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Biden’s Trilateral Camp David Summit Advanced Preparation for War with China
The summit’s much ballyhooed commitment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation serves more to manufacture consent for preparations for nuclear war than to reduce nuclear dangers.
Aug 21, 2023
Meeting in a summit at Camp David on August 18, President Joe Biden, President Yoon Suk Yeol
of South Korea, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan posed for photos that confirmed and broadcast a long-term trilateral alliance designed to reinforce containment of China, Russia, and North Korea.
The architect of this updated alliance structure was the coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs in President Biden’s National Security Council, Kurt Campbell. In an earlier incarnation, he served as former President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs who then led the greatest U.S. post-Cold War foreign and military transition: the pivot to Asia and the Pacific to contain and manage China’s rise. Now as he has nurtured the consolidation of the U.S.-Japan-South Korea military alliance to reinforce the pivot and to augment the AUKUS (Australia, British-U.S.) and QUAD (U.S., Japan, Australia, India) alliances in Washington’s long march to create a NATO-like Indo-Pacific alliance system. The New York Timesheadlined that the three-pact way will serve as a “bulwark” against China and North Korea.
Prior to the summit, Campbell announced that the August 18 summit would feature “a very ambitious set of initiatives that seek to lock in trilateral engagement, both now and into the future,” addressing “many sectors—in the security realm, in technology, and education.” In this regard, it should be recalled that the Biden National Security strategy recognizes that the U.S. cannot unilaterally maintain its global dominance, and that doing so requires alliances that integrate military, technological, and economic resources. And while there is anything but equality among the alliance partners, Japanese and South Korean elites enjoy influence and power they would not have on their own.
With these military systems in place and the almost daily provocative military “exercises” by all parties involved, an accident or miscalculation on the Korean Peninsula or in relation to Taiwan could easily escalate into a regional, even nuclear, war.
Little understood across the United States, there are two competing triangular military, economic, and technological pacts in Northeast Asia. These contending military systems, plus the Taiwan and Korean flash points, make the region, along with Ukraine, the most likely trigger for escalation to regional, and potentially nuclear, war. Each of these increasingly integrated triangular systems, the U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance and the China-Russia-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) quasi alliance, has its fault lines. With Japan yet to fully face and apologize for its brutal history of colonial conquest and rule in Korea (think forced labor and systemic military prostitution in the first half of the 20th century), and with widespread resentment over unpopular ROK president Yoon’s kowtowing to Tokyo and Washington, not to mention Seoul being Beijing’s second largest national trade partner, South Korea is the weak link in the U.S.-led alliance. On the other side, as we see in the Ukraine War, Beijing’s commitment to Moscow is not “unlimited.”
As referenced above, with these military systems in place and the almost daily provocative military “exercises” by all parties involved, an accident or miscalculation on the Korean Peninsula or in relation to Taiwan could easily escalate into a regional, even nuclear, war.
Global and domestic political forces led to transforming what was long a hub (U.S.) and spokes (allied partners) alliance system to the more integrated system it is becoming. At its heart lies the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy’s dictat that “the post-Cold War era is definitively over, and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.” Second are fears that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could signal an end to the post World War II/United Nations order in which national boundaries and sovereignty are for the most part respected. (The U.S. invasions of Indochina, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Panama being significant exceptions to the so-called “rules based order!”)
The alliance consolidation also takes place at a time when the Kishida government has opted to totally disregard Japan’s war-renouncing constitution. Being the world’s 10th largest military spender was not sufficient for those who fear China’s rise and North Korea’s missiles and wanted to restore Japan’s military grandeur. Kishida has committed to doubling the Self-Defense Forces budget. In harmony with U.S. alliance building, and to prepare for a time when the U.S. may reduce its Asia-Pacific commitments, Japan is deepening “security” cooperation with Australia, the Philippines, India, and Taiwan and is engaging in joint military operations as far afield as the South China Sea. That these commitments suggest the possible reprising of Tokyo’s early 20th century history as a major regional military power unsettles Beijing and some Asia-Pacific neighbors.
