THE TREMENDOUS SECURITY THREAT
OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER AT SEA
By William R. Carr
The events of 9/11 and our subsequent global war on terrorism
was somewhat of a wake-up call for our national security apparatus in
Washington. Even some of our representatives are beginning to see the vague form
of the bull at the china shop door. All at once, as if the handwriting hadn't
been on the wall in bold letters all along, some people in Washington and
elsewhere are waking up to the fact that we (through the good offices of our mis-representatives
in Washington), have placed ourselves in a tremendously vulnerable security
situation — a situation that only draconian measures can now adequately
address. In spite of the present war on terror, the Office of Homeland Security,
and the USA Patriot Acts, we have not yet even begun to consider, much less
seriously address, the fundamental root issues.
There are many fine Congressmen and Senators in Washington,
and there are even a few who have been friendly to the Merchant Marine. But
overall, I cannot but use the term "mis-representatives" when
referring to the whole political herd that has been responsible, over several
decades, for placing the United States into our present economic and national
security position. My apologies to those relatively few representatives who are
true representatives, and have been "on our side" all along.
Lamentably, there have been all too few of them, and never enough to come close
to constitute even a sizable minority, much less majority. By "our
side," I don't just mean on the side of American maritime interests, but on
the side of the American people (the nation's consumer-producers),
as a whole.
Our mis-representatives in Washington (and this includes our
various administrations, as well as Congress), have focused on globalism and
international interdependence rather than representation of the American people
and their national economic and political independence. True American
nationalism hasn't appreciably manifested itself in the White House or the halls
of Congress since President Reagan beheld the wonders of "a new
international economic order" galloping over the horizon, and President
Bush I announced a "New World Order." All nationalist thought gave way
to a sovereignty destroying internationalism — a literal rush to deconstruct
everything that had once made our nation the most spectacular success story in
the history of mankind. All, of course, in an ill-conceived, ill-planned, and
ultimately impossible and illogical desire, on the part of people who don't
represent Americans by any stretch of the imagination, to make the whole world
just like us — that is, like "we used to be," for nobody wants to be
in the spot we're in today.
We're still the world's only military superpower, but the
rest of the nation, and its economy, is running on the shear momentum of stored
social and industrial capital from our great industrial era — that, and our
ability to incur incredible mountains of debt.
Congress shifted its allegiance from the people it was
elected to serve (from defending the Constitution and national independence), to
"Global Village" building — all at the behest of the moguls of
international capital and multi-national corporations — under the tutelage of
corporate funded schools of free-market economics and globalization. Our
so-called representatives have allowed their thinking to be done for them by
political and economic "think tanks" rather that by engaging their own
thought processes governed by simple common sense. These so-called
representatives have taken us so far down the wrong road that we are in an
incredible fix in terms of national security. Our national future is threatened
as it has never been threatened before. Our freedom and liberty are not only at
stake, but already being undermined by emergency measures such as the
institution of an Office of Homeland Security and passing the USA Patriot Acts. It
wasn't the terrorists that did that to us — it was our own stellar national
leadership. This even as we sacrifice our troops on behalf of freedom and
liberty in distant Iraq.
War, of course, tends to wake people up. And many are slowly
waking up to the fact that in spite of being in the possession of the world's
most deadly and efficient military establishment, we're still so vulnerable to
such an array of potential national security weaknesses that we can only hope
that certain things that might happen, miraculously won't happen — because we
certainly don't have the means by which to stop them, try as we might.
Our present national dependence on international trade and
foreign capital to finance both our obscene trade and current accounts deficits,
is a major security concern. One would have to conclude that apparently nobody
in Washington ever thought about it in such terms. Undoubtedly, many of our
military leaders must have been cognizant of the growing problem, but they don't
have much say in national economic policy matters. They have to make their
contingency plans under the constraints placed on them by the "wiser, more
knowledgeable," national leadership. Our overall national policy has been,
and remains, free trade and economic globalism, as if such things had no serious
bearing on national security. Apparently our national leadership over a period
of decades has been blind to the consideration that economic national suicide is
also strategic national suicide. This is what happens when the representatives
of "We the People" turn their representative allegiance from the
people to the minions of Wall Street and international capital.
The war on terror and potential terrorism is only the wake up
call. As serious as it is, it is just a side-show compared to what could happen,
either as a result of the war on terror, or other, more than just possible,
scenarios. With 95 percent of our trade carried in foreign ships, and our still
increasing dependence upon foreign made consumer goods (particularly from Asia),
anything that would interrupt our Asia-Pacific trade would spell national
economic and strategic calamity.
