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Mission Creep Dispatch: Steven Metz
As part of our special investigation "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide," we asked a host of military thinkers to contribute their two cents on topics relating to global Pentagon strategy. (You can access the archive here.) The following dispatch comes from Steven K. Metz, a strategic military theorist whose latest book is titled Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy.
America's Global Military Footprint Is the Lesser Evil
Throughout US history, Americans have periodically reassessed their nation's strategy. We are once again involved in this process, debating tough issues that emerged at the end of the Cold War but remained unresolved. Foremost among these is the militarization of American statecraft. Unfortunately, much of the discussion of the vital topic misleads rather than illuminates. Take the global deployment of US troops:
Chalmers Johnson led the way in suggesting that the US has embarked on some sort of imperial offensive based on the number of nations that currently have an American troop presence. But there is presence and there is presence. Most of the deployments shown on the map in Johnson's The Sorrows of Empire and other places consist of Marine embassy guards and defense attachés working out of the embassy. By that logic, a hundred or more nations have a military presence in the United States. The map may be technically accurate, but without explanation is misleading. Its intent is to shock readers at the extent of the American "empire" rather than accurately portray the role of the US military.
Much better analysis of the militarization of American statecraft is available in the brilliant work of Andrew Bacevich. But once we accurately understand the contours of this process, we must ask ourselves why it has taken place. The answer is not because of nefarious conspiracies, evil intent, or a desire to control the world's resources, but because there are things that need to be done to sustain security and stability which neither international organizations nor the nonmilitary component of the US government can do. The US military is the peacemaker, stabilizer, and reconstructer of last resort. The vast majority of the troops would love to be stationed at home and to avoid protracted, frustrating activities like stabilization operations, disaster relief, training, and advising the security forces of other nations. But if they were, these things would not be done.
Where, then, are we? In the broadest sense, the United States has three options. It can accept the militarization of its statecraft and focus on methods to assure that this takes place with rigorous concern for human rights and respect for partner states. It can, as Secretary of Defense Gates advocates, invest in the State Department, the Agency for International Development, and other nonmilitary government organizations so that the US military can concentrate on what it alone can do—prepare for war. Or the United States could simply disengage from stabilization, peacekeeping, disaster relief, and the training and advising of foreign security forces. But would the world then be a better place?
I, for one, think not. That Russia did not simply replace the government of Georgia indicates that America's partnerships with foreign security forces are playing a positive role in the evolution of global norms. Ultimately, critics of American strategy must provide a better alternative if they want to be taken seriously. Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst possible form of government, save all the others. A world order heavily dependent on the global presence of the American military may be a terrible idea. But it is, I believe, less terrible than the alternatives.
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Everyone has the right to their opinion and this is your opinion. It definitely is not my opinion, as I do not see in any way any need for anything that the Bush administration has done. The Bush administration is and has been a blight on our nation.
http://polaris.moviments.net:8000/i-have-robbed-492000-euros-whom-most-r...
Let's make the hidden government visible, let's build a different society
Times for economic turbulence! Banks are robbing us. 95% of money is created by private banks through loans over any real money basis and what is more, we have to pay them back with interests. War and finances feed on each other. Financial authorities take natural and human resources of our planet and, as they need an exponential growth system to survive, they get into debt our present and mortgage our future, with no disgrace at all. Energy crisis and peak oil are getting everytime more present topics which cannot be postponed, at he same time than food crisis, consequence of the loss of food sovereignty because of the power concentration on a few companies as well as speculation over basic food from the poorest countries. And knowing this, we are silent? We, the social movements, do not want to keep our mouths shut!
Banks and saving banks are financing murderous companies while they insist on making us believe they hava a nice soul, and they pocket incomes and socialize losses. Financial authorities are immune to the judiciary and through their power to create money, completely non-lawful nor democratic, they get to control each and every government depending on their interests and they get to silence the mass media or bombard us through them depending on what suits them the best for each situation. You know: the one who pays, he choses where to go. But in fact, we all are paying for it, aren't we?
Economical oligarquies which we can never really see finance both left wing and right wing governments while, at the same time, they all meet in secret societies to discuss about the new global order in a friendly way. Is it a contradiction? No, it is not; it is a carefully planned strategy.
Allowing us to vote every 4 years in a pretty much two-party system is just the easiest way to make us think that we are living in a democracy. And this sort of directed democracy, which is the result of thorough plans orchestrated after the Second World War, has proven to be the simplest and costless means to keep the population subjugated while the power of a few families becomes imperial.
In the meanwhile, social movements are baking the alternatives, making groups with a local, horizontal, and autonomous nature, growing by common meetings in order to create nets and to debate. We want to be more autonomous and active, we do not to think that things will change by themselves and we do not want to wait until authorities change them but we prefer self-acting for changing them, disobey the banks, to take a step forward. We commit ourselves to our life's self-management, leaving us space for being really free, not being slaves to a job in which we work for others, and not to serve any interests which are not ours. We believe in education for free people, an education which allows them to think by themselves. We build alternative media, we degrow and we share resources and very diverse messages. We are up and running!
Real economy has transformed into an appendix of finances, but this system of infinite growth has come up against some limits: the only planet we have, with its limited resources. While all those who hold the invisible power keep discussing kindly what will the new global order to come after this profound crisis be like, the people hold the resposibility to take action. Power does not exist as such without obedience and fear. All the social movements are capable, if we believe it, to oppose to the dictatorship of the economy, planned behind our backs, and we are building another society, now and here. Here and now!