Yesterday, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates issued a ‘National Defense Strategy’ document (PDF of the text here), that provides what Gates describes as in the Foreword as a “blueprint to succeed in the years to come.”
This blueprint is based very centrally on Donald Rumsfeld’s view of the US being engaged in a “Long War.”
Short version: Rejoice, ye defense contractors far and near! Your gravy train continues!
The nature of the “Long War” as spelled out on pages 7-9 of the 29-page document (pp.12-14 of the PDF). It relies totally on the administration’s currently favored (and operationally and ideologically quite empty) concept that our opponents can be categorized simply as “violent extremists.” Here’s how this “Long War:” section of the document starts:
- For the foreseeable future, winning the Long War against violent extremist movements will be the central objective of the U.S. We must defeat violent extremism as a threat to our way of life as a free and open society and foster an environment inhospitable to violent extremists and all those who support them. We face an extended series of campaigns to defeat violent extremist groups, presently led by al-Qaeda and its associates. [But possibly in the future led by others? Make no mistake, this “Long War” can be stretched out forever!] In concert with others, we seek to reduce support for violent extremism and encourage moderate voices, offering a positive alternative to the extremists’ vision for the future. Victory requires us to apply all elements of national power in partnership with old allies and new partners. Iraq and Afghanistan remain the central fronts in the struggle, but we cannot lose sight of the implications of fighting a long-term, episodic, multi-front, and multi-dimensional conflict [boy, with each of those sonorous adjectives I’m seeing dollar signs light up in the defense contractors’ eyes!] more complex and diverse than the Cold War confrontation with communism. Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is crucial to winning this conflict, but it alone will not bring victory. [More $$!] We face a clash of arms, a war of ideas, and an assistance effort that will require patience and innovation. In concert with our partners, we must maintain a long-term commitment to undermining and reducing the sources of support for extremist groups, and to countering the ideological totalitarian messages they build upon.
We face a global struggle…
Well, I wish I had the time to do one of my tabulated annotations on the whole of this text. But alas, I don’t.
Noteworthy in Gates’s description of the LW, however, are the following features:
1. He nowhere claims that this LW is explicitly one to be waged against Islamist extremists. This is excellent. Likewise, though he likens the LW to the US’s earlier global campaigns against fascism and communism and refers to the”totalitarian ideological message of terrorist groups,” nowhere does he use the terrible, hate-propagating term “Islamofascism.” In general, his refusal to name the “violent extremists” as being explicitly “Islamist extremists” is a welcome move… There is, however, a sort of nudge-nudge “we all really know who we’re talking about” aspect to this section. Especially when he says that the VE’s are “presently led by al-Qaeda and its associates.”
But if the term really is a neutral, scientific one– that is, that the members of the VE category includes everyone who is both “violent” and “extremist” (whatever the latter term actually means)– then should we not include in it other, non-Islamist actors like, for example, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka; the Ethiopian government that wilfully and with full US support invaded Somalia in 2006 and has maintained a brutal occupation there ever since; or those ideologically motivated Jewish settlers in the West Bank area who most certainly fit into the category of VEs? From many perspectives, could we not also include in the category the US government itself, which has certainly, over the past seven years, used the greatest amount of violence used by any actor in the international system and has done so in the name of an ideology that the majority of people around the world might well describe as “extremist”?
“Extremist” is, at the end of the day, essentially either a category chock-full of everybody you happen to disagree with, or an empty and quite meaningless category. One thing’s for certain, it is nearly always a highly subjective category.
Perhaps one possible, non-subjective meaning that could be ascribed to it is that an “extremist” is an actor who refuses to sit down and negotiate his political differences with others, preferring instead to use violence. That is the only even vaguely helpful and objective definition I can think of for this term. (In which case, the qualifier “violent” becomes more or less redundant. Okay, well maybe the VEs are the ones who not only prefer to use violence over negotiation but who also do use it.
So where does that leave the US, an actor that in late 2001 and again in early 2003 wilfully and knowingly turned away from the many nonviolent means of conflict resolution available to it and instead used massive violence against its opponents?
H’mmm.
2. Gates is also, in this document, explicitly asserting the US’s intention to be the world’s completely dominant globo-cop, that is, to roam around the world waging “counter-insurgency” on a truly global scale.
This is how he introduces the concept of the US’s “global responsibilities”, right at the beginning of the document:
- A core responsibility of the U.S. Government is to protect the American people – in the words of the framers of our Constitution, to “provide for the common defense.” For more than 230 years, the U.S. Armed Forces have served as a bulwark of liberty, opportunity, and prosperity at home. Beyond our shores, America shoulders additional responsibilities on behalf of the world…
This is truly mind-boggling. “On behalf of the world”??? When, pray, did “the world” ever ask the US to “shoulder” these responsibilities?
Answer: Never.
Back in January 2007, I wrote a few things on JWN and elsewhere about the conceptual (and also practical) difficulties of the military of a democratic nation mounting counter-insurgency — COIN, in the jargon– campaigns “on behalf of” the governments of other countries elsewhere. You can find some of that writing here and here.
