THUG POLITIK -- The Neo Con Agenda for a New American Century, Part III

The image of the State in 1984 is that of a boot in the face

Brian to Winston, in Orwell's 1984

In human affairs, nothing arises in a vacuum but rather develops from a pre-existing kernel. Neocon doctrine is no different and is what might be called an “historical inference.”

Within the U.S. foreign policy establishment, the phrase “zones of democratic peace” had a pre-existing usage, the ultimate effect of which was simply that it was considered beneficial to the United States to extend the capitalist free-trade system to as many countries and regions in the world. In Ancient Athens, the same hegemonic doctrine might well have been labelled, “Zones of Hellenic Co Prosperity” What is new is the meaning the Neocons have given to “hegemony.”

Even here, the brutalization of american hegemony is not without antecedents. Through the Korean War, it can be said, in a general way, that the United States pursued its hegemonic interests by fairly conventional means. That changed with Vietnam, where turning South Vietnam into a U.S.-friendly zone of democratic peace, entailed participation in a civil war and, hence inescapably, participation in a war against civilians. The most notorious aspect of this war was the U.S. “pacification” program, which involved turning villages into mini-concentration camps and murder, code named Phoenix. Even here, the actions were not without antecedents in the German administered Generalgouvernment and Nazi occupation policies in “the eastern” territories.

But to say that the neocon Thug Staat is not without antecedents is not to say that it is simply more of the same. It is not. It is a progression by degree beyond a threshold that has resulted in something qualitatively and dangerously new. In the New American Century, the exercise and enjoyment of the means has become an end in itself.

As Brian explained to Winston in the torture chambers of the Ministry of Truth, prior to 1984, governments and tyrants always sought to justify their power in terms of some ulterior good. Whatever that good was asserted to be, power was exercised in the name of bringing that good about. Likewise the exercise of power was limited by what was justifiable in terms of the asserted good. No more. The Party in 1984 had learned that power could and would be exercised entirely for its own sake no more, without need to justify it by anything other than the self justification of the pursuit of dominance.

It was thus useless for Winston to scream “why?” -- the answer was simply “because”. It was useless for Winston to argue that what the State was doing was self-defeating, because what the State was engaged in was was self-asserting for its own sake. Power projection for its own sake was the beginning and end of existence.

To say that the goal of US policy is to project power, and preserve preeminence through “full spectrum dominance” is simply to say that there is no ulterior goal -- that power is a good in and of itself. But power in and of itself is simply the smashing if things; and smashing things...smashing countries, people... is what the neocon agenda is all about.

This is not to say, that no ulterior justification is ever used in the PNAC Manifesto. From time to time there is some tepid allusion to “American interests and princoples” whatever those “principles” might be. These are simply linguistic holdovers on the march toward a simpler, purero NeoSpeak. What is astonishing how little ulterior good is ever mentioned.

The Manifesto never talks about erecting schools, economic development, culture, infrascturcture, Peace Corps in zones of democratic freedom. In fact the Manifesto hardly ever speaks of American interests, other than the interest inhaving more control, more power, more hardware more destructive weapons.

To say that there is an ulterior purpose of “safety” is simply to use labels to play havoc with cause and effect. At some level of generality “purpose” becomes de facto meaningless. Safety through Dominance is no more than I’m safe because I’m bashing you. Peace through Rubbleizing.

Once it is understood that the Neocons are engaged in a purely Orwellian pursuit of power and dominance for its own sake, it can also be understood that their brutality will not be confined to “America’s security perimeter” On the contrary, it will of necessity be extended inward to The Homeland itself.

This follows first from the fact that once power projection is the self-justifying goal it really doesn’t matter where it is exercised. The point is to project and for this Kansas is as good as Khandahar. It follows also from the fact that once the American populace become inured to brutality, they will be indifferent to it when it pummels some “terrorist” in the Homeland; and it will in fact be considered a good thing that a potential terrorist was caught and rooted out.

It also follows fom the entire “security-based” mentality. “Security” begins at home and since the Homeland is the preeminent zone of democratic peace, it requires its security environment to be shaped as much as any other. Already the neoscum administration is seeking to dispense with constitutional limits on data mining all currently available information on U.S. citizens. It is already seeking to “organically” penetrate certain “suspect” and “target” groups, without ever specifying exactly what makes them suspect. It is already seeking to build security perimeters and walls all around the country, always pointing to the alleged inchoate threat outside and always ignoring that walls and controls and checks work both ways. The notion that the the State should “control” the internet and wage net-war on it, basically extends power projection and security shaping into the realm of information and thought.

Last but not least, it follows from the project to turn U.S. soldiers into drugged up killers. If the neocons are willing to turn U.S. soldiers into drugged up killers, they will see no objection to pharmaceutically enhancing domestic security forces. The images we see in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq today are a foretaste of the Homeland tomorrow. It will be so.

©Barfo, 2003

THUG POLITIK -- The Neo Con Agenda for a New American Century, Part II

II.

Constabulism: Degrade, Brutalize, Terrorize.

If unilateral and preemptive power projection is fundamentally irreconcilable with the stuff of civilization, what can one expect in its wake? Only anti civilization. “Zones of democratic peace” is simply Neospeak for national concentration camps in which civil society has been brutalized, terrorized and degraded to a sub-social level.

Not only does this follow implicitly from the policy premise of power projection, the neoscum actually brag about it and lay the program in fairly specific terms under the newly minted rubric of Constabulary Missions.

If there were nothing more to the neocon weltanschauung than kicking butt it could perhaps be said that it propounded nothing that different from Hobbesian realism or Calliclean cynicsm -- although even in those case the exercise of power was presupposed to subserve some ulterior good. But even that slim saving grace is removed by the neocon doctrine of constabulary operations. Under this quaint and archaic term -- reminiscent of the avunvular, moustachioed Bobby in his tall hat -- the neocon collapse ends into means and means into routinized bullying and oppression. Constabulism is the essential sarcoma of the Neocon vision for Hell on Earth.

Waging Peace & Maintaining War

After setting forth constabulary operations as one of the four critical missions for the U.S. military, the neocon Manifesto goes on to describe this mission with a string of catch phrases and slogans asserting that the new mission requires the U.S. military to,

• be equipped for “long term constabulary operations”, which
• “secure and amplify zones of democratic peace”; and
• “shape the security environemnt and the early stages of any conflict.”

These constabulary missions are something apart from traditional full-scale theatre wars. Accordingly, the Manifesto declaims that it is necessary to ensure

“that [the army] is equal to the tasks before it: shaping the peacetime environment and winning multiple, simultaneous theater wars”

With respect shaping the peacetime environment,

“the first order of business ... is to establish security, stability and order[,]

and to do so,

“American troops, in particular, must be regarded as part of an overwhelmingly powerful force.”

