Canada’s defence policy review prepares major expansion of militarism and war

Roger Jordan

Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan released a consultation document earlier this month to kick off the Liberal government’s much touted defence policy review.

The document, whose principal author was the Canadian Armed Forces’ high command, is aimed at laying the political groundwork for a massive expansion of militarism at home and abroad.

It makes clear the real significance of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s repeated declarations since coming to power last October that Canada “is back” on the world stage, and his pledge to re-engage with United Nations’ “peacekeeping” missions. This multilateralist, humanitarian rhetoric is aimed at legitimizing a vast escalation of Canadian military interventions on a global scale, including in cyber and outer space, while concealing their predatory purpose.

The document is part of a phony public consultation process that is to be concluded by July. The four-member panel of experts that is conducting the policy review is to submit its recommendations to the cabinet before the end of the year. The review will conclude with the government unveiling the public articulation of Canada’s new defence policy in early 2017.

Canada’s defence policy review, as was the case with the like reviews Germany and Australia recently conducted, is being accompanied by a public relations blitz on the part of the political elite and military-security establishment aimed at overcoming the deep-seated popular opposition to military-spending hikes and increased participation in foreign wars. The corporate media is fully onboard with the push for a more aggressive foreign policy, from the pro-Liberal Toronto Star, which recently reaffirmed its support for a “genuinely robust fighting force, interoperable with our American and other allies,” to neoconservative pundits such as Conrad Black, who has described the Liberals’ defence review as an opportunity for Canada to take a major “step forward.”

The Canada-US alliance

From the outset, the consultation document makes clear Canada should deepen its longstanding strategic partnership with the United States and that Ottawa is fully onboard with Washington’s key geostrategic offensives: threatening Russia in the Baltic, Eastern Europe, and the Black Sea; the current Mideast war, which is the continuation of a decades’ long drive to strengthen US dominance over the world’s most important oil-exporting region; and the anti-China “pivot” to Asia, which is aimed at encircling and preparing for war with Beijing.

“Canada,” the document declares, “faces an uncertain, complex and fluid security environment,” including a “multi-faceted array of threats and challenges, both traditional and conventional.”

The document singles out Russian “aggression” in Ukraine, before going on to cite “geopolitical rivalries and disputes in the Asia-Pacific region,” a clear swipe at China.

Although the document makes no mention of this, Canada is already deeply integrated into Washington’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea and its broader military build-up in East Asia. In 2013, the Canadian military concluded an Asia-Pacific cooperation agreement with the Pentagon whose provisions remain entirely secret.

Having painted a picture of a menacing world, the document proceeds to make the ominous declaration that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) must be in a position to “achieve stability in conflicts far from home.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned during last year’s election on the promise to intensify Ottawa’s already close strategic partnership with Washington. During a visit to the White House in March, he invoked Canada’s three-quarters of a century-old military-security alliance with US imperialism to pledge Ottawa’s collaboration in US military operations across the globe.

Canada’s military-intelligence apparatus is in the forefront of pushing for t his agenda . Last fall it was reveal ed that in 2013 the Canadian and US militaries held discussion s a t the highest levels about c reatin g a joint military taskforce capable of conducting offensive operations anywhere in the world. ( S ee: HYPERLINK "https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/06/usca-o06.html" Why are Canada’s politicians mute about the Canada-US military integration plans? )

Military-foreign policy issues played a significant role in the rallying of decisive sections of big business behind the Liberals during last fall’s election campaign. Trudeau won ruling class support by promising to raise military spending, push through numerous military procurement projects that had stalled under the Harper Conservatives, and to reset relations with the US, which the Liberals charged had been damaged by the previous government’s focus on securing Washington’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Canada’s elite now hope to move forward on all these fronts with the Liberals’ “progressive internationalist” façade providing useful political cover.

Trudeau laid out his government’s priorities in his mandate letter to Sajjan. In it, he urged the defence minister, who served with the military in Afghanistan, to strengthen Canada’s commitment to NATO and the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) system, renew Canada’s commitment to “peacekeeping” missions, and ensure that the military had sufficient equipment to carry out these tasks.

The consultation paper expands on these points. It calls for reopening the Martin Liberal government’s 2005 decision not to participate in the US-led ballistic missile defence system (BMD), whose ultimate aim, its name notwithstanding, is to make it feasible for the US to wage a “winnable” nuclear war. The policy review consultation document states, “Given the increase in the number of countries with access to ballistic missile technology and their potential to reach North America, this threat is expected to endure and grow more sophisticated in the coming decades.”

The document further suggests that NORAD needs to “evolve or modernize” and that this should include “expansion beyond the air and maritime domains.”

These remarks are all the more revealing in light of Trudeau’s agreement with Obama during his White House visit to expand US-Canadian cooperation in the Arctic. The consultation paper contains a separate section on the Arctic. It raises concerns about the lack of radar systems above 65 degrees north and otherwise suggests the military should become more active in the far north. While this is in part put down to increased trading activity resulting from climate change, the document goes on to pointedly remark, “Recent Russian activity in the Arctic has only added to this challenge.”

Significantly, the figures appointed by Sajjan to the four-member expert panel overseeing the review are all trusted representatives of Canadian imperialism. Bill Graham, who served as foreign and defence minister during the Chretien-Martin Liberal governments, is on record as supporting Canada’s participation in the US-led ballistic missile defence system, having described it two years ago as an “amazing new form of weapons system.”Ray Henault is a former Chief of Defence Staff, whose term in office from February 2001 to 2005 was largely devoted to overseeing the CAF’s role in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Margaret Purdy worked for the government for decades as a defence and national-security expert, whileLouise Arbour is a former Supreme Court justice who went on to play a prominent role at the United Nations as the High Commissioner for Refugees and later headed the International Crisis Group. She is a leading exponent of the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine, which the Canadian government was central in developing in the early 2000s and which has served as the justification for one imperialist war crime after another ever since

“Peacekeeping” missions

While the Conservatives proclaimed Canada a “warrior nation,” the Liberals are seeking to conceal their and the Canadian elite’s militarist agenda behind phony humanitarian and pacifist phases. Thus, the Trudeau government is touting a commitment to “re-engage” with UN “peacekeeping.”

