Every town has its miscreant and we have our in the guise of Norman Ravitch.
His recent LTE warns Americans they should not be ambushed by the Israel Lobby, devout Christians should not be taken in by their biblical beliefs and Israeli propaganda and even Obama and Kerry are not to be believed.
That about covers the waterfront but I question which cup of facts Mr. Ravtich drinks from.
As for an Israel Lobby that is a useful generality for Israel bashers. Those who support Israel's right to live in peace, as I do, believe America needs dependable allies, would be well advised to support democratic governments and every citizen has a constitutional right to 'lobby' their government . If the so called Israel lobby is effective it must be because their argument has credibility.
As for Christians and Evangelists who support Israel, Cufi being among the strongest 'Lobbyists' far exceeding in number and effectiveness AIPAC, I suspect they too come by their beliefs on their own and I doubt their fervor is based on their being hoodwinked.
As for Obama and Kerry, their Iranian agreement may or may not prove effective and I certainly have my own reservations but I assume they came to their conclusions honestly though perhaps driven more by naivety than a clear reading of history and belief it frequently repeats.
As we begin The Holiday Season I would urge Mr. Ravitch be of good cheer and sip a stiff Scotch which is what I have chosen to do with his ideas.
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Too close for Hayden. Just about right for Obama? (See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)
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Obama faces China's military. Will he succumb here as well? (See 2 below.)
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Dick
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1) Gen. Hayden: Iran 'Far Too Close to Nuclear Weapon'
By Greg Richter
With few good choices in dealing with Iran's push for nuclear weapons, former CIA and NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said he's OK with letting the six-month temporary deal with the country go forward.
But we should be truthful, Hayden told "Fox News Sunday." "We have accepted Iranian uranium enrichment."
The "red line" with Iran has clearly changed, Hayden told host Chris Wallace.
"Right now, the Iranians are far too close to a nuclear weapon," he said. "We have hit the pause button. Now we've got to negotiate hitting the delete button with them."At the end of the day, Hayden said, "Iran's going to be a nuclear threshold state."
The deal allows Iran to have uranium enriched to 5 percent. Previous U.N. resolutions have called for a complete dismantling of its nuclear program and that all materials be shipped out of the country.
Turning to NSA leaker Edward Snowden, Hayden said he has no reason to doubt reports that Snowden has a doomsday cache that will be unleashed if he is caught or punished for leaking American secrets.
"This is catastrophic for the safety and the security of the American nation," Hayden said. Still, he doesn't think the U.S. government should back away from pursuing Snowden.
To do so, he said, would be like "negotiating with terrorists."
1a) Why Is There So Little Outrage Over The Iran Deal?
By E. Jeffrey Ludwig
While there are many skeptics concerning the recent deal with Iran in Geneva, a tone of outrage from political and religious leaders is missing or muted. Outside of Israel, American political leaders may disagree, but the language is typically restrained, and a "wait and see" attitude has been cultivated. Why are our politicians, as well as Christian and Jewish leaders, not clamoring for a Congressional resolution rejecting this deal?
News items are also surfacing suggesting a stark split between the US and Saudi Arabia over regional policy in general, and policy toward Syria in particular. Saudi officials are going on the record expressing their alarm at the direction of American policy.
Meanwhile, agreement has now been reached over the long-postponed "Geneva 2" conference, to discuss the war in Syria.
What does all this add up to? There are an increasing number of voices which perceive a shape behind all these details: Namely, an effort by the current US administration to turn the Iranian regime from an adversary into a partner. The method: Acceding, in part or whole, to key Iranian demands.
1c) U.S. boxes in Israel, not Iran: Surrender in Geneva
"Iran, U.S. Set To Establish Joint Chamber Of Commerce Within Month," reports Agence-France Presse. Government official Abolfazi Hejazi tells the English-language newspaper Iran Daily that the Islamic Republic will shortly commence direct flights to America. Passenger jets, not ICBMs, one assumes - although, as with everything else, the details have yet to be worked out. Still, the historic U.S.-Iranian rapprochement seems to be galloping along, and any moment now the cultural exchange program will be announced, and you'll have to book early for the Tehran Ballet's season at the Kennedy Center ("Death To America" in repertory with "Death To The Great Satan").
In Geneva, the participants came to the talks with different goals: The Americans and Europeans wanted an agreement; the Iranians wanted nukes. Each party got what it came for. Before the deal, the mullahs' existing facilities were said to be within four to seven weeks of nuclear "breakout"; under the new constraints, they'll be eight to nine weeks from breakout. In return, they get formal international recognition of their enrichment program, and the gutting of sanctions — and everything they already have is, as they say over at Obamacare, grandfathered in.
