{"id":8021,"date":"2010-11-15T21:28:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T05:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=8021"},"modified":"2010-11-15T21:28:12","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T05:58:12","slug":"tomgram-juan-cole-the-asian-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=8021","title":{"rendered":"Tomgram: Juan Cole, The Asian Century?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Source: http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175319\/tomgram%3A_juan_cole%2C_the_asian_century\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Tomgram: Juan Cole, The Asian Century?<\/h2>\n
Posted by Juan Cole<\/a> at 9:15am, November 11, 2010.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

For Barack Obama, midterm 2010 has already been written off as a crushing Republican triumph, but that\u2019s hardly the full story.\u00a0 After all, approximately\u00a029 million Americans<\/a> who voted for him in 2008 didn\u2019t bother to stir for him or the Democrats in 2010.\u00a0 Think of it this way: he\u2019s less a man who lost to the opposition than a man who lost his own\u00a0dispirited<\/a> base, much of which is by now thoroughly disappointed, if not mad as hell, and evidently not particularly interested in supporting him anymore.<\/p>\n

Like many presidents in defeat, he promptly left town (or “the\u00a0bubble<\/a>,” as he\u2019s taken to calling it) for places as far east as possible, in this case all in Asia.\u00a0 In the wake of an electoral blowout, this previously planned diplomatic journey of goodwill was quickly\u00a0recast<\/a> as a search for American jobs.\u00a0 A little late to launch that search, of course, and India may not be the perfect fit either.\u00a0\u00a0 After all, any American who has ever made that desperate call for computer or other technical assistance and found him or herself on the phone with some young person not in Bangor, Maine, but Bangalore, India, probably won\u2019t be overwhelmed by the allure of India\u2019s ability to deliver jobs to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the president gamely arrived in India touting one of two industries which make things that go boom in the dark, where the U.S. still can\u2019t be beat.\u00a0\u00a0 No, I\u2019m not talking about Hollywood.\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t take Hollywood to Bollywood, after all.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about that other American boom-time business under bust-time conditions: the making of high-tech weaponry.\u00a0 India was once a Russian bailiwick when it came to arms sales, but\u00a0no longer<\/a>.\u00a0 So the president arrived with a Boeing deal to sell C-17 transport planes to the Indian military for up to $5.8 billion (and so, supposedly, create\u00a022,000<\/a> new American jobs). \u00a0A\u00a0\u201cpreliminary agreement\u201d<\/a> was inked on this trip, while the two countries agreed on a counterterrorism security initiative, and the U.S. lifted certain export controls on dual-use technology as well.<\/p>\n

If weapons sales abroad could pull the U.S. out of its present job doldrums, however, they would have done so long ago.\u00a0 In the post-Cold War era the U.S. practically\u00a0cornered<\/a> the global arms market.\u00a0 If you want to count on anything, however, count on this: we\u2019d be perfectly happy to\u00a0arm<\/a> to the teeth the two great regional rivals in South Asia, India and Pakistan, if they\u2019ll let us.\u00a0 After all, we\u00a0arm the world<\/a> (and worry about it later).\u00a0 Think of today’s piece by Juan Cole, who runs the invaluable\u00a0Informed Comment<\/a> website and whose latest book is\u00a0Engaging the Muslim World<\/a><\/em>, as a preview presidential tour of the coming ruins of the American empire.\u00a0\u00a0Tom<\/em><\/p>\n

Obama in Asia
\n<\/span>Meeting American Decline Face to Face
\n<\/span><\/strong>By\u00a0Juan Cole<\/a><\/p>\n

Blocked from major new domestic initiatives by a Republican victory in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama promptly lit out for Asia, a far more promising arena.\u00a0 That continent, after all, is rising, and Obama is eager to grasp the golden ring of Asian success.<\/p>\n

Beyond being a goodwill ambassador for ten days, Obama is seeking sales of American-made durable and consumer goods, weapons deals, an expansion of trade, green energy cooperation, and the maintenance of a geopolitical balance in the region favorable to the United States.\u00a0 Just as the decline of the American economy hobbled him at home, however, the weakness of the United States on the world stage in the aftermath of Bush-era excesses has made real breakthroughs abroad unlikely.<\/p>\n

