There's a whole lotta typin' goin' on

Jebus said:
Fireblade said:
*snip a whole lotta US-defending*

Snip- a whole lot of nonsense

Now Jebus and Fireblade- I like the both of you. But if you guys can't simmer down I will have to send you away from here until you can play nice.

This I believe was Kharn's main point. You folks take things too personally. Chill out.

Painful reality is that countries have been doing this for a long time. The Belgians (who actually were the ones responsible for killing Lumumba Jebs), the french, the americans, the germans. We've had a Taiwanese hit team kill someone they didn't like in California some years ago, we've had people whacking other people for national causes within our borders and we've done it within yours. Plus other nasty business.

But Kharn is right, this sucks and its wrong. A person commits a murder or an abduction in another person's country, that person is subject to the country's criminal law. This is the right of jurisdiction.

Back when the Israeli's stole Eichman (I think) out of Argentina there was a big legal case in the World Court (again, I think... this is age) and the Court ruled that Israel was wrong and Argentina's sovereignty was violated. The Israeli's apologized, the Argentine's said "Ok." And Eichman got sent to hell.

The US has been doing abduction since the DEA seized a Mexican doctor on charges he was involved in the torture of a DEA agent. The case was dropped and the doctor was sent home. But the abduction was judged legal in the US. I've always thought that was a crappy decision.

I actually think that sucks. The US should not be in the business of abducting people but should work through the legal systems, and there should be more cooperation. Whether that cooperation is possible given the tone of anti-americanism that Europeans spout, I don't know. In the end I think the US and Europe have more things they should be agreeing upon than disagreeing on.

But there is a problem. France doesn't like to expedite suspects back to the US because the US still applies the death penalty. Under law they are not supposed to send a person back (or I think this is how it works- it's been awhile and my mind is forgetful). A terrorist involved in a conspiracy that kills hundred or thousands of lives would be subject to the death penalty. This could cause problems. Of course France could say to the US- the death penalty is barbaric. Perhaps they are right but that's democracy for you- we seem to like it.

But let's go back to Eichman- the assault is really against Argentina's sovereignty, not Eichman's rights. Eichman was a war criminal and thus an international criminal. Ditto pirates. You catch a pirate you can hang them. Terrorists? I would argue that terrorists are a close fit to the definition of pirates- individuals who are usually not protected by states who organize to commit acts of political violence without the protection of sovereign flags (for which they would be soldiers or spies).

Personally, I think this policy is a bit to much even justified by 9-11. It is this habit of justifying everything based on 9-11 as pretext for extending our sovereignty or acting violently that suggests that it was Osama that was the clear victor from 9-11. After all, all he wanted was to upset our way of life and draw attention to himself. By now, the guy should have had his head on a pole.

But seriously Jebs (and come on Kharn), pointing out every terrible crime that the US has done and calling foul is a bit hypocritical. There are plenty of Americans who have pointed out our faults. Perhaps the mirror needs to be shined back.

ANd it was funny you guys were talking about Muslim bashing. I know a lot of Muslims in the US and see plenty of Muslims all the time- either in Virginia or in NY. Yes, they have suffered more because of 9-11, but significantly? Not really. Most of the Muslims I know are still sending their kids to public colleges, pursuing careers, shopping in malls, going to movies, worshipping as they wish and pursuing their chance at the American dream.

When you guys were talking about the other country doing Muslim bashing I thought you meant the Netherlands or Germany. Not the US.

As it turns out, it's the Americans - to no great surprise, I think. They're used to taking what they want in third world countries - Europe is just a small step, isn't it? You want something, you come in and get it.

Oh come on Jebs. You're not going to tell me that Belgium sending in troops to prop up Mobutu was a humanitarian mission are you? I mean how much denial about Zaire do you suffer? And France backing up the Hutus after Rwanda? And while France and American may bicker about Sudan- you can blame the US, but why not France?

As for screwing up Third World countries- the Europeans were ahead of the US by a long shot. If the US is practicing a policy of new imperialism, the Europeans have not quite given up their old imperialism either.

There's a name for persons and nations like that.

Imperialism?

And I realise intelligence agencies are something that's here to stay. Hell, I live in Belgium - the nation with undoubtably the most secret agents every square inch... Yet, there's a difference between spying on your friend (as we all know for ages the US do), and actually assuming you can enter their territory and do whatever the fuck they want.

Irony that this sentiment comes from a young European. A few generations ago your countryman were losing their colonies because they were too weak to hold on to them. And if you had the power to do it again, wouldn't you?

Kharn will probably say that you can't judge a current generation by the past and that generations change. Perhaps. I hope so. I had a lot of hope that the next generation of Americans would be better than the one before me, but it's been going down hill. Perhaps people become more moral, or perhaps those with power decide how moral they wish to be.

But if human nature is generally constant, I think it comes down to power.

Fireblade said:
Straw man argument? I attacked the issue, not Jebus.
I think you're mixing up Ad Hominem with Straw Man arguments. And yes, practically everything you said was a Straw Man. No surpises there.

A little bit of both, and no, not everything he said was senseless and you're argument to suggest that it was is disingenous.
 
Double post but this is new, so.....

Hey I'm an Admin and I can do what I want (US policy).

Ok sorry for breaking the rules a bit- (a better policy.)

Fireblade said:
When is or was Belgium our friend pray tell? Maybe forty years ago, but if we are supposed to approach this from a "realist" perspective, nations have no "friends" Jebus. Quaint notions of "disrespect" notwithstanding, the United States is acting out a role as global hegemon. Expect such a thing to occur, because that is how such a nation retains its power. You really think that if there were the possibility of doing such a thing in the US, Belgium would not even attempt to exert is "power" over another in order to pursue national interest?]

Or more interestingly, perhaps the US is doing what it does not because it is a global hegemon, but because it is losing its hegemony.

Had the US been so powerful as to be the sole uncontested hegemon, than it would not have to rely on coercive force. But in a world in which the US is losing economic power to Europe (where some say a new superpower is on the rise) or to China, which has been developing its own sphere of interest, than perhaps the US feels the need to flex its muscles more. This is a sign of weakness, not strength. Strength would mean that things get done without expending our national treasury. Gulf War 1 was largely paid for by others.

The premise is simple (bearing in mind I am NOT a "realist" as regards IR theory, so I don't agree with this *gasp*): The US does what it wants because it can. Any other nation that has the means to do such things, would. There is fundamentally no difference between the characters of nations who possess power and are worried about security. It is really that simple.

I've always thought that neo-realist argument (which is really what you are arguing- not classical realism) was overly simplistic thanks to Waltz who is overrated and doesn't say very much. A more nuanced account- looking at political interests within the state- a liberal account, or a more classic realist account that take ideas and interests more seriously- might say that countries undertake their strategic interests differently.

Compare for instance Japan and the US. Japan has had the capacity to build an effective military for a long time, and did so while not spending over 1% of GNP on defense. Yet the Japanese weapon in diplomacy was generally diplomatic and economic due to the tradition of pacifism that followed the Second World War (again here is a Kharn argument that people can change... or was that because they were being protected by the US?)

In the end this policy of abducting and sending people to countries where we know they will be tortured, is bullshit. Bush lies and gets away with it in the US in part because he has strong lobby support (top 10% of the top 1% = lots of cash) and he appeals to the religious right (Jesus is good politics). But that policy doesn't sell abroad- as Laura recently discovered.

The reason why Bush can get away with so much is because the Republicans run the Congress and the White House.

But it's a bullshit policy. Abducting people and sending them off? WHen does it end? Really, what would the US think if the Iranians came into the US and began abducting people?

THere is a legal notional called comity which basically says we treat each other nicely and with good manners and things go well. But like most things W doesn't much care about the legacy he leaves as long as his interests get what they want.
 
welsh said:
This I believe was Kharn's main point. You folks take things too personally. Chill out.

Yes, it was. Didn't expect Fireblade to reply with so much anger either. Sorry if I offended, FB.

welsh said:
problems with extradition

You do realise we have a little something called the International Court of Justice in the Hague, right? You might find it a lot easier to dump your criminals there than to kidnap them from Europe. Even France would have few objections, as long as they don't go to the US.

The fact is the world doesn't want to hold up the US judicial system as *the* judicial system to judge international criminals by. That really isn't that strange. You're one of the biggest countries in the world, but thanks to your current policy also one of the most friendless and unliked ones, not to mention how your judicial system is...questionable, from an international viewpoint. Juries who are apt to be biased against terrorists and judges appointed by Mr Anti-Terrorism himself do not make for fair trials.

welsh said:
But seriously Jebs (and come on Kharn), pointing out every terrible crime that the US has done and calling foul is a bit hypocritical. There are plenty of Americans who have pointed out our faults. Perhaps the mirror needs to be shined back.

The mirror shines back a bit too easy.

In international politics there are hardly any questions being placed at America's treatment of civilians in Guantanamo. Whereas the Netherlands has to pay a long painful political price just for its soldiers being incompetent (Srebrenica), the US can pluck up "terrorists" left and right and kill and torture them without any international backlash.

Excuse us if we're a bit skeptical.

welsh said:
ANd it was funny you guys were talking about Muslim bashing. I know a lot of Muslims in the US and see plenty of Muslims all the time- either in Virginia or in NY. Yes, they have suffered more because of 9-11, but significantly? Not really. Most of the Muslims I know are still sending their kids to public colleges, pursuing careers, shopping in malls, going to movies, worshipping as they wish and pursuing their chance at the American dream.

When you guys were talking about the other country doing Muslim bashing I thought you meant the Netherlands or Germany. Not the US.

It's all a question of which way you look at it. Is the USA's policy of international prejudice against the muslim world better than Europe's "policy" of national prejudice against its own citizens? There are too many Americans who think muslim fits terrorism like a hand fits a glove, whereas Europeans have a lot more experience with non-muslim terrorism.

We had this debate before, but do remember that in the US muslims are safe as long as they're not extremists. Again, the reason Europe has a lot of muslim extremism is because a lot of countries let it exist. The US is not a breeding ground of any kind of tolerance in the infamous Dutch sense, it's a breeding ground of forced or non-forced integration. You can call that the better option if you wish.

welsh said:
Kharn will probably say that you can't judge a current generation by the past and that generations change. Perhaps. I hope so. I had a lot of hope that the next generation of Americans would be better than the one before me, but it's been going down hill. Perhaps people become more moral, or perhaps those with power decide how moral they wish to be.

By your logic, the Dutch and the Belgians should be wary and distrustful of the Spanish. After all, they held our countries for many years until we fought ourselves free in the 80-years war, they might well do it again!

