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National debt, defense spending, and Mr. Putin's inheritance -- 8/20/00
STAR WARS -- 5/20/01

The productivity of American workers surged over the past 12 months at the fastest pace in 17 years while labor costs declined for the first time since 1984, the federal Labor Department reported on August 8, 2000.

Both numbers were much better than expected; consequently, Clinton's bureaucrats applauded to themselves as if they were that remarkable organization that launched and maintained the "new" economy. The latter is actually a creation of the middle class' prudence, which directed its efforts and investments in the computer and other productivity enhancing equipment industries.

Nevertheless, there is some truth in the words of Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, who reverberated on the fact that, "We are enjoying a splendid combination of strong productivity growth, low unemployment and modest inflation. Productivity growth is the key to our economic prosperity.''

Productivity, the amount of output per hour of manual work, increased at an annual rate of 5.3% in the second quarter; it nearly tripled the first quarter's 1.9%t gain. Unit labor costs, the wages paid per amount of work, dived by 0.1% at an annual rate in the second quarter after rising by 1.9% in the first quarter.

Over the past fiscal year, ending in June, productivity for non-farm businesses rose by 5.1%; it is the best yearly showing since a 5.3% rise in 1983. Moreover, the cost of a unit of labor for the past year fell by 0.4%; it is the first annual drop in this key measurement of wage pressures since 1984.

The productivity improvement was led by a surge in manufacturing productivity, which climbed at an annual rate of 5.1 percent in the second quarter after even bigger gains of 7.9% in the first quarter and 10.2% in the fourth quarter of the last calendar year.

Smoothing out the quarterly fluctuations over the past fiscal year, the changes in both productivity and unit labor costs were at their best for the last quarter of the 20th century. Yearly, from 1973 to 1995, gains in productivity averaging 1.4%; however, since 1996, they have been increasing with nearly 3% rate. Such gains in productivity allowed the Federal Reserve bureaucrats not worry too much about inflation even though the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level for the last quarter of the 20th century.

The majority of economists inclined to believe that the good productivity figures and cooling down the red-hot economy made it highly unlikely that the Federal Reserve will boost interest rates for the seventh time in this year when the central bank will meet again on August 22. They insist that despite the lowest unemployment rates in the last quarter of the 20th century, wage pressures are being well contained by advances in productivity. They consider the rising productivity as the crucial element in boosting living standards, because the increased output lets employers pay workers higher salaries. Without productivity gains, employers must cover higher wage costs by raising product prices that boost inflation. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that inflation will spring out of present economical conditions; however, it may be conceived by the present political conditions.

President Clinton used the news to defend Vice President Al Gore's bid for the White House and to obstruct the Republican proposal in Congress to abolish a tax penalty for married couples.

Three weeks ago, the Republicans in Senate went on record in favor of helping millions of couples who are hit by the "marriage penalty" when they pay their income taxes. From the beginning, the tax-relief bill had no chance of becoming law because it held out the prospect of $292 billion in tax break to the upper middle class over the next decade. The Republicans say that such a break is affordable in view of a budget surplus projected at over $2 trillion in the next 10 years.

The majorities in the House and Senate approved the projected law; however, they both fell short of the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto. Mr. Clinton and his Democratic faithful on Capitol Hill say they favor tax relief too, but they contend that the Republican proposal would help many more rich people than people of average means while squandering an opportunity to shore up Social Security and Medicare, bring down the national debt and see to other pressing national needs.

Many married couples, especially those in which the partners make similar amounts of money, pay more in taxes than they would if they were not married. This is because the deduction for couples filing jointly is not twice that for single people, but only 1.67 as much. Like so much else in the tax code, the "marriage penalty" arose as a reversed discrimination, as earlier attempt to fix other quirks and inequities. Not all married couples were penalized when they paid their federal taxes; some, mostly lower middle class couples, got a bonus for being married.

In this time of plenty, some tax relief may be on the horizon for married couples or people who wish to be married. However, the horizon is probably a distant one, and that is why Clinton said, "This continuing productivity growth underscores the importance of maintaining the fiscal discipline that has been so crucial to this investment led economic expansion".

In Clintonese, it means that if the federal bureaucrats will tax the commoners less, the latter will have less interest to invest own accumulations into own future. Correspondingly, the ideology of the Democrats implies that the more they will tax the commoners, the more stimuli to safe for a rainy day the latter would have. That kind of mental crap the Democrats are considering as their paramount dialectics.

Therefore, the democratic economists are still debating about how much of the recent productivity gains are permanent and how much have been influenced by temporary factors, with clear intent to bolster the claim of the federal bureaucrats that it was primarily their activity that boosted this economy.

However, the corporate economists think that much of the second quarter's productivity gain was probably temporary as output soared faster than businesses could find new workers in the tight labor markets. Some of the corporate economists predict productivity gains would slacken off in the second half of this calendar year, causing unit labor costs to rise. Those developments would probably force the Federal Reserve bureaucrats to resume their attempts to moderate economic growth through raising interest rates in late 2000.

On August 14, at the Democratic Convention in LA, President Clinton trumpeted the accomplishments of his bureaucracy, barely trying to transform his own charisma into a jolt of enthusiasm among his faithful for the Gore-Lieberman ticket. However, the word 'enthusiasm,' from Greek, means 'God within' and, at the end of convention, Mr. Gore admitted what an "unexciting" character he has.

Clinton took the stage and defended his record, briefly mentioning that his vice president was valuable member of his team, and as such, was indispensable for "our" prosperity, literacy, and unity. Mr. Clinton thanked delegates for supporting the New Democratic agenda that has taken America to "new heights of prosperity, peace and progress". He said that, "America's success was not a matter of chance. It was a matter of choice." Probably he meant that the commoners have made a correct choice electing the Democrats into the executive office and the Republicans -- into the legislative office, thus, neutralizing both extremes and prosper themselves in the middle.

Clinton asked himself a rhetorical question, "Now, at this moment of unprecedented good fortune, our people face a fundamental choice -- 'are we going to keep this progress and prosperity going'?” And he answered to himself, "Yes, we are!" Continuing his rhetoric, Mr. Clinton used a line of Ronald Reagan, who 20 years ago, asked his supporters what is a criterion in defining to let stay a party in office or let it go -- “My fellow Americans, are you better off today than you were eight years ago?” And Clinton answer to himself, "You bet, we are". Through recounting his efforts to reduce crime, promote human rights and integrate women and minority officials into his bureaucratic apparatus, Clinton implied that Gore could be counted on to keep to the same course.

In essence, Clinton’s speech was about Bill Clinton trying to perpetuate his own name in the light and good part of the history, instead of being about Gore-Lieberman’s future administration. Clinton passed a material symbolic torch of leadership to Gore, but the virtual part of that symbolism Clinton saved up to himself and used the stage in LA to promote his own cause of the past, leaving Gore's future in Clinton's shadow. Therefore, Gore has to demonstrate yet his own skill in leadership. Moreover, he has to prove that the economic prosperity depends on the political bureaucracy, moreover, on the executive branch of the latter.

The attempts to moderate the economic growth are praise-worthy in themselves; however, the real question is still there -- will the activity of the federal bureaucrats increase the living standards of the middle class?

And what are the main factors that keep down the living standards of the middle class? They are the unreasonable national debt and defense spending of the federal bureaucracy. If you imagine that nearly all of what you are paying as federal income tax is used to pay for current federal programs, then know that it is so only in your dreams. In fact, one quarter of your federal income tax is used to pay the interest on the national debt, and another quarter -- to pay for national defense.

