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Hi-Tech Warfare with China?
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6 April 1997
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Rapid development underway of hi-tech US arsenal
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Elias Davidsson forwarded me an interesting article, "The Future of
Warfare", The Economist (March 8). It delves into the subject of hi-tech
warfare, of which Desert Storm, we are told, was but a primitive prototype.
The most advanced elements are still only in the idea stage, but others are
well along in development, or already deployed, and the whole program is on
a fast-track priority by the US military. The impression is given, and I
believe rightly so, that the results will be formidably potent - not at all
like the dubious, premature, Star Wars project of the Reagan era.
Highlights:
The world is in the early stages of a new military revolution.
The technologies include digital communications, which allow data
to be compressed; a "global Positioning system" (GPS) of satellites,
which makes more exact guidance and navigation possible; radar-
evading "stealth"; and, of course, computer processing...
...over Bosnia the Americans have deployed JSTARS, a ground-
surveillance system in the sky: a single screen can display,
in any weather, the position and type of every vehicle within
an area 200 kilometres (125 miles) square...
A system of systems
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The revolution in military affairs revolves around three advances.
The first is in gathering intelligence. Sensors in satellites,
aircraft or unmanned aircraft can monitor virtually everything
going on in an area. The second is in processing intelligence.
Advanced command, control, communication and computing systems,
known as C4, make sense of the data gathered by the sensors and
display it on screen. They can then assign particular targets to
missiles, tanks or whatever. The third is in acting on all this
intelligence in particular, by using long-range precision
strikes to destroy targets. Cruise missiles, guided by satellite,
can hit an individual building many hundreds of miles away...
The Pentagon already has, or is developing, most of the technologies
required for space weapons. For instance it has just awarded a $l.l
billion contract for an airborne laser to hit ballistic missiles.
if that technology works, it could be adapted for a satellite...
Aircraft carriers, like other surface ships, risk being sunk by
cruise missiles. Some will be replaced by "arsenal ships", semi-
submersible, stealthy barges, carrying hundreds of missiles but
few sailors...
What's the point of this arsenal?
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There are many more details to the article, but what may be of broader
interest are the WHY questions ... What is all this for? ... Why the
urgency? The Economist's own answers to these questions are woefully
misinformed on almost every point:
This embryonic revolution, unlike the development of nuclear
weapons, has not emerged in response to any particular threat
to the United States or its allies. It has come about because
it is there that is, because generals want to play with new
technologies in case a future threat emerges. In that it may
resemble Blitzkrieg, which was based on the technologies of the
1920's, when defence budgets were declining and there seemed
little prospect of another world war.
Nuclear weapons were developed (Manhattan Project) not, the record seems
clear, because of any particular "threat", but as a key part of the American
elite's intention to actively dominate the post-war world. Intelligence
sources knew the Nazis weren't getting anywhere with their own nuclear
research, and this fact was intentionally withheld from the scientists at
Los Alamos, who were manipulated into urgency "lest Hitler use the bomb
first".
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both of which had
intentionally been spared conventional bombing, so that test results would
be accurate, accomplished live-target tests of the U235 and plutonium device
prototypes, as well as demonstrating to the world (primarily the Soviets,
one can presume) the will and ability to project power in such a way.
Similarly, Germany's blitzkrieg weapons were not idle technological
developments, carried out with little prospect of oncoming conflict.
Krupp's engineers, with the connivance of several German governments,
designed - starting long before Hitler's rise - a suite of military hardware
that was aimed at achieving military superiority in a specific time-window
(late 30's, early 40's), during which Germany was to regain its honor and
further its own elite's imperialist ambitions.
Similarly as well, permit me to suggest, America's current hi-tech-warfare
developments do not arise primarily from the play of generals nor even the
profit-seeking of arms developers. As with both the A-bomb and Nazi-
blitzkrieg, what we are seeing with hi-tech-warfare is the preparation of a
weapons suite crafted with particular - and not defensive - missions in
mind. But unlike the earlier precedents, as I'll seek to show, we are
seeing here something beyond merely elite nationalist ambitions at work.
The arsenal includes more than technology
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Absent from the article, allow me to establish first, are other equally
significant threads of the ultra-modern-warfare story. Was anyone else
struck by the coherence in the sequence of blitzkrieg conflicts: Grenada,
Panama, Iraq? These aggression episodes had all the appearance, to me at
least, of a sequence of incrementally larger-scale field tests - the
unfolding deployment of a suite of techniques that included not only first-
draft versions of the technology mentioned in the Economist piece, but also
striking innovations in propaganda and international "law".
