-Caveat Lector-
http://www.medialens.org/frameset.html
Hegemony or Survival
By Noam Chomsky - 3 July 2001
At the end of June, the UN Conference on Disarmament
concludes the second of its year 2001 sessions.
Prospects for any constructive outcome of disarmament
efforts are slim. Discussions have been blocked by US
insistence on pursuing ballistic missile defense (BMD)
programs, against near-unanimous opposition.
On the purpose of BMD, there is a fair measure of
agreement across a broad spectrum. Potential
adversaries regard it as an offensive weapon. Reagan's
SDI ("Star wars") was understood in the same light.
China's top arms control official simply reflected
common understanding when he observed that "Once the
United States believes it has both a strong spear and
a strong shield, it could lead them to conclude that
nobody can harm the United States and they can harm
anyone they like anywhere in the world. There could be
many more bombings like what happened in Kosovo" --
the reaction of most of the world to what was
perceived as a reversion to the "gunboat wars" of a
century ago, with the "colonial powers of the West,
with overwhelming technological advantages, subduing
natives and helpless countries that had no ability to
defend themselves," doing as they choose while
"cloaked in moralistic righteousness" (Israeli
military analyst Amos Gilboa). The reaction to the
US-UK Gulf War was much the same among the traditional
"natives and helpless countries." Fortunately for its
self-image, Western ideology is well-insulated from
such departures from right thinking.
China is also well aware that it is not immune. It
knows that the US and NATO maintain the right of first
use of nuclear weapons, and knows as well as US
military analysts that "Flights by U.S. EP-3 planes
near China...are not just for passive surveillance;
the aircraft also collect information used to develop
nuclear war plans" (William Arkin, Bull. of Atomic
Scientists, May/June 2001).
Canadian military planners advised their government
that the goal of BMD is "arguably more in order to
preserve U.S./NATO freedom of action than because U.S.
really fears North Korean or Iranian threat."
Prominent strategic analysts agree. BMD "will
facilitate the more effective application of U.S.
military power abroad, Andrew Bacevich writes
(National Interest, Summer 2001): "By insulating the
homeland from reprisal -- albeit in a limited way --
missile defense will underwrite the capacity and
willingness of the United States to `shape' the
environment elsewhere." He cites approvingly the
conclusion of Lawrence Kaplan: "Missile defense isn't
really meant to protect America. It's a tool for
global dominance," for "hegemony."
That this goal should be embraced by all
right-thinking people follows at once from the
principles of the "respectable" opinion that "defines
the parameters within which the policy debate occurs."
The spectrum is very broad: it excludes only "tattered
remnants of hard-core isolationists" and "those few
beleaguered radicals still pining for the glory days
of the 1960s," and is "so authoritative as to be
virtually immune to challenge" (Bacevich). The first
principle is straightforward: "America as historical
vanguard." According to this authoritative principle,
"history has a discernible direction and destination.
Uniquely among all the nations of the world, the
United States comprehends and manifests history's
purpose," namely, "freedom, achieved through the
spread of democratic capitalism, and embodied in the
American Way of Life." Accordingly, US hegemony is the
realization of history's purpose; the merest truism,
"virtually immune to challenge."
The principle is by no means novel, nor is the US
unique in history in basking in such praise from
domestic thinkers.
In contrast, the goal offered the public - protection
from "rogue states" - is not taken very seriously.
Unless dedicated to instant collective suicide, no
state would launch missiles at the US. And there are
far easier and safer means to inflict enormous damage
on its territory. "Anyone who doubts that terrorists
could smuggle a nuclear warhead into New York City
should note that they could always wrap it in a bale
of marijuana," one prominent analyst comments
sardonically. Another points out that "a nuclear bomb
that could easily wipe out Manhattan and kill 100,000
people is a ball of plutonium weighing about 15
pounds. It is a little bigger than a softball. One
such bomb could be carried into the United States in a
suitcase. And if one could, many could."
Nuclear weapons are, of course, not the only weapons
of mass destruction (WMD): chemical and biological
weapons are arguably a greater threat to the rich and
powerful. The 1997 treaty banning chemical weapons is
languishing in large measure because the US has not
funded inspections and other action, while Washington
has "made a mockery" of the treaty by effectively
exempting itself, a senior analyst of the Henry
Stimson Center observes. Biological weapons bans have
been undermined by US insistence on limiting
inspections "in order to protect American
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies." The Bush
administration reportedly intends to reject the draft
treaty resulting from six years of negotiations on
means of verifying compliance with the 1972 treaty
banning biological weapons (NYT, April 27, May 20,
2001).
