Every time I read what this guy writes, I'm of two minds. He always makes
some good points. However, he has a very exceptionalist view of America
which, I think, tends to bias his analysis of international relations.
Miriam
The Looming US-Chinese Missile Crisis
MICHAEL T. KLARE
06/12/2020
( Tomdispatch.com) - America's pundits and politicians have largely
concluded that a new Cold War with China - a period of intense hostility and
competition falling just short of armed combat - has started. "Rift
Threatens U.S. Cold War Against China," as a New York Times headline put it
on May 15th, citing recent clashes over trade, technology, and
responsibility for the spread of Covid-19. Beijing's decision to subject
Hong Kong to tough new security laws has only further heightened such
tensions. President Trump promptly threatened to eliminate that city-state's
special economic relationship with this country, while imposing new
sanctions on Chinese leaders. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans in
Congress are working together to devise tough anti-Chinese sanctions of
their own.
For anyone who can remember the original Cold War, the latest developments
may seem eerily familiar. They bring to mind what occurred soon after
America's World War II collaboration with the Soviets collapsed in acrimony
as the Russians became ever more heavy-handed in their treatment of Eastern
Europe. In those days, distrust only grew, while Washington decided to
launch a global drive to contain and defeat the USSR. We seem to be
approaching such a situation today. Though China and the U.S. continue to
maintain trade, scientific, and educational ties, the leaders of both
countries are threatening to sever those links and undertake a wide range of
hostile moves.
Admittedly, some of the steps being discussed in Washington to punish China
for its perceived bad behavior will have little immediate impact on the
lives of Americans. A lot of the threats, in fact, may turn out to be little
more than good old-fashioned chest thumping. Consider, for instance, the
proposal floated by the top-ranking majority and minority members of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe and Rhode
Island Democrat Jack Reed, to fund a multibillion dollar "Pacific Deterrence
Initiative" intended to bolster American forces in Asia. That effort, they
avowed, will "send a strong signal to the Chinese Communist Party that the
American people are committed to defending U.S. interests in the
Indo-Pacific."
Well, that was easy! All we, the taxpaying citizens of the United States,
need to do in this opening salvo of a new Cold War is salute Congress as it
funnels yet more billions of dollars to the usual defense contractors and
thereby "send a signal" to Beijing that we will "defend U.S. interests"
somewhere far across the globe. (Now there's a moment to wave your American
flag!)
But don't count on such a moment lasting long, not if a new Cold War starts
in earnest. A quick look back at the original one should remind us that
we'll all pay a price of some sort for intensifying hostility towards China
(even if a hot war isn't the result). Perhaps, then, it's none too soon to
consider how such a world would impact you and me.
A Feeble Economic Recovery
For most Americans, the first consequence of an intensifying Cold War could
be a weaker than expected recovery from the Covid-19 economic meltdown.
Anything that stands in the way of a swift rebound - and a new Cold War with
China falls into that very category - would be bad news.
Unlike in the original Cold War, when Washington and Moscow maintained few
economic ties, the U.S. and Chinese economies remain intertwined,
contributing to the net wealth of both countries and benefiting this
country's export-oriented industries like agriculture and civilian aircraft
production. Admittedly, such ties have also harmed blue-collar workers who
have watched their jobs migrate across the Pacific and tech companies that
have seen their intellectual property purloined by Chinese upstarts. Donald
Trump stoked resentments over just such issues to get himself elected in
2016. Since then, he's sought to disentangle the two economies, claiming we
would be better off on our own. (America first!) As part of this drive, he's
already imposed stiff tariffs on Chinese imports and blocked Chinese firms
from gaining access to American technology.
Feel free to argue about whether China has abused international trade rules,
as Trump and his allies have charged, and whether imposing tariffs (paid for
by American importers and consumers, not Chinese suppliers) is the best way
to address that country's economic rise. The key thing to note, however, is
that economic growth in both places had slowed in the wake of Trump's trade
war even before Covid-19 hit. As 2019 drew to a close, in fact, the prospect
of yet higher tariffs and intensified economic warfare was already dragging
down the whole global economy.
And while some experts believe that a relaxation of tariffs and other steps
to improve U.S.-China trade would stimulate the economy in tough times,
Trump and his China hawks, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White
House trade adviser Peter Navarro, appear to view this moment as the perfect
opportunity to double down on anti-Chinese measures. The president has
already hinted that he's prepared to order yet more tariffs on Chinese
products and take other steps to hasten the "decoupling" of the two
economies. "There are many things we could do," he told Maria Bartiromo of
Fox Business in mid-May. "We could cut off the whole relationship."
