China vs. Globalization
the Final War and the Dark Millennium
© 1997 by Richard K. Moore
8 June 1997
as published in New Dawn magazine
July-August 1997
Prolog - Hi-tech arsenal under fast-track development by US
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The Future of Warfare - The Economist (8 March 1997) - delves into the
subject of hi-tech warfare, of which Desert Storm, we are told, was
but a primitive prototype. The most advanced elements are still
only in the idea stage, but others are well along in development, or
already deployed, and the whole program is on a fast-track priority
for the US military:
"The world is in the early stages of a new military revolution...
"...over Bosnia the Americans have deployed JSTARS, a ground-
surveillance system in the sky: a single screen can display, in
any weather, the position and type of every vehicle within an
area 200 kilometres (125 miles) square...
"The revolution in military affairs revolves around three
advances. The first is in gathering intelligence. Sensors in
satellites, aircraft or unmanned aircraft can monitor virtually
everything going on in an area. The second is in processing
intelligence. Advanced command, control, communication and
computing systems, known as C4, make sense of the data gathered
by the sensors and display it on screen. They can then assign
particular targets to missiles, tanks or whatever. The third is
in acting on all this intelligence in particular, by using long-
range precision strikes to destroy targets. Cruise missiles,
guided by satellite, can hit an individual building many
hundreds of miles away...
"The Pentagon already has, or is developing, most of the
technologies required for space weapons. For instance it has
just awarded a $l.l billion contract for an airborne laser to
hit ballistic missiles. if that technology works, it could be
adapted for a satellite...
"Aircraft carriers, like other surface ships, risk being sunk by
cruise missiles. Some will be replaced by 'arsenal ships',
semi-submersible, stealthy barges, carrying hundreds of missiles
but few sailors..."
The technologies mentioned above may not sound strikingly
futuristic - after all GPS services are available commercially. But
employing them as part of a total system, as we saw in Desert Storm,
can provide very effective "control of theater," neutralizing
weapons and defenses of the enemy, while permitting one's own weapon
systems to have free play throughout the field of battle. One
could imagine someone touching a screen in the Pentagon, causing a
cruise missile to be launched from a "stealthy barge," and
destroying a specific target on the other side of the world - with all
the action displayed up-to-date on the screen via secure digital
satellite links.
These kind of information-intensive systems are as much software as
hardware - permitting radical system advances to be deployed very
rapidly, overnight in some cases. One must take seriously the
Economist's claim that we are indeed in the early stages of a "new
military revolution."
What's the point of this arsenal?
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More important than the technology details are the why questions...
what is all this for?...why the urgency? The Economist's own answers
to these questions are both brief and naive on all points:
"This embryonic revolution, unlike the development of nuclear
weapons, has not emerged in response to any particular threat to
the United States or its allies. It has come about because it
is there, that is, because generals want to play with new
technologies in case a future threat emerges. In that it may
resemble Blitzkrieg, which was based on the technologies of the
1920's, when defence budgets were declining and there seemed
little prospect of another world war."
During the Manhattan Project, the scientists developing the first
"atom bomb" were told Germany was making rapid progress on its own
atomic research, and thus the Los Alamos team did believe they were
rushing against the clock to protect against an enemy atomic
threat. But allied intelligence knew the Nazis were stymied in
their efforts, and lied to the scientists in order to create a false
sense of urgency and keep the project going at full steam. Some of
the scientists had serious moral reservations about working on the
bomb, and the project might have been in jeopardy if the fiction of
an imminent German atomic threat was not maintained. But fiction it
was, from th
Robert Oppenheimer, he matter-of-factly explains how Hiroshima and
Nagasaki had been carefully spared bombing during the war so that
they could serve as clean, live-target test sites for the two new
types of weapons (U-235 and Plutonium). Following the Hiroshima
bombing, the Japanese sent out urgent communiques expressing a
desire to discuss surrender - these were blocked by US intelligence in
order that the second test could be carried out. And as planned,
when the medical inspectors descended on the rubble, they knew that
all the bizarre injuries and diseases they cataloged could be
credited to The Bomb.
So in truth, The Bomb was not developed in response to a comparable
threat, but rather, quite simply, for the enhanced geopolitical
advantage which it afforded. The urgency, as well, did not arise
from a threat, but rather from a desire to carry out the tests while
there was still an enemy the weapons could be deployed against. The
bombings, too, were carried out for reasons other than those found
in naive historical accounts.
The official party line - that those particular bombings were
necessary to shorten the war - does not stand up to analysis. It
ignores the fact that the first bomb already cracked Japanese
resolve, and that a military target could have been attacked first,
with escalation to a city left as an option. On the other hand, the
bombings - as carried out - did accomplish two other objectives: they
allowed the effects on people and buildings to be observed (of both
weapon types), and they demonstrated to the Russians and allies
alike that the US had the stomach to use these new weapons in anger
against civilians.
These objectives related to the postwar geopolitical situation - not
to the defeat of Japan. When the cover-story smokescreens have been
all cleared away, it becomes apparent that the Manhattan Project -
taken in its entirety, including the two tests - was designed to give
the US a strong postwar geopolitical advantage: the possession of
an unmatched, proven weapon of mass destruction, and a world which
knew the US would use the weapon if deemed necessary. Indeed, as was
revealed by Daniel Ellsberg, the US has used the serious threat of
nuclear attack some half dozen times or more in the postwar era (eg,
Khe Shan in Vietnam) to compel submission to US tactical demands.
Just as an armed-robber has legally Òused a gunÓ even if he doesnÕt
fire it, so the US has been ÒusingÓ its nuclear arsenal for the very
purpose for which it was designed: to enhance and extend Uncle SamÕs
ability to control the postwar world.
Also contrary to the Economist's theories, Germany's development of
blitzkrieg weapons was not a case of "playing" with new technologies
and was not carried out with "little prospect" of another war.