In Korea, the unpopular President Yoon is ruling in the tradition of Donald Trump, ignoring popular opinion, relying on his narrow but loyal right-wing base, and trading his threats to develop nuclear weapons and swallowing unresolved Japanese abuses to deepen U.S. and Japanese alliance commitments. With North Korea augmenting its nuclear arsenal and increasing the pace of its missile tests—even as the U.N. reports increased starvation in the DPRK—Seoul is hardly alone in accelerating the pace of Korean militarization. Add to this the joint Chinese-Russian naval exercises in the Sea of Japan and Asahi Shimbun’s reports that Beijing is tightening its military encirclement of Taiwan.
Among the trilateral agreements just secured at Camp David are the “commitment to consult” when “something that poses a threat to any one of us poses a threat” to the three nations—just short of NATO’s Article 5 commitment to mutual defense. Also agreed were greater intelligence sharing, annual military exercises, deepening cooperation and interdependence on missile defenses (which can provide defense but also serve as shields to reinforce first-strike nuclear swords), collaborative technological development, a framework to further integrate Southeast Asian nations into the trilateral military structure, a hotline, and annual trilateral meetings among national security advisors for “institutionalizing, deepening, and thickening the habits of cooperation” among the allies.
Decades ago, many of us sang, “When will they ever learn?” When indeed!
The summit’s much ballyhooed commitment to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation serves more to manufacture consent for preparations for nuclear war than to reduce nuclear dangers. As we saw in the recent G7 summit, the U.S. and Japan remain committed to “nuclear deterrence.” And the nonproliferation commitment may have more to do with preventing South Korea’s and Japan’s military from becoming nuclear powers than a commitment to fulfilling their Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments. (Article VI of the NPT requires the original nuclear powers to engage in good faith negotiations for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals, which they have refused to do for 50 years. And, for 60 years, Japan’s military has asserted its right to possess nuclear weapons, and South Korean polls indicate that a majority support Seoul developing nuclear weapons.)
Decades ago, many of us sang, “When will they ever learn?” When indeed! Former Australian Prime Minister, now ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, warns that we are marching toward a catastrophic and avoidable war. At the height of the last Cold War, U.S., Soviet, and European elites opted for the paradigm of Common Security diplomacy to halt and reverse the spiraling and increasingly terrifying nuclear arms race. They ended the Cold War on the basis of the recognition that security cannot be achieved by taking increasingly militarized actions against their rival, that it can only be won through difficult diplomacy that acknowledges each side’s fears and resolves and addresses them with win-win, mutually beneficial compromises and agreements.
Earlier this summer Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen observed that the world is big enough for both the U.S. and China. Let’s build on that insight, press U.S. and other leaders to engage in Common Security diplomacy, and stop wasting trillions of dollars in preparation for apocalyptic war and devote our all too limited resources to meeting human needs, including reversing that other existential threat: the climate emergency.
An earlier version of this article said that Kurt Campbell served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under former President Bill Clinton. He actually filled this role under former President Barack Obama, and the piece has been corrected to reflect this.
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On 78th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing, Mayor Decries 'Folly' of Deterrence Theory
"Believers of proactive nuclear deterrence, who say nuclear weapons are indispensable to maintain peace, are only delaying the progress toward nuclear disarmament," Hiroshima's governor added.
Aug 06, 2023
Local, national, and global leaders warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons as they commemorated the 78th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima Sunday.
This year's anniversary comes as the release of the film Oppenheimer has offered a high-profile reminder of the history of the atomic bomb and as nuclear tensions in the current day have heightened, in part due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. At the start of the year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their doomsday clock to 90 seconds to midnight.
"Leaders around the world must confront the reality that nuclear threats now being voiced by certain policymakers reveal the folly of nuclear deterrence theory," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said during his peace address at the commemoration ceremony in Hiroshima Sunday, as The Associated Press reported. "They must immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world."
Matsui's remarks responded in part to the Group of Seven summit in the city in May, during which world leaders put out a statement that anti-nuclear advocates considered a major disappointment.
In that statement, the leaders agreed that no country should use nuclear weapons, but that merely possessing the weapons could still "serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war and coercion," according to AP. Since then, former Russian President and current deputy chair of that country's Security Council Dmitry Medvedev threatened nuclear war if a NATO-backed Ukrainian offensive reclaims land annexed illegally by Russia.
