A First Response
My thanks to the correspondents of the TPM Cafe for their reactions to and comments on my short essay. First things first. My given name is 'Chalmers,' my family name 'Johnson.' Chalmers is unquestionably a Scottish name, but I am not a Scot. My father was named Frederick Johnson, Jr. My mother declared that the world did not need another Fred Johnson, least of all a Fred Johnson III. I was therefore named after a mutual friend of theirs, Chalmers Wood of Tennessee. I am grateful for her decision.
Tom Wright raises the question of whether the political system can save us and seems to answer in the affirmative. I disagree. The problems I am addressing in my book Nemesis both precede and transcend the current Bush administration, as is obvious when one reflects that the great warning about vested interests in the munitions industry came in Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961 and that the roots of "military Keynesianism" were planted during World War II.
Dan K raises an important distinction with which I agree: At the end of World War II, Britain did not so much give up its empire as transfer its imperial pretensions to the United States and segue into the role of camp-follower.
It did, nonetheless, abandon its reliance on rule through "administrative massacres" (Arendt's term) in India (but not everywhere: see Ireland, Malaya, Kenya, Egypt, and a few other places). Dan K asks whether we need a successor empire run by either the US or another country that will provide a "security order." My answer, controversial in a country as steeped in militarism as this one, is no. We can maintain peace through a balance of power, deterrence, common interests that are planetary (global warming, water supply, etc.), alliances, and other techniques of diplomacy. We must, of course, maintain a standing army but we do not need the apparatus of a "superpower." The example of how to do this is the Venetian Republic, c. 500 AD to 1797, unconquered for over a millennium and the richest city in Europe. (See, e.g., John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice, Knopf, 1982).
My proposal to abolish the CIA stems from the fact that today its clandestine arm totally dominates and shapes its intelligence functions. (For more on this see my piece "Republic or Empire: A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States" in the January 2007 issue of Harper's Magazine.) I would prefer to see so-called intelligence gathering returned to the State Department.
'Jhaber' has more confidence in both the Roman Senate and our own Congress than I do when it comes to recovering from the fatal distortions of imperialism and militarism. On this subject, I recommend Anthony Everitt, Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician (Random House, 2001).
Viviane's comments are important. Eric Hobsbawm is one of the leading historians still at work today (he was born in 1917). If he took on Harvard's exile Scot, Niall Ferguson, we are on the same wavelength (see chapter two of my Nemesis).
Ahem, along with several others, raises the work of Paul Kennedy (also an exiled Brit), for whom I have nothing but the greatest respect. However, his prime concept is that of "imperial overstretch" whereas I am actually discussing something quite different -- the unintended consequences for a democratic republic that, usually thoughtlessly, acquires an empire and only then wakes up to the indispensable requirement of a standing army and the inevitable militarism that accompanies it in order to keep and police the empire. Incidentally, imperial overstretch is not inevitable. In the opening pages of Decline and Fall, Gibbon asserts that his hero, Augustus, wisely held the growth of the empire to Europe south of the Rhine and Danube (except for Britain) and Eurasia west of the Euphrates in order better to manage and exploit it. Expansion was not unlimited.
'Cmpnwtr' asks, "Do [sic] our present generation of political leaders not see the obvious historical place of America, are they so deluded, or are they just afraid to tell the truth to the American people?" The mindset of the permanent establishment in Washington is a huge subject, but this is a good question. Nothing depresses me more than the thought of Hillary perhaps followed by Jeb and yet another dynastic cycle of Clintons and Bushes. In my opinion, the best dissection of the smug, Vatican-like insularity of Cold War Washington is Ward Just's Echo House (Houghton Mifflin, 1997). By contrast, the Forbidden City of the last Manchu emperors was an open and airy environment. It is not accidental (as Lenin would say) that the main characters of this work of non-fiction in novel form are all veterans of the clandestine services. Incidentally, they are all Democrats.
'Rdf' writes, "I think the significance of the 700+ military bases is overdrawn." I strongly disagree and would like to encourage more research on them. The Air Force tells us that Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo is the only man-made object other than the Great Wall of China that is easily seen from outer space. Today, Anaconda/Ballad in Iraq can probably be added to the list. Whatever happens in Iraq politically, the Iraqis are going to inherit five of the largest, most modern airfields anywhere on earth. I agree with Rdf that most of the bases have no strategic significance but they are anything but "relics."
In a related comment, El Campesino asserts, "Reading this you wouldn't know that we've been closing bases all over the US and all over the world for decades. You wouldn't know that there is such a thing as the BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] process." I have to say, please read my new book Nemesis. In any case, BRAC is an exclusively domestic process, and Clark Air Base in the Philippines was closed by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991, not by the Philippine Senate. There is some good news, however: a grass roots movement in Italy seems well on its way to evicting the U.S. Air Force from Aviano Air Base.
JPF311 thinks that the American public was informed about the largest single clandestine operation we ever carried out: the recruiting, arming, and sending into battle against the USSR of the mujahideen during the 1980s. It was actually a secret to the American public and subject to virtually no oversight by the Congress. See George Creel, Charlie Wilson's War (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003). Bush's electoral victory in 2004 provided legitimacy for his actions, whether JPF311 and other Democrats are pleased or not. He/she writes, "We do not have an empire, we have a hegemony." This strikes me as a distinction without a difference; both are forms of tyranny in which consent of the governed is neither sought nor recognized. I disagree with the proposition that "after Bush leaves office the system will correct itself." To correct itself seems to mean a return to the world of Bill Clinton. And Clinton, with his globalization policies, was a far more effective imperialist than Bush.
Our problem was identified by Eisenhower in his 1961 presidential farewell address:
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent arms industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society."
Libertine writes, "I, sadly, think we have lost our republic in terms of being a republic. The establishment of NORTHCOM was the signal to me that we had lost our government to the forces of the military-industrial complex." I agree and discuss the reasons why in The Sorrows of Empire (2004).
Horatio Parker inquires about "the differences between our economy and those of the Asian tigers." There is a large literature. Please see my MITI and the Japanese Miracle (Stanford University Press, 1982) and Meredith Woo-Cumings, ed., The Developmental State (Cornell University Press, 1999).
It is time to bring this to an end. I have not commented at length on the two longer responses -- by Greg Anrig, Jr., and Max Sawicky -- because I have little to say except praise for their insights and cool analyses. El Campesino contests my views on military Keynesianism and the influence of the military-industrial complex by citing Defense Department figures on the ratio between the "defense budget' and gross domestic product (GDP).
