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America's goodwill
deficit
By David Simmons
HUA
HIN, Thailand - The astronomical fiscal deficit being
racked up by the administration of US President George W
Bush isn't the only debt that nation is piling on to the
books. It may not even be the most important one -
although, if we still believe what the economists used
to warn us about back in the days when it was
fashionable to borrow for such things as health care and
education, rather than missiles and "regime change", the
US is dooming itself to future peril (remember when
social-democratic New Zealand was going to "hit the
wall"?).
In addition to this
half-trillion-dollar-a-year financial burden, the Bush
administration has been chalking up, especially since it
invaded Iraq, another debt: a debt of goodwill. The
concept of this began to gel with Bush's announcement
after September 11 that anyone not "with" the US in its
"war on terror" was by definition "against" it, and that
policy was demonstrated by the economic and propaganda
campaign launched against France by the White House and
its media cheerleaders when France took the lead in the
effort to rescue its allies in Washington and London
from the coming Iraq debacle.
Now we see an
unseemly charade whereby nearly every country in the
world kowtows to the Americans either for short-term
gain in cleaning up the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan
or, more often, for a long-term position on Washington's
list of "friends". The original goal, if it ever
existed, of wiping out global terrorism is barely paid
even lip service anymore. For economic, defense or
strategic reasons, everyone needs the Americans onside,
and the way to do that at the moment is to play along
with their military escapades just enough to appear to
be a "friend", while not risking too much in the way of
money, troops, or long-term commitments to the likes of
Iraqis or Afghans.
The cynicism of those playing
this game is notable, but more remarkable is the fact
that those who are really good at it have been
relatively honest about their true motives. This is an
indication of how shrewd these political leaders are,
not only at understanding and capitalizing on the
sentiments of their own people, but at playing to the
desperation of a US administration that has squandered
its genuine international friendships and is only now
waking up to the costs of its arrogance and aggression.
Two Asian masters of this game are Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Thai Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra. The latter has skillfully
manipulated the "war on terror" for his own political
ends, aided by what may (or may not) be fortuitous
timing, such as when a gang of would-be Islamist bombers
were nabbed just as Thaksin was visiting Uncle Dubya in
Washington. Despite the lack of evidence that a single
Thai has ever believed Saddam Hussein posed any threat
at all to Thai security, or that it makes any kind of
strategic sense to send Thai soldiers to Iraq, a token
contingent of about 400 troops were dispatched there
last month. Their real mission: Defend the Kingdom from
the threat of getting into Bush's bad books.
Koizumi has been playing the same game, but with
more specific goals in mind. Unlike Thailand, Japan
really does have a potential defense problem: an
increasingly belligerent North Korea that either already
has or probably soon will have nuclear-tipped missiles
capable of blasting Japanese soil in mere minutes. A
diplomatic impasse between Washington and Pyongyang is
at the center of this threat, and any actual
confrontation between North Korea and Japan, America's
strongest ally in East Asia, will necessarily require
serious commitment by the United States.
Support
in Japan for the Iraq war is now and always has been as
dismal as everywhere else on the planet except for the
US and UK antagonists themselves. So Koizumi has never
insulted the intelligence of his electorate by
pretending to be a big fan of the invasion, but has made
it clear that it is in Japan's interests, especially
given the situation in North Korea, to appease the
Americans. Even so, Japan has managed to vacillate for
months about providing any meaningful assistance to the
Iraq campaign and, like Thailand, saves its pro-US
gestures for appropriate occasions, such as the upcoming
visit to Tokyo by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
In their own ways and for their own short- and
long-term self-interest, Indonesia, the Philippines and
many other countries (including all those in the
so-called "coalition of the willing" that was the
laughing stock of the world press around the time of the
invasion, and which Rumsfeld still dredges up whenever
some irritating reporter nags him about "unilateralism")
have thrown as few scraps of support and goodwill as
they think they can get away with to the Bush
administration. But when it comes time to call in these
favors, what really will the United States have in the
bank?
It's a question few have asked seriously
so far, but it is already making itself heard in South
Korea. Seoul, like Tokyo, has a genuine self-defense
issue with Pyongyang. Last week, South Korean President
Roh Moo-hyung said clearly what he had hinted at
previously: his defense priorities are at home, not some
faraway desert, and if the US wants his help in Iraq,
the US will have to help settle the North Korea crisis.
Not later; now.
Whether Roh will have the
gumption to maintain this defiant stance remains to be
seen, but it's only a matter of time until other
fair-weather friends of America start calling in their
markers. And all along, the Bush administration has sent
out clear signals that it is perfectly willing to put
political, if not actual military, clout behind some
pretty dodgy policies espoused by erstwhile allies.
Washington's silence on Jakarta's brutal anti-insurgency
campaign in Aceh, for example, has been deafening, and
the plight of China's Uighurs is not only off the radar,
what not so long ago was seen as unconscionable
repression by a communist dictatorship has been actively
abetted by branding Uighur separatist groups as
terrorist organizations. More dangerous, perhaps, is
what is being played out by longtime "war on terror"
supporter (despite the fact that it has for much longer
been the cradle of Islamist extremism) Pakistan and more
reluctant India, nuclear powers both.
In the
end, though, all of this maneuvering may amount to nary
a blip on the ledger. For the very premise of this
scheming - that the United States will one day reward
its friends - is flawed. US foreign policy is not guided
by such high-flung concepts as loyalty and gratitude, it
is guided by pure self-interest - exactly as those
countries now hoping to cash in on US largesse are
guided by pure self-interest.
The United States
will intervene - and is intervening - in Korea to the
extent that it benefits the United States; if that
intervention also helps its old friends in Seoul and
Tokyo (and its new ones in Beijing), that's just a
bonus. Will the US spurn Malaysia and buy Thai because
Thaksin played nice while Mahathir Mohamad was hurling
invective? Only if there is no quick money or short-term
diplomatic points to be made by going the other way.
Even the United Kingdom, which risked far more than any
other country on this Iraq adventure, and whose motives
now appear to have been not any genuine fear of Saddam
Hussein but a response to the challenge of maintaining
strong ties with a White House that had been hijacked by
extremist ideologues, will be dumped in favor of Germany
or even France if there is something the Americans can
gain by it. This is not a condemnation of the US; the UK
would do (and has done) precisely the same thing to any
ally if need be.
So it's all business as usual -
up to a point. Diplomacy and alliances do matter in the
long term, and when the dust settles, some real changes
will have set in, many of them with global reach and the
potential to reverse much of the progress the world has
made away from war and toward civil society. As has been
noted at length, trans-Atlantic alliances have been
badly strained, perhaps irreparably. The billion-strong
Arab/Muslim world distrusts the West even more than it
did before the invasion of Iraq. China, a totalitarian
state of immense power, has been quietly redesigning the
geopolitical infrastructure of East and Central Asia.
Those who still believe the United States is the
great savior will find their faith sorely misplaced.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information
on our sales and syndication policies.)
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Koizumi plays his North
Korean trump (Oct 1, '03)
Thailand takes 'hospitable'
action on Iraq (Oct 1,
'03)
Defining Japan's role in
Iraq (Sep 27, '03)
Building the coalition of the
unwilling
(Aug 28,
'03)
Seoul caught between the
dragon, eagle (Aug 13,
'03)
Confident Koizumi outshines
browbeaten Blair (Jul 23,
'03)
The rise of China as a
security linchpin (Jun 21,
'03)
Thailand: Terrorists and spin
doctors
(Jun 20, '03)
Coercion, all in the name of
democracy
(Mar 6,
'03)
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