Few American consumers have the slightest idea just how
expensive our "cheap" Asian imports really are. Now with the security
threat of potential terrorist acts, ship and port security, are about to make
our trade with the rest of the world (and globalism itself), a great deal more
expensive than it ever was before. But the prices won't show up on the consumer
shelves of such stores as Wal Mart as they should. The taxpaying public will
digest them without fully realizing what they are paying for — and the
national debt will soar to heights never before imagined. If people really had
to pay the true costs of our cheap imports at the check-out counters,
protectionism wouldn't have become such a bad word, and goods "Made in
America" would never have become so rare on consumer shelves. Millions of
jobs, and thousands of factories, would never have been exported.
National security issues cannot be divorced from national
economic and trade policy issues. But our trusty mis-representatives have
consistently failed to see that, since they became the representative of
international capital interests. Most still don't see it, and they will continue
to attempt a remedy the symptoms of our national security problem without fully
recognizing the size and scope of the integrated whole.
The following are a few examples of what we've got to worry
about now, thanks to short-sighted national trade and economic policy.
From the MM&P Wheelhouse Weekly - December 11, 2003 (emphasis added):
TERRORIST ATTACK IS WORST NIGHTMARE FOR US PORTS
Terrorists ship a nuclear bomb into a US port and destroy an entire city. It is more than the plot of a Tom Clancy best seller. According to the Rueters News Service, it is the ultimate nightmare for many US security officials.
Clancy's book "The Sum of All Fears" predated the Sept.11 attacks by roughly a decade, but federal officials and analysts say the vulnerability of US ports today is a clear and present danger.
"I worry about a nuclear terrorist incident" at a port, said Graham Allison, a former assistant secretary of defense. "Even if it were a small nuclear weapon (which explodes) in New York, Washington or Boston, you'll end up with half a million dead. The whole world will change as much as it did on 9/11."
This potential was foreseeable, and in fact was foreseen even
by fiction writers. But what was going on in Washington heads? More
international interdependence.
Some people are beginning to ring other warning bells...
MARITIME SECURITY HIGHLIGHTS STATE OF US MERCHANT MARINE
While the US is now focusing attention on the "bomb in the box" possibility, US-based shipping executive Conrad Everhard said "the critical need for maritime security casts a new light on the seriousness of the demise of the American merchant marine."
Everhard, in a recent speech before the Foreign Commerce Club of New York, said the US is more vulnerable "when the vast majority of officers and crew bringing ships into our ports are not US citizens. Many, in fact, are from areas where Al Qaeda is very active. Driving a containership into a support on New York's Verrazano Narrows Bridge or into an unloading supertanker in Bayonne, NJ could have an impact like 9/11 and is probably more foreseeable."
Everhard explained that, although the US is now cognizant of the 'bomb in the box,' "we're relying on foreign carriers to assist us in efforts to extend our boundaries outward."
"Isn't it rather strange that an administration that thumbed its nose at the rest of the world over Iraq is willing to rely almost exclusively on foreign carriers for our maritime transportation and for the security inextricably connected with that transportation?"
He asked why the Federal Maritime Commission is lacking a role in maritime security. "The FMC's responsibilities include the regulation of all liner carriers, passenger vessels and NVOCCs, foreign and domestic, operating in US commerce, and all freight forwarders, ports and terminal operators located in the US," Everhard said.
Everhard also spoke about what he sees as the declining state of the US as a maritime nation. "Our US-owned, US-flag merchant marine has disappeared, except for a few lines in the protected domestic offshore trades, and our shipyards have fared only a little better, those that remain being supported almost exclusively by Navy and Title XI work," Everhard said.
"Less publicized, but equally disastrous, we've lost the maritime leadership that this great trading nation enjoyed for most of my long career in the industry."
He said the decline has been gradual, but steady, since the end of World War II, and noted that the US ranks 12th among maritime nations behind such countries as Liberia, Panama, the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands in ranking maritime nations.
"While there seems to be no limit on the amount Congress is willing to subsidize corporate farms," Everhard said, noting their $19 billion per year federal subsidy price tag, "there seems to be an attitude, formed with little or no debate, that a merchant fleet is not a priority for this country, and certainly not worth public support."
And don't forget that (aside from the "Flag of Convenience" states), China is among the nations that have surpassed us, and other (former) western maritime nations, in "maritime security assets" (i.e. a truly national merchant fleet with a full array of supporting industrial infrastructure).
And now for a little hint at the costs of maritime security...