Hiroshima's Gov. Hidehiko Yuzai agreed with its mayor that deterrence had failed.
"Believers of proactive nuclear deterrence, who say nuclear weapons are indispensable to maintain peace, are only delaying the progress toward nuclear disarmament," Yuzai said, according to AP.
The U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, at 8:15 am local time. A second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. The two bombings killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Those who survived, called hibakusha in Japan, still contend with sickness and injury from the bombings even as they advocate for a nuclear free world, according to AP.
"For 78 years, the city of Hiroshima and the hibakusha have worked tirelessly to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in remarks delivered at Sunday's ceremony by Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu.
People began to light candles and incense and pray at a memorial for the victims of the Hiroshima bombings as the sun rose on Sunday, according to The Washington Post. At the exact time of the bombing, a peace bell rang out, followed by a moment of silence, Reuters reported. Around 50,000 people attended the ceremony in 86°F heat.
Among them was Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who also called for peace.
"The drums of nuclear war are beating once again."
"The tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused by nuclear weapons must never be repeated," he said. "As the only country to have experienced the horror of nuclear devastation in war, Japan will press on tirelessly with its efforts to bring about 'a world without nuclear weapons' while continuing to firmly uphold the 'Three Non-Nuclear Principles.'"
Kishida added that this work had become "more difficult," in part because of disagreements over disarmament and threats from Russia.
"But it is precisely because of these circumstances that it is imperative for us to reinvigorate international momentum once more towards the realization of a 'world without nuclear weapons,'" he continued.
Kishida has been criticized in Japan by survivors for not signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, according to AP. The prime minister, for his part, has argued such an act would not be effective, since no country currently possessing nuclear weapons has signed the agreement.
Guterres, through Nakamitsu, spoke out in favor of the treaty, as well as the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
"World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors, and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament," Guterres said. "More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again."
And he was clear about what must be done to silence them.
"The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk," Guterres said, "is to eliminate nuclear weapons."
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Climate Movement Implores G7 Leaders to Ditch Fossil Fuels for Good
"The G7 in Hiroshima is an opportunity for PM Kishida and other leaders to deliver a clear and just renewable energy agenda for a peaceful world," said 350.org's Japan team lead.
May 18, 2023
As Group of Seven leaders and representatives from other key countries travel to Japan for a three-day summit set to start on Friday, the global movement for climate action is renewing demands for swiftly shifting away from planet-heating fossil fuels.
" The G7 leaders' summit in Hiroshima represents a crucial juncture at which the world's most powerful nations have the opportunity to demonstrate true leadership and make good on their promises," declared 350.org executive director May Boeve on Thursday. "There is no point powering up on renewables without powering down on fossil fuels—a commitment to expand renewable energy development is not enough."
Andreas Sieber, 350.org's associate director of global policy, pointed out that the summit comes after "a year of global suffering due to fossil fuel-driven inflation, soaring energy prices, and exorbitant profits for oil corporations, following the G7's 2022 pledge to end international fossil fuel support."
Stressing the necessity of cutting off international public financing of fossil fuels, Simone Ogno, finance and climate campaigner at the Italian group ReCommon, said that "what will emerge from the G7 will also strongly influence the decisions" at COP28, the next United Nations climate conference, later this year.
"For the United States and the G7 to continue doubling down on this suicidal fossil fuel dependency... is beyond careless."
Earlier this year,
Oil Change International (OCI) exposed multiple countries for breaking their promises to stop pouring money into international fossil fuel projects and released a briefing on how top economies—including G7 nations like Japan, the United States, Italy, and Germany—have dumped billions into new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal capacity.
Leaders of G7 nations—which also include Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, plus the European Union—are headed to Hiroshima after their climate, energy, and environment ministers met in Sapporo last month and crafted a 36-page communiqué that critics said showed a "shameful disregard for what people and planet urgently need."
Campaigners noted this week that the communiqué ultimately wasn't as bad as it could have been—it stated that any gas sector investments should be "implemented in a manner consistent with our climate objectives and without creating lock-in effects." Still, leaving the door open to fossil fuels and recent actions by member nations concern climate action advocates.
