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Sunday, July 31, 2005
| The Failed States Index |
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By FOREIGN POLICY & the Fund for Peace |
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| July/August 2005 |
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About 2 billion people live in countries that are in danger of collapse. In the first annual Failed States Index, FOREIGN POLICY and the Fund for Peace rank the countries about to go over the brink.
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| America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.” That was the conclusion of the 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy. For a country whose foreign policy in the 20th century was dominated by the struggles against powerful states such as Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union, the U.S. assessment is striking. Nor is the United States alone in diagnosing the problem. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that “ignoring failed states creates problems that sometimes come back to bite us.” French President Jacques Chirac has spoken of “the threat that failed states carry for the world’s equilibrium.” World leaders once worried about who was amassing power; now they worry about the absence of it. |
| Failed states have made a remarkable odyssey from the periphery to the very center of global politics. During the Cold War, state failure was seen through the prism of superpower conflict and was rarely addressed as a danger in its own right. In the 1990s, “failed states” fell largely into the province of humanitarians and human rights activists, although they did begin to consume the attention of the world’s sole superpower, which led interventions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. For so-called foreign-policy realists, however, these states and the problems they posed were a distraction from weightier issues of geopolitics. |
| Now, it seems, everybody cares. The dangerous exports of failed states—whether international terrorists, drug barons, or weapons arsenals—are the subject of endless discussion and concern. For all the newfound attention, however, there is still uncertainty about the definition and scope of the problem. How do you know a failed state when you see one? Of course, a government that has lost control of its territory or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of force has earned the label. But there can be more subtle attributes of failure. Some regimes, for example, lack the authority to make collective decisions or the capacity to deliver public services. In other countries, the populace may rely entirely on the black market, fail to pay taxes, or engage in large-scale civil disobedience. Outside intervention can be both a symptom of and a trigger for state collapse. A failed state may be subject to involuntary restrictions of its sovereignty, such as political or economic sanctions, the presence of foreign military forces on its soil, or other military constraints, such as a no-fly zone. |
| How many states are at serious risk of state failure? The World Bank has identified about 30 “low-income countries under stress,” whereas Britain’s Department for International Development has named 46 “fragile” states of concern. A report commissioned by the CIA has put the number of failing states at about 20. |
| To present a more precise picture of the scope and implications of the problem, the Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and FOREIGN POLICY have conducted a global ranking of weak and failing states. Using 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, we ranked 60 states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict. (For each indicator, the Fund for Peace computed scores using software that analyzed data from tens of thousands of international and local media sources from the last half of 2004. For a complete discussion of the 12 indicators, please go to www.ForeignPolicy.com or www.fundforpeace.org.) The resulting index provides a profile of the new world disorder of the 21st century and demonstrates that the problem of weak and failing states is far more serious than generally thought. About 2 billion people live in insecure states, with varying degrees of vulnerability to widespread civil conflict. |
| The instability that the index diagnoses has many faces. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Somalia, state failure has been apparent for years, manifested by armed conflict, famine, disease outbreaks, and refugee flows. In other cases, however, instability is more elusive. Often, corrosive elements have not yet triggered open hostilities, and pressures may be bubbling just below the surface. Large stretches of lawless territory exist in many countries in the index, but that territory has not always been in open revolt against state institutions. |
| Conflict may be concentrated in local territories seeking autonomy or secession (as in the Philippines and Russia). In other countries, instability takes the form of episodic fighting, drug mafias, or warlords dominating large swaths of territory (as in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Somalia). State collapse sometimes happens suddenly, but often the demise of the state is a slow and steady deterioration of social and political institutions (Zimbabwe and Guinea are good examples). Some countries emerging from conflict may be on the mend but in danger of backsliding (Sierra Leone and Angola). The World Bank found that, within five years, half of all countries emerging from civil unrest fall back into conflict in a cycle of collapse (Haiti and Liberia). |
| The 10 most at-risk countries in the index have already shown clear signs of state failure. Ivory Coast, a country cut in half by civil war, is the most vulnerable to disintegration; it would probably collapse completely if U.N. peacekeeping forces pulled out. It is followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti. The index includes others whose instability is less widely acknowledged, including Bangladesh (17th), Guatemala (31st), Egypt (38th), Saudi Arabia (45th), and Russia (59th). |
| Weak states are most prevalent in Africa, but they also appear in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. Experts have for years discussed an “arc of instability”—an expression that came into use in the 1970s to refer to a “Muslim Crescent” extending from Afghanistan to the “Stans” in the southern part of the former Soviet Union. Our study suggests that the concept is too narrow. The geography of weak states reveals a territorial expanse that extends from Moscow to Mexico City, far wider than an “arc” would suggest, and not limited to the Muslim world. |
| The index does not provide any easy answers for those looking to shore up countries on the brink. Elections are almost universally regarded as helpful in reducing conflict. However, if they are rigged, conducted during active fighting, or attract a low turnout, they can be ineffective or even harmful to stability. Electoral democracy appears to have had only a modest impact on the stability of states such as Iraq, Rwanda, Kenya, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Indonesia. Ukraine ranks as highly vulnerable in large part because of last year’s disputed election. |
| What are the clearest early warning signs of a failing state? Among the 12 indicators we use, two consistently rank near the top. Uneven development is high in almost all the states in the index, suggesting that inequality within states—and not merely poverty—increases instability. Criminalization or delegitimization of the state, which occurs when state institutions are regarded as corrupt, illegal, or ineffective, also figured prominently. Facing this condition, people often shift their allegiances to other leaders—opposition parties, warlords, ethnic nationalists, clergy, or rebel forces. Demographic factors, especially population pressures stemming from refugees, internally displaced populations, and environmental degradation, are also found in most at-risk countries, as are consistent human rights violations. Identifying the signs of state failure is easier than crafting solutions, but pinpointing where state collapse is likely is a necessary first step. |
Copyright 2005, The Fund for Peace and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved. FOREIGN POLICY is a registered trademark owned by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. |
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FOREIGN POLICY welcomes letters to the editor.
