Consolidating Pax-Americana

Columnist M B NAQVI analyses the unipolar domination of the world by the US.

The US President George W. Bush began a tour of Europe in the last week of May ‘02. At the time of writing he had already toured Germany, Russia and France. Doubtless he was to visit a few other European countries, notably Italy. How is this tour to be assessed is the question.

From the American side, it had been billed as an attempt to consolidate and strengthen European support for America’s War on Terrorism. In American perception, the European support was beginning to sag. Bush’s purpose, it was claimed, was to reinvigorate the European allegiance to for American leadership. Insofar as it goes, many would endorse the intention, though it is not simply to firm up or strengthen America’s War on Terror. It goes well beyond mere pep talk to the European leaders and to remind them that how bad Terrorism is and how necessary it is to fight it resolutely. That would be preaching to the already converted. Main European leaders do not disagree with the American formulation that Terrorism is a bad thing and that it should be fought. It is only that the Europeans have begun noticing other facts than what the American publicists insist on.

An outstanding feature that emerged in the three capitals he first visited, viz. Berlin, St. Petersburg and Paris was the spontaneous popular protest against America’s war in Asia. It cannot be said that the protestors were the supporters of Terror —- any Terrorism anywhere —- or to think that any protestor in Europe was in favour of Terrorism anywhere would be monstrous. What they were protesting against was a war that they do not believe would (a) end terrorism, properly

so-called; (b) that America is going the right way about fighting terrorism; and (c) the American objectives in the War appear to most people, particularly the Europeans, to go far beyond eradicating simple Terrorism like those represented by Taliban or Al-Qaeda. The spontaneous protests were from people who are sophisticated enough and politically well aware of international trends. They are clearly signalling that they do not believe the rhetoric of George Bush, Dick Cheny and their underlings. Many people think that the tour was of an Emperor going round his dominion and showing the diplomatic flag. It was the consolidation of the Empire that he is after. Hence, the protests and in such large numbers. Any look at the protestors, the argument behind them and the kind of people they were would show that they are not lumpen elements; most of them were intellectuals and politically aware activists for one cause or another. Their protest or purpose cannot be written off. There are many in this country who share these views.

While it is no one’s case that Mr. Bush was fighting Islamic Terrorism alone when his Coalition force defeated Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The particular military tactic Americans adopted was that American soldiers’ lives should be protected while most of the fighting and the work of the war must be carried on either by high technology or, if spilling of blood is actually necessary, most of it must be of the adversary and if some sacrifices are needed from his side it should be from the allies that are supporting and sustaining the US imperium. Minor heart-burning would take place and perhaps did take place over this kind of discrimination. But then those who foot the bill of the war and have the means to impose their will can be said to have the right to dictate the tactics. Which is what the Americans have been doing and within the four walls of the acceptance of the basic philosophy of Bush, the allies do not have much of a case against America. If it is convenient for the Big Brother to expend a few British, French, German or Pakistani lives, so be it. Who has lost how many lives is a futile question if the broad strategy of his War and US leadership was acceptable to you. It is just one of the harsh realities of power politics.

But here in Pakistan and in Europe, there are people who do not fail to notice that American strategic interests are being promoted to an extent and in a gung ho manner that is breathtaking. Where the extreme case of Taliban’s Fundamentalism and their less than civilised code of behaviour was concerned, the need for some kind of an international action against them could be argued. But a whole war was being conducted and the way the ambit of the War is being extended to the expanded Axis of Evil has been done is not easily comprehensible or acceptable to many outside America. It looks altogether too arbitrary. Not that the people around the globe are in league with Col. Qadafi or Ayatollahs’ of Iran or Saddam Hussain or any other dictator. The fact is that the mischief of various dictators is confined either to their own countries or the areas around it. None of them is actually exporting Terrorism worth talking about. It can be argued that they are dictators, the killers of democracy and violators of human rights. But these dictators are only confined to these six countries (Axis of Evil), while there are over a hundred of them. Would Bush go to War against all of them. There is no reason why that people around them can see that a great international effort should be made to fight against Saddam Hussain or try to undo the 1979 Revolution of Iran; the Iranians themselves are poised for a titanic struggle between the moderates and the hardliners. (The Iranians should be left to themselves to sort out their own future for themselves; foreign intervention can create needless and far-reaching complications that may have adverse or unintended consequences). The best thing that the world’s protestors would recommend is to leave these dictators to their own devices. Create conditions around the world in which democracy is promoted along with a certain amount of prosperity for the common people and let the forces of human progress assert themselves in the fullness of time. God has not given a general licence to a few militarily powerful countries to go and impose their own will everywhere, particularly on the recalcitrants who refuse specifically to hear would be, or pretenders to the position of, world hegemony (the US). People in Europe are simply fed up with the American pretensions of doing good and fighting Terrorism for the benefit of all the people insofar as with Axis of Evil regimes go. The fact of the matter is that America is actually promoting its own economic interests, especially in Central Asia. The stage when people covered markets for selling their consumer goods have long gone. Even in the 1930s that it was something more than mere export of consumer goods for which the major powers sought areas of influence for themselves. They saw them as help to their own growth and prosperity by putting them under their debt for future profits. In the globalised economy of today markets are now intended by countries like America for opportunities to invest and to export their technologies with certain long-term strategic purposes in view.

