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May 26, 2013
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 U.S. Militarism Makes Us Less SecurePosted on Aug 4, 2009A once-fashionable subject in America’s think tanks was futurology, supposed to be a fruitful method for foreseeing the future (or “possible futures” as it was put at the time). It worked by projecting what were thought to be plausible developments in the situation of a given subject by way of a narrative that would lead to a series of “branching points,” expected eventually to lead the analyst to unforeseen conclusions about what could happen. Unexpected developments actually were fairly uncommon, since nearly everyone who played the game started with a bias toward one or another desirable outcome (or toward a particularly undesirable one that would demand immediate preventive measures to which the analyst had a professional or political commitment). If you were in favor of building missile defenses, your scenarios tended to run to future missile threats to the U.S. The second problem with the technique was that people are not really very imaginative, and the grip of conventional wisdom is hard to loosen. Ask people today about the geopolitical future and they nearly always will bring up a Chinese superpower threat, or a resurgent Russia threat, taking us back to the familiar terrain of the Cold War. Rule out those two possibilities, and scenario writers today generally will propose some kind of explosive increase in terrorist attacks. For example, one popular scenario is that al-Qaida seizes Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and attacks America. Another, long popular among neoconservatives, is that terrorist infiltrators incite the Muslim minorities in Western Europe to rise up, overthrow existing European governments, and establish a new Grand Caliphate incorporating all of Europe and Central and South Asia, with all their resources, and America is left beleaguered. I don’t know how many people in Washington take this last threat seriously, but there have been think-tank seminars to discuss the possibility, and books on the subject. Advertisement There assuredly is nothing that it cannot destroy. But destroying is not the same thing as coping. Let us consider the situation in Iraq, where there still are some 130,000 U.S. troops, most of them scheduled to withdraw over the next year and a half. These days, a small but real possibility of an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities exists. One big reason Washington has opposed this is that an obvious Iranian riposte to what would be seen as an American-facilitated attack would be a ground assault on the U.S. forces in Iraq, and on those forces’ logistical routes to Kuwait. This would presumably be combined with operations in the Persian Gulf and its Arabian Sea approaches to deny these waters to naval operations meant to evacuate U.S. forces. The threat to conventional naval vessels of masses of fast, advanced-rocket-armed speedboats and Zodiacs has been widely discussed in naval circles, and the U.S. Navy has gamed the threat, reportedly with disquieting results. Turning to the second American war currently under way, consider the possibility that supporters of the Taliban might supply it with modern ground-air missiles, just as the U.S. supplied such weapons to the anti-Russian mujahedeen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. These could cripple helicopter and fighter-bomber air support for U.S. and NATO forces. Suppose an unfriendly Russia then terminated its overflight agreement that allows American and NATO aircraft to supply allied forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan via Central Asian air routes. The Pakistan government simultaneously becomes so weakened by Taliban offensives, the activities of other Islamist forces, and Balochistan separatist unrest that the American forces’ land communication routes to the south and east no longer function. The Pakistanis are in the same plight as the Americans trapped in Iraq. Now all of this is perfectly normal futurology/war-gaming, and one can be sure that nothing I have suggested has failed to be foreseen and analyzed by military and naval staffs. But the overall conclusion that leaps up from the paper in this analysis is that the more wars you undertake abroad, the more places you intervene and the more bases you build around the world, the less secure you are. The Pentagon has been ringing the world with U.S. bases, meant to make the U.S. secure and able to strike down any threat to American interests, anywhere. There are currently more than 800 manned U.S. foreign military bases. Taken all together, they make up a formidable global array of power. But practically every one of them could be picked off by a hostile military operation. Are they keeping America secure? I would argue that every one of them is an American vulnerability. Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.  TAGS:
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By Sepharad, August 6, 2009 at 11:09 pm Link to this comment
Kesey Seven—Yours is easily the most sensible comment made here, next runnerup Jeff Netcourt’s.
Perhaps one way to keep people being emotionally and falsely reassured by militarism would be to publish—widely—the results of the many war-gaming scenarios that project anything but security.
The only reassuring bit of news I’ve read lately is that General McCrystal bases his planning on the fact that weapons aren’t going to win us any victories, but protecting the people will. The logical question for Americans, I suppose, is whether the people losing their jobs in the current economic meltdown would say we should be spending America’s money half a world away, helping protect people from lives dominated by the Taliban’s brand of Islam.
