By Brad Wolf
Common Dreams

I recently spoke with the foreign policy aide of a United States senator in a scheduled lobbying call for our antiwar organization.

Rather than use the standard lobbying points about wasteful Pentagon spending, I asked for a frank discussion regarding ways our organization might find a successful strategy to cut the Pentagon budget. I wanted the perspective of somebody working on the Hill for a conservative senator.

The senator’s aide obliged me. The chances of any bill passing both chambers of Congress that would trim the Pentagon budget by 10 percent, according to the aide, were zero.

When I asked if this was because the public perception was that we needed this amount to defend the country, the aide responded that it was not only the public perception but the reality. The senator was convinced, as were most in Congress, that the Pentagon’s threat assessments were accurate and reliable (this despite the Pentagon’s history of failed forecasting).

As described to me, the military assesses threats across the globe including such countries as China and Russia, then designs a military strategy to counter those threats, works with weapons manufacturers to design weapons to integrate into that strategy, then produces a budget based on that strategy. Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, overwhelmingly approve the budget. After all, it’s the military. They clearly know the business of war.

When a military begins with the notion that it must confront all problems arising from all locales across the globe, what it develops is a global military strategy. This is not a defensive strategy, but a global policing strategy for every conceivable offense. When every conflict or area of instability is perceived as a threat, the world becomes the enemy. 

“This is not a defensive strategy, but a global policing strategy for every conceivable offense.”

What if such conflicts or instabilities were seen as opportunities rather than threats? What if we deployed doctors, nurses, teachers, and engineers as quickly as we deployed drones, bullets, and bombs?

Doctors in mobile hospitals are far less expensive than the current F-35 fighter jet which is closing in on a $1.6 trillion price tag. And doctors don’t mistakenly kill noncombatants in wedding parties or funerals thereby fueling anti-Americanism. In fact, they don’t see combatants or noncombatants, they see people. They treat patients.

On Being ‘Naïve’

The chorus decrying such an idea as “naïve” is immediately heard, war drums providing the charging beat. And so, an assessment is in order.

According to Merriam-Webster, naïve can mean “marked by unaffected simplicity,” or “deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment,” or “not previously subjected to experimentation or a particular experimental situation.”

The above proposal of doctors over drones does indeed sound simple and unaffected. Feeding people who are hungry, caring for them when they are sick, housing them when they have no shelter, is a relatively straightforward approach. Often the unaffected, simple way is the best. Guilty as charged here.

As to “deficient in worldly wisdom or informed judgment,” we have witnessed America perpetually at war, seen the wise, worldly, and informed proven disastrously wrong again and again at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. They brought no peace, no security. We are gladly guilty of being deficient in their particular brand of worldly wisdom and informed judgment. We, the naïve ones, have gathered our own wisdom and judgment from enduring their catastrophic mistakes, their hubris, their lies.

“We, the naïve ones, have gathered our own wisdom and judgment from enduring their catastrophic mistakes, their hubris, their lies.”

As to the last definition of naïve, “not previously subjected to experimentation,” it is quite clear that a policy of healing rather than war has never been seriously considered, articulated, or deployed in any manner by this country. Naïve again, as charged.  

If we had built 2,977 hospitals in Afghanistan in honor of every American who died on 9/11, we would have saved far more lives, created far less anti-Americanism and terrorism, and spent far less than the $6 trillion price tag of the unsuccessful War on Terror. Additionally, our act of magnanimity and compassion would have stirred the conscience of the world. But we wanted to shed blood, not break bread. We craved war, not peace. And war we got. Twenty years of it.

War is always a conflict over resources. Somebody wants what somebody else has. For a country that has no problem spending $6 trillion on a failed War on Terror, we can certainly provide the needed resources of food, shelter, and medicine to keep people from tearing each other apart, and in the process, save ourselves from opening yet another bleeding wound. We must do what is so often preached in our churches but rarely enacted. We must perform the works of mercy.

