If we think global warming and other natural calamities are a threat to our security there is one that goes virtually unmentioned, is omnipresent, is transnational, and that is spreading like a metastasizing cancer under our very noses and the indifference to this threat is stunning. It is the pestilence of American militarism.
While the American homeland is in crisis, starved for real leadership, financial and political accountability, suffering dysfunctional government and a critical need to save its middle class from utter impoverishment the military industrial complex goes happily on its way squandering the nation’s wealth and good name on inflated and phony wars.
If the consequences of such grotesquely misplaced priorities were limited to the borders of the US there would be less urgency; but because of America’s hegemonic power and its foreign policy its addiction to militarism infects countries around the globe. It is not a national issue of importance only to Americans but an international issue affecting all. Not content to spend as much on “national security” as all other countries combined it coerces other countries, specifically its allies and acolytes, to spend inordinate amounts on unjustified military spending and enlists their forces to fight in America’s phony wars against enemies of vastly inflated capabilities.
In the present turmoil it leads one to shudder at the prospect of a very real threat from a very real enemy with very real capabilities emerging. Would Western civilization at the prospect of real bombs arriving in anything other than men’s underwear go into a dead faint? Fortress North America is suffering an acute loss of perspective as we buy into the “culture of fear,” like sheep led to their shearing. The threat is not so much external as internal. We have become our own worst enemies as we turn our democracies inside out in response to exaggerated and concocted threats and suffer our chronic comatose complacence.
The US is also the world’s biggest arms dealer. All too often its foreign aid/bribes go to smaller countries(like Pakistan) on the condition the money is used to buy US armaments(most often F-16 fighters) and, as in the case of Pakistan, weapons used against its own population. Most recently Washington has shipped off 6.4 billion dollars worth of armaments to Taiwan-what better way to provoke Cold War II with China.
This aberrant addiction to militarism did not come about by chance but by ill-chosen policy dating back to the 1950s and has persisted since. The history of the policy is well documented in Andrew J. Bacevich’s compelling book The Limits of Power- The End of American Exceptionalism, The origin of the policy is traced to NSC (National Security Council) memorandum 68. It was written in response to the USSR exploding its first nuclear device. The memorandum was an hysterical overreaction as at the time the US was the pre-eminent world power both militarily and industrially. "The issue that faces us is momentous," the document stated, "involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself." The brazen assumption that the USSR was bent on global domination was made. NSC 68 then evolved into the Nitze Doctrine for US global military domination, and the arms race and the Cold War were on.
As Bacevich observes:
In effect, the “Nitze Doctrine” offered a recipe for the permanent militarization of US policy.
Even though the Soviet Union has long since ceased to exist this militarization remains permanent and is more rampant than ever. In the absence of real threats, pseudo-threats and manufactured enemies are created to justify this militarist megalomania and to serve ruinous imperial ambitions.
Bacevich succinctly summarizes the enduring effect of the Nitze Doctrine:
In the years since its promulgation the Nitze Doctrine has become a model to which the national security elite have repeatedly turned . Even today, the methods pioneered by Nitze in 1950 retain value. He demonstrated the value of demonizing America’s adversaries, thereby transforming trivial concerns in to serious threats and serious threats into existential ones. He devised the technique of artfully designing “options” to yield precooked conclusions, thereby allowing the analyst to become the de facto decision maker. He showed how easily American ideals could be employed to camouflage American ambitions, with terms like “peace” and “freedom” becoming code words for expansionism. Above all, however, Nitze demonstrated the inestimable value of sowing panic as a means of driving the policy making process. When it came to removing obstacles and loosening purse strings, the Nitze doctrine worked wonders.
He also comments on how proponents of the Nitze Doctrine cried wolf over the “bomber gap” and the “missile gap,” claiming the USSR was ahead in both bomber and missile development. But as he concludes:
In each and every case the proponents of the Nitze Doctrine garbled the facts and magnified the danger.
This conclusion was further verified at the end of the Cold War as it was revealed the US was well ahead of the USSR in both quantity and quality of arms.
