The Progressive Response

The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)—a "Think Tank Without Walls." A joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies, FPIF is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/.

Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.irc-online.org and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be contacted at <tom@irc-online.org>.

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Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

U.S. SUPREMACISM & WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD)
By Michael Klare

FAST-TRACK LEGISLATION WON'T DEFEAT SEATTLE COALITION
By Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh

WAR'S IMPLICATION FOR BUDGET AND MILITARY SPENDING

INVESTMENT RULES AFTER DOHA
By Lyuba Zarsky

SELF-DETERMINATION AND CONFLICT NEWS

II. Letters and Comments

KEEPING SEATTLE COALITION ALIVE

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: IGNORING ANOTHER OPTION

ONLY ONE TRUE INTENTION

SEARCHING FOR A REASONABLE PALESTINIAN

I. Updates and Out-takes

U.S. SUPREMACISM & WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD)
By Michael Klare

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a presentation at an FPIF-sponsored conference on WMD after September 11, posted in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/presentations/011126wmd-klare.html .)

If bipolarity and decolonization were the dominant features of the cold war era, then unipolarity and economic globalization are the dominant features of the current era. And just as the first pair of factors influenced WMD developments during the earlier period, unipolarity and globalization are shaping the WMD environment of this period. Unfortunately, I believe that we're much more knowledgeable about the WMD dynamics of the cold war era than of the present, and so I'd like to use the rest of my time to sketch out the implications of unipolarity and globalization for WMD dynamics in the future.

The most important of these for our discussion is, of course, unipolarity, or the emergence of the United States as the world's sole superpower. This is a situation that is truly unprecedented in recent times. Indeed, I think you have to go back to the Roman period to find an era in which one country so completely dominated the military landscape of the time.

Now, I don't think that American leaders set out to achieve this extraordinary condition. Rather, they sought to accumulate sufficient power to overwhelm the Soviet Union. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States stood alone as a global military power, and no other country has emerged as an equal challenger since then. And it does not look as if such a challenger will arise any time soon. So it seems likely that the United States will remain the world's sole superpower for some time to come.

It is easy to view this as a temporary phenomenon, to be replaced by something more familiar to us from the cold war era. But I don't think this will occur anytime soon. Instead, I believe that unipolarity will remain the dominant reality for the foreseeable future. And even if there were any doubt about this, U.S. leaders are determined to make unipolarity a permanent fact of life, through whatever means necessary. You can see hints of this outlook in the Clinton era, but it is really in the Bush administration that you see an explicit drive for permanent military supremacy.

When President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld talk about the "transformation" of the U.S. military establishment, they mean the acquisition of weapons and technologies that will ensure U.S. dominance over any conceivable adversary, now and far into the future. You can't really appreciate the military thinking of the Bush administration without grasping this essential precept. To give you just a flavor of what I'm talking about, let me quote from President Bush's most important pre-election speech, his Sept. 23, 1999 address at the Citadel in South Carolina. "My goal," he said, "is to take advantage of the tremendous opportunity--given to few nations--to extend the current peace into the far realm of the future. A chance to protect America's peaceful influence, not just across the world but across the years." Now, this may strike some of you as sheer hubris, or worse, but it accurately describes the outlook of the current administration.

* 9-11 Reinforced Strategy of Supremacism

Before discussing the implications of all this for global WMD dynamics, let me raise the question of whether anything has changed as a result of 9-11. The answer, I think, is no--if anything, the attacks of Sept 11 have reinforced the administration's commitment to a strategy of supremacism. It's true, of course, that President Bush has attempted to promote warmer relations with Russia. But when push came to shove, Bush was unwilling to modify any of the policies I described above in order to gain President Putin's acquiescence to changes in the ABM Treaty. So I don't really see any major changes, except, perhaps, for a greater willingness to engage in preemptive military strikes.

So, what are the implications of all this for the future of WMD?

