Pentagon Catfight Threatens Terror War
Keep an eye on Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Beijing this week. It's about more than America's relations with the Chinese. It also could prove to be a turning point in a battle within the Defense Department over the future of the U.S. military.
Thomas P.M. Barnett, in a dynamite story for this month's Esquire, explains...
The greatest threat to America's success in its war on terrorism sits inside the Pentagon. The proponents of Big War (that cold-war gift that keeps on giving), found overwhelmingly in the Air Force and Navy, will go to any length to demonize China in their quest to justify high-tech weaponry (space wars for the flyboys) and super- expensive platforms (submarines and ships for the admirals, and bomber jets for both) in the budget struggles triggered by our costly wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
With China cast as America's inevitable enemy in war, the Air Force and Navy will hold off the surging demands of the Army and Marines for their labor-intensive efforts in Southwest Asia, keeping a slew of established defense contractors ecstatic in the process. How much money are we talking about? Adding up various reports of the Government Accountability Office, we're talking about $1.3 trillion that the Pentagon is locked into spending on close to a hundred major programs. So if China can't be sold to Congress and the American people as the next Red menace, then we're looking at a lot of expensive military systems being cut in favor of giving our troops on the ground the simple and relatively cheap gear they so desperately need not only to stay alive but also to win these ongoing conflicts.
You'd think the great search for the replacement for the Soviet threat would have finally ended after 9/11, but sadly that's not the case. Too many profits on the line. Army generals are fed up with being told that the global war on terrorism is the Pentagon's number-one priority, because if it were, they and their Marine Corps brethren would be getting a bigger slice of the pie instead of so much being set aside for some distant, abstract threat. It's bodies versus bucks, folks, and that's a presidential call if ever there was one. So it's time for George W. Bush to make up his mind whether or not he's committed to transforming the Middle East and spreading liberty to those Third World hellholes where terrorists now breed in abundance. If he is, the president will put an end to this rising tide of Pentagon propaganda on the Chinese "threat" and tell Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in no uncertain terms that our trigger pullers on the ground today deserve everything they need to conduct the counterinsurgency operations and nation building that will secure America's lasting victory in his self-declared global war on terrorism. If not, then Bush should just admit that the defense-industrial complex—or maybe just Dick Cheney—is in charge of determining who America's "real enemies" are.
Obviously, Barnett is simplifying a bit, for the sake of magazine brevity -- there are plenty of "Big War" types with major jobs in the Army, for example. (How else do you explain all that cash for hulking projects like Future Combat Systems?) And I have hard time believing China's leaders are as benevolent as Barnett makes them out to be. But the story is mostly dead-on. Unfortunately, it's also subscription-only, so it may be a bit hard to get online. But it's worth the few bucks for the read.
(Big ups: Victor)
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Considering Tom Barnett is an "expert" who never served a single day in the REAL military, since his main job has been as a fruit cake futurist who got way too much power in Bill Clinton's DoD, Naval War College etc, why anyone in their right mind wants to take his "theories" seriously is beyond me. The whole idea that the United States must bring "democracy" and KFC franchises to the Middle East or ANYWHERE for that matter, thereby bringing "peace" to the world is crazy. In the process, the idea is to do what even Jesus Christ and all His followers for 2000 years have had trouble accomplishing, to remake human nature, culture, history by use of force followed up by multiple bureaucrats is ----nuts. I put Barnett's goofy notions up there with Miss America contestants who want to work for "world peace." Barnetts to do list includes 25 countries the US is supposed to drag kicking and screaming into the "modern" world; bringing democracy and capitalism and MTV I suppose. IF they behave we won't pound on them and we keep giving them money. In the proces they get a horde of bureaucrats from various agencies to remake their systems and cultures. Well, good LUCK Pancho. That has been tried before with almost ZIP success. Some who tried it called their theory, National Socialism OR Soviet style remake of the proletariat. In the END culture, tradition, tribes, religion win out. The examples are too numerous to count. The ONLY areas where some form of democracy or constitutional government has taken root is in nations that had an industrial or cohesive homogenous non tribal system going for it - like the Japanese following WWII for instance.