The claims that Canada has a special “peacekeeping” vocation were always a fraud. The peacekeeping missions Canada undertook during the Cold War were always done at the say-so of the great powers, above all the US, and with the aim of defusing crises that threatened to undermine NATO, as in the 1956 Suez crisis and the Cyprus conflict, or otherwise undermine imperialist interests.

However, the defence policy document makes clear that in the name of “peacekeeping,” the Trudeau government intends to deploy CAF troops in a very different type of mission—missions where they will be expected to violently suppress targeted groups. “Peace support missions,” states the document, “are increasingly deployed to hostile environments where violence is systemic and there is a desperate need to end violations of human rights. Unlike ‘traditional’ peacekeeping missions of the past, most current missions operate where there is no clear peace accord to be monitored.” The missions are, moreover, frequently “authorized under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, thereby allowing use of force.”

Even more revealing is the choice of examples the document offers to illustrate Canada’s involvement in “peace and security” operations. It speaks of the “combat operations” in Afghanistan; the training of soldiers loyal to Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist, pro-western government to fight pro-Russian separatist rebels; the CAF’s deployment to train Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq; and Canada’s involvement in the UN mission in Haiti.

All of these missions have been aimed at strengthening the hegemony of US imperialism, which the Canadian bourgeoisie views as vital to advancing its own global interests. In Afghanistan, the CAF waged a brutal counterinsurgency war against the Afghan population, while in Iraq it is backing Kurdish forces who have been accused of atrocities and who aim to ethnically partition the country. In Ukraine and Haiti, Canadian forces openly collaborated with far-right and outright fascist forces, most notably in Ottawa’s outspoken support for the 2014 coup in Kiev.

Military spending and domestic deployment

The defence policy review document leaves no doubt about the need for increased financial resources to be devoted to the military to ensure it has the equipment necessary to carry out its expanded role. A section on defence spending notes that the CAF has been resourced with spending levels of 1 percent of GDP for the past decade, before mentioning the commitment made by NATO leaders in 2014 to move towards spending 2 percent of GDP on the military. The Liberals have already committed to increasing military spending by vowing to implement the previous Conservative government’s plan for an additional 1 percent rise in military spending each year for nine successive years beginning in 2017.

The investments will include the purchasing of new weapons systems. The document argues this should potentially include equipment to enable defensive and offensive operations to be carried out in cyberspace and to defend Canadian satellites.

Chief of the defence staff, General Jonathan Vance, is an outspoken advocate of the purchasing of drones, and he has made no secret of the fact that he believes they should be armed. The consultation document explicitly refers to this issue as being a critical matter for debate during the review.

The procurement process to replace the air force’s fleet of CF-18 fighter jets is under way, and major purchases of sea rescue aircraft, naval destroyers and helicopters are in the works. A strong domestic armaments industry, the paper writes, enables Canada to retain an “agile and combat capable force.”

The increased resources to be made available to the CAF are not only intended for use abroad. The document outlines proposals for expanded armed forces’ deployments within Canada, to assert territorial claims in the Arctic, provide disaster relief, and collaborate with law enforcement in “counter-terrorism” activities. This last point is significant, since the definition of “terrorism” in Canadian law is so broad that political opposition and protest groups can fall under its scope.

The review consultation document ends by emphasizing the scale of operations the ruling elite envisages for the military when it states, “The CAF remain focused on defending Canada and North America and contributing to a wide spectrum of operations globally. However, the security environment has shifted and the time is right to reflect on the CAF’s role domestically, on the continent, and globally, as well as on how the CAF should be resourced and equipped.”

German public sector union holds “warning strikes”

Marianne Arens

Facing growing anger from public sector workers the Verdi trade union organized selective “warning strikes” across Germany this week. The walkouts involved bus and tram drivers, nurses, childcare workers, street cleaners, airport employees and municipal administrative workers.

“Warning strike” at Frankfurt Airport

The dissatisfaction is not only directed against the employers, but increasingly the union itself, which is negotiating the contract for public services (TVÖ) with representatives of the federal and municipal authorities. Verdi officials are posturing as militant foes of austerity and are demanding a 6 percent wage increase. This is simply an effort, however, to divert attention from the fact that the union has collaborated in the imposition of deregulation, job cuts and wage reductions for years.

The municipal employers and government representatives have made clear that, in spite of billions in budgetary surpluses for this year, they intend to impose a cut in real wages. This is the meaning of the insulting 0.6 percent raise officials have offered for 2016.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and Thomas Böhle, president of the association of municipal employers (VKA), made the offer during the second round of bargaining in Potsdam in mid-April, even though the government had a record surplus for public spending of almost €30 billion in 2015.

In the third round of talks, which began Thursday, not only wages, but also public sector pensions were discussed. The employers’ side intends to push for workers to make larger pension contributions from their pay. Böhle and de Maizière are confident that Verdi will accept this because the union agreed to the same provision in the contract for state employees (TVL) last year.

Verdi has essentially agreed to increased pension contributions from municipal employee as long as union functionaries are consulted. In a post on its web site, the union writes, “We are only prepared to accept higher employee contributions if the necessity to take action is proven for each pension fund.” A leading Verdi executive, Wolfgang Pieper, said in an interview, “We are ready to discuss the situation of each pension fund with the employer if there is a need to take action and if that is proven.”