FB said:
Wow, Kharn...you sure like to play it "rough" as regards your comments; being the big bad moderator and going to "our" level of insults. Cut with a dull knife indeed; anyone can make a smartass comment and pretend to have the high ground as you like to play it. I'll even seperate each issue and grievance I have with your argument here into distinct sections to make it easier for you to read, quote 8 sentences for no reason, and then reply with a witty riposte. I'm such a nice guy.

Indeed. Actually my comment was about how silly it is to get so extremely worked up about this. Apparently it didn't help.

FB said:
Being that you considered yourself a realist (unless I am mistaken, which is possible), why are you feeling all hot and bothered about this anyways?

I don't consider myself a realist. What am I, naive? I've never met a realist in my life.

And somehow I don't think I'm the one feeling all hot and bothered about this.

FB said:
A nation has proprietary interest in maintaining its own security. "Insult to their sovereignty"? I wasn't aware that in this globalizing world we lived in that the Treaty of Westphalia still held sway, nor do I think or really care about the "feelings". Nations can and do what they percieve to be their needs as regard maintaining power. If Europe cannot stop that, and in a realist world there are no "allies" in a stuggle for hegemony, influence, and power, then why would you say such a stupid comment as "insult to sovereignty and competence"?

Another straw man? How disappointing.

I'm not going to reply to that until you brush up on the concept of sovereignty, though.

FB said:
Straw man argument? I attacked the issue, not Jebus.

The whole "but the EU does the same" is what I call a straw man argument, though my definition of straw man deviates a bit from yours.

FB said:
Yes I insulted him, fine, but I also answered the point in that A) people are all nationalist to some extent, hence the existence of nation-states and B) that assuming the actions of America are not representative of politics writ large is asinine and stupid.

I didn't actually disagree on that point. In fact I said as much, I don't know why you're repeating yourself on this point. As I said, we're all wrong, that doesn't make the US better.

FB said:
Hey though, no problems, as you evidently don't seem to have a problem attacking both Jebus and myself as regards intellect. Pot calling the kettle black indeed.

The "pot calling kettle" remark was simply about the fact that you have no more control over your nationalist feelings on this issue than Jebus does. Am I wrong?

FB said:
I never said that the US didn't engage in quote "muslim-bashing", but how the hell do you compare the actions of the citizenry and disorganized interest groups with a French LAW that bans religious displays in public?

As John said, one is de facto, the other is de jure. They do compare like that, though.

The interesting fact is however that the French law has banned all religious elements. Without prejudice. Large crosses, those cute lil' Jewish hat things, etc. etc. They all go. It is not prejudiced for or against the muslim religion, and I think it's unfair to accuse France of muslim-bashing just because the muslims protested more than the Jews or Christians.

Have you seen the numbers on people thrown out of the US since 9/11, though? You'll see some interesting waves of muslims in there. Too many to rationalise away.

FB said:
I find this one particulary amusing, given the fact that I am myself reading the Qu'ran, reading up on the dialogue between Western and "Islamic" nations and other such matters.

You've said this many times. Yes, we all know you read the Qu'uran, could you please shut up about it?

FB said:
We all know of course that the Netherlands is a bastion of tolerance and would never practice "muslim-bashing", right?

The Netherlands has never been a tolerant country as most people think, this is a misconception. Tolerance as a concept means being interesting in other people and leaving them their own paths to walk despite this. Tolerance in the Dutch sense means a fear of openness and communication, which leads to everyone minding their own business as long as people don't hurt each other. Some of it is real tolerance, most of it isn't

It's not that surprising that the Netherlands quickly turned against the muslims after waves of anti-muslim immigration propaganda, American anti-terrorist (=muslim) propaganda and then a nice murder to top it all off.

FB said:
On a last note: What the hell is a "Constitutional Agreement" if not a Constitution? Logical fallacy: weasel words. I fail to see how trying to ratify a document to govern a supposed entity is not a constitution or charter. I have little faith in the EU as an entity, with or without this EU Constitution.

I don't have a proper translation for the term, but the EU Constitution is not a constitution. Not just because it is not the constitution of a state, but also because it is an incomplete patch-work document of several agreements, which leaves holes simply to be filled up by existing national constitutions.

It's not a constitution, wrong term for it.

FB said:
There, I think I broke those up nicely. I look forward to you lassoing quotes out of context and belitting others as not having the mental actuity to understand anything without you holding our hands and babysitting. Dance, dance!

I didn't know quoting was such a crime. I suggest you calm down, though.

John said:
EU Military<US Military. Persaonlly, I think a war would be enjoyable in a way, like watching a perfect Zerg rush in Starcraft, only the Zergs are M1A2 tanks and B-52's rushing to finally flatten Berlin again.

I just don't think anyone calling for EU-US war on either side deserves to get away without me trolling them, especially if it's a Euro calling for thier own destruction.

What're you, naive? A war between the EU and the US isn't the same as invading a shithole like Iraq or Afghanistan. "Destruction" and "total subjugation" as concepts fit only when a big bully picks on the a small guy, like all the wars of the US since WW II.

Seeing as the US can't even hold on to Iraq properly, though, I think "destruction" is a pretty extreme term to use for a EU-US war.

And again; you really need to shut up. Your pride of the American military borders on the chauvinistic. Remember the article welsh posted about this a while ago? The American military is so big that it has no purpose whatsoever. This is nothing to be proud of. You'd be better of with less debt and an army the size of that of the EU.

John said:
Haha. We do have a lot in common with the French. But for the record, our Muslim bashing is strictly de facto, thiers is de jure.

And unlike the French, we have no shitty 1905 law on secularity.

Secularity schmekularity, at least they're non-discriminatory laws
 
welsh said:
problems with extradition

You do realise we have a little something called the International Court of Justice in the Hague, right? You might find it a lot easier to dump your criminals there than to kidnap them from Europe. Even France would have few objections, as long as they don't go to the US.

Closest fit would be the International Criminal Court, but the US isn't party to that, so that doesn't work. Why the US isn't a party might have to do with fears that people like Kissenger might be sent to jail for things that happened in Chile.

The ICJ isn't a criminal court. Only countries (and a few international organizations) can go. Nor does it have the power to hold criminals.

Criminals regularly get extradited to countries that want them if there is an extradition treaty. There should be an extradition treaty if people can agree. Frankly, if the US and France could have an extradition treaty where we trade the terrorists we catch, and instead of giving them the death penalty we sent them to Devil's Island (I know they closed it down- but it's a cool flick)- I could live with that.

This failure to cooperate over the Atlantic is just bad for politics.

The fact is the world doesn't want to hold up the US judicial system as *the* judicial system to judge international criminals by.

I don't think this is really a matter of US pride over it's legal system. As once a member of that legal community, I rather like the US system but have also seen its faults. Yes, it can be corrupt as hell but it can also be very effective.

But the tradition is that if someone commits a crime in your country or against your country, than your country will want to hold them accountable to your laws. If a terrorist blows up a building in the US and runs away to France, than the US should have the right to deal with him- the crime happened here. Likewise, if a terrorist commits a crime in France and comes to the US, the US should turn him over to France.

Generally speaking however, there is no obligation of a country to enforce the laws of another within its own borders. Thus a famous bankrobber from England got to live a nice life in Brazil for many years and US insider traders can happily retire to a yacht in Caymans.

That really isn't that strange. You're one of the biggest countries in the world, but thanks to your current policy also one of the most friendless and unliked ones, not to mention how your judicial system is...questionable, from an international viewpoint. Juries who are apt to be biased against terrorists and judges appointed by Mr Anti-Terrorism himself do not make for fair trials.

True, juries can be biased, but they are often rather fair. Judges from Mr Bush only work in the federal circuit, not the state. As for the unpopular nature of the US- this was true under Reagan. The US was also unfair under Carter, although he was a very nice fellow and that was unfair. I am not saying that this isn't important or that Bush isn't an asshole. Only that this lack of popularity is not unusual although amazingly harsh considering how popular the US was before 9-11. Bush's constituents are primarily interested in domestic interests over international ones.

welsh said:
But seriously Jebs (and come on Kharn), pointing out every terrible crime that the US has done and calling foul is a bit hypocritical. There are plenty of Americans who have pointed out our faults. Perhaps the mirror needs to be shined back.
The mirror shines back a bit too easy.

In international politics there are hardly any questions being placed at America's treatment of civilians in Guantanamo. Whereas the Netherlands has to pay a long painful political price just for its soldiers being incompetent (Srebrenica), the US can pluck up "terrorists" left and right and kill and torture them without any international backlash.

Excuse us if we're a bit skeptical.

I don't agree. If there is less international spotlight on Gitmo, it's perhaps because its old news and little has changed. Flush a Qu'ran down a toilet and you'll get news. Jebus' post makes note of the international backlash against US terrorist policies.

For the US this is still a response to 9-11. Osama woke a sleeping wolf, and with Bush, the wolf has a long leash. As for Dutch military incompetence- You're the first person to mention it. When was the last time you heard a Frenchman complaining about French policies to protect Rwanda's Hutus while they massacre the Tutsis? On this board- nada.

welsh said:
ANd it was funny you guys were talking about Muslim bashing. I know a lot of Muslims in the US and see plenty of Muslims all the time- either in Virginia or in NY. Yes, they have suffered more because of 9-11, but significantly? Not really. Most of the Muslims I know are still sending their kids to public colleges, pursuing careers, shopping in malls, going to movies, worshipping as they wish and pursuing their chance at the American dream.

When you guys were talking about the other country doing Muslim bashing I thought you meant the Netherlands or Germany. Not the US.
It's all a question of which way you look at it. Is the USA's policy of international prejudice against the muslim world better than Europe's "policy" of national prejudice against its own citizens? There are too many Americans who think muslim fits terrorism like a hand fits a glove, whereas Europeans have a lot more experience with non-muslim terrorism.

A policy of international prejudice because we invade Afghanistan and Iraq? I think those wars were motivated by-
Revenge and reprisal- in the case of Afghanistan
Oil and leverage- in the case of Iraq.

You're right that there are to many americans who think that Muslim and terrorist go together. But we also have our Timothy McVeigh's and other rightwing wackos. If we keep looking to the middle east it might be because the fellows who fly airplanes into buildings happen to Muslim. Likewise, the Brits would be suspicious of the Irish because those who plant bombs in pubs have 'Lucky Charms' accents.

We had this debate before, but do remember that in the US muslims are safe as long as they're not extremists. Again, the reason Europe has a lot of muslim extremism is because a lot of countries let it exist. The US is not a breeding ground of any kind of tolerance in the infamous Dutch sense, it's a breeding ground of forced or non-forced integration. You can call that the better option if you wish.

I have known a few muslims with some pretty extreme and whacky views. Generally they can think what they want as long as they aren't commit acts of violence.

