November 2000

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

The Age of US Hegemony

Joseph Gerson is an AFSC Program Director in New England. The following article is based on recent talks he has given in Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Stockholm. They can be found at www.afsc.org/pes.htm

Several years ago Zbigniew Brzezinski, director of the Trilateral Commission and former National Security Advisor, wrote an extraordinarily frank book describing how the US global "empire" works. A few lines set the tone: "(T)he scope and persuasiveness of American global power are unique. Not only does the United States control all of the world's oceans and seas...Its military legions are firmly perched on the western and eastern extremities of Eurasia, and they also control the Persian Gulf. American vassals and tributaries...dot the entire Eurasian continent" (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, New York: 1997).

Brzezinski's book embarrassed many mandarins of power, who quickly denounced it. But his influence and reflection of official thinking are undeniable. The Joint Chiefs' most recent long-term doctrine ("Joint Vision 2020") has a chilling bottom line: The US military must be a "joint force capable of full spectrum dominance."

Korean police protect US Kunsan Base against 20 Korean and international peace scholars. Photo: Joseph Gerson

Furthermore, as The Washington Post reported, "[r]ather than explicitly pointing at China," the new doctrine "simply [warns] of the possible rise of an unidentified ëpeer competitor'--the Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition." Two factors explain this focus. First is the possibility that diplomacy will lead to peace in Korea. Second is fear of the "rise of a hostile relationship with China"--which is to say, the continuing US commitment to "contain" China. As The Post noted, many US policy makers "expect China to emerge sooner or later as a great power with significant influence over the rest of Asia."

Implementation of the Asia/Pacific-oriented doctrine is well advanced. As The Post reported, most major Navy, Air Force, and Marine war games are now conducted along an arc from Korea to the Persian Gulf, with two-thirds of advanced US war games taking place, at least in part, in Asia.

New basing agreements and alliances are being negotiated throughout the region. Washington used the Asian economic crisis and exaggerated fears of China to return US forces to the Philippines, and US military presence and cooperation with Australia are increasing. Singapore is now a functional US ally, joining US military exercises and preparing to host nuclear-capable US aircraft carriers. Vietnam is being wooed to help encircle China. And the recent exchange of visits between President Clinton and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee was designed to deepen the implicit US-Indian alliance against China.

The strategic shift is backed by bipartisan support in Washington for increased military spending on Asia; much of it is focused on controlling sea lanes through which flow the trade of the "Asian economic miracle." With Indonesia in danger of fragmenting, the US Navy is preparing to reassert control over the Malacca Strait, which is the most vulnerable choke point for the Persian Gulf oil fueling the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese economies. This should be understood in the context of what Noam Chomsky calls "Axiom Number One" of US foreign policy: Neither US enemies nor allies should gain independent access to Middle East oil.

Elsewhere, the US's bombing of Yugoslavia and its bankrolling of forces that overthrew Milosevic were part of a larger US European project. As the New York Times conceded, without Milosevic "the last major obstacle to a Europe of... market economies from the Atlantic to the Urals would disappear." Historian and strategic analyst Robert D. Kaplan, the morning after Milosevic's ouster, called it "a direct result of the expansion of American imperial authority in Europe.... It will be the job of the next administration to expand NATO to the Black Sea and prevent the Balkans from permanently rejoining the Middle East."

The Nuclear Dimension

In the nuclear age, the "joint force capable of full spectrum dominance" includes a potent nuclear arsenal. The Clinton Administration has reiterated that preparations for nuclear war remain "a cornerstone of our policy," has threatened to initiate nuclear war at least four times, and devotes billions to the research, testing, and development of nuclear weapons.

With NATO allies, China, and Russia all warning of the dangers of National Missile Defense (NMD) deployments, and with the weapons system's public test failures, Clinton has simply handed the final decision to his successor. The debate will resume, on a number of levels, after our next president's inauguration.

One driving force is domestic politics. No serious US scientist or military planner believes a functioning NMD system can be deployed by the 2005 target date, but politicians have learned that promising a missile shield wins votes. The government that has most frequently threatened nuclear war now mobilizes popular support for its military programs by raising the specter of North Korean, Iraqi, and Iranian nuclear attack. These are poor nations which even the CIA concedes pose no immediate threat to US security. China, Russia, and ultimately US allies like Japan are the real targets of this shield designed to enhance the US first-strike sword. NMD is the "thin edge of the wedge" for US weaponization of space. Star Wars spending creates the technology for eventual deployment of high-tech weapons in space, while the star wars "debate" creates its "intellectual" and political foundations. Meanwhile, with R&D contracts for Star Wars distributed to Congressional districts nationwide, the Pentagon has bought itself a potent political constituency.

Whose Security?

Within the US peace movement there is confusion about the purposes of the military in an era of economic globalization and US hegemony. Some ask why the US military continues to serve as the global policeman, if transnational capital has supplanted US-based capital. Why make the world safe for non-US businesses like Toyota, Deutsche Bank, and Panasonic?

A century ago, Washington began its "Open Door" diplomacy, confident that in a "free trade" environment, the scale, power, and vitality of US industrial and financial capital--backed by military might--would overwhelm its competitors. The same applies today. The G8-Transnational Corporation-IMF-WTO system includes Japanese, German, British, Italian, and even Chinese elites, but it remains dominated by US elites. As Secretary of War Cohen told the Fortune 500 CEOs: "Business follows the flag."

Tom Friedman of the New York Times put it succinctly: "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the US Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the US Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps."

This is not the place to rehearse the range of life-affirming responses available to us. Suffice it to say that because people will not long tolerate unjust and violent hierarchies of power, resistance is inevitable. Such resistance fuels Okinawan and Puerto Rican anti-base movements, Serbian and Palestinian freedom movements, nuclear disarmament initiatives of the New Agenda Coalition, Japanese peace activists who have secured 60 million Japanese signatures on the "Appeal from Hiroshima and Nagasaki," and economic justice activists--from the Latin American maquiladora workers to protesters in the streets of Seattle and Bangkok.

US Americans don't always have to lead. We can act in solidarity with others. Action and organizing encourage others to take initiative. Energy breeds energy and hope. We need more cross-generational, as well as cross-race and -class, activities. We need to learn from one another and build the unity that is the ultimate source of people's power.

Sources available on request.

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