Cut off the whole relationship? Some policymakers claim that such a
decoupling would stimulate growth at home as American firms shifted
manufacturing back to the United States and its close allies. This argument,
however, ignores two key factors when it comes to Americans desperate for
work now: first, many of the tasks currently performed by Chinese workers
will be shifted to plants in Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, and other low-cost
manufacturing hubs; and second, any relocation of entire production lines to
this country will take years to accomplish and, in the end, undoubtedly wind
up employing more robots than workers. Bottom line: economically, an
intensifying Cold War is guaranteed to scuttle any chances of a rapid
recovery from the Coronavirus Depression, dampening employment prospects for
millions of Americans.
Military Spending, Not Recovery Stimulus
And here's another thing a new Cold War guarantees: a significant increase
in military spending at a time of ballooning national debt and a desperate
need for investment in domestic economic recovery.
By the end of June, unless Congress votes additional assistance, much of the
$2.2 trillion in emergency pandemic relief voted by Congress will have been
used up, leaving millions of jobless Americans and many small business
owners in dire straits. Democrats in the House of Representatives did unveil
a plan for an additional $3 trillion in emergency funding, including aid for
struggling states and cities and another round of direct payments to
citizens. White House officials and many Republicans insist, however, that
any further giveaways to ordinary Americans will raise the federal debt to
unsustainable levels (a problem that never worries them when it comes to tax
cuts for corporations and the wealthy). So passing anything like that
stimulus package appears ever less conceivable and July may leave millions
of Americans unable to pay rent as well as other essential expenses.
When it comes to increased military spending, however, Republicans have no
such qualms. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, for example, has introduced a
$43 billion Forging Operational Resistance to Chinese Expansion (FORCE) Act.
(Nifty title, huh?) Its goal, he claims, would be to "help thwart the
Chinese Communist Party's main geopolitical aim [of] pushing the United
States out of the Western Pacific [and] achieving cross-strait unification
with Taiwan via military force." It includes, among other things, $3.9
billion for another Virginia-class submarine (that's in addition to the $4.7
billion requested for such a sub in the Pentagon's proposed 2021 budget) and
$3 billion for more of one of the most expensive weapons systems in history,
the F-35 jet fighter (and that's in addition to the $4.6 billion requested
for 48 of them in that same budget).
With the Democrats desperate to demonstrate their own anti-Chinese
credentials, passage of the FORCE Act, or the somewhat more modest Pacific
Deterrence Initiative introduced by Senators Reed and Inhofe, appears to be
a sure thing. In fact, the need for yet more military funds may prove to be
the Republican rationale for rejecting calls for additional pandemic relief.
But won't higher military spending act as an economic stimulus, just as it
did during World War II when it helped lift the United States out of the
Great Depression?
Indeed, passage of the FORCE Act or a variant of it will pump additional
money into the economy. But today's military-industrial complex bears little
relation to the one of 80 years ago when millions of workers were mobilized
to churn out thousands of tanks and planes monthly in an all-out drive to
defeat Nazi Germany. Nowadays, military hardware has become so complex that
most of any dollar spent on a new plane, tank, or ship goes into specialized
materials and computer systems, not armies of laborers. So the billions of
dollars for one new submarine and additional F-35s are likely to generate
only a few thousand extra jobs, while spending the same amounts on health
care or elementary school education would generate many times that number.
Conscription
And then there's the issue that should be on the minds of every young man
and woman in America (along with their parents, grandparents, and loved
ones): the draft.
In contrast to the original Cold War, young men in this country are no
longer obliged to serve in the U.S. military, though they (and their female
counterparts) may choose to do so, whether for patriotic reasons, economic
need, or both. Even though the United States has been continuously involved
in "forever wars" since the 9/11 attacks, the armed services have been able
to use a variety of economic and educational incentives to keep the ranks
filled (and avoid the public outcry over those wars that would surely have
accompanied a draft). This was possible in part because the numbers of
soldiers engaged in combat at any given moment was not huge in comparison
to, say, the Korean or Vietnam War eras and because vast numbers of troops
were no longer on tap to "contain" the Soviet Union in Europe.
A full-scale Cold War with China could, however, prove another matter
entirely, even if Pentagon manpower requirements were somewhat diminished by
U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq. Large force deployments
will undoubtedly be needed to engage in a modern version of the
"containment" of China, not to speak of deterring the further adventurism of
Vladimir Putin's Russia. Can this be done with an all-volunteer military?