All this aside, it is widely recognized that the most
serious threat to US (and world) security is the huge
Soviet nuclear weapons system, with safeguards and
command-and-control systems deteriorating severely as
the economy has collapsed under neoliberal reforms.
Clinton negotiators encouraged Russia to adopt
Washington's launch-on-warning strategy to alleviate
Russian concerns over BMD and annulment of the ABM
treaty, a proposal that is "pretty bizarre," one
expert commented, because "we know their warning
system is full of holes." Accidental launch has come
perilously close in recent years. Clinton had a small
program to assist Russia in safeguarding and
dismantling nuclear weapons, and providing alternative
employment for nuclear scientists. A bipartisan Energy
Department task force called for sharp increase in
funding of such programs. Co-chair Howard Baker,
former Republican Senate majority leader, testified to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April that
"it really boggles my mind that there could be 40,000
nuclear weapons...in the former Soviet Union, poorly
controlled and poorly stored, and that the world isn't
in a state of near-hysteria about the danger." One of
the first acts of the Bush administration was to
reduce these programs, increasing the risks of
accidental launch and leakage of "loose nukes" to
other countries, including Washington's favorite
"rogue states," followed by nuclear scientists with no
other way to employ their skills. Russian proposals to
reduce missiles sharply, well below Bush's proposals,
have been rejected.
A common argument is that BMD won't work. A much more
dangerous possibility is that it may seem feasible;
appearance is interpreted as reality on matters of
survival. US intelligence predicts that any deployment
will impel China to develop new nuclear-armed
missiles, expanding its nuclear arsenal tenfold,
probably with multiple warheads (MIRV), "prompting
India and Pakistan to respond with their own
buildups," with a likely ripple effect to the Middle
East. The same analyses, and others, conclude that
Russia's "only rational response would be to maintain,
and strengthen, the existing Russian nuclear force."
At the UN conference on the Nonproliferation Treaty in
May 2000 there was broad condemnation of BMD on
grounds that it would undermine decades of arms
control agreements and provoke a new weapons race.
Both political parties insist on it, though at
different rates.
General Lee Butler, former head of the US Strategic
Command (1992-94), regards it as "dangerous in the
extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we
call the Middle East, one nation [Israel] has armed
itself, ostensibly, with stockpiles of nuclear
weapons, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, and that
inspires other nations to do so. An October 1998
"Memorandum of Agreement" between the US and Israel,
upgrading their military and strategic relationship,
was widely interpreted to mean that the US regards
Israel's nuclear arsenal "not only as a positive
factor in the regional balance of power, but also as
one it should support and enhance" (Foundation for
Middle East Peace Special Report, Winter 1999). From
1998, unofficial US policy has been to increase
military aid to Israel by $60 million a year. In
January 2001, the outgoing Clinton administration
announced that the policy is to continue through 2008,
at which point the previous $1.8 billion annual level
will have increased to $2.4 billion. Clinton also
recommended that Israel be among the first recipients
of the F-22 jets now under development. In June the
Israeli air force announced the purchase of 50 F-16
jets at a cost of $2 billion, to be financed largely
through US military aid, shortly after its US F-16s
were used to bomb Palestinian civilian targets. The US
and Israel conduct regular secret joint exercises, as
Israel is being converted into an offshore US military
base (on these programs, see William Arkin, Washington
Post, May 7, 2001). According to the Israeli press,
one of these joint exercises, in September 2000, was
devoted to plans for Israeli reconquest of the
enclaves transferred to Palestinian administration; US
marines provided training in weapons that Israel
lacked and "American fighting techniques." What is
already "dangerous in the extreme" will become even
more so as the renewed US impetus to proliferation of
WMD has its predictable effects, again increasing the
threat to everyone's security, even survival.
