EDITOR: Buried at the bottom of a page midway in the front section of Thursday’s New York Times, this article is a profound analysis of foreign policy challenges that President Barack Obama and the USA faces in today’s turbulent world. Any open minded reader should conclude that the USA must ration its resources and share each of the three burdens with allies because there is no way that it has the forces or can afford the expenses of unilaterally imposing its will.
Moreover, over committing our resources in one area emasculates our ability to be affective in the other two.
We urge thorough and thoughtful reading of the below without bias or preconception.
NEW YORK TIMES: … In facing the more than 10,000 ISIS fighters, he must find a way to confront a different kind of terrorist group, one determined to use the most brutal techniques to take territory that the backwash from the Arab Spring has now put up for grabs. The American bombing campaign against ISIS targets in Iraq does not approach the costs of invading and occupying that country, but Pentagon officials say the weapons, fuel and other expenses of taking on the Islamic extremists are running up bills of about $225 million a month, a figure that will rise if Mr. Obama has to take that fight into Syria….
In the Russia of President Vladimir V. Putin, [President Barack] Obama faces a declining power, afflicted by a shrinking population, a strident nationalism and an economy vulnerable because of its extraordinary dependency on oil exports. Washington is betting that while sanctions are having little effect now, over time they will hollow out Mr. Putin’s poll ratings. But the short term is more complex. For months now, arguments inside the administration have been over how directly and where to draw the line. In Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, on Wednesday Mr. Obama drew it at NATO’s own boundaries. The question is whether Mr. Putin believes him…
In China, the president faces the opposite challenge: a rising power with growing resources and a sense that this is China’s moment to reassert influence in Asia in a way it has not in hundreds of years. Here, the surprise to Mr. Obama has been the aggressiveness shown by Xi Jinping, China’s president, in embracing efforts to press territorial claims against Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, rather than focusing on the domestic economy… (more)
I just don’t see these conflicts in the same way as The Times. The NY Times is always hawkish in its reporting on war so it needs to be reviewed with critical eyes when it comes to security state issues. Remember the build-up to Iraq when The Times basically published Bush administration press releases and Cheney’s off-the-record rumors to push the US into a mistaken war. Now, they are pushing a militaristic policy that will be counterproductive and expensive in treasure and lives. Their propaganda around China, Putin and ISIS is evident if more sources of information are reviewed.
Ukraine: This is much of the US making. Ambassador Nuland admitted the US has spent $5 billion to build NGOs to challenge the previous democratically elected government. This was a key part of the coup and the goal of the coup was US positioning in the region to control gas pipelines (now Biden’s son is on the board of the largest Ukrainian gas company) and to remove Russia from its base in Crimea. The US worked with the oligarchs who corruptly rule Ukraine and allied with a fascist element to accomplish these goals. The just retired Prime Minister and current President were US selections. Wikileaks documents show the current president was a US informant — who the State Department called ‘our man Ukraine’ since 2006. The documents also show the US to be well aware of his corruption. His attack on East Ukraine was pushed by the US (the CIA has had a leading role, some say THE lead role, in the Ukraine since the US supported Orange Revolution) occurring after Biden and the CIA head visited him, and he met with Obama. This US pushed war is a tremendous error and now Kiev is licking its wounds as their effort has failed with lots of deaths of soldiers fighting for Kiev and mass deaths of civilians in E. Ukraine targeted by Kiev forces. Putin has put forward a very reasonable 7 point peace plan and has been urging negotiations between Kiev and E. Ukraine for a federation arrangement between the two. There is no need for this conflict if the US can accept E. Ukraine allying with Russia and Crimea remaining part of Russia. The propaganda around Putin is way over-the-top, really silly (not that Russia is run all that well with its mafia capitalism).
China: Why is the US encircling China with military bases? Why the Asian Pivot moving 60% of the US Navy to Asian waters? Why shouldn’t a population that is one-third of the world have the largest economy in the world? The US actions are creating conflicts in the region. The US is doing massive military exercises with South Korea (the largest series ever that include mock nuclear bombing of North Korea) as well as with Australia and Japan and smaller nations in the region. The US is weighing in on the side of its allies on Asian conflicts thereby escalating them. The US is pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive corporate trade agreement that does not include China. It is trying to isolate and weaken China economically by disrupting supply lines for goods that currently include China and by creating slave-labor markets in Vietnam (.30 per hour wages) that make China’s wages look high in order to move jobs from China to Vietnam. It is pushing Japan to become more military, convincing the Prime Minister to change the interpretation of its pacifist constitution to now mean — Japan cannot go to war against another country but can do so in coalition with other countries (guess who that coalition partner will be? — The US).
ISIS: 10,000 troops in ISIS, this is less than one army division. The propaganda around ISIS, some helped by ISIS’s abusive actions, is exaggerating their threat. They have basically been militarily successful when there is a military vacuum. Even minimum push back by the US and Kurds reversed some of their victories very quickly. The Iraq government kept people obeying by fear not by loyalty, not by justice but by injustice. This lack of loyalty was reflected in their military and population. Much of this, including the creation of ISIS is due to US interventionist policies in the region along with its allies especially Saudi Arabia (which is a very big problem in the region) and Israel. ISIS is blowback for decades of mistaken Middle East policy, and especially terrible policy since 9/11 (with the Iraq/Afghan wars, indiscriminate droning, destruction of Libya and spurring civil war in Syria). The most effective steps to be taken to deal with ISIS are not military but to remove its economic and political support, that means (1) Get US allies to stop funding Muslim extremism, this is mostly dealing with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States; but also requires the US and UK to stop aiding extremism in its fight against Assad in Syira; and (2) Push for a government in Iraq that creates stake holders in all key communities, Sunni, Shia and Kurd so there is representation and an avenue for people to air their grievances. These two steps will do a lot more than military action. In fact, military action will end up with blowback because it allows ISIS to be them against western imperialists. And, Biden’s idea of dividing Iraq into three countries — Shia, Sunni and Kurd — is a recipe for ongoing wars and confusion in the region; it is more modern US colonialism.
These are all problems of US making and military action in any of them will make the problems worse. The US needs to look in the mirror and realize its foreign policy is off-track and has been off-track for decades. It is off-track because the US insists on being the largest empire in world history that dominates governments and peoples around the world rather than works with them. The US insists on controlling the oil in the region and that has led to a series of mistaken policies since 1952 when a CIA coup removed the democratically elected leader of Iran because the US and UK wanted to control Iran’s oil. Those mistaken policies have continued ever since and the blowback keeps getting bigger.
KZ