The federal debt is not just a statistic. Every debt incurred on behalf of the commoners by the political bureaucrats increases the interest cost the commoners have to pay each year. Thus, present day American commoners pay over a quarter of a trillion dollars a year in interest expenses. This is what the middle class are paying for the failed schemes of yesteryear political bureaucrats -- schemes that were supposed to make health care affordable to the middle class, education -- educative, and the environment -- clean. However, the schemes failed; the political bureaucrats, who instigated them, retired with generous pensions; and the commoners were left paying the interest expense year after year.

Therefore, firstly, the commoners must get rid of that interest expense by eliminating the entire federal debt. How they can do that?

They can pay off the federal debt by mandating the new federal bureaucrats to auction off the assets the federal bureaucracy should not own -- western lands, power companies, unused military bases, and commodity reserves. The first proceeds from these sales should buy private retirement accounts for everyone dependent on Social Security. The remaining proceeds should pay down the federal debt. The estimates of what the assets will bring in the open market have ranged from $5 trillion to $30 trillion. However, if they bring in just $10 trillion, the middle class can solve the Social Security problem for the nearest three generations, cover the other non-funded liabilities of the federal bureaucracy, and pay off the entire national debt.

How might the commoners pay off the federal debt and save Social Security at the same time?

If the middle class paid off the national debt, those interest payments would disappear. Debt-less state alone would reduce a commoner's federal income tax by nearly a third. Auctioning off all illegal (unreasonable) assets of the federal bureaucracy would also condition and facilitate the better protection of environment and allow the commoners to foster their Social Security privatization plan.

The unreasonable federal assets have nothing to do with the constitutional responsibilities of the federal bureaucrats; therefore, such assets are illegal. These assets include one third of all the land in the United States, plus power companies, pipelines, commodity reserves, oil and mineral rights, unused military bases, hundreds of thousands of federal buildings, and a host of other properties. These assets were swindled from the commoners by the previous generations of the federal bureaucrats who have been striving in vain for personal power and fame.

However, the bureaucrats managed to indoctrinate into many commoners' minds a notion that these assets are being held in trust to protect the commoners from exploitation. In fact, many federal lands are actually leased out to corporations for mining, grazing, drilling, and logging with a net result that the federal bureaucracy loses money on those leases. Consequently, the public has to pay for those losses. Moreover, the commoners have to make extra efforts in order to repair the damage done to the exploited federal properties and to rescue them for the future generations.

Some commoners expect that selling those federal properties would remove that little social help they still have from the federal bureaucracy. Such commoners assumed the federal bureaucrats actually protect and maintain those federal properties. Let us see, for instance the bureaucratic machinery of the federal Forest Service at work.

The Forest Service administers lands within the National Forest System, which totals approximately 191 million acres or 8.5% of the U.S. There are 123 Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMPs), sometimes referred to as Forest Plans, which guide 155 National Forests. Forest Service line officers issue thousands of resource management decisions each year, which are accompanied by NEPA documentation (Environmental Impact Statement, Environmental Analysis, Categorical Exclusion), and may be subject to administrative appeal. An appeal is a request to a higher authority for review of a decision. An appellant is a person or organization filing a notice of appeal. Usually, all administrative processes established by the Secretary or required by law must be exhausted before a person may bring a court action associated with planning decisions.

The authority for the Forest Service to establish research natural areas is summarized as follows:
The general provisions of the Organic Administration Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. 551) authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to designate research natural areas.

Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act of 1978
Section 4(a): "In implementing this Act, the Secretary is authorized to establish and maintain a system of experiment stations, research laboratories, experimental areas, and other forest and rangeland research facilities."

36 CFR 219.25 Research Natural Areas: Forest planning shall provide for the establishment of Research Natural Areas (RNAs). Planning shall make provision for the identification of examples of important forest, shrub-land, grass-land, alpine, aquatic, and geologic types that have special or unique characteristics of scientific interest and importance and that are needed to complete the national network of RNAs. Biotic, aquatic, and geologic types needed for the network shall be identified using a list provided by the Chief of the Forest Service. Authority to establish RNAs is delegated to the Chief at 7 CFR 2.60 (a) and 36 CFR 251.23.Recommendations for establishment of areas shall be made to the Chief through the planning process.

36 CFR 251.23 Experimental areas and Research Natural Areas:
The Chief of the Forest Service shall establish and permanently record a series of areas on National Forest land to be known as experimental forests or experimental ranges, sufficient in number and size to provide adequately for the research necessary to serve as a basis for the management of forest and range land in each forest region. Also, when appropriate, the Chief shall establish a series of research natural areas, sufficient in number and size to illustrate adequately or typify for research or educational purposes, the important forest and range types in each forest region, as well as other plant communities that have special or unique characteristics of scientific interest and importance. [You see, folks, that it is not the interests of the local communities but the interests of the federal bureaucracy define what land will be excluded from the common use and what land will be transfer for the exclusive use of the federal bureaucrats. And what are the interests of the latter? Usually they may be described as follow -- minimum work and maximum bribes, VS.] Research Natural Areas will be retained in a virgin or unmodified condition except where measures are required to maintain a plant community, which the area is intended to represent. Within areas designated by this regulation, occupancy under a special-use permit shall not be allowed, nor the construction of permanent improvements permitted except improvements required in connection with their experimental use, unless authorized by the Chief of the Forest Service.

Forest Service Manual (Amendment No. 4000-94-1, Effective May 4, 1994)
The general provisions of the Organic Administration Act of 1897 (16 U.S.C. 551) authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to designate research natural areas. Under regulations at 7 CFR 2.42 the Secretary has delegated this authority to the Chief, who, pursuant to 36 CFR 251.23, selects and establishes research natural areas as part of the continuing land and resource management planning process for National Forest System land (36 CFR 219.25 and FSM 1922).

You see, folks, as one non-elected bureaucrat delegates your authority to another non-elected bureaucrat to entangle and mask each other's responsibilities in order to cover their hinds. One of the consequences of such an entanglement happened in Oregon, where the federal bureaucrats have mismanaged most of the forest in the Blue Mountains with seed bearing pines, leaving it to a devastating insect infestation. On the contrary, a neighboring forest owned by a private company (Boise Cascade) is perfectly healthy. This company takes care of its property because the corporate bureaucrats have a will to make it healthy in order to be valuable in 50 years from now.

Even the federal Forest Service bureaucrats admit that old growth habitats fare better on private lands. Besides, unreasonable conservation of forests leads to increasing price of paper and timber. Moreover, now the wacky environmentalists acknowledge that the younger, man-grown forests are cleaner, less fire hazardous, more productive in fruits and games, and produce more oxygen than those "natural" forests, because a younger tree produces about 1.5 kg oxygen per day while an old tree produces .2 kg carbon dioxide.

From 1971 to 1996, the average size of homes in the United States grew from 141 to 197 square meters. Meanwhile, the average family size has dropped by 16% since 1970. Americans require more wood for larger homes than ever before.

Demand for forest and grassland products has increased over the last decade. Nevertheless, the federal Forest Service has dropped in the 1990s timber harvest by 70%, oil and gas leasing by about 40%, and livestock grazing by at least 10%.

Why did they do that? They did that because they are modern liberals, who perverted the principle of the founders of the federal forest system. Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot established a system of federal forests and grasslands based on "the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time". The modern extremist environmentalists translate that principle as not the greatest good for the greatest number of people but as a principle stated by Schumacher in his 1973 book Small Is Beautiful: "The aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption".

Therefore, the wacky environmentalists have dropped 'people' out of the picture, in order to equate every creature in the universe. Now, when 'people' are equal in their rights with lizards, snakes, and other reptiles and insects, then, they can extend their perversion to the realm of the inanimate objects -- plants and stones.

