Dear Friend,
Roy Morrison puts forward a recipe for an ecological future that transforms ourself-destructive industrial world order into an ecological civilization. This is a global ecological economic growth strategy that aims to build a bigger pie that is fairly and justly divided, ending poverty and injustice, at the same time healing the global ecosphere. Ecological economic growth and an ecological turn is a means for strengthening our democratic institutions and revitalizing our democracy.
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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
A Plan for
Social and Ecological Justice
by Roy Morrison
This is a recipe for an ecological future that transforms ourself-destructive industrial world order into an ecological civilization. This is a global ecological economic growth strategy that aims to build a bigger pie that is fairly and justly divided, ending poverty and injustice, at the same time healing the global ecosphere. Ecological economic growth and an ecological turn is a means for strengthening our democratic institutions and revitalizing our democracy.
The death of John Lewis is a reminder that power concedes nothing without a struggle and that social and ecological justice is a consequence of generational efforts.
Building a fair, just, and prosperous ecological future, rooted in social and ecological justice means fundamental change of how we treat one another, how we govern, how we work, how we protect and restore the living world.
What John Lewis saw in the economic and social and public health crises arising in the time of Covid-19 and the murder of George Floyd unleashing a global multi-racial and multi-ethic movement for justice was the latest incarnation of his injunction to make “good trouble”. But, sadly this unfolded in the midst of a financial bailout largely of the rich as billions pouring into Wall Street as the stock market prospered while tens of millions lost their jobs asMain St. suffered, and the worst effects of a pandemic are borne by the poor, by people of color, by essential workers.
For the election of Joe Biden to mean an epochal turn toward social and ecological justice cannot be a return to business as usual BT(before Trump). This means the transformation of institutions, organizations, and businesses to follow new mandates established bylaw, by regulation, by custom to pursue ecological ends and justice.
A market system must make economic growth mean ecological improvement, not ecological pillage while pursuing as an imperative of ecological and social justice. A failure to successfully fight for justice will ultimately undermine any ecological hope as the poor struggle desperately for survival. Justice denied also means the continuing growth of the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few.
Six Steps for a Transformative Green and Just Future
First, the United States with China, India, and the OECD nations lead efforts for an accelerated global energy transformation from fossil fuel and nuclear power to renewable resources and green hydrogen. This is a paradigmatic example of economic growth meaning ecological improvement. Carbon emissions, pollution, depletion and ecological damage are slashed. Trillions are productively invested in renewable economic growth and job creation. Fossil fuel and nuclear workers are retrained for good-paying jobs in the green economy. Renewable resources are phased in year by year, and fossil fuel and nukes are phased on a strict yearly schedule.
The United States partners with the word’s industrial powers in global efforts which will include financial and technological assistance to poor nations for ecological transformation.
Second, the price system must send clear signals for sustainability. Sustainable goods must become cheaper, more profitable and gain market share. This can be accomplished by an ecological value-added tax on all goods and services. The more sustainable, the lower the tax. Such a taxation system will inevitably help lead to a convergence on the sustainable for almost all goods and services in pursuit of profit. Ecological taxes combined with a wealth tax will replace income taxes.
Third, in order to finance an ecological and just transformation, instead of raising taxes, we can great trillions of wealth by valuing and monetizing sustainability starting with the ecological value of displacement metric tons of carbon dioxide by renewables. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has found the value of displacing of one metric ton of carbon dioxide (2204 pounds) is equal to $100.
We can create a new regulatory asset, the Sustainability Credit (SC)valued at $100 for each metric ton of carbon dioxide displaced by renewable energy. SCs to be managed as part of the Federal Reserve System, and by other central banks. We don’t need carbon taxes to raise prices on working people and the poor.
Sustainability Credits (SCs) will be monetized as paid-in capital and as cash on the balance sheet of a Green Bank or Bank of the Commons. The thirty-three billion tons (gigatons) of annual carbon dioxide emissions can result in creation eventually of hundreds of trillions as in paid-in capital and cash on the books of green banks to be used for investment in future renewables.
A gigaton of carbon displacement means $100 billion in sustainability credits on the books of a green bank who must loan this money for further renewable energy investment. The common magic of bank financing, $100 billion in paid-in capital, and cash means loans of 900 billion in further renewable development that each year produces more Sustainability Credits that monetized. Investment from SCs can encompass both ecological transformation and social justice such as a $1,000 a month basic income grant for all.
The fifty trillion-dollar investment estimated by J.P.Morgan for a global renewable transformation from 2020-2050 can be easily produced by Sustainability Credits as the new gold-based on sustainable ecological value. around the world.
Fourth, the ecological transformation must be pursued not just in energy, but in agriculture, forestry, aquaculture, and an industrial ecology driven by the pursuit of zero pollution and zero waste. All outputs of one process are captured and used as inputs by other processes. The ecological value added tax sends strong economic incentives for such conduct that can be similarly financed through the generation ofSustainability Credits.
