Anti-Prostitution Politics and Militarised Urban Prosperity in the US Military Camptown in Korea

Camptowns (kijich'on) are neighbourhoods located near US military bases in Korea that are organised around the military service economy, especially the sex industry. While most studies of Korean camptowns point to the US military's involvement with the camptown sex industry as evidence of US military imperialism, this article argues that since 2004 anti-prostitution polices have been essential to stabilising American militarisation in Korea's urban realm. Focusing on Anjeong-ri, a camptown located adjacent to Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US military base on the planet, the article examines how Korean development actors invoke hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and class to distance the camptown from the sex industry and to construct the camptown as a space of militarised urban prosperity. By showing emerging ways in which US military empire works through anti-prostitution policies and through the urban system in Korea, the argument poses a challenge to anti-prostitution feminists who have long located evidence of American empire in the sex industry itself.     

Over‐promising and under‐delivering? Ambitions and risks in US defence strategy

Recent changes to US defence strategy, plans and forces have placed the United States at greater risk of over‐promising and under‐delivering on its global security ambitions. In 2012, the Obama administration released a new defence strategic guidance document to adapt to a shifting security environment and defence budget cuts. The guidance upholds the two long‐standing American goals of global pre‐eminence and global reach, but seeks to apply this military power by using new planning and regional concepts. It revises the Department of Defense's force planning construct, an important tool used to size US military forces, and identifies the Asia–Pacific and the greater Middle East as the two regions where the US military should focus its attention and resources. There are three major risks facing this revised US strategy: emerging security threats, the role of US allies and partners, and domestic constraints in the United States. Included in these risks are the proliferation of advanced military technologies, the US response to the rise of China, the continued prevalence of state instability and failure, the capability and commitment of NATO and other US allies, additional US budget cuts, political polarization in the United States, and interservice competition within the US military. In light of these risks, the United States faces a future in which it will continue to struggle to direct its military power towards its most important geopolitical priorities, such as rebalancing towards the Asia–Pacific, as opposed simply to respond to the many security surprises that are certain to arise. If the past is any guide, American political leaders will respond to the aforementioned risks in the worst way possible: by maintaining the current US defence strategy while slashing the resources to support it.     

The dynamics of British military transformation

The British military have embarked on a comprehensive process of transformation towards a network-enabled, effects-orientated, and expeditionary force posture. This has involved developing brand new military doctrine, organizational concepts, and technology. The US military are also transforming, and American military ideas about network-centric and effects-based warfare have influenced the British military. But the British have not simply aped their US ally. Rather, British military transformation has followed a different path. Hence, this article proposes a dynamic model of military innovation involving two international drivers: new operational challenges and military emulation; and three national shapers: resource constraints, domestic politics and military culture. This model is then applied to a detailed empirical analysis of the process and progress of British military transformation.     

The US military base network and contemporary colonialism: Power projection, resistance and the quest for operational unilateralism

This article explores the contemporary global network of US military bases. This paper examines how the geography of this network is shaped not only by military objectives but also by resistance from allied governments and communities adjacent to bases. Using examples from Guam, Puerto Rico, Okinawa and other locales this paper examines how local resistances to US bases have caused the Department of Defense to increasingly rely on non-sovereign islands as sites for bases. These sites, military strategists believe, will enable the military to train without hindrance and to operate without the need for consultation with allies. These colonies, however, are also sites were military activities are actively resisted. The resulting base network is thus shaped not only by global military priorities, but also by an increasingly globalized network of local social movements resisting militarization.     

Reinhold Niebuhr: Public and Private

Abstract

Little has been written in recent Christian ethics regarding the moral basis of the voluntary military service of Christian individuals. This article identifies some sources of that lack of discussion. Furthermore, it explores the moral basis of voluntary military service, especially in the modern United States' military. This is critical because service in the US military is not, in many respects, simply equivalent to generic military service. This is due to the unique and historically unprecedented military superiority of the United States in the world—its ‘sole remaining superpower’ status. This status places unique political responsibility and obligations on the military forces of the United States in the twenty-first century global community. The article attempts to articulate a moral argument in support of the voluntary military service of thoughtful Christian individuals in the US military in this geopolitical environment.     

The United States and Myanmar: a ‘boutique issue’?

