March 18, 2005
by J. R. Nyquist
Financial sense
On March 14, in a Wall Street Journal article titled “The Great Game,” world chess champion Garry Kasparov announced that he had played his last serious chess tournament. “After three decades as a professional chess player … I have decided to retire from professional chess,” he stated. The youngest world chess champion in history, and the No. 1 chess player for two decades, Kasparov says that his retirement will allow him to play a greater role in Russian politics. “For many years,” he explained, “I have been an ardent supporter of democracy in Russia….” Refusing to rule out a presidential run, Kasparov said that “Russia is in a moment of crisis and every decent person must stand up and resist the rise of the Putin dictatorship.” He also made reference to the Chess player’s “ability to see the whole board.”
The biggest country on the board – of course – is Russia. According to Jim Hoagland’s March 15 column in the Washington Post, President Bush recently put two questions to an unnamed foreign leader. “Was I too trusting in my first meeting with [Russian president] Putin?” And, “Did I overinvest in him?” The answer to both questions is an unqualified “Yes.” Bush’s failure to recognize Putin’s true nature in 2001 subsequently led the U.S. president down a blind alley. Making matters worse, the United States and Russia recently agreed to coordinate efforts against nuclear terrorists. On the surface this may sound like a good idea, but there are reasons to suspect that the Russians are gathering information on U.S. intelligence through feigned coordination. Working with Russia against terrorists, or sharing information with Russia, is especially inadvisable because many terrorists have secret ties to Russia. Furthermore, no state actor since World War II has done more to strengthen international terrorism than Russia. Combining all these factors in our analysis one realizes how suspicious Moscow’s behavior has been, and how convenient the 9/11 aftermath was for the Kremlin.
The “Putin dictatorship,” of course, should not be overestimated. Putin is only a man, while Eurasia’s totalitarian pattern is a grand system built over many decades. Most political determinants are sociological, not personal or individual. This is true for the West as well as the East. American democracy was not the achievement of one person, but the work of many hands. And today, with the advent of the shopping mall regime, the United States has become vulnerable to terrorism not because of George W. Bush, but on account of psychological and economic determinants that all Americans share. According to Stratfor founder George Friedman, “McCarthy became the negative standard against which all counterconspiratorial actions were judged.” As Friedman explained in his book, America’s Secret War: “Fighting Al Qaeda became hopelessly entangled in the collective memory of McCarthyite excesses.” It therefore follows that the Bush administration is anti-McCarthyist, anti-conspiracy theory, and politically correct with regard to “the religion of peace.” According to Friedman, “The American experience with conspiracies had become too painful. There was abhorrence within the intelligence and security agencies of explanations that involved deliberate planning by multiple individuals, especially individuals with an ideological mindset or linked to a foreign government.”
The problem, of course, is that foreign governments do conspire. And 9/11 was a conspiracy. That being said, we should not leap headlong into the crock pot of wild-eyed conspiracism. The correct path is a narrow one, and few are those who find it. In attempting to find the “right way,” America’s “can do” economic culture represents an ongoing rebellion against the fatalism of the East. The American spirit believes the world can be remade. The misery of perpetual poverty and war can be exorcised by democratic incantation. Meanwhile, the Chinese and Russians know better. Theirs is a pessimistic faith that prepares its acolytes for the worst, readying great engines of destruction for a future time of troubles. The two standpoints eye one another. Each waits for history’s inevitable vindication.
Friedman tells us that the United States has “an extraordinarily weak national security apparatus.” And he is most certainly correct. America’s weakness stems from the primacy of economics under free market democracy. We have built up a precarious system of national supply, rooted in convenience and profit. This system is vulnerable to WMDs. Loose borders, free trade (with enemy states) and over-urbanization leave America open to attack from every side. America’s civil defense is in a state of virtual collapse. And civil defense education is almost non-existent.
Last year I interviewed Shane Connor, an American civil defense advocate. According to Connor, “the U.S. Government has left the public completely exposed.” American civil defense is in a sorry state. “The only radiological threat the government wants to discuss is small-scale ‘dirty bombs,’” says Connor, “because that is the only threat they have prepared for, but even for that they are ill-equipped. Hazmat teams and a few first responders now carry overly sensitive, low-level instruments that will be useless after a nuclear detonation or even a large dirty bomb explosion.”
When the next major attacks falls on the United States, the loss of life will be terrible. Since the country is unwilling to build its civilian defenses, the only alternative is to launch an offensive against the “terror masters.” In the midst of this offensive we find that America’s enemies are not limited to Afghanistan and Iraq, but include many countries – including the most populous and the largest. The aggressive action of George W. Bush runs the risk of derailment precisely because the enemy is far larger, with more extensive means than we are willing to admit. It does no good to hack at a few tentacles when the monster has dozens of them.
In a country where “public opinion” is king, where the contemplation of evil is discouraged as “negative,” it is almost impossible to discuss this situation head-on. No major enemy is recognized. Only minor enemies are credited. This complex of optimism, which drives America forward into a prosperity that defies gravity, now brings the country to a military posture that runs contrary to sound strategy. The fact is, we don’t see the whole chessboard. We don’t see Russia and China’s integral relationship to terrorism and Third World subversion.
In the ancient Chinese classic, “Lessons of War,” we are told to ask if a defeated enemy is “really defeated or just feigning?” According to Lui Ji, “If their signals are coordinated and their orders are uniformly carried out … they are not defeated.”
© 2005 Jeffrey R. Nyquist
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2005/0318.html