Fifth, is a global convergence on a living wage and common sustainable standards for carbon generation and carbon sequestration. Globally there must a convergence on common sustainable norms for emissions and carbon sequestration that leads to atmospheric carbon below 300 ppm, to preindustrial levels.
Six, law and regulation must redefine fiduciary conduct as the pursuit of ecological economic growth within the context of social and ecological justice as guide for government, institutions, and business. This might also be codified by an ecological constitutional amendment.
These six steps are a recipe for ecological economic growth, for sustainability, peace, and justice. They represent spurs to economic and social action that uses an ecological focused pursuit of profit as incentive for ecological behavior and embraces the imperative for pursuit of social and ecological justice.
This is a recipe for an ecological future that transforms ourself-destructive industrial world order into an ecological civilization. This is a global ecological economic growth strategy that aims to build a bigger pie that is fairly and justly divided, ending poverty and injustice, at the same time healing the global ecosphere. Ecological economic growth and an ecological turn is a means for strengthening our democratic institutions and revitalizing our democracy.
____________________
Roy Morrison Builds Solar Farms www.RenewableSunPartners.com His next book will be Ecological Economic Growth (EEG)
Fact Check
Feb 11, 2020 -Data Release:Global energy-related CO2emissionsflattened in 2019 at around 33gigatonnes(Gt), following two years of increases … Defying expectations of a rise, global carbon dioxide emissions flatlined in 2019 ..
Carbon dioxide emissions totals
Pounds of carbonper kWh power
In the U.S., on average a kWh of electricity produces a bit more than1-pound carbon dioxide per kWh.https://blueskymodel.org/kilowatt-hour.
Nation Academy of Sciences (NAS) value of One metric ton Carbon Dioxide Emissions
The$100 value has been most recently used in proceedings of the National Academy of Science (NAS) climate change analysis in “Declining CO-2Price Paths”.
MorganStanley recently estimated a $50 trillion dollar investment to bring global carbon emissions to zero by 2020- 2050 (31 years).
“Decarbonization The Race to Zero Emissions”Nov. 25, 2019.
Bank of the Commons:
Ecological Sustainability as the New Gold For Ecological Transformation
Sustainability Sutra: An Ecological Investigation (Sustainability Now)2017
by Roy Morrison
Discussion ecological economic growth/ecological taxation/ecological fiduciary responsibility
Tax Pollution, Not Income A New Prosperity in an Ecological Age
by Roy Morrison
Return the gold to Venezuela
by Dr Francisco Dominguez
On July 2nd 2020 British Judge Nigel Teare, with regard to a Central Bank of Venezuela litigation for 31 tons of gold entrusted to the Bank of England to be returned to the Venezuelan state, issued a verdict in favor of ‘interim president” Juan Guaidó. The real
Venezuelan government has proposed that the gold was given to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to be administered so it was used to purchase food, medicine and vital health inputs. Such a guarantee has not been demanded of Mr Guaidó.
On July 2nd 2020 British Judge Nigel Teare, with regard to a Central Bank of Venezuela litigation for 31 tons of gold entrusted to the Bank of England to be returned to the Venezuelan state, issued a verdict in favor of ‘interim president” Juan Guaidó.
The real Venezuelan government has proposed that the gold was given to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to be administered so it was used to purchase food, medicine and vital health inputs. Such a guarantee has not been demanded of Mr Guaidó.
The spurious grounds on which Teare’s verdict is based are essentially that Her Majesty’s Government (HMG) of the UK, “whatever the basis for the recognition”, has “unequivocally recognized Mr Guaidó as President of Venezuela.” Thus the UK Court rules in favor of Mr Guaidó because HMG recognized him as ‘interim president’ because in turn he invoked Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution.
But Justice Teare’s verdict is based on a fabricated interpretation of Article 233 used by Guaidó to declare the Presidency “vacant”, hence his self-proclamation. Article 233 states:
The President of the Republic shall become permanently unavailable to serve by reason of any of the following events: death; resignation; removal from office by decision of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice; permanent physical or mental disability certified by a medical board designated by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice with the approval of the National Assembly; abandonment of his position, duly declared by the National Assembly; and recall by popular vote.
President Maduro is alive, has not resigned, has not been removed from office, is not physically or mentally incapacitated, has not abandoned the Presidency, and has not been recalled by popular vote. Furthermore, the very notion of ‘interim presidency’ does not exist in the Venezuelan Constitution.
HMG’s utterances on Venezuela’s domestic crisis are full of high-flying rhetoric (‘democracy’, ‘free elections’, ‘legitimacy’, ‘human rights’ and so forth) but the true reason for Guaidó’s recognition was revealed by The Canary journalist, John McEvoy, who, resorting to the Freedom of Information Act, reported on a secretive Foreign Office “Unit for the Reconstruction of Venezuela”, set up in collusion with the ‘self proclaimed’ and which involved his “ambassador to the UK”, Venezuelan-US citizen, Vanessa Neumann.
As early as May 2019, Neumann wrote to FCO officials that she had contacted Rory Stewart at DFID for a meeting that “will sustain British business in Venezuela’s reconstruction”; the discussions also included “Venezuela debt restructuring.”
