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Number 23, November 2003
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 23, November 2003
CURRENT
US HEGEMONY IN ASIA PACIFIC
- Bobby Tuazon
This is based on a paper bearing the same title that
was first read as a Power Point presentation during a
Workshop on Asia-Pacific, sponsored by Bayan and the
International League for Peoples' Struggle, at the
Conference on War and Globalisation on March 1, 2003,
held at the School of Economics, University of the
Philippines, Quezon City. The conference was sponsored by
IBON Foundation. Bobby Tuazon works at the Center for
Anti-Imperialist Studies. It was written during the build
up to the Iraq War. Ed.
Over the past two decades particularly after the fall of
the Soviet Union and the Eastern European revisionist
bloc of countries, the United States has waged wars and
covert operations in many countries. Unlike during the
40-year Cold War when such actions had to contend with
impediments arising from the Soviet veto power in the
United Nations and by the existence of strong liberation
movements, the recent years saw the United States
displaying its unipolar power with arrogance and
self-righteousness.
We have seen this, for instance, in its wars against
Afghanistan and Iraq where President George Bush, the
Pentagon and the State Department have time and again
declared or hinted that they will not be bound by
international law, by institutions like the United
Nations, or by world public opinion including appeals by
Pope John Paul II and the former South African President,
Nelson Mandela, as they decided the fate of Iraq in the
pretext of disarming Saddam Hussein's regime of weapons
of mass destruction (WMDs). And as the whole world
knows, not one single WND has been found in Iraq by the
US and its fellow colonisers. Ed.
To a growing number of people in the world today,
however, it is clear who the greatest threat to
international peace and security is. Eight out of ten
Americans, according to a recent Time magazine
poll, see the US as the world's greatest threat. Very
distant second and third are North Korea and Iraq,
respectively.
Many people, whether here at home or abroad, ask what
really drove George Bush and other superhawks in their
tenacity and arrogance to attack a nation of 26 million
who continued to suffer the effects of the 1990-1991 Gulf
War, years of economic sanctions and deprivation and
continuous bombings despite fruitless calls from UN
members to stop what appeared to be an insane war. A
former Justice Minister of Germany likened Bush to Adolf
Hitler. Nelson Mandela doubts that Bush can think
coherently. These are of course remarks by leaders meant
to warn the world about a cowboy and a Rambo gone
berserk.
There is no question that the war on Iraq had another
agenda to it, which is in relation to the control of oil
and the perpetuation of American hegemony and world
domination.
I will not dwell on the economics of the US war on Iraq
and instead share some insights related to the greed of
the Bush Administration to perpetuate American hegemony
and world domination. First of all, the US war on Iraq,
dubbed as the continuing "War On Terror," is
part of a coherent world strategy that was conceived more
than ten years ago.
Roots Of The Grand Strategy
The Bush regime's grand strategy for domination and
hegemony of the world extends beyond the "War On
Terror". This ambitious strategy can be traced in:
the Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) of 1992 and the Project
for a New American Century (PNAC), founded in 1997.
The DEFENSE POLICY GUIDANCE of 1992 is a top secret
blueprint for world domination prepared by the Department
of Defense (DoD), of then US President George Bush
Senior. Its vision is a world dominated by the unilateral
use of US military power to ensure Pax Americana; to
assert the US national interest; and prevent the rise of
any possible power competitor for the future.
DPG particularly stresses that America will not be bound
to its partners and to international laws and
institutions while it stresses a more unilateral and
pre-emptive role in attacking its perceived enemies
(terrorist threats and confronting rogue states seeking
weapons of mass destruction or WMDs).
The blueprint also says that a war on terrorism must be
launched. This war to be launched by the American Empire
must be seen as a façade and just a part of a bigger
strategy of projecting US military power around the
world, especially Eurasia, and cutting loose the
multilateral bonds that have constrained Washington's
freedom of action and power.
The PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY (PNAC, 1997), on
the other hand, envisions to consolidate and preserve Pax
Americana through the 21st Century primarily by military
power/hegemony and secondarily, by economic hegemony. In
other words, to create a truly global empire by military
force. "At no time in history has the international
security order been as conducive to American interests
and ideals. The challenge of this coming century is to
preserve and enhance this 'American peace,'" its
vision partly says.
In 2000, an election year in the United States, the men
behind PNAC came up with a report, "Rebuilding
America's Defenses - Strategy, Forces and Resources for a
New Century". Its authors acknowledged that the
paper was based on the 1992 DPG.