Report thisBy liecatcher, August 5, 2009 at 3:05 pm Link to this comment
U.S. Militarism Makes Us Less Secure
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090804_us_militarism_makes_us_less_secure/
Posted on Aug 4, 2009
By William Pfaff
Hey William Phaff:
I submit that the real future planning was done centuries ago about how to conquer
the world. Whether it was the ILLUMINATI or the ROTHSCHILD DYNASTY, is moot.
The one unimpeachable fact is that on December 23,1913, when Woodrow Wilson
signed the FEDERAL RESERVE ACT into law, creating the FED, that is when Democracy
died, & our insecurity & eventual enslavement began & reached fruition under Bush 3,
AKA Obama the great deceiver, Obama the FASCIST, or Mr. Wall Street. Within 6
months he bankrupted America beyond insecurity into a debtor’s abyss from which
there is no escape.
Report thisBy Folktruther, August 5, 2009 at 9:44 am Link to this comment
while it is true that we are physically less secure by the increase in militarism, many Amereicans, perhaps most, are more EMOTIONALLY secure. there is a sharp disconnect between the personal emotional consciousness of Americans and the simple reality-based truth about power relations.
People do not understand, or want to understand, that the purpose of a military is to kill people, or threaten to kill people. they equate the threat of unjustifiable homicide with Strength. this is especially the case when people are afraid, and they regress to childhishness and become dependant on Authority. This childish faith in oppressive authority comes to an end when they are shot at, beaten or have their asses thrown in jail, but then it is often too late.
So, this is how class power has governed the last five milleniums or so, with people identifying with their own oppression.
Report thisBy Mike3, August 5, 2009 at 9:05 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Another good article from Mr. Paff but nothing we didn’t already know. Most Americans are surprisingly ignorant regarding their Empire. For example: the existence of all those Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carriers. What are they but gunboats for the Empire, albeit very expensive gunboats.
Report thisBut it’s the Pentagon’s provoking of Russia especially its desire to place patriot missiles (or their equivalent) in Poland that is scary, especially for Europeans. And although Obama is a Democrat at home, he is a hawk abroad, spending more on armaments than Bush for the equivalent time in office and expanding the war in Afghanistan. The fact that the Russian bear doesn’t want to lock horns with anyone, does not mean that America’s scheming “full-spectrum dominance” will leave it in peace.
By Liliane Ribeiro, August 5, 2009 at 8:21 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
It’s time to US have a second thoughts about going to anothers countries.
Brazil does not accept the U.S. version about military bases.
The Brazilian government has not accepted the version of the United States on military bases that the country wants to use in Colombia. The National Security Advisor in the White House, General Jim Jones, heard yesterday in the Planalto Palace that the agreement on the bases “seems remnant of the Cold War.”
The statement thickens the list of differences between Brasilia and Washington and could jeopardize the expectation of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to build a deeper bilateral relationship with the government of Barack Obama.
The American presence in bases near to the Amazon border can be dangerous to the national sovereignty. This is because there are no details about the goals of these bases.
Brazil always has the sovereignty threatened by US in Amazon.
There is the largest river basin in the world.Therichest areas in the world . There are non-metallic minerals and metal that make the wealth of the Amazon and this country, some reservations already measured in billions of tonnes. I would like to highlight the area of Six Lakes, north of Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira, with one of the largest concentrations of niobium in the world – very strategic mineral used in the aerospace and electronics industries. There are petroleum,gas, etc,etc.
Countries which have large forests are coveted, it is logical, for all that I’ve talked. We need to establish responsible policies for the other nations, the great powers, not exercising his lust on our area.
Report thisBy omop, August 5, 2009 at 7:21 am Link to this comment
Is it not time for some one to challenge the Boltons view of our relations with the rest of the world? As a begnning and since we are primarely responsible and guilty of splitting “one” people into a Northern and Southern one to encourage and support the “rejoining of North and South Korea” into one Korea?
One need only imagine the good will, the statesmanship and return of the prestige the US used to enjoy.
Mr. Pfaff’s studied commentary is “right on” in suggesting that US Militarism provokes animosities and encourages hatred of the US rather than the promotion of rational relations in commerce and industry that benefits both sides.
Report thisBy Jim Yell, August 5, 2009 at 6:47 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
The problem with the military is the same one that the founding fathers had with the idea of a standing army from the very beginning, in fact from before the beginning. We were never supposed to be a military country. Our separation fro the militarists was never perfect, but after two huge wars in the 20th century military industrialism was firmly implanted into the economy and the mind of America.
