{"id":779,"date":"2008-08-24T19:27:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T00:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/2008\/08\/24\/making-money-on-a-new-cold-war\/"},"modified":"2008-08-24T19:27:07","modified_gmt":"2008-08-25T00:27:07","slug":"making-money-on-a-new-cold-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/2008\/08\/24\/making-money-on-a-new-cold-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Money on a New Cold War"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Morgan Strong
\nConsortium News<\/a><\/p>\n

The Russia-Georgia clash has generated heated anti-Moscow rhetoric from John McCain and U.S. neoconservatives about a new Cold War, a prospect that most people might see in a negative light but which many military contractors surely view as a financial plus.<\/p>\n

One unstated reality about revived tensions between Washington and Moscow is that it will mean a bonanza in military spending \u2013 billions of additional dollars for anti-missile weapons systems, larger armies, construction of new bases in Eastern Europe, etc.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the spending on Cold War II could dwarf what military contractors are now making on the \u201cwar on terror\u201d \u2013 and the prospect of spending on both conflicts simultaneously should make arms industry executives drool.<\/p>\n

Others who stand to profit grandly from a new East-West showdown include tough-talking politicians and their friends in Washington think tanks \u2013 like Heritage, AEI and CSIS \u2013 that have long fattened up on contributions from the defense industry and related corporations.<\/p>\n

There would be losers, too, like taxpayers who would see more of their dollars go to \u201cnational security\u201d and less to domestic needs, from repairs to the crumbling infrastructure to the costs of health care, education, the environment and Social Security.<\/p>\n

But, in many ways, the exploitation of Cold War fears \u2013 to divert money away from domestic needs to the coffers of what Dwight Eisenhower dubbed \u201cthe military-industrial complex\u201d \u2013 is nothing new.<\/p>\n

Arguably, the original Cold War ended under Eisenhower\u2019s former Vice President, Richard Nixon, who as President returned from Moscow in 1972 carrying a strategic agreement that he had reached with what was already a rapidly decaying Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945,\u201d Nixon said. \u201cWith this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear, our two peoples, and for all the peoples of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nixon unveiled a new era of realpolitik cooperation between Washington and Moscow that he called \u201cd\u00e9tente.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, while reducing fears and lowering tensions might be good news for many people, it wasn\u2019t welcomed by the corporations that profited from the fears and the tensions, nor by the intellectual hired guns who had built lucrative careers in politics, media and academia by exaggerating those fears and exacerbating those tensions.<\/p>\n


\nSabotaging D\u00e9tente<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, Nixon\u2019s era of \u201cd\u00e9tente\u201d was short-lived. After his ouster over the Watergate scandal in 1974, a new batch of Cold Warriors \u2013 some operating from conviction and others from expediency \u2013 returned to the old patterns of hyping threats and stoking paranoia.<\/p>\n

In 1975, with President Gerald Ford confronting an internal Republican challenge from Ronald Reagan on the Right, many key figures associated with \u201cd\u00e9tente\u201d were purged, while hard-liners were given key jobs.<\/p>\n

The so-called Halloween Massacre saw Henry Kissinger, the chief architect of d\u00e9tente, stripped of his post as national security adviser to be replaced by Gen. Brent Scowcroft; James Schlesinger was out as Defense Secretary while Donald Rumsfeld was in; CIA Director William Colby lost his job to George H.W. Bush; and Dick Cheney was promoted to Ford\u2019s White House chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Soon, alarming rumors began spreading around Washington about a new Soviet secret weapon, a nuclear-armed submarine that was undetectable to American technology. These Soviet subs could be lurking off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts ready to launch a nuclear attack without warning, a frightened public was told.<\/p>\n

So, as Ford struggled in Republican primaries against Reagan, the word \u201cd\u00e9tente\u201d was banished from the administration\u2019s lexicon. Then, to appease the Right further, CIA Director Bush let a right-wing panel of outsiders critique the work of CIA analysts who had been detecting a declining Soviet threat.<\/p>\n

The outsiders, known as \u201cTeam B\u201d and including a young neocon named Paul Wolfowitz, tore into the CIA professionals and insisted that the Soviet Union was rapidly outstripping the United States as a strategic power. \u201cTeam B\u201d concluded that the Soviets were building a new generation of terrifying weapons, including those undetectable subs.<\/p>\n