"How it was done": Some years ago, I heard that great scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, caution that America risked being seen as harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend. The Obama administration seems to have raised the thought to the level of doctrine. What has hitherto been unclear is whether this was through design or incompetence. Certainly, John Kerry has been unerringly wrong on every foreign policy issue for four decades, so sheer bungling stupidity cannot be ruled out.
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Many of our American leaders may assume that since an Iranian nuclear weapon is so blatantly a danger not only to Israel but to the U.S., the Middle East, and to Europe, that the U.S. and the other countries who struck this deal will provide proper surveillance. They may be thinking that even though the Iranians are sneaky and cannot be trusted, the big powers will be smart enough and possess sufficient technological sophistication to prevent a real end run around the deal, and thus, even if at the last minute (the proverbial cavalry to the rescue), the West will intercept and stop any real cheating and Iran will pay heavy consequences.
First, is this reasoning legitimate? Can the West be fooled? Answer: the West in general and the U.S. in particular can indeed be fooled. We have been fooled time and again. Four planes with 19 terrorists on board were allowed to be crashed into three major buildings on 9/11/2001 (with at least one further target saved only by the heroic efforts of the passengers). Hamas has fired thousands of missiles into Israel since Gaza was awarded self-governing as a "move towards peace." More recently, the Boston Marathon bombers were fingered by the Russians as being a threat to our security, but the U.S. ignored the warning. Also, the North Koreans were able to get nuclear capability even though we knew for so long they were "on the verge."
First, is this reasoning legitimate? Can the West be fooled? Answer: the West in general and the U.S. in particular can indeed be fooled. We have been fooled time and again. Four planes with 19 terrorists on board were allowed to be crashed into three major buildings on 9/11/2001 (with at least one further target saved only by the heroic efforts of the passengers). Hamas has fired thousands of missiles into Israel since Gaza was awarded self-governing as a "move towards peace." More recently, the Boston Marathon bombers were fingered by the Russians as being a threat to our security, but the U.S. ignored the warning. Also, the North Koreans were able to get nuclear capability even though we knew for so long they were "on the verge."
Being fooled is first cousin to being weak. Our defense of Georgia against Russia was nil. We abandoned defense missile systems in Poland. Our stockpile of ICBMs has been radically reduced. The military of the U.S. is being downsized to accommodate only a one-front war, not a two-front war. Base closings begun under Clinton have continued under Obama. Our troops are being withdrawn from Iraq, and Shi'ite (Iranian power) in Iraq has increased dramatically under Nouri Maliki during the past few years, as well as in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and possibly Libya. The Taliban is still being "engaged" in Afghanistan after more than ten years. Gradually the U.S. is being pushed back while downsizing militarily. The thought that we can or will intervene in the case of a catastrophic breakthrough by Iran in nuclear weaponry doesn't seem supported by the facts on the ground. And let's face it: we weren't willing to save our own ambassador in Benghazi, so how can anyone think we are going to stick our necks out for Israel or any other so-called friends in the international community?
Second, Pres. Obama ideologically sees the U.S. military as basically a spearhead of capitalist imperialism, and believes that our military dominance is serving an exploitative motive. The idea that a strong military is necessary for defense is looked upon by the president and his close advisers as a view that is naïve at best. To the inner circle of policymakers in the present administration, the military exists mainly to prop up the capitalist worldwide hegemony, and, under the guise of "defending freedom," actually assures that other countries allow exploitation by multinational corporations and by dictators who can take advantage of their own people. In other words, for the statists now in power in the U.S., Iran is just going through "growing pains" to form a new identity and join the family of nations, and that those who oppose this "growth" and independence have an exploitative, capitalist mindset.
Second, Pres. Obama ideologically sees the U.S. military as basically a spearhead of capitalist imperialism, and believes that our military dominance is serving an exploitative motive. The idea that a strong military is necessary for defense is looked upon by the president and his close advisers as a view that is naïve at best. To the inner circle of policymakers in the present administration, the military exists mainly to prop up the capitalist worldwide hegemony, and, under the guise of "defending freedom," actually assures that other countries allow exploitation by multinational corporations and by dictators who can take advantage of their own people. In other words, for the statists now in power in the U.S., Iran is just going through "growing pains" to form a new identity and join the family of nations, and that those who oppose this "growth" and independence have an exploitative, capitalist mindset.
