In his statement to The Atlantic magazine, former Defense Secretary General James Mattis says of the events of the last 10 days that have shaken the nation as it has not been shaken since 1968:

“We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers.”

Is “a small number of lawbreakers” an apt description of wilding mobs who have showered cops with bottles, bricks and rocks in 40 cities, looted stores in the hundreds, torched police cars, and injured dozens of Secret Service personnel defending the White House?

Is “a small number of lawbreakers” the way a patriot would describe anti-American anarchists who desecrated the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial on the Mall and the Korean War Memorial and tried to burn down the Church of the Presidents in Lafayette Square?

Was the sacking of Georgetown, Rodeo Drive in LA, 5th Avenue in New York and 40 city centers, the work of a few “lawbreakers”?

Is that a good description of the people who gravely wounded that cop in Las Vegas and shot four cops and murdered that retired black police chief in St. Louis?

The protesters, says Mattis, are “rightly demanding … Equal Justice Under Law.” This is a “wholesome and unifying demand — one that all of us should be able to get behind.”

But what does the general think of the methods and means the “protesters” have used — the massive civil disobedience, the blocking of streets, the vilification of police, the contempt for curfews. What does the general think of protesters who provide moral cover for insurrection?
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people,” says Mattis. Trump “doesn’t even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

But it was not Trump who divided America in this racial crisis.

The nation was united in revulsion at the criminal cruelty that led to George Floyd’s death. The nation was united in backing an enraged people’s right to protest that atrocity.

What divided America were the methods and means protesters began using in the first hours of the Minneapolis riot — the attacks on cops with bottles, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

In Mattis’ statement, one finds not a word of sympathy or support for the police bearing the brunt of mob brutality for defending the communities they serve, while defending the constitutional right of the protesters to curse them as racist and rogue cops.

“Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them,” not to the military, says the general.

Correct. But what happens when mobs run wild to where a governor of New York is denouncing the NYPD for failing to protect the city from anarchy and is threatening to replace the mayor for failing to put down the insurrection.

In July 1967, the 82nd Airborne was sent into Detroit to put down the riot. In 1968, there were federal troops in D.C. to stop the rioting in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination. In the violent protests of the Nixon era, U.S. airborne troops were brought into the basement of the Executive Office Building.

The general quotes James Madison: “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign invaders than an America disunited.”

And how, General, did that work out for Madison when the “foreign invaders” arrived in Maryland in August 1814, marched up Bladensburg Road, and burned the Capitol and White House and Alexandria, while “Little Jimmy” fled out the Brookville Road?

If memory serves, it was Gen. Andrew Jackson and the troops he pulled together for the Battle of New Orleans who defeated the British and saved the Union.

“Society cannot exist,” wrote Edmund Burke, “unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

That is where we are now. Society and civilization are on the line.

If mob tactics are now how we change laws and alter public policy, the democratic republic is dead and we have gone full Third World.

Some of us do not believe America is a racist society or that the nation’s police, numbering a million men and women, are shot through with anti-black racism.

Some of us believe the police are the last line of defense we have against that “small number of lawbreakers” Mattis tells us are no problem.

Did the general actually produce this pile of mush that reads like something out of Ramsey Clark in the 1960s?

My guess: Mattis, an obedient servant of President Trump for two years, has been persuaded that the wind is blowing the other way and his “place in history” demands that he get himself on the correct side.

The general has just defected to the resistance.

creators.com

In the media firestorm that has followed upon General Mattis’s resignation, he has been generally lauded as a highly experienced and respected leader who has numerous friends on both sides of the aisle in Congress. Of course, the press coverage should be taken with a grain of salt as it is designed less to praise Mattis and more to get at Trump over the decision to leave Syria, which is being assailed by both neoliberals and neoconservatives who believe that war is the health of the state.

The arguments against the Trump decisions to depart from Syria and downsize in Afghanistan are contrived for the most part and based on the premise that American intervention in places that Washington deems not to be sufficiently promoting democracy, rule of law and free trade is a good thing. Peter Ford, former British Ambassador to Syria, put it nicely when discussing the reaction in the media: “Trump's critics…will have the vapors about 'losing ground to Russia', 'making Iran's day', and 'abdicating influence,' but their criticism is ill-founded. Contrary to their apparent belief, the US does not have a God-given right to send its forces anywhere on the planet it deems fit. Withdrawal will see the US in one respect at least follow the international rules-based system we are so fond of enjoining on others, and will therefore be a victory of sorts for upholders of international law.”

The central argument of the Mattis resignation letter that is being cited by critics relates to Washington’s relationship with the rest of the world and is framed as a failure by President Trump to understand who are friends and who are enemies. Mattis wrote

“One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships. While the US remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.

“Similarly, I believe we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours. It is clear that China and Russia, for example, want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model – gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions – to promote their own interests at the expense of their neighbors, America and our allies. That is why we must use all the tools of American power to provide for the common defense.

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values, and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances.”

General Mattis does indeed hold views that were shaped by four decades of experience, but most of it was bad and produced wrong conclusions about America’s place in the world. The Cold War was essentially a bi-polar conflict pitting two adversaries that had the ability to destroy all life on the planet. It generated a Manichean viewpoint on good vs. evil that did not reflect reality which was succeeded by a global war on terror declared by Washington that also exploited the good and evil paradigm. Mattis was a product of that kind of thinking, which was also fueled by the concept of American exceptionalism, which saw the United States as the proper promoter and enforcer of universal values.

There is, of course, another viewpoint, which is that American blundering and use of force as a first option has, in fact, created the current dystopia. The United States is not currently venerated as a force for good, quite the opposite. Opinion polls suggest that Washington is overwhelmingly viewed negatively worldwide and it is perceived as being the nation most likely to start wars. That is not exactly what the nation’s Founders envisioned back in 1783.

Trump is right about leaving Syria where nothing beyond prolonging the bloody conflict is being accomplished. Mattis is wrong about supporting “friends.” For an educated man, he misreads history. The First World War and Second World War developed as they did because of alliances. Countries that appear friendly can exploit relationships with other more powerful nations that will have devastating results. Alliances should be temporary, coming and going based on the interests of the nations involved. In the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia are not actually friends of the United States, and are engaged instead in manipulating Washington to suit their own purposes. Mattis does not understand that and sees a permanent state of war requiring the continued existence of NATO, for example, as a vehicle for deterrence and peace. It is neither. Its very existence depends on a perception of being threatened even where no threat exists, which has poisoned the relationship with Russia since the fall of communism. Worse still, that false perception of threat can lead to war and a global nuclear holocaust.

Senior officials never seem to resign over a president starting a war. Now Trump, the guy everyone expected to start new wars, has instead ended one and is on his way to wrapping up another.

The New York Times, its journalists in mourning over the loss of a war, ask, “Who will protect America now?” Mattis the warrior-monk is juxtaposed with the flippant commander-in-Cheeto. The Times sees strategic disaster in an “abrupt and dangerous decision, detached from any broader strategic context or any public rationale, [that] sowed new uncertainty about America’s commitment to the Middle East, [and] its willingness to be a global leader.”

