by Hall Gardner
Obama had initiated a new nuclear and conventional arms race after his failure to “reset” US-Russian relations in 2009 in the aftermath of the five-day August 2008 Georgia-Russia war. This war was, in fact, initiated by Georgia after South Ossetian provocations, with Moscow waiting to pounce on the sidelines. And once Russian troops entered into Georgia itself, the Russian military then threatened Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. After Georgia fought very effectively for its size against Russia in the 2008 Georgia-Russia war, Putin opted for a major military modernization of its armed forces. This, in turn, combined with Beijing's push to militarize islands in the South China Sea and North Korea's nuclear weapons testing, led Obama to engage in a new nuclear modernization program. All of these factors led Obama to engage in a further buildup of US naval forces in what was called “rebalancing” to Asia.
Ironically, however, before announcing the new US nuclear modernization program, Obama had promised to abolish genetically genocidal nuclear weaponry altogether in his speech in Prague in April 2009. At that time, Obama had promised that the United States “would take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons…and urge others to do the same.”17 (See chapter 10.)
Obama's efforts to “reset” US-European-Russian relations in 2009 had failed to pursue two proposals that might have opened the door to peace. The first was then Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's June 2008 call for a new European Security Treaty. The second was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's August 2008 call for a new Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform. If both of these proposals had been taken more seriously, and more thoroughly discussed and negotiated by the United States, NATO, and the European Union, with Turkey and Russia, then the present crisis might not have reached such a dangerous impasse. (See chapter 9.)
In sum, Trump has advocated building up US military power beyond Obama's military buildup—by means of advocating a Nixon-Reaganite policy of Peace through Strength. The goal of this military buildup is intended to put North Korea and Iran, as well as Russia and China, among other states as well, on their guard. By threat to use force, if not nuclear weapons, Trump has hoped to press these countries into making concessions on US terms, where possible. At the same time, in pushing for an American military buildup, the Trump-Pence administration has also planned to press the Europeans, Japan, and South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and other states to boost their defense spending as well—while concurrently waging the War on Terrorism against the Islamic State (IS) and affiliates of al-Qaeda, among others. The risk, however, is that this tremendous US and allied military buildup appears to be bringing Russia, China, and Iran, among other states, into an even closer alignment. (See chapters 4, 6, and 7.)
HYBRID WARFARE AND THE NEW GLOBAL RIVALRIES
The global rivalries between the United States, the Europeans, Japan, India, Russia, and China, among other regional powers and anti-state organizations, are becoming even more dangerous—precisely because a number of countries are trying to intervene in the domestic affairs of their rivals through techniques of “hybrid warfare.” This new form of warfare includes both cyber- sabotage and the cyber-manipulation of popular opinion. Moscow, among other states and anti-state groups, has been accused of engaging in cyber-tampering in different countries. Russian military intelligence, the GRU, has, for example, been accused of intruding into both the US and French presidential elections, through its cyber-espionage group, APT 28 (also known as Fancy Bear). In addition to propagandizing against US policies through RT and Sputnik broadcasts, Moscow has likewise been accused of paying trolls to manipulate US and European public opinion through Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Evidently, this is not the first time that foreign governments have tried to manipulate the views of domestic populations or steal secrets or destroy assets. Throughout history, states and anti-state sociopolitical political movements have used techniques of propaganda, industrial warfare, sabotage, theft, and assassination. Both Washington and Moscow have interfered in the domestic politics of differing countries throughout the world—as well as each other's. Yet it is the United States that has sought to intervene in the elections of other countries roughly twice as much as Russia or the Soviet Union have, at least since 1945.18
From the Russian perspective, Moscow has opposed what it sees as US- and EU-inspired democracy engineering in countries with close ties to Russia or within the Russian Federation itself. Moscow considers this a form of “hybrid” or what it calls “nonlinear” warfare.19 From the Russian perspective, democracy engineering can be traced to US-supported democratic revolutions in Warsaw Pact countries (1980s), Serbia's Bulldozer Revolution (2000), Georgia's Rose Revolution (2003), Ukraine's Orange Revolution (2004), and Ukraine's Euromaidan Movements (2013–2014). This is not to ignore the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (against Syrian occupation in 2005) and the Arab Spring movements in 2011–2013. The latter prodemocracy movements appeared, at least in part, to be aimed at overthrowing Russian allies, such as Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
At the same time, however, these sociopolitical movements were not controlled or perfectly manipulated by Washington. The Russian critique of the Arab Spring movement, for example, ignores the fact that US and Europeans allies, such as Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, were also overthrown by democracy movements in Tunisia and Egypt, respectively. This indicates that the United States is not entirely a puppet master that can manipulate the entire theater of events through democracy engineering.
