People's Democracy

Export Of Democracy: US Style --- III

Dipak Basu

IN his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbignew Brzezinski, advisor to Rockefeller and president Carter, has urged that the US should take command of Central Asia and its “enormous concentration of oil and gas reserves” in order to command all of Eurasia. Brzezinski noted that “a truly massive and widely perceived external threat” would be needed to incline the US public into a “supportive mood” for engagement in international war. That was in 1997, four years before the 9/11 attack on World Trade Centre in New York. Brzezinski remembered, “the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour” as providing just such a threat or pretext.

GOAL OF ABSOLUTE US SUPREMACY

In 2000 Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and current defense policy advisor Richard Perle were among authors of Project for the Next American Century (PNAC) papers, which repeated the goal of absolute US supremacy. Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all the other authors share ties to the oil-and-gas and/or pharmaceutical and/or weapons-of-mass-destruction industries.

PNAC also wrote in September 2000 that the US military should be transformed to a capability that let it “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars.” PNAC 2000 estimated that such a “transformation” would require defense spending to have “a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product, adding $15 billion to total defense spending annually.” PNAC 2000 added, one year before 9/11: “The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbour.” Following the “new Pearl Harbour” or “’9/11’”, the defense budget of the US rose to $345.7 billion in 2002, a 12 per cent increase from 2001. The defense budget was estimated to rise to $ 365 billion in 2003, not counting costs of war against Iraq.

UNILATERAL WORLD DOMINATION

In 2002, the first anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington was followed by the publication of a new National Security Strategy that begins with the affirmation: The United States possesses unprecedented --- and unequalled --- strength and influence in the world, and concludes with the warning, “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in the hopes of surpassing, or equalling, the power of the United States” (The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002). This blunt avowal that, the US is seeking ‘unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority’ has come as an unpleasant surprise to those who swallowed the idea that economic globalisation was being accompanied by the emergence of forms of ‘global governance’ that would overcome the centuries-old struggle for supremacy among the Great Powers. Condoleezza rice, George Bush’s national security advisor said that his administration would ‘proceed from the firm ground of the national interest, not from the interests of an illusory international community’ (C Rice, “Campaign 2000—Promoting the National Interest’, Foreign Affairs, January/ February 2000).

The group of potential rivals came from outside the Western bloc. Russia, though impoverished and descending into social and political chaos, remained a Great Power armed with thousand of nuclear warheads, sprawling across Eurasia, encompassing or bordering on vast energy reserves. More threatening still was China. The rapid economic growth of China gives the resources to build itself up as a major military power in the most geopolitical unstable region in the world. The expansion of NATO into East and Central Europe which took effect during the 1999 Balkan War performed some functions: (a) it legitimised the penetration of the economically and strategically crucial zone of Central Asia by a US-led NATO now authorised to undertake ‘out of area’ operation; (b) it amounted to a new strategy of encirclement directed towards a Russia.

The US initiated the 1999 Balkan War under the aegis of NATO without reference to the United Nations Security Council. The Clinton administration had already flouted the UN when it launched a bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 with the support of Britain and Kuwait. Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State for president Clinton justified an earlier cruise missile attack on Iraq by saying: If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We stand tall. We see farther into the future. (Quoted in C Johnson, Blowback, New York, 2000)

PRE-EMTIVE RETALIATION

This doctrine of ‘pre-emptive retaliation’ is enshrined in the National Security Strategy: “While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary to exercise our right of self defense by acting pre-emptively” (The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002). Vice president Dick Cheney, former secretary of state Colin Powell and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld ideologically related to the era of Ronald Reagan, president during 1981 to 1989. It was Reagan who denounced the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’ and authorised the CIA and the CIA and the Pentagon to support right wing guerrilla movements against Third World nationalist regimes in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and Afghanistan. Cheney, in March 1992 said, “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival….that poses a threat on the orde of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. Our strategy must now refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.” 

INDIFFERENCE OF RULERS OF INDIA

It is unfortunate that the policy makers of India are unmoved by these dramatic changes in Eastern Europe. The fate of Russia affects India in a very serious way. During the days of the Soviet Union, India had only one friend and ally in the world, the USSR, which helped India, quoting Mrs Indira Gandhi, to indusrialise and defended India from total defeat in possible attacks from China and the US during the Indo-Pak war in 1971. Although Russia today is different from the erstwhile USSR and has accepted China as a major trading and defense partner, Russia always since the days of prime-minister Primakov in 1998, has the idea of a three country alliance of China, India and Russia against the supremacy of the US. The three-country alliance was not earlier feasible due to mutual distrust between China and India, but a multi-country alliance with India, Russia, and the central Asian states is still possible

Inclusion of Pakistan as the major non-NATO ally of the US with similar status as Australia, Japan and South Korea, may to neutralise the threat posed by the alliance of USA and anti-Indian counries in the Middle East – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Turkey. The inclusion of Ukraine into NATO is a blow for Russia, from which it may not emerge undamaged. If Ukraine, which is almost Slavonic, can be taken out of Russian sphere of influence, other areas within the Russian Federation with mixed nationalities can also be encouraged to break away from Russia. The eventual destruction of Russia will leave India vulnerable to the mercy of an alliance of USA, the EU Australia and the Middle-East countries. That will undermine the integrity of the Indian nation itself, which is also a multi-ethnic multi-religious country like Russia. During the crisis in the former Yugoslavia Vajpayee made the remark that “Kosovo has opened our eyes.” However, BJP is indifferent to the impending catastrophe that is unfolding in the Eurasian landmass, the approach of the Congress party is not very different from that of the BJP.  

        (Concluded)