Readers should address their comments to fpletters@carnegieendowment.org. |
Posted at 11:53 am by R7fel
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World Not Set To Deal With Flu
Strategy for Pandemic Needed, Experts Say
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 31, 2005; Page A01
Public health officials preparing to battle what they view as an inevitable influenza pandemic say the world lacks the medical weapons to fight the disease effectively, and will not have them anytime soon.
Public health specialists and manufacturers are working frantically to develop vaccines, drugs, strategies for quarantining and treating the ill, and plans for international cooperation, but these efforts will take years. Meanwhile, the most dangerous strain of influenza to appear in decades -- the H5N1 "bird flu" in Asia -- is showing up in new populations of birds, and occasionally people, almost by the month, global health officials say.
If the virus were to start spreading in the next year, the world would have only a relative handful of doses of an experimental vaccine to defend against a disease that, history shows, could potentially kill millions. If the vaccine proved effective and every flu vaccine factory in the world started making it, the first doses would not be ready for four months. By then, the pathogen would probably be on every continent.
Theoretically, antiviral drugs could slow an outbreak and buy time. The problem is only one licensed drug, oseltamivir, appears to work against bird flu. At the moment, there is not enough stockpiled for widespread use. Nor is there a plan to deploy the small amount that exists in ways that would have the best chance of slowing the disease.
The public, conditioned to believe in the power of modern medicine, has heard little of how poorly prepared the world is to confront a flu pandemic, which is an epidemic that strikes several continents simultaneously and infects a substantial portion of the population.
Since the current wave of avian flu began sweeping through poultry in Southeast Asia more than 18 months ago, international and U.S. health authorities have been warning of the danger and trying to mobilize. Research on vaccines has accelerated, efforts to build up drug supplies are underway, and discussions take place regularly on developing a coordinated global response.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will spend $419 million in pandemic planning this year. The National Institutes of Health's influenza research budget has quintupled in the past five years.
"The secretary or the chief of staff -- we have a discussion about flu almost every day," said Bruce Gellin, head of HHS's National Vaccine Program Office. This week, a committee is scheduled to deliver to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt an updated plan for confronting a pandemic.
Despite these efforts, the world's lack of readiness to meet the threat is huge, experts say.
"The only reason nobody's concerned the emperor has no clothes is that he hasn't shown up yet," Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, said recently of the world's efforts to prepare for pandemic flu. "When he appears, people will see he's naked."
Other scientists are sounding the alarm as well.
The most outspoken is Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. In writing and in speeches, Osterholm reminds his audience that after public calamities, the United States usually convenes blue-ribbon commissions to pass judgment. There will be one after a flu pandemic, he believes.
"Right now, the conclusions of that commission would be harsh and sad," he said.
In hopes of slowing a pandemic's spread, public health specialists have been debating proposals for unprecedented countermeasures. These could include vaccinating only children, who are statistically most likely to spread the contagion; mandatory closing of schools or office buildings; and imposing "snow day" quarantines on infected families -- prohibiting them from leaving their homes.
Other measures would go well beyond the conventional boundaries of public health: restricting international travel, shutting down transit systems or nationalizing supplies of critical medical equipment, such as surgical masks.
But Osterholm argues that such measures would fall far short. He predicts that a pandemic would cause widespread shutdowns of factories, transportation and other essential industries. To prepare, he says, authorities should identify and stockpile a list of perhaps 100 crucial products and resources that are essential to keep society functioning until the pandemic recedes and the survivors go back to work.
Deadly Potential
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Since late 2003, 109 people are known to have been infected with the emerging H5N1 virus in Asia. About half -- 55 -- have died.
Ironically, for the current H5N1 strain of avian flu to gain "pandemic potential," it will have to become less deadly. Declining lethality is a key sign that the microbe is adapting to human hosts. That is one reason the 34 percent mortality observed in the most recent outbreak -- a cluster of cases in northern Vietnam -- has scientists worried.
Pandemic influenza is not an unusually bad version of the flu that appears each winter. Those outbreaks are caused by flu viruses that have been circulating for decades and change slightly year to year.
Pandemics are caused by strains of virus that are highly contagious and to which people have no immunity. Such strains are rare. They arise from the chance scrambling and recombination of an animal flu virus and a human one, resulting in a strain whose molecular identity is wholly new.
In the 20th century, pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957 and 1968. Although the 19th-century record is less certain, there appear to have been four flu pandemics -- in 1833, 1836, 1847 and 1889. On a purely statistical basis, the nearly 40 years since the last one suggests the time may be ripe.
The microbe called influenza A/H5N1 appeared in East Asia in 1996 and has flared periodically since. It is highly contagious and lethal in chickens, but it can be carried without symptoms in some ducks -- a combination that helps keep it in circulation.
Birds occasionally infect humans, and scientists recently found evidence that the virus is sometimes passed person to person. That form of transmission is now difficult and rare, but the virus could evolve so that it becomes easy and common.
If H5N1 never becomes easily transmissible in human beings, it will never become a pandemic. If it does become transmissible, the consequences are difficult to imagine. But history provides some clues.
The "Spanish flu" in 1918 and 1919 was the biggest and, along with AIDS, the most important infectious disease outbreak of the 20th century. It is on the short list of great disasters in human history.
At least 50 million people, and possibly as many as 100 million, died when the world's population was 1.9 billion people, one-third its current size.
The Best Defense
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Tests are underway at three U.S. hospitals on an experimental vaccine against H5N1. But it is not the first H5N1 vaccine.
When a slightly different strain of the virus surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, killing thousands of chickens and a half-dozen people, researchers used viruses from birds and people to make experimental vaccines. But neither offered much protection in lab tests, and nobody knows why.
Instead of working on the problem, researchers dropped it. First SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), and then a different avian flu strain that arose in Europe (H7N7), took their attention.
"The urgency around this issue kind of dissipated," said John Treanor, a physician at the University of Rochester and one of the leaders of the vaccine project. "I think it's an example of how unpredictable things are. We got distracted."
The urgency is back.
As the first, small hedge against disaster, the government last fall ordered 2 million doses of H5N1 vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur, one of the country's three flu vaccine makers, even though nobody yet knows whether it works.
A half-dozen other countries are also working on pandemic vaccines. But making enough to fight an outbreak is a tall order.