Thus, HMG extended recognition for Mr Guaidó as laying the ground to fully participate in the spoils once and if US policy of ‘regime change’ came to fruition. The irony is that Jeremy Hunt, in his official Guaidó recognition statement – probably at the same time he said he was “delighted to cooperate with the US on freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the BoE” – charged the government of President Maduro with being “kleptocratic”. A typical UK colonial pillage operation disguised as altruistic concern motivated by ethical political principles.
Mr Guaidó is not only thoroughly discredited in Venezuela, where he enjoys little support, but substantial sections of the opposition have publicly broken with him and have constructively engaged with President Maduro in creating the best conditions for the coming elections to the National Assembly on 6th December 2020, which includes a new agreed National Electoral Council. After that there will be not even be fictional basis for the UK, the US or the EU to continue recognizing Guaidó. Thus, with sublime hypocrisy, Trump excepted, Europe and the UK de facto recognize the Bolivarian government: they all, including the UK, have ambassadors in Caracas who have presented their credentials to President Maduro in public ceremonies.
After a recent diplomatic spat with Maduro, the EU applied sanctions on 11 Venezuelans, including opposition politicians who favor elections, dialogue, and who oppose Guaidó’s sanctions, violent ‘regime change’ and external interference, leading the latter to expel the EU ambassador. A joint communiqué by Jorge Arreaza and Josep Borrell, foreign ministers of Venezuela and the EU respectively, resolved it. They “agreed to promote diplomatic contacts between the parties at the highest level, within the framework of sincere cooperation and respect for international law.”
Given his farcical ‘self-proclamation’, Guaidó’s democratic credibility has been highly dubious – if he ever had any. Since then he has associated himself with Colombian narco-paramilitaries; used paramilitary force to try and control Venezuelan territory in preparation for external (US) forces to invade; staged a failed coup seeking to oust the Maduro government by force; contracted US mercenaries to carry out an attack on the presidential palace and kidnap and/or assassinate President Maduro and high government officials; and he and his entourage reek of corruption, leading many to resign in disgust.
Guaidó’s “presidency” unequivocally controls nothing, not even a street lamp in Venezuela. He is just a device for the pillage of his country’s vast wealth. Does the UK government seriously intend to hand over Venezuela’s gold to such a felonious character? Likewise, why do European countries continue to recognize such a repellent and corrupt US proxy?
The Central Bank of Venezuela will appeal seeking to reverse Judge Teare’s decision so that the gold can be returned to its rightful owners (https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-mp-give-venezuela-back-its-gold) and through the UNDP can be used to continue saving lives against the pandemic. Retaining illegally these resources from Venezuela in the middle of the pandemic is denying the human rights of 32 million ordinary, Chavista and non-Chavista, Venezuelans
Dr Francisco Dominguez is a senior lecturer at Middlesex University, where he is head of the Research Group on Latin America. He is National Secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign. Dominguez came to Britain in 1979 as a Chilean political refuge. Ever since he has been active on Latin American issues, about which he has written and published extensively. He is co-author of Right wing politics in the New Latin America (Zed Books).
The article appeared in Ars Notoria on July 18, 2020 https://arsnotoria.com/2020/07/18/return-the-gold-to-venezuela/ .
Why India needs to amend the Epidemic Act 1897 further
by Arka Deep
As we are entering a new post-COVID world with restriction in our lives being a new normal, we must be cautious about the compromising state of democracy. Especially, under the current BJP regimes, where specific sections of the society is in target by the authorities and the dissenting voices are being choked every day, the Epidemic act can turn into another draconian act to reckon with. There must be demand to amend this act, and for a democratic method to wrestle with the pandemic.
Time to put a complete moratorium on evictions and displacement
by Vidya Bhushan Rawat
https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/time-to-put-a-complete-moratorium-on-evictions-and-displacement/
The horrific incident of brutalities unleashed by the Madhya Pradesh police on a Dalit farmer’s family in Guna yesterday did not catch the attention of India’s mainstream media initially and got noticed only when a campaign on twitter started trending seeking chief minister Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan’s resignation. Today, the ‘national’ media too reported the story and as per latest reports, the collector and SP of Guna have been transferred but then these transfer means nothing for those who are fighting life and death at their hospital and whose crop have been completely destroyed by the brutal police.
Covid 19 and Furthering of Sectarian Agenda in Education
by Dr Ram Puniyani
In India similar intimidations have been intensified. In addition the occasion has been used by the
sectarian forces first to link the spread of Corona to Muslim community and now in the name of reducing the burden of curriculum certain chapters on core concepts related to Indian nationalism are being deleted from the text books.
Revolutionary Group Dynamics: How Minorities Influence Majorities, From Group Complicity To Collective Creativity
by Bruce Lerro
All members of a group are always co-responsible for what happens to it, whether we like it or not. Most of the time most members in groups are dragged along in the galleys of groups unaware of what is happening, stupidly blaming leadership or annoying individuals for what happens in the group while doing nothing about it. But it doesn’t have to be this, as this article tries to demonstrate. Complicit members can become active minorities who demand that that majorities come to
life and maximize their resource basis through collective creativity of the group. To do that is to revolutionize group dynamics.