Verdi has already agreed to a gradual change of the pension system at Frankfurt airport. At the end of November 2015, it accepted a new contract for ground staff through which the fixed pension will be replaced by one made up of investments on the capital markets funded by the employees themselves.

The public sector has been subject to restructuring for many years, and workers have confronted real wage cuts, layoffs and increased stress on the job. Twenty years ago, the federal employees’ contract (BAT) covered 5.2 million workers. It was replaced in 2006 with the TVÖ and TVL. Today, the TVÖ applies to 2.2 million and the TVL to 800,000, amounting together to just 3 million workers.

Even when one takes account of the fact that the state of Hesse—with around 100,000 employees—left the contract alliance, the numbers clearly show how many workers have been axed. On average, 100,000 jobs have been lost each year for the past 20 years, while the demand for qualified staff in the education sector, urban infrastructure, public transport, nursing and childcare has steadily increased.

Low-wage “handling-counts” workers

New hires are increasingly receiving fixed-term contracts. In the past, someone who worked in the public sector had a job for life. But deregulation and the trend towards outsourcing and privatization have resulted in only one in three new hires receiving a permanent post.

Pieper acknowledged this in the previously mentioned interview when he said, “Fixed-term contracts play a large role in the public sector,” adding, “60 percent of new hires are fixed-term.”

Due to the so-called debt brake—which mandates spending cuts when the debt-to GDP ratio rises above 60 percent—and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s “balanced budget” dictate, staff cuts and privatization have been accelerated. Routes on public transport networks have been handed to private bus companies and hospitals have been merged into larger associations and privatized. In every case, washing, catering, cleaning and other services have been outsourced to sub-contractors.

The latest example is provided by Rhineland-Palatinate, where the new coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and neo-liberal Free Democrats have agreed to eliminate a further 2,000 jobs. Similar cost-cutting measures at the expense of public sector workers are being planned and implemented by all levels of government.

None of these problems are being raised as issues in the contract talks.

The negotiations are in reality a done deal, since the Verdi representatives have more in common with the employers than with the workers they allegedly represent. They belong to the same political parties, and see the same need to offload the cost for the crisis on the backs of the workers and they frequently switch places from top union posts into senior offices in the government.

The best example is Frank Bsirske, the Verdi leader. He is a member of the same trade union as Thomas Böhle from the employers’ side. Böhle is also a member of both Verdi and the SPD.

Bsirske is the longest-serving chair of a German trade union. At the same time, he sits on a number of supervisory boards, including Deutsche Bank, Postbank and IBM. He is deputy chairman of the board at energy firm RWE, and a member of the administrative council at the reconstruction loan corporation (KFW).

Before becoming union chair in 2000, Bsirske participated in a modernization program as human resources head in the city of Hanover, during which time 1,000 of 16,000 jobs were cut. Bsirske’s role became clear last year during the childcare workers’ strike, when he strangled the struggle of carers, social workers and disability support workers, forcing them to accept the same terms they had previously rejected decisively.

Those workers who have gone through so many terrible experiences with the trade unions over the years are watching the talks with extreme mistrust.

Martin, a nurse from Frankfurt, wrote to the World Socialist Web Site, “In the public sector collective bargaining poker, unfortunately only a percentage wage increase is being considered which will certainly leave the lower earners further away from those on high incomes … although staff cuts and deteriorating working conditions are briefly pointed out, Verdi ultimately accepts them as unavoidable.”

Martin works at Höchst hospital, which is being merged with facilities in Hofheim and Bad Soden to form one of the largest municipal clinic associations, the Frankfurt-Main-Taunus clinics. In the course of the preparations for the merger, 110 of 1,700 jobs were cut. Frankfurt’s director of health Rosemarie Heilig justified the move in the city’s parliament (Römer) by pointing to the clinics’ “structural deficits.” Heilig is a member of the Greens, the same party as Bsirske.

Martin explained that questions of working hours and working conditions without stress were no longer concerns of the trade union. He said, “We have long been criticizing the percentages being demanded. A pay increase by fixed amounts would benefit low earners far more. Those who earn more look forward to a pay rise too.”

Asked about working conditions, the nurse reported that staff coverage was increasingly thin. “But this is simply presented as being unavoidable. The wage increase reigns supreme over everything, as if it will cure all of our problems, which it won’t.”

He continued, “We have had the warning strikes for a few weeks. Yet we are dealing with the fusion and privatization plans. Höchst hospital is the second largest in Frankfurt. It is enormously important for the west of Frankfurt and outlying region. Actually, it is irreplaceable.”

Even prior to the merger workers faced relentless pressure on their jobs and conditions. “The laundry was closed years ago,” Martin said, “since then all of the washing is transported to Bavaria; in spite of the petrol prices, all the stuff is washed in Franken. Food is still prepared by us. Cleaning and the preparation of beds were outsourced long ago. In terms of care, the hospital’s KPHs (nursing assistants) are helping us for the moment. There are occasionally times of crisis, when it is really bad, external personnel, from a private contractor, come to help for a few weeks.”

There will be no positive changes resulting from the merger. There are already no reliable monthly schedules, and as an experienced nurse, one must be ready, “planned or unplanned,” to shift between wards, which is another major burden. The reason for this is obvious, Martin said, “They are trying to cover all of the work with internal staff, without hiring any more people.”

Nurses have to document every move they make. “For an experienced nurse, it is almost an insult. One has to constantly document what one has done. That the napkin was laid out with the food, excuse me, but I could also document that I opened the door to come in. In the past, it was not so extreme.” He said it would be preferable to use this time to provide care.