To the leftist crowd, if we are free to develop nuclear arms, then Iran should be free to as well (what's good for the goose is good for the gander). It is impossible to convince a leftist that nuclear proliferation should be stopped worldwide because some countries are more rational and balanced, while others are unstable or "bad." Instead by a twisted logic, the leftist will "accept" the premise that there should be some built-in safeguards against nuclear proliferation, but affirm that other countries' right to act independently must be safeguarded as well even if that "independence" poses an existential threat to our allies or ourselves. This view is as absurd as the police agreeing to provide a gun to a bank robber but telling him that he can only have one bullet and not an entire magazine of ammo.
Thirdly, there is a widespread assumption that the critics of the deal are hysterical because they have prejudged the agreement from an overly-partisan point of view. To the vast majority of people, the dangers posed by the agreement are nonexistent or remote. In our country we believe in talking and compromise, so it is assumed by many that this approach is always a good thing even if it involves certain risks. Most Americans, including our leaders, do not realize that this paradigm does not work at all times and everywhere. Realpolitik cannot be avoided in a dangerous world. Power must be asserted against the wicked ones who would cause bodily harm to oneself, one's family, or one's fellow citizens or allies. In short, wishful thinking is operational here just as if we were living in 1938 when Chamberlain went to Munich. Sadly, events must transpire to disprove a mistaken reliance on "compromise" and "talking" (really what is happening is "manipulation" and "diddling").
Lastly, Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus in the first century, revealed that in some important respects the evils of life are beyond our human ken. He wrote, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers, against principalities, against the rulers of darkness, against wickedness in high places." God is wrestling with all of us just as he wrestled with Jacob in Genesis to reveal to him a higher truth, one which we cannot forget. We are, like Jacob, wounded in the thigh by our traumatic encounters with the terrorist world. We are struggling with God against a great evil that cannot be easily perceived at the sumptuously appointed conferences in places like Geneva. There are evil powers in this world, evil powers of anti-Semitism that have been around for thousands of years. At the annual Zionist Organization of America banquet (Nov. 24, 2013) to honor Gov. Mike Huckabee and others dedicated to a strong and vibrant Israel, Morton Klein, President of ZOA, said we need to continue to believe in miracles as well as action. This observation is very true, and of course we must continue to pray without ceasing.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig is a Harvard University Master Teacher who has published numerous articles, and has taught in many educational settings including Harvard, Penn State, and Juniata College as well as in New York City secondary schools
Thirdly, there is a widespread assumption that the critics of the deal are hysterical because they have prejudged the agreement from an overly-partisan point of view. To the vast majority of people, the dangers posed by the agreement are nonexistent or remote. In our country we believe in talking and compromise, so it is assumed by many that this approach is always a good thing even if it involves certain risks. Most Americans, including our leaders, do not realize that this paradigm does not work at all times and everywhere. Realpolitik cannot be avoided in a dangerous world. Power must be asserted against the wicked ones who would cause bodily harm to oneself, one's family, or one's fellow citizens or allies. In short, wishful thinking is operational here just as if we were living in 1938 when Chamberlain went to Munich. Sadly, events must transpire to disprove a mistaken reliance on "compromise" and "talking" (really what is happening is "manipulation" and "diddling").
Lastly, Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus in the first century, revealed that in some important respects the evils of life are beyond our human ken. He wrote, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers, against principalities, against the rulers of darkness, against wickedness in high places." God is wrestling with all of us just as he wrestled with Jacob in Genesis to reveal to him a higher truth, one which we cannot forget. We are, like Jacob, wounded in the thigh by our traumatic encounters with the terrorist world. We are struggling with God against a great evil that cannot be easily perceived at the sumptuously appointed conferences in places like Geneva. There are evil powers in this world, evil powers of anti-Semitism that have been around for thousands of years. At the annual Zionist Organization of America banquet (Nov. 24, 2013) to honor Gov. Mike Huckabee and others dedicated to a strong and vibrant Israel, Morton Klein, President of ZOA, said we need to continue to believe in miracles as well as action. This observation is very true, and of course we must continue to pray without ceasing.
E. Jeffrey Ludwig is a Harvard University Master Teacher who has published numerous articles, and has taught in many educational settings including Harvard, Penn State, and Juniata College as well as in New York City secondary schools
1b) Is the US changing sides in the regional conflict between Iran and its enemies?
by Jonathan Spyer
A report by respected Washington-based journalist Hussein Abdul Hussein in the Kuwaiti Al-Rai newspaper this week revealed details of an indirect US channel with Hezbollah.
