One World, Many Peaces

Freaky Facts: Worldwide Military Spending Figures

Warning: the following is not for the weak at heart or those easily excitable by all things military. Chinese annual military expenditures have increased 230% since 1998 (guess how this compares to the U.S.), among other freaky facts about national military expenditures around the world.

The following military expenditures figures (from the leading journal Arms Control Today) include all current and capital expenditures on personnel, procurement, operations, maintenance, and research and development for armed forces, defense ministries, and military space activities.

Some freaky facts include: Chinese military expenditure growth dwarfs that of the U.S. over the past decade, by about five times; more money was allocated to the bank bailout than total U.S. military spending for 2008; China's military expenditures will be bigger than that of the British and French combined with ten year at current rates of growth:

Current Trends in Military Expenditures:

• Total world military expenditures in 2008: $1,464 Billion
• Total U.S. military expenditures in 2008: $607 Billion
• Increase in U.S. military expenditures since 1998: 67%
• Total Chinese military expenditures in 2008: $85 Billion
• Increase in Chinese military expenditures since 1998: 230%
• Total French military expenditures in 2008 $66 Billion:
• Increase in French military expenditures since 1998: 4%
• Total British military expenditures in 2008: $65 Billion
• Increase in British military expenditures since 1998: 20%

While the need for defense spending is understandable if in the end undesirable, there is no end to what these funds could do as current events if only a small fraction of them were reallocated towards creating a more peaceful future by peaceful means .

Brazil Reasserts its Regional Leadership Role by Moderating Honduran Crisis

 

The drama surrounding the fate of disputed Honduran premier Manual Zelaya took an unexpected turn when he bunkered down in a Brazilian embassy on Monday. As world leaders condemned the interim government of his rival Roberto Micheletti, who took power after Zelaya fled during a constitutional crisis related to extending his term in late June, many believe that this is one more move by which Brazil is reasserting its regional leadership role.

 

According to Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas, a consultancy based in New York: "If Brasil can somehow find the key to peaceful, prompt resolution, they will win major plaudits, and many will begin to see Brazil as the new arbiter of hemispheric issues." Argentina held this position at the turn of the 20th century, and it may be that Brazil is already at the turn of our own. Still, a smart place to start would be to deal with the violence outside the embassy. Regardless, no economy in South America can match that of Brazil, perhaps the ultimate source of its clout.

During the ongoing gathering of world leaders at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he asked Zelaya to not give the Honduran military any pretext to resort to violence, according to the Associated Press. "We can't accept that for political differences people think they have the right to depose a democratically-elected president," he said. Brazil is already known worldwide for its strong diplomatic corps, and its star football/soccer players often act as goodwill ambassadors. Brazil also successfully mediated a border dispute between Peru and Ecuador in 1998.

 

Brazil is not a stranger to the international peacemaking spotlight. It belonged to a legendary group actually called the ABCs (Argentina, Brazil, Columbia) who brokered several ceasefires over the course of two decades. Brazil also belongs to the up-and-coming economic megapower group called BRIC: Brazil, Russia, India and China. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's biggest city, is also looking to host the 2016 Olympics in steep competition with Chicago, and will host the World Cup of Football (soccer) in 2014. Although these events lie in the future, their success may depend at least in part on current events.

 

With Missile Shield Shelved, Global Détente Appears Underway

The benevolent boulder that was President Obama's momentous announcement last week that the U.S. will abandon George W. Bush's planned missile shield in Eastern Europe has already begun a massive series of ripples across all the globe's oceans. The move is, arguably, the first from Obama's Washington to actually put Cold War-Bush rhetoric and policies behind us, but also to dive head first into the unknown. Yet, a special period known as the détente (after the French word for "relaxation") during the Cold War can serve as a insightful pivot point.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the superpower U.S. and U.S.S.R. entered into a period of more open communication and less explicit aggression known as the détente. Three treaties led the way, all related to nuclear missiles: the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty. Despite ongoing proxy wars like Vietnam, the two superpowers at least pretended to want to get along. The détente fizzled slowly over the course of the decade, and was put to rest even before President Ronald Reagan announced his plans for a atmospheric missile shield dubbed "Star Wars."

