. First, the West would halt the bombing campaign. Second, Serbian army forces would withdraw and be replaced by a multinational force including Russian troops. Third, implicit in the agreement, the Russian troops would be there to guarantee Serbian interests and sovereignty.
As soon as the agreement was signed, the Russians rushed troops to the Pristina airport to take up their duties in the multinational force — as they had in the Bosnian peacekeeping force. In part because of deliberate maneuvers and in part because no one took the Russians seriously, the Russians never played the role they believed had been negotiated. They were never seen as part of the peacekeeping operation or as part of the decision-making system over Kosovo. The Russians felt doubly betrayed, first by the war itself, then by the peace arrangements.
The Kosovo war directly effected the fall of Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin. The faction around Putin saw Yeltsin as an incompetent bungler who allowed Russia to be doubly betrayed. The Russian perception of the war directly led to the massive reversal in Russian policy we see today. The installation of Putin and Russian nationalists from the former KGB had a number of roots. But fundamentally it was rooted in the events in Kosovo. Most of all it was driven by the perception that NATO had now shifted from being a military alliance to seeing itself as a substitute for the United Nations, arbitrating regional politics. Russia had no vote or say in NATO decisions, so NATO's new role was seen as a direct challenge to Russian interests.
Thus, the ongoing expansion of NATO into the former Soviet Union and the promise to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO were seen in terms of the Kosovo war. From the Russian point of view, NATO expansion meant a further exclusion of Russia from decision-making, and implied that NATO reserved the right to repeat Kosovo if it felt that human rights or political issues required it. The United Nations was no longer the prime multinational peacekeeping entity. NATO assumed that role in the region and now it was going to expand all around Russia.
Then came Kosovo's independence. Yugoslavia broke apart into its constituent entities, but the borders of its nations didn't change. Then, for the first time since World War II, the decision was made to change Serbia's borders, in opposition to Serbian and Russian wishes, with the authorizing body, in effect, being NATO. It was a decision avidly supported by the Americans.
The initial attempt to resolve Kosovo's status was the round of negotiations led by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari that officially began in February 2006 but had been in the works since 2005. This round of negotiations was actually started under U.S. urging and closely supervised from Washington. In charge of keeping Ahtisaari's negotiations running smoothly was Frank G. Wisner, a diplomat during the Clinton administration. Also very important to the U.S. effort was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried, another leftover from the Clinton administration and a specialist in Soviet and Polish affairs.
In the summer of 2007, when it was obvious that the negotiations were going nowhere, the Bush administration decided the talks were over and that it was time for independence. On June 10, 2007, Bush said that the end result of negotiations must be "certain independence." In July 2007, Daniel Fried said that independence was "inevitable" even if the talks failed. Finally, in September 2007, Condoleezza Rice put it succinctly: "There's going to be an independent Kosovo. We're dedicated to that." Europeans took cues from this line.
How and when independence was brought about was really a European problem. The Americans set the debate and the Europeans implemented it. Among Europeans, the most enthusiastic about Kosovo independence were the British and the French. The British followed the American line while the French were led by their foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who had also served as the U.N. Kosovo administrator. The Germans were more cautiously supportive.
On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized rapidly by a small number of European states and countries allied with the United States. Even before the declaration, the Europeans had created an administrative body to administer Kosovo. The Europeans, through the European Union, micromanaged the date of the declaration.
On May 15, during a conference in Ekaterinburg, the foreign ministers of India, Russia and China made a joint statement regarding Kosovo. It was read by the Russian host minister, Sergei Lavrov, and it said: "In our statement, we recorded our fundamental position that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo contradicts Resolution 1244. Russia, India and China encourage Belgrade and Pristina to resume talks within the framework of international law and hope they reach an agreement on all problems of that Serbian territory."
The Europeans and Americans rejected this request as they had rejected all Russian arguments on Kosovo. The argument here was that the Kosovo situation was one of a kind because of atrocities that had been committed. The Russians argued that the level of atrocity was unclear and that, in any case, the government that committed them was long gone from Belgrade. More to the point, the Russians let it be clearly known that they would not accept the idea that Kosovo independence was a one-of-a-kind situation and that they would regard it, instead, as a new precedent for all to follow.
The problem was not that the Europeans and the Americans didn't hear the Russians. The problem was that they simply didn't believe them — they didn't take the Russians seriously. They had heard the Russians say things for many years. They did not understand three things. First, that the Russians had reached the end of their rope. Second, that Russian military capability was not what it had been in 1999. Third, and most important, NATO, the Americans and the Europeans did not recognize that they were making political decisions that they could not support militarily.
For the Russians, the transformation of NATO from a military alliance into a regional United Nations was the problem. The West argued that NATO was no longer just a military alliance but a political arbitrator for the region. If NATO does not like Serbian policies in Kosovo, it can — at its option and in opposition to U.N. rulings — intervene. It could intervene in Serbia and it intended to expand deep into the former Soviet Union. NATO thought that because it was now a political arbiter encouraging regimes to reform and not just a war-fighting system, Russian fears would actually be assuaged. To the contrary, it was Russia's worst nightmare. Compensating for all this was the fact that NATO had neglected its own military power. Now, Russia could do something about it.
At the beginning of this discourse, we explained that the underlying issues behind the Russo-Georgian war went deep into geopolitics and that it could not be understood without understanding Kosovo. It wasn't everything, but it was the single most significant event behind all of this. The war of 1999 was the framework that created the war of 2008.
The problem for NATO was that it was expanding its political reach and claims while contracting its military muscle. The Russians were expanding their military capability (after 1999 they had no place to go but up) and the West didn't notice. In 1999, the Americans and Europeans made political decisions backed by military force. In 2008, in Kosovo, they made political decisions without sufficient military force to stop a Russian response. Either they underestimated their adversary or — even more amazingly — they did not see the Russians as adversaries despite absolutely clear statements the Russians had made. No matter what warning the Russians gave, or what the history of the situation was, the West couldn't take the Russians seriously.
It began in 1999 with war in Kosovo and it ended in 2008 with the independence of Kosovo. When we study the history of the coming period, the war in Kosovo will stand out as a turning point. Whatever the humanitarian justification and the apparent ease of victory, it set the stage for the rise of Putin and the current and future crises.
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Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.
The New York Times
August 30, 2008
Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO — The era of the American Internet is ending.
Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network's first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.
Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.
And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence — and conceivably military — consequences.
American intelligence officials have warned about this shift. "Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge," Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006. "We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us."
Indeed, Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.
Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States.
"Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches."
But economics also plays a role. Almost all nations see data networks as essential to economic development. "It's no different than any other infrastructure that a country needs," said K C Claffy, a research scientist at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis in San Diego. "You wouldn't want someone owning your roads either."
Indeed, more countries are becoming aware of how their dependence on other countries for their Internet traffic makes them vulnerable. Because of tariffs, pricing anomalies and even corporate cultures, Internet providers will often not exchange data with their local competitors. They prefer instead to send and receive traffic with larger international Internet service providers.
This leads to odd routing arrangements, referred to as tromboning, in which traffic between two cites in one country will flow through other nations. In January, when a cable was cut in the Mediterranean, Egyptian Internet traffic was nearly paralyzed because it was not being shared by local I.S.P.'s but instead was routed through European operators.
The issue was driven home this month when hackers attacked and immobilized several Georgian government Web sites during the country's fighting with Russia. Most of Georgia's access to the global network flowed through Russia and Turkey. A third route through an undersea cable linking Georgia to Bulgaria is scheduled for completion in September.
Ms. Claffy said that the shift away from the United States was not limited to developing countries. The Japanese "are on a rampage to build out across India and China so they have alternative routes and so they don't have to route through the U.S."
Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks the growth of the global Internet, added, "We discovered the Internet, but we couldn't keep it a secret." While the United States carried 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic a decade ago, he estimates that portion has fallen to about 25 percent.
Internet technologists say that the global data network that was once a competitive advantage for the United States is now increasingly outside the control of American companies. They decided not to invest in lower-cost optical fiber lines, which have rapidly become a commodity business.
That lack of investment mirrors a pattern that has taken place elsewhere in the high-technology industry, from semiconductors to personal computers.
The risk, Internet technologists say, is that upstarts like China and India are making larger investments in next-generation Internet technology that is likely to be crucial in determining the future of the network, with investment, innovation and profits going first to overseas companies.
"Whether it's a good or a bad thing depends on where you stand," said Vint Cerf, a computer scientist who is Google's Internet evangelist and who, with Robert Kahn, devised the original Internet routing protocols in the early 1970s. "Suppose the Internet was entirely confined to the U.S., which it once was? That wasn't helpful."
International networks that carry data into and out of the United States are still being expanded at a sharp rate, but the Internet infrastructure in many other regions of the world is growing even more quickly.
While there has been some concern over a looming Internet traffic jam because of the rise in Internet use worldwide, the congestion is generally not on the Internet's main trunk lines, but on neighborhood switches, routers and the wires into a house.
As Internet traffic moves offshore, it may complicate the task of American intelligence gathering agencies, but would not make Internet surveillance impossible.
"We're probably in one of those situations where things get a little bit harder," said John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who said the United States had invested far too little in collecting intelligence via the Internet. "We've given terrorists a free ride in cyberspace," he said.
Others say the eclipse of the United States as the central point in cyberspace is one of many indicators that the world is becoming a more level playing field both economically and politically.
"This is one of many dimensions on which we'll have to adjust to a reduction in American ability to dictate terms of core interests of ours," said Yochai Benkler, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. "We are, by comparison, militarily weaker, economically poorer and technologically less unique than we were then. We are still a very big player, but not in control."
China, for instance, surpassed the United States in the number of Internet users in June. Over all, Asia now has 578.5 million, or 39.5 percent, of the world's Internet users, although only 15.3 percent of the Asian population is connected to the Internet, according to Internet World Stats, a market research organization.
By contrast, there were about 237 million Internet users in North America and the growth has nearly peaked; penetration of the Internet in the region has reached about 71 percent.
The increasing role of new competitors has shown up in data collected annually by Renesys, a firm in Manchester, N.H., that monitors the connections between Internet providers. The Renesys rankings of Internet connections, an indirect measure of growth, show that the big winners in the last three years have been the Italian Internet provider Tiscali, China Telecom and the Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI.
Firms that have slipped in the rankings have all been American: Verizon, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest, Cogent and AboveNet.
"The U.S. telecommunications firms haven't invested," said Earl Zmijewski, vice president and general manager for Internet data services at Renesys. "The rest of the world has caught up. I don't see the AT&T's and Sprints making the investments because they see Internet service as a commodity."
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
August 30, 2008
Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO — The era of the American Internet is ending.
Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network's first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States.
Engineers who help run the Internet said that it would have been impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control.
And now, the balance of power is shifting. Data is increasingly flowing around the United States, which may have intelligence — and conceivably military — consequences.
American intelligence officials have warned about this shift. "Because of the nature of global telecommunications, we are playing with a tremendous home-field advantage, and we need to exploit that edge," Michael V. Hayden, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006. "We also need to protect that edge, and we need to protect those who provide it to us."
Indeed, Internet industry executives and government officials have acknowledged that Internet traffic passing through the switching equipment of companies based in the United States has proved a distinct advantage for American intelligence agencies. In December 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency had established a program with the cooperation of American telecommunications firms that included the interception of foreign Internet communications.
Some Internet technologists and privacy advocates say those actions and other government policies may be hastening the shift in Canadian and European traffic away from the United States.
"Since passage of the Patriot Act, many companies based outside of the United States have been reluctant to store client information in the U.S.," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "There is an ongoing concern that U.S. intelligence agencies will gather this information without legal process. There is particular sensitivity about access to financial information as well as communications and Internet traffic that goes through U.S. switches."
But economics also plays a role. Almost all nations see data networks as essential to economic development. "It's no different than any other infrastructure that a country needs," said K C Claffy, a research scientist at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis in San Diego. "You wouldn't want someone owning your roads either."
Indeed, more countries are becoming aware of how their dependence on other countries for their Internet traffic makes them vulnerable. Because of tariffs, pricing anomalies and even corporate cultures, Internet providers will often not exchange data with their local competitors. They prefer instead to send and receive traffic with larger international Internet service providers.
This leads to odd routing arrangements, referred to as tromboning, in which traffic between two cites in one country will flow through other nations. In January, when a cable was cut in the Mediterranean, Egyptian Internet traffic was nearly paralyzed because it was not being shared by local I.S.P.'s but instead was routed through European operators.
The issue was driven home this month when hackers attacked and immobilized several Georgian government Web sites during the country's fighting with Russia. Most of Georgia's access to the global network flowed through Russia and Turkey. A third route through an undersea cable linking Georgia to Bulgaria is scheduled for completion in September.
Ms. Claffy said that the shift away from the United States was not limited to developing countries. The Japanese "are on a rampage to build out across India and China so they have alternative routes and so they don't have to route through the U.S."
Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks the growth of the global Internet, added, "We discovered the Internet, but we couldn't keep it a secret." While the United States carried 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic a decade ago, he estimates that portion has fallen to about 25 percent.
Internet technologists say that the global data network that was once a competitive advantage for the United States is now increasingly outside the control of American companies. They decided not to invest in lower-cost optical fiber lines, which have rapidly become a commodity business.
That lack of investment mirrors a pattern that has taken place elsewhere in the high-technology industry, from semiconductors to personal computers.
The risk, Internet technologists say, is that upstarts like China and India are making larger investments in next-generation Internet technology that is likely to be crucial in determining the future of the network, with investment, innovation and profits going first to overseas companies.
"Whether it's a good or a bad thing depends on where you stand," said Vint Cerf, a computer scientist who is Google's Internet evangelist and who, with Robert Kahn, devised the original Internet routing protocols in the early 1970s. "Suppose the Internet was entirely confined to the U.S., which it once was? That wasn't helpful."
International networks that carry data into and out of the United States are still being expanded at a sharp rate, but the Internet infrastructure in many other regions of the world is growing even more quickly.
While there has been some concern over a looming Internet traffic jam because of the rise in Internet use worldwide, the congestion is generally not on the Internet's main trunk lines, but on neighborhood switches, routers and the wires into a house.
As Internet traffic moves offshore, it may complicate the task of American intelligence gathering agencies, but would not make Internet surveillance impossible.
"We're probably in one of those situations where things get a little bit harder," said John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who said the United States had invested far too little in collecting intelligence via the Internet. "We've given terrorists a free ride in cyberspace," he said.
Others say the eclipse of the United States as the central point in cyberspace is one of many indicators that the world is becoming a more level playing field both economically and politically.
"This is one of many dimensions on which we'll have to adjust to a reduction in American ability to dictate terms of core interests of ours," said Yochai Benkler, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. "We are, by comparison, militarily weaker, economically poorer and technologically less unique than we were then. We are still a very big player, but not in control."
China, for instance, surpassed the United States in the number of Internet users in June. Over all, Asia now has 578.5 million, or 39.5 percent, of the world's Internet users, although only 15.3 percent of the Asian population is connected to the Internet, according to Internet World Stats, a market research organization.
By contrast, there were about 237 million Internet users in North America and the growth has nearly peaked; penetration of the Internet in the region has reached about 71 percent.
The increasing role of new competitors has shown up in data collected annually by Renesys, a firm in Manchester, N.H., that monitors the connections between Internet providers. The Renesys rankings of Internet connections, an indirect measure of growth, show that the big winners in the last three years have been the Italian Internet provider Tiscali, China Telecom and the Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI.
Firms that have slipped in the rankings have all been American: Verizon, Savvis, AT&T, Qwest, Cogent and AboveNet.