About 300 million flu shots are made worldwide each year. The vaccine protects against three flu strains. If the global production capacity were directed to make only H5N1 vaccine, the output could be 900 million shots.
Unfortunately, virologists are almost certain people will need two doses about a month apart to mount a successful immune response against a wholly new strain such as H5N1. That would cut the theoretical number of recipients worldwide to 450 million. If each shot requires a larger-than-usual amount of vaccine to work, the number will be even smaller.
Can the world produce more flu shots? Not easily.
Because nearly all flu vaccine is made by growing the virus in fertilized chicken eggs, special factories and a steady supply of eggs are required. Consequently, a key element of pandemic planning is getting more people to get yearly flu shots, which will give companies a larger market and an incentive to expand their plants.
Around the world, flu vaccine production has risen by just one-third in the past decade. New plants in Brazil, South Korea and the Netherlands will boost global production by an additional 25 percent in the near future.
In theory, even a modest amount of vaccine might be useful. Fighting disease outbreaks is like fighting fires. You do not have to hose down the whole world to put the fire out, but you do have to hose down the perimeter to keep it from spreading. It might be possible to contain an H5N1 outbreak at its source if the surrounding population were immediately vaccinated.
Would the United States, Europe and Japan be willing to donate their precious vaccine supply to mount this long-shot defense? This is perhaps the biggest unanswered question in pandemic flu planning -- and one likely to be answered only at the moment of truth.
Officially, it is a possibility.
"If it was done in consultation with the WHO [World Health Organization] -- and with other governments that would make contributions, as well -- we would be more likely to consider it," said Gellin at HHS. But observers both in and out of the government said, not for quotation, that they doubt the U.S. government would ever send a significant amount of its vaccine stockpile overseas.
Only One Drug
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In the absence of a vaccine, the only pharmaceutical bulwark against H5N1 is oseltamivir. It can shorten the illness's duration, and if taken immediately after exposure, it can even prevent infection. But the world's supply of the drug is limited.
Sold as Tamiflu, it is manufactured by just one company, the Swiss giant Roche, in a laborious, expensive process that takes eight months.
Twenty-five countries have ordered oseltamivir to stockpile, and five others have expressed interest, a Roche spokesman, Terence J. Hurley, said recently.
The United States already has a stockpile, but it is enough to treat less than 1 percent of the population. The government has ordered enough to treat 3 million more people, or about 2 percent total.
At a congressional hearing in late May, the company's medical director, Dominick A. Iacuzio, said it will begin producing oseltamivir in the United States soon. The company says it could supply 13 million more courses of treatment in 2006 and an additional 70 million in 2007 -- provided the government orders them.
Would having lots of vaccine or oseltamivir make a difference?
In a study published last year, Ira M. Longini Jr. of Emory University ran a mathematical model of what might happen if a pandemic such as the 1957 Asian flu, which was caused by a virus far milder than bird flu, hit the United States.
He and his colleagues estimated that with no vaccine or antiviral drugs, there would be 93 million cases and 164,000 deaths. Vaccinating 80 percent of people younger than 19 -- the group most responsible for spreading the virus -- "would reduce the epidemic to just 6 million total cases and 15,000 total deaths in the country."
Giving that group eight weeks of oseltamivir would have the same effect, at least temporarily. But it would take the equivalent of 190 million courses of treatment -- more than anyone thinks the country will have in the next few years.
Somewhat more realistic is deploying the drug to where the outbreak begins. One researcher, Neil M. Ferguson of Imperial College in London, said in an interview that results of his not-yet-published mathematical modeling "are encouraging."
But unless antiviral drugs squelch a pandemic at the outset, their ultimate usefulness will be small. Without widespread immunity through vaccination or infection, the virus will simply move into a population when the drugs run out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/30/AR2005073001429.html?referrer=email
Posted at 09:22 am by R7fel
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The Growing Importance of IT
The New Face of War: How War Will Be
Fought in the 21st CenturyBy Bruce Berkowitz. New York: Free Press, 2003. 272 pages.
Nicholas Negroponte, head of MIT’s Media Lab, observed that the information age is fast replacing atoms with bits; movies on film with packets on the Internet; print media with digital media; and wires with digital radio waves.
Negroponte does not apply the bits-for-atoms principle to warfare, but Bruce Berkowitz, in The New Face of War, does. According to Berkowitz, a senior analyst at RAND and a former intelligence officer, future wars will not be won by having more atoms (troops, weapons, territory) than an opponent, but by having more bits . . . of information.
Berkowitz argues that atoms that used to be big winners will become big losers to information technology. Reconnaissance sensors will quickly find massed troops, enabling adversaries to zap those troops with precision-guided weapons. Fortifications will tie armies down to fixed locations, making them sitting ducks for smart bombs. Cheap cyber weapons (e.g., computer viruses) will neutralize expensive kinetic weapons (e.g., missile defenses).
Berkowitz sums up the growing dominance of bits over atoms: “The ability to collect, communicate, process, and protect information is the most important factor defining military power.” The key word here is: “the most important factor.” The New Face of War gives many historical examples of information superiority proving to be an important factor in defining military power, such as the allies breaking German and Japanese codes during World War II and Union forces employing disinformation to mislead Confederates in the Civil War. But the digital revolution has transformed information from supporting actor to leading lady.
Evidence that this revolution has already occurred abounds. In the 1990 Gulf War, smart weapons turned Saddam’s strength (concentrated troops and tanks) into liabilities. More recently, al-Qa’ida used the global telecommunications net to coordinate successful attacks by small, stealthy groups who triumphed through information superiority (knowing more about their targets than their targets knew about them).
Perhaps the biggest effect of information technology on warfare will be the elimination of the concept of a front, according to Berkowitz. If fronts persist at all, they will live in cyberspace where info-warriors battle not over turf, but over control of routers, operating systems, and firewalls. Even so, The New Face of War argues that there will be no electronic “Pearl Harbors” on the emerging battlefield of bits because disabling a nation’s information technology (IT) infrastructure will be too hard even for the most sophisticated cyber-warriors. Well-timed, pinpoint computer network attacks will be much more likely.
Dr. Berkowitz’s vision of the future is probably right in many respects and off target in a few others. But, regardless of its accuracy, his book surfaces critical questions for the Intelligence Community.