Add to this the peculiar obsessions of the Washington power elite, with regard to Iran for instance, and you have an unpalatable mix.\u00a0 These all-American fixations are viewed as an inconvenience or worse in Asia, where powerful regional hegemons are increasingly determined to chart their own courses, even if in public they continue to humor a somewhat addled and infirm Uncle Sam.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the United States is still the world\u2019s largest economy, it is shackled by enormous public and private debt as well as fundamental weaknesses.\u00a0 Rivaled by an increasingly integrated European Union, it is projected to be overtaken economically by China in just over a decade.\u00a0 While the president\u2019s first stop, India, now has a nominal gross domestic product of only a little over a trillion dollars a year, it, too, is growing rapidly<\/a>, even spectacularly, and its GDP may well quadruple by the early 2020s.\u00a0 The era of American dominance, in other words, is passing, and the time (just after World War II) when the U.S. accounted for half the world economy, a dim memory.<\/p>\n

The odd American urge to invest heavily in perpetual war abroad, including \u201cdefense-related\u201d spending of around a trillion dollars<\/a> a year, has been a significant factor further weakening the country<\/a> on the global stage.\u00a0 Most of the conventional weapons on which the U.S. continues to splurge could not even be deployed against nuclear powers like Russia, China, and India, emerging as key competitors when it comes to global markets, resources, and regional force projection.\u00a0 Those same conventional weapons have proved hardly more useful (in the sense of achieving quick and decisive victory, or even victory at all) in the unconventional wars the U.S. has repeatedly plunged into — a sad fact that Bush\u2019s reckless attempt to occupy entire West Asian nations only demonstrated even more clearly to Washington\u2019s bemused rivals.<\/p>\n

American weapons stockpiles (and copious plans for ever more high-tech versions of the same into the distant future)<\/strong> are therefore remarkably irrelevant to its situation, and known to be so.\u00a0 Meanwhile, its economy, burdened by debts incurred through wars and military spending sprees, and hollowed out by Wall Street shell games, is becoming a B-minus one in global terms.<\/p>\n

A Superpower With Feet of Clay<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just how weakened the United States has been in Asia is easily demonstrated by the series of rebuffs its overtures have suffered from regional powers.\u00a0 When, for instance, a tiff broke out this fall between China and Japan over a collision at sea near the disputed Senkaku Islands, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered to mediate.\u00a0 The offer was rejected out of hand<\/a> by the Chinese, who appear to have deliberately halted exports<\/a> of strategic rare-earth metals to Japan and the United States as a hard-nosed bargaining ploy.\u00a0 In response, the Obama administration quickly turned mealy-mouthed, affirming that while the islands come under American commitments to defend Japan for the time being, it would take no position on the question of who ultimately owned them.<\/p>\n

Likewise, Pakistani politicians and pundits were virtually unanimous<\/a> in demanding that President Obama raise the issue of disputed Kashmir with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his Indian sojourn.\u00a0 The Indians, however, had already firmly rejected<\/a> any internationalization of the controversy, which centers on the future of the Muslim-majority state, a majority of whose inhabitants say they want independence<\/a>.\u00a0 Although Obama had expressed an interest in helping resolve the Kashmir dispute during his presidential campaign, by last March his administration was already backing away<\/a> from any mediation role unless both sides asked for Washington\u2019s help.\u00a0 In other words, Obama and Clinton promptly caved in to India\u2019s insistence that it was the regional power in South Asia and would brook no external interference.<\/p>\n

This kind of regional near impotence is only reinforced by America\u2019s perpetual (yet ever faltering) war machine.\u00a0 Nor, as Obama moves through Asia, can he completely sidestep controversies provoked by the Afghan War, his multiple-personality approach to Pakistan, and his administration\u2019s obsessive attempt to isolate and punish Iran.\u00a0 As Obama arrives in Seoul, for instance, Iran will be on the agenda. \u00a0This fall, South Korea, a close American ally, managed to play a game of one step forward, two steps back with regard to Washington-supported sanctions against that energy-rich country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The government did close the Seoul branch of Iran\u2019s Bank Milli, sanctioning it and other Iranian firms.\u00a0 Then, the South Koreans turned around\u00a0and, according to<\/a> the Financial Times<\/em>, appointed two banks to handle payments involving trade between the two countries via the (unsanctioned) Tehran Central Bank.\u00a0 In doing so, the government insulated other South Korean banks from possible American sanctions, while finding a way for Iran to continue to purchase South Korean autos and other goods.<\/p>\n

Before the latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions South Korea was doing $10 billion a year<\/a> in trade with Iran, involving some 2,142 Korean companies.\u00a0 Iran\u2019s half of this trade — it provides nearly 10% of South Korea\u2019s petroleum imports — has been largely unaffected. \u00a0South Korea\u2019s exports to Iran, on the other hand, have fallen precipitously under the pressure of the sanctions regime.\u00a0 Sanctions that hold Iran harmless but punish a key American ally by hurting its trade and creating a balance of payments problem are obviously foolish.<\/p>\n