William Manchester tells the story in The Arms of Krupp: beginning
in the 1920's, a select team of engineers, with the connivance of
German intelligence and long before Hitler, took on the top-secret
task of designing a suite of advanced military hardware that was
aimed at achieving military superiority in a specific time-window
(late 1930's, early 1940's) - during which period Germany was to
regain its honor and further its expansionist ambitions. Krupp
supported Hitler in his election campaign, and became Fuhrer of
industry in the Third Reich. The scheme came close to working, and
the weapons systems can hardly be blamed for Germany's eventual
defeat.
There is a reason so much space has been devoted to these issues in
an article whose topic is China. If we want to understand the
strategic significance of America's current rushed development of a
next-generation weapons system, then the Economist is right: we
should compare it to previous similar developments. In both
examples the Economist cited, it turns out the programs were
designed to achieve military superiority over known future
adversaries, in an anticipated future conflict scenario. The
anticipated scenarios did come to pass, and the weapons systems
served their objectives rather well. Contrary to the Economist's
off-the-shelf historical assumptions, these were examples of well
thought-out projects, in pursuit of real strategic goals.
Similarly as well, permit me to suggest, America's current hi-tech-
warfare developments do not arise primarily from the play of
generals nor even the profit-seeking of arms developers. As with
both the A-bomb and Nazi blitzkrieg, what we are seeing with hi-tech
warfare is the preparation of a weapons suite crafted with
particular - and once more not defensive - missions in mind.
Missions for the arsenal: (1) enforcing globalization
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The end of the Cold War, to state the obvious, has created an
entirely new geopolitical situation. In the immediate postwar era
the primary geopolitical reality had been the rivalry between the
two superpowers; in the post-cold-war era there is not, as yet
anyway, any similar rivalry between more-or-less comparable powers.
Instead, the US and its NATO allies have become, on a collaborative
basis, the world's sole dominant military power.
With UN resolutions serving as the source of legitimacy, a
multilateral system for policing international "order" has been
adopted by the Western powers - the old days of competitive, sphere-
of-influence imperialism are long dead. The evolution of the new
multilateral policing system can be traced in the headlines of the
nineties - in the hot spots of Iraq, Bosnia, and Albania...
Desert Storm, although almost entirely an American operation, was
carried out under UN approval and no expense was spared recruiting
and publicizing participation by allies.
In Bosnia, non-US NATO troops carried the multilateral flag most of
the time, but the US joined in at a critical moment and provided
cruise-missile support which was decisive in assuring a military
outcome deemed acceptable to the US and its allies.
In Albania we see a multilateral intervention without direct US
military involvement and which has, for the first time, an open-
ended military mandate. Italy took the lead by suggesting that
individual Western powers volunteer to join in an Albanian
intervention. The troops - primarily from Italy and Greece - don't have
their hands tied by restrictive rules of engagement. From The
Militant (28 April 1997):
"The occupying troops have been ordered to shoot 'if they face
dangerous situations.' The plan for the...intervention, drafted
in Rome by the participating governments, lists potential
'dangerous situations.' Among them are 'involvement in clashes
between government forces and the rebels and attacks by armed
civilians that may attempt to appropriate the humanitarian aid.'
Among the 'potential problems' that the [participants] expect
are 'planted mines at regional roads and the chance of facing
guerrilla warfare.'
"Italian Adm. Guido Venturoni, who is commanding the operation,
told reporters April 14 that the force 'will not go into Albania
as the blue helmets went into Bosnia, where they were
constrained to stand by during grave acts of violence without
intervening because the rules of engagement did not permit it.'"
Thus, under the auspices of the UN and NATO, the world now has a de
facto official policing force. The force is of, by, and for the
dominant Western powers, and there is no effective court of appeal
to protect the sovereignty of any country this police force decides
to invade. To the rebels in Albania, and for the Third World in
general, there would seem to be little difference between this new
regime and traditional European imperialism. Instead of
competitive, sphere-of-interest imperialism, there is now a
collaborative arrangement - but the result is a system where the Euro-
American powers take it upon themselves to to intervene when and
where they desire, maintaining global "order" according to their own
criteria.
With ongoing tension in the Muslim world, chronic civil war in black
Africa, near chaos in the former Soviet sphere, and a rising sense
of activism on the part of the new policing partners, the prospects
are for collective intervention - or the threat of same - to become
routine, rather than for emergency use only.
This policing regime is the military branch of globalization. The
US and the European powers make up the multilateral force and they
are also the prime instigators of globalization. As the
legislative/administrative branch of globalism (WTO, GATT, IMF, etc)
consolidates its dominion over planning the world's future, the
military branch is coming online just in time to assure that the
globalist designs will not be thwarted by upstart Third-World
peoples who have more nationalist or socialist agendas than
globalism finds acceptable.
Some readers may find this assessment a bit harsh - after all, haven't
NATO interventions been for humanitarian purposes? To be sure, the
humanitarian angle has been emphasized in the media, and it is
humanitarian sympathies that create support in Western populations
for the interventions. But a close look at the interventions - how
they were carried out, their timing, which local parties were
favored - reveals that humanitarian concerns played very little role,
and that the real purpose has been to promote regimes that are
favorable to globalism (ie international capital investment.) The
much-delayed intervention in Bosnia, for example, could hardly have
been worse-timed to reduce human suffering, but succeeded quite well
in promoting the territorial gains of the Western-preferred Croat
side.
The globalist program for the Third World has become very clear.
IMF guidelines require explicitly that social spending be cut, as
part of focusing Third-World finances on debt servicing. Meanwhile,
corporate employers pay starvation wages to their Third-World
workers and offer very little economic stability - moving their
plants whenever they find a better deal elsewhere. As if that
weren't enough, the free-trade agreements wreak havoc with Third-
World economies, as internal markets are lost to cheap imports, and
export markets become unpredictable. The squeeze on Third-World
peoples is immense, and globalism - both in policy and practice - seems
intent only on tightening the screws still further.