Myanmar has been one of a number of countries that the new American Executive branch selected for policy reconsideration. The Obama administration's review of relations with Myanmar, characterized as a ‘boutique issue’ during the presidential campaign, has received considerable attention in 2009, and in part was prompted by quiet signals sent by both sides that improved relations were desirable. Begun as an intense policy review by various agencies, it has been supplemented by the first visits in 15 years to the country by senior US officials. The policy conclusion, that sanctions must remain in place but will be supplemented by dialogue, is a politically realistic compromise given the strong congressional and public antipathy to the military regime and the admiration for Aung San Suu Kyi, whose purported views have shaped US policies. US claims of the importance of Myanmar as a security and foreign policy concern have also been a product of internal US considerations as well as regional realities. US—Burmese relations since independence have been strongly influenced by the Cold War and China, whose strategic interests in Myanmar have been ignored in the public dialogue on policy until recently, with US policy focused on political and human rights concerns. Attention is now concentrated on parliamentary and local elections to be held in 2010, after which the new constitution will come into effect and provide the military with a taut reign on critical national policies while allowing opposition voices. Future relations will be strongly influenced by the transparency and freedom both of the campaigning and vote counting, and the role—if any—of the opposition National League for Democracy. Strong scepticism exists in the US on prospects unless the Burmese institute extensive reforms. The Burmese military, presently controlling all avenues of social mobility, will have a major role in society for decades. The article initially evaluates US policies towards Myanmar prior to 1988, when a military coup marked a negative shift in US—Myanmar relations, from cooperation to a US sanctions regime. It looks at the influence China's involvement in Myanmar and the role Aung San Suu Kyi have had on the formulation of US policy towards the country and assesses the prospects for the US‐Myanmar relationship under the Obama administration.     

Beyond the carrot and stick: the political economy of US military aid to China, 1945–1951

By applying the rent-seeking assumption and sifting through both the archival materials and published historical documents, this article revisits the US–China relationship during the Chinese Civil War (1946–1949) and the early Cold War period, when the United States was caught in the conundrum of aiding the Chinese Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek. As military aid is usually regarded as an important representation of broader economic aid, this research mainly concentrates on the US military assistance to postwar Nationalist China. This topic is important, as it signifies a direct American involvement in the Chinese Civil War, when the influence of the United States in postwar world politics was overwhelmingly predominant. As a result, postwar Chinese history might be reevaluated in a broader global postwar context. In addition, this article also tells the story about rent-seeking behaviors in the complicated US–China military relations during the early Cold War period at both micro and macro levels. When it came to US military assistance to China, the formulation of policy was perennially in the name of one's best interest.     

二战后日美之间的冲绳行政权归还交涉

二战后日本政府一直致力于收复冲绳主权。经过日本历届政府多年的努力,到佐藤政权时期日本终于成功地收回了冲绳施政权,并实现了＂撤出核武器和本土一样＂的归还目标。但日本收回的是对冲绳的行政管理权,美军在冲绳不仅依然保有其军事基地,而且还拥有相当的军事行动自由。为此,日美还专门签订一份保障美军行动自由的秘密协定。冲绳问题的解决对于日美两国来说是一次外交上的双赢。它不仅成功解决了二战后日美之间的领土问题,而且成功实现了日美关系的转换。从此日美关系从日本对美依附走向了日美相互依存。     

‘To Prostitute the Elements’: Weather Control and Weaponisation by US Department of Defense

The US military has a long and robust history of scientific research programs, often conducted in conjunction with civilian scientists at non-military governmental agencies as well as universities. These programs flourished in the immediate post-Second World War and the early cold war years, as the field of military science expanded to address the sprawling Soviet threat. One area of growth was in atmospheric science, which had already taken off preceding Second World War in conjunction with the growth of air warfare. Advances in meteorology, cloud science and climatology enabled military interests to align with weather forecasters and also agricultural interests, as old ideas about cloud seeding and weather control were revived in the light of new research. The military, largely through the Air Force, advanced a series of projects investigating the potential of weather and climate control, manipulation, and ultimately weaponisation. These programs, which were sometimes linked to US Department of Agriculture programs aimed at improving agricultural production, persisted for decades. Some of the newly developed tools were deployed: local climate manipulation efforts during the Vietnam conflict were aimed at impeding traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with mixed results. Significant efforts came during the Weather Bureau leadership of Francis W. Reichelderfer, whose papers contain a wealth of information about efforts ranging from cloud seeding to proposals to drop atomic weapons on hurricanes. These papers, along with those of Weather Bureau scientist Harry Wexler, provide a fascinating window to a time when the US military and scientific establishment seemed poised to grasp the levers of power over nature itself. This paper describes these little-studied programs, and situates these efforts within the broader military science programs accompanying the emergence of air warfare, as well as post-war science programs aimed at countering the Soviet challenge.     

