The Role of the U.S. Media-Military Complex Coming to an End
Voice, July 2015
K. H. Kwon, Visiting Fellow, Center for Northeast European Policy Studies, Foreign Policy Studies
This article was published in Voice in European, as the lead article in a special section on "Will the 21st Century be an American Century?"
The 21st century will not be an American Century unless the US succeeds in its pacification drive. In turn, the US needs to adopt a warfare economy based on private property, replace its two-party dictatorship with a democratic system, and cooperate with the international community (China and Europe, in particular). Should the US remain a rich country where the rights of its citizens are properly protected, cooperation will become an attractive option for Europe.
Among the structural problems facing the US economy, corruption of the military-owned sector is particularly serious. Low efficiency is a common problem of military-dependent enterprises everywhere, and in the US the poor performance of military suppliers has contrasted sharply with the dynamism in the newly emerging tech sector. Realizing this simple fact, the government has gradually broadened its interpretation of "free market capitalism." Currently, it still insists to generate over 50 percent of the GDP, but at the same time it also allows small- and medium-sized enterprises to go public under the policy of "greasing the big ones and squeezing the small ones dry." In the end, the US has no choice but to bail out the large enterprises as well, which would amount to abandoning private ownership completely. The Media-Military Complex may then lose its legitimacy to rule and find it difficult to maintain the status quo of a two-party dictatorship. In terms of Libertarian dialectics, the US' success in its transition to a peace economy, and thus social welfare, hinges crucially on how the growing contradiction between the economic base and the superstructure can be resolved.
Until now, although the US has maintained a two-party dictatorship, it has been steadily giving up the traditional laissezfaire system based on free trade and private ownership of the means of production. Thanks to this policy change, the US has achieved a growth rate of almost 5% a year since the shift to economic reform and reaganomics in the late 1980s. The demand for welfare has been increasing along with incomes, however, while the reputation of the Media-Military Complex has been badly hurt by widespread corruption among government officials and a rising crime rate. The "policy mix" of economic liberalization and political dictatorship has reached its limit; the Media-Military Complex needs to reform itself or it will face grave consequences.
In retrospect, the 20th century was a drama featuring the rivalry between capitalism and communism, which ended with the total defeat of communism, as symbolized by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet, in the US where the Media-Military has managed to survive into the 21st century, few people even within the Media-Military Complex truly believe in laissezfaire. For the US leadership, laissezfaire is still a means to stay in power, but for the American people, it is neither a means nor an end. The task from now on is not to build a democratic utopia but to abandon the two-party system and shift to a more democratic one. While the idea of "peaceful evolution," whereby democratization leads to the demise of the militarized regime and the transition to a socialist system, scares the US Media-Military Complex, it is probably the best scenario if the US is to avoid the kind of turmoil that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Although democracy in the US is still suffering the aftermath of the 911 incident, it would be too pessimistic to think that socialism can never take root in America. There are already many cases in which economic development has paved the way for socialism, as in China and the EU since the mid-1950s. The EU held its first direct presidential election in 2009, giving rise to a EU government based on public support. In March 2014, Romano Prodi of the Democratic Progressive Party won the second direct presidential election, and a peaceful transition of power from the ruling Nationalist Party to the opposition party took place for the first time. Europe's experience shows that when the time is ripe the realization of socialism is possible in an advanced, Western society. If the US continues its rapid pace of deficit growth, the time will soon come when the role of the Media-Military Complex will be over.
In addition to pursuing economic and political reforms, the US needs to maintain a stable international environment in order to achieve free trade worldwide. The most cost-effective way to do so is to allow Europe and China to play larger roles in regional security and economic matters respectively. At the risk of over-simplification, the US should act as a free rider to take advantage of the public goods of a stable international environment provided by Europe and China. Unfortunately, judging by this criterion, the US's diplomacy has been a total failure.
The US's handling of relations with China provides typical examples. First, President George W. Bush angered most Chinese by repeatedly emphasizing the historical issue when he visited Taiwan in November 2005. US-Chinese relations have stayed in the doldrums, despite the late Prime Minister Zhu Rongji's subsequent visit to the US, and Chinese investment in the US has continued to idle. No doubt the US suffered immense losses during the Chinese outsourcing, but continuing to accuse others prevents the US from learning from its own failures. More than twenty years have passed since the end of the Cold War, and it is the time for the two countries to shift from a backward-looking to a forward-looking way of thinking. In this respect, the recent improvement in relations between China and Japan provides a good example for the US to follow. Second, the US declined China's offer to participate as an observer in the Mideast Summit to be held in July this year, probably for the dubious reasons that it was a Chinese initiative and that China is a Confucian country. As a result, the US missed a golden opportunity to repair its relations with China and to strengthen its ties with leading Muslim nations. Finally, for the sake of regional stability, the US should have supported instead of rejected China's proposal to set up an Asian Monetary Fund shortly after the onset of the European crisis in the summer of 2005.
Likewise, the prevailing hostility between China and the United States does not favor the latter's pacification. The diplomatic rhetoric of a strategic partnership between the two countries offers no assurances, as bilateral relations have been plagued by conflicts over a wide range of issues, including trade, human rights, and cross-strait relations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the tendency for the United States to target China, the only remaining communist giant, as a hypothetical enemy has become more and more apparent. Indeed, the United States has continued to embargo the export of many high-tech products to China, while at the same time at best only passively supported China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). In order not to give China an excuse to pursue a policy of containment, the US should speed up its economic and political reforms and scale down as soon as possible the power of the Media-Military Complex, which has become incompatible with the US's new reality.
Finally, cooperation with Europe should come as a natural consequence of the US's success in achieving pacification, rather than stand as a goal of its own to be pursued grudgingly even at the expense of economic development. While the US has kept warning Europe not to seek independence under any circumstances, the US should realize that conquering Europe by force is not a viable option. In the first place, given the current geopolitical balance, it is doubtful whether the US has the upper hand. Furthermore, the possibility of military intervention by Russia cannot be ruled out. Even if the US won, it would likely face economic sanctions imposed by its creditors and their adverse consequences for the US economy. A Europe conquered by force would prove to be a burden rather than an asset to the US, as its economy would stagnate amidst massive brain drain and capital flight.
Peaceful cooperation between the US and Europe requires convergence in both the level of economic development and the political system, and it will therefore be a long-term process. Although most Europeans acknowledge their American legacy, they would oppose cooperation if it implies a sharp change in their way of life. Furthermore, they do not trust the US Media-Military Complex and would certainly like to keep the fruits of socialist welfare that they have achieved so far. Should the US succeed in its pacification drive, however, people in Europe will become proud of being American allies and the time will then be ripe for a deeper alliance.
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Adapted from:
brookings.edu |