First, the things he gets right and what these mean for intelligence: Information technology has changed warfare not by degree, but in kind, so that victory will increasingly go to combatants who maneuver bits faster than their adversaries. Thus, intelligence services will need an increasing proportion of tech-savvy talent to track, target, and defend against adversaries’ IT capabilities. As countries like China, India, Pakistan, and Russia grow their IT talent base—and IT market share—faster than the United States, the strengths of their intelligence services will likely increase relative to those of US intelligence.
Because cyber-wars will be played out on landscapes of commercial IT, intelligence agencies will need new alliances with the private sector, akin to existing relationships between nation states. And the Intelligence Community will have to confront knotty problems such as: performing intelligence preparation of cyber battlefields; assessing capabilities and intentions of adversaries whose info-weapons and defenses are invisible; deciding whether there is any distinction between cyber defense and cyber intelligence; and determining who in the national security establishment should perform functions that straddle the offensive, defensive, and intelligence missions of the uniformed services and intelligence agencies.
The growing importance of IT in warfare will also change the way intelligence agencies support atom-based conflicts. New technology will collect real-time intelligence for fast-changing tactical engagements, but the mainstay product of the Intelligence Community, serialized reports, is far too slow for disseminating these high-tech indications and warnings. Faster means of delivering—and protecting—raw collection must be devised, so that real-time intelligence can be sent directly to shooters without detouring through multiple echelons of military intelligence analysts. Also, remote sensors designed to report on the capabilities, intentions, and activities of armed forces, will not find lone terrorists. Radically new sensing networks that blanket the globe will be needed to collect pinpoint intelligence on individual targets.
The distinction between intelligence and tactical operations data (such as contact reports and significant activity reports) will blur as national intelligence means are focused on real-time tactical missions. All-source analysts will need to add tactical operations reporting to their diet of HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, OSINT and MASINT.
Now, the areas in which The New Face of War misses the mark: First, military power in the future will not flow solely from precision zapping and deployment of small, networked forces. Some missions, such as peacekeeping, will always demand the highly visible presence of large forces. And if numbers do not matter anymore, as Berkowitz suggests, why worry about North Korea’s million-plus army? The bottom line is that as intelligence agencies get better at tracking and collecting on individuals terrorists, they will still need robust targeting and force protection capabilities against large conventional forces.
The evolution of media, with which we began this discussion, teaches powerful lessons about the folly of too quickly abandoning the old for the new. The printing press did not abolish handwriting; motion pictures did not kill live theater; television did not doom radio; and the Internet did not extinguish magazines. For each of these transitions from old to new, there were plenty of pundits who prophesized the demise of legacy forms of communication at the hands of new information technology.
Berkowitz is in good company, though. The US Air Force was so sure that close air combat was obsolete, that the first F-4 fighters did not have cannons. They relied instead on high-tech air-to-air missiles—until the F-4s fell victim to the cannons of North Vietnamese MIGs in “obsolete” air combat. Low-tech weapons on the F-4 ultimately did not yield to high-tech missiles; they simply moved over and made room for them. And today’s newest generation of fighters still retain cannons.
There is an important lesson here for intelligence agencies: As novel collection, analytic, and dissemination technologies are acquired, traditional tradecraft should be retained to cope with traditional adversaries and tactical situations. Just as missiles did not replace cannons, legacy tradecraft will need to be preserved but continuously improved to track changes in conventional warfare. For example, imaging satellites will always be essential, but they will have to steadily increase resolution and dwell time. Ditto for traditional SIGINT and MASINT collection systems.
I also disagree with Berkowitz’s contention that there can be no electronic Pearl Harbors. The inexorable migration to the Internet of such diverse functions as telephony, power plant control, commercial data networks, and defense communications has already created a “one-stop-shop” target for info-warriors. In essence, industrialized nations have done in cyberspace what Berkowitz says is so perilous in physical space: namely, concentrated all their eggs in one basket. Intelligence agencies should not, therefore, abandon the hope of severely crippling a cyber enemy, nor should they assume a cyber enemy could not return the favor.
Despite these shortcomings, The New Face of War is an eminently enjoyable read, jam-packed with fascinating historical examples of information technology at war. Dr. Berkowitz’s experience as an intelligence officer comes through clearly in his book, providing important context and relevance for intelligence collectors, analysts, and disseminators.
Put another way, whether consumed as atoms or bits, The New Face of War is a must read for all intelligence professionals.
Dr. Eric Haseltine is the Associate Director for Research at the National Security Agency. This article is unclassified in its entirety.
Posted at 08:57 am by R7fel
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Friday, July 29, 2005
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War
Fight Makes Right?
A conservative writer unmasks the perils of unchecked American militarism.
by Norman Kelley - July 28, 2005
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War
by Andrew Bacevich
Oxford University Press, 270 pp.
$28
Perhaps it's too strong to argue that America is no longer a republic. Let's say, then, that it is now a pro forma democratic republic. It has the form of republicanism--representative government, a written constitution, elections--but power is increasing held in the hands of self-perpetuating oligarchs whose own political agents are now developing dynasties: Kennedy, Bush, Clinton, etc. Even at the local level, we can observe how politicians are bequeathing to their sons and daughters their political positions via the family name.
In the Cold War era, America's morphing into something other than the land of the free was an issue mostly of concern to the left. But now conservatives--people who favor strong national defense, small government, and budgetary restraint--are becoming increasingly concerned that the Bush administration's "war on terror," and especially the gambit in Iraq, has taken us, who in the Soviet era fancied ourselves the anti-imperialists, into the realm of what historian Niall Ferguson calls the "imperialism of anti-imperialism."
To say the least, the 9/11 attacks caused much anxiety in the American population. Indoctrinated with the news that America was the greatest nation on earth--in history!--and blessed with God's providence, rather than understanding that al Qaeda was motivated, in part , by U.S. foreign policy, Americans simply applauded as the military was sent into Afghanistan. Then, deciding that the next move was into Iraq, numerous neocon apparatchiks in the Bush administration dusted off plans that had sat on the shelf since the Clinton administration, and on we rolled. Bush decided that regime change was in order, but not necessarily based on any real criteria for defending American security--say, weapons of mass destruction--but so we could export American democracy, American values.