Years later, after the Soviet Union collapsed, it would become clear that \u201cTeam B\u201d had been living in a fantasy world. Not only did the Soviets lack the new weapons systems, but they were falling rapidly behind the United States in technology and thus the development of sophisticated weapons.<\/p>\n

But the \u201cTeam B\u201d report served its purpose. Its dramatic findings shaped an alarmist CIA intelligence estimate that CIA Director Bush left behind to limit the arms-control initiatives of Jimmy Carter\u2019s incoming administration. [For details, see Robert Parry\u2019s Secrecy & Privilege.]<\/p>\n

During the late 1970s, the hysteria on the Right about mythical Soviet weapons continued to grow, pushed along by an arch-conservative group called the Committee on the Present Danger, which warned of a \u201cwindow of vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fear about secret Soviet capabilities seeped into mainstream news coverage critical of Carter\u2019s proposed arms deals with Moscow.<\/p>\n

\u2018Winning\u2019 the Cold War<\/strong><\/p>\n

By 1980 and the election of Ronald Reagan, the old Cold Warriors and their younger neoconservative allies had gained the upper hand. Assuming power under Reagan, they immediately sought to bury any remnants of the Nixon-Kissinger d\u00e9tente.<\/p>\n

At the CIA, hard-line Director William Casey and his deputy, Robert Gates, purged CIA analysts who still insisted on seeing a Soviet decline. The only acceptable analysis was to agree that the Soviets were on the march and set on world domination.<\/p>\n

In reaction to this perceived Soviet threat, there was a massive expansion in U.S. military spending, combined with aggressive covert operations in dirty wars from Central America to Afghanistan. There, the Reagan administration sent sophisticated weapons to rebel forces that included Islamic fundamentalists, such as Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

Ironically, when the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991, the CIA analytical division was mocked for having \u201cmissed\u201d this momentous event. Meanwhile, the U.S. news media credited Reagan\u2019s vast military spending, especially his \u201cStar Wars\u201d missile defense program and the Afghan war, with \u201cwinning\u201d the Cold War.<\/p>\n

The counter-analysis \u2013 that the Soviet Union was in a death spiral by the early 1970s and that Reagan\u2019s aggressive strategies may have, if anything, prolonged the Cold War by strengthening the hands of Moscow\u2019s hardliners \u2013 was ignored or dismissed.<\/p>\n

Reagan\u2019s legacy had another consequence. The triumphant neocons insisted on dispatching to Moscow free-market \u201cshock therapists\u201d who aided and abetted a new class of rapacious \u201crobber barons\u201d as they stripped the country of its assets and stuck the nation\u2019s capital in offshore accounts.<\/p>\n

U.S. policy also supported the dismemberment of the old Soviet empire and humiliated Moscow by expanding NATO deep into its traditional sphere of influence. In 1999, Russia faced a new disgrace when the Clinton administration spearheaded a NATO war against Moscow\u2019s longtime allies in Serbia, over the breakaway province of Kosovo.<\/p>\n

When George W. Bush became President in 2001, his administration welcomed back many of the key neocons and hardliners who had served in previous Republican administrations. Cheney was Vice President; Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary; Wolfowitz was Rumsfeld\u2019s deputy.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Bush claimed to have forged a bond of personal trust with Vladimir Putin by looking into the Russian president\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country,\u201d Bush said on June 16, 2001.<\/p>\n

Neocon Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Though many U.S. observers mocked Bush\u2019s comment and cited Putin\u2019s history as a KGB agent, the underlying reality was that Bush never treated Putin as a trustworthy partner. The kind words represented a fa\u00e7ade for a continued U.S. campaign to box in and undermine Russia.<\/p>\n

In June 2002, for instance, Bush withdrew the United States from Nixon\u2019s 1972 Ballistic Missile Treaty to clear the way for deployment of a missile defense system that Moscow saw as a strategic threat given its deteriorating nuclear-missile arsenal.<\/p>\n

As Russia\u2019s leaders fumed about the abrogated ABM Treaty, Bush spoke cavalierly. \u201cThe treaty is now behind us,\u201d he said, while reaffirming his commitment to deploy a missile defense system \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bush administration and its oil-industry allies also supported the construction of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which was designed to deliver Caspian oil to the West and to Israel while avoiding Russian territory. The pipeline\u2019s primary contractor was Bechtel, a company with long-standing ties to powerful Republicans.<\/p>\n

