Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

[Judi Lynn]

Shock, awe and Hobbes have backfired on America's neocons

Iraq has shown the hubris of a geostrategy that welds the philosophy of the Leviathan to military and technological power

Richard Drayton
Wednesday December 28, 2005
The Guardian


The tragic irony of the 21st century is that just as faith in technology collapsed on the world's stock markets in 2000, it came to power in the White House and Pentagon. For the Project for a New American Century's ambition of "full-spectrum dominance" - in which its country could "fight and win multiple, simultaneous major-theatre wars" - was a monster borne up by the high tide of techno euphoria of the 1990s.

Ex-hippies talked of a wired age of Aquarius. The fall of the Berlin wall and the rise of the internet, we were told, had ushered in Adam Smith's dream of overflowing abundance, expanding liberty and perpetual peace. Fukuyama speculated that history was over, leaving us just to hoard and spend. Technology meant a new paradigm of constant growth without inflation or recession.

But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare" at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of constant conflict". Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the "God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information grid". This hegemony would be welcomed as the cutting edge of human progress. Or at worst, the military geeks candidly explained, US power would simply terrify others into submitting to the stars and stripes.

Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance - a key strategic document published in 1996 - aimed to understand how to destroy the "will to resist before, during and after battle". For Harlan Ullman of the National Defence University, its main author, the perfect example was the atom bomb at Hiroshima. But with or without such a weapon, one could create an illusion of unending strength and ruthlessness. Or one could deprive an enemy of the ability to communicate, observe and interact - a macro version of the sensory deprivation used on individuals - so as to create a "feeling of impotence". And one must always inflict brutal reprisals against those who resist. An alternative was the "decay and default" model, whereby a nation's will to resist collapsed through the "imposition of social breakdown".
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html

[gordianot]

1. Excellent article.

I note this statement.

"Thomas Barnett at the Naval War College assisted Vice-Admiral Cebrowski in developing "network-centric warfare". General John Jumper of the air force predicted a planet easily mastered from air and space. American forces would win everywhere because they enjoyed what was unashamedly called the "God's-eye" view of satellites and GPS: the "global information grid"

Wonder if this is why the Peoples Republic of China wants a Moon program? Could this be the higher ground?

[Richard D]

2. I don't think . . .

. . . that the moon is a strategic place for earth aimed weapons. You'd have to escape the moons gravity well, which would take a lot of energy. Plus it's a long time from the moon to the earth.

My guess about China is that the have recognized that at sometime in the not to distant future, natural resources will run out down here, and that their moon exploration is a first step in mining the galaxy, so to speak.

[gordianot]

4. NASA did a series of studies on Moon bases in the 1960's.

It would make an excellent base for nuclear retaliation and would completely eliminate a nuclear first strike threat. Now days you only need a couple nuclear airbusts to wreck all of that high tech electronic infra structure. Nuclear subs (the old first strike deterrent) were cheaper once upon a time but satellite technology is making detection much easier. Maybe it would be OK to fight their wars on the moon keep them off of the Earth.

[starroute]

15. Europe is starting its own system to rival GPS

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2005-12-28T143016Z_01_FLE822622_RTRUKOC_0_US-SPACE-GALILEO.xml

European satellite launch challenges GPS
Wed Dec 28, 2005

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The European Union launched its first Galileo navigation satellite on Wednesday, moving to challenge the United States' Global Positioning System (GPS).

Russian space agency Roskosmos said the 600 kg (1,300 lb) satellite named Giove-A (Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element) went into its orbit 23,000 km (15,000 miles) from the earth after its launch on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the middle of Kazakhstan's steppe.

"The launch of Giove is the proof that Europe can deliver ambitious projects to the benefit of its citizens and companies," said EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot in a statement.

The 3.6 billion-euro ($4.27-billion) Galileo programme, due to go into service in 2008 and eventually deploy 30 satellites, may end Europe's reliance on the GPS and offer a commercial alternative to the GPS system run by the U.S. military.

From what I've picked up in the last few years, the US has put a *lot* of pressure on Europe not to go ahead with this. The fact that they're doing it now, and that the US apparently isn't raising a peep about it, is extremely interesting.