"The U.S. telecommunications firms haven't invested," said Earl Zmijewski, vice president and general manager for Internet data services at Renesys. "The rest of the world has caught up. I don't see the AT&T's and Sprints making the investments because they see Internet service as a commodity."
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
What's Past is Prologue The War Will Go On By C. G. ESTABROOK
What's Past is Prologue
The War Will Go On
By C. G. ESTABROOK
In the late summer of 2008, as the American political parties convene to produce a new president, it seems clear that Americans will continue to kill and die -- and suffer and inflict terrible injuries -- in the U.S. war in the Middle East, regardless of who is elected president, well into the next administration and beyond.
The war is not limited to Iraq. The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003, was preceded by their invasion of Afghanistan, in October of 2001. In the spring and summer of 2008, more Americans have been killed each month in Afghanistan than in the on-going war in Iraq.
Furthermore, there are undoubtedly members of the current administration -- centered in the office of the vice president -- who wish to attack Iran, and the military and the CIA are already conducting "special operations" there. But the foreign policy establishment in Washington -- which cuts across party lines -- believes, in the words of Democratic party deep thinker Richard Holbrooke, that "AfPak" [Afghanistan and Pakistan] is "even more important to our national security than Iraq."
What he means is that that is where the most serious resistance to the U.S. attempt to dominate the region militarily is coming from. And therefore the Pentagon will send 12,000 to 15,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009.
Democracy Now! reported this week that "senior Pentagon officials are debating whether the US military should expand the Afghan war by carrying out military attacks against Islamic militants operating in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. The move would be in defiance of Pakistan's civilian government, which recently refused to accept a U.S. military training mission for the Pakistani army ... The prominent military analyst Anthony Cordesman said the US should treat Pakistani territory as a combat zone if Pakistan does not act. Cordesman's comment came in a new report in which he declared the US is now losing the war against the Taliban. Cordesman writes, "Pakistan may officially be an ally, but much of its conduct has effectively made it a major threat to U.S. strategic interests.'"
Both potential presidents approve. McCain and Obama try to outdo one another on how war-like they will be in AfPak: after Obama said he would send two more brigades to Afghanistan, McCain said he would send three; in his major speech in Berlin, Obama's only specific exhortation to the Germans was, "The Afghan people need our troops and your troops ... We have too much at stake to turn back now."
What in fact do we have at stake? Recently an Afghan government newspaper loosed the proverbial cat when it asserted that the U.S. wants to keep Afghanistan unstable in order to justify the presence of the American military, given Afghanistan's geographical location bordering Iran and central Asia's rich oil- and gas-producing nations.
That's not far wrong. It has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War that the U.S. must control the energy resources of the Middle East. Not because we need them here at home -- the U.S. obtains the bulk of the oil used domestically from the Western hemisphere -- but because control of energy gives the U.S. a strangle-hold on our corporations' major economic competitors, the European Union and northeast Asia (Japan, China and South Korea).
Whether we call them al-Qaida, Taliban, insurgents, terrorists or militants, the people whom we're trying to kill in the Middle East are those who want us out of their countries and off of their resources. In order to convince Americans to kill and die and suffer in this cause, the Bush administration has vastly misrepresented the situation, from trumpeting the non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" to, apparently, forging incriminating letters.
But even though a majority of Americans are now against the war in Iraq, many still think that the Bush administration was justified in invading Afghanistan, because it "harbored" Osama bin Laden. They forget that the government of Afghanistan tried to discuss the surrender of Osama bin Laden for trial, but the U.S. government refused to negotiate. It preferred a war that supported general U.S. policy in the region.
On the basis of the principles on which the U.S. and its allied governments hanged German leaders after the Second World War, the Bush administration has committed what the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime [i.e., worse than terrorism] differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" -- and they've done it twice, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
More than a generation ago, the U.S. war against South Vietnam came to an end -- after horrible suffering and millions dead -- because of the conjunction of three factors: (1) the resistance of the Vietnamese people against foreign occupation; (2) the effective revolt of the American military in Vietnam, largely a conscript army; and (3) the opposition of the American people, seventy per cent of whom came to believe by the late 1960s that the U.S. war was "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not a mistake.
As a character in Shakespeare's Tempest says, "...what's past is prologue, what to come / In yours and my discharge."
C. G. Estabrook is a retired visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the host of "News from Neptune, the TV Edition," on Urbana Public Television and on the website newsfromneptune.com; he can be contacted at carl@newsfromneptune.com
The War Will Go On
By C. G. ESTABROOK
In the late summer of 2008, as the American political parties convene to produce a new president, it seems clear that Americans will continue to kill and die -- and suffer and inflict terrible injuries -- in the U.S. war in the Middle East, regardless of who is elected president, well into the next administration and beyond.
The war is not limited to Iraq. The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003, was preceded by their invasion of Afghanistan, in October of 2001. In the spring and summer of 2008, more Americans have been killed each month in Afghanistan than in the on-going war in Iraq.
Furthermore, there are undoubtedly members of the current administration -- centered in the office of the vice president -- who wish to attack Iran, and the military and the CIA are already conducting "special operations" there. But the foreign policy establishment in Washington -- which cuts across party lines -- believes, in the words of Democratic party deep thinker Richard Holbrooke, that "AfPak" [Afghanistan and Pakistan] is "even more important to our national security than Iraq."
What he means is that that is where the most serious resistance to the U.S. attempt to dominate the region militarily is coming from. And therefore the Pentagon will send 12,000 to 15,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, as soon as the end of this year, with planning underway for a further force buildup in 2009.
Democracy Now! reported this week that "senior Pentagon officials are debating whether the US military should expand the Afghan war by carrying out military attacks against Islamic militants operating in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. The move would be in defiance of Pakistan's civilian government, which recently refused to accept a U.S. military training mission for the Pakistani army ... The prominent military analyst Anthony Cordesman said the US should treat Pakistani territory as a combat zone if Pakistan does not act. Cordesman's comment came in a new report in which he declared the US is now losing the war against the Taliban. Cordesman writes, "Pakistan may officially be an ally, but much of its conduct has effectively made it a major threat to U.S. strategic interests.'"
Both potential presidents approve. McCain and Obama try to outdo one another on how war-like they will be in AfPak: after Obama said he would send two more brigades to Afghanistan, McCain said he would send three; in his major speech in Berlin, Obama's only specific exhortation to the Germans was, "The Afghan people need our troops and your troops ... We have too much at stake to turn back now."
What in fact do we have at stake? Recently an Afghan government newspaper loosed the proverbial cat when it asserted that the U.S. wants to keep Afghanistan unstable in order to justify the presence of the American military, given Afghanistan's geographical location bordering Iran and central Asia's rich oil- and gas-producing nations.
That's not far wrong. It has been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy since the Second World War that the U.S. must control the energy resources of the Middle East. Not because we need them here at home -- the U.S. obtains the bulk of the oil used domestically from the Western hemisphere -- but because control of energy gives the U.S. a strangle-hold on our corporations' major economic competitors, the European Union and northeast Asia (Japan, China and South Korea).
Whether we call them al-Qaida, Taliban, insurgents, terrorists or militants, the people whom we're trying to kill in the Middle East are those who want us out of their countries and off of their resources. In order to convince Americans to kill and die and suffer in this cause, the Bush administration has vastly misrepresented the situation, from trumpeting the non-existent "weapons of mass destruction" to, apparently, forging incriminating letters.
But even though a majority of Americans are now against the war in Iraq, many still think that the Bush administration was justified in invading Afghanistan, because it "harbored" Osama bin Laden. They forget that the government of Afghanistan tried to discuss the surrender of Osama bin Laden for trial, but the U.S. government refused to negotiate. It preferred a war that supported general U.S. policy in the region.
On the basis of the principles on which the U.S. and its allied governments hanged German leaders after the Second World War, the Bush administration has committed what the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime [i.e., worse than terrorism] differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" -- and they've done it twice, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
More than a generation ago, the U.S. war against South Vietnam came to an end -- after horrible suffering and millions dead -- because of the conjunction of three factors: (1) the resistance of the Vietnamese people against foreign occupation; (2) the effective revolt of the American military in Vietnam, largely a conscript army; and (3) the opposition of the American people, seventy per cent of whom came to believe by the late 1960s that the U.S. war was "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not a mistake.
As a character in Shakespeare's Tempest says, "...what's past is prologue, what to come / In yours and my discharge."
C. G. Estabrook is a retired visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the host of "News from Neptune, the TV Edition," on Urbana Public Television and on the website newsfromneptune.com; he can be contacted at carl@newsfromneptune.com
Dancing With Chaos Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)? By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.
Dancing With Chaos
Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)?
By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.
The first, and also previous, nuclear war consisted of two atomic bomb attacks that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, on August 6 and August 9 of 1945. These attacks by the United States of America against an utterly defeated and prostrate Japan occurred in the last month of the Pacific War (which occurred between December 7, 1941 to August 15, 1945 for the USA) and were demonstrations of remorseless American power intended to deflate the triumphant spirit of a Soviet Union victorious against Nazi Germany (May 8, 1945), and to check the Soviet leadership from advancing its forces into Japan (despite being implored to do so by the Allies at the Yalta Conference six months earlier).
Tsarist Russia had lost its 1904-1905 war with Imperial Japan for control of Manchuria (northern China) and Korea, both of which Japan occupied until 1945. During World War 1 (1914-1918) and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923), a dozen nations invaded Russia, occupying many regions and fielding troops that supported the pro-tsarist, anti-Bolshevik White forces between 1918 and 1920. Japan supplied 37 percent of the troops in this Allied Intervention, 70,000 of the 188,000 total and by far the single largest contingent; they were all deployed in the Vladivostok (northwestern Pacific) region and were the last to leave, in 1922. A series of Soviet-Japanese border wars occurred between 1938-1945, primarily a 1938 war along the Siberian-Manchurian border (western-eastern) just northeast of Korea, a 1939 war along the Mongolian-Manchurian border (eastern-western), northwest of Korea, and the Russian invasion of Manchuria on August 8, 1945.
With the demise of the Japanese Empire, the Russians and Chinese consolidated their adjoining domains of control spanning the Eurasian landmass east of the Baltic and north of the Black Sea, Caucasus and Himalayas, for over four decades until the breakup of the Soviet Union. Over the last twenty years, the United States has actively sought to encircle Russia with military forces implanted in client states that are former Soviet Republics or Eastern European Socialist Republics, now independent, whose compliance has been bought. A similar policy applies to China and its surrounding south and central Asian states. This US policy is often personified by Zbigniew Brzezinski (the Carter Administration National Security Advisor credited with funding the advanced militarization of the Afghani mujahideen that included Osama Bin Laden), who characterizes it as geostrategic dominance radiating from the control of Caucasus and Central Asian republics, several rich in oil.
In recent weeks, US commentators (e.g., P. C. Roberts and W. S. Lind) on Russia's intervention into the Republic of Georgia (a US client state in the South Caucasus Mountains) to reverse the Georgian invasion of breakaway region South Ossetia, believe the blundering belligerence of US policy toward Russia could escalate to the point of armed confrontation, and this would erupt into a nuclear war.
The logic assumed is that the US would have to rely on missile-borne tactical nuclear warheads launched by air and naval forces to counter Russian troops and armor in the Caucasus, since the US is too distant to transport its troops quickly, and many of them are bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows, maybe also Iran by that time. The Russians could be assumed to use their tactical nuclear weapons to compensate for their possible disadvantage of having less technically sophisticated weapons systems relative to the "smart bomb" precision-guided munitions and "stealth" delivery vehicles of the US military. Once a shooting war starts, the natural tendency is to reach for your biggest guns and fire away before the other guy can clear his holster.
So, is a new nuclear war possible? Let's muse on this. After all, the time necessary for rationality to work its good is only available before the shoot-out, or after the killing is done and the survivors are ready to move on to the burials.
The purpose of war is to increase your degree of control OVER OTHERS. This is usually equated to having acquired greater political and military power. This is true even if the the war is conducted as nothing beyond brigandage and piracy: plunder, profit and wealth are seen as increasing your power to control events. Using this metric, it is easy to judge if you have won or lost a war.
We proceed by inquiring about the psychological and technical enabling factors, and the political and diplomatic restraining factors for the outbreak of a nuclear war:
1, psychology: are the prospective belligerents easily inclined to war?
2, technology: are their military establishments ready for nuclear combat?
3, politics: can the ruling class be assured of maintaining control of its own population?, could there be a revolution if the war fares badly?
4, diplomacy: is the potential estrangement of and isolation from European states, and other allies, a significant restraint?; is it possible that in a mid-war or post-war weakened condition your state becomes unable to control new rebellions by imperial subject states, or to stop encroachments into your domain of influence by imperial rivals?
We can contract the previous four major questions in these two: have we identified all possible contingencies and devised alternative plans for each?, does the cost-benefit ratio for the war outweigh that of diplomatic alternatives, and after what period of time? We consider the four factors in turn.
Psychology: Remembering World War Two
It is important to know that the overwhelming fraction of the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany was provided by the Soviet Union (Russia and its union of socialist republics), and they suffered the greatest losses as a result. Consider the following numbers. The combined 1939 population of the fifty-five countries involved in World War Two (WW2) was 1.962 billion; the total number of war dead was 72.8 million, which was 3.7 percent of the 1939 population of participants. Of course, many of these countries bore only a slight to moderate burden in carrying on the war, while a small number provided the greatest efforts and made the greatest sacrifices (see "World War II casualties" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties).
The combined human losses of the Soviet Union, China, Germany and Japan were just under 73 percent of the total deaths for WW2. The Asian theater of WW2 was essentially the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, while the European theater of WW2 was essentially the Russo-German War of 1941-1945.
Let us look at the impact of WW2 on five selected countries, by using three ratios for each country, where these ratios are defined as follows.
Country:
the percentage of its 1939 population killed in WW2;
the ratio of its 1939 population to the 1.962 billion WW2 participants;
the ratio of its WW2 dead to the total WW2 dead;
(all ratios below are expressed as percents).
Soviet Union: 13.7; 8.6; 31.7.
China: 3.9; 26.4; 27.5.
Germany: 10.5; 3.6; 10.
Japan: 3.8; 3.6; 3.7.
USA: 0.3; 6.7; 0.6.
The Soviet Union lost nearly 14 percent of its population (every 7th person) in the war, and this mortality amounted to almost one third of the entire WW2 dead. China was three times as populous as the Soviet Union, so its loss of nearly 4 percent of its people (every 26th person) amounted to over one quarter of the entire WW2 dead. Germany lost over a tenth of its population (every 10th person), which amounted to 10 percent of the WW2 dead; and Japan's loss of just under 4 percent of its people (every 26th person) amounted to nearly 4 percent of the WW2 dead.
Notice that the United States' WW2 dead amounts to a fifty-fifth (1/55) of the Soviet total, and the 1939 national populations were comparable, the Soviet population being 29 percent higher. It would be very beneficial to the world if Americans, commemorating their Memorial and Veterans' Days, would try imagining their feelings if they had suffered war as deeply as the Soviet people (every 7th person instead of every 172nd person lost). Now, we never trivialize the real pain of war veterans, their relatives and and friends, however small a portion of a nation's population they may happen to be. But, clearly, the impact of a WW2 experience like that of the Soviets will imprint a dread of war far more deeply into the national consciousness than a WW2 experience like that of the United States.
Another interesting numerical result is that the combined losses of Germany and Japan amount to only 13.7 percent of the WW2 dead, and the combined population of these two Axis powers amounted to only 7.2 percent of the WW2 participating population. Advanced industrialized nations hell-bent on war can drag in a multitude of victims vastly more numerous than themselves. A reasonable assumption for today is that the state planners and popular historical memories in both Russia and China viscerally appreciate the importance of this point, but that it may be dimly perceived in US popular imagination, and even dismissed by US policy-makers. This is probably the type of caution introduced by European allies when the US engages them in multilateral diplomacy and planning, and which is so annoying to US unilateralists.