However, establishing order is only one prong of the constabulary’s two prong mission of “securing and extending” zones of democratic peace. The execution of these constabulary missions requires military forces which are,

"configured for combat but [i.e. “and”] capable of long-term, independent constabulary operations.”

Combat against whom? Whenever a military amplifies a zone, it necessarily invades, incurs into and wages war against an adjacent zone, whatever it may called, although “terrorist zone” seems to be the current label. Thus this constabulary task requires one and the same forces to engage in peacekeeping and war-making at the same time in the same general region.

What the PNAC envisions is “an American led security order” consisting of ongoing zonal wars along what it calls the “American security frontier.” This frontier is not our border with Canada or Mexico, but Eastern Europe and the Middle East

“[T]he new opportunity for greater European stability offered by further NATO expansion will make demands on ground and land based air forces [a]s the American security perimeter in Europe is removed [sic] eastward...”

and

“The Pentagon must retain forces to preserve the current peace in ways that fall short of conduction major theater campaigns. such [constabulary] forces must be expanded to meet the needs of the new, long-term NATO mission in the Balkans, and other missions in Southwest Asia, [i.e. “the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region”]

Madcap as this policy is, it is only half the lunacy, because the PNAC explicitly rejects traditional notions of� "peacekeeping" which is why they coined the word “constabulary.” As the Manifesto itself states,

“Constabulary missions are far more complex and likely to generate violence than traditional ‘peacekeeping’ missions.”

Here, for anyone with eyes to read, the Manifesto tips its hand. What kind of constable generates violence? What is so “more complex” to normal “peace patrols”? To answer these questions, one must take a step back and examine historically accepted norms of international conflict.

Traditional peacekeeping operations fell into two broad categories. : (1) restoring civil order and services following conquest and occupation; or (2) acting as a buffer between belligerents. The German occupation of France and the subsequent Allied occupation of Germany are examples of the first variant, and the rules of this kind of peacekeeping are well established in international law. Generally speaking, the occupying army guards key installations in a low key fashion while it works with and relies upon pre-existing police departments and bureaucratic institutions to provide security and services as near to normal as possible. While the full convention of civil rights are not fully restored, the aim of a successful peacekeeping occupation is to be as unobtrusive and invisible as possible while yet maintaining control over the conquered State.

Buffer peacekeeping is the inverse. The goal is to remain as visible as possible to but to retain as little control (or responsibility) for the work of governing the territory in question. This is left to the contending parties in their respective spheres and is supervised only to the degree necessary to prevent further hostilities. In practice, this type of peacekeeping has proved problematic, but overall it has achieved some notable successes.

In light of these concepts, the dual task of securing and amplifying would ordinarily be interpreted as requiring both non-combat and combat missions; even if, as a practical necessity, these two distinct missions would usually be accomplished by one and the same military force. To be sure, this heteronomous dual-task is fraught with mission-confusion and screw ups which is why many traditionalist officers rankled at being required to do a job they saw as fundamentally non-military. Nevertheless, it is not such a dual task as has not been done before. Peacekeeping in conquered territory while “advancing the front” is nothing armed forces haven't done before.

However, this dual-tasking presented a problem for the PNAC authors because, in traditional terms, it required the military to discharge the fundamentally distinct missions of peace-keeping and war-making. Traditional peacekeeping was of no interest to the PNAC, which is the PNAC Manifesto explicitly rejected the concept of a post-combat peacekeeping mission, rather,

“these [constabulary] missions demand forces basically configured for combat.”

because the purpose of these missions is to

"remove [“hostile”] regimes from power and conduct post-combat stability operations. In purposes [sic], constabulary missions could be considered “lesser included cases”.

Lesser included of what? “Lesser included cases” was a term borrowed from law, where a simple assault with fists is said to be a “lesser included offence” of aggravated assault with a gun. Thus what the Manifesto explicitly states is that these peacekeeping (“constabulary”) missions are a lesser form of war.

Thus, constabulary forces

“will need sufficient personnel strength to be able to conduct sustained traditional infantry missions”

and

“They will need sufficient personnel strength to be able to conduct sustained traditional infantry missions, but with the mobility to operate over extended areas. They must have enough direct firepower to dominate their immediate tactical situation,”

The PNAC wanted a military that would “shape” the peacetime environment. Of course, the mission has nothing to do with “shaping peace” as a viable reality in itself. The word “peace” was thrown in here and there to lubricate the swallow. What is really at issue is “shaping the security environment” by which is meant shaping the conditions of those areas in which traditional military fighting is not taking place.

That is why “shaping the security” and “shaping the initial stages of conflict” could lie seamlessly along the the same spectrum. They weren’t distinct missions but different levels of the same mission.

That is also why “constabulary” non-peacekeeping was likely to generate violence. The phrase is uttered like a commonplace that ought to be accepted. Would anyone have thought otherwise? Actually, yes.

Customarily, it is not expected that traditional peacekeeping forces will generate violence. In fact it has not even been expected that they were likely to “meet with” more than occasional and isolated violence. The reason is simple. Victor and vanquished alike have an interest in resuming normal life once the battle is over. This does not mean that love and friendship reign; in fact, more than likely, hate and resentment will fester. But anyone who has experienced it hates war even more. War represents a disruption of normal life and hence a threat to life itself. People cannot live in a state of ongoing disruption and thus have a greater interest in the reestablishment of order, of fuel supplies, of food deliveries, of water, of medical services, of schools.

The only reason “constabulary non-peacekeeping”could be expected to generate violence was if it did not seek to restore normal life. Instead, the PNAC Manifesto anticipates ongoing hostilities both inside the newly acquired zone of democratic peace and outside it in seeking toe extend it. In other words, Constabulisim is simply ongoing war at another level. A lesser included case.

This is the first indication that the New American Century has made a radical departure from the structures of international law and conflict management evolved laboriously since Grotius. Everyhting the PNAC Manifesto says indicates that “constabulary” operations are to be regarded as simply a penumbra of war -- an ongoing violence generating “security shaping” within a zone of democratic peace.

Fighting A Lesser Included Peace

How does an army “shape” a peace? What does it mean to “shape the security environment.” The answer to this question is as nauseating as discovering the true meaning of “constabulism”.

Shaping a security environment is something that prison wardens do. It consists in prescribing lock-downs, conducting unannounced searches, the infliction of summary “lesser included” punishments, the imposition of conditions for minor benefits, and so on.

It was no lapse that PNAC talks of the army (constabulary) as “shaping the peace” and “shaping the security environment”. What is meant is that the military is going to control the parameters of existence outside any theatre of actual conventional war and the the “zone of democratic peace” is to be conceived as nothing more than a regional lock-down.

When the PNAC Manifesto speaks of a military capable of “long-term, independent constabulary operations” it means two things;

1) that the mission is not a temporary peacekeeping/ order maintaing operation until such time as civilian authority can be reestablished but rather that

2) it is an occupation which is independent from, unreliant upon and not answerable any civilian institution or authority.

