Ukraine's Got Problems? Blame Russia!

Orwell would be pleased that the pro-European opposition in the Ukraine stuck it to Putin and the ex-Bolshies.

Maybe he would have been less pleased with the linguistic legerdemain that is emerging the as the mainstay of the new Ukrainian regime.

The current situation in Ukraine is apparently pretty grim: flatlining growth, imminent insolvency, consternation and anger among the sizable ethnic-Russian community, a whiff of separatism in the Crimea, a bunch of outright Fascists who apparently see the coup as their Reichstag moment and a chance to bully their way into control of a decisive bloc of votes in the Parliament…

And it looks like the US-inspired coup that blew away an EU-sponsored transition pact has also stripped away Russian (as in Putin) and ethnic-Russian (as in the eastern & southern portions of the country) enthusiasm for helping the new government out in dealing with Ukraine’s difficulties.

Unless Russia can be prevailed upon to pony up the remaining $12 billion of the $15 billion it promised Yanyukovich, the new government is going to have to turn to the EU for the Western financial shovels that, hopefully, will dig the Ukraine out of its hole instead of digging it deeper.

Apparently, the standard recipe for a country that can’t pay its bills (Ukraine is looking at a couple of likely bond defaults this summer) is an IMF rescue package contingent on implementation of austerity measures.

In human terms, the prescription is for pain: devaluing the currency to boost exports (while making imports more expensive), making the economic environment more attractive for foreign investment (depressed wages, business-friendly laws & regs), and keeping the foreign bondholders happy (balanced budgets, focus on debt repayment, bye-bye services, pensions, & deficit stimulus).

The key question will be if misery achieves the level of Greece & Spain (likely) and if Ukraine will turn the corner toward economic growth with reasonable alacrity (?). 

Thanks to the precipitous success of the coup, the new government finds itself with the prospect of the Ukrainian engine firing on only the European half of its geopolitical cylinders and a significant portion of the electorate presumably displeased with the Hobson’s choice of IMF austerity that the coup has forced upon it.

As a matter of human nature and political calculation, there is an obvious response to the new Ukranian government’s largely self-and-West-inflicted problem: Blame Russia!

Blaming Russia takes a certain amount of heavy lifting because Russia, while propping up Yanyukovich with the $15 billion loan and some bond purchases, was conspicuously passive during the crisis.  Yanyukovich was apparently no particular friend of Putin, and Medvedev openly berated him for being a doormat in the final days.  Russia let Yanyukovich stew in his own juice and, when he abandoned his presidential post, dropped him like a hot potato.

The EU and the United States, on the other hand, enthusiastically supported the opposition demonstrators, even when things got spectacularly ugly and, with the threat of sanctions (and probably more) materially supported—one might say *ahem* meddled in--Ukrainian domestic politics.

Fortunately, the Ukraine’s new rulers can count on the assistance of the West, if not with substantive assistance, then with vociferous lip service in blaming Russia for Ukraine’s difficulties.

With the fragrant smell of buyer’s remorse filling the international space, obviously it was time to turn to themes more pleasant than “Maybe America sh*t the bed in Ukraine”.  Unleash the pro-Western diplomats, pundits, and correspondents!

NATO’s Anders Rasmussen obligingly reframed the ruckus in Ukraine as “freedom fighters v. autocrats” conveniently forgetting that Yanyukovich had achieved the presidency after a closely contested election that had received the “free and fair” stamp of approval.

"We stand ready to continue assisting Ukraine in its democratic reforms..."

John Kerry also stepped up to remind the world that the real problem was not a reckless and divisive coup rather irresponsibly encouraged by the United States.  And by the way, the fight hadn’t been over the Russian vs. EU orientation of the country.  With the publicizing of Yanyukovich’s gold-plated ostrich farm, it was time to roll out some new product: people vs. kleptocracy! while skating past awkward details like the enormous wealth somehow accummulated newly released heroine Yulia Tymoshenko:

Some Russian officials accuse the West of being behind the revolt against Yanukovych. U.S. and European officials have adamantly denied such allegations.

Kerry said the Ukrainian people had risen up themselves against a "kleptocracy" and added that he suspected that some elements in Russia had advised Yanukovych to crack down hard on his opponents.

