[lit-ideas] Re: India/Japan...anyone...reactions??
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:51:40 +0900
See you and raise you one.
------
World Beat
by JOHN FEFFER | Monday, August 20, 2007
Vol. 2, No. 34
Memo to the President, 2020
As a member of the transition team, I've been asked to give a
backgrounder on the "loss of global influence" issue that played such
a major role in the last election. I've submitted my study entitled
End of Empire and I would encourage you to read my full analysis. I've
been told that you might not have the time to read all three volumes.
As a historian, I find it extraordinarily difficult to boil this
question down to 750 words. But I will try.
Historians are divided into roughly three camps on the causes behind
the end of the unipolar system headed by our country. The largest camp
is the Iraq Syndrome group. They argue that the U.S. decision to
invade Iraq in 2003 was the critical, history-changing moment. As you
well know, the invasion turned into an unsuccessful 10-year occupation
that sapped the U.S. economy and significantly eroded U.S. reputation
in the world. More damaging, however, was the syndrome that followed
the war. The unpopularity of the war made it increasingly difficult
for the United States to launch military operations and virtually
impossible to solicit international support. Although the Democrats
tried to maintain high military budgets through 2010, they ultimately
had to make significant cuts in order to salvage the economy.
The second camp is generally called the China Rising group. These
historians, influenced by the world-systems work of Wallerstein,
locate the end of U.S. influence in shifting geopolitical power and
particularly the growing influence of China. As of February 2019, the
Chinese economy is now larger than ours, though we still maintain a
lead in per-capita GNP. More importantly, China's turn toward
multilateralism in the early part of this century caught us by
surprise. The transformation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) into the premier international security mechanism, with its own
peacekeeping forces and development bank, undercut both NATO and
traditional U.S. bilateral alliances. When the EU became a member of
the SCO in 2014, the transatlantic alliance was effectively over.
The Iraq Syndrome and the China Rising arguments are familiar and
persuasive. But I do not believe that they fully explain our fall. The
third camp, to which I belong, is called the Subprime group. Although
we are currently considered revisionist historians, I believe that my
End of Empire books definitively establish that the financial crisis
that the United States experienced in 2007 was the key element in
destroying our position in the world.
As you might remember, the United States experienced a significant
housing bubble beginning in 2001. Americans became obsessed with
buying houses, and selling houses. The banks devised a way of lending
money to people who ordinarily would not have enough credit to buy a
house. This was called the sub-prime loan. Without going into the
details -- please see Chapters 2-8 in Volume One of End of Empire -- I
will simply remind you of the rising number of foreclosures in the
summer of 2007, the bankruptcy of lenders, the failure of hedge funds,
the collapse of retail, the devaluation of the dollar, and the
coordinated global bank interventions that turned out to be only a
stopgap measure.
At the time, U.S. economists predicted that the housing market would
recover by 2009. That didn't happen. The subprime crisis revealed not
only the underlying fragility of the domestic U.S. economy but the
global economy as well. It is a common fallacy to draw parallels
between household economics and the functioning of the national
economy. However, in this case, I have argued that the parallel did
apply. Average Americans, with their large amounts of debt, had to
give up their prized possessions, that cornerstone of the American
dream, the house. So, too, did the United States, with its nearly $9
trillion national debt, have to give up its global position, its
"house" so to speak.
Historians in the two other camps overlook this simple and rather
elegant explanation. Yes, the Iraq War was a tremendous drain on U.S.
resources and thus a classic case of imperial overstretch. Yes, China
played the multilateral card at just the right time and thereby built
an international reputation. But it was a handful of greedy mortgage
lenders that served as the catalyst. The market correction that
followed the subprime crisis in fact turned out to be a much larger
geopolitical correction that restored a certain balance to
international affairs. Finally, with 2020 hindsight -- to use this
year's most popular catch phrase -- we can see that Iraq and China
pale in comparison to the cold, hard bottom line. As you repeatedly
said on the campaign trail, quoting one of last century's most
enduring lines, "It's the economy, stupid."
Poetic Interventions
To do a proper job of futurology, it is perhaps best to look to our
poets, since they embody the most visionary sector of society.
This week at FPIF, Iranian poet and FPIF contributor Farideh
Hassanzadeh?Mostafavi interviews some of the world's leading poets to
get their insights into world politics. In her set of interviews On
Political Poetry, she asks them to comment on Kafka's statement that
war boils down to a lack of imagination. "War is childish -- infantile
? behavior," Sam Hamill replies. "War is a country soiling its diapers
and pitching a fit, a temper tantrum." On U.S. foreign policy, Joy
Harjo says, "I am ashamed of America's small-minded and small-hearted
policy toward other countries, other peoples. But it doesn't surprise
me. This policy was and remains behind genocidal policies against
indigenous peoples here. It forms the basis of the educational system,
the philosophical systems, everything."
And the task of a poet? Maryam Ala Amjadi has a surprising answer: "A
true poet hurts and wounds and sometimes even humiliates, because
poetry must be an event not an occasion. You can never really get
close enough to someone if you do not touch them and to touch deeply
and profoundly is to hurt. It is the wounds that breed familiarity; it
is the scar that remains as a memorandum between you and them, one
that you could never forget even if you wanted to."