To understand the real weight of military Keynesianism in the American economy, one must approach official defense statistics with great care. They are compiled and published in such a way as to minimize the actual size of the official "defense budget." The Pentagon does this to try to conceal from the public the real costs of the military establishment and its overall weight within the economy. There are numerous military activities not carried out by the Department of Defense and that are therefore not part of the Pentagon's annual budgets. These include the Department of Energy's spending on nuclear weapons ($16.4 billion in fiscal 2005), the Department of Homeland Security's outlays for the actual "defense" of the United States against terrorism ($41 billion), the Department of Veterans Affairs' responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion), the Treasury Department's payments of pensions to military retirees and widows and their families (an amount not fully disclosed by official statistics), and the Department of State's financing of foreign arms sales and militarily related developmental assistance ($23 billion).
In addition to these amounts, there is something called the "Military Construction Appropriations Bill," which is tiny compared to the other expenditures -- $12.2 billion for fiscal 2005 -- but which covers all the military bases around the world. Adding these non-Department-of-Defense expenditures, the supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military construction budget to the defense appropriations bill actually doubles what the administration calls the annual defense budget. It is an amount larger than all other defense budgets on earth combined. Still to be added to this are interest payments by the Treasury to cover past debt-financed defense outlays going back to 1916. Robert Higgs, author of Crisis and Leviathan and many other books on American militarism, estimates that in 2002 such interest payments amounted to $138.7 billion.
Even when all these things are included, Enron-style accounting makes it hard to obtain an accurate understanding of our reliance on a permanent arms economy. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that "the Pentagon has no accurate knowledge of the cost of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the fight against terrorism." It said that lacking a reliable method for tracking military costs, the Army merely inserts into its accounts figures that match the available budget. "Effectively, the Army [is] reporting back to Congress what it had appropriated."
Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist, and his colleague at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, have tried to put together an estimate of the real costs of the Iraq war. They calculate that it will cost about $2 trillion. This figure is several orders of magnitude larger than what the Bush administration publicly acknowledges. Above all, Stiglitz and Bilmes have tried to compile honest figures for veterans' benefits. For 2006, the officially budgeted amount is $68 billion, which is absurdly low given the large number of our soldiers who have been severely wounded. We celebrate the medical miracles that allow some of our troops to survive the detonation of an "improvised explosive device" hidden in the earth under a Humvee, but when larger numbers of soldiers who once might have died in such situations are saved, the resulting wounds, often including brain damage, require that they receive round-the-clock care for the rest of their lives. It is not unpatriotic to draw attention to these American problems.
My thanks to all the people who took the trouble to write.
Comments (110)
Thanks. I learned a great deal. You're a good teacher.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
February 1, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for taking the time to respond so deeply to the TPMCafe commentors - that is not something we see very often. Appreciated.
.> The Air Force tells us that Camp Bondsteel
> in Kosovo is the only man-made object other
> than the Great Wall of China that is easily
> seen from outer space.
Just for future reference, this one gets knocked around quite a bit. If by "from outer space" you mean "from Space Shuttle orbit", many manmade objects are visible from that altitude on a clear day including any large airport. No manmade objects (including the Great Wall) are visible from the Moon.
sPh
February 1, 2007 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
People have no idea of what militarism costs us in this country. If they do question it, they are characterized as "unpatriotic" or "anti-American." It is to our everlasting shame that a democracy in which every person has a say, is so easily manipulated through emotion and sentimentality into not asking what it truly costs the American people.
In a budget of actual dollars, the revenue available for discretionary spending is less than 850 billion dollars. Out of that, over 455 billion dollars is spent on the military. For a country that prides itself on its "good business sense" it is surprising that people cannot grasp the significance of that amount of discretionary spending on something that not only does not have any investment profit, but is a drain on past, present and future investment dollars in projects and people who would provide a return on the taxpayers' investment.
While we're conditioned to think that the military costs "only" 3.7% of the gross domestic profit, the real cost is that for every single dollar a taxpayer sends to its government, as of 2007, 52 cents of that dollar is spent on the military, and that is only the line budget amount. The cost of these current wars are an EXTRA 300
billion dollars which must be borrowed and paid back not through profits or returns, but through taxpayers shouldering the burden of this tremendous outlay in expenditure.
Unfortunately, in this country, there are few citizens, like Chalmers Johnson, who are willing to put up with the abuse of charges of "anti-Americanism" or accusations of being "un-patriotic" or "hating our troops" because we are incapable of standing up to it. We are so fearful of the emotional blackmail of those individuals who do make a profit on war and militarism that we can no longer make pragmatic, practical decisions based on the reality of our situation.
Empires fall because like all business enterprises, when the cost of doing business exceeds profit, there is no more money to invest in that enterprise. When it costs more to protect the resource than it does to sell the resource then the investor has to ask the question of whether a better investment might be had. Soon, those countries like Japan and China who are investing in this country and financing our militarism are going to asking themselves that same question. And then God help us, because no one else will.
February 1, 2007 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Your posts have been more than informative. They are clear and easy for a non-wonk like me to understand. I just put Nemesis in my Amazon shopping cart along with Blowback and Sorrows of Empire.
February 1, 2007 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you, thank you, Chalmers Johnson, thank you so very much for this post, and for all your efforts and books over the years. I have not read them yet (because I knew when reading the reviews that I totally agreed with you ) but I will certainly invest in them soon.
I am still fuming that one know-nothing tried to to describe you as an "ideologue" with a "cult-following." I would gladly be your cult follower (if either of us thought that might accomplish anything for anyone) as I have followed your work since we were both political moderates in the '70's and I was trying to grow as a History student and then as a free-lance business/political researcher/ghostwriter. I had fears about imperial overstretch back than ... but I don't think I ever imagined anything as scary as Bush has become with his treatened attack on Iran. I do believe this would trigger the dollar collapse you reference in your newest book, and thus cause the end of American freedom and prosperity as we have known it ...
I fear for my children. We have wronged them terribly by our passivity as citizens and consumers, the present imperialist establishment in both parties in DC much be massively 'purged' (in a non-violent sense). Nevertheless we must recognize that are probably hundreds, even thousands of men (and a few women?), comfortably retired in Maryland/Virginia and elsewhere, who have buckets of blood on their hands from their clandestine services to our empire-building over the years. I too have feared for years that the blowback from their work will destroy our American happiness and prosperity as well ... every moment, until the imperialists are flushed from our leadership, will be a pivotal moment we must seize to help spread the message that our freedom and prosperity depend on LESS militarism and imperialism and bombing attacks on dubious missions, not MORE of these ...
And then my own intellectual sub-mission in this larger struggle would be to illuminate the idea that imperialism grows out of the psychological and sociological "imperialisms" on a small scale that we find in every functioning adult and every familiy in every culture across time and the globe ... "normal" human consciousness in society does take a measure of dominance-seeking and self-protection which then grows through families and clans and tribes and ethnic groups and sub-nations and nations and empires to become the imperial behaviours we find in the grand scale of global history ... grasping this concept is the first step to correcting our human problems if we are to have a human civilized future ...