In reference to the Bush II administration Bacevich states:
George W.Bush’s lieutenants did not invent “fixing” the facts around a particular policy. They merely elevated to new heights of audacity a technique that has played a central role in the politics of national security over the past sixty years.
Bacevich writes as a patriot alarmed at the direction his country has taken. Retired from the US military as a Colonel after 22 years service he writes with the bluntness of a drill sergeant and the authority of an erudite academic- which he is, teaching at Boston University. The book is laced with quotes from the writings of the eminent American theologian Rheinhold Niebuhr, known for his penetrating insights into human and social behaviors. He draws on Neibuhr when he states:
Clinging doggedly to the conviction that the rules to which other nations must submit don’t apply, Americans appear determined to affirm Neibuhr’s axiom of willful self destruction.
Bacevich is among a chorus of writers, from Noam Chomsky , to Chalmers Johnson, to Chris Hedges, and so many others who have addressed the perilous course successive America leaders have taken the country. Yet, the issues they raise so eloquently, based on sound research and powerful insight remain on the margins. “The chorus” has made its case but it seems there is no dent to be made in the intransigent and utterly corrupted status quo. Issues that should be generally debated are absent without leave. This speaks to the depth of the crisis, a well developed capacity for delusional behaviors and a pernicious political illiteracy that stalks our times. No less despicable is the willingness of political leadership to promiscuously abdicate the powers and trust invested there in.
The crisis is not exclusive to America. As Bacevich feels an urgent need for America to put its house in order, this also requires the assistance of its neighbors as too many countries have allowed themselves to become complicit.
Where NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was formed to defend Western Europe against possible aggression from the USSR during the Cold War it has now become an instrument of US foreign policy and entirely compliant in fighting for America’s insatiable “national security.” America’s NATO allies in their unquestioning compliance to US demands have become part of the problem; their complicity only making a bad situation worse.
So too, is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair part of the problem. As he appears before the Chilcot Inquiry vainly defending his despicable actions leading up to the Iraq war he not only betrays his personal liability but also speaks to the denialism, wanton militarism, fiscal irresponsibility ( especially pertaining to unwarranted military expenditures), disregard of international law and growing democratic deficits in too many Western democracies.
Blair had the ear of George Bush and could have been instrumental in steering Bush and his cronies away from a completely unnecessary and immoral war. He serves as the most explicit example of too many leaders unwilling to stand up to America’s bully boy imperialism. Instead of being the helpful friend,- a critical devil’s advocate- he assumed the role of the kowtowing courtesan. Blair’s “Churchillian moment” becomes a slur on history and a national disgrace.
Taiwan may feel more secure having acquired more American arms, but it is a false security. These arms arrive with a hidden price tag in the form of future obligations. Taiwan only has to look to Pakistan to see what these obligations might be; namely as surrogate for US imperialist machinations. Taiwan thus becomes a pawn, like Pakistan, potentially sacrificial, in US and China power plays.
While America is practicing a global military imperialism China is pursuing a spectacular global economic imperialism. Ironically, America’s militarism is being financed indirectly by China buying up America’s debt. Where China and other countries are ascendant economically the US is a failed industrial state, having devolved from a production economy to a consumption economy. If the US, as the world’s singular superpower, refuses to accept a diminished role in a multi-polar world the potential for conflict is daunting, especially with China. We jump back sixty years and Cold War II is upon us. If US belligerence goes unchecked there could very well be a conflict between the US and China that will put the present inept tin pot conflicts in their proper perspective.
As long as America’s militarist addiction prevails there will be endless warfare to serve its imperial ambition of “full spectrum dominance.” It becomes a necessity to justify the presence of this monstrous military redundancy. Indeed, if there were no wars initiated or provoked by the US, people might start asking why are we enslaved to this trillion dollar baby; this military perversity that sucks countries dry, that kills in tens of thousands, that commits war crimes, defies international law, and saps resources better spent elsewhere.
The travesty is theirs, and ours.
Robert Billyard 2010 ©
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