OMNI
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a
Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology. (#1 May 8, 2012; #2 August 22, 2012; #3 Nov. 25, 2012;
#4 Jan. 12, 2013; #5 March 27, 2013; #6 July 5, 2013; #7 August 12, 2013; #8
Nov. 8, 2013; #9 Jan. 2, 2014; #10 Feb. 3, 2014; #11 Feb. 26, 2014).
Everyone who has been
watching and reading will find my newsletters on US Pacific/E.Asia Imperialism
familiar. I compile them to give us a focused
base of information with which to counteract the US Imperial-Corporate Media
Propaganda Machine. While we in our
homes and towns have organized to increase reason, cooperation, and peace, our
leaders continued to threaten, prepare for, and engage in war. All the while the US
was conquering and occupying the Middle East, the same leaders were expanding
bases throughout the Pacific and E. Asia, until one day they decided to “pivot”
troops from Iraq ,
as though it were a new idea. Already China is encircled by US bases (and Russia and Iran ). But I think you would not be reading this if
you were intimidated by the such aggressive power. You and I know that if we avert our eyes and
energy away from our leaders’ compulsive urge to dominate the planet, we will lose
our nation and ourselves.
"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an
international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from
other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the
whole."
- Robert H.Jackson ,
U.S. Prosecutor, Nuremberg Military
Tribunal
- Robert H.
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and
ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for opposition to
empire, militarism, and wars. Here is the link to the
Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/ See: Continental
US Westward Expansion, Genocide, Indigenous People of Americas, Pentagon, TPP,
US Imperialism, WWII Colonial Pacific, and more.
See.doc, Nuclear Free
Independent Pacific Day.doc, No Bases Network, Nuclear Weapons.
My blog:
It's the War Department
It's the War Department
Nos. 7 - 10 at end
Contents US Westward
imperialism #12
EXAMINE WORD PIVOT
CONTINUE EXPLORING US
ALLIANCES IN PACIFIC AND ASIA
CONTEXTS
Jimmy Carter, US Leading War-Monger
Dower, WWII Asian Treaty
Gagnon, International Rally at Vandenberg, Lobbing Missiles from
Vandenberg
to Kwajalein , US
Satellites Near N. and S. Poles, Peace Movement Up Against
Weisgerber, Pentagon Prepares for War in Pacific/ E. Asia , Strengthening and
Dispersing Bases
Answer Coaltion, Stop New Base on Okinawa
Stockman, Nick Turse:
Obama’s Escalation of Secret Wars to 134 Countries
“CHINESE THREAT”
O’Reilly, US
Media Hype “Chinese Threat” in E. China Sea
TPP
Stiglitz, Will Benefit Wealthiest Few, and Illustrates
US Mismanagement of
Globalization
Rendall, NAFTA on
Steroids Corporate Power Grab
Thomas Friedman, US vs. Russia Over Arctic Zone
Recent Related Newsletters
Contact President
Earlier Newsletters
CONTEXTS
Jimmy Carter:
"America As the No. 1 Warmonger"
David Daley, Salon, Reader Supported News, April 10, 2014
Daley writes: "The rest of the world, almost unanimously, looks atAmerica
as the No. 1 warmonger."
READ MORE
David Daley, Salon, Reader Supported News, April 10, 2014
Daley writes: "The rest of the world, almost unanimously, looks at
READ MORE
CHECK THIS OUT, FROM HAW
By John Dower, History News Network, posted March
4
The author is a professor of history emeritus at MIT.
PENTAGON PREPARES FOR WAR IN PACIFIC/E.
ASIA
Pentagon Debates
Policy To Strengthen, Disperse Bases
Apr.
13, 2014
By
MARCUS WEISGERBER. Defense News [forwarded by
Bruce]
Comments
At
Attention: The US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer McCampbell enters port
at Commander Fleet Activities Okinawa. The US plans to base more ships in the
region. (US Navy)
Complete coverage
Related Links
Instead, the Defense Department is reviewing a host of
options, including ways to operate combat aircraft in austere locations and
strengthening overseas bases.
“I think we ... need to figure out better ways to
defeat the enemy’s precision strike,” David Ochmanek, US deputy
assistant secretary of defense for force development, said during a March
presentation at a Precision Strike Association conference.
“Planners worry about what happens to our
forward-based forces when they’re inside the threat range from ballistic
missiles and cruise missiles if those weapons are accurate and if they’re
deliverable in large numbers,” he said.