Nevertheless, after what Moscow considers US and EU interference in the Ukrainian election process in 2013–2014, President Putin stills fears the possibility that US- and EU-supported democracy movements could eventually attempt to overthrow his own rule—and, perhaps more likely, that of his unstable ally in Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. In November 2014, Putin observed: “In the modern world extremism is being used as a geopolitical instrument and for remaking spheres of influence. We see what tragic consequences the wave of so-called color revolutions led to…. For us this is a lesson and a warning. We should do everything necessary so that nothing similar ever happens in Russia.”20 In effect, this statement implies that Moscow will try to repress such movements inside Russia, while also playing its own game of “nationalist engineering”—by supporting differing pro-Russian sociopolitical movements throughout the world and by interfering in the elections of other countries, if necessary. (See chapters 3, 4, and 5.)
Yet Russia is not the only country that has been accused of cyber-intrusions in American affairs. Chinese hacking into US military and corporate websites has been a major concern. Beijing has purportedly obtained access to US government, aerospace, military-technological, and corporate secrets, from Westinghouse and US Steel, for example. The latter included downloading 4.2 million government personnel files in 2015. The Chinese military purportedly possesses a 100,000-man cyber-espionage division.21 Beijing has also been an effective political lobbyist in the US Congress, more so than Moscow. More recently, North Korea has been accused of devastating hacking into Sony Pictures, banks, and corporate accounts, ostensibly in order to raise funds for its military programs. North Korean hacking against Sony represented a protest against the film The Interview, a satire about a plot to assassinate Kim Jong Un.22
And while the United States has pointed the finger at Russia, China, and North Korea for allegedly engaging in differing forms of cyber-tampering and cyber-sabotage in the United States and other countries, Russia and Iran have pointed the finger at the United States and Israel for allegedly engaging in Stuxnet malware attacks against Iran's Natanz nuclear facility—where Iran had been suspected of enriching uranium for military purposes. Both Russian and Iranian officials denounced the Stuxnet cyber-attack as an “act of war.” The key issue raised by the Stuxnet attacks is not so much that the computer virus could spread out of control but that state and anti-state actors that possess the appropriate know-how could soon develop similar malware that can be used for cyber-sab
otage. These prototypes could then proliferate much easier than does nuclear weaponry—with potentially devastating results.23
The point here is that social-political manipulation of domestic societies by external powers is expanding beyond mere media propaganda and classical techniques like assassination and industrial sabotage. This manipulation is becoming part of a larger geopolitical struggle involving techniques of “hybrid” warfare and high-tech processes of manipulation and PSYOPS (psychological operations) that are intended, successfully or not, to transform domestic and elite opinion and mass social behavior. These manipulations are intended to influence the totality of a rival domestic society and its foreign policies and can thus impact a rival state's technological and industrial infrastructure, economies and banking systems, stock markets, corporations, state bureaucracy, governance processes, and international policies. Due to the deep interpenetration of each other's societies and political, economic, and financial processes, these new tactics make the prospects of new kinds of war even more likely. This means that the quest for American military superiority—short of being able to totally annihilate the enemy's military and its population through nuclear weaponry, as threatened by President Trump against North Korea—is impossible to obtain, given the new tactics of hybrid warfare that can engage in malevolent actions inside or outside the territorial perimeters of rival countries.
The danger is that these new forms of hybrid warfare coupled with the general rise of nationalism throughout the world—both of which are being exacerbated by the Trump-Pence administration's military buildup and America First doctrine—tend to press state leadership to demand presumed unilateral “solutions.” Yet no conflict can be fully resolved unilaterally—all disputes and conflicts need concerted attention of the major and regional powers and representatives of the populations most concerned.
TOWARD A WORLD OF POLARIZED ALLIANCES?
If Washington—as the still globally hegemonic power—cannot, in the next few years, work to achieve a concerted and cooperative relationship with both Russia and China, then the post–Cold War constellation of major and regional powers could soon polarize into the formation of two rival alliance systems. On the one hand, Washington has already attempted to tighten its alliances with NATO, EU members, Japan, ASEAN states, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf states. On the other, Moscow and Beijing have begun to forge a new Eurasian alliance by means of linking the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—in addition to backing both Iran and Syria, while seeking out other potential allies, such as Brazil, South Africa, Qatar, and Turkey, if not both India and Pakistan, if possible.
As a burgeoning major power, India represents the key global pivot state that could join either alliance—as the United States, Europe, and Japan compete with Russia and China for New Delhi's political-economic and military allegiance. Should India join either alliance, that could represent a decisive shift in the global balance of power, norm, and strategic intent—which, in turn, could destabilize the global system, possibly leading to wider regional, if not major power, wars.