The report comes, of course, close on the heels of the interim agreement concluded in Geneva between the P5 + 1 world powers and Iran, allowing the latter to continue to enrich uranium.
News items are also surfacing suggesting a stark split between the US and Saudi Arabia over regional policy in general, and policy toward Syria in particular. Saudi officials are going on the record expressing their alarm at the direction of American policy.
Happily stirring the pot, some Iran-associated outlets have suggested that Washington is actively seeking to rein in Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who favors a hardline against Iranian interference in the region.
Meanwhile, agreement has now been reached over the long-postponed "Geneva 2" conference, to discuss the war in Syria.
The conference will go ahead because US-backed Syrian opposition representatives abandoned their demand that President Bashar Assad could have no part in any transitional phase of government in the country.
What does all this add up to? There are an increasing number of voices which perceive a shape behind all these details: Namely, an effort by the current US administration to turn the Iranian regime from an adversary into a partner. The method: Acceding, in part or whole, to key Iranian demands.
Let's take a look at each item in more detail.
The usually reliable Abdul Hussein's report details the mechanism by which the US is speaking to Hezbollah, in spite of that organization being a US-designated terrorist group. British diplomats are the ones doing the talking.
The channel of communication between UK officials and the "political wing" of the movement was recently revived, in tune with the improving relations between London and Tehran.
It is now serving to transfer messages between Washington and Tehran.
An unnamed diplomatic source quoted by Abdul Hussein explained that this dialogue is "designed to keep pace with the changes in the region and the world, and the potential return of Iran to the international community."
The official went on to explain that because the US does not concur with the (British, entirely fictitious) division of Hezbollah into "political" and "military" wings, direct dialogue is currently not possible.
The report goes on to outline moments in recent months when the US has found itself on the same page as Hezbollah. One of these, very notably, was the occasion in June when the Lebanese Army, together with Hezbollah fighters, fought against the partisans of the pro al-Qaida Salafi preacher Ahmad al-Assir in the Lebanese town of Sidon. The US backed the army, without reference to the key role played by Hezbollah fighters in the action, which resulted in al-Assir's defeat.
The other was the US condemnation of the recent al-Qaida-linked bombing at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. The condemnation, well-noted in Lebanon, did not contain any reference to the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah fighters in Syria.
The Abdul Hussein report also tells us the US "outreach" to Iran has not been on the nuclear file alone. Rather, even before any comprehensive agreement was reached, Washington appears to have begun to dismantle the carefully assembled diplomatic structure seeking to contain Iranian regional ambitions.
Even Tehran's proxy Hezbollah, which killed 241 US Marines in Beirut in 1983, is evidently now a fit subject for communication, as part of Iran's return to the international community.
Reports suggesting American efforts to contain Bandar are somewhat less reliable, coming as they do from pro-Iran and pro-Hezbollah media outlets (al-Manar and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards-associated Fars News Agency). But certainly, the deep Saudi frustrations with the direction of US policy are not an invention of pro-Iran propagandists.
Nawaf Obaid, a senior adviser to the Saudi royal family, this week accused Washington of deceiving Riyadh over the Iran nuclear deal. "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," Obaid told an audience in London, as quoted in The Daily Telegraph. He went on to vow continued Saudi resistance to Iranian machinations across the region. In particular, he expressed Saudi determination to turn back the Iranians in Syria.
"We cannot accept Revolutionary Guards running around Homs," the adviser said. But this defiant tone appears in stark contrast to the developing US position.
The Geneva 2 conference is now scheduled to take place on January 22. It is a US-sponsored affair. It is not yet clear if Iran itself will be there. But what is clear is that the conference will take place entirely according to the agenda of the Assad regime and its backers.
That is – the US-backed Syrian National Coalition will directly face the regime, while the regime now flatly rejects any notion of its stepping down.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, humming with the old Ba'athist rhetoric, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said, "The official Syrian delegation is not going to Geneva to surrender power… The age of colonialism, with the installation and toppling of governments, is over. They must wake from their dreams."
The armed rebels will not be sending representatives to the conference.
They, financed and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have formed a new "Islamic Front" that is battling the regime around Damascus, in Aleppo and in the border region of Qalamoun this week. The military advantage continues to ebb and flow.
But the stark contrast between the US-led diplomacy and the events on the ground is another clear reminder of the extent to which Washington's position has moved away from confrontation, away from Riyadh – and toward Tehran.
Assad has revived his fortunes in the course of 2013, mainly because of the massive Iranian assistance he has received. Washington, which officially backs the opposition, appears to be sponsoring a conference which will crown this achievement.