This is a sure-fire formula for social unrest, and insurgencies of
one stripe or another are in fact already widespread, as we see in
Albania, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, and elsewhere. As the globalist
squeeze continues, one can only expect the constituency of these
insurgences to increase.
There is a common focus for the discontent: neoliberalism, the IMF,
corporate policies, and repressive governments subservient to
outside interests. International capitalism itself - and its
globalist agenda - is increasingly being perceived as the root cause
of the troubles. Whereas in the old communist world anti-capitalism
was a subject of public indoctrination and rhetoric, in much of the
Third World it is becoming a heartfelt general sentiment.
Keeping the populace under control has become the primary occupation
of many Third World governments, and sophisticated arms and training
are routinely supplied by Western powers to facilitate this mission -
increasing the local debt burden in the process.
But when an insurgency grows to civil-war proportions - as in Bosnia,
Albania or Zaire - it then shows up on the globalist radar screens,
indicating that elite global leaders (euphemistically referred to as
the international community) had better formulate a tactical
approach to the situation, and alert the media to begin producing
whatever emotional news stories (riot scenes, suffering refugees,
strutting dictators, whatever) are appropriate to generating support
for the chosen tactics - tactics appropriate to the scenario...
If there is disagreement as to which side to back (as in Zaire)
then the tactic might be to let the locals fight it out, making
money on arms sales in the process. In this case the media's
job is to paint the situation as confusing, with no clear good
guys and bad guys - too messy to "entangle ourselves" in.
If an unfavored side gains more territory than the West deems
appropriate, as did the Serbs in Bosnia, then the tactic might
be to call in the multilateral force to tilt the battlefield
toward a more global-friendly side, as we saw with Croatia. In
this case the media's job is to demonize the unfavored side with
regular atrocity stories, while portraying the favored side as
victims.
Finally, if a general popular uprising threatens to overthrow a
global-friendly government, as in Albania, the tactic may be to
rush to the support of the government, beef up its security
infrastructure, and make sure the rebels get the message that
their antics won't be tolerated. In this case, the media's job
is to sensationalize scenes of anarchy and disorder, to portray
the operations of the multilateral force as being "defensive"
actions against "unruly mobs," and to leave out mention of the
political content of the uprising.
It should be clear that the media can easily spin the news coverage
in any direction called for by the interventionist agenda. In
Bosnia, for example, the Croats could have been demonized just as
easily as the Serbs - the Croats practiced large-scale ethnic
cleansing, raped and pillaged, and carried out mass executions of
civilians; they also provided excellent demon sound-bites with their
overt fascist rhetoric and nazi salutes - but the camera goes where
it's directed to go, and the Serbs have socialist leanings.
Elite corporate interests openly control the major news distribution
channels, own much of the media outright, set the overall globalist
agenda, control the flow of investments and loans to the Third
World, are the major players in the international arms business, and
have intimate ties with the Western governments and intelligence
services which set the agenda of the multilateral force. It should
not be at all surprising that news coverage, official
pronouncements, and interventionist operations are all coordinated
smoothly so that when intervention occurs, it seems natural and
inevitable - perhaps even too little and too late - to the general
public.
So we can expect the multilateral force to be used wherever the
perpetrators of globalism see fit - the media can always find material
to paint the picture as required to achieve popular (and UN)
acquiescence in whatever missions are proposed. The only danger to
this well-polished military/media policing scheme is the spectre of
friendly casualties - when Western boys start coming home in body
bags, non-interventionist sentiment can be expected to arise
spontaneously, putting the operation on the defensive in the media,
and perhaps causing domestic political difficulties of all sorts.
Minimizing Western casualties is a strategic political necessity to
the globalist planners, and this ties back in to the significance of
next-generation hi-tech weaponry.
The task of global management can be expected to involve conflicts
of various sizes, from anti-"terrorist" operations (Tripoli
bombing), to brushfire civil wars (Bosnia), to restructuring of
"renegade" regimes (Grenada, Panama) - all the way up to full scale
wars (Desert Storm and worse). To handle flexibly this wide range
of conflicts - and without sacrificing too many of "our boys" - one can
understand why the US needs its multi-faceted, hi-tech, C4-based
arsenal. The US will most likely specialize as the heavy artillery
of the multilateral force, to be brought in when only the latest
weaponry can do the job without major risk to multilateral
personnel.
But why does this arsenal need to be upgraded with such urgency?
Isn't it already far ahead of all comers? Didn't Iraq (which had a
highly-rated military) find itself totally immobilized by the
weapons the US already had available in the early nineties? Who is
the anticipated adversary, and what is the anticipated scenario,
which could explain the strategic sense behind this intensive
buildup?
One thing is clear, and that is America's determination to upgrade
its military prerogatives on the world stage. A trial balloon was
sent up not that long ago whose aim was to add nuclear capability to
the internationally-approved war chest. I refer, of course, to
Libya and its purported biological warfare plant, a plant which
seems, significantly, to no longer be of serious concern. If that
balloon had not met with international alarm, Libya might well have
become the next in the sequence of America's field-test blitzkrieg
deployments - this time bringing tactical nukes (precise and clean?...
but of course) into the arsenal. Once that precedent is achieved,
by whatever means, tactical nukes will, presumably, be thereafter a
routine tactical option, albeit used reservedly, of the multilateral
force.
Missions for the arsenal: (2) the China question
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In considering why tactical nukes would be deemed necessary by US
military planners (not in Libya, but in the long run) - and in
considering why the US seeks to advance further its hi-tech
capability when it is already so far ahead of the pack - one is led
inevitably to look at the China question.
China is the only remaining significant wild card in the
globalization game. There are small countries which are anti-
globalist, notably Cuba, but their size precludes them from
challenging the steamroller in any serious way. Medium sized
"renegades" like Libya can cause a bit more trouble, but Iraq stands
as an example of how readily they can be humbled if they get too far
out of line. But China - if it does not conform to the demands of the
new globalist regime - could be a significant thorn in the side of
that regime.