Gifford Pinchot laid in the foundation of the Forest Service the principle that, "The Conservation of natural resources is the key to the future". But when perverted to an extreme, this conservation principle might be seen as always serving the interests of the land and of future generations of Americans, leaving the present-day Americans nothing to consume.

Firstly, there would be no future generations of mankind without present consumption of energy resources. Secondly, even if there would be future generations of human species, and they would conserve all their resources for their "future generations," then from where they would take their food, clothes, and shelters?

Another extreme would be in eliminating the Forest Service department in the federal system, because through a system of public lands, the fledgling Forest Service protected watersheds in the West. After the Great Depression, the federal bureaucrats were again called upon to help restore millions of acres of abandoned farmland in the Midwest and East. After World War II, they worked with the growing timber industry to help fulfill the commoners' dream of providing Americans with single-family homes. However, along the way, the interests of the growing federal bureaucracy have changed. Eventually, the federal bureaucrats no longer manage public forests primarily in the interests of the local communities (for reasonable outputs of timber, minerals, or animal unit-months of grazing). In ever-greater degree, they have been focusing on what power and money they can extricate from us in exchange for our use of our land.

Today, their first and highest priority is living within the limits of the land they had managed to snatch from us. They can fulfill their mission of serving to themselves only if they can mask their goal under the guise of a sound "land" ethic, as if land can have the human moral. Their strategy, in a nutshell, was formulated by Aldo Leopold -- they should respect the right of every native species to flourish on the land, from their magnificent salmon, elk, and wolves to “the meanest flower that blows,” often for the expense of human rights. Thus, they mask their thirst for power under the guise of ecosystem-based management. The main effect of their ecosystem-based management has been reduced commodity extraction from our national forests and grasslands.

Improvements in paper recycling and more efficient wood use have somewhat offset their lust for power. Still, from 1965 to 1998, the overall demand of Americans for wood fiber increased by about 50%, keeping pace with the population growth. Per year, Americans consume about 1.8 cubic meters of wood per person in forest and paper products and an additional .3 cubic meter per person in fuel-wood. That is only the equivalent of 3 twenty-year-old trees per person per year.

The wacky environmentalists' guru, Aldo Leopold, stood on the common sense ground when he wrote that, "There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace". He correctly noticed that a farmer does not waste what takes hours of labor to produce -- food to eat, wood to build and warm a home. Only few of us (who shop for food and lumber with large pocketbooks, usually wrongly acquired) can painlessly waste the above-mentioned resources of energy. Moreover, the common sense struggle with excessive waste cannot and should not be equated with the lowering consumption and standards of living.

In spite of the attempts of the federal bureaucrats to decelerate the common sense strategy of the middle class in improving own standards of living, the commoners should continue to strive for reasonable consumption, developing more efficient technologies that will help minimize waste as by-product of consumption in the highly industrialized society.

Another example in support of lessening the excessive and wasteful federal bureaucracy can be seen from our water conservation experience with so-called low-flow toilets.

For more than a decade, the Denver Water Department and other municipal utilities have been banging the drum for water conservation on the home front: installing meters in Denver, initiating an every-third-day lawn watering campaign and promoting drought-tolerant landscaping, because the Denver area has scarce water sources.

The residential and industrial users were brought onto the water-efficiency bandwagon. Thus, American Linen Co. of Denver, which does laundry for hotels and hospitals, acquired a "tunnel washing machine,'' which recycles water for use in cleaning items such as rugs and received a $15,000 rebate from the Denver Water Department. Besides money, the $1 million machine also saved 19,940 cubic meters of water a year.

A combination of an increasing number of appliances that are more water-efficient and long-held low-water landscaping techniques appears to have helped Denver community to reduce per-capita water use by almost 12 percent during the past decade. As Denver Water statistics indicate, average daily water consumption by Denver residents dropped from .92 in 1989 to .79 in 1999 cubic meter per person.

Following Denver's example, the federal bureaucrats decided to follow the proverb -- 'what is good for a goose, good for a gander'. Thereafter, they prescribed for the whole country to discard new and well-working toilets and replace them with the ultra-low-flush toilets, which can reduce water use, depending on how often people flush their toilets. Denver has required ultra-low-flush toilets for all new construction since 1991, predating a federal law requiring all toilets made in the United States to use 1.5 gallons or less per flush. Ultra-low-flush toilets were an improvement over the low-flush toilets that became popular in the 1980s. The earlier models used 3.5 gallons or less per flush. The federal bureaucracy spent $3.7 billion of our money to change the old models for the new ones. Now, people in New York and California, Illinois and Texas complain that they have to flash twice or trice to make their toilets clean. Thus, water consumption per "clean" flush increased to 3.6 gallons.

Do you think you can find those bureaucrats who are responsible for that ill-conceived toilet decision? Moreover, do you think you can punish them? And even if you would, you would recover only a billionth part of what the middle class already lost. Therefore, it would be better if we rather look at the future and take our lands off the hands of the federal bureaucrats.

It would definitely help our mining and drilling industries. Private owners (economic bureaucrats) want to resell their lands at a good price after they extract the minerals. Therefore, they have a long-lasting interest in protecting and restoring their lands. On the contrary, the political bureaucrats, whose office is time-limited, have no such incentive, because they will not suffer financially if the federal properties deteriorate.

To halt the continued exploitation and destruction of the excessive federal natural resources by politically powerful groups, the commoners should mandate those resources into the hands of private owners who will care for them because they are concerned about own future generations and what spiritual and material value the latter will inherit.

The extreme leftist and rightist approaches harm the environment and impoverish the middle class. Now, the latter must pay interest on the failed programs of yesteryear's big federal bureaucracy. The latter has spent trillions of dollars on its military bureaucracy since World War II, and yet they still feel themselves completely vulnerable, if not to the communist bureaucrats, then, to the petty Muslim dictators who can put a finger on a nuclear button, threatening the orthodox Jewish bureaucrats in Israel. However, this "complete vulnerability" before the external threats is only a pretend that masks their fear of the internal threat incoming from the middle class, which can free itself from their yoke by reducing their allowance.

By involving themselves in a multitude of treaties around the world, our bureaucrats are likely to be drawn into World War III by a petty dispute between tiny ethnic groups over a strip of land somewhere in Africa or Asia. By meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations, American bureaucrats make all Americans enemies of those peoples who would otherwise be friends. Thus, the American federal bureaucracy breads and instigates terrorism around globe, subjecting the American commoners to threats that should not exist.

The federal bureaucrats say "we" must defend "our national interests" abroad. However, their primary interest is to keep the commoners down at home, and only then, to keep the foreign bureaucrats at bay. Therefore, they define almost anything that happens anywhere as a threat to "our" interests. That is why our executive bureaucrats have been roaming lately the world in search of trouble -- to divert attention from a sex scandal, to prove their toughness, to raise poll numbers, or to create a digestive to the middle class "legacy."

The liberal and conservative media tell us that "we" have weak defenses. Nevertheless, "we" have a very strong national offense -- able to bully smaller national bureaucracies, intimidate them around the globe, and stir up resentments against the common American citizens and their values.

However, the American commoners are able to bring own troops home and remove themselves from the entangling alliances that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson warned them about, and they still can have a proper defense against any missile attack. We, the people, through our Constitution, authorized the federal bureaucrats to defend us from enemies -- not run around the world creating enemies.

We, the commoners, can be far safer than we are now, while spending far less money on the military bureaucracy if we choose our leaders based on our common sense. War is usually the first resort of the upper class, which strives for territory, slaves, and money; but it should be the last resort of the middle class people. A policy of military non-interventionism and small government would do more for world peace than any saber rattling, any military peace-keeping mission, any alliance, or any program of foreign aid. If America will be internally free (with small, yet effective bureaucracy; free trade; and goodwill toward foreign bureaucracies -- a country that is safe, secure, and at peace), then, it would inspire the commoners around the globe to demand and to implement the same policies for themselves.