So is the US in fact changing sides in the contest between Iran and those regional forces seeking to contain and turn back its advance?
Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute suggested this week that Washington is in the first phase of seeking a "strategic partnership" with Iran, an "entente cordiale" which would see a US-Iranian alliance forming a lynchpin of regional stability.
If this is truly what the welter of evidence detailed above portends, then the Middle East is headed into a dangerous period indeed. As Doran also notes, there is no reason at all to think that Iranian designs for regional hegemony have been abandoned.
The effect of US overtures to Tehran and undermining of allies will be to build the Iranians' appetite. This will serve to intensify their continued efforts at expansion.
The corresponding efforts by other regional powers, Israel and Saudi Arabia chief among them, to resist this process will also increase.
That, in turn, is likely to mean greater instability across the region – and an eventual direct collision could result.
Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs(GLORIA) Center, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
1c) U.S. boxes in Israel, not Iran: Surrender in Geneva
By Mark Steyn
"Iran, U.S. Set To Establish Joint Chamber Of Commerce Within Month," reports Agence-France Presse. Government official Abolfazi Hejazi tells the English-language newspaper Iran Daily that the Islamic Republic will shortly commence direct flights to America. Passenger jets, not ICBMs, one assumes - although, as with everything else, the details have yet to be worked out. Still, the historic U.S.-Iranian rapprochement seems to be galloping along, and any moment now the cultural exchange program will be announced, and you'll have to book early for the Tehran Ballet's season at the Kennedy Center ("Death To America" in repertory with "Death To The Great Satan").
In Geneva, the participants came to the talks with different goals: The Americans and Europeans wanted an agreement; the Iranians wanted nukes. Each party got what it came for. Before the deal, the mullahs' existing facilities were said to be within four to seven weeks of nuclear "breakout"; under the new constraints, they'll be eight to nine weeks from breakout. In return, they get formal international recognition of their enrichment program, and the gutting of sanctions — and everything they already have is, as they say over at Obamacare, grandfathered in.
Many pundits reached for the obvious appeasement analogies, but Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal argued that Geneva is actually worse than Munich. In 1938, facing a German seizure of the Sudetenland, the French and British prime ministers were negotiating with Berlin from a position of profound military weakness: it's easy to despise Chamberlain with the benefit of hindsight, less easy to give an honest answer as to what one would have done differently playing a weak hand across the table from Hitler 75 years ago. This time round, a superpower and its allies, accounting for over 50 percent of the planet's military spending, were facing a militarily insignificant country with a ruined economy and no more than two-to-three months' worth of hard currency — and they gave it everything it wanted.
I would add two further points. First, the Munich Agreement's language is brutal and unsparing, all "shalls" and "wills": Paragraph 1) "The evacuation will begin on 1st October"; Paragraph 4) "The four territories marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops in the following order." By contrast, the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China plus Germany) "Joint Plan of Action" barely reads like an international agreement at all. It's all conditional, a forest of "woulds": "There would be additional steps in between the initial measures and the final step…" In the post-modern phase of Western resolve, it's an agreement to reach an agreement — supposedly within six months. But one gets the strong impression that, when that six-month deadline comes and goes, the temporary agreement will trundle along semipermanently to the satisfaction of all parties.
Secondly, there are subtler concessions. Explaining that their "singular object" was to "ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon," John Kerry said that "Foreign Minister Zarif emphasized that they don't intend to do this, and the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa which forbids them to do this." The "Supreme Leader" is not Barack Obama but Ayatollah Khamenei. Why is America's secretary of state dignifying Khamenei as "the Supreme Leader"? In his own famous remarks upon his return from Munich, Neville Chamberlain referred only to "Herr Hitler." "Der Führer" means, in effect, "the Supreme Leader," but, unlike Kerry (and Obama), Chamberlain understood that it would be unseemly for the representative of a free people to confer respectability on such a designation. As for the Fuhrer de nos jours, Ayatollah Khamenei called Israel a "rabid dog" and dismissed "the leaders of the Zionist regime, who look like beasts and cannot be called human." If the words of "the Supreme Leader" are to be taken at face value when it comes to these supposed constraints preventing Iran from going nuclear, why not also when he calls Jews subhuman?