Prior to the conflicts, in each case, we saw propaganda and covert-op
campaigns designed to prepare the way for the adventurism. Then we saw
tight management of all information during the conflicts and hours of
crafted info-tainment in the place of news coverage. The result was that
these turned out to be, domestically anyway, crowd-pleasing conflicts - no
mean feat in a nation that was both morally and practically shy of
imperialism - a consensus sentiment that Reagan dubbed "Vietnam syndrome".
In the cases of Grenada and Panama there was little attention given to
placating international opinion: the propaganda focus was on managing
domestic opinion and debate, and the censure by much of the rest of the
world was simply omitted from domestic news coverage. But with Iraq, not
only did we see a much grander technological deployment, and continued
refinement of the propaganda machinery, but - and this is probably the most
important outcome of Desert Storm - the successful establishment of a bold
new precedent in de-facto international law.
First we saw how Saddam was tricked into invading Kuwait, by a go
signal from the US Secretary of State (not unlike the go signal Turkey
received before its own later, "sanctioned" invasion of Kurdish areas of
Iraq). Then we saw an all-stops-pulled propaganda/diplomacy/bribery
campaign in the global press, on the floor of the UN, and in who-knows-how-
many national capitals - a campaign designed to subvert all negotiation
efforts, achieve UN approval of unfettered US military intervention, and
patch together (through very expensive bribery) the pretense of an "allied"
military operation.
When the dust - more accurately the sand and organo-phosphates - had
settled, a de-facto new world order (as Bush accurately described it) had
been established as regards an internationally-sanctioned role for Uncle Sam
as the global policeman. Later in Somalia and Bosnia, due to this
precedent, the US had very little trouble in gaining rubber-stamp
international approval for whatever interventionist agenda it had in mind -
acting in the first case alone, and in the second under the auspices of
NATO.
I want to underscore the importance of this new-world-order diplomatic
achievement. The US does not want to be an international pariah: it values
and exploits its close working relationships with the world's leading (read:
richest) nations. International approval, or at least acquiescence, has as
much strategic importance to the US as does the raw physical ability to
project its military power.
The missions of the arsenal: (1) globalist Imperial Legions
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I claimed earlier that "particular missions" are the aim of this
techno/propagandist/diplomatic war chest. Allow me to say more about those
missions. First comes the observation that America has long outgrown its
formerly narrow, purely nationalistic role, in the geopolitical game. It
still behaves imperialistically, as it has ever since 1812 - when it tried
to take over Canada - but no longer is parochial national advantage the
goal.
"Globalization" - with WTO, GATT, NAFTA, deregulation, privatization, and an
enlarged NATO - has replaced "national advantage" as the national purpose.
The US government - which formerly acted as the agent primarily of American-
based corporate power - is now acting as the agent of the international
corporate community generally. (Ironically, the world's premier "democracy"
has usually been far from acting on behalf of its supposedly sovereign
electorate.)
At the most fundamental level, it is not the US which is extending its power
over other nations via a police-force role, but rather the corporate elite
that is extending its power over additional nations via American globalist
policies and police-force power. US nationalism persists as a domestic
rhetorical fiction only so the citizens will continue to pay the bills, and
provide the infrastructure, for services that are actually being rendered to
others.
The propaganda phrase "American Interests", thus, will continue to
be used, and will continue to be backed by force, in the tradition of the
Monroe Doctrine. But other members of the NWO community (UK, Germany, et
al) understand that their own interests - more precisely the interests of
their corporate elites - are factored into the "Interests" equation.
"American Interests", just like "Chevrolet", continues to sound domestic,
but is made increasingly of foreign components.
This is what the New World Order (caps this time) is all about. Not simply
an internationally sanctioned military role for Uncle Sam, but a broader
agenda for Uncle Sam to further - the management of the globe on behalf
elite corporate interests generally, making all regions of the Earth secure
for capital investment.
The task of global management can be expected to involve conflicts of
various sizes, from anti-"terrorist" operations, to brushfire civil wars, to
"restructuring" of "renegade" regimes (as in Grenada and Panama) - all the
way up to full scale wars - and I don't count Desert Storm as full scale.