Martin said of the current wage conflict that neither the merger nor the stressful working conditions were being discussed. All of this is accepted as inevitable, including by the works council in Höchst, where the SPD and Left Party hold sway. “It appears as though everything has been agreed between the works council and management beforehand,” he said.

Verizon makes “last, best and final offer” to striking workers

Jerry White

Verizon Communications handed down its “last, best and final offer” to negotiators from the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) on Thursday. The ultimatum comes as 39,000 workers have entered their third week on strike against the telecom giant, which also plans to cut off medical insurance to strikers and their families on Saturday.

Verizon, which made $39 billion in profits over the last three years, is standing fast on its demands for “workforce flexibility changes” that would compel workers to travel long distances for temporary work assignments. In the New York City area alone, this would involve transfers of up to 80 miles away from current work locations, which could mean travel times of three hours each way.

Verizon pickets in Boston

This proposal is key to the company’s plans to continue shrinking its workforce, particularly in its wireline division. The changes would allow Verizon to ramp up the exploitation of current workers instead of hiring more employees to install and maintain the company’s landline phones and fiber optic cables. Moreover, the stress on workers’ health and family lives, the company hopes, would lead to an exodus of older, higher-paid workers. What few new workers were hired into the division would have no employer-paid pensions and would essentially be low-paid casual laborers.

In line with this strategy, the company is offering lump sums and cash incentives for “voluntary retirements” to further reduce its payroll. Since 2000, the number of workers covered by the CWA and IBEW has fallen by nearly half.

Verizon is also offering a derisory 7.5 percent wage increase over three years, which barely keeps up with the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, it wants workers to pay higher out-of-pocket health care costs to maintain their current plans, or alternately to accept inferior health care coverage. The latter is in line with Obama’s Cadillac Tax on supposedly overgenerous benefits, which has been used to shift health costs from the corporations onto the backs of workers.

Well aware of the rank-and-file anger over the union’s sellout of the 2011 strike, CWA officials responded to the offer with theatrical bluster, denouncing Verizon even though the unions have already offered an estimated $200 million in concessions.

In a text message sent to workers in New York City, where nearly a quarter of the striking Verizon workers reside, a CWA Local 1101 official wrote: “The greedy company we work for offered the same contract we left on the table last time. Our bargaining team told them to go f… themselves. Don’t believe their lies. They are going to fedex us all their last & final offer. We ask all members to bring the fedex pkg in so we can burn them en masse.”

Another text from the CWA said, “Our members need to be aware bargaining is not over. In a couple of days CWA will meet with the company and reject their proposals and will give the company our proposals.” If members did not return the packages with the final offer, the text instructed local union officials to “collect them unopened and give them to us.”

The immediate reaction of one rank-and-file worker in New York City to the text messages was, “The union clearly doesn’t want us to read the offer.” Another source reported that the CWA is opposed to the retirement incentives because it fears a race to retire by workers would severely undermine union dues revenue.

The CWA and the IBEW have long collaborated in the destruction of jobs and the erosion of wages, benefits and working conditions that have emboldened the telecommunications giant. The company took full advantage of the unions’ decision to force workers to labor eight months without a contract, spending the time training some 20,000 strikebreakers.

The telecom unions, along with the AFL-CIO, have left the striking workers isolated while shunting them from one impotent stunt to another, from photo-ops with Democratic Party candidates to appealing to wireless customers to boycott the company. The CWA has ordered thousands of AT&T workers in California, Nevada and Connecticut to continue working without a contract, blocking a strike by telecom workers on both borders.

Meanwhile, the unions are offering starvation rations for strike pay, even though the CWA sits on a so-called Defense Fund worth hundreds of millions. In some cases, workers expecting to get their first strike benefits of $200 today have been told by local officials that they don’t know when the national organization will release their money. As for helping workers whose health benefits are being ended Saturday, the unions will only provide aid in cases of extreme “emergency,” and then only after members subject themselves to degrading inquires from union committees.

These tactics are aimed at demoralizing workers and starving them into submission and have already led to some workers to cross the picket lines. While its estimates cannot be trusted, Verizon claims more than 1,000 of the striking workers have gone back to work.

With the momentum fully on its side, the company has repeatedly threatened to impose its final offer by May 20 if its demands are not accepted. At the same time, it has provided the unions an opening to accept federal mediation from the Obama administration, which imposed the company’s health care concession demands in 2011 after the CWA shut down a two-week strike.

The battle by Verizon workers is at a crossroads. The unions, which are allied with the Obama administration and the Democrats, have led workers to a dead end. A fight is possible, but only if rank-and-file workers take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands and consciously oppose the sabotage by the CWA, IBEW and the rest of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions. Workers should elect rank-and-file strike committees to leaflet industrial and public sector workers in their cities and call for mass demonstrations and other solidarity actions to defend them against this corporate-government onslaught.

A particular appeal should be made to telecom workers around the world, from Spain and Mexico to the Philippines and China, who are engaged in their own struggles against job cutting, privatization and other attacks. Global corporations like Verizon can only be fought through the unity and common struggle of the international working class in opposition to the nationalist poison promoted by the unions and politicians, which only divides and weakens workers.

Workers are, however, not just fighting one particularly greedy employer, but the entire capitalist system, which subordinates the most elemental needs of working people to the ever-greater enrichment of corporate executives and Wall Street investors. Both corporate-controlled parties and the trade unions defend this system.

The struggle to defeat Verizon should be the starting point for a political counteroffensive of the working class whose aim is the fight for a workers’ government and the replacement of capitalism with socialism. The giant telecommunication monopolies must be transformed into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities in order to provide affordable and high-quality services to all.

Obama touts an economic "legacy" of inequality and poverty

Andre Damon

In an interview published Thursday in the New York Times, US President Barack Obama expressed his “frustration” at the persistent belief of the American people that their economic circumstances are not improving.

