COUNTERING THE 'CHINA THREAT' - AT WHAT PRICE?
By Koohan Paik-Mander, Foreign Policy In Focus.
June 26, 2021 | EDUCATE!
Above Photo: Shutterstock.
The Pentagon Is Upgrading Its Full-Spectrum Dominance, With China As The
Primary Target.
In early June 2021, in a classified directive to Pentagon officials, U.S.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin slammed the former Trump administration
for talking big but never taking action to counter "the China threat."
Austin made it clear that things would be different under President Biden.
His "tough guy" rhetoric strikes just the right tone for a massive, costly,
military-infrastructure overhaul that would render the conventional warfare
of the twentieth century unrecognizable: more nukes, fewer troops, and an
omnipotent 5G network.
The goal of this overhaul is to give the United States and its allies the
ability to summon, at once, unmanned military forces to rain terror down on
any spot in the world-a swarm of drones, hypersonic missiles, submarine
torpedoes, and bombers-all with the ease of calling an Uber.
This game-changing metamorphosis of how wars are fought is already underway.
It's called the JADC2 (Joint All-Domain Command & Control), a globally
networked, cloud-based command center, overseen by the recently anointed
U.S. Space Force.
It was for this that the Space Force was created-not as a jokey Trump
trifle.
However, targeting China with this new paradigm for mass destruction will
not bring about global security. Even if it were to somehow not culminate in
a nuclear conflict, the ecological and climate costs of commanding war from
outer space would be devastating. And yet, ever-more-mammoth military
preparations are being staged in ever-more-numerous locations on Earth.
President Biden is in lockstep with Austin's anti-China mission. Much of
Biden's $715 billion Pentagon budget request for 2022 is for investment in
hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, micro-electronics, 5G
technology, space-based systems, shipbuilding and nuclear "modernization"
(read: expansion). The request seeks $28 billion to "modernize" the nuclear
triad (the ability to launch nukes from land, sea, and air). The budget also
includes the largest research-and-development request-$112 billion-in the
history of the Pentagon.
Imagine That Kind Of Support For Healthcare.
Each line item is a deadly weapon, which, discretely, already carries
terrifying implications. But, taken together, as part of the JADC2-an
integrated, multi-dimensional system with machines responsible for pulling
the trigger-the whole is far more chilling than the sum of the parts.
Among the types of missiles on Biden's wish-list are some whose range
exceeds the limits in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of
1987. But the INF Treaty is no longer in effect, after President Trump
withdrew the United States from the agreement in August 2019, just four
months before the creation of the Space Force. That means that Biden and
Austin are now free to spend taxpayer money on these perilous weapons.
Policy analyst Michael Klare has observed that this year's budget
subordinates all perceived threats to a single bogeyman-du-jour: China. War
with China, specifically, means more nukes, long-range missiles, and
unmanned weapons. These weapons are not just to be used by the United
States, but are also for export to allies as well-much to the financial gain
of weapons industrialists like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
For example, a declassified U.S. Department of Defense report from 2018
provides a directive to sell more arms to India, to "enhance India's status
as a Major Defense Partner," and to "support India's membership in the
Nuclear Supplier's Group." The essence of the Pentagon's massive global
vision is to construct, from the ground up, a hard and soft infrastructure
upon which the newly created Space Force can operate.
Just as the continent-spanning interstate highway system was laid during the
1950s to ensure a profitable future for the automobile industry, this new
infrastructure-comprised of 5G, artificial intelligence, rocket launchpads,
missile tracking stations, satellites, nukes, and internet-connected fleets
of unmanned ships, jets, subs, hypersonic, and other craft-will ensure a
reliably profitable assembly-line output of arms for the weapons industry.
In tandem with the military infrastructure will come a continued expansion
of associated security infrastructure, such as increased surveillance and
data collection of every individual on the planet. As a former board member
at Raytheon, Lloyd Austin is perfectly positioned to pull this off. In fact,
during his first three months as defense secretary, he awarded over $2.36
billion in contracts to the missile manufacturer he once faithfully served.
China Threat = Yellow Peril
The Pentagon has a billion dollars a year to spend on public relations, and
vilifying China has become Lloyd Austin's top priority. He paints a picture
of urgency so dire that it seems the only way to meet the challenge is to
fund his comprehensive Weapons New Deal.
Once the new military infrastructure is fully in place, the Space Force will
be equipped to dominate the planet. Until now, the INF Treaty's cap on
missile range prevented the implementation of this vision, given the
hemispheric distance between China and the United States. Now that the
treaty is no longer in effect, however, the Indo-Pacific theater is the
ideal geography to debut this new way of warfare that relies on satellites
to deliver strikes clear to the opposite side of the planet.