The pipeline also enhanced the need to make sure that the former Soviet republic of Georgia was under the control of a reliably pro-Western leader.<\/p>\n

So, U.S.-financed political organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, poured in money to help an anti-Russian political movement called the Rose Revolution, as well as to groom pro-Washington politicians like Mikheil Saakashvili.<\/p>\n

In 2003, the bloodless Rose Revolution brought Saakashvili to power and, in his gratitude, the new president named a major boulevard in the capital of Tiblisi after George W. Bush. Saakashvili also committed Georgian soldiers to Bush\u2019s \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d in Iraq, and brought in U.S. and Israeli military trainers to advise the Georgian army.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Bush administration kept up the pressure on Moscow by adding more of the former Warsaw Pact nations to NATO, pushing the Western military alliance right up to Russia\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

In 2007, Bush announced plans to deploy interceptor missiles to Poland with supporting radar tracking stations in the Czech Republic. Though Bush insisted the missile defense was intended to counter potential threats from rogue states, like Iran, the Russians saw the move as threatening to them.<\/p>\n

Arms Export magazine editor Mikhail Barabanov, writing in the Moscow newspaper Kommersant, said the real U.S. motivation for placing interceptor missiles in Poland was to expand U.S. military and strategic capacities and constrict those of other nuclear states, such as Russia and China.<\/p>\n

Russia Strikes Back<\/strong><\/p>\n

In effect, Russian leaders became convinced that Bush\u2019s words about partnership were just sweet talk disguising the neocon agenda, as described by the Project for the New American Century, of crippling potential challengers to American global dominance.<\/p>\n

Yet, under Putin\u2019s firm grip, Russian authorities were steadily regaining control of the nation\u2019s political destiny. \u201cRobber barons\u201d were exiled or jailed, their media outlets throttled, their businesses brought under the Kremlin\u2019s thumb.<\/p>\n

The rise in commodities prices for Russian oil, natural gas and metals also put money into the national treasury and helped Putin rebuild his military might.<\/p>\n

That was the backdrop to the crisis in Georgia. President Saakashvili, trusting in the support of his neocon American allies, decided the time was ripe to crush pro-Russian separatists in South Ossetia, an attack he launched on Aug. 7, the eve of the Olympics.<\/p>\n

If Saakashvili thought his offensive would go answered \u2013 that the Russians again would retreat rather than risk offending the West \u2013 he thought wrong. The Russians counterattacked, expelled Georgia forces from both South Ossetia and another breakaway province Abkhazia, and took up strategic positions inside Georgia.<\/p>\n

The American political elite, led by Sen. McCain and President Bush, and neocon editorialists, including at the Washington Post, raged against the Russian military thrust, but the Russians were not deterred. They agreed to a ceasefire largely on their terms and left Saakashvili to fume about his betrayal by Western powers.<\/p>\n

Bush, however, did back up his angry words with some action.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 15, the United States and Poland finalized an agreement to deploy American missile defenses onto Polish territory. Patriot anti-missile missiles, now in Germany, were to be moved to Poland along with support crews.<\/p>\n

The next day, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ratcheted up the tensions by defining the American move as a provocative threat to Russian security and warning of possible military action against Poland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russian side in such a situation will take adequate measures to compensate for potential threats to its national security,\u201d the Ministry said, referring not to diplomatic but to \u201cmilitary-technological methods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev added, \u201cPlacing elements of a global anti-missile system by the U.S. in Eastern Europe only deepens the situation, and we will be forced to react to this adequately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some observers suggested that the Russians were now facing a situation similar to what President John Kennedy confronted in 1962 when the Soviets installed missiles in Cuba, a crisis that pushed the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation before Moscow relented and removed the missiles.<\/p>\n

Still, despite the risks to humanity, the rewards of a revived Cold War \u2013 with fatter defense budgets and greater demand for anti-Russian propaganda \u2013 will benefit military contractors, neocon theorists and politicians who again can exploit the fears of the American people.<\/p>\n

Morgan Strong is a former professor of Middle Eastern and Russian History, and was an advisor to CBS News\u2019 \u201c60 Minutes\u201d on the Middle East.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Morgan Strong Consortium News The Russia-Georgia clash has generated heated anti-Moscow rhetoric from John McCain and U.S. neoconservatives about a new Cold War, a prospect that most people might see in a negative light but which many military contractors … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-newscommentary","category-network-newsevents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scpronet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}