What does globalism demand of China? Economically - to abandon
socialism (gradually) and to embrace free-trade (right away);
politically - to abandon hopes of creating a Chinese-dominated Asian
sphere of influence; human rights and democracy are not a
requirement, as "most favored nation" status testifies, rhetoric on
the topic notwithstanding.
I assume the economic requirement, as stated above, is obvious
to everyone - that's simply the public agenda of economic
globalism.
The political requirement relates to the role of the
multilateral police force, whose task it is to maintain a world
order harmonious with globalist investment needs. A regionally
hegemonous China would be perceived as threatening to a NATO-
centric world order, just as Japan's Co-Prosperity Sphere was
considered threatening to US and European national interests at
the time. The West has traditionally been comfortable when
powers balanced one another in Asia, and this attitude has had
no reason to change.
China seems to be doing well in reaching an accommodation with
globalism's economic demands, but China's nationalist aspirations
may turn out to be deep-seated and stubborn.
There are a pair of articles in Foreign Affairs (March/April 1997) - a
Council-on-Foreign-Relations journal highly revealing of the
globalist agenda - called The China Threat - A Debate. In the first
article - The Coming Conflict with America - Richard Bernstein and Ross
H. Munro present the case that armed conflict between the US and
China may be inevitable.
They tell us: "China's sheer size and inherent strength, its
conception of itself as a center of global civilization, and its
eagerness to redeem centuries of humiliating weakness are propelling
it toward Asian hegemony." And they pass on an ominous sentiment
attributed to General Mi Zhenyu, vice-commandant of the Academy of
Military Sciences in Beijing: "For a relatively long time it will be
absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse our sense of vengeance.
We must conceal our abilities and bide our time" - giving fair warning
to be wary of what may appear to be softening in Chinese behavior.
What makes these observations especially dire is the article's
evidently authoritative description of Uncle Sam's attitude on the
matter:
"China's goal of achieving paramount status in Asia conflicts
with an established American objective: preventing any single
country from gaining an overwhelming power in Asia. The United
States, after all, has been in major wars in Asia three times
in the past half-century, always to prevent a single power from
gaining ascendency."
The implication is clear that the United States can be expected to
act decisively to alter what seems to be China's expansionist path,
even by warfare if that becomes necessary. This traditional
American attitude toward Asian balance-of-power is consistent with
globalization's need for an orderly world system, and with Europe's
own military traditions. In what follows, the focus is on the US
vs. China - but the US role should be understood in the context of the
US as the heavy artillery of the multilateral globalist police
force.
The article tells us that China is spending astronomical sums on
military modernization - aimed at the ability to knock out US Carrier
Task Forces, as well as dominating Asia. We are told that China's
leaders "cannot be counted on to relinquish their monopolistic hold
on power" and that "The most likely form for China to assume is a
kind of corporatist, militarized, nationalist state, one with some
similarity to the fascist states of Mussolini or Francisco Franco."
We are shown a map with seven "flash points," and various plausible
scenarios are explored, each of which could easily lead to armed
conflicts. It is explained that Japan must be our special partner
in counter-balancing Chinese hegemony.
Robert S. Ross, in Beijing as a Conservative Power, takes up the
debating position that "engagement" is the proper approach to China -
"Treat China as an enemy and it will be one." Details are revealed
regarding air and sea power, showing that China cannot be any kind
of real threat for a long time to come. That provides time to build
relationships and seek to integrate China, adequately if not
ideally, into an acceptable scheme of things.
Recent history is visited, and we learn that China has been acting
quite to US benefit in geopolitical terms. It balanced the Soviet
Union; it stabilized Southeast Asia when Uncle Sam was forced out of
Vietnam. We are urged to "invite China to participate in
international rule-making," and to "reinforce China's interest in
regional stability and strengthen its commitment to global
stability. Engagement, not isolation, is the appropriate policy."
Both articles take it as a given that the US has the "strategic
interest" - translation: the right - to insure that a "favorable"
balance of power is maintained in Asia: it is categorically
unacceptable that China achieve outright hegemony and freedom-of-
action in Asia. The debate is about means, not ends.
I must say that the first article is more convincing - the fundamental
case for eventual confrontation seems more solid than the likelihood
of namby-pamby coaxing bringing about a paradigm shift in China's
thousands-year-old sense of national greatness and sovereign pride.
Given the degree of societal dedication to be expected, and the
prowess of China's scientific and engineering communities, one might
anticipate (in this age where offense dominates defense) that China
may be able to achieve some technological leap-frog in the local
military balance of power - something as surprising as a Sputnik that
neutralizes, at least temporarily many of the American advantages.
For strategic military planners on both sides, one must assume that
the race has been joined. Can China create a window of opportunity -
based on focused achievement of regional military parity - during
which time it could establish a firm hold on its own sphere of
influence? Could it hold this parity long enough for the new status
quo to become accepted by the international community, as has, it
seems, the occupation of Tibet?
The interwar (pre-World-War-II) parallel
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The China scenario - it must be observed - is strikingly similar to the
interwar scenario - when there were similar debates regarding
engagement vs. confrontation re/ Japan and Germany. China evidently
has the same brand of soul-deep national ambition shared then by
Japan and Germany, and a similar potential to express it effectively
in action. Japan and Germany could only be tamed - the historic
lesson seems to clearly say - by complete destruction and
unconditional surrender, followed by complete rebuilding under US
tutelage. These are precedents that cannot be far from the minds of
our Foreign Affairs authors, although their pens would be unlikely
to develop such comparisons until closer to the climax.
The parallels with the interwar period are only accentuated by what
we learn in China preys on American minds - The US this week,
Guardian Weekly (6 April 1997). Martin Walker describes the on-the-
ground implementation of the engagement agenda. We are told of the
Beijing-based US Business Council, "a formidable group of US
executives whose corporate lobbies back in Washington have worked
hard to ensure that no US politician dare confront the engagement-
trade-investment model." We are also reminded of "fat Chinese
consultancy fees earned by those former secretaries of state, Dr.