US PORTS RECEIVE FUNDING FOR 442 FEDERAL SECURITY GRANTSUS ports seeking federal grants for 1,065 security projects learned on Dec.10 that 442 of the plans will be funded. The news came as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which named which ports were the recipients of $179,025,900 in the third round of federal grants for maritime security.
Applications totaling over $987 million had been submitted by ports across the country seeking funding assistance in order to comply with new USCG security regulations that take effect next year.
The grants are a combination of $104 million in FY '03 funds and a portion of the $125 million in FY '04 appropriations for port security. While the latest round of funding is significant, it covers only about 18 percent of the costs ports identified as needed security enhancements.
According to USCG estimates, ports will need to spend $5.4 billion on enhanced security measures over the next 10 years to comply with new regulations mandated by the Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA), with $1.125 billion of that to be invested in the first year alone.
Since September 11, 2001, Congress has appropriated three rounds of TSA port security grants totaling $513.2 million and one $75 million grant from the Office of Domestic Preparedness.
With 95 percent of US international trade passing through US ports and trade projected to more than double by 2020, ports are finding it necessary to spend about $1.7 billion per year on operations and another $1.5 billion annually on capital improvements to support burgeoning trade growth.
The MM&P Wheelhouse Weekly is the official electronic newsletter of the Masters, Mates & Pilots, ILA, AFL-CIO. For more info contact John Peige at jpeige@bridgedeck.org. The Wheelhouse Weekly is Emailed to interested persons, broadcast worldwide via marine telex from WLO Radio at http://www.wloradio.com and is on http://www.bridgedeck.org.
So, we know that 95 percent of US international
trade passes through US ports, and 95 percent of the ships carrying that trade
are foreign owned — by, God only knows who-all!
This disastrous situation didn't happen overnight. Most of
our trade is (or once was), totally unnecessary. We have the natural resources
and the population to be almost totally economically self-sufficient, as we were
not too long ago. We even have the technological ability, but apparently not the
will, to free ourselves from our need for foreign oil. But while our energy
needs have soared, we've allowed ourselves to become not only dependent on
foreign oil, but on such an array of manufactured consumer goods, including high
tech communications and computer components, that the powers that be cannot even
imagine America being economically independent again. If we cut our trade by
75%, the associated costs ($5.4 billion over ten years), for port and vessel
security would be significantly lower. And the $3.2 billion annually that we are
now looking at for port operations and expansion would be largely be
unnecessary. It is only "necessary" now because we have become so
unnecessarily dependent on foreign suppliers and manufacturers. In addition to
this, we are actively "trying" to become even more dependent on on
export activities as the "only viable solution" to our disastrous
balance of trade problem.
We have such a huge and growing volume of trade today only
because we are ceasing to produce goods for ourselves. If our trade was cut by
50%, American factories and jobs would have to be reenergized, and we'd have to
produce for ourselves again, which mere common sense would dictate that we
should do. And if we had a merchant marine that could carry about half of the
remaining 50% of the current trade, we'd have a world class fleet worthy of a
great maritime power — one as large as, or larger, than the one we once had
before the era of free trade and national dependence cut it to the bone.
Maritime security costs would plummet perhaps to reasonable and manageable
levels, and potential terrorists would be deprived of about 75% of their present
sea borne opportunities.
Ships are far too large today, and far too undermanned to
ever be secure. Far too many eggs, as it were, are being carried in one huge
basket. Each ship is a major disaster waiting to happen, both in terms of the
environment and national security. Containerization has made it impossible for
cargo to be inspected once it is loaded aboard ship. What's in a container, and
what's on the manifest, may be two different things. Crews are too small to
provide effective ship security. Each modern container ship is like a huge,
largely deserted floating platform, with thousands of large sealed boxes of
cargo — any one or several of which could contain illicit drugs, arms, illegal
immigrants, or a timed biological, chemical, or nuclear bomb.
Maritime security should mandate smaller ships, and larger
crews, so that all containers may be inspected while on board. (Something that
is physically impossible now, due to the way ships are designed and boxes are
stowed.) The present
notion that all containers will be ex-rayed before loading is a security pipe
dream or nightmare. After all the huge costs of creating such a system are
incurred, the system will eventually fail to function. Bombs can be small and
undoubtedly disguised to thwart ex-ray detection. Palms will be greased to
expedite the movement of cargo, and a false sense of security will result —
eventually to be capped by some unspeakable disaster. Safety is compromised at
every step of the container liner trade, to accommodate unnecessary degrees of
efficiency (eliminating crew, longshoremen, and other workers), and completely
unnecessary volumes of trade.