This Independence Day, Let’s Celebrate the Apocalypse
by Dustin Pickering
This essay is a reflection on the current crises and my own proposed approach to handling them positively. I also attempt to offer some meaning to them while keeping within the tradition of American constitutional liberty. I also invite the reader into my own experiences
Oligarchs of Mainstream Mass Media in Service of Capitalism
by Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Mass media is vital in the growth of liberal, secular, democratic, progressive and scientific ideals in the society. Therefore, it is the historic responsibility of mass media to report on realities of everyday life and consider fact as
sacred in professional journalism. Yellow journalism is no journalism. But idealism and principles are dead within mainstream capitalist media.
In early 15th century Europe, news used to be political, economic, military and diplomatic messages of the ruling classes. There was no mass media. It was often the voices of the businessmen and ruling elites circulated within their own networks. The revolutionary upheavals and democratisation of society during 19th century led to the growth of mass media. People used mass media to fight against all forms of exploitation, injustices and inequalities. The mass media has also played momentous role during the struggle against feudalism, colonialism and apartheid. Mass media is vital in the growth of liberal, secular, democratic, progressive and scientific ideals in the society. Therefore, it is the historic responsibility of mass media to report on realities of everyday life and consider fact as sacred in professional journalism. Yellow journalism is no journalism. But idealism and principles are dead within mainstream capitalist media.
From the early 20th century onwards, the mass media is not only manufacturing consent but also works as an agency of the ruling and non-ruling elites to hide alternatives from the masses. The old world of yellow journalism is transformed into news and opinions for sale in a post truth world. It spreads fake news, misrepresents everyday realities, twists facts and shapes opinions like a marketing or advertisement industry. The mainstream media works as a propaganda machine for the people with money and power. The uncritical reporting and ruling class biases are obsequious. There is limited space for debates and disagreements in the media today. The editorial pages and opinion pieces are sponsored by the market forces that is concomitant with the requirements of neoliberal capitalism and its governance models. The essence of neoliberal capitalism and its affiliated media is to create domesticated and uncritical mass audience and destroy critical voices representing people. The idea is to create mass produce social, cultural and political values that accepts the dominance of illegitimate authority and power. It is the market monopoly that controls the media today. The market monopolies are controlled by oligarchs of mass media. There are six companies (Comcast, Disney, Time Warner, Fox, CBS and Viacom), which control almost all 90% media in USA and other parts of the world.
The National Amusements is a multinational media conglomerate owned by Sumner Redstone and Shari Redstone. These two people control more than 170 networks, reaching out to more than 700 million people in more than 160 countries with the help of a company called the Viacom. It is one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. It controls print, electronics and internet media outlets. It also controls movies, video games, TV shows, and many other creative industries like music. These companies shape public taste in culture, consumption and voting behaviour.
The Walt Disney Company is known as Disney, which controls hundreds of media and entertainment outlets. It is one of the leading multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate which played a major role in shaping capitalism with American dreams. It helped to transform the need-based society into a desire-based society with the help of its advertisement and animation industry. It has promoted a culture of self-gratifying fantasies of individualism. It is also responsible for producing popular cultural narratives for the naturalisation and normalisation of American and global capitalism.
The Time Warner is known as the Warner Media LLC, which is another largest mass media and entertainment conglomerate. This conglomerate has used individual privacy data for its financial gain and played a major role in destroying net neutrality. The Comcast is another largest media and entertainment conglomerate, which played a major role in shaping American and world politics. It has huge budget for political lobbing and it funds electoral campaigns in the name of universal political action. It traps consumers with its political projects and propaganda. This media corporation is opposed to universal media access. The News Corporation is owned by media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who controls media and publication outlets in five continents. The News Corporation is known as the predatory capitalist media, which destroys media diversity and democracy. It upholds the power of the capitalist market. Similarly, the Sony Corporation is another leading multinational conglomerate which controls largest music, entertainment and video game business. These media corporations uphold the voices of the capitalist class and supress the interests of the working-class masses.
The large media corporations are threat to the democratic and liberal values of the societies across the globe. In pursuit for profit, the mainstream mass media has formed its alliances with reactionary religious, nationalist, undemocratic, illiberal and fascist forces across the globe. It negates every founding principles of mass media. These media corporations and their affiliates promote a culture of no alternative to capitalism in politics, economy, society and culture. These forces hide the economic, social and cultural realities of everyday lives within capitalism and promotes capitalist myth. Facts are no longer the foundation of journalistic analysis. It all about spreading falsehood of market forces by spreading consumer culture as only culture where individuals can realise their free choices. These media houses are responsible for transforming citizens as mere customers in a society driven by profit. In this way, mass media destroys the society based on solidarity, love, share and care by celebrating unabashed hedonistic individualism. Mass alienation is the net outcome of capitalism led corporate mass media.