But how does one go about exporting American values? As Andrew J. Bacevich argues in his new book, you do it via the new American militarism. In the view of this conservative, Americans have become a nation of "Wilsonians under arms," believers in liberal democracy and free enterprise, who feel that American principles are "the principles of mankind and must prevail."
In The New American Militarism , Bacevich, a graduate of West Point, a Vietnam veteran, and a professor of international relations at Boston University, examines the use of force by the U.S. military and how Americans have been "seduced by war." It's a crisply written, nuanced book that looks at the multiplicity of factors that has led the United States to become a militaristic society.
The old Clausewitzian notion of war being a policy continued by other means has been turned on its head. In its place: Whatever the policy, use the military to execute it. This has led to the fraying of international relations and the creation of humanitarian crises, all while evoking the mythos of the American fighting man to buck up the nation.
Bacevich doesn't see this new militarism as something cooked up in back rooms but as a series of conceived ideas, unacknowledged plans of action, incoherent policies and unintended consequences. And each Democratic and Republican administration contributed to it, some more than others. The roots of America's seduction by war lie in the military, especially the American military's defeat in Vietnam. In the army's eyes, the problem was that civilian leadership encroached into their field of expertise, warfare. Soldiers were executing policies not of their making.
(That, of course, is the way our government works: We have civilian leadership over the military so we can fire the commander-in-chief without fear of a coup d'état.)
Following Vietnam, the Army began crafting policies meant to guarantee, for any military entanglement, clear missions, exit strategies, and the capability of using overwhelming force. It had already, by way of Nixon, ended the draft, kicked out its miscreants and begun rebuilding itself. Previous to Nixon's decree, General Creighton Abrams had made sure that any use of force in future engagement would also include the use of National Guardsmen and reservists. This was a response to the Joint Chiefs of Staff's advocating that Johnson call up the reserves for Vietnam. Johnson wouldn't bite, since doing so would have meant that the nation was moving to a war footing, and Johnson, wanting both guns and butter in his Great Society programs, wanted to "keep the war small."
One of the ironies of the army's new policy was that even as it sought to restore its relationship with the American citizenry, the government scuttled the one mechanism that had made military service universal, if not democratic: the draft. Now the country, in relying on citizen soldiers, no longer shares a collective sense of sacrifice. Moreover, Bacevich argues, the nation's elite is less represented in the military than ever before. This makes going to war easier and more of an abstraction for those who plan the nation's grand imperial schemes or cheerlead from the sidelines.
Americans now rely on the military to represent national virtues that the nation as a whole has tossed aside. The military, in Bacevich's view, is the "national icon, the apotheosis of all that it is great and good about contemporary America." This demands that Americans "support the troops"--even if they are caught torturing prisoners of war, and even when no high-ranking military official is held accountable for the actions of these troops.
No "political figure of genuine stature" challenges the drift of the nation into militarism, a phenomenon the author finds deeply troubling. He writes:
"Few in power have openly considered whether valuing military power for its own sake or cultivating permanent global superiority might be at odds with American principles. Indeed, one striking aspect of America's drift toward militarism has been the absence of dissidence offered by any political figure of genuine stature. Members of the political class, Democrats and Republicans alike, have either been oblivious to the possibility that something important might be afoot or else have chosen to ignore the evidence."
A good example of Bacevich's point can be found in the March 21, 2005, edition of the New Yorker , in which Jeffrey Goldberg's "The Unbranding" looks at the phenomenon of what he calls "national security Democrats."
These are Democrats--Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, John Edwards, Evan Bayh, Bill Richardsonwho feel the need to "market" themselves as just as bellicose as the Republicans, regardless of the fact that such a posture has nothing to do with truly protecting the security of the United States, or, for that matter, understanding the limits of force. John Kerry argued that he could better manage the war in Iraq, not whether the U.S. should have been there to begin with. The more the nation becomes obsessed with security, the less secure it finds itself, and the more willing it becomes to toss aside its tradition of civil liberties.
But to voice such would be politically suicidal. And the neocons, as Bacevich points out, have been very good at skewering those Democrats who think there may be better ways to export American values than through war.
It took about 15 years for the military to rebuild itself, a timeline spanning the mid-'70s to the first Gulf War. Reagan pushed the process forward when he significantly beefed up defense expenditures in the 1980s. The military wanted to get away from the kind of counterinsurgency war that it didn't like to fight like in Vietnam, and it concentrated on looking at a battle in Europe against the Soviet Union.
The Gulf War, with its smart bombs and light casualties, returned the American fighting man to the public's esteem and made Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf folk heroes. Herein lies an unintended consequence on the road to militarism: The new can-do military was called upon to can-do everything that it was not equipped to handle or solve--Haiti and Somalia, for example.
In the wake of big wars, Americans had traditionally demobilized the armed forces and kept no large standing armies. But that was a quaint tradition, from a society that prided itself on being a republic, not an empire. Americans now have a decision to make: return to their republican heritage or embrace empire as a way of life. Bacevich's book shines a rare, illuminating light, trying to lead the nation out of a dark forest before it trips and falls into an abyss that it can't climb out of.
kelleynd@aol.com
Posted at 08:36 pm by R7fel
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005
China Poses An Aggressive Military Threat
China Build Up Could Mean Threat To U.S.
By Pamela Hess
Jul 20, 2005, 19:00 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- The Pentagon released Tuesday the long-awaited annual Chinese military power report, painting a picture of a nation bent on building up its military and learning the technological lessons of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
China`s primary military focus remains Taiwan, specifically its interest in forcing the island nation to reunite with mainland China.
\"It`s a very straightforward description of ... a significant military buildup that`s been taking place,\" U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday.
China has arrayed most of its most advanced weaponry and highly trained personnel across southeast China, postured to prevent Taiwan independence or \"to compel Taiwan to negotiate a political settlement on Beijings terms,\" the report states.
It includes an expanding force of ballistic missiles, both long and short range, cruise missiles, submarines, and advanced aircraft.
While China`s focus is now Taiwan, the Pentagon report notes that China`s military could easily pose \"a credible threat to other modern militaries operating in the region\" if it continues its build up.