‘Forewarned Is Forearmed’: Intelligence,Japan's Siberian Intervention,and the Washington Conference

This article details the intelligence-gathering role of US railroad experts stationed in Siberia and Manchuria from 1917 to 1922. Beginning in April 1920, US railway officials began receiving intercepted correspondence between Japanese officials, passed to them from Japan's military headquarters in Harbin via a former Czechoslovak soldier. The intelligence shows that US officials were aware of highly detailed planning by Japanese expansionists. Whether or not US officials were completely cognisant of the intelligence's significance, these sources provide insight into why US diplomacy helped provide leverage to the moderates within Japan's government. In particular, the intercepted correspondence allows for a reinterpretation of Japanese Foreign Minister Uchida Yasuya's role during the Siberian expedition. This paper provides evidence that Uchida was not a moderate ally as scholars have traditionally claimed, but a key facilitator of Japan's military expansionists. It argues that the success of the Washington Conference, combined with the military's repeated failures to produce a victory in the Russian Far East, pressured Uchida into withdrawing his support for the expansionist programme. In addition to demonstrating the impact of the Washington Conference and the Siberian intervention on US–Japanese relations, this article helps explain Uchida's later re-emergence in the 1930s as a militarist sympathiser.     

Weaponizing nature: The geopolitical ecology of the US Navy’s biofuel program

The United States military is treating climate change as a crucial factor in its preparation for future conflicts. This concern manifests not only in strategic planning and forward-looking documents, but also in building infrastructural capacity and material provision. Yet, the impetus to ‘green’ the military goes beyond the deployment of existing technologies. We examine several facets of the military's role as an environmental actor, particularly through its promotion of the US Navy's ‘Great Green Fleet’ (GGF), which actively supports the development of advanced biofuels by subsidizing their development and facilitating wider marketization. The GGF promises to reduce military reliance on conventional fossil fuels and reconfigure its energy sourcing, thus reducing dependence on imported hydrocarbons; this is with an eye towards ultimately severing the logistical relationship between existing energy infrastructures and the spaces of military intervention. Taking an integrated lens of political ecology and geopolitics - ‘geopolitical ecology’ - we seek to provide an understanding of the production of weaponized nature. We demonstrate that the US military's discursive use of climate change to justify the provision of new military hardware and advanced biofuels promotes a vision of resource conflicts to support the development of technologies to overcome the constraints to delivery of fuel to emergent front lines. We argue that while this may appear to be militarized greenwashing, it signals a shift in the logics and practices of fuel sourcing driven by a dystopian vision of climate change, which the US military played a significant role in creating.     

‘Protection against the Lust of Men’: Progressivism,Prostitution and Rape in the Dominican Republic under US Occupation, 1916–24

This article explains the disparity between the United States (US) military government's efforts to defend and empower local women during the first occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–24) and its reputation for tolerating sexual assault. It argues that US officials, inspired by a progressive ideology that linked the social, economic and political spheres, set out to reshape Dominican sexual and gender norms as a means to ensure political stability. Yet, these efforts fell victim to both Dominican and US Marines’ conceptions of gender and normative sexuality. Building upon a thriving body of scholarship that addresses the significance of US efforts to redefine Dominican gender norms, this article analyses the military government's policies towards women and provost courts’ responses to sexual assault. It concludes that, combined with an aggressive anti‐prostitution campaign, the military government's reforms succeeded only in creating an atmosphere favourable to crimes against women. Moreover, rape and the way it was prosecuted revitalised the patriarchal norms that US officials had set out to transform, thus setting the stage for the regime of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, whose thirty‐year dictatorship depended on the conspicuous control of women. Thus, US policies and attitudes not only ensured the failure of progressive reform but also contributed to the ongoing subjugation of the very women the military government had pledged to empower.     

Living with the fence: militarization and military spaces on Guahan/Guam

The landscape of Guahan/Guam, an organized unincorporated territory of the USA and the largest and southernmost island of the Mariana Islands archipelago, is visibly marked by chain link fences that enclose land taken for use by the US military. This US military presence on Guam is evidence of a long military colonial history that has stressed, particularly under US rule, the importance of the island's strategic location. The ‘fence,’ a frequently used but rarely defined expression, refers to a multiplicity of lines, most of which recreate a dichotomous view of military/local relations, and help to make invisible the complex web of identities that go through, over, and beyond its real and imagined spaces. Working from an understanding that theory must be grounded in experience, this article draws on interviews to explore the multiple meanings of the fence. It focuses on the ways the colonized, militarized, and gendered spaces of the fence promote US values, interests, and security concerns but also mark points of resistance to militarization and colonization. Exploring the ways colonization and militarization are played out on the bodies of those who live and work on the island, the article concludes that tearing down the ‘fence’ must include both demilitarization and decolonization, but in ways that transcend, rather than reproduce its present gendered and dichotomous spaces.     