It is imperative for people to detox themselves from the propaganda machines of the governing elites and find their own alternatives. It is time to reclaim the founding principles of mass media by representing the predicaments of the masses. The masses can organise themselves to create cooperative media organisations to uphold their voices and represent their interests while promoting liberal, democratic, secular and scientific ethos in the society. This is only possible when people can control their own narratives by establishing people’s media free from corporate cultures. Vox Populi, Vox Dei is the only alternative to defeat the toxic culture of capitalism and its mass media, which destroys lives, livelihoods of the masses. It serves power and tame voices of people. The powerful mass movement can crumble the palaces of media moguls and their oligarchic empire of propaganda and profit. The cooperative media owned by people is the only alternative to uphold Vox Populi.
Bhabani Shankar Nayak, Coventry University, UK.
The Pentagon Confronts the Pandemic Or How to Make War, American-Style, Possible Again
by Michael T Klare
One thing is inescapable: as the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt indicates, the U.S. military must reconsider how it arms and structures its forces and give serious thought to alternative models of organization. But focusing enormous resources on the replacement of pre-Covid ships and tanks with post-Covid killer robots for endless rounds of foreign wars is hardly in America’s ultimate security interest. There is, sadly, something highly robotic about such military thinking when it comes to this changing world of ours.
On March 26th, the coronavirus accomplished what no foreign adversary has been able to do since the end of World War II: it forced an American aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, to suspend patrol operations and shelter in port. By the time that ship reached dock in Guam, hundreds of sailors had been infected with the disease and nearly the entire crew had to be evacuated. As news of the crisis aboard the TR (as the vessel is known) became public, word came out that at least 40 other U.S. warships, including the carrier USS Ronald Reagan and the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd, were suffering from Covid-19 outbreaks. None of these approached the scale of the TR and, by June, the Navy was again able to deploy most of those ships on delayed schedules and/or with reduced crews. By then, however, it had become abundantly clear that the long-established U.S. strategy of relying on large, heavily armed warships to project power and defeat foreign adversaries was no longer fully sustainable in a pandemic-stricken world.
Just as the Navy was learning that its preference for big ships with large crews — typically packed into small spaces for extended periods of time — was quite literally proving a dead-end strategy (one of the infected sailors on the TR died of complications from Covid-19), the Army and Marine Corps were making a comparable discovery. Their favored strategy of partnering with local forces in far-flung parts of the world like Iraq, Japan, Kuwait, and South Korea, where local safeguards against infectious disease couldn’t always be relied on (or, as in Okinawa recently, Washington’s allies couldn’t count on the virus-free status of American forces), was similarly flawed. With U.S. and allied troops increasingly forced to remain in isolation from each other, it is proving difficult to conduct the usual joint training-and-combat exercises and operations.
In the short term, American defense officials have responded to such setbacks with various stopgap measures, including sending nuclear-capable B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers on long-range “show-of-force” missions over contested areas like the Baltic Sea (think: Russia) or the South China Sea (think: China, of course). “We have the capability and capacity to provide long-range fires anywhere, anytime, and can bring overwhelming firepower — even during the pandemic,” insisted General Timothy Ray, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, after several such operations.
In another sign of tactical desperation, however, the Navy ordered the shattered crew of the TR out of lockdown in May so that the ship could participate in long-scheduled, China-threatening multi-carrier exercises in the western Pacific. A third of its crew, however, had to be left in hospitals or in quarantine on Guam. “We’re executing according to plan to return to sea and fighting through the virus is part of that,” said the ship’s new captain, Carlos Sardiello, as the TR prepared to depart that Pacific island. (He had been named captain on April 3rd after a letter the carrier’s previous skipper, Brett Crozier, wrote to superiors complaining of deteriorating shipboard health conditions was leaked to the media and the senior Navy leadership fired him.)
Such stopgap measures, and others like them now being undertaken by the Department of Defense, continue to provide the military with a sense of ongoing readiness, even aggressiveness, in a time of Covid-related restrictions. Were the current pandemic to fade away in the not-too-distant future and life return to what once passed for normal, they might prove adequate. Scientists are warning, however, that the coronavirus is likely to persist for a long time and that a vaccine — even if successfully developed — may not prove effective forever. Moreover, many virologists believe that further pandemics, potentially even more lethal than Covid-19, could be lurking on the horizon, meaning that there might never be a return to a pre-pandemic “normal.”
That being the case, Pentagon officials have been forced to acknowledge that the military foundations of Washington’s global strategy — particularly, the forward deployment of combat forces in close cooperation with allied forces — may have become invalid. In recognition of this harsh new reality, U.S. strategists are beginning to devise an entirely new blueprint for future war, American-style: one that would end, or at least greatly reduce, a dependence on hundreds of overseas garrisons and large manned warships, relying instead on killer robots, a myriad of unmanned vessels, and offshore bases.
