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China & KulturKampf: some predictions
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The G7 club: a quick review
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There is now a gentleman's club of nations - essentially the G7 - which to
a first approximation runs the world. Japan and Germany - like the rest -
have accepted that collaboration via the club is more beneficial than the
old competitive-imperialism games. After all, it was the non-G7 nations
that were being exploited all along, so why shouldn't the bandits organize
themselves into one, gentlemanly gang.
Mafia turf behavior is not a bad metaphor for the phenomenon. World War
II, in its essence, was a case of Japan and Germany being given an offer
they couldn't refuse: submit to the gang or you'll never walk again.
It is important to take passing note of exactly whose interests are being
represented by the G7. True, the member nations presumably use that forum
to adjudicate their differing national agendas, and to further their
individual national advantages, especially as regards non-G7 exploitation.
But the major, and hidden, constituency for the G7, it should be clear, is
not primarily nation states but rather the large transnational
corporations.
The leadership elite of the G7 nations - that is the people who participate
personally in high-level G7 (and WTO et al) deliberations - all (or nearly
all) "happen" to be enthusiastic promoters of the neoliberal agenda:
free-trade, market-forces, deregulation, privatization,
government-downsizing, and reduced corporate taxes.
In case it isn't obvious to everyone, allow me to point out that this
neoliberal agenda is first and foremost an elite corporate agenda - the
transnational corporations are eagerly poised to extract astronomical
profits from opening markets, privatized industries and services,
global-scope mega-mergers, lower corporate taxes, fewer regulatory
restraints on operations, portability of capital and inventories, and
uniformity of global operating environment. These corporations have spent
millions to get neoliberal candidates elected in the G7 nations, thereby
insuring an official G7 agenda that directly reflects elite corporate
interests.
China: a loose cannon on the globalist deck
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China now, like Japan and Germany in the thirties, is deep-down unwilling
to be coerced into someone else's defined role. This is not a matter of
culture - Japan, China, and Germany span a wide cultural range - it is a
matter of simple nationalism, conditioned by where a given nation falls on
the life-cycle curve of nationalist ambition. What WW II did to Germany
and Japan was to take the steel out of their independent nationalist
spirits - and accomplishing that required total defeats and unconditional
surrenders. Can Western strategic planners be unaware of the precedent and
its obvious application to China?
China may formally join the G7 - as part of a mutual-sniffing engagement
era - but China isn't ready to fundamentally subordinate its national
interests to the club, in the way current core members increasingly do.
This is because (1) China still has an unbroken spirit - it sees itself as
a young modern-power hotshot that can show the world a thing or two, (2)
fully joining the club under current circumstances would mean conceding to
the US a larger share of influence in East Asia than China believes is
appropriate, and (3) at its current early stage of econmomic development,
full commitment to market forces would warp China's economy, keeping it
down in third-world status, rather than pushing the economy upwards toward
the great-power status to which China ultimately aspires.
As things stand, China is a loose cannon on G7's globally integrated turf.
If China continues to wield its economic influence as a solo player, and if
it builds a credible military force, then the situation is hardly different
than that of Japan and the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere in the thirties.
China now, like Japan then, threatens to establish an independent
sphere-of-influence whose size and wealth could be very considerable, and
whose continuing ambition would be a constant annoyance and a destabilizing
influence on the club.
This threat is flatly contrary to "American strategic interests", now de
facto expanded to include G7 interests generally. I don't see why we
shouldn't assume that Western strategic planners are fully cognizant of the
WW II precedent - look how very succeessful the war-enabled social
re-engineering of Japan and Germany turned out to be: both countries have
performed capital-wise miraculously and have remained loyal club members.
Why wouldn't planners seek to replay the same proven scenario with China
and thereby obtain uncontested global hegemony for their club, and a new
cycle of post-war growth?
Sure, "engagement" should and will be given every chance. And perhaps
China will humbly percieve the strategic situation and wise up. But there
is compelling evidence to suggest that Plan B (war) must be kept on alert
status, lest the club risk losing what it sees as its rightful strategic
perogatives.
Kultur-Kampf: a strategic Big Lie cover story
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The popular-consensus/public-debate/media-propaganda version of history
looks nothing like what we've been talking about. According to the
consensus myth, WW II was caused by a pair of manaical monsters -
Fanatic-Yellow-Peril and Racist-Nazi-Demon - who were driven by disturbed
psyches (personal and collective) more than normal national ambitions, and
whom the other nations of the world were compelled to subdue - solely in
the interests of freedom, democracy, and human rights. People don't want
to fight to obtain balance-of-power adjustments, but they'll fight
valiantly if they can be sold a cover story that taps into appropriate
emotional-response triggers.
An offensive war by a "democratic" society must always be represented to
the domestic population as being defensive, in pursuit of lofty goals, and
necessitated by a manaical aggressive enemy.
As previously with Nazi-Demon and Yellow-Peril, a new mthhology is being
prepared for us to justify the next round of geopolitical adjustments. Sam
Huntington, via his KulturKampf "Clash of Civilisations", is the canonical
proponent of this new mythology. As with the previous mythology, there is
ample factual basis for its thesis - but its overall effect is to distract
from the larger operative forces. Yes there are real cultural differences
between an idealized West and China, but the cultural differences could be
accomodated - what may not be accomodatable is China's culture-independent
nationalist aspirations. Balance-of-power realpolitik is not dead - not
yet.