So, the US may have a more casual attitude about bellicose posturing and nuclear war threatening bravado, while the Russians and Chinese are likely to be very circumspect and deliberate about threatening nuclear war; if they do, pay attention!
Technology: The Military Is A Hungry Robot
The US military is a brainless stomach that always wishes to be fed, it is the very definition of fiscal cancer. It has no other goal beyond immediate ingestion of capital drained from the US treasury, so all its pronouncements, papers, studies, proposals and testimony are devoid of meaning beyond their role as advertisements aimed at the audience of policy-makers heading the capitalist, government and propaganda ministries of the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC). The purpose of these advertisements is to induce as many of these directorate-class individuals as possible to put their influence behind the many schemes for larding the military. So, we can expect any part of the military that sees initiating a nuclear war as an instant benefit to itself by calling its services into action, to lobby for it. A brainless stomach has no concept of consequences, or of others. "More" fills the conceptual space, and all the frenzied, convoluted babble is a drone of incantations intended to materialize that "more."
While the hardware for nuclear war is complex, both the US and Russian military establishments have decades of experience with it, and they have maintained their training. These military forces could use their nuclear weapons as ordered without a significant number of technical or personnel failures. Some of the warheads launched might be duds, in that their detonation would be flawed and their full explosive yield would be unrealized; and some of the personnel might crack under the pressure of actual combat -- either as a blind panic or an intentional rebellion -- and fail at their posts. However, we can expect a low incidence of such failure in either the US or Russian forces.
This is unfortunate from the point of view of preventing nuclear war. We now know that "a guy named Arkhipov saved the world" during the Cuban Missile Crisis. "During a naval skirmish between an American destroyer and a Soviet B-59 submarine off Cuba on Oct 27, 1962," where "the destroyer dropped depth charges near the submarine to try to force it to surface, not knowing it had a nuclear-tipped torpedo...that the submarine was authorised to fire it if three officers agreed. The officers began a fierce, shouting debate over whether to sink the ship. Two of them said yes and the other said no."
This was no failure of Russian military training (which like that in the arts and sciences is of unparalleled rigor), but instead the operation of vivid historical consciousness. I fear that the culture of the United States is so shallow and immature that thorough military training can transform any callow youth into a robot soldier attuned to his or her assigned functions, and unlikely to have the psychological depth and historical consciousness to question orders and training under conditions of extreme danger, urgency and confusion, or to recognize moments of pivotal importance.
Military establishments are intended to be robotic performers, reliable agents implementing commands abstracted and codified from the political directives of the national leadership. So, we should assume that by far the best way to prevent the military from proceeding with a nuclear war is by influencing the policy that it operates under, so that it is one of restraint.
Still, let me make a direct plea to any US soldier or sailor who finds themselves charged with launching a nuclear weapon: don't do it, mutiny, revolt. Think, the more and sooner the better. Be Arkhipov. I think the Russians will be more restrained than the Americans about first use, but will have zero hesitation about second use.
Politics: Popular Loyalty Or Popular Revolt?
Because Russia is a lesser power than the United States, and because of the many and obvious provocations made by the US against Russia as part of its encirclement strategy, as well as the shameless advantage US capitalism took of Russia during the immediate post-soviet period of political fragmentation and economic reorganization, the Russian people will have no trouble supporting their government regardless of how any potential war with the US transpires; they will always see themselves as the defenders, not the aggressors. This will be especially true if the US fires first, which it delights in boasting it feels free to do; and we can be sure that if Russia does fire the first nuclear shot, it will be an evidently defensive preemptive strike. The expectation of popular loyalty, won by the robust revival of the Russian economy under Vladimir Putin's administration, as well as a reaction to US belligerence, frees the Russian leadership of any fear about revolution erupting in reaction to possible reverses in a potential Russo-US war, even a nuclear one. Russia is united.
The US public is unprepared for the sacrifices attendant to a nuclear war, no matter how "tactical" and "limited." Every nuclear munition carries the destructive power of many conventional bombs or cannons, and shot for shot every fall of a nuclear munition will produce proportionately many more casualties. US soldiers and sailors will fill coffins or dematerialize at rates not experienced since the Civil War. The American public has been protected, shielded and distracted from the impact of war, especially since the Vietnam War, but the number of casualties to be expected from even a limited tactical nuclear war would be impossible to hide (as the casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are hidden today), and the mollycoddled American viewing public would be traumatized on apprehending the magnitude and pace of the carnage.
The reactions to this fright would be varied, but in all cases they would contribute to the agitation of the public, a loss of placidity and thus an increased difficulty of social control. This triggers the primary anxiety of the ruling class. It is nearly inconceivable that US public agitation over the number of military casualties from a foreign nuclear war would rise to the same intensity as the Parisian public's agitation about starvation in 1789, but the great fear of the US ruling class would be that it had become of the same type. Today's paycheck-dependent US Americans are disunited by their fearful prejudices and diminishing expectations in an eroding economy, while the Russian people are experiencing historically significant economic growth and political stability. At what point of disaffection would the US public unite into storming its own Bastilles, at what level of unsatisfied wants -- in a population indoctrinated to be self-governed by wants -- would the US public acquire the motivational rage of a Cindy Sheehan and become the 21st century san-culotte whose pikes were now the subject of the 2nd amendment?
We should not let such florid rhetoric carry us on flights of fancy of Phil Gramm ('let them whine for cake') types arriving at their Sidney Carton moment, but neither should we underestimate the potential for outbreaks of real social unrest in the US as a consequence of losing people to a nuclear war of imperialistic hubris.
Diplomacy: Consolidating Conquest, Or Chaotic Collapse?
The imperialist imagination sees conquest as the method of consolidating power. The emperor projects a conception of order onto the world, and then seeks to subject each actual state and population into fulfilling an assigned role. Every country is a tile that fits into the grand mosaic of the imagined empire, adding its unique hue to the overall image and easing the interconnectedness of all others into a consolidated structure. Conquest is accomplished by force, bribery or inequitable alliance.
However, every tile of the world mosaic has its own conception of itself and its role in the world, so there is always opposition to empire. Most people call this freedom.
Imperialistic thinking assumes that power, the ability of superior force to hold sway, is the only dimension along which international relations operate. It ignores chaos, the ability of nature and reality to erupt with surprises, and entropy, the tendency of all structure to dissipate, as other dimensions of international relations. It is impossible to predict all possible outcomes of present situations, so it is impossible to devise perfect systems of control. While we are always free to take action, we can never be certain of all its possible consequences. Aside from our common-sense plans for managing the practicalities of our lives, the overall contingency plan that comes closest to perfection is to "go with the flow." This is zen. The only thing we can ever really control is our own behavior. Because all known previous empires have collapsed, chaos and entropy being prominent in their demise, we can anticipate a similar fate for the American empire.
The Russian economy is booming in part because Russia is a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Russia is also a leading supplier of military and nuclear power technology. Many people easily ascribe the various conflicts occurring in Eurasia to rivalries over the control of oil and gas fields and the routing of pipelines. China's exploding economy would love to plunge its straw -- direct trans-border pipelines -- into Iran's oil pools and drain them without interference; Iran would love China to monetize its oil bonanza, so it wants to power itself with nuclear energy to maximize its oil profits. Russia is eager to supply Iran the nuclear power technology it wants, because it is a profitable business venture, and because they want the security of controlling the fuel cycle of a close neighbor, for the purpose of nonproliferation (of nuclear weapons).
However, these logical commercial synergies fail the most important acceptance criterion of US capitalism, "what's in it for me?" The US would prefer a compliant Iran drained to its benefit, such as in the days of the Shah, it would prefer Central Asian oil to flow south through Afghanistan and east through the Caucasus, Black Sea and Turkey, and it would prefer Europe to limit its energy dependency on Russia. It is not just a matter of increasing the oil supplied to the US, it is about throttling the sources of Russia's and China's growing economic power; it is about control.
We can expect the Europeans to try soothing the neo-con fevered Bush Administration, quietly behind closed embassy doors, from working itself into a rabid lather for nuclear war with Russia, initially in the Caucasus. This will have some influence, because the failure of Europe to join in a diplomatic demonization campaign against Russia, like the earlier campaigns against Iraq, would make it more difficult for the US to proceed to war. Also, the US is mindful that were it to be seriously weakened by a unilateral nuclear war with Russia, an unscathed Europe would easily step into control of its empire. After all, this is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman did to Winston Churchill's British empire.
Also, Europe would worry that a nuclear war in the Caucasus might spread, war usually does when one side becomes desperate. If Russia were being "bombed back to the stone age" it would most certainly bomb the US bases in the Central Asian republics along its southern border. These would be legitimate military targets, and would no doubt be actively involved in the US war against Russia (why else are they there?). This would draw the Central Asian republics into the war and probably topple their ruling classes, which Russia would see as their just deserts. A similar catastrophe might happen to Poland and other Eastern European states hosting US missile systems. For Europe, the thought of the disruption of their oil supplies from Russia and Central Asia, along with the possibility of sustaining casualties from nuclear bombardment, should be enough to propel them into vigorous and sustained diplomatic action to restrain US belligerency. They will probably say all manner of nasty things about Russia, to mollify their infantile US emperor, and do as little as possible to disrupt their existing commercial arrangements with Russia.
Analogous to the situation of the US public, if Europe and American "allies" were to suffer directly and severely from the war, they might unite in revolt and then use their military forces against the US, or Russia, or both as they guessed would offer the best relief. What is that level of "direct and severe suffering" that would trigger a European military response? Good question.
There are many other possibilities for mischief once the US is embroiled in a nuclear war and inattentive to its empire. Other nations could decide it was an opportune time to settle their own scores with each other, independent of the US-Russia war. China and India fought a border war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is believed to have erupted because the US was completely preoccupied elsewhere. One can imagine Israel finding it opportune to accelerate its liquidation of the Palestinians, expand into Lebanon, attack Iran or a variety of its neighbors, or all of these, while the US was absorbed in a nuclear war radiating from the Caucasus.
Of course, a restraining consideration here is that the US might not be capable or willing to assist and even fund Israel during the course of its own major war with Russia, unless Israel were a full-fledged partner in that war. If Israel were so blinded by its own ambition that it did join the war against Russia, then Russian arms would quickly and forcefully be turned against it, and this would almost certainly be joined by military actions from many states in the Middle East. The intelligent course for Israel would be to stay out of a US war against Russia (which will really look dirty to the US public as they see their own forces being nuked), but even then it might have to accept a diminished level of support from its great protector, and consequently a more successful opposition from its many subjects and neighbors.
Conclusion
Once the chaotic dimension of reality is realized, it becomes easy to envision any number of disastrous developments for each of the initial combatants, and even the initial bystanders. From any perspective, it is easier to imagine a negative cost-benefit ratio to this war than a positive outcome. For this reason, I think it less likely to occur. However, one must not underestimate the stupidity of imperialists, if war does break out then I think the Russians will have a clearer view of how to proceed, and this will mean painful losses for the US, its allies and enablers.
The great fallacy of the imperialistic mind is that the threat of destruction is equated with the power to control. Control is an illusion, chaos is the reality. A successful warrior dances with chaos, and success means simply that one is still alive.
Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a retired physicist who spent 15 years working on US underground nuclear tests. Time and effort have gone into understanding why nuclear weapons still exist. E-mail = mango@idiom.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia09012008.html
Will a Russo-American Nuclear War Happen (Soon)?
By MANUEL GARCIA, Jr.
The first, and also previous, nuclear war consisted of two atomic bomb attacks that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, on August 6 and August 9 of 1945. These attacks by the United States of America against an utterly defeated and prostrate Japan occurred in the last month of the Pacific War (which occurred between December 7, 1941 to August 15, 1945 for the USA) and were demonstrations of remorseless American power intended to deflate the triumphant spirit of a Soviet Union victorious against Nazi Germany (May 8, 1945), and to check the Soviet leadership from advancing its forces into Japan (despite being implored to do so by the Allies at the Yalta Conference six months earlier).
Tsarist Russia had lost its 1904-1905 war with Imperial Japan for control of Manchuria (northern China) and Korea, both of which Japan occupied until 1945. During World War 1 (1914-1918) and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923), a dozen nations invaded Russia, occupying many regions and fielding troops that supported the pro-tsarist, anti-Bolshevik White forces between 1918 and 1920. Japan supplied 37 percent of the troops in this Allied Intervention, 70,000 of the 188,000 total and by far the single largest contingent; they were all deployed in the Vladivostok (northwestern Pacific) region and were the last to leave, in 1922. A series of Soviet-Japanese border wars occurred between 1938-1945, primarily a 1938 war along the Siberian-Manchurian border (western-eastern) just northeast of Korea, a 1939 war along the Mongolian-Manchurian border (eastern-western), northwest of Korea, and the Russian invasion of Manchuria on August 8, 1945.
With the demise of the Japanese Empire, the Russians and Chinese consolidated their adjoining domains of control spanning the Eurasian landmass east of the Baltic and north of the Black Sea, Caucasus and Himalayas, for over four decades until the breakup of the Soviet Union. Over the last twenty years, the United States has actively sought to encircle Russia with military forces implanted in client states that are former Soviet Republics or Eastern European Socialist Republics, now independent, whose compliance has been bought. A similar policy applies to China and its surrounding south and central Asian states. This US policy is often personified by Zbigniew Brzezinski (the Carter Administration National Security Advisor credited with funding the advanced militarization of the Afghani mujahideen that included Osama Bin Laden), who characterizes it as geostrategic dominance radiating from the control of Caucasus and Central Asian republics, several rich in oil.
In recent weeks, US commentators (e.g., P. C. Roberts and W. S. Lind) on Russia's intervention into the Republic of Georgia (a US client state in the South Caucasus Mountains) to reverse the Georgian invasion of breakaway region South Ossetia, believe the blundering belligerence of US policy toward Russia could escalate to the point of armed confrontation, and this would erupt into a nuclear war.
The logic assumed is that the US would have to rely on missile-borne tactical nuclear warheads launched by air and naval forces to counter Russian troops and armor in the Caucasus, since the US is too distant to transport its troops quickly, and many of them are bogged down in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows, maybe also Iran by that time. The Russians could be assumed to use their tactical nuclear weapons to compensate for their possible disadvantage of having less technically sophisticated weapons systems relative to the "smart bomb" precision-guided munitions and "stealth" delivery vehicles of the US military. Once a shooting war starts, the natural tendency is to reach for your biggest guns and fire away before the other guy can clear his holster.
So, is a new nuclear war possible? Let's muse on this. After all, the time necessary for rationality to work its good is only available before the shoot-out, or after the killing is done and the survivors are ready to move on to the burials.
The purpose of war is to increase your degree of control OVER OTHERS. This is usually equated to having acquired greater political and military power. This is true even if the the war is conducted as nothing beyond brigandage and piracy: plunder, profit and wealth are seen as increasing your power to control events. Using this metric, it is easy to judge if you have won or lost a war.
We proceed by inquiring about the psychological and technical enabling factors, and the political and diplomatic restraining factors for the outbreak of a nuclear war:
1, psychology: are the prospective belligerents easily inclined to war?
2, technology: are their military establishments ready for nuclear combat?
3, politics: can the ruling class be assured of maintaining control of its own population?, could there be a revolution if the war fares badly?
4, diplomacy: is the potential estrangement of and isolation from European states, and other allies, a significant restraint?; is it possible that in a mid-war or post-war weakened condition your state becomes unable to control new rebellions by imperial subject states, or to stop encroachments into your domain of influence by imperial rivals?