Obama declared that despite the fact that his administration managed the 2008 financial crisis “better than any large economy on Earth in modern history,” leading to an economic recovery that “outpaced that of every other advanced nation,” his efforts were, in the words of reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, “vastly under-appreciated” by the US population, a fact that left the president “frustrated.”

Obama’s comments were a continuation of a theme laid out by Obama in March, when he declared “America is pretty darn great right now” and disparaged “an alternative reality out there from some of the political folks that America is down in the dumps.”

The problem according to Obama, channeling the sadistic prison warden in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, is a “failure to communicate.” He told Sorkin, “We were moving so fast early on that we couldn’t take victory laps. We couldn’t explain everything we were doing. I mean, one day we’re saving the banks; the next day we’re saving the auto industry; the next day we’re trying to see whether we can have some impact on the housing market.”

Obama attributed the feelings of the US population—according to one poll, 64 percent believe the economy is still in recession—to disaster-mongering by the Republican Party. “If you have a political party—in this case, the Republicans—that denies any progress and is constantly channeling to their base, which is sizable, say, 40 percent of the population, that things are terrible all the time, then people will start absorbing that.”

Obama made these statements in the context of an election campaign that has been dominated by enormous anger over social inequality and Wall Street criminality, which has found expression in broad support for the campaign of “socialist” Bernie Sanders, as well as, in distorted form, that of the quasi-fascistic Donald Trump.

The fact that in the midst of such a tumultuous election campaign, Obama feels it is appropriate to make such statements is a testament to the contemptuous attitude of the financial elite of which he is a part, who see the great majority of the population as ignorant dupes who would be happy if they only realized how good they have it.

Any serious look at economic realities for working people in the US makes clear that this widespread anger is entirely justified.

During the decade between 2005 and 2015, seven years of which Obama was president, all net job growth was accounted for by people working in “alternative work arrangements,” or those working as independent contractors, temps, through contract agencies or on-call. In 2013, a typical American household had 40 percent less wealth than it did in 2007. The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013.

Suicide and mortality rates are soaring, while life expectancy is falling for a significant share of the population. Drug overdoses are becoming an epidemic, and the gap between the expected lifespan of the top and bottom 1 percent has reached nearly 15 years.

To the extent that Obama accepts the existence of any of these social realities, he merely presents them as inevitable byproducts of “sweeping changes transforming the global economy,” outside of and working counter to his administration’s supposedly egalitarian economic policies. Sorkin sums up Obama’s views with the statement, “We’re not only losing jobs to overseas competition, we’re losing them to technology.” In other words, automation and globalization, and not the White House, are to blame for the growing economic distress felt by broad sections of the American population.

But any sober assessment of the policies described in Obama’s interview makes clear that the growth of social inequality and the impoverishment of working people under the Obama administration were the deliberate and predictable outcome of the White House’s economic agenda.

The Obama administration presided over a sweeping restructuring of social relations in the US in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, eliminating decent jobs, incentivizing companies to gut health care, and carrying out an all-out assault on workers’ pension benefits, while providing essentially unlimited amounts of cash for the financial elite.

Even before taking office, Obama proved himself a vociferous defender of the social prerogatives of the financial oligarchy. In his interview with the Times, he recalls his role as a presidential candidate in whipping the Democratic Party into line behind the Bush administration’s 2008 plan to bail out the banks, lending them trillions of dollars essentially interest-free, while doing nothing to hold those responsible for the financial crash to account.

With large sections of the Republican Party coming out in opposition to the Bush administration’s bank bailout, and some Democrats inclined to make at least a rhetorical show of opposition, candidate Obama, “convinced that anything short of a major bailout could lead to economic catastrophe, said Democrats should back [Treasury Secretary] Paulson’s plan. They did.”

Once Obama came into office, the White House imposed wage and benefit cuts on workers. The Obama administration’s much-touted 2009 auto bailout was contingent on slashing the wages and benefits of autoworkers, helping produce record profits for auto makers.

These policies were designed to have precisely the effect they did: driving the stock market, as Obama boasted in the interview, “from in the 6,000s to 16,000 or 17,000.” This helped ensure that the wealth of America’s richest 400 individuals nearly doubled, from $1.27 trillion in 2009 to $2.34 trillion in 2015.

Despite their occasional invocations of the growth of social inequality and the economic distress facing large sections of the US population, the campaigns of Democratic presidential nominees Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are notable for the complete absence of any criticism of Obama’s economic policies, which they consistently single out for praise.

Moreover, given the fact that Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner, has wrapped herself in Obama’s mantle, the president’s statements are a clear indication that her presidency would be even more hostile to the needs and sentiments of broad masses of the population than that of Obama.

This fact underscores one fundamental reality: The Democratic Party, no less than the Republicans, is nothing more than the tool of Wall Street, impervious to reform or popular pressure. In the 2016 election, there is only one political party that represents the interests of working people—the Socialist Equality Party and its presidential and vice-presidential candidates, Jerry White and Niles Niemuth.

Iran, US and the JCPOA: Fidelity to the Cause

Ruhee Neog


The sanctions imposed on Iran are arguably the most focused and effective in modern history. In fact, if there is one adjective that appears to be unanimously favoured by commentators when describing them, it is “crippling.”

It was in this environment of economic chaos that President Hassan Rouhani rode to electoral victory in the 2013 elections, promising the Iranian people relief from the debilitating the sanctions regime. 

The timing of President Rouhani’s victory proved opportune – with economic despair, a ‘reformist’ victory and increased willingness to negotiate on the nuclear programme all coming together at the same time. Several rounds of negotiations finally culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), colloquially referred to as the Iran nuclear deal, between Iran and the P5+1. 