Thousands of satellites are already in place; thousands more will follow,
thanks to private efforts by the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The
United States is currently working through the UN to standardize 5G
internationally. Algorithms are now being written to remove human
decision-making from warfare. Pacific reefs have already been dredged,
forests razed, and protestors arrested on islands encircling China to make
way for destroyer berths and rocket launchpads-nodes of the global war
infrastructure.
One of the those "nodes" is at Soseong-ri village, 200 kilometers southeast
of Seoul. The melon farmers there have painful, first-hand experience of
South Korea's complicity with the Pentagon's agenda. In mid-March, after
five years of community protests against the deployment of a THAAD (Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense) missile system, Lloyd Austin strongly protested
the poor conditions of the THAAD base, calling them "unacceptable."
After Austin's disparaging remark, the South Korean government sent around a
thousand riot police to Soseong-ri to forcefully remove residents from
blocking components of the THAAD base construction material from entering
the military installation. This took place on four occasions immediately
following Austin's statement and has since accelerated to twice a week,
according to peace activist Sung-Hee Choi.
Choi points out that the THAAD system is made by Lockheed Martin and the
associated radar is manufactured by Raytheon, where Austin previously served
on the board. Choi adds that she is nervous about the intensifying military
tension in her country and in northeast Asia: "I think recent anti-Asian
hate is like a preparation for war against North Korea and China, just like
when the Bush administration exploited anti-Muslim sentiments just before
the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq."
Pacific Pivot And The First Island Chain
Military planners have been nurturing this Rubicon moment with China for at
least a decade, beginning when Obama announced his "Pacific Pivot" toward
Asia. Since then, communities in the Asia-Pacific region have been
confronted with elaborate, ecocidal preparations for full-scale war with
China. Natural resources have been destroyed to construct a globe-sweeping,
networked infrastructure of missile deployment and satellite tracking.
That was the first phase of laying the groundwork for 21st century warfare.
Biden's current request for funding will expand this strategic rebalance of
military forces into its second phase.
Most of the Pentagon-ravaged spots have been concentrated so far on the
string of archipelagos that fringe China's coastline. These islands are
politically controlled by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the
Philippines-nations themselves already heavily militarized.
War strategists call this the "First Island Chain." The JADC2 system is
being developed with this particular geography in mind. "Project
Convergence," a U.S. Department of Defense war exercise, takes place over a
span stretching from Washington state to North Carolina, replicating the
distance along the First Island Chain.
The First Island Chain is one of three chains of Pacific islands that ring
China at varying distances. Further east, the Second Island Chain is
comprised of Guam and the other Mariana Islands. The Third Island Chain,
even further east in the mid-Pacific, is the Hawaiian archipelago.
In war strategy, these chains serve several functions: as a barrier to be
breached by an attacker, as a protective wall to be strengthened by a
defender, and as a springboard from which to mount an invasion. They also
serve as geopolitical benchmarks for measuring regional influence, which is
why control of Taiwan is so critical. If the United States loses Taiwan to
mainland China, it would signal the unravelling of U.S. domination in the
region.
The delicately beautiful islands of the First Island Chain have languished
mostly unknown to the rest of the world. They are home to many endemic
species such as the Yonaguni pony, the Ryukyu damselfly, the Amami rabbit,
and a newly designated species of pufferfish that builds sand mandalas on
the ocean floor to attract a mate. At the tiny airport on Ishigaki Island,
local butterflies flutter in a terrarium behind the check-in counter. In
town, decorative trees lining the road support sleeping bats hanging like
furry ornaments.
Environmentalists fear these species are now doomed. A radar tracking
station has been built, despite public protest, over the watering hole for
the Yonaguni ponies. Its high-frequency radar will likely kill the bountiful
insect-life found on the island, like the butterflies and the Ayamihabiru
moth with its 10-inch wing span.
Amami-Oshima, an island that has remained virtually untouched since primeval
times, has now been desecrated. Its old-growth forest, dense with unique
flora and fauna, was razed in two areas for missile deployment, while
associated development is disfiguring the coastline and other inland areas.
On the islands of Ishigaki and Miyako, more missile deployment facilities
have been erected against the will of locals.
Meanwhile, on Okinawa, tens of thousands of residents have been protesting
the U.S. presence for decades. The latest barbarity: soil that contains an
untold number of bones of Okinawan ancestors as well as U.S. soldiers-all
killed in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II-is slated to be used as
landfill for the bottom of Oura Bay. For four years, locals have ferociously
objected to construction here of a new U.S. air base, intended to be a key
JADC2 hub. The beloved bay has been home for millennia to the largest rare
blue-coral colony in the world and 5,334 documented species of wildlife.
U.S. militarism continues to beleaguer Jeju Island off the coast of South
Korea as well. There, villagers, fishers, and tangerine farmers have been
ferociously protesting for over a decade the construction of a navy base to
port Lockheed Aegis-missile bearing destroyers. The base was completed in
2015, but plans are in the works to construct a constellation of new
facilities to complement the navy base, including a new airport, a missile
tracking station, a weather radar station, and a satellite operations
facility.