Four Core Missions
The "Rebuilding" report has Four Core Missions
for US military forces:
• Defend the American homeland;
• Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous
major theatre wars;
• Perform the "constabulary" duties
associated with shaping the security environment in
critical regions;
• Transform US forces to exploit the
"revolution in military affairs".
To carry out the Four Core Missions, the United States
must:
• Maintain nuclear strategic superiority globally;
• Increase active-duty strength of today's force
from 1.4 million to 1.6 million;
• Reposition US forces by shifting permanently-based
forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by
changing naval deployment patterns to reflect growing US
strategic interests in East Asia;
• Modernise current US forces selectively (such as
sending more attack submarines to Asia; more electronic
support, helicopters and aircraft for the Marine Corps);
• Develop and deploy global missile defences in
order to provide a secure basis for US power projection
around the world;
• Control the new "international commons"
of space and cyberspace and pave the way for the creation
of a new military service - US Space Forces - with the
mission of space control;
• Exploit the "Revolution in Military
Affairs" (RMA)
• Increase defence spending gradually to a minimum
level of 3.5% to 3.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP),
adding $US15 billion to $US20 billion to total defence
spending annually.
Specifically, the PNAC project also advocates:
• A much larger military presence spread over more
of the globe, in addition to the roughly 140 nations in
which US troops are already deployed;
• The US needs more permanent military bases in the
Middle East, Southeast Europe, Latin America and in
Southeast Asia (where no such bases exist);
• The US will consider developing biological weapons
in decades to come;
• Iraq is just the beginning, a pretence for a wider
conflict (probably more "regime removals") in
the Middle East;
• In Iraq, according to PNAC co-chair Donald Kagan,
the US will establish permanent military bases in a
post-war Iraq. "We will probably need a major
concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long
period of time...If we have force in Iraq, there will be
no disruption in oil supplies".
• Pinpoints Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran
as "dangerous regimes".
The Brains Behind DPG & PNAC
DEFENSE POLICY GUIDANCE (1992):
• Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (now Vice President)
• Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Secretary of Defense)
• I Lewis Libby (now Dick Cheney's chief of staff)
PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY (1997) Founding
Members:
• Dick Cheney (now Vice President)
• Donald Rumsfeld (now Secretary of Defense)
• Paul Wolfowitz (PNAC's ideologue, now Defense
Deputy Secretary)
• Condoleeza Rice (now National Security Adviser)
• Zalmay Khalilzad (an Afghan Central Intelligence
Agency [CIA] asset who became senior director of the
National Security Council; more recently, Bush's special
envoy in Kabul to follow up oil pipeline project)
• Jeb Bush (brother of George and Governor of
Florida)
• John Bolton (now Under Secretary of State)
• Stephen Cambone (now head of Pentagon's Office of
Program, Analysis and Evaluation)
• Eliot Cohen & Devon Cross (now members of
Defense Policy Board, which advises Rumsfeld)
• Dov Zakheim (now Comptroller for the Defense
Department)
• Bruce Jackson (now with Lockheed Martin, a major
defence contractor)
• William Kristol (of the conservative Weekly
Standard which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, international
media owner and a leading supporter of the war against
Iraq)
• Donald Kagan (also ideologue, now co-chairs PNAC)
Some of the DPG and PNAC men are old Asia hands, i.e.,
those who have advocated a more aggressive and
militarily-oriented US hegemony in Asia including
Southeast Asia. The men behind DPG and PNAC, led by Bush
himself, lead the elite circle of 100 powerful men who
occupy the top positions of the US government bringing
with them their connections to the oil industry and the
military-industrial complex.
PNAC, meanwhile, gave birth to the Committee for the
Liberation of Iraq, which funded anti-Saddam opposition
and heir presumptive, Ahmed Chalabi (an Enron-like
businessman wanted by Jordan for bank fraud).
For more on Chalabi, read Foreign Control Watchdog
102, May 2003; “Stop Thief: Sadly It’s A Common
Story. A Desperate Addict Turns To A Life Of Crime”,
by Murray Horton. It can be read at www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/02/06.htm. For more on Rupert
Murdoch’s support for the Iraq War, read Watchdog
103, August 2003; “Who Owns New Zealand’s News
Media? Can We Afford To Let Them Own Our News?”, by
Bill Rosenberg. This can be read online at www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/03/07.htm . Ed.
PNAC is staffed by men linked to groups like Friends of
the Democratic Center in Central America which backed the
US's bloody covert operations in Nicaragua and El
Salvador in the 1980s; and the Committee for the Present
Danger, which during the 1980s under President Ronald
Reagan pushed for a "winnable" nuclear war with
the former Soviet Union.