 

 

Others date the end of the Cold War détente when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Today's global détente seems to be going in reverse from. A missile shield that never was will, as Obama announced, not be. His Russian counterpart, President Medvedev, called the move "courageous" as if taken aback, and may now be incentivized to halt the recent arms deal with Venezuela, triggered by U.S. military buildup in Columbia. Israel has leaked through Russia that it has no plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, one of the missile shield's main purposes, and even Israel and Iran suddenly seem more willing to talk about their most serious issues.

One major difference and problem with Obama's declaration is that it was done wholly unilaterally, seemingly catching all other parties involved and bystanders by surprise. Whether or not this reinforces or chips away at the imagined omnipotence of the sole remaining superpower (at least before China's and India's middle classes climax) cannot, of course, be determined yet. Still, the parallel with the Cold War détente is palpable and gives reason for hope as a current event creating the future.

Peace One Day Video by Antony Adolf on Peace: A World History

In celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace, September 21st (Gandhi's birthday), the star-studded Peace One Day campaign is holding an inspirational peace video contest. Along with contributions by Angelina Jolie, Ban Ki Moon, Paul McCartney, Jude Law, Alanis Morissette, Lenny Kravitz and many others, here is the inspirational video by Antony Adolf on Peace: A World History: 

 

 

Looking for a way to building peace on September 21? Thousands of events and activities in your community and around the world are available here. Want to share your experience with the world afterwards? Then Speak Your Peace!with One World, Many Peaces.

More peace-related videos can be found at One World, Many Peaces TV on YouTube. We hope you make your September 21st a current event creating a future of peace.

Will Japan Remain a U.S. Colony?

In a provocative article entitled "Will Japan Become a Chinese Colony?," Forbes' weekly Asia columnist and author of the recently released The Coming Collapse of China, Gordon G. Chan, suggests that it will unless the U.S. does something about it. I believe a more pertinent question to be "Will Japan Remain a U.S. Colony?," with the answer being not if its new government has its way.  Potential changes in the U.S. mercenary and/or defense force in Japan reveals an assumption Chang, and U.S. policy makers, seems to make.

U.S. Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command covering East Asia, is in his own words "very confident, almost certain, that there will be -- maybe some discussions about certain aspects of US-Japan military alliance -- but writ large no significant change." Speaking in Washington at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, Keating was preparing for a meeting with Japan's new government, lead by the left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan.

The U.S. currently has some 47,000 troops in Japan, there since the end ofWorld War Two (1949). Bases are spread throughout the country, but over half the U.S. presence is on the small island of Okinawa. Yukio Hatoyama, Japan's new prime minister who recently trounced the government which has ruled since 1955, has in the past encouraged a move of U.S. troops from Okinawa to the U.S. territory of Guam. Insofar as U.S. military presence is concerned, there is little difference between "U.S. territory" and "colony," if there is any with "Japan."

Keating called Japan the "strategic lynchpin for us [the U.S.] in the Western Pacific." Hatoyama has made it clear that he wants to strengthen ties with China, presumably at the expense of the U.S. This is why Chang asks if Japan will become a Chinese colony, overlooking the fact that militarily at least Japan remains and is likely to remain a U.S. colony. In any case, debating a potential historic pivot for Japan from the U.S. to China overlooks the fact that as a current event creating the future, Japan is and is likely to remain a U.S. colony militarily

Winner of Spain's Prestigious Peace Prize: The City of Berlin

Marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumphal subsequent reunification of Germany into an economic and political powerhouse (largely non-militarily), the City of Berlin has been award Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Peace Prize. The Peace Prize is one of series presented each year in the Arts, International Cooperation, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Technical and Scientific Research, Letters, Sports and Concord, often compared with the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Prince of Asturias Foundation, which awards the prizes of $72,000 and a sculpture by Joan Miro, had this to say about its choice on its website:

The Berlin Wall, symbol Europe's reunification, was for decades the worldwide representation of the Cold War. The peaceful revolution, which on 9th November 1989 lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequently to the reunification of Germany, has captivated millions of people worldwide, contributing significantly towards the reestablishment of the balance between the East and the West.

