Oh oh - if you thought there was trouble before . . . .
karra @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 10:05 am
$1:
7-19-04: News Abroad
Now Bush Saber-Rattling Is Unnerving China
By Chalmers Johnson
Mr. Johnson is the author of THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE: MILITARISM, SECRECY, AND THE END OF THE REPUBLIC and of an earlier volume, BLOWBACK: THE COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE, among other works.
Quietly and with minimal coverage in the U.S. press, the Navy announced that from mid-July through August it would hold exercises dubbed Operation Summer Pulse '04 in waters off the China coast near Taiwan.
This will be the first time in U.S. naval history that seven of our twelve carrier strike groups deploy in one place at the same time. It will look like the peacetime equivalent of the Normandy landings and may well end in a disaster.
At a minimum, a single carrier strike group includes the aircraft carrier itself (usually with nine or ten squadrons and a total of about eighty-five aircraft), a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, an attack submarine and a combination ammunition, oiler and supply ship.
Normally, the United States uses only one or at the most two carrier strike groups to show the flag in a trouble spot. In a combat situation it might deploy three or four, as it did for both wars with Iraq. Seven in one place is unheard of.
Operation Summer Pulse '04 was almost surely dreamed up at the Pearl Harbor headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command and its commander, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, and endorsed by neocons in the Pentagon. It is doubtful that Congress was consulted. This only goes to show that our foreign policy is increasingly made by the Pentagon.
According to Chinese reports, Taiwanese ships will join the seven carriers being assembled in this modern rerun of 19th century gunboat diplomacy. The ostensible reason given by the Navy for this exercise is to demonstrate the ability to concentrate massive forces in an emergency, but the focus on China in a U.S. election year sounds like a last hurrah of the neocons.
Needless to say, the Chinese are not amused. They say that their naval and air forces, plus their land-based rockets, are capable of taking on one or two carrier strike groups but that combat with seven would overwhelm them. So even before a carrier reaches the Taiwan Strait, Beijing has announced it will embark on a crash project that will enable it to meet and defeat seven U.S. carrier strike groups within a decade. There's every chance the Chinese will succeed if they are not overtaken by war first.
China is easily the fastest-growing big economy in the world, with a growth rate of 9.1 percent last year. On June 28, the BBC reported that China had passed the U.S. as the world's biggest recipient of foreign direct investment. China attracted $53 billion worth of new factories in 2003, whereas the U.S. took in only $40 billion; India, $4 billion; and Russia, a measly $1 billion.
If left alone by U.S. militarists, China will almost surely, over time, become a democracy on the same pattern as that of South Korea and Taiwan (both of which had U.S.-sponsored military dictatorships until the late 1980s). But a strong mainland makes the anti-China lobby in the United States very nervous. It won't give up its decades-old animosity toward Beijing and jumps at any opportunity to stir up trouble — "defending Taiwan" is just a convenient cover story.
These ideologues appear to be trying to precipitate a confrontation with China while they still have the chance. Today, they happen to have rabidly anti-Chinese governments in Taipei and Tokyo as allies, but these governments don't have the popular support of their own citizens.
If American militarists are successful in sparking a war, the results are all too predictable: We will halt China's march away from communism and militarize its leadership, bankrupt ourselves, split Japan over whether to renew aggression against China and lose the war. We also will earn the lasting enmity of the most populous nation on Earth.
Now Bush Saber-Rattling Is Unnerving China
By Chalmers Johnson
Mr. Johnson is the author of THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE: MILITARISM, SECRECY, AND THE END OF THE REPUBLIC and of an earlier volume, BLOWBACK: THE COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE, among other works.
Quietly and with minimal coverage in the U.S. press, the Navy announced that from mid-July through August it would hold exercises dubbed Operation Summer Pulse '04 in waters off the China coast near Taiwan.
This will be the first time in U.S. naval history that seven of our twelve carrier strike groups deploy in one place at the same time. It will look like the peacetime equivalent of the Normandy landings and may well end in a disaster.
At a minimum, a single carrier strike group includes the aircraft carrier itself (usually with nine or ten squadrons and a total of about eighty-five aircraft), a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, an attack submarine and a combination ammunition, oiler and supply ship.
Normally, the United States uses only one or at the most two carrier strike groups to show the flag in a trouble spot. In a combat situation it might deploy three or four, as it did for both wars with Iraq. Seven in one place is unheard of.
Operation Summer Pulse '04 was almost surely dreamed up at the Pearl Harbor headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command and its commander, Adm. Thomas B. Fargo, and endorsed by neocons in the Pentagon. It is doubtful that Congress was consulted. This only goes to show that our foreign policy is increasingly made by the Pentagon.
According to Chinese reports, Taiwanese ships will join the seven carriers being assembled in this modern rerun of 19th century gunboat diplomacy. The ostensible reason given by the Navy for this exercise is to demonstrate the ability to concentrate massive forces in an emergency, but the focus on China in a U.S. election year sounds like a last hurrah of the neocons.
Needless to say, the Chinese are not amused. They say that their naval and air forces, plus their land-based rockets, are capable of taking on one or two carrier strike groups but that combat with seven would overwhelm them. So even before a carrier reaches the Taiwan Strait, Beijing has announced it will embark on a crash project that will enable it to meet and defeat seven U.S. carrier strike groups within a decade. There's every chance the Chinese will succeed if they are not overtaken by war first.