Thank You Chalmers
February 1, 2007 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget about Japan: Who Governs. You'll learn about how Japan is about to overtake the US owing to their Economy 2.0 system of economic organization.
Prof. Johnson's willingness to engage the commenters here is to be admired. But he is unfortunately prone to unempirical, gleeful contrarianism about why an American armageddon is right around the corner.
February 1, 2007 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would you define what you mean by "militarism?"
Rather than focusing on the absolute dollars, the fundamental policy choice is what missions are appropriate to assign to the military, and how many of them. There is also a sometimes nerve-wracking balancing of threats versus risks, since he who defends everywhere defends nowhere.
Let me offer some examples. In assigning missions, it also can become necessary to differentiate among Regular, Guard, and Reserve components. States may assign disaster or even law enforcement assistance missions to Guard components, but it's a real problem when a battalion is fighting a forest fire and gets called up for Iraq.
For example, should the military actively take part in border patrolling? Should it take part in them in a support role, when that can be combined with regular training, such as using airborne radar aircraft over borders or close-in ocean?
To what extent should the military prepare for peace operations (divided into peace enforcement and peacekeeping), versus the more kick-down-the-door high-intensity combat? Peace enforcement can be consistent with keeping a combat edge, but it is generally accepted that after a tour of peacekeeping, a unit needs a period of refresher training for combat.
Should the military ever again be asked to do a "presence" mission such as the Marine Barracks in Beirut? How much amphibious capability is needed? Airborne?
Moving into the "how much" includes an assortment of models used in the past, such as "NATO plus 1 (2) Major Regional Conflicts (MRC) and some number of minor operations", where Major Regional Conflicts might be Iraq or Korea, "1.5 MRC" meaning "win one and defend the other until the winners can transfer"? How many small interventions?
Turning to threats, there is a certain probability of ICBM attack from China or North Korea. I consider it a very low threat, not justifying the $20-30 billion budget for a questionably workable National Ballistic Missile Defense (NBMD) system. I believe, however, that Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD), which can do such things as shoot down medium-range missiles in conflict areas such as North Korea-Japan, Taiwan-China, coastal Indo-Pakistan, and much of the Middle East, is warranted.
I also believe that we need to be thinking of national security in the broad sense, which means protecting critical infrastructure. In part as an unexpected consequence of deregulation, much of the electrical grid is vulnerable to accident or sabotage; we saw a warning of what can happen, on a larger scale, in the 2003 Ohio Valley blackout. The chemical industry is another. Does anyone else remember Bhopal?
Hardening these infrastructure components is in the multibillion dollar range, and may take Federal investment to avoid shareholder suits. It seems a fine place to divert NBMD monies against a low-probability threat.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry hc - there are a tremendous number of cultural assumptions embedded in your response. Which I am sure you know.
sPh
February 1, 2007 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
You could be referring to any of a number of cultures. I must confess I don't know what "militarism" means without further context. Most often, when I hear it used without context, it is meant to be derogatory without definition.
I posed what are real questions in deciding the military role and budget. If some are mildly technical -- and intercepting missiles aimed at different targets wouldn't seem to be, nor is protection against blackouts -- we live in a technological society. If one would make politicomilitary policy, it would seem appropriate that one know something about the factors.
Apropos of policy, you will not see me chipping in on a threat about monetary policy, because that area of economics is a black intellohole for me -- it sucks up my brain activity, never to reappear. When I comment on an area, I try to have some depth in it. Depth can be relative -- when it comes to agricultural policy, all I can say is that when I grow tomatoes, the net cost of the resultant fruit is about $19 each. I do much better with culinary herbs.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
A front-pager that responds *in detail* to us commentors.
Now I've seen everything...
Dissent Protects Democracy.
February 1, 2007 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
In any case, BRAC is an exclusively domestic process, and Clark Air Base in the Philippines was closed by the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in June 1991, not by the Philippine Senate.
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Technically true, but quite misleading. If we wanted to reopen it we couldn't have.
"Clark Air Base was completely evacuated of all but security personnel on June 10, 1991, two days before Mount Pinatubo began the summer-long series of eruptions which destroyed the upper 1000 feet of its peak.
The Philippine Senate rejected an extension of the Military Bases Agreement that September, and the base was transferred to the Philippine government on November 26, 1991, after the United States decided to depart earlier than scheduled."
February 1, 2007 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a victim/veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972) I fully appreciate the plight of America's currently marooned Cheney-Bush Buy Time Brigade in Iraq -- if not Afghanistan as well. All due sympathy for the unfortunate political pawns aside, however, I agree with Chalmers Johnson's analysis of America's dystopian empire on the skids: what I like to call Warfare Welfare and Makework Militarism marketed to the sub-educated, gullible, and easily terrified American public through massive, corporate-funded Managed Mystification. We have indeed gone from the Best and the Brightest bungling their way into a Southeast Asian quagmire to the Worst and the Dullest blundering their way into a strategically much worse middle eastern one. Going from "mission accomplished" four years ago to "mission beginning soon now -- honest injun!" cannot help but look like Mission Creep in Reverse. Not auspicious, to say the least. Actually, almost too depressing to contemplate. Parkinson's Law meets the Peter Principle. Thanks, anyway, to Chalmers Johnson for his many efforts to illuminate our apparently inevitable, tragi-comic demise.
February 1, 2007 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you so much Dr. Johnson for your thoughtful replies. It can't be easy to be criticized by a bunch of anonymous typers with goofy handles, yet graciously reply and even quote them.
Your have much to be proud of with all of your scholarship and it's exceedingly charitable of you to subject yourself to anonymous, impressionistic arguments and questionable criticism.
This sort of exchange is precisely what makes me such a fan of TPM and the TPMCafe.
Good luck and keep up the good work.
February 1, 2007 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
In a budget of actual dollars, the revenue available for discretionary spending is less than 850 billion dollars. Out of that, over 455 billion dollars is spent on the military. For a country that prides itself on its "good business sense" it is surprising that people cannot grasp the significance of that amount of discretionary spending on something that not only does not have any investment profit, but is a drain on past, present and future investment dollars in projects and people who would provide a return on the taxpayers' investment.
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It would be great if we could spend less money on defense and people can honestly disagree on what the "right" amount would be.