[firefox]

3. Funny how America's media cannot say the same thing

We have a controlled media which happens to be one of the 14 signs of fascism.

People just do not understand the USG is pursuing global conquest for the wealthy few of this country, or that defense/offense spending has increased 40% in 5 years. The media can spout the most obscure details when two sporting teams meet but they all but block out all big picture articles like this one.

We have a controlled media that needs busting up, but just who are those representing that point of view in Congress besides Kucinich?

[Peace Patriot]

5. Such delusions they peddle! Same military fantasists who were defeated

by little brown people in sandals and straw hats, who had the good sense to tunnel underground, and to provide instant manholes, covered with straw mats, all along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

It is essential to have civilian control over these people, and not to have power fantasists like Rumsfeld and Cheney, and their Neo-Con theorists, egging them on. That is the problem here. Bush is unintelligent, and easily manipulated with grandiose notions. The other two are psychotic powermongers, of which Rumsfeld is probably the most dangerous--a lethal combination with this type of military planner who is actually serving the interests of war profiteers.

Better yet, we need to dismantle the entire war machine--it is such a temptation to fascists--and reconfigure it into a truly "defensive" position, or get rid of it altogether. All it's been good for is to instigate phony, illegal, unnecessary wars, for the self-feeding hogfest of military contracts. When was the last time this "defense" establishment actually defended us? WW II. That's about it. They couldn't even defend the Pentagon on 9/11! The threats in the world during the Bush junta have all been handle-able by policing agencies and good intelligence. (And what did the Bushites do? They purged and demoralized those agencies, and filled them with toadies and yes-men!) But now, of course, with the US a lethal, rogue force in the world, Russia, China and vulnerable countries like Iran, are all seeing to THEIR defenses, and a new arms race is upon us.

We really need to do something about this--when we recover our right to vote, get transparent elections again, and get rid of corporate privatization of our election system with its 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls. Secret decoder ring elections. I mean, really. THEN we need to take on the military-industrial complex, as Eisenhower advised us to do, long ago.

[gordianot]

6. Excellent post!

[lvx35]

10. Abolutely, great thinking.

Its really true that there seems to often be a difference between defensive and offensive technology. For instance, the patriot missile systems we saw defending Israel in Gulf War I, great technology.

[SweetLeftFoot]

28. Patriots

didn't work.

[lvx35]

29. eh?

are we talking about the same thing? I'm am talking about the ones that were shown on TV preventing all the scuds from hitting Tel Aviv.

[SweetLeftFoot]

30. Yeah, self same ..

A 10 month investigation by the House Government Operations subcommittee on Legislation and National Security concluded that there was little evidence to prove that the Patriot hit more than a few Scuds. Testimony before the House Committee on Government Operations by Professor Theodore Postol (a professor of Science, technology and National Security Policy at M.I.T.) On April 7, 1992 and reports written by professor Postol raised serious doubts about the Patriot's performance. After examining video evidence of the Patriot's performance in Israel during the Gulf War and conducting his own tests, professor Postol claimed that the Patriot had a very low success rate.

"The results of these studies are disturbing. They suggest that the Patriot's intercept rate during the Gulf War was very low. The evidence from these preliminary studies indicates that Patriot's intercept rate could be much lower than ten percent, possibly even zero." (Statement of Theodore A. Postol before the U.S. House Of Representatives Committee on Government Operations, April 7, 1992

The israelis have developed something better since - Arrow.

[lvx35]

31. They looked pretty good on TV!

I remember Israel saying that they would join the war if Isreal got attacked with SCUDS, and I remember lots fired on Tel Aviv and none of them hitting anything. So was it the SCUDS really sucking then? :)

Regardless, I still like the idea of focus on defensive technology. If I could design anything in weapons tech it would be bulletproof armor for all.

[SweetLeftFoot]

32. Quite a number

30 odd, Scuds did hit Israel but because they weren't loaded with non-conventional warheads, they caused relatively little damage.

Don't get conned by the US military-industrial nexus into believing that all US military technology is the best going around. More often than not, it isn't.