Tolerance and integration may go hand in hand. I personally think that we may see an end of bigotry and racism when people can't tell who's who anymore and races mix.

Rather, it might be the division of people that creates your extremism- by isolating groups you reinforce their identies and sense of isolation and vulnerability. THat in turn leads to an easy in collective action, a rise in extreme views, and greater intolerance.
welsh said:
Kharn will probably say that you can't judge a current generation by the past and that generations change. Perhaps. I hope so. I had a lot of hope that the next generation of Americans would be better than the one before me, but it's been going down hill. Perhaps people become more moral, or perhaps those with power decide how moral they wish to be.

By your logic, the Dutch and the Belgians should be wary and distrustful of the Spanish. After all, they held our countries for many years until we fought ourselves free in the 80-years war, they might well do it again!

Perhaps you might if you lived closer to the Spanish, but you live closer to the French. I know French you don't like the Spanish and Spanish who don't like the French- but I think this has more to do with nationalism than anything else.

I hope people change and would be more willing to accept that people change slowly than quickly. But perhaps "interests" change more slowly than people. Bankers, oil companies, arms dealers, politicans- by nature of their positions in the world, perhaps they are even more resistant to change. If the Dutch are different then when they fought Spain for independence, are the Bankers of today that different from the Medicis? Are the trading houses of the the 19th Century that different from the international corporations of today? In technology, staff- but in terms of interests?
 
welsh said:
Why the US isn't a party might have to do with fears that people like Kissenger might be sent to jail for things that happened in Chile.

Oh no, perish the thought, he might actually be brought to justice!

welsh said:
The ICJ isn't a criminal court. Only countries (and a few international organizations) can go. Nor does it have the power to hold criminals.

We're not discussing crimes, we're discussing terrorism, which is not a matter of criminal courts.

welsh said:
Criminals regularly get extradited to countries that want them if there is an extradition treaty. There should be an extradition treaty if people can agree. Frankly, if the US and France could have an extradition treaty where we trade the terrorists we catch, and instead of giving them the death penalty we sent them to Devil's Island (I know they closed it down- but it's a cool flick)- I could live with that.

This failure to cooperate over the Atlantic is just bad for politics.

Yes, but can you really blame us? The US is not giving an inch to negotiate about what they do with prisoners and all international means of conviction are just cast aside. And then we're supposed to be happy that you want to deal with it in your own system? Tchyeah...

welsh said:
I don't think this is really a matter of US pride over it's legal system.

No, but it is a matter of distrust of us towards your legal system.

welsh said:
Yes, it can be corrupt as hell but it can also be very effective.

I think effeciency is rather less important in courts than the absence of corruptness.

welsh said:
But the tradition is that if someone commits a crime in your country or against your country, than your country will want to hold them accountable to your laws. If a terrorist blows up a building in the US and runs away to France, than the US should have the right to deal with him- the crime happened here. Likewise, if a terrorist commits a crime in France and comes to the US, the US should turn him over to France.

That's rather hard to pin-point with terrorists, isn't it, since they generally get arrested before committing a crime.

welsh said:
True, juries can be biased, but they are often rather fair.

Yeah, I'd happily place my life in the hands of a bunch of nitwits who have no court training whatsoever and have no way to penetrate the blather of attorneys. No wonder the people who can afford the best attorneys get away with the most crap in your country.

welsh said:
Only that this lack of popularity is not unusual although amazingly harsh considering how popular the US was before 9-11.

It's even more amazingly harsh if you consider how popular the US was AFTER 9-11 but BEFORE the world got wind of what Bush was doing.

welsh said:
I don't agree. If there is less international spotlight on Gitmo, it's perhaps because its old news and little has changed. Flush a Qu'ran down a toilet and you'll get news. Jebus' post makes note of the international backlash against US terrorist policies.

For the US this is still a response to 9-11. Osama woke a sleeping wolf, and with Bush, the wolf has a long leash. As for Dutch military incompetence- You're the first person to mention it. When was the last time you heard a Frenchman complaining about French policies to protect Rwanda's Hutus while they massacre the Tutsis? On this board- nada.

This board is not the thermometer of the world. Neither is the press the way of telling what politicians are doing.

The Dutch have suffered a lot of humiliation for what basically was a simple matter of incompetence.

The US is not getting sufficient political backlash. Let's not wind back a few years now to the post-colonial pre-fall of the wall days. Europe did a lot wrong and the US did a lot wrong there, that's not the point. The point is that right now the biggest political and military events are coming from the US and all that ends up in a lot of torture in Iraq, Afhanistan and elsewhere, as well as the US breaking a lot of laws. I think the actions of the US should be the biggest issue right now, yet it hasn't even been reprimanded by the UN.

welsh said:
A policy of international prejudice because we invade Afghanistan and Iraq? I think those wars were motivated by-
Revenge and reprisal- in the case of Afghanistan
Oil and leverage- in the case of Iraq.

The invasions are just extremes. All your focus, pressure and might is trained on the Middle East and never too positive for muslims, definitely not for deviant muslims. Has been for a long time, with your pro-Jewish anti-muslim Israel policy.

welsh said:
You're right that there are to many americans who think that Muslim and terrorist go together. But we also have our Timothy McVeigh's and other rightwing wackos. If we keep looking to the middle east it might be because the fellows who fly airplanes into buildings happen to Muslim. Likewise, the Brits would be suspicious of the Irish because those who plant bombs in pubs have 'Lucky Charms' accents.

So? That's no excuse, prejudice is prejudice, even if it stems from an attack many years ago.

welsh said:
I have known a few muslims with some pretty extreme and whacky views. Generally they can think what they want as long as they aren't commit acts of violence.

And they're not being watched and tracked by the Feds?

Hell, if your country is teeming with extremists, you'd think they'd act. Else they're just loud-mouths with moderate beliefs.

welsh said:
Tolerance and integration may go hand in hand. I personally think that we may see an end of bigotry and racism when people can't tell who's who anymore and races mix.

Rather, it might be the division of people that creates your extremism- by isolating groups you reinforce their identies and sense of isolation and vulnerability. THat in turn leads to an easy in collective action, a rise in extreme views, and greater intolerance.

This coming from the USA? Black people drinking out of different fountains and sitting at the back of the bus USA?

I thought you argued people can't change.

welsh said:
Perhaps you might if you lived closer to the Spanish, but you live closer to the French. I know French you don't like the Spanish and Spanish who don't like the French- but I think this has more to do with nationalism than anything else.

Your next-door neighbour isn't Germany either, yet you've said you're still suspicious of the Germans for what they did over half a century ago
 
Kharn- I am detecting either a particular anti-americanism today or perhaps something else is bothering you. Whichever, you seem to be pulling from specifics to make generalizations, but it's not exactly balanced. You are starting to sound disturbingly Jebus-like.

quick response-

Kharn said:
welsh said:
Why the US isn't a party might have to do with fears that people like Kissenger might be sent to jail for things that happened in Chile.

Oh no, perish the thought, he might actually be brought to justice!

Yes. This is the problem of moral outrage vs action. It would be one thing if people like Kissinger were charged merely because they "did dirty deeds" but it would be another if some leaders were picked merely because of convenience.

International law has become more moralistic in the last 70 years than over hundreds, yet the will to act based on that has not. For example- the world screamed foul when the French, Brits and Israelis invaded Egypt during the Suez Crisis. But there was hardly a pipsqueak when the Russians rolled tanks into Hungary at about the same time. It is easier to attack a democracy in the arena of world opinion than an autocrat.

If all violations of international law were equally persecuted, perhaps this might work. But perhaps the reason for moral outrage has more to do with politics. Shine the light on someone else to ignore your own sins and thus get a bit of political leverage out of it. Plenty of more terrible people have gotten away scot-free with barely a hickup. Pinochet would not have gotten into the trouble he did had he not gone to England. Idi Amin ducks to Saudi Arabia, Taylor retires happily to Nigeria. How do we target those who will be persecuted?

This has always been up for the charge of "Victors Justice." The Japanese made that claim when their generals were tried after World War 2. The Germans did as well. Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed war, but according to the Germans- "Well I mean come on? Were you guys serious? And why are you charging us with these crimes and not the Russians who did the same thing?"

So the Americans are fearful that the international criminal court would be used as a diplomatic weapon against America.

Ok, so maybe if the hands of the Americans weren't so bloody that wouldn't be a problem. Or is it because the system is so transparent?

welsh said:
The ICJ isn't a criminal court. Only countries (and a few international organizations) can go. Nor does it have the power to hold criminals.
We're not discussing crimes, we're discussing terrorism, which is not a matter of criminal courts.

I don't see why terrorism is not a crime. You blow up a building- you kill people, and you do it intentionally. That equals murder.

If it were soldiers they would be entitled to some international protections. But even spies can charged with espionage as a crime.

The problem is that "one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter". When you get into motivation things get messy.

So let's get rid of motivation and get back to basics-
(1) who is the accused- a civilian who is acting without the color of sovereign protection or as the agent of a sovereign country.
(2) What has he done- Conspiracy to murder, murder, threatening murder = crimes.

I mentioned earlier that terrorists should be treated as pirates, and in the old days pirates got hung as a matter of national law.

welsh said:
Criminals regularly get extradited to countries that want them if there is an extradition treaty. There should be an extradition treaty if people can agree. Frankly, if the US and France could have an extradition treaty where we trade the terrorists we catch, and instead of giving them the death penalty we sent them to Devil's Island (I know they closed it down- but it's a cool flick)- I could live with that.

This failure to cooperate over the Atlantic is just bad for politics.
Yes, but can you really blame us? The US is not giving an inch to negotiate about what they do with prisoners and all international means of conviction are just cast aside. And then we're supposed to be happy that you want to deal with it in your own system? Tchyeah...

As if the European system was much better. Hell I remember in Switzerland watching Arab millionaires pay bribes to Swiss cops. You think European systems are free of corruption or abuse?

This comes down to the fact that the US has the death penalty and the Europeans don't. Since France can't send the accused to a country where they will likely be put in an electric chair, they don't.

No, but it is a matter of distrust of us towards your legal system.

I suspect that the motivations are in fact more political. It's good politics to be anti-America these days.
welsh said:
Yes, it can be corrupt as hell but it can also be very effective.

I think effeciency is rather less important in courts than the absence of corruptness.

Are you suggesting that European Courts are free of corruption and abuse? That your system is not influenced by political forces?

That's rather hard to pin-point with terrorists, isn't it, since they generally get arrested before committing a crime.

A person should not be arrested or jailed prior to commiting a crime. All crimes require both an act (actus reas) and a mental state. Otherwise those imprisoned should benefit from habeas corpus.