The famously drinkable streams of Jeju are now contaminated, its
UNESCO-celebrated corals have been dredged, and wetlands have been smothered
with concrete. Jeju Island is morphing, in real time, from one of Asia's
most cherished natural wonders to another key hub for JADC2 space-war
operations.
Second Island Chain: The Marianas
The desire for "military readiness" compels the Pentagon to train troops for
proficiency. But how will soldiers train for the paradigm-shifting JADC2,
which is as different from current warfare as checkers is from 3-D chess?
First of all, with no soldiers-or a lot fewer of them-human-scale fighting
will be replaced by warfare conducted over global distances and at
hypersonic speeds. Military planners say that armed forces will be leaner
and "strike harder, faster and farther." For this reason, the training will
take up more geography, by necessity, over endless expanses of open seas
teaming with wildlife. For decades, naval practice has been taking place in
marine areas surrounding Korea, Guam, Okinawa, Hawaii, and California.
Needless to say, they have been a constant nuisance to residents, fishers,
native practitioners, and sea creatures.
Now, to accommodate the JADC2, even more expansive swaths of the ocean are
being set aside for year-round military exercises.
The most egregious example is the MITT (Mariana Islands Training and
Testing), a plan to transform over a million square miles of biodiverse
ecosystems into the largest-ever range complex for bombing and firing
practice. The impacted area would be larger than the states of Washington,
Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and New Mexico
combined.
The largest multinational open-ocean military exercises in history will take
place here, home to 26 species of cetaceans. The navy itself estimates that
its activities will maim or kill over 81,000 whales and dolphins per year.
And that doesn't count the ecological casualties anticipated in other
existing exercise ranges, such as those around Hawaii, California, Alaska,
Australia, in the Sea of Japan, and in the Bay of Bengal.
For their part, thousands of residents of the Marianas are protesting the
plan to turn their ancestral archipelago into a year-round war zone. Large
portions of Guam and Tinian would become dedicated firing ranges, placed
right next door to towns and neighborhoods. Practice-bombing on the islet of
Farallon de Medinilla, a migratory-bird hotspot, will increase from 2,150
strikes a year to 6,000 strikes a year. And most tragically, the whole of
the astonishingly pristine island of Pagan is slated to undergo perpetual
full-spectrum assaults from air, land, and sea. The island is expected to
endure continuous bombing from mortars and missiles, its wildlife damaged by
sonar, torpedoes, hand grenades, reef-crushing amphibious landing practice,
and countless experimental detonations. Because of the colonial status of
the Mariana islanders, they have not been able to legally demand
transparency and accountability from the U.S. government.
This powerlessness was brought into stark relief when the military bulldozed
3,000 burials to make way for a live-fire training range. The remains were
deposited, pell-mell, in cardboard boxes and stored in various undisclosed
offices around the island. A barrage of questions from the islanders has
gone unanswered. To add insult to injury, the shooting range is also to be
sited atop the island's most important aquifer.
In response to these human-rights transgressions, native Chamoru poet and
attorney, Julian Aguon, filed a submission in 2020 with the UN Special
Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on behalf of indigenous
rights group Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian. Three special rapporteurs
then sent a letter in March to President Biden expressing concern for human
rights, environmental impacts, and indigenous rights. The president has yet
to respond.
The Perpetual Profits Of War Games
An assortment of large-scale joint naval exercises takes place every year
across the Pacific. The events are attended by patron-countries of the U.S.
weapons industry in a fashion similar to soccer or football season. These
nations include Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia,
France, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand.
The prototype has been the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises, held every
two years in Hawaiian waters since 1971 and slated to run again in 2022. In
2018, RIMPAC drew 25,000 troops, 52 ships, and submarines from 26 countries.
Weapons dealers from all over the world view RIMPAC as an opportunity to
show off their wares, making the event part-Vegas trade show, part-World
Cup. For marine life, it is four weeks of blitzkrieg.
This fits nicely with the policy cited in the 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy
Report, which calls foreign military sales the *"*tool of first resort in
strengthening alliances and attracting new partners." In other words, for
the United States, partnerships are not rooted in a shared philosophy of
justice and diplomacy. Rather, they are anchored firmly in weapons sales.
Those partnerships, meanwhile, increasingly target a single adversary:
China. Raytheon loyalist Lloyd Austin has been unequivocally clear that his
raison d'etre is to bully China. And the president and Congress seem happy
to accommodate.
They consistently ignore a far better method of responding to China's
growing influence, such as diplomacy. Hashing out differences at the same
conference table would be a lot less expensive and have the added benefit of
not risking all life on Earth.