Trumpeting the Superpower Status Quo [View all]

[xchrom]

http://inthesetimes.com/article/12844/trumpeting_the_superpower_status_quo

If you blinked at 11 a.m. on January 5, you may have missed the unveiling of a new, post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan strategic posture for the United States. Speaking from the Pentagon and surrounded by the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the civilian armed service secretaries and the uniformed service chiefs of staff, President Obama introduced the “Defense Strategic Review.”

It was a political event, aimed at Congress and voters, posing as a nonpolitical defense and foreign policy event; and it was a budgetary moment, aimed at stanching criticism of inevitable defense budget “cuts,” posing as a strategic moment. Despite the orchestrated imagery of dutiful military leaders standing by their commander in chief, it exemplified civilian subjugation to the military. It was an unimaginative bow to status-quoism posing as transformative redirection.

As preamble, the president gave obeisance to the usual platitudes of untruth: “The United States of America is the greatest force for freedom and security that the world has ever known.” “We’ve built the best-trained, best-led, best equipped military in history.” “We’ve ended our war in Iraq.” “We’ve decimated al-Qaeda’s leadership… [and] put that terrorist network on the path to defeat.” “We’ve made important progress in Afghanistan.” “We’ve restored America’s global leadership.”

Three substantive themes dominated this unveiling, all guarantees of mind-numbing stasis in the years ahead.

The first is geographic focus: a turn to the Asia-Pacific region (read: China, with a dash of North Korea) and a continuing concern with the Middle East (read: terrorism, with two dashes of Iran). China becomes the new Soviet Union, a modernizing competitor that provides the self-justifying mirror-image pretext for a new Cold War and an escalating arms race of indeterminate duration. U.S. interest in the Middle East ensures the continuation of the Clash of Civilizations between the West and Islam, a fear-induced crisis mentality and the associated hijacking of American values and civil society (through concentrated executive power, steroidal secrecy and the erosion of civil liberties).