One of the main points I was making there was that, “For a foreign power to use forceful means to affect the political outcome within any given country/society causes a direct clash with the principles of democracy, of sovereignty, and of a respect for basic human rights…”
How much greater is this clash when the intervening country proposes to do its globo-copping on a truly global scale?
After reading Gates’s document I was interested in finding out how “global” the US military has already become. So I looked through my copy of the IISS’s Military Balance 2008 and found out the following:
- a. The US has active military personnel stationed in no fewer than 162 of the world’s countries and territories. Nearly all those in this listing (pp. 38-46 of the MilBal) are nation-states. Some five or six are seas or oceans in which the various US fleets operate, and a few more are non-state territories like Greenland or Ascension Island. But over 150 are nation-states.
b. Just in the A’s, the US has forces in eleven nation-states, from Albania to Azerbaijan.
c. In the Middle East, the US has military personnel in the following countries– in addition to those in Iraq:
- Algeria: 10
Bahrain: 1,319
Djibouti: 2,038
Egypt: 288 just for Egypt and 288 as peacekeepers in Sinai
Israel: 50
Jordan: 19
Lebanon: 3
Morocco: 13
Oman: 37
Qatar: 512
Saudi Arabia: 274
Syria: 8 (?)
Tunisia: 15
UAE: 87
d. In 2008 the US has 1.498 million people in its active-duty military and 1.083 million it its reserves. This gives the the largest standing army in the world in terms of manpower, except for that of China which has 2.105 million people in its standing army (but only 800 million in its reserves.)
e. In 2006, the US’s defense spending was $535.9 billion, easily the largest amount of any country in the world. China, with four times the US’s population, spent “only” $121.9 billion on military spending in 2006 (calculated using PPP$.) Worldwide defense spending was listed as $1,297.8 billion. So our country bore (“shouldered”, as per Gates?) 41.3 percent of global defense expenditures.
Here’s the funny thing. Since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the US has had neither any sizeable military enemies nor any military competitors.
What is the point of all this wasteful– and quite frequently, also actively counter-productive– defense spending we’re doing?
Now we learn! We’re doing it so we can be Globo-cop!
But guess what? The other six billion of the people never once elected us to this position…
Gates’ Violent Extremist bit sounds like a pretext for empire building rather than anything real.
And I have heard rumours that Obama might choose Gates as his Secretary of “Defense” (sic). No idea how realistic they are, but it is getting scarier by the day.
And Obama wants to enlarge the military by 90-100,000 troops, and increase the already bloated budget significantly. Also scary as hell, particularly in combination with Gates’ agenda.
And by the way, when was the last time the U.S. military was used for anything resembling defense? Isn’t it time they renamed the Department of Defense (which used to have the more realistic name Department of War)? Department of Naked Aggression would reflect reality nicely. Or what about Department of Empire Building?
According to US Foreign Policy Encyclopedia: Doctrines
So its not Gate who had created his Doctrine the fact is as above a long term establishment of this believe which is deep in the minds of most Americans.
However if you are believer that “The Gates Doctrine” will be stopped or vanished next election then you are mistaken in this for two reasons:
1- As above this not only Gate believes it’s far wider than one command in chiefs.
2- Barrack Obama admitting that he would want to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.
1. To add to your statistics, the US military now has about 3,000 foreign ZIP codes.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aatroopmail.htm
2. Who elected Robert Gates to determine the US defense strategy? This ought to be the done by the Congress, representing the people in a democracy. But the people would not go for this, if they had an opportunity to vote on it. When I visit foreign countries the people seem quite content to go about their business, and I hear no talk of a long war. When I was in Zagreb, Croatia in May I saw plazas full of people sitting around drinking coffee and enjoying their lives, not slaving away in repressive jobs that required long commutes and long hours as Americans think they must do.
3. “What is the point of all this wasteful– and quite frequently, also actively counter-productive– defense spending we’re doing?” –Profits. In the Smedley Butler Society newsletter this month we published a list of the contracts awarded by the Pentagon last month with a value of more than a hundred million dollars. A hundred million dollars. Only those, not the lessor ones for 87 million and 53 million. Try to find something worthwhile in this list, I challenge you.
http://www.warisaracket.org/newsletter.html
So, yes, the other good people in the world never elected the US and they certainly didn’t elect Robert Gates, and neither did we.
One sidelight of the Long War is the recent Pentagon determination that South Korea is now safe from aggression. Does that mean that US troops can finally be withdrawn fifty-six years after the war has ended? No, US troops can never be withdrawn. What it means is that troops can soon bring their families to Korea, after new bases are built providing the amenities that families require: houses, streets, schools, fire & police departments, restaurants, and sports facilities to include playing fields, swimming pools, golf courses, etc. It’s okay, China will lend us the money.
One reason why the US used to deposit its military all over was that it was cheaper to maintain them overseas than in the US. Now that the USD is tanking, the situation may be reversing (unless , a la Blanche Dubois, the US continues to rely on the goodness of strangers, aka China).