Few would disagree, but many wonder what the city will do with the money, and whether this will continue the precedent for other state-corporations to win again, rarely the case with the Nobel Peace Prize, which has been awarded to humanitarian organizations. Why this would be a problem has not been addressed.  The Concord Prize has been awarded annually since 1986.

Past Prince of Asturias Peace Prize laureates include J.K. Rowling, author of the worldwide Harry Potter Series phenomenon (2003); conductor Daniel Barenboim and critic Edward Said for their work with a Palestinian-Israeli orchestra (2002); Doctors without Borders (1991); Stephen Hawking (1989); and the City of El Salvador (1987). Spain's peace prize can be more flexible as to who receives the award, unlike the Norwegian Nobel Prize, constrained by instructions in its namesake's will.

This year's other winners include: in the Arts, architect Norman Foster; in International Cooperation, the World Health Organization; in Social Sciences, broadcaster David Attenborough; in Communication and Humanities, the Autonomous National University of Mexico; in Technical and Scientific Research, Martin Cooper and Raymond Samuel Tomlinson for their developments in mobile and internet technologies; in Letters, essayist and poet Ismail Kadare; and in sports, Yelena Isinbayeva, considered the best pole-vaulter of all time. All in all, a group that is creating our future in being current events themselves.
 

Pro-British Paramilitary in Northern Ireland Agrees to Disarm

Five years after a breakthrough deal by which the Irish Republican Army (IRA) said farewell to arms, its last remaining primary opponent, the Ulster Defense League (UDA), agreed to do the same by February 2010. Today in Dublin, UDA leaders told the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IIICD, actual name) that it would also say farewell to arms, bowing to years of pressure from within the identity-divided country and abroad.

 

In rather strange, separate but related news, Britain announced that it would support a lawsuit against Libya by IRA bombing victims based on Libya's admission that it shipped tons of explosive to the IRA in the 1980s. The original lawsuit was filed in U.S. courts. In yet another blatant instance of arms dealing and double standards, the victims are expected to receive $16 million each from Libya, which has by also rejecting militarism (at least nominally) been more and more accepted by the international community in recent years.  Are there any links between the UDA disarmament and the Libyan lawsuit?

 

"Confirmation by the IICD that all five brigades of the UDA remain committed to completing decommissioning within the timeframe of the Commission is very welcome," said Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward. What used to be euphemistically called "The Troubles" in and from Northern Ireland seem to have been solved more than a century since they began in the modern nationalist movement supported by poet William Butler Yeats . Who knows, maybe separatists and loyalists may soon be sharing some Guinness stew together.

 

The fragile peace in Ireland in 1998 has spurred previously unimaginable economic prosperity in the isles (if not for all), though conflicts between Protestants and Catholics flare up periodically, notably during ethnic parade seasons, as conflict resolution expert Marc Howard Ross explains in Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Nonetheless, the UDA's commitment to disarm is a current event bringing Ireland one step closer to a peaceful future.

Racism Trumps Religion for Israel's Ethiopian Jewish Immigrants

Non-violent demonstrations in Israel by once warmly welcomed Jewish Ethiopian  immigrants were shut down by police while political leaders sought an 11th hour deal to allow black students into schools, reminding many of the anti-segregation struggles in the U.S. in the 1950s and 60s. Ethiopians were brought into the country in celebrated covert operations during the 1980s and 90s, but now find that racism trumps the shared religion that brought the to Israel in the first place. The root of the problem is made evident in a recent book's title, One People, One Blood: Ethiopian-Israelis and the Return to Judaism.  