If the American commoners are responsible for the defense of the European bureaucrats against the European commoners, what then are the latter are responsible for -- the defense of the African and Asian bureaucrats?

Let us consider closely whom must "we" defend "themselves" from?

Threat from the Russian Bureaucracy

The main problem of the new Russian political bureaucrats is how to protect and perpetuate the Property Rights of the old political bureaucrats who now retired from the political offices in order to become the new economic bureaucrats in the corporate offices.

Putin, the leader of the new Russian political bureaucracy since Yeltsin's resignation on December 31, 1999, has offered few specifics about his economic program. He has said enough to suggest his priorities coincide with the new Russian economic bureaucrats -- he understands the key role of Russia's oil, gas, and energy companies, and he wants to encourage foreign investment. "First of all, the state should overcome the weakness and inefficiency of its government in everything that concerns property rights, investors' rights and creditors' rights. We will be persistently moving in that direction,'' said Putin at an investors' forum in Moscow five month ago.

Already, Russia's leading companies have benefited from rising prices on oil and investors' optimism about Putin. LukOil, GasProm, Unified Energy Systems has gained from 30 to 90% in the past three months. However, Russian stocks could fall next week if the Western investors would perceive the new Russian federal bureaucracy as a weak one and unable to protect the property rights of the new Russian economic bureaucrats, not to mention the foreigners.

There is no clear cut ruling majority in the contemporary Russian society that is based on the long run middle class interests, because the Russian commoners are still under the ideological influence either leftists or conservatives. They are still too busy to make a decent living, and they have no time to work out their own program and to pet their own leaders. Although they fear the country's democratic reforms could be rolled back by Putin, former KGB officer, who call to strengthen the authority of the State and its security forces, the majority of them voted for Putin anyway because they tired of all disorder that came with Yeltsin's life-sucking temporal team, which made their life increasingly rampant and miserable. Thereafter, riding the back of anti-Chechen wave of fear, concocted by the KGB, Putin managed to draw on own side about a half of the electorate in the March's presidential election, while his nearest challenger, communist Zyuganov, got nearly a quarter, and the moderates got only one tenth. The strong vote for Zyuganov might be an indication of a protest by the lower class people who were unhappy about the lion share of the newly riches who promoted Putin.

Putin acknowledged that the Communists had done well despite their cash-strapped campaign and said his team would have to consider popular discontent. He said that, "our policy must be more balanced and take into account the existing realities and aim at increasing living standards". He also promised to end massive corruption, revive the economy after years of recession and restore the political and military influence that Kremlin bureaucracy wielded before the Soviet collapse.

On one hand, the Russian moderates have feared that Putin might trample Russian fragile democracy and restore the iron control of the secret police that actually headed the Soviet-era bureaucracy. On the other hand, the Russian conservatives and Western political and economic bureaucrats have praised Putin as a pragmatic reformer who would, they hoped, restore stable governing of the Russian upper class and would improve the middle class people's standard of life by making reforms work.

Although Putin and his inner circle insist that they are democrats, but they, so far, have been vague about their plans beyond stressing the need for strong government to protect the new property of the old communist guards. Probably Putin, on his rapid rise to power, has seen too many trees, which now hiding from him the whole forest of complex social life. That is probably why his intentions are unclear. Even if he realized that from now on he must steadily shape the new ruling class, he likely will not turn people around quickly after decades of political authoritarianism and economic disintegration.

From Putin's lack of understanding his own role in the history of Russia derives his present, double-sided interior policy. Putin became popular because of his tough image after years of rudderless federal bureaucracy under the often-ill Yeltsin and for the military campaign against breakaway Chechnya. Putin's ascent was aided by relentless and mostly flattering coverage in the Russian media, mostly own by the old communist guards.

A month ago, Putin became increasingly criticized by the domestic economic and foreign political bureaucrats after state prosecutors launched an investigation into the Media-Most (media-bridge), a media network owned by an old communist guard, Vladimir Gusinsky, whose employees have often been critical of Putin's team. Gusinsky was briefly jailed for alleged embezzlement and then released on bail. Gusinsky believes that his imprisonment is a part of crackdown on press freedom by the new Kremlin bureaucrats. Putin said that it is largely a sign of the subconscious fears of oligarches, who are fighting to preserve their influence over the political bureaucrats, not for freedom of speech and the press.

Recently, Putin once again rejected claims of the oligarches that he wanted to curb freedom of speech. He said that such fear mongering reflected the "subconscious fears" of media tycoons, who more concerned with preserving their own power than to improve the middle class standards of living. Putin also reiterated his belief in a law-based market economy where no economic bureaucrats enjoyed special favors from the political bureaucrats. He said that, "The building of a strong, effective State cannot and must not, in any circumstances, lead to the destruction of civil freedoms. Russia must not and will not be a police State."

In the past month, police have also turned up the heat on the economic bureaucrats of Russia's biggest oil company -- LukOil, its biggest carmaker -- AutoVaz, and metals giant -- Norilsk Nickel.

Then, Boris Berezovsky, the archetypal tycoon, politician, and the manager of Yeltsin's personal finances, quitted his seat in the lower house of Duma, saying he would try to form an alliance of big business and regional politicians, aiming to curb Putin's growing power. Berezovsky said that he was resigning because he "does not wish to take part in the dismantling of Russia and the imposition of authoritarian rule".

It was a hard blow to Putin, who aimed at Russian business oligarchy and at the legislative institute of 89 regional governors in an effort to change the present balance of federal power and to increase the power of his executive office at the expense of the federal legislature.

Berezovsky's anti-Putin movement has drawn a few supporters and probably will be unsuccessful. By resigning from the Duma, Beresovsky surrendered his immunity to criminal prosecution just as the executive bureaucrats were threatening criminal action against many tycoons, including Berezovsky, who was recently questioned by prosecutors in a criminal inquiry involving the Russian airline -- AeroFlot.

Berezovsky said at one point, he would vote for Mr. Putin again; however, he felt betrayed by his protégé - Mr. Putin, whom he considers now as a man, who wants to usurp all political power for himself, without sharing it with the economic bureaucrats. He said, "Today Russia is facing a choice: whether we will follow the Latin American model, with an authoritarian power and market economy, or the European model with a liberal power and market economy. The only tolerable [for him, VS] option is the latter."

Berezovsky became a tycoon by exploiting Russia's lawlessness in the early Yeltsin's era. He has vast interests in AeroFlot, AutoVaz, and SibNeft, one of the largest oil companies, among others. He tries to mask some of those interests, but he does not mask his great influence and financial control over a media empire that includes Russian quasi-state television network -- ORT, the Moscow business newspaper -- Kommersant, and the magazine Vlast ('social power' in Russian).

The feeling of betrayal comes to Berezovsky as to one of the Kremlin insiders who decided during Yeltsin's final days at the helm of the federal executive bureaucracy that Putin should be groomed to succeed Yeltsin. ORT played a major role in promoting Putin's election this spring. Then, Putin assaulted the institute of governors, moreover, the tycoons themselves, aiming to stabilize Russia's democracy, as Putin put it (meaning ordering its fiscal system in order to maintain the police and military bureaucracy), or at aggrandizing Putin's personal power, as Berezovsky contends.

In May, Putin has carved Russia into seven satrapies, moving swiftly to consolidate federal executive power in Kremlin. He has also proposed to abolish the upper house of Duma, which now consists of the 89 governors and their appointees, and replace it with a more independent group of legislators. Over Berezovsky's harsh objections, Duma is going to do just that.