In the final analysis, containerization is not nearly as
efficient as it was thought to be, and we are finding that out only after the
world is irrevocably committed to it. The costs will ultimately be prohibitive,
because those costs will almost inevitably include unacceptable levels national
security costs and other risks — perhaps including the ultimate night-mare,
which would make the crumbling of the twin towers pale by comparison.
Our basic problem has been that America has become an
industrial and global follower rather than the global industrial leader. First,
after America led the world in industrial innovation and maritime
containerization, it led the world into globalization, repudiating the very
system that had brought on its own spectacular success. The rest of the world
could have our "dirty" industries, we seemed to say — we're now
above such things. Then we turned regulatory authority over to agencies of the
United Nations (WTO, IMO, etc.), where we are so outvoted that we have lost all
pretense of being the master of our own national destiny without incurring huge
fines for violating our own free trade treaties. Under the banners of safety,
efficiency, and globalization, we have lowered our standards and sold out our
merchant marine, and other industries, to conform to globalized standards which,
among other important things, failed to take our national security into
consideration. In the name of efficiency and globalization we have compromised
ship and port security, and now have to negate that efficiency, and violate
global standards, in the name of national security, exponentially compounding
all associated costs.
Since the scale and intensity of international competition is
so great, freight profit margins are such that it has become imperative that
business costs be cut to the bone, and vessel schedules kept so tight that there
is no time for real maritime security considerations. Thus the additional
security measures must be implemented without hampering either vessel schedules
or cargo volumes. Since the carriers cannot absorb the additional security
costs, the taxpayers will have to absorb them. Thus the real costs of our trade
policy will be hidden in defense budgets and Homeland Security costs.
The god of globalism is just another definition of Mammon.
Expansion of the volume of international trade, speed and size of ships, and the
necessity for ever-tightening of sailing schedules, all made possible by modern
technologies and capabilities, are all part of the package we foisted upon the
world and ourselves as the economic panacea for the world's multi-tiered
economic and political ills.
Many Americans, awash in a literal sea of cheap imported
consumer goods, have been convinced that globalism is good, and they
automatically cast their votes for more of the same each time they pass through
the checkout counters of stores like Wal Mart. They now hear that the economy is
on the rebound. Even though it is admittedly a "jobless" economic
recovery, they feel heartened — even as their jobs continue to disappear and
their prospects for the future become even more bleak. The global economy, at
best, is an exceedingly fragile thing purchased at extraordinary cost.
The requisite costs, however unintentional, have been
ever-decreasing real standards of safety and security upon the high seas and
ports of the world, with safety mandated globally through such an incredible
array and volume of international law and regulations (in the form of the United
Nation's IMO STCW and ISM, regimens, etc., which look good on paper, but are
totally unmanageable), that a false sense of order and security had begun to
lead to the belief that international maritime safety and security were finally
under increasingly competent international control. That, until the 9-11 wake-up
call, and a painfully slow awakening to the natures of the multifaceted dangers
of the kind of globalism we have so frantically and relentlessly promoted for
decades. What we have actively created is an international juggernaut that is
functioning on autopilot under the "control" of the dangerous concept
known as international free market forces. By promoting international regulatory
solutions, and making ourselves subservient to their regulatory control, we have
given up our own ability to fully manage our own strategic maritime assets. In
fact, we have sacrificed those assets, on the altar of Mammon, to the principle
of the runaway flag.
Part of the solution would be to have a large national
merchant fleet of our own, built, owned, and manned by loyal Americans. Of
course, a viable merchant marine would require a large merchant marine subsidy.
But the required subsidy would be only a fraction of what is now being spent (or
going to be spent), on maritime security — in large measure, because we
presently don't have a domestic merchant marine of viable size. It would only be
a fraction of what we are losing today in freight revenues paid to dozens of
competing merchant fleets to deliver our goods. What's more, maritime subsidies
would be returned to the national economy (something almost everybody seems to
miss), since both the companies and the seamen would be Americans. And, of
course, freight revenues would also be generated and returned to the American
economy, rather than (as now), going directly to the competition. In addition to
all of these advantages, a large and active American merchant fleet would
provide the logistical backbone to support our troops anywhere in the world at
any time of national emergency or large scale foreign war — something our
present fleet is incapable of doing.
Today, even our port expansion infrastructure (such as
container cranes, etc.), is largely "made in China" or elsewhere. This
is not investing in ourselves by any stretch of the imagination. We're selling
ourselves out and investing in China and other nations — and they get the
money, not us. It comes back to us as foreign credit and increased national debt
and dependence. In the end, though we get what we pay for, we're sold down the
river, both economically and strategically. When we invest in China, we are
investing in the future superpower which will eventually, and inevitably,
challenge our position in the Asia Pacific region, if not the world.