“A major blunder,” tweeted Senator Marco Rubio. “If it isn’t reversed it will haunt…America for years to come.” Senator Lindsey Graham called for congressional hearings. And what is history if not irony? Rubio talks of haunting foreign policy decisions in Syria seemingly without knowledge of previous calamities in Iraq. Graham wants to hold hearings on quitting a war Congress never held hearings on authorizing.

That’s all wrong. Jim Mattis’s resignation as defense secretary (and on Sunday, Brett McGurk, as special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS) and Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan are indeed significant. But that’s because they mark the beginning of the end of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the singular, tragic, bloody driver of American foreign policy for almost two decades.

It’s 2018, soon to be 2019. Why does the U.S. have troops in Syria?

To defeat the Islamic State? ISIS’s ability to hold ground and project power outside its immediate backyard was destroyed somewhere back in 2016 by an unholy coalition of American, Iranian, Russian, Syrian, Turkish, and Israeli forces in Iraq and Syria. Sure, there are terrorists who continue to set off bombs in ISIS’s name, but they are not controlled or directed out of Syria. They are most likely legal residents of the Western countries they attack, radicalized online or in local mosques. They are motivated by a philosophy, which cannot be destroyed on the ground in Syria. This is the fundamental failure of the GWOT: that you can’t blow up an idea.

Regime change? It was never a practical idea. As in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, there was never a plan for what to do next, for how to keep Syria from descending into complete chaos the day Assad was removed. And though progressives embraced the idea of getting rid of another “evil dictator” when it came through the mouthpiece of Obama’s own freedom fighter Samantha Power, the same idea today has little drive behind it.

Russia? Overwrought fear of Moscow was once a sign of unhealthy paranoia satirized on The Twilight Zone. Today, Russia hate is seen as a prerequisite to patriotism, though it still makes no more sense. The Russians have long had a practical relationship with Syria, having maintained a naval base at Tartus since 1971, which they will continue to do. There was never a plan for the U.S. to push the Russians out—Obama in fact saw the Russian presence are part of the solution in Syria. American withdrawal is far more of a return to status quo than anything like a win for Putin. (Elsewhere at TAC, Matt Purple pokes more holes in Putin paranoia.)

The Kurds? The U.S.-Kurd story is one of expediency over morality. We’ve used them only because, at every sad turn, there’s been no force otherwise available in bulk. The Kurds have been abandoned many times by America: in 1991 when it refused to assist them in breaking away from Saddam Hussein following Gulf War I, when it insisted they remain part of a “united Iraq” following Gulf War II, and most definitively in 2017 following Gulf War III when the U.S. did not support their independence referendum, relegating them to Baghdad’s forever half-loved stepchild.

After all that, America’s intentions toward the Kurds in Syria are barely a sideshow-scale event. The Kurds want to cleave off territory from Turkey and Syria, something neither nation will permit and something the U.S. quietly understands would destabilize the region. Mattis, by the way, supported NATO ally Turkey in its fight against the Kurds, calling them an “active insurgency inside its borders.”

Iran? Does the U.S. really have troops in Syria to brush back Iranian influence? As with “all of the above,” that genie got out of the bottle years ago. Iranian power in the greater Middle East has grown dramatically since 2003, and has been driven at every step by the blunders of the United States. If the most powerful army in the world couldn’t stop the Iranians from essentially winning Gulf Wars II and III, how can 2,000 troops in Syria hope to accomplish much?

The United States, of course, wasn’t even shooting at the Iranians in Syria; in most cases it was working either with them or tacitly alongside them towards the goal of killing off ISIS. Tehran’s role as Assad’s protector was set as America rumbled about regime change. Iran has since pieced together a land corridor to the Mediterranean through Iraq and Syria, which it will not be giving up, certainly not because of the presence of a few thousand Americans.

What remains is that once-neocon, now progressive catch-all: we need to stay in Syria to preserve American credibility. While pundits can still get away with this line, the rest of the globe already knows the empire has no clothes. Since 2001, the United States has spent some $6 trillion on its wars, and killed multiple 9/11s worth of American troops and foreign civilians. The U.S. has tortured, still maintains its gulag at Guantanamo, and, worst of all credibility-wise, has lost on every front. Afghanistan after 17 years of war festers. Nothing was accomplished with Iraq. Libya is a failed state. Syria is the source of a refugee crisis whose long-term effects on Europe are still being played out. We are the “indispensable nation” only in our own minds. A lot of people around the world probably wish America would just stop messing with their countries.

So why does the U.S. have troops in Syria? Anyone? Bueller? Mattis?

America’s presence in Syria, like Jim Mattis himself, is an artifact of another era, the failed GWOT. As a Marine, Mattis served in ground combat leadership roles in Gulf Wars I and II, and also in Afghanistan. He ran United States Central Command from 2010 to 2013, the final years of The Surge in Iraq and American withdrawal afterwards. There is no doubt why he supported the American military presence in Syria, and why he resigned to protest Trump’s decision to end it: Mattis knew nothing else. His entire career was built around the strategy of the GWOT, the core of which was to never question GWOT strategy. Mattis didn’t need a reason to stay in Syria; being in Syria was the reason.

So why didn’t Trump listen to his generals? Maybe because the bulk of their advice has been dead wrong for 17 years? Instead, Trump plans a dramatic drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. presence in Iraq has dwindled from combat to advise and assist. Congress seems poised to end U.S. involvement in Yemen against Mattis’s advice.

There is no pleasure in watching Jim Mattis end his decades of service with a bureaucratic dirty stick shoved at him as a parting gift. But to see this all as another Trump versus the world blunder is very wrong. The war on terror failed. It should have been dismantled long ago. Barack Obama could have done it, but instead became a victim of hubris and bureaucratic capture, and allowed it to expand. His supporters give him credit for not escalating the war in Syria, but leave out the part about how he also left the pot to simmer on the stove instead of removing it altogether.

The raw drive to insta-hate everything Trump does is misleading otherwise thoughtful people. So let’s try a new lens: during the campaign Trump outspokenly denounced the waste of America’s wars. Pro-Trump sentiment in rural areas was driven by people who agreed with his critique, by people who’d served in these wars, whose sons and daughters had served, or, given the length of all this, both. Since taking office, the president has pulled U.S. troops back from pointless conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Congress may yet rise to do the same for American involvement in Yemen. No new wars have been started. Though the results are far from certain, for the first time in nearly 20 years, negotiations are open again with North Korea. Mattis’s ending was clumsy, but it was a long time coming. It is time for some old ideas to move on.

theamericanconservative.com

On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced via Twitter that Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis would be “retiring” in February and that a replacement for Mattis would soon be named. Mattis’ departure had been the subject of speculation since late June, when it was reported that Mattis was already being kept out of the loop on major administration decisions such as the unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which Mattis had supported keeping intact. Rumors of Mattis’ exit as the Pentagon’s top official were then revived in September when it was reported that Trump was “actively discussing” his replacement.

Many top U.S. politicians — both Democrat and Republican — have mourned Mattis’ resignation. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called news of Mattis’ departure “scary” and added that he “has been an island of stability amidst the chaos of the Trump administration.” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also somberly greeted the news, stating that he “was sorry to learn that Secretary Mattis […] will soon depart the administration,” and adding that he was “particularly distressed that he is resigning due to sharp differences with the president on these and other key aspects of America’s global leadership.”