The constabulary units are preeminent, supreme, and they alone decide what is to be. It also means that these military stompers and shapers are not dependent on our own related institutions which might be encumbered by statutory obligations or a feeble concern for norms of law. Constabulism is a law unto itself.

In order to shape the security environment,

“These forward-based, independent units will be increasingly built around the acquisition and management of information. This will be essential for combat operations – precise, long-range fires require accurate and timely intelligence and robust communications links – but also for stability operations.”

thus they should have,

“ have their own human intelligence collection capacity, perhaps through an attached special forces unit if not solely through an organic intelligence unit“

and should be configured with

"combat service support personnel with special language, logistics and other support skills."

because the units involved

“will require the ability to understand and operate in unique political-military environments, ...

and will be

“required to maintain peace and stability in the regions they patrol, provide early warning of imminent crises, and to shape the early stages of any conflict – precise, long-range fires require accurate and timely intelligence and robust communications links – but also for stability operations."

Once again it is necessary to unravel, the unique blend of contradictions the PNAC mavens have brewed up.

When the Manifesto makes reference to “forward-based, independent units” it is not talking, in the first instance, of forward striking forces landing, penetrating and invading new territory. The matrix of “zones of democratic peace” are themselves the “forward based” new “American security perimeter.” Thus, while the mission of the forces entails extending the security perimeter, what the Manifesto is here talking about is “security” operations within the forward based perimeter.

Of course, as has been shown, “secure and extend” are seamlessly connected operations; so seamless in fact as to result in weirdly constructed phrases like:

"shaping “the early stages of any conflict – precise, long-range fires require accurate and timely intelligence and robust communications links – but also for stability operations."

Striking out the part that refers to early stages of an extending operation, it becomes clear that what is called for is acquisition of sufficient intelligence “for stability operations” within the “peace” zone. To understand what this entails, we have to again pause to think about the meaning of words.

The word “intelligence” signifies a creature’s ability to use its mental faculties in an efficient, versatile, creative, and useful manner. In the 19th century the word began to be applied metaphorically to institutions which of course have no brain and cannot be said to be either intelligent or stupid. In this metaphorical sense, “intelligence” became practically synonymous with “knowledge of something” or “information”. However, the original sense was not entirely lost so that the word could also refer to an institution’s ability to gather information. -- which is the closest a corporate entity can come to having an IQ.

Traditionally speaking, military intelligence is concerned with acquiring information as to the location, size and battle plan of opposing theatre forces. As war became more industrialized, military intelligence also brought within its purview information as to armaments, production capacity and sustainability. But in all events “intelligence” was directed at an identifiable combatant enemy and sought specific types of information.

In the sense of “information” corporate, police, military intelligence also seeks knowledge of something specific and usually from specific parties or classes of people. Just as military intelligence seeks specific information about an identified opponent, so police intelligence plants undercover agents and spies upon specific people or groups reasonably suspected of engaging in specific crimes for information about those crimes.

Assuming that this traditional definition (more or less widely construed) fits with the task of "amplifying" zones of democratic peace, It has nothing to do with with the separate and distinct task of "securing" (i.e. traditional peacekeeping). Who is the enemy in a non-battlefield zone? Traditionally speaking there is no enemy; there is only a civilian population that is no doubt demoralized and resentful, but is not engaged in hostilities.

What is the “intelligence” to be gained? Certainly not “battlefield” intelligence because there is no battlefield within the zone of democratic peace. So, then, information about what and from whom?

When the Manifesto talks about “organic” intelligence units, it means that kind of intelligence acquired by penetrating into society; through infiltration on the one hand or extracting (detaining) people on the other. When it speaks of gaining an “understanding” of the “politico-military” environment what it means is acquiring information from anyone about anything. In contrast to the word “knowledge” -- which is always of something -- the word “understanding” is broader and encompasses awareness of a random range of variables. The term “politico military environment” simply means anything in the surroundings which could have a political or military implication -- i.e. anything.

Under the PNAC constabulary regime, information gathering is total and free form, encompassing anything of potential interest to brewing conflicts, (to be shaped) to an understanding of who is connected to whom in a given neighborhood. This is not “intelligence” in the traditional sense of finding answers to specific questions it is rather simply data mining. General free form information gathering.

The difference is critical because data mining means interrogating anyone in the security zone as a “potential suspect” not because he is a potential suspect or even an an actual one, but rather because anything he knows might be potentially useful, or as they say, is potentially usefully.

The difference is critical also because data mining -- once accepted -- simply destroys the concept of arbitrariness.

In traditional military or criminal intelligence there is always a specific suspect and question in mind. Rounding up people without a specific suspicion or specific question is consider “arbitrary” and unlawful. Who would want to live in a society where he or his wife or children could be yanked off the street and hauled off for questioning without specific cause much less notice, advisement?

But in the world of data mining no specific information is sought. What counts is is the possible relation between apparently unconnected and insignificant pieces of data. Since any person in the security zone can possess such a piece of connect able data no arrest is “arbitrary” and every one is a potential “suspect” in “possession of potential information” .

And of course since anyone is suspect of having potentially useful information howsoever useless it might seem to be at the moment, it is easy to forget why we are interrogating him altogether, and just simply beat him up by way of affirmative pacification.

As a result of the hybrid task, military intelligence gets twisted into meaning general unfocused intelligence run by the military in non-battlefield zones. in order to maintain occupation and prevent the eruption of resistance. “Intelligence” is metamorphosed into data mining which becomes the excuse for wholesale door smashing, draggings, detentions, interrogations and in general boot-stomping, boot smashing, ass kicking, terrorization of the population in general.

Confidence is the foundation of all civil society which cannot function without expectations of integrity, confidentiality and security “in one’s person, papers and effects.” Data-mining is under-mining. A society that is “organically” penetrated by spies, informers and extraction-actions is not society that has been “rebuilt” to be democratic and prosperous but one that has been subverted and consumed.

Under the PNAC’s new Constabulary Order the secured zone of peace is just as much in a state of violence as the extended zone of peace. The only difference is that the “enemy within” is more pathetically helpless than the “enemy without”.

Safety is War. Total Safety is Total War

It is not for nothing that the Russians have called the neocon manifesto another Mein Kampf. Forthrightly and without shame its sets forth a goal of global domination for its own sake. But next to neocon megalomania, Mein Kampf seems almost restrained and philosophical.

According to the Manifesto, the American led security-order will require the United States to

maintain multiple full theatre wars in conjunction with
long term constabulary operations
that secure and amplify zones of democratic peace
and shape security environment

and what this means has now become clear. But it is still only half the story. In in paroxyms of truly Strangelovian Joy, the PNAC mavens go on to declaim that the New American Security Order requires, us to

“CONTROL TH�E 'NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMONS" or SPACE AND “CYBERSPACE,”

Not only does the Manifesto call for” the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of space control” The PNAC’s goal of “space control” is to prevent anyone else from having access to outer space and to use outer space for the placement military weapons that can strike anywhere on earth from the push of a button in some bunker in Wyoming.

