There is one aspect of U.S. government's saber-rattling against China which has been omitted: the attempt of Washington to parlay the Stalinist policies of Beijing re its national minorities (especially viz. Tibet) as part of a hate China as enemy of human rights -- and a leading contender in the multi-entry competition for the "Pot Condemns Kettle" Award. Unfortunately, there is the "left" side of that anti-China / anti-Tibet campaign chorus within middle-class radical milieu (whether ludicrously loudly during the 1999 Battle of Seattle protests or at many Occupy movement assemblies). Feudalism / warlord is horrid when it applies to those the U.S. government is fighting (e.g., in Afghanistan), but holy when the kingdom is that lost by a religious leader allied with the U.S. (well, Hello, Dali Lama) and whom (according to mid-August 1999 articles in the New York Times and Newsweek) was receiving $180,000 annually from the C.I.A. given for him and his private army to fight "Red" China. (Back in those days, $4,000 -- i.e., less than one-fortieth of what the Dali Lama received from Washington each year -- was a more than comfortable middle-class annual family income even in the U.S.A. and could buy one-fourth of a house in New York City suburbs.) -- Barry Schier
>________________________________ > From: Michael Novick <[email protected]> >To: [email protected]; [email protected] >Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] >Sent: Thursday, August 2, 2012 11:28 AM >Subject: [occupylageneralstrike] Fwd: Planning for War with China > >Interesting that war with China has finally made it into the corporate media. >Means we are further down that road than many realize. I have been saying in >the pages of Turning the Tide and elsewhere since Clinton reversed his China >policy during the "humanitarian" war in Kosovo/Yugoslavia (and bombed the >Chinese consulate) that all the US military aggression of the current period >has to be understood in the light of a long-term encirclement strategy aimed >at a war with China designed to destroy its productive capacity. The war with >Yugoslavia/Serbia changed NATO into an aggressive, east-ward directed military >"alliance" (really, an extension of US military), which was sealed with >Afghanistan. Bush's "Axis of Evil" (Iraq, Iran, N. Korea) clearly targeted any >potential allies of China, and the US wars in Central and SW Asia >(Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and the targeting/sanctions on Iran) have been >designed to encircle China and cut it off from resources/allies, and from an arc of Chinese influence that would extend through the "middle east" into Africa. Russia is the biggest impediment to this strategy, which is why the sabre-rattling and drumbeat of a "new cold war" with Russia have been increasing. Ditto the whole "robot" direction of US military planning, especially the drones -- designed to overcome the enormous Chinese advantage in troop strength and population. Net-war/cyber-war between the US and China and its real or potential allies has been going on for years. China is also moving into space just at the moment when US/European space efforts seem to be falling victim to exhaustion/economic overextension. > > ><http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-model-for-a-future-war-fans-tensions-with-china-and-inside-pentagon/2012/07/23/gJQAC6F8PX_story.html>http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-model-for-a-future-war-fans-tensions-with-china-and-inside-pentagon/2012/07/23/gJQAC6F8PX_story.html > > >U.S. model for a future war fans tensions with China and inside Pentagon > > >By <http://www.washingtonpost.com/greg-jaffe/2011/03/02/ABX6GIQ_page.html>Greg >Jaffe, Published: August 1 > > >Washington Post > >When President Obama called on ><http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/obama-to-unveil-austere-pentagon-strategy/2012/01/04/gIQAMRBRbP_story.html>the > U.S. military to shift its focus to Asia earlier this year, Andrew Marshall, >a 91-year-old futurist, had a vision of what to do. > >Marshall's small office in the Pentagon has spent the past two decades >planning for a war against an angry, aggressive and heavily armed China. > >No one had any idea how the war would start. But the American response, laid >out in a concept that one of Marshall's longtime proteges dubbed "Air-Sea >Battle," was clear. > >Stealthy American bombers and submarines would knock out China’s long-range >surveillance radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the >country. The initial “blinding campaign” would be followed by a larger air and >naval assault. > >The concept, the details of which are classified, has angered the Chinese >military and has been pilloried by some Army and Marine Corps officers as >excessively expensive. Some Asia analysts worry that conventional strikes >aimed at China could spark a nuclear war. > >Air-Sea Battle drew little attention when U.S. troops were fighting and dying >in large numbers in Iraq and ><http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/war-zones/life-and-war-in-afghanistan-may-2012/2012/05/07/gIQA9LpW8T_gallery.html>Afghanistan. > Now the military's decade of battling insurgencies is ending, defense budgets >are being cut, and top military officials, ordered to pivot toward Asia, are >looking to Marshall's office for ideas. > >In recent months, the Air Force and Navy have come up with more than 200 >initiatives they say they need to realize Air-Sea Battle. The list emerged, in >part, from war games conducted by Marshall's office and includes new weaponry >and proposals to deepen cooperation between the Navy and the Air Force. > >A former nuclear