November 19, 202:
Information Clearing House
-- "Counterpunch"
Caveat Emptor. There is no
better way to exaggerate perceptions of the
threat than to rely on the worst-case
assumptions of the Department of Defense.
Since the creation of the department in the
National Security Act of 1947 we have been
inundated with the Pentagon’s distortions:
the non-existent “bomber gap” in the 1950s;
the “missile gap” in the 1960s; and the
so-called “intentions gap” of the 1980s,
which argued that the Soviet Union believed
that it could fight and even win a nuclear
war.
One of the reasons why President Harry S.
Truman created the Central Intelligence
Agency, also in the National Security Act,
was to have an independent civilian agency
challenging the Pentagon’s self-serving
briefings on Capitol Hill for increased
defense spending. The imperative for the
military is to ensure the continued flow of
funding for its arsenal. To this end, it
will always posit the worst case possible
that it must defend against.
The mainstream media should be well aware
of the dangers of relying on military
briefings and assessments when
editorializing about the capabilities and
intentions of putative adversaries such as
Russia and China. But the Washington
Post, which has been beating the
editorial drums for challenging Beijing, is
currently using the Pentagon’s latest report
to the Congress on China’s military strength
to promote increased U.S. defense spending
and additional military deployments in East
Asia. The Post and the New
York Times regularly cite the U.S. Cold
War with China, a very dangerous
self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was
one.
The Central Intelligence Agency often
provided the institutional challenge that
Truman wanted to counter the Pentagon’s
exaggerated threat perceptions. CIA’s
intelligence analysis demonstrated there was
no bomber gap in the 1950s and no missile
gap in the 1960s. The CIA successfully
challenged the Pentagon’s views on strategic
missiles and strategic defense, which paved
the way for the Strategic Arms Limitations
Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
in 1972. I served as the intelligence
advisor to the U.S. delegation in the run-up
to the completion of the treaties, and spent
as much time challenging the distorted
analysis of the Pentagon as I did assessing
Soviet military capabilities.
There has never been a disarmament
treaty, moreover, that didn’t require
bureaucratic wrestling with the civilian and
military leadership of the Department of
Defense. In 1975, then Vice President Dick
Cheney and then Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld were so opposed to CIA analysis
that supported arms control and disarmament
that they placed a team of right-wing
academics and government officials inside
the agency to draft hard-line estimates of
Soviet military power. When CIA director
William Colby tried to block the appointment
of this team, the notorious Team B, he was
replaced by a more pliable director of
central intelligence, George H.W. Bush, the
agency’s first political appointee.
Like Bush, there were other CIA directors
who didn’t play this balancing role.
William Casey, Robert Gates, Porter Goss,
and George Tenet refused to challenge the
Pentagon’s distortions and were willing to
politicize intelligence on behalf of their
administrations. Gates issued constant
warnings to his analysts in the 1980s not to
“stick your fingers in the eyes of
policymakers.” Under Gates, senior military
officers came into the CIA to occupy key
positions and were given increased
influence. Gates gave the responsibility
for order of battle analysis to the
Pentagon, which provided an important
instrument for preparing worst-case
analysis.
After the reelection of George W. Bush,
Goss circulated an internal memorandum to
all agency employees to tell them their job
was to “support the administration and its
policies in our work.” And George Tenet
thought it would be a “slam dunk” to provide
Bush with the intelligence needed to invade
Iraq. Tenet and his deputy director, John
McLaughlin, were responsible for the
preparation of then Secretary of State Colin
Powell’s spurious address to the United
Nations in the run-up to the Iraq War in
2003.
This history of the Pentagon’s deceit
(and the CIA’s politicization) is well known
to the veteran journalists and editorial
writers at the mainstream media, but the Washington
Post and the New York Times highlighted
the Pentagon’s latest report to the Congress
on China’s military strength without
mentioning the history of the Pentagon’s
politicization of military intelligence.
The New York Times even cited the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
General Mark Milley, who told the Aspen
Security Forum that the United States
“absolutely” could defend Taiwan from an
attack by China if our “political leaders
decided to do so.” Senior generals blamed
the Congress for pulling the rug out from
under the military effort in Vietnam; now
they are preparing the way for placing the
onus on any failure in East Asia on the
Congress as well.
Demonizing China serves the military
interests of the Department of Defense; the
economic interests of the
military-industrial complex; and the
ideological interests of the right wing—but
not the national security interests of the
American people. It is time to challenge
the elevated role of the military in our
political culture; the bipartisan support
for military spending that has become
sacrosanct; and the culture of militarism
that has placed U.S. bases all over the
world. The overestimation of our military
power led to setbacks over the past 70 years
on the Korean peninsula; Southeast Asia; and
more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. It
was the “best and the brightest” among our
civilian leadership that led us into these
fool’s errands.
On a more abstruse level, the mainstream
media often takes statements out of context
and provides a greater sense of provocation
between the United States and Russia or
China. When Nikita Khrushchev said in 1956
that “we will bury you,” he was stating that
“we shall outlast you,” rather than
suggesting the possibility of warfare. In
an editorial in the Washington Post in
July, Xi’s reference to a “great wall of
steel” was interpreted as a threatening
message to China’s adversaries rather than
the use of a patriotic image taken from
China’s national anthem.
Since the Second World War, no president
has had credibility and experience with
national security policy and military
affairs comparable to that of President
Dwight D. Eisenhower. He warned about the
increased power and influence of the
Pentagon over the national security policy
of the United States. He understood the
need to monitor the Pentagon’s supreme
position in military and security policy,
which has grown in recent years. Soon after
the death of Joseph Stalin, Eisenhower
warned about the tremendous cost associated
with the rivalry with the Soviet Union,
particularly the enormous domestic cost. He
warned that “humanity [was] hanging from a
cross of iron,” and noted the danger of
“destroying from within what you are trying
to defend from without.”
Unfortunately, the military itself and
the role of the military have taken on too
much prestige and influence within the
American public. There is profound cynicism
toward governance and civilian institutions,
but excessive deference to the demands and
views of the professional military. The
only genuine aspect of bipartisanship in the
halls of Congress is the approval for
excessive defense spending. The culture of
American exceptionalism and militarism is
creating profound problems for the United
States at home and abroad. The mainstream
media must stop serving as a handmaid to the
overreaching of U.S. leaders. Again, caveat
emptor.