The war on terrorism, including our incursion into Iraq, and
the on-going terrorist threat, are causing some of our erstwhile mis-representatives
to reassess their position with regard to maritime security, merchant marine
subsidies, free trade, and globalism in general. The big question is, will they
get their act together, and act, before the world's only remaining superpower is
powerlessly dependent in an interdependent world of its own making?
I'm not going to hold my breath. For years I predicted that
things couldn't get any worse (vis-à-vis the merchant marine, which is part of
our national security apparatus), only to be continually amazed at the
machinations of our leaders in Washington. Things have only got worse, until
they seem to be approaching a decisive turning point at which nobody in
positions of power have the slightest idea which way to turn. Our trusty leaders
have pursued national suicide for so long they wouldn't know what wise policy
would be even if it knocked them in the head. We will continue to react to the
unintended consequences of past policy decisions, both economic and strategic,
and at ever-increasing costs — until we have surpassed the amount of credit
the rest of the world is willing to extend. Action will be called for, and
something will have to be done. But, as in the past, I suspect that our great
thinkers in Washington will make the wrong decisions and take the wrong action.
Probably more, or expanded, war. War can be used to undo almost anything.
Trouble is, in this day and age it can undo everything.
Today we are strategically and economically hamstrung. And, what's worse, we're the ones who have done it to ourselves and the world. We are the ones who promoted the kind of globalism that made the "runaway flag" not only the international maritime standard, but the international business and industrial standard. Now, in the wake of 9-11, we are beginning to pay the piper. (Dare I say that we are waking up? Unfortunately, I don't think so — at least not in a meaningfully productive way.) The piper we have to pay is pretty hungry. The costs we have thus far paid, or envision paying, are only the tip of the iceberg.
The folly of our national trade policy fully
dawned on this old sea dog back in 1985 when the ship I was on called at
Japanese ports to load nice new yellow "American" Caterpillar
machinery and high speed mass-transit train coaches for import to the United
States. The Caterpillar machinery items were "American Products Produced
Abroad" (APPA), so that American workers would be spared the trouble of
producing them. The coaches were for the Atlanta, Georgia, Mass Transit
Authority. It was incredible to me that a publicly owned mass transit system
would (or legally could), totally bypass American labor for their needs. What
had happened to the Pullman company? I wondered. It was then that the blatantly
suicidal nature of our national economic and trade policies finally hit me with
the impact of a thunderbolt. This suicidal perversity was already well
established policy at that time — it has been "perfected," and has
expanded exponentially, since then.
I was sailing on an American built merchant ship, owned by an
old American shipping company, back in 1985. Since then, both the ship and
company are gone — internationalized into oblivion. In recent years, I no
longer have the privilege of working on American owned, much less American
built, ships. We just don't do that any more. Nor have I recently had the
privilege of working for an American owned company, though some of their ships
fly the American flag and use American seamen.
In fact, the American flag itself has become a new kind
of "flag of convenience" which (though no longer attractive to
American ship owners) lends prestige, as well as the benefits of American
taxpayer subsidies, to an increasing number of foreign ship owners. A few
American seamen (such as myself), may nominally benefit from those subsidies to
foreign companies, but the freight profits all go directly to the foreign
competition. In other words, our own flag has been sold foreign.
Ironically, while they have actively and enthusiastically betrayed the American
flag and American sovereignty itself, Congress thought it becoming to officially
mandate respect for that flag through a constitutional amendment. Talk
about hypocrisy in the highest levels of government!
What has happened is that American industrial labor, the
American family farmer, and the merchant marine (thus, "We the People"
as a whole), have been sold down the river — sacrificed on the Alter of Mammon
for the benefit of runaway flag industries. It has been national trade policy,
and a perverse notion of subverting the nation to globalism, that has done this.
Industry itself hasn't been to blame. Sending production facilities abroad, and
the increase of the runaway flag phenomena, has been the result of official
policy — highly articulated and highly subsidized policy. And this policy has
been given the most effective and professional hard sell government, aided by
the media, could engineer. While many multi-national corporations lobbied for
this policy, many otherwise "patriotic" national companies and
industries were literally forced to internationalize and go offshore in response
to them — simply to survive in the "new international economic
order" (New World Order), our leaders and policy makers have been
diligently building. Building, it must also be observed, without the fully
informed consent of the governed.
What crazy national economic and maritime policy! Is there
any wonder that we now face a security crises that threatens to finish the job
of undermining "Freedom, justice, and the American Way?" Is there any
wonder that I call our trusty leaders in Washington, "mis-representatives"?
12 December 2003