By choosing Chuck Hagel as his Secretary of War to head the U.S. killing machine, Barack Obama is intensifying a dogfight among bosses over war policy. The same struggle recently did in Obama’s beloved General David Petraeus and was an underlying issue in last November’s election. Neoconservatives are seeking to make war “on the cheap” (reliance on drones and special forces instead of heavy troop deployment).  They are fixated on Iran’s threat to Israel. Obama’s camp, by contrast, is focused on longer-haul preparation for a broader global conflict. The neocons’ latest volley is a phony charge of anti-Semitism against Hagel, who has questioned whether the U.S. ruling class is best served by giving Israel a political blank check in its war of occupation against the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the liberal New York Times (1/10/13) claims that Hagel, who was wounded in Vietnam, “harbors a healthy skepticism about deploying American troops.” Hagel’s great sin in the neocons’ eyes is failing to push for a U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran. It’s not that the former U.S. senator has any aversion to bloodshed, however. Like Obama, Hagel represents the dominant finance wing of U.S. capitalists, a faction that believes the survival of its class will ultimately hinge on winning an all-out struggle with China or another imperialist rival.
Hagel currently chairs the Atlantic Council, a think tank that helps develop foreign policy for the benefit of its imperialist bankrollers. Topping its donor list are Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, Citigroup, the Rockefeller Family Trust, George Soros, NATO and the Defense Department.
Last month this outfit issued a report titled “Envisioning 2030: U.S. Strategy in a Post-Western World,” which takes a close look at Asia and particularly China. The paper urged Obama to “frame second-term policies from a more strategic and long-term perspective, recognizing…the likelihood that the United States’ actions now will have generational consequences.” To the Atlantic Council, “opposition to any hegemon or hegemonic coalition dominating the Eurasian landmass” is the top priority.
Targeting Capitalist China
The report specifies that prime strategic concerns for the U.S. include “China’s military build-up (12 percent annual increase in defense spending since 2000) and lack of transparency; diplomatic differences (e.g., Syria, Iran, North Korea); and China defining its ‘core interests’ in East Asia with an ‘anti-access, area denial’ strategy that would conflict with U.S. freedom of navigation and, over time, displace the United States in East Asia.”
Hagel & Co. pretend to hope for “deepened cooperation” with China. But they also acknowledge a “historic pattern of a rising power posing a strategic threat to the status quo. If this pattern holds true with China, and “the United States-China relationship becomes more competitive than cooperative…this could be catastrophic for the world.…Conflict will be difficult to avoid.”
Addressing China’s vast troop superiority, the Atlantic Council thinks the U.S. is already on track toward mustering sufficient cannon fodder: “China’s growing strength and assertiveness has, in effect, helped the United States galvanize a potential coalition of allies and partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and India to check Chinese power.” As an “ace in the hole,” Hagel’s “Envisioning 2030” features a spreadsheet emphasizing the huge U.S. advantage over China in nuclear weapons. (It warns, however, of Russia’s near nuclear parity with the U.S.).
In choosing Hagel to head the U.S. war effort, Obama represents the interests of Exxon, Rockefeller and Soros. Anti-Hagel forces are led by Israeli-U.S. casino magnate and publisher Sheldon Adelson, who spent nearly $100 million in campaign donations in a fruitless effort to defeat Obama last year. “The Republican Jewish Coalition, on whose board of directors Mr. Adelson sits, was among the first to criticize the Hagel nomination” (NYT, 1/13/13). A close friend of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson is hell-bent on U.S.-Israeli bombardment of Iran’s nuke sites.
But the Hagel crowd fears that an attack on Iran will only entrench the Ayatollah and intensify anti-U.S. feelings among Muslims. Israel’s gutter-racist rulers are a growing liability for the Hagel-Rockefeller faction. “Envisioning 2030” mentions Israel only in the context of a Palestinian problem that will endure through 2030.
Hagel in the Imperialist Mold
In boosting Hagel, liberal Time Magazine (1/8/13) tellingly evoked U.S. leaders of the last world war: “FDR, Harry Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were men whose judicious application of American blood and treasure flowed from an appreciation of the country’s political, economic and military limitations as well as its potential….Hagel is a man very much in the mold of these men.”
These three presidents, respectively, put 16 million U.S. workers in uniform during World War II; dropped genocidal atom bombs on workers in Japan, and led the U.S. invasion of Europe. As Exxon heir Senator John D. Rockefeller IV said of Hagel, “This is the type of proven leader we need at the Defense Department.” Retired General Colin Powell, creator of the military doctrine for “overwhelming force,” gushed on NBC-TV (1/13/13), “He will fight a war if it’s necessary, but he’s a guy who will do it with great deliberation and care.”
It stands to reason that Hagel will “deliberately” scrap useless Cold War weaponry, using the money to develop more advanced weapon systems to fight future wars. He will also back Obama’s Dream Act in order to funnel an influx of Latino immigrant youth into the military death machine with the promise of citizenship. The bosses are desperate to expand U.S. ground forces, which are absolutely necessary to hold a landmass in any future conflict.
Beware Rulers’ Nationalist-Racist Barrage
To accomplish their aims, the rulers need the support of the U.S. working class that both fights the bosses’ wars and produces the weapons required for them. To get it, they will intensify the barrage of racist and nationalist propaganda to defend “our” country against the U.S. bosses’ rivals, currently China.
But the capitalists face problems in reaching their goal. Millions of black and Latino workers and youth are either incarcerated in prisons or victims of constant racist attacks by the police. They are impoverished by the capitalist system and especially by mass racist unemployment. They cannot be counted on to carry out the bosses’ war plans.
Furthermore, the Great Recession has become a way of life in the U.S. The world economic crisis is even more devastating to masses of workers in the “coalition” countries the U.S. is counting on for cannon fodder for its global goals. How willing will those workers be to fight for U.S. imperialism?
Obama’s domestic “four-year plan” involves more intense anti-immigrant policies — where funding already exceeds the outlay for the CIA, FBI and DEA combined — alongside cuts in education, health care and wages. Hundreds of thousands of teachers have been laid off, with more to come. Insurance companies, HMOs and the big pharmaceutical firms are counting on the profits to be milked from Obamacare. Meanwhile, Obama has already agreed to cuts in Social Security and Medicare, on which millions of retirees depend. He also helped GM and Chrysler cut wages in half for newly hired autoworkers.
Upwards of 30 million workers in the U.S. are either jobless or can’t find full-time work. Millions of them will never find another job, an insoluble problem that is intrinsic to the bosses’ system. Capitalism has full employment only when the rulers “employ” workers to fight world wars.
What Everyone Does Counts
Our class doesn’t need another global conflict, however “careful” and “deliberate” the capitalists’ war-makers are portrayed. What we need is the revolutionary communist Progressive Labor Party to lead class struggle against the capitalist bosses and build PLP into a mass party. What we do in the coming period is crucial in explaining to our class why increased austerity, economic crises and war strategies are all that an imperialist system has to offer. Communist ideas historically have led the international working class to meaningful advances — whether in World War II, against Jim Crow racism, or in the mass unionization of workers in basic industries.
Our ultimate victory will come from winning masses of workers to understand that only communist revolution can destroy the bosses and their profit system and establish a worker-run society without these evils. To this end, what every one of us does counts.