\"The pace and scope of China`s military build-up are, already, such as to put regional military balances at risk. Current trends in China`s military modernization could provide China with a force capable of prosecuting a range of military operations in Asia -- well beyond Taiwan.\"
For now, however, the report says China has only limited abilities to project convention military power beyond its borders. The People`s Liberation Army is buying new weapon systems and writing new doctrine, however, that could take it well beyond China`s shores.
\"In the future, as China`s military power grows, China`s leaders may be tempted to resort to force or coercion more quickly to press diplomatic advantage, advance security interests, or resolve disputes,\" the report warns.
Publicly, however, Beijing adopts a posture of non-confrontation, saying it wants to develop China`s economic power and supports a policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. China also has a \"no-first-use\" nuclear policy.
Last week a Chinese general told reporters that if the United States drew its forces within striking distance of Chinese territory in an attempt to defend Taiwan, the country should use nuclear weapons against American forces.
The officer, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, is an instructor at China`s national defense university and said he was expressing his personal opinion only.
China, however, is investing in its strategic nuclear missile force, both in numbers and capabilities.
\"It is fielding more survivable missiles capable of targeting India, Russia, virtually all of the United States, and the Asia-Pacific theater as far south as Australia and New Zealand.\"
It has about 20 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles and about 20 medium-range missiles to counter regional threats.
China is also investing in space forces. In 2004 alone it launched 10 satellites into orbit and hopes to have more than 100 satellites in orbit by 2010.
At the same time it plans to field an anti-satellite laser.
\"The Defense Intelligence Agency believes Beijing eventually could develop a laser weapon capable of damaging or destroying satellites,\" the report states.
The Pentagon for its part is focusing a large measure of its ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review deliberations on the threat posed by China and the possibility of having to fight a conventional or nuclear war against the country.
The task of deciding what U.S. forces will be needed to counter or dissuade a Chinese threat is made more complicated by the fact that the U.S. government has no idea exactly how much China is investing in its military. In March, a Chinese government spokesman announced China would increase its \"publicly disclosed-defense budget\" in 2005 by 12.6 percent, to approximately $29.9 billion, double the amount it spent in 2000.
\"When adjusted for inflation, the nominal increases have produced double-digit actual increases in China`s official defense budget every year since the mid-1990s. However, the officially published figures substantially underreport actual expenditures for national defense,\" the Pentagon report states.
The report estimates that all told, China could be spending $90 billion in 2005 on military accounts, making it the third largest defense budget in the world. It is dwarfed by the U.S. defense budget at $420 billion.
Speaking at the Pentagon Monday, Australian Prime Minister John Howard told reporters he doesn`t believe China poses an aggressive military threat because of its keen interest in economic growth.
\"I think that China is a country that is growing in power and economic strength, but understands that military conflict of any kind is not conducive to her medium- and longer-term goals,\" Howard said.
The Defense Intelligence Agency believes China`s leaders recognize \"that a war could severely retard economic development.\" Tawain is China`s single largest source of foreign direct investment.
The report also warns of \"serious and numerous\" consequences if the European Union lifts the arms embargo it has had in place against China since the 19898 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
It would significantly improve China`s access to military and dual use technologies; expertise in doctrine and training, and allow China to set up joint vetnrues with European companies to improve its space, radar, early-warning aircraft, submarine technology and electronics for precision guided munitions.
It would also give China, as a major new customer for weaponry, economic leverage over Russia, Israel and other countries to expand the number of systems they will sell to Beijing.
\"Such an acceleration of China`s military modernization would have direct implications for stability in the Taiwan Strait and the safety of U.S. personnel; it would also accelerate a shift ion the regional balance of power, affecting the security of many countries,\" the report states.
Lifting the embargo would also give China more technology and advanced weaponry to transfer or sell to countries of concern, including Burma, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
© Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com.
Posted at 04:59 pm by R7fel
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A Perfect Authoritarian Storm
Orwell Meets Kafka
By Robert Kuttner | July 20, 2005
THE OTHER DAY, the new secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, scrapped the moronic rule requiring everyone to stay seated for 30 minutes coming in or out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
The premise of the rule, enacted after 9/11, was that if everyone remained in their seats, it would be illegal for a terrorist to rush the cockpit. Apparently, it didn't occur to the genius who wrote the order that only law-abiding citizens would obey. It's a perfect, if small, example of the idiocy of unchecked state power.
Chertoff did not change the rule because some open evidentiary process required him to but because he felt like it. As an immensely powerful official in an increasingly authoritarian age, he did it as a regal act of noblesse oblige: In my majesty/ I now decree/ the people are free/ to go and pee.
As his reason for granting relief, so to speak, Chertoff disingenuously declared that security conditions had improved. This was the week of the London bombings. But, as a high official, he was not about to admit that the rule had been dumb all along. National security bureaucrats don't make mistakes.
It's a small example of a terrible trend -- the relentless accumulation of arbitrary authority and the slow erosion of liberties.
Countless recent news stories have one thing in common -- denial of rights.
A British-born pilot for Cape Air is denied the right to take a course to qualify him to fly larger planes as a security risk. No evidence is offered.
The Bush administration reasserts its right to torture and hold indefinitely prisoners at Guantanamo, on the premise that it is part of Cuba (tell that to Castro!) where presumably totalitarian rules rather than American rules apply -- even though the United States runs the place.
A distinguished and moderate Muslim British educational leader is denied entry at the US border, en route to a conference discussing religious reconciliation and healing. No reason is given.
Immigrants attending required classes on worker safety find that the safety agency is doing the bidding of the immigration police. They can be detained indefinitely if the country of their birth won't admit them, even if they came here as infants.
The administration reasserts that citizens as well as immigrants can be detained indefinitely as security risks.
Congress is on the verge of reauthorizing the misnamed USA Patriot Act with only very modest refinements of its worst features.
Governors complain that Congress rushed through a national ID law with little concern for cost or privacy.
If the American republic was built on any core principle, that principle is the rights of people to be free from the abuses of unchecked power. The Constitution's framers gave those rights not to ''citizens" but to ''persons." In America, everyone enjoys basic rights.
Or once did.