Similarly, major U.S. media outlets have long praised Mattis for being the “last adult in the room” in the White House and for allegedly helping to “constrain an unpredictable president.” With Mattis gone, top news outlets have warned that Trump is now “unbound.”

During his tenure, Mattis has been a proponent of many policies that hardly warrant his current treatment by the media and the political establishment as a heroic figure. Though Mattis opposed some of Trump’s policy decisions — most notably the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the administration’s withdrawal from the Iran deal — Mattis supported the genocidal Saudi-led and U.S.-backed war in Yemen up until late last month, threatened North Korea with “the destruction of its people,” and oversaw the U.S. bombings of Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa. The operation in Mosul alone was believed to have killed at least 6,000 civilians.

While Mattis was by no means a “hero,” it is almost a given that his replacement will be far more pro-war and pro-intervention than the outgoing secretary of defense, who was nicknamed “Mad Dog” for leading the U.S. attack on Iraq’s Fallujah in 2004. Indeed, back in September and now following news of Mattis’ resignation, the top contenders for the top position at the Pentagon and now being named including Senator Lindsey Graham and David Petraeus. However, a source close to the President cited by FOX News — Trump’s news outlet of choice — insists that the most likely candidates for Mattis’ post are Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), and retired General John “Jack” Keane.

The lesser of two very evil evils?

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., interrupts a fellow senator during CIA nominee Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing, May 9, 2018. Alex Brandon | AP

Tom Cotton, in his relatively short time as a senator, has gained a reputation for being extraordinarily hawkish, particularly regarding Iran. A long-time critic of the Iran nuclear deal, Cotton was one of the authors of a controversial letter to Iran during negotiations that was described by the Baltimore Sun as telling Tehran “to prepare for war” because the agreement could be nullified by the subsequent president. Since then, Cotton has repeatedly called for the unilateral bombing of Iran, which he insisted would only take “several days” and would not lead to a wider war.  

Cotton is also markedly pro-Israel and received over $700,000 from the Emergency Committee for Israel in 2014 and nearly $1 million from that same group a year later. That same year, during the Israeli invasion of Gaza, Cotton called the Israeli military “the most moral, humanitarian fighting force in the world” despite the numerous war crimes it was committing at the time. A year later, Cotton called on Congress to supply Israel with B-52s and “bunker-buster” bombs to use against Iran.

Regarding the Syrian conflict, Cotton has been a vocal proponent of escalation for years and praised Trump’s decision in April 2017 to bomb Syria as restoring “our credibility in the world.” After Trump again bombed Syria this past April, Cotton released an official statement praising the attack, which read as follows:

The Butcher of Damascus [ostensibly referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] learned two lessons tonight the hard way: weapons of mass destruction won’t create a military advantage once the United States is done with you and Russia cannot protect its clients from the United States. President Trump ought to sustain the attacks if Assad doesn’t learn these lessons, and Iran’s ayatollahs and Kim Jong Un might want to learn the easy way. We thank our old British and French friends for once again joining us in defending the civilized world.”

Furthermore, Cotton is also hawkish on Russia. Though a vocal critic of “Russiagate,” Cotton has called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a committed adversary of the United States.” He has accused Russia of having:

Meddled in our presidential campaign, violated arms-control treaties with the United States, invaded Ukraine, assassinated political opponents in the United Kingdom, made common cause with Iran in propping up Bashar al-Assad’s outlaw regime in Syria, and cheated not only in the Olympics, but even in the Paralympics.”

In July, Cotton summed up his Russia policy as follows:

The United States should stay on the strategic offensive against Russia by maintaining sanctions, rebuilding our military, modernizing our nuclear forces, expanding missile defenses, sending more weapons to our allies, and producing more oil and gas.”

Cotton also called for the U.S. to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty last April. The Trump administration eventually followed Cotton’s advice and announced it would withdraw from the treaty this past October.However, in December, the administration gave Russia 60 days to return to “compliance” with the treaty, even though Russia is unlikely to make concessions in this area. Many analysts and foreign governments have warned that the U.S.’ unilateral withdrawal from this treaty would result in a revived nuclear arms race between Russia and the United States.

In addition, Cotton has invited controversy in the past for stating that the U.S. should be “proud” of how it treats the “savages” detained in Guantanamo Bay as well as for his claim that “bombing makes us safer.” He also called for the jailing of two New York Times journalists in 2006 for “espionage” for reporting on a classified government program and supports the war in Afghanistan.

Yet, while the possibility of Cotton as a future Secretary of Defense is alarming, perhaps even more alarming is the other name making the rounds as a Mattis replacement, John Keane.

Neocon darling Keane in pole position?

John Keane testifies on Capitol Hill about two bills on Iraq troop deployment policies, July 27, 2007. Susan Walsh | AP

Media reports have cited John Keane – sometimes referred to by his nickname “Jack” — as Mattis’ most likely replacement, which should concern anyone wary of U.S. military escalation in the Middle East. Keane, a frequent commentator on FOX News, has been described by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern as “the go-to general for the neoconservatives,” which is unsurprising given his close association with the influential neoconservative “Kagan clan” that includes Fred Kagan, Robert Kagan and their wives Kimberly Kagan and Victoria Nuland.

One of Keane’s many connections to the Kagans is the document “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” which Keane co-authored with Frederick Kagan and was used as the blueprint for the Bush administration’s failed 2007 “troop surge” in Iraq. In addition, Keane is the current chairman of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which was founded by Fred Kagan’s wife, Kimberely, and was formerly chaired by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

As noted by Consortium News in 2012, ISW is funded by major weapons manufacturers and military contractors such as “General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and CACI, as well as lesser-known firms such as DynCorp International, which provides training for Afghan police [and has been accused of child trafficking in Afghanistan and Kosovo as well as “enslaving” American workers], and Palantir, a technology company founded with the backing of the CIA’s venture-capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Palantir supplies software to U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan.” This may explain why Keane is an enthusiastic supporter of the 17-year-long war in that country.

Indeed, Keane’s policy positions notably benefit many of the weapons makers and contractors that fund the group he chairs. A committed “Iran hawk,” Keane had championed the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Iran deal and has called Iranians “thugs and killers” intent on “acquiring nuclear weapons.” He is also a strong supporter of the administration’s current aggressive Iran policy, including regime change.

Keane has called Iran “our number-one strategic enemy in the world” and, in 2011, promoted a plan for regime change in Iran involving “covert operations led by the CIA” and giving “money, information, and encouragement to the dissident leaders inside Iran to use their population to put pressure on the regime,” which bears striking resemblance to the White House’s current Iran policy.

The retired general is also very pro-Israel when it comes to foreign policy. For instance, Keane claimed last December that the Trump administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would “help” peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Then, this past February, Keane stated that war between Israel and Syria/Iran was “inevitable.”

Watch | Jack Keane calls a war between Israel and Syria/Iran/Lebanon “Inevitable”

In the case of Syria, where Trump recently announced an “immediate” troop withdrawal, Keane has repeatedly called for the U.S. to directly enter the Syrian conflict, to arm “the right [Syrian] rebels with anti-aircraft weapons,” and target Syrian military sites with “limited airstrikes.” He has also championed attacking Syrian “ground forces,” and called for a forceful overthrow of the Syrian government and the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria. He has also advocated for a permanent U.S. military presence in the country.

