[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing

[Karen Aram]

Mort
 
I haven't yet had a chance to read McCoy's article, but given my respect for his research and book published in 1972 "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia", I certainly will read it as soon as I have a chance. 
 
I suggest Mike Whitney's brief article in Counterpunch, please see below, as a more convincing, less detailed piece, which I will be discussing on today's AOTA. 
 
June 08, 2015  Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on google More Sharing Services 60 

 

 The Skirmish in the SpratlysBeating Uncle Sam at His Own Gameby MIKE WHITNEY¡°Washington is not looking for peace or war. They¡¯re looking for domination. If they can achieve domination peacefully ¨C that¡¯s fine. If they can¡¯t, they¡¯ll use war. It¡¯s that simple.¡±
¡ª William Blum, Interview with Russia Today
¡°The U.S. is frantically surrounding China with military weapons, advanced aircraft, naval fleets and a multitude of military bases from Japan, South Korea and the Philippines through several nearby smaller Pacific islands to its new and enlarged base in Australia¡­. The U.S. naval fleet, aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines patrol China¡¯s nearby waters. Warplanes, surveillance planes, drones and spying satellites cover the skies, creating a symbolic darkness at noon.¡±
¡ª Jack A. Smith, ¡°Hegemony Games: USA vs. PRC¡±, CounterPunch
The vast build up of military assets in the Asia-Pacific signals a fundamental change in U.S. policy towards China. Washington no longer believes that China can be integrated into the existing US-led system. Recent actions taken by China¨C particularly the announcement that it planned to launch an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that would compete head-to-head with the World Bank and IMF¡ª have set off alarms in the Capital where behind-the-scenes powerbrokers and think tank pundits agree that a more ¡°robust¡± policy is needed to slow China¡¯s ascendency. The current confrontation in the South China Sea¨Cwhere the US has demanded that China immediately cease all land reclamation activities¨Cindicates that the new policy has already been activated increasing the prospects of a conflagration between the two nuclear-armed adversaries.
There¡¯s no need to go over the details of China¡¯s land reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands since reasonable people can agree that Washington has no real interest in a few piles of sand heaped up on reefs 10,000 miles from the United States. The man-made islands pose no threat to US national security or to freedom of navigation. The Obama administration is merely using the Spratlys as a pretext to provoke, intimidate and harass Beijing. The Spratly¡¯s provide a justification for escalation, for building an anti-China coalition among US allies in the region, for demonizing China in the media, for taking steps to disrupt China¡¯s ambitious Silk Roads economic strategy, and for encircling China to the West with US warships that threaten China¡¯s access to critical shipping lanes and vital energy supplies. This is the ultimate objective; to bring China to its knees and to force it to comply with Washington¡¯s diktats. This is what Washington really wants.
In a recent speech at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that ¡°there is no military solution to the South China Sea disputes.¡± Just moments later, and without a trace of irony, Carter rattled off a long list of military assets the Pentagon plans to deploy to the Asia-Pacific to shore up US offensive capability. The list includes ¡°the latest Virginia-class [nuclear] submarines, the Navy¡¯s P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft, the newest stealth destroyer, the Zumwalt, and brand-new carrier-based E-2D Hawkeye early-warning-and-control aircraft.¡± The Pentagon is also going to add ¡°new unmanned systems for the air and sea, a new long-range bomber, (an) electromagnetic railgun, lasers, and new systems for space and cyberspace, including a few surprising ones.¡±
For someone who doesn¡¯t believe in a military solution, Carter is certainly adding a lot of lethal hardware to his arsenal. The question is: Why? Is Washington preparing for war?
Probably not. The United States does not want a war with China. What Washington wants is to be the dominant player in this century¡¯s most promising and prosperous market, Asia. But China¡¯s meteoric growth has put Washington¡¯s plan at risk, which is why Obama is wheeling out the heavy artillery. The anti-China coalition, the China-excluding trade agreements (TPP) and the unprecedented military build up are all aimed at preserving Washington¡¯s dominant role without actually starting a war. The administration thinks that the show of force alone will precipitate a change in behavior. They think China will back down rather than face the awesome military power of the American empire. But will it? Here¡¯s another clip from Carter¡¯s speech at Shangri La:
The United States will continue to protect freedom of navigation and overflight ¨C principles that have ensured security and prosperity in this region for decades. There should be no mistake: the United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as U.S. forces do all around the world.
America, alongside its allies and partners in the regional architecture, will not be deterred from exercising these rights ¨C the rights of all nations. After all, turning an underwater rock into an airfield simply does not afford the rights of sovereignty or permit restrictions on international air or maritime transit.
Who is Carter kidding? China poses no threat to freedom of navigation or overflight. The real threat is China¡¯s participation in the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank which is set to finance some of the ¡°largest projects of the modern history (including) the construction of new Eurasian infrastructure from Moscow to Vladivostok, in South China and India.¡± The so called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) ¡°represent 56% of world economic output, and account for 85% of world population. They control about 70% of the world¡¯s foreign exchange reserves. They grow annually by an average of 4% ¡ª5%.¡± (Sputnik News) In other words, US-backed institutions are going to lose their exalted role as ¡°underwriter for the global economy¡± because the world¡¯s biggest infrastructure projects are going to be funded by China and its allies. Naturally, this doesn¡¯t sit well with Washington where policy bigwigs are worried that US influence will gradually erode as global power inevitably shifts eastward.
US hegemony is also threatened by China¡¯s Sino-centric economic policy which author Robert Berke sums up in an article on Oil Price.com titled ¡°New Silk Road Could Change Global Economics Forever¡±. Here¡¯s an excerpt from the article:
China is building the world¡¯s greatest economic development and construction project ever undertaken: The New Silk Road. The project aims at no less than a revolutionary change in the economic map of the world¡­The ambitious vision is to resurrect the ancient Silk Road as a modern transit, trade, and economic corridor that runs from Shanghai to Berlin. The ¡®Road¡¯ will traverse China, Mongolia, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Germany, extending more than 8,000 miles, creating an economic zone that extends over one third the circumference of the earth.
The plan envisions building high-speed railroads, roads and highways, energy transmission and distributions networks, and fiber optic networks. Cities and ports along the route will be targeted for economic development.
An equally essential part of the plan is a sea-based ¡°Maritime Silk Road¡± (MSR) component, as ambitious as its land-based project, linking China with the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea through Central Asia and the Indian Ocean. When completed, like the ancient Silk Road, it will connect three continents: Asia, Europe, and Africa. The chain of infrastructure projects will create the world¡¯s largest economic corridor, covering a population of 4.4 billion and an economic output of $21 trillion¡­
For the world at large, its decisions about the Road are nothing less than momentous. The massive project holds the potential for a new renaissance in commerce, industry, discovery, thought, invention, and culture that could well rival the original Silk Road. It is also becoming clearer by the day that geopolitical conflicts over the project could lead to a new cold war between East and West for dominance in Eurasia. The outcome is far from certain. (¡°New Silk Road Could Change Global Economics Forever¡±, Robert Berke, Oil Price)
China is perfectly situated to take advantage of Asia¡¯s explosive growth. They¡¯ve paid their dues, built up their infrastructure and industrial capability, and now they¡¯re in the catbird seat fully prepared to benefit from the fact that ¡°Half of humanity will live in Asia by 2050¡å and that ¡°more than half of the global middle class and its accompanying consumption will come from that region.¡± US corporations will be welcome to compete in these new markets, but they won¡¯t do nearly as well as businesses located in China. (This is why the Pentagon has been asked to intervene by powerful members of the corporate establishment.)
Washington¡¯s gambit in the Spratly¡¯s is an attempt to reverse the tide, derail China¡¯s current trajectory and insert the US as the regional kingpin who writes the rules and picks the winners. As Sec-Def Carter said in an earlier speech at the McCain Institute in Arizona, ¡°There are already more than 525 million middle class consumers in Asia, and there will be 3.2 billion in the region by 2030.¡± US corporations want the lion¡¯s-share of those customers so they can peddle their widgets, goose their stock prices and pump up their quarterly profits. Carter¡¯s job is to help them achieve that objective.
Another threat to US global rule is the aforementioned Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). The danger of the AIIB is not simply that it will fund many of the infrastructure projects that will be needed to integrate Europe, Asia and Africa into one giant free trade zone, but that the bank will replace key US-backed financial institutions (The IMF and World Bank) which have helped maintain Washington¡¯s iron-grip on the global system. As that grip progressively loosens, there will be less need for cross-border transactions to be carried out in US dollars which, in turn, will threaten the dollar¡¯s role as the world¡¯s reserve currency. As author Bart Gruzalski notes in his excellent article at Counterpunch, ¡°China and Russia are creating alternatives that threaten the dollar¡¯s status as the sole dominant international currency. By instituting trade alternatives to the dollar, they challenge the value of the dollar and so threaten the US economy.¡± (¡°An Economic Reason for the US vs. China Conflict¡±, Bart Gruzalski, CounterPunch)
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers offered a particularly bleak assessment of the AIIB flap in an editorial that appeared in April in the Washington Post. He said:
This past month may be remembered as the moment the United States lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system. True, there have been any number of periods of frustration for the United States before and multiple times when U.S. behavior was hardly multilateralist, such as the 1971 Nixon shock ending the convertibility of the dollar into gold. But I can think of no event since Bretton Woods comparable to the combination of China¡¯s effort to establish a major new institution and the failure of the United States to persuade dozens of its traditional allies, starting with Britain, to stay out. (Washington Post)
Summers goes on to acknowledge the threat that political dysfunction (on Capitol Hill) poses to ¡°the dollar¡¯s primary role in the international system¡±. It¡¯s clear that Summers grasps the gravity of what has unfolded and the challenge the AIIB poses to US hegemony. Readers should note that Summers ominous warnings were delivered just months before Washington dramatically revamped its China policy which suggests that the announcement of the AIIB was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back. Shortly after, the Obama administration made ¡°crucial changes¡± to the existing policy. Containment and integration were replaced with the current policy of intimidation, incitement and confrontation. Beijing was elevated to Public Enemy Number 1, America¡¯s primary strategic rival.
What happens next, should be fairly obvious to anyone who has followed US meddling in recent years. The US is now at war with China, which means that it will use all of its resources and capabilities, except it¡¯s military assets, to defeat the enemy. The United States will not militarily engage an enemy that can fight back or inflict pain on the US. That¡¯s the cardinal rule of US military policy. While that precludes a nuclear conflagration, it does not exclude a hyperbolic propaganda campaign demonizing China and its leaders in the media (Sadly, the comparisons to Hitler and the Kaiser have already started), asymmetrical attacks on Chinese markets and currency, excruciating economic sanctions, US-NGO funding for Chinese dissidents, foreign agents and fifth columnists, intrusions into China¡¯s territorial waters and airspace, strategic denial of critical energy supplies, (80 percent of China¡¯s oil supplies are delivered via the Malacca Strait to the South China Sea) and, finally, covert support for ¡°moderate¡± jihadis who are committed to toppling the Chinese government and replacing it with an Islamic Caliphate. All of these means and proxies will be employed to defeat Beijing, to derail its ambitious Silk Roads strategy, to curtail its explosive growth, and to sabotage its plan to be the preeminent power in Asia.
Washington has thrown down the gauntlet in the South China Sea. If Beijing wants to preserve its independence and surpass the US as the world¡¯s biggest economy, it¡¯s going to have to meet the challenge, prepare for a long struggle, and beat Uncle Sam at his own game.
It won¡¯t be easy, but it can be done.
MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney at msn.com.
 
