Tom Paine 1949
Diamond Member
- Mar 15, 2020
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It’s all too easy to make partisan criticism, to preach an end to “forever wars,” when it is aimed only at one or another of the two parties or their candidates. But in fact “American World Supremacy” has really been bipartisan policy for many decades. Trump’s go it alone “America First” policy did not end the U.S. goal of maintaining its world supremacy, though it weakened the alliances and institutions long a key part of that dominance. Militarily, “America First” in the Middle East meant assassinating Suleimani, embracing and supporting the Saudi Crown Prince butcher MbS in his war on Yemen, and kept U.S. troops illegally holding onto Syrian oil wells. Elsewhere the military budget swelled, as the U.S. introduced economic sanctions against enemies (and allies) all over the world.
The Obama “pivot to Asia” under Trump has waned and waxed from empty praising of XiJinping while ignoring human rights issues there to an all-out Cold War against China as it became politically useful domestically in an election and COVID pandemic year. Now the new Biden team (made up mostly of the old Obama team) needs to rebuild its own policies toward China (& Russia & our “historic allies”).
Here is an excerpt from a recent article by a prominent long-term ex-CIA analyst and scholarly critic of the U.S. intelligence community. It deals with difficult China policy problems and some strengths & weaknesses of individuals chosen to lead “the Biden foreign policy team.”
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The effective use of diplomacy is likely to restore stability to the Sino-American bilateral relationship. Incremental military measures [my emphasis] in East Asia would only contribute to additional posturing and friction.
The Biden national security team will be experienced and expert, but there is no sign of an out-of-the-box thinker in the group. Tony Blinken is expected to be named secretary of state. He’s a solid choice to revive the morale at the Department of State and to restore the role of diplomacy. But he’s an interventionist who supported the use of military force against Libya in 2011, and sold Biden on the idea of fragmenting Iraq into three autonomous states (Shia, Sunni, and Kurd) in the wake of the 2003 invasion. Jake Sullivan, who played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear accord, is expected to be named national security adviser. He could restore sanity and stability to the decision making process. Neither one has ever addressed the idea of seeking conciliation with China.
Biden’s likely choice for secretary of defense, Michele Flournoy, is a China hawk, believing that beefing up U.S. military capability in Asia is the answer to the China problem. She is a product of the military-industrial complex, and presumably will not support the idea of reducing our bloated defense budget. The Pentagon sorely needs a reformer ...
Unfortunately, the Biden team is sending the wrong signals about the future of Sino-American relations. Last week, a veteran Washington Post reporter, Missy Ryan, noted that the Biden administration is preparing to “strike a relatively steady course at the Pentagon,” including “pressing ahead with efforts to respond to China’s rise.” There is really nothing that the Pentagon can usefully do about the increased presence and influence of China in East Asia. While the United States has been preoccupied for the past twenty years chasing ghosts in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has moved adroitly to modernize its air and naval forces... China’s sophisticated cruise missile technology has compromised the presence of the U.S. surface fleet in the Pacific, including our vaunted aircraft carrier presence. I participated in various war games at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National War College over the years; the United States never won a war game with China in East Asia...
The Biden team will be overwhelmed by the long list of internal and external problems that it will face due to the wretched inheritance from the Trump administration, but it cannot delay addressing its most important bilateral issue—China. Any measure of power would conclude that China is a rising international and regional power, while the United States is facing decline because of huge economic deficits and misplayed military policies. Biden will have to maneuver around an anti-China bias that has grown in U.S. political and punditry circles; recognize the political and economic power of the Chinese state; and find a diplomatic way to meet China halfway in response to Beijing’s increased influence.
www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/25/trump-leaves-biden-a-quarantinebut-against-china/
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author numerous books.
The Obama “pivot to Asia” under Trump has waned and waxed from empty praising of XiJinping while ignoring human rights issues there to an all-out Cold War against China as it became politically useful domestically in an election and COVID pandemic year. Now the new Biden team (made up mostly of the old Obama team) needs to rebuild its own policies toward China (& Russia & our “historic allies”).
Here is an excerpt from a recent article by a prominent long-term ex-CIA analyst and scholarly critic of the U.S. intelligence community. It deals with difficult China policy problems and some strengths & weaknesses of individuals chosen to lead “the Biden foreign policy team.”
***
The effective use of diplomacy is likely to restore stability to the Sino-American bilateral relationship. Incremental military measures [my emphasis] in East Asia would only contribute to additional posturing and friction.
The Biden national security team will be experienced and expert, but there is no sign of an out-of-the-box thinker in the group. Tony Blinken is expected to be named secretary of state. He’s a solid choice to revive the morale at the Department of State and to restore the role of diplomacy. But he’s an interventionist who supported the use of military force against Libya in 2011, and sold Biden on the idea of fragmenting Iraq into three autonomous states (Shia, Sunni, and Kurd) in the wake of the 2003 invasion. Jake Sullivan, who played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear accord, is expected to be named national security adviser. He could restore sanity and stability to the decision making process. Neither one has ever addressed the idea of seeking conciliation with China.
Biden’s likely choice for secretary of defense, Michele Flournoy, is a China hawk, believing that beefing up U.S. military capability in Asia is the answer to the China problem. She is a product of the military-industrial complex, and presumably will not support the idea of reducing our bloated defense budget. The Pentagon sorely needs a reformer ...
Unfortunately, the Biden team is sending the wrong signals about the future of Sino-American relations. Last week, a veteran Washington Post reporter, Missy Ryan, noted that the Biden administration is preparing to “strike a relatively steady course at the Pentagon,” including “pressing ahead with efforts to respond to China’s rise.” There is really nothing that the Pentagon can usefully do about the increased presence and influence of China in East Asia. While the United States has been preoccupied for the past twenty years chasing ghosts in Iraq and Afghanistan, China has moved adroitly to modernize its air and naval forces... China’s sophisticated cruise missile technology has compromised the presence of the U.S. surface fleet in the Pacific, including our vaunted aircraft carrier presence. I participated in various war games at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National War College over the years; the United States never won a war game with China in East Asia...
The Biden team will be overwhelmed by the long list of internal and external problems that it will face due to the wretched inheritance from the Trump administration, but it cannot delay addressing its most important bilateral issue—China. Any measure of power would conclude that China is a rising international and regional power, while the United States is facing decline because of huge economic deficits and misplayed military policies. Biden will have to maneuver around an anti-China bias that has grown in U.S. political and punditry circles; recognize the political and economic power of the Chinese state; and find a diplomatic way to meet China halfway in response to Beijing’s increased influence.
www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/25/trump-leaves-biden-a-quarantinebut-against-china/
Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author numerous books.
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