Gates’ views remind me of the Pukka Sahibs’ utterances before the empire faded. It’s not for nothing that Afganistan is known as the “Graveyard of Empires”
In the short run, Helena has it right: Rejoice ye defense contractors…
Helena
Doesn’t Paul Kennedy predict that the inheritor of hegemony also inherits the roll of globocop?
One passage that I find of interest is this one
We must also work with longstanding friends and allies to transform their capabilities. Key to transformation is training, education and, where appropriate, the transfer of defense articles to build partner capacity. We must work to develop new ways of operating across the full spectrum of warfare. Our partnerships must be capable of applying military and non-military power when and where needed –a prerequisite against an adaptable transnational enemy.
I have a horrible feeling that decyphered this means they want more willing bodies from the allies to be auxiliaries in their wars of choice.
Why should our children go off running around the mountains and deserts of Central Asia?
Helena,
Chomsky writes about the end of the Cold War and the justification for DoD budgets. Apparently, within two years, references to the Soviets and international communism were replaced with narco-terrorism (Colombia). As almost everyone knows, there was no comparison between the Soviets and the FARC or al-Qaeda.
However, AND THANK GOD FOR THAT, most Americans know that Caylee is missing. YOUR NATIONAL PRESS CORPS has guaranteed that you might know sh*t about the international U.S. troop presence, or Long Wars, you g*d-d*amned well know that, somewhere in America a two year old girl is missing.
Long Live CNN! Long Live Fox News! Long Live MSNBC!
By the way, in case anyone in the Bush administration or one its supporters says they got involved in Iraq as a “humanitarian” mission what you should throw in their face and beat into their brains is the fact that, while Bush was President, millions of people died in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the greatest humanitarian crisis in 21st century, and Bush only mentioned it (I believe) once. More than 3 million died in 3 years, compared to 300,000 in 30 years. A death rate, or human meat grinder 100 times more intense than Saddam’s Iraq.
Bush didn’t care. Bush didn’t mention it. Two of Bush’s allies in Iraq, Museveni of Uganda and Kagame of Rwanda were (in large part) the CAUSE of the butchery in the DRC.
Bush’s allies in his Coalition of the Willing to Kill put Bush’s own bloodletting to shame.
By the way, I have a friend in Kigale, the capital of Rwanda. They say the city is beautiful, that the width of flower-beds around your house is regulated, that they banned plastic bags (so they don’t fly around and get caught in tree branches).
I wonder whether any country with less with twenty U.S. troops is actually hosting U.S. Marines to guard the embassy. If so, deleting these would make it possible to narrow down where U.S. troops are in significant numbers. No U.S. troops in Kuwait? A better accounting would be of U.S. bases around the world.
Those numbers don’t make any sense. Doesn’t the U.S. have a pretty good sized base in `Oman, and don’t they have a base or bases in Kuwait?
Gates may be one of the few honorable men in government. See Col. Patrick Lang here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/08/bush-is-the-wil.html
And see especially this:
http://www.stiftungleostrauss.com/bunker/?p=363
The power of the military industrial complex, and the institutional imperative towards empire and war are so vastly greater than any democratic control that we should be gateful, it seems to me, to have a man like Gates in office.
http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/2008/07/ike-dead-and-loving-it.html
Though he may not be “all that progressives and the netroots hope for,” he may be our best hope for a rational military policy in the future. As rational say as not provoking a war with Iran.
“I have a horrible feeling that decyphered this means they [SECWAR Gates et al.] want more willing bodies from the allies to be auxiliaries in their wars of choice. Why should our children go off running around the mountains and deserts of Central Asia?”
Not a hard question.
(10) “Fun, travel, adventure”
(9) ‘Twill keep the kids away from gay Paree.
(8) Also away from New Labour London.
(7) Also out from under foot.
(6) Running around mountains burns calories and repels obesity.
(5) It is far easier to let King Minos take a small cull every year than to set up a serious Athenian defense establishment.
(4) General ethnosolidarity: Mac’s and O’s should flock together, especially to distant places like Mesopotamia and Arachosia and Gedrosia.
(3) Democratic ethnosolidarity — vote early and often for the McCain-O’Bama ticket! (And vote with your feet, please, gentlemen!)
(2) Huntin’tonian ethnosolidarity: the cause of Western Sieve is the cause of US all!
(1) “Peace is indivisible.”
__
Happy days.
Oops, sorry, I had actually started compiling the list of US troop presence in the ME late the night before and had left out Kuwait and Oman as a I scanned the globally alphabetized listing. Here they are:
Kuwait: “Troops deployed as part of Op Iraqi Freedom” (i.e., no numbers given there, though under Iraq it says total expected troop levels for OIF “may decrease to 132,000 by Dec 2008.”
Oman: 37
What other ME countries did I miss?
Helena, you DID include Oman in the original list. It is just that I am shocked that there are only 37 American troops there because I was under the impression that there was at least a medium-sized base there. In fact, one of the consistent criticisms I have heard of the Sultan of Oman – in many ways one of the better Arab rulers (which granted isn’t saying much) – is that he allows the U.S. to base troops there.