Henry Kissinger and General Alexander Haig." Clearly Foreign
Affairs (Robert Ross) was providing philosophical background for
what turns out to be an already operational corporatist agenda - an
investment-intensive era parallel to that of the interwar years.
Interestingly, Mr. Walker casts moral derision on this money-
grabbing behavior: "There ought to be scandal in the way US
corporations scurry to serve Beijing's interests." He reports with
explicit admiration some words of Newt Gingrich, delivered recently
at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing:
"Americans cannot remain silent about the basic lack of
freedom - speech, religion, assembly, the press - in China. In the
most basic sense, we are simply asking the Chinese government
to enforce its own constitution."
Perhaps one can presume Gingrich is replaying the crowd-pleasing
Churchill role: espouse the high moral ground, encourage a simmering
pool of popular suspicion toward the future enemy, and wait in the
wings for the moment of fame when the bugle finally sounds. Like
Churchill, he would be seen as morally untainted (as regards what in
the endgame is known as appeasement), although I imagine his
constituency gets its share of Chinese opportunities in the interim.
The interwar parallels are again underscored.
The article next reveals an interesting clue as to how the
increasingly confrontational climate is to be spun in mass media
doublespeak:
"The Clash of Civilisations, the book by Harvard professor Sam
Huntington, may not have hit the bestseller lists, but its dire
warning of a 21st century rivalry between the liberal white folk
and the Yellow Peril - sorry, the Confucian cultures - is
underpinning the formation of a new political environment.
"To adapt one of Mao's subtler metaphors, Huntington's Kultur-
kampf is becoming, with stunning speed, the conceptual sea in
which Washington's policy-making fish now swim."
Mr. Walker lays out for us - and this seems to be the official mass-
media party-line - the proposition that the only reason for the US to
be concerned about China is the question of human rights, and that
the only other reason conflict might develop is due to some mythical
notion of inevitable cultural warfare. Nowhere in this party-line
is mentioned the fact, so obvious to not-so-mass-media Foreign
Affairs, that Western balance-of-power interests (not human rights,
culture, or ideology) will be the primary counter-consideration to
investment opportunities, vis a vis China policy.
Teddy Roosevelt said "Walk softly, and carry a big stick." The more
profitable version of this admonition, as carried out in the
interwar years, in Iraq, and apparently again with China, is:
"Profit through engagement, then deliver a just-in-time death blow."
The popular-consensus/media-propaganda version of history looks
nothing like what we've been talking about. According to the
consensus myth, WW II was caused by a pair of maniacal monsters -
Fanatic-Yellow-Peril and Racist-Nazi-Demon - who were driven by
disturbed psyches (personal and collective) more than normal
national ambitions, and whom the other nations of the world were
compelled to subdue - solely in the interests of freedom, democracy,
and human rights. People don't want to fight to obtain balance-of-
power adjustments, but they'll fight valiantly if they can be sold a
cover story that taps into appropriate emotional-response triggers.
An offensive war by a modern democratic society must always be
represented to the domestic population as being defensive, in
pursuit of lofty goals, and necessitated by a maniacal aggressive
enemy, or at least that's been the pattern to date.
As previously with Nazi-Demon and Yellow-Peril, a new mythology is
being prepared for us to justify the final round of major
geopolitical adjustments. Sam Huntington, via his KulturKampf
Clash of Civilisations, is the canonical proponent of this new
mythology. As with the previous mythology, there is ample factual
basis for its thesis - but its overall effect is to distract from the
larger operative forces. Yes there are real cultural differences
between China and an idealized West, but the cultural differences
could be accommodated - what may not be so easily accommodated is
China's culture-independent nationalist aspirations. Balance-of-
power realpolitik is not dead - not yet.
Kultur-Kampf is the mythology to be foisted on the public to cover
the real motives behind the anticipated violent adjustment of great-
power relationships - ie. the coercion of a destroyed and re-
engineered China into the global system on globalist terms, by
replay of the Japan-Germany unconditional-surrender scenario.
The propagation of a Kultur-Kampf Big Lie - especially with China
being likened to the already demonized Arab states - provides a sound
basis for evoking the emotional climate appropriate for war
popularization. With the bass-drum of Kultur-Kampf beating a steady
rhythm in the popular media, the pace can be jazzed up with juicy
Chinese atrocity stories whenever necessary, and the warpath-kettle
can be kept just below boil. This is astute war-preparedness, as
regards strategic propaganda.
What, in fact, America (leading proponent of globalization) seems to
be doing with China is to consciously replay the interwar scenario:
profit maximally from trade and investments in China, encourage US
public opinion to maintain a simmering hostility toward what may
become a future enemy, tacitly facilitate China's military
development, closely monitor developments - and most important - be sure
that the US, together with its projected allies, maintains strategic
dominance militarily. In this last regard, the US may have skirted
danger in WW II more closely than it will need to this time around.
This time around the US is on a continual wartime footing, with
fleets sufficient for simultaneous conflicts, nuclear submarines,
satellite superiority, strategic missiles, and the new gadgets the
Economist tells us about. This is a far cry from the comparative
state of US preparedness in the interwar years. And - due to the
Grenada-Panama-Iraq precedents - the US has field-tested formulas for
arranging hostilities with favorable publicity at any time of its
own choosing.
The first step in preparation for actual military engagement with
China would be a demonization campaign, and it would need to be a
globally effective campaign, not just for US consumption. Need I
point out how incredibly easy that campaign would be? Slave labor
camps, all but outright genocide against minorities such as the
Tibetans, killing off infant females, religious suppression,
massacre of peaceful demonstrators, legions of political prisoners,
no semblance of human rights or free press by Western standards,
heartbreaking behavior, perhaps, toward Hong Kong, a dictatorial
regime - the mix may change over time, but China will for quite a
while be a very easy target for modern demonization campaigns.