[TheBaldyMan]

33. they're OK for some things

like shooting down British jets. That RAF Tornado didn't stand a chance!

[lvx35]

38. They were originally anti-aircraft.

I was reading about the contraversy the person above is talking about. They were anti-aircraft missles modified to the purpose.

[TheBaldyMan]

40. originally SAMs with tactical nuke warheads

they could blow half a squadron out of the air at once !

[CAcyclist]

35. Really?

:eyes:

[lvx35]

39. Really what?

A difference in defensive and offensive technology? Yes. But its not brought into dialogues about military spending. people act as if there is not.

[ninkasi]

11. Great post!

You are right, and I am thankful that some, like you, can verbalize the truth. You wrote what I feel, but could never express as you did.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

13. I'm glad some of us still remember the lessons of Vietnam

We are truly repeating the same stupid exercise in Iraq that we did in Vietnam.

This time there isn't any justification at all, just the lust for power and money.

[teryang]

7. Odd that the delusional theories of world domination come at a

...time when we are in decline economically and commercially and in danger of being eclipsed by the two Asian continental powers.

The situation is similar to that of Germany between the two world wars. Paranoid fears borne of unsuccessful WWI and depletion of resources in the context of Russia and the United States emerging as continental industrial powers made Hitler and his deluded followers go for broke.

That is exactly what the neo-cons are doing. Their fundamental gestalts are twofold: 1)we lost before because of intellectual defeatists, leftists, and other "effete" progressives; 2) If we don't take what we need now, we'll be left behind.

Exportation of massive amounts of corporate capital overseas, outsourcing, and misguided globalization policies are ruining America. Elective warfare, and excessive military expenditures are accelerating our decline precipitously. By failing to invest in our nation's people and capital infrastructure, misguided corporate elites are ruining our country. No amount of bombs, guns, or wars, will make us competitive. Hegemony and wasteful military campaigns and expenditures have to be abandoned for investment in ourselves and our capital infrastructure. American corporations must repatriot their capital and jobs or suffer tax sanctions they can't afford.

Military hegemony which is a pipe dream cannot substitute for a reasonable economic policy which balances international trade with investment in human resources and infrastructure at home. Corporations must pay their fair share to exploit American markets and avenues of commerce or get out.

[cliss]

22. Yes, very true.

I've always felt that the PNAC was born out of desperation. I read the 'manifesto'. If you read between the lines, you can sense a real fear of losing everything, of falling behind. In fact they say that: "In order to maintain our superiority...."

Why else would a great nation, which has risen through trade and market strength suddenly turn to terrorism? Amazingly, they even spell out the new World Order: "we'll be a Benevolent Dictator", and other countries will do as we tell them to".

There are so many indicators that we have started to slide. There was an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review which talked about the "brain drain" in the US. The brightest and the best students no longer want to come here. They feel that the opportunities have gone away; they are going to India, Europe, and even China.

Also, I've read that "war is good for business". I disagree. I believe that war will bankrupt and destroy a country. So the war profiteers are having a good year? What will happen 5 years from now, when the tax coffers are empty and there is no more money to fund the wars?

Right now, we're like a society that's imploding on itself. Like the man who ran out of firewood. He needs to stay warm, so he throws in the furniture into the fireplace. Next come the walls.

Desperation.

[bemildred]

24. Oh, I remember it well, when they started talking that shit.

The RIMA crap and other stuff. They were looking
for a rationale for continued funding and a
continued need for the National Security State.
For that you need threats and ambitions and some
sense of how they may be achieved. And the US has
long had a culture that worships technical progress
with a very uncritical attitude. Hence the unexamined
assumption that technical progress will allow us
to redress our declining real power and influence
with overwhelming force.

At the time, being used to DOD bullshit and well
aware of how delusional it was, I never expected
anyone to be so stupid and isolated from reality
as to try to carry this out. But that seems to be
what they are doing. Frankly, the ambitions of
the Nazis and Japanese monarchy 70 years ago were
far more realistic than this stuff we have now is
or ever was.

[applegrove]

8. Thanks for posting!

[OneBlueSky]

9. insightful article . . . recommended . . . n/t

.