And let’s not forget the Karl Rove jiu-jitsu move (the legendary strategist’s tactic of attacking an opponent’s strong point in order to turn it into a weakness.  Most famous victim: John Kerry, whose military heroics trump card was Swift-boated into an electoral liability in the 2004 presidential campaign).  So Russia didn’t intervene in Ukraine like the US did; well, it might.  

"I think Russia needs to be very careful in the judgments that it makes going forward here," Kerry said. "We are not looking for confrontation, but we are making it clear that every country should respect the territorial integrity, the sovereignty of Ukraine. Russia has said it will do that, and we think it's important that Russia keeps its word."

Most remarkably, Kerry also took the opportunity to stir the pot in Georgia (the Central Asian Georgia we want to integrate into the EU and NATO, not Hoagy Carmichael’s), since he was speaking at the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission:

[Kerry] announced additional, but unspecified, U.S. assistance "to help support Georgia's European and Euro-Atlantic vision." And, he denounced Russia's continued military presence in the breakaway Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in violation of the cease-fire that ended the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict.

With all this going on, this assurance rang rather hollow:

"What we need now to do is not get into an old, Cold War confrontation," he said. "We need to work together in what does not have to be a zero-sum game to provide the capacity of the people of Ukraine to choose their future."

Since Kerry has given virtually the same assurances to the People’s Republic of China, there was probably a lot of cynical eye-rolling among the mandarins in Beijing.

AP ‘s Matthew Lee bylined this piece and deserves special mention for a misleading reference to the 2008 Georgia War:

Those steps have raised fears of possible Russian military intervention in Ukraine along the lines of its 2008 operation in Georgia, which was condemned by the United States and its European allies.

A quick review of the Wikipedia page for the Georgia War will inform the vast armies of the clueless in the West that it was Georgian forces that attacked South Ossetia—a largely Russian enclave which had broken away in the early 1990s and was patrolled by Russian peacekeepers under an agreement with Georgia—in an attempt to reconquer the wayward province, and got their asses handed to them in a Russian counterattack.

First irony alert: Georgia’s President at the time, Mikheil Saakashvili—a mainstay of the US-backed GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) alliance of pro-NATO anti-Russian states--launched the attack during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Efforts to create a pattern of Olympic-related Russian misbehavior, as was done during the Ukrainian crisis, are BS.  On the other hand, it looks like the West prefers to conduct its skullduggery at Olympic-time, when Putin is obliged to be on his best, global-buddy behavior.

Second, the truce agreement covering South Ossetia and Abkhazia—the one that Saakashvili broke—was signed in Sochi in 1992.

Third, and hopefully last irony alert.  Saakashvili tried to bring his talents to the Ukraine in December as a member of a delegation of CANVAS, the U.S. supported democratization/color revolution outfit, but was declared persona non grata by the Ukrainian government, together with three dozen other CANVAS worthies who adore democracy but apparently don’t adore all democratically-elected governments.

As a concrete matter, I do not believe that Russia will be very interested in trying to reabsorb the Crimea, even if the local ethnic-Russian population cobbles together an independence movement (the province is already largely autonomous and has replaced the mayor of Sebastopol and taken a variety of other measures to prevent Kiev’s writ from ruling in Crimea) as the South Ossetians did.  

There are 250,000 or so Tatars in Crimea, about 12% of the population, and they hate the Russians with a passion and good reason.  Over 100,000 Crimean Tartars died at Stalin’s hands in the 1930s and, when Hitler’s armies arrived, there were a significant number of Crimean Tatar collaborators (as there were ethnic Ukrainian collaborators).  As a result, the Soviet Union deported the entire Tatar population after World War II and almost half of the deportees perished from hunger and disease.  The rest returned to their homeland after perestroika and, after independence, set up their own independent political body, Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, which declared sovereignty over the Crimean Tartar people, with a flag and national anthem.  Living in a predominantly Russian district, the Crimean Tatars are vigilant against renewed Russian perfidy.

With this historical and organizational context, it is not surprising that the Tatars were able to put thousands of people on the streets of Simferopol, a regional capital in Crimea, pronto, to face down a few hundred ethnic Russians who were agitating about independence after the coup.