It cannot be forgotten that the Americans, under the cover of fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan, have made a strategic military advance from their redoubt in Middle East and Persian Gulf into first South Asia (India and Pakistan), both of which gladly offered all their bases and resources that America may need. Pakistan has given four bases for stationing of troops and handling of air traffic to and from Afghanistan and from other places of central Asia. America has now overflying rights in many, in fact in most of the central Asian states, including Russia, and have bases now in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and a few other places. What the world perceives is that the US is preempting all other possible competitors from the new markets that central Asian states would become for surplus American capital. There are such a lot of natural resources in these countries. The potential for investments in these countries is immense and the profits from them will be proportionately high. What are in the immediate focus are two or three things: first, there are considerable amounts of hydrocarbons, both of oil and gas, in many of the central Asian states. And everywhere the Americans are the leading contenders for the contracts to exploit these hydrocarbons. They range from the Baku area in Ajarbaijan to Kazakhstan and more particularly in the Turkmenistan. There is some hope, though not of very high order, of finding oil in Fargana Valley. The military advance of the US in central Asia cannot but be unrelated to the commercial opportunities that its oil giants had seen early. Then, there is the likely decision by these countries to modernise their armed forces. While the Russians might be leading contenders, the Americans too, with the competent romanticisation of their war technology, would give tough competition. They might even preempt the Russians, especially with their physical presence around adding to their international clout —- much of it at the expense of Russia that still wants to be the dominant power in the area. There are other opportunities to exploit in this large area; there is not only oil and gas pipelines or other ways of taking the newly found minerals that confer profits as well as strategic advantage. Who else in the world other than the Americans can be so naive as to think that they are striving hard throughout central Asia but have no other purpose in view than to fight Terrorism.

The consequence for other major powers from the American advance in central Asia can scarcely be less than traumatic. There is China. In a manner of speaking, China is being pushed right back from all of Central Asia into its own home territory. A sort of containment may have actually taken place; there is a ring of iron, in a manner of speaking, has been put in place. The Chinese influence from central Asia is, to all appearances, in retreat. That alone would pay America generously in strategic terms. What America is expecting to gain, though, both in terms of strategic and economic benefit, far more. The true benefit has already gone to America and the rest of the world does not have unmixed feelings about it. It is not only China that is being pushed back. The American military juggernaut has more or less pre-empted the chances of European Union. The US has prevented European Union from becoming a serious competitor to the US in the fight for a new market for investments and contracts. Insofar as Russia is concerned, the position is somewhat different. The Americans are tackling the Russians on a different basis.

The Bush visit to St. Petersburg would long be remembered for the disarmament treaty that has been signed. Some two-thirds of the nuclear warheads are supposed to be taken off from their perch on missiles or other places where they are deployed. But what happens to the warheads? Please look closely. They would be destroyed, with American aid, insofar as they were in Russia and were Russian in origin. But those that were American whether in silos or mounted on trucks or meant for use by aircraft or navy, would be put in storage. Now going into storage means being constantly serviced and kept ready for re-use as and when needed. It is an unbelievably one-sided treaty. Even a child can see the difference between earlier Salt I and II treaties (Salt II could not be actually implemented as American Senate refused to ratify it). Under the Salt agreements the purpose was to take out a given number of the nuclear warheads and to have them destroyed; a real diminution in numbers was intended. Not so in this case. Well, there is going to be a diminution in numbers also but only on one side: the Russian side. The Americans would conveniently keep theirs in storage for use when and if needed later.

The Russians have been fobbed off with sweet verbiage. They are a great country; they are a great power and are America’s special partners. All honeyed words with no meaning. President Vladimir Putin, according to American reports, is convinced that the eastward march of NATO in Europe will not threaten Russia at all. To ordinary Russians it would be news. The NATO was set up to fight who? It was to fight Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact powers. Now at least three of the Warsaw Pact powers are being absorbed into NATO and NATO is being taken right upto Russian borders. The old Stalinist concern about the threat from the west seems to have dissipated into thin air for which reason he wanted a sizeable buffer zone in eastern Europe — which is what Warsaw Pact was all about. The sweet words of George W. Bush Junior seem to have erased a whole, long chapter of history in Europe. Russians are supposed to be such simpletons as to believe that sonorous sweet words can hide ugly reality that is not so obscure either: that a military threat properly so-called though today it may be only potential. Or that it will not become a real menace tomorrow or the day after.

Well, it is Russians’ business. All one can do here is to take notice of the fact. The other relevant facts of the situation are the mess that the Russian economy is and that its penury will make it unable to keep its armed forces by itself in a ship shape condition. The harshest fact is that the Putin regime depends for its very survival on the continued western aid through the multilateral agencies in form. The Russian lifeline is actually aid from western Europe, particularly Germany. So long as that aid continues to flow uninterruptedly, Putin regime can continue to bask in the sun of viability and power. In order to survive in power, Putin has to do what the Americans (who control IMF and World Bank) and the Europeans, particularly Germans, dictate. Without accommodating their wishes about political matters or new ones as new ones arise there will be trouble in the shape of reduction in aid flow. Foreign aid are the crutches on which Russian regime’s survival walks. Hence, all the one-sided agreements with the west. If the common Russians think that the west is taking them for a ride, from longer-term viewpoint, who can blame them.

Let us look closely. The American War on Terrorism has made China retreat and has put Russia virtually under the thumb of George Bush and has pre-empted European role in Asia, both in the political and economic spheres. Is this not the consolidation of an Empire that may be felt as stiffling?