Assange: 'What Wikileaks Teaches Us About How the US Operates' | Newsweek

SOURCE http://www.newsweek.com/emb-midnight-827-assange-what-wikileaks-teaches-us-about-how-us-operates-366364 OPINION Assange: What Wikileaks Teaches Us About How the U.S. Operates By Julian Assange 8/28/15 at 2:45 AM In an introduction to a new book, The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to U.S. Empire (Verso, 2015), Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange explains how the leaked U.S. documents have lifted the veil on the imperialist nature of American foreign policy. One day, a monk and two novices found a heavy stone in their path. “We will throw it away,” said the novices. But before they could do so, the monk took his ax and cleaved the stone in half. After seeking his approval, the novices then threw the halves away. “Why did you cleave the stone only to have us throw it away?” they asked. The monk pointed to the distance the half stones had traveled. Growing excited, one of the novices took the monk’s ax and rushed to where one half of the stone had landed. Cleaving it, he threw the quarter, whereupon the other novice grabbed the ax from him and rushed after it. He too cleaved the stone fragment and threw it afield. Speech has a short temporal range, but stone has a long one. Some writing methods, such as engraving into stone, suited the transmission of compressed institutional rules that needed to be safely communicated into future months and years. But these methods did not allow for rapidly unfolding events, or for official nuance or discretion: they were set in stone. To address the gaps, empires with slow writing systems still had to rely heavily on humanity’s oldest and yet most ephemeral communications medium: oral conventions, speech. Other methods, such as papyrus, were light and fast to create, but fragile. Such communications materials had the advantage of being easy to construct and transport, unifying occupied regions through rapid information flow that in turn could feed a reactive central management. Such a well connected center could integrate the streams of intelligence coming in and swiftly project its resulting decisions outwards, albeit with resulting tendencies toward short-termism and micromanagement. While a sea, desert, or mountain could be crossed or bypassed at some expense, and energy resources discovered or stolen, the ability to project an empire’s desires, structure and knowledge across space and time forms an absolute boundary to its existence. Cultures and economies communicate using all manner of techniques across the regions and years of their existence, from the evolution of jokes shared virally between friends to the diffusion of prices across trade routes. This does not by itself make an empire. The structured attempt at managing an extended cultural and economic system using communications is the hallmark of empire. And it is the records of these communications, never intended to be dissected, and so especially vulnerable to dissection, that form the basis for understanding the nature of the world’s sole remaining “empire.” Anatomy of the U.S. Empire And where is this empire? Each working day, 71,000 people across 191 countries representing twenty-seven [27] different US government agencies wake and make their way past flags, steel fences and armed guards into one of the 276 fortified buildings that comprise the 169 embassies and other missions of the US Department of State. They are joined in their march by representatives and operatives from twenty-seven [27] other US government departments and agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the various branches of the US military. Inside each embassy is an ambassador who is usually close to domestic US political, business or intelligence power; career diplomats who specialize in the politics, economy and public diplomacy of their host state; managers, researchers, military attachés, spies under foreign-service cover, personnel from other US government agencies (for some embassies this goes as far as overt armed military or covert special operations forces); contractors, security personnel, technicians, locally hired translators, cleaners and other service personnel. Above them, radio and satellite antennas scrape the air, some reaching back home to receive or disgorge diplomatic and CIA cables, some to relay the communications of US military ships and planes, others emplaced by the National Security Agency in order to mass-intercept the mobile phones and other wireless traffic of the host population. The US diplomatic service dates back to the Revolution, but it was in the post–World War II environment that the modern State Department came to be. Its origins coincided with the appointment of Henry Kissinger as secretary of state, in 1973. Kissinger’s appointment was unusual in several respects. Kissinger did not just head up the State Department; he was also concurrently appointed national security advisor, facilitating a tighter integration between the foreign relations and military and intelligence arms of the US government. While the State Department had long had a cable system, the appointment of Kissinger led to logistical changes in how cables were written, indexed and stored. For the first time, the bulk of cables were transmitted electronically. This period of major innovation is still present in the way the department operates today. The US Department of State is unique among the formal bureaucracies of the United States. Other agencies aspire to administrate one function or another, but the State Department represents, and even houses, all major elements of US national power. It provides cover for the CIA, buildings for the NSA mass-interception equipment, office space and communications facilities for the FBI, the military and other government agencies and staff to act as sales agents and political advisors for the largest US corporations. One cannot properly understand an institution like the State Department from the outside, any more than Renaissance artists could discover how animals worked without opening them up and poking about inside. As the diplomatic apparatus of the United States, the State Department is directly involved in putting a friendly face on empire, concealing its underlying mechanics. Every year, more than $1 billion is budgeted for “public diplomacy,” a circumlocutory term for outward-facing propaganda. Public diplomacy explicitly aims to influence journalists and civil society, so that they serve as conduits for State Department messaging. While national archives have produced impressive collections of internal state communications, their material is intentionally withheld or made difficult to access for decades, until it is stripped of potency. This is inevitable, as national archives are not structured to resist the blowback (in the form of withdrawn funding or termination of officials) that timely, accessible archives of international significance would produce. What makes the revelation of secret communications potent is that we were not supposed to read them. The internal communications of the US Department of State are the logistical by-product of its activities: their publication is the vivisection of a living empire, showing what substance flowed from which state organ and when. Diplomatic cables are not produced in order to manipulate the public, but are aimed at elements of the rest of the US state apparatus and are therefore relatively free from the distorting influence of public relations. Reading them is a much more effective way of understanding an institution like the State Department than reading reports by journalists on the public pronouncements of Hillary Clinton, or [White House Communications Director] Jen Psaki. While in their internal communications State Department officials must match their pens to the latest DC orthodoxies should they wish to stand out in Washington for the “right” reasons and not the “wrong” ones, these elements of political correctness are themselves noteworthy and visible to outsiders who are not sufficiently indoctrinated. Many cables are deliberative or logistical, and their causal relationships across time and space with other cables and with externally documented events create a web of interpretive constraints that reliably show how the US Department of State and the agencies that inter-operate with its cable system understand their place in the world. Only by approaching this corpus holistically—over and above the documentation of each individual abuse, each localized atrocity—does the true human cost of empire heave into view. National Security Religiosity and the International Studies Association While there exists a large literature in the structural or realpolitik analysis of key institutions of US power, a range of ritualistic and even quasi-religious phenomena surrounding the national security sector in the United States suggests that these approaches alone lack explanatory power. These phenomena are familiar in the ritual of flag-folding, the veneration of orders and elaborate genuflection [grovelling / servility / on bended knee | fm Lat. genu (knee) flectere (to bend) - here] to rank, but they can be seen also in the extraordinary reaction to WikiLeaks’ disclosures, where it is possible to observe some of their more interesting features.  When WikiLeaks publishes US government documents with classification markings—a type of national-security “holy seal,” if you will—two parallel campaigns begin: first, the public campaign of downplaying, diverting attention from and reframing any revelations that are a threat to the prestige of the national security class; and, second, an internal campaign within the national security state itself to digest what has happened. When documents carrying such seals are made public, they are transubstantiated [transmuted] into forbidden objects that become toxic to the “state within a state”—the more than 5.1 million Americans (as of 2014) with active security clearances, and those on its extended periphery who aspire to its economic or social patronage. There is a level of hysteria and non-corporeality  [immateriality?] exhibited in this reaction to WikiLeaks’ disclosures that is not easily captured by traditional theories of power. Many religions and cults imbue their priestly class with additional scarcity value by keeping their religious texts secret from the public or the lower orders of the devoted. This technique also permits the priestly class to adopt different psychological strategies for different levels of indoctrination. What is laughable, hypocritical, or Machiavellian to the public or lower levels of “clearance” is embraced by those who have become sufficiently indoctrinated or co-opted into feeling that their economic or social advantage lies in accepting that which they would normally reject. Publicly, the US government has claimed, falsely, that anyone without a security clearance distributing “classified” documents is violating the Espionage Act of 1917. But the claims of the interior “state within a state” campaign work in the opposite direction. There, it orders the very people it publicly claims are the only ones who can legally read classified documents to refrain from reading documents WikiLeaks and associated media have published with classification markings on them, lest they be “contaminated” by them.  While a given document can be read by cleared staff when it issues from classified government repositories, it is forbidden for the same staff to set eyes on the exact same document when it emerges from a public source. Should cleared employees of the national security state read such documents in the public domain, they are expected to self-report their contact with the newly profaned object, and destroy all traces of it.  