Thus the trade off- to protect civil liberties you must allow people to commit the crimes you charge them with, otherwise you jail an innocent person. That means that a society must accept a bit of insecurity if it is to maintain it's system of liberties- the institutional rules that define the rights of civilians and constrain the abuse of the state.

That said, there are lots of potential crimes short of blowing up a building or murder. One can deport or hold in detention those who come to the country illegally, or who commit any of a host of smaller crimes. Criminal conspiracy need not have the act materialize.
welsh said:
True, juries can be biased, but they are often rather fair.
Yeah, I'd happily place my life in the hands of a bunch of nitwits who have no court training whatsoever and have no way to penetrate the blather of attorneys. No wonder the people who can afford the best attorneys get away with the most crap in your country.

You are mistaking the role of the jury and the judge.
The principle is that you are entitled to a jury of your peers. It's a throwback from English common law.

That said, the judge instructs the jury on matters of fact, not law. A jury would not be charged with a question such as "Does this violate a rule of jurisdiction," but rather the facts of a case.
"Does the evidence show beyond a reasonable doubt that Kharn hit his exlover with a hammer in the head with the intention to kill?"
or
"Does the preponderance of the evidence show that a reasonable man would believe that excessive watching of pornography led Kharn to a psychological state in which self-mutilation was a likely result?"

or some such.

I agree that rich defendents have a better chance in American criminal courts than poor ones. This has more to do with expenses. A poor defense attorney with a heavy docket, limited time and limited funds has less chance to prepare a full defense than a rich attorney who can more thoroughly pick apart the prosecutions case, challenge evidence or provide alternative arguments. Unfair? yes.

welsh said:
Only that this lack of popularity is not unusual although amazingly harsh considering how popular the US was before 9-11.

It's even more amazingly harsh if you consider how popular the US was AFTER 9-11 but BEFORE the world got wind of what Bush was doing.

Perhaps Bush's singularly most important blunder.
What can I tell ya, the guy is a dick.

I didn't vote for him.
welsh said:
I don't agree. If there is less international spotlight on Gitmo, it's perhaps because its old news and little has changed. Flush a Qu'ran down a toilet and you'll get news. Jebus' post makes note of the international backlash against US terrorist policies.

For the US this is still a response to 9-11. Osama woke a sleeping wolf, and with Bush, the wolf has a long leash. As for Dutch military incompetence- You're the first person to mention it. When was the last time you heard a Frenchman complaining about French policies to protect Rwanda's Hutus while they massacre the Tutsis? On this board- nada.

This board is not the thermometer of the world. Neither is the press the way of telling what politicians are doing.

The Dutch have suffered a lot of humiliation for what basically was a simple matter of incompetence.

The US is not getting sufficient political backlash. Let's not wind back a few years now to the post-colonial pre-fall of the wall days. Europe did a lot wrong and the US did a lot wrong there, that's not the point. The point is that right now the biggest political and military events are coming from the US and all that ends up in a lot of torture in Iraq, Afhanistan and elsewhere, as well as the US breaking a lot of laws. I think the actions of the US should be the biggest issue right now, yet it hasn't even been reprimanded by the UN.

Hard for the US to get a serious reprimand before the Security Council when it could veto such a resolution.

The point is that you are focusing on the US, but not on Europe. Who is responsible for what is happening in the Sudan- the US, French? Who gets the blame? Ok, so the US is more active know than in the past and more unilateral now than in the past. That provides plently of reason for the Europeans to get pissed off because the Americans are not playing like a member of a big-happy world community that is centered in Europe.

How much whipping? I frankly don't mind if the US gets a bit whipped. Bush is an idiot and I was perfectly happy to see Laura confront some displeasure recently in the middle east. Pro-Americans would say it's been too much whipping. Me, I am cool with it. You and anti-americans want more.

But this whipping is, I suspect, more than a matter of moral outrage, but a question of blame and distraction for political purposes. If you shine the light of your moral outrage on one party, you darken it on another. Reveal the dirty deeds of the US, and ignore someone else's.

welsh said:
A policy of international prejudice because we invade Afghanistan and Iraq? I think those wars were motivated by-
Revenge and reprisal- in the case of Afghanistan
Oil and leverage- in the case of Iraq.

The invasions are just extremes. All your focus, pressure and might is trained on the Middle East and never too positive for muslims, definitely not for deviant muslims. Has been for a long time, with your pro-Jewish anti-muslim Israel policy.

Over-generalized a bit here. The US is also involved in South America and Asia at the moment. YOu might be focusing on the middle east because that's good news.

And yes, the US is pro-Israel. That's a consequence of the fact that a lot of Jews came to the US after the Holocaust in Europe where they met up with the Jews who were here and they decided that they wouldn't let that happen again. They got themselves a nice political group which has tremendous lobby power. I hope the Muslims do the same and maybe they will.

So? That's no excuse, prejudice is prejudice, even if it stems from an attack many years ago.

I agree- prejudice sucks. Yet Osama runs a muslim organization and it's the muslim terrorists that seem to be the ones that are causing the most damage.

Many years ago? Christ Kharn, that was only 2001? I mean the Netherlands goes bonkers anti-muslim because one movie maker gets whacked. How would the Dutch feel if someone were flying airplanes into your buildings?

welsh said:
I have known a few muslims with some pretty extreme and whacky views. Generally they can think what they want as long as they aren't commit acts of violence.

And they're not being watched and tracked by the Feds?

Hell, if your country is teeming with extremists, you'd think they'd act. Else they're just loud-mouths with moderate beliefs.

I doubt the Feds have the time to track and watch every Muslim. I know a few and so far I haven't heard much in the way of discrimination.

As for extremists- perhaps they don't act because others are willing to tell them to shut up. Or perhaps most are just loud-mouths. Or perhaps because there isn't much sympathy for it. Most Muslims in the US just want to get their education, get a good job and get a BMW and have a decent family.
welsh said:
Tolerance and integration may go hand in hand. I personally think that we may see an end of bigotry and racism when people can't tell who's who anymore and races mix.

Rather, it might be the division of people that creates your extremism- by isolating groups you reinforce their identies and sense of isolation and vulnerability. THat in turn leads to an easy in collective action, a rise in extreme views, and greater intolerance.

This coming from the USA? Black people drinking out of different fountains and sitting at the back of the bus USA?

I thought you argued people can't change.

Never argued that people can't change. I just said that change is difficult and I wouldn't count on it. And people are still prejudicial and bigots. My wife is a smart, talented attorney, yet in my state Latinas are often seen as being little more than babysitters and housecleaners. Prejudice continues.

But it's not institutionalized. Informal social institutions- like discrimination, can be changed through formal institutions.

Blacks no longer suffer segregation- the days of different water fountains are over. Now they are black CEOs, black leaders in politics, and an increasingly large black middle class.

Perhaps the problem with prejudice and discrimination based on color is that it's just stupid, and people being generally rational will shy away from that which is inherently stupid. Than again, Bush did win the last election in part on gay rights (because gays are not protected by formal institutions). So perhaps people don't change.

welsh said:
Perhaps you might if you lived closer to the Spanish, but you live closer to the French. I know French you don't like the Spanish and Spanish who don't like the French- but I think this has more to do with nationalism than anything else.
Your next-door neighbour isn't Germany either, yet you've said you're still suspicious of the Germans for what they did over half a century ago

I am suspicious of Germany because it has the potential of being the most economically powerful country in Europe and may choose to use that power to change the status quo to its favor, as it has done so before. This is not because they are Germans, but because they are powerful and constrained by weak forces. Structurally that's dangerous.

That said, the US has little to fear from Canada except job loss and a ban on beer. From Mexico, the Americans fear losing jobs to Mexican illegals. Fear of neighbors takes many forms.
 
I honestly enjoy how this debate seems to be going. I feel like I will probably jump back in at a future point in time, but I am curious to see how Kharn answers welsh's arguments for the moment, and am curious as to why Jebus withdrew. That and the fact that yeah, I am human and took it a bit personally in the past. Sorry, but one cannot "always" remain detached what with the myriad of factors that influence everything I write. So I am taking a bit of a step back, and writing a "short" post.

Welsh, I find it most amusing to cite the Hungary example, heh. If it weren't for Stalin's tanks and the crackdown in 1956, I wouldn't be here in the USA. They were the de facto reason my grandparents fled Hungary for America..


Kharn, I must honestly ask: What do you see the United States playing a role in the world as in your idealized world?


That will suffice, for now.
 
What're you, naive? A war between the EU and the US isn't the same as invading a shithole like Iraq or Afghanistan. "Destruction" and "total subjugation" as concepts fit only when a big bully picks on the a small guy, like all the wars of the US since WW II.

Seeing as the US can't even hold on to Iraq properly, though, I think "destruction" is a pretty extreme term to use for a EU-US war.
Iraq is a peacekeeping operation; a long, difficult trudge in which technology and the like almost cease to matter. A traditional war is a completley diffirent matter. The first two months of the Iraq War where a traditional war, for instance. A US v. EU war would look like the first months of the Iraq War, not the messy peacemaking (which we would not even have to be involved in and would not be as difficult because the Europeans are nothing if not civilized).

But I don't know why either of us are talking about this. Even if the EU and the US become the two great competing powers (BUAHAHAHAHA), the odds of a war any time soon or without massive political change in either nation is on the short side of nil.

And again; you really need to shut up. Your pride of the American military borders on the chauvinistic. Remember the article welsh posted about this a while ago? The American military is so big that it has no purpose whatsoever. This is nothing to be proud of. You'd be better of with less debt and an army the size of that of the EU.
No. Downsizing some parts of the military are nessicary but if anything PACCOM needs more rescources, not LESS.


Secularity schmekularity, at least they're non-discriminatory laws
Buahahahahahahahahahahahaa.
 
Actually John, I lean towards Kharn's position on the matter of militaries. The US military is perhaps bigger than it needs to be. Money spent on defense could be spent more meaningfully in other issues. A country's strength has more to do with it's economic output and potential whereas military spending is often wasteful.

True you get some civilian applications that are spin-offs from defense, but those are few. Government subsidies for new R&D might open up new channels of economic growth than buying yet another B-2 stealth bomber.

The money that goes into the defense department usually goes off to supporting defense industries that are large lobbiest. Large industries can use their financial strength to curry political favor in the form of subsidies. But that money comes at the expense of others- new industries that may more more extensively innovate, resources for educational development of society, etc. Sadly the US is falling behind in the areas that matter most - new technologies and educational advancement.
 
Welsh, I would have agreed with you 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, but I don't think it's smart to cut the military budget in half right now.

China is increasing it's military budget every year, and with several big new military projects PACCOM will need more money then CENTCOM or the WoT in a decade.