I am not much interested in whether "the Supreme Leader" can be trusted. Prudent persons already know the answer to that. A more relevant question is whether the U.S. can be trusted. Israel and the Sunni monarchies who comprise America's least-worst friends in the Arab world were kept in the dark about not only the contents of the first direct U.S./Iranian talks in a third-of-a-century but even an acknowledgment that they were taking place. The only tip-off into the parameters of the emerging deal is said to have come from British briefings to their former Gulf protectorates and the French getting chatty with Israel. A couple of days ago, Nawaf Obaid, an adviser to Prince Mohammed, the Saudi Ambassador in London, was unusually candid about the Americans: "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done."
But look at it this way: It's been clear for some time that the United States was not going to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. That leaves only one other nation even minded to keep the option on the table: Israel. Hence the strange new romance between the Zionist Entity and the Saudi and Gulf Cabinet ministers calling every night to urge them to get cracking: In the post-American world, you find your friends where you can, even if they're Jews. But Obama and Kerry have not only taken a U.S bombing raid off the table, they've ensured that any such raid by Israel will now come at a much steeper price: It's one thing to bomb a global pariah, quite another to bomb a semi-rehabilitated member of the international community in defiance of an agreement signed by the Big Five world powers. Indeed, a disinterested observer might easily conclude that the point of the plan seems to be to box in Israel rather than Iran.
If it were to have that effect, the Sunni Arab states would be faced with a choice of accepting de facto Shia Persian hegemony — or getting the Saudis to pay the Pakistanis for a Sunni bomb. Nobody in Araby believes the U.S. can "contain" Iran, even if it wants to. And, since the Geneva deal, nobody's very sure the U.S. wants to.
Meanwhile, through the many months they kept their allies in the dark, Washington was very obliging to the mullahs. According to the Times of Israel, among the Iranian prisoners quietly released by the U.S. as a friendly predeal gesture is Mojtada Atarodi, arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire nuclear materials. Iran has felt under no pressure to reciprocate. America is containing itself, in hopes of a quiet life.
Will it get one? The Guardian reports that, last Saturday night at the Geneva InterContinental, the final stages of the P5+1 talks were played out to the music bleeding through from the charity bash in the adjoining ballroom. At one point, the band played Johnny Cash:
"I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higherAnd it burns, burns, burnsThe ring of fire . . . ."
So it does.
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2) A Military Strategy to Deter China
By T.X. Hammes
China’s announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone last weekend made Seth Cropsey’s commentary “America Has No Military Strategy for China” extremely timely. He is absolutely correct on two key statements. First, an escalation between China and Japan would be disastrous and, even more importantly, the United States has no strategy for a conflict with China. Secretary Cropsey notes that the AirSea Battle concept is the “sole U.S. preparation” but that it is not a strategy.
While no set of actions can guarantee continued peace between China and the United States, carefully considered national and military strategies will reduce the probability of a conflict. The United States National Strategy makes that an explicit goal. In his November 2011address to the Australian Parliament, President Barack Obama stated U.S. National Strategy would:
“continue our effort to build a cooperative relationship with China. … all of our nations have a profound interest in the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China.”
This year, Tom Donilon, the National Security Advisor, clarified and reinforced the Administration’s determination to continue its rebalance to Asia.
“To pursue this vision, the United States is implementing a comprehensive, multidimensional strategy: strengthening alliances; deepening partnerships with emerging powers; building a stable, productive, and constructive relationship with China; empowering regional institutions; and helping to build a regional economic architecture that can sustain shared prosperity.”
Thus, the United States has a clearly articulated national strategy to encourage peaceful growth in the region. Unfortunately, as Cropsey noted, the United States has failed to express a coherent military strategy to support its national strategy.
Deepening the confusion concerning U.S. military strategy is the tendency of many observers to assume that CSBA’s paper,AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept, expressed the U.S. military strategy for a conflict with China. The paper postulated that in the “unthinkable” case of a war with China, U.S. efforts would include a “executing a blinding campaign against PLA battle networks, executing a suppression campaign against PLA long-range, principally strike systems, seizing and sustaining the initiative in air, sea, space and cyber domains.” This paper stated it was not proposing a strategy but only a concept for overcoming China’s area denial/anti-access capabilities.
Perhaps the biggest weakness of the ASB concept is that it scares our allies without deterring China. Since most ASB technology is top secret, U.S. officials are unable to discuss it with our allies. As a result, many allies assume the United States will follow the plan described in CSBA’s paper and initiate immediate, extensive attacks on Chinese territory. Our allies are obviously concerned that China will see such attacks as emanating from allied territory and respond in kind. In short, U.S. allies are being asked to offer bases without any knowledge of what actions the U.S. intends to take from those bases. Not a great way to reassure allies. Unfortunately because this operational approach relies heavily on cyber and space capabilities, it creates the unintended consequence of raising the value of a first strike. Thus it is escalatory. In a crisis, both militaries will know that the one that strikes first will achieve significant tactical and operational advantages.