Out of Balance: Evaluating American Strategy in Vietnam, 1968–72

Abstract

This paper examines the ineffective implementation of American military strategy in the Vietnam War’s final years. While the Nixon administration conceived a comprehensive strategic concept aimed at winding down the war in South Vietnam, civilian and military leaders struggled to realize, in an effectual manner, Nixon’s wide-ranging political objectives. American officials in Saigon and Washington found it near impossible to balance the competing strategic imperatives of combat operations, diplomatic negotiations, Vietnamization, and the withdrawal of US forces from South-east Asia. This inability to reconcile imbalances within the American strategic framework helps explain more fully the outcome of US political and military efforts in South Vietnam.     

MILITARY ASSISTANCE,FOREIGN POLICY,AND NATIONAL SECURITY

From the inauguration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1950, until its termination in the early 1960s, Norway was among the main European beneficiaries of military assistance from the United States. Previous research on this subject has mainly seen the MDAP from the perspective of the recipient, analysing what effect the influx of large amounts of equipment had for the shape and development of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This article discusses the motives for US military assistance to Norway, and analyses this activity as an expression of US Cold War objectives concerning Norway and NATO’s northern flank. The article also explores how these objectives influenced policy making relevant to military assistance, and gives particular attention to the role of US representatives in Oslo. These actors played an important role in highlighting the political and strategic benefits of extensive aid to Norway.     

The coming revolution in foreign affairs: rethinking American national security

For the last two decades the US has pursued what some analysts have called the ‘fantastical idea’ of military transformation that would enable the US to change the very nature of war. Known as the ‘revolution in military affairs’, this process would use technology to provide the US with battlefield dominance that no opponent could overcome. Motivated by the politics of the Cold War, however, this exit from reality has proved less than effective in what has become known as the ‘war on terror’. The US has been pulled into nasty, ‘small’ wars, against enemies utilizing asymmetric tactics. The Bush administration has tried to destroy these groups through the use of military force, failing, or even worse refusing, to recognize that these enemies feed off the economical, political and social rot of weak and failing states. For the last eight years the US government has addressed the symptoms of a problem rather than the actual disease. If America wants to make serious progress with the most pressing national security risks, the next American president must enact a revolution in foreign affairs that sees a massive overhaul and substantial investment in the State Department and USAID. A critical mass of research exists to illustrate the links between development and security—it is time Washington gets serious and embraces a conception of security that is more holistic, and ultimately, more effective.     

Closing the Neoliberal Gap: Risk and Regulation in the Long War of Securitization

Abstract: When US military commanders refer today to the “long war”, they could more instructively refer to the “long war of securitization”, involving both practices of war and reconstruction that have always been based on a therapeutic logic of preemption and an endgame of protection from global economic risk. Since the early 1980s, the centrepiece of US foreign policy has been the securitization of the Persian Gulf region, with the newly created United States Central Command (CENTCOM) given the task of effecting a grand strategy that has subsequently been consistently based on two interrelated tactics: first, the discursive identification and positing of the Persian Gulf as a precarious yet pivotal geoeconomic space, essential to US and global economic health; and second, the enactment of a dual military–economic securitization strategy to secure, patrol and regulate designated “vital interests” in the region. With the rhetorical power of “risk management” perhaps more palpable today than ever, this paper reflects on the neoliberal discourses of “risk” and “regulation” that sustain a “long war” in which the perennial potentiality of a volatile global political economy necessitates securitization by US military force.     

Rape as a Weapon of War(riors): The Militarisation of Sexual Violence in the United States, 1990–2000

This article uses a transnational feminist lens to examine how accusations of sexual violence were mobilised by the United States (US) government to justify military intervention at the same time that the US military failed to address sexual violence perpetrated by and against its own service members. Drawing upon an archive of civilian representations ranging from the New York Times to G.I. Jane, the author explores US interventions in the Persian Gulf, Haiti and the former Yugoslavia alongside sexual assaults committed by servicemen at the Tailhook Convention, on Okinawa and at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. This article draws connections between feminism and neo‐imperialism, between Cold War and War on Terror ideologies, and between rape as a weapon of war and rape during times of ‘peace’ in order to better understand the relationships between sexual politics and geopolitics at the end of the twentieth century.