I suppose my problem with Mr. Johnson is that he insinuates that the Military-Industrial Complex is an ever-increasing force in politics and the economy. You should look at this in context. Look here
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php#outlays-graph
When Eisenhower gave his famous speech, defense spending was 9.3% of GDP (10% the previous year!), defense spending was over 70% of discretionary spending, and there were 2,475,000 on active duty in the armed forces, 1.3% of the population. I can't find figures for civilian employment in the defense industry, but it was much higher than today.
Today defense spending is around 4.5% of GDP, defense spending is about 50% of discretionary spending, and there are 1,475,000 on active duty inthe armed forces, 0.46% of the population.
I would posit that the impact of the military and defense industry on American life, politics, and the economy has been generally decreasing, not increasing over the last 50 years. When Eisenhower gave his speech it was a much bigger deal.
I'm all for a rational discussion of what America's defense posture and spending should be without all the hype that we are turning into a Prussian style militaristic society.
February 1, 2007 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I feel obliged to defend myself as not Pollyannish. I offered a possible explanation for Congress' inertia, beyond the obvious partisan issue.
Mainly I pointed out that, in terms of rules and institutions, Congress is the mechanism for rolling back imperialism. I make no prediction that it will do so.
However, Conyers is addressing "signing statements". It's a start, and I don't see alternatives to Congressional action short of seriously messy revolution or extreme economic failure (which might force our hand).
Thanks from me as well, Mr Johnson. I read "Sorrows" and found it illuminating and hard to refute.
February 1, 2007 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, in the context of my post, I would think that what I meant by militarism is obvious - that amount of time, energy and resources provided by a society to maintain a standing army. What role that army plays in that society should be determined by that society's needs.
Do we need a navy to patrol our sea lanes and protect our trade? Yes, that is part of our nation's business cost. Do we need a navy to protect our ports and borders in order to maintain regulated trade? Obviously, we do. Do we need an army to protect us from unprovoked attacks upon ourselves and our territories? Of course, no one is denying the reality of that.
Do we need billions of dollars to develop ray guns and trillions of dollars to develop missile defense systems and billions upon billions to provide society with thousands of nuclear warheads and experimental weapons and delivery systems that benefit no one but the industry that develops them? I don't think so.
February 1, 2007 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
But after Augustus there was Tiberius, and after Tiberius, Caligula, and after Caligula, Claudius, and after Claudius, Nero, and so on, and so on. Augustus and his legacy aren't very reassuring.
February 1, 2007 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for replying to my comment, Mr. Johnson. But I would like to clarify something. You say:
Dan K asks whether we need a successor empire run by either the US or another country that will provide a "security order." My answer, controversial in a country as steeped in militarism as this one, is no. We can maintain peace through a balance of power, deterrence, common interests that are planetary (global warming, water supply, etc.), alliances, and other techniques of diplomacy.
I don't think we really disagree much here. I didn't suggest a successor empire, but rather a successor security order:
in which responsibilities are distributed among many countries, and governed somewhat democratically by more of the world's people, rather than directed from a single national capital.
So the security order I have in mind is much more of a collaborative and broad-based system, not an empire. I would only add to this, and to your list under the category of diplomacy, that I would like to see some really imaginative global treaty arrangements, particularly treaties designed to inject some regulation, price stability and conflict resolution mechanisms into the global energy system. My chief concern is that the current trajectory of more and more intense global competition among developing and developed powers for dwindling resources is a tremendous threat to both energy suppliers and enrgy consumers, and is leading us toward an era of economic strife and disruptions, and even toward global war. I believe we need a real treaty-based global system to deal with this problem. I don't trust the balance of power alone to keep us out of war.
I also think we eventually need something closer to a genuine global police force to end conflicts and re-establish order, when feasable, in conflict-torn regions. Aside for the humanitarian imperative, these conflicts occur in strategically vital areas, and inevitably invite unilateral or small coalition nterventions to deal with them. Thus the work of pacification, stabilization and relief gets bound up with great power strategic competition. We need a professional force that is not simply a posse of soldiers from the armed forces of individual states, tasked temporarily to the peacekeeping force, but which consists of soldiers who work for the Security Council alone.
February 1, 2007 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for the detailed and expansive replies to us Cafe denizens Chalmers. I must, a bit ashamedly, admit I haven't done enough reading the last few years with my life being consumed with the daily mundane involved in the running of a small business. But now I have at least 2 more books to get. :-)
I have to agree with you in your disagreement with Tom Wright regarding the specific point of having faith in the US Congress, as an institution, to "save us". In my mind I think the Congress is part of the problem and will not, in it's current form and how it "does business", be part of the solution. They're aiding the military-industrial complex to hold sway over our government.
Thanks again for you comments and I am looking forward to reading the books and hearing more from you here...
February 1, 2007 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
And does that make sense to you? We have a smaller army than we had during the last twenty years, and yet in real dollars it is costing more than it did at the height of the cold war. When Eisenhower gave his speech, we were not funding that spending by borrowing trillions of dollars every year to pay for it.
I don't think that Chalmers Johnson is saying that we're turning into a "Prussian style militaristic society", I believe he is saying that as citizens of a democracy, we've abdicated our responsibility to maintain and control the military. Whether through sentimentality or greed, we've failed to consider the long term effects of that lack of control.
February 1, 2007 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you so much for such detailed responses. It is truly, truly appreciated.
I might smudge the distinction between 'accidental empire' and imperial overstretch somewhat -- but in doing so depart from Paul Kennedy's original thesis. I was thinking of how the Raj arrived by accident, in a period that began with Robert Clive's corporate adventures (done while Britain was losing a number of its North American colonies) and cemented by the 1857 rebellion. It took almost another century till independence. By that time, the nature of the British military machine had changed substantially, albeit more as a response to events elsewhere.
[I also wonder whether it takes an outsider's perspective to see the militarism of modern America.]
February 1, 2007 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chalmers,
Thank you for writing again. Yes, we do not need another successor empire by the US or another country to provide a security order. Yes, we do not need another superpower like the US to micromanage other countries.
From the news media, it appears that the US government has sent their men to help Iraqis to rebuild their country, at least that’s what the politicians were saying. In reality, many soldiers were kicking doors, abusing the locals, terrorizing the neighborhoods, thrashing the Iraqi culture and shoot and kill innocent civilians. The US soldiers do not have legal and moral grounds to be there and yet they were assigned there to maintain law and order in a country and culture that they were not familiar with. The behaviors of the American soldiers in Iraq have given America a bad name. We don’t need more policing around the world.
It is always interesting to read your writings.
February 1, 2007 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guess what? I've listened to Chalmers johnson and I've listened to you.
He wins.
You lose.
Tom
February 1, 2007 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
.> I posed what are real questions
> in deciding the military role and
> budget.