ASB also fails to deter China. Because it is apparently dependent upon space and cyber systems, China may well feel it can degrade those systems enough to defeat the operational approach. Further, China may well believe the United States cannot afford ASB or at very least will not field the capabilities for a decade or more. A military strategy that offers a relative inexpensive defeat mechanism or a window of vulnerability has little deterrent value.
To eliminate the confusion and reassure other nations, the United States needs to go beyond simply declaring that ASB is not a strategy. It must clearly state U.S. military strategy for a possible conflict with China.
What Should a Military Strategy Do?
The first and most important function of a military strategy is to support the national strategy. Therefore, any military strategy must encourage or, at very least, not discourage the continued growth and integration of China’s economy with that of the global economy. A U.S. military strategy for Asia must achieve five objectives:
1. Deter China from military action to resolve disputes while encouraging its continued economic growth;
2. Assure Asian nations that the United States is both willing to and capable of remaining engaged in Asia;
3. Ensure access for U.S. forces and allied commercial interests to the global commons;
4. Achieve victory with minimal risk of nuclear escalation in the event of conflict; and
5. Be visibly credible today.
Ideally, a military strategy would also provide guidance for matching limited defense resources to appropriate force structures and equipment buys. Given the fact that China has a thermonuclear arsenal, a military strategy must emphasize deterrence and, if that fails, should escalate in a deliberate, transparent way.
Outline for a Strategy
Professor Eliot Cohen proposes that a strategy should include critical assumptions, ends-ways-means coherence, priorities, sequencing, and a theory of victory. Without listing, examining and challenging assumptions, it is not possible to understand a strategy. With assumptions identified, coherence in ends-ways-means becomes possible. These elements should not be treated separately. If goals are selected that exceed available means, one does not have a strategy. Priorities are required because a nation will not have the resources to do everything at once. Sequencing flows from priorities. Finally, a strategy must have a theory of victory – an answer to the question “how does this end?” It must express how the strategy achieves war termination on favorable terms.
A Proposed Military Strategy
I propose a military strategy I am calling Offshore Control: Defense of the First Island Chainthat takes advantage of geography to block China’s exports and thus severely weaken its economy.
Assumptions
I have listed five key assumptions below.
1. China starts the conflict. Assuming China initiates the conflict presents the most difficult military situation for the United States.
2. There is a high probability that a conflict with China will be a long war. For the last 200 years, wars between major powers have generally run for years rather than months. Further, the United States would find a protracted conflict most challenging.
3. Any major conflict between the United States and China will result in massive damage to the global economy. The integrated global economy means that, like WWI, the opening of the conflict will cause major economic contraction.
4. The United States does not understand China’s nuclear decision process. Therefore, it is critically important that the U.S. strategic approach minimize escalation. If escalation is required, deliberate and transparent escalation is better than a sudden surprise that could be misinterpreted. This approach certainly violates the generally accepted precept that escalation in war be violent and sudden to achieve maximum effect. However, that maxim was developed before the advent of offsetting nuclear arsenals.
5. In space or cyber domains, a first strike provides major advantages. Thus any operational approach that requires the robust use of space and cyber capabilities is inherently destabilizing in a crisis.
Ends, Ways, and Means Coherence
The combination of decreasing defense budgets and rapid increases in procurement costs for new weapons suggests a strategy for conflict with China should assume limited means, at least to start. In addition to limited means, the United States must accept that China’s nuclear arsenal imposes restrictions on the way American forces may attack Chinese assets. The United States must select ways that minimize the probability of escalation to nuclear conflict simply because no one can win in a major nuclear exchange. With limited means and restricted ways, the ends selected therefore also should be modest. They must attain U.S. strategic goals but not risk a major nuclear exchange.
This logic leads to the concept of Offshore Control. Operationally, Offshore Control uses currently available but limited means and restricted ways to enforce a distant blockade on China. It establishes a set of concentric rings that denies China the use of the sea inside the first island chain, defends the sea and air space of the first island chain, and dominates the air and maritime space outside the island chain. No operations will penetrate Chinese airspace. Prohibiting penetration is intended to reduce the possibility of nuclear escalation and make war termination easier.