Putin's war with the tycoons began days after he was sworn-in. Although Putin has denied any involvement in such a civil war, half-dozen oligarches in the oil, metals and auto industries have confirmed that. Putin did not disavow them, and it became apparent that the police actions against tycoons have his tacit approval.

Berezovsky said that the federal prosecutors had questioned him about $600 million in proceeds from AeroFlot that he had been allegedly laundering through Swiss banks. He insists that the accusations are groundless. He said that, "the government's attack is not an accident, not the initiative of some overzealous bureaucrat. It is essentially aimed at destroying large independent businesses."

Putin said that oligarches had been "fishing in murky waters" by amassing large fortunes and described this as unacceptable to both Russians and foreign investors. He again stressed that "all" (meaning the economic bureaucrats) must be equal before the law (meaning before the political bureaucrats). He said, "Those who try to usurp the functions of the state or to win privileges because of special relations with the authorities will be forced to give up their ideas. This is why we have started with measures aimed at sharply improving the business climate in the country".

What is the problem between the seemingly amicable Russian political and economic bureaucrats? Putin see the problem in the present fiscal system that is bias to a few oligarches and that fosters corruption among the new political bureaucrats. Therefore, he is pushing for abolition some taxes, such as the road and fuel tax. "Over the past six years, (this tax has raised) a total of $30 billion. I am sure that if $5 billion had really been spent on road construction each year we would now have high-speed routes, autobahns and highways," he said, implying the deplorable state of the Russian roads.

Putin also defended his plan of concentrating political power in his executive office by removing regional leaders from the Federation Council (the upper house of the federal legislature). He attacked the current balance of power in the federal bureaucracy that tolerated regional barriers on movement of people and goods, accusing it as a wasteful one. "And this is not happening in the Middle Ages, in the era of serfdom,” he said. “We have to restore urgently the balance and normal interaction between the various levels of government."

At the end of July, Putin met with Russian tycoons to show them that he sits firmly on the throne. The more than 20 economic bureaucrats summoned to that Kremlin meeting included the heads of GasProm, the natural gas monopoly, and of several major Russian oil companies as well as top bankers. Ominously, showing that politics still heavily outweighs economics in the Kremlin's calculations, there were conspicuous absences. Among those not invited were Gusinsky, whose television network has been critical of Russia's military campaign in Chechnya and was relatively independent in its coverage of the presidential election campaign, and Berezovsky, the media and oil magnate, who charged Putin in a "destructive" campaign against business.

Putin opened the meeting with a mild lecture. His tone was decidedly different from that of Yeltsin's, who would gently chide economic bureaucrats, playing them off against one another and seek their backing. Putin said, "I want to draw your attention to the fact that you built this State yourself, to a great degree through the political or semi-political structures under your control. So, there is no point in blaming the reflection in the mirror. So, let's get down to the point and be open and do what is necessary to do to make our relationship in this field civilized and transparent."

Taking aim at their financial inheritance, the new political bureaucrats began investigating oil companies in May. They want to know why oil companies are paying different tax rates. At the meeting, Putin accused Abramovich, a friend of Yeltsin's family and a major SibNeft Oil Company shareholder, in not paying enough taxes. Putin also pointedly refused to offer amnesty to the economic bureaucrats for their excesses in amassing wealth in the chaos and legal vacuum that followed the collapse of the Soviet bureaucracy in 1991.

In this trade-off between Putin and the economic bureaucrats, many of the latter appeared took the defensive and conciliatory stance. At the end of the Kremlin meeting, some economic bureaucrats said they were prepared to forgo special treatment and abide by the rules of the political bureaucrats if the latter would create a fairer business climate. In return, Putin assured them that they could hold onto their wealth and that their purchases of State property during the post-Soviet privatizations would not be overturned.

In Russia, the rule of law is more slogan than practice and there is no shame over conflicts of interest. It remains to be seen whether that meeting will lead to real fight with corruption and favoritism. It seems that Putin is cleaning up the political bureaucracy with intent to make the economic bureaucrats subservient to the political ones.

Since his election in March, Putin has sought to centralize executive federal authority by downgrading the power of decentralized institute of regional governors and the influence of economic bureaucrats over the political bureaucracy. His policy contrasts with the policy of Yeltsin. The latter maintained close relationships with powerful economic bureaucrats by allowing them to hold some political posts. Yeltsin's system relied on a spider republican web of the personal patronage of the political and economic bureaucrats, but Putin seems to prefer the direct monarchical hierarchy, which embraces the economic bureaucrats only as an auxiliary echelon.

Such an attempt to redistribute the political power was never easy in any corner of the world, and Russia is not an exception of this rule.

We already know what Putin's team wants, but what does the team of the new communists want? The latter want what the old communist guards wanted -- to be simultaneously the political and economic bureaucrats, to be the jack of all trades. However, the old communist guards, through series of trials and errors, realized that no mortal could handle effectively these two sides of the complicated life of an industrial society. That is why they retired from political offices, leaving the transitional Yeltsin's administration to extinguish the federal debt to the middle class through hyperinflation. Simultaneously, they, like snakes, threw off the worked out and dirty "communist" skin to the fledgling-communists, and surreptitiously got their hands on the industrial property, which they try to protect now through Putin's team. That is what Gorbachev's "perestroika" really meant.

And what economic "legacy" does Putin's transitional team get as its inheritance? The legacy of borrowing that now haunts Russia's economic recovery.

Although economy, fuelled by high world oil prices that reached $30 a barrel, moves forward and domestic production increases, the Russian political bureaucrats mired in foreign debt and have done little to bring their debts down to a manageable level.

Back in 1981, with oil prices reaching $35 a barrel and a drilling frenzy spreading across the globe, numerous economic gurus were forecasting that $70 per barrel was just around the corner. Had those predictions materialized, Khrushchev's 1958 prediction that the communist era would begin in 1980 would have been off by only a couple of years. However, oil prices plunged to $10 a barrel in 1985, mounting the defense spending that necessitated Gorbachev's team to start "perestroika" of the Soviet economy. In order to keep domestic consumption standards at the usual levels, Gorbachev's regime turned to international investors. In six years, Gorbachev's administration more than doubled the Soviet Union's debt, taking on some $40 billion in new loans and raising the overall burden on the middle class to $76 billion.

Gorbachev's team made a series of poor strategic decisions on debt in the late 1980s and early 1990s that exacerbated the problem. It is not that decisions were made for the sake of private benefits, but that very often they were made without thorough consideration. Thus, Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov from 1989 to 1991 allowed former Soviet-bloc countries to convert rubles held on escrow accounts with the Soviet Union into hard currency claims at the official rates of exchange, which back then were far above the real market value of the currency.

As a result, the Soviet bureaucracy ended up with heavy debts to East Germany, Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European bureaucracies. Most of these escrow account debits had been built up when the Eastern European bureaucrats began supplying modern equipment (mostly personal computers) to the Russian bureaucrats, selling them at huge markups in exchange for oil. The oil had been under-priced to subsidize the building of socialism in the Eastern Europe.

The $8 billion debt to the East German bureaucrats was the easiest to handle by simply writing it off as payment for costs incurred by the army when Russian troops were withdrawing from Eastern Germany in 1994.

The Russian commoners' subconscious mood was brightly demonstrated by a sarcastic docker of the Murmansk port, who has commented on a question of a media-man.

Cor. -- Should or should not the Russian officials accept the help of the Western countries in rescuing the sailors of the Russian nuclear submarine that sank in the Barents Sea four days ago?
Doc. -- Of course, they should not... because it is long lasting Russian tradition to value low a human life.