Meanwhile, China is a civilization that is 5000 years old. When Barnetts ancestors were eating dirt the Chinese were making gun powder and porcelain. China has always considered itself a hegemon - that is the big dog on the block and it will continue to do so. Barnett is a nit to think capitalism is going to remake the Chinese character. NO rather the Chinese will use some form of capitalism to remake itself into the new 21st century hegemon - take it to the bank. It also considers that warefare is conducted on many fronts, including the economic. China has been a trading society on and off for thousands of years. THAT didn't make them democratic nor capitalistic,nor FREE. Trade and commerce simply made them a major power player in various eras of human history - at least in their part of the world.
As it is there have been approximately 51 instances of attempted nation building by Britain and the United Overall, the results indicate that military intervention succeeded in leaving behind democracies in 14 cases—27 percent of the time. The conclusion, then, is that nation building by force is generally unsuccessful. A president who went around the world invading countries to make them democratic would fail most of the time. One group of countries that seem especially resistant to democracy-building efforts are the Arab lands. There have been are nine interventions in Arab countries in the past century. In no case did stable democracy follow the military occupation.
According to political scientist James Payne who had studied warfare and nation building:'A History of Force: Exploring the Worldwide Movement Against Habits of Coercion, Bloodshed, and Mayhem' --- Nation building by military force is not a coherent, defensible policy. It is based on no theory, it has no proven technique or methodology, and there are no experts who know how to do it. The record shows that it usually fails, and even when it appears to succeed, the positive result owes more to historical evolution and local political culture than anything nation builders might have done.
In other words, democracies or something close, arises when the preconditions are there. In America, we had an evolving history of ideas about freedom, rule of law, tinged with JudeoChristian attitudes about the individual, the relationship between the individual and the state, the use and misuse of power, etc. The preconditions for "democracy" or anything even resembling it don't exist particularly in Arab cultures. Unless the West is going to try genocide peace and democracy and KFC will arrive in its own sweet time when the society or culture is ready for it and not a minute before. It is simply insane to think some flakes theory about the "core" and the 'gap" and eternal warfare for democracy is going to change people who don't want to change.
When you combine Barnett's doofuss theories of beating up "gap" nations and bringing them into the "core" thereby bringing peace and prosperity to all mankind, you are getting into the realm of utopian futurism, the Third Way, communitarianism with an big gun, and its all mindless baloney. Lump it into the same mindset that gave us Robert Strange McNamara, LBJ, and all the other morons who think "peace" or freedom can be forced on people who don't want it. Peace is not going to be forced on primitive societies or cultures that are 1200 years behind the times. Particularly not through some goofy notion that you conquer and then send in the bureaucrats to administer. Been tried before, it has been called by many names including colonialism, communism, or nazism, invariably the societies or cultures revert to type.
So unless, guys like Barnett, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Feith, Perle, et al become so puffed up with their own arrogance and hubris - Miss America has a better chance of bringing 'world peace' to the planet than these dudes. Eventually they will find themselves lumped with 'strategists" like McNamara, or the annointed "experts" at various policy outfits or think tanks, to a man and woman -- unrealistic blowhards, whose theories don't hold water. BUT these are the SAME people who NEVER never have to take the heat when they lame brained ideas result in multiple deaths of men who are better than they are. Men who will die in wars for reasons that have little to do with what is best or necessary for this nation. When Barnett puts on a uniform rather than just talks about military or strategic policies, when he has actually served in a combat zone other than a week hiding behind some General's cammie trousers, THEN maybe he would deserve being listened to. Until then, he is just another Dr. Strangelove, playing board games with some mother's son.
Posted by: curlyphoenix at October 21, 2005 01:57 AM