No Room for Conflict

Noam Chomsky has a fascinating—and very disturbing—commentary about what the US empire is up to.

“So there’s no room for conflict at this point in human history—conflict is suicide at this point. And this profound reality ‘should be kept firmly in mind while discussing particular issues’.”

“The US is a global power that engages in global planning.”

“But Washington has far bigger ambitions than Britain did—Britain wanted to control mainland Europe, whereas Washington wants to control all of Eurasia.”

Noam Chomsky has two interesting new pieces about US empire—one came out on 6 July 2022 and the other came out on 13 July 2022. I just want to use this short piece to summarize the key points from those two pieces—I hope that my following summary elucidates things for people. The quotes below are all from the two Chomsky pieces—the intra-quote hyperlinks are Chomsky’s. I came up with the organizational sections.

And everyone should check out the following declaration that the nations party to the the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) issued in June:

The Vienna Declaration (23 June 2022)

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Activists have achieved incredible things on nuclear weapons—there are opportunities to carry forward that inspiring legacy.

The Basic Point

The world “may not survive great power confrontation”—the “great powers will either find a way to cooperate, to work together in confronting imminent global threats, or the future will be too grim to contemplate”. So there’s no room for conflict at this point in human history—conflict is suicide at this point. And this profound reality “should be kept firmly in mind while discussing particular issues”.

The UN Charter

The UN Charter serves as “the foundation of modern international law”—Washington has two issues with the Charter. The first issue is that the Charter “bans ‘the threat or use of force’ in international affairs” except for “designated circumstances that almost never arise”—the Charter therefore “bans U.S. foreign policy”. And the second issue is that the Charter puts the UN Security Council and other institutions like the World Court in charge of setting the rules—Washington prefers a different situation where Washington “sets the rules and others obey”.

The US Constitution’s Article Six makes the UN Charter “‘the supreme law of the land’”. US elites don’t care—nobody notices that US presidents repeatedly violate the UN Charter and therefore repeatedly violate US law.

Washington dismisses the UN-based order “except when it can be invoked to punish enemies”. For example, Washington has “for many years” supported (A) Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara and (B) Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and of Greater Jerusalem—these two US-supported annexations are major violations of international law.

Controlling Eurasia

The US is a global power that engages in global planning. It’s important to look at how planning is being implemented worldwide and how certain aspects of planning are being replicated in different parts of the world—you don’t want to miss the forest for the trees.

The US “took over global hegemony from Britain after World War II” and “kept the same guiding geopolitical concepts”. But Washington has far bigger ambitions than Britain did—Britain wanted to control mainland Europe, whereas Washington wants to control all of Eurasia.

NATO held a summit in June and produced a new Strategic Concept. This was the first time that a NATO summit has included “the Asian ‘sentinel states’ that the U.S. has established and provided with advanced high-precision weapons to ‘encircle’ China”, so this inclusion represents a major official expansion for NATO—this official expansion’s “imperial implications should be clear enough”.

Regarding Eurasia’s northern flank, global heating has opened up a “new arena of conflict”.

Regarding Eurasia’s western flank, Putin has cemented Washington’s control over the “NATO-based Atlanticist system”—Putin gave Washington a gift.

And regarding Eurasia’s eastern flank, NATO has officially expanded into the Indo-Pacific—NATO is engaging in the “‘encirclement’” of China.

The US Navy is directing the RIMPAC programs; there are “regular U.S. naval missions” in China’s exclusive economic zone; there are military exercises off China’s northeast coast; and there are military exercises in the Baltic region.

The US won’t tolerate any Chinese infringement on US domination of the Indo-Pacific. China has one overseas military base—it’s in Djibouti—and the US won’t tolerate the establishment of a second one in the Solomon Islands.

The US has 100s of military bases all over the world that “enable hundreds of ‘low-profile proxy wars’ in Africa, the greater Middle East, and Asia”—these bases are important for “imperial domination”.

Who’s Being Isolated?

Graham E. Fuller put forward some thoughts about geopolitics. Fuller “has no illusions about the nature and roots of the war” in Ukraine—Fuller sees the war in Ukraine as a proxy war in which Ukraine is the collateral damage. Fuller says that Washington has induced unstoppable cooperation and integration and partnership between Russia and China—Fuller says that it’s unrealistic for Europe to isolate itself from Russia economically and that it’s even more unrealistic for Europe to confront China.

And it’s not just Fuller—there’s a piece in The Economist about the way that the war in Ukraine is reshaping the geostrategic landscape in potentially profound ways.

The War in Ukraine

Regarding the war in Ukraine, the Strategic Concept strongly affirms an opposition to negotiations and a desire to “‘weaken Russia’” through prolonging the war. The opposition to negotiations has been consistent policy since W. Bush invited Ukraine to join NATO in 2008—France and Germany vetoed that invitation but kept the offer on the agenda in deference to US power. After the 2014 Maidan uprising, Washington started to openly “integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command”—the Biden administration extended those policies and officially acknowledged post-invasion that Washington hadn’t “taken into consideration” Russia’s concerns about NATO. These plans are unconcealed—the goal is to “ensure full compatibility of the Ukrainian military with NATO forces in order to ‘integrate Ukraine into NATO de facto’”.