Bush's Strategies And Doctrines
When George Bush took over as President of the United
States in 2001, the DPG and PNAC became a reality.
Translating the two blueprints for US global hegemony and
domination in just two years of his presidency, Bush
defined his government's military strategies and
doctrines:
• National Security Strategy (NSS, September 17,
2002)
• Pre-Emptive Doctrine (June 2002, West Point
speech)
• Nuclear Posture Review (January 2002)
• Quadrennial Defense Review of 2001 (September 30,
2001)
• Theory of Less Casualties, New Weapons Technology
and the Training of Surrogate Armies
• Unilateralism and the Manipulation of Temporary
Coalitions
• Regime Change or Regime Removal
Basically, the Bush regime's world strategies and
military doctrines assert American internationalism
(spreading America's "democratic values"
throughout the world) and unilateralism in which the
United States will not be bound by international law and
global institutions or by invocations of national
sovereignty and territorial integrity; warn against
potential competitors who intend to challenge American
unipolar power; the acquisition of more bases and
military stations beyond Western Europe and Northeast
Asia; the right of the US to strike first against
security threats (pre-emptive doctrine) under which the
US is justified to use nuclear weapons; increase
America's forward deployed forces and the conduct of more
military trainings and joint war exercises.
America's Economic, Geopolitical And Military
Interests In Asia Pacific
For more than a century, America has considered itself
the dominant hegemonic Power in Asia Pacific, having
conquered American Samoa, Hawaii, Guam and the
Philippines and invaded China to repress the 1900 Boxer
Rebellion; it has also fought three major wars in Asia -
Vietnam, Korea and the Pacific War of World War 2. US
trade with Asia Pacific surpasses that with Europe, with
more than $US500 billion in trade and investment of more
than $US150 billion. About 400,000 US non-military
citizens live and conduct business in the region.
Meanwhile, SOUTHEAST ASIA (population: 525 million) has a
combined Gross National Product (GNP) of $US700 billion
and is America's fifth largest trading partner and $US35
billion direct investment (1998) in the Philippines,
Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore; most of Fortune's
Top 500 transnational corporations (TNCs) have
significant interests in the region. There are vast oil
and gas reserves in Indonesia and Brunei; as well as in
Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.
To the United States, furthermore, Southeast Asia is
"a place of great geopolitical consequence"
because it sits astride some of the world's most critical
sea lanes. According to the Council on Foreign Relations
which advises Bush, “more than $US1.3 trillion in
merchandise trade passed through the Straits of Malacca
and Lombok in 1999 (nearly half of the world trade)
including crucial supplies from the Persian Gulf to
Japan, South Korea and China. The South China Sea,
particularly the Spratly and Paracel island groups, are
believed to have significant oil reserves".
These sea lanes are a strategic part of the network of
oil extraction, production and distribution which is
being consolidated by the United States linking the
Caspian and Gulf regions, Asian oil and natural gas
fields and markets and the American mainland.
Bush Regime Strategic Thinkers/Advisers/Power
Players Specialising In Asia Pacific
• RAND Corporation (funded by Pentagon particularly
US Air Force; formerly chaired by Donald Rumsfeld with
Zalmay Khalilzad as senior consultant);
• Council on Foreign Relations;
• Center for Security Policy (which is also
identified with Rumsfeld) - headed by Frank J Gaffney
Junior with eight top chief executive officers [CEOs]
from defence contractors on its board);
• Carlyle Group (headed by Frank Carlucci, ex-Deputy
Director of CIA and former Defense Secretary of Reagan;
with former US President, George Bush Senior, and former
Philippine President, Fidel Ramos, as Asian advisers).
Carlyle is actually the US's 11th largest defence
contractor with significant interests in Asia;
• Heritage Foundation (official Rightwing think tank
of the Republican Party)
In 2001, RAND came up with a report, "The United
States and Asia: Toward a New US Strategy and Force
Posture" (Lead Author: Zalmay Khalilzad). This
report recommends shifting US forces toward the
Philippines, Guam, Southeast Asia and other countries
close to Taiwan.
A year earlier, this think tank in a report, "The
Role of Southeast Asia in US Strategy Toward China,"
also stressed that China's emergence as a major regional
power over the next 10-15 years could intensify US-China
competition in Southeast Asia and increase the potential
for armed conflict. "Economic growth in the region,
which is important to the economic security of the US,
depends on preserving American presence and influence in
the region and unrestricted access to sea lanes,"
RAND said.
The COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, on the other hand, in a
Memorandum to Bush in May 2001 ("The US and
Southeast Asia: A Policy Agenda for the New
Administration") argued for a more assertive US
military stance in the region: "The (Bush)
Administration should preserve a credible military
presence and a viable regional training and support
infrastructure" specifying "high-priority
efforts" in the areas of "joint and combined
military training exercises and individual and small
group exchanges and training".
The HERITAGE FOUNDATION also said that the "war
against terrorism" would ultimately be pursued in
Southeast Asia with or without the express approval of
local governments.
Again, PNAC envisions some specific operative plans for
Asia Pacific:
• In Asia, deploying more troops to beef up the
presence of 100,000 US forces to address new challenges
for the 21st Century;
• Key to coping with the rise of China to
great-power status is the increase in military strength
in East Asia and Southeast Asia;
• A heightened US military presence in Southeast
Asia will provide the core around which a de facto
military coalition (a la the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation [NATO]) will be formed;
• Reduce the frequency of aircraft carrier presence
in the Mediterranean and the Gulf while increasing US
Navy presence in the Pacific;
• For this reason, it is preferable, for strategic
and operational reasons, to create a second major home
port for a carrier battle group in the southern Pacific -
in the Philippines or Australia;
• Establish a network of "deployment
bases" or "forward operating bases" to
improve the ability to project force to outlying regions.
Prepositioned materiel would speed the initial deployment
and improve the sustainability of US forces when deployed
for training, joint training with the host nation, or
operations in time of crisis. (e.g. the Military
Logistics Supply Agreement, between the US and the
Philippines).
The CARLYLE GROUP, which is worth $US13.5 billion, a
private empire which operates in the shadows of
government, military and industry and spans three
continents including Asia; owns companies making tanks,
aircraft wings and other military hardware.
In the company are former US President George Bush Senior
(head of the Asia advisory board); former British Prime
Minister John Major; Frank Carlucci, who was President
Reagan's Defense Secretary; former Philippines President
Fidel Ramos (Asia advisory board); and other world
leaders.
Carlyle has large investments and big acquisitions in
South Korea, Taiwan and China. Carlyle has a $US4 million
infrastructure project in the southern Philippine island
of Basilan, part of the joint US/Philippine military
exercise, Balikatan 02-1, held in 2002.
Summary
At this point, let me summarise that most public
declarations and policy statements made by the US
government emphasise that the targets of America's
current security objectives are to prevent the rise of a
regional hegemonic Power like China, "regime
change" in North Korea for possession of weapons of
mass destruction (WMDs), to wage war against
"transnational terrorism" and insurgencies and
other security threats.
But the secret reports, security strategies and doctrines
of the US government that give emphasis on the use of
military power reveal beyond reasonable doubt that the
main objective is to consolidate and preserve US hegemony
and domination in Asia Pacific and the whole world. The
objective is to prolong Pax Americana through the 21st
Century.
Current US Hegemonic Operations In Asia-Pacific
• US maintains the largest military command here (US
Pacific Command [PACOM]). PACOM interacts with the armed
forces of 14 of Asia Pacific's 45 countries;
• The number of US troops on land and afloat in the
region has surpassed those forward deployed in Europe:
100,000 troops are based in Japan (60,000) and South
Korea (37,000), with the rest in Guam, afloat or on
various attachments.
• US-Japan alliance - the lynchpin of US security in
the region, with Japan playing an increasingly aggressive
role;
• Bilateral military alliances with Australia,
Thailand and the Philippines; reinforced by access or
basing agreements with Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and
Sri Lanka;
• A stronger military partnership with Australia;
• New strategic partnership with India and Pakistan;
• Plan to reinstall its military bases in Southeast
Asia (either in the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia,
Indonesia or Singapore)
• Laying the ground for a regional military alliance
or treaty in the guise of fighting terrorism
The September 11, 2001 events, which ignited Bush's
"war without borders" (or "Operation
Enduring Freedom") were seized upon by Bush to
reverse the decline of the US military presence in Asia
Pacific and to aggressively assert US hegemonic
interests. They:
• Opened the "second front" in Bush's
"war without borders" using the Philippines as
a template (or model) for greater military presence and
power projection in the region. The Philippines will
serve as the epicentre in the new US military strategy in
the circumference of Asia Pacific.
• Increased military aid to Taiwan, Indonesia, the
Philippines and other countries; increased arms sales;
• Increased military training and funds to support
these;
• Increased "forward deployed forces" and
enhanced their capability through the deployment of
Special Operations Forces, covert operations, war
materiel and other equipment;
• Launched offensive moves against North Korea,
hastened plan to build a missile defence system in the
Korean Peninsula.
Conclusion
US hegemony in Asia Pacific is a reality and is the
concrete expression of an American Empire that is
undergoing consolidation with a vision that will last
through the 21st Century.