I suspect you are considerably smarter and better-read than I am, so this is a bit silly. Just for starters, your discussion of military options simply excluded the possibility that the United States might choose to adopt an isolationist, mercanitilist policy that did not require any type of expeditionary military force. Note that I am not advocating for or against this policy or any other - just bringing up the point that this option was an option until after WWI, and is now excluded by the simple expedient of framing the argument (whether a "conservative" or "liberal" party holds power) as to how powerful the US' expeditionary force must be.
sPh
February 1, 2007 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Eisenhower gave his speech, we were not funding that spending by borrowing trillions of dollars every year to pay for it.
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Of course we were - we ran budget deficits every year he was in office.
February 1, 2007 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right - don't want to let any inconvenient facts disturb your preconceived conclusions.
February 1, 2007 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
JPF311 thinks that the American public was informed about the largest single clandestine operation we ever carried out: the recruiting, arming, and sending into battle against the USSR of the mujahideen during the 1980s. It was actually a secret to the American public and subject to virtually no oversight by the Congress. See George Creel, Charlie Wilson's War (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).
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Sorry, but I've read "Charlie Wilson's War" and you have just turned the main theme of the book inside out. "Virtually no oversight by Congress?" - It was Charlie Wilson's war because Rep. Wilson, with the strong help of Rep. John Murtha, almost ran the entire operation. For the first year or two after the Soviet invasion, the CIA gave only minimal aid to the Afghans, sending only obsolete WWII era weapons, afraid that modern weapons would be traced back to the US.
Wilson forced through appropriations for more weapons than the CIA wanted, and worked directly with lower level CIA operatives to make sure that they got delivered. Wilson made sure they got AK-47s bought from China and Egypt and Stinger missiles. They even air-freighted in mules bought in Missouri to haul them across from Pakistan
This operation was the antithesis of no Congressional oversight - it was managed almost day to day by Wilson and Murtha.
And it was no secret. Heck, don't you remember Dan Rather sneaking across the border with the guerrillas and broadcasting on it?
It's a great book. Shame about George Crile's death. They're actually turning it into a movie this year starring Tom Hanks.
I must say it is somewhat unnerving to hear a book like this represented as saying the opposite of what it really says.
February 1, 2007 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is the problem with the military, or those who give orders to the military? With the civilian makers of policy, or the uniformed executors of policy? The latter is the military; the former is not.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wilson is the only American known publicly to have shot at Soviet soldiers, when he manned a .50, I think. That Charlie Wilson had to pump up enthusiasm for the project should tell us something. (Maybe that it wasn't so important? That it was a bad idea?)
Most folks didn't care about Afghanistan, is my impression. It was the Reagan-inspired Cold Warriors that were enthusiastic about sticking it to the Russians.
Mainly agree with you that it was no secret, though.
February 1, 2007 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: . The problems I am addressing in my book Nemesis both precede and transcend the current Bush administration, as is obvious when one reflects that the great warning about vested interests in the munitions industry came in Eisenhower's farewell address in 1961 and that the roots of "military Keynesianism" were planted during World War II.
Maybe this is true, but these problems were far less severe and they did not threaten the fundamental stability or future prospects of the country, rather in the manner that a low-grade chronic infection may be unpleasant and detrimental to overall well-being, but not be life-threatening. No, it is the Bush administration, by embracing these things fanatically, that has made them a real threat, whereas before, even at the height of Vietnam or in Reagan's day, they were mere headaches and annoyances.
Re: It was actually a secret to the American public and subject to virtually no oversight by the Congress
I'm sorry but I was alive at the time and even though a teenager I recall numerous articles and news spots about this operation. To be sure the details of the operation were not publicized, but its existence was not a secret and if a 15 year old boy in suburban Detroit knew about it then you are simply not credible when you claim it was a state secret
Re: Bush's electoral victory in 2004 provided legitimacy for his actions
I'm not sure what the term "legitimacy" here means. Whether we like it or not Bush was the legal president of the United States beginning in Jan of 2001. His actions were "legitimate" from the moment he took the oath of office. What I reject is any concept of "group guilt". Mr Bush is responsible for his own actions, first and foremost. His supporters may bear some secondary responsibility. Those of us who cannot stand the man are no more responsible for him than Muslims in general are responsible for the crimes of Osama bin Laden, or the Russian victims of Stalin are responsible for his tyranny.
Re; "We do not have an empire, we have a hegemony." This strikes me as a distinction without a difference
There is an absolutely huge difference. An empire consists of an imperial center nation directly governing legally and politically disadvantaged provinces, generally for the benefit of the imperial center, though some good (perhaps even much good) may accrue to the provincials (as the case of both Rome and Britain show; and Rome ultimately converted from an empire to a multiethnic nation state when citizenship was granted to all free males in the 3rd century). The only places which qualify as imperial possessions of the US are Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, maybe the Marianas and a handful of other small islands (and these places would be allowed to go their way if they wished to-- see: Micronesia, Palau, the Canal Zone and the Marshall Is). That's it. We do NOT have imperial provinces otherwise, and the places where we have sited our armies do not pay us tribute or taxes or anything similar. In fact, we'd be better off if we did have an empire; wealth and resources would flow from the provinces to us, and we could send George Bush off to govern and loot some ill-favored corner of the American Empire in 2009, as the Romans dispatched their consuls. Instead the flow is in the other direction; the hegemony drains us but does not benefit us. It does not even benefit the military-industrial complex much since, again, the wealth flow is outward bound not inward.
Re: To correct itself seems to mean a return to the world of Bill Clinton.
Well, from your lips to God's ears! Clinton was not perfect, and I do blame him for flubbing healthcare reform, but how can you doubt the country was on the right track at least in the 90s? Hello! The deficit vanished, we had peace with our allies and even some old enemies like Russia, the middle class thrived, the poor finally began to get richer, the defense budget shrank, serious attempts were made to resolve long-standing international disputes like the Israel-Palestine conflict, new technologies transformed us, the rights of minorities (notably gay and lesbian Americans) made strides-- what's not to like? And if Gore had become president I have no doubt that we would be now be addressing real problems like global warming ("global" is not a dirty word; some problems are worldwide and require a worldwide effort), not foolish neo-con fever dreams like a revived Caliphate.
Re: the Department of Veterans Affairs' responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion), the Treasury Department's payments of pensions to military retirees and widows and their families
I cannot classify that as military spending, at least not in the same sense that paying for overseas military bases or developing new weapons are. In kind and effect these expenditures are the same as Social Security and Medicare, transfer payments to American citizens not to "Merchants of death" or foreign potentates. Some such payments (i.e., college funding for veternas) may even be highly beneficial to the nation.
February 1, 2007 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too want to thank Mr. Johnson for his thorough response to commenters here. He indeed is a good teacher, and I now have a reading list to keep me occupied for quite some time.