And, for extra credit, the Tatars are Muslim, and some were chanting allahu akhbar and “Tahrir Square” during the confrontation.

No, Russia does not want a piece of another Islam-inflected resistance movement and I expect Vladimir Putin has no plans to try to annex the Crimea.

Of course, if the Black Sea Fleet facilities are threatened, it’s a whole ‘nuther ball game, and I suspect that the Russian military drill that got everybody up in arms today, as well as Moscow’s undoubted behind-the-scenes machinations in the Crimea, have that particular contingency in mind.

The biggest problem for image-makers in the West and in Kiev will be to gloss over the Ukrainian-chauvinist feelings in the central government by celebrating painstaking efforts to set up a “unity” government (while ignoring the sizable contingent of out-and-out Ukrainian fascists who were central to the coup’s success, and embarrassing artifacts like the outlawing of Russian as an official language).

In this context, the anxieties of the ethnic Russians in the Crimea is a godsend, because lets the government and its Western allies conflate ethnic and regional resistance to the central government with Russian meddling.

The Guardian is already enthusiastically on board.

In its first version of the report on the Russian military drill , the lede described the Russian military exercise as:

…a move that will dramatically elevate fears of a separatist threat in Ukraine.

When the article was updated, cooler heads probably prevailed and the lede morphed into the marginally more accurate:

…appeared to be a display of sabre-rattling aimed at the new government in Kiev.

Who knows what refinements the next edition will bring.

What will be particularly interesting will be the effort to try to get Russia to bring a few billions to the table to help with the bailout, while at the same time berating Russia for fostering dissatisfaction with the current government.  Heroic efforts by the Guardian and the rest of Western prestige media will be needed to keep that particular ball rolling.

But no matter the context, and in direct proportion to the floundering of the West-backed government, expect Russia to be the propaganda gift that keeps on giving.

World War III Will Be Pre-Fought on Twitter

I would recommend that readers who have not yet done so create a Twitter account and subscribe to my feed (@chinahand).  To my embarrassment and surprise, I’ve churned out over 800 tweets since I started up my feed last November.

Some of it is meaningless ephemera, of course.  But sometimes the twitter stream carries in it telling or insightful tweets that illustrate the dynamics of debate over US foreign policy as it evolves over a month, a week, or maybe even a day and are worth retweeting.

And, of course, I put in my own two cents worth, hopefully in a telling and insightful fashion, on subjects that are perhaps too fleeting or developing too quickly for a post, but are significant nonetheless.

For instance, I’ve become more attuned to the back-and-forth between US pro-Japan China hawks and the (relative) moderates in the Obama administration and the role of the Abe administration’s role as observer, participant, and victim or beneficiary depending on how the debate evolves.

One set of my tweets addressed the PRC inserting itself into a spat between the United States and Japan concerning Japan’s footdragging in returning a few hundred kilos of weapon-grade plutonium.

On the simplest level, of course, the PRC wishes to sow doubts about the genuinely pacifist character of Japan as it carefully moves to full sovereign status as a military power, but at the same time tries to reap the PR benefits of its seventy-year experience under the so-called “pacifist” constitution by marketing its regional security initiatives as “active pacifism”.

On another level, the PRC appears to be discretely tweaking the United States to live up to the non-proliferation ambitions which justified the rather premature award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama.  So, when the PRC pointedly raised the issue, maybe the US decided to cater to the PRC by making a public issue of the plutonium.

This understandably infuriated the Abe government, which felt that this was a matter to be dealt with discretely between allies and not used as a shaming opportunity by the US in order to pander to the PRC.  Perhaps coincidentally, pro-Japan individuals and outlets in the US pooh-poohed the plutonium issue, and steered attention to the more looming PRC threat.

I think there was another issue at play as well.

Japan, and indeed any technically capable power, does not need weapons-grade plutonium to make a bomb.  Fuel grade will do just as well, thank you, if you’re willing to accept some less desirable yield/size/radiation outcomes.  So the few hundred pounds of weapons-grade plutonium is not really the issue.