[non sociopath skin]

12. One of the best evaluations ever of the Neocons' Evil Empire....

... Now how do we stop them? And, as important, how do we stop other emergent nations like China and India slipping into the same mindset?

The Skin

[willing dwarf]

14. The irony & cynicism of Neo Cons calls for democracy in Iraq

Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the recently indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from Leo Strauss that a strong and wise minority of humans had to rule over the weak majority through deception and fear, rather than persuasion or compromise. They read Le Bon and Freud on the relationship of crowds to authority. But most of all they loved Hobbes's Leviathan. While Hobbes saw authority as free men's chosen solution to the imperfections of anarchy, his 21st century heirs seek to create the fear that led to submission.

I've noted it before, elsewhere, but the disconnect between the Neocon's stated goals and private goals still blows me away. They use words like "democracy" and "freedom" as if they mean something by them, but they are simply using the words as manipulative tools. They run the words they know everyone will salute up the flag pole and reckon we'll all salute blindly, and they will simply be our leaders because...well there's the question. Why should they be our leaders?

Because they're smarter? Because they've got the will to lead? Because they have been ordained by God or Leo Strauss or somebody to take charge?

It's disgusting. I can only pity their loss of their own humanity in the quest to control and dominate the masses. They are turning this earth into a wasteland, and across the globe we are all their victims.

[realFedUp]

16. Meaty must read. nt

[beingthere]

17. Pure evil. May these people rot in hell if there is a hell.

[htuttle]

18. "...predicted a planet easily mastered from air and space."

...unless they pay us the sum of one MILLION dollars!



I'm starting to think that Rumsfeld sits around in the Pentagon with a white angora cat in his lap... Or Cheney. Or Wolfowitz. Oh, hell. Too many Blofeld's nowdays...

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. I don't like swearing but..

what UTTER PRICKS!!! The likes of that dumb son-of-a-bitch Harlan Ullman need to be incarcerated in a re-opened Alcatraz, before he can accidentaly kill himself with his congenital stupidity (that depth of stupidity is not something that can be learnt). He makes those know-nothing Forrest Gump Nazis marching into Paris look like Einstein.

Well Mr Ullman, you and your dopey pals will shortly no doubt be facing your own wee God-forsaken retreat from Stalingrad, if you've not already done so. And it won't come a day too soon. The voices of all those Iraqi men, women and children martyred by your crazed dreams of divine omnipotence will be barraging Heaven. You've no escape. The mills of God grind slow but exceeding fine. And your pain, humiliation and torment, customised precisely to your worst fears and horrors will continue in a never-ending cycle. Perhaps your worst torment will be the knowledge that all the time you thought you were a big shot in this life, you were always a weenie, so wretched as to scarcely register in the mammalian kingdom. You were a pathetic sucker all along. And plenty of people here on this planet know that right now.

It's weird isn't it - the very psychopaths who aren't fit to shovel **** are the very ones who have always had this uncontrollable mania to rule and lead. They just can't understand that they're just not officer-class material. You'd have thought their reluctance to put their own lives on the line in a war as young men might have tipped them off that simply in terms of courage, it's a no-no for them. It's the reason, of course why a straight election will signify the end of their perversion of everything decent about America. The Republicans can't afford to keep such people if they ever want to be viable as a party again.

[stubtoe]

20. Brilliant article - many thanks for posting.

I find it intriguing that the term "Shock and Awe" goes back to '96. What hubris to call the invasion of Iraq by the same name! What more proof does one need to see it was all a part of their grand geopolitical ploy? and not some "weapons of mass destruction" red herring as the country and Congress was sold.

*smoke coming from ears*

[DirtyDawg]

21. At Another Time and Place...

...Shock and Awe was referred to as 'Blitzkrieg'...amazing are the similarities that we as a nation are experiencing under this administration to the emergence of fascism and the Nazi dominance of Germany in the early '30s. A book commented on in 'Counterpunch' by Paul Craig Roberts, named 'Hitler's Prisons' apparently lays out a scenario that parallels those times to a 'T'...starting with the comparison of the Reichstag fire to 9/11.