The first, I believe, is the total rejection of arms control agreements of the SALT and START variety. These agreements, after all, were predicated on the situation of essential equivalence in nuclear firepower between the U.S. and the U.S.SR. But no such equivalence exists today--the Russians are in no position to maintain their nuclear capability at anything approaching the scale of the Soviet arsenal, and certainly cannot keep up with the U.S. in technological advances. So the U.S. has no incentive to negotiate mutually restrictive agreements. From now on, Washington will only sign accords that perpetuate America's overwhelming superiority. But why would Russia--or anyone else, for that matter--agree to such an arrangement? I can't imagine that any Russian or Chinese leader could sign such an accord. So I find it hard to believe that we will see any more arms control agreements of the sort we became accustomed to in the past.

The second implication is far more troubling. What will happen when we face a situation where the U.S. possesses a powerful nuclear arsenal and has deployed a multilayered NMD system, making it seemingly invulnerable to an enemy counter attack. There are many in Washington who believe that this will be a more peaceful and stable world, because no one will be willing to provoke U.S. hostility by challenging our global interests. Perhaps this is so. This is such a unique situation in human history that it is hard to imagine what will transpire. Nevertheless, I am skeptical that the world will be conflict-free in such an environment. If human history is any guide to this new era, I think we can expect continuing challenges to U.S. hegemony, taking many different forms.

I fear that faith in U.S. invulnerability, whether justified or not, will lead U.S. leaders to engage in periodic interventions of one sort or another. So I predict that we will see continuing conflict in this brave new world. And I also believe that one of the responses to U.S. superiority will be the continuing pursuit of WMD by potential challengers. After all, if we insist that possession of a massive nuclear arsenal is the bedrock of the U.S. military preponderance, we can hardly be surprised if other states will seek to copy us. Russia and China, I suspect, will seek to overcome the U.S. advantage in missile defense by expanding the size and potency of their nuclear arsenal, and by developing anti-NMD countermeasures--multiple warheads, decoys, and so forth. Other countries, lacking the capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons, will develop chemical and biological weapons, along with unconventional means of delivery. The recent anthrax scare shows us just how easily this can be done. So, in the end, I believe that U.S. efforts to preserve unipolarity forever will only lead to the spread of WMD and the emergence of new threats to global peace and security.

(Michael T. Klare <mklare@hampshire.edu> is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst and a member of the Advisory Committee of Foreign Policy in Focus.)

FAST-TRACK LEGISLATION WON'T DEFEAT SEATTLE COALITION
By Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112fasttrack.html .)

The U.S. House of Representatives barely approved fast track trade authority by a vote of 215 to 214, ending a long battle that pitted the Fortune 500 against a broad alliance of labor, environmental, religious, feminist, human rights, consumer, family farm, and other activists. These diverse forces defeated fast track twice during the Clinton administration and managed to delay a vote numerous times this year because of lack of support. Now that fast track has been approved, pro-free trade analysts would no doubt like to begin ringing the death knell of the opposition forces. To the contrary, there are several reasons why this vote is only a small setback in the fight against corporate globalization.

1. Free Traders Undermined Their Legitimacy with Cheap Sell Tactics

The K Street lobbyists, Capitol Hill horse traders, and White House spin-meisters had to really hustle just to win by one vote. We will never know how many millions of dollars in campaign contributions or pork deals were needed to eke out a win. When money wouldn't work, the administration diverted Colin Powell from the war effort to try to persuade members of Congress with the ludicrous argument that fast track was needed to fight terrorism. (Now that Bush has fast track, can we expect Osama bin Laden to emerge from his cave waving a white flag?) According to news reports, the decisive deal--a concession for the textile industry--came after voting had already begun. All this last-minute manipulation makes it impossible for free traders to claim that fast track passed on its merits.

2. Just as NAFTA Pork Created an Anti-Free Trade Groundswell, So Too Will This Vote Doom Future Deals

In 1993, NAFTA backers faced defeat in the House of Representatives even a week before the vote. Then, Clinton started buying support with promises of military contracts, research centers, and protections for various commodities. Although it succeeded in pushing the deal through, the strategy proved short-sighted. The tainted nature of that vote, along with NAFTA's dismal record, paved the way for the defeat of fast track in 1997 and 1998 and for the recent wave of mass demonstrations against globalization that first erupted in Seattle in 1999. This time around, we're likely to see similar fallout. Even free traders such as Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute warned in the days leading up to the vote that the last-minute arm-twisting could create such harsh feelings that Congress might reject future trade deals.