Given the history of tensions, all concerned states, especially the US and Iran, had to walk a political tightrope both at home and abroad. The deal was a major diplomatic coup for the Obama administration. For the Rouhani administration, it was the validation of a risky political gambit involving a rapprochement with the West on a hitherto unprecedented scale.

Against this background of the risks and failures associated with the deal, what has been achieved, and what issues are likely to be encountered through the course of the year since the successful conclusion and beginning of the formal execution of the JCPOA? 

Meeting Your CommitmentsBetween December 2015 and January 2016, Iran undertook measures to demonstrate its compliance with those conditions of the deal that enabled the introduction of ‘Implementation Day’, i.e. the official beginning of the lifting of sanctions. Significantly, during this period, Iran took steps to reduce its stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) with 8.5 tons being shipped to Russia, removed centrifuges from the Fordow and Natanz uranium enrichment facilities bringing the number of working centrifuges down to 5,060, and disabled the calandria at the Arak heavy water reactor, which was filled with concrete shortly thereafter. These measures were vetted and declared authentic by the IAEA less than a week later, leading to the formal announcement of sanctions relief on 16 January, or ‘Implementation Day’.

In a bid to hold up its end of the bargain and lift the restrictions surrounding Iran’s economic transactions, the US announced that it was going to buy thirty two metric tons of heavy water from Iran for approximately US$ 8.6 million. In his meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Obama administration’s commitment to meeting the conditions of the nuclear deal i.e. facilitating and expediting the process of doing business with Iran.

Both countries however seem to be playing a balancing game where they have to mollify domestic constituencies while remaining committed to maintaining the forward movement of the JCPOA.

Zarif, in an interview with The New Yorker’s Robin Wright, recorded his disappointment at the pace at which the US was delivering on its promises, especially as they relate to the lifting of sanctions, which has also been accepted as “slow” by the US. Many within Iran, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, have echoed this sentiment. One of the chief reasons for this public expression of Iranian displeasure could be an attempt to allay domestic political opinion that Iran has bartered away far too much to a demanding West. 

The concept of dignity and the preservation of its rights as a legitimate member of the NPT were important determinants of the nuclear compromises that Iran conceded. Since the negotiations began, there has been recurring doubt that Iran is not an equal participant at the table and is playing by the US’ rules. Concomitant moves by Rouhani’s government can be expected, whether by words or deed, to demonstrate that it will not put up with perceived dawdling on reciprocal concessions by the West. At the same time, it will also seek to reassure Iranians that the nuclear commitments it continues to meet are fair and within reasonable limits.

The US is to some extent mirroring this. A mix of conciliation and toughness is being sought to defray Congressional opposition to the deal. For example, the purchase of heavy water from Iran – a sticking point with Congress – is being balanced with statements like, "The United States will not be Iran's customer forever." 

This trend can be expected to continue through the year, especially since financial respite for Iran will probably remain sluggish for some time. The lifting of sanctions does not translate into an immediate economic revival. One main reason has been low energy prices, which means that Iran cannot earn as much as it used to. In addition, Western trade with Iran is limited by the investment climate and other risks and uncertainties. Some of this has to do with the possible “snap-back” of sanctions if Iran were to renege on its deal obligations, leaving companies without a clear understanding of their position in this situation. Given the ambiguity surrounding the technicalities of sanctions relief, it will be some time before Iran is able to visibly benefit to its satisfaction.

Minding Your Language
Although conflictual in appearance, there seems to be a deliberate method in being tough in English and conciliatory in Farsi.

In her column, ‘Iran issues first progress report on nuclear deal’ (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 19 April 2016), Dr Ariane Tabatabai analyses the representation of the deal’s implementation. These reports are to be presented every quarter to the Iranian parliament. Dr Tabatabai argues that while the apparent reason for the periodic presentation of these reports is to monitor the deal, it is also an indication that Rouhani and his government are “still trying to sell the deal at home.”   

Words have power, and Dr Tabatabai establishes, through her reading of the text of the report, how subtle spin doctoring has been employed to affirm the “deal’s benefits” and “underplay Iranian concessions.” For example, instead of focusing on the vast reduction in the number of centrifuges at Fordow and Natanz, the report seeks to highlight those that are in operation, and that the ones that were removed were in any case not used for uranium enrichment even before the deal.

Interestingly, as Dr Tabatabai also observes, the report does not hold the US responsible for Iran’s slow economic recovery and acknowledges the role played by both domestic and international constraints. This is a notable departure from statements made abroad by important representatives of the country. The reason for this divergence in opinions expressed by the same people in different contexts – domestic and external – could be two-pronged. To blame the US for not delivering on its obligations at a time when there is renewed criticism of the Iran-West entente within Iran would be rash, especially since Rouhani’s government actively championed the thawing of relations. Despite this, however, Iran would continue to play hardball on foreign platforms to maintain a steady momentum of pressure on the US and to signal Iran-US equivalence to its domestic audience. 

SpoilersThere has much conjecture about possible spoilers, the most significant of which have been Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the upcoming US presidential elections. The quest to condemn Iran’s ballistic missile programme will persist, but this has one important caveat: tests are a violation of UNSC Resolution 1929, but not of the JCPOA. 

For Iran, its ballistic missile tests are a variation of the theme, and serve the same dual purpose and audience: strengthening and signalling capacity, and conveying its dedication to the pursuit of national interests even at the risk of inviting the ire of the US. This approach could pay off, especially since the prevalent belief is that it would not jeopardise the deal which functions on its own track. Indeed, in October 2015, just a week after the testing of the Emad - a precision-guided ballistic missile - the JCPOA was formally adopted by Iran and the P5+1.