To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 02:04:02 +0000
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Fwd: Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing  
From: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net






Interesting, if not quite convincing, thesis. Banking on China to slow the American imperial onslaught in the near future.



¡ªmkb









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June 7, 2015

Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing

It might have been the most influential single sentence of that era: ¡°In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm
 and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.¡±  And it originated in an 8,000 word telegram -- yes, in those days, unbelievably enough, there was no email, no Internet, no Snapchat, no Facebook -- sent back to Washington in February 1946 by

George F. Kennan, the U.S. charg¨¦ d¡¯affaires in Moscow, at a moment when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was just gaining traction.




The next year, a reworked version of Kennan¡¯s ¡°Long Telegram¡± with that sentence would be published as ¡°The Sources of Soviet Conduct¡±
 in the prestigious magazine Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym ¡°Mr. X¡± (though it was common knowledge in Washington who had written it). From that moment on, ¡°containment¡± of what, until the

Sino-Soviet split, was called the Soviet bloc, would be Washington¡¯s signature foreign and military policy of the era. The idea was to ring the Soviet Union and China with bases and then militarily, economically, and diplomatically hem in a gaggle of communist
 states from Hungary and Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe to North Korea on the Pacific and from Siberia south to the Central Asian SSRs of the Soviet Union. In other words, much of the Eurasian land mass.




And then, when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared from the face of the Earth in 1991, that was that. Along with the former Communist world, containment as policy was dispatched to the dustbin of history -- or was
 it? Strangely enough, as historian and 
TomDispatch regular Alfred McCoy points out today, if you look at Washington¡¯s military bases (which, if anything, were

expanded in the post-Soviet era), its conflicts, and the focus of its foreign policy, American attempts to ¡°contain¡± the heartlands of Eurasia, especially Russia and China, have never ended. Given the passage of almost a quarter of a century since the Cold
 War era, the map of those garrisons and the conflicts that go with them still looks eerily familiar.




And here¡¯s an even stranger thing, as McCoy again makes clear: the U.S. was not the first imperial power to put its energy into ¡°containing¡± Eurasia. In 1945, when World War II ended with Great Britain and its empire hollowed out and in a state of exhaustion,
 the U.S. inherited a no-name version of ¡°containment¡± policy from the British before Kennan even thought to use the term. It¡¯s odd to realize that ¡°containment¡± as imperial policy has a history that is now, in a sense, more than two centuries old. It¡¯s strange
 enough, in fact, that McCoy turns his attention to the subject to help make sense of the edgy U.S.-China relationship for the rest of this century.
Tom

The Geopolitics of American Global Decline


Washington Versus China in the Twenty-First Century


By 
Alfred W. McCoy

For even the greatest of empires, geography is often destiny. You wouldn¡¯t know it in Washington, though. America¡¯s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of
 world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, they have missed the significance of the rapid global changes in Eurasia that are in the process of undermining the grand strategy for world dominion that Washington has pursued these past seven decades.

Click here to read more of this dispatch.








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