To handle flexibly this wide range of conflicts - and without sacrificing so
many of "our boys" that domestic acquiescence is threatened - one can
understand why the US needs its multi-faceted (not just the hardware), hi-
tech arsenal. But why does it need to be upgraded with such urgency? Isn't
it already far ahead of all comers?
A trial balloon was sent up not that long ago whose goal was to add
nuclear capability to the internationally-approved war chest. I refer, of
course, to Libya and its (probably mythical) biological warfare plant (What
ever happened to that plant, by the way?). If that balloon had not met with
international focus-group derision, Libya might well have become the next in
the sequence of field-test blitzkrieg deployments - this time bringing nukes
(precise and clean? .. but of course) into the game.
The missions of the arsenal: (2) The China Question
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In considering why nuke-acceptance would be deemed necessary (not in Libya,
but in the long run) - and in considering why the US seeks to advance
further its hi-tech capability when it is already so far ahead of the pack -
we are led inevitably to think about China.
China is the only remaining significant wild card in the New World Order
game. Cuba, and other similars, may be virulently anti-NWO (ie. - insisting
on their own sovereignty) - but they are small and highly vulnerable
(Clinton promised Castro "Your day will come" in his recent State of the
Union message). Russia and the medium-sized "renegade" states (Iran, Libya
et al) may be somewhat unpredictable, and vexing to NWO planners due to
their size - but they don't (anymore at least) have great-power ambitions
and can be adequately contained and coerced (militarily and economically)
over time into acceptable roles - and convenient bad-guy is one of the most
useful roles.
There are a pair of articles in the March/April Foreign Affairs - a
propaganda journal for the globalist NWO agenda, with large type so aging
plutocrats can read it - called "The China Threat - A Debate". (By the way,
I commend Foreign Affairs in general to your attention. It is very
informative, between the lines, as regards NWO designs, and quite humorous,
in a dark sort of way, in the smooth-talking blatancy of its party-line
assumptions and rhetoric.) The "debate" is an old-boys affair - with much
in the way of shared assumptions, and the differences only in which tactics
would best serve the shared goal of subjugating China to the NWO agenda (or
as they would say it: securing reforms which bring China into the family of
responsible nations).
Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, in "The Coming Conflict with America",
present the case that armed conflict between the US and China is inevitable.
They tell us: "China's sheer size and inherent strength, its
conception of itself as a center of global civilization, and its eagerness
to redeem centuries of humiliating weakness are propelling it toward Asian
hegemony." And they pass on an ominous sentiment attributed to General Mi
Zhenyu, vice-commandant of the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing: "For
a relatively long time it will be absolutely necessary that we quietly nurse
our sense of vengeance. We must conceal our abilities and bide our time" -
giving us fair warning to be wary of what may appear to be softening in
future Chinese behavior.
What makes these observations especially dire, from a global
perspective, is the article's seemingly authoritative description of Uncle
Sam's attitude on the matter - a description I'm inclined to accept at face
value:
China's goal of achieving paramount status in Asia
conflicts with an established American objective:
preventing any single country from gaining an
overwhelming power in Asia. The United States,
after all, has been in major wars in Asia three
times in the past half-century, always to prevent
a single power from gaining ascendency.
The implication is clear that the United States can be expected to
act to alter what seems to be China's chosen path, even by warfare if that
becomes necessary. And if conditions have changed since the cited three-war
precedents, I'd say globalization mania only makes the thesis more likely to
hold.
We learn - with typical sleight-of-number - that China is spending
astronomical sums on military modernization - aimed at the ability to knock
out US Carrier Task Forces, as well as dominating Asia. We are told that
China's leaders "cannot be counted on to relinquish their monopolistic hold
on power" and that "The most likely form for China to assume is a kind of
corporatist, militarized, nationalist state, one with some similarity to the
fascist states of Mussolini or Francisco Franco."
We are shown a map with explosion-like symbols next to seven "flash
points". Various plausible scenarios are explored, each of which could
easily lead to armed conflicts. It is explained that Japan must be our
special partner in counter-balancing Chinese hegemony [rkm: much as Britain
has been our special partner not only in WW II, but in post-war European
balance-of-power games].
Robert S. Ross, in "Beijing as a Conservative Power", takes up the debating
position that "engagement" is the proper approach to China - "Treat China as
an enemy and it will be one". Details are revealed regarding air and sea
power, showing that China cannot be any kind of real threat for a long time
to come. That gives us time to build relationships and seek to integrate
China, adequately if not ideally, into an acceptable scheme of things.