Furthermore, if appointed to head the Pentagon, Keane would likely support increased troop deployments to places like Afghanistan (a war he still supports) and elsewhere, given that he has been touted as the “mastermind” behind the Bush administration’s 2007 troop “surge” in Iraq.

If that is not enough, Keane is also a “Russia hawk” and was one of the main propagators of the claim made last year that Russia was funneling weapons through Iran to the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to “weaken popular support for the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, hoping the United States will give up and ‘go home.’” In other words, a lack of domestic support for the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan is, in Keane’s view, Russia’s fault.

Watch | “Jack” Keane blame Russia for falling support of the Afghanistan War among Americans

Keane has also called on Trump to “call out and confront” Russian President Vladimir Putin and has accused Putin and the Russian government of using “political information warfare.” Keane also stated in March that Russia “is becoming considerably more dangerous.”

Keane as personal war profiteer?

Beyond his clear support for American military intervention abroad, Keane has several conflicts of interest with private companies that benefit from U.S. intervention and war abroad. For instance, in addition to his chairing ISW, which is funded by top military contractors, Keane is a former board member of U.S. weapons manufacturer General Dynamics and a current senior advisor to Academi (the mercenary, special-ops outfit formerly known as Blackwater).

Keane is also a board member of IronNet Cybersecurity, whose CEO is Keith Alexander, the former director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command. Alexander founded the company in 2014 along with a team of former leaders of the Defense Department, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, as well as cyber-experts from the commercial sector.

According to its website, IronNet “works collaboratively with government security operations centers” and Alexander, as its CEO, has spent most of the year making repeat appearances on cable news calling for a military cyber build-up to target Russia and China, a build-up from which IronNet is likely to benefit. Given his role as a board member at IronNet, Keane, if picked to be the new Secretary of Defense, will likely be equally hawkish in regards to cyber-warfare, which is likely to benefit Keane’s personal finances.

Out of the bun warmer into the fire?

Though Mattis’s record as Secretary of Defense is far from admirable, there is every indication that the person set to succeed him will be far worse. Whether Cotton or Keane or another war hawk is soon nominated to serve as the Pentagon’s top official, Mattis’ replacement is likely to support war with Iran and an increase in confrontational policies with Russia and other global powers.

While both Cotton and Keane undeniably are neoconservatives who support war, regime change and U.S. empire at every turn, it appears that Keane could well be more dangerous as future Secretary of Defense because his affiliations would result in his benefiting financially from increased U.S. involvement in both current and future military conflicts due to his numerous connections to private military contractors and weapons manufacturers.

Whereas Cotton’s hawkish policies have been largely influenced by the defense and Israel lobbies, Cotton’s personal financial interest in expanding war is largely the result of donations from these lobbies, which do not necessarily result in a pay-off every time a bomb is dropped.

Yet, either way, Mattis’ “retirement” as Secretary of Defense paves the way for further escalation in an increasingly unstable world that seems to be inching closer to another major war.

mintpressnews.com

Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis resigned from his position effective February 28. He disagreed with the president's decision. It was the second time in five years that an elected commander in chief had a serious conflict with Mattis' hawkishness. President Obama fired him as Central Command chief for urging a more aggressive Iran policy. Mattis is also extremely hawkish towards Russia and China.

President Trump campaigned on lessening U.S. involvement in wars abroad. He wants to get reelected. He does not need a Secretary of Defense that involves him in more wars that have little to none defined purpose.

Mattis is an ingrained imperialist. He always asked for more money for the military and for more meddling abroad.  One of Mattis' little notice acts as Defense Secretary was a unannounced change in the mission of the Pentagon:

For at least two decades, the Department of Defense has explicitly defined its mission on its website as providing "the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security of our country." But earlier this year, it quietly changed that statement, perhaps suggesting a more ominous approach to national security/..

The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our country and sustain American influence abroad."

The Pentagon no longer "deters war" but provides "lethal force" to "sustain American influence abroad." There was no public nor congressional debate about the change. I doubt that President Trump agreed to it. Trump will now try to recruit a defense secretary that is more aligned with his own position.

The White House also announced that 7,000 of the 14,000 soldier the U.S. has in Afghanistan will withdraw over the next few months. The war in Afghanistan is lost with the Taliban ruling over more than half of the country and the U.S. supported government forces losing more personal than they can recruit. It was Mattis who had urged Trump to increase the troop numbers in Afghanistan from 10,000 to 14,000 at the beginning of his term. There are also 8,000 NATO and allied troops in Afghanistan which will likely see a proportional withdrawal.

The Associated Press has a new tic toc of Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria:

Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two officials briefed on the matter said…

“The talking points were very firm,” said one of the officials, explaining that Trump was advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and Turkey work together to address security concerns. “Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey) something that’s a small win, possibly holding territory on the border, something like that.”

Erdogan, though, quickly put Trump on the defensive, reminding him that he had repeatedly said the only reason for U.S. troops to be in Syria was to defeat the Islamic State and that the group had been 99 percent defeated. “Why are you still there?” the second official said Erdogan asked Trump, telling him that the Turks could deal with the remaining IS militants…

Erdogan’s point, Bolton was forced to admit, had been backed up by Mattis, Pompeo, U.S. special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey and special envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk, who have said that IS retains only 1 percent of its territory, the officials said…

Bolton stressed, however, that the entire national security team agreed that victory over IS had to be enduring, which means more than taking away its territory.

Trump was not dissuaded, according to the officials, who said the president quickly capitulated by pledging to withdraw, shocking both Bolton and Erdogan.

Trump did not "capitulate". He always wanted to pull the U.S. troops out of Syria. He said so many times. When he was finally given a chance to do so, he grabbed the opportunity. Erdogan though, was not ready for that:

Caught off guard, Erdogan cautioned Trump against a hasty withdrawal, according to one official. While Turkey has made incursions into Syria in the past, it does not have the necessary forces mobilized on the border to move in and hold the large swaths of northeastern Syria where U.S. troops are positioned, the official said.

The call ended with Trump repeating to Erdogan that the U.S. would pull out, but offering no specifics on how it would be done, the officials said.

Erdogan had planned to only occupy a 10 miles deep strip along the Syrian-Turkish border. Some 15,000 Turkish controlled 'Syrian rebels' stand ready for that. He would need some 50-100,000 troops to occupy all of east Syria northward of the Euphrates. It would be a hostile occupation among well armed Kurds who would oppose it and an Arab population that is not exactly friendly towards a neo-Ottoman Turkey.

Erdogan knows this well. Today he announced to delay the planned invasion:

“We had decided last week to launch a military incursion… east of the Euphrates river,” he said in a speech in Istanbul. “Our phone call with President Trump, along with contacts between our diplomats and security officials and statements by the United States, have led us to wait a little longer.

“We have postponed our military operation against the east of the Euphrates river until we see on the ground the result of America’s decision to withdraw from Syria.”

The Turkish president said, however, that this was not an “open-ended waiting period”.

Any larger occupation of northeast Syria would create a serious mess for Turkey. Its army can do it, but it would cost a lot of casualties and financial resources. Turkey will hold local government election in March and Erdogan does not want any negative headlines. He will invade, but only if Syria and Russia fail to get the Kurds under control.