Kultur-Kampf is the mythology to be foisted on the public to cover the real
motives behind the anticipated violent adjustment of great-power
relationships - ie. the coercion of a destroyed and re-engineered China
into the G7 system on G7 terms, by replay of the Japan-Germany
unconditional-surrender precedent.
The propagation of a Kultur-Kampf Big Lie - especially with China being
likened to the already demonized Arab states - provides a sound basis for
evoking the emotional climate appropriate for war popularization. With the
bass-drum of Kultur-Kampf beating a steady rythym in the popular media, the
pace can be jazzed up with juicy Chinese atrocity stories whenever
necessary, and the warpath-kettle can be kept just below boil. This is
astutue war-preparadness, as regards strategic propaganda.
Grenada-Panama-Iraq-XX?-China: evolution of modern blitzkrieg
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For full scale war with China to be feasible, the US (mainly) would need to
be able to obtain the same kind of mastery-of-theater that it obtained in
Iraq. Assuming that nuclear annihilation of China is not a desired
outcome, and given the size and population of China, Uncle Sam could
prevail only if he could suppress all air-defense measures, prevent China
from launching strategic missiles, and have the unrestricted ability to
pound China with cruise missiles and bombs.
China is a good bit bigger than Iraq, and would be much better prepared,
and so the Desert Storm technology would need to be radically upscaled and
refined. The race to re-invent C4 (hi-tech warfare) systems, as reported
recently by the Economist and others, seems to be a straightforward
strategic imperative for US planners.
Armaments and public opinion are both being systematically prepared,
apparently, for the anticipated conflict. There will be no time to build a
thousand bombers and no dissension will be tolerated - when the decisive
moment for action arises. When the "innocent" US fleet is inevitably blown
out of the seas, as it rushes, say, to protect Taiwan, Plan B must be ready
for instant execution - there will be critical first-strike missions that
cannot be allowed to fail (shades of German invasion of Poland). And once
the show starts, the pace will not slacken.
It will be a one-battle war, a full-court press all the way. The modern
warfare model is a blitzkrieg model, and we saw its field tests in Grenada,
Panama, and Iraq. That's the pattern to look for: Total Krieg Ist Kurzeste
Krieg. All weapons systems, including those of the endgame, must be in
full readiness at conflict start. I therefore expect C4 development to
continue to acclerate over the coming months, and I also expect at least
one additional test prior to the big event, timed to suit the needs of
systems evaluation more than any real emergency. Hence the demonization
quotients are maintained by the media at a high level for Iran, Iraq, and
Libya - so that a sizable weapons test can be arranged quickly and
conveniently whenever needed.
If operational plans do go awry in the actual conflict with China, despite
all the thorough and sophisticated preparations, Plan C will be
full-nuclear, not a backdown. This game is too important for Plan C not to
be agreed beforehand, and I can't imagine US military planners putting down
"Retreat" as their response to "Contingency C". That word isn't in the
AmeriKultur lexicon, not since "I haven't yet begun to fight" was entered
into it by John Paul Jones. Vietnam notwithstanding.
The global corporate state: the post-next-war regime
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When the conflict is over, with either starving Chinese survivors or a
black hole occupying Asia, the reconstuction will begin (assuming
survivors) as a near-exact replay of the Germany-Japan postwar model -
parliamentary democracy, constitutional restraints on rearmament, the whole
nine yards.
At that point - and not before - we will enter the era which some
prematurely claim we have already entered - a post-national context in
which new primary forces will be allowed to shape the global architecture
in new ways, as fade the structuring forces of nationalism and its gang
alignments.
The shape of that post-nationalist world is not difficult to anticipate.
In fact we already see early elements of it in operation. As a re-invented
China emerges from post-war reconstruction, it will seek its natural level
in a world dominated by a G7+Russia imperialist club - the northern white
alliance continuing centuries of European imperialist exploitation, but
with an institutionalized collaborative basis, a sharply reduced sharing of
the spoils with G7 populations generally, a covert corporate agenda, and
with no remaining strategic challenges to the club's collective hegemony.
An accelerated process of global political integration could then be
expected to become the dominant structuring force in this pax-G7 world.
The preliminary stages of this integration process can be seen already in
the rapidly growing super-sovereign power and government-like behavior of
WTO, NATO, IMF, and to a questionable extent, the UN.
I discount the UN's future role because the UN contains, from the club's
perspective, too many democratic mechanisms - too much voice is given to
non-G7 players. As with today's national parliaments, club agendas need to
be lobbied through the UN, rather than simply dictated by the corporatist
elite - who would find this necessity a vexing inconvenience if the UN were
to be the core of the coming world government.
The UN may continue to exist, and already has a permanent-member structure
not all that incompatible with G7 club hegemony, but I suggest the WTO is
more the model for the kind of system that will be engineered to achieve
orderly global governance.
The WTO, along with the IMF et al, is controlled DIRECTLY by the corporate
elite. The WTO is an unelected, unrepresentative, technocrat commission
with a corporate-serving agenda and the increasing ability - via the power
of contrived treaty agreements - to supercede national sovereignty and
policy making.
This - whether you call it corporate fascism or corporate feudalism - is
the totally undemocratic retrograde political system being set up to
administer the post-national era on behalf of the corporate elite.
Regards,
rkm
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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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