It comes down to this: Are we prouder of vanquishing a country with bombs, or saving it with bread? Which of these allows us to hold our heads higher as Americans? Which of these engenders hope and friendship with our “enemies?” I know the answer for myself and many of my friends, but what of the rest of us? How do we get the war out of America? I know of no other way than by being naïve and embracing the simple, unaffected works of mercy.

Brad Wolf, a former lawyer, professor, and community college dean, is co-founder of Peace Action Network of Lancaster and writes for World BEYOND War.

This article is from  Common Dreams.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

READ MORE:

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/07/15/when-the-world-is-the-enemy/

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THE MOTIVE FOR THE US EMPIRE BEHAVIOUR: 

The USA started to become a world Empire and dreamt to divide the world in pie portions. They still do. See their Navycom... This has been done under the theory of Mackinder (documented)… I know, some people thought it was a bullshit theory… Mackinder was doing the theorising for the British Empire in 1905 and, though, Gus can only find unreliable tidbits, one can assume that Mackinder and Cecil Rhodes worked together for the British Empire “to conquer the world”. By 1919, this “second" British Empire had crashed somewhat. WW1 and all that, you know… The Yanks were preparing to take over anyway. They already had "conquered" the Latin Americas (Monroe doctrine)...

Sir Halford John Mackinder (15 February 1861 – 6 March 1947) was an English geographer, academic and politician, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy. He was the first Principal of University Extension College, Reading (which became the University of Reading) from 1892 to 1903, and Director of the London School of Economics from 1903 to 1908. 

Critics of his theory argue that in modern days, it is outdated due to the evolution of technological warfare, as, at the time of publication, Mackinder only considered land and sea powers. In modern days there are possibilities of attacking a rival without the need for a direct invasion via cyber attacks, aircraft or even use of long range missile strikes.

Other critics argue that "Mackinderian analysis is not rational because it assumes conflict in a system where there is none”. ALL These criticisms are not valid. One can start a conflict by proxy. We’ve seen this done time and time again by the USA in many countries. Meanwhile, the core values of the prizes have become incommensurable. So what is it all about:

According to Mackinder, the Earth's land surface was divisible into:

• The World-Island, comprising the interlinked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa (Afro-Eurasia). This was the largest, most populous, and richest of all possible land combinations.

• The offshore islands, including the British Isles and the islands of Japan.

• The outlying islands, including the continents of North America, South America, and Oceania.

The Heartland lay at the centre of the world island, stretching from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Himalayas to the Arctic. Mackinder's Heartland was the area then ruled by the Russian Empire and after that by the Soviet Union, minus the Kamchatka Peninsula region, which is located in the easternmost part of Russia, near the Aleutian Islands and Kurile islands. In modern days this is called Siberia. So why would Siberia attract envy from the West? (see map).

Answer: RESOURCES/POWER/WORLD DOMINATION. 

We are also told that Mackinder's theory was never fully proven as no singular power in history has had control of all three of the regions at the same time. Apparently, the closest this ever occurred was during the Crimean War(1853-1856) whereby Russia attempted to fight for control over the Crimean Peninsula, ultimately losing to the French and the British. Yet the Russians never threatened the outlying islands, though Sydney Harbour, Australia, still has old fortification built “to stop a Russian Invasion”. 

We should know what happened to Crimea since and why the West still does not recognise Crimea as Russian… The Russian ownership of Crimea goes against the deep desire of the Empire to control the Heartland. The "greatest prize” so far, which some US analyst called "Ukraine coming to the West” which is part of conquering the next: the Heartland. This would come after having defeated Russia, the Baltic states and half of China which in the times of Mackinder (1905) was a populous degenerate opium smoking lot. The rest of the "Rimlands" were to be easily controlled from the sea, including China. 

Is this Mackinder’s plan still alive? Yes. YES AND YES! It has been modified though and improved by other “thinkers” of the US Empire, such as Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Brzezinski… The Heartland is still the big prize, but Putin and Xi are in the way. This is why Blinken and Biden did not want to sign anything that would prohibit the US from accessing the Heartland “legally”, by force or by cajoling, eventually. 

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