This response is, of course, irrational. The classified cables and other documents published by WikiLeaks and associated media are completely identical to the original versions officially available to those with the necessary security clearance, since this is where they originated. They are electronic copies. Not only are they indistinguishable—there is literally no difference at all between them. Not a word. Not a letter. Not a single bit. The implication is that there is a non-physical property that inhabits documents once they receive their classification markings, and that this magical property is extinguished not by copying the document but by making the copy public. The now public document has, to devotees of the national security state, not merely become devoid of this magical property and reverted to a mundane object, it has been inhabited by another non-physical property:  an evil one. This kind of religious thinking has consequences. Not only is it the excuse used by the US government to block millions of people working for the “state within a state” from reading more than thirty [30] different WikiLeaks domains—the same excuse that was used to block The New York Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El País and other outlets publishing WikiLeaks materials. In fact, in 2011 the US government sent what might be called a “WikiLeaks fatwa” to every federal government agency, every federal government employee, and every federal government security contractor: The recent disclosure of US Government documents by WikiLeaks has caused damage to our national security ... Classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites, disclosed to the media, or otherwise in the public domain remains classified and must be treated as such until such time it is declassified by an appropriate US government authority ... Contractors who inadvertently discover potentially classified information in the public domain shall report its existence immediately to their Facility Security Officers. Companies are instructed to delete the offending material by holding down the SHIFT key while pressing the DELETE key for Windows-based systems and clearing of the internet browser cache. After being contacted by an officer of the US Department of State, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs warned its students to “not post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.”  A swathe of government departments and other entities, including even the Library of Congress, blocked internet access to WikiLeaks. The US National Archives even blocked searches of its own database for the phrase “WikiLeaks.” So absurd did the taboo become that, like a dog snapping mindlessly at everything, eventually it found its mark—its own tail. By March 2012, the Pentagon had gone so far as to create an automatic filter to block any emails, including inbound emails to the Pentagon, containing the word “WikiLeaks.” As a result, Pentagon prosecutors preparing the case against US intelligence analyst PFC Manning, the alleged source of the Cablegate cables, found that they were not receiving important emails from either the judge or the defense. But the Pentagon did not remove the filter— instead, chief prosecutor Major Ashden Fein told the court that a new procedure had been introduced to check the filter daily for blocked WikiLeaks-related emails. Military judge Col. Denise Lind said that special alternative email addresses would be set up for the prosecution. While such religious hysteria seems laughable to those outside the US national security sector, it has resulted in a serious poverty of analysis of WikiLeaks publications in American international relations journals. However, scholars in disciplines as varied as law, linguistics, applied statistics, health and economics have not been so shy. For instance, in their 2013 paper for the statistics journal Entropy, DeDeo et al.—all US or UK nationals—write that WikiLeaks’ Afghan War Diary “is likely to become a standard set for both the analysis of human conflict and the study of empirical methods for the analysis of complex, multi-modal data.” [entropy = (Communications & Information) a measure of the efficiency of a system, such as a code or language, in transmitting information - fm. Gk  - here] There is even an extensive use of WikiLeaks materials, particularly cables, in courts, including domestic courts, from the United Kingdom to Pakistan, and in international tribunals from the European Court of Human Rights to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Set against the thousands of citations in the courts and in other academic areas, the poverty of coverage in American international relations journals appears not merely odd, but suspicious. These journals, which dominate the study of international relations globally, should be a natural home for the proper analysis of WikiLeaks’ two-billion-word diplomatic corpus. The US-based International Studies Quarterly (ISQ), a major international relations journal, adopted a policy against accepting manuscripts based on WikiLeaks material—even where it consists of quotes or derived analysis. According to a forthcoming paper, “Who’s Afraid of WikiLeaks? Missed Opportunities in Political Science Research,” the editor of ISQ stated that the journal is currently “in an untenable position,” and that this will remain the case until there is a change in policy from the influential International Studies Association (ISA). The ISA has over 6,500 members worldwide and is the dominant scholarly association in the field. The ISA also publishes Foreign Policy Analysis, International Political Sociology, International Interactions, International Studies Review, and International Studies Perspectives. The ISA’s 2014–15 president is Amitav Acharya, a professor at the School of International Service at the American University in Washington, DC. Nearly half of the fifty-six [56] members on its governing council are professors at similar academic departments across the United States, many of which also operate as feeder schools for the US Department of State and other internationally-oriented areas of government. That the ISA has banned the single most significant US foreign policy archive from appearing in its academic papers—something that must otherwise work against its institutional and academic ambitions—calls into question its entire output, an output that has significantly influenced how the world has come to understand the role of the United States in the international order. This closing of ranks within the scholar class around the interests of the Pentagon and the State Department is, in itself, worthy of analysis. The censorship of cables from international relations journals is a type of academic fraud. To quietly exclude primary sources for non-academic reasons is to lie by omission. But it points to a larger insight: the distortion of the field of international relations and related disciplines by the proximity of its academic structures to the US government. Its structures do not even have the independence of the frequently deferent New York Times, which, while it engaged in various forms of cable censorship, at least managed to publish over a hundred. These journals’ distortion of the study of international relations and censorship of WikiLeaks are clear examples of a problem. But its identification also presents a significant opportunity: to present an analysis of international relations that has not been hobbled by the censorship of classified materials. The World According to U.S. Empire The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to U.S. Empire (Verso, 2015) begins to address the need for scholarly analysis of what the millions of documents published by WikiLeaks say about international geopolitics. The chapters use a constellation approach to these documents to reveal how the United States deals with various regional and international power dynamics. It is impossible to cover the wealth of material or relationships in this first volume, but I hope that this work will stimulate long-form journalists and academics to eclipse it. Chapter 1 reflects on America’s status as an “empire,” and considers what this means, seeking to characterize US economic, military, administrative and diplomatic power with reference to the long sweep of global history over the last century. The chapter establishes the “imperialism of free trade” framework that the rest of Part II then develops—a framework wherein American military might is used not for territorial expansion but to perpetuate American economic preeminence. Both themes are considered in more detail in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. Chapter 1 also situates WikiLeaks in the context of an unprecedented growth in American official secrecy, and the evolution of US power following the commencement of the “war on terror.” Chapter 2 examines the WikiLeaks materials on the so-called “war on terror.” Besides providing a keen summary of the war crimes and human rights abuses documented in WikiLeaks publications, along with a detailed historical overview of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the consequent unfolding disaster there, the chapter also draws conclusions about the ideological and conceptual substructure of America’s “war on terror,” and investigates how an aspect of the imperial prerogative of the United States is to exercise decisive power to ensure that terms like “just war,” “torture,” “terrorism” and “civilian” are defined in its own favor. The argument adduces evidence from the full range of WikiLeaks publications, along with other sources, such as the recent CIA torture report. In the process, the chapter also examines the double standards and problems arising from the misuse of these concepts (including the attempt to delegitimize and marginalize WikiLeaks itself). Chapter 3 embarks on a thoroughgoing discussion of the “empire of free trade”—the relationship of the American form of empire with the worldwide promotion of neoliberal economic reform, providing American corporations with access to “global markets.” The chapter draws on State Department cables published by WikiLeaks, as well as WikiLeaks publications dating back to 2007 concerning the “private sector,” including material on banks and global multilateral treaty negotiations. The chapter provides luminous examples of how the drive toward economic integration buttresses the position of the United States as an arms-length empire, and provides the underlying rationale for the patterns of intervention, military or otherwise, pursued in Latin America and beyond. Chapter 4 is a do-it-yourself guide on how to use Wiki- Leaks’ Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), written by investigations editor Sarah Harrison. At the time of writing, PlusD contains 2,325,961 cables and other diplomatic records. The State Department uses its own logic to create, transmit and index these records, the totality of which form its primary institutional memory. Harrison explains how to get started searching, reading and interpreting cable metadata and content, from the infamous CHEROKEE restriction to the use of State Department euphemisms such as “opposing resource nationalism.” The history of US policy regarding the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a rich case study in the use of diplomacy in a concerted effort to undermine an international institution. In Chapter 5, Linda Pearson documents what the cables reveal about the efforts of successive US administrations to limit the ICC’s jurisdiction. These include the use of both bribes and threats by the George W. Bush administration to corral states signed up to the ICC into providing immunity from war crimes prosecutions for US