The issue is the five tons or so of plutonium metal Japan has in country and the twenty-odd tons it has stored for it at reprocessing facilities in the UK and France (some Pentagon policy types made the rather ad hoc decision to console Japan for US normalization of relations with the PRC by letting Japan be the only US atomic partner, aside from the UK and France, to “close the fuel cycle” i.e. recover plutonium from spent fuel in order to avoid a uranium drought that, one might notice, has not materialized) and the rocket program that Japan, despite its unfavorable location far in the northern hemisphere (which renders commercial launches relatively uneconomical) has spent billions to develop.

Long story short, despite Japan’s vociferous and, in some circles, sincere professions of disinterest in nuclear weapons, it is by design a nuclear power en ovo, and will continue to be one until the Chinese nuclear and conventional military threat somehow evaporates.

As a reminder, I will quote the Prime Minister of Japan:

'It is certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons, but has not made them.'

Prime Minister Hata made that statement before the Diet in 1994.  Please keep that in the back of your mind when the issue of Japan’s strategic helplessness comes up.  And that's something that the PRC would like to see injected into discussions of Japan's security posture.

One of the most interesting speculations about Iran’s nuclear program is that it modeled its tiptoe to the nuclear threshold on Japan’s example.  

And, with this background, I always wondered if the US motive for elevating Yukiya Amano to head of the IAEA (after finally seeing the back of the irritatingly independent ElBaradei) was that Amano, a veteran of Japan’s nuclear establishment, knew exactly how the stealth weaponization game was played, and would be disinclined to cut Iran any slack.  And I wonder if sub rosa the quid pro quo was that Amano's steadfastness on the Iran dossier would be rewarded by turning a blind eye, nonproliferation Nobel be damned, on Japan's carefully managed nuclear weaponization capabilities--and the thirty tons of plutonium to which it holds title.

And, to enter into 12-dimensional chess territory, I suspect that the Abe administration is quietly freaked out about Secretary of State John Kerry’s focus on the Middle East, where China, by virtue of its backing of Iran and Syria has a much more significant and meaningful role to play than Japan.

The fear would be that the PRC would promise—or deliver—meaningful assistance in the Middle East and expect in return a more conciliatory attitude toward the PRC by Kerry.   

So maybe the plutonium incident did indeed represent a bone tossed by Kerry to his Beijing buddies--and a breaking of the original understanding that the US wouldn't make an issue of Japanese nuclear weaponization capabilities.

In any case, on twitter there was a spate of commentary that Kerry was over-focused on the Middle East and was not devoting adequate time and attention to confronting the PRC threat.  Indeed, I was quite struck by the amount of hype devoted to the Chinese salami-slicing menace (the rather cringe-inducing term used to describe the PRC’s incremental steps to improve its de facto position in its maritime realm) and the insistence that the PRC’s thus far successful attempt to dodge militarization of these issues (a key PRC strategy given the overwhelming military superiority of the US) should be short-circuited by an overtly confrontational policy.

I feel pretty confident that a) this approach is nuts b) Kerry & Biden feel the same way and, while engaging in ostentatious chest-thumping against the PRC, are actually interested in reducing tensions rather than increasing them.

However, there’s no Washington constituency for reduced tensions.  The pro-Japanese alliance/China hawk  forces, on the other hand, have the enormous political, security, and financial attractions of a containment regime adding force and determination to their policy recommendations.   The growing enthusiasm for something called “dynamic deterrence”—pushback just short of confrontation—creates an environment of escalation (the PRC, of course, will upgrade its deterrence in response) that looks a lot like a self-fulfilling prophecy masquerading as a security doctrine.  And it pushes US-PRC frictions closer to the military zone where US strategists feel the most comfortable.

For extra credit, questioning the policy undercuts deterrent and is can be considered, in a term bandied about with increasing frequency, “appeasement”. The self-identifying “appeasement” faction is, as one can expect, quite small.

The game in Asia is still economic, and I feel/hope the Obama administration thinks it can let the military/industrial/security/surveillance complex ride the “China threat” gravy train while the business of business goes on.

But if you want to see how the war with China might get fought, check out twitter.

A Pleasant Beijing Visit by John Kerry...

...Will Not Stop America's Merry Dash Into the Collective Self Defense/Deterrence Cul-de-Sac...