strategist, Marshall has spent the past 40 years running the >Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, searching for potential threats to >American dominance. In the process, he has built a network of allies in >Congress, in the defense industry, at think tanks and at the Pentagon that >amounts to a permanent Washington bureaucracy. > >While Marshall's backers praise his office as a place where officials take the >long view, ignoring passing Pentagon fads, critics see a dangerous tendency >toward alarmism that is exaggerating the China threat to drive up defense >spending. > >"The old joke about the Office of Net Assessment is that it should be called >the Office of Threat Inflation," said Barry Posen, director of the MIT >Security Studies Program. "They go well beyond exploring the worst cases... >They convince others to act as if the worst cases are inevitable." > >Marshall dismisses criticism that his office focuses too much on China as a >future enemy, saying it is the Pentagon's job to ponder worst-case scenarios. > >"We tend to look at not very happy futures," he said in a recent interview. > >China tensions > >Even as it has embraced Air-Sea Battle, the Pentagon has struggled to explain >it without inflaming already tense relations with China. The result has been >an information vacuum that has sown confusion and controversy. > >Senior Chinese military officials warn that the Pentagon's new effort could >spark an arms race. > >"If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People's >Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle," one >officer, Col. Gaoyue Fan, said last year in a debate sponsored by the Center >for Strategic and International Studies, a defense think tank. > >Pentagon officials counter that the concept is focused solely on defeating >precision missile systems. > >"It's not about a specific actor," a senior defense official told reporters >last year. "It is not about a specific regime." <<Note from MN: A "senior >defense official" usually means the Secretary of Defense speaking >off-the-record on background.>> > >The heads of the Air Force and Navy, meanwhile, have maintained that Air-Sea >Battle has applications even beyond combat. The concept could help the >military reach melting ice caps in the Arctic Circle or a melted-down nuclear >reactor in Japan, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the U.S. chief of naval operations, >said in May at the Brookings Institution. > >At the same event, Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief, upbraided a >retired Marine colonel who asked how Air-Sea Battle might be employed in a war >with China. > >"This inclination to narrow down on a particular scenario is unhelpful," >Schwartz said. > >Privately, senior Pentagon officials concede that Air-Sea Battle's goal is to >help U.S. forces weather an initial Chinese assault and counterattack to >destroy sophisticated radar and missile systems built to keep U.S. ships away >from China's coastline. > >Their concern is fueled by the steady growth in China's defense spending, >which has increased to as much as $180 billion a year, or about one-third of >the Pentagon's budget, and China's increasingly aggressive behavior in the ><http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-philippines-banana-growers-feel-effect-of-south-china-sea-dispute/2012/06/10/gJQA47WVTV_story.html>South > China Sea. > >"We want to put enough uncertainty in the minds of Chinese military planners >that they would not want to take us on," said a senior Navy official >overseeing the service's modernization efforts. "Air-Sea Battle is all about >convincing the Chinese that we will win this competition." > >Like others quoted in this article, the official spoke on the condition of >anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. > >A military tech "revolution" > >Air-Sea Battle grew out of Marshall's fervent belief, dating to the 1980s, >that technological advancements were on the verge of ushering in a new epoch >of war. > >New information technology allowed militaries to fire within seconds of >finding the enemy. Better precision bombs guaranteed that the Americans could >hit their targets almost every time. Together these advances could give >conventional bombs almost the same power as small nuclear weapons, Marshall >surmised. > >Marshall asked his military assistant, a bright officer with a Harvard >doctorate, to draft a series of papers on the coming "revolution in military >affairs." The work captured the interest of dozens of generals and several >defense secretaries. > >Eventually, senior military leaders, consumed by bloody, low-tech wars in Iraq >and Afghanistan, seemed to forget about Marshall's revolution. Marshall, >meanwhile, zeroed in on China as the country most likely to exploit the >revolution in military affairs and supplant the United States' position as the >world's sole superpower. > >In recent years, as the growth of China's military has outpaced most U.S. >intelligence projections, interest in China as a potential rival to the United >States has soared. > >"In the blink of an eye, people have come to take very seriously the China >threat," said Andrew Hoehn, a senior vice president at Rand Corp. "They've >made very rapid progress." > >Most of Marshall's writings over the past four decades are classified. He >almost never speaks in public and even in private meetings is known for his >long stretches of silence. > >His influence grows largely out of his study budget, which in recent years has >floated between $13 million and $19 million and is frequently allocated to >think tanks, defense consultants and academics with close ties to his office. >More than half