February 14, 2012 "Tom Dispatch" - - Significant anniversaries are solemnly
commemorated -- Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, for
example. Others are ignored, and we can often learn valuable lessons from them
about what is likely to lie ahead. Right now, in fact.
At the moment, we are failing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President
John F. Kennedy’s decision to launch the most destructive and murderous act of
aggression of the post-World War II period: the invasion of South Vietnam, later
all of Indochina, leaving millions dead and four countries devastated, with
casualties still mounting from the long-term effects of drenching South Vietnam
with some of the most lethal carcinogens known, undertaken to destroy ground
cover and food crops.
The prime target was South Vietnam. The aggression later spread to the North,
then to the remote peasant society of northern Laos, and finally to rural Cambodia,
which was bombed at the stunning level of all allied air operations in the Pacific
region during World War II, including the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. In this, Henry Kissinger’s orderswere being carried out -- “anything
that flies on anything that moves” -- a call for genocide that is rare in the historical
record. Little of this is remembered. Most was scarcely known beyond narrow
circles of activists.
When the invasion was launched 50 years ago, concern was so slight that there
were few efforts at justification, hardly more than the president’s impassioned plea
that “we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that
relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence” and if the
conspiracy achieves its ends in Laos and Vietnam, “the gates will be opened wide.”
Elsewhere, he warned further that “the complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft
societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history [and] only the
strong... can possibly survive,” in this case reflecting on the failure of U.S.
aggression and terror to crush Cuban independence.
By the time protest began to mount half a dozen years later, the respected Vietnam
specialist and military historian Bernard Fall, no dove, forecast that “Vietnam as a
cultural and historic entity… is threatened with extinction...[as]...the countryside
literally dies under the blows of the largest military machine ever unleashed on an
area of this size.” He was again referring to South Vietnam.
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When the war ended eight horrendous years later, mainstream opinion was divided
between those who described the war as a “noble cause” that could have been won
with more dedication, and at the opposite extreme, the critics, to whom it was “a
mistake” that proved too costly. By 1977, President Carter aroused little notice
when he explained that we owe Vietnam “no debt” because “the destruction was
mutual.”
There are important lessons in all this for today, even apart from another reminder
that only the weak and defeated are called to account for their crimes. One lesson
is that to understand what is happening we should attend not only to critical events
of the real world, often dismissed from history, but also to what leaders and elite
opinion believe, however tinged with fantasy. Another lesson is that alongside the
flights of fancy concocted to terrify and mobilize the public (and perhaps believed
by some who are trapped in their own rhetoric), there is also geostrategic planning
based on principles that are rational and stable over long periods because they are
rooted in stable institutions and their concerns. That is true in the case of Vietnam
as well. I will return to that, only stressing here that the persistent factors in state
action are generally well concealed.
The Iraq war is an instructive case. It was marketed to a terrified public on the
usual grounds of self-defense against an awesome threat to survival: the “single
question,” George W. Bush and Tony Blair declared, was whether Saddam Hussein
would end his programs of developing weapons of mass destruction. When the
single question received the wrong answer, government rhetoric shifted effortlessly
to our “yearning for democracy,” and educated opinion duly followed course; all
routine.
Later, as the scale of the U.S. defeat in Iraq was becoming difficult to suppress, the
government quietly conceded what had been clear all along. In 2007-2008, the
administration officially announced that a final settlement must grant the U.S.
military bases and the right of combat operations, and must privilege U.S. investors
in the rich energy system -- demands later reluctantly abandoned in the face of Iraqi
resistance. And all well kept from the general population.
Gauging American Decline
With such lessons in mind, it is useful to look at what is highlighted in the major
journals of policy and opinion today. Let us keep to the most prestigious of the
establishment journals, Foreign Affairs. The headline blaring on the cover of the
December 2011 issue reads in bold face: “Is America Over?”
The title article calls for “retrenchment” in the “humanitarian missions” abroad that
are consuming the country’s wealth, so as to arrest the American decline that is a
major theme of international affairs discourse, usually accompanied by the
corollary that power is shifting to the East, to China and (maybe) India.