"While just a month ago we saw G7 countries successfully pushing back against a Japan-led push for gas investments and fossil fuels, we now see Germany pushing the G7 to endorse gas investments and the United States approving financing for an oil refinery in Indonesia,"
said Laurie van der Burg, OCI's co-manager of global public finance.
"We cannot afford backsliding and the G7 must urgently get on track for 1.5°C," she continued, referring to the Paris climate agreement's more ambitious temperature goal for 2100. "This means closing the door to gas investments and instead providing their fair share of climate, loss and damage, and just transition finance."
\u201cNOW HAPPENING: Climate campaigners are mobilizing outside the Japanese Embassy in Manila, joining rallies across 12 cities this week to protest against Japan and the G7\u2019s continued promotion of fossil gas and fossil fuel prolonging technologies. \n\n\ud83e\uddf5(1/4)\u201d— APMDD (@APMDD) 1684378586
Going into the summit, campaigners are taking aim at its host. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida "has acted as a laggard on the global stage by attempting to block a phaseout of coal and pushing false solutions like ammonia co-firing, dangerous nuclear, and LNG into the Sapporo communiqué," said Masayoshi Iyoda, 350.org's Japan team lead. "The G7 in Hiroshima is an opportunity for PM Kishida and other leaders to deliver a clear and just renewable energy agenda for a peaceful world."
OCI Asia program manager Susanne Wong highlighted that "activists are mobilizing across 20 countries for a global week of action to stop Japan's dirty energy strategy and expose Japan's dirty G7 presidency," which the prime minister is using "to benefit Japanese corporate interests over the health and security of people and our planet."
"Japan must stop derailing the global energy transition by pushing for the expansion of fossil gas and other dirty fossil-based technologies," said Wong. "Prime Minister Kishida and other G7 leaders must uphold and strengthen their commitment to end public finance for all fossil fuels and shift investment to renewable energy. This is the surest path to peace and security."
Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden met Thursday to discuss various issues expected to dominate the summit—as American lawmakers reintroduced federal legislation that would ban fossil fuel exports from the United States.
"It is time for President Biden to take responsibility and ensure that the G7 is not co-opted for global LNG expansion and industry greenwashing," asserted Lukas Ross, senior program manager at Friends of the Earth (FOE) U.S. "Marketing ploys like Big Oil's so-called 'hydrogen-ready' LNG will only prolong our fossil fuel nightmare. The world cannot afford more dirty diplomacy."
\u201cWith two days to the #G7Summit in Japan, we took our message for Japan to stop fueling the climate crisis to the Japanese Embassy in Washington. @SierraClub @foe_us @PublicCitizen \n#JapanLovesDirtyEnergy #FossilFreeJapan\nSign the petition: https://t.co/QZpxzOrTG7\u201d— Mighty Earth \ud83c\udf0d (@Mighty Earth \ud83c\udf0d) 1684310423
FOE, OCI, and 350.org were among dozens of groups—including Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, For a Better Bayou, Greenpeace USA, Mighty Earth, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and Zero Hour—who sent a letter Wednesday to Mike Pyle, Biden's deputy national security adviser, urging the administration to "lead the way for fossil-free diplomacy."
"It would be a climate and environmental justice disaster if the coming G7 was hijacked to support LNG," the coalition wrote, calling on Biden to block "vague promises of hydrogen readiness," additional public financing for polluting projects, long-term LNG contracts, the promotion of so-called " certified gas," and permitting reforms that disregard frontline communities.
"As a resident of Southwest Louisiana, I have seen firsthand the devastating impact that gas export terminals have on our wetlands and communities," said James Hiatt, director of the Louisiana-based advocacy group For a Better Bayou. "For the United States and the G7 to continue doubling down on this suicidal fossil fuel dependency—one that inflicts suffering on already overburdened communities like mine and will inflict unlivable suffering on future generations—is beyond careless."
"We must prioritize protecting our people, environment, and a livable future over short-term privately held and heavily tax-subsidized corporate profits," he argued. "Environmental and climate justice are not just talking points—they require action that centers people and a livable planet. We cannot afford more deadly shortsightedness—enough is enough!"
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