So NATO’s Strategic Concept (1) completely drops France’s and Germany’s “overtures toward diplomatic settlement”, (2) formally dismisses Russia’s concerns, (3) “simply ‘reaffirms’ all plans to move toward incorporating Ukraine (and Georgia) into NATO”, and (4) unambiguously reaffirms “the refusal to contemplate a diplomatic settlement”. Europe has shifted toward Washington’s anti-diplomacy position in a way that reflects “Europe’s increasing subordination to the U.S.”—Putin accelerated this subordination to Washington when he chose to engage in criminal aggression instead of choosing to consider “European initiatives that might have averted the crime and possibly even opened a path toward Europe-Russia accommodation that would be highly beneficial to all”.

The plan is to reject diplomacy and instead seek to weaken Russia—weaken Russia “more severely than the Versailles treaty weakened Germany” if you take US officials at their word like we can expect adversaries to do.

So the message to Russia is that there’s no escape. You can surrender, or “continue your slow and brutal advance”, or—if “defeat threatens”—“go for broke and destroy Ukraine”.

The policy is to prolong the war in order to weaken Russia—this policy means further devastation for Ukraine and also means that we will “drive millions to starvation while we march on triumphantly toward an unlivable earth and face increasing risk of terminal nuclear war”.

Regarding the Russian threat, Chomsky is “unaware of a word in the record about plans to invade anyone outside the long-familiar red lines” of Ukraine and Georgia—the “only Russian threats that have been cited” are that “Russia will strengthen its defenses in response” if “NATO advances to its borders”. The “core issue for 30 years has been Ukraine’s entry into NATO”—regarding Ukraine, Putin was until recently “calling publicly for implementation” of the Minsk II agreement that would mean “neutralization of Ukraine and a federal arrangement with a degree of autonomy for the Donbass region”.

It’s true that it’s “always reasonable to suspect dark motives in great power posturing”, but “it is the official positions that offer a basis for diplomacy if there is any interest in that course”—diplomacy can’t occur if you don’t use the official positions as a foundation. And you can’t find out what’s possible on the diplomacy front if you refuse to try diplomacy.

The evidence contradicts the “fevered constructions” about how the “new Peter the Great is on the march”. Russia couldn’t “conquer cities a few miles from its border” even though the Ukrainian defenders were mostly nonprofessional—we can also observe the “Russian debacle in its attack on Kyiv”. Regarding Western propaganda, we’ve seen 75 years of “official rhetoric”—and “obedient commentary”—about “Russian devils of incomparable might aiming to conquer the world and destroy civilization”.

Preventing Suicide

Regarding military spending, military expenses are suicidal for two reasons—these expenses (A) contribute enormously to “destroying the conditions for tolerable existence” and (B) divert vast resources away from saving ourselves from global heating. For example, Putin’s criminal aggression against Ukraine has made this “double contribution” to suicide.

Regarding the effort to weaken Russia, it’s a criminally reckless gamble to prolong the war—the assumption is that Russian leaders won’t resort to advanced weaponry. This is “quite a gamble” to take with Ukrainians’ lives and others’ lives—the 75-year record demonstrates that it’s a “near miracle” that we’ve avoided nuclear war.

Regarding US politics, the GOP might take power in the US and eliminate from the agenda the “two most important issues in human history”—the existential issue of nuclear weapons is “almost completely” ignored, while the existential issue of global heating “barely reaches a fraction of the concern it requires if there is to be a livable world”.

Regarding the NATO summit, it’s “rank hypocrisy” when you see Washington lament the elimination of the arms-control regime. The W. Bush and Trump administrations shredded the arms-control regime—Biden was barely able to rescue the New START treaty, but Trump was able to destroy the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action “in violation of the UN Security Council”.

And regarding arms control, the “bitter irony” is that the NATO powers met just after the unnoticed first meeting of the nations party to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The TPNW nations “issued the Vienna Declaration, which condemns all threats to use nuclear weapons as violations of international law, including the UN Charter”—this “declaration demands ‘that all nuclear-armed states never use or threaten to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances’”.

In terms of arms control, it’s (1) a great tragedy that the war in Ukraine has harmed the opportunities to save humanity from terminal nuclear war and (2) an additional tragedy that the GOP might return to power and start wrecking pro-survival developments again.

Activism can achieve sanity when it comes to nuclear weapons—activism has achieved “earlier steps toward sanity”. Activism could resurrect the arms-control regime and could even compel the nuclear states to stop refusing to join the TPNW—that’s possible if people join activism.

There will be a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference in August—activists could use that conference as an opportunity to demand that states adhere to the NPT’s provisions. The NPT’s provisions call for sharply reducing the threat of nuclear weapons and making “‘good faith’ efforts to remove the scourge of nuclear weapons from the Earth”.

Activists could also use the August conference to push for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East—a Middle East NWFZ would be “a significant step towards international security”. There’s “almost unanimous global support” for a Middle East NWFZ, but Washington always blocks it—Obama blocked it at the 2015 NPT conference.

The US blocks NWFZs because the US wants to maintain nuclear-weapons facilities in the areas where the NWFZs are being proposed.