Unfortunately the leaders of the anarcho-marxist PKK/YPK in Syria have still not learned their lesson. They make the same demands to Damascus that were already rejected when similar demands were made for Afrin canton before Turkey invaded and destroyed it.

agitpapa @agitpapa 11:14 utc – 21 Dec 2018

YPG delegation was flown in to Mezzeh yday. Negos were inconclusive because they just repeated their usual line of "SAA protects the border, we control the rest." No army allows someone else allied with an enemy to control its rear and its supply lines. +

+ The YPG leadership is still stuck in its pro-Western rut. It needs to be purged before any deal can be made with Damascus. Their present track will just lead to another Afrin, then another, then another. Thousands of brave YPG/YPJ fighters will have died for nothing.

Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai – 16:31 utc – 21 Dec 2018

#Breakingnews: Private sources : President Bashar al Assad has rejected the Kurdish proposal while Turkey is gathering forces (Euphrates Shield et al) to attack the Kurdish controlled area north of #Syria. #Russia seems holding back president Erdogan for a while. A lot of pressure

It is not (only) Russia that is holding Erdogan back. As seen above he has serious concerns about such an operation. Moreover, he does not have enough troops yet and the U.S. troops have not yet changed their pattern. As of today they still patrolled on the Turkish border and yesterday new U.S. war material was still coming in from Iraq. Erdogan does not dare to attack U.S. troops.

He will most likely want to avoid any additional military involvement in Syria. If Damascus and Moscow can get the PKK under control, Ankara will be satisfied.

Besides the presence of 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops and contractors in northeast Syria there also a contingent of 1,100 French troops and an unknown number of British forces. France for now says it wants to stay to finish the fight against the Islamic State enclave along the Euphrates.

But France does not have the capability to sustain those forces without U.S. support. Syria and Russia could ask Macron to put them under their command to finish the fight against ISIS, but it is doubtful that President Macron would agree to that. It is more likely that he will agree to a handover of their position to Russian, Syrian or even Iraqi or Iranian forces. Those forces can then finish the fight.

moonofalabama.org

Secretary Mattis has resigned:

Officials said Mr. Mattis went to the White House on Thursday afternoon with his resignation letter already written, but nonetheless made a last attempt at persuading Mr. Trump to reverse his decision about Syria, which the president announced on Wednesday over the objections of his senior advisers.

Mr. Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, was rebuffed. Returning to the Pentagon, he asked aides to print out 50 copies of his resignation letter and distribute them around the building.

Mattis’ departure from the administration after the midterms had been floated as a possibility for months, but I don’t think anyone seriously expected him to resign suddenly over a policy disagreement with the president. It is telling and not to Mattis’ credit that ending an illegal war in Syria was the one policy disagreement with Trump that Mattis couldn’t stomach. The Defense Secretary had repeatedly disagreed with Trump on a range of issues, and he usually lost the internal debate. The only times that he prevailed with Trump were when he advised him to escalate ongoing U.S. wars, and his influence had waned enough that he couldn’t get his way on that, either. I was extremely skeptical that a Syria withdrawal would actually happen. Now that Mattis has tried and failed to reverse that decision, I have to acknowledge that I overestimated the ability of Trump’s advisers to change his mind.

The Defense Department under Mattis became more opaque and less accountable to the public and Congress. He presided over two years of shameful support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and he went out of his way to offer absurd justifications for continued U.S. support for the war to the end of his tenure. The disagreement over Syria will dominate coverage of Mattis’ resignation, but it is important to remember that when it came to the most indefensible U.S.-backed war he and Trump were always on the same page. No less than Secretary Pompeo, Mattis discredited himself in the desperate, unsuccessful effort to derail S.J.Res. 54. An administration that fights as hard as this has to keep the war on Yemen going is definitely not one interested in peace and restraint no matter what else happens.

As wrong as Mattis was on a number of foreign policy issues, there is a real danger that his successor could be far worse. Even if Trump doesn’t nominate a Tom Cotton or Lindsey Graham, the next Defense Secretary is very likely to be a yes-man in the mold of Mike Pompeo. Almost every time that Trump has replaced his top national security officials, he has chosen someone who will flatter and praise him instead of telling him the truth and giving him the best advice. The next Defense Secretary is less likely to resist Trump’s belligerent tendencies, and he is more likely to indulge the president’s worst impulses. Just as Pompeo has proven to be a worse Secretary of State than Tillerson, Mattis’ successor will very likely prove to be an inferior Secretary of Defense.

I'm sure that a good number of economists and others will (within reason) add that the statistic at issue doesn't give an overall complete picture of how well a given nation is economically performing. Regardless, the referenced Bloomberg statistic has enough meat to counter the mantra of a poorly performing Russian economy, whose president engages in nationalist activity as a cover for his nation's shortcomings. If anything, that take is more applicable to the socioeconomically challenged Kiev regime controlled Ukraine, that has become greatly dependent on US government influenced International Monetary Fund loans.

Within the past year, the Kiev regime has engaged in several nationalist stunts, involving the – faked murder of Arkady Babchenko, to (as spun) uncover a still unproven sinister Russian plot – pressure on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is loosely affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate – violation of Russian territory (including area recognized as Russian before Crimea's reunification with Russia), as well as breaching the established protocol for passing the Kerch Strait. The last point concerns the Russian built bridge connecting Crimea with the rest of Russia. Inside and outside of Ukraine, there've been calls to destroy that bridge. With that in mind, it's quite provocative to not give the standard notice before nearing the area of that bridge.

In the US, the ongoing effort to dislodge Donald Trump on a flimsy Russian meddling claim (continuously promoted as believable by the Democratic Party establishment and some of the major US mass media venues), serves to encourage the US president to take some unnecessary aggressive action on the foreign policy front. The Trump administration's kid gloves treatment accorded to the Kiev regime is one example.

For the purpose of showing that he isn't "soft" on Russia, Trump and much of his support base highlight that behavior (albeit positively), along with his military actions against the Russian supported and internationally recognized Syrian government. Recall CNN's Fareed Zakaria saying that Trump became US president, when he bombed a Syrian government position – for a basis that factually remains quite suspect, as has been detailed by Ted Postal and some others.

Shifting gears, the December 7 National Interest article "A Major National Security Shakeup: Nauert In and Kelly Out?", notes that Dina Powell and John James, have been passed over in favor of Heather Nauert, as a replacement for Nikki Haley as America's UN ambassador. This piece doesn't address Trump's foreign policy flip flop. During his campaign for the US presidency, Trump stated the desire to reshape US foreign policy to include competent individuals, typically shunned by the establishment. That desire has been contradicted by his cabinet selections and what they've said. The likes of Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard and Jim Jatras, are among those who better identify with what Trump had advocated on foreign policy.

The current US secretary of Defense James Mattis appears to be transferring his shortcomings to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Mattis rather ironically said that Putin is a "slow learner". This is pretty rich coming from Mattis, who not too long ago belittled Russia's Middle East presence. Russia is the only country that has held open talks with the governments of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria and the US. Going back a good several years, the neocon/neolib desire to see Syria's president leave office hasn't happened. The neocon regime change operations in Iraq and Libya are now understandably regarded by many as counterproductive.

