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[brother]

Planning the next Cold War
By Gwynne Dyer


THE COVER of the May Atlantic Monthly has a angry-looking Chinese sailor glowering out at the reader in menacing black-and-white, next to a headline blaring: ‘How We Would Fight China: The Next Cold War’.

Yet Atlantic Monthly is one of the more respectable American monthly magazines, heavy on intellectual pretension and not generally seen as part of the lunatic fringe. If this is what passes for rational discourse among the American foreign policy establishment – and there have been many others like it in "serious" journals and papers over the past year or so – then God help us all.

The author of the lead article in question is Robert D. Kaplan, a minor player in the neo-conservative fraternity. In measured, almost academic tones, he discusses the strategy of the coming military confrontation between the United States and China as if it were inevitable.
A sample: "The Chinese navy is poised to push out into the Pacific – and when it does, it will very quickly encounter a US Navy and Air Force unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Chinese mainland.

“It's not hard to imagine the result: a replay of the decades-long Cold War, with a centre of gravity not in the heart of Europe, but, rather, among Pacific atolls that were last in the news when Marines stormed them in World War II."

So explain to us, Mr Kaplan: how is it that, sixty years after World War II, the US Navy and Air Force are unwilling to budge from the coastal shelf of the Asian mainland?

He does not, of course. He takes it as read that the natural dividing line between the navies of the United States and China, two countries separated by 6,000 miles of ocean, lies about 10 miles off the Chinese coast.

He also takes it as read that the growing power of China must be "contained," as NATO contained Soviet power during the old Cold War. And in these assumptions, he is entirely representative of the people who run US foreign policy these days.

Never mind that there is no evidence whatsoever that China is a territorially expansionist power (with the possible exception of Taiwan), whereas the armies of the old Soviet Union occupied and subjugated all the countries of Eastern Europe.

Never mind that the Soviet Communists still believed in world revolution, or at least felt obliged to support Marxist revolutions elsewhere, whereas the Chinese regime has been emptied of all ideology and pursues pure capitalist policies.

Never mind that the men ruling China are so uncertain of their grip on power that they would not dream of risking military clashes that would interrupt trade and kill the economic growth that keeps the masses quiet.

In Kaplan's view, any country that grows strong enough to challenge America's status as the sole superpower is automatically an enemy to America, and must be contained: "Whenever great powers have emerged or re-emerged on the scene (Germany and Japan, 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."

This stuff is so shallow that it would lose a student marks in a high school history essay. What about America's own emergence as a great power, or Russia's, for that matter? It is just as often the case that a paramount power that is losing ground economically and fears demotion in the great-power pecking order will gamble everything on a resort to war, like Austria-Hungary in 1914. Or, perhaps, the United States now.

Few ordinary Americans would knowingly support the remilitarisation of international affairs and the launch of a second Cold War merely to preserve America's position as the sole military superpower on the planet, but they will never be asked the question in those terms.
Instead, they will be warned of emerging "threats" by people like Robert Kaplan, and told that China must be "deterred." They will not be encouraged to ask: deterred from doing what?
Kaplan is not some fringe loony. He is what passes for a house intellectual among the neo-conservatives who currently dominate American defence and foreign policy, and his ideas are fully shared by them.

He recounts with approval how the United States has already "formed a Pacific military alliance of sorts" through bilateral security agreements with "such places as Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines." Given the older US alliances with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, China is already half-encircled.

Now the emphasis in Washington is on drawing India into an anti-Chinese alliance, too: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited New Delhi recently bearing bribes in the form of access to next-generation American military technology, and President Bush himself is due there later this year. Fortunately, the Indians seem unconvinced of the need for a confrontation with China.

Kaplan, like most of the people he hangs out with, lives in a fantasy world that runs on the rules of the 18th- and 19th-century great-power game. They understand very little about the realities of the 21st-century world beyond the US borders: Kaplan, for example, talks with perfect seriousness about "an ever expanding European Union (that) becomes a less-than-democratic superstate run in imperious regulatory style by Brussels-based functionaries." But these people are in charge of US policy now, and there is a significant risk that their fixation on a new Cold War with China could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

[magikthrill]

I am actually reading a book now called "The United States of Europe" by T.R. Reid and he goes on talking about how the EU is slowly becoming a superpower and could soon be an equal to the US.

Its a pretty cool book (almost a whole chapter on the "significance" of eurovision hehe) but its as if he is unaware that do be a superpower you require a great military power in this day and age.

My friend and I have been discussing the advance of China and they are the runners up in the game of superpowers right now. I never thought of a cold war but sounds quite plausible.

Wheres the link for the article bro? wanna fwd it to my friend.

[cannedmoose]

I read that article yesterday too. Thrill, go to the Cyprus Mail site, I think it's on there.