Without sustained steps toward a US diplomatic engagement with both Russia and China, a potential clash between two rival encircling and counter-encircling alliances appears to be in the making. These two essentially insular free trade versus continental protectionist alliances appear to be acting somewhat like the two opposing alliance systems, the British and French–led Triple Entente versus the German-led Triple Alliance, which unexpectedly exploded into major power war in August 1914.24
In this perspective, the possession of nuclear weaponry by major and regional powers will not necessarily deter major power war. Despite the lingering Cold War myth of mutual assured destruction (MAD)—that a rough equality of nuclear weaponry will prevent two states from engaging in major power warfare—war between major powers in the new polycentric post–Cold War global system, in which differing states and anti-state actors possess highly uneven power capabilities and influence, becomes even more plausible given the rise of new high-tech forms of combat, advanced stealth systems, renovated tactical nuclear weaponry, non-nuclear Prompt Global Strike missiles, and hypersonic and thermobaric weaponry, combined with cyber-sabotage that can destroy military and civilian infrastructure. It is theoretically possible for major powers to involve themselves in a direct but intermittent conflict, keeping nuclear weapons on reserve or using tactical nuclear weaponry with “low” explosive yields. By contrast, lesser powers might be tempted to use nuclear weapons first—in order to offset their relative military weakness vis-à-vis major and regional powers. The real possibility of major power war is furthermore being augmented by the fact the Global War on Terrorism since September 11, 2001, is beginning to merge with rivalries between major and regional powers that could lead to the polarization of the global system into two rival alliances.
In such circumstances that appear to be forging a proto-Sino-Russian alliance, Washington will not be able to play the “China Card” against Moscow as it did during the Cold War. Nor will the United States be able to play Russia against China, given their close financial, political-economic, energy, and burgeoning military relationship. In order to prevent a Sino-Russian alliance from more strongly backing a number of countries, which could possibly include North Korea, it is absolutely essential to better coordinate US and European policy toward North Korea and Iran, among other states, with both Beijing and Moscow. This means that the United States will need to engage in intensive diplomacy with both Moscow and Beijing so as to prevent an even tighter Sino-Russian military alliance, while preventing the outbreak of war on the Korean Peninsula, and in the wider Middle East.
Given the above, Washington needs to engage in a strategy intended to prevent two possible scenarios. The first is the polarization of the world into two rival alliance systems. The second is the feared breakup of the US systems of alliances that could take place—if the United States cannot work with the Europeans, Japan, India, Russia, and China, as well as key regional actors, to establish new systems of regional and global security. Either scenario could result in widening regional wars—if not major power war.
To prevent either of these scenarios, the Trump-Pence administration (or a future US leadership) needs to pursue a full-fledged and concerted diplomatic engagement with both friends and foes alike. In other words, the United States, the Europeans, and Japan must begin to engage in a truly peace-oriented diplomacy with both Moscow and Beijing. The concern raised in this book is that it is not at all clear that Washington can reach international agreements and forge solid alliances—a hope that President Trump himself has expressed—if all countries continue to assert their presumed national interests above the interests of other states.
As Trump put it in his inauguration speech: “It is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” But here, Trump makes no real distinction between vital and secondary interests. And he does not indicate whether so-called vital interests can be modified through diplomatic compromises and concessions.25 Trump's threats and actions have additionally raised questions as to whether his policies are truly of the general American interest or those of his personal interests (or those of his associates). (See chapters 2 and 3.)
Trump's repeated statement that NATO is “obsolete” does not address the major issue and, in fact, makes the security situation even more precarious. The main issue should be how to reform NATO and permit it to retract gracefully from its promises of an open enlargement, while concurrently pressing for a rapprochement between NATO, the European Union, and Russia. The key problem is to put an end to Russian fears of encirclement and regime change, while also mitigating NATO fears of Russian efforts to probe NATO political and military weaknesses. More specifically, the fundamental question is whether NATO should continue to expand its “open” membership policy to Ukraine and Georgia or other countries (as promised in the 2008 Bucharest, 2010 Lisbon, 2012 Ch
icago, 2014 Wales, and 2016 Warsaw NATO summits) and how to bring NATO and the European Union into more positive relations with Moscow.
As to be argued, if bargained cautiously, a resource- and industrial-rich “neutral” and “decentralized” Ukraine with adequate self-defense capabilities, and with Crimea as an “free-trade zone” under Russian sovereignty, could begin to defuse tensions between the United States, the European Union, NATO, and Russia. It is essential that Russia and Ukraine learn to live side by side—as these two large and contiguous countries will remain in uneven political-economic, energy, and financial interdependence upon each other. Concurrently, it is crucial to find ways to bring China into a closer rapprochement with Japan—while all concerned states need to work to de-escalate the North Korea nuclear weapons and missile threat as soon as possible. (See chapters 9 and 10.)
Trump has rightfully hoped that NATO, the Europeans, and Russia can look for ways to cooperate in the Global War on Terrorism, yet such actions do not appear sufficient to prevent a new global arms race. Nor will such cooperation prevent the real potential for widening conflict—unless diplomatic cooperation between the major powers is soon expanded. Here, the United States, Europeans, Russia, China, and Japan will need to find ways to reach a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, India and Pakistan, and Israel and the Palestinians—if the Global War on Terrorism is ever to come to an end.
