The Obama administration’s “Pacific Pivot” will make it more difficult than ever for countries of the region to stay neutral in an emerging rivalry between the United States and China. Credit: U.S. Navy/public domain

By Lawrence Wilkerson
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 2014 (IPS)

To pivot, according to the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, means “to turn as on a pivot.” Which takes us to the noun, which seems more appropriate for describing the Obama administration’s Pacific policy: “That on which anything turns; a cardinal or central point.”

The problem, however, is that finding a cardinal or a central point in the administration’s Pacific policy is extremely difficult. What is clear is only a verb tense.At the climax of this awesome conflict, the massive land power will confront the formidable sea power.

The United States is turning from more than a decade of war – ineffective and costly – in western Asia to a more important and strategic region, eastern Asia, plus the waters that approach it. Perhaps the central point of the pivot is Asia, and the United States is switching from one end to the other.

The “Pacific,” however, suggests a broader turn, although new allies and commitments in the Indian Ocean seem to balance if not outweigh those in the Pacific Ocean. India is the most potent example, a country located more or less at a central point.

If geographical and policy clarity is lacking, so is clarity around security, and in particular military security. Muddling matters more, U.S. Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel on Feb. 25 outlined a resource approach that implied that China is the number one challenge for the United States, therefore land forces will subsidise sea and air forces.

Yet the budget shares for each service so far do not deviate greatly from historical norms. What Hagel really seemed to be saying to Congress was: “Sequestration is bad; I am telling you how bad; now back off, or I might do it.”

As to what all this would mean to “the Pivot” – noun or verb – remains a mystery other than the focus on China. That same focus on China appears to be the point of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Pact, a free trade pact designed to exclude Beijing. But it is stuck in congressional limbo, like everything else these days.

Meanwhile, in the region, Japan is being led by a Liberal Democratic Party Luddite, South Korea is holding Japan at arm’s length, North Korea is acting its usual pugnacious self with its nukes, China’s military is asserting its influence in Beijing, all of Southeast Asia is mystified by the “Pivot” with Thailand looking increasingly like Nigeria, Australia is puzzled, and New Zealand is hanging on.

Not even an individual as profit-motivated as Richard Armitage can convince the players that they should just “trust the United States.” The implication, as always with Armitage Associates, is that when the Republicans get back in the White House, all will change for the better. But of course it won’t, and increasingly the Pacific countries know it.

So, where is U.S. Pacific policy headed? If we are not careful the trajectory heads straight back to 1935. It won’t be isolationism – a nebulous term in any event that is often used to cover lazy analysis – but a set-up for catastrophic events to come. A short exercise illustrates the point.

At the top of a letter-sized piece of paper, write “China” and “United States” and beneath those words the allies of each country. Next, put down all the other countries of the region, using India as the pivot point and including all countries to its east. Most countries will fall into this non-aligned group.

Even several countries bound by security treaty to the United States, such as the Philippines, will want to be there. Also list Russia, Turkey, and Iran because they too are in Asia, are important to Asia’s future, and are discounted only by fools.

If we are schooled in the military arts, we immediately see from this exercise the prospect of conflict on a massive scale. Countries will side with the great power most able to compel them to do so or risk being swallowed up.

At the climax of this awesome conflict, the massive land power will confront the formidable sea power. It will be an epic contest between the elephant and the shark. The shark cannot come ashore, and the elephant cannot go to sea. Their attempt to grapple with one another will create a sheer hell for everyone within proximity.

Ultimately, as in every war game in which I have participated that played this scenario, each side will turn to nuclear weapons as the only potentially decisive device left in its arsenal. This resort to the nuclear option will occur after all the economic and cyber warfare, satellite-killer missions, area denial, air-sea battle, and other tools of power have been utterly exhausted.

Lawrence Wilkerson was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff as well as associate director of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff, where he was responsible for East Asia and the Pacific. Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army. He is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

A U.S. strike on Syria could be launched from navy destroyers in the Mediterranean. Credit: Official US Navy Imagery/CC by 2.0

By Lawrence Wilkerson
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 2013 (IPS)

Now that we have heard Secretary of State John Kerry’s emotional plea for us to believe the still rather ambiguous intelligence on chemical weapons use in Syria, there are far more substantive answers to be sought from the Obama administration.