We can contract the previous four major questions in these two: have we identified all possible contingencies and devised alternative plans for each?, does the cost-benefit ratio for the war outweigh that of diplomatic alternatives, and after what period of time? We consider the four factors in turn.
Psychology: Remembering World War Two
It is important to know that the overwhelming fraction of the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany was provided by the Soviet Union (Russia and its union of socialist republics), and they suffered the greatest losses as a result. Consider the following numbers. The combined 1939 population of the fifty-five countries involved in World War Two (WW2) was 1.962 billion; the total number of war dead was 72.8 million, which was 3.7 percent of the 1939 population of participants. Of course, many of these countries bore only a slight to moderate burden in carrying on the war, while a small number provided the greatest efforts and made the greatest sacrifices (see "World War II casualties" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties).
The combined human losses of the Soviet Union, China, Germany and Japan were just under 73 percent of the total deaths for WW2. The Asian theater of WW2 was essentially the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, while the European theater of WW2 was essentially the Russo-German War of 1941-1945.
Let us look at the impact of WW2 on five selected countries, by using three ratios for each country, where these ratios are defined as follows.
Country:
the percentage of its 1939 population killed in WW2;
the ratio of its 1939 population to the 1.962 billion WW2 participants;
the ratio of its WW2 dead to the total WW2 dead;
(all ratios below are expressed as percents).
Soviet Union: 13.7; 8.6; 31.7.
China: 3.9; 26.4; 27.5.
Germany: 10.5; 3.6; 10.
Japan: 3.8; 3.6; 3.7.
USA: 0.3; 6.7; 0.6.
The Soviet Union lost nearly 14 percent of its population (every 7th person) in the war, and this mortality amounted to almost one third of the entire WW2 dead. China was three times as populous as the Soviet Union, so its loss of nearly 4 percent of its people (every 26th person) amounted to over one quarter of the entire WW2 dead. Germany lost over a tenth of its population (every 10th person), which amounted to 10 percent of the WW2 dead; and Japan's loss of just under 4 percent of its people (every 26th person) amounted to nearly 4 percent of the WW2 dead.
Notice that the United States' WW2 dead amounts to a fifty-fifth (1/55) of the Soviet total, and the 1939 national populations were comparable, the Soviet population being 29 percent higher. It would be very beneficial to the world if Americans, commemorating their Memorial and Veterans' Days, would try imagining their feelings if they had suffered war as deeply as the Soviet people (every 7th person instead of every 172nd person lost). Now, we never trivialize the real pain of war veterans, their relatives and and friends, however small a portion of a nation's population they may happen to be. But, clearly, the impact of a WW2 experience like that of the Soviets will imprint a dread of war far more deeply into the national consciousness than a WW2 experience like that of the United States.
Another interesting numerical result is that the combined losses of Germany and Japan amount to only 13.7 percent of the WW2 dead, and the combined population of these two Axis powers amounted to only 7.2 percent of the WW2 participating population. Advanced industrialized nations hell-bent on war can drag in a multitude of victims vastly more numerous than themselves. A reasonable assumption for today is that the state planners and popular historical memories in both Russia and China viscerally appreciate the importance of this point, but that it may be dimly perceived in US popular imagination, and even dismissed by US policy-makers. This is probably the type of caution introduced by European allies when the US engages them in multilateral diplomacy and planning, and which is so annoying to US unilateralists.
So, the US may have a more casual attitude about bellicose posturing and nuclear war threatening bravado, while the Russians and Chinese are likely to be very circumspect and deliberate about threatening nuclear war; if they do, pay attention!
Technology: The Military Is A Hungry Robot
The US military is a brainless stomach that always wishes to be fed, it is the very definition of fiscal cancer. It has no other goal beyond immediate ingestion of capital drained from the US treasury, so all its pronouncements, papers, studies, proposals and testimony are devoid of meaning beyond their role as advertisements aimed at the audience of policy-makers heading the capitalist, government and propaganda ministries of the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC). The purpose of these advertisements is to induce as many of these directorate-class individuals as possible to put their influence behind the many schemes for larding the military. So, we can expect any part of the military that sees initiating a nuclear war as an instant benefit to itself by calling its services into action, to lobby for it. A brainless stomach has no concept of consequences, or of others. "More" fills the conceptual space, and all the frenzied, convoluted babble is a drone of incantations intended to materialize that "more."
While the hardware for nuclear war is complex, both the US and Russian military establishments have decades of experience with it, and they have maintained their training. These military forces could use their nuclear weapons as ordered without a significant number of technical or personnel failures. Some of the warheads launched might be duds, in that their detonation would be flawed and their full explosive yield would be unrealized; and some of the personnel might crack under the pressure of actual combat -- either as a blind panic or an intentional rebellion -- and fail at their posts. However, we can expect a low incidence of such failure in either the US or Russian forces.
This is unfortunate from the point of view of preventing nuclear war. We now know that "a guy named Arkhipov saved the world" during the Cuban Missile Crisis. "During a naval skirmish between an American destroyer and a Soviet B-59 submarine off Cuba on Oct 27, 1962," where "the destroyer dropped depth charges near the submarine to try to force it to surface, not knowing it had a nuclear-tipped torpedo...that the submarine was authorised to fire it if three officers agreed. The officers began a fierce, shouting debate over whether to sink the ship. Two of them said yes and the other said no."
This was no failure of Russian military training (which like that in the arts and sciences is of unparalleled rigor), but instead the operation of vivid historical consciousness. I fear that the culture of the United States is so shallow and immature that thorough military training can transform any callow youth into a robot soldier attuned to his or her assigned functions, and unlikely to have the psychological depth and historical consciousness to question orders and training under conditions of extreme danger, urgency and confusion, or to recognize moments of pivotal importance.
Military establishments are intended to be robotic performers, reliable agents implementing commands abstracted and codified from the political directives of the national leadership. So, we should assume that by far the best way to prevent the military from proceeding with a nuclear war is by influencing the policy that it operates under, so that it is one of restraint.
Still, let me make a direct plea to any US soldier or sailor who finds themselves charged with launching a nuclear weapon: don't do it, mutiny, revolt. Think, the more and sooner the better. Be Arkhipov. I think the Russians will be more restrained than the Americans about first use, but will have zero hesitation about second use.
Politics: Popular Loyalty Or Popular Revolt?
Because Russia is a lesser power than the United States, and because of the many and obvious provocations made by the US against Russia as part of its encirclement strategy, as well as the shameless advantage US capitalism took of Russia during the immediate post-soviet period of political fragmentation and economic reorganization, the Russian people will have no trouble supporting their government regardless of how any potential war with the US transpires; they will always see themselves as the defenders, not the aggressors. This will be especially true if the US fires first, which it delights in boasting it feels free to do; and we can be sure that if Russia does fire the first nuclear shot, it will be an evidently defensive preemptive strike. The expectation of popular loyalty, won by the robust revival of the Russian economy under Vladimir Putin's administration, as well as a reaction to US belligerence, frees the Russian leadership of any fear about revolution erupting in reaction to possible reverses in a potential Russo-US war, even a nuclear one. Russia is united.
The US public is unprepared for the sacrifices attendant to a nuclear war, no matter how "tactical" and "limited." Every nuclear munition carries the destructive power of many conventional bombs or cannons, and shot for shot every fall of a nuclear munition will produce proportionately many more casualties. US soldiers and sailors will fill coffins or dematerialize at rates not experienced since the Civil War. The American public has been protected, shielded and distracted from the impact of war, especially since the Vietnam War, but the number of casualties to be expected from even a limited tactical nuclear war would be impossible to hide (as the casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are hidden today), and the mollycoddled American viewing public would be traumatized on apprehending the magnitude and pace of the carnage.
The reactions to this fright would be varied, but in all cases they would contribute to the agitation of the public, a loss of placidity and thus an increased difficulty of social control. This triggers the primary anxiety of the ruling class. It is nearly inconceivable that US public agitation over the number of military casualties from a foreign nuclear war would rise to the same intensity as the Parisian public's agitation about starvation in 1789, but the great fear of the US ruling class would be that it had become of the same type. Today's paycheck-dependent US Americans are disunited by their fearful prejudices and diminishing expectations in an eroding economy, while the Russian people are experiencing historically significant economic growth and political stability. At what point of disaffection would the US public unite into storming its own Bastilles, at what level of unsatisfied wants -- in a population indoctrinated to be self-governed by wants -- would the US public acquire the motivational rage of a Cindy Sheehan and become the 21st century san-culotte whose pikes were now the subject of the 2nd amendment?
We should not let such florid rhetoric carry us on flights of fancy of Phil Gramm ('let them whine for cake') types arriving at their Sidney Carton moment, but neither should we underestimate the potential for outbreaks of real social unrest in the US as a consequence of losing people to a nuclear war of imperialistic hubris.
Diplomacy: Consolidating Conquest, Or Chaotic Collapse?
The imperialist imagination sees conquest as the method of consolidating power. The emperor projects a conception of order onto the world, and then seeks to subject each actual state and population into fulfilling an assigned role. Every country is a tile that fits into the grand mosaic of the imagined empire, adding its unique hue to the overall image and easing the interconnectedness of all others into a consolidated structure. Conquest is accomplished by force, bribery or inequitable alliance.
However, every tile of the world mosaic has its own conception of itself and its role in the world, so there is always opposition to empire. Most people call this freedom.
Imperialistic thinking assumes that power, the ability of superior force to hold sway, is the only dimension along which international relations operate. It ignores chaos, the ability of nature and reality to erupt with surprises, and entropy, the tendency of all structure to dissipate, as other dimensions of international relations. It is impossible to predict all possible outcomes of present situations, so it is impossible to devise perfect systems of control. While we are always free to take action, we can never be certain of all its possible consequences. Aside from our common-sense plans for managing the practicalities of our lives, the overall contingency plan that comes closest to perfection is to "go with the flow." This is zen. The only thing we can ever really control is our own behavior. Because all known previous empires have collapsed, chaos and entropy being prominent in their demise, we can anticipate a similar fate for the American empire.
The Russian economy is booming in part because Russia is a major supplier of oil and gas to Europe. Russia is also a leading supplier of military and nuclear power technology. Many people easily ascribe the various conflicts occurring in Eurasia to rivalries over the control of oil and gas fields and the routing of pipelines. China's exploding economy would love to plunge its straw -- direct trans-border pipelines -- into Iran's oil pools and drain them without interference; Iran would love China to monetize its oil bonanza, so it wants to power itself with nuclear energy to maximize its oil profits. Russia is eager to supply Iran the nuclear power technology it wants, because it is a profitable business venture, and because they want the security of controlling the fuel cycle of a close neighbor, for the purpose of nonproliferation (of nuclear weapons).
However, these logical commercial synergies fail the most important acceptance criterion of US capitalism, "what's in it for me?" The US would prefer a compliant Iran drained to its benefit, such as in the days of the Shah, it would prefer Central Asian oil to flow south through Afghanistan and east through the Caucasus, Black Sea and Turkey, and it would prefer Europe to limit its energy dependency on Russia. It is not just a matter of increasing the oil supplied to the US, it is about throttling the sources of Russia's and China's growing economic power; it is about control.
We can expect the Europeans to try soothing the neo-con fevered Bush Administration, quietly behind closed embassy doors, from working itself into a rabid lather for nuclear war with Russia, initially in the Caucasus. This will have some influence, because the failure of Europe to join in a diplomatic demonization campaign against Russia, like the earlier campaigns against Iraq, would make it more difficult for the US to proceed to war. Also, the US is mindful that were it to be seriously weakened by a unilateral nuclear war with Russia, an unscathed Europe would easily step into control of its empire. After all, this is what Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman did to Winston Churchill's British empire.
Also, Europe would worry that a nuclear war in the Caucasus might spread, war usually does when one side becomes desperate. If Russia were being "bombed back to the stone age" it would most certainly bomb the US bases in the Central Asian republics along its southern border. These would be legitimate military targets, and would no doubt be actively involved in the US war against Russia (why else are they there?). This would draw the Central Asian republics into the war and probably topple their ruling classes, which Russia would see as their just deserts. A similar catastrophe might happen to Poland and other Eastern European states hosting US missile systems. For Europe, the thought of the disruption of their oil supplies from Russia and Central Asia, along with the possibility of sustaining casualties from nuclear bombardment, should be enough to propel them into vigorous and sustained diplomatic action to restrain US belligerency. They will probably say all manner of nasty things about Russia, to mollify their infantile US emperor, and do as little as possible to disrupt their existing commercial arrangements with Russia.
Analogous to the situation of the US public, if Europe and American "allies" were to suffer directly and severely from the war, they might unite in revolt and then use their military forces against the US, or Russia, or both as they guessed would offer the best relief. What is that level of "direct and severe suffering" that would trigger a European military response? Good question.
There are many other possibilities for mischief once the US is embroiled in a nuclear war and inattentive to its empire. Other nations could decide it was an opportune time to settle their own scores with each other, independent of the US-Russia war. China and India fought a border war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is believed to have erupted because the US was completely preoccupied elsewhere. One can imagine Israel finding it opportune to accelerate its liquidation of the Palestinians, expand into Lebanon, attack Iran or a variety of its neighbors, or all of these, while the US was absorbed in a nuclear war radiating from the Caucasus.
Of course, a restraining consideration here is that the US might not be capable or willing to assist and even fund Israel during the course of its own major war with Russia, unless Israel were a full-fledged partner in that war. If Israel were so blinded by its own ambition that it did join the war against Russia, then Russian arms would quickly and forcefully be turned against it, and this would almost certainly be joined by military actions from many states in the Middle East. The intelligent course for Israel would be to stay out of a US war against Russia (which will really look dirty to the US public as they see their own forces being nuked), but even then it might have to accept a diminished level of support from its great protector, and consequently a more successful opposition from its many subjects and neighbors.
Conclusion
Once the chaotic dimension of reality is realized, it becomes easy to envision any number of disastrous developments for each of the initial combatants, and even the initial bystanders. From any perspective, it is easier to imagine a negative cost-benefit ratio to this war than a positive outcome. For this reason, I think it less likely to occur. However, one must not underestimate the stupidity of imperialists, if war does break out then I think the Russians will have a clearer view of how to proceed, and this will mean painful losses for the US, its allies and enablers.
The great fallacy of the imperialistic mind is that the threat of destruction is equated with the power to control. Control is an illusion, chaos is the reality. A successful warrior dances with chaos, and success means simply that one is still alive.