But even more lethal is the Neoscum’s call for military missions to be extended to the new “battlefield” of the internet.

The Manifesto begins by complaining that terrorist groups (including by its own count the EZLN peasant autonomy movement in Chiapas, Mexico) use the internet for “propaganda” and “recruitment”. The notion that “terrorists” are having applicants sign up through e-applications is, of course, inane. In reality, any recruitment occurs through the fact of propaganda, and propaganda is what free speech is all about. Although there are always problems when a Government starts to exercise so-called free speech, it can be assumed for the present that it would be equally legitimate for the United States or any other party to use the internet to make its own and contrary propaganda.

However, the “competitive market place of idea” as Justice Brandeis put it is not how the PNAC conceives of “cyberwar” None other than Donald Scumsfeld, signatory to the Manifesto, and currently Secretary of War, has stated that the U.S. military needs to engage in disinformation campaigns.

Just as data-mining is not the same as intelligence gathering, so too disinformation is not the same as propaganda. All propaganda is interpretative. It argues an interpretation of and from given facts. Almost everyone’s propaganda engages in some “fact-massaging” -- playing up those facts that are helpful to the argument and omitting facts that are inconvenient. Disinformation is far more toxic. It consists in planting false facts under false identities, or using false identities to generate conflict or confusion and to induce social disorientation. . Like a person spun around to the point of staggering dizziness, disinformed society is one that simply cannot function as social organism; it is simply humanoid putty.

Thus, in addition to destroying language so that “words no longer have their original and intended meaning” the neocons want to destroy information in general so that none of us any longer can say for sure that what is reported as fact was really a fact or only a lie. This is the ultimate heteronomy that destroys everything.

Not quite... there still remains your young son on the cusp of manhood.... The neocons call for radical reconfiguring of the Army in terms that exceed any Stangelovian orgasm

"Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated, climate-controlled, powered fighting suits, laced with sensors, and boasting chameleonlike “active” camouflage. “Skin-patch” pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focus concentration and enhance endurance and strength."

The PNAC plan for Neocon Youth calls for our sons to be turned into doped up murderous Borg units.

It is a fatal mistake to think of the Neocon movement as a political opposition that can be met on the customary field of polemical and electoral give and take. For only the brain of a monster, and not that of a man, could misconceive such a “Project” whose workings must finally bring about the collapse of human civilization and turn this world into a desert waste. No - this movement is an invasive disease and every single goddamn, misbegotten neocon, von kopf zum fuss, is a malignant, infected, stinking shit in vaguely human form. The devil himself would be revolted.

©Barfo, 2003

THUG POLITIK -- The Neo Con Agenda for a New American Century, Part I

Introduction

In several previous posts, I have reported on the Neocon agenda for the so-called “New American Century” as embodied in the PNAC report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, (Sept. 2000). Although this Neocon Manifesto has antecedents in Pentagon position papers drafted by Cheney in 1991-1992 (see U.S. Strategy Plan calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop, New York Times, 8 March 1992) and was later re-packaged into a tonier official verison (The National Security Strategy of the United States, Office of the President, September 2002.), the PNAC report remains the core expression of Bush Administration policy.

On its face, the Neocon agenda is merely an extension by degrees of existing US policies and geopolitical practices. Since its founding, the United States has pursued a policy of extending its zones of hegemony (viz., the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, etc..) But that difference of degree is one that now produces a difference in kind. The Neocon Manifesto does more than call for a continuation and “advancement” of existing policy, it insists on an enhancement of the means by which that that policy is to be accomplished. This “enhancement” is so encompassing and indifferent to other values that it metamorphoses into an end in itself so that the neocon agenda becomes a radical departure from existing practices and constitutes a threat to civilization itself.

Distilled to its infected essence, the Manifesto sets forth a nihilistic theory of might as the basis for “global” policy. According to the Manifesto, the goal of U.S. policy should be “preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. .military forces.” While “might is right” is an old and tiresome adage, what is new is the technological scope, purview and penetration of means by which power is to be exercised.

To “preserve and enhance this American peace” the Manifesto sets out four core military missions: (1) to defend the American homeland; (2) fight and decisively win multiple, (3) simultaneous major theater wars; perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions; (4) and to transform U.S. forces to exploit the technological advances.

In reality, however, the Manifesto’s ideological structure is much simpler. As shall be seen, it’s core principle is simply to project-power. From this it necessarily follows that the United States must seek to extend its hegemony . It also follows, of necessity, that U.S. policy (i.e. power projection) has to be exercised preemptively and unilaterally since there is nothing to negotiate or consult about. Lastly, it follows, that areas over which the United States has gained control must continuously be subjected to ongoing constabulary “shaping” in order to maintain U.S. dominance. This “Pax Americana” has nothing to do with lifting the world into a new era of shared prosperity and peace. It is simply an Orwellan nightmare of routinized state aggression and terrorisms.

Thug Staat was conjured up well before 9/11 and has nothing to do with the so called fight against terrorism or meeting an actual geopolitical threat. Although this agenda is framed in terms of geo-political policy, of political and practical necessity it has domestic applications and consequences. It is something Americans should be concerned with and which they ignore at their own peril.

The ensuing analysis focuses on the the Neocons themselves say explicitly in their Policy Manifesto and what the meaning and implication of their words is. But this linguistic analysis should be read in context of ongoing realities currently taking place.

I bring it up again, because altohugh the Report’s tenets are becoming more broadly known, it is sitll being treated as simply a think tank paper among many and as essentially a proposal for more defense spending. It is not generally seen as an encompassing policy paper whose objectives are being unfolded before our eyes. And it is not seen as a civil policy paper the aims of which is to revolutionize the US into a frank and unfettered police state

I

Power Projection, Preeminence and Preemption

Although occasionally and thinly masked as a crusade to bring the gospel of “American Values” to parts of the world languishing in despotism and darkness, the Neocon’s core policy objective is simply to project US power and “extend” so-called zones of democratic peace..

There is only one way to “project power” and that it is to use it -- to punch someone in the face. Power is not an idea and cannot be argued. Power is a physical substance in action -- in mathematical terms, mass x acceleration. While power can be alluded to and threatened, its “projection” requires exercising force against an opposite or yielding mass.

Power projection requires a projectee, something or someone against which power makes itself known. It is an interesting question whether power (as opposed to pure motion) can exist in a vacuum; but supposing it can, it is meaningless because in the absence of opposition there is no effectiveness to gauge. Even when we speak abstractly of “power” as a thing in itself, we necessarily imply its effectiveness over or against something. Power may subsist in a state of latency like a relaxed bicep; but to say “his arm is powerful” means nothing and conveys without envisioning even in the most general way the arm’s power overcoming the resistance of something.