The Iranian press claims that South Korean firms are now planning<\/a> to invest money in Iranian industrial towns.\u00a0 Given that Obama has expended political capital persuading South Korea to join a U.S.-organized free trade zone and<\/em> change its tariffs to avoid harming the American auto industry, it is unlikely that he could now seek to punish South Korea for its quiet defiance on the issue of Iran.<\/p>\n

China is the last major country with a robust energy industry still actively investing in Iran, and Washington entertains dark suspicions<\/a> that some of its firms are even transferring technology that might help the Iranians in their nuclear energy research projects.\u00a0 This bone of contention is likely to form part of the conversation between Obama and President Hu Jintao before Thursday\u2019s G20 meeting of the world\u2019s wealthiest 20 countries.<\/p>\n

Given tensions between Washington and Beijing over the massive balance of trade deficit the U.S. is running with China (which the Obama administration attributes, in part, to an overvalued Chinese currency), not to speak of other contentious issues, Iran may not loom large in their discussions.\u00a0One reason for this may be that, frustrating as Chinese stonewalling on its currency may seem, they are likely to give even less ground on relations with Iran — especially since they know that Washington can\u2019t do much about it.\u00a0 Another fraught issue is China\u2019s plan<\/a> to build a nuclear reactor for Pakistan, something that also alarms Islamabad\u2019s nuclear rival, India.<\/p>\n

Rising Asia<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you want to measure the scope of American decline since the height of the Cold War era, remember that back then Iran and Pakistan were American spheres of influence from which other great powers were excluded.\u00a0 Now, the best the U.S. can manage in Pakistan is the political (and military) equivalent of a condominium or perhaps a time-share — and in Iran, nothing at all.<\/p>\n

Despite his feel-good trip to India last weekend, during which he announced some important business deals for U.S. goods, Obama has remarkably little to offer the Indians.\u00a0 That undoubtedly is why the president unexpectedly announced Washington\u2019s largely symbolic support<\/a> for a coveted seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a ringing confirmation of India\u2019s status as a rising power.<\/p>\n

Some Indian politicians and policy-makers, however, are insisting that their country\u2019s increasing demographic, military, and economic hegemony over South Asia be recognized by Washington, and that the U.S. cease its support of, and massive arms sales to, Pakistan. \u00a0In addition, New Delhi is eager to expand its geopolitical position in Afghanistan, where it is a major funder of civilian reconstruction projects, and is apprehensive about any plans for a U.S. withdrawal from that country.\u00a0 An Indian-dominated Afghanistan is, of course, Pakistan\u2019s worst fear.<\/p>\n

In addition, India\u2019s need for petroleum<\/a> is expected to grow by 40% during the next decade and a half.\u00a0 Energy-hungry, like neighboring Pakistan, it can\u2019t help glancing longingly at Iran\u2019s natural gas and petroleum fields, despite Washington\u2019s threats to slap third-party sanctions on any firm that helps develop them.\u00a0 American attempts to push India toward dirty energy sources, including nuclear power (the waste product of which is long-lived and problematic) and shale gas, as a way of reducing its interest in Iranian and Persian Gulf oil and gas, are another Washington \u201csolution\u201d for the region likely to be largely ignored, given how close at hand inexpensive Gulf hydrocarbons are.<\/p>\n

It is alarming to consider what exactly New Delhi imagines the planet\u2019s former \u201csole superpower\u201d has to offer at this juncture — mostly U.S. troops fighting a perceived threat in Afghanistan and the removal of Congressional restrictions on sales of advanced weaponry to India.\u00a0 The U.S. military in Afghanistan is seen as a proxy for Indian interests in putting down the Taliban and preventing the reestablishment of Pakistani hegemony over Kabul.\u00a0 For purely self-interested reasons Prime Minister Singh has long taken the same position<\/a> as the new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, urging Obama to postpone any plans to begin a drawdown in Afghanistan in the summer of 2011.<\/p>\n

The most significant of the Indian purchases trumpeted by the president last weekend were military in character.\u00a0 Obama proclaimed<\/a> that the $10 billion in deals he was inking would create 54,000 new American jobs.\u00a0 Right now, it\u2019s hard to argue with job creation or multi-billion-dollar sales of U.S.-made goods abroad.\u00a0 As former secretary of labor Robert Reich has pointed out<\/a>, however, jobs in the defense industry are expensive to create, while offering a form of artificial corporate welfare that distorts the American economy and diverts resources from far more crucial priorities.<\/p>\n

