THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES (125 page)

The U.S elections of 2008, it can be seen in retrospect, were a watershed in American politics, not so much for the new leaders in both Congress and the White House who were brought to the world stage as for the consensus reflected in the election results that the governance of the preceding years—both Democratic and Republican—had been misguided. The slow recovery from the recession encouraged protectionist barriers to trade; these further constrained the global recovery and invited foreign criticism that Americans found irksome. American pre-eminence in many arenas was perceived abroad as hegemony and contributed to a U.S./European estrangement. Traditional ethnocentrism in Asia coupled with mercantile trade policies intensified the sense of mutual alienation that arose between Americans and Asians.

In a stunning repudiation of previous policy, a public consensus in the United States emerged that the multilateral interventions of the previous twelve years had been a mistake. The steady, unpredictable terrorist attacks (and, it must be said the harrowing but fruitless “alerts”) left the United States demoralized. Many believed that, but for American involvement abroad, the terror campaigns would never have happened. The collapse of Haitian democracy; the televised melees in the refugee camps of Burundi and Rwanda, in which Western aid workers were set on fire; and the much-publicized case of a French commander at NATO headquarters in Brussels, apparently part of a vast network of agents, who had been stealing high-tech American industrial secrets in order to aid French companies—all these had the effect of extinguishing the enthusiasm of the U.S. public for foreign cooperation. Undoubtedly the decisive event, however, was the discovery that, through a complicated system of loans guaranteed by foreign government bonds,
both U.S. political parties had unwittingly accepted huge sums of money from foreign governments
whose role was hidden by the use of intermediaries. Disillusionment and disgust swept across the entire landscape of foreign policy engagement:
U.S. support for the U.N., which then stood at 25 percent of the U.N. annual budget, was reduced to 10 percent
by a joint resolution of Congress on the technical ground that the U.N. was not permitted to acquire debt without the express permission of the Security Council (debt that had in fact accumulated as a result of a U.S. refusal to pay its dues).
U.S. foreign aid, which had stabilized at a meager $10 billion, was slashed by 30 percent with a proviso that it was to be phased out altogether over a ten-year period; funds originally earmarked for Russia to assist with denuclearization were cut completely
when comptroller reports disclosed widespread skimming by Russian officials. For roughly similar reasons, U.S.
support for drug
eradication in other countries, largely Latin American and Asian, was simply stopped.
After a fruitless effort to get NATO to intervene in the renewed Balkan conflict, the United States had allowed the North Atlantic Council to fall into desuetude, and at this time the top three NATO commanders were all non-American. But the most dramatic breaks in policy occurred with those states who had been caught in the campaign finance scheme: Israel, China, and the Gulf States.

The United States had played a pivotal role in the Middle East since 1948. The disclosure of covert campaign assistance by Middle Eastern governments to both American political parties coincided with widely televised, violent Israeli repression of Palestinian marches for suffrage in the occupied areas still under Israeli control, and the savage suppression of a “pro-democracy” movement in Kuwait (including allegations of beheadings). Many Americans suspected, although probably without foundation, that the campaign finance loans by foreign governments had effectively bought U.S. military assistance to both states. The result was
the withdrawal of U.S. naval forces in the region and a sharp scaling back in security assistance
. The continuous fall in world energy prices had reduced the importance of the region to American interests, but it was at least as significant that, after sixty years, the regional conflict in that area seemed no closer to resolution.
The United States virtually withdrew from any high-profile leadership in the area, taking with it $3 billion in direct aid to Israel and about $2 billion in aid to Egypt.

In Asia, once the Chinese regime had been listed as a “human rights abuser” by the United States in 2004,
U.S. statutory restrictions kicked in that had the effect of virtually ceding Chinese markets to European, Korean, and Japanese exports
. When Chinese covert campaign assistance came to light, it appeared that the Chinese were trying to reverse this “decertification” process by corrupt means. There was some evidence that members of Congress and the administration had made promises to Chinese intermediaries that were embarrassing, and that they had made public statements that were plainly at variance with the known facts about Chinese human rights policies. It appeared that in many places Panama and Haiti, Israel and the Gulf, China and Russia—American meddling had been expensive and counterproductive; now this appearance was acutely enhanced by the fact of foreign meddling in American affairs, suggesting to some that hidden forces were manipulating U.S. policy.

Perhaps no line received as much applause at the Inauguration as when on January 20, 2009, the new American president said,

When the Sri Lankan massacres occurred, when the South African coup took place—even when the situation in Guyana potentially threatened a renewal of the boat people crises of the 1990s (only worse, because these refugees were laden with disease), even then the
United States studiously did not intervene
. Other states were in much the same mood. In Japan, the Liberal Democratic government had fallen over its insistence on observing the U.S./Japan Status of Forces Agreement's provision that American servicemen indicted for crimes in Japan be tried in the United States. A brutal rape by a group of American sailors based in Yokohama had become a cause célèbre; in the elections that followed, a coalition came to power pledged to terminate the treaty and to demand the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Japan. “The Occupation Is Over”—
Senryou Teppai!
—was the campaign slogan of the victorious candidates. The new government's pledge to increase self-reliance struck a welcome chord with the Japanese public. Few voices of dissent were raised when
the Japanese defense budget—since 1989 the third largest in the world—was raised by 15 percent
to develop and procure a new generation of cyber weapons, leapfrogging the delivery systems of the late twentieth century. These weapons primarily targeted information centers and networks rather than conventional military bases, harbors, and railway centers. With respect to these latter targets, the Japanese nuclear-powered submarines that had flourished in the late twentieth century took over as platforms for a new generation of smaller but equally lethal postnuclear warheads. The accuracy of these systems, directed by Japanese “black”—undetectable—satellites, permitted the Japanese to continue their adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty while advancing to a newer generation of weapons of mass destruction that the United States had yet to deploy. Japanese rearmament was sufficient to check North Korean ambitions on the peninsula, but this had the unintended and undesired consequence—from the Japanese point of view—of bringing about a closer relationship between the two Koreas.