The immediate war-initiation scenario might not be much different
from that which brought the US into WW II. Sinking a carrier task
force would have the same emotional impact on the US public as did
the attack on Pearl Harbor, and no holds would then be barred the US
military by domestic opinion. We saw how China's recent
belligerency toward Taiwan (one of Bernstein and Munro's seven flash
points) resulted in the dispatch of American fleets which then
flouted their electronic superiority to the chagrin of the Chinese
navy and the embarrassment and frustrated anger of Chinese leaders.
A more assertive China with a more formidable military capability -
and this is where we're most likely heading - would make similar
confrontations both more likely and more dangerous. And for the US
to back down from what it perceived as strategic challenges would be
to yield to that very Chinese hegemony which Foreign Affairs informs
us is categorically unacceptable to "American Interests."
The combat scenario; hi-tech arsenal considered mandatory
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let us consider the parameters of the hypothetically resulting
military conflict. The US strategy would have certain mandatory
objectives, which one can presume, based on common sense and
precedents, would include:
(1) no nuclear strikes tolerated on US soil
(2) nuclear annihilation of China not desired
(3) tactical nukes in China OK
(4) land war in China out of the question
(5) unconditional Chinese surrender a must
For such a full-scale offensive, encumbered with such objectives, to
be feasible, the US would need to quickly achieve the same total
mastery-of-theater that it obtained in Iraq. The US could achieve
its objectives only if it could suppress all air-defense measures,
prevent China from launching strategic weapons, and have the
unrestricted ability to pound China with cruise missiles and bombs -
nuclear armed in the case of unusually large, hardened, or strategic
targets.
China is a good bit bigger than Iraq, and would be much better
prepared, and so the Desert Storm technology would need to be
radically upscaled and refined. The race to re-invent C4 (hi-tech
warfare) systems, as reported recently by the Economist and others,
seems to be a straightforward strategic imperative for US planners.
Armaments and public opinion are both being systematically prepared,
apparently, for the anticipated conflict. There will be no time to
build a thousand bombers and no dissension will be tolerated - when
the decisive moment for action arises. When the "innocent" US fleet
is blown out of the seas, as it rushes, say, to protect Taiwan, Plan
B (blitzkrieg warfare) must be ready for instant execution - there
will be critical first-strike missions that cannot be allowed to
fail. And once the show starts, the pace will not slacken.
It would have to be planned as a one-campaign war, a full-court
press all the way. The modern warfare model is a blitzkrieg model,
and we saw its field tests in Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. All
weapons systems, including those of the endgame, must be in full
readiness at conflict start. We can therefore expect C4 development
to continue to accelerate over the coming months, and expect at
least one additional test prior to the big event, timed to suit the
requirements of systems evaluation more than any real geopolitical
emergency. Hence the media (and US foreign policy) endeavors to
keep demonization quotients at chronically high levels for Iran,
Iraq, Libya, and North Korea - so that a sizable weapons test can be
arranged quickly and conveniently whenever needed.
After the final war - or, perhaps, after China submits peacefully to
globalist authority out of an unexpected prudence - we will enter the
era which some prematurely claim we have already entered - a post-
national context in which other primary forces will be allowed to
shape the global architecture in new ways, as fades the structuring
force of competitive nationalism. The "other" structuring force,
it should be clear, is megacorp-dominated globalism.
(Megacorp: n. large transnational corporation)
Epilog - The global megacorp state
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The current world system, now coming to an end, is an anarchistic
(not centrally controlled) one - based on nation states, shifting
alliances, imperialism, warfare, and trade. Just as capitalist
monopolies constitute the natural final stage of an anarchistic
economic system, so political/military monopolies constitute the
natural final stage of an anarchistic political system.
Thus over the past few centuries, as technology has been knitting a
global infrastructure, we've seen ever more powerful empires vying
for dominance. At the end of WW II, the system finally reached the
stage where a single nation-state had achieved an effective near-
monopoly of political/military power, cold-war rhetoric
notwithstanding.
When a system reaches its final stage, that stage may be stable or
unstable. If it is stable (eg ancient Incas and Egypt), then that
system may persist until outside events intervene. But if it is
unstable, as happened with Rome, then the result will be either
degeneration/fragmentation or else the birth of a new organizing
principle - a principle strong enough to bind together the elements
brought together by the predecessor system - but a principle that adds
greater stability.
Within the context of the anarchistic nation-state world system, the
all-but-implemented final stage is a Global Imperial America. But
if such were to be formally instituted, it would be highly unstable.
Uncle Sam trying to rule a traditionally-structured world empire
would make the Vietnam debacle look like a Sunday picnic.
It is a tribute to the acumen (I didn't say wisdom) of our world
leaders that they were well aware of this final-stage instability,
and that they took effective steps to institute a new organizing
principle.
Preparations began during WW II (FDR & Churchill's United Nations
Declaration) for the first-ever hierarchical world system. Since
that time, by means (both overt and covert) of treaty arrangements,
economic/political pressures, and military interventions, the US has
used its dominant position to guide, bribe, and coerce the world
into its current globalist phase.
Globalization brings the necessary new organizing principle, a
principle stable enough to create and maintain a new world order - at
least for a while. The new principle is capitalist/corporate
hegemony, and the infrastructure which supports it is the
collection of transnational corporations, with their astronomical
resources and control of the global economy.
To a large extent, the megacorps already are the world system.
They operate globally, they directly control global finances and
much of the world's economic activity, and they've put together a
set of mechanisms (WTO et al) that regulates, on a harmonious
collaborative basis, the rules of their collective game.
Globalization, at its heart, is the yielding of political
sovereignty to this proven corporate system - acknowledging that
nation-states have evolved themselves into a historical cul de sac.
If the corporate elite can keep the world-system trains running, so
to speak, that seems to be preferable, to many, to the uncertain
future of nation-state political developments.
The price to be paid - disenfranchisement and exploitation of the
citizenry - is not clearly marked on the price tag of globalization.
As the price becomes widely evident - as it already is in the Third
World - instability will arise from citizen unrest.