Recent history is visited, and we learn that China has actually been
acting quite to our benefit in geopolitical terms. It balanced the Soviet
Union; it stabilized Southeast Asia when we were forced out of Vietnam. We
are urged to "invite China to participate in international rule-making", and
to "reinforce China's interest in regional stability and strengthen its
commitment to global stability. Engagement, not isolation, is the
appropriate policy".
Both articles take it as a given that the US has the "strategic interest" -
translation: the "right" - to insure that a "favorable" balance of power is
maintained in Asia: it is categorically unacceptable that China achieve
outright hegemony and freedom-of-action in Asia. The debate is about means,
not ends.
I must say that the first article is more convincing - the fundamental case
for eventual confrontation seems more solid than the likelihood of namby-
pamby coaxing bringing about a paradigm shift in China's thousands-year-old
sense of national greatness and sovereign pride.
And with the kind of societal dedication we can expect, and the
prowess of China's scientific and engineering communities, one might
anticipate (in this age where offense dominates defense) that China may be
able to achieve some technological leap-frog in the local military balance
of power. Something as surprising as a Sputnik that neutralizes many of the
American advantages.
For strategic military planners on both sides, one must assume that the race
has been joined. Can China achieve a window of opportunity - based on
focused achievement of military parity - during which it could establish a
firm hold on its own sphere of influence? Could it hold this parity long
enough for the new status quo to become accepted by the international
community, as has, it seems, the occupation of Tibet?
The pre-World-War-II parallel
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The scenario - I feel compelled to point out - is strikingly similar to the
pre-World-War-II scenario: with China in the role of Japan or Germany.
China has the same brand of soul-deep national ambition shared then by Japan
and Germany, and a similar potential to express it in action. Japan and
Germany could only be tamed - the historic lesson seems to clearly say - by
complete destruction followed by complete rebuilding, under US tutelage.
These are precedents that cannot be far from the minds of our Foreign Policy
authors, although their pens would be unlikely to develop such comparisons
until closer to the climax.
The parallels with the inter-war period are only accentuated by what we
learn in "China preys on American minds - The US this week", Guardian Weekly
(April 6).
Martin Walker describes the implementation of the engagement agenda.
We are told of the Beijing-based US business council, "a formidable group of
US executives whose corporate lobbies back in Washington have worked hard to
ensure that no US politician dare confront the engagement-trade-investment
model" (shades of Joe Kennedy et al). We are also reminded of "fat Chinese
consultancy fees earned by those former secretaries of state, Dr. Henry
Kissinger and General Alexander Haig". Clearly Foreign Affairs (Robert
Ross) was providing "philosophical background" for what turns out to be an
already operational corporatist agenda - an agenda parallel to that of the
inter-war years.
Interestingly, Mr. Walker casts moral derision on this money-
grabbing behavior: "There ought to be scandal in the way US corporations
scurry to serve Beijing's interests." He reports with obvious admiration
some words of Newt Gingrich, delivered recently at the Foreign Affairs
College in Beijing:
"Americans cannot remain silent about the basic lack of
freedom - speech, religion, assembly, the press - in China.
In the most basic sense, we are simply asking the Chinese
government to enforce its own constitution."
Perhaps one can presume Gingrich is replaying the crowd-pleasing
Churchill role: espouse the high moral ground, encourage a simmering pool of
popular suspicion of China, and wait in the wings to form the nucleus of a
war government (or coalition) when the bugle finally sounds. Like
Churchill, he would be seen as morally untainted (relative to China),
although I imagine his constituency gets its share of Chinese opportunities
in the interim. The inter-war parallels are again underscored.
We now come to an interesting clue as to how the increasingly
confrontational climate is to be spun in mass media doublespeak:
"The Clash of Civilisations, the book by Harvard professor
Sam Huntingdon, may not have hit the bestseller lists, but
its dire warning of a 21st century rivalry between the
liberal white folk and the Yellow Peril - sorry, the
Confucian cultures - is underpinning the formation of a
new political environment.
"To adapt one of Mao's subtler metaphors, Huntingdon's
Kultur-kampf is becoming, with stunning speed, the
conceptual sea in which Washington's policy-making fish now
swim."