To think of this another way, President Obama is in danger of losing control of his South Asian foreign policy agenda to India, its Republican supporters in the House, and the military-industrial complex.<\/p>\n

As the most dynamic region in the world, Asia is the place where rapid change can create new dynamics.\u00a0 American trade with the European Union has grown over the past decade (as has the EU itself), but is unlikely to be capable of doubling in just a few years.\u00a0 After all, the populations of some European countries, like powerhouse Germany, will probably shrink in coming decades.<\/p>\n

India, by contrast, is projected to overtake China in population around 2030 and hit the billion-and-a-half-inhabitants mark by mid-century (up from 1.15 billion today).\u00a0 Its economy, like China\u2019s, has been growing 8% to 9% a year, creating powerful new demand in the world market.\u00a0 President Obama is hoping<\/a> to see U.S. exports to India double by 2015.\u00a0 Likewise, with its economy similarly booming, China is making its own ever more obvious bid to stride like a global colossus through the twenty-first century.<\/p>\n

The Hessians of a Future Asia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, beneath the pomp and splendor of Obama\u2019s journey through Asia has lurked a far tawdrier vision — of a much weakened president presiding over a much weakened superpower, both looking somewhat desperately for succor abroad. If the United States is to remain a global power, it is important that Washington offer something to the world besides arms and soldiers.<\/p>\n

Obama has been on the money when he\u2019s promoted green-energy technology as a key field where the United States could make its mark (and possibly its fortune) globally.\u00a0 Unfortunately, as elsewhere, here too the United States is falling behind<\/a>, and a Republican House as well as a bevy of new Republican governors<\/a> and state legislatures are highly unlikely to effectively<\/a> promote the greening of American technology.<\/p>\n

In the end, Obama\u2019s trip has proven a less than effective symbolic transition from George W. Bush\u2019s muscular unilateralism to a new American-led multilateralism in Asia.\u00a0 Rather, at each stop, Obama has bumped up against the limits of American economic and diplomatic clout in the new Asian world order.<\/p>\n

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney thought in terms of expanding American conventional military weapons stockpiles and bases, occupying countries when necessary, and so ensuring that the U.S. would dominate key planetary resources for decades to come.\u00a0\u00a0Their worldview, however, was mired in mid-twentieth-century power politics.<\/p>\n

If they thought they were placing a marker down on another American century, they were actually gambling away the very houses we live in and reducing us to a debtor nation struggling to retain its once commanding superiority in the world economy.\u00a0 In the meantime, the multi-millionaires and billionaires created by neoliberal policies and tax cuts in the West will be as happy to invest in (and perhaps live<\/a> in) Asia as in the United States.<\/p>\n

In the capitals of a rising Asia, Washington\u2019s incessant campaign to strengthen sanctions against Iran, and in some quarters its eagerness<\/a> for war with that country, is viewed as another piece of lunatic adventurism<\/a>.\u00a0 The leaders of India, China, and South Korea, among other countries, are determined to do their best to sidestep this American obsession and integrate<\/a> Iran into their energy and trading futures.<\/p>\n

In some ways, the darkest vision of an American future arrived in 1991 thanks to President George H. W. Bush.\u00a0 At that time, he launched a war in the Persian Gulf to protect local oil producers from an aggressive Iraq.\u00a0 That war was largely paid for by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, rendering the U.S. military for the first time a sort of global mercenary force.\u00a0 Just as the poor in any society often join the military as a way of moving up in the world, so in the century of Asia, the U.S. could find itself in danger of being reduced to the role of impoverished foot soldier fighting for others\u2019 interests, or of being the glorified ironsmiths making arsenals of weaponry for the great powers of the future.<\/p>\n

Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.\u00a0 His latest book, <\/em>Engaging the Muslim World<\/a>, is just out in a revised paperback edition from Palgrave Macmillan. He runs the Informed Comment<\/a> website.<\/em><\/p>\n

Copyright 2010 Juan Cole<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source: http:\/\/www.tomdispatch.com\/post\/175319\/tomgram%3A_juan_cole%2C_the_asian_century\/ Tomgram: Juan Cole, The Asian Century? Posted by Juan Cole at 9:15am, November 11, 2010. For Barack Obama, midterm 2010 has already been written off as a crushing Republican triumph, but that\u2019s hardly the full story.\u00a0 After all, approximately\u00a029 million Americans who voted for him in 2008 didn\u2019t bother to stir for him … <\/p>\n

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