Especially ridiculous is Mattis' recent contention that the claim of Russian meddling in the 2018 US general election is a fact (without Mattis providing specifics), unlike the view that the Saudi head of state knew and approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Along with Nauert and Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, haven't exhibited the foreign policy stances that Trump campaigned on.

Mattis, a Marine general who is sometimes considered to be the only adult in the room when the White House national security team meets, claimed that the bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow had “no doubt” deteriorated still further due to the Russian activity, which he described as the Kremlin “try[ing] again to muck around around in our elections last month, and we are seeing a continued effort along those lines” with Russian President Vladimir Putin making “continued efforts to try to subvert democratic processes that must be defended. We’ll do whatever is necessary to defend them.”

Mattis did not address President Donald Trump’s cancellation of a meeting with Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a move which he reportedly supported. The cancellation was reportedly based on what has been described as an act of aggression committed by the Russian military against three Ukrainian naval vessels seeking to transit the Kerch Strait, which is since the annexation of Crimea been completely controlled by Moscow. The Ukrainians were aware of the Russian protocols for transiting through the area and chose to ignore them to create an incident, possibly as part of a plan to disrupt the Trump-Putin discussions. If that is so, they were successful.

Mattis was somewhat taciturn relating to his accusation regarding Moscow’s meddling. He provided absolutely no evidence that Russia had been interfering in the latest election and there have been no suggestions from either federal or state authorities that there were any irregularities involving foreigners. There was, however, considerable concern over possible ballot and voting manipulation at state levels carried out by the major political parties themselves, suggesting that if Mattis is looking for subversion of democratic processes he might start looking a lot closer to home.

The U.S. government has issued a general warning that "Americans should be aware that foreign actors — and Russia in particular — continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord." Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have reportedly been working with private sector internet social networking companies, to include Twitter and Facebook, to shut down Russian and Iranian accounts in attempt to forestall any interference in either the campaigning or voting processes. Some Russians have even been indicted in absentia based on flimsy evidence but as they are in Russia they cannot be tried. One Russian student, Maria Butina, is still in jail in Virginia based on conflicting and flimsy evidence and it is not clear when she will be able to defend herself in court.

Beyond the general anti-Russia hysteria being encouraged by the media and congress, there are a number of problems with the Mattis assertion. First of all, beyond the fact that no actual evidence has been presented, it is irrational to assume that Russian intelligence services would waste their effort and burn their resources to attempt to accomplish absolutely nothing. Russia was not on the ballot last month and no candidates were running on any platform that would benefit Moscow in the slightest. To get caught “mucking around” would invite more sanctions and justify an increasingly hostile response from Washington, hardly a price that Putin would be willing to pay for little or nothing tangible.

Second, the intense investigations being carried out by the Robert Mueller Special Counsel’s office have to this point developed no information suggesting that Russia did anything in 2016 beyond the low-level probing and manipulating that every major intelligence agency does routinely to get a window into what an adversary is up to. To be sure, several Team Trump associates will likely be going to jail, but their crimes so far have consisted of perjury or tax fraud. Some, like former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen are seeking desperately to find a way to implicate the president in some grander scheme, but if there is anything actually there it has yet to be identified to the public.

Third, based on the evidence produced so far, the only two countries that may have cooperated with either Trump or the Deep State to influence the results of the 2016 election are Israel, which sought Trump intercession at the United Nations, and Britain, which may have engaged in a plot by the British intelligence and security services to conspire with CIA Director John Brennan to elect Hillary Clinton.

So, there we go again. Another vague accusation against Russia to convince the American public that there is a powerful enemy out to get us. And lest there be any shortage of enemies Mattis also mentioned always dangerous Iran, saying “…we cannot deny the threat that Iran poses to all civilized nations.” And, by the way, Mattis in his speech strongly supported an increased “defense” budget to deal with all the threats, saying somewhat obscurely that “Fiscal solvency and strategic solvency can co-exist.” Sure. In the wonderful world of Washington, more money can fix anything.

His observations were made in the run-up to the referendum to be held on September 30 in which Macedonians will vote on a deal reached in June with Greece that would change the country’s name to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. The referendum question is “Do you support EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between Macedonia and Greece?” and the outcome will be interesting, but Mattis failed to see the supreme irony in the fact that his visit to Macedonia was specifically to conduct a “broader influence campaign” by standing next to its prime minister Zoran Zaev as he announced that “There is no alternative for the Republic of Macedonia than integration into NATO and EU.”

Influence, anyone?

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis (left), Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev (right), and Macedonian Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska shake hands after their meeting in Skopje on September 17.

Although Macedonia (population two million) is not a member of NATO it has 244 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of the futile US-NATO-“coalition” mission and Washington wants the military bonds to be closer. It isn’t exactly a great military power, with an army of about 8,000, and it isn’t close to the border with Russia, along which there is an increasingly confrontational US-NATO military presence, but the Pentagon and its sub-office in Brussels always welcome more members to their alliance. And who better than General Mattis to exercise “broader influence” on Macedonia to encourage it to join the team confronting Russia.

While in Macedonia Mattis declared the vote to be the “most important” in Macedonia’s history, and assured everyone that a pro-NATO result would result in “economic prosperity and increased foreign investment.” It would “unlock the Nato accession process and allow you . . . to determine your own future in institutions made up of like-minded countries.”

Predictably, Mattis was in line with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who also visited Macedonia in September and announced that “We are ready to welcome your country as NATO’s 30th member,” telling its people that the referendum “is a once in a lifetime opportunity to join the international community . . .” Was he trying to influence anyone?

General Mattis is rabidly anti-Russian and hostile to a great many other countries, people and organisations. It is now almost forgotten that he is the man who replied to a question in 2005 about the US war in Afghanistan by uttering the psychotic pronouncement that “Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.” He is obviously a person who can bring balance and sympathetic understanding to international affairs.

As recorded in the New Yorker, “on January 22nd, two days after President Trump was inaugurated, he received a memo from his new Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, recommending that the United States launch a military strike in Yemen.”

Yemen was then and still is in a state of civil war. The country has nothing to do with the United States, but in 2017 the intelligence community in the US said they had discovered that a group of alleged anti-American terrorists were in a small village called al-Ghayil and it was decided by the Best and the Brightest in Washington to attack the place.

The operation Mattis wanted the president to authorise was intended to kill people, of course, and specifically a supposed leader of Al Qaeda; so Mattis and the National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford had dinner with President Trump, who then decided to go ahead with what turned out to be a totally disastrous military operation.

It was a tragic farce. As reported in the Washington Post, instead of a clean quick special forces’ attack on the village, “a massive firefight ensued, claiming the life of an American sailor and at least one Yemeni child, and serving as an early lesson for President Trump’s national security team about the perils of overseas ground operations.”

8-year-old Nora Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was killed in the US raid. Her father, a US citizen and alleged al-Qaeda operative, was killed in a US drone strike in 2011. During his Presidential campaign, Donald Trump told Fox News that “when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families.”

“An elite Special Operations air regiment was then sent in to pull the team and its casualties out of the fray, banking into the night under heavy fire to link up with a Marine quick-reaction force that had taken off in MV-22 Ospreys from the US ship Makin Island floating offshore.” In the course of the operation, Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens, a navy commando, was killed, and one of the $75 million Ospreys was destroyed.