Mr Walker lays out for us - and I'll take this for the time being as the
official mass-media party-line - the proposition that the only reason for
the US to be concerned about China is the question of human rights, and that
the only other reason conflict might develop is due to some mythical notion
of inevitable cultural warfare. Nowhere in this party-line is mentioned the
fact, so obvious to non-mass-media Foreign Affairs, that American balance-
of-power interests (not human rights, race, or ideology) will be the primary
counter-consideration to investment opportunities, vis a vis China policy.
Teddy Roosevelt said "Walk softly, and carry a big stick". The more
profitable version, as carried out in the inter-war years and apparently
underway again with China, is: "Profit through engagement, then deliver a
just-in-time death blow".
I won't offer an opinion as to what the US "should" do re/China, any more
than I would be able to say what it should have done pre-WW-II. In both
cases, one would need to imagine a transformed protagonist before one could
imagine a different outcome. The question of reforming US policy (according
to whatever criteria) boils down to the question of changing who runs
America - and that would stray us from our subject (solution in hand but too
large for margin).
What, in fact, America seems to be doing is consciously replay the inter-war
scenario: profit maximally from trade and investments in China, encourage US
public opinion to maintain a simmering fear/hatred toward what may become a
future enemy, tacitly facilitate China's military development, closely
monitor developments - and most important - be sure that the US, together
with its projected allies, maintains strategic dominance militarily. In
this last regard, the US may have skirted danger in WW II more closely than
it will have to this time around.
This time around, the US is on a continual wartime footing, with
fleets sufficient for some specified number of simultaneous conflicts - not
to mention nuclear submarines, satellite superiority, strategic missiles,
and the new gadgets the Economist tells us about. This is a far cry from
the comparative state of US preparedness in the inter-war years. And - due
to the Grenada-Panama-Iraq shenanigans mentioned above - the US has field-
tested formulas for arranging hostilities with favorable publicity at any
time of its own choosing.
The war itself - considerations; Hi-tech arsenal considered necessary
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The first step in preparation for military engagement with China would be a
demonization campaign, and it would need to be a globally effective
campaign, not just for US consumption. Need I point out how incredibly easy
that campaign would be? Slave labor camps, all but outright genocide
against minorities such as the Tibetans, killing off infant females,
massacre of peaceful demonstrators, legions of political prisoners, no
semblance of human rights or free press by Western standards, dictatorial
regime - the mix may change over time, but China will for quite a while be
an easy target for American style demonization campaigns. Saddam and
Khadafi have provided good practice, with far fewer actual sins to exploit.
The war-initiation-formula might not be much different from that employed in
WW II. Sinking a carrier task force would have the same emotional impact as
did attacking Pearl Harbor, and no holds would then be barred. We saw how
China's recent belligerency toward Taiwan (one of Bernstein and Munro's
seven flash points) resulted in the dispatch of American fleets which then
flouted their electronic superiority to the chagrin of the Chinese Navy and
the embarrassment and frustrated anger of Chinese leaders.
A more assertive China with a more formidable military capability -
and this is where we're surely heading - would make similar confrontations
both more likely and more dangerous. And for the US to back down from what
it perceived as strategic challenges would be to yield to that very Chinese
hegemony which Foreign Policy informs us is categorically unacceptable to
"American Interests".
Let us consider the parameters of the hypothetically resulting war. The US
strategy would have certain fundamental objectives, which I surmise, based
on common sense and precedents, would include:
(1) very few, if any, nuclear strikes tolerated on US soil
(2) nuclear annihilation of China not an option
(3) tactical nukes in China OK
(4) land war in China not an option
(5) unconditional Chinese surrender a must
These kinds of strategic criteria would lead one naturally to the kind of
arsenal described in the Economist article. And only a likely showdown with
China could so urgently compel a seemingly unassailed Uncle Sam to rapidly
upgrade what looks like an already sufficient war chest. America must,
given its self-appointed global role, be capable of assuring delivery on all
five of the above objectives before the time-window of the anticipated
conflict comes around - otherwise only distinctly disadvantageous scenarios
(from an elite NWO perspective) are obtainable.
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BTW> If you read this far, you might want also to look at "America_&_NWO" in
cyberlib/articles-by-rkm, see sig below.
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Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - PO Box 26 Wexford, Ireland
Cyberlib: ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore/cyberlib | (USA Citizen)
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