As for the China-US relationship being the next Cold War... it's more than possible. The US is desperate to prevent the EU from lifting the arms embargo on the Chinese government because they realise that latest-generation weapons technology in the hands of the Chinese will ultimately end US domination over the Pacific basin. The Americans are currently enjoying the last vestiges of hegemony, a stage normally characterised by an increasingly aggressive stance towards challengers and a move to imprint their values and ways on the rest of the world.

Whether the rise of China will augur a new Cold War (or even hot war) between the two depends on them both. If America is determined to remain unchallenged on land, sea, air and space, it can try to do with China what it did with the Soviets and out-spend them in military hardware. Hence the current US fascination with full-spectrum dominance, i.e. the weaponisation of space, which would essentially render them able to strike anyone, anywhere, anytime, without warning.

For the Chinese, they can choose to continue along their current pragmatic route, which is to concentrate on economic growth (necessary to keep the masses happy) and challenge America's financial dominance, which would be a far heavier blow to US prestige than any sort of arms race, and one that they would be unable to counter. Alternatively, China can rack up the tension over Taiwan, keep deploying new nuclear weapons and pursue an arms race with the US. At this time, China is in no position to keep up with the US militarily, to do so would be to bring down financial ruin upon themselves.

I hope China pursues the economic route, but this will ultimately bring catastrophe upon all of us if the Chinese strive for a consumerist society along Western lines. Can you imagine 1.2 billion Chinese all wanting SUVs, refrigerators etc.? And who are we to deny them these things since we already have them. With Chinese (and indeed Indian) growth comes a call to all of us: if we want to have a survivable environment in 100 years time, we need to find a new way of doing things, alternative energy sources and a greener way of living. If we in the West invest in such technologies, it will be to all our benefit and will mean we don't end up as call centre workers for Chinese companies in 50 years from now.

[cannedmoose]

P.S. I also meant to say that it's even more so a clash of cultures (or to use Huntingdon's terminology a 'Clash of civilisations'). The US and the West are increasingly individualistic, whereas in Chinese and East Asian society more generally, it is the collective (to use a Star Trek term) and human responsibilities that matter. Thus, what America calls abuses of human rights is totally incomprehensible to the Chinese mindset. This isn't just a product of communist rule, it's an age-old mantra of East Asian society and one that is deep-rooted. Yes, with consumerism comes a 'me-me' attitude, but it's a facade. So, we could see a complete redefinition of what we regard as human rights and responsibilities.

Personally, I welcome this, Western individualism has gone too far and we're witnessing the breakdown of societies as a result. Margaret Thatcher's comment that there's no such thing as society has done a lot of damage in the UK especially. We're now at the point where we're having to rebuild community, which is far more difficult than securing one that already exists.

[Murtaza]

P.S. I also meant to say that it's even more so a clash of cultures (or to use Huntingdon's terminology a 'Clash of civilisations'). The US and the West are increasingly individualistic, whereas in Chinese and East Asian society more generally, it is the collective (to use a Star Trek term) and human responsibilities that matter. Thus, what America calls abuses of human rights is totally incomprehensible to the Chinese mindset. This isn't just a product of communist rule, it's an age-old mantra of East Asian society and one that is deep-rooted. Yes, with consumerism comes a 'me-me' attitude, but it's a facade. So, we could see a complete redefinition of what we regard as human rights and responsibilities.

Personally, I welcome this, Western individualism has gone too far and we're witnessing the breakdown of societies as a result. Margaret Thatcher's comment that there's no such thing as society has done a lot of damage in the UK especially. We're now at the point where we're having to rebuild community, which is far more difficult than securing one that already exists.

Canned I think individualism mostly comes with capitalism.Their culture will change also. They wont be same as Western but they wont stay same too.(With the globalism, most culture will tend to be change in same way) Maybe problem at western world is they have to much instability and They trust their system too much. This make them frozen in their country, and afraid from changes. (I think this is one of reason why they afraid Turkey) .with the rush of immigrant, It would change in long run too. (They should compete with immigrants so they should help each other)

I think A new force will make a better place. I think with the rise of China, USA force will be balanced.

[cannedmoose]

I agree arkadaşım...

[Murtaza]

I agree arkadaşım...

lol love your turkish teacher.

and It is always a pleasure to read your messages.

[cannedmoose]

Teşekkür ederım... I don't have a Turkish teacher, apart from a nice swearing website, a thick book and some CD's

I'll keep plugging away, would really like to be able to hold a Turkish conversation one of these days...

[Murtaza]

Teşekkür ederım... I don't have a Turkish teacher, apart from a nice swearing website, a thick book and some CD's

I'll keep plugging away, would really like to be able to hold a Turkish conversation one of these days...

lol keep away from that website:)

If you say one Turk "ananın a... kale kurar ...." , he just become too mad Dont say this without some of your friend