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The lead articles are on Israel-Palestine. The first, by two high Israeli officials, is
entitled “The Problem is Palestinian Rejection”: the conflict cannot be resolved
because Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state -- thereby
conforming to standard diplomatic practice: states are recognized, but not
privileged sectors within them. The demand is hardly more than a new device to
deter the threat of political settlement that would undermine Israel’s expansionist
goals.
The opposing position, defended by an American professor, is entitled “The
Problem Is the Occupation.” The subtitle reads “How the Occupation is Destroying
the Nation.” Which nation? Israel, of course. The paired articles appear under the
heading “Israel under Siege.”
The January 2012 issue features yet another call to bomb Iran now, before it is too
late. Warning of “the dangers of deterrence,” the author suggests that “skeptics of
military action fail to appreciate the true danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would
pose to U.S. interests in the Middle East and beyond. And their grim forecasts
assume that the cure would be worse than the disease -- that is, that the
consequences of a U.S. assault on Iran would be as bad as or worse than those of
Iran achieving its nuclear ambitions. But that is a faulty assumption. The truth is
that a military strike intended to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, if managed
carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically
improve the long-term national security of the United States.”
Others argue that the costs would be too high, and at the extremes some even point
out that an attack would violate international law -- as does the stand of the
moderates, who regularly deliver threats of violence, in violation of the U.N.
Charter.
Let us review these dominant concerns in turn.
American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling
class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster.
Despite the piteous laments, the U.S. remains the world dominant power by a large
margin, and no competitor is in sight, not only in the military dimension, in which
of course the U.S. reigns supreme.
China and India have recorded rapid (though highly inegalitarian) growth, but
remain very poor countries, with enormous internal problems not faced by the
West. China is the world’s major manufacturing center, but largely as an assembly
plant for the advanced industrial powers on its periphery and for western
multinationals. That is likely to change over time. Manufacturing regularly
provides the basis for innovation, often breakthroughs, as is now sometimes
happening in China. One example that has impressed western specialists is China’s
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takeover of the growing global solar panel market, not on the basis of cheap labor
but by coordinated planning and, increasingly, innovation.
But the problems China faces are serious. Some are demographic, reviewed
in Science, the leading U.S. science weekly. The study shows that mortality sharply
decreased in China during the Maoist years, “mainly a result of economic
development and improvements in education and health services, especially the
public hygiene movement that resulted in a sharp drop in mortality from infectious
diseases.” This progress ended with the initiation of the capitalist reforms 30 years
ago, and the death rate has since increased.
Furthermore, China’s recent economic growth has relied substantially on a
“demographic bonus,” a very large working-age population. “But the window for
harvesting this bonus may close soon,” with a “profound impact on development”:
“Excess cheap labor supply, which is one of the major factors driving China's
economic miracle, will no longer be available.”
Demography is only one of many serious problems ahead. For India, the problems
are far more severe.
Not all prominent voices foresee American decline. Among international media,
there is none more serious and responsible than the London Financial Times. It
recently devoted a full page to the optimistic expectation that new technology for
extracting North American fossil fuels might allow the U.S. to become energy
independent, hence to retain its global hegemony for a century. There is no
mention of the kind of world the U.S. would rule in this happy event, but not for
lack of evidence.
At about the same time, the International Energy Agency reported that, with rapidly
increasing carbon emissions from fossil fuel use, the limit of safety will be reached
by 2017 if the world continues on its present course. “The door is closing,” the IEA
chief economist said, and very soon it “will be closed forever.”
Shortly before the U.S. Department of Energy reported the most recent carbon
dioxide emissions figures, which “jumped by the biggest amount on record” to a
level higher than the worst-case scenario anticipated by the International Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). That came as no surprise to many scientists, including the
MIT program on climate change, which for years has warned that the IPCC
predictions are too conservative.
Such critics of the IPCC predictions receive virtually no public attention, unlike the
fringe of denialists who are supported by the corporate sector, along with huge
propaganda campaigns that have driven Americans off the international spectrum in
dismissal of the threats. Business support also translates directly to political
power. Denialism is part of the catechism that must be intoned by Republican
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candidates in the farcical election campaign now in progress, and in Congress they
are powerful enough to abort even efforts to inquire into the effects of global
warming, let alone do anything serious about it.