We are lost, but we were warned about it. Ike warned us as he left office, but ever the politician he didn’t do anything to control or retard the hostile take over of the country.
Most Americans are torn between wanting to honor the men and women who serve in the countries military and the obvious harm this over reliance on military might is bringing to the nation.
Report thisBy Jeff Netcourt, August 5, 2009 at 6:40 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why can’t we step a bit further (intellectually) and not pretend that the nation state or militarism is a template for a football game? Win, lose, sitting ducks - terminology that misses the point of this economic industrial engine.
If I was a business man, a profit seeking bottom line driven man, an attack on anything would be a wild time of profitability. “Winning” has always meant profiteering. A psychologist will be quick to point out that an obsession on security increases the likelihood of a self fulfilling prophecy and many writers have aptly shown 9/11 is applicable, even a wanted event.
Why doesn’t Plaff go after the mulitmillionaires with famous names who make more money then God in San Diego and Alexandria - while people in the US die of lack of health care or from treatable diseases? I don’t think the 8a or the massive IT 70 goons care about the simplistic arm-chair warrior pontifications in this article, it’s a proven successful business strategy, leave philosophy to some bearded professors.
Report thisBy gary, August 5, 2009 at 6:09 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Mr Pfaff is exactly, 100% right. We are less secure because of our outdated approach of camping out all over the world. The best bang for our buck would be to promote democracy in the world. Democracy is the concept of people owning their own problem. So the less dictators, the less problems. And the less dictators, the less reasons for terrorists to exist. And by promoting democracy I do NOT mean the silly idea of invading countries to perform nation building. Instead we need to really BELIEVE in democracy, not just for ourselves but for everyone on the planet. And the FIRST step in that belief is to drastically overhaul that terribly UN-democratic organization known as the United Nations. Instead we need something like this…
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org
If we ever want to approach world peace, this is our only real alternative. Good article Mr Pfaff.
gary
Report thisBy Kesey Seven, August 4, 2009 at 11:06 pm Link to this comment
Sorry about all the typos in my post below. Clicked Submit instead of Preview. It’s late. Good night.
Report thisBy Kesey Seven, August 4, 2009 at 11:02 pm Link to this comment
The most perplexing thing about America right now is everyone knows we’re on the wrong track and we can’t do anything about it.
Mr. Plaff points are not off or out of the mainstream. If you could sit down privately with every member of congress and swear you would never tell a soul what they said it’s a safe bet the majority would say all our militarism makes us less safe.
Part of the problem is we have military industrial complex. Killing one pet project kills jobs in several states. Another is the flat-earth journalists who operate from the perspective of we’ll provide both sides of the story that the earth is flat, you decide which is true (stole that from recent headlines; it’s good). Another is course is very powerful individuals who make billions off war and its economies. And another are countries like ourselves that have themselves locked in a war mentality.
Obviously there things we can do. We can throw out politicians. We can break up the media. But any change the American public produces is likely to be incremental and slow.
It seems what’s more likely to make us change rapidly is forces beyond our control.
Katrina, Rita, Ike all kicked out butt in the last few years. Cities, town, parishes have been lost all along the coast. They are not recovering.
The financial markets got everything they wanted legislation-wise for three decades. They imploded with glee.
It’s likely more environmental and financial catastrophies are coming. What will be interesting to see is how we react. Will the policians and the billionaries and general populace pull their heads from the sand and say: “Time to clean up. Company’s coming”?
Or will they circle the wagons and throw down martial law?
Right now seems about fifty-fifty either way.
Time to clean up. Company’s coming.
Kesey Seven
Report thisBy purplewolf, August 4, 2009 at 7:32 pm Link to this comment
We have bases in over 150 oth3er countries. China and India have roughly 1/2 of the worlds population, whereas America has a total of about 330 million, and all of that number of people are not military material. So if any other country was interested in invading America, it would no doubt be a cake walk-famous last words of G.W.Bush. We are spread so thin now and have been for most of Bush’s lied for wars, we are like sitting ducks.
Instead of spending more money than the rest of the world combined every year on the wargames, America would be much smarter and healthier if we let these other countries take care of themselves and leave them alone and come back home and take care of the mess here at home. Why should we train our soldiers to go to other countries and defend them when their own people won’t do so? We here in America have been left high and dry if something catastrophic were to happen here again. Have we learned nothing from the last 8 years?
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