Ships Without Sailors
In fact, the Navy’s plans to replace large manned vessels with small, unmanned ones was only accelerated by the outbreak of the pandemic. Several factors had already contributed to the trend: modern warships like nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and missile-armed cruisers had been growing ever more expensive to build. The latest, the USS Gerald R. Ford, has cost a whopping $13.2 billion and still doesn’t work to specifications. So even a profligately funded Pentagon can only afford to be constructing a few at a time. They are also proving increasingly vulnerable to the sorts of anti-ship missiles and torpedoes being developed by powers like China, while, as events on the TR suggest, they’re natural breeding grounds for infectious diseases.
Until the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt, most worrisome were those Chinese land-based, anti-ship weapons capable of striking American carriers and cruisers in distant parts of the Pacific Ocean. This development had already forced naval planners to consider the possibility of keeping their most prized assets far from China’s shores in any potential shooting war, lest they be instantly lost to enemy fire. Rather than accept such a version of defeat before a battle even began, Navy officials had begun adopting a new strategy, sometimes called “distributed maritime operations,” in which smaller manned warships would, in the future, be accompanied into battle by large numbers of tiny, unmanned, missile-armed vessels, or maritime “killer robots.”
In a reflection of the Navy’s new thinking, the service’s surface warfare director, Rear Admiral Ronald Boxall, explained in 2019 that the future fleet, as designed, was to include “104 large surface combatants [and] 52 small surface combatants,” adding, “That’s a little upside down. Should I push out here and have more small platforms? I think the future fleet architecture study has intimated ‘yes,’ and our war gaming shows there is value in that… And when I look at the force, I think: Where can we use unmanned so that I can push it to a smaller platform?”
Think of this as an early public sign of the rise of naval robotic warfare, which is finally leaving dystopian futuristic fantasies for actual future battlefields. In the Navy’s version of this altered landscape, large numbers of unmanned vessels (both surface ships and submarines) will roam the world’s oceans, reporting periodically via electronic means to human operators ashore or on designated command ships. They may, however, operate for long periods on their own or in robotic “wolf packs.”
Such a vision has now been embraced by the senior Pentagon leadership, which sees the rapid procurement and deployment of such robotic vessels as the surest way of achieving the Navy’s (and President Trump’s) goal of a fleet of 355 ships at a time of potentially static defense budgets, recurring pandemics, and mounting foreign threats. “I think one of the ways you get [to the 355-ship level] quickly is moving toward lightly manned [vessels], which over time can be unmanned,” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper typically said in February. “We can go with lightly manned ships… You can build them so they’re optionally manned and then, depending on the scenario or the technology, at some point in time they can go unmanned… That would allow us to get our numbers up quickly, and I believe that we can get to 355, if not higher, by 2030.”
To begin to implement such an audacious plan, that very month the Pentagon requested $938 million for the next two fiscal years to procure three prototype large unmanned surface vessels (LUSVs) and another $56 million for the initial development of a medium-sized unmanned surface vessel (MUSV). If such efforts prove successful, the Navy wants another $2.1 billion from 2023 through 2025 to procure seven deployable LUSVs and one prototype MUSV.
Naval officials have, however, revealed little about the design or ultimate functioning of such robot warships. All that service’s 2021 budget request says is that “the unmanned surface vessel (USV) is a reconfigurable, multi-mission vessel designed to provide low cost, high endurance, reconfigurable ships able to accommodate various payloads for unmanned missions and augment the Navy’s manned surface force.”
Based on isolated reports in the military trade press, the most that can be known about such future (and futuristic) ships, is that they will resemble miniature destroyers, perhaps 200 feet long, with no crew quarters but a large array of guided missiles and anti-submarine weapons. Such vessels will also be equipped with sophisticated computer systems enabling them to operate autonomously for long periods of time and — under circumstances yet to be clarified — take offensive action on their own or in coordination with other unmanned vessels.
The future deployment of robot warships on the high seas raises troubling questions. To what degree, for instance, will they be able to choose targets on their own for attack and annihilation? The Navy has yet to provide an adequate answer to this question, provoking disquiet among arms control and human rights advocates who fear that such ships could “go rogue” and start or escalate a conflict on their own. And that’s obviously a potential problem in a world of recurring pandemics where killer robots could prove the only types of ships the Navy dares deploy in large numbers.
Fighting from Afar
When it comes to the prospect of recurring pandemics, the ground combat forces of the Army and Marine Corps face a comparable dilemma.
Ever since the end of World War II, American military strategy has called for U.S. forces to “fight forward” — that is, on or near enemy territory rather than anywhere near the United States. This, in turn, has meant maintaining military alliances with numerous countries around the world so that American forces can be based on their soil, resulting in hundreds of U.S. military bases globally. In wartime, moreover, U.S. strategy assumes that many of these countries will provide troops for joint operations against a common enemy. To fight the Soviets in Europe, the U.S. created NATO and acquired garrisons throughout Western Europe; to fight communism in Asia, it established military ties with Japan, South Korea, South Vietnam, the Philippines, and other local powers, acquiring scores of bases there as well. When Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Islamic terrorism became major targets of its military operations, the Pentagon forged ties with and acquired bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, among other places.