Thus, if the Neocons had said no more they would have said it all. Everything else in PNAC doctrine is contained within and unfolds from the core premise of power projection, once that concept is fully contemplated and its brutal essence comprehended. Their core policy from which all else flows is simply to go about kicking ass. It is beside the point to speak of a “strategies” because power projection is not conceived as a means but rather stated as an end itself.

However, if there were any doubt that this was the intended meaning, such doubts were laid to rest by the PNAC Manifesto’s own repeated coupling of “power projection” with phrases such as “extend zones of democratic peace”.

In fact, stripped to its naked core, the Manifesto is a roll-call for Global Conflict and War. It calls upon the United States to be able to conduct multiple full theatre wares while also engaging in regional “stability” operations and while “deterring” “rogue states that might be able to resist while at the same time pushing America’s secuirty perimeter “eastward” against Russia.

“the first order of business in missions such as in the Balkans is to establish security, stability and order. American troops, in particular, must be regarded as part of an overwhelmingly powerful force."

In the Caucasus

“U.S. Army Europe should be redeployed to Southeast Europe, while a permanent unit should be based in the Persian Gulf region.”

In Europe

As the “American security perimeter in Europe is removed eastward, this pattern will endure, although naval forces will play an import ant role in the Baltic Sea, eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea, and States should seek to establish – or reestablish – a more robust naval presence in Southeast Asia, marked by a long-term, semi-permanent home port in the region,”

All of these places are considered to be the new “American security frontier” and although, when talking about military “capacities” the Manifesto appears to imply simply being prepared for potential conflict, its stated goals of “power projection” and its enumeration of specific “security zones”, make it abundantly clear that the PNAC Manifesto envisions a permanent state of global war.

When PNAC speaks of power projection it does not do so metaphorically. It does not mean the “power” of the American Example or the “projection” of ideas. It does not mean extending democracy through a shining example others will want to imitate; nor does it mean extending democractic values through coordinated work with and within international institutions and structures. It means none of that.

It also does not mean “projecting” power by way of demonstration as in the test exploding of an atom bomb or the proverbial shot across the bow. Strictly speaking such actions are simply threats rather than projections; but even assuming that the word “projecting” could be understood to include mere boasting, chest thumping and flag waving, the fact remains that the word “project” includes much more. In geo-political terms, the projection of power necessarily includes the projection of that power into other places.

The Manifesto unmistakably means to extend our zones of control by military means. That can only be done by projecting into someone else’s zone, which is what used to be called “war”.

It follows from the predicate principle of power projection, that diplomacy as a means of adjusting conflicts is irrelevant. The premise bears repeating. The neocon Manifesto does not subordinate the exercise of power as a means to some ulterior good; rather, power projection is the desired state. Once it has been decided that the goal is to project & extend, there is noting to consult about and nothing to negotiate. Unilateralism is the necessary correlative of power projection.

In fact, even as a means of collaboration, diplomacy is displaced because working with others presupposes accommodating their interests and accepting their advice. However, such collaboration can only serve to diminish the goal-state of U.S. preeminence. This does not mean that other countries may not be enlisted, like privates in an American Army, to do as we say. But for the U.S. to project its power, other countries as considered partners simply stand as a detraction.

The so-called Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes also follows as a necessary correlative. The logic is simple. Dominance requires submission. Power projection, necessarily entails diminishment of another. Full spectrum dominance requires a correlative full spectrum impotence. It follows that anyone else’s mere capacity to possibly resist us (however pathetically) is an afront to out full spectrum dominance and must be dealt with summarily as a matter of course -- i.e. preemptively.

“... weak states operating small arsenals of crude ballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction, will be a in a strong position to deter the United States from using conventional force, no matter the technological or other advantages we may enjoy. Even if such enemies are merely able to threaten American allies rather than the United States homeland itself, America’s ability to project power will be deeply compromised.”

“Potential rivals...and adversaries ... are rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they [sic] seek to dominate.”

“If the American peace is to be maintained, and expanded, it must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military preeminence.”

It is an amusing question who is the party seeking to “expand” or acquire dominance over any given region. What is clear is that the Manifesto sets out a policy of striking at any so-called “rogue regimes” that may “may wish to develop deterrent capabilities” by “cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force.” American preeminence demands no less!!

Of course, in any given case, a demand may be made before hand. But this is not the opening gambit for negotiations but simply the preliminary to a preemptive strike. In fact, as often as not, the demand for something impossible and alleged non-compliance is simply a preliminary designed for Homeland consumption.

The Manifesto does not rule out alliances but makes clear that they are only for the short term as they advance power projection. In other words cynically use others or institutional only as they are useful and utterly subservient to the demands of US power projection.

While here and there in the Manifesto traditional strategic and policy language can be found concerning American “interests”, the expansion of prosperity (for whom?) or the “prudent” use of force, these are mere retrograde hold-overs. The volume and tone of the PNAC report as a whole makes clear that diplomacy has been replaced with demand. The unecessariness of this substitution is beyond belief.

Following upon the earliest years of the Cold War, the United States was extraordinarily adept at using international institutions to advance its (corporate) interests. The whole rest of the world understood this perfectly. Only the ignorant morons that comprise the Amurkan electorate could come to the deranged conclusion the United Nations detracted from and infringed upon our interests. The UN and its agencies, the OAS and NATO, the World Bank, the IMF and scores of NGO’s all but do our bidding the world over. From time to time the U.S. has had to make minor adjustments of its bidding to accommodate the sensibilities of others. From time to time it has had to allow a bit of another’s bidding. For the price of such trivial and occasional compromises, international structures but serve to advance American (corporate) interests.

The Neocon dementia (and it is truly a psychotic derangement) is that even this is too much. Any give is weakness and detracts from “pre-eminence”. Such Anglican notions as primus inter pares, is alien to most of the neocons who have tortured the idea into primus supra omnes.

Are they right? If these institutions almost always do our bidding anyway, why bother with the pretence? Because manners are everything and pretences like manners serve useful purposes.

The fundamental pretence of diplomacy and international law is that all states are co-equal members of the Comity of Nations. Of course, on a positivist basis, it is utter nonsense. Gambia (wherever the hell it is) is nowhere near an equal of Holland, much less China. But receiving the Gambian ambassador with equal ceremony and listening with respect to the position of the Government of Gambia reminds us that right is not coterminous with might and that as often as not is to be found among the weak, the despised and the rejected among men.

Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae; et Esurientes implevit bonis.