I was delighted to see the references to Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address. I put it on my freshman must read list about two years ago. (The link gives one the opportunity to both read and hear the speech). Seeing the discussion here reminded me of two things: one of which might be remembered by other Café habitués.
It seems ironic to me that the Senator most closely associated with defending the Constitution from the predations of the executive would introduce legislation compelling something of this sort. I haven't heard of any university being punished for violating this act. Has anyone?
Be that as it may, it seems that we need to use a very broad interpretation of imperialism to understand its perils to our free society.
aMike
February 1, 2007 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
>>> Do we need a navy to patrol our sea lanes and protect our trade?
This requirement is questionable.
Given the decline of the US-flag commercial deep-sea Merchant Marine (fewer than 60 ships, most subsidized) and the out-sourcing of Marine Transportation to third world operators working at sub-par wages, there is obviously little US seaborne trade and few US - specific sea lanes to protect.
Let the Phillipines, Liberia, China, Malta and Panama police the sea lanes; it is THEIR ships and sailors carrying the goods to and from US ports.
February 1, 2007 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chalmers, I'm getting nerevous because I think the mob is pushing string here. Your book isn't going to be in bookstores until Feb. 7th.........
jim
February 1, 2007 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also, if one looks at a map. Rome could have shortened its European Borders by well over 50%, to maybe 30% if they could have moved the Rhine border further east to the Vistila - drawing a short line from the Baltic to the black Sea.
It would have been a large undertaking but it would have brought considerable returns in reducing the cost of defense in Europe.
Also, the other big problem, was the lack of a stable point of fixture on their eastern border in the Middle East. In the end, the inability to find a stable place to draw a line, brought the ruin of both the Eastern Empire and the Persian Sassanian Empire and paved the way to Islam's early and rather easy expansion in the seventh century.
Also, lets not forget that the Roman Empire collapsed because its commercial economy collapsed. This collapse was a result of two much concentration of Wealth in the upper end of Roman Society.
Those wealthy and powerful used their influence to avoid paying taxes, - without a robust commercial economy and merchant class, this left the Roman state with nothing but the poor peasantry to tax. As a result Rome didn't have enough funds to fund a large enough army to protect, in the 5th century, the same borders Augustus gave the Empire in the first Century b.c.e. It still had a tactical edge over the barbarians, of course, but it needed a larger and better funded army.
(see Nobel Prize winning Economic Historian Douglas North's book 'Structure and Change in Economic History).
Concentration of wealth and power, avoidance of paying taxes? Sound familiar?
This pattern repeats itself over and over again: One of ancient Egypt's early kingdoms collapsed because of it; the Byzantines before the battle of Manzikurt in 1071 - necessitating the crusades; the collapse of medieval Japan (a case where there were no external threats); and perhaps contributed or caused the decline or collapse of Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France and Romanov Russia; and arguably the collapse of the 1920s U.S. economy in 1929, triggering the rise of Hitler, World War II and the holocaust.
Imperial overstrech is a problem. But it wasn't overstreach that killed the Roman Empire, it was concentration of wealth, triggering a collapse in demand, triggering a collapse in the commercial economy, and excessive tax cuts for the rich that killed the Roman Empire - at least in the west, it would again in the East, but only in the 11th century.
The combination of the two: concentrated wealth/tax cuts for the rich and imperialism, in Bush's America suggest an epic collapse might be just around the corner. I'm sure we'll know when we have turned it - we won't need Bush to tell us "We've turned a corner".
He that hath a trade, hath an estate - from Poor Richards Almanac - Benjamin Franklin
February 1, 2007 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but there is a difference - in 1956 and 57 we ran budget surpluses, the trade deficit was in the black and the U.S. was a creditor nation, lending more money than it was borrowing. In 1958 there was a budget deficit but that money was invested in projects that provided a return, primarily infrastructure and education. The return on that investment was greater than the interest paid on the loan - in other words, the interest on the loan could be paid from the return, with a profit to the borrower.
Borrowing money to fund the military is a black hole - it sucks money in, but there is never a return. It's the difference between building an oil tanker and a naval carrier - the oil tanker will make money, the naval carrier will cost money. The oil tanker is an asset, the naval carrier is a cost of business.
February 1, 2007 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
That simply was an excellent analysis on your part.
Who wouldn't trade today for the 90s? If Gore had been president, I argue, there would have been no 911, let alone Iraq and Afghanistan wars. GNP growth would have been 50% higher than its been, wealth distribution would be much broader and median family income, instead of declining 5% might have increased 10%, maybe more.
But what we would still have, if Gore had been elected, is a large, well funded wingnutconservative class with large mouth pieces claiming everthing that was right was wrong. The vestiges of the discontented upper class who still resent Roosevelt's transformation of America, and discontented Southerners, who still resent losing the civil war. For America to prosper in the long run, this debry has to be cleaned out of the polity.
In the final analysis, hopefully, the one thing Bush has done for this nation is totally discredit the discontented wingnut conservative class in a manner reminisent of the great depression's effect on Republicans.
It is unfortunate in the present, that the wingnuts leader was an incompetant, but in the long term, in the future it may truly be fortunate for the country - for hopefully, and finally, he will have discredited the conservative movement, especially the farrigntwingnut branch of it for the next 20 to 50 years. In that length of time, a lot of things can be fixed.
I would say that in a broad sense, Chalmers Johnson has a good point: we have structural institutional problems that need fixing.
Perhaps he's too focused on the effect to pinpoint the cause. Its the power of corporations that need to be hemmed in. The modern limited liability corporation was invented during the years fo the Civil War - and the problems we have today are the same ones that existed in the post civil war era. Republican's like Bush dream of taking us back to that era, where the rich got really rich, and is not interested in moving us forward.
If corporations can be eliminated from the political process, alot of problems Johnson see's will go away - I mean the Keynesian Militarism part, which may be impelling the imperialistic tendancies of the United States.
I think we maybe the only first world nation with that problem.
He that hath a trade, hath an estate - from Poor Richards Almanac - Benjamin Franklin
February 1, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Perfidious Albion! Excellent. The US also scrambled to protect French colonies. Yalta divided the world into 2 spheres but the West assumed that imperialism would die a more evolutionary death. When confronted with a Soviet challenge, the US sequed into the role its new found hegemony required.
Thanks Prof Chalmers....your visit, a special treat
February 1, 2007 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
One quibble: Bush did not win the 2004 popular vote by 3.5 million. He probably actually lost it by about 7 million votes. The difference? Theft. See statistician Steve Freeman's book, "Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen."
If Freeman is right, then our Republic has already been undone.