In other words, the whole thing was an utter shambles.

But the spin doctors in Washington couldn’t admit that their operation had failed, and Trump announced that Mattis had told him it had been a “highly successful raid that generated large amounts of vital intelligence that will lead to many more victories in the future against our enemies.” The brawl had been a ball.

Thank you, General Mattis, the man who declared “It’s fun to shoot some people” and alleges that Russia carries out “broader influence campaigns” and then does his best to influence Macedonia by declaring to its citizens that “You would join an alliance in which countries large and small work together to uphold shared principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, and freedom from coercion, while others seek to diminish these very values, sowing discord from Syria to the Ukraine.” This is from the defence secretary of a nation that has sowed catastrophic discord in Afghanistan, then in Iraq and through the whole Middle East, to Libya which the Pentagon and NATO bombed and blitzed to a state of utter chaos in what General Mattis might call a “broader influence campaign.”

Macedonia will probably become a member of the US-NATO anti-Russia military alliance, along with Ukraine, and the confrontation with Russia will continue to escalate in the new US-NATO Cold War. And who knows what else might be planned by those attending a future military dinner with Trump. After all, “It’s fun to shoot some people.”

On May 30, Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a momentous shift in American global strategic policy. From now on, he decreed, the US Pacific Command (PACOM), which oversees all US military forces in Asia, will be called the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). The name change, Mattis explained, reflects “the increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans,” as well as Washington’s determination to remain the dominant power in both.

What? You didn’t hear about this anywhere? And even now, you’re not exactly blown away, right? Well, such a name change may not sound like much, but someday you may look back and realize that it couldn’t have been more consequential or ominous. Think of it as a signal that the US military is already setting the stage for an eventual confrontation with China.

If, until now, you hadn’t read about Mattis’s decision anywhere, I’m not surprised since the media gave it virtually no attention—less certainly than would have been accorded the least significant tweet Donald Trump ever dispatched. What coverage it did receive treated the name change as no more than a passing “symbolic” gesture, a Pentagon ploy to encourage India to join Japan, Australia, and other US allies in America’s Pacific alliance system. “In Symbolic Nod to India, US Pacific Command Changes Name” was the headline of a Reuters story on the subject and, to the extent that any attention was paid, it was typical.

That the media’s military analysts failed to notice anything more than symbolism in the deep-sixing of PACOM shouldn’t be surprising, given all the attention being paid to other major international developments—the pyrotechnics of the Korean summit in Singapore, the insults traded at and after the G7 meeting in Canada, or the ominous gathering storm over Iran. Add to this the poor grasp so many journalists have of the nature of the US military’s strategic thinking. Still, Mattis himself has not been shy about the geopolitical significance of linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans in such planning. In fact, it represents a fundamental shift in US military thinking with potentially far-reaching consequences.

Consider the backdrop to the name change: in recent months, the United States has stepped up its naval patrols in waters adjacent to Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea (as has China), raising the prospect of future clashes between the warships of the two countries. Such moves have been accompanied by ever more threatening language from the Department of Defense (DoD), indicating an intent to do nothing less than engage China militarily if that country’s build-up in the region continues. “When it comes down to introducing what they have done in the South China Sea, there are consequences,” Mattis declared at the Shangri La Strategic Dialogue in Singapore on June 2.

As a preliminary indication of what he meant by this, Mattis promptly disinvited the Chinese from the world’s largest multinational naval exercise, the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), conducted annually under American auspices. “But that’s a relatively small consequence,” he added ominously, “and I believe there are much larger consequences in the future.” With that in mind, he soon announced that the Pentagon is planning to conduct “a steady drumbeat” of naval operations in waters abutting those Chinese-occupied islands, which should raise the heat between the two countries and could create the conditions for a miscalculation, a mistake, or even an accident at sea that might lead to far worse.

In addition to its plans to heighten naval tensions in seas adjacent to China, the Pentagon has been laboring to strengthen its military ties with US-friendly states on China’s perimeter, all clearly part of a long-term drive to—in Cold War fashion—“contain” Chinese power in Asia. On June 8, for example, the DoD launched Malabar 2018, a joint Pacific Ocean naval exercise involving forces from India, Japan, and the United States. Incorporating once neutral India into America’s anti-Chinese “Pacific” alliance system in this and other ways has, in fact, become a major 21st-century goal of the Pentagon, posing a significant new threat to China.

For decades, the principal objective of US strategy in Asia had been to bolster key Pacific allies Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines, while containing Chinese power in adjacent waters, including the East and South China Seas. However, in recent times, China has sought to spread its influence into Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region, in part by extolling its staggeringly ambitious “One Belt, One Road” trade and infrastructure initiative for the Eurasian continent and Africa. That vast project is clearly meant both as a unique vehicle for cooperation and a way to tie much of Eurasia into a future China-centered economic and energy system. Threatened by visions of such a future, American strategists have moved ever more decisively to constrain Chinese outreach in those very areas. That, then, is the context for the sudden concerted drive by US military strategists to link the Indian and Pacific Oceans and so encircle China with pro-American, anti-Chinese alliance systems. The name change on May 30 is a formal acknowledgement of an encirclement strategy that couldn’t, in the long run, be more dangerous.

GIRDING FOR WAR WITH CHINA

To grasp the ramifications of such moves, some background on the former PACOM might be useful. Originally known as the Far East Command, PACOM was established in 1947 and has been headquartered at US bases near Honolulu, Hawaii, ever since. As now constituted, its “area of responsibility” encompasses a mind-boggling expanse: all of East, South, and Southeast Asia, as well as Australia, New Zealand, and the waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans—in other words, an area covering about 50% of the Earth’s surface and incorporating more than half of the global population. Though the Pentagon divides the whole planet like a giant pie into a set of “unified commands,” none of them is larger than the newly expansive, newly named Indo-Pacific Command, with its 375,000 military and civilian personnel.

Before the Indian Ocean was explicitly incorporated into its fold, PACOM mainly focused on maintaining control of the western Pacific, especially in waters around a number of friendly island and peninsula states like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Its force structure has largely been composed of air and naval squadrons, along with a large Marine Corps presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa. Its most powerful combat unit is the US Pacific Fleet —like the area it now covers, the largest in the world. It’s made up of the 3rd and 7th Fleets, which together have approximately 200 ships and submarines, nearly 1,200 aircraft, and more than 130,000 sailors, pilots, Marines, and civilians.

On a day-to-day basis, until recently, the biggest worry confronting the command was the possibility of a conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea. During the late fall of 2017 and the winter of 2018, PACOM engaged in a continuing series of exercises designed to test its forces’ ability to overcome North Korean defenses and destroy its major military assets, including nuclear and missile facilities. These were undoubtedly intended, above all, as a warning to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un about what he could expect if he continued down the path of endless provocative missile and nuclear tests. It seems that, at least for the time being, President Trump has suspended such drills as a result of his summit meeting with Kim.