(John Cavanagh <jcavanagh@igc.org> and Sarah Anderson <saraha@igc.org> are analysts at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-authors of The Field Guide to the Global Economy. Cavanagh is a member of FPIF's Advisory Committee.)

WAR'S IMPLICATION FOR BUDGET AND MILITARY SPENDING

(Editor's Note: Foreign Policy In Focus editors provide answers to questions that policymakers, the media, and the public have asked us. Look for a new FAQ every few days on the FPIF homepage. These answers will be regularly updated as circumstances change. See other FAQs at: http://www.fpif.org/faq/index.html .)

Though no firm figures are available on what the war is costing us, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates those costs at between $500 million and $1 billion a month. This includes the costs of cruise missiles (between $1 million and $2 million a piece), laser-guided "bunker-busting" bombs ($125,000 a copy) and the relatively cheap--except as measured in human carnage--unguided cluster bombs ($5,000 per). It also includes about $5,000 in fuel per hour for the long round trips of the F/A 18 fighter-bombers, and about $25 million to deploy 1,000 ground troops in Uzbekistan. It does not include the costs of deploying National Guard and reserve troops to guard U.S. airports and the air patrols over several cities.

Of more long-term significance is the Bush administration's (and the defense industry's) use of the war as a platform for supporting massive, sustained increases in overall military spending. The Senate has recently approved a defense budget for FY 2002 of $343 billion dollars, in addition to the $20 billion in emergency funds. The 9-11 windfall will provide accelerated support for the Pentagon's full menu of systems, including three overlapping fighter jet programs that have been proceeding in tandem despite all the talk of military transformation.

One exception to the rule of military budget expansion was the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which helps Russia dismantle its nuclear weapons, secure its remaining arsenal, and divert its nuclear scientists, via productive employment, from selling their skills to, for example, terrorist networks. These programs took an $86 million hit.

This is curious, given President Bush's commitment at his summit with President Putin to curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, Senate Democrats gave him a second chance to fund this "top priority" of his, in their package of $15 billion worth of proposed budget additions for homeland security. Also among their proposals was $215 million for increased security at U.S. nuclear power plants and weapons facilities. He turned them down, saying we should wait until next year to figure all this out. Why? Because, one suspects, next year he will be able to pit these priorities against the domestic budget items--health care, education, infrastructure, the environment, etc.--that were already endangered by his (first) tax cut.

INVESTMENT RULES AFTER DOHA
By Lyuba Zarsky

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from an FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0111wto.html .)

The agreement to begin WTO negotiations on investment should serve as a call to action for NGOs, socially responsible business leaders, and others who seek to promote the global public interest. Now more than ever, it is time to mount a proactive advocacy effort based on a positive vision of what constitutes "sustainable and ethical" investment rules.

Pundits and analysts are "spinning" the Doha agreement in different ways. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick calls Doha a "big win" for the United States. Mike Moore, Director General of the WTO, credits delegates for "saving the WTO." The Financial Times praises Washington's "conciliatory style" but wonders if it reflects "fundamental shifts" that would make the WTO more manageable. NGO analysts think not and call Doha a "Pyrrhic victory" and a "massive defeat for poor people around the world."

The reality is that there are deep divisions between the U.S. and the EU, and between developed and developing countries, especially on "issue creep"--the tendency to stake out more and more market territory to fall under WTO disciplines and dispute resolution. At Doha, much arm-twisting was needed to get agreement to get the latest batch of new issues--competition policy, government procurement, trade facilitation, and investment--on the negotiating table.