Damn, I really wish Rosh had not locked the thread on that great Atlanitic atrucle...
 
The Chinese threat might be overblown-

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050520/pl_nm/arms_china_usa_dc

That said, when a declining hegemon- the US in terms of relative power vs Europe and Asia, faces a rising hegemon- China in terms of at least regional dominance- the thing to do is wipe out out rising hegemon before it becomes to big.

That's unlikely to happen for a few reasons-

(1) Both sides have nukes and the costs of war are too high

(2) Even if China were to become the dominant power in the region it would still have two regional challengers- South Korea and Japan, plus India rising to the South and maybe even Russia to the west- China is surrounded.

(3) If China develops its military than what? Go for Taiwan? Perhaps- this could be a war driven purely by the need of the Communisty Party to stay in power by emphasizing nationalist goals. But it comes down to the old calculation- will the US give up Los Angeles for Taipai. As long as China thinks so, it will have to reconsider war. Neither country can afford even a limited nuclear engagement.

(4) And if China develops as a regional power than what? Perhaps the Southeast Asian countries that have lagged behind will start becoming more aggressive in pursuing economic reforms, better rule of law, better property rights etc- giving them a chance to burn off some of China's growth and bring more FDI to their region.

(5) And as much as the Europeans are pissed off about Bush's war policies- in the end they probably help Europe more than hurt it- especially if Bush succeeds in democratizing Iraq. On the other hand the Europeans will have to face the same economic threat from China as the US.

(6) Assuming China maintains its levels of growth- but in China you have increasinly large income inequality and policies of economic redistribution that go bottom-up. You have a class of elites that are becoming increasingly insulated and will probably turn inward for more rent-seeking. Should FDI go elsewhere- such as an improved Southeast Asia, South Asia or Africa- than CHina will have a problem.

The trick to deflating China is perhaps by creating incentives for FDI to go elsewhere so that the rest of the world might enjoy a little of the fruits of globalization as well.

As for US forces in Asia Pacific- don't forget that a lot of CENTCOM forces are sent on a provisional basis- usually away from other commands.

PACCOM includes two fleets- the 7th that is forward deployed and the 3rd fleet. This at a time when the Chinese can't even afford an aircraft carrier bought from someone else. Plus four airforces, two marine expeditionary forces (about 1/2 of all marines) and a decent chunck of the US army. Should things go bad, much of the forces that go to CENTCOM could be deployed on behalf of the PACCOM forces.

http://www.pacom.mil/about/pacom.shtml

That's a big damn military. I agree with you that the region that the US should most readily forward deploy is Asia.

Considering the level of technologly, the level of military hardward placed in the US and in rather peaceful regions, the US doesn't need the military it has.

As mentioned earlier- the money spent on the military is generally unproductive. Should the US decide to curb it's spending others might have to pick up the slack. Let the Europeans spend more on their collective defense. The US maintains a military level very close to what it was during the Cold War- geared to fight a major war with someone like the Soviet Union which had a numerical edge. That's not necessary.

How many scientists or engineers could be trained for the price of a few stealth aircraft?

A strong military is important when you are anticipating war in the short-term. But that really isn't very likely, especially if you maintain a decent forward deployment with what we have and cut back some of the rear units? Three carrier battle groups in the Third Fleet? Four carrier battle groups for the 2nd fleet to defend Norfolk?

The US in 2004 spend about $390 Billion according to the 2003-2004 Military Balance. China spent in 2003 $22.4 billion. There is no real comparison.
 
The US in 2004 spend about $390 Billion according to the 2003-2004 Military Balance. China spent in 2003 $22.4 billion. There is no real comparison.
That American money towards technology helps maintain the kill ratios we need in a conflict with China.

Welsh, would it be okay if I reposted that article from The Atlantic in this thread?
 
Okay, as it is now called upon


Generally, I agree with the article. I like Kaplan, and as usual agree with almost everything pritned in the Atlantic, probably America's finest magazine.

As I have already pointed out, suitable anti-PRC Pacific alliances are already forming, and will continue to do so. If these alliances continue to strengthen, including the possible 'Finlandization' of S. Korea and the now inevitable remilitarization of Japan, I doubt that China will truly be able to handle any manner of Democratic alliance for years to come.

Essentially, China will pose a far more dangerous threat then the USSR in the years to come, due to it's efficent economy and massive military. Kaplan, the author, proposes 'Bismarkian' tactics to keep China from going crazy expansionist.

Hope these are enough comments.



How We Would Fight China

The Middle East is just a blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-first century. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was

by Robert D. Kaplan

.....

F or some time now no navy or air force has posed a threat to the United States. Our only competition has been armies, whether conventional forces or guerrilla insurgencies. This will soon change. The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific—and when it does, it will very quickly encounter a U.S. Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Asian mainland. It's not hard to imagine the result: a replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a center of gravity not in the heart of Europe but, rather, among Pacific atolls that were last in the news when the Marines stormed them in World War II. In the coming decades China will play an asymmetric back-and-forth game with us in the Pacific, taking advantage not only of its vast coastline but also of its rear base—stretching far back into Central Asia—from which it may eventually be able to lob missiles accurately at moving ships in the Pacific.

In any naval encounter China will have distinct advantages over the United States, even if it lags in technological military prowess. It has the benefit, for one thing, of sheer proximity. Its military is an avid student of the competition, and a fast learner. It has growing increments of "soft" power that demonstrate a particular gift for adaptation. While stateless terrorists fill security vacuums, the Chinese fill economic ones. All over the globe, in such disparate places as the troubled Pacific Island states of Oceania, the Panama Canal zone, and out-of-the-way African nations, the Chinese are becoming masters of indirect influence—by establishing business communities and diplomatic outposts, by negotiating construction and trade agreements. Pulsing with consumer and martial energy, and boasting a peasantry that, unlike others in history, is overwhelmingly literate, China constitutes the principal conventional threat to America's liberal imperium.

How should the United States prepare to respond to challenges in the Pacific? To understand the dynamics of this second Cold War—which will link China and the United States in a future that may stretch over several generations—it is essential to understand certain things about the first Cold War, and about the current predicament of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the institution set up to fight that conflict. This is a story about military strategy and tactics, with some counterintuitive twists and turns.
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The first thing to understand is that the alliance system of the latter half of the twentieth century is dead. Warfare by committee, as practiced by NATO, has simply become too cumbersome in an age that requires light and lethal strikes. During the fighting in Kosovo in 1999 (a limited air campaign against a toothless enemy during a time of Euro-American harmony; a campaign, in other words, that should have been easy to prosecute) dramatic fissures appeared in the then-nineteen-member NATO alliance. The organization's end effectively came with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, in the aftermath of which, despite talk of a broad-based coalition, European militaries have usually done little more than patrol and move into areas already pacified by U.S. soldiers and Marines—a job more suggestive of the United Nations. NATO today is a medium for the expansion of bilateral training missions between the United States and formerly communist countries and republics: the Marines in Bulgaria and Romania, the Navy in Albania, the Army in Poland and the Czech Republic, Special Operations Forces in Georgia—the list goes on and on. Much of NATO has become a farm system for the major-league U.S. military.

The second thing to understand is that the functional substitute for a NATO of the Pacific already exists, and is indeed up and running. It is the U.S. Pacific Command, known as PACOM. Unencumbered by a diplomatic bureaucracy, PACOM is a large but nimble construct, and its leaders understand what many in the media and the policy community do not: that the center of gravity of American strategic concern is already the Pacific, not the Middle East. PACOM will soon be a household name, as CENTCOM (the U.S. Central Command) has been in the current epoch of Middle Eastern conflict—an epoch that will start to wind down, as far as the U.S. military is concerned, during the second Bush administration.

The third thing to understand is that, ironically, the vitality of NATO itself, the Atlantic alliance, could be revived by the Cold War in the Pacific—and indeed the re-emergence of NATO as an indispensable war-fighting instrument should be America's unswerving aim. In its posture toward China the United States will look to Europe and NATO, whose help it will need as a strategic counterweight and, by the way, as a force to patrol seas more distant than the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. That is why NATO's current commander, Marine General James L. Jones, emphasizes that NATO's future lies in amphibious, expeditionary warfare.

L et me describe our military organization in the Pacific—an area through which I have traveled extensively during the past three years. PACOM has always been the largest, most venerable, and most interesting of the U.S. military's area commands. (Its roots go back to the U.S. Pacific Army of the Philippines War, 1899-1902.) Its domain stretches from East Africa to beyond the International Date Line and includes the entire Pacific Rim, encompassing half the world's surface and more than half of its economy. The world's six largest militaries, two of which (America's and China's) are the most rapidly modernizing, all operate within PACOM's sphere of control. PACOM has—in addition to its many warships and submarines—far more dedicated troops than CENTCOM. Even though the military's area commands do not own troops today in the way they used to, these statistics matter, because they demonstrate that the United States has chosen to locate the bulk of its forces in the Pacific, not in the Middle East. CENTCOM fights wars with troops essentially borrowed from PACOM.

Quietly in recent years, by negotiating bilateral security agreements with countries that have few such arrangements with one another, the U.S. military has formed a Pacific military alliance of sorts at PACOM headquarters, in Honolulu. This is where the truly interesting meetings are being held today, rather than in Ditchley or Davos. The attendees at those meetings, who often travel on PACOM's dime, are military officers from such places as Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and the Philippines.

Otto von Bismarck, the father of the Second Reich in continental Europe, would recognize the emerging Pacific system. In 2002 the German commentator Josef Joffe appreciated this in a remarkably perceptive article in The National Interest, in which he argued that in terms of political alliances, the United States has come to resemble Bismarck's Prussia. Britain, Russia, and Austria needed Prussia more than they needed one another, Joffe wrote, thus making them "spokes" to Berlin's "hub"; the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan exposed a world in which America can forge different coalitions for different crises. The world's other powers, he said, now need the United States more than they need one another.

Unfortunately, the United States did not immediately capitalize on this new power arrangement, because President George W. Bush lacked the nuance and attendant self-restraint of Bismarck, who understood that such a system could endure only so long as one didn't overwhelm it. The Bush administration did just that, of course, in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, which led France, Germany, Russia, and China, along with a host of lesser powers such as Turkey, Mexico, and Chile, to unite against us.

In the Pacific, however, a Bismarckian arrangement still prospers, helped along by the pragmatism of our Hawaii-based military officers, five time zones removed from the ideological hothouse of Washington, D.C. In fact, PACOM represents a much purer version of Bismarck's imperial superstructure than anything the Bush administration created prior to invading Iraq. As Henry Kissinger writes in Diplomacy (1994), Bismarck forged alliances in all directions from a point of seeming isolation, without the constraints of ideology. He brought peace and prosperity to Central Europe by recognizing that when power relationships are correctly calibrated, wars tend to be avoided.