These events led to what became commonly known as the Iron Triangles, a series of interlocking deterrence relationships around the world in which, it was believed, a mutual stability was achieved through nuclear proliferation among regional adversaries. China-Korea-Japan; Germany-Russia-Ukraine; India-Pakistan-China; Iran-Israel-Iraq; Australia-Indonesia-Malaysia; Chile-Argentina-Brazil: these were the main Iron Triangles,
with subsidiary triangles such as Singapore-China-Viet Nam, Germany-Poland-Russia, France–Germany-Great Britain.

The intense trade in weapons and delivery systems was responsible, as much as any other single factor, for the surge in capital growth in Russia and the liberalization of the Chinese regime once it effectively merged with the now-compliant island of Taiwan. Unable to either acquire nuclear weapons (for fear of Chinese pre-emption) or hold on to a U.S. defense commitment,
Taiwan had been forced to negotiate a union with the mainland
. With the Hong Kong Chinese and the Shenzhen, the Taiwanese had effectively bought their way into influence with the army with the promise of larger defense budgets and had managed to significantly liberalize the Chinese political environment. In 2018 the
Chinese capital was moved to Shanghai, and Tibet was allowed limited autonomy as a theocratic state
.

Only two states stood aloof from this rapidly replicating system of mutual deterrence relationships: South Africa and the United States.
South Africa renounced all weapons of mass destruction
and became a haven for persons everywhere seeking refuge from the terror of nuclear war.
The United States, having no obvious proximate adversaries, devoted its attention to developing ballistic missile and anti-aircraft defenses
that, by the year 2020, were confidently thought to be effective against the sort of proliferated delivery systems that most states were now acquiring. The preceding period of arms control and reduction was now seen by most commentators as one of intense danger in which the United States and other powerful states had unsuccessfully attempted, through the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Missile Technology Control Regime, to determine what states would be allowed to have the weapons of survival. This had been replaced by a more stable international environment, it was usually said. Terrorism had steadily abated during this period.

At least this was the common opinion when, on May 1, 2021, the
Russian government announced that it was the subject of an extortion demand and asked for financial support from the international community
. This demand came from a shadowy group that claimed to have control over a biological/computer virus that could spread a debilitating influenza through the Internet. This threat struck directly at the weakness of international institutions during this period—for who was there to broker such financial support? Or to determine whether elements of the Russian government itself were behind the scheme?

The Russian government had promised to bring prosperity by relying on unique Russian capabilities in two areas: natural resources and the arms trade
. The energy sector had been nominally privatized but in fact was part of a cooperative complex that included not only the large energy firms that had succeeded Gazprom, but also the principal banks and the armed forces. This system was highly popular with the public because it promised
growth after years of economic stagnation. Arms deals flourished and Russian exports soared. Few realized, however, that Russian weapons development would include biological weapons or that it might be possible to create a “doomsday” machine that could spread biological agents electronically.

The classic view of sovereignty dominated this period and reinforced Russia in its assertions that its internal affairs—especially how to investigate and prosecute crimes—were finally a matter for its own determination. Nevertheless
there were calls from many countries, including the United States, for an international investigation
—even intervention—in order to head off the possibility that this virtual machine would be turned on other countries. For the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, a superpower crisis occurred that had the potential to lead to a cataclysm. The United States, which had withdrawn from Eurasian affairs, now seemed prepared to reassert itself in an environment fraught with peril. Highly threatening messages were exchanged over a hotline (a satellite system that sends only written, coded text) that had not been used for decades. U.S. nuclear warheads targeted a laboratory beneath a mountain in the Caucasus where it was believed the conspirators were working; no other weapon was powerful enough to guarantee destruction of the lab.

In the event, Russian police work—using methods that were not for the squeamish—successfully ended the crisis. By resolving matters without resorting to intervention, the society of states had strengthened the shared confidence that its members would be allowed to develop in their ways.
The doomsday virtual machine was “dismantled” and handed over to a consortium of states that agreed to provide long-term credits to Russia
.

This period had enshrined, as never before, the absolute equality of states to determine their own security needs. In so doing, the society of market-states bore unavoidable responsibility for refusing to protect some (such as Taiwan or the many states of the Third World like Sri Lanka who became de facto provinces of their nuclear neighbors) or to shore up the positions of those states least likely to engage in aggression (like the United States). “Let many flowers bloom” was a popular political slogan during this era, but gardens take cultivation and selection, whereas the society of states resolutely refused to prefer one regime to another, leaving it to fate to determine which one would find itself outside the stability-conferring systems of terror and technology. The Garden also brought the world closer to a nuclear cataclysm between the United States and Russia than it had been since the end of the Cold War.