New defense concept by US and developing countries

At a time when Ukraine appears as if it is descending into a civilwar- like state and people are talking about a possible Russian intervention into Ukraine, U.S. Defense Secretary Charles Hagel announced the Pentagon would be seriously curtailing U.S. defense budget. The U.S. is not only changing its defense strategy shaped in the post-Cold War era, but also rapidly altering the aggressive militarist approach, which reached a pinnacle in the 1980s, that produced fast interventions in the "problematic" regions of the world.

The refocused stance is mainly the strategy of the Obama administration and is gradually being adopted by the Pentagon, other strategic state institutions and the wider public.

This "new" stance became apparent after the al-Assad regime's use of chemical weapons in Syria, a fact that could not be denied. Today, even if Russia intervenes in Ukraine, we know the Obama administration will insist on solely using diplomacy despite objections from the opposition Republican Party.

This stance is based on the conviction that in the 21st century, military interventions alone do not work and that their economic and political costs are steep.

When one looks at Russia's possible intervention in Ukraine from this perspective, one sees even if Russia decides to send its military into Ukraine, its long term cost will be exorbitant. Moreover, by doing this, Russia will lose Ukraine, not only economically and politically but also culturally. Instead, it is important to be patient and if there is an intervention, respond with diplomatic measures. Ukrainians and the world will provide the necessary reaction anyway.

This thesis can only be proven correct with a series of consistent and mutually inclusive policies. If the only foreign policy priority was a country's interests and the world apart from the U.S. and the West was ignored, this thesis becomes bankrupt.

For example, if the U.S. does not balance its military's shrinkage with a monetary policy that will rapidly eradicate its foreign trade and budget deficits or if it does not support the transformation of the energy cycles or democratization of countries like Turkey and Azerbaijan in the Middle East, military reduction will do no good and Republicans will be proven right.

In the last G-29 summit, India's Central Bank President Raghuram Rajan, told U.S. and other developed countries, "With the 2008 crisis, you irresponsibly expanded your central bank balance sheets. Now that there is an inkling of recovery, you cannot repeat the same irresponsibility and do just the opposite. If you do so, not only us but you will also be crushed under it."

Until recently, developed countries took objections voiced by the economically growing Asian countries at international gatherings like the U.N. or G-20 summit as isolated examples and did not take them seriously. However, this led to broad opposition from China, India and the rest.

It is important to note the growing economic and political power of the developing countries or more broadly, the East, should not be viewed as a new non-alignment movement. This is because the non-aligned countries that united in early the 1960s were in a bipolar world, had closed economies and political regimes, and tried to resist the U.S. hegemony with the support of the Soviet Union. While they tried to define themselves as a "third pole," their closed statist nationstate model was not substantially different from the Soviet model. Conversely now, the voice of developing countries become louder to the extent they open their economies and political regimes to the world.

For example, the Chinese and Indian economic influence now is directly the result of the opening of their economies. China and India will take over the economic hegemony from the West at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. Starting from Asia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Turkey and Eastern Europe will catch up to the West. This is a fact that the developed world and especially the U.S. needs to accept.

The way to accept this is not to ignore economic rationalism and continue to keep an overvalued dollar and follow a high interest rate monetary policy. The U.S. should immediately start trying to cut its deficits, starting from the trade deficit. Reducing the budget allocated to defense is not enough. It is clear China will not continue to record a trade surplus to finance the U.S. in perpetuity.

Today, the yuan is as undervalued as the U.S. dollar is overvalued. This is a "balance of terror" and shows the collapse of the monetary system based on the Bretton-Woods. Consequently, the U.S. cannot continue to follow its overvalued dollar policy to the political and economic detriment of developed countries. This is not only an economic strategy - a valuable dollar is also a war policy.

On a different point, the U.S. and the U.K. should oppose any coup attempts against elected governments in countries like Turkey that will be vital to the coming global transformation. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey is faced with a coup attempt, similar to the one that occurred on Feb. 28, 1997. The primary objectives of coups is to retrigger a Kurdish war in Turkey's east.

If countries like Turkey return to autocratic regimes, the cost will be high for both the U.S. and the West.