The Russian commoners are tired to faithfully serve their bureaucrats, and now, the commoners want at least reciprocity from the latter, who have a history of neglecting their own defenders and hiding nuclear catastrophes, and who, in this instance, notified the families of crew three days after the submarine sank.

This catastrophe comes at a critical time for Russian military bureaucrats, who have been under strict budget constraints since the transformation of the Soviet civil bureaucracy into the Russian economic bureaucracy. As recently as May, the Kremlin owed navy officers up to six months of back salaries. Moreover, the temperature in schools at the naval bases plunged last winter because of a lack of funds to heat them. Since 1992, the Russian navy has slashed its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines in Russian northern waters to 40; it is down from about 120, which were on active duty during the Soviet era. The present federal civil bureaucrats have no money for maintaining the existing number of submarines, nor they have money to dismantle the old ones, risking contaminating large areas with radioactive leakage. Now even the Russian highest military bureaucrats admit that, "There are more than 100 potential Chernobyls floating out there".

The Russian military industrial complex (MIC) used to contribute 50% into GDP, but now it barely reaches 20%. Stung by meager defense orders at home, Russian MIC is engaged in a major effort to increase arms sales to Asia, the Middle East and Africa and is expanding its share of the lucrative global arms market, which is dominated now by the American and West-European MICs. However, a month ago, on a once-secret test range in the Ural Mountains, near Nizhny Tagil, the bureaucrats of the Russian MIC hosted a fair of weaponry that attracted plenty of customers.

The Chinese and Indian military bureaucrats were the major customers for weapons. The Indians purchased about 300 T-90 tanks, with some 200 would be assembled in India and the whole deal worth some $700 million. However, the Kuwaitis, North and South Koreans and dozens of other nations' military bureaucrats watched attentively as a T-90 tank, one of the newest Russian weapons, sent a laser-guided missile streaking toward a target more than three kilometers away, while Mikhail Kalashnikov, the 80-year-old designer of the AK-47, strolled through the crowd, posing for pictures and other Russian bureaucrats toasted their guests with vodka from bottles bearing the imprint of the T-90 tank. In addition to the tank contract, the Indian bureaucrats also bought the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and the MIG-29 planes that are on it. The Chinese bureaucrats bought two destroyers, and the Russian bureaucrats are licensing them and will co-produce with them SU-27 planes.

The civil and military bureaucrats from General Dynamics were also there, scrutinizing the Russian tanks and bargaining a new Russian system to protect tanks from missile and grenade attacks, using radar to detect anti-tank missiles or grenades and destroys them by firing munitions. Putin will soon decide whether the system can be sold to the American bureaucrats. A spokesman for the Russian MIC said that, "Export of weaponry is the most important thing for us because it brings in real money". There are two ways to calculate arms sales: agreements made and actual deliveries. In terms of deliveries last year, the real money from the world weaponry market totaled $2.8 billion, putting in weapons sales Russian MIC fourth, behind the American, French, and British MICs. Russian weapons accounted for 6% of all arms delivered, the American weapons -- 49%. The Russian bureaucrats hope to expand their share of the market to 10% in the nearest five years.

During Soviet bureaucracy, weapons production was surrounded by strict secrecy and the military bureaucrats had first claim on the material and intellectual resources; therefore, the Soviet MIC produced thousands of tanks, cannons, and missiles. Although the Soviet bureaucrats dispensed tons of weaponry to friendly bureaucracies around the globe, to sell arms on a fair, directly for money, moreover to a potential enemy, was unthinkable to them. The new Russian political bureaucrats are not so highly charged to promote egalitarianism around the globe, as their predecessors were. The new Russian bureaucrats are earthlier and more reasonable than their Soviet predecessors.

With the mutation of the Soviet civil bureaucracy into the Russian economic bureaucracy, the Russian MIC plunged into depression. Defense orders have dried up and debts to suppliers have been mounting. The conversion of MIC to civilian production remains largely a communist utopia. This year the Russian military budget is only $5 billion; that is 54 times less comparatively with $270 billion of the American military budget. The only viable way to survive themselves and help their employees, who comprise nearly a third of the Russian work force, the bureaucrats of MIC see in increasing export of their products. Therefore, nearly all-new weaponry is going abroad.

At the beginning of this year, the army had just two T-90 tanks in European Russia, in accord with a treaty that limited conventional forces in Europe. Despite Putin's pledge to boost weapons procurement for the army, the military bureaucrats will get only 30 T-90 tanks this year, a tiny part of those 350 T-90 tanks that will be produced by the Russian MIC at the end of this year. The bureaucrats of the air forces will get just 12 SU-30 fighters and attack planes this year, although 50 such planes will be produced.

While exports are vital to the Russian MIC, competition is stiff in the world weaponry market. Western bureaucrats can offer more generous financing, have longstanding customers, and offer better maintenance and spare parts service after sale. However, the Russian bureaucrats have some advantages. Low labor costs make their weapons cheaper than those of Western rivals. The Russian MIC has also a reputation for producing high-quality armored systems, anti-tactical missile systems and artillery.

The weapons trade has impressed on the Russian military bureaucrats its mark of merchantability. The Russian military establishment is still dominated by men reared in the utopian communist mentality and cold war enmity toward the Western bureaucrats. And the competition with the latter for sales has reinforced the notion that the Western bureaucrats are unfriendly rivals whose success comes at the expense of the Russian bureaucrats, particularly since NATO has expanded its membership for the bureaucrats of Central European countries that were a buffer between Russia and the West. Moreover, a competition over money is graver than a competition over such abstract notions as "freedom" and "equality," although it can be waged in a seemingly more peaceful manner.

Thus, a month ago, in the Japanese island Okinawa, the Russian and Western political bureaucrats repaired their relations that had been fractured between them after the NATO military bureaucrats purged Kosovo from the Serbs and the Russian military bureaucrats purged Chechnya from the Chechens. The trade off was amicable and the Western bureaucrats agreed to stop criticism of Milosevic's legal reforms and let him lead the Yugoslavian bureaucrats again and to stop criticism of the new Russian political bureaucrats who have been doing heroic "efforts... to find a peaceful solution for Chechnya". In their turn, the Russian bureaucrats signed a paragraph affirming, "Ending the impunity of war criminals is an important step towards peace and reconciliation". However, they, of course, did not mean that they would make actual efforts to arrest the Serbian criminals, as well as the Western bureaucrats did not mean that they would make actual efforts to arrest the Albanian criminals who have killed more than 500 Serbs in Kosovo for the past year. They will continue their pacifying policy in Bosnia and Kosovo, because it is easier to bring in a cannon than bread and butter.

Instead of helping to industrialize the agricultural economy of Bosnia and Kosovo, they prefer to close the last Serb-run factories, under the guise of their environmental hazard, thus, effectively driving out the Serbs out of Kosovo. However, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot's bureaucrats killed mostly their own folks-commoners, in order to teach the rest of them how to be submissive to the new bureaucrats. And the problem in Kosovo and Bosnia will not go away even if all the Serbs will be driven out there, because the roots of the problem lie -- firstly, in the agricultural economics; and secondly, in the Muslim and Jewish cultures, which draw their strength from the first.

For nearly a half of a century, after the WWII, Tito's bureaucrats acted on a premise that all ethnic groups, which they unite into the Yugoslav federation, are equal and brotherly. The majority of the federation was comprised of the Southern Slavs -- Slovenians, Croatians, and Serbs. In Slavic, 'yugo' means 'southern,' as distinguished from the Northern Slavs (Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs, and Poles) and the Eastern Slavs (Macedonians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Belo-Russians, and Russians). Historically, Slovenians and Croatians were parts of the Western Roman Empire, and as such, they inherited the Catholic Christian culture of their bureaucracy. Serbs, on the other hand, were mostly a part of the Eastern Roman Empire, and as such, they inherited the Orthodox-Christian culture of their bureaucracy. The minority of the YugoSlav federation was comprised of the Turks and Jews, with their Muslim and Jewish cultures.