Manuel Garcia, Jr. is a retired physicist who spent 15 years working on US underground nuclear tests. Time and effort have gone into understanding why nuclear weapons still exist. E-mail = mango@idiom.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia09012008.html
Goose Bumps and Hula Hoops for Barack by Mona Eltahawy
Goose Bumps and Hula Hoops for Barack by Mona Eltahawy
As disreputable opponents try to ‘smear’ Barack Obama by calling him a Muslim, Muslim Americans rally to his campaign. In such a difficult time for Muslims, they think he’ll do the right thing.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1705
As disreputable opponents try to ‘smear’ Barack Obama by calling him a Muslim, Muslim Americans rally to his campaign. In such a difficult time for Muslims, they think he’ll do the right thing.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1705
Bush's Policies Must End by Patrick Seale
Bush's Policies Must End by Patrick Seale
The disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crises with Iran and Pakistan, and the criminal neglect of Israeli-Arab issues are the legacy of George W. Bush -- all of which must be resolved.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1702
The disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan, the crises with Iran and Pakistan, and the criminal neglect of Israeli-Arab issues are the legacy of George W. Bush -- all of which must be resolved.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1702
Adding Hunger to the Middle East Crises by Rami G. Khouri
Adding Hunger to the Middle East Crises by Rami G. Khouri
The coming food crisis could exacerbate the fragmentation of Arab states and societies, unless leaders step up. Governments that abdicate responsibility for feeding their hungry could collapse and intensify Middle East problems for the region and the world.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1707
The coming food crisis could exacerbate the fragmentation of Arab states and societies, unless leaders step up. Governments that abdicate responsibility for feeding their hungry could collapse and intensify Middle East problems for the region and the world.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1707
A Provisional Iraq War Balance Sheet by Patrick Seale
It may not be too early to draw up a provisional balance sheet of the Iraq war, especially since Iraq is still likely to be at or close to the top of the next U.S. President’s headaches.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1706
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1706
Can NATO Survive Georgia? by Immanuel Wallerstein
Can NATO Survive Georgia? by Immanuel Wallerstein
From its creation, NATO was a strategic U.S. tool, providing a European alliance against the USSR/Russia. Now, through U.S. “flawed thinking,” NATO is in danger of collapsing.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1708
From its creation, NATO was a strategic U.S. tool, providing a European alliance against the USSR/Russia. Now, through U.S. “flawed thinking,” NATO is in danger of collapsing.
more...http://www.agenceglobal.com/Article.asp?Id=1708
Why Iraqi 'Client' Blocked US Long-Term Presence
September 2, 2008
Why Iraqi 'Client' Blocked US Long-Term Presence
by Gareth Porter
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that all U.S. troops – including those with non-combat functions – must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration.
That pronouncement, along with other moves indicating that the Iraqi position was hardening rather than preparing for a compromise, appeared to doom the Bush administration's plan to leave tens of thousands of military support personnel in Iraq indefinitely. The new Iraqi moves raise the obvious question of how a leader who was considered a safe U.S. client could have defied his patron on such a central U.S. strategic interest.
Maliki declared Aug. 25 that the U.S. had agreed that "no foreign soldiers will be in Iraq after 2011." A Shi'ite legislator and Maliki ally, Ali al-Adeeb, told the Washington Post that only the Iraqi government had the authority under the agreement to decide whether conditions were conducive to a complete withdrawal. He added that the Iraqi government "could ask the Americans to withdraw before 2011 if we wish."
It was also reported that Maliki has replaced his negotiating team with three of his closest advisers.
These moves blindsided the Bush administration, which had been telling reporters that a favorable agreement was close. The Washington Post reported Aug. 22 and again Aug. 26 that the agreement on withdrawal would be "conditions-based" and would allow the United States to keep tens of thousands of non-combat troops in the country after 2011.
The administration had assumed going into the negotiations that Maliki would remain a U.S. client for a few years because of the Iraqi government's dependence on the U.S. military to build a largely Shi'ite Iraqi army and police force and defeat the main insurgent threats to his regime.
But that dependence has diminished dramatically over the past two years as Iraqi security forces continued to grow, the Sunni insurgents found refuge under U.S. auspices, and the Shi'ites succeeded in largely eliminating Sunni political-military power from the Baghdad area. As a result, the inherent conflicts between U.S. interests and those of the Shi'ite regime have been become more evident.
Contrary to the administration's claims that it was helping the regime remain independent of Iran, Maliki was far closer to Tehran than to Washington from the beginning. As a team of McClatchy newspaper reporters revealed last April, the choice of Maliki as prime minister was the direct result of the mediation by Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, in the negotiations within the coalition that had won the December 2005 parliamentary election.
Washington didn't learn that Suleimani had slipped into the green zone until later, according to the McClatchy report.
Maliki has hardly hidden his opposition to U.S. ambitions to maintain a major long-term role in Iraq. One of his first moves was to propose negotiating a timetable for complete U.S. withdrawal with the Sunni insurgents. He soon clashed with U.S. officials over their determination to launch a campaign against Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr had been a key political ally of Maliki, and the Mahdi Army was an important asset in a broader Shi'ite campaign to eliminate Sunni political-military power in Baghdad.
The Iraqi leader angered U.S. officials in late October 2006 by intervening to call off a U.S.-Iraqi cordon and search operation against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. When Bush met with Maliki in Amman, Jordan on Nov. 30, 2006, to discuss a possible U.S. troop increase, he had hoped to get approval for U.S. troops to occupy Sadr City. As Michael Gordon revealed in his Aug. 31 account of Bush policymaking on the surge, however, Maliki told Bush he wanted U.S. troops to stay out of the center of the capital.
In the end, Maliki and the U.S. command reached a compromise on a carefully conditioned U.S. occupation of Sadr City. But Maliki continued to maintain ties with the Sadrists.
In 2007, Gen. David Petraeus' project to form Sunni militias, mostly from former armed resistance veterans, became a new source of tension between the Bush administration and Maliki. An associate of Maliki told Associated Press in July 2007 that he once threatened in a discussion with President Bush to counter the arming of Sunnis by arming Shi'ite militias. The Iraqi leader halted progress on political concessions to the Sunni community.
As the U.S. command turned its attention increasingly to attacking the Mahdi Army, the Bush administration began talking in June 2007 about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq, based on the "Korean model." Maliki's responded by declaring that U.S. troops should leave and turn over security to Iraqi forces.
In August, Bush publicly distanced himself from Maliki, apparently hoping he would be replaced by a more cooperative figure.
In late August, the Sadrists were fighting against both U.S. troops in Baghdad and security forces loyal to the pro-Iranian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council in the south. With Maliki's obvious encouragement, Iran intervened to arrange the first of a series of accommodations between its Iraqi clients and Sadr. On Aug. 26, 2007 the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, asked why nothing had been done to arrange "reconciliation" between the two Iraqi groups, said Iran "always used its influence to create unity between the different groups in Iraq."
Three days later, Sadr announced a unilateral cease-fire. The main beneficiary of the cease-fire, which ended attacks on the green zone and intra-Shi'ite fighting, was the Maliki regime, and Iraqi officials credited Iranian policy for having made it happen.
The March 7 U.S. draft of the status of forces agreement (SOFA) and the U.S. military drive in Shi'ite territory brought the conflict of interests between the Maliki regime and the Bush administration to a head in 2008. In mid-March, Maliki rejected a Petraeus plan for a massive joint operation against the Sadrists in Basra, which would have increased Iraqi dependence on U.S. troops.
Instead, Maliki launched his own operation in Basra that was planned to last only a few days. Then, in a move that appears to have been prearranged with Suleimani, Iraqi officials were dispatched to Iran to get Suleimani's help in mediating a peace agreement with Sadr.
The result was a Sadrist retreat from Basra, even though Iraqi security forces had not been able to cope with the Mahdi Army resistance. That headed off a major U.S. troop presence in the Shi'ite south and strengthened Maliki's position in negotiations with Washington.
The Basra agreement set the stage for the subsequent accord between Maliki and Sadr, again reached with Iranian mediation, for a cease-fire in Sadr City on May 12. The agreement prevented the U.S. command from getting the large-scale U.S. campaign in Sadr City for which it had been pushing for more than a year.
The carefully calculating Sadr had been convinced to trade short-term military success for the prospect of a U.S. military retreat.
Maliki began pushing for "significant changes" in the SOFA only after the May agreement, but he was only returning to the position he had embraced two years earlier.
This Maliki record of opposition to U.S. political-military interests apparently failed to shake the Bush administration's belief that he would yield to U.S. demands in the end. That faith appears to reflect the official military triumphalism associated with Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy – a residual faith in the power of the U.S. military's presence in Iraq to sweep away all local obstacles to U.S. victory.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13396
Why Iraqi 'Client' Blocked US Long-Term Presence
by Gareth Porter
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that all U.S. troops – including those with non-combat functions – must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration.
That pronouncement, along with other moves indicating that the Iraqi position was hardening rather than preparing for a compromise, appeared to doom the Bush administration's plan to leave tens of thousands of military support personnel in Iraq indefinitely. The new Iraqi moves raise the obvious question of how a leader who was considered a safe U.S. client could have defied his patron on such a central U.S. strategic interest.
Maliki declared Aug. 25 that the U.S. had agreed that "no foreign soldiers will be in Iraq after 2011." A Shi'ite legislator and Maliki ally, Ali al-Adeeb, told the Washington Post that only the Iraqi government had the authority under the agreement to decide whether conditions were conducive to a complete withdrawal. He added that the Iraqi government "could ask the Americans to withdraw before 2011 if we wish."
It was also reported that Maliki has replaced his negotiating team with three of his closest advisers.
These moves blindsided the Bush administration, which had been telling reporters that a favorable agreement was close. The Washington Post reported Aug. 22 and again Aug. 26 that the agreement on withdrawal would be "conditions-based" and would allow the United States to keep tens of thousands of non-combat troops in the country after 2011.
The administration had assumed going into the negotiations that Maliki would remain a U.S. client for a few years because of the Iraqi government's dependence on the U.S. military to build a largely Shi'ite Iraqi army and police force and defeat the main insurgent threats to his regime.
But that dependence has diminished dramatically over the past two years as Iraqi security forces continued to grow, the Sunni insurgents found refuge under U.S. auspices, and the Shi'ites succeeded in largely eliminating Sunni political-military power from the Baghdad area. As a result, the inherent conflicts between U.S. interests and those of the Shi'ite regime have been become more evident.
Contrary to the administration's claims that it was helping the regime remain independent of Iran, Maliki was far closer to Tehran than to Washington from the beginning. As a team of McClatchy newspaper reporters revealed last April, the choice of Maliki as prime minister was the direct result of the mediation by Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, in the negotiations within the coalition that had won the December 2005 parliamentary election.
Washington didn't learn that Suleimani had slipped into the green zone until later, according to the McClatchy report.
Maliki has hardly hidden his opposition to U.S. ambitions to maintain a major long-term role in Iraq. One of his first moves was to propose negotiating a timetable for complete U.S. withdrawal with the Sunni insurgents. He soon clashed with U.S. officials over their determination to launch a campaign against Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr had been a key political ally of Maliki, and the Mahdi Army was an important asset in a broader Shi'ite campaign to eliminate Sunni political-military power in Baghdad.
The Iraqi leader angered U.S. officials in late October 2006 by intervening to call off a U.S.-Iraqi cordon and search operation against the Mahdi Army in Sadr City. When Bush met with Maliki in Amman, Jordan on Nov. 30, 2006, to discuss a possible U.S. troop increase, he had hoped to get approval for U.S. troops to occupy Sadr City. As Michael Gordon revealed in his Aug. 31 account of Bush policymaking on the surge, however, Maliki told Bush he wanted U.S. troops to stay out of the center of the capital.
In the end, Maliki and the U.S. command reached a compromise on a carefully conditioned U.S. occupation of Sadr City. But Maliki continued to maintain ties with the Sadrists.
In 2007, Gen. David Petraeus' project to form Sunni militias, mostly from former armed resistance veterans, became a new source of tension between the Bush administration and Maliki. An associate of Maliki told Associated Press in July 2007 that he once threatened in a discussion with President Bush to counter the arming of Sunnis by arming Shi'ite militias. The Iraqi leader halted progress on political concessions to the Sunni community.
As the U.S. command turned its attention increasingly to attacking the Mahdi Army, the Bush administration began talking in June 2007 about a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq, based on the "Korean model." Maliki's responded by declaring that U.S. troops should leave and turn over security to Iraqi forces.
In August, Bush publicly distanced himself from Maliki, apparently hoping he would be replaced by a more cooperative figure.
In late August, the Sadrists were fighting against both U.S. troops in Baghdad and security forces loyal to the pro-Iranian Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council in the south. With Maliki's obvious encouragement, Iran intervened to arrange the first of a series of accommodations between its Iraqi clients and Sadr. On Aug. 26, 2007 the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, asked why nothing had been done to arrange "reconciliation" between the two Iraqi groups, said Iran "always used its influence to create unity between the different groups in Iraq."
Three days later, Sadr announced a unilateral cease-fire. The main beneficiary of the cease-fire, which ended attacks on the green zone and intra-Shi'ite fighting, was the Maliki regime, and Iraqi officials credited Iranian policy for having made it happen.
The March 7 U.S. draft of the status of forces agreement (SOFA) and the U.S. military drive in Shi'ite territory brought the conflict of interests between the Maliki regime and the Bush administration to a head in 2008. In mid-March, Maliki rejected a Petraeus plan for a massive joint operation against the Sadrists in Basra, which would have increased Iraqi dependence on U.S. troops.
Instead, Maliki launched his own operation in Basra that was planned to last only a few days. Then, in a move that appears to have been prearranged with Suleimani, Iraqi officials were dispatched to Iran to get Suleimani's help in mediating a peace agreement with Sadr.
The result was a Sadrist retreat from Basra, even though Iraqi security forces had not been able to cope with the Mahdi Army resistance. That headed off a major U.S. troop presence in the Shi'ite south and strengthened Maliki's position in negotiations with Washington.
The Basra agreement set the stage for the subsequent accord between Maliki and Sadr, again reached with Iranian mediation, for a cease-fire in Sadr City on May 12. The agreement prevented the U.S. command from getting the large-scale U.S. campaign in Sadr City for which it had been pushing for more than a year.
The carefully calculating Sadr had been convinced to trade short-term military success for the prospect of a U.S. military retreat.
Maliki began pushing for "significant changes" in the SOFA only after the May agreement, but he was only returning to the position he had embraced two years earlier.
This Maliki record of opposition to U.S. political-military interests apparently failed to shake the Bush administration's belief that he would yield to U.S. demands in the end. That faith appears to reflect the official military triumphalism associated with Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy – a residual faith in the power of the U.S. military's presence in Iraq to sweep away all local obstacles to U.S. victory.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13396
Sunday, August 31, 2008
OSC: Russia- Iran Alliance?
OSC: Russia- Iran Alliance?
Article from the Russian press proposing a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran.
By Juan Cole
Pundit on Possible Russia-Iran Alliance To Counter 'Unfriendly' US Moves. Continue http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20657.htm
Article from the Russian press proposing a strategic alliance between Russia and Iran.
By Juan Cole
Pundit on Possible Russia-Iran Alliance To Counter 'Unfriendly' US Moves. Continue http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20657.htm
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War-A Survey of Christian Political Thought on the Justification of Warfare
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War
A Survey of Christian Political Thought on the Justification of Warfare
by Keith Gomes
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War (Full Article PDF)
This paper will briefly outline the development of the just war doctrine, with special emphasis on the developments in Christian thought which ultimately influenced modern international legal documents . Numerous legal documents, such as the Geneva Conventions (1864-1948) contain within them references to just war. More recent attempts to codify the just war include the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty entitled Responsibility to Protect. In examining the development of Christian thought with respect to war, I will illustrate the link between developments within Christian philosophy, the precepts of the Bible, and ultimately, the eventual universalisation of certain elements of Christian morality through the intermediary of natural law.
The need for just war criteria represents the efforts of Western cultures to regulate and restrict violence by establishing rules which specify the situations in which war can be legitimately used as a tool in international statecraft, as well as by setting out rules which govern ethical conduct during combat. However, today these regulations and restrictions are not confined to only Western cultures but, because of developments in international law and the establishment of international organisations such as the UN, this once Western narrative is seen to have universal relevancy, and to a large extent, universal appeal and applicability. While this paper will focus mainly on the rules dealing with the decision to go to war, both sets of rules arise from the same intellectual narrative which recognises recourse to violence not as the preferential modus operandi for dealing with disputes, but the exception. Both sets of rules trace their genealogy to developments in Christian thought, and understanding this genealogy is important, not only for academics, but for military strategists and foreign policy planners alike, since it highlights that these rules are never static because the rationale for these rules is situated in various historical contexts, and interpretations vary depending on the prevailing socio-political atmosphere. This, therefore, always leaves open the possibility that at the very least, the interpretations of these rules can be modified, or at the most, that the rules themselves ought to be more closely scrutinised, given that Christianity itself is constantly evolving and reinventing itself to retain contemporary social, political and ethical applicability.