Pretence requires us to listen to others’s concerns and to widen or narrow our own scopes to accommodate them. We will have to listen to the advice of others which may (mirabilis dictu) actually furnish us with something that ought to be considerd and which we in our preeminence have overlooked. Most importantly, keeping up the pretences requires us to dress our interests in rationales and arguments that acknowledge and conform to certain social principles, generally accepted ultimate goods and so on.

The punks of Thug Politik may think that this is just a matter of sound-good sound bites for a well full of applauding morons or tinsley lies to keep French Foreign Ministers at bay. It can be reduced to that, but well done the “rationale” implicitly accepts the the principle it argues.

Pretence is at the heart of the Rule of Law. As Aristotle put it two millenia ago, language enables us to “decide the just and unjust, the expedient and the inexpedient.” It enables us to come to conclusion by some means other than the growl, the tooth and the fang. We have language so that we can explain to others and listen to their complaints and in so doing we accept certain ineffable princples of equity, cooperation, respect. These foundation blocks of civilization require manners and are diametrically opposed to unilaterally kicking ass and preeminently doing what you want. But the neocon attitude is that power projection “is nothing to be ashamed about;” [sic] manners are a pansy Frenchie sort of thing.

Not only are unilateralism and preemption implicit in power projection, power projection as policy is fundamentally antithetical to the cellular structure of civilization.

©Barfo, 2003

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American Kampf

According to the Moscow Times, it is nothing less than an American Mein Kampf -- “it” being the “Rebuilding America’s Defenses -- Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century” a think-tank report from the New Citizenship Project, an offshoot of the conservative Bradley Foundation, a branch of Rockwell Automation, a former defense contractor.

For those who think of Mein Kampf as nothing but a racist rant, the comparison is inapt. For those who remember Hitler's book as an outline and argument for German geo-political hegemony, the comparison is not off the mark. The difference would be that whereas Mein Kampf spoke of dominating Europe for 1000 years, Rebuilding American’s Defenses speaks of controlling the world for a hundred.

The Report’s essential thrust is straightforward and hard: We won; We Rulez; It’s Gonna Stay that Way. The Report draws an unstated but boorishly obvious analogy between the United States and the Roman Empire. With little surprise, its thesis, argument and conclusion is that Pax Americana must be supported by American legions posted around the world and ready to cut the wheat whenever it grows too tall --- to quote Dionysus of Syracuse.

But it is what is lacking from the Report that reveals how miserably it falls short of the analogy it grasps at. There is not a word, not a single word, about Ara Pacis. Why, there isn’t even an iota about the sublimity of American Opera. Cecille B. de Mille may titillate adolescent males with images of clanking and trampling legions but the Augustan Peace, as it was known, was not made great and enduring by engines of war.

If the Roman Empire commands our historical respect now it is because in its day it galvanized the aspirations and consent of the Mediterranean world. Far more than legions, it was the diffusion of prosperity and cross cultural interchange that made for the Roman peace. It was to this that the Altar of Peace hailed with its embracing image of the goddess Roma suckling her infants, uniting East and West, conjoining farming with commerce, the ox and the lamb -- an image which was later morphed into the mothering spirit of Christian Civilization.

The difference between a thug and a statesman is the latter’s subordination of force to some greater goal that commands the aspirations and assent of the ruled. For the thug, and for the Orwellian State power is an end in itself. The report for America’s New Century draws no distinction between Augustus and Attila. It offers nothing more than an Altar of Power.

The Report’s preamble states the matter thus:

“As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world’s most preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: ... Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

“[What we require is] a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.

“Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But ... [i]If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests.”

What these “principles” and “interests” are, the Report does not say. Apart from one vague allusion to “liberty and democracy”, the switching ad hoc from one term to the other leads to the conclusion that the report’s authors see no real distinction between a principal and an interest. There is certainly no hint that the vexatiousness of having to choose between one and the other has ever crossed their minds.

The Report is more specific when it comes to what it calls “key findings”.

“This report, proceeds from the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces. ... The challenge for the coming century is to preserve and enhance this “American peace.”

The Report chastises the Clinton administration for jeopardizing this peace by failing to maintain “sufficient military strength” and it goes on to list the main military muscle programs it wants to see established. The Report continues,

“Fulfilling these requirements is essential if America is to retain its militarily dominant status for the coming decades. ... The true cost of not meeting our defense requirements will be a lessened capacity for American global leadership and, ultimately, the loss of a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity."

Of course these “findings” are not findings at all but simply conclusionary assertions. In the realm of bureaucratic and legislative reports, “findings” refer to the facts and circumstances of a situation or problem which need to be addressed. For example, the inability of 78% of college graduates to distinguish between a finding and a conclusion, would constitute a factual finding leading to a proposed revamping of college curricula.

Here, however, what is listed as an objective factual finding is simply the “belief” that America should continue to be top dog. American preeminence and power is attached to no other goal or aim or undertaking other than the maintenance of power seen as a good in itself.

The authors apparently regard this belief as so self-evident that it is sufficient to state, vaguely, further on that since the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been “no shortage of powers” seeking to undermine American leadership. “Like a boxer between championship bouts,” the report explains, America has rested and enjoyed the good life; but this is bad. It is bad because, the findings are “that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership.”

The role of the military in the post Cold War era is “to secure and expand the ‘zones of democratic peace;’ to deter the rise of a new great power competitor; defend key regions of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East; and to preserve American preeminence through the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies.”

All disciplines (as they are rather comically called) have a certain babble and cant which the disciples expect to hear and which lulls them into the conviction that they are engaged in some kind of dialectic rather than an articulated form of barking. Thus, at this point, past preamble, introduction and findings, it is well to ask exactly what the Report has offered over and beyond being written in some sort of knowing, authoritative style. Not much. It has told us that American power must be preserved and extended as a premise, means and end.

Having established the principle and interest of American preeminence, the Report outlines “four missions” of defense policy. These four missions are not framed as particularized military responses to distinct sets of geo-political issues. They are represent rather a sliding scale (“variables”) of military strikes and responses adjusted to the single and indiscriminate purpose of perpetuating and extending American global rule

According to the Report, the first of these missions is to insure “the safety of the American homeland.” The second is to retain “sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars” in Europe, East Asia, “the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region.” The third mission consists in maintaining a “constabulary” capacity by means of military outposts and “continuing no-fly-zone and other missions in Southwest Asia. ” The fourth is to introduce “advanced technologies into military systems” including “the prime directive .. . to design and deploy a global missile defense system” among other things.

The layout of these missions is somewhat misleading in that they appear to follow a traditional region-by-region defense hierarchy. The impression given is that they fall into two broad categories: a missile defense system defending the “homeland” on the one hand and military operations “elsewhere” on the other. Elsewhere, in turn, appears to divide into conventional, continental wars on the one hand and misc. ops. here and there to keep order among the natives, on the other.