persons—and, under the Obama administration, more subtle efforts to shape the ICC into an adjunct of US foreign policy. Japan and South Korea have been epicenters of US influence within East Asia for decades. The cables document nearly a decade of US efforts to affect domestic political outcomes within these two countries in line with its own long-term interests. In Chapter 14, investigative journalist Tim Shorrock examines the geopolitical triangle created by US relations with both countries, including its attempts to play one off against the other, as part of long-term efforts to undermine left-wing governments and policies within the region. Of global GDP growth over the last decade, over 50 percent has been in Southeast Asia. This understanding has led to an explicit reassignment of military, diplomatic and surveillance assets to Southeast Asia, epitomized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a strategy of “forward deployed diplomacy.” In Chapter 15, Richard Heydarian examines the cables on Southeast Asia and situates his findings within a broader historical critique of US influence in the region. The critique of Western imperialism is most contentious in regions of the world that have historically been US protectorates, such as western Europe. So indoctrinated are European liberals in modern imperialist ideology that even the idea that the United States might be administering a global empire is routinely dismissed with references to concepts like “right to protect,” demonstrating a willful deafness not only to the structure of US power around the world, but also to how it increasingly talks about itself as an “empire.” In Chapter 6, Michael Busch examines the broad patterns of influence and subversion pursued by the global superpower on the political systems of Europe and its member states. Themes include European government collusion with the CIA’s rendition and torture programs, the subversion of European criminal justice and judicial systems to rescue alleged US government torturers from prosecution and the use of US diplomacy to open up European markets to US aerospace companies, or to invasive, monopolistic technologies and patents, such as Monsanto’s genetically modified organisms. In Chapter 13, Phyllis Bennis opts for a broad overview of WikiLeaks’ publications on Afghanistan—including not just the State Department cables, but also the Significant Action Reports (SIGACTs) published by WikiLeaks as the Afghan War Diary, and Congressional Research Reports and other documents on Afghanistan published by WikiLeaks prior to 2010. What emerges is a stark assessment of the folly of US military involvement in Afghanistan since 2001 and its cost in terms of human life and societal well-being. Geopolitics is complicated, and all the more so in relation to a country like Israel. Israel’s military dominance in the Middle East; its diplomatic relations with other regional players such as Egypt, Syria, Iran, Lebanon and Turkey; its role as an avatar for US imperial policy within the area; its wayward exploitation of its protected status in pursuing its own genocidal policies toward the Palestinian people—all of these themes are brought to the fore in Chapter 9, by Peter Certo and Stephen Zunes, which carefully interrogates the relevant State Department cables. In Chapter 11, on Iran, Gareth Porter provides an excellent companion to the chapter on Israel, choosing to focus on what the cables reveal about the tripartite geopolitical standoff between the US, Israel and Iran, and the shadow this structure casts on the rest of the Middle East. In particular, Porter focuses on the P5+1 talks about Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, on US efforts to misrepresent intelligence in order to tip the international consensus against Iran, and on the role of Israel as both a catalyst for and an agent of US policy in the Middle East. The conflict in Iraq is the focus of Chapter 12, by journalist Dahr Jamail, which draws on a wide range of WikiLeaks materials to argue that the United States had a deliberate policy of exacerbating sectarian divisions in Iraq following its invasion and occupation, in the belief that the country would be easier to dominate in such circumstances. The consequent devastation is documented in painstaking detail using WikiLeaks materials, including US cables, Congressional Research Reports dating between 2005 and 2008 and the Iraq War Logs from 2010. Jamail pays specific attention to the “Sahwa” movement— the US-sponsored program of counter-insurgency that was implemented to respond to the growing influence of al-Qaeda affiliates among Sunni Iraqis disaffected by the Shia-dominated US-client government of Nouri al-Maliki. The United States paid large numbers of Iraqis to defect from the Sunni insurgency and instead fight against al-Qaeda, on the promise of receiving regular employment through integration into the Iraqi military. As Jamail argues, the failure of the Maliki government to honor this promise saw huge numbers of US-trained, US-armed and US-financed—but now unemployed—Sunni militants return to the insurgency, eventually swelling the ranks of the former al- Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, which in 2014 became known as ISIS, or the “Islamic State.” Across Iraq’s northeastern border, in Syria, the cables also describe how the scene was set for the emergence of ISIS. Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, warmongers in the media have demanded the Western military pounding of Syria to depose Bashar Al-Assad—presented, in typical liberal-interventionist fashion, as a “new Hitler.” The emergence of the Islamic State, to which the Assad government is the only viable counterweight within Syria, has thrown this propagandistic consensus into disarray. But US government designs on Syrian regime change, and its devotion to regional instability, long pre-date the Syrian civil war, as is demonstrated in the cables. Chapter 10, by Robert Naiman, offers a careful reading of the Damascus cables, pointing out important historical presentiments of the current situation in Syria, and unpicking the benign-sounding human rights constructions of US diplomats to bring into focus the imperialist inflection of US foreign policy and rhetoric toward Syria—including concrete efforts within the country to undermine the government and bring about the chaos of recent months during the entire decade preceding 2011. Clichés abound about Turkey being a “bridge between East and West,” but it cannot be denied that this country of some seventy-five million people occupies an important position— both as a regional player within Middle Eastern geopolitics and as a large and economically powerful nominal democracy on the fringes of Europe. As Conn Hallinan argues in Chapter 8, State Department cables illustrate US efforts to exploit the rich geopolitical significance of Turkey. Hallinan uses the cables as a pretext to provide a tour of Turkey’s regional alliances, strategic concerns and internal affairs. Among the topics he covers are the complex strategic energy calculations that necessitate Turkey’s delicate relations with Iran and Russia, even as it cultivates the United States, Europe and Israel in its efforts to gain access to Western markets. The chapter also examines Turkey’s bargaining power, demonstrated in its use of a veto against the election of former Danish prime minister Anders Rasmussen as the head of NATO, in order to force the United States to pressure the Danish government into suppressing a Denmark-based Kurdish television channel. The essay also deals with Turkey’s internal issues, such as government policy toward Kurdish separatist groups, and the extraordinary underground political conflict and intrigue between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the expatriate political figure Fethullah Gülen. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially during the so-called “war on terror,” US diplomacy has leaned toward South, Central and East Asia. Except in the case of one or two flare-ups, US-Russian relations receded from the popular consciousness as the main geopolitical dynamic. This of course has changed as a result of the conflict in the Ukraine. But popular consciousness is not reality. As Russ Wellen shows in Chapter 7, in the decade following the century’s turn the US has pursued a policy of aggressive NATO expansion, challenging Russia’s regional hegemony within Eastern Europe and the former Soviet area and seeking to subvert nuclear treaties to maintain its strategic advantage. As the cables show, these efforts have not gone unnoticed by Russia, and are recurring points of conflict in US-Russian diplomatic relations, even during the most cordial of periods. The chapter provides the necessary context for recent East-West tensions centering around Syria, Ukraine and the granting of asylum to Edward Snowden, and yields critical insight into a geopolitical relationship that, if mishandled, threatens the survival of our civilization and even of our species. Perhaps no region of the world demonstrates the full spectrum of US imperial interference as vividly as Latin America. Since the 1950s, US policy in Central and South America has popularized the concept of the CIA coup d’état, deposing democratically elected left-wing governments and installing US-friendly right-wing dictatorships; inaugurating legacies of brutal civil war, death squads, torture and disappearances; and immiserating [impoverishing] millions to the benefit of the American ruling class. As Alexander Main, Jake Johnston, and Dan Beeton note in the first of their chapters on Latin America, Chapter 17, the English-speaking press saw no evil in the State Department cables, concluding that they did not fit “the stereotype of America plotting coups and caring only about business interests and consorting with only the right wing.” The exact opposite is true: the cables demonstrate a smooth continuity between the brutal US policy in Latin America during the Cold War and the more sophisticated plays at toppling governments that have taken place in recent years. Chapter 17 offers a broad overview of the use of USAID and “civil society” astroturfing, as well as other, more direct methods of pursuing “regime change” in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and Haiti. Chapter 18, by the same authors, focuses on Venezuela, the socialist enemy of the day, and specifically on US efforts to undermine the country as a regional left-wing bulwark in the wake of the failed US-backed coup against the Chávez government in 2002. The response of the United States to the release of the WikiLeaks materials betrays a belief that its power resides in a disparity of information: ever more knowledge for the empire, ever less for its subjects. In 1969, Daniel Ellsberg—later famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers—had a top-secret security clearance. Henry Kissinger had applied for his own top-secret clearance. Ellsberg warned him of its dangers: [I]t will ... become very hard for you to learn from anybody who doesn’t have these clearances. Because you’ll be thinking as you listen to them: “What would this man be telling me if he knew what I know? Would he be giving me the same advice, or would it totally change his predictions and recommendations?” You will deal with a person who doesn’t have those clearances only from the point of view of what you want him to believe and what impression you want him to go away with, since you’ll have to lie carefully to him about what you know. In effect, you will have to manipulate him. You’ll give up trying to assess what he has to say. The danger is, you’ll become something like a moron. You’ll become incapable of learning from most people in the world, no matter how much experience they may have in their particular areas that may be much greater than yours. Freed from their classified seals, the WikiLeaks materials bridge the gulf between the “morons” with security clearances and nothing to learn, and us, their readers. Julian Assange is the editor-in-chief of Wikileaks. This is extracted from The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to U.S. Empire (Verso, 2015) SOURCE http://www.newsweek.com/emb-midnight-827-assange-what-wikileaks-teaches-us-about-how-us-operates-366364 Summaries  Assange | What Wikileaks Teaches Us About How the US Operates | Book: The WikiLeaks Files | Article Extracts-Summary Part I  | here Assange | What Wikileaks Teaches Us About How the US Operates | Book: The WikiLeaks Files | Article Extracts-Summary  Part II  |  here ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT Might have to read this again, because I was listening to music while highlighting the parts that seem key (to me). Book sounds really good. ꕤ