February 1, 2007 9:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Within the CIA Directorate of Operations, waving my hands at the new National Clandestine Service, are the major functions of paramilitary and covert political/psychological operations, clandestine human intelligence, counterespionage (as distinct from counterintelligence). There are assorted offices with support and specialized functions. There are a few specialized technical collection units, such as what has been called Division D, intercepting from inside embassies, especially aimed at short-ranged signals that only can be captured nearby.
The problem, which goes back to WWII, is when operations get the upper hand to clandestine collection. There's no clean solution, because when you merge the organization, the biggest dog tends to run the pack, while if you keep them separate, they can trip over each other. A WWII example of the latter was the OSS breaking into the Japanese embassy in Lisbon, stealing a cryptosystem, and the loss being discovered. Unfortunately, OSS did not know the military cryptanalysts had cracked the system and was reading it, which the Japanese changed on discovering the loss. Cryptanalysts, back 50 yards and kick again.
Where would you put human intelligence collection under Non-Official Cover (NOC)? This is incompatible with diplomatic status, so can't really go into State. Expand the Defense HUMINT Service?
This is not the only place where CIA does collection. While things are always reorganizing, there is the Directorate of Science and Technology. Some of its functions, such as imagery interpretation, have moved to the NGIA. For quite some time, overhead collection has been in the NRO, and undersea collection in a Navy office. Would you move all electronic intelligence to NSA and DIA? Agent communications system development?
FBIS, now generalized into the National OSINT Center, has bounced back and forth between the DS&T and the Directorate of Intelligence. It's a largely unclassified service that, at first glance, could indeed go to State.
I hesitate in transferring lots of things to State, for two reasons. First, as a practical matter, State is not geared to run new, fairly large organizations. Second, the analytical unit at State, INR, has no collection responsibilities, and has done excellent analysis without danger of bureaucratic problems with collectors in the same organization. I don't want to use that small but high quality unit inside a much enlarged State-based intelligence function.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is the reality that Liberia, Malta and Panama don't have navies; they are "flags of convenience" used to get around the inconvenient safety, etc., regulations, as well as taxes, of maritime nations.
Massive outsourcing of something potential critical to the nation is a potential regret for the future, especially if we lose the pool of experienced seafarers. I see this much more as a matter of corporate convenience.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I may take a historical example, the drawdowns after WWII left US forces understrength, underequipped, and undertrained. When the Korean War broke out -- and I do believe that armed response was necessary, as did the UN -- one of the first Army reinforcements was called Task Force Smith. They took 150 out of 500 casualties, and lost all their heavy equipment, while delaying the North Koreans for 7 or 8 hours. Sending those troops into battle, unready for it, is a classic example of not "supporting the troops".
In contrast, insistence on a political mission, arguing the troops will be demoralized if they don't have popular support, doesn't square with most analyses of the psychology of good military units. When there is good unit cohesion, troops fight to protect one another. When there is good leadership, they will fight for their relatively immediate leaders, not for a President. In WWII, it was unusual that soldiers under Patton identified their unit as "Third Army"; it was extremely rare for a soldier to identify much above regiment or division.
To return to the post, I suspect at least some of that door-kicking is because door-kicking is part of the training for urban combat, not urban policing. I repeat: urban combat is when most buildings have people shooting at you. Infantry is not trained for policing, and, in general, police and infantry skills are necessarily different. People trained for one are not easily put into the other role without retraining.
When it comes to "supporting the troops", I claim the Administration did not, by providing vastly insufficient occupation forces, trying to fit infantry into police and civil affairs roles, and, once they had a shortfall in infantry, started giving artillery, air defense, supply, and other Army troops hurry-up courses in how to do infantry.
I have trouble calling uniformed personnel "militarists" at fault, when the problem lies with the civilian policymakers for sending them on legally, morally, and pragmatically questionable missions.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
February 1, 2007 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
re: our military is much smaller than in Eisehower times.
Well, where is Soviet Union? Russia has much smaller military potential, and if Putin tries to revive it, it is largely to our policy of placing bases, and meddling in politics, all around Russia.
The conflict with North Korea was manufactured almost ex nihilo. There was some workable deal negotiated by Clinton that Busheviks repudiated, perhaps to have some boogey man who would justify money wasted on missile defence.
If we will cease manufacturing crises ex nihilo (like weapon of mass descruction, complete with truck trailers of death), our military needs will drop to much less than half. Perhaps to a quarter. We really do not need to be present in Europe, and we are almost useless in Japan and Korea (where we "defend" a pair of countries with 7 times population and at least 100 times GDP than the "threat").
At some point it looked like Busheviks preparing for a coup d'etat. Given the debacle in Iraq, the idea seems to be buried. And why it looked that way? OK, make an absolute nut and fanatic the boss of special forces. and create highly lucrative program --- employing the alums of special forces as highly pair mercenaries. Try to establish a precedent that anyone, anywhere, can be declared "unlawful combatant" and held indefinetely. Develop a program allowing to stop the travel of all political opponents, experiment with its use. Fund groups of fanatical thugs (make College Republicans become one of them).
The guiding philosophy seemed to be one espoused by a Japanese politician: "a man should not rape women, but he should be able to".
February 1, 2007 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's great to see that Professor Chalmers came in and visited. And at the very least, has done what needs to be done, whacked the hornet's nest here. In a positive way!
As one would expect, Mr. Chalmer's insights go much much deeper than have been provided here within this limited framework and the time available. The first publication of his that I read was Conspiracy at Matsukawa.That was sometime right after our son's birth in 1973. I have read as much as I could possibly get my hands on, ever since. I have a separate shelf dedicated to his works. Plus, the books that he has cited fills another half of a wall here in the office. I have also had the fortunate experience to have witnessed more than a few appearances by Mr. Chalmers. One thing that stands out with Mr. Chalmers, and I find as a positive attribute, is his ability to change his mind when new information dictates it.
For further expansion on the study of Mr. Johnson's past positions on this subject that he has been so kind to have discussed here, you may wish to read the following 2004 interview transcripts from the Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley "Conversations with History" series. There at the site you will also have the ability of experiencing this interview as a webcast in 'ram', and/or a podcast in MP3:
If nothing else, one must acknowledge the ability of Mr. Johnson to change his position over time on issues as new information comes to the surface. I have great admiration for any intellectual who is not so set-in-stone as to blind others from pertinent information that brings light to the realties that surround us. Also, keep in mind that Mr Chalmers was in the employ as a consultant of "the company" during the Vietnam era. So with his knowledge of the web of deceit and dysfunction inherent within that agency, it is not surprising that he "...would prefer to see so-called intelligence gathering returned to the State Department." I don't totally agree with his assessment on this point, but something needs to be done.In addition, if you haven't come across it yet, and you can find the time, read his "Three Rapes" at Tom's dispatch. It will provide you with good idea as to what American imperialism has accomplished in our names under the banner of 'Status of Forces Agreement' (SOFA) ... Exactly what's been/being attempted now in Iraq.