In America, certain practices are not permitted -- in any context. We have the right to confront accusers and know the charges. We cannot be arbitrarily detained indefinitely. Trials must be speedy and public. We may speak freely without political retribution.
Now there is a perfect authoritarian storm -- a genuine terrorist threat coupled with an administration that disdains the Constitution and will soon control all three branches of government. As a pretext for arbitrary rule, we have the premise of permanent warfare predicted by Orwell combined with the unchallengeable denial of rights described by Kafka.
Some rights are subject to fair debate -- how much religious symbolism in the public square? What rights, if any, for the unborn? How far to take affirmative action? But far more venerable and fundamental rights are now under assault.
Left and right are bitterly divided today. But if there is one issue that unites nearly all liberals with principled conservatives, it's that we must resist the assault on precious rights. In exploring the views of proposed Supreme Court nominees, the Senate should give the issue of rights priority above all others, since the courts are the last bastion of our freedoms.
There's one more recent news story worthy of special note. The American Civil Liberties Union, the one organization whose entire purpose is to defend rights, finds that the FBI has assembled more than 1,000 pages of files on it as a possible security risk. These files, of course, are classified, in the name of national security. Orwell, meet Kafka.
I'm donating the fee for this column to the ACLU, and everyone who cares about liberty should join it. Look at ACLU.org, or write ACLU, 125 Broad St., New York, NY 10004.
Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, can be reached at kuttner@prospect.org. His column appears regularly in the Globe. 
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
Posted at 04:14 pm by R7fel
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Fascism Must Be Recognized
We Must Be Alert To Rise Of Fascism
BY HOWARD J. BLITZ
Jun 22, 2005
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Fascism is not a four-letter word, but it might as well be. As defined in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, fascism is totalitarianism marked by forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry and commerce, and bellicose nationalism. The means of production might be privately owned, but are in effect controlled by government edict.
Fascism reflects the constant use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs and other paraphernalia, and flags are seen everywhere including flag symbols on clothing. Fascism uses fear and the need for security as its motivating force to persuade individuals that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” Fascism rallies individuals into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived threat whether it is racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, conservatives, liberals, communists, socialists or any other group.
Fascism controls the privately-owned media through government regulation. Fascism uses the most common religion in a nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to a fascist government’s policies and/or actions. Fascism does not tolerate different points of view and therefore it is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested and free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
It is likely the Patriot Act will be renewed this year.
It allows the government to monitor religious and political institutions — even without suspecting criminal activity — to assist in terror investigations.
It allows prosecution of librarians or other keepers of records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information in a terrorism investigation.
It allows monitoring of federal prison conversations between attorneys and clients and denies attorneys to individuals accused of crimes.
It allows search and seizure of an individual’s papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigations.
And it allows individuals to be jailed indefinitely without a trial and without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.
It behooves all individuals to know and understand what fascism is and to be able to recognize it when it raises its ugly head or it begins to be raised.
Government officials always state that their actions are in the best interest of the individual. However, it was government officials who stated that the Social Security number would never be used for identification. Today, no one can accomplish much without using that number.
Government officials also told individuals in 1913 that the income tax would only affect the wealthy. Today, the income tax impacts all income levels.
Fascism must be recognized for what it is — government control of all human activity — and it must be recognized when it begins to exist or else the light of individual liberty could be snuffed out.
****
The Freedom Library Education and Scholarship Program begins again Aug. 16 at two locations, the Freedom Library in Yuma and Antelope High School in Wellton. The Freedom Library now offers two adult scholarships in addition to the one academic and the two instructional seminar scholarships for those in grade eight through sophomore in college. Contact The Freedom Library at 726-8050 or go to the Web site www.freedomlibrary.org for more information and registration procedures.
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Howard J. Blitz is a local libertarian and president of The Freedom Library Inc., 2435 S. 8th Ave. His e-mail address is info@freedomlibrary.org
Posted at 04:03 pm by R7fel
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Russian-Chinese Joint Military Exercises
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Commonwealth-2005 Exercises Unprecedented |
BEIJING/HONG KONG, July 18 (RIA Novosti, Mark Zavadsky) - The Commonwealth-2005 Russian-Chinese joint military exercises scheduled for late August 2005 are unprecedented in Chinese history, said Major General Zhu Chenghu, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies of the National Defense University.
The exercises, scheduled for August 18-25, 2005, will take part in three stages. The first stage (August 18-19) will be held in the Far Eastern Military District. It will include military-political consultations between the chiefs of the Russian and Chinese general staffs in Vladivostok. The second and third stages will take place in China.
About 3,000 Russian troops (from the Air Force, Airborne Forces, and Navy) and 5,000 Chinese troops will be involved in the exercises.
The agreement to conduct the first-ever Russian-Chinese military exercises was decided during Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's visit to China on December 12-13, 2004. The purpose of the joint exercises is to practice anti-terrorist operations.
General Zhu Chenghu said he was convinced that the bilateral military cooperation had good prospects.
"Russia and China are concerned with the situation in East Asia," he said. "I believe they will be able to solve regional security problems jointly."
"We will test the compatibility of our military systems to promote mutual trust between Russia and China," he added.
Chief of the Russian General Staff Yury Baluyevsky said earlier that the upcoming exercises would not be aimed against third countries. He denied all media allegations that Russia and China were set to practice an invasion of Taiwan.
http://en.rian.ru/world/20050718/40928131.html
Posted at 03:43 pm by R7fel
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Friday, July 15, 2005
Cutting Out the US
By Michael A Weinstein
Overshadowed in the Western press by the Group of Eight summit of leading industrialized nations and the complications to it caused by the London transit bombings, another summit - the July 5 meetings in Astana, Kazakhstan of the heads of government of the six members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - promised to have greater geostrategic significance than the more widely reported events.
Created with its present membership of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in 2001, the origins of the SCO date to 1996 when Beijing initiated the Shanghai Five, which included all the current SCO members except for Uzbekistan. The official purpose of the alliance, according to its founding declaration, is to form a comprehensive network of cooperation among the member states, including military security, economic development, trade and cultural exchange.
Translated into geostrategic terms, the SCO arises from a confluence of interests among the major power centers of China and Russia, and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, with the exception of Turkmenistan, which pursues a foreign policy of studied neutrality and isolation.