Australia | John Howard - The Shield of Achilles, Phillip Bobbitt

SOURCE http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10052/20040821-0000/www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech921.html Speeches 18 June 2004 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP ADDRESS TO THE AUSTRALIAN STRATEGIC POLICY INSTITUTE, WESTIN HOTEL, SYDNEY E&OE… It’s less than four years since the Government decided to establish the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). [est. 2001 - here] With a certain youthful precocity, ASPI has injected new ideas and vigour into our national security debate. I congratulate the Institute’s Board and its outgoing Director Hugh White on their considerable achievements. The Australian Government gave ASPI a clear mandate – to provide policy relevant research so as to better inform government decisions and public understanding of strategic and defence issues. We felt that policy discussion in Australia on these matters was too thin and narrow. We wanted a source of high quality, well balanced and carefully argued views from outside the government, believing that greater contestability of advice would contribute over time to improved debate and clearer public policy choices. It’s not often that a government creates an independent policy research body. It’s the sort of action Sir Humphrey Appleby might have described as bordering on ‘courageous’.  [TV character - Yes Minister - here] In its own modest way, it was an act of faith. A faith that says: free and open societies are strong precisely because issues are debated widely and forcefully. Indeed one of the curiosities of 2004 has been the unwillingness of my political opponent to engage in detail expositions of his views and the alternatives he proposes to the Australian people. Such debate is nowhere more important than in the area of national security policy.  [Mark Latham, ALP - link below] A PIVOTAL TIME September 11 recast our thinking about security threats in the twenty-first century. Traditional concerns such as regional flashpoints and rogue states remain, but major power relations appear more benign. Meanwhile, the twin dangers of terrorism and weapons proliferation have come into much sharper focus. There is also much greater attention to transnational threats that flow less from state strength than from state weakness. We are at a pivotal time in world affairs when to fall back on paradigms from the past underestimates the critical dangers we confront. In his acclaimed book, The Shield of Achilles, Phillip Bobbitt argues cogently that we are: ‘at a moment of world affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change. For five centuries it has taken the resources of a state to destroy another state: only states could muster the huge revenues, conscript the vast armies, and equip the divisions required to threaten the survival of other states.’ This is no longer true, Bobbitt says, owing to advances in telecommunications, rapid computation, and weapons of mass destruction. He goes on to claim that: ‘The change in statecraft that will accompany these developments will be as profound as anything that the state has thus far undergone.’ Joseph Nye - an acknowledged critic of US action in Iraq - has made a similar point about the deep trends in world politics illuminated by September 11. He describes the 'privatisation of war' as not only a major historical change, but one which could drastically alter civilisation itself. I cite these two respected thinkers for a simple reason. To demonstrate that the perils we face today do not spring from the imaginations of George W. Bush, Tony Blair or John Howard. Nor are they the invention of some neo-conservative group in Washington. This is the uncertain world we live in. A world of grave threats and, it must be said, terrible dilemmas for peace-loving nations. A world that demands strategic focus, steadiness of purpose, clear thinking and flexibility in the use of Australia’s instruments of national strategy. It is a world where governments must integrate foreign and domestic policies as never before. One that demands unprecedented cooperation across defence, foreign affairs, domestic security and intelligence policies. The blurring of old boundaries compels us to see with new clarity the links between terrorism, weapons proliferation and other transnational criminal activity such as trafficking in drugs and people, and money laundering. This is especially so in our neighbourhood, where instability, poor governance and rapid change have added to an environment of strategic uncertainty. For the foreseeable future, the major threats to Australia are more likely to come from terrorists and international criminals than from conventional military attack. In the war against terror, we face an enemy that is elusive; that has global reach; that is bound by neither rules nor morals. Progress has been made degrading terrorist networks since September 11, but the attacks this year in Madrid and elsewhere remind us of the potent threat they pose. Conventional explosives and civilian technologies are bad enough. But the potential for terrorists to gain access to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons makes for truly horrendous prospects. It is the Government’s firm judgement, stated repeatedly, that the threat posed by Islamic extremists cannot be assuaged. Their ideologies of hatred disdain the politics of accommodation and compromise. If they see a wavering or retreating enemy, their response is to hit as hard as they can, and claim responsibility. As the callous attacks in Bali showed, they are devoid of any sentiment of shared humanity. These terrorists must be defeated. The terrorist threat for a country like ours is real. Ironically, the reality of this threat comes from features of modern society that are otherwise positive and welcome. Australia is, for instance, uniquely placed to reap the rewards of globalisation with strong and stable political institutions, a competitive economy and a diverse society. But the very things that work in our favour – our freedom, our openness, our liberal democratic beliefs – leave Australians exposed to globalisation’s dark and potentially destructive edge. The same forces that create opportunities for wealth creation and progress – the international flow of goods, money, people and ideas – also sustain potentially lethal security threats. We know Australia is a terrorist target. It has been since before September 11. Al Qaida, Jemaah Islamiyah and other terrorist organisations threaten Australia and Australian interests. And while our region is home to a predominantly moderate and tolerant form of Islam, the Bali bombings showed that we are a target because of who we are and what we stand for. Sadly, this is unlikely to change. And sadly too, geography does not equal immunity. No country is free from risk. Recent times have seen terrorist attacks in Spain, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey and of course Iraq. And the largest group of victims has been Muslims. If globalisation means anything, it means that Australia must respond to what are global security challenges. We must be actively engaged at this pivotal time in confronting the new and terrible threats of the twenty-first century. We cannot wind back the clock or avert our gaze and hope the problems go away. AN INTEGRATED, FLEXIBLE NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY ASPI’s 2004 strategic review released last month stated correctly that Australia faces its most challenging and turbulent security outlook since the mid-1960s. The Government is acting to meet this challenge with additional resources, strategic flexibility and unwavering resolve. Our integrated national security strategy combines strengthened defence and counter-terrorism capabilities, upgraded infrastructure and transport security, tightened border protection and enhanced international cooperation. Even before 11 September 2001, the Government identified the need to build a more flexible, interoperable and combat-ready defence force. The rebalancing of the ADF that began with 2000 Defence White Paper will not fundamentally alter its size or structure but it will improve its capability by enhancing its fire-power, readiness and mobility. The Defence Capability Review completed last November identified some additional requirements to take account of unconventional threats and new regional responsibilities. Additional investments have been made to strengthen the effectiveness and sustainability of the Army; to improve air defence protection to deploying forces; to enhance the lift capability for deployment; and to position the ADF to exploit current and emerging network-centric warfare advantages. Australia’s counter-terrorism response has been swift, comprehensive and decisive. Additional funding of over $3 billion has been committed since 2001 to ensure our arrangements are as robust as possible. The Government’s three-pronged approach is based on better laws, stronger terrorism-fighting agencies and enhanced international cooperation. The Government’s new framework of counter-terrorism laws preserves precious liberties while recognising that human security is the foundation of what it means to be free. We have enhanced the capacity of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to detect, investigate and prosecute terrorists and terrorist organisations. Timely and efficient intelligence gathering is our primary weapon against the potential terrorist threat to Australia. Our intelligence agencies are better resourced now than at any time since the Cold War. ASIO’s budget alone has doubled since September 2001, with expanded capabilities in investigations and analysis, border control, threat assessment, critical infrastructure protection and security assessment. And last month I announced additional funding of over $100 million for the other key intelligence agencies – ASIS, DIO and ONA. Our new strategic environment requires unprecedented coordination of domestic agencies and functions not traditionally associated with national security. The political focal point of decision-making is the National Security Committee of Cabinet which I chair. But the heightened terrorist threat has demanded enhanced policy and operational coordination across government. The Government is also working closely with other levels of government and the private sector on a national approach to transport security and the protection of critical infrastructure. Next week, the Attorney-General will host an important business-government ministerial forum as part of an evolving framework for high level coordination. Strong border protection remains an essential component of an integrated national security strategy. To protect the