Only a similarly pragmatic approach will allow us to accommodate China's inevitable re-emergence as a great power. The alternative will be to turn the earth of the twenty-first century into a battlefield. Whenever great powers have emerged or re-emerged on the scene (Germany and Japan in the early decades of the twentieth century, to cite two recent examples), they have tended to be particularly assertive—and therefore have thrown international affairs into violent turmoil. China will be no exception. Today the Chinese are investing in both diesel-powered and nuclear-powered submarines—a clear signal that they intend not only to protect their coastal shelves but also to expand their sphere of influence far out into the Pacific and beyond.

This is wholly legitimate. China's rulers may not be democrats in the literal sense, but they are seeking a liberated First World lifestyle for many of their 1.3 billion people—and doing so requires that they safeguard sea-lanes for the transport of energy resources from the Middle East and elsewhere. Naturally, they do not trust the United States and India to do this for them. Given the stakes, and given what history teaches us about the conflicts that emerge when great powers all pursue legitimate interests, the result is likely to be the defining military conflict of the twenty-first century: if not a big war with China, then a series of Cold War—style standoffs that stretch out over years and decades. And this will occur mostly within PACOM's area of responsibility.

T o do their job well, military officers must approach power in the most cautious, mechanical, and utilitarian way possible, assessing and reassessing regional balances of power while leaving the values side of the political equation to the civilian leadership. This makes military officers, of all government professionals, the least prone to be led astray by the raptures of liberal internationalism and neo-conservative interventionism.

The history of World War II shows the importance of this approach. In the 1930s the U.S. military, nervous about the growing strength of Germany and Japan, rightly lobbied for building up our forces. But by 1940 and 1941 the military (not unlike the German general staff a few years earlier) was presciently warning of the dangers of a two-front war; and by late summer of 1944 it should have been thinking less about defeating Germany and more about containing the Soviet Union. Today Air Force and Navy officers worry about a Taiwanese declaration of independence, because such a move would lead the United States into fighting a war with China that might not be in our national interest. Indonesia is another example: whatever the human-rights failures of the Indonesian military, PACOM assumes, correctly, that a policy of non-engagement would only open the door to Chinese-Indonesian military cooperation in a region that represents the future of world terrorism. (The U.S. military's response to the Asian tsunami was, of course, a humanitarian effort; but PACOM strategists had to have recognized that a vigorous response would gain political support for the military-basing rights that will form part of our deterrence strategy against China.) Or consider Korea: some Pacific-based officers take a reunified Korean peninsula for granted, and their main concern is whether the country will be "Finlandized" by China or will be secure within an American-Japanese sphere of influence.

PACOM's immersion in Asian power dynamics gives it unusual diplomatic weight, and consequently more leverage in Washington. And PACOM will not be nearly as constrained as CENTCOM by Washington-based domestic politics. Our actions in the Pacific will not be swayed by the equivalent of the Israel lobby; Protestant evangelicals will care less about the Pacific Rim than about the fate of the Holy Land. And because of the vast economic consequences of misjudging the power balance in East Asia, American business and military interests are likely to run in tandem toward a classically conservative policy of deterring China without needlessly provoking it, thereby amplifying PACOM's authority. Our stance toward China and the Pacific, in other words, comes with a built-in stability—and this, in turn, underscores the notion of a new Cold War that is sustainable over the very long haul. Moreover, the complexity of the many political and military relationships managed by PACOM will give the command considerably greater influence than that currently exercised by CENTCOM—which, as a few military experts have disparagingly put it to me, deals only with a bunch of "third-rate Middle Eastern armies."

The relative shift in focus from the Middle East to the Pacific in coming years—idealistic rhetoric notwithstanding—will force the next American president, no matter what his or her party, to adopt a foreign policy similar to those of moderate Republican presidents such as George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. The management of risk will become a governing ideology. Even if Iraq turns out to be a democratic success story, it will surely be a from-the-jaws-of-failure success that no one in the military or the diplomatic establishment will ever want to repeat—especially in Asia, where the economic repercussions of a messy military adventure would be enormous. "Getting into a war with China is easy," says Michael Vickers, a former Green Beret who developed the weapons strategy for the Afghan resistance in the 1980s as a CIA officer and is now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in Washington. "You can see many scenarios, not just Taiwan—especially as the Chinese develop a submarine and missile capability throughout the Pacific. But the dilemma is, How do you end a war with China?"

Like the nations involved in World War I, and unlike the rogue states everyone has been concentrating on, the United States and China in the twenty-first century would have the capacity to keep fighting even if one or the other lost a big battle or a missile exchange. This has far-reaching implications. "Ending a war with China," Vickers says, "may mean effecting some form of regime change, because we don't want to leave some wounded, angry regime in place." Another analyst, this one inside the Pentagon, told me, "Ending a war with China will force us to substantially reduce their military capacity, thus threatening their energy sources and the Communist Party's grip on power. The world will not be the same afterward. It's a very dangerous road to travel on."

The better road is for PACOM to deter China in Bismarckian fashion, from a geographic hub of comparative isolation—the Hawaiian Islands—with spokes reaching out to major allies such as Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and India. These countries, in turn, would form secondary hubs to help us manage the Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian archipelagoes, among other places, and also the Indian Ocean. The point of this arrangement would be to dissuade China so subtly that over time the rising behemoth would be drawn into the PACOM alliance system without any large-scale conflagration—the way NATO was ultimately able to neutralize the Soviet Union.

Whatever we say or do, China will spend more and more money on its military in the coming decades. Our only realistic goal may be to encourage it to make investments that are defensive, not offensive, in nature. Our efforts will require particular care, because China, unlike the Soviet Union of old (or Russia today, for that matter), boasts soft as well as hard power. Businesspeople love the idea of China; you don't have to beg them to invest there, as you do in Africa and so many other places. China's mixture of traditional authoritarianism and market economics has broad cultural appeal throughout Asia and other parts of the world. And because China is improving the material well-being of hundreds of millions of its citizens, the plight of its dissidents does not have quite the same market allure as did the plight of the Soviet Union's Sakharovs and Sharanskys. Democracy is attractive in places where tyranny has been obvious, odious, and unsuccessful, of course, as in Ukraine and Zimbabwe. But the world is full of gray areas—Jordan and Malaysia, for example—where elements of tyranny have ensured stability and growth.

Consider Singapore. Its mixture of democracy and authoritarianism has made it unpopular with idealists in Washington, but as far as PACOM is concerned, the country is, despite its small size, one of the most popular and helpful in the Pacific. Its ethnically blind military meritocracy, its nurturing concern for the welfare of officers and enlisted men alike, and its jungle-warfare school in Brunei are second to none. With the exception of Japan, far to the north, Singapore offers the only non-American base in the Pacific where our nuclear carriers can be serviced. Its help in hunting down Islamic terrorists in the Indonesian archipelago has been equal or superior to the help offered elsewhere by our most dependable Western allies. One Washington-based military futurist told me, "The Sings, well—they're just awesome in every way."

PACOM's objective, in the words of a Pacific-based Marine general, must be "military multilateralism on steroids." This is not just a question of our future training with the "Sings" in Brunei, of flying test sorties with the Indian air force, of conducting major annual exercises in Thailand, or of utilizing a soon-to-open training facility in northern Australia with the approval of our alliance partners. It's also a matter of forging interoperability with friendly Asian militaries at the platoon level, by constantly moving U.S. troops from one training deployment to another.

This would be an improvement over NATO, whose fighting fitness has been hampered by the addition of substandard former-Eastern-bloc militaries. Politics, too, favors a tilt toward the Pacific: tensions between the United States and Europe currently impede military integration, whereas our Pacific allies, notably Japan and Australia, want more military engagement with the United States, to counter the rise of the Chinese navy. This would work to our benefit. The Japanese military, although small, possesses elite niche capabilities, in special-forces and diesel-submarine warfare. And the aggressive frontier style of the Australians makes them cognitively closer to Americans than even the British.

Military multilateralism in the Pacific will nevertheless be constrained by the technical superiority of U.S. forces; it will be difficult to develop bilateral training missions with Asian militaries that are not making the same investments in high-tech equipment that we are. A classic military lesson is that technological superiority does not always confer the advantages one expects. Getting militarily so far ahead of everyone else in the world creates a particular kind of loneliness that not even the best diplomats can always alleviate, because diplomacy itself is worthless if it's not rooted in realistic assessments of comparative power.

A t the moment the challenges posed by a rising China may seem slight, even nonexistent. The U.S. Navy's warships have a collective "full-load displacement" of 2.86 million tons; the rest of the world's warships combined add up to only 3.04 million tons. The Chinese navy's warships have a full-load displacement of only 263,064 tons. The United States deploys twenty-four of the world's thirty-four aircraft carriers; the Chinese deploy none (a principal reason why they couldn't mount a rescue effort after the tsunami). The statistics go on. But as Robert Work, a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, points out, at the start of the twenty-seven-year Peloponnesian War, Athens had a great advantage over Sparta, which had no navy—but Sparta eventually emerged the victor.

China has committed itself to significant military spending, but its navy and air force will not be able to match ours for some decades. The Chinese are therefore not going to do us the favor of engaging in conventional air and naval battles, like those fought in the Pacific during World War II. The Battle of the Philippine Sea, in late June of 1944, and the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Surigao Strait, in October of 1944, were the last great sea battles in American history, and are very likely to remain so. Instead the Chinese will approach us asymmetrically, as terrorists do. In Iraq the insurgents have shown us the low end of asymmetry, with car bombs. But the Chinese are poised to show us the high end of the art. That is the threat.

There are many ways in which the Chinese could use their less advanced military to achieve a sort of political-strategic parity with us. According to one former submarine commander and naval strategist I talked to, the Chinese have been poring over every detail of our recent wars in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf, and they fully understand just how much our military power depends on naval projection—that is, on the ability of a carrier battle group to get within proximity of, say, Iraq, and fire a missile at a target deep inside the country. To adapt, the Chinese are putting their fiber-optic systems underground and moving defense capabilities deep into western China, out of naval missile range—all the while developing an offensive strategy based on missiles designed to be capable of striking that supreme icon of American wealth and power, the aircraft carrier. The effect of a single Chinese cruise missile's hitting a U.S. carrier, even if it did not sink the ship, would be politically and psychologically catastrophic, akin to al-Qaeda's attacks on the Twin Towers. China is focusing on missiles and submarines as a way to humiliate us in specific encounters. Their long-range-missile program should deeply concern U.S. policymakers.

