Posts from the “Defense” Category

The Deep State and American Democracy

Posted on June 22, 2014

When I first visited The University of California in October 1963, the most talked about book on the Berkeley campus was “The Invisible Government” by David Wise. At the time, I was reminded of President Eisenhower’s warning in January 1961, a few days before John Kennedy’s inauguration, on the dangers of the power of military industrial complex’s pervasive influence throughout America’s town halls and cities and the danger it entailed to the future of American democracy.
Over the decades, discussion about American corporate and financial power in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government has permeated in newspaper and media outlets.

the invisible government

When I was teaching at Columbia University in New York, in 1986-87, the late John Bresnan, head of The Ford Foundation Jakarta Office 1969-74, lamented to me that most young men were more interested in making money in Wall Street than pursuing an academic career. This was the period when the Michael Douglas movie “Wall Street” captured the imagine of middle class Americans who wanted to make US 200.000 a year.

Fast foward to 2014. The military industrial complex has over the past 15 years transformed itself into the Military, Industrial and Financial Complex, which was initially Eisenhower’s choice of words in 1961.

America has turned into one of the industrialed world’s most unequal societies with more billionaires and millionares than parallel advanced countries in Western Europe and North America. Business and popular media continue to publish various surveys depicting the widening gap between financial and banking billionares on the one hand and the stagnating middle class on the other. The “too big to fail” American banking crises of 2007-2009 became a wake up call.

More than ever there has become awareness of the dangers of what John Le Carre, the spy novelist has termed The Deep State behind Britain’s commanding heights of London’s grip over industrial, industrial and banking industries and the cultural and social elite hold over them.

The power of the American deep state pervades over the national security agencies, the Pentagon, the CIA , Homeland Security, the State Department, the Treasury Department and Wall Street lawyers and lobbists. The seamless web of national security and many banking and finance committees in the US Congress have raised concern among right and left wing members such as Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Elizabeth Warren warned of the imperative to rein in the overwhelming power of money and business affecting the quality of American democracy.

Elected members of the House, the Senate and the Judiciary–may yet assert themselves to make American democracy really work for the struggling working class, not just for othe wine and cheesupper leisure class. President Obama has often talked about the dangers of rising inequality in America. But so far he has not commented directly about the dangers of America imperiled by the shadow government lurking behind of the town halls and cities throughout America that Eisenhower warned about.

Categories: Defense

Japan Asserts its East Asia Security Role

Posted on August 6, 2012

Overshadowed by the US-China rivalry over Asia-Pacific security primacy, Japan over the past few years has begun to quietly but firmly assert its security role in East Asia and the Pacific.

Its long-standing alliance with the United States and linkages to the US-Korea and the US-Taiwan security treaties network has given rise to its renewed security presence in East Asia, particularly given the uncertainty over reports regarding possible implications of the ongoing Chinese civilian and military elite relations over the role of the military in relation to politics and party leadership.

Japan’s recently published annual Defense White Paper cites “the worrying influence of the Chinese military in foreign policy issues over the disputed islands in the East China Sea” and “the need to reaffirm the presence of US forces stationed in Japan” against “regional contingencies” and “to bring a sense of security” to countries in the region.

The publication of the paper has received strong criticism from neighbors China and South Korea. While China has attacked the white paper for its gross “distortions”, jeopardizing Tokyo-Beijing relations and heightened tensions in the region, South Korea has issued an official reprimand, particularly regarding Japan’s reiterated claim to the Takeshima Islands, which are also claimed by Seoul under the name Dokdo.

The Japan-China dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has given rise to a perceptible nationalist surge in Japan, even as the Chinese military attempt to project its influence within the Chinese Party hierarchy, months before the expected leadership change within the Chinese Communist Party. Tensions are reported to be running high ahead of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, with the Chinese military’s desire to control the state’s military policy before the October 2012 congress — a forum held once in a decade to decide on party leadership change
at the top.

Meanwhile, Chinese defense ministry officials have tried to assure its domestic and foreign policy constituents that “protecting national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests will be closely coordinated with other departments in conscientiously discharging our responsibilities”.

In recognition that the civilian–military tussle has led to confusion among civilian and military leaders in Beijing, among command-level operational units in the PLA Navy and associated fisheries, as well as para-military forces in East China and South China Seas, the Japanese defense forces have been placed on high, though subdued alert.