integrity of Australia’s borders, the capacity of our border control agencies to monitor the movement of people and goods across Australia’s borders has been significantly increased. The final arm of national security is increased international engagement, especially in our region. Clearly, no country can alone secure its interests. Cooperation with other countries is essential. High quality diplomatic representation is therefore an essential component of our national security structure. Australia needs to use all available means to promote global and regional security. We use the multilateral system to advance our national interests in key security areas. But while Australia works with and through the United Nations where this is effective, we will not confine our interaction with particular institutional forms or processes as ends in themselves. The only real test is whether Australian interests and values are being well and truly served. In my view, the debate last year over action in Iraq highlighted a common mistake of seeing attitudes to the United Nations too much in terms of black or white. Australia is a constructive member of the UN, we have always contributed to UN agencies and in broad terms we see the UN as a force for good in the world. When properly supported by member states, the UN can work very effectively on international problems. We saw this in East Timor. But we also know there are times – as shown by such cases as the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Kosovo – when the UN has failed to muster sufficient unanimity of opinion to take necessary action. The fact is that on some occasions the multilateral approach will work and the mechanism to make it work should be nurtured and supported. But equally on other occasions that mechanism is ineffective and coalitions of like-minded countries will be required to act. Our regional security response offers a good example of the Government’s flexibility in its instruments of national strategy. There are few more important tools at the present time than the network of nine bilateral counter-terrorism arrangements Australia has put in place with regional neighbours. These underpin practical, operational-level cooperation between police, intelligence agencies, security authorities, customs and immigration services, defence forces, central banks and financial units. We are working especially closely with Indonesia on strengthening its law enforcement capacity and upgrading its security infrastructure. The case of Australia’s intervention in the Solomon Islands is another example of our strategic flexibility. The crisis of a failing state on our doorstep demanded action. This was clearly legal, being based on a formal request from the Solomon Islands government and endorsed by the relevant regional grouping. But given that government’s diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, there was virtually no prospect of a UN Security Council Resolution authorising the operation. In the end, the outcome – not the process – was what mattered. We responded effectively to a genuine threat to regional peace and security. An uncertain and messy world will not tailor itself to phoney debates about whether multilateral, regional or bilateral policy instruments are inherently superior. Advancing the security and welfare of the Australian people requires a preparedness to pursue strategies on all fronts when our interests are at stake. IRAQ Tonight I don’t intend to revisit in detail the events surrounding our decision to joint the Coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein from power last year. But I would remind those who now want to rewrite history that disagreement over the war centred on how the international community should respond to Iraq’s continued non-compliance with UN resolutions and defiance of the UN's authority, not whether the regime had weapons of mass destruction. There was in fact a shared assessment by political parties on both sides of the debate that Iraq still maintained WMD programmes. In an Australian context, I would simply draw your attention to a speech in October 2002 by Labor's foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd where he said this: 'Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. That is a matter of empirical fact. If you don't believe the intelligence assessments, you simply read the most recent bulletin from the Federation of American Scientists, which lists Iraq among a number of states in possession of chemical, [and] biological weapons and with the capacity to develop a nuclear program.' I remain convinced that getting rid of Saddam’s odious regime was the right thing to do – right for the world’s long-term security, right for Australia’s national interest and right for the future of the Iraqi people, who deserve an opportunity for a life lived in hope under a democratic, lawful regime, rather than a life of hopelessness under a brutal tyranny. Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair put it well recently when he said that ‘September 11 did not create the threat Saddam posed. But it altered crucially the balance of risk as to whether to deal with it or simply to carry on, however imperfectly, trying to contain it.’ In reality, the crumbling sanctions regime put in place after the first Gulf War meant that the status quo was becoming less and less viable with each passing day. There is no doubt in my mind that Australia’s involvement in the Iraq conflict was consistent with our interests and our values. But whatever your view on the war – and I understand there are differing views in this room – winning the peace in Iraq is now vital. Today, the challenge is to support the Iraqi people themselves through their new, sovereign government after 30 June, in their efforts to build a stable, secure, democratic Iraq – a country at peace with itself and with its neighbours. It is a noble cause – one in which Australia has both a strategic interest and a moral obligation. And we remain in Iraq to do our work on the basis that it is what the Iraqi authorities want us to do. It is imperative that we deny the forces of lawlessness and terror a critical victory they are looking for. The international community needs to show that it is not prepared to indulge their apocalyptic dreams of jihad. To give up on Iraq would be to create a haven for extremists; a sanctuary from which they can spread their ideology of totalitarianism and terror. This alone makes it vital that Australian forces remain in Iraq until their task is completed. In this tough work, our military forces deserve our admiration for their discipline, practical focus and patience. A REPLY TO SOME CRITICS There is a view that says Iraq is none of our business – a view which wants to pull up stumps at this critical hour, with all the implications that would entail. As you know, my political opponent has pledged to withdraw Australia’s contingent in Iraq (however he precisely defines that) by Christmas – to bring them back for the ‘Defence of Australia’. It is a policy that fails the test of Australia’s national interest and international responsibilities. It sends the worst possible signal, to the worst possible people, at the worst possible time. It would undermine our relations with friends and allies. And it seeks to appeal to a strain of isolationist sentiment that diminishes us as a nation. While sensitive to our own neighbourhood, Australia has never adopted an insular or exclusively regional view of our place in the world. We must not start down that road now. Australia has never been passive or indifferent through the great political and ideological struggles that have shaped of our modern world. We weren’t during the First World War. We weren’t during the Second World War. We weren’t during the Cold War. We are not now, as we face new enemies of peace, freedom and democracy. In this light, I find aspects of the Labor Party’s current posture curious to say the least. A posture that acknowledges the threat from terrorists and tyrants, but reserves its most pointed attacks for our great democratic ally, itself the target of history’s most evil terrorist act. A posture that invokes the international community and the United Nations, but decries action to rid the world of a murderous dictator who defied 17 UN Security Council resolutions over 12 years. A posture that moralises in the name of liberal internationalism, but is profoundly uncomfortable with the legitimate use of military power and which sneers at commitments beyond our shores as contrary to Australia’s security interests. The Labor Party tells us that its foreign policy is based on three pillars – the US alliance, the United Nations and engagement with Asia. But what does this mean in the case of Iraq – the defining foreign policy issue of the day? At the very least, the United States would see a unilateral withdrawal by one of the original coalition partners as an unfriendly act. The UN after the unanimous passage of Security Council Resolution 1546 is now intimately involved in supporting a democratic future for Iraq. The resolution specifically requests member states to contribute military forces to Iraq. Many of our friends in Asia (Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines) have forces in Iraq helping to stabilise the country. They obviously have no interest in seeing the coalition fail. And does anyone doubt for a moment that a failure of will in Iraq would give enormous comfort to Jemaah Islamiyah with all its reach in our own region? Where we stand today, Iraq is not a diversion from the war on terror. It is the front-line. We must face this reality. International terrorism has invested an enormous amount in breaking the will of the coalition. And each and every turn of the Iraq struggle is interpreted by the terrorists as part of their campaign against the West and moderate Islam. Implicit in the Labor Party’s stance is that if it’s all right for Australia to pull out, then it’s all right for the Americans and the British to go. If that were to happen we would deliver an enormous victory to the terrorists and damn the Iraqi people to a future of mayhem and chaos. This from a party which professes to believe in ‘liberal internationalism’. The Government also faces criticism from a different quarter. To some exponents of realpolitik, all this talk about new threats in the twenty-first century is much exaggerated. To this way of thinking, not that much changed on September 11. We still live in a world where states and geography are trumps. Where Iraq is seen - if I can echo a phrase of long ago - as a faraway country of which we know little. I respect the fact that people differ on what are tough strategic judgements. I strongly believe, however, that a geographically cramped, value-free style of realism is dangerously complacent and contrary to Australia’s interests at this critical hour. The terrorists – including those who have flooded into Iraq – do not respect neat paradigms or state boundaries. As we found to our horror on 12 October 2002 in Bali they target civilians in ways that are difficult to counter through conventional security doctrines. Australia cannot purchase security by keeping its head down and leaving others to do all the heavy lifting. THE US ALLIANCE Where these various criticisms come together is in urging that Australia distance itself from the United States. Such a course offers neither enhanced security nor some false dividend of alleged independence. This Government has worked to strengthen our alliance relationship with the United States – a relationship founded on shared values, common interests and mutual benefits. I believe in the US alliance because it is in our national interest and delivers enormous benefits to Australia. Australia’s