In brief, American decline can perhaps be stemmed if we abandon hope for decent
survival, prospects that are all too real given the balance of forces in the world.
“Losing” China and Vietnam
Putting such unpleasant thoughts aside, a close look at American decline shows that
China indeed plays a large role, as it has for 60 years. The decline that now elicits
such concern is not a recent phenomenon. It traces back to the end of World War
II, when the U.S. had half the world’s wealth and incomparable security and global
reach. Planners were naturally well aware of the enormous disparity of power, and
intended to keep it that way.
The basic viewpoint was outlined with admirable frankness in a major state paper
of 1948 (PPS 23). The author was one of the architects of the New World Order of
the day, the chair of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, the respected
statesman and scholar George Kennan, a moderate dove within the planning
spectrum. He observed that the central policy goal was to maintain the “position of
disparity” that separated our enormous wealth from the poverty of others. To
achieve that goal, he advised, “We should cease to talk about vague and... unreal
objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and
democratization,” and must “deal in straight power concepts,” not “hampered by
idealistic slogans” about “altruism and world-benefaction.”
Kennan was referring specifically to Asia, but the observations generalize, with
exceptions, for participants in the U.S.-run global system. It was well understood
that the “idealistic slogans” were to be displayed prominently when addressing
others, including the intellectual classes, who were expected to promulgate them.
The plans that Kennan helped formulate and implement took for granted that the
U.S. would control the Western Hemisphere, the Far East, the former British
empire (including the incomparable energy resources of the Middle East), and as
much of Eurasia as possible, crucially its commercial and industrial centers. These
were not unrealistic objectives, given the distribution of power. But decline set in
at once.
In 1949, China declared independence, an event known in Western discourse as
“the loss of China” -- in the U.S., with bitter recriminations and conflict over who
was responsible for that loss. The terminology is revealing. It is only possible to
lose something that one owns. The tacit assumption was that the U.S. owned
China, by right, along with most of the rest of the world, much as postwar planners
assumed.
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The “loss of China” was the first major step in “America’s decline.” It had major
policy consequences. One was the immediate decision to support France’s effort to
reconquer its former colony of Indochina, so that it, too, would not be “lost.”
Indochina itself was not a major concern, despite claims about its rich resources by
President Eisenhower and others. Rather, the concern was the “domino theory,”
which is often ridiculed when dominoes don’t fall, but remains a leading principle
of policy because it is quite rational. To adopt Henry Kissinger’s version, a region
that falls out of control can become a “virus” that will “spread contagion,” inducing
others to follow the same path.
In the case of Vietnam, the concern was that the virus of independent development
might infect Indonesia, which really does have rich resources. And that might lead
Japan -- the “superdomino” as it was called by the prominent Asia historian John
Dower -- to “accommodate” to an independent Asia as its technological and
industrial center in a system that would escape the reach of U.S. power. That
would mean, in effect, that the U.S. had lost the Pacific phase of World War II,
fought to prevent Japan’s attempt to establish such a New Order in Asia.
The way to deal with such a problem is clear: destroy the virus and “inoculate”
those who might be infected. In the Vietnam case, the rational choice was to
destroy any hope of successful independent development and to impose brutal
dictatorships in the surrounding regions. Those tasks were successfully carried out
-- though history has its own cunning, and something similar to what was feared
has since been developing in East Asia, much to Washington’s dismay.
The most important victory of the Indochina wars was in 1965, when a U.S.-backed
military coup in Indonesia led by General Suharto carried out massive crimes that
were compared by the CIA to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. The “staggering
mass slaughter,” as the New York Times described it, was reported accurately
across the mainstream, and with unrestrained euphoria.
It was “a gleam of light in Asia,” as the noted liberal commentator James Reston
wrote in the Times. The coup ended the threat of democracy by demolishing the
mass-based political party of the poor, established a dictatorship that went on to
compile one of the worst human rights records in the world, and threw the riches of
the country open to western investors. Small wonder that, after many other horrors,
including the near-genocidal invasion of East Timor, Suharto was welcomed by the
Clinton administration in 1995 as “our kind of guy.”
