Pacific Freeze
Summary of Meeting
Friday, March 21, 2008
Arca Foundation
Washington, DC

Present:
*Christine Ahn (Oakland Institute), Robert Alvarez (IPS), Phyllis Bennis (IPS), Minji Choe (IPS), Sung-hee Choi (artist), David Culp (FCNL), Joseph Gerson (AFSC), *Wade Huntley (Simon Center for Disarmament and Nonproliferation Research), *John Feffer (IPS), Bruce Gagnon (Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Weapons in Space), *John Kim (Veterans for Peace), Gwyn Kirk (East Asia-US Women’s Network/Women for Genuine Security) , Haeng Woo Lee (NAKA), *Kevin Martin (Peace Action), Annabel Park (Korean American Community Corps), Miriam Pemberton (IPS), Bal Pinguel (AFSC), *Virginia Rodino (SEIU), Hyuk-kyo Suh (NAKA), Jae-jung Suh (SAIS), Jane Teeling (IPS), Alex Toma (Peace and Security Initiative, Ploughshares