The governance of investment strikes at the heart of sustainable and equitable development. The rules and practices surrounding investment decisions affect both access to capital and a broad range of social and environmental impacts. "Quality" investment is crucial for the development of cleaner technologies, for sustainable resource management, and for human and environmental infrastructure of all kinds. According to UNCTAD's 2001 World Investment report, about 75% of global foreign investment flows between the thirty rich countries of the OECD. Africa gets less than 1%.

To date, investment rules in regional and bilateral agreements have strengthened investor rights without specifying social and environmental obligations either of private investors or governments. NAFTA's Chapter 11 goes even further, allowing corporations to successfully challenge the rights of states to regulate in the public interest.

A sustainable and ethical approach to investment rules would, first of all, affirm the rights of states to regulate. It would also spell out positive obligations, such as for investors to undertake environmental impact assessments and to maintain environmental and social management systems as part of good corporate governance; and for states to embrace and enforce global human rights, labor, and environmental agreements. Finally, it would create a balanced dispute settlement mechanism, accessible to both citizens and investors and offering protection for both investors and the public interest.

Without exception, NGOs with missions to promote global sustainable and poverty-reducing development opposed the launch of WTO negotiations on investment. Their fear was that the WTO would squeeze the complex ethical and environmental issues surrounding the governance of investment into a narrow "liberalize-at-all-costs" formula aimed at increasing market access and protection for rich country corporations.

Now that the WTO has decided to launch negotiations, it is time to ratchet up advocacy on investment based on a positive vision. Two tasks are urgent. The first is to figure out what the content of a sustainable development framework for investment rules would be. The second is to coalesce on a feasible implementation strategy. The record of the WTO inspires little confidence that it can carry such an agenda.

A more fertile institutional arena is the Earth Summit, which will take place in Johannesberg next September. The Summit could launch a Working Group on Sustainable Investment to complement and feed into the WTO or even to work toward a standalone framework agreement. UNEP, UNDP, the ILO, the Commission on Sustainable Development, and the UN's Financing for Development Initiative could all play a part. But only the NGO community, both North and South, can provide the trigger and, with business, the muscle. Now is the time to sow.

(Lyuba Zarsky <lzarsky@nautilus.org> is codirector of the Nautilus Institute and directs its Globalization and Governance program.)

SELF-DETERMINATION AND CONFLICT NEWS

New analysis available from our Self-Determination and Governance project (now online at www.selfdetermine.org) includes the following:

CONFLICT PROFILE: UIGHUR MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG
By Sean L. Yom
http://www.selfdetermine.org/conflicts/uighur.html

CONFLICT PROFILE: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
By Thomas Turner
http://www.selfdetermine.org/listserv/011213.html

WASHINGTON GAVE GREEN LIGHT TO INVASION OF EAST TIMOR
By Jim Lobe
http://www.selfdetermine.org/crisiswatch/0112timor.html

II. Letters and Comments

KEEPING SEATTLE COALITION ALIVE

In reference to "Fast Track Legislation Won't Defeat Seattle Coalition" http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112fasttrack.html:
The current "post 9/11" multilateralism espoused by the Bush administration is limited in scope to military and economic strong-arm tactics to achieve unilateral goals. Absent from this discussion is environmental interdependence and the selfish maintenance of an overly consumerist social agenda that threaten all of us in ways much more tragic than crashing airliners.

While the world is preoccupied with dealing with Washington on terrorism and security issues, Bush and Co. are ramming through or ignoring relevant environmental legislation that will have far-reaching consequences not only for Americans, but for all world citizens. Free trade issues lack the environmental debate once associated with bilateral negotiations. More at issue is the hard-line stance in Washington concerning opening foreign markets to multinational hegemony, disruption of local agriculture, and free use of biotechnology to ensure American domination of market forces. All without regard to local ecology and environmental impact.

- Don Baron <tig3933@jcom.home.ne.jp>

ISRAEL-PALESTINE: IGNORING ANOTHER OPTION

In your essay, "Israel's True Intentions," (online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112arafat.html) R.S. Zarharna writes: "The comments of Sharon and Bush over the weekend in the "war on terrorism" are not seemingly and uncannily similar; they are identical. Neither envisions an immediate end to terrorism, but both have clearly identified the source and actions needed to fight terrorism. For Bush, it is Osama binLaden. For Sharon, it is Yasser Arafat. And, as Bush also indicated, the sooner the better."