The denial element of the campaign plays to U.S. strengths by employing primarily attack submarines, mines, and a limited number of air assets inside the first island chain. This area will be declared a maritime exclusion zone with the warning that ships in the zone will be sunk. While the United States cannot initially stop all sea traffic in this zone, it can prevent the passage of large cargo ships and tankers. In doing so, it cripples China’s export trade, which is central to China’s economy.
The defensive component will bring the full range of U.S. assets to defend allied soil and encourage allies to contribute to that defense. It takes advantage of geography to force China to fight at longer ranges while allowing U.S. and allied forces to fight as part of an integrated air-sea defense over their own territories. In short, it flips A2/AD to favor allies rather than China. Numerous small islands from Japan to Taiwan and on to Luzon provide dispersed land basing options for air and sea defense of the apparent gaps in the first island chain. SinceOffshore Control will rely heavily on land-based air defense and short-range sea defense to include mine and counter-mine capability, we can encourage potential partners to invest in these capabilities and exercise together regularly in peacetime.
In keeping with the concept that the strategy must be feasible in peacetime, the United States will not request any nation to allow the use of their bases to attack China. The strategy will only ask a nation to allow the presence of U.S. defensive systems to defend that nation’s air, sea, and land space. The U.S. commitment will include assisting with convoy operations to maintain the flow of essential imports and exports in the face of Chinese interdiction attempts.
The dominate phase of the campaign will be fought outside the range of most Chinese assets and will use a combination of air, naval, ground and rented commercial platforms to intercept and divert the super tankers and post-Panamax container ships essential to China’s economy. Eighty percent of China’s imported oil transits the Straits of Malacca. If Malacca, Lombok, Sunda and the routes north and south of Australia are controlled, these shipments can be cut off. This reduction in energy supply will have a negative effect on China’s economy.
However, the United States must recognize that the dramatic reduction in China’s trade will significantly reduce its energy demands. Thus, energy interdiction is not a winning strategy. Exports are of much greater importance to the Chinese economy. Those exports rely on large container ships for competitive cost advantage. These ships also are the easiest to track and divert. Naturally, China will respond by rerouting, but the only possibilities are the Panama Canal and the Straits of Magellan – or, if polar ice melt continues, the northern route. U.S. assets can control all these routes. While such a concentric campaign will require a layered effort from the straits to China’s coast, it will mostly be fought at a great distance from China—effectively out of range of most of China’s military power.
Ends
That leads us to modest ends. Offshore Control is predicated on the idea that the presence of nuclear weapons makes seeking the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party or its surrender too dangerous to contemplate. The United States does not understand the Communist Party decision process for the employment of nuclear weapons but it does know the Party is adamant it must remain in control of China. Thus, rather than seeking a decisive victory against the Chinese Communist Party, Offshore Control seeks to use a war of economic attrition to bring about a stalemate and cessation of conflict with a return to a modified version of the status quo.
Theory of Victory
Offshore Control seeks termination of the conflict on U.S. terms through China’s economic exhaustion without damage to mainland China’s infrastructure or the rapid escalation of the conflict. It seeks to allow the Chinese Communist Party to end the conflict in the same way China ended its conflicts with India, the United Nations in Korea, the Soviet Union, andVietnam. It allows China to declare it “taught the enemy a lesson” and thus end the conflict. Offshore Control does not seek decisive victory in the traditional military sense but secures U.S. objectives effectively. It recognizes the fact that the concept of decisive victory against a nation with a major nuclear arsenal is fraught with risks if not entirely obsolete.
Conclusion
President Obama has presented a U.S. national strategy that sets goals and the diplomatic, economic and political paths necessary to achieve them. While one can argue about how effectively they are being executed, the diplomatic, economic, and political paths have been defined. However, the United States has failed to articulate a coherent military strategy to support its national strategy. It is time to correct that deficiency. Offshore Control: Defense of the First Island Chain is a starting point for a discussion with our allies and friends in the region. It seeks to provide the military component of the U.S. national strategy in Asia.
The major goal of Offshore Control is to deter China by presenting it with a military strategy that cannot be defeated. This directly addresses one of the most worrying aspects of the current situation in Asia. Like the Germans before WWI, the Chinese may believe they can win a short war. In particular, they may believe their growing capabilities in space and cyber might neutralize U.S. power in the region. By showing that Offshore Control can be executed with today’s force even with dramatically reduced access to space and cyber, the United States and its allies can dispel the notion of a short war. The only way China can defeat such a strategy is to invest hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade or more to create a global sea control navy. And even that will not be a guarantee it wins such a conflict.
Photo credits: Infinity Journal, Stratfor
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