In a pandemic-free world, such a strategy offers numerous advantages for an imperial power. In time of war, for example, there’s no need to transport American troops (with all their heavy equipment) into the combat zone from bases thousands of miles away. However, in a world of recurring pandemics, such a vision is fast becoming a potentially unsustainable nightmare.
To begin with, it’s almost impossible to isolate thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families (who often accompany them on long-term deployments) from surrounding populations (or those populations from them). As a result, any viral outbreak outside base gates is likely to find its way inside and any outbreak on the base is likely to head in the opposite direction. This, in fact, occurred at numerous overseas facilities this spring. Camp Humphreys in South Korea, for example, was locked down after four military dependents, four American contractors, and four South Korean employees became infected with Covid-19. It was the same on several bases in Japan and on the island of Okinawa when Japanese employees tested positive for the virus (and, more recently, when U.S. military personnel at five bases there were found to have Covid-19). Add in Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and Ahmed al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, not to speak of the fact that, in Europe, some 2,600 American soldiers have been placed in quarantine after suspected exposure to Covid-19. (And if the U.S. military is anxious about all this in other countries, think about how America’s allies feel at a moment when Donald Trump’s America has become the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic.)
A world of recurring pandemics will make it nearly impossible for U.S. forces to work side-by-side with their foreign counterparts, especially in poorer nations that lack adequate health and sanitation facilities. This is already true in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the coronavirus is thought to have spread widely among friendly local forces and American soldiers have been ordered to suspend joint training missions with them.
A return to the pre-Covid world appears increasingly unlikely, so the search is now on big time for a new guiding strategy for Army and Marine combat operations in the years to come. As with the Navy, this search actually began before the outbreak of the coronavirus, but has gained fresh urgency in its wake.
To insulate ground operations from the dangers of a pandemic-stricken planet, the two services are exploring a similar operating model: instead of deploying large, heavily-armed troop contingents close to enemy borders, they hope to station small, highly mobile forces on U.S.-controlled islands or at other reasonably remote locations, where they can fire long-range ballistic missiles at vital enemy assets with relative impunity. To further reduce the risk of illness or casualties, such forces will, over time, be augmented on the front lines by ever more “unmanned” creations, including armed machines — again those “killer robots” — designed to perform the duties of ordinary soldiers.
The Marine Corps’ version of this future combat model was first spelled out in Force Design 2030, a document released by Corps commandant General David Berger in the pandemic month of March 2020. Asserting that the Marines’ existing structure was unsuited to the world of tomorrow, he called for a radical restructuring of the force to eliminate heavy, human-operated weapons like tanks and instead increase mobility and long-range firepower with a variety of missiles and what he assumes will be a proliferation of unmanned systems. “Operating under the assumption that we will not receive additional resources,” he wrote, “we must divest certain existing capabilities and capacities to free resources for essential new capabilities.” Among those “new capabilities” that he considers crucial: additional unmanned aerial systems, or drones, that “can operate from ship, from shore, and [be] able to employ both [intelligence-]collection and lethal payloads.”
In its own long-range planning, the Army is placing an even greater reliance on creating a force of robots, or at least “optionally manned” systems. Anticipating a future of heavily-armed adversaries engaging U.S. forces in high-intensity warfare, it’s seeking to reduce troop exposure to enemy fire by designing all future combat-assault systems, including tanks, troop-carriers, and helicopters, to be either human-occupied or robotically self-directed as circumstances dictate. The Army’s next-generation infantry assault weapon, for instance, has been dubbed an optionally manned fighting vehicle (OMFV). As its name suggests, it is intended to operate with or without onboard human operators. The Army is also procuring a robotic utility vehicle, the squad multipurpose equipment transport (SMET), intended to carry 1,000 pounds of supplies and ammunition. Looking further into the future, that service has also begun development of a robotic combat vehicle (RCV), or a self-driving tank.
The Army is also speeding the development of long-range artillery and missile systems that will make attacks on enemy positions from well behind the front lines ever more central to any future battle with a major enemy. These include the extended range cannon artillery, an upgraded Paladin-armored howitzer with an extra-long barrel and supercharged propellant that should be able to hit targets 40 miles away, and the even more advanced precision strike missile (PrSM), a surface-to-surface ballistic missile with a range of at least 310 miles.
Many analysts, in fact, believe that the PrSM will be able to strike at far greater distances than that, putting critical enemy targets — air bases, radar sites, command centers — at risk from launch sites far to the rear of American forces. In case of war with China, this could mean firing missiles from friendly partner-nations like Japan or U.S.-controlled Pacific islands like Guam. Indeed, this possibility has alarmed Air Force supporters who fear that the Army is usurping the sorts of long-range strike missions traditionally assigned to combat aircraft.
A Genuine Strategic Redesign
All these plans and programs are being promoted to enable the U.S. military to continue performing its traditional missions of power projection and warfighting in a radically altered world. Seen from that perspective, measures like removing sailors from crowded warships, downsizing U.S. garrisons in distant lands, and replacing human combatants with robotic ones might seem sensible. But looked at from what might be called the vantage point of comprehensive security — or the advancement of all aspects of American safety and wellbeing — they appear staggeringly myopic.