Further, regardless of who becomes the next US president, the deal is likely to be upheld because the political costs are far too high. A heckler in the opposition or on the campaign trail is not necessarily also a heckler in office. Hypothetically, if a new president were to pursue a watering down of the deal or attempt to put sanctions back in place, it would be useful to remember that the US is one of six states that negotiated the JCPOA with Iran. This collective bears the entire weight of the P5. 

Applaud or vilify, the deal is here to stay.

How Big Money in Politics Fuels Inequality and War

Rebecca Green

The 2016 presidential elections are proving historic, and not just because of the surprising success of self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, the lively debate among feminists over whether to support Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump’s unorthodox candidacy.

The elections are also groundbreaking because they’re revealing more dramatically than ever the corrosive effect of big money on our decaying democracy.

Following the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision and related rulings, corporations and the wealthiest Americans gained the legal right to raise and spend as much money as they want on political candidates.

The 2012 elections were consequently the most expensive in U.S. history. And this year’s races are predicted to cost even more. With the general election still six months away, donors have already sunk $1 billion into the presidential race — with $619 million raised by candidates and another $412 million by super PACs.

Big money in politics drives grave inequality in our country. It also drives war.

After all, war is a profitable industry. While millions of people all over the world are being killed and traumatized by violence, a small few make a killing from the never-ending war machine.

During the Iraq War, for example, weapons manufacturers and a cadre of other corporations made billions on federal contracts.

Most notoriously this included Halliburton, a military contractor previously led by Dick Cheney. The company made huge profits from George W. Bush’s decision to wage a costly, unjustified, and illegal war while Cheney served as his vice president.

Military-industrial corporations spend heavily on political campaigns. They’ve given over $1 million to this year’s presidential candidates so far — over $200,000 of which went to Hillary Clinton, who leads the pack in industry backing.

These corporations target House and Senate members who sit on the Armed Forces and Appropriations Committees, who control the purse strings for key defense line items. And cleverly, they’ve planted factories in most congressional districts. Even if they provide just a few dozen constituent jobs per district, that helps curry favor with each member of Congress.

Thanks to aggressive lobbying efforts, weapons manufacturers have secured the five largest contracts made by the federal government over the last seven years. In 2014, the U.S. government awarded over $90 billion worth of contracts to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.

Military spending has been one of the top three biggest federal programs every year since 2000, and it’s far and away the largest discretionary portion. Year after year, elected officials spend several times more on the military than on education, energy, and the environment combined.

Lockheed Martin’s problematic F-35 jet illustrates this disturbingly disproportionate use of funds. The same $1.5 trillion Washington will spend on the jet, journalist Tom Cahill calculates, could have provided tuition-free public higher education for every student in the U.S. for the next 23 years. Instead, the Pentagon ordered a fighter plane that can’t even fire its own gun yet.

Given all of this, how can anyone justify war spending?

Some folks will say it’s to make us safer. Yet the aggressive U.S. military response following the 9/11 attacks — the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the NATO bombing of Libya, and drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen — has only destabilized the region. “Regime change” foreign policies have collapsed governments and opened the doors to Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS.

Others may say they support a robust Pentagon budget because of the jobs the military creates. But dollar for dollar, education spending creates nearly three times more jobs than military spending.

We need to stop letting politicians and corporations treat violence and death as “business opportunities.” Until politics become about people instead of profits, we’ll remain crushed in the death grip of the war machine.

And that is the real national security threat facing the United States today.

More Steps Toward WW III

Eric Zuesse

On April 27th, NATO member-state Turkey, which on 24 November 2015 had shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the Syria-Turkey border, refused Russia’s request to investigate Turkey’s having murdered the surviving Russian pilot. (The plane’s weapons-systems officer was rescued, but the pilot was shot dead while parachuting down from the plane.) Turkey admits having in custody the man, Alparslan Celik, who murdered the parachuting pilot. On April 25th, Turkish authorities had said that they might try Celik for murder; but, now, the Turkish Ambassador in Moscow says Turkey won't.

Also related to the step-up to war, Russia has reported on April 25th, that it's responding to America’s recently announced quadrupling of its troops and armaments in the Baltic republics on and near Russia’s northwestern Black Sea borders, by Russia's sending “more than ten” warships of its own to coastal waters there, for “training exercises,” just as the U.S. troops and weapons are likewise there for “training exercises”, as both sides prepare for an increasingly likely war between NATO and Russia.

If such war occurs, it will be World War III; so, that’s where things are heading, unless and until these escalations reverse on both sides, to avert it.

U.S. President Barack Obama gives, as his cause for his economic sanctions against Russia and for NATO’s subsequent increases in men and materiel being stationed on and near Russia’s borders, what Obama calls Russia’s ‘seizure’ of Crimea from Ukraine. The Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev had transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, but polls of Crimeans always showed overwhelming public opposition to that, and this opposition became especially intense right after the Obama Administration’s coup in Ukraine in February 2014 overthrew with much bloodshed Ukraine’s freely elected President Viktor Yanukovych, for whom 75% of Crimeans had voted. That’s when Crimeans asked Russia to protect them. Russia complied, and Obama and NATO call that restoration of Crimea to Russia a ‘seizure’ of Crimea by Russia. This is supposedly what has sparked the post-February-2014 military escalation between the U.S.-NATO and Russia — and, perhaps (unless the U.S.-NATO side decide to accept Crimea’s return to Russia) WW III.

On April 25th, Obama personally asked the leaders of Germany, France, UK, and Italy, to contribute to the increased NATO troops and weapons near Russia’s Baltic borders. Nothing was announced from that meeting. Clearly, the U.S. is leading the movement toward WW III. Neither the main leaders of Europe, nor — certainly — Russia, seem to be nearly so eager. However, U.S. President Obama says that his concerns are purely of a ‘defensive’ nature — to ‘defend’ the NATO alliance, and the entire world (including Ukraine), from ‘Russian aggression’. He denies that Russia is taking necessary defensive measures against America’s aggression. However, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says that that’s the way he is seeing things.