John Kerry recently concluded a friendly visit to Beijing, with both sides chatting about matters of mutual concern in a way that implied these two great powers have areas of shared concern and interest.

Some observers might fear that peace might break out.

Don’t worry.

My personal opinion is that a dwindling group of PRC doves in the Obama administration are being rolled by military and think tank hawks who sense the weakness of the individuals with suspected panda hugger inclinations, such as Joe Biden and John Kerry, and also smell blood in the water with President Obama’s emerging lame duck status and the likely return of a down-the-line China hawk civilian slate with the expected election of Hillary Clinton as President in 2016.

The result has been a spate of articles calling the White House, especially Joe Biden, soft on China and pointing the finger at John Kerry for being excessively preoccupied with the Middle East and thereby allowing the precious Pivot to Asia to languish.

I, for one, detect a pretty effective tag team between the Abe administration and US anti-China/pro-Japan hawks.  It should be recalled that Abe’s closest US relationships are with the Cheney wing of the Republican Party and his relations with Obama are, at best, cool.  So, if US policy as it pertains to Japan and China is being criticized, both directly in terms of flagging Obama commitment to Asia and over-commitment to the Middle East, I think the fine Japanese hand can be suspected, reinforcing (but not necessarily directing) the anti-Obama grumblings of various think-tank hawks.

When I saw a poobah on Twitter opining that the Yasukuni furor showed the rather pathetic limitations of the Japanese PR machine, I had to lift both eyebrows in skepticism. Actually, I ran around with my arms in the air like Spongebob Squarepants in his utter-dismay mode, while yelling Nooooooooo like Luke Skywalker did after Darth Vader cut off his hand and told him he was his father.  

Japan has learned the lessons of World War II, when the Japan Lobby was bested by the China Lobby, and also from the fraught decades of the 1970s and 80s, when Japan filled the designated role of Asian menace to the Western way of life in US politics.  Recently, the Abe administration has energetically ingratiated itself to the US military, defense hawks, and the American Right, and done a pretty good job of leveraging its ally status into a favorable position in the US policy debate…especially when compared to the PR black hole occupied by PR China.

In my humble opinion, Kerry’s focus on the Middle East—where the United States is deeply involved in three armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, a political crisis in Egypt, and a high-risk diplomatic gambit with Iran—at the expense of the Far East—which is facing the threat of Chinese aggression against five unoccupied islands and an uninhabited atoll—is pretty well justified.

In fact, conspiracy theorists might note that Kerry is getting some assistance from the PRC in trying to wrangle the Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran questions, as he acknowledged during his press availability--while Japan has very little to offer. 

I, for one, would not be surprised if the Japanese foreign ministry, concerned that the PRC might be piling up deposits in John Kerry’s favorbank for eventual redemption in the Far East and programming against Kerry's visit to Beijing, might have thought it better to encourage concerns about excessive US attention to the Middle East and US “softness” on the PRC in order to make sure the PRC is recognized as the real bad guy and pre-empt any possibility that the dreaded “G2”—an effective alliance of interest of the US and PRC on key questions that excludes Japan—ever materializes.

I think the concerted and orchestrated nature of the pro-Japan campaign is revealed by the fearmongering that the United States “might” fail to back up the Japan on the Senkakus.  

As Bill Gertz, the journalistic dean of China hawks, reported in an article which accused the Obama administration of fecklessness in China affairs (excuse me, in which unnamed "China watchers" and "analysts" opined that the adminstration's response to China had been "confused", "vacillating", "mild" and "too little too late"):

A U.S. official summed up the tensions in a comment to The Nelson Report’s Chris Nelson: “What we need to think our way through is how China’s salami-slicing tactics (and they will continue whether with an ADIZ in the [South China Sea] or elsewhere) will play against U.S. credibility.

“If all we have are diplomatic response[s] when China is creating new facts on the ground/in the sea/air, this will continue to erode U.S. credibility with allies and partners; and, if, God forbid, we fail to honor alliance commitments, especially on the Senkakus, we soon will have no allies/partners/standing in the region.”