Christianity, particularly Catholicism, propagate strict self-control and abstinence from indulging self into pleasurable things, particularly sex. On the other hand, Judaism and Islam propagate the notion that the more children you have the better you are, as the authors of the Bible put it in the Circumcision Covenant of God with Abram  --

"When Abram was ninety-nine year old, the Lord appeared to him and said, 'I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.'
Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 'As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram [that from Hebrew means 'exalted father,' VS]; your name will be Abraham [that means 'father of many,' VS], for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.' Genesis 17:1-8" In return, God demanded a piece of skin of the procreative organ of Abram and his descendants in order that the people remember this covenant.

As you can see, folks, the ultimate award of God to a human being, according to the Jewish and Islamic ideologists, is the procreative power of the latter and the land that can sustain his progeny. That is why the third generation of Yugo Slavs, after failing to assimilate culturally the Muslims and Jews, decided that the territorial separation would work better. First, the Slovenians decided that they could no longer sacrifice their standards of life to the ever-multiplying Muslims and Jews. The Croatians follow Slovenian lead, and the federation was broken in a civil war, with its necessary redistribution of land and people. Now, instead of teaching the Muslims and Jews in Kosovo how to produce and use condoms, the Western bureaucrats teach their own commoners how to do that. Instead of helping to build industrial infrastructure, they ruined it. Instead of building new factories in Kosovo, they are closing those few that left. Instead of spending $30 billion of our money for civil needs in Kosovo, they will spend it on the Muslim military bureaucracy in Kosovo and on the new missile program at home that they need to protect themselves from Saddam's bureaucrats, as if they forgot that it was they who created Saddam in the first place.

You should not wonder, folks, when the KLA's generals, murdering all Serbs of Kosovo, will direct their bureaucrats to kill the Jews of Kosovo. Then the Jews of New York and London will sprinkle their bold heads with ash and will whine with crocodile tears about their brothers and sisters, whom they now trying to protect from the "ferocious and cruel" Serbs. But for now, they rather prefer to support Clinton's mindless and timeless occupation of Kosovo and Bosnia and his plan to build the defense of the American bureaucracy from the mythical missile threat of the Chinese, North Korean, and Iraqi bureaucrats.

Now, when the remnants of the Cold War can be seen with the naked eye, the military bureaucrats are necessitated to come up with a new strategy that will replace or modernize the two-war yardstick. But the military strategists are fairly divided on this matter.

The hawks insist that the military bureaucrats should make sure they have capabilities to deal with a fast-changing world; and that means to put less emphasis on preparing for conventional warfare and more on handling murkier situations such as defending Taiwan from a Chinese blockade or keeping open the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Cutting down on manpower also would free up money and resources for the new weaponry.

The doves assert that changing strategy in the middle of the stream promises to affect all the military branches but appears will have the gravest implications for the Army bureaucrats, who control the most manpower in wartime. The new strategy also implies that the U.S. military needs to focus less on Europe and more on East Asia, with its long distances and island nations, which is now considered as more of a play-ground for the Navy and Air Force. The doves also say the military bureaucrats need to do a better job of assimilating new information-age technologies and of countering the proliferation of missiles in the Third World.

Appointing about 20 commissions to look at everything from how nuclear weapons are commanded and controlled to what weapons not to buy, Mr. Rumsfeld hopes to "cherry pick" from the contradictory recommendations of those commissions before he will present the final numbers to the budgetary congressional commission. As he put it, "Everyone wants to get the numbers, but you have to do the strategy first, so you have the philosophical underpinning before you start spending money". However, while the new military strategy is still in defining mode, the military bureaucrats are already grappling with three defense budgets simultaneously. They are preparing to ask congressmen for a supplement for current spending and also for an amendment to the proposed fiscal 2002 budget. Moreover, Mr. Rumsfeld is going soon to give to the Pentagon bureaucrats a broad guidance that supposedly will enable them to begin preparing their fiscal 2003 budgets. He also will ask for approximately $6 billion to $8 billion to supplement current spending of about $296 billion, with most of the new funds going to readiness and military health care costs. Without such a multibillion-dollar infusion, "flying and steaming hours, and other essential training missions will have to be curtailed" in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year (July through September), as one Pentagon bureaucrat put it.

Mr. Rumsfeld said that the size of the supplemental is still "open for discussion". He is also planning for even bigger increases in the coming years as the Pentagon bureaucrats will move toward the changes in the military strategy along with his envisions. However, he is not clarified how those increases will be matched with tax-cuts and other federal budgetary changes.

The Pentagon bureaucrats say they prepared a $20 billion amendment to the defense budget for fiscal 2002, which begins October 1, and which will drew $310.5 billion from the tax-payers' packets. The 2003 budget will aim to implement major changes in the size, shape and use of the U.S. military. The 2003 military budget will fully reflect the agenda for radical military reform that the Republican trio of brainiacs (Baker-Cheney-Rumsfeld) laid out during the past presidential campaign. It will be the budget from which the commoners and laborers begin to pay for the new missile defense. Although the 2003 military budget will be implemented only in 18 months from now, the Pentagon bureaucrats will begin drafting it this summer, then, through the fall, will negotiate their numbers with Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney. As the trio has indicated, they want that all Americans would fund the research of aristocrats in possible missile defense systems ranging from sea-based interception to airborne lasers. Mr. Rumsfeld said, "We need to look at the use of sea; we need to look at the use of an airborne system and a space sensor." His deputy, Mr. Wolfowitz, was sinning along, adding that the missile defense costs wouldn't be known until more research is done; though he would prefer sea-based missile defenses, which would knock down an enemy missile as it would struggle against gravity and would be most vulnerable to a counter-attack.

The Pentagon doves worry that the Republican trio is going to spend so much on their missile defense, operations in space, and intelligence-gathering that the conventional weaponry programs will suffer. They confused about what the Republican leadership wants from them, and their fears have been stirred up by Mr. Rumsfeld's secrecy in working out the new military strategy, the gist of which was cast by Andrew Marshall, a 79-year-old analyst at the Pentagon and a close adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld, who has long pressed for a radical overhaul of armed forces.

The gist of Mr. Mrshall's analysis can be expressed as follows -- adversaries, like the Chinese bureaucrats, are developing new longer-range surface-to-surface missiles, as well as chemical and biological weapons; and that will soon create a serious threat to our Pacific military bases and aircraft carriers. According to Mr. Marshall, the Pacific is the most important region for military planners, because, unlike the Europeans, the numerically overgrowing Asians need to be confined in their present geographical boundaries. Consequently, the American bureaucracy faces the following challenges in the Pacific region: the vast distances, sparse structure of military bases and the slow but steady Chinese military buildup. Therefore, Mr. Marshall calls for the development of new long-range arms to counter the Chinese and N. Korean military bureaucrats. His strategic review concludes that the American military bases in the Pacific are likely to become increasingly vulnerable as the Chinese and the N. Koreans develop more accurate missiles. Therefore, he urges that the American military bureaucrats become less dependent on their Pacific bases and transfer much of their attention to waging a future war from the American continent.

However, the head of the US Pacific military bureaucrats, Admiral Dennis Blair, has drawn a skeptical response to the new strategy, believing that the Chinese bureaucrats will present less of a military threat to our Pacific bases and naval forces in the foreseeable future. Although Admiral Blair supports the overall change of the military forces, he, and many other officers in the region, believe that diminishing strategic importance of the Pacific bases that are close to the probable battle-fields could lead to a chain-reaction and internal changes of the about 40 Pacific nations; and that will probably make it harder and costlier for the American bureaucrats to maintain their continued presence in the Pacific realm and their political control and support to the loyal Japanese and S. Korean bureaucrats.