Neither does Arafat envision an immediate end to terrorism. Only yesterday he said that he cannot stop the suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and that there must be a peace settlement first. Arafat is apparently admitting that he's lost control of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But does anyone really believe that Hamas or Islamic Jihad will end their violence against civilians after a "final" peace settlement is agreed upon? Or do we simply want to believe that Arafat would get tough with Hamas and Islamic Jihad if he had such a signed piece of paper?

There is another option that you seem to ignore. Arafat can crack down on members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad by mass arrests now, not just the token hundred arrests his security forces have made. Is it morally okay to ask Arafat to make such a crack-down after signing a final peace settlement, but not morally okay to expect Arafat to exercise police powers during the negotiation phase?

- Timothy A. Canova <canova@law.unm.edu> Associate Professor of Law, University of New Mexico School of Law

ONLY ONE TRUE INTENTION

Israel has only one true intention [see: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112arafat.html ] in the Middle East: it is to secure their people security and a homeland. Anything more than that Israel does not care about. Israel only wants peace and quiet. Israel is the good guy, and it only wants peace. As for Arafat, it has been proven time and again that he is not capable of signing a peace accord. He likes the international spotlight. He likes the violence, the wars, the bombs, and the blood. He isn't capable of one day signing peace and having to deal with everyday problems like taxes, traffic problems, welfare, etc. He likes the action. So maybe someone else who doesn't want action anymore is someone Israel needs to put in the place of Arafat.

- Royi Markowitz <natanya200@aol.com>

SEARCHING FOR A REASONABLE PALESTINIAN

I wanted to express to you my deep concerns about the R.S. Zaharna article at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112arafat.html on the current situation in Israel/Palestine.

I don't agree with what the Israelis are doing now, so I read Mr. Zaharna's article hoping to find an alternative. None was offered. To sum up Mr. Zaharna's point, Arafat cannot control the situation on the ground and should not be expected to, but Israel should not try to defend its citizens, either. Where does that leave the peace process? Even while basing his paranoid hypothesis on the idea that the Israelis want the West Bank, Mr. Zaharna concedes (almost unwittingly, it seems) that the Israelis want the land so they can protect themselves. How then can he write an entire article on the subject without addressing this very important issue? Do Hamas and Islamic Jihad support a two-state solution--in other words, if the Palestinians got every concession they want from Sharon in terms of statehood, would the suicide bombings stop?

I understand that we may not agree on the best way to bring peace to the region, but as a long-time supporter of both peace and a Palestinian state with a piece of Jerusalem as its capitol (and, yes, the removal of Israeli settlements from Palestinian areas of the West Bank), I am troubled that at this point you would highlight an article that always puts the word "violence" in quotation marks if it follows the word "Palestinian." One wouldn't know from the article that there were 4 bombings in Israel this weekend, never mind a 5th this morning, or that it is even vaguely possible that Israel has a right to defend itself.

The fact is, most Palestinians support suicide bombings while 60% of Israelis support peace and a Palestinian state even now. An article that addresses only Israeli violence that leads to the kind of frustration that builds support for suicide bombings without addressing at all the Palestinian violence--no quotes needed--that leads to Israeli attempts to defend itself (whether or not the author finds such attempts misguided is up to him, of course) is not at all helpful to the peace process.

I am still trying to find a Palestinian or a supporter of their cause who will say, unequivocally, that Israel has a right to exist. Not that it does exist--that's a different statement--but that it has a right to and should.

I think that as progressives we have an obligation at this point to be balanced in our approach to the issue of a Palestinian state. Otherwise we leave the process to the right-wingers.

- Tom Lowenstein <Tlowenstein@prospect.org>
Sr. Editor, Electronic Policy Network

(Editor's Note: R.S. Zaharna is not a "he.")

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