Although the PRC officially disclaimed any plans for an SCS ADIZ in response to a US declaration, thereby supporting the unwelcome surmise that the US could effectively engage with the PRC, Gertz manages to brush aside this ruse and keep the eternal reality of China's inexorable salami-slicing menace alive in the minds of his readers with the parenthetical remark ("they will continue whether an ADIZ...or elsewhere").

Despite the concerns of Gertz and the various watchers and analysts, I don't think the U.S. is even remotely considering selling out the Senkakus.  Like it or not, US support for Japan on the Senkakus is the linchpin of US credibility in the region (ever since Secretary Clinton, in response to the somewhat fishy-smelling Captain Zhan incident and the subsequent rare earth “crisis” in 2010, reversed the Obama administration’s previous internal decision not to reaffirm their inclusion in the scope of Article V)  and it’s not, in my opinion, going anywhere.

Lower down the foreign policy and op-ed food chain, the term “appeasement” has floated to the surface like an unwelcome addition to the punchbowl of China discourse, often referencing the PRC’s declaration of the Air Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea and the measured US response.

A few things to bear in mind.

First, the United States showed plenty of confrontational sack by immediately flying two B-52s into the ADIZ unannounced.

Second, the only thing that the United States—and the rest of the world, for that matter—didn’t do was follow Japan’s lead and take the rather irresponsible step of directing its civilian carriers to drop their compliance and start disregarding the ADIZ.

So, in this context, “appeasement” means not doing something that Japan wants, something that is worth bearing in mind when considering whose interests are really being promoted by a more aggressive policy.

Third and for extra credit, according to a credible-sounding report in the Mainichi Shinbun as reported by the Shingetsu News Service, the PRC had notified Japan and the US about the ADIZ extension in 2010, supporting the inference that the US & Japan, instead of coming up with a faltering and incomplete response to “assertive China”, were actually being plenty aggressive and confrontational in using the public announcement of the ADIZ to sandbag the PRC with accusations of destabilizing the region.

So, in my opinion, US PRC policy has not been excessively weak-kneed.

However, looking at the recent chest-thumping and scrotum-hefting declarations of the White House concerning the China threat, it looks to me like the Obama administration is ostentatiously inoculating itself against the “weak on China” accusation while, when the remarks are closely parsed, still trying to reserve some space for the US between the PRC and Japan as “the honest broker”.

In fact, John Kerry was quite reassuring during his recent visit to Beijing and his words probably triggered a brief, blissful reverie in the PRC leadership about the unconsummated new great power relationship.  Cooperation on North Korea was the lead item, followed by nice words about the SCS Code of Conduct and some collective handwringing about climate change.  Kerry averred that the United States was not trying to contain China.  

From his press availability:

Our cooperation, frankly, on issues of enormous importance in the world should not go unnoticed. China and the United States are cooperating on big-ticket items. We’ve worked together in the P5+1 on Iran. We’ve worked together on Afghanistan. We have worked together on Syria. We are working together on other issues like South Sudan and the prevention of violence there. And we appreciate enormously the Chinese efforts with respect to those kinds of initiatives. Not many people know that that kind of cooperative effort is underway.

Kerry’s statement on the SCS disputes—particularly his apparent endorsement of Chinese gripes about provocations  by “others”-- will probably have the China hawks mailing him Neville Chamberlain umbrellas:

And the Chinese have made clear that they believe they need to be resolved in a peaceful and legal manner, and that they need to be resolved according to international law and that process.

And I think they believe they have a strong claim, a claim based on history and based on fact. They’re prepared to submit it, and – but I think they complained about some of the provocations that they feel others are engaged in. And that is why I’ve said all parties need to refrain from that. Particularly with respect to some of the islands and shoals, they feel there have been very specific actions taken in order to sort of push the issue of sovereignty on the sea itself or by creating some construction or other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is there was a very specific statement with respect to the importance of rule of law in resolving this and the importance of legal standards and precedent and history being taken into account to appropriately make judgments about it.

The PRC leadership obviously likes Kerry and his policies, especially when compared with the alternative (Hillary Clinton); and it seems to me that Kerry is not just playing good cop in the good cop/bad cop chainyanking exercise.

So China hawks have a right to be anxious that Big John is not sufficiently enthusiastic about twisting the PRC’s testicles until universal peace, freedom, democracy, and prosperity explode into East Asia.