Our second Fiesta article this week looks at the rise of extrajudicial
killings in the Philippines and how artists there have responded.
Since 2001, Filipino human rights organizations have tallied over 800
killings. The National Army is widely suspected of responsibility.
"The extrajudicial killings have again set Filipino artists to work,"
writes FPIF contributor Carmela Cruz in Artists against Assassination.
"They held concerts like Arrest the Killings at the Freedom Bar, a
cramped alternative space in Metro Manila, and in the open fields of
the University of the Philippines. Visual artists, including those who
opposed the Marcos regime, joined younger painters and performance
artists in the Tutok Karapatan (Focus on Rights) series of exhibitions
of new paintings and art works held in private galleries and
university halls. At the same time, independent films about the
country's colonial past and leftist movements like Indio Nacional (The
Prolonged Suffering of Filipinos) and Juan Kaliwa (Left Turn) were
screened at various film festivals in Europe, Asia, and the United
States. The many recent Filipino art works have assessed the
present-day Philippine situation through the colonial, strife-torn
context of the past as well as perceptions of a seesawing,
passive-aggressive, servile-heroic national identity."
Send Love and Money
Immigrants now send more money home than countries provide in overseas
development assistance. As FPIF contributor Francis Calpotura points
out in Remittances: For Love and Money, "In 2005, migrant workers sent
a total of $232 billion to their country of origin, more than three
times the amount of official development assistance. In many parts of
the developing world, remittances account for 30% or more of the gross
domestic product. Inflows from Mexicans living abroad, for example,
represent the country's second largest source of foreign income behind
oil exports."
This enormous amount of money, Calpotura argues, can be put into the
service of sustainable development. In communities across the United
States, Million Dollar Clubs are organizations with members who
collectively send at least a million dollars every year back to their
home countries. "At the next level up," he continues, "La Liga (The
League) networks the Million Dollar Clubs and their allies globally as
economic leverage to promote sustainable development. It allows member
organizations in both host and home countries to have the ability to
jointly apply pressure to receiving and sending governments to respond
to community needs and change policies that exacerbate migration."
In Southwest Asia, the Pashtuns have come together across borders to
exert influence in a somewhat different way. In Talk to the Taliban,
FPIF contributor Tarique Niazi describes a recent meeting in Kabul of
Pashtuns from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This Jirga, which the
United States helped to broker, came up with some unexpected results,
namely a call for negotiations with the Taliban. "The call does not
spell out the talks' schedule, scope, substance, or venue," Niazi
writes. "Meanwhile, the Taliban has rejected the Jirga as a
'U.S.-sponsored farce.' It is opposed to the U.S.-backed Northern
Alliance government in Kabul and wants troops led by the United States
and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to leave Afghanistan.
This issue of foreign troop withdrawal was controversial at the Jirga.
Although carefully screened by their respective governments, a
smattering of Jirga members did manage to articulate their support for
the Taliban's call for foreign troops to leave, which they wished to
replace with those of Islamic countries."
And Korea
The summit of the leaders of North and South Korea has been postponed
until October because of serious flooding in North Korea.
Still, negotiations continue between the participants in the Six Party
Talks. The question remains, however: what does Washington really want
out of the current negotiations? The Bush administration has changed
its negotiating strategy and there seems to be a marked decline in
regime-change enthusiasm in Washington.
Nevertheless, as I argue in Three Hard Truths, the United States
hasn't changed its fundamental approach to Northeast Asia. This
approach is based on three hard truths. The United States
fundamentally doesn't care about North Korea. The United States is
deeply ambivalent about Korean reunification. And the United States is
allergic to a regional security system.
"These are not hard truths for Americans," I write. "After all, the
average U.S. citizen doesn't pay attention to North Korea unless a
legislator mischaracterizes Pyongyang's missile capabilities as
advanced enough to hit Kansas. Rather, these are hard truths for those
in East Asia who hope for a true end to the Cold War in the region."
If, like the president, you don't have time for the full analysis,
check out the 60-Second Expert version of this essay.
Links
Farideh Hassanzadeh?Mostafavi, "On Political Poetry," Foreign Policy
In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4482); Iranian poet Farideh
Hassanzadeh-Mostafavi asks Adrienne Rich, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins,
Maryam Ala Amjadi, and others about American foreign policy, 9/11,
war, and the true essence of poetry.
Carmela Cruz, "Artists against Assassination," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4480); Carmela Cruz describes how
Filipino artists have taken up the struggle against extrajudicial
killings.
Francis Calpotura, "Remittances: For Love and Money," Foreign Policy
In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4467); The grassroots transfer
of money from North to South can be a powerful tool of cross-border
organizing.
Tarique Niazi, "Talk to the Taliban," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474); At a U.S.-brokered meeting, Afghan
and Pakistani tribal leaders call for dialogue with the resurgent
Taliban.
"Severe Flooding in DPRK," National Committee on North Korea
(http://www.ncnk.org/resources/news-items/flooding-in-north-korea)
John Feffer, "Three Hard Truths," Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4475); The United States is negotiating
with North Korea but hasn't changed its fundamental policy toward the
region.
John Feffer, "60-Second Expert: U.S.-Korea Relations," Foreign Policy
In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4481).
. . .
Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a project of the
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS)
fpif.org: a think tank without walls
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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