ability to influence and work with the United States is vital to meeting the security challenges that we face today – above all terrorism and weapons proliferation. No other country approaches the global power and influence of the United States. This will not change any time soon. Indeed, the United States is likely to become more important to Australia’s future, not less. Our alliance relationship ensures that Australia has privileged access to an unrivalled set of military and intelligence assets. Defence technology and procurement cooperation under the alliance is essential to maintaining the qualitative edge of Australia’s defence forces. Along with our vital intelligence links, this is important not just to counter conventional military threats, but also to disrupt and destroy terrorist networks. Of course, the alliance is a two-way street. The United States should not be expected to carry all the burden and to act alone. Australia cannot proclaim itself an equal partner while looking to cherry-pick the alliance for its own narrow purposes. In this context, I have made no secret of the fact that the alliance relationship was a factor in the Government’s decision to join the US-led campaign in Iraq. A debate over whether or not the American Government will deal with a future Australian Government – whatever its political complexion – misses the point entirely. Of course it will. But given the significance of Iraq to US national security at the present time, any decision by a coalition partner to withdraw troops before the job is completed will not surprisingly be seen as a less than friendly act. What Mr Latham clearly misses is that September 11 led to a fundamental shift in US calculus about the risks it is prepared to accept to its national security. It is important that Australians understand that this new era of American assertiveness is likely to endure whoever occupies the White House. Of course, we can never claim to be a military equal. The United States spends some 43% of global military spending, while Australia’s share is less than 1%. But increasing outlays on defence by this Government mean that we have more options at our disposal and greater capacity to contribute in a meaningful way to alliance coalitions. Inevitably we will have differing priorities at times, but we are able to communicate them in a way that keeps sight of our common objectives. A capacity to speak openly and frankly with the United States at the highest levels is an asset no Australian leader should put at risk by intemperate, personal abuse. Unfortunately, I believe the current leader of the Opposition has embarked on a course that would damage our alliance relationship. I understand this is a serious charge, but I simply take Mr Latham’s statements at face value. The speeches where he attacks the Bush Administration, but offers no recognition of the great and noble purposes that have animated US foreign policy down the ages. The narrowly-defined defence doctrine that would circle the wagons and deny Australia a capability to cooperate with allies beyond our shores. The tired and deeply-flawed view that implies some inconsistency between a close alliance relationship and good relations in Asia. I notice that Mr Latham's most recent recruit, Peter Garrett, had this to say last week, as commentators were reflecting on President Reagan’s legacy: ‘…I have always had a fundamental objection to the way American power has been projected in the past, particularly through Reagan. And I obviously have those objections about the current administration as well ...’. Now here we have a recent and clear statement from Mr Latham’s hand picked protégé about how power works in the international system. If this view had been followed, Reagan’s great achievements - the end of the Soviet empire, and the end of the decades long threat of mutual nuclear destruction - would never have come about. Hundreds of millions of citizens in East Europe, now living in freedom, would still labour under brutal dictatorship. When President Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall’, he was referring not just to the physical barrier horribly snaking its way from the Wannsee to Brandenberg. He was referring also to the barriers in men’s minds that prevented an end to the Cold War thinking, barriers to a more comprehensive approach to how peace and security could be achieved and sustained. In seeking that more effective approach to security, it is important to note how much common ground there is in the United States across the political divide. For instance there is a great deal of overlap in the Democratic and Republic Party leaderships about how the United States should now behave in Iraq. That fact reveals how far Mr Latham's position is from the views of both the President of the United States and his political opponent. I notice, for instance, last Monday the Foreign Policy adviser to Senator Kerry, Mr James Rubin, had this to say about involvement in Iraq: ‘John Kerry has been very clear that, regardless of what you think about how we got here, here we are. And failure is not an option in Iraq. And the prospect of success in Iraq will be improved by maintaining a substantial contribution from friends and allies, including Australia.’ At a time when close cooperation with Australia’s major ally has never been more important, the position adopted by the Labor Party is strikingly at odds with the character our relationship has assumed over the years. Downgrading the US alliance is not good for Australia. Walking away from our friends when they need our support is not the kind of country we are. Those who suggest that our close alliance comes at the expense of Australia’s independence and self-reliance fail to understand the fundamentals of Australia’s defence posture in our rapidly changing security environment. The primary focus of the ADF remains the defence of Australia and supporting stability in our immediate region. But to defend Australia’s interests, there will be occasions when we choose to contribute niche capabilities to operations further afield. American military pre-eminence and a strong alliance relationship do not undermine our self-reliance. Properly understood, they help to underpin it by enhancing our capacity to respond to a wider range of developments. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC The ANZUS alliance is an essential pillar of peace, security and prosperity in our region. A secure, stable and prosperous Asia is an abiding national interest of Australia. The Government’s policies of active engagement with Asia reflect, and respect, the region’s political, economic and cultural diversity. This is the foundation of the Coalition’s sense of what engagement invariably means in practice. As the historian David Goldsworthy has stated: ‘In case after case, episode after episode, it is the particularity of different Asian states and subregions that needs to be grasped if the character of Australian engagement is to be clearly understood.’ Appreciating Asia’s diversity is central to the conduct of sensible, practical, sustainable Asian engagement. This textured story resists all attempts to make it conform to some narrow, partisan agenda. No Australian political party has a monopoly on engagement with Asia – however that might be defined. And Australians have consistently shown a studied indifference to attempts to make Australia’s relations with Asia a domestic political battleground for identity politics. Too often, simple bromides masquerading as grand strategy fail to take account of Asia’s diversity. So too they distort Australia’s position as a Western country with a unique network of political, economic and people-to-people links with Asia. What is needed, above all, is a clear sense of how to advance Australia’s prosperity and security in Asia with practical initiatives grounded in common interests. The Coalition Government builds on a tradition of constructive engagement with Asian neighbours. Strengthening economic relations has been a special focus. A little more than a decade after the Pacific war, the Menzies Government forged the great and enduring economic partnership with Japan through the 1957 Commerce Agreement – over the opposition of many including the Labor Party led by Dr Evatt. Japan remains our biggest export market and we are working to identify new areas of economic cooperation. More and more Australians are coming to see how the rise of China as a geo-political and economic power will have a profound impact on Australia’s future. With our scoping study on a free trade agreement, the Government has clearly signalled its interest in forging a strategic economic partnership with China based on far-reaching economic complementarities. Our free trade agreements with Singapore and Thailand have demonstrated the Government’s pragmatic interest in lowering trade barriers and deepening economic integration with Southeast Asia. I look forward to welcoming Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin to Australia in two weeks time to sign our agreement. I hope to have the opportunity later this year to meet with ASEAN leaders to discuss further steps towards economic cooperation. The Government is also working to strengthen Australia’s security links in the Asia-Pacific region. We have an extensive network of defence relationships in Asia with counter-terrorism cooperation of particular and growing importance. Closer to home, Australia has entered a new phase in its strategic role in the Pacific – confident to lead, confident in what we offer, and confident we are seen as partners for progress. There was a time not so long ago when sensitivities about alleged ‘neo-colonialism’ perhaps caused Australia to err on the side of passivity in our approach. Those days are behind us as we work constructively with others to address the challenges faced by our immediate neighbourhood. This new Pacific partnership is based on our willingness to commit the resources needed for decisive action and our capacity to work with our Island neighbours to identify cooperative solutions to the region’s problems. Australia has a particular responsibility to help those countries struggling to secure the basic requirements of law and order. In this context, the RAMSI mission in the Solomons serves an important demonstration – both to those who value peace and order and to those who might seek to undermine our efforts. In December 2003, Australia and Papua New Guinea entered a new era of cooperation in which Australians will work side-by-side with PNG in the areas of policing, law and justice as well as on economic and public sector management. I do not wish to understate the enormous challenges faced by many states on our doorstep. And I do not want to imply that we can simply transfer home grown solutions from Australia into completely different social, economic and political environments. But through an integrated set of measures targeted at enhancing security and strengthening governance we are determined to play our part in helping to foster stability and a brighter future in the Pacific. CONCLUSION Australia has no option but to engage with, adapt to, and help to shape a constantly changing security environment. The job of national security is never done. It continues to demand large resources, strategic flexibility and great endurance. In our region and around the world, Australia commands respect based on our military capability, our economic strength, our strong alliance relationships, our diplomatic engagement, and our willingness to take a stand. Together, they make Australia an effective force, and a force for good. There can be no retreat into splendid isolation or paradigms of the past. We cannot put a fence around our country or our region. We