With an advanced missile program the Chinese could fire hundreds of missiles at Taiwan before we could get to the island to defend it. Such a capability, combined with a new fleet of submarines (soon to be a greater undersea force than ours, in size if not in quality), might well be enough for the Chinese to coerce other countries into denying port access to U.S. ships. Most of China's seventy current submarines are past-their-prime diesels of Russian design; but these vessels could be used to create mobile minefields in the South China, East China, and Yellow Seas, where, as the Wall Street Journal reporter David Lague has written, "uneven depths, high levels of background noise, strong currents and shifting thermal layers" would make detecting the submarines very difficult. Add to this the seventeen new stealthy diesel submarines and three nuclear ones that the Chinese navy will deploy by the end of the decade, and one can imagine that China could launch an embarrassing strike against us, or against one of our Asian allies. Then there is the whole field of ambiguous coercion—for example, a series of non-attributable cyberattacks on Taiwan's electrical-power grids, designed to gradually demoralize the population. This isn't science fiction; the Chinese have invested significantly in cyberwarfare training and technology. Just because the Chinese are not themselves democratic doesn't mean they are not expert in manipulating the psychology of a democratic electorate.

What we can probably expect from China in the near future is specific demonstrations of strength—like its successful forcing down of a U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance plane in the spring of 2001. Such tactics may represent the trend of twenty-first-century warfare better than anything now happening in Iraq—and China will have no shortage of opportunities in this arena. During one of our biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercises the Chinese could sneak a sub under a carrier battle group and then surface it. They could deploy a moving target at sea and then hit it with a submarine- or land-based missile, demonstrating their ability to threaten not only carriers but also destroyers, frigates, and cruisers. (Think about the political effects of the terrorist attack on the USS Cole, a guided-missile destroyer, off the coast of Yemen in 2000—and then think about a future in which hitting such ships will be easier.) They could also bump up against one of our ships during one of our ongoing Freedom of Navigation exercises off the Asian coast. The bumping of a ship may seem inconsequential, but keep in mind that in a global media age such an act can have important strategic consequences. Because the world media tend to side with a spoiler rather than with a reigning superpower, the Chinese would have a built-in political advantage.

What should be our military response to such developments? We need to go more unconventional. Our present Navy is mainly a "blue-water" force, responsible for the peacetime management of vast oceanic spaces—no small feat, and one that enables much of the world's free trade. The phenomenon of globalization could not occur without American ships and sailors. But increasingly what we will need is, in essence, three separate navies: one designed to maintain our ability to use the sea as a platform for offshore bombing (to support operations like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan); one designed for littoral Special Operations combat (against terrorist groups based in and around Indonesia, Malaysia, and the southern Philippines, for example); and one designed to enhance our stealth capabilities (for patrolling the Chinese mainland and the Taiwan Strait, among other regions). All three of these navies will have a role in deflecting China, directly and indirectly, given the variety of dysfunctional Pacific Island republics that are strengthening their ties with Beijing.

Our aircraft carriers already provide what we need for that first navy; we must further develop the other two. The Special Operations navy will require lots of small vessels, among them the littoral-combat ship being developed by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. Approximately 400 feet long, the LCS requires only a small crew, can operate in very shallow water, can travel very fast (up to forty knots), and will deploy Special Operations Forces (namely, Navy SEALs). Another critical part of the littoral navy will be the Mark V special-operations craft. Only eighty feet long, the Mark V can travel at up to fifty knots and has a range of 600 nautical miles. With a draft of only five feet, it can deliver a SEAL platoon directly onto a beach—and at some $5 million apiece, the Pentagon can buy dozens for the price of just one F/A-22 fighter jet.

Developing the third type of navy will require real changes. Particularly as the media become more intrusive, we must acquire more stealth, so that, for example, we can send commandos ashore from a submarine to snatch or kill terrorists, or leave special operators behind to carry out missions in an area over which no government has control. Submarines have disadvantages, of course: they offer less of a bombing platform than aircraft carriers, and pound for pound are more costly. Nevertheless, they are the wave of the future, in no small measure because protecting aircraft carriers from missile attack may slowly become a pursuit of diminishing returns for us.

Our stealth navy would be best served by the addition of new diesel submarines of the sort that Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Sweden already have in the water or under development—and which China will soon have too. But because of our global policing responsibilities, which will necessarily keep us in the nuclear-sub business, we're unlikely to switch to diesel submarines. Instead we will adapt what we've got. Already we are refitting four Trident subs with conventional weapons, and making them able to support the deployment of SEAL teams and eventually, perhaps, long-range unmanned spy aircraft. The refitted Tridents can act as big mother ships for smaller assets deployed closer to the littorals.

None of this will change our need for basing rights in the Pacific, of course. The more access to bases we have, the more flexibility we'll have—to support unmanned flights, to allow aerial refueling, and perhaps most important, to force the Chinese military to concentrate on a host of problems rather than just a few. Never provide your adversary with only a few problems to solve (finding and hitting a carrier, for example), because if you do, he'll solve them.

A ndersen Air Force Base, on Guam's northern tip, rep- resents the future of U.S. strategy in the Pacific. It is the most potent platform anywhere in the world for the projection of American military power. Landing there recently in a military aircraft, I beheld long lines of B-52 bombers, C-17 Globemasters, F/A-18 Hornets, and E-2 Hawkeye surveillance planes, among others. Andersen's 10,000-foot runways can handle any plane in the Air Force's arsenal, and could accommodate the space shuttle should it need to make an emergency landing. The sprawl of runways and taxiways is so vast that when I arrived, I barely noticed a carrier air wing from the USS Kitty Hawk, which was making live practice bombing runs that it could not make from its home port in Japan. I saw a truck filled with cruise missiles on one of the runways. No other Air Force base in the Pacific stores as much weaponry as Andersen: some 100,000 bombs and missiles at any one time. Andersen also stores 66 million gallons of jet fuel, making it the Air Force's biggest strategic gas-and-go in the world.

Guam, which is also home to a submarine squadron and an expanding naval base, is significant because of its location. From the island an Air Force equivalent of a Marine or Army division can cover almost all of PACOM's area of responsibility. Flying to North Korea from the West Coast of the United States takes thirteen hours; from Guam it takes four.

"This is not like Okinawa," Major General Dennis Larsen, the Air Force commander there at the time of my visit, told me. "This is American soil in the midst of the Pacific. Guam is a U.S. territory." The United States can do anything it wants here, and make huge investments without fear of being thrown out. Indeed, what struck me about Andersen was how great the space was for expansion to the south and west of the current perimeters. Hundreds of millions of dollars of construction funds were being allocated. This little island, close to China, has the potential to become the hub in the wheel of a new, worldwide constellation of bases that will move the locus of U.S. power from Europe to Asia. In the event of a conflict with Taiwan, if we had a carrier battle group at Guam we would force the Chinese either to attack it in port—thereby launching an assault on sovereign U.S. territory, and instantly becoming the aggressor in the eyes of the world—or to let it sail, in which case the carrier group could arrive off the coast of Taiwan only two days later.

During the Cold War the Navy had a specific infrastructure for a specific threat: war with the Soviet Union. But now the threat is multiple and uncertain: we need to be prepared at any time to fight, say, a conventional war against North Korea or an unconventional counterinsurgency battle against a Chinese-backed rogue island-state. This requires a more agile Navy presence on the island, which in turn means outsourcing services to the civilian community on Guam so that the Navy can concentrate on military matters. One Navy captain I met with had grown up all over the Pacific Rim. He told me of the Navy's plans to expand the waterfront, build more bachelors' quarters, and harden the electrical-power system by putting it underground. "The fact that we have lots of space today is meaningless," he said. "The question is, How would we handle the surge requirement necessitated by a full-scale war?"

There could be a problem with all of this. By making Guam a Hawaii of the western Pacific, we make life simple for the Chinese, because we give them just one problem to solve: how to threaten or intimidate Guam. The way to counter them will be not by concentration but by dispersion. So how will we prevent Guam from becoming too big?

In a number of ways. We may build up Palau, an archipelago of 20,000 inhabitants between Mindanao, in the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia, whose financial aid is contingent on a defense agreement with us. We will keep up our bases in Central Asia, close to western China—among them Karshi-Khanabad, in Uzbekistan, and Manas, in Kyrgyzstan, which were developed and expanded for the invasion of Afghanistan. And we will establish what are known as cooperative security locations.

A cooperative security location can be a tucked-away corner of a host country's civilian airport, or a dirt runway somewhere with fuel and mechanical help nearby, or a military airport in a friendly country with which we have no formal basing agreement but, rather, an informal arrangement with private contractors acting as go-betweens. Because the CSL concept is built on subtle relationships, it's where the war-fighting ability of the Pentagon and the diplomacy of the State Department coincide—or should. The problem with big bases in, say, Turkey—as we learned on the eve of the invasion of Iraq—is that they are an intrusive, intimidating symbol of American power, and the only power left to a host country is the power to deny us use of such bases. In the future, therefore, we will want unobtrusive bases that benefit the host country much more obviously than they benefit us. Allowing us the use of such a base would ramp up power for a country rather than humiliating it.

I have visited a number of CSLs in East Africa and Asia. Here is how they work. The United States provides aid to upgrade maintenance facilities, thereby helping the host country to better project its own air and naval power in the region. At the same time, we hold periodic exercises with the host country's military, in which the base is a focus. We also offer humanitarian help to the surrounding area. Such civil-affairs projects garner positive publicity for our military in the local media—and they long preceded the response to the tsunami, which marked the first time that many in the world media paid attention to the humanitarian work done all over the world, all the time, by the U.S. military. The result is a positive diplomatic context for getting the host country's approval for use of the base when and if we need it.

Often the key role in managing a CSL is played by a private contractor. In Asia, for example, the private contractor is usually a retired American noncom, either Navy or Air Force, quite likely a maintenance expert, who is living in, say, Thailand or the Philippines, speaks the language fluently, perhaps has married locally after a divorce back home, and is generally much liked by the locals. He rents his facilities at the base from the host-country military, and then charges a fee to the U.S. Air Force pilots transiting the base. Officially he is in business for himself, which the host country likes because it can then claim it is not really working with the American military. Of course no one, including the local media, believes this. But the very fact that a relationship with the U.S. armed forces is indirect rather than direct eases tensions. The private contractor also prevents unfortunate incidents by keeping the visiting pilots out of trouble—steering them to the right hotels and bars, and advising them on how to behave. (Without Dan Generette, a private contractor for years at Utapao Naval Station, in Thailand, that base could never have been ramped up to provide tsunami relief the way it was.)