Nevertheless, a Global Times op-ed realistically noted that nice words from Big John do not, however, translate directly into a favorable attitude by the United States:

Kerry did say something to pressure China as US politicians always do. But he also reasonably exchanged ideas with Chinese leaders and showed some good faith. His positive remarks about the US not to contain China will at least have some impact on Washington's behavior for a while. We are not demanding too much.

I don’t think the hawks have to worry overmuch.  The countdown to a new, almost certainly more hardline US presidency has begun, and the PRC is unlikely to deliver any foreign policy win to Kerry that’s big enough to cause a significant and lasting U-turn in US policy.

Also, by yielding to the insistence of the Pentagon to endorse Japanese “collective self defense”, I think the Obama administration has let the pendulum swing far enough away from China that it has sacrificed much of its tattered “honest broker” cred and, from the PRC point of view, is perhaps considered “weak on Japan” i.e. so far in Japan’s pocket that it cannot constrain Japanese behavior in a way useful to the PRC.

On the surface, “collective self defense” doesn’t seem to be a huge change to the US-Japanese relationship.  It would simply enable closer integration of US and Japanese forces during joint military operations.  Of course, this might involve joint flotillas in international waters countering the mythical threat to freedom of navigation from the PRC but, I suppose, the thinking is that the US would have overall command and therefore control over when and where a serious confrontation with the PRC might occur.

However…

Japanese strategists, to their credit, have repeatedly asserted the “collective self defense” will be applied to Japanese security arrangements with other friendly countries (read Philippines, India), new bilateral relationships that have nothing to do directly with the United States.

(Astute observers, of course the only kind of readers China Matters has, will recall that the Abe administration frequently if discretely voices its anxiety about true US staying power in Asia in order to justify its independent security outreach in the region and thereby stampede the Obama administration into a more assertively pro-Japanese policy.)

Anyway, assuming that Prime Minister Abe as expected announces the legitimacy of “collective self defense” through a cabinet statement, the Rubicon’s been crossed, cat’s out of the bag, Pandora’s box has been opened, America sh*t the bed, choose your metaphor, the Japanese government’s freedom to create a new parallel security regime in Asia without the input of the United States is being enabled by…the United States.

I’m assuming that the Obama team is well aware of this implication but has decided not to worry/care about, maybe because President Obama, contemplating both his lame duck status and his marked distaste for the PRC regime combined with strong institutional pressure from the Pentagon and its allies, has decided not to expend too much political and bureaucratic capital fighting this thing.

And the Chinese leadership, expecting John Kerry’s panda-hugging tendencies to be circumscribed by the anti-appeasement whispering campaign, President Obama’s upcoming Asian tour programmed as a celebration of democratic Asia and the US pivot against the menace of Chinese aggression, the Japanese government taking advantage of the US tilt to push more aggressive policies (like the needlessly provocative declaration it wishes to sue the hapless Captain Zhan), and the prospect of President Clinton waiting in the wings, will just have to keep its head down for the next few years.

Beyond threatening to disintermediate the US in the creation of a new Asian security regime, I think the real threat from collective self defense to regional and US interests comes for its possible integration into “deterrence” as the standard security template for Asia.

As I discuss in my most recent article at Asia Times Online, US and Japanese strategists have characterized the situation with the PRC in the East China Sea as a “gray zone crisis” i.e. neither war nor peace, to be addressed by a combination of “dynamic” and “static” deterrence.

In the Chinese context, it means that the PRC position is defined as “probing for and attempting to fill a power vacuum and thereby expel competing powers from its near beyond”, and the correct riposte is Japanese vigilance and US preparedness—heightened surveillance activity in the area that integrates directly into the SDF and US military capability so that decisive military power can be brought to bear in case of a confrontation.

The possibility that the PRC might have legitimate interests that could be negotiated is infra dig—it’s appeasement.  Hey, there’s that word again!

Same thing, of course on the PRC side.  With the deterrence framing, concession = capitulation.

So, conflicts that were and could possibly continue to be handled through bilateral civilian negotiations become militarized.  

Concessions, indeed negotiations, on these issues are not particularly desirable since they are a sign of lack of resolve and detract from the credibility of deterrence.