the money typically goes to six firms. > >Among the largest recipients is the Center for Strategic and Budgetary >Assessments, a defense think tank run by retired Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich, >the Harvard graduate who wrote the first papers for Marshall on the revolution >in military affairs. > >In the past 15 years, CSBA has run more than two dozen China war games for >Marshall's office and written dozens of studies. The think tank typically >collects about $2.75 million to $3 million a year, about 40 percent of its >annual revenue, from Marshall's office, according to Pentagon statistics and >CSBA's most recent financial filings. > >Krepinevich makes about $865,000 in salary and benefits, or almost double the >compensation paid out to the heads of other nonpartisan think tanks such as >the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Brookings >Institution. CSBA said its board sets executive compensation based on a review >of salaries at other organizations doing similar work. > >The war games run by CSBA are set 20 years in the future and cast China as a >hegemonic and aggressive enemy. Guided anti-ship missiles sink U.S. aircraft >carriers and other surface ships. Simultaneous Chinese strikes destroy >American air bases, making it impossible for the U.S. military to launch its >fighter jets. The outnumbered American force fights back with conventional >strikes on China's mainland, knocking out long-range precision missiles and >radar. > >"The fundamental problem is the same one that the Soviets identified 30 years >ago," Krepinevich said in an interview. "If you can see deep and shoot deep >with a high degree of accuracy, our large bases are not sanctuaries. They are >targets." > >Some critics doubt that China, which owns $1.6 trillion in U.S. debt and >depends heavily on the American economy, would strike U.S. forces out of the >blue. > >"It is absolutely fraudulent," said Jonathan D. Pollack, a senior fellow at >Brookings. "What is the imaginable context or scenario for this attack?" > >Other defense analysts warn that an assault on the Chinese mainland carries >potentially catastrophic risks and could quickly escalate to nuclear >armageddon. > >The war games elided these concerns. Instead they focused on how U.S. forces >would weather the initial Chinese missile salvo and attack. > >To survive, allied commanders dispersed their planes to austere airfields on >the Pacific islands of Tinian and Palau. They built bomb-resistant aircraft >shelters and brought in rapid runway repair kits to fix damaged airstrips. > >Stealthy bombers and quiet submarines waged a counterattack. The allied >approach became the basis for the Air-Sea Battle. > >Think tank's paper > >Although the Pentagon has struggled to talk publicly about Air-Sea Battle, >CSBA has not been similarly restrained. In 2010, it published a 125-page paper >outlining how the concept could be used to fight a war with China. > >The paper contains less detail than the classified Pentagon version. Shortly >after its publication, U.S. allies in Asia, frustrated by the Pentagon's >silence on the subject, began looking to CSBA for answers. > >"We started to get a parade of senior people, particularly from Japan, though >also Taiwan and to a lesser extent China, saying, 'So, this is what Air-Sea >Battle is,' " Krepinevich said this year at an event at another think tank. > >Soon, U.S. officials began to hear complaints. > >"The PLA went nuts," said a U.S. official who recently returned from Beijing. > >Told that Air-Sea Battle was not aimed at China, one PLA general replied that >the CSBA report mentioned the PLA 190 times, the official said. (The actual >count is closer to 400.) > >Inside the Pentagon, the Army and Marine Corps have mounted offensives against >the concept, which could lead to less spending on ground combat. > >An internal assessment, prepared for the Marine Corps commandant and obtained >by The Washington Post, warns that "an Air-Sea Battle-focused Navy and Air >Force would be preposterously expensive to build in peace time" and would >result in "incalculable human and economic destruction" if ever used in a >major war with China. > >The concept, however, aligns with Obama's broader effort to shift the U.S. >military's focus toward Asia and provides a framework for preserving some of >the Pentagon's most sophisticated weapons programs, many of which have strong >backing in Congress. > >Sens. <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/L000304>Joseph I. >Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ><http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/C001056>John Cornyn >(R-Tex.) inserted language into the 2012 Defense Authorization bill requiring >the Pentagon to issue a report this year detailing its plans for implementing >the concept. The legislation orders the Pentagon to explain what weapons >systems it will need to carry out Air-Sea Battle, its timeline for >implementing the concept and an estimate of the costs associated with it. > >Lieberman and Cornyn's staff turned to an unsurprising source when drafting >the questions. > >"We asked CSBA for help," one of the staffers said. "In a lot of ways, they >created it." > > >Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space >PO Box 652 >Brunswick, ME 04011 >(207) 443-9502 ><mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] >www.space4peace.org ><http://space4peace.blogspot.com/>http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog) > > >Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth. ~Henry >David Thoreau > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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