Visiting with these contractors and being taken around foreign military airfields by them, I saw how little, potentially, the Air Force would need on the ground in order to land planes and take off. Especially since 9/11 the Air Force has been slowly developing an austere, expeditionary mentality to amend its lifestyle, which has historically been cushy in comparison with that of the other branches of the armed forces. Servicing a plane often takes less on the ground than servicing a big ship, and the Air Force is beginning to grasp the concept of light and lethal, and of stealthy, informal relationships. To succeed in the Pacific and elsewhere, the Navy will need to further develop a similar outlook—thinking less in terms of obvious port visits and more in terms of slipping in and out in the middle of the night.

T he first part of the twenty-first century will be not nearly as stable as the second half of the twentieth, because the world will be not nearly as bipolar as it was during the Cold War. The fight between Beijing and Washington over the Pacific will not dominate all of world politics, but it will be the most important of several regional struggles. Yet it will be the organizing focus for the U.S. defense posture abroad. If we are smart, this should lead us back into concert with Europe. No matter how successfully our military adapts to the rise of China, it is clear that our current dominance in the Pacific will not last. The Asia expert Mark Helprin has argued that while we pursue our democratization efforts in the Middle East, increasingly befriending only those states whose internal systems resemble our own, China is poised to reap the substantial benefits of pursuing its interests amorally—what the United States did during the Cold War. The Chinese surely hope, for example, that our chilly attitude toward the brutal Uzbek dictator, Islam Karimov, becomes even chillier; this would open up the possibility of more pipeline and other deals with him, and might persuade him to deny us use of the air base at Karshi-Khanabad. Were Karimov to be toppled in an uprising like the one in Kyrgyzstan, we would immediately have to stabilize the new regime or risk losing sections of the country to Chinese influence.

We also need to realize that in the coming years and decades the moral distance between Europe and China is going to contract considerably, especially if China's authoritarianism becomes increasingly restrained, and the ever expanding European Union becomes a less-than-democratic superstate run in imperious regulatory style by Brussels-based functionaries. Russia, too, is headed in a decidedly undemocratic direction: Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, reacted to our support of democracy in Ukraine by agreeing to "massive" joint air and naval exercises with the Chinese, scheduled for the second half of this year. These unprecedented joint Russian-Chinese exercises will be held on Chinese territory.

Therefore the idea that we will no longer engage in the "cynical" game of power politics is illusory, as is the idea that we will be able to advance a foreign policy based solely on Wilsonian ideals. We will have to continually play various parts of the world off China, just as Richard Nixon played less than morally perfect states off the Soviet Union. This may well lead to a fundamentally new NATO alliance, which could become a global armada that roams the Seven Seas. Indeed, the Dutch, the Norwegians, the Germans, and the Spanish are making significant investments in fast missile-bearing ships and in landing-platform docks for beach assaults, and the British and the French are investing in new aircraft carriers. Since Europe increasingly seeks to avoid conflict and to reduce geopolitics to a series of negotiations and regulatory disputes, an emphasis on sea power would suit it well. Sea power is intrinsically less threatening than land power. It allows for a big operation without a large onshore footprint. Consider the tsunami effort, during which Marines and sailors returned to their carrier and destroyers each night. Armies invade; navies make port visits. Sea power has always been a more useful means of realpolitik than land power. It allows for a substantial military presence in areas geographically remote from states themselves—but without an overtly belligerent effect. Because ships take so long to get somewhere, and are less threatening than troops on the ground, naval forces allow diplomats to ratchet up pressure during a crisis in a responsible—and reversible—way. Take the Cuban Missile Crisis, in 1962. As the British expert H. P. Willmott has written, "The use of naval power by the Americans was the least dangerous option that presented itself, and the slowness with which events unfolded at sea gave time for both sides to conceive and implement a rational response to a highly dangerous situation."

Submarines have been an exception to this rule, but their very ability to operate both literally and figuratively below the surface, completely off the media radar screen, allows a government to be militarily aggressive, particularly in the field of espionage, without offending the sensibilities of its citizenry. Sweden's neutrality is a hard-won luxury built on naval strength that many of its idealistic citizens may be incompletely aware of. Pacifistic Japan, the ultimate trading nation, is increasingly dependent on its burgeoning submarine force. Sea power protects trade, which is regulated by treaties; it's no accident that the father of international law, Hugo Grotius, was a seventeenth-century Dutchman who lived at the height of Dutch naval power worldwide. Because of globalization, the twenty-first century will see unprecedented sea traffic, requiring unprecedented regulation by diplomats and naval officers alike. And as the economic influence of the European Union expands around the globe, Europe may find, like the United States in the nineteenth century and China today, that it has to go to sea to protect its interests.


The ships and other naval equipment being built now by the Europeans are designed to slot into U.S. battle networks. And European nations, which today we conceive of as Atlantic forces, may develop global naval functions; already, for example, Swedish submarine units are helping to train Americans in the Pacific on how to hunt for diesel subs. The sea may be nato's and Europe's best chance for a real military future. And yet the alliance is literally and symbolically weak. For it to regain its political significance, NATO must become a military alliance that no one doubts is willing to fight and kill at a moment's notice. That was its reputation during the Cold War—and it was so well regarded by the Soviets that they never tested it. Expanding NATO eastward has helped stabilize former Warsaw Pact states, of course, but admitting substandard militaries to the alliance's ranks, although politically necessary, has been problematic. The more NATO expands eastward, the more superficial and unwieldy it becomes as a fighting force, and the more questionable becomes its claim that it will fight in defense of any member state. Taking in yet more substandard militaries like Ukraine's and Georgia's too soon is simply not in NATO's interest. We can't just declare an expansion of a defense alliance because of demonstrations somewhere in support of democracy. Rather, we must operate in the way we are now operating in Georgia, where we have sent in the Marines for a year to train the Georgian armed forces. That way, when a country like Georgia does make it into NATO, its membership will have military as well as political meaning. Only by making it an agile force that is ready to land on, say, West African beaches at a few days' or hours' notice can we save NATO.

And we need to save it. NATO is ours to lead—unlike the increasingly powerful European Union, whose own defense force, should it become a reality, would inevitably emerge as a competing regional power, one that might align itself with China in order to balance against us. Let me be even clearer about something that policymakers and experts often don't want to be clear about. nato and an autonomous European defense force cannot both prosper. Only one can—and we should want it to be the former, so that Europe is a military asset for us, not a liability, as we confront China.

T he Chinese military challenge is already a reality to officers and sailors of the U.S. Navy. I recently spent four weeks embedded on a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Benfold, roaming around the Pacific from Indonesia to Singapore, the Philippines, Guam, and then Hawaii.

During my visit the Benfold completed a tsunami-relief mission (which consisted of bringing foodstuffs ashore and remapping the coastline) and then recommenced combat drills, run from the ship's combat-information center—a dark and cavernous clutter of computer consoles. Here a tactical action officer led the response to what were often hypothetical feints or attacks from China or North Korea.

Observing the action in the combat-information center, I learned that although naval warfare is conducted with headphones and computer keyboards, the stress level is every bit as acute as in gritty urban combat. A wrong decision can result in a catastrophic missile strike, against which no degree of physical toughness or bravery is a defense.

Sea warfare is cerebral. The threat is over the horizon; nothing can be seen; and everything is reduced to mathematics. The object is deception more than it is aggression—getting the other side to shoot first, so as to gain the political advantage, yet not having to absorb the damage of the attack.

As enthusiastic as the crew members of the Benfold were in helping the victims of the tsunami, once they left Indonesian waters they were just as enthusiastic about honing their surface and subsurface warfare skills. I even picked up a feeling, especially among the senior chief petty officers (the iron grunts of the Navy, who provide the truth unvarnished), that they might be tested in the western Pacific to the same degree that the Marines have been in Iraq. The main threat in the Persian Gulf to date has been asymmetric attacks, like the bombing of the Cole. But the Pacific offers all kinds of threats, from increasingly aggressive terrorist groups in the Islamic archipelagoes of Southeast Asia to cat-and-mouse games with Chinese subs in the waters to the north. Preparing to meet all the possible threats the Pacific has to offer will force the Navy to become more nimble, and will make it better able to deal with unconventional emergencies, such as tsunamis, when they arise.

Welcome to the next few decades. As one senior chief put it to me, referring first to the Persian Gulf and then to the Pacific, "The Navy needs to spend less time in that salty little mud puddle and more time in the pond."
 
John- Had I known you were going to post this article by Kaplan I would have told you not to do it.

Really- Kaplan makes my skin crawl. Ever since his Coming Anarchy, he seems to be little more than a sensationalist journalist - a throwback to the yellow journalists that abound before the Spanish-American War.

And he's not that smart. The Coming Anarchy- is one great example. This is another.

Much of what he says is just stupid. Even the Sparta v. Athens analogy. Athens had a naval power and hid behind it's walls, but it was defeated in large part because (1) Plague sucks, (2) it undertook a rather risky and foolish move Sicily. It's a stupid analogy.

As for the Chinese vs the US in naval war- it's simple- the Chinese lose or we both go nuclear and it's over. The Chinese just don't have the ability to counter the US at sea. On land, they may have more throw-weight in Central Asia but the US has already developed military relationships with some of those states.

Kaplan is playing on sensationalism. That and he's rehashing stuff that folks already know.

Better than reading the Atlantic and Kaplan (for a journalists impressions) you'd be better to read International Security that normally looks at China.

From International security-

International Security, Spring 2004 v28 i4 p125-160
Strangulation from the sea? a PRC Submarine blockade of Taiwan. (Peoples' Republic of China ) Micheal A. Glosny.
Abstract: The prospects for a successful coercive submarine blockade of Taiwanese ports is assessed and an analysis is made to determine how much damage a Chinese submarine blockade could do to the Taiwanese economy. The findings suggested that although a PRC submarine blockade could impose costs on Taiwan, the threat of a successful blockade is overstated.

International Security, Spring 2003 v27 i4 p5-56
Is China a status quo power? Alastair Iain Johnston.
Abstract: This article discusses the diplomacy and policies of the People's Republic of China. The author, focusing on the growing military and economic power of China, argues China is more status quo oriented relative to its past and may be willing to use military force to defend its interests.

International Security, Fall 2002 v27 i2 p48-85
Navigating the Taiwan Strait: deterrence, escalation dominance, and U.S.-China relations. Robert S. Ross.
Abstract: This article examines the United States's relations with China and Taiwan. The author, employing deterrence theory to analyze post-Cold War East Asia and U.S. policy, argues the United States can and will continue to deter the use of military force by China against Taiwan due to its military capabilities.

There is more that I can email if you like.

Don't read Kaplan- really. The guy is rather foolish and sensationalistic for a journalist and he should know better.
 
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