Not if tensions rise with Beijing.
Count on it: at some point, the question of conscription is bound to come
up. So far, the Department of Defense has not opted for reinstating the
draft - a move that would require congressional approval and undoubtedly
ignite intense political debate of the sort top officials would prefer to
avoid right now. Still, the leadership's overarching guidance, the National
Defense Strategy of 2018, made it quite clear that the United States must
expect to face years of intense rivalry with its "great power competitors"
and that such an epic struggle could well require the full mobilization of
America's war-making capabilities. "Long-term strategic competition [with
China and Russia]," it claimed, "requires the seamless integration of
multiple elements of national power." Conscription was not specifically
mentioned, but given the new focus on a rising China and a reckless Russia,
it will be on the table sooner or later.
Repression and Discrimination
Another feature of the original Cold War that you should expect in a new one
is an environment of repression, intolerance, and discrimination. In this
case, it would be against Chinese-Americans, Chinese students and
researchers currently in this country, and non-Chinese viewed as in any way
beholden to that power. Sadly enough, signs of this have already emerged.
Officials from the FBI and the National Security Council have, for instance,
been dispatched to leading Ivy League universities to warn administrators
against admitting or retaining Chinese students who may be collecting
scientific and technical information to share with government-sponsored
institutions at home. Concurrently, some 30 Chinese professors with ties to
such institutions have had their visas denied, despite a history of
collaboration with American academics. In a more dramatic move, the chair of
Harvard University's chemistry department, Charles Lieber, was arrested in
January for failing to report income he had received from a Chinese
university.
Many American academics have criticized such actions as an assault on
academic freedom. Increasingly, however, U.S. officials insist that they
represent a necessary component of the new Cold War. And while those
officials also insist that our adversary in this struggle is the Chinese
government or people associated with it (however tangentially), many
Chinese-Americans are increasingly experiencing suspicion and hostility just
for being Chinese. "Chinese-Americans feel targeted, and that's really
hurtful," said Charlie Woo, a prominent Chinese-American businessman.
The experience of the first Cold War suggests that this sort of intolerance
and repression will only increase with potentially chilling effects on
intellectual freedom and the already deeply unsettled racial situation in
this country.
Hot War
And never forget that cold wars always risk becoming hot ones. Looking back,
it's easy enough to remember those years of the U.S.-USSR standoff as a
relatively war-free era, since the two superpowers were fearful that a
direct conflict of any sort between them might spark an all-out
thermonuclear conflagration, leaving a planet in ruins. In reality, though,
both sides engaged in a grim assortment of bloody "proxy wars" - regional
conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, among other places, involving
troops from one superpower and local allies armed by the other. In addition,
the U.S. and the Soviet Union nearly found themselves in direct conflict on
several occasions. The most notable, of course, was the Cuban Missile Crisis
of 1962, when Moscow installed nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba and
the U.S. nearly went to war - which would probably have turned into a
nuclear conflict - to remove them. Only a last-ditch negotiating effort by
President John F. Kennedy and his Russian counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev,
averted such an outcome.
It's easy enough to imagine that both contemporary versions of such proxy
conflicts and of the Cuban Missile Crisis could emerge from a growing
confrontation with China. An incident on the Korean Peninsula, no matter how
it was sparked, could quickly turn into just such a proxy war. The greatest
danger, however, would be U.S. and Chinese forces facing off directly,
perhaps due to a naval clash in the East or South China Sea.
At present, American and Chinese warships encounter each other on a regular
basis in those waters, often coming within shooting (or even ramming) range.
The U.S. Navy insists that it's conducting permissible "freedom of
navigation operations" (FRONOPS) in international waters. The Chinese -
claiming ownership of, and often building up, the many small atolls and
islets that dot those seas - accuse the American ships of infringing on
their national maritime territory. On occasion, Chinese gunboats have sailed
dangerously close to them, forcing them to shift course to avoid a
collision. As such incidents multiply and tensions increase, the risk of a
serious faceoff involving loss of life on one or both sides is bound to
grow, possibly providing the spark for a full-scale military confrontation.
And there can be no question of one thing: an intensifying Cold War with
China will only increase the odds of such a thing happening.
No one can say at what point you or any of us will begin to feel the direct
effects of this new Cold War, only that, as tensions and hostile acts
heighten, the consequences will prove harsh indeed. So cheer now, if you
approve of measures already taken to isolate and punish Beijing, but think
carefully before you embrace a full-blown Cold War with China and all that
it will entail.