Years after the great events of 1965, Kennedy-Johnson National Security Adviser
McGeorge Bundy reflected that it would have been wise to end the Vietnam war at
that time, with the “virus” virtually destroyed and the primary domino solidly in
place, buttressed by other U.S.-backed dictatorships throughout the region.
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Similar procedures have been routinely followed elsewhere. Kissinger was
referring specifically to the threat of socialist democracy in Chile. That threat was
ended on another forgotten date, what Latin Americans call “the first 9/11,” which
in violence and bitter effects far exceeded the 9/11 commemorated in the West. A
vicious dictatorship was imposed in Chile, one part of a plague of brutal repression
that spread through Latin America, reaching Central America under Reagan.
Viruses have aroused deep concern elsewhere as well, including the Middle East,
where the threat of secular nationalism has often concerned British and U.S.
planners, inducing them to support radical Islamic fundamentalism to counter it.
The Concentration of Wealth and American Decline
Despite such victories, American decline continued. By 1970, U.S. share of world
wealth had dropped to about 25%, roughly where it remains, still colossal but far
below the end of World War II. By then, the industrial world was “tripolar”: USbased
North America, German-based Europe, and East Asia, already the most
dynamic industrial region, at the time Japan-based, but by now including the
former Japanese colonies Taiwan and South Korea, and more recently China.
At about that time, American decline entered a new phase: conscious self-inflicted
decline. From the 1970s, there has been a significant change in the U.S. economy,
as planners, private and state, shifted it toward financialization and the offshoring
of production, driven in part by the declining rate of profit in domestic
manufacturing. These decisions initiated a vicious cycle in which wealth became
highly concentrated (dramatically so in the top 0.1% of the population), yielding
concentration of political power, hence legislation to carry the cycle further:
taxation and other fiscal policies, deregulation, changes in the rules of corporate
governance allowing huge gains for executives, and so on.
Meanwhile, for the majority, real wages largely stagnated, and people were able to
get by only by sharply increased workloads (far beyond Europe), unsustainable
debt, and repeated bubbles since the Reagan years, creating paper wealth that
inevitably disappeared when they burst (and the perpetrators were bailed out by the
taxpayer). In parallel, the political system has been increasingly shredded as both
parties are driven deeper into corporate pockets with the escalating cost of
elections, the Republicans to the level of farce, the Democrats (now largely the
former “moderate Republicans”) not far behind.
A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, which has been the major source
of reputable data on these developments for years, is entitled Failure by Design.
The phrase “by design” is accurate. Other choices were certainly possible. And as
the study points out, the “failure” is class-based. There is no failure for the
designers. Far from it. Rather, the policies are a failure for the large majority, the
99% in the imagery of the Occupy movements -- and for the country, which has
declined and will continue to do so under these policies.
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One factor is the offshoring of manufacturing. As the solar panel example
mentioned earlier illustrates, manufacturing capacity provides the basis and
stimulus for innovation leading to higher stages of sophistication in production,
design, and invention. That, too, is being outsourced, not a problem for the “money
mandarins” who increasingly design policy, but a serious problem for working
people and the middle classes, and a real disaster for the most oppressed, African
Americans, who have never escaped the legacy of slavery and its ugly aftermath,
and whose meager wealth virtually disappeared after the collapse of the housing
bubble in 2008, setting off the most recent financial crisis, the worst so far.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of
Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political
works. His latest books are Making the Future: Occupations, Intervention, Empire,
and Resistance, The Essential Chomsky (edited by Anthony Arnove), a collection of
his writings on politics and on language from the 1950s to the present, Gaza in
Crisis, with Ilan Pappé, and Hopes and Prospects, also available as an audiobook.
To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Chomsky
offers an anatomy of American defeats in the Greater Middle East, click here, or
download it to your iPod here.
[Note: Part 2 of Noam Chomsky’s discussion of American decline, “The Imperial
Way,” will be posted at TomDispatch tomorrow.]
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Copyright 2012 Noam Chomsky
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