Putting aside the remaining ambiguities as well as all the experience those of us over 60 years old have with any administration’s unequivocal assurances preceding its use of military force, the basic context surrounding that use against Syria still requires intense analysis.

Forget about those prematurely-born babies stripped from their cradles in the maternity wards in Kuwait, later demonstrated as a figment of war advocates’ vivid imaginations; forget about the utter certainty with which every principal in the G. W. Bush administration assured Americans of Saddam Hussein’s WMD; and forget about for a moment John Kerry’s overly emotional remarks about Syria. Just examine some pertinent facts.

First, tens of thousands of North Koreans have died from hunger imposed by at least two of the latest DPRK dictators.  Is dying of hunger somehow better than dying of chemicals?  Or might it be that the DPRK has no oil and no Israel?  Of course, there are other examples of dastardly dictators and dying thousands; so where does one draw the line of death in future?

Second, how does one surgically strike Syria, as the Obama administration asserts it wishes to do?  That is, to use military force without becoming a participant in the ongoing conflict, simply to send a signal that chemical weapons use will not be tolerated?

Kosovo is a lousy example – where the promised three-days-of-bombing-and-the-dictator-will-cave turned into 78 long days and a credible threat of ground forces before he actually did cave. Not to mention all the death and destruction wrought by Serbia while much the same was being hurled at it.

Libya is a lousy example because Libya is now a haven for al-Qaeda and next-door-neighbour Mali is destabilised because of it.  Libya itself is hardly stable – except in the eyes of those who no longer want to look at it. Of course the light sweet crude seems to be getting out and to the right people…

Egypt is dissolving; Iraq is returning to civil war; Lebanon is becoming destabilised by the refugees pouring into it from Syria; Jordan is looking dicey having absorbed countless Iraqis from that country’s war-caused diaspora and now taking on Syrians.

How are cruise missiles and bombs and whatever else we choose to send to Syria short of ground forces, going to ameliorate this mess?

Moreover, what do we do when President Bashar al-Assad ignores our missiles and bombs and continues right on with his war?  Even, perhaps, uses chemical weapons to do so? Hit him again? Remember, we are not going to become participants in the civil war, we are not going to own Syria.

The man or woman who believes that he or she can be surgical with military force is an utter fool. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. No use of military force is surgical. It is blunt, unforgiving, tending to produce results and effects never dreamt of by the user. In for a penny, in for a trillion.

Go ahead, President Obama. Strike that Syrian tarbaby. If your hands, feet, and head are not eventually stuck in its brutal embrace – if you stop, reconsider, back out and are allowed to get away with it – what have you accomplished?  Preserving your credibility?

U.S. credibility in this part of the world is shot to hell already – largely by the catastrophic invasion of Iraq (not Obama’s fault, to be sure; but just as surely, America’s fault – foreigners do not differentiate presidents.) Credibility has been further shredded by continued drone strikes, by a failure to take any actions against the flow of arms from Saudi Arabia into Syria; by tacit support of the Saudi reinforcement of the dictatorship in Bahrain; and most powerfully by the failure to remain balanced – and therefore of some use – in the issue of Israel and Palestine.

When I survey that long, sunken black granite wall near the Lincoln Memorial and consider the over 58,000 names etched on it, and the two and a half million Vietnamese who, if they had such a wall, would be similarly inscribed, I get angry.

I know that President Johnson’s team, notably his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, assured the President that U.S. prestige was at stake in Vietnam. LBJ’s team knew they could not win the war, but they thought they could preserve U.S. prestige.

I just wish they had had to tell that to the families of every name on that wall – and every Vietnamese who would be on that country’s wall if it had one: you all died for prestige.

*Lawrence Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army infantry. His last position in government was as secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff. He currently teaches government and public policy at the College of William and Mary.