Police-state structures are being rapidly implemented (more about
this later) to contain such unrest in the First World, and have
already been deployed in the Third World. Meanwhile, the soporific
mind-control mass media carries the primary burden of population
control.
The transition to megacorp rule is being accomplished in the First
World by the dismantlement of national infrastructures, the
bankrupting of governments, and the imposition of treaties which
officially grant authority over the world's major economic and trade
(and other) policies to corporate-dominated commissions (WTO et al).
This transition program was launched in the early 1980's by Ronald
Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, acting as crowd-pleasing standard
bearers for the corporate-sponsored agenda. With the rhetorical
flags of "efficiency" and "reform" flying high, the wheels were set
in motion for dismantlement (privatization and program cutbacks),
bankruptcy (corporate tax cuts and reckless borrowing), and
transfer of social and economic sovereignty ("free trade" and
GATT). This program is rapidly spreading, with occasional temporary
setbacks, from its original US-UK base to the other leading Western
nations.
In most of the Third World, corporate domination has been a fact of
life for some time. Over the past several years the IMF, using as
leverage the immense Third-World debt burden, has been increasingly
assuming the authority to dictate, at a micro level, economic and
social policies in Third World nations. In India, for example, many
public officials take their instructions directly from the
international commissions, rather than bothering to go through the
central government at all.
The transition program for First-World nations, as outlined above,
has the effect of downgrading the First World to Third-World status.
By ceding control of their own infrastructure (privatization), by
undertaking unmanageable levels of debt, and by subscribing to
disempowering treaties, First World nations are voluntarily caging
themselves into a permanently weakened position. Regardless of
which future governments might be elected, and regardless of what
agendas they might espouse, First World nations will find themselves
as powerless to overrule the dictates of the corporate commissions
as do Third-World nations today.
Already the commissions, and the corporations which they serve, are
beginning to lay down the law to the First World. The WTO just this
month overruled the EU's ban on US hormone-treated beef, and the
Ethyl Corporation is using the NAFTA agreement to sue Canada for
$251 million over a new Canadian environmental law. Earlier a
Canadian no-fault insurance law was repealed, in preference to
defending against expensive litigation by a US insurance firm.
Under the guise of "free trade," we can expect domestic social,
economic, and environmental polices to be increasingly dictated to
the First World by the new globalist regime, as has already become
commonplace in the Third World.
The policy agenda of the WTO, therefore, should be of serious
concern to citizens everywhere, given that it is the agenda they'll
be living under. That agenda is being determined totally un-
democratically - the membership of the commissions is dominated by
megacorp representatives - and is being drawn up outside of public
view. The agenda is not entirely secret, however, and what is
known about it is more than a little alarming.
A highlight or two from this agenda will serve to illustrate the
magnitude of the problem. The Codex Alimentarius Commission
(Codex), for example, is taking charge of worldwide food and drug
regulations. We learn from the FDA's world-wide-web site that
"Since its inception, Codex has developed in excess of 200 Commodity
Standards, more than 40 codes and guidelines, about 2,500
pesticide/commodity maximum limits, and has reviewed the safety of
over 500 food additives and contaminants." Codex is dominated by
the largest pharmaceutical companies, and it is their profit
interests that will determine - without any meaningful review - the
health and safety of all of us. Among the radical measures being
pursued by Codex is the outlawing worldwide of all non-prescription
vitamins and health products.
Scott Nova and Michelle Sforza-Roderick of Preamble Center for
Public Policy, Washington, D.C., describe the work of another
commission:
"Virtually unreported, the latest and potentially most dangerous
of these agreements is now under negotiation at the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The purpose of
the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), as the proposed
pact is known, is to grant transnational investors the
unrestricted 'right' to buy, sell and move businesses, and other
assets, wherever they want, whenever they want. To achieve this
goal, the MAI would ban a wide range of regulatory laws now in
force around the globe and preempt future efforts to hold
transnational corporations and investors accountable to the
public. The agreement's backers (the United States and the
European Union) intend to seek assent from the 29 industrial
countries that comprise the OECD and then push the new accord on
the developing world."
The scope of the issues being addressed, the radical nature of the
policies being adopted, and the pace of the proceedings should, by
rights, make the work of these commissions one of the hottest news
stories of the day. But the story shows up not on the front page,
but, if at all, in the business pages. The commissions have no need
to build public constituencies for their endeavors, since they are
outside the province of democratic process, hence the corporate mass
media has no reason to inform the public about what's going on.
Similarly, as the elite-controlled multinational force takes over
control of international affairs, the media has recently announced a
planned reduction in coverage of international news. Purportedly
reflecting changes in viewer preferences, the reduced coverage can
more reasonably be taken as a verification of the fact that military
interventions are now to be decided above the level national
governments, and that popular rabble-rousing for such activity will
no longer be required.
What I'm describing, in case it's not apparent, is the death of
democracy. After a brief two-centuries of existence, democracy is
being superceded by a corporate variety of neo-feudalism. Weakened
and subservient nation-states are becoming hardly more than
fiefdoms, whose governments have little role other than to keep the
population in line and extract tribute (personal taxes) to be passed
on to the corporate overlords as repayment of debt. All foreign
policy and activity, and most domestic policy and activity, is to be
managed offline from the democratic process by the lords of the
manor - corporations and their representative agencies.
The democratic institutions themselves may continue to exist, with
elections, legislatures, courts, etc., but the governments are being
disempowered, and the whole notion of meaningful popular sovereignty
via representative democracy is rapidly becoming only a nostalgic
memory.
Thus the anarchistic nation-state world system is being replaced by
a hierarchical world system with the WTO et al at the apex of the
social and economic power pyramid, and the US-NATO axis at the apex
of the military power pyramid - both controlled by the same elite
corporate interests. This leaves us, however, with an anarchistic
economic system. To be sure the WTO et al lay down the ground
rules as a central authority, but the operating economy itself - who
owns what, which development projects are to be undertaken, whether
beans or corn will be planted, who will merge with whom, etc. - is an
anarchistic competitive game.