cannot draw back to the illusion of Fortress Australia. Nor can we take refuge in a brand of realism that offers little more than world-weary cynicism. Australians are determined to maintain one of the freest, most open, most tolerant countries in the world. Though tested in recent times, we have come through with strength and resolve. We are a naturally optimistic and confident people. Nothing will change that. We see this displayed each year when thousands of young Australians flock to the Gallipoli ceremony in Turkey. This pilgrimage is now almost de rigueur for young Australians backpacking around Europe as they remember the sacrifice of earlier generations of Australians. Today, faced with new threats in a new century, our history, our interests and our values have summoned us again to play a role on the global stage. To play our part beside our allies in a long, tough struggle against intolerance, brutality and extremism. To defend the civilised values that have made Australia the nation that it is. So an Afghan woman can go to school. So an Iraqi Kurd does not fear a knock at the door. So Australian businessmen and businesswomen can expand their offices in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. And yes, so a young Australian backpacker can safely go overseas and have a look around. [ends] SOURCE http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10052/20040821-0000/www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech921.html ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- MORE Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). [est. 2001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_Institute TV character - Yes Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Appleby Federal Opposition Leaders Since 1901 http://australianpolitics.com/lists/opposition-leaders-since-1901 Mark Latham Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party Leader of the Opposition 2 Dec 2003 – 18 Jan 2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Latham Philip Bobbitt  - here Academic | philosophy law author | talking head Joseph Nye {Joseph Samuel Nye, Jr.} Academic Harvard Uni member American Academy of Diplomacy sixth most influential scholar in the field of international relations (past 20 years) American political scientist w. Robert Keohane, co-founder of international relations theory neoliberalism in 1977 book Power and Interdependence Foreign Policy mag:   "All roads to understanding American foreign policy run through Joe Nye." *concepts of asymmetrical and complex interdependence *transnational relations *world politics More recently:  *pioneered theory of soft power Nye's idea of 'smart power' gained popularity b/c use of this phrase by members of the Clinton Admin = more recently used by the Obama Admin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nye ꕤ

Prof Philip Bobbitt on US Foreign Policy & Strategy

SOURCE https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/strategy-real-time-dueling-enemy-moves Strategy in Real Time: Dueling with an Enemy That Moves Global Affairs July 1, 2015 | 08:00 GMT Print By Philip Bobbitt Strategy is a two-way street. But many commentators act as though formulating a strategy is the same as solving a chess problem. Chess problems are artificially constructed arrangements on a chessboard where the goal is to find a series of moves that leaves the other side no room to evade a checkmate within three or four turns. The sorts of conflicts bedeviling us these days, however, are more like the game of chess itself, in which there is no determinate, continuous series of moves that will guarantee victory every time. Each new contest depends on the actions of the other side, how we react to them, how they respond to our reactions, and so on. Ignoring this aspect of strategy seems to contribute to the widespread view that victory in warfare amounts to the destruction of the enemy, a facile assumption that is all too unthinkingly held. "Defeating the enemy" may be the definition of victory in football, or even in chess for that matter, but not in warfare. Victory in war is the achievement of the war aim, and if, after Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, we still think that victory is simply the devastation of our adversaries, we have a lot of reflecting to do. The Triage of Terror In my last column, I referred to the idea of the "triage of terror," which I discuss further in my book, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. The wars against terror comprise preventing transnational terrorist attacks, precluding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction for the purposes of compellence rather than deterrence, and protecting civilians from widespread depredation and destruction. Unfortunately, progress in any one of the three theaters of conflict composing the wars on terror often increases the challenges we face in the other theaters. Managing the interrelationship of the three spheres of engagement in a way that prevents success in one arena from grossly exacerbating matters in another — the "triage of terror" — is an important objective of statecraft. For example, a strategy that relies on intervention to suppress the gross violation of human rights through genocide or ethnic cleansing may make states that fear becoming the targets of intervention more anxious to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Strategies that attempt to root out terrorism are often linked to ethnic or sectarian repression or the aggressive repression of human rights. Preemptive counterproliferation strategies by the world's strongest military power could summon burgeoning terrorist armies that challenge the United States through asymmetric means. Understanding the consequences that success in one arena may have for the other wars on terror is a prerequisite for devising an effective strategy in the 21st century. When asked on "Face the Nation" about the Obama administration's commitment to the War on Terror, CIA Director John Brennan said, There has been a full-court effort to try to keep this country safe. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, others, these are some of the most complex and complicated issues that I’ve seen in 35 years working on national security issues. So there are no easy solutions. I think the president has tried to make sure that we’re able to push the envelope when we can to protect this country. But we have to recognize that sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests. This rather wise and sober assessment prompted something like a scream from the Council on Foreign Relations, which labeled it an "unprecedented recognition" that U.S. "foreign policy can harm U.S. national security." The commentator added that "the next public interview with the CIA director should begin by asking him which engagements and direct involvements he is referring to," and demanded that "Brennan's unprecedented recognition [be] further explored and commented on by the White House, State Department and Department of Defense." But of course we know which engagements Brennan was referring to because he told us in the very passage quoted. What he did not say was that our foreign policy harms our national security. Far from being an astounding concession, Brennan's remarks linking our actions to our enemies' responses were a rather insightful and realistic observation that would electrify only a careless listener. To highlight the distinction between "stimulating additional threats" and "harming U.S. national security," let me turn to another concept mentioned in my first column: Parmenides' Fallacy. Parmenides' Fallacy This fallacy indulges in the frequent, unthinking assertion that we should compare the present state of affairs with the past in order to evaluate the policies that have gotten us to where we are now. In fact, we should compare our current situation with alternative outcomes that would have arisen from different policies, had they been chosen. This is true for prospective policies as well: It is a sophist's [Ancient Greek philosophy teacher's] argument to deride a proposed policy (say, social security reform or free trade) by simply saying we will be worse off after the policy is implemented than we are now. That may well be true. But it could be true of even the wisest policy if other alternatives, including doing nothing, would make us even worse off in the future. Let me give a famous example of Parmenides' Fallacy at work. The turning point in the United States' 1980 presidential race came when Ronald Reagan criticized President Jimmy Carter's record during a debate by asking the American people, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Though rhetorically devastating, this question is hardly the way to evaluate a presidency. After all, the state of the nation will never stay the same for four years, regardless of who is in office. A more relevant question would have been, "Are you better off now than you would have been if Gerald Ford had remained the president and had had to cope with rising oil prices, the Iranian Revolution, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and soaring interest rates?" In the same way, we should reframe fallacious prospective questions like, "Will we be better off in five years than we are now if we adopt a certain policy?" The better question to ask is, "Will we be better off in five years by adopting this policy than we will be in five years if we do not?" Real Strategy in Real Time We are not necessarily harming national security when we take steps to counter threats that cause our enemies to react in a way that creates new threats. That, in fact, is the essence of strategy:  It is not to dream up a series of unilateral actions that will inevitably lead to the accomplishment of our goals, but to recognize that each measure we take will invariably lead to countermeasures, and to anticipate the ultimate costs of reactions, both ours and theirs. Everyone has a strategy, Mike Tyson famously said, until he gets punched in the mouth. An example of such non-strategic thinking is the idea that the United States is chiefly responsible for its problems, since other states have not wreaked the costs on America that we ourselves have undertaken in the name of deterring them. As another commentator recently observed, "if you look at the past 25 years or so, it is abundantly clear that external enemies have done far less damage to the United States than we have done to ourselves." This confident assertion ("it is abundantly clear") is not a clinching argument, indeed it is not an argument at all. It is merely a rhetorical flourish, and a rather indolent one at that. To be an argument, we would have to know what damage our external enemies would have done to us and to our allies if we had not appropriated large sums for defense and intelligence, if we had not prevented the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Libya, and if we had not stopped the ethnic massacres in Europe. The debate on U.S. strategy is a timely one, and nothing I have said is a defense of U.S. policies, past or present. Rather, it is a lament that the debate is being pursued in the such terms as these, which add little to our assessment of the wisdom of any particular policy including especially those policies that attempt to achieve our war aims. But the shortcomings of this approach are not merely analytical. There are practical consequences of defining strategy as that which we do, which is to strategy what shadow boxing is to boxing. For this approach often manifests itself in a kind of aphasia: If strategy is what we do, regardless of the actions of others, then there is an inevitable bias toward doing nothing, responding to challenges with a portentous silence. Like aphasia