North Korea aside, the principal preoccupation of PACOM commanders has long been the rising power of China and how to contain it. This was evident at the May 30 ceremony in Hawaii at which Mattis announced that expansive name change and presided over a change-of-command ceremony, in which outgoing commander, Adm. Harry Harris Jr., was replaced by Adm. Phil Davidson. (Given the naval-centric nature of its mission, the command is almost invariably headed by an admiral.)

While avoiding any direct mention of China in his opening remarks, Mattis left not a smidgeon of uncertainty that the command’s new name was a challenge and a call for the future mobilization of regional opposition across a vast stretch of the planet to China’s dreams and desires. Other nations welcome US support, he insisted, as they prefer an environment of “free, fair, and reciprocal trade not bound by any nation’s predatory economics or threat of coercion, for the Indo-Pacific has many belts and many roads.” No one could mistake the meaning of that.

Departing Admiral Harris was blunter still. Although “North Korea remains our most immediate threat,” he declared, “China remains our biggest long-term challenge.” He then offered a warning: Without the stepped-up efforts of the US and its allies to constrain Beijing, “China will realize its dream of hegemony in Asia.” Yes, he admitted, it was still possible to cooperate with the Chinese on limited issues, but we should “stand ready to confront them when we must.” (On May 18, Admiral Harris was nominated by President Trump as the future US ambassador to South Korea, which will place a former military man at the US Embassy in Seoul.)

Harris’s successor, Admiral Davidson, seems, if anything, even more determined to put confronting China atop the command’s agenda. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 17, he repeatedly highlighted the threat posed by Chinese military activities in the South China Sea and promised to resist them vigorously. “Once [the South China Sea islands are] occupied, China will be able to extend its influence thousands of miles to the south and project power deep into Oceania,” he warned. “The PLA [People’s Liberation Army] will be able to use these bases to challenge US presence in the region, and any forces deployed to the islands would easily overwhelm the military forces of any other South China Sea claimants. In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.”

Is that, then, what Admiral Davidson sees in our future? War with China in those waters? His testimony made it crystal clear that his primary objective as head of the Indo-Pacific Command will be nothing less than training and equipping the forces under him for just such a future war, while enlisting the militaries of as many allies as possible in the Pentagon’s campaign to encircle that country. “To prevent a situation where China is more likely to win a conflict,” he affirmed in his version of Pentagonese, “we must resource high-end capabilities in a timely fashion, preserve our network of allies and partners, and continue to recruit and train the best soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and coastguardsmen in the world.”

Davidson’s first priority is to procure advanced weaponry and integrate it into the command’s force structure, ensuring that American combatants will always enjoy a technological advantage over their Chinese counterparts in any future confrontation. Almost as important, he, like his predecessors, seeks to bolster America’s military ties with other members of the contain-China club. This is where India comes in. Like the United States, its leadership is deeply concerned with China’s expanding presence in the Indian Ocean region, including the opening of a future port/naval base in Gwadar, Pakistan, and another potential one on the island of Sri Lanka, both in the Indian Ocean. Not surprisingly, given the periodic clashes between Chinese and Indian forces along their joint Himalayan borderlands and the permanent deployment of Chinese warships in the Indian Ocean, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has shown himself to be increasingly disposed to join Washington in military arrangements aimed at limiting China’s geopolitical reach. “An enduring strategic partnership with India comports with US goals and objectives in the Indo-Pacific,” Admiral Davidson said in his recent congressional testimony. Once installed as commander, he continued, “I will maintain the positive momentum and trajectory of our burgeoning strategic partnership.” His particular goal: to “increase maritime security cooperation.”

And so we arrive at the Indo-Pacific Command and a future shadowed by the potential for great power war.

THE VIEW FROM BEIJING

The way the name change at PACOM was covered in the United States, you would think it reflected, at most, a benign wish for greater economic connections between the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions, as well, perhaps, as a nod to America’s growing relationship with India. Nowhere was there any hint that what might lie behind it was a hostile and potentially threatening new approach to China—or that it could conceivably be perceived that way in Beijing. But there can be no doubt that the Chinese view such moves, including recent provocative naval operations in the disputed Paracel Islands of the South China Sea, as significant perils.

When, in late May, the Pentagon dispatched two warships—the USS Higgins, a destroyer, and the USS Antietam, a cruiser—into the waters near one of those newly fortified islands, the Chinese responded by sending in some of their own warships while issuing a statement condemning the provocative American naval patrols. The US action, said a Chinese military spokesperson, “seriously violated China’s sovereignty [and] undermined strategic mutual trust.” Described by the Pentagon as “freedom of navigation operations” (FRONOPs), such patrols are set to be increased at the behest of Mattis.

Of course, the Chinese are hardly blameless in the escalating tensions in the region. They have continued to militarize South China Sea islands whose ownership is in dispute, despite a promise that Chinese President Xi Jinping made to President Obama in 2015 not to do so. Some of those islands in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos are also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries in the area and have been the subject of intensifying, often bitter disagreements among them about where rightful ownership really lies. Beijing has simply claimed sovereignty over all of them and refuses to compromise on the issue. By fortifying them—which American military commanders see as a latent military threat to US forces in the region—Beijing has provoked a particularly fierce US reaction, though these are obviously waters relatively close to China, but many thousands of miles from the continental United States.

From Beijing, the strategic outlook articulated by Secretary Mattis, as well as Admirals Harris and Davidson, is clearly viewed—and not without reason—as threatening and as evidence of Washington’s master plan to surround China, confine it, and prevent it from ever achieving the regional dominance its leaders believe is its due as the rising great power on the planet. To the Chinese leadership, changing PACOM’s name to the Indo-Pacific Command will just be another signal of Washington’s determination to extend its unprecedented military presence westward from the Pacific around Southeast Asia into the Indian Ocean and so further restrain the attainment of what it sees as China’s legitimate destiny.

However Chinese leaders end up responding to such strategic moves, one thing is certain: They will not view them with indifference. On the contrary, as challenged great powers have always done, they will undoubtedly seek ways to counter America’s containment strategy by whatever means are at hand. These may not initially be overtly military or even obvious, but in the long run they will certainly be vigorous and persistent. They will include efforts to compete with Washington in pursuit of Asian allies—as seen in Beijing’s fervent courtship of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines—and to secure new basing arrangements abroad, possibly under the pretext, as in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, of establishing commercial shipping terminals. All of this will only add new tensions to an already anxiety-inducing relationship with the United States. As ever more warships from both countries patrol the region, the likelihood that accidents will occur, mistakes will be made, and future military clashes will result can only increase.

With the possibility of war with North Korea fading in the wake of the recent Singapore summit, one thing is guaranteed: The new US Indo-Pacific Command will only devote itself ever more fervently to what is already its one overriding priority: preparing for a conflict with China. Its commanders insist that they do not seek such a war, and believe that their preparations—by demonstrating America’s strength and resolve—will deter the Chinese from ever challenging American supremacy. That, however, is a fantasy. In reality, a strategy that calls for a “steady drumbeat” of naval operations aimed at intimidating China in waters near that country will create ever more possibilities, however unintended, of sparking the very conflagration that it is, at least theoretically, designed to prevent.

Right now, a Sino-American war sounds like the plotline of some half-baked dystopian novel. Unfortunately, given the direction in which both countries (and their militaries) are heading, it could, in the relatively near future, become a grim reality.

thenation.com