The overall strategic aim of the alliance for Beijing and Moscow is curbing Washington's influence in Central Asia to establish a joint sphere of influence there. For Beijing, the most important goal is to get a lock on the considerable energy resources of the region, but it also seeks markets for its goods, outlets for investment and collaboration against Islamist movements. Moscow has leagued with Beijing to restore some of its influence over its "near abroad". The regimes of the Central Asian states want support for their survival against opposition movements, economic development assistance and increased trade and investment.
Up until the June summit, the SCO's effectiveness as a strategic alliance had been limited by the reluctance of the Central Asian states to abandon their multi-directional foreign policies geared to gaining maximum advantage by playing off the West - particularly the United States - against the incipient Moscow-Beijing axis. The picture changed in 2004 and 2005 as the result of successful regime changes in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, and, most importantly, Kyrgyzstan, which awakened Central Asian leaders - including the new regime in Kyrgyzstan, which faces determined opposition - to their vulnerability.
Realizing that Washington and Brussels would prefer pro-Western market-oriented regimes to the authoritarian, clan-based and crony systems currently in place in the region, Central Asian leaders began to perceive that multi-directionality might be a luxury too expensive to afford, and moved towards casting their lots with Moscow and Beijing through the SCO, paving the way for the alliance to act for the first time with political effect. The key figure in the shift is Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov, who faced Western censure for his violent suppression of an Islamist rebellion against his regime in the city of Andijan in May.
Geopolitical outcomes
The path to the summit was smoothed and cleared by a meeting in Moscow between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 1. Advancing their vision of geopolitical multipolarity, which includes removing or at least diminishing Washington's influence in Central Asia, the leaders issued a joint declaration on "world order" rejecting efforts by any powers to achieve a "monopoly in world affairs", divide the world into "leaders and followers", and "impose models of social development" on other countries. The declaration was clearly aimed at perceived attempts by Washington at regime change that would establish a world of market democracies arbitrated by US power.
With the Sino-Russian declaration setting its theme, the report issued at the end of the SCO summit and signed by all participants included a clause rejecting attempts at "monopolizing or dominating international affairs" and insisting on "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states".
Applying the general principle of non-interference specifically, the SCO declaration called for a timetable to be set for the closure of US military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan that support Washington's operations in Afghanistan, but which are also elements of Washington's strategy of creating a permanent arc of bases spanning East Africa and East Asia. Following the summit, the Uzbekistan Foreign Ministry issued a statement that the US Khanabad airbase could serve no other purpose than support operations for the Afghan intervention: "Any other prospects for a US military presence in Uzbekistan were not considered by the Uzbek side." Washington responded that were Tashkent to insist on closure of the Khanabad base, the US had other options.
Satisfying Beijing's interests, the SCO also became the first regional bloc to oppose the bid by Japan, Brazil, Germany and India to enlarge the United Nations Security Council's permanent membership. Calling for consensus on UN reforms after careful consultation, the SCO declaration rejected deadlines for those reforms and early voting on draft proposals.
Despite the slap at New Delhi, India, along with Pakistan and Iran, sought and was granted observer status in the SCO, an acknowledgment of the organization's growing geostrategic importance. Joining Mongolia, the three new observers see the SCO as a permanent presence that will increasingly affect their security and economic interests.
The bottom line
After an initial period of halting growth, the SCO has emerged as an alliance serving as an effective vehicle for Beijing's and Moscow's geopolitical aims.
Look for the alliance to continue to further the interests of the Moscow-Beijing axis as long as those two power centers are careful to maintain their accord and the regimes in Central Asia depend on the axis for political support. As the SCO grows in strength, Washington's influence in Central Asia will diminish.
Published with permission of the Power and Interest News Report, an analysis-based publication that seeks to provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com
Posted at 10:08 pm by R7fel
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China: Determined To Respond
Top Chinese General Warns US Over Attack
By Alexandra Harney in Beijing and Demetri Sevastopulo and Edward Alden in Washington
Published: July 14 2005 21:59 | Last updated: July 15 2005 00:03
China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan, a Chinese general said on Thursday.
“If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” said General Zhu Chenghu.
Gen Zhu was speaking at a function for foreign journalists organised, in part, by the Chinese government. He added that China's definition of its territory included warships and aircraft.
“If the Americans are determined to interfere [then] we will be determined to respond,” said Gen Zhu, who is also a professor at China's National Defence University.
“We . . . will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds . . . of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”
Gen Zhu is a self-acknowledged “hawk” who has warned that China could strike the US with long-range missiles. But his threat to use nuclear weapons in a conflict over Taiwan is the most specific by a senior Chinese official in nearly a decade.
However, some US-based China experts cautioned that Gen Zhu probably did not represent the mainstream People's Liberation Army view.
“He is running way beyond his brief on what China might do in relation to the US if push comes to shove,” said one expert with knowledge of Gen Zhu. “Nobody who is cleared for information on Chinese war scenarios is going to talk like this,” he added.
Gen Zhu's comments come as the Pentagon prepares to brief Congress next Monday on its annual report on the Chinese military, which is expected to take a harder line than previous years. They are also likely to fuel the mounting anti-China sentiment on Capitol Hill.
In recent months, a string of US officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, have raised concerns about China's military rise. The Pentagon on Thursday declined to comment on “hypothetical scenarios”.
Rick Fisher, a former senior US congressional official and an authority on the Chinese military, said the specific nature of the threat “is a new addition to China's public discourse”. China's official doctrine has called for no first use of nuclear weapons since its first atomic test in 1964. But Gen Zhu is not the first Chinese official to refer to the possibility of using such weapons first in a conflict over Taiwan.
Chas Freeman, a former US assistant secretary of defence, said in 1996 that a PLA official had told him China could respond in kind to a nuclear strike by the US in the event of a conflict with Taiwan. The official is believed to have been Xiong Guangkai, now the PLA's deputy chief of general staff.
Gen Zhu said his views did not represent official Chinese policy and he did not anticipate war with the US.
Additional reporting by Richard McGregor in Beijing |
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Posted at 05:08 pm by R7fel
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