The endgame of this economic scenario is readily predictable from
numerous historical precedents: a small number of monopoly
operators will emerge and dominate each industry and market. Just
as competitive nationalism leads ultimately, as we have seen, to a
single dominant clique, so does unrestrained laissez-faire
capitalism lead ultimately to fraternities of monopoly operators.
The classic example, of course, is the Seven-Sisters gang of major
oil companies - transnationals long before their time. More recently
we've seen a dramatic spate of mega-mergers in the media and
communications industries - creating whole new merged-industry
categories of commerce. One could also mention the airline
industry, retail food chains, book sellers, discount bulk-shopping
chains, and many others. The advantages of scale - not only cost
savings but the ability to control markets and pressure suppliers -
are so overwhelming that large monopolies do inevitably form, force
the development of similar competitors, and drive everyone else into
marginal market niches.
This is a familiar pattern. It ran rampant in the latter half of
the nineteenth century, leading not only to extreme wealth and power
concentration, but also to wide-scale corruption and chronic
economic instability, signalled by frequent and severe depressions.
The lesson became clear to everyone at the time that capitalism's
invisible hand works best if government creates a level playing
field and forces competition on the markets. The regulations which
evolved from that hard-earned lesson, and which succeeded in
stabilizing Western economies, are the very regulations which are
being wholesale abandoned as part of the globalization process.
History is being totally ignored, while "market forces" is being
touted as a brave new idea, whose beneficent economic efficacy
should be self-evident to all - a blatant example of Orwellian
historical revisionism, accomplished by omission.
The disenfranchisement, exploitation, and instability that is in
store for everyone is bound to lead, as noted earlier, to chronic
social unrest in the First World as well as the Third. In the
meantime, social services, unemployment, infrastructure maintenance,
and crime have all been greatly worsened by the intentional
bankrupting of governments. Already we've seen massive protests of
globalist measures in the First World, including Australia, France,
and Germany.
This prognosis for the future may appear speculative and perhaps
even surprising to some readers, but it has been understood for some
time by those pushing globalism. In preparation for containing the
expected increase in social unrest, there has been a decades-long
concerted campaign to appropriately re-invent law enforcement across
a broad front: more prisons, mandatory sentences, paramilitary
police forces, significantly reduced civil protections, increasingly
arbitrary conspiracy laws, diminished right to trial by jury,
routine surveillance of persons, transactions, and communications,
and, last but not least, the development of a prison-labor industry.
Not only can a greater quantity of troublesome individuals be
processed by these modernized crime-management systems, not only can
those individuals be put to profitable use while incarcerated, and
not only does the criminal justice system drive a profitable
industry in its own right, but the new enforcement regime is
particularly well designed to monitor and disband any politically-
oriented organization that might threaten to rouse the population in
protest to its disenfranchised, serf-like status.
It has been a testament to the effectiveness of media spin-masters
that this wholesale installation of a police state - a globalist trend
being led as usual by the US and UK - has been largely a stealth
affair. Under cover of the mania over drugs, crime, and terrorism,
the various repressive measures have been adopted one after the
other, each time with debate - and hence public awareness - stifled by
some media-linked crime or act of terrorism that was receiving
intense news coverage at the time. One need only recall the
Oklahoma bombing and how that event helped rush through the far-
reaching Anti Terrorism Bill, or the World Trade Center bombing and
the new precedents set there for conspiracy convictions, or the TWA
800 crash and the invasive airport security measures that were
promptly adopted.
The point is not that the problems of crime, etc., aren't real - it's
that the "solutions" don't solve the problems, couldn't reasonably
be expected to solve the problems, and have "collateral"
consequences that move us systematically toward a police state.
This process may appear to be a case of incremental, if faulty,
responses to difficult problems - indeed it's been designed to appear
that way - but it has been in fact the very preparation - and none too
soon - necessary to manage popular unrest under the rapidly
foreclosing globalist regime.
This then is the overall picture of our globalist future: nations -
possibly devolved in size - reduced to police-state, tax-collecting
fiefdoms, paying tribute to outside-the-law corporate overlords - who
in the meantime are organizing themselves into global monopolies
while they operate the world's affairs. One is reminded of the
evidently prophetic visions of such futuristic films as Rollerball
and Blade Runner, with their haunting images of megacorp splendor
contrasted with social squalor, repressive police, and political
bankruptcy.
If at a future time some nation might decide to re-assert its
sovereignty through repudiation of treaties and debts and the
expropriation of corporate facilities, then the multilateral force
can make short shrift of such boldness, much as the US has done for
decades in Latin America. That which globalism joins together, none
may dare set asunder.
There's a proud array of soldiers -
what do they round your door?
They guard our master's granaries
from the thin hands of the poor.
Lady Jane Wilde (1826-96): The Famine Years
It is perhaps ironic that the final end of major warfare - an
achievement right-thinking people for centuries have yearned for -
seems destined to usher in an ominous new Dark Millennium. Be
careful what you ask for, warned the sage, you might get more than
you bargained for. So true. But there is a ray of hope: corporate
globalism is not the only possible future. It is not mandated by
natural forces - media propaganda notwithstanding - but is the
intentional result of think-tank research, elite planning, and
corporate political activism.
For a few years yet - very few - democratic institutions may retain
enough power that an aroused citizenry could achieve political
ascendency in their several nations in time to moderate the plunge
into a global laissez-faire corporatist regime. The time is running
short for political movements of sufficient breadth and vision to
emerge from the sea of vague dissatisfaction and provide a focus for
citizen awakening. Any potential leaders and organizers who want to
make a difference had better focus on the Main Problem and seek,
with others, to form broad, inclusive, coalition movements around
reclaiming democracy, reasserting national sovereignty, and
restructuring the relationship (tax and regulatory) between
governments and corporations.
...Can't add my name into the fight when I'm gone
And I won't be laughing at the lies when I'm gone
And I can't question how or when or why when I'm gone
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here.
Phil Ochs: When I'm Gone
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