China is easily the fastest-growing big economy in the world, with a growth rate of 9.1 percent last year. On June 28, the BBC reported that China had passed the U.S. as the world's biggest recipient of foreign direct investment. China attracted $53 billion worth of new factories in 2003, whereas the U.S. took in only $40 billion; India, $4 billion; and Russia, a measly $1 billion.
If left alone by U.S. militarists, China will almost surely, over time, become a democracy on the same pattern as that of South Korea and Taiwan (both of which had U.S.-sponsored military dictatorships until the late 1980s). But a strong mainland makes the anti-China lobby in the United States very nervous. It won't give up its decades-old animosity toward Beijing and jumps at any opportunity to stir up trouble — "defending Taiwan" is just a convenient cover story.
These ideologues appear to be trying to precipitate a confrontation with China while they still have the chance. Today, they happen to have rabidly anti-Chinese governments in Taipei and Tokyo as allies, but these governments don't have the popular support of their own citizens.
If American militarists are successful in sparking a war, the results are all too predictable: We will halt China's march away from communism and militarize its leadership, bankrupt ourselves, split Japan over whether to renew aggression against China and lose the war. We also will earn the lasting enmity of the most populous nation on Earth.
Discuss
-Mario- @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:04 am
$1:
Quietly and with minimal coverage in the U.S. press, the Navy announced that from mid-July through August it would hold exercises dubbed Operation Summer Pulse '04 in waters off the China coast near Taiwan.
Only Crap.... You have nooooooooo idea what this means. You can only imagine the surface of what this US intimidation is all about.
On the happy note, we all know that nothing will happen of all this. After all most of our goods are fabricated/built in China. Or lets hope...
-M-
Robair @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 2:57 pm
Neoconservatives: A collective group of pseudo-men constantly trying to compensate for something. Why don't we just buy them the male enhancement operation, it'd be a lot easier. Not to mention cheaper.
-Mario- @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 6:46 pm
Karra, Could you please give the link to that article.
Thanks
-M-
karra @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 7:15 pm
M,
It's there in blue "discuss" @ the bottom. . . . .
Rev_Blair @ Tue Jul 20, 2004 8:35 pm
Keep in mind that China owns enough of the US to ensure that the US won't be able to afford gas for the boats.
-Mario- @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 9:18 am
Rev_Blair Rev_Blair:
Keep in mind that China owns enough of the US to ensure that the US won't be able to afford gas for the boats.
I don't think China owns the US. It is more complex then that. I think that the US has a majority of factory in China. The problem is that China could block all exports to the US. Or even worst... Put a high tax on all exports, and the inflation would go thru the roof. We could end up looking like post WW2 Germany situation (on a dramatic scale).
I think that we are looking at two bad situations... First: China has vowed to retake Taiwan before 2020. I think that they really want to keep their word. They are a super power and are have been increasing/upgrading their weapons. For example: in the mid-late 80, the Israelis were developing a much better version of a F-16 called the IAI Lavi. Lavi Pics China has in production a similar looking plane; the J-10. They also have purchase Russians fighter SU-27 and SU-30. They have been building up weapons near Taiwan. More than usual in the past year. The second one is Bush… and he is working on his fall re-election. That one stinks worse than the first one. If he can make China look like the bad guys and save Taiwan from “oppression”... Then American people would forget about Iraq. He would be seen as a liberator… just like in Afghanistan. The problem is he would be staging a war on two fronts… just like Hitler. Like they say: history repeats itself.
I don’t think Tom Clancy could have imagine a better story… These are all words in the air, lets hope it stays like that.
-M-
Rev_Blair @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 5:48 pm
China has been spending a lot of its new-found wealth by financing some (quite a lot) of the USA's massive debt. They also undervalued their currency when they pegged it to the USD, so if they were to peg it to the Euro, or simply unpeg it, the value of their money would go way up and the US would owe even more because Chinese money would go up in value even while the value of US currency sank. Toss in an embargo or export tax and the US is in serious trouble.
There are more ways to fight a war than guns...China has the US seriously out-flanked on the economic front. They also have one of the few militaries that stands a chance against the US. It isn't as technologically advanced, but it is fairly advanced. There are also those massive armies...
feeko @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 6:23 pm
The problem with america is we are too dependent on tech, we dont make much anymore...and too much dependance on our aliies for raw matrials sp
Rev_Blair @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:03 pm
The problem with America is that they let the Amerikans take over. All else stems from that.
Almighty1 @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:33 pm
And yet theres more
USA today
And for the last couple of years China, India and Pakistan have all been having joint Naval exercises of their own.
Almighty1 @ Thu Jul 22, 2004 8:38 pm
Now those submarine exercises were held last fall. Looks to me like an international military pissing contest. I wonder who will cross the line first and piss the other off. Luckily for us normal people it will likely happen far from our waters.
Two superpowers playing games to irk the other-outcome BIG BOOM
Donny_Brasco @ Mon Jul 26, 2004 2:58 pm
Good post Karra, very interesting!