Australia awards $50 billion submarine contract to France

James Cogan

The Liberal-National government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on Tuesday that French state-owned shipbuilder DCNS has been awarded the contract to build 12 submarines for the Australian Navy, with the assembly taking place in Australia. The new submarine fleet, one of the largest military procurements in the world, will cost at least $50 billion to build over the next two decades. As much as $100 billion extra will be required to keep the submarines operational until the 2060s.

The announcement places militarism and war preparations—financed through austerity against the working class—at the very centre of the Australian budget to be brought down on May 3 and the federal election that will be called shortly after. Turnbull and his ministers are attempting to justify cutbacks to social spending with the assertion that the country must “live within our means,” while squandering vast resources on a build-up of the armed forces and the revival of military manufacturing industries.

The first of the new submarines will not enter service until at least 2031-32. They are intended to replace Australia’s current fleet of six Collins class, diesel-electric powered submarines. One of the largest conventional submarines in the world, the Collins subs have a range of 12,000 nautical miles. Australia’s submarines are integrated with US naval operations and deployed to stalk the key sea lanes between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and the South China Sea. In the event of war with China, they would be used to assist the US to impose a naval blockade, cutting off Chinese access to oil and other raw materials from the Middle East and Africa.

The submarine project has been the subject of competitive bids and evaluation for the past three years. Backed by the French government, DCNS offered to redesign its existing nuclear-powered Barracuda class to meet Australian specifications for a stealthy, diesel-electric powered vessel capable of matching the long range of the Collins. German shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp offered to upscale its smaller diesel-electric submarine, while Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries proposed to significantly modify its Soryu conventional submarines. Each bidder had to agree that the submarines’ combat system and weapons be sourced from the United States so that the Australian vessels would be fully compatible and interoperable with the American Navy.

The three competitors also had to undertake to assemble all 12 submarines at the naval shipyards in Adelaide, the South Australian state capital. The opposition Labor Party and the trade unions waged a reactionary campaign of economic nationalism, demanding that all construction take place in Australia, regardless of any additional costs.

Under former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the Liberal-National Coalition government adapted to Labor’s campaign. Elected in September 2013, the Coalition is facing potential defeat in the coming election, after just one term. Its standing is particularly low in South Australia, where jobs are being decimated. General Motors Holden will end car production at its plant in northern Adelaide and sack its remaining workforce at the end of 2017. Thousands of jobs are being destroyed in car-related industries. Steel producer Arrium hovers on the brink of bankruptcy, threatening to close its plant at Whyalla, west of Adelaide.

Turnbull, who ousted Abbott in a backroom factional coup last September, announced the submarine contract at the Adelaide shipyards, hoping to shore up electoral support. He said the submarines would be built “with Australian jobs, Australian steel, [and] Australian expertise.” The claim that submarine construction will reverse the deindustrialisation and social decay of the working class areas of Adelaide is a delusion, however. Work will not even begin until the early 2020s and employ barely 2,800 workers. Moreover, the jobs to be created are completely tied to the catastrophic perspective of preparing for war.

The Japanese government, which backed Mitsubishi, expressed bitter disappointment that its bid was not successful. The submarine contract would have been the first major arms export by a Japanese corporation and had been touted in both Australia and Japan as a means of cementing closer strategic relations between the two countries. It was an open secret that, if Mitsubishi’s offer was competitive, the Obama administration and the US military establishment wanted the contract to go to Japan, rather than European companies.

Military commentators have concluded that, in the end, the Japanese offer was inferior to the French and even the German proposal. The official evaluation team included not only former top-ranking Australian military figures, but former US admiral Stephen Johnson, who oversaw American submarine procurements. The team that “peer-reviewed” the recommendation to give the contract to DCNS included two other former US admirals.

Various media and think tank commentators are nevertheless speculating over whether Chinese opposition to awarding the contract to Japan played a role in the government’s decision to award it to DCNS.

In its marketing pitch, DCNS itself played up the prospect of tensions with China. In March, DCNS president Herve Guillou declared, while visiting Australia, that handing the contract to Japan could be “perceived” in China as part of a containment strategy. In a remarkable statement, company deputy chief executive Marie-Pierre de Bailliencourt warned: “You start wars through perceptions.” She asked journalists what Australia would do if “Japan and China went to war” while the submarines were still being constructed.

Under conditions in which Australia is a frontline US ally in Washington’s provocative military build-up in Asia against China, the decision to award the submarine contract to DCNS has avoided any immediate worsening of relations with Beijing. It also serves the US and Australian objective of drawing France more closely into the strategic planning for confrontation with China. France still holds significant Pacific territories, including French Polynesia and New Caledonia—an island group just 1,200 kilometres from eastern Australia—and has a small, but capable, military presence in the region. The 2016 Australian Defence White Paper stressed military cooperation with France, both in the South Pacific and to “support the security” of both their claims over territory in Antarctica.

French President Francois Hollande declared the DCNS contract was a “decisive step forward” in a strategic partnership with Australia. Defence Minister Jean Yves Le Drian enthused: “We’re married to Australia for the next 50 years.”

The relationship will come with a price tag, in the form of US and Australian expectations that France will give more vocal and even practical support to their stance against China. The French navy is already conducting a growing number of joint exercises with American, Australian and South East Asian militaries in the Asia-Pacific.

In March, following US “freedom of navigation” provocations inside Chinese-claimed waters in the South China Sea, Rear Admiral Bernard-Antoine Morio de l’Isle, the joint commander of French forces in French Polynesia, declared that the French Navy would also “perform their missions in international waters, as they should.”