If the scientists are right and the coronavirus will linger for a long period and, in the decades to come, be followed by other pandemics of equal or greater magnitude, the true future threats to American security could be microbiological (and economic), not military. After all, the current pandemic has already killed more Americans than died in the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, while triggering the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Imagine, then, what a more lethal pandemic might do. The country’s armed forces may still have an important role to play in such an environment — providing, for example, emergency medical assistance and protecting vital infrastructure — but fighting never-ending wars in distant lands and projecting power globally should not rank high when it comes to where taxpayer dollars go for “security” in such challenging times.
One thing is inescapable: as the disaster aboard the Theodore Roosevelt indicates, the U.S. military must reconsider how it arms and structures its forces and give serious thought to alternative models of organization. But focusing enormous resources on the replacement of pre-Covid ships and tanks with post-Covid killer robots for endless rounds of foreign wars is hardly in America’s ultimate security interest. There is, sadly, something highly robotic about such military thinking when it comes to this changing world of ours.
Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is the five-college professor emeritus of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and a senior visiting fellow at the Arms Control Association. He is the author of 15 books, the latest of which is All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Originally published in TomDispatch
Copyright 2020 Michael T. Klare
Americans Are Guilty of Genocide Right Now in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya,
Iraq, Syria
by Jay Janson
Many tens of thousands of precious Yemeni children have already starved to death, died of cholera, or been blown to bits by US made and managed missiles. It is the American public’s cruel indifference that makes Americans guilty of genocide. As Martin Luther King once said, “comes a time when silence is treason.”
Many tens of thousands of precious Yemeni children have already starved to death, died of cholera, or been blown to bits by US made and managed missiles. It is the American public’s cruel indifference that makes Americans guilty of genocide. As Martin Luther King once said, “comes a time when silence is treason.”
US WARS AND MILITARY ACTION INTERNATIONAL LAW, YEMEN
American Officials Could Be Prosecuted for War Crimes in Yemen
“Under international law, Washington—during both the Obama and Trump administrations—has been a co-belligerent with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
By Mohamad Bazzi
OCTOBER 10, 2018 The Nation Magazine
“Aerial attacks by the Saudi-led coalition have already caused immense carnage and destroyed much of the country’s medical facilities and other vital civilian infrastructure…Weapons transfers, assistance in identifying targets, and midair refueling of Saudi and allied aircraft—would make Washington a co-belligerent in the war under international law. That means the United States could be implicated in war crimes and American personnel could, in theory, be exposed to international prosecution.”
Forget about “international law.” The criminally insane war investors on Wall Street, who run the United States of Genocide, have managed to keep Americans, who murder or order murder, outside the reach of international law.
And forget about only “American personnel “ being guilty. Forget about “in theory.”
“If there is a God in heaven, He or She is aware that it is the cruel indifference of American citizens that is responsible for the tens of thousands of precious Yemeni children that have already starved to death, died of cholera, or been blown to bits by US made and managed missiles.”
Cautionary: ‘Ignorance may be bliss,’ but ignorance of the law is never a legal defense in court, including in the court of public opinion, which is always in session in the suffering minds of the parents of the millions of child victims of America’s proud but ignominious wars on innocent populations.
And for that great Christian professing USA majority, ignorance of Matthew 25:40 will probably be no excuse on Judgement Day:
“When you did it to one of the least of these My brothers and sisters, you were doing it to Me!” (English Standard Version)
Reading the above quoted from Nation Magazine article will give the history of US brought death and maiming to the children of Yemen.
The intention of this article is not information, rather it is to stimulate those reading, to mercifully begin to talk about the children in Yemen among family and friends. When enough people complain about the murder of children, some action can begin to stop it. As Martin Luther King once said, “comes a time when silence is treason.”
Let the dear reader make any painful compassion in his or her heart for the dear children of Yemen become a topic of conversation when and wherever the opportunity arises. This appeal to American readers was preceded by a appeal for non-Americans to demand justice for the murdered and mutilated children of Yemen.
Dead ‘Yemeni Kids? Murdering Children By the Millions For Money and Power Is An American Way of Life 3rd World must demand justice for her kids! Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s, cry “God bless America? No, no, God damn America for her crimes against humanity!” And American film maker Michael Moore’s “sick and twisted violent people that we’ve been for hundreds of years, it’s something that’s just in our craw, just in our DNA. Americans kill people, because that’s what we do. We invade countries. We send drones in to k
Out of a respectful and urgent immediate focus on the dear dead, dying and by Americans still destined to die children of Yemen, separate articles will be dedicated to the children where Americans are right now as well guilty of genocide in Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, and Syria.
Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong’s Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.
Chuck Puchmayr honoured for bringing a motion against CAA
by Press Release
Indians Abroad for Pluralist India honoured New Westminster City Councillor Chuck Puchmayr with a medal of courage on Sunday, July 19, for bringing a motion against India’s highly discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
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