I know it's not considered polite to make these comparisons - American under Bush/Cheney to Germany under Hitler/et. al., but how can we not? They are there for all to see. My question is what will history call our 'Judgment at Nuremberg'...just where will the trials be held? Washington - he scene of the crimes? Philadelphia - the seat of our 'supposed' Liberty? Regardless, there will be a reckoning and we'll all become like Germans of the past half-century, making excuses as to how we allowed it to happen and hiding our own guilt and acquiescence.

[formercia]

23. A 7.62x54 powered Dragunov sniper rifle is low tech

and totally ignores shock and awe. Ask the troops what they think of it.

[Surya Gayatri]

25. Richard Drayton obviously

knows his stuff and says it with style. Full of insight. I sent this to my Neo-Con brother, but I doubt it will have much effect. The "...coming 'age of constant conflict'" is fast becoming a reality. SG

[Higans]

26. Where have I herd this concept before?

But darker dreams surfaced in America's military universities. The theorists of the "revolution in military affairs" predicted that technology would lead to easy and perpetual US dominance of the world. Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters advised on "future warfare" at the Army War College - prophesying in 1997 a coming "age of constant conflict".

Isn't this what Hitler was striving for?

Oh wait, I remember where I first learned of this concept. It was in reading George Orwell's 1984.
http://www.literature-web.net/orwell/1984

'Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?'

'How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?'

Winston thought. 'By making him suffer,' he said.

'Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always -- do not forget this, Winston -- always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- for ever.'

He paused as though he expected Winston to speak. Winston had tried to shrink back into the surface of the bed again. He could not say anything. His heart seemed to be frozen. O'Brien went on:

'And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands -- all that will continue, and worse. The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive. This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible -- and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord. That is the world that we are preparing, Winston. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power. You are beginning, I can see, to realize what that world will be like. But in the end you will do more than understand it. You will accept it, welcome it, become part of it.'

[Higans]

34. Freedom is Slavery

[Autonomy]

27. Chomsky and Gore Vidal, et al., have been saying this

for a long time. "Perpetual War" has been the dominant US geopolitical paradigm since WWII, even eclipsing the Cold War. This author rightly points out the differences of yesterday's Perpetual War with the Neocon Wetdream version we have today.

I am personally shocked and awed that somewhere in the world there is actually still a free and independent press. Great article.

[Clara T]

36. I really dislike this article

It seems that the Iraqi people are invisible, the bloodshed and cultural annihilation isn't even in the picture, it is just how "this" backfired on this certain group of philosophical war planners. It's couched in terminology that renders the whole bloody war crime as some academic affair and uses such antiseptic terms so as to prevent the raw, visceral impact from tearing out our guts and wrenching our souls into somehow caring more deeply, and hopefully acting upon that caring, about this slow motion holocaust.

If this hadn't "backfired" would everything be okay? And have things really backfired?
Sounds like a course in western philosophy and warfare.

[StefanX]

37. Wow. Amazing article

This probably explains why Thomas "Lexus and Olive Tree" Friedman was such a believer.

The article is a bit heavy on the philosophy and ideological analysis -- but in this case it's necessary. You don't normally drive a superpower off a cliff unless you've got some pretty heavy-duty ideological blinkers on which blind you to what's really going on in front of your nose -- which is basically what these bozos have done time after time.

It's wierd how they're even "faith-based" on tech issues -- the one area where empirical methods should reign (Realpolitik, reality, logistics) is the one area where they've decided to close their eyes and click their heels three times and chant "Shock and Awe, Shock and Awe", in defiance of everything going on right around them.

That line at the beginning about the 90s technology boom coming home to roost a bit late in the White House -- ow, that must hurt.

I wonder when that White House insider quoted in the NYT a year or so back, the guy who made fun of "the reality-based community" -- I wonder if HE'LL ever get a chance to read this thing. It's guys like him -- and joystick generals like Rumsfeld (who never saw a day of battle, but reads plenty of post-structuralist, probably Baudrillardian or Guy Labordian philosophy) -- who need to see this. They're the ones with their ideological heads so far up their ideological asses that they can't see that they views are, quite bluntly, full of shit.