Uncertainties regarding East Asia multilateral security policies is compounded by criticism in the United States that the “Asia pivot”, announced by the Obama administration in November 2011, has not resulted in a tangible manifestation that “60 percent of American forces will be deployed to the Asia-Pacific region”.

Several US congressmen and US think-thank analysts have pointed to the continued American deployment to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. All this is in conjunction with uncertainty as to how the retrenchment of the US$450 billion US defense budget over the next 10 years will affect the “rebalancing” of US forces to the Asia-Pacific region, including the US-Japan alliance
system.

Preparing for these uncertainties has added urgency for the Japanese defense forces to quietly but firmly raise its profile in its relations with both US and Chinese forces, which have for so long overshadowed Japan’s security profile in East Asia.

Categories: Defense, International

Redefining the World’s Global Commons

Posted on April 3, 2012

With 5 percent of the world’s population and still producing 25 percent of the world’s GDP, the US continues to dominate international standards in politics, diplomacy, economics, trade, finance and communications.

Even with the current burden of its deficits from the 2007-2008 financial crises, the US’ defense budget of US$650 billion remains greater than the combined defense budgets of Russia, China, India, Japan, Britain, France and seven advanced countries in Europe. Control of the global commons remains in the US’ strong hands.

Defense of the global commons has two dimensions: a strategic-military dimension; including cyberspace, nuclear, sea and air conventional forces and undersea capabilities, and the natural-environmental dimension; including water, natural resources, Arctic regions and climate change.

Like other dominant powers throughout history, the US has sought to prevail over management of the global commons within the context of its national interest, hence the scope and size of the US defense budget.

In 1992, Washington spent more than $450 billion on 700 American bases in North America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, surpassing the defense expenditures of the next 12 major powers combined. From the Arctic to Northern Europe to the tropical waters of Oceania, the sun never set on the backs of American GIs.

Twenty years later, the United States is spending $650 billion to sustain America’s global leadership over the next decade, even as it phases out $450 billion in spending over the next 10 years.

Part of the reduction is related to addressing US deficits after more than 15 years benefitting from loans extended by Europe, China, Japan and South Korea. All of these countries enjoy the privileges of America’s security assurances. China implicitly acknowledges the need for the US’s “stabilizing presence” – despite its occasional defiant rhetoric and statements of its national interest in the Taiwan Strait, the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait.

The rise of East Asian economies has led Washington into tricky negotiations and to forge new implicit understandings about the cost structure of safeguarding the regional commons regarding international trade, investments flows and political pre-eminence in East and Southeast Asia.

Both regions are subject to the area of responsibility of the US Pacific Command, whose essential role in cyberspace and nuclear and undersea capability remains both intact and unchallenged. The phased reduction of US defense expenditures may reduce America’s near hegemony, but credible alternatives to Russian, Chinese or Indian “spheres of influence” have yet to materialize.

While China enjoys a comprehesive strategic relationship with the US, China is well aware that its investments across the world are secured by US military forces. While US soldiers and marines secure Iraq and Afghanistan, Chinese oil and mineral companies have gained rights in Iraq’s northern region and to mine copper in Afghanistan. China’s access to Brazil’s “Chinamax” superport has guaranteed an adequate supply of iron ore for China’s burgeoning steel industry — yet it is the US Navy’s omnipresent 11 carrier strike groups worldwide that ensure China’s access to oil and strategic materials from Africa and that its worldwide exports to emerging economies are delivered on time.

While it takes two to three weeks for Chinese oil tankers to reach their ports from the Persian Gulf, it is US naval strike groups in the Indian and Pacific Ocean that secure strategic military commons. China may be keen to present the renminbi as alternative currency to the US dollar and the euro, but the risk of imported inflation by loosening its peg to the dollar will force China to consider the security costs of abruptly challenging America’s military primacy. In addition, America’s dominance in cyberspace security over international finance and banking transactions across Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul and Southeast Asian countries faces no serious challenge.

In the long run, US management of the strategic-military and the environmental commons will have to be rebalanced with the assistance of China, Russia, India, Japan and other growing economies and markets in East and Southeast Asia. For the moment, however, the terms for a more distributive control of the global commons will have to be patiently negotiated not only by the defense, finance, trade and environmental ministries but also by the chambers of commerces across the world.

Categories: Defense, International