However, that is not the Report’s framework notwithstanding the utterly bizarre reference to miscellaneous missions in Southwest Asia -- as if the third mission involved someplace other than “the Middle East and surrounding energy producing region.” It doesn’t. What the Report contemplates, in so far as the Middle East is concerned, is both large scale theatre wars and constabulary missions.

The Report also makes clear that these so called constabulary missions are not peacekeeping occupations after the sturm und drang. On the contrary, “[t]hese constabulary missions are far more complex and likely to generate violence than traditional ‘peacekeeping’ missions.” These missions “demand forces basically configured for combat.” While they should be equipped “with special language, logistics and other support skills” and while they should include their own intelligence components, “their first order of business is... to establish security, stability and order” for which reason they “must be regarded as part of an overwhelmingly powerful force.”

It is an odd constabulary that generates violence and what the report envisions is something in the order of a geo-political SWAT team. A combative strike force, less and leaner than “full-theatre” army groups, but one nevertheless fully complemented by naval, air and missile forces, capable of smashing enemy deterrence and establishing the stability and order of pax americana in any given region, at will.

Nor is SWATing seen as anything distinct in kind from missile defense. The Report is clarion clear in its call for “[b]uilding an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses” as “a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.” The layering would allow for missile defenses to be projected from elsewhere than the homeland and forms the ballast of the “overwhelming” force which the constabulary spearheads.

Stripped of the man-as-machine jargon, the four missions boil down to being able to smash and blast at what ever degree of force desired simultaneously if need be anywhere in the world.

Nor is this capacity seen as aimed at maintaining geo-political balances. The very term “balance” implies an equilibrium between contending forces. But the Report makes repetitively clear that the only balance it is concerned with is America’s undeterred preeminence....which is of course not a balance at all. Although the report carefully avoids talking about preemptive regime changes, it leaves little doubt that American preeminence should be pro-assertive. Thus, the curiously inverted meaning given in the report to the word deterrence.

Through the end of the Cold War, “deterrence” and “containment” were peas in the same strategic pod. They referred to defensive measures calculated to defend against and prevent attack or expansion. However, in the newspeak of the report, deterrence becomes a bad thing and refers to a state’s ability to resist American advances:

“In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities.”

A marvel of historical and linguistic inversion the sentence implicitly espouses the abandonment of any obeisance to the notion that American military policy is essentially defensive. If we have become “objects of deterrence” it is because our military policy is “projective”. Thus, what turns these states into “rogue regimes” is that they are a threat to the United States, and what makes them a “threat” is that they might be “capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force” which would make it more complex and difficult for the United States to project its power or “assert[ ] political influence abroad.”

“[W]eak states operating small arsenals of crude ballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction, will be a in a strong position to deter the United States from using conventional force, no matter the technological or other advantages we may enjoy. Even if such enemies are merely able to threaten American allies rather than the United States homeland itself, America’s ability to project power will be deeply compromised.”

“Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.”

To be clear in case one got lost: the purpose of a missile “defense” system is to project American power against rogue regimes that don’t get in line. Clearly, a no first use policy would take the intimidating bite out of this global maw of iron teeth; so while the report may not announce verbatim the nuclear first use policy announced by the Bush Administration earlier in 2002 it does so by implication notwithstanding the layered double-talk.

Once it is understood that the capacity for deterrence by others is a thing to be defeated, the nature of the “constabulary” also comes into focus.

Rather gratuitously at this point, the Report notes that “past Pentagon war-games have given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power and conduct post-combat stability operations.” In other words, in addition to “kick em out” and Pentagon’s military mission should be expanded to include “grind em down”.

Nor should there be any illusion of Pax Americana as somehow reflecting an international consensus. It is American preeminence we are talking about here. Thus, the Report states that the constabulary forces “demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.

"Nor can the United States assume a UN-like stance of neutrality; the preponderance of American power is so great and its global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys forces in Africa."

In this new world order, “diplomacy” (which the report mentions about twice) is little more than the demand before the punch.

Lest anyone think that there might be some limitation on American power projection based on the nature of geo-politics as the balance of forces at an inter-national level, the Report goes on to state that American preeminence includes maintaining “the general stability of the international system of nation-states relative to terrorists, organized crime, and other “non-state actors.” Enter the FBI as a global actor.

As if the foregoing were not sufficient evil for the day, the Report boldly goes where not even Mein Kampf dared to soar. American rule will not be limited to Earth. “The ability to assure access to space, freedom of operations space medium, and an ability to deny others the use of space” – must be an essential element of our military strategy.” “Space power” the report crows will be to the 21st century what sea power was to the 19th and to Teddy Roosevelt’s Big Stick.

The Report’s imperious reach does not end in outer space. It sinks its purview into cyberspace as well. “Any nation wishing to assert itself globally,” the report says, “must take account of this other new “global commons.”

“The Internet is ... playing an increasingly important role in warfare and human political conflict. From the early use of the Internet by Zapatista insurgents in Mexico to the war in Kosovo, communication by computer has added a new dimension to warfare. Moreover, the use of the Internet to spread computer viruses reveals how easy it can be to disrupt the normal functioning of commercial and even military computer networks. Any nation which cannot assure the free and secure access of its citizens to these systems will sacrifice an element of its sovereignty and its power.”

The conflation of two distinct issues -- viruses and ideas -- deserves attention. Although it may be a tad hyperbolic to associate a worm with the loss of sovereignty, one can assume for the sake of argument that a State has a police interest in insuring a virus-free internet. But the Zapatista use of the internet to publish their grievances and demands is quite a different matter. Free speech -- the publishing of one’s propaganda of choice -- was and remains one of the principal purposes of the Internet.

The Report seeks to entirely pervert this purpose. In the report’s view, the internet is simply another “dimension of warfare” and its use is something to be discussed in the same breadth as computer viruses.

The Report makes a brief and almost snide obbligato to a “host of legal, moral and political issues” involved before going on to make clear its view that:

“Taken together, the prospects for space war or “cyberspace war” represent the truly revolutionary potential inherent in the notion of military transformation.”

Oh wow...kewl. But having betrayed perhaps a little too much excitement, the report returns to its tone of feeling-less jargon:

“These future forms of warfare are technologically immature, to be sure. But, it is also clear that for the U.S. armed forces to remain preeminent and avoid an Achilles Heel in the exercise of its power they must be sure that these potential future forms of warfare favor America just as today’s air, land and sea warfare reflect United States military dominance.”

What are “these potential future forms of warfare”? That the military (or anyone for that matter) has a legitimate interest in protecting itself against viruses, hacking, code cracking etc. is beyond question. And because it is beyond question that is not what the Report is talking about. Nor is it talking about using computers to control missiles, calculate trajectories and so on. No; it is talking about "cyberspace war" and this can only mean controlling information and using mis-information.

When the Report speaks of the sovereign obligation to “assure the free... access” to the internet it means to includes assuring freedom from hearing the dissenting views of “insurgents” and providing a “safe-surfing” that favors America’s preeminence and power.