For the past decade, much of the American Pacific military bureaucrats' activities have involved increasing efforts to cement ties with other military bureaucracies of the region. Last year alone, the American Pacific troops conducted 300 exercises jointly with the military bureaucrats of 37 countries. The Pentagon bureaucrats say such programs are important not only to maintain stability in the Pacific but also to encourage new patterns of cooperation in which the military bureaucrats of other nations can take the lead in peacekeeping, as was the case in East Timor. In those war-plays, the American Pacific military bureaucrats use only a relatively handful of their West-Pacific bases and 100,000 troops in South Korea, Japan and at sea. Another 200,000 troops of the American Pacific troops are stationed in Alaska, Hawaii and the continental US.

Admiral Blair directed a number of restructuring, aiming to buttress the influence of the American military bureaucrats in the Pacific countries. Thus, he has already placed conventional-armed cruise missiles on Guam and plans to move three submarines there. He has also proposed that American aircraft carriers spend a week or two in the Western Pacific on their way to the Persian Gulf and back. Other aircraft carriers, such as the Kitty Hawk that operates from Japan, would increase the American naval presence in the region using a new dock for aircraft carriers at Singapore.

As Admiral Blair put it, "I think we have the tools to keep both air and naval power anywhere we want to in the theater and can for some quite time.  If you want to look at serious forces designed to keep the US out of part of the world, look at what the Russians did in the 70's -- dozens of submarines, hundreds of long-range bombers, dozens of satellites, lots of practice, That was a serious system which we were going to have a hard time fighting our way through. Nobody in Asia is even close to that."

Mr. Rumsfeld has sent drafts of the new strategy to the chiefs and seniors of the American military services around the globe, seeking their input. However, many military bureaucrats see Mr. Marshall's "revolution in military affairs" as too virtual and enamored of high technology, having little or nothing to do with the reality of moving forces in this world. Nevertheless, Mr. Rumsfeld adapted few of their comments and left the key theme of Mr. Marshall's strategy intact, because, for the past decade, the Pacific has become the most important region for the American corporate bureaucrats who fear the decrease of their profits off the Asians with a Chinese military buildup near Taiwan and an unsteady peace on the Korean Peninsula that prevent the expansion of their "free trade" in the depth of Asia.

So, the new military strategy maintains that the American bureaucrats should develop missile defenses as if they are compelled to operate their naval and air forces further away from the Chinese mainland. Therefore, the American bureaucrats need to develop a "core competence" in such key areas as long-range missiles, space operations, a navy capable of operating on the high seas, and transport planes to move men and material in a crisis. The American bureaucrats need to be so dominant in these areas as to "lock out" any potential competition. An important by-product of the new military strategy would be establishing a framework and stimulating the development of new systems of weaponry, because it implicitly encourages the development of long-range warplanes, new long-range precision-guided missiles and bombs, the purchase of more aerial refueling tankers and the use of hard-to-target submarines. It also means that the American military bureaucrats would have to find new ways of waging war in the Pacific, where they would not be able to keep large quantities of supplies within range of enemy missiles. With fewer targets, they would not be able to build up large stockpiles of support equipment; therefore, they should try to have troops that require less support and to supply them in new ways.

While Mr. Marshall and his supporters tend to look at the distant future, Admiral Blair and his supporters have called for a more step-by-step approach in setting new military requirements and developing new systems of weaponry. Trying to answer the key questions -- how serious the threat of the Chinese and N. Korean bureaucrats is to the Pacific bases and aircraft carriers and how the American bureaucrats should respond to that threat -- Admiral Blair and his supporters say it would be very difficult for the Chinese to attack American bases and naval forces in the Pacific without developing first the reconnaissance and communications systems to target them with their few long-range missiles. The American bureaucrats could easily blunt the threat to their Pacific bases and aircraft carriers by knocking out the few Chinese reconnaissance and communications systems. Therefore, the American bureaucrats are not compelled to wage war from further away. What new systems of weaponry need the American Pacific troops are not high-tech weapons for long-range strikes but those that help to survey, to control, and to command.

While Mr. Marshall recommends that the Pentagon bureaucrats re-focus their attention on possible direct confrontation with the Chinese bureaucrats, Admiral Blair recommends to use more allies to distract the Chinese bureaucrats from the American mainland. As he puts it, "The ultimate business of the US military is to make it a place where Americans can trade, travel and interact in peaceful ways; that is, build on an alliance structure". The increasing involvement of allies can help to defuse tensions by interacting more efficiently with each other and with adversaries. Admiral Blair has also argued that the political internal outcome in China is not determined, and Marshall's strategy would lead the American bureaucrats by the treacherous road of isolationism.

That is precisely why the unveiled a week ago Mr. Rumsfeld's plan to intensify the exploration of outer space was short of direct advocating putting weapons in there, and that is why it got a sharp explicit criticism from the Democratic congressmen.

As Mr. Rumsfeld put it at a Pentagon news conference, "More than any other country, the United States relies on space for its security and well-being, It's only logical to conclude that we must be attentive to these vulnerabilities and pay careful attention to protecting and promoting our interest in space." He also said that he is planning not to building anti-satellite weapons or other types of space-based military hardware but to consolidate a number of military space programs (including spy satellite operations that currently are under the Air Force command); and that is why he is planning to create a new position of a four-star Air Force general who will serve as the Pentagon's chief advocate for space programs. However, Mr. Rumsfeld does not exclude entirely a program of placing weapons in space or expanding the anti-satellite programs that the Pentagon bureaucrats have been petting for years.

Until last December, Mr. Rumsfeld headed a Congressional commission, which recommended to the rest of congressmen to increase spending on  studying ways to project power from space to air-, sea-, and land-targets and on other military space technology. In 1996, the same commission recommended to the full Congress to adopt the National Space Policy, by which, the congressmen released themselves from the responsibility to the American people and delegated part of our power to the federal executive bureaucrats of the Department of Defense (DoD), who now has the authority to "develop, operate and maintain space control capabilities to ensure freedom of action in space, and if directed, deny such freedom of action to adversaries."

Only three nations (including the US and Israel) did not sign the international law that bans the use of outer space in military purposes. That is why the majority of the Democrats on Capitol Hill are saying they would oppose any efforts by the Pentagon bureaucrats to militarize space. Thus, Senator Levin (D of MI), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said, "Congress should thoroughly scrutinize Secretary Rumsfeld's proposals to reorganize the management of DoD's space activities to assure the American people that this is not the first step toward deploying weapons in space. Such a step would be unwise and could lead to an arms race in space." Senator Daschle (D of SD) thinks, "Democrats will be universally opposed to doing something as foolish as that. It only invites other countries to do the same thing."

However, the majority of the Republican congressmen said that they support the placement of weapons in space. Senator Smith (R of NH) said, he believes the WH bureaucrats plan to increase spending on what are known as kinetic-kill vehicles, which are theoretically capable of damaging or destroying enemy satellites. And he added, "The country that controls space is the country that wins the next war."

So, the conservative bureaucrats are the realists when they foreseeing a future war; and we, the commoners, have to be grateful to them for that. However, they are the bitter pessimists because they are not even trying to prevent that war. Even worse -- they are trying to accelerate the beginning of it by insisting on their domination in the outer space; and that's why the commoners must scourge them at the ballot-box, bringing into the bureaucratic ranks more and more commoners and laborers.

5/20/01

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Victor J. Serge created this page and revised it on 04/13/03