~OGD~
February 2, 2007 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chalmers Johnson has also stated that protestors were right to oppose the Vietnam War and he was wrong to support it. I don't know of many people who've had the courage and wisdom to say that.
Tom
February 2, 2007 3:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it would be obvious from recent years why the qualifier "so-called" would be appropriate in describing the CIA's intelligence gathering operations. When their intelligence gathering has functioned well, as in their report that the Iraqis had no functioning WMD operations at all, the truth has been obscured by bogus stovepiped reports from lying Chalabi "sources". In other cases it has simply been wrong.
The Directorate of Operations seems from my viewpoint to be a source of a lot of the problems. The CIA has two large directorates engaged in completely different missions. Often it has seemed that the operations' people are so gung-ho to keep fighting an endless Cold War against the rest of the world that they view all of the world's events from a political lens that hasn't changed an iota since the days of Dulles.
IMO, intelligence gathering needs to be completely divorced from covert operations.
February 2, 2007 4:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Note to some commenters: "Professor Chalmers" is an inappropriate appelation. As he said, Chalmers is his first name.)
Professor Johnson, I am heartened by your comments here, which diverge greatly from the usual discussions in American foreign policy. Your willingness to challenge the fundamental assumptions of a militaristic, domineering American foreign policy is refreshing. I am particularly heartened by your criticism of the military and the CIA - both remain untouchable objects on Capitol Hill, unfortunately. How do we weaken the power of the paranoid, eternally militaristic mindset and its enduring grip on the American imagination?
February 2, 2007 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
There are a couple of questions.
1. What is the mission of the US military/industrial/congressional complex?
2. Who authorized this mission?
My answers:
1. The (implied) mission is to ensure that there will be no diminution in the standard of living in the US because of a lack of cheap raw materials and finished goods. A secondary mission is to make sure that our exports are also sold under conditions favorable to us.
2. The American people authorized this mission. Chalmers Johnson thinks they did this unwittingly, but I think we must take the blame. Its like the proverbial story about watching the sausage being made. Our demands for "stuff", big cars, big houses and cheap fuel mean that those who promise to provide this get elected. No politician wins on a program of rightsizing or conservation. All promote growth as a solution to our problems. The fact that the public deceives itself doesn't mean we don't know what we want.
As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The issue is now front and center because our military can no longer fulfill the mission. We no longer have the ability to force other states to do our bidding. The era of gunboat diplomacy is over. Even our most faithful clients in Latin America are going their own way. Our military can destroy things, but we still can't make societies do our bidding. The present situation is unsustainable. At some point we will have to start living within our means. If we are clever we will be able to reduce our consumption patterns without too much economic dislocation. If we aren't we can expect civil unrest and much misery.
Katrina should serve as a wake up call. The US is no longer able to care for its citizens. Our infrastructure is neglected, or social programs inadequate and the money for these efforts has been diverted to militarism.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
February 2, 2007 6:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
In 1958 there was a budget deficit but that money was invested in projects that provided a return, primarily infrastructure and education.
Borrowing money to fund the military is a black hole - it sucks money in, but there is never a return.
Some would say that if the US snags the oil in Iraq, then we've gotten a very good return on our money because we control the price of oil and therefore the world wide economy. As Chalmers noted, however, maintaining that status requires a standing army, something similar to the situation that happened to Jafar in the movie "Alladin" after he wished himself to be a genie!
Contrary to popular belief, I think that education can actually be a bad use for money. In my case, I realized that, through education, I became co-dependent on teachers, wasn't learning that much and was losing my creativity. After "breakin free," the experience that Zak Efron highlights in 'High School Musical,' I became much happier.
My question: "what has education done for a world with a "globally warmed" fever? polluted land, air and sea? and species extinction because of habit loss?"
We've become drug addicts of materialism and cannot "just say no."
That's why I agree with Chalmers view that governments won't save us because I think that their policies have corrupted us by becoming the most popular religion in the world, complete with its conservative and liberal creeds that people gladly professed, and made sacrifies to our God, Democracy, through the military.
February 2, 2007 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The U.S. isn't going to snag the oil in Iraq, and even if it did, the projected oil revenue for Iraq in 2007 is 31 billion.
February 2, 2007 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
I never thought about it this way before, but I'm drawing some dots between the cautions DDE laid out in his farewell address and two of the massive programs that contributed to the deficit BevD speaks about: initiating the Interstate Highway System and the Government subsidized student loan program and classroom construction program.
The common connection is that both of these were sold, first to Congress, and then to the American People as defense programs. Most of my life since, I've seen this as a fairly cynical manipulation, by which New Deal type programs could be put forward without sounding like social engineering or socialism or part of the (dread word) liberal agenda.
But BevD makes me think a little bit more about this. Given the fact that Eisenhower's Farewell Address followed shortly after the State of the Union address, and that it contained the famous warning about the Military-Industrial Complex, I'm wondering if Eisenhower saw these public works projects as part of a deliberate strategy to shift government spending from militarism and the kind of alliances which Chalmers Johnson sees as threatening to the republic, into projects which stimulated the economy by means more productive of the common good. Clearly he had been thinking about the military-industrial connection for a long time...those remarks weren't just throwaways. He may have been a craftier tactician than we give him credit for.
aMike
February 2, 2007 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Interstate System is our response to Germany's Autobahn, which impressed US troops so much when they were chasing the Germans toward Berlin.
Unfortunately building an inviting road invites use of the road--I would say the effect of the Interstate is a mixed blessing. It can be given some credit for weakening rail transport. It is also very much involved in the strategic planning of population dispersal; thinner suburbs and city make for a more survivable population after nuclear attack.
February 2, 2007 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
.> The U.S. isn't going to snag the oil
> in Iraq, and even if it did, the
> projected oil revenue for Iraq in
> 2007 is 31 billion.
Agreed on the first point, but I believe that many in positions of power are actually peak oil believers and are banking on the price of oil rising exponentially over the next 20 years.
sPh
February 2, 2007 8:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that Americans like "stuff" -- and the bigger the better -- does not mean that they equate the acquisition of their desired lifestyle with the maintenance of a military/industrial complex to insure international trade in goods and access to raw materials. Americans are just not that sophisticated.
But even were they, there is little evidence that the military/industrial complex has any such "mission." Its advertized missions are penultimate excuses for supporting its ultimate mission of sustaining itself, of continuing its profitable practice of sucking at the governmental teat.
February 2, 2007 8:09 AM | Reply | Permalink