When the Report speaks of “the coming transformation of war made possible by new technologies” it is not simply talking about such nifty stuff like laser guided bullets and bombing cities with sticky goo but rather of finding ways to militarize as many things as possible, including data and information which will be subordinated to strategic goals where once they were thought of as servants of truth.

In the end, the Report is more interesting for what it does not say than for its 90 pages of circular and tedious formulations of the need to perpetuate and project preeminence and power. Not once does the Report reference any other higher or even just other value than having and extending power. It does not address world poverty. It does not address sustainable growth and ecological issues. It does not address, even in the tired panaceas of neo-liberalism , how America might provide some Ara Pacis which commands the hopes and relieves the miseries of the world. The report does not even address the narrower more selfish needs of assuring energy production and delivery.

It may well be the case that the world would be better off if everyone took to heart Socrates’ dictum that it is better to suffer evil than to commit it. But that postulation will not get very far around the beltway; and no “realist” would argue that the United States should not think about and plan for clobbering the other guy. But among reasonable men, clobbering is a means not an end; and by this is meant that it is calibrated and conditioned to a spectrum of goods and tradeoffs. The complete absence of any discussion of ends indicates that in the view of the Report’s authors the means of power is and end itself. Nor can a discussion of ends be sloughed off on the grounds that the only immediate concern was tools because means cannot be analyzed without reference to the requirements of the ends they are meant to subserve.

The absence of any discussion of values other than power per se makes the reader all but gasp for some raison d’etre behind layered, global, space positioned missile defenses backing up massive insert and destroy constabularies. The Report offers little more than open ended hints.

One of the interesting features of the report is the assumptions it makes concerning future theatres of operation. The Report is silent on Latin America and makes only one brief passing mention of Africa. It evidently considers the first to be under heel and the second to be unimportant.

The sense one gets from the report is that aside from our treaty obbligatos, the report does not envision any serious military exigencies in Europe. Although it mentions Europe as a potential major theatre there is little up front discussion of where any threat might come from or why the hostilities would erupt, given that the report acknowledges the demise of the Soviet Union. The clue is in the Report’s reference to the creation of a new “American security perimeter in Europe removed eastward.” The use of the word “remove” is cute. No doubt one could hear chuckles coming from the PNAC headquarters on Park Avenue. What is meant, obviously, is rolling back the Russian sphere influence and replacing it with a cordon sanitaire stretching from the Baltic states, through the Balkans and into the Caucasus and Central Asian underbelly. While the Report apparently thinks that the Russian will roll over like docile circus animal, it acknowledges a potential for all hell breaking loose in Europe.

The Report's next stated area of concern was the Pacific/East Asia theatre. However, it proffers no analysis of Sino-American relations nor any reasoning for its conclusion that the preponderance of American military force should refocused and redeployed toward the Far East. Bearing in mind Napoleon’s famous dictum , one can accept, at least in theory, that if a future “full theatre” threat to United States exists it would very likely come from China. One does not have to be a think-tank expert to realize that China, far more than North Korea and far more than the once Soviet Union, has the potential to present a military and economic challenge to America. Such a threat, involving economic and military factors with countries and locations as removed as India, Australia, Japan and Mongolia, would be rife with complexities, none of which are given even the most superficial analysis, other than to say that over the long term we should prepare to blow the hell out of the Far East.

Instead the Report tarries at length in what it disingenuously calls “Southwest Asia." Why so coy? It is hardly surprising that the Middle East would be designated as a possible theatre of conflict. What is noteworthy is that the Report does not make a single mention of Israel or of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead the Report asserts that instability in the region is entirely due to the “rogue” states of Iraq and Iran.

Astonishingly enough, the Report makes no claim that Iran or Iraq were supporting “terrorism”. It makes no claim that they were currently (September 2000) developing any kind of weapon of mass destruction, although it suspected they probably would like to. Instead the Report tacitly assumes the success of no-fly zones and daily bombing runs over Iraq. In final analysis the Report concedes that neither rogue Iraq nor rogue Iran present any serious danger to the United States, stating both candidly and cryptically “While none of these operations involves a mortal threat, they do engage U.S. national security interests directly, as well as engaging American moral interests.”

Moral interests? It is almost too much even for black comedy. What could possibly be meant?

“In the post-Cold War era, America and its allies, rather than the Soviet Union, have become the primary objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent capabilities. Projecting conventional military forces or simply asserting political influence abroad, particularly in times of crisis, will be far more complex and constrained when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force. Building an effective, robust, layered, global system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.”

Evidently the Report was so preoccupied with dancing around the Ally Who Shall Not Be Named, that it broke one of its ellipses. (Doubletalk can get confusing, but the Soviet Union was never an “object of deterrence” given the altered meaning of the word in the sentence.) What the paragraph says is that states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea are threats (to us) because they wish to be able to deter threats to themselves. Accepting for the sake of argument that another countries defensive capacities constitute a threat, the question remains how and in what way those capacities would amount to a threat to the United States? The answer given is that threat arises “when the American homeland or the territory of our allies is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force.”

Parsing the rationale, the Report argues that the American “homeland” could be subject to “minuscule ballistic missiles” cobbled together by “rogue regimes.” In other words, we should be concerned (on a prioritized basis) that North Korea or Iran or Iraq will launch a jumbo fire-cracker at the United States.

It is simply beyond inane and it contradicts the previous acknowledgement that Iran, Iraq and North Korea’s “deterrent” capacities do not present any “mortal” threat to the United States. There is only one state that could suffer any damage (if that) from garage-made mini-missiles. “America” got tossed into the disjunctive threat equation simply as a way of masquerading that the Report’s focus was on Israeli security in which, it asserts, we have a “moral” interest.

Thus while the Report asserts U.S. global and inter-planetary power projection as a pre eminent good anywhere anytime, the near-term geo-political interests it singles out is (1) the encirclement of Russia (including control over the energy regions in the Caucasus) and (2) the protection of Israel by destroying Iraq and Iran’s deterrent capacities.

The Report was finished in September 2000. It is not shy in its criticism of Clinton’s policies and assumes rather confidently that the next administration would be amenable to the “findings” presented.

The confidence of its authors was not misplaced. “The safety of the American homeland” has now become the Office of Homeland Security. The “rogue states” of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, have emerged as the Axis of the Evil. The Bush Doctrine on nuclear weapons has fleshed out the meaning of “nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamed of”. The Defense Department’s Office of Disinformation has given us a taste of “future forms” of information warfare; and the Patriot Act has given us a taste of just how difficult and complicated the administration considered that “host of legal, moral and political issues” concerning privacy and free speech. Last but not least, the administration’s lust for war with Iraq is giving us an example of the constabulary forces in action.

©Barfo, 2002