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War (Full Article PDF)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/08/an-intellectual-genealogy-of-t.php
A Survey of Christian Political Thought on the Justification of Warfare
by Keith Gomes
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War (Full Article PDF)
This paper will briefly outline the development of the just war doctrine, with special emphasis on the developments in Christian thought which ultimately influenced modern international legal documents . Numerous legal documents, such as the Geneva Conventions (1864-1948) contain within them references to just war. More recent attempts to codify the just war include the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty entitled Responsibility to Protect. In examining the development of Christian thought with respect to war, I will illustrate the link between developments within Christian philosophy, the precepts of the Bible, and ultimately, the eventual universalisation of certain elements of Christian morality through the intermediary of natural law.
The need for just war criteria represents the efforts of Western cultures to regulate and restrict violence by establishing rules which specify the situations in which war can be legitimately used as a tool in international statecraft, as well as by setting out rules which govern ethical conduct during combat. However, today these regulations and restrictions are not confined to only Western cultures but, because of developments in international law and the establishment of international organisations such as the UN, this once Western narrative is seen to have universal relevancy, and to a large extent, universal appeal and applicability. While this paper will focus mainly on the rules dealing with the decision to go to war, both sets of rules arise from the same intellectual narrative which recognises recourse to violence not as the preferential modus operandi for dealing with disputes, but the exception. Both sets of rules trace their genealogy to developments in Christian thought, and understanding this genealogy is important, not only for academics, but for military strategists and foreign policy planners alike, since it highlights that these rules are never static because the rationale for these rules is situated in various historical contexts, and interpretations vary depending on the prevailing socio-political atmosphere. This, therefore, always leaves open the possibility that at the very least, the interpretations of these rules can be modified, or at the most, that the rules themselves ought to be more closely scrutinised, given that Christianity itself is constantly evolving and reinventing itself to retain contemporary social, political and ethical applicability.
An Intellectual Genealogy of the Just War (Full Article PDF)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/08/an-intellectual-genealogy-of-t.php
Public Diplomacy and National Security
Public Diplomacy and National Security
Lessons from the U.S. Experience
by Bruce Gregory
Public Diplomacy and National Security: Lessons from the U.S. Experience (Full PDF Article)
Calls to build greater civilian capacity in national security are well founded, and public diplomacy is high on the list of essential capabilities that must be strengthened. U.S. public diplomacy’s principles and methods are rooted in 20th century models of communication, governance, and armed conflict, which contribute to an inability to learn from recent experience and foster real change. This article defines public diplomacy, describes forces shaping the context of 21st century public diplomacy, and identifies five lessons from recent experience that point the way to change: abandon message influence dominance; drop the war on terror narrative; leverage knowledge, skills, and creativity in civil society; emphasize net-centric actors and actions; rethink government broadcasting and adapt to new media.
Ask most strategists today about national security reform and one answer is assured: strengthen civilian capabilities to meet 21st century challenges and relieve an overburdened military. High on the list of capabilities to be strengthened is what variously is called public diplomacy, strategic communication, and “winning the war of ideas.” The Defense Department’s 2008 National Defense Strategy laments that the U.S. is unable to communicate to the world what it stands for as a society. The State Department calls for new public diplomacy approaches and getting the “war of ideas right” in the battle against today’s terrorist threat. Seven years after 9/11, the nation’s leaders agree. Public diplomacy is crucial to national security and must be improved.
These calls for change sound strikingly familiar. The 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy also urged “effective public diplomacy” – “a different and more comprehensive approach” in “a war of ideas to win the battle against international terrorism.” Lawmakers, cabinet secretaries, and the 9/11 Commission were in early agreement on the same diagnosis, inadequate public diplomacy in an ideological struggle, and the same solution, transform tools designed for a different era and use them more effectively.
Why then has there been no real change? It’s not that U.S. leaders lack for advice. Experts in and out of government wrote more than thirty reports on public diplomacy during the past seven years. Failure to turn report recommendations into business plans and action is part of the answer. But much of the challenge lies in learning from experience.
What is public diplomacy? What can be learned? And how might it change for the better?
Public Diplomacy and National Security: Lessons from the U.S. Experience (Full PDF Article)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/08/public-diplomacy-and-national.php
Lessons from the U.S. Experience
by Bruce Gregory
Public Diplomacy and National Security: Lessons from the U.S. Experience (Full PDF Article)
Calls to build greater civilian capacity in national security are well founded, and public diplomacy is high on the list of essential capabilities that must be strengthened. U.S. public diplomacy’s principles and methods are rooted in 20th century models of communication, governance, and armed conflict, which contribute to an inability to learn from recent experience and foster real change. This article defines public diplomacy, describes forces shaping the context of 21st century public diplomacy, and identifies five lessons from recent experience that point the way to change: abandon message influence dominance; drop the war on terror narrative; leverage knowledge, skills, and creativity in civil society; emphasize net-centric actors and actions; rethink government broadcasting and adapt to new media.
Ask most strategists today about national security reform and one answer is assured: strengthen civilian capabilities to meet 21st century challenges and relieve an overburdened military. High on the list of capabilities to be strengthened is what variously is called public diplomacy, strategic communication, and “winning the war of ideas.” The Defense Department’s 2008 National Defense Strategy laments that the U.S. is unable to communicate to the world what it stands for as a society. The State Department calls for new public diplomacy approaches and getting the “war of ideas right” in the battle against today’s terrorist threat. Seven years after 9/11, the nation’s leaders agree. Public diplomacy is crucial to national security and must be improved.
These calls for change sound strikingly familiar. The 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy also urged “effective public diplomacy” – “a different and more comprehensive approach” in “a war of ideas to win the battle against international terrorism.” Lawmakers, cabinet secretaries, and the 9/11 Commission were in early agreement on the same diagnosis, inadequate public diplomacy in an ideological struggle, and the same solution, transform tools designed for a different era and use them more effectively.
Why then has there been no real change? It’s not that U.S. leaders lack for advice. Experts in and out of government wrote more than thirty reports on public diplomacy during the past seven years. Failure to turn report recommendations into business plans and action is part of the answer. But much of the challenge lies in learning from experience.
What is public diplomacy? What can be learned? And how might it change for the better?
Public Diplomacy and National Security: Lessons from the U.S. Experience (Full PDF Article)
http://smallwarsjournal.com/mag/2008/08/public-diplomacy-and-national.php
The Disasters that Await a New President
The Disasters that Await a New President
Date 2008/8/30 11:20:00
Paris, August 28, 2006 –- The Bush administration has lived by a strategy of tension, and will go out from office bequeathing the wars it has started, and the ill-will it has created, to its successors, to compromise those who come after.
Guantanamo and the "black sites" abroad will be left, and the probably more than one thousand U.S. military bases abroad, presumably including the 50 bases (currently) that Washington still wants to keep in Iraq after the troops go home, if they go home. And of course the administration's outsourcing arrangements for torture and kidnapping abroad will be left to a new administration.
Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain who enters the Oval Office in January, he will confront an inheritance of eight years of foreign policy abuses, failures and unresolved dilemmas, and in a climate of international crisis in the Caucasus and clash with Russia, expected by Richard Cheney and others in the Bush administration to promote McCain's election.
If this does elect McCain, it should pose no great problems for him because he is a man of simple commitment to the policy line of his predecessors: of military interventions in the Muslim world to win victory over the terrorists, and political interventions to control troubled European and Caspian-Crimean regions, and deter the new Stalin (or is it Hitler?; Stalin was not at Munich).
This conservative interventionism, in a Manichean politico-intellectual framework of Virtue and Freedom confronting Evil, leaves the Bush administration's successor with continuing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, indirectly in Somalia, plus probable domestic crisis in Pakistan before the presidential inauguration arrives. The progress of Islamic integrist and tribal forces linked to the Taliban continues in Pakistan without an apparent solution that would satisfy Washington.
In all of these cases the American intervention is itself the principal continuing cause of conflict – something which in the American policy community is generally inadmissible. In none of these conflicts is America capable of providing a solution. Even in Iraq, which Bush and the neoconservatives now tout as a success, all that has happened is that the U.S. has pitilessly wrecked the country, and now the Iraqis have grown weary of fighting.
The war in Somalia that sets Somalian warlords and an "Islamic Courts" rebel coalition against an unsuccessful Ethiopian military occupation, engineered by the CIA, will be waiting for the new American administration, since any solution involving the Islamists is verboten to Washington.
The Georgian-Ossetian-Abkhazian-Russian drama will have worsened by January, and U.S.-Russian bilateral relations been envenomed (if no worse), as well as trilateral relations among the U.S., Russia, and the hapless and doubly intimidated NATO Europeans, incapable of taking an initiative in their own interest.
The neo-conservative determination that America must dominate at any cost a Hobbesian world driven by greed and self-interest has won the day. The television-rattled public fails to grasp just what this means, and for eight years the Democrats have been frightened into silence by the threat of being outed as unpatriotic.
Senator Joseph Biden, according to the analysts, was made the Democratic vice-presidential nominee because he knows everything about foreign policy. But everything that he knows about foreign policy is just what everybody else in Washington knows and thinks, and would never dream of questioning. There's the problem.
An Obama-Biden administration would lower the rhetoric of the war on terror and enter global negotiations with Iran. It would emphasize the common interest of the U.S. and Iran in the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. It would acknowledge the political and social importance of Hamas and Hizbollah in the real world.
It would start over again with Israel-Palestine negotiations. Those backing the Obama candidacy talk about a "New Marshall Plan" for the Middle East (resembling Condoleezza Rice's proposals last month in Foreign Affairs), offering a "generational" program to lift the Middle East "from misery" and make it democratic, pro-American, and friendly to Israel. Alas, we have heard all that before; the United States is incapable of doing it; and the problem of the Middle East isn't money.
The leaders of such a new administration would negotiate with American allies rather than blackmail and bully them. They would resume good relations with international organizations and make good-faith use of them. They would protect the sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine. They would be firm with Russia. They would protect western energy sources. They will fight injustice wherever they find it, even if that means more war. They say they will make a better world. The skeptic wishes good luck to them.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is: http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=338
Date 2008/8/30 11:20:00
Paris, August 28, 2006 –- The Bush administration has lived by a strategy of tension, and will go out from office bequeathing the wars it has started, and the ill-will it has created, to its successors, to compromise those who come after.
Guantanamo and the "black sites" abroad will be left, and the probably more than one thousand U.S. military bases abroad, presumably including the 50 bases (currently) that Washington still wants to keep in Iraq after the troops go home, if they go home. And of course the administration's outsourcing arrangements for torture and kidnapping abroad will be left to a new administration.
Whether it is Barack Obama or John McCain who enters the Oval Office in January, he will confront an inheritance of eight years of foreign policy abuses, failures and unresolved dilemmas, and in a climate of international crisis in the Caucasus and clash with Russia, expected by Richard Cheney and others in the Bush administration to promote McCain's election.
If this does elect McCain, it should pose no great problems for him because he is a man of simple commitment to the policy line of his predecessors: of military interventions in the Muslim world to win victory over the terrorists, and political interventions to control troubled European and Caspian-Crimean regions, and deter the new Stalin (or is it Hitler?; Stalin was not at Munich).
This conservative interventionism, in a Manichean politico-intellectual framework of Virtue and Freedom confronting Evil, leaves the Bush administration's successor with continuing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, indirectly in Somalia, plus probable domestic crisis in Pakistan before the presidential inauguration arrives. The progress of Islamic integrist and tribal forces linked to the Taliban continues in Pakistan without an apparent solution that would satisfy Washington.
In all of these cases the American intervention is itself the principal continuing cause of conflict – something which in the American policy community is generally inadmissible. In none of these conflicts is America capable of providing a solution. Even in Iraq, which Bush and the neoconservatives now tout as a success, all that has happened is that the U.S. has pitilessly wrecked the country, and now the Iraqis have grown weary of fighting.
The war in Somalia that sets Somalian warlords and an "Islamic Courts" rebel coalition against an unsuccessful Ethiopian military occupation, engineered by the CIA, will be waiting for the new American administration, since any solution involving the Islamists is verboten to Washington.
The Georgian-Ossetian-Abkhazian-Russian drama will have worsened by January, and U.S.-Russian bilateral relations been envenomed (if no worse), as well as trilateral relations among the U.S., Russia, and the hapless and doubly intimidated NATO Europeans, incapable of taking an initiative in their own interest.
The neo-conservative determination that America must dominate at any cost a Hobbesian world driven by greed and self-interest has won the day. The television-rattled public fails to grasp just what this means, and for eight years the Democrats have been frightened into silence by the threat of being outed as unpatriotic.
Senator Joseph Biden, according to the analysts, was made the Democratic vice-presidential nominee because he knows everything about foreign policy. But everything that he knows about foreign policy is just what everybody else in Washington knows and thinks, and would never dream of questioning. There's the problem.
An Obama-Biden administration would lower the rhetoric of the war on terror and enter global negotiations with Iran. It would emphasize the common interest of the U.S. and Iran in the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. It would acknowledge the political and social importance of Hamas and Hizbollah in the real world.
It would start over again with Israel-Palestine negotiations. Those backing the Obama candidacy talk about a "New Marshall Plan" for the Middle East (resembling Condoleezza Rice's proposals last month in Foreign Affairs), offering a "generational" program to lift the Middle East "from misery" and make it democratic, pro-American, and friendly to Israel. Alas, we have heard all that before; the United States is incapable of doing it; and the problem of the Middle East isn't money.
The leaders of such a new administration would negotiate with American allies rather than blackmail and bully them. They would resume good relations with international organizations and make good-faith use of them. They would protect the sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine. They would be firm with Russia. They would protect western energy sources. They will fight injustice wherever they find it, even if that means more war. They say they will make a better world. The skeptic wishes good luck to them.
© Copyright 2008 by Tribune Media Services International. All Rights Reserved.
This article comes from William PFAFF http://www.williampfaff.com
The URL for this article is: http://www.williampfaff.com/article.php?storyid=338
e can't afford more troops
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/editorial/stories/08/30/08/30/0830eddorn_edit.html
We can't afford more troops
Edwin Dorn, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
Saturday, August 30, 2008
As the presidential campaign enters the final stretch, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is likely to reveal how he plans to deal with the record-setting $490 billion budget deficit that President Bush will leave behind. Once the election is over, however, the winner will need to figure out how to bring his campaign promises into line with fiscal realities. One place to start is the Bush administration's decision to expand the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 active duty personnel.
McCain and Obama both have endorsed the increase. After the election, the winner should consider three questions: Can we afford a bigger military? Do we need it? What kind of signal are we sending to the rest of the world?
Each soldier and Marine costs about $100,000 per year in pay, housing, health care and other benefits. Adding 65,000 people to the Army and 27,000 to the Marine Corps will add about $9 billion annually to the Defense Department's personnel costs. And that doesn't include the costs of training and equipping those troops.
The personnel buildup comes as the Army is experiencing a huge backlog in its equipment modernization accounts — more than $50 billion, according to Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress. Pentagon experts also are concerned about this imbalance. David Chu, under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, recently argued that the Defense Department's growing personnel costs are squeezing out modernization in all of the services.
If enlarging the force were essential, then the United States could go deeper into debt to pay for it. Five years ago, most independent defense experts believed that we needed to enlarge our ground forces to occupy and stabilize Iraq. However, the likelihood of our keeping a large force in Iraq for another three or four years is very low, no matter who wins the election. So by the time the military services reach the ceilings that Congress authorized — 547,000 for the Army and 202,000 for the Marine Corps — those troops won't be needed in Iraq.