"We came here because we thought Israel was our country. We didn't expect this," said Demelash Belay, a 36-year-old English teacher who moved to Israel in 2006 in a CSM interview. "We heard in Ethiopia that Israel is a democratic country. We found discrimination. And because of it Ethiopians are suffering." Protest leader Uri Kabadeh wore a T-shirt reading "We want equality, we're all Jewish" as he led a crowd chanting  in both their native Amharric and adopted Hebrew. "Down with racism, down with discrimination." 100,000 Ethiopians now live in Israel , with more arriving each year. Non-violent demonstrations an police responses are nothing new.

Some say the difference between this situation and U.S. segregation is that the latter was state-supported and this one comes from institutions like schools and the native ethnic Jewish population. But wait a second. "Native ethnic Jewish population"? That's a term deserving of a bit of deconstruction: the Jews in Israel came and come from every nation in Europe and the Americas, as well as different parts of Asia. What is an ethnic Jew? Is not the identity of Jews based in religion not race, a dangerous conflation that often repeated events of the 20th century make clear? Not for Ethiopian immigrants there.

The Apartheid-like treatment of Palestinian based on Arab ethnicity and religious affiliations (mostly Muslim, also Christian),  the actual "native" population, is explicitly supported by the Israeli state. Is the feigned "acceptance" of Ethiopians meant as a palliative or a smokescreen? Israel's sole Ethiopian parliamentarian rushed to the state's defense, forgetting that what is happening to his constituents is but a pale reflection of ongoing, racist and religionist current events creating the future of Palestinians, the Middle East region and the world their grandchildren will inherit.

Déjà Vu: Day by Day, Afghan War Becomes More Like Iraq War

Changing strategies by new commanders, contentious elections, war-torn people, ineffective government, periodic suicide and other bombings, and valiant military men and women dying in increasing numbers with evermore called for. Sound familiar? No, this in not about the Iraq war, it's about the Afghan. U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal, leader of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, announced a change in strategy amidst the rest yesterday, calling Obama into question as well as himself and the whole war effort by bringing it one step closer to Vietnam.

 

 

It is beyond moronic to call any war "serious," especially as if it meant something, as General McChrystal did in his briefing. Is any war not serious? Was the Afghan war some kind of children's game before now, and has suddenly become a "serious" matter worthy of adult attention? In the very same sentence, he goes on to say that NATO needs "commitment and resolve, and increased unity of effort." Brilliant, Einstein, we are so reassured that you are heading up the effort. This was a sound bite worthy of silence. To be precise, he called for a change in "implementation" strategy, suggesting that the overall U.S./NATO strategy in Afghanistan has yet to be changed, as it was repeatedly in Iraq.

 

When McChrystal's boss, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, was asked about raising troop levels in relation to the strategy change while touring a Lockheed Martin plant, he said "we'll have to look at costs." He meant in billions of dollars (much of which goes to Lockheed Martin), not thousands of lives. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs played the blame game on the Bush administration: "This was underresourced, underfunded, undermanned and ignored for years." The moral of the stories is that, more likely than not, more troops will be needed and people will die, with no mention of Bin Laden being sought after or found, and with obscenely naïve worries that Afghans will see NATO as a hostile occupying force, as if they don't already.

 

When I saw Obama give his landmark war policy speech at the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs when he was still a senator, he presented the Iraq war as misguided and the Afghan war as a necessary evil. He harshly criticized the Bush team for changing strategies several times, which he (I believe rightly) attributed to poor planning and having no endgame in sight. This became his campaign mantra and but now, as President, he and his team seem to be getting the two more and more confused. The 8-year war Afghan war is becoming indistinguishable in news reports from the Iraqi and so, we can believe, for those involved on all sides, from top to bottom, a recurrent event jeopardizing the future.