I submit that the debate on whether there is really US
imperialism or a global American Empire should now be put
to rest. In the United States itself, there is a growing
advocacy or acceptance even in many conservative circles,
institutions, think tanks, universities and media that
there is indeed an American Empire. The only distinction
which they want the world to believe is that, unlike
empires in past centuries, this American Empire is
"benign" and "benevolent" and is
performing a role which no other nation can in order to
preserve "democracy and freedom" across the
globe and resist threats posed by "evils,"
"rogue regimes" and forces of radicalism.
But this American Empire is something the American people
themselves loathe simply because they also suffer under
the rule of the US oligarchs and their freedoms and civil
liberties continue to be threatened. It is an empire
imposed upon the world by America's ruling regime on
behalf of corporate giants, the military-industrial-media
complex, oil oligarchs and other elite interests. It is
an empire that is supported by Rightwing power players,
militarists, free market ideologues, Jewish
neo-conservatives, leaders of the Christian and Catholic
Right and anti-socialists. Under Bush the
military-industrial complex is no longer invisible - it
has become the most visible, most articulate and most
aggressive driving force behind America's wars for world
hegemony and domination today.
In order to preserve the American Empire that will rule
the world for as long as can be sustained, the
strategists and politico-military leaders of this grand
project are more and more relying on the use of military
power precisely because America's economic power is on
the decline. America's Rightwing leaders and militarists
believe that economic impositions through the instruments
of the Bretton Woods institutions (the International
Monetary Fund, World Bank, General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade-World Trade Organisation) no longer suffice to
preserve American hegemony and domination of the world.
With arrogance and self-righteousness, they believe that
the American Empire cannot exist under current
international law, ethical concepts, multilateralism and
global institutions like the United Nations because of
the constraints and impediments that these pose on
America's will and action. To them, concepts of national
sovereignty, territorial integrity, self-determination
and dignity are just concepts best learned only in
school. To them, the concept of Pax Americana should be
asserted through unipolar military superiority,
warlordism, aggression, moral absolutism and a global
ideological offensive using US media oligopolies. Their
ideological offensive centres on drumming up an
apocalyptic conflict between "Good and Evil".
It is clear how this strategy is being applied in Asia
Pacific and across the globe under the Bush
Administration and I personally do not see any change
coming even if Bush is no longer President of the United
States. Using the pretext of "war against
terrorism" and other so-called threats to the
security of the region, the US government is increasingly
and steadily deploying its forces, rebuilding its
military bases, securing stronger and more reliable
military alliances and security partnerships, gaining
more access to ports, airfields and air spaces. But soon
the combat missions that we now see in the Philippines,
particularly in Mindanao, will be replicated throughout
the Philippines, in Southeast Asia and other parts of the
Asia Pacific. America's objective in Asia Pacific is to
maintain a strong military power never seen before in the
entire history of the region.
US military power in the region addresses the American
Empire's strategic objectives to contain the rise of
power competitors such as - but not limited to - China,
and deter the growth of other threats to its hegemony
including revolutionary movements and the rise of
independent regimes.
Because Asia Pacific is a vast mass of land and sea
territory with huge economic and geopolitical potentials,
and because it is contiguous to the American mainland and
its Pacific territories, this region remains of strategic
interest to the United States. Without a strong power
projection in Asia Pacific, America's drive for global
hegemony and domination will be threatened.
To the peoples of Asia Pacific however the threat to
their independence and security is and will always be US
imperialism. So much blood has been spilled because of US
imperialism, which has been asserting itself here for
more than a century. The independence, sovereignty,
freedom, self-determination and economic growth of many
nations - including the possible reunification of
countries divided by post-WW2 US intervention in the
region - are always threatened because of US imperialism.
Tensions and instabilities particularly in the Korean
Peninsula, between China and Taiwan, and other hot spots
in the region are heightened because of US
interventionism.
But, just as the previous world wars led to the rise of
independence and liberation movements throughout the
world, the US "war on terrorism" has led to the
reawakening of the peoples of Asia Pacific to the real
threat to humanity. More and more peoples are standing up
against US imperialism. Especially in Muslim countries,
the "war against terrorism" is beginning to
appear as a war against the world particularly against
Muslims who oppose foreign domination. Today, the more US
imperialism displays its arrogance and military power,
the more resistance it will generate.
George Bush has declared a "war against
terrorism" - a "war without borders" and
without time limit. This, he said, is America's "war
of the century." Let us instead turn America's
"war of the century" into the "Century's
War Against US Imperialism".
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