Deterrence, in other words, easily turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, with each side continually thinking about escalating their response so as not to show the dreaded “weakness”.

And, of course, maintaining deterrence offers the delectable prospect of an arms race, as the various parties parse their worst-case scenarios and decide to muscle up.

With the concept of collective self defense, Japan has the opportunity to apply the two-tiered deterrent architecture to formal security arrangements it concludes directly with other Asian democracies.  Thereby, the US is faced with diminished regional clout in an environment of increased danger.

Beyond the theoretical problems with collective security and deterrence theory, there are some major holes in practice.

In Japanese affairs, the double-tiered deterrent structure deploys Japanese forces at the front end, with the US at the back end.  Looking at it another way, the providers of “static deterrent” are theoretically hostage to the implementers of “dynamic deterrence” because the “static” is expected to back up the “dynamic”, otherwise the credibility of deterrence collapses and with it the whole security architecture.

But the one thing the United States does not want to do is get forced in a war with the PRC because the SDF shot down some plane over Senkakus; and the security treaty, by specifying in case of an attack the US “would act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional provisions and processes” does not directly mandate War!  This unavoidable loophole irks and concerns the Abe administration, I think, for good reason: there is always the chance that the US Cavalry, instead of riding to Japan’s rescue, will first stop off for an anxious powwow with the enemy.  

This sort of ambiguity is great for US flexibility, but it undercuts the credibility of deterrence and, in fact, makes the whole deterrent concept look rather fanciful and destabilizing.  And, truth be told, a similar modified-hangout-backup would probably also apply to any security arrangement that Japan might conclude with the now useful but potentially dangerous fire-breathing administration of Philippine President Aquino.

So, to the militarizing and escalating dynamic of deterrence add a widespread suspicion about its actually effectiveness. 

With the implementation of collective self defense and deterrence, we are faced with a situation in which the US pivot to Asia, which is supposed to a) secure American leadership and b) assure the peace and prosperity of the region for the 21^st century by c) reducing tensions and avoiding the dreaded miscalculations and misunderstandings is instead a) promoting the disintermediation of the United States in the Asian defense equation by empowering Japan b) stoking an expensive arms race and c) polarizing Asia into two opposing blocs d) making it more likely that some Asian power will do something irrevocably stupid.

Rather ironic.

Deterrence is a dead end, figuratively.  Hopefully figuratively, not literally.

I don’t blame Prime Minister Abe or Japan for this state of affairs.  He has a strategy for advancing Japanese interests at the PRC’s expense.  It’s zero sum, but he expects Japan to come out on the positive-number side of the equation.

I have less generous feelings about the US foreign policy solons who look to the Asian pivot and a deterrence structure to make life easier for US budgeters and defense planners, and pick up some easy diplomatic gains by encouraging antagonisms between the Asian democracies and the PRC, but don’t seem to have thought through the ultimate implications for the US position in Asia.

Mostly, I think it’s because America is hooked on hegemonism—being the unmatchable top dog in Asia—but really can’t do it alone as Asia becomes more prosperous and pours more money into national defense budgets.

So I think the US is taking a leaf from the history of the Roman Empire, by enlisting the inhabitants of the borderlands—in this case Asian democracies instead of fur-clad Goths—in order to make sure the imperial writ is still obeyed.  The US might not find itself fighting off Goths, but it will find itself herding cats—or Japanese panthers—and the US leadership position in Asia will degrade accordingly.

The popularity of the China pivot strategy is a testament to the remarkable power of a bad idea.

As currently implemented, the pivot may not be a workable solution for Asia’s putative ills, but it’s a big fat gift to the military, military contractors, and think tanks.  And it has a virtue shared with other bad ideas.

Dealing with the neverending stream of negative consequences created by a really bad idea is called “process”.  And “process” can be very profitable.

Trying to turn chickenshit into chickensalad isn’t just a job; it’s a career, maybe even a lifelong crusade.  I don’t doubt that the architects of the pivot, when they shuffle off their mortal coil and enter the neo-liberal Valhalla, will still find profitable PRC containment conundrums with which to wrestle.

Thanks, Pivot to Asia!

Somewhere up there the God of War is laughing.