We do need to increase the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. There, however, we do not need the huge footprint of an occupying army, but a number of small units capable of advising, equipping and training Afghan security forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said as much in his National Defense Strategy.
Of course, the next president will have to think about security issues beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. He must consider the full spectrum of circumstances under which military power may be needed, from humanitarian relief operations to regional conflicts to full-scale war with a global adversary, and he has to consider the likelihood that these crises could happen simultaneously. The next president also will know that our ground forces are not large enough to mount even one sustained major regional conflict — at least, not if we go it alone.
This is where the signal sending comes in. The Defense Department's budget request for fiscal year 2009 is $515 billion, and that does not include tens of billions in "emergency" funding that the department has requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Total U.S. defense spending exceeds the combined spending of our likely adversaries and dwarfs the spending of our principal allies.
The message we're sending is clear: We would prefer to go it alone than to work on the hard, complex diplomacy needed to build and sustain alliances. Ironically, the more we spend on military capability, the more we will need to spend, because we lose the ability to bring other resources to bear on international problems.
Is this the trajectory our country should continue to follow? Given recent tensions with Russia and instability in Pakistan, should we not show our allies that their support is essential and that their advice will be taken seriously?
It is not likely that McCain or Obama will back off his campaign commitments. However, the next president will have to dig this nation out of the deep hole that his predecessor has left behind. By scaling back on plans to enlarge the military, the next president can take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity — without sacrificing security. He also will send an important signal: The United States wants to engage with the rest of the world, not bully it.
Dorn, a professor of public policy, was under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness during the Clinton administration.
We can't afford more troops
Edwin Dorn, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
Saturday, August 30, 2008
As the presidential campaign enters the final stretch, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is likely to reveal how he plans to deal with the record-setting $490 billion budget deficit that President Bush will leave behind. Once the election is over, however, the winner will need to figure out how to bring his campaign promises into line with fiscal realities. One place to start is the Bush administration's decision to expand the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 active duty personnel.
McCain and Obama both have endorsed the increase. After the election, the winner should consider three questions: Can we afford a bigger military? Do we need it? What kind of signal are we sending to the rest of the world?
Each soldier and Marine costs about $100,000 per year in pay, housing, health care and other benefits. Adding 65,000 people to the Army and 27,000 to the Marine Corps will add about $9 billion annually to the Defense Department's personnel costs. And that doesn't include the costs of training and equipping those troops.
The personnel buildup comes as the Army is experiencing a huge backlog in its equipment modernization accounts — more than $50 billion, according to Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress. Pentagon experts also are concerned about this imbalance. David Chu, under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, recently argued that the Defense Department's growing personnel costs are squeezing out modernization in all of the services.
If enlarging the force were essential, then the United States could go deeper into debt to pay for it. Five years ago, most independent defense experts believed that we needed to enlarge our ground forces to occupy and stabilize Iraq. However, the likelihood of our keeping a large force in Iraq for another three or four years is very low, no matter who wins the election. So by the time the military services reach the ceilings that Congress authorized — 547,000 for the Army and 202,000 for the Marine Corps — those troops won't be needed in Iraq.
We do need to increase the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. There, however, we do not need the huge footprint of an occupying army, but a number of small units capable of advising, equipping and training Afghan security forces. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said as much in his National Defense Strategy.
Of course, the next president will have to think about security issues beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. He must consider the full spectrum of circumstances under which military power may be needed, from humanitarian relief operations to regional conflicts to full-scale war with a global adversary, and he has to consider the likelihood that these crises could happen simultaneously. The next president also will know that our ground forces are not large enough to mount even one sustained major regional conflict — at least, not if we go it alone.
This is where the signal sending comes in. The Defense Department's budget request for fiscal year 2009 is $515 billion, and that does not include tens of billions in "emergency" funding that the department has requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Total U.S. defense spending exceeds the combined spending of our likely adversaries and dwarfs the spending of our principal allies.
The message we're sending is clear: We would prefer to go it alone than to work on the hard, complex diplomacy needed to build and sustain alliances. Ironically, the more we spend on military capability, the more we will need to spend, because we lose the ability to bring other resources to bear on international problems.
Is this the trajectory our country should continue to follow? Given recent tensions with Russia and instability in Pakistan, should we not show our allies that their support is essential and that their advice will be taken seriously?
It is not likely that McCain or Obama will back off his campaign commitments. However, the next president will have to dig this nation out of the deep hole that his predecessor has left behind. By scaling back on plans to enlarge the military, the next president can take one small step toward restoring fiscal sanity — without sacrificing security. He also will send an important signal: The United States wants to engage with the rest of the world, not bully it.
Dorn, a professor of public policy, was under secretary of Defense for personnel and readiness during the Clinton administration.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Hottentot Morality by Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery
30.8.08
Hottentot Morality
"If he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good" - this moral rule was attributed by European racists to the Hottentots, an ancient tribe in Southern Africa.
It's hard not to be reminded of this when the United States and the European countries cry out against Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces which seceded from the Republic of Sakartvelo, known in the West as Georgia.
Not so long ago, the Western countries recognized the Republic of Kosovo, which seceded from Serbia. The West argued that the population of Kosovo is not Serbian, its culture and language is not Serbian, and that therefore it has a right to independence from Serbia. Especially after Serbia had conducted a grievous campaign of oppression against them. I supported this view with all my heart. Unlike many of my friends, I even supported the military operation that helped the Kosovars to free themselves.
But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as the saying goes. What's true for Kosovo is no less true for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The population in these provinces is not Georgian, they have their own languages and ancient civilizations. They were annexed to Georgia almost by whim, and they have no desire to be part of it.
So what is the difference between the two cases? A huge one, indeed: the independence of Kosovo is supported by the Americans and opposed by the Russians. Therefore it's good. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is supported by the Russians and opposed by the Americans. Therefore it's bad. As the Romans said: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, what's allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to an ox.
I do not accept this moral code. I support the independence of all these regions.
In my view, there is one simple principle, and it applies to everybody: every province that wants to secede from any country has a right to do so. In this respect there is, for me, no difference between Kosovars, Abkhazians, Basques, Scots and Palestinians. One rule for all.
THERE WAS a time when this principle could not be implemented. A state of a few hundred thousand people was not viable economically, and could not defend itself militarily.
That was the era of the "nation state", when a strong people imposed itself, its culture and its language, on weaker peoples, in order to create a state big enough to safeguard security, order and a proper standard of living. France imposed itself on Bretons and Corsicans, Spain on Catalans and Basques, England on Welsh, Scots and Irish, and so forth.
That reality has been superseded. Most of the functions of the "nation state" have moved to super-national structures: large federations like the USA, large partnerships like the EU. In those there is room for small countries like Luxemburg beside larger ones like Germany. If Belgium falls apart and a Flemish state comes into being beside a Walloon state, both will be received into the EU, and nobody will be hurt. Yugoslavia has disintegrated, and each of its parts will eventually belong to the European Union.
That has happened to the former Soviet Union, too. Georgia freed itself from Russia. By the same right and the same
logic, Abkhazia can free itself from Georgia.
But then, how can a country avoid disintegration? Very simple: it must convince the smaller peoples which live under its wings that it is worthwhile for them to remain there. If the Scots feel that they enjoy full equality in the United Kingdom, that they have been accorded sufficient autonomy and a fair slice of the common cake, that their culture and traditions are being respected, they may decide to remain there. Such a debate has been going on for decades in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.
The general trend in the world is to enlarge the functions of the big regional organizations, and at the same time allow peoples to secede from their mother countries and establish their own states. That is what happened in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Serbia and Georgia. That is bound to happen in many other countries.
Those who want to go in the opposite direction and establish, for example, a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state, are going against the Zeitgeist - to say the least.
THIS IS the historical background to the recent spat between Georgia and Russia. There are no Righteous Ones here. It is rather funny to hear Vladimir Putin, whose hands are dripping with the blood of Chechen freedom fighters, extolling the right of South Ossetia to secession. It's no less funny to hear Micheil Saakashvili likening the freedom fight of the two separatist regions to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The fighting reminded me of our own history. In the spring of 1967, I heard a senior Israeli general saying that he prayed every night for the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abd-al- Nasser, to send his troops into the Sinai peninsula. There, he said, we shall annihilate them. Some months later, Nasser marched into the trap. The rest is history.
Now Saakashvili has done precisely the same. The Russians prayed for him to invade South Ossetia. When he walked into this trap, the Russians did to him what we did to the Egyptians. It took the Russians six days, the same as it took us.
Nobody can know what was passing through the mind of Saakashvili. He is an inexperienced person, educated in the United States, a politician who came to power on the strength of his promise to bring the separatist regions back to the homeland. The world is full of such demagogues, who build a career on hatred, super-nationalism and racism. We have more than enough of them here, too.
But even a demagogue does not have to be an idiot. Did he believe that President Bush, who is bankrupt in all fields, would rush to his aid? Did he not know that America has no soldiers to spare? That Bush's warlike speeches are being carried away by the wind? That NATO is a paper tiger? That the Georgian army would melt like butter in the fire of war?
I AM curious about our part in this story.
In the Georgian government there are several ministers who grew up and received their education in Israel. It seems that the Minister of Defense and the Minister for Integration (of the separatist regions) are also Israeli citizens. And most importantly: that the elite units of the Georgian army have been trained by Israeli officers, including the one who was blamed for losing Lebanon War II. The Americans, too, invested much effort in training the Georgians.
I am always amused by the idea that it is possible to train a foreign army. One can, of course, teach technicalities: how to use particular weapons or how to conduct a battalion- scale maneuver. But anyone who has taken part in a real war (as distinct from policing an occupied population) knows that the technical aspects are secondary. What matters is the spirit of the soldiers, their readiness to risk their lives for the cause, their motivation, the human quality of the fighting units and the command echelon.
Such things cannot be imparted by foreigners. Every army is a part of its society, and the quality of the society decides the quality of the army. That is particularly true in a war against an enemy who enjoys a decisive numerical superiority. We experienced that in the 1948 war, when David Ben-Gurion wanted to impose on us officers who were trained in the British army, and we, the combat soldiers, preferred our own commanders, who were trained in our underground army and had never seen a military academy in their lives.
Only professional generals, whose whole outlook is technical, imagine that they could "train" soldiers of another people and another culture - in Afghanistan, Iraq or Georgia.
A well developed trait among our officers is arrogance. In our case, it is generally connected with a reasonable standard of the army. If the Israeli officers infected their Georgian colleagues with this arrogance, convincing them that they could beat the mighty Russian army, they committed a grievous sin against them.
I DO NOT believe that this is the beginning of Cold War II, as has been suggested. But this is certainly a continuation of the Great Game.
This appellation was given to the relentless secret struggle that went on all through the 19th century along Russia's southern border between the two great empires of the time: the British and the Russian. Secret agents and not so secret armies were active in the border regions of India (including today's Pakistan), Afghanistan, Persia and so on. The "North-West Frontier" (of Pakistan), which is starring now in the war against the Taliban, was already legendary then.
Today, the Great Game between the current two great empires - the USA and Russia - is going on all over the place from the Ukraine to Pakistan. It proves that geography is more important than ideology: Communism has come and gone, but the struggle goes on as if nothing has happened.
Georgia is a mere pawn in the chess game. The initiative belongs to the US: it wants to encircle Russia by expanding NATO, an arm of US policy, all along the border. That is a direct threat to the rival empire. Russia, on its part, is trying to extend its control over the resources most vital to the West, oil and gas, as well as their routes of transportation. That can lead to disaster.
WHEN Henry Kissinger was still a wise historian, before he became a foolish statesman, he expounded an important
principle: in order to maintain stability in the world, a system has to be formed that includes all the parties. If one party is left outside, stability is in danger.
He cited as an example the "Holy Alliance" of the great powers that came into being after the Napoleonic wars. The wise statesmen of the time, headed by the Austrian Prince Clemens von Metternich, took care not to leave the defeated French outside, but, on the contrary, gave them an important place in the Concert of Europe.
The present American policy, with its attempt to push Russia out, is a danger to the whole world. (And I have not even mentioned the rising power of China.)
A small country which gets involved in the struggle between the big bullies risks being squashed. That has happened in the past to Poland, and it seems that it has not learned from that experience. One should advise Georgia, and also the Ukraine, not to emulate the Poles but rather the Finns, who since world War II have pursued a wise policy: they guard their independence but endeavor to take the interest of their mighty neighbor into account.
We Israelis can, perhaps, also learn something from all of this: that it is not safe to be a vassal of one great Empire and provoke the rival empire. Russia is returning to our region, and every move we make to further American expansion will surely be countered by a Russian move in favor of Syria and Iran.
So let's not adopt the "Hottentot morality". It is not wise, and certainly not moral.
30.8.08
Hottentot Morality
"If he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good" - this moral rule was attributed by European racists to the Hottentots, an ancient tribe in Southern Africa.
It's hard not to be reminded of this when the United States and the European countries cry out against Russia's recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces which seceded from the Republic of Sakartvelo, known in the West as Georgia.
Not so long ago, the Western countries recognized the Republic of Kosovo, which seceded from Serbia. The West argued that the population of Kosovo is not Serbian, its culture and language is not Serbian, and that therefore it has a right to independence from Serbia. Especially after Serbia had conducted a grievous campaign of oppression against them. I supported this view with all my heart. Unlike many of my friends, I even supported the military operation that helped the Kosovars to free themselves.
But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as the saying goes. What's true for Kosovo is no less true for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The population in these provinces is not Georgian, they have their own languages and ancient civilizations. They were annexed to Georgia almost by whim, and they have no desire to be part of it.
So what is the difference between the two cases? A huge one, indeed: the independence of Kosovo is supported by the Americans and opposed by the Russians. Therefore it's good. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is supported by the Russians and opposed by the Americans. Therefore it's bad. As the Romans said: Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi, what's allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to an ox.
I do not accept this moral code. I support the independence of all these regions.
In my view, there is one simple principle, and it applies to everybody: every province that wants to secede from any country has a right to do so. In this respect there is, for me, no difference between Kosovars, Abkhazians, Basques, Scots and Palestinians. One rule for all.
THERE WAS a time when this principle could not be implemented. A state of a few hundred thousand people was not viable economically, and could not defend itself militarily.
That was the era of the "nation state", when a strong people imposed itself, its culture and its language, on weaker peoples, in order to create a state big enough to safeguard security, order and a proper standard of living. France imposed itself on Bretons and Corsicans, Spain on Catalans and Basques, England on Welsh, Scots and Irish, and so forth.
That reality has been superseded. Most of the functions of the "nation state" have moved to super-national structures: large federations like the USA, large partnerships like the EU. In those there is room for small countries like Luxemburg beside larger ones like Germany. If Belgium falls apart and a Flemish state comes into being beside a Walloon state, both will be received into the EU, and nobody will be hurt. Yugoslavia has disintegrated, and each of its parts will eventually belong to the European Union.
That has happened to the former Soviet Union, too. Georgia freed itself from Russia. By the same right and the same
logic, Abkhazia can free itself from Georgia.
But then, how can a country avoid disintegration? Very simple: it must convince the smaller peoples which live under its wings that it is worthwhile for them to remain there. If the Scots feel that they enjoy full equality in the United Kingdom, that they have been accorded sufficient autonomy and a fair slice of the common cake, that their culture and traditions are being respected, they may decide to remain there. Such a debate has been going on for decades in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec.
The general trend in the world is to enlarge the functions of the big regional organizations, and at the same time allow peoples to secede from their mother countries and establish their own states. That is what happened in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Serbia and Georgia. That is bound to happen in many other countries.