generally it is associated with trauma (like a stroke), and the trauma out of which this silence has emerged is the Vietnam War (for my generation) and perhaps the ill-fated intervention in Iraq for those of a younger age. This attitude can be seen on yard signs and bumper stickers that read: "Stop War: Get out of ____" (fill in the blank: the Balkans, the Baltics, the Middle East). I suppose some people really do believe that if U.S. forces simply leave the field, conflict will abate (as it did in Vietnam after a good deal of political, religious, class and ethnic "cleansing" by Hanoi) and as may yet happen in Iraq should the war there lead to partition after a truly awful period of sectarian violence. We should be careful to distinguish between two groups who seek such American restraint. Some simply hold that, but for U.S. intervention, there would be no war in the world. For this group, the specter of American imperialism lurks behind all the conflicts of the 20th century. Others, however, believe that—whatever the ensuing violence that might follow an American withdrawal, or the violence that might continue undiminished in the absence of an American intervention—the use of U.S. force abroad is more damaging than beneficial to American interests. The irony is that while both these groups criticize U.S. policy for being "unilateralist," they are united in advocating a policy that is unilateral in the extreme, for what act could be more autonomous than removing oneself from conflict regardless of the consequences for others? The first group, who see the conspiratorial reflex of American militarism in every significant conflict around the world might wish to pause and ask themselves whether the world is really better for others—for the peoples of the world who don’t live in the United States—if violence is unchecked by U.S. intervention, for this group professes to be principally concerned about the welfare of other peoples even when American interests are at stake. It should give them pause that polls consistently show that a large majority of Iraqis still support the regime change brought about by the American-led coalition, however angry they are about the feckless occupation that followed. The second group, however, is my principal concern. Putting irony aside, one can’t help but notice that this perspective ignores the value of U.S. alliances, a value that distinguishes us from our principal potential adversaries in the world and which, in my view, is our greatest strategic asset. Real strategy is not just what we do, but it also encompasses more than what our adversaries do. Real strategy is as much about our allies, our potential allies, our potential enemies, and the great body of states and peoples that could go either way. The late Sir Michael Quinlan observed that in conflict we are always likely to be surprised. That is because we prepare our defenses for the attacks we anticipate and so inevitably drive our opponents to pursue the tactics and strategies against targets we have not foreseen. We have been so often surprised these last several decades—sometimes happily so, oftentimes not—that it must be alluring to imagine that strategies of non-engagement at the least would spare us those surprises that haunt American policy. This is an enervated [weak] fantasy. When we are disengaged—when we are not trying to prepare the field for potential conflict and preclude situations that put us at a disadvantage—every act that threatens us and our allies comes as a surprise. SOURCE https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/strategy-real-time-dueling-enemy-moves ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- COMMENT The CIA director is talking rubbish when he speaks of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, in the same breath as keeping the US 'safe' (but I guess that depends on how you define 'the US' ... lol): "...  full-court effort to try to keep this country safe.  Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya ..." That's just an excuse for US intervention in these remote countries that pose zero threat to distant, powerful, mainland USA. What I think he's really saying is ... we've interfered in all these crazy countries; it's ugly, nasty, and vicious, ... and you can expect some blow-back as a result of this interference.  But, hey, this is just part of strategy - and you're now part of the collateral damage involved in pursuing this strategy of military meddling abroad.  Or, something like that.  Bobbit describes Brennan's sales pitch as a 'rather wise and sober assessment' ... but that's probably because he's in the same political camp as the CIA (and whoever controls the CIA). Bobbit's, the one-man CIA / US interventionist policy cheer squad, the way I see it. Bobbit tells us Brennan didn't say US "foreign policy harms [US] national security,"  before pulling a rabbit out of his hat by drawing on distinctions between: "stimulating additional threats" and "harming US national security." So the 'additional threats' blow-back generated by US foreign policy is no biggie, and you guys:  just have to wear that? It gets even better:  not only is the blowback no big deal, folks, ... it's not even the result of US foreign policy. Wow, that's what you call:  a Magician. Never mind that US actions abroad are the extensions of US foreign policy.  Never mind that, reactions to US actions abroad - are, by extension,  reactions US foreign policy.  And, nasty comb-back is, therefore, really the nasty fruit of US foreign policy. But, of course, that doesn't matter to the policy makers.  What really matters is US foreign policy.   So, it's:  policy above all else. The 'additional threats' (ie what is dismissed as collateral to pursuit of US foreign policy) - be it abroad or domestically - is secondary to the broader agenda of US foreign policy.  The foreign policy agenda is an agenda that doesn't have anything to do with the average American:  an agenda involving regional allies in remote territories, and an agenda involving strategic regional aims, in the service of corporate interests and the allies of corporate interests. The philosopher of law launches into what, to me, appears to be an argument about the structure of argument. I'm no logician or philosopher, but this entire argument as to construct of argument sounds like a con to me. Reframing the question: " ... we should reframe fallacious prospective questions like, "Will we be better off in five years than we are now if we adopt a certain policy?" The better question to ask is, "Will we be better off in five years by adopting this policy than we will be in five years if we do not?"" is an interesting technique.  But what's the point? In the above example, it looks as though you isolate the proposed policy from the current benefits (and yardstick for evaluation), and evaluate a proposed policy on a stand-alone basis ... of projection of some kind?  Not quite sure.  This definitely sounds like a load of garbage (to me): "if you look at the past 25 years or so, it is abundantly clear that external enemies have done far less damage to the United States than we have done to ourselves." "It is not an argument at all. It is merely a rhetorical flourish, and a rather indolent one at that. To be an argument, we would have to know what damage our external enemies would have done to us and to our allies if we had not appropriated large sums for defense and intelligence" It's an argument in which the security state justifies its own existence (and the policies and funding that keep the security state (war state, really) enormous and aggressive etc), by stating that critics have no argument unless they can indicate what would have happened had the government not spent an enormous amount of money on the corporate war chest and intelligence.  Maybe critics ought to look at what value for money these organisations have actually produced (ie what acts did they prevent etc), minus the costs to the entire nation - and to future generations servicing interest payable on corporate war debt, masked as national debt for 'security'. Expect that neocon US interventionist foreign policy promos shall be pitched on the basis of not only commercial interests (passed off as 'US interests,'  'national interests' or 'national security'), but also rationalised as 'altruistic' concern for the welfare of 'allies', as a rationalisation for past intervention, and as a pretext for ongoing and future intervention, on behalf of commercial interests, at US national cost. What on earth is the following: " ... if we had not prevented the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Libya, and if we had not stopped the ethnic massacres in Europe." Everybody knows 'weapons of mass destruction' was a false pretext used to invade Iraq; Libya has been destroyed by the West ... and now there's chaos & jihadists running amok (and it looks like entire populations of the Middle East and Africa are moving into Europe, via Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary, when entering by Turkey or Greece rather than by Italy).  And those much-invoked US-Anglo refrains of 'ethnic massacres in Europe,' are Western propaganda that has been used as a pretext (and an aftermath rationalisation) for the US-Anglo alliance intervention in the Balkans (where the US has gained control & set up yet another US military base in Kosovo - Camp Bondsteel, described as a small Guantanamo). If there's any sectarian violence in Iraq, it will be because the US and allies demolished a functioning state; so there's no use lamenting that people want the US out of foreign countries, as if it is the rightful US place to intervene abroad, for some 'altruistic' reason (when nothing could be further from the truth). The US military invasion is rationalised as an act of kindness: " ... whether the world is really better for others—for the peoples of the world who don’t live in the United States—if violence is unchecked by U.S. intervention" as if the US is a kindly, freelance, 'policeman' of the world ... 'preventing' violence:  when, in fact, the US is visiting violence upon the world. As for the Iraq poll, even we accept these 'polls' are not a crock of self-serving sh*t, we can hardly equate these ridiculous polls with: Thank you ever so much for invading & destroying our country, killing half a million of our people directly, and another 1.7 million indirectly ... for a profitable future 'greater good,' as seen by Americans and their allies. What I got mostly out of this is:  American interventions all over over the world are mostly about the interests of allies of US corporate interests.  So the Middle Eastern mayhem is probably on account of Saudi Arabia and Israel, as US allies? [ Just my everyday person take on things.  Not based on extensive knowledge. ] FURTHER READING 10th Anniversary Of US Iraq Invasion: 2.7 Million Iraqi Deaths By Dr Gideon Polya 20 March, 2013 This week it is exactly ten years after the US , UK and Australia illegally invaded Iraq on 20 March 2003 on the utterly false and illegitimate excuse that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).  The invasion occurred after over 12 years of deadly sanctions, war and bombing that had devastated the infrastructure of Iraq , violently killed 0.2 million Iraqis in the Gulf War and killed 1.7 million Iraqis through war-imposed deprivation  ... http://www.countercurrents.org/polya200313.htm *Figures don't look right to me.  Believe it's half a million direct death toll for Iraq (not 0.2 million) referred to above.  Just quickly skimmed.  Have not gone into wide search or detail.  Surprised to find Australia involved in the illegal invasion.  Australian PM of the day (who happens to be a Prof Philip Bobbit fan): John Howard 11 Mar 1996 – 3 Dec 2007 ꕤ