The exchange of artillery fire between South and North Korea on 23 November, 2010 had predictable results – a great increase of tension on the peninsula, a show of force by the United States, and a torrent of uninformed media articles and pontificating from the security industry.
The United States is, by far, the Philippines’ most important strategic security partner. China’s ascent as a regional Asia Pacific powerhouse, coupled with the relative decline of the United States, has threatened to reconfigure this equation. Yet China’s growing assertiveness over territorial claims from Northeast Asia to the South China Sea might also unravel two decades of its relatively successful charm offensive, which calmed the nerves of many anxious Southeast Asian nations. Any display of aggression by China in the South China Sea could compromise its relations with the Philippines.
This past summer, WikiLeaks, an on-line source of anonymous whistle-blower revelations, unveiled damning information about the war in Afghanistan and its “official portrayal.” Sidebar revelations also cast doubt on Pakistan’s alliance with the United States, charging Pakistani intelligence agencies with “aiding insurgents.” Pakistan and the United States forcefully denied any chink in their “strategic partnership.”
In The Turkey and the Eagle: The Struggle for America’s Global Role, Caleb Rossiter takes as his central metaphor an argument in early American history over what bird the nascent United States ought to take as its symbol. Eschewing the lazy, thieving eagle, Benjamin Franklin wryly advocated the turkey, that “vain & silly” bird “untainted by symbolic association with European expansion, and indeed, with expansion of any kind.”
The convergence of a military conference and green conference paint an Army chaplain in an unflattering light.
In 1784 Benjamin Franklin played the tongue-in-cheek naturalist and castigated the decision by the Congress of the Confederation to adopt the bald eagle as the symbol of the United States. The bald eagle, Franklin wrote, lives by “Sharping & Robbing,” watching a “diligent” hawk fishing, and then stealing its hard-earned booty. Rejecting this lazy thief, Franklin preferred that the national honor be borne by the proud but prudent (“tho’ a little vain & silly”) wild turkey.
The gap between federal spending on military as opposed to climate security has narrowed since 2008. Compared to China, though, our progress is meager.
Though its military spending is not wholly transparent, it is estimated that China spends one-sixth as much as the United States does on military security, and twice as much on climate security.
Anti-war protesters targeting individual troops for abuse, much less gathering at their funerals like the homophobic Rev. Fred Phelps, is as much of a myth as protesters spitting on returning Vietnam veterans.
“Many will take offense to this book — on both the defense side and the humanitarian side,” write Mary Kaldor and Shannon D. Beebe in the concluding paragraphs of their latest book The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon. Indeed, throughout their book Kaldor and Beebe try to find a common ground between what are often thought of as innate opposites: the military and civilian agencies. Their book is an attempt to provide a viable human security alternative to the conventional military responses to warfare.
Andrew Bacevich is a professor of international relations and history at Boston University and the author of the new book, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. You can read a review of this book here. Bacevich talks with FPIF’s Andrew Feldman about current U.S. military policy and the ethics of intervention.