Those who want to go in the opposite direction and establish, for example, a bi-national Israeli-Palestinian state, are going against the Zeitgeist - to say the least.
THIS IS the historical background to the recent spat between Georgia and Russia. There are no Righteous Ones here. It is rather funny to hear Vladimir Putin, whose hands are dripping with the blood of Chechen freedom fighters, extolling the right of South Ossetia to secession. It's no less funny to hear Micheil Saakashvili likening the freedom fight of the two separatist regions to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
The fighting reminded me of our own history. In the spring of 1967, I heard a senior Israeli general saying that he prayed every night for the Egyptian leader, Gamal Abd-al- Nasser, to send his troops into the Sinai peninsula. There, he said, we shall annihilate them. Some months later, Nasser marched into the trap. The rest is history.
Now Saakashvili has done precisely the same. The Russians prayed for him to invade South Ossetia. When he walked into this trap, the Russians did to him what we did to the Egyptians. It took the Russians six days, the same as it took us.
Nobody can know what was passing through the mind of Saakashvili. He is an inexperienced person, educated in the United States, a politician who came to power on the strength of his promise to bring the separatist regions back to the homeland. The world is full of such demagogues, who build a career on hatred, super-nationalism and racism. We have more than enough of them here, too.
But even a demagogue does not have to be an idiot. Did he believe that President Bush, who is bankrupt in all fields, would rush to his aid? Did he not know that America has no soldiers to spare? That Bush's warlike speeches are being carried away by the wind? That NATO is a paper tiger? That the Georgian army would melt like butter in the fire of war?
I AM curious about our part in this story.
In the Georgian government there are several ministers who grew up and received their education in Israel. It seems that the Minister of Defense and the Minister for Integration (of the separatist regions) are also Israeli citizens. And most importantly: that the elite units of the Georgian army have been trained by Israeli officers, including the one who was blamed for losing Lebanon War II. The Americans, too, invested much effort in training the Georgians.
I am always amused by the idea that it is possible to train a foreign army. One can, of course, teach technicalities: how to use particular weapons or how to conduct a battalion- scale maneuver. But anyone who has taken part in a real war (as distinct from policing an occupied population) knows that the technical aspects are secondary. What matters is the spirit of the soldiers, their readiness to risk their lives for the cause, their motivation, the human quality of the fighting units and the command echelon.
Such things cannot be imparted by foreigners. Every army is a part of its society, and the quality of the society decides the quality of the army. That is particularly true in a war against an enemy who enjoys a decisive numerical superiority. We experienced that in the 1948 war, when David Ben-Gurion wanted to impose on us officers who were trained in the British army, and we, the combat soldiers, preferred our own commanders, who were trained in our underground army and had never seen a military academy in their lives.
Only professional generals, whose whole outlook is technical, imagine that they could "train" soldiers of another people and another culture - in Afghanistan, Iraq or Georgia.
A well developed trait among our officers is arrogance. In our case, it is generally connected with a reasonable standard of the army. If the Israeli officers infected their Georgian colleagues with this arrogance, convincing them that they could beat the mighty Russian army, they committed a grievous sin against them.
I DO NOT believe that this is the beginning of Cold War II, as has been suggested. But this is certainly a continuation of the Great Game.
This appellation was given to the relentless secret struggle that went on all through the 19th century along Russia's southern border between the two great empires of the time: the British and the Russian. Secret agents and not so secret armies were active in the border regions of India (including today's Pakistan), Afghanistan, Persia and so on. The "North-West Frontier" (of Pakistan), which is starring now in the war against the Taliban, was already legendary then.
Today, the Great Game between the current two great empires - the USA and Russia - is going on all over the place from the Ukraine to Pakistan. It proves that geography is more important than ideology: Communism has come and gone, but the struggle goes on as if nothing has happened.
Georgia is a mere pawn in the chess game. The initiative belongs to the US: it wants to encircle Russia by expanding NATO, an arm of US policy, all along the border. That is a direct threat to the rival empire. Russia, on its part, is trying to extend its control over the resources most vital to the West, oil and gas, as well as their routes of transportation. That can lead to disaster.
WHEN Henry Kissinger was still a wise historian, before he became a foolish statesman, he expounded an important
principle: in order to maintain stability in the world, a system has to be formed that includes all the parties. If one party is left outside, stability is in danger.
He cited as an example the "Holy Alliance" of the great powers that came into being after the Napoleonic wars. The wise statesmen of the time, headed by the Austrian Prince Clemens von Metternich, took care not to leave the defeated French outside, but, on the contrary, gave them an important place in the Concert of Europe.
The present American policy, with its attempt to push Russia out, is a danger to the whole world. (And I have not even mentioned the rising power of China.)
A small country which gets involved in the struggle between the big bullies risks being squashed. That has happened in the past to Poland, and it seems that it has not learned from that experience. One should advise Georgia, and also the Ukraine, not to emulate the Poles but rather the Finns, who since world War II have pursued a wise policy: they guard their independence but endeavor to take the interest of their mighty neighbor into account.
We Israelis can, perhaps, also learn something from all of this: that it is not safe to be a vassal of one great Empire and provoke the rival empire. Russia is returning to our region, and every move we make to further American expansion will surely be countered by a Russian move in favor of Syria and Iran.
So let's not adopt the "Hottentot morality". It is not wise, and certainly not moral.
The Democrats In Denver
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/27/kucinichs-convention-speech-edited/
Kucinich's convention speech edited.
The Hill reports that the Obama campaign has, at times, been "tightening the
reins on campaign speeches and stressing that speakers emphasize a
rags-to-riches theme." Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) had one line redacted
rom his speech, which suggested some conservatives need to serve time in
prison. The original line read: "They're asking for another four years - in
a just world, they'd get 10 to 20."
Chas Freeman wrote:
Norman Birnbaum wrote the following for Spiegel online. It's the sort of forthrightly insightful and witty commentary that is now almost entirely absent from the dumbed-down media in our country. Addressed to a foreign audience, it deserves to be read by those whose politics it is describing.
The Democrats In Denver Norman Birnbaum
I've been at Democratic conventions and regret missing some of the livelier parties at this one. There is very little else to regret. Television has given the essentials. For every Denver blog worth reading, there are ten which are evidence only for their authors' self-important obtuseness and querulousness . Why, however, should unknown citizens not have the same right as our media stars---to make fools of themselves? The major theme of newspaper and television reporting, sedulously repeated by bloggers claiming that they have independent perspectives, was entirely exaggerated. Would the Clintons, defeated in their bid to return to power, take their revenge by somehow sabotaging or stealing Obama's show? Of course not: the Clintons, above all, have no taste for permanent residence in the political wilderness. To give less than full support to Obama would be to risk being blamed for his defeat, should that happen. Should he win, despite their efforts to defeat him, his revenge would be pitiless.. In either case, the Clinton's chances for a return to power of some sort would be very reduced. The Clintons are intelligent. They know that each American election has its own dynamics, and that the outcome of this one does not depend upon their pushing their followers to the voting stations. They also know that those who voted for Senator Clinton in the primaries and are reportedly ready to vote for McCain or abstain will, in their great majority, vote for Obama. The rest are the candidate's to win, or lose, and that is not up to them.
The fact that the Clinton's twinned speeches calling for Obama's election were treated as great events attests only the absence of real events at the Convention. There have been Democratic conventions in which the issues facing the nation were openly, strenuously, sometimes violently debated: racial equality in the late forties and through the sixties, , the war in Vietnam immediately thereafter. One would never gather, in Denver, that the Democratic Party is quite seriously divided on war and peace, on the balance of state and market, on the contending powers of Federal and state government. True, conventions are supposed to unify parties, allow them to temporarily set aside their differences for the sake of winning the Presidency and achieving working majorities in House and Senate.
The difficulty is that they are not solely internal party gatherings. They are also supposed to be occasions on which the parties address the nation, reintroduce themselves to the voters, present new champions as well as honoring departing old Olympians. These functions are often in striking contradiction with one another. Honesty and openess were not salient at Denver, and the tiresomely repeated term "diversity" meant mostly that there are many ways in which to say "Yes."
Controlled and stage managed by the Obama machine with a rigour that would not have been out of place in a People's Republic (every speech was edited, and sometimes parts of these were censored), the convention was utterly devoid of debate. It was a fair, a Kermesse, with a fair showing of rock stars, film actors and actresses, miscellaneous celebrities of every sort (but few or no scientists, perhaps in deference to outreach to the Biblical literalists.) And, of course, there were the rich, buying shares of power or at least proximity to it.
There was, at the end, a very large compensation. Obama introduced himself to a surprised and even fascinated American public in 2004 with a speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston. The candidate (as he was then) for the Senate from Illinois had an unusual appearance, life history, and message: it was time for a new politics which would put the divisions of the past generation behind us. In Denver, with substantial numbers of Democrats and half the nation doubting his capacity to master the challenges of the Presidency, he met his critics head on. In a speech remarkable for joining specific policy prescription and larger vision, sobriety and passion, personal commitment and a call to the citizenry to rise, he took the offensive. For better or for worse, American Presidential contests are not only matters of competing programs and social projects, different cultural and social blocs, clashing political traditions. They are also personal combats. At Denver, Obama threw back at McCain the question of which of the two had a Presidential temperament. It remains to be seen how McCain and the Republicans will answer, but one consequence was instantly clear: the Democrats at Denver were inspired.
How did the speech affect the nation? We will not know, even when the polls give us their answers. There are some fifty thousand historians, political scientists, social psychologists, in our universities. Fifteen thousand political journalists were at the convention. There are thousands of chroniclers and writers, and innumerable veterans of recent politics not at all reticent about sharing the lessons they have learned. We can add the professional advisors and consultants who live not for but from politics---thousands in Washington alone. They have one thing in common: they cannot really predict how and why our citizens will vote. (The historians are still arguing about the elections of 1832,)
Now, on to the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota for the Republican convention. It will look different: :far whiter, and more masculine and older. The conventions will quickly merge, in public memory, with a campaign sure to be bitter and close. The larger world will make itself felt. The Europeans, whether they know it or not, are rendering McCain considerable service----by legitimating Bush's aggressive (and hypocritical) confrontation with Russia. The ultimate result, to be sure, will be a consequence of our own history. If it is as open as our progressivist ethos claims, Obama will win. If we suffer, as our pessimists fear, from what Freud called the repetition compulsion, McCain will enter the White House. The Democratic Convention (and its imminent Republican sequel) will count only as an historical footnote. Serious readers know, however, that frequently footnotes contain the key to the text.
Kucinich's convention speech edited.
The Hill reports that the Obama campaign has, at times, been "tightening the
reins on campaign speeches and stressing that speakers emphasize a
rags-to-riches theme." Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) had one line redacted
rom his speech, which suggested some conservatives need to serve time in
prison. The original line read: "They're asking for another four years - in
a just world, they'd get 10 to 20."
Chas Freeman wrote:
Norman Birnbaum wrote the following for Spiegel online. It's the sort of forthrightly insightful and witty commentary that is now almost entirely absent from the dumbed-down media in our country. Addressed to a foreign audience, it deserves to be read by those whose politics it is describing.
The Democrats In Denver Norman Birnbaum
I've been at Democratic conventions and regret missing some of the livelier parties at this one. There is very little else to regret. Television has given the essentials. For every Denver blog worth reading, there are ten which are evidence only for their authors' self-important obtuseness and querulousness . Why, however, should unknown citizens not have the same right as our media stars---to make fools of themselves? The major theme of newspaper and television reporting, sedulously repeated by bloggers claiming that they have independent perspectives, was entirely exaggerated. Would the Clintons, defeated in their bid to return to power, take their revenge by somehow sabotaging or stealing Obama's show? Of course not: the Clintons, above all, have no taste for permanent residence in the political wilderness. To give less than full support to Obama would be to risk being blamed for his defeat, should that happen. Should he win, despite their efforts to defeat him, his revenge would be pitiless.. In either case, the Clinton's chances for a return to power of some sort would be very reduced. The Clintons are intelligent. They know that each American election has its own dynamics, and that the outcome of this one does not depend upon their pushing their followers to the voting stations. They also know that those who voted for Senator Clinton in the primaries and are reportedly ready to vote for McCain or abstain will, in their great majority, vote for Obama. The rest are the candidate's to win, or lose, and that is not up to them.
The fact that the Clinton's twinned speeches calling for Obama's election were treated as great events attests only the absence of real events at the Convention. There have been Democratic conventions in which the issues facing the nation were openly, strenuously, sometimes violently debated: racial equality in the late forties and through the sixties, , the war in Vietnam immediately thereafter. One would never gather, in Denver, that the Democratic Party is quite seriously divided on war and peace, on the balance of state and market, on the contending powers of Federal and state government. True, conventions are supposed to unify parties, allow them to temporarily set aside their differences for the sake of winning the Presidency and achieving working majorities in House and Senate.
The difficulty is that they are not solely internal party gatherings. They are also supposed to be occasions on which the parties address the nation, reintroduce themselves to the voters, present new champions as well as honoring departing old Olympians. These functions are often in striking contradiction with one another. Honesty and openess were not salient at Denver, and the tiresomely repeated term "diversity" meant mostly that there are many ways in which to say "Yes."
Controlled and stage managed by the Obama machine with a rigour that would not have been out of place in a People's Republic (every speech was edited, and sometimes parts of these were censored), the convention was utterly devoid of debate. It was a fair, a Kermesse, with a fair showing of rock stars, film actors and actresses, miscellaneous celebrities of every sort (but few or no scientists, perhaps in deference to outreach to the Biblical literalists.) And, of course, there were the rich, buying shares of power or at least proximity to it.
There was, at the end, a very large compensation. Obama introduced himself to a surprised and even fascinated American public in 2004 with a speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston. The candidate (as he was then) for the Senate from Illinois had an unusual appearance, life history, and message: it was time for a new politics which would put the divisions of the past generation behind us. In Denver, with substantial numbers of Democrats and half the nation doubting his capacity to master the challenges of the Presidency, he met his critics head on. In a speech remarkable for joining specific policy prescription and larger vision, sobriety and passion, personal commitment and a call to the citizenry to rise, he took the offensive. For better or for worse, American Presidential contests are not only matters of competing programs and social projects, different cultural and social blocs, clashing political traditions. They are also personal combats. At Denver, Obama threw back at McCain the question of which of the two had a Presidential temperament. It remains to be seen how McCain and the Republicans will answer, but one consequence was instantly clear: the Democrats at Denver were inspired.
How did the speech affect the nation? We will not know, even when the polls give us their answers. There are some fifty thousand historians, political scientists, social psychologists, in our universities. Fifteen thousand political journalists were at the convention. There are thousands of chroniclers and writers, and innumerable veterans of recent politics not at all reticent about sharing the lessons they have learned. We can add the professional advisors and consultants who live not for but from politics---thousands in Washington alone. They have one thing in common: they cannot really predict how and why our citizens will vote. (The historians are still arguing about the elections of 1832,)
Now, on to the twin cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota for the Republican convention. It will look different: :far whiter, and more masculine and older. The conventions will quickly merge, in public memory, with a campaign sure to be bitter and close. The larger world will make itself felt. The Europeans, whether they know it or not, are rendering McCain considerable service----by legitimating Bush's aggressive (and hypocritical) confrontation with Russia. The ultimate result, to be sure, will be a consequence of our own history. If it is as open as our progressivist ethos claims, Obama will win. If we suffer, as our pessimists fear, from what Freud called the repetition compulsion, McCain will enter the White House. The Democratic Convention (and its imminent Republican sequel) will count only as an historical footnote. Serious readers know, however, that frequently footnotes contain the key to the text.
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