The actual plans may seem irrational, but that is only
if one values survival above hegemony. The history of
the arms race reveals quite a different calculus. 50
years ago, the only threat to US security, then only
potential, was ICBMs. It is likely that the USSR would
have accepted a treaty terminating development of
these weapons, knowing that it was far behind. In his
history of the arms race, McGeorge Bundy reported that
he could find no record of any interest in pursuing
this possibility. Recently released Russian archives
strongly reinforce assessments by high-level US
analysts that after Stalin's death, Khrushchev called
for mutual reduction of offensive military forces, and
when these initiatives were ignored by Washington,
implemented them unilaterally over the objection of
his own military command. US archives reveal that the
Eisenhower administration had little interest in
negotiated disarmament and other moves to relax
international tensions. Kennedy planners doubtless
shared Eisenhower's understanding that "a major war
would destroy the Northern hemisphere." They also knew
of Khrushchev's unilateral steps to reduce Soviet
offensive forces radically, and also knew that the US
was far ahead by any meaningful measure. Nevertheless,
they chose to reject Khrushchev's call for
reciprocity, preferring to carry out a massive
conventional and nuclear force build-up, thus driving
the last nail into the coffin of "Khrushchev's agenda
of restraining the Soviet military" (Matthew
Evangelista, Cold War International History Project,
Dec. 1997).
Without continuing, the record shows that there is
little novelty in Clinton-Bush preferences.
European observers find it "a paradox" that "a country
willing to spend more than $100bn on an unproven
project to blow up incoming nuclear warheads as they
enter the atmosphere would opt not to pay less than a
thousandth of that amount to help prevent plutonium
falling into the hands of `rogue states'," while
knowing full well that "any `rogue bomb' is far more
likely to arrive in a suitcase or by truck or boat
than in a conspicuously launched missile that has a
return address clearly marked on it" (Julian Borger,
Guardian Weekly, May 24). The other current choices
that enhance the threat to survival seem, on the
surface, equally paradoxical. The paradox is resolved
when the values of hegemony and survival are properly
ranked, and other advantages of military programs to
which we return are factored in.
As Vijay Prashad pointed out in his recent commentary
on SDI and BMD (June 18), the primary issue is not BMD
but control of space, also a bipartisan program. These
crucial facts reached general public awareness with
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's announcement of
overhaul of the Pentagon's space programs, "sharply
increasing the importance of outer space in strategic
planning." The new plans call for "developing weapons
systems for outer space" a "power projection" from
space, which means "putting offensive weapons into
space" (NYT, May 8; Christian Science Monitor, May 3).
The plans were outlined in the report of the second
Rumsfeld panel, released in January (the first, in
October 1998, warned of missile attack threats,
apparently influencing Clinton's decision to
accelerate BMD programs). The report of the second
panel concludes that space warfare is "a virtual
certainty," and calls for the development of
anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) (in violation of the
1972 ABM treaty) and placing weapons in space (in
violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty).
Reviewing these plans in Foreign Affairs (May 2001),
Michael Krepon, former President of the Henry Stimson
Center, notes that they contain an internal
contradiction: ASATs are far easier to develop than
BMD, and an adversary's ASATs will nullify any BMD
program by disabling the satellites on which it
relies. The contradiction can be overcome only "by
utterly dominating space in the ways suggested by the
Rumsfeld report," with offensive weapons and an
escalating arms race in space as others inevitably
take countermeasures. He recommends, instead,
strengthening the existing treaties -- which have been
observed, he notes. That would make good sense if the
goal were survival rather than hegemony.
The US Space Command holds that "In the future, being
able to attack terrestrial targets from space may be
critical to national defense. U.S. Space Command
therefore is actively identifying potential roles,
missions, and payloads for this probable new field of
battle." The basic rationale was explained in its
brochure "Vision for 2020." The primary goal is
announced prominently on the front cover: "dominating
the space dimension of military operations to protect
US interests and investment." This is the next phase
of the historic task of military forces. "During the
westward expansion of the continental United States,
military outposts and the cavalry emerged to protect
our wagon trains, settlements, and railroads" --
acting solely in self-defense, we are to understand,
perhaps pursuing the well-intentioned but failed
efforts "to lead, guide and help Native Americans
[among others] toward the right side of history"
(Bacevich), America's historic mission for the world.
And "nations built navies to protect and enhance their
commercial interests." The next logical step is space
forces to protect "U.S. National Interests [military
and commercial] and Investments." The US role in space
should be comparable to that of "navies protecting sea
commerce," though now with a sole hegemon, far more
overwhelming than the British Navy in centuries past.
The Space Command is of course aware of Krepon's
dilemma, and plans to overcome it by "Full Spectrum
Dominance": overwhelming military dominance on land,
sea, and air as well as space, so that the US will be
"preeminent in any form of conflict," in peace or war.
The need for such dominance will mount as a result of
the increasing "globalization of the economy," which
is expected to bring about "a widening between `haves'
and `have-nots'," an assessment shared by US
intelligence in its projections for 2015 (contrary to
the underlying economic theories, but in accord with
reality). The widening divide may lead to unrest among
the have-nots, which the US must be ready to control
by "using space systems and planning for precision
strike from space" as a "counter to the worldwide
proliferation of WMD" by unruly elements -- a
predictable consequence of the recommended programs,
just as the "widening divide" is an anticipated
consequence of the preferred form of "globalization."
The Space Command could have extended its analogy to
"navies protecting sea commerce" and the military
"defending" expanding interests. Navies, and the
military generally, have played a prominent role in
technological and industrial development throughout
the modern era. Also to corporate consolidation: the
noted pacifist Andrew Carnegie relied heavily on naval
contracts in building the first $1 billion
corporation, US Steel. Militarization of space offers
similar opportunities for the current era. "In terms
of international technological potential," economic
historian Clive Trebilcock writes, "the ability to
produce the largest gunmountings around 1910 was
roughly equivalent to the ability to manufacture space
vehicles around 1980." The task of constructing huge
machines to fire projectiles from a moving platform at
a moving target was one of the most complex
engineering problems of the day, leading to major
advances in metallurgy, electronics, machine tools and
manufacturing processes. Quick-firing guns and
advanced rifle production also posed challenging tasks
for engineering and manufacture, which could be
undertaken by "civilian" industry thanks to government
contracts, which "played a vital part in removing the
risk barriers from mass production" and preliminary
research and development (R&D). The results were
transferred directly to the automotive and other major
modern industries. These developments a century ago
were a large step forward from earlier stages, when
the "American system of Manufactures" astounded the
world, based on 40 years of investment and R&D in the
US Ordnance Department at the Springfield Armory and
elsewhere, laying the basis for "a world revolution in
mass production." Earlier, advances in guncasting from
the mid-18th century laid the basis for iron
production and use of steam engines, and were
"instrumental in facilitating the rise of large-scale
industry, indeed in creating the factory system." The
same factors persisted after World War II, but with a
qualitative leap forward, this time primarily in the
US, as the military provided a cover for creation of
the core parts of the modern high tech economy. None
of the beneficiaries want to see the closing of what
Trebilcock calls "the military bank, spending through
the public purse, [which] has proved a massive
paymaster of scientific development," technological
and industrial as well.
Promoting advanced industry has been a leading
objective of military planning since World War II,
when it was recognized by business leaders that
high-tech industry could not survive in a competitive
"free enterprise" economy and that "the government is
their only possible savior" (Fortune, Business Week).
Reagan's SDI was peddled to the business world on
these grounds. Maintaining "the defense industrial
base" -- that is, high-tech industry -- was one of the
factors brought to congressional attention by
President Bush when he called for maintaining the
Pentagon budget immediately after the fall of the
Berlin Wall had eliminated the Russian pretext.
Militarization of space is a natural next step, which
will be propelled further by the anticipated arms
race. Others too are well aware of its economic
potential. Retreating from his earlier critical
stance, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stated in
March that Germany would have a "vital economic
interest" in developing BMD technology, and must be
sure that "we are not excluded" from technological and
scientific work in the field. Participation in BMD
programs could strengthen domestic industrial bases
generally in Europe, it is expected (see Defense
Monitor, March 2001).
For such reasons, the US has recently refused to join
the rest of the world in reaffirming the Outer Space
Treaty (joined in 1999 and 2000 by Israel, in 2000 by
Micronesia), and has blocked negotations at the UN
Conference on Disarmament since its current sessions
opened in January. China and Russia have called for
demilitarization of space; Russia proposed further
moves, including reduction of warheads to 1500 and
creation of nuclear-free zones. "The U.S. remains the
only one of the 66 member states to oppose launching
formal negotiations on outer space," Reuters reported
in February; also reported in the Deseret News (Salt
Lake City), in virtually the only coverage of the
Conference in the US media. On June 7, China again
called for banning of weapons in outer space, but the
US refused, having "consistently blocked the start of
negotiations in the UN disarmament conference on
preventing an arms race in outer space" (Financial
Times, June 8).
Again, that makes good sense if hegemony, with its
short-term benefits to elite interests, is ranked
above survival in the scale of operative values.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
http://greetings.yahoo.com
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
