Pearls and Irritations

The prospect of another Trump presidency and a JD Vance vice-presidency is welcomed by some and dreaded by others. A Democrat ‘October surprise’, and a presidency for Kamala Harris are possible. Even Trump in power may get Australia off several hooks. What neither of them is likely to do before election day, however, is commit to doing away with the unachievable AUKUS, the unwelcome Asian NATO, and the unwinnable war over Taiwan, as a RAND report described it in June .

Several of America’s allies are unlikely to commit troops to a war in Taiwan, either because they lack the military capability or don’t want to risk all-out war with an increasingly formidable China, according to the Rand report.

If he is Made Great Again, Donald Trump could decide that such aggressive plans are doomed to fail and would waste America’s dwindling resources. He initiated the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and may do the same about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, which would quickly end without US support. If he does, many around the world might forgive his other shortcomings. Vance, on the other hand, is an anti-China hawk and a supporter of Israel, so they could cancel each other out.

Trump as president used to inveigh against the Deep State, which for him meant a cabal of invisible operators in government whose secret agendas could undermine his, and would continue to do so whether he was president or not. But such a cabal’s Mandate for Leadership was commended by Trump in 2022. It is a plan to have the right people ready to go on the first day of his second administration. The conservative Heritage Foundation has been at work on ‘Project 2025’, which proposes Trump replacing all career civil servants with non-tenured political appointees. President Trump issued an executive order to do this, which was rescinded by President Biden. Paul Krugman of the New York Times points to the unprecedented power its reinstatement will give a re-elected Trump to reward supporters and punish opponents.

Ambitious agendas in Washington have, in fact, been public knowledge since the fall of the Soviet Union, when the US set out its plans for global domination. The 1992 Defence Planning Guidance document became the blueprint for US global domination in the 21^st century. In Washington in 1997, William Kristol and Robert Kagan set up the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) based on the military strength and ‘moral clarity’ of the US. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were among ten PNAC affiliates who were given influential positions in the George W. Bush administration. Their idea was for the US not only to gain control of particular oilfields or gas pipelines, but to reshape the entire Middle East. The tactics would be sectarian violence and ‘creative destruction’ in a list of seven countries.

PNAC in 2000 producedRebuilding America’s Defences: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century.The authors, Donald Kagan (Robert’s father), Gary Schmitt, and Thomas Donnelly, proposed the need for ‘revolutionary change’ and recommended massive increases in military deployments and budgets. To get support for all that would require ‘a catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbour’. (In January 2018 Trump advisor John Bolton again spoke about the need for ‘a major event where people pull together’). On 9/11, such an event occurred. In response, Congress quickly passed the Authorisation for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists and the PATRIOT Act, already drafted, to ‘Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism’.

Since 2007 another organisation, the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), has been preoccupied with United States national security issues, including terrorism, irregular warfare, the future of the US military, the emergence of Asia as a global power centre, US war games against the People’s Republic of China, and the national security implications of natural resource consumption. A Washington-based think tank, it was founded by Michèle Flournoy, who formerly served as Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, and Kurt Campbell, the ‘Asia Czar’ under Biden. Flournoy became a board member of military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. CNAS is funded by Northrop Grumman, Airbus, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Chevron, Amazon, Google, other large corporations, and multiple military contractors, as well as the government of Taiwan.

In June 2009 the Washington Post expected that ‘In the era of Obama…the Centre for a New American Security may emerge as Washington’s go-to think tank on military affairs’. Later, CNAS was described as having ‘long pushed Democrats to embrace war and militarism’. CNAS advisors have included Robert Kaplan, and Australian former counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen. Its former CEO was Victoria Nuland, who was an ‘influencer’ in Ukraine’s Maidan demonstrations in 2014, and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the State Department. CNAS shares with similar organisations in the UK and Australia the objective of reversing China’s economic supremacy.

The incoming president might be convinced by CNAS to take the US into war with China in response to a real or contrived attack. But RAND warns that support from Australia, Canada, Japan, and the UK ‘would be confined to diplomatic support for Taiwan and endorsement of likely US sanctions on China’.

If this is right and the US has a war, no-one else might come, to the relief of many of us.

Share and Enjoy !

SHARE TWEET SHARE COPY EMAIL PRINT