The US
military has spent the past two years rebalancing its forces toward the
Asia-Pacific region as China ’s
military grows. US officials
maintain that the focus on the region is not the Chinese; however, senior
defense officials have spent a significant amount of time in the region making
military pacts with countries, including Australia
and Singapore ,
to host American troops on a rotational basis.
At the same time, China has been developing a
medium-range anti-ship missile, the DF-21D, which could target ships more than
900 miles off its coast.
For years, the US has not had to worry greatly
about long-range attacks on its overseas bases. Over time, DoD has consolidated
facilities, creating major hubs in Guam , Japan and South
Korea in the Pacific, as well as across the Middle East
and Europe .
Now, as potential adversaries develop more precise,
mid- to long-range weapons, the US
should consider spreading out its forces, particularly in the Pacific and Middle East , said Mark Gunzinger, a retired US Air Force
colonel and analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
“As we look to the future and we think about what our
competitors are doing, we’re going to need to come up with a different posture,
certainly in the Pacific and ... in other regions,” Gunzinger said.
“We need a more diversifying basing posture in
peacetime to reduce the potential of an unwarned attack to bolster our military
posture in the Pacific,” he said.
Analysis has shown “promising results” from
“dispersing the force more radically,” Ochmanek said.
“We’ve gotten used to basing the force very
efficiently — 72, 100, 144 airplanes concentrated on a single forward base,” he
said. “That’s going to be a very lucrative target, hard to defend against an …
attack.”
Spreading those aircraft out across a dozen bases, further
diversifying assets within those bases and selected hardening of facilities is
also important, particularly since ballistic and cruise missiles have limited
impact points, Ochmanek said.
“That’s going to take some investment, but I think if
we do it smart, we can ... get on the right side of that cost exchange curve,”
he said.
Hardening could prove useful — particularly in Guam — but it’s expensive, Gunzinger said.
“While hardening is part of the answer, we simply
can’t afford to harden everything at our main operating bases,” he said.
Hardening typically involves building bunkers, using
reinforced concrete structures or shielding computer equipment from an
electromagnetic pulse.
Ochmanek noted that it costs a lot to shoot down a
ballistic missile compared to the cost of building a new missile.
“We need to keep ... trying to find more affordable
ways to provide an effective defense,” he said.
The Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) says
DoD will enhance capabilities by dispersing “land-based and naval expeditionary
forces to other bases and operating sites, providing the ability to operate and
maintain front-line combat aircraft from austere bases while using only a small
complement of logistical and support personnel and equipment.”
“A more resilient posture in the Pacific will be some
hardening ... and diversifying of our basing posture, so we’re not as reliant
as we are today on a relative handful of main operating bases,” Gunzinger said.
Spreading out forces complicates the planning of
competitors in the region, Gunzinger said.
“They would have to attack many different locations
because they don’t know where our forces are because we’ve dispersed,”
Gunzinger said. “When you complicate an enemy’s planning, that enhances your
deterrence posture.”
Views of the US policy in the region vary, said
Patrick Cronin, senior director, Asia-Pacific Security Program, Center for a
New American Security.
“In general, there is a concern that the United States
may be less reliable as a stabilizing or balancing force in the region. Partly
this is a perception based on continuing economic and budget problems, and
partly it is a perception of deliberate US policy designed to rebuild after
a decade of two protracted ground wars,” he said.
“The United
States is seeking to avoid costly
engagements so that it can invest in future capabilities. By seeking to invest
more in future innovation, however, the United States is in effect looking
to allies and partners to shoulder greater burdens, particularly for their own
defense. Others are waiting to see if the Trans-Pacific Partnership comes to
fruition, because it more than any other single action will help shape opinions
in the region about the comprehensive nature of US rebalancing policy.”
The QDR strategy document, which is updated every four
years, also says DoD will invest in rapid airfield repair capabilities and buy
fuel bladders “to ensure survivability of supplies.”
The US
could build new main operating bases; however, that would be an expensive
endeavor at a time when the Pentagon’s budget is contracting.
“I think a better approach might be to invest in some
facilities that are owned by the various host nations,” Gunzinger said.
DoD could upgrade military bases or civilian airfields
in the Philippines , Singapore , Australia ,
Japan
and other locations, “so we would be able to operate out of them if necessary
and we wouldn’t have to create a new base from scratch,” he said. “[W]e would
have equipment there prepositioned so we could deploy to it and operate with
our allies and partners in the region.”
In peacetime, the US could hold exercises with those
host nations.
Regardless of basing, DoD must also ensure that its
force is mobile enough to fight in the vast Pacific region, particularly since
there is no NATO-fighting structure.
“There’s such a divide technically, operationally and
culturally between us that we have to be able to take all of our operations
mobile and network them,” said Greg Glaros, a career naval strategist who now
runs a small defense company in Virginia .
Sharing information during a Pacific war would be
difficult, particularly since many regional nations have limited capabilities.
The multinational search for Malaysia Airlines Flight
370 — the commercial airliner that disappeared presumably into the Indian Ocean
on a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in March — has shown the
technical, operational and cultural divide that exists among Southeast Asian
countries, even when they are working for a common goal, Glaros said.
“Stop trying to secure your bases, and start to make
your operations mobile and figure out how you’re going to be able to network
that information and remove latency and reduce your ambiguity,” he said. ■
|
|||
|
SPECIAL OPS
The Warfare
State At Work: The Peace
Candidate’s Secret Wars In 134 Countries.
by David Stockman • April
4, 2014
In the post below, Nick Turse supplies chapter
and verse on the mind-blowing extent of America ’s global imperium.
Crucially, he shows that the number of countries in which the US runs covert operations, drone raids,
military training exercises and other violent interventions has soared
from 60 at the end of the Bush term to 134 nations today—70 percent of the
world.
Like it was once said of the British empire,
the appalling fact today is that the sun never sets where US special operations
forces — Green Berets and Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force commandos,
specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, and civil affairs personnel —are not
deployed. As Nick
Turse
further explains:
Hyping the
‘Chinese Threat’
Media follow official line onEast China Sea dispute
by Brendan P. O’Reilly
Media follow official line on
by Brendan P. O’Reilly
EXTRA! (March 2014).
US media “fearmongering” about China . “Despite the fact that China has not fought a war since 1979 [and has
no overseas military bases], and is extremely dependent on foreign trade, any
moves made by Beijing
to counter US hegemony are automatically labeled as aggressive.” Orwell would add this to 1984:
US
aggression is “defense,” Chinese defense is “aggression.”
TPP: TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP
Rendall, NAFTA on
Steroids Corporate Power Grab
On the Wrong Side of Globalization
By JOSEPH E.
STIGLITZ
The Great Divide is a series about inequality.
Trade agreements are a subject that can cause the eyes to glaze
over, but we should all be paying attention. Right now, there are trade proposals in the works that threaten
to put most Americans on the wrong side of globalization.
The conflicting views about the agreements are actually tearing at the fabric of the Democratic Party, though you
wouldn’t know it from President Obama’s rhetoric. In his State of the Union
address, for example, he blandly referred to “new trade partnerships” that
would “create more jobs.” Most immediately at issue is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which would bring together 12
countries along the Pacific Rim in what would
be the largest free trade area in the world.
Negotiations for the TPP began in 2010, for the purpose, according to the United States Trade Representative, of
increasing trade and investment, through lowering tariffs and other trade
barriers among participating countries. But the TPP negotiations have been
taking place in secret, forcing us to rely on leaked drafts to guess at the proposed provisions.
At the same time, Congress introduced a bill this year that would grant the White House
filibuster-proof fast-track authority, under which Congress simply approves or
rejects whatever trade agreement is put before it, without revisions or
amendments. [Congress giving more power
to Executive. –Dick]
Controversy has erupted, and justifiably so. Based on the leaks
— and the history of arrangements in past trade pacts — it is easy to infer the
shape of the whole TPP, and it doesn’t look good. There is a real risk that it will benefit the wealthiest
sliver of the American and global elite at the expense of everyone else.
The fact that such a plan is under consideration at all is testament to how
deeply inequality reverberates through our economic policies.
Worse, agreements like
the TPP are only one aspect of a larger problem: our gross mismanagement of
globalization.
Let’s tackle the history
first. MORE http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/on-the-wrong-side-of-globalization/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&rref=opinion&_r=1&
In general, trade deals today are markedly different from those
made in the decades following World War II, when negotiations focused on
lowering tariffs. As tariffs came down on all sides, trade expanded, and each
country could develop the sectors in which it had strengths and as a result,
standards of living would rise. Some jobs would be lost, but new jobs would be
created.
Today, the purpose of trade agreements is different. Tariffs
around the world are already low. The focus has shifted to “nontariff
barriers,” and the most important of these — for the corporate interests
pushing agreements — are regulations. Huge multinational corporations complain
that inconsistent regulations make business costly. But most of the
regulations, even if they are imperfect, are there for a reason: to protect
workers, consumers, the economy and the environment.
What’s more, those regulations were often put in place by governments
responding to the democratic demands of their citizens. Trade agreements’ new
boosters euphemistically claim that they are simply after regulatory
harmonization, a clean-sounding phrase that implies an innocent plan to promote
efficiency. One could, of course, get regulatory harmonization by strengthening
regulations to the highest standards everywhere. But when corporations call for
harmonization, what they really mean is a race to the bottom.
When agreements like the TPP govern international trade — when
every country has agreed to similarly minimal regulations — multinational
corporations can return to the practices that were common before the Clean Air
and Clean Water Acts became law (in 1970 and 1972, respectively) and before the
latest financial crisis hit. Corporations everywhere may well agree that
getting rid of regulations would be good for corporate profits. Trade
negotiators might be persuaded that these trade agreements would be good for
trade and corporate profits. But there would be some big losers — namely, the
rest of us.
These high stakes are why it is especially risky to let trade
negotiations proceed in secret. All over the world, trade ministries are
captured by corporate and financial interests. And when negotiations are
secret, there is no way that the democratic process can exert the checks and
balances required to put limits on the negative effects of these agreements.
The secrecy might be enough to cause significant controversy for
the TPP. What we know of its particulars only makes it more unpalatable. One of
the worst is that it allows corporations to seek restitution in an
international tribunal, not only for unjust expropriation, but also for alleged
diminution of their potential profits as a result of regulation. This is not a
theoretical problem. Philip Morris has already tried this tactic against Uruguay , claiming that its antismoking regulations,
which have won accolades from the World Health Organization, unfairly hurt
profits, violating a bilateral trade treaty between Switzerland
and Uruguay .
In this sense, recent trade agreements are reminiscent of the Opium Wars, in
which Western powers successfully demanded that China keep itself open to opium
because they saw it as vital in correcting what otherwise would be a large
trade imbalance.
Provisions already incorporated in other trade agreements are
being used elsewhere to undermine environmental and other regulations.
Developing countries pay a high price for signing on to these provisions, but
the evidence that they get more investment in return is scant and
controversial. And though these countries are the most obvious victims, the same
issue could become a problem for the United States , as well. American
corporations could conceivably create a subsidiary in some Pacific Rim country,
invest in the United States
through that subsidiary, and then take action against the United States government — getting
rights as a “foreign” company that they would not have had as an American
company. Again, this is not just a theoretical possibility: There is already
some evidence that companies are choosing how to funnel their money into
different countries on the basis of where their legal position in relation to
the government is strongest.
There are other noxious provisions. America has been fighting to lower
the cost of health care. But the TPP would make the introduction of generic
drugs more difficult, and thus raise the price of medicines. In the poorest
countries, this is not just about moving money into corporate coffers:
thousands would die unnecessarily. Of course, those who do research have to be
compensated. That’s why we have a patent system. But the patent system is
supposed to carefully balance the benefits of intellectual protection with
another worthy goal: making access to knowledge more available. I’ve written before
about how the system has been abused by those seeking patents for the genes
that predispose women to breast cancer. The Supreme Court ended up rejecting
those patents, but not before many women suffered unnecessarily. Trade
agreements provide even more opportunities for
patent abuse.
The worries mount. One way of reading the leaked negotiation
documents suggests that the TPP would make it easier for American banks to sell
risky derivatives around the world, perhaps setting us up for the same kind of
crisis that led to the Great Recession.
In spite of all this, there are those who passionately support
the TPP and agreements like it, including many economists. What makes this
support possible is bogus, debunked economic theory, which has remained in
circulation mostly because it serves the interests of the wealthiest.
Free trade was a central tenet of economics in the discipline’s
early years. Yes, there are winners and losers, the theory went, but the
winners can always compensate the losers, so that free trade (or even freer
trade) is a win-win. This conclusion, unfortunately, is based on numerous
assumptions, many of which are simply wrong.
The older theories, for instance, simply ignored risk, and
assumed that workers could move seamlessly between jobs. It was assumed that
the economy was at full employment, so that workers displaced by globalization
would quickly move from low-productivity sectors (which had thrived simply
because foreign competition was kept at bay through tariffs and other trade
restrictions) to high-productivity sectors. But when there is a high level of
unemployment, and especially when a large percentage of the unemployed have
been out of work long-term (as is the case now), there can’t be such
complacency.
Today, there are 20 million Americans who would like a full-time
job but can’t get one. Millions have stopped looking. So there is a real risk
that individuals moved from low productivity-employment in a protected sector
will end up zero-productivity members of the vast ranks of the unemployed. This
hurts even those who keep their jobs, as higher unemployment puts downward
pressure on wages.
We can argue over why our economy isn’t performing the way it’s
supposed to — whether it’s because of a lack of aggregate demand, or because
our banks, more interested in speculation and market manipulation than lending,
are not providing adequate funds to small and medium-size enterprises. But
whatever the reasons, the reality is that these trade agreements do risk
increasing unemployment.
One of the reasons that we are in such bad shape is that we have
mismanaged globalization. Our economic policies encourage the outsourcing of
jobs: Goods produced abroad with cheap labor can be cheaply brought back into
the United States .
So American workers understand that they have to compete with those abroad, and
their bargaining power is weakened. This is one of the reasons that the real
median income of full-time male workers is lower than it was40 years ago.
American politics today compounds these problems. Even in the
best of circumstances, the old free trade theory said only that the winners
could compensate the losers, not that they would. And they haven’t — quite the
opposite. Advocates of trade agreements often say that for America to be competitive, not only
will wages have to be cut, but so will taxes and expenditures, especially on
programs that are of benefit to ordinary citizens. We should accept the
short-term pain, they say, because in the long run, all will benefit. But as
John Maynard Keynes famously said in another context, “in the long run we are
all dead.” In this case, there is little evidence that the trade agreements
will lead to faster or more profound growth.
Critics of the TPP are so numerous because both the process and
the theory that undergird it are bankrupt. Opposition has blossomed not just in
the United States , but also
in Asia , where the talks have stalled.
By leading a full-on rejection of fast-track authority for the
TPP, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, seems to have given us all a
little respite. Those who see trade agreements as enriching corporations at the
expense of the 99 percent seem to have won this skirmish. But there is a
broader war to ensure that trade policy — and globalization more generally — is
designed so as to increase the standards of living of most Americans. The
outcome of that war remains uncertain.
In this series, I have repeatedly made two points: The first is
that the high level of inequality in the United States today, and its
enormous increase during the past 30 years, is the cumulative result of an
array of policies, programs and laws. Given that the president himself has
emphasized that inequality should be the country’s top priority, every new
policy, program or law should be examined from the perspective of its impact on
inequality. Agreements like the TPP have contributed in important ways to this
inequality. Corporations may profit, and it is even possible, though far from
assured, that gross domestic product as conventionally measured will increase.
But the well-being of ordinary citizens is likely to take a hit.
And this brings me to the second point that I have repeatedly
emphasized: Trickle-down economics is a myth. Enriching corporations — as the
TPP would — will not necessarily help those in the middle, let alone those at
the bottom.
A version of this article appears in print on 03/16/2014, on page SR12
of the NewYork edition with the headline: On the Wrong Side of Globalization.
189COMMENTS
TPP—‘The Largest
Corporate Power Grab You’ve Never Heard Of’
Virtual media blackout of ‘NAFTA on steroids’
by Steve Rendall EXTRA! (March 2014).
Virtual media blackout of ‘NAFTA on steroids’
by Steve Rendall EXTRA! (March 2014).
[I was never able to
acquire this online. –Dick]
FOCUS | Noam Chomsky: How the US Is Playing
With Fire in Asia
David McNeill, Japan Times, Reader Supported News, March 12, 2014
McNeill reports: "Chomsky will make a rare trip to Tokyo in March, where he is scheduled to give two lectures at Sophia University. Among the themes he will discuss are conceptions of the common good."
READ MORE
David McNeill, Japan Times, Reader Supported News, March 12, 2014
McNeill reports: "Chomsky will make a rare trip to Tokyo in March, where he is scheduled to give two lectures at Sophia University. Among the themes he will discuss are conceptions of the common good."
READ MORE
[Here is a
central passage on China , Japan , and US.
–Dick]
Some see the possible emergence of an Asian regionalism building
on the dynamic of intertwined trade centered on China ,
Japan and South Korea but extending throughout Asia . Under what conditions could such an approach trump
both U.S.
hegemony and nationalism?
[Chomsky]: It is not just possible, it already exists. China 's
recent growth spurt is based very heavily on advanced parts, components, design
and other high-tech contributions from the surrounding industrial powers. And
the rest of Asia is becoming linked to this
system, too. The U.S. is a
crucial part of the system - Western Europe , too.
The U.S. exports production,
including high technology, to China ,
and imports finished goods, all on an enormous scale. The value added in China remains small, although it will increase
as China
moves up the technology ladder. These developments, if handled properly, can
contribute to the general political accommodation that is imperative if serious
conflict is to be avoided.
The recent tension over the Senkaku
Islands has raised the threat of
military conflict between China
and Japan .
Most commenters still think war is unlikely, given the enormous consequences
and the deep finance and trade links that bind the two economies together.
What's your view?
[Chomsky]:
The confrontations taking place are extremely hazardous. The same is
true of China 's declaration
of an air defense identification zone in a contested region, and Washington 's immediate
violation of it. History has certainly taught us that playing with fire is not
a wise course, particularly for states with an awesome capacity to destroy.
Small incidents can rapidly escalate, overwhelming economic links.
What's the U.S.
role in all this? It seems clear that Washington
does not want to be pulled into a conflict with Beijing . We also understand that the Obama
administration is upset at Abe's views on history, and his visits to Yasukuni
Shrine, the linchpin of historical revisionism in Japan . However we can hardly call
the U.S.
an honest broker . . .
[Chomsky]: Hardly. The U.S.
is surrounding China
with military bases, not conversely. U.S.
strategic analysts describe a "classic security dilemma" in the
region, as the U.S. and China
each perceive the other's stance as a threat to their basic interests. The
issue is control of the seas off China 's
coasts, not the Caribbean or the waters off California . For the U.S. , global control is a
"vital interest."
We might also recall the fate of Prime
Minister Yukio Hatoyama when he followed the will of the large majority of
Okinawans, defying Washington .
As The New York Times reported, "Apologizing for failing to fulfill a
prominent campaign promise, Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on
Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side
of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States ." His
"capitulation," as it was correctly described, resulted from strong U.S.
pressure.
It is useful to think back to the early
post-World War II period. U.S.
global planning took for granted that Asia would be under U.S. control. China 's independence was a serious
blow to these intentions. In U.S.
discourse, it is called "the loss of China ,"
and the issue of who was responsible for "the loss of China " became a major domestic
issue, including the rise of McCarthyism. The terminology itself is revealing.
I can lose my wallet, but I cannot lose yours. The tacit assumption of U.S. discourse is that China was ours by right. One should
be cautious about using the phrase "expansionism" without due
attention to this hegemonic conception and its ugly history.
WESTWARD….AND NORTHWARD
Navy Preparing for Conflict with Russia over
Arctic Zone by Thomas Friedman. [via Global
Network [globalnet@mindspring.com]
Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:49 PM
Op-Ed Columnist
Parallel Parking in the Arctic Circle
MARCH 29, 2014
ABOARD THE U.S.S. NEW MEXICO IN THE ARCTIC
I NEVER thought I’d ever
get to see what the Arctic ice cap looks like from the bottom up.
It’s quite stunning —
blocks of blue ice tumbling around in a frigid sea amid giant, jagged ice
stalactites. I was afforded that unique view while surfacing from beneath the Arctic Circle last weekend aboard the U.S.S. New Mexico , an attack
submarine. I had spent the night on the sub as part of a group accompanying
Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the chief of naval operations, who was observing the
Navy’s submarine arctic warfare exercise.
We had flown into the Arctic by small plane and landed on a snow airstrip at
the Navy’s ice research station Nautilus, 150 miles north of the North Slope of
Alaska. When we got there, the New
Mexico , which had been patrolling the waters below,
had already found an opening of thin ice and slushy water. The sub used its
conning tower, or sail, to smash through to the surface, then “parallel park,”
as one officer put it, between two floating islands of thick ice, and pick us
up.
As we slipped back under
water, the ship’s upward-looking camera (specially installed for underice
travel where you can’t raise the periscope) carried a view of all the ice that
had frozen around the sub in its few hours on the surface, which then cracked
into huge chunks as we headed down. With the sub’s officers constantly checking
the sonar and camera — and barking out speeds and directions to the two pilots
steering the sub with a joystick and digital readouts that glowed in the dark
control room — we gently submerged. The trick was to avoid the ice keels —
forests of ice stalactites that extended down from the thicker surface ice into
the arctic waters. Once we safely descended about 400 feet, we proceeded on our
way. Watching these officers maneuver an 8,000-ton nuclear sub, 377 feet long,
through islands of unstable Arctic ice — we surfaced the same way — was a
breathtaking and breath-holding experience.
[ESSAY BEGINS HERE –Dick]
But this wasn’t tourism.
Climate scientists predict that if warming trends continue, the Arctic’s ice
cap will melt enough that — in this century — it will become a navigable ocean
for commercial shipping year round, and for mineral and oil exploration. Russia has already made extensive claims to the Arctic , based on the reach of its continental shelf, beyond
the usual 12 miles from its coastline; these are in dispute. To prepare for
whatever unfolds here, though, the U.S. Navy keeps honing its Arctic submarine
skills, including, on our trip, test-firing a virtual torpedo at a virtual
enemy sub, studying how differences in water temperatures and the mix of
freshwater from melted ice and saltwater affect undersea weapons and the sounds
a sub makes (vital for knowing how to hide), as well as mapping the Arctic’s
seabed topography.
“In our lifetime, what was
[in effect] land and prohibitive to navigate or explore, is becoming an ocean,
and we’d better understand it,” noted Admiral Greenert. “We need to be sure
that our sensors, weapons and people are proficient in this part of the world,”
so that we can “own the undersea domain and get anywhere there.” Because if the
Arctic does open up for shipping, it offers a much shorter route from the
Atlantic to the Pacific than through the Panama Canal, saving huge amounts of
time and fuel.
You learn a lot on a trip
like this, starting with the fact that I’m not claustrophobic. Sleeping in the
middle rack of three stacked beds, appropriately called coffins, I now know
that.
More important, you learn
how crucial acoustics are when operating deep under ice with no vision and no
GPS satellite to guide you. Or, as the New
Mexico ’s captain, Todd Moore, 40, put it: It’s like
every day “engaging in a knife fight in a dark room: the only thing you can do
is go after what you hear.” You can’t see the adversary. You can’t see the ice
keels, but you can hear enemy subs, surface ships, whales, calving icebergs,
schools of fish and bounce sound waves off them with sonar to measure
distances. The New Mexico
not only carries supersensitive sonar but also tows a giant electronic ear
1,000 feet behind it that can listen to the ocean without interference from the
sub’s own engine noise.
“We can hear shrimp
crackling 200 feet under water,” explained Lt. Cmdr. Craig Litty. They can also
hear someone drop a wrench in the engine room of a Russian sub several miles
away.
You certainly learn how
self-contained a sub is. The New
Mexico repairs its own broken parts, desalinates its
own drinking water, generates its own nuclear power and makes its own air by
taking purified water, zapping it with electricity, separating the H2O into
hydrogen and oxygen, then discharging the hydrogen and circulating the oxygen.
The only thing that limits them is food-storage capacity and the sanity of the
130 crew; 90 days underwater is no problem.
My strongest impression,
though, was experiencing something you see too little of these days on land:
“Excellence.” You’re riding in a pressurized steel tube undersea. If anyone
turns one knob the wrong way on the reactor or leaves a vent open, it can be
death for everyone. This produces a unique culture among these mostly
20-something submariners. As one officer put it: “You become addicted to
integrity.” There is zero tolerance for hiding any mistake. The sense of
ownership and mutual accountability is palpable.
And that is why, said Adm.
Joseph Tofalo, the Navy’s director of undersea warfare, who was also on the
trip, “There is no multiple-choice exam for running the sub’s nuclear reactor.”
If you want to be certified to run any major system on this ship, he added,
“everything is an oral and written exam to demonstrate competency.”
Late at night, I was
sipping coffee in the wardroom and a junior officer, Jeremy Ball, 27, came by
and asked me if I could stay for Passover. He and two other Jewish sailors were
organizing the Seder; the captain and several other non-Jewish shipmates said
they’d be happy to join, but there was still room. Ball said he’d been storing
“a brisket in the freezer” for the holiday and would pick up matzo when they
surfaced in Canada .
Thanks, I said, but one
night’s enough for me. But I had to ask: How do all of you stand being away
from your families for so long underwater, receiving only a two-sentence
“family-gram” once a week?
“Whenever you board this
submarine in port, that American flag is flying and you salute that flag,” said
Ball. “And every time I salute that flag, I remember the reason I joined the
Navy: service to country, being part of something bigger than myself and in
memory for the attacks of 9/11.”
Remind me again what we’re
doing in Washington
these days to deserve such young people?
Global Network Against
Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 443-9502
globalnet@mindspring.com
www.space4peace.org
http://space4peace.blogspot.com/ (blog)
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Earlier Newsletters, US
Westward Imperialism, Pacific, E.-Asia (and North
and South)
Contents #7 8-12-13
Occupied
Pacific
Vitchek,
Missile Test Site, Kwajalein
Dibblin,
Marshall Islands
and Nuclear Testing, NYT Rev. by Mitgang
Occupying
E. Asia Surrounding China
Reed,
Ring Around China
NYT Editorial, Vandenberg AFB Missile Intercept Failure
Dick, Commentary on NYT Editorial
Vandenberg
Protest Case Goes to US Supreme Court
Flowers
and Zeese, TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership (see earlier newsletters)
Jones,
T-PP and TAFTA
Hightower,
T-PP
Contents #8 11-8-13
TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, US Economic Empire (also
see reports in #7 and before)
US Control of Micronesia , Over a Million Square
Miles
Dick, Sixteen
Reports on “The Pivot” from One Number of Space
Alert!
Roots Action, Pagan
Island in the Northern
Marianas : Stop Another
Vieques
Founding Fathers’ Principles
Contents
#9 1-2-14
Several on Philippines
Hemmer, Philippines
Typhoon , US Compassion? Fox News:
Send in the Marines
Reuters, A US
Motive? Generosity Competition with China
Dick: Fulbright’s
Reduced Tensions, Natural and Human Typhoons, China ,
Japan ,
Lashes, Bashes,
Dick, Rising Seas : Aiding Threatened Islands ?;
US Instead of Empire Help the Drowning
Nations
Assange/Wikipedia Reveals TPP Agreement Text
Jolly and Buckley ,
China and US
Emissions Common Ground? Leading to?
Dick: Fulbright’s Key Words and Principles
Dick: Reduced Tensions: China ,
Japan ,
US
Dick: Kerry Attacks China
Defends Asia : Who IS John Kerry?
US Westward
Imperialism, Pacific/E. Asia Contents #10
Tensions
The US
“Pivot” Euphemism: Gagnon, Global
Network’s Space Alert! See Newsletter #8
Dorling, Asian and Australian Allies of US, “5 Eyes” Plus Singapore
Dick:
Wong, China Reacts to
Japan
Global Network, Stop New Base on Okinawa
Al Jazeera, Australia ’s
Coal Consumption
Tensions: TPP
BG (thinkcivic) Stop TPP Fast Track, Protest
Aroneanu, 350.org, TPP: Tell Your Congressional Representatives
Waren, Friends of the Earth: Stop TPP
TENSIONS FROM THE PAST:
US Nuclear Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Marshall Islands
Hiroshima/Nagasaki
Dick: OMNI Hiroshima-Nagasaki Newsletters 2010-2013
Marshallese Residents
Gather
Chomsky: Letter from Anjain to Dr. Conard
Wollerton, Film Nuclear Savage About Marshallese Guinea
Pigs Suppressed
Two Articles by Giff Johnson
Legacy of US
Nuclear Testing
Film, Radio Bikini by Shain Bergen
Niedenthall and Chutero Film, The Sounds of Crickets at Night
Contents #11
TRANSPACIFIC US GET TOUGH MISSILES, AMBASSADOR, AND CONGRESSMEN
Gagnon, New US First Strike Threats by
Military-Corporate-Congressional Complex
Dick, New US Ambassador to China Ready for Battle
Frank Olliveri/Dick,
Militarist Rationale Analyzed
TRANSPACIFIC
PARTNERSHIP: SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD IDEA
Congresswoman Louise
Slaughter: Petition, Protest TPP
Lee Fang,
Corporate Control of TPP
TRANSPACIFIC
CONTAINMENT ALLIANCES
US Military Alliances Pacific, S. E. Asia, and
Beyond, a Reference Library Under Construction, a Call for 100 Humorous
Scholars.
TRANSPACIFIC 19TH CENTURY: MELVILLE’S BENITO
Tomgram, Greg Grandin: 19th
Century Slave Trade, Melville’s Benito
Cereno, US Extractive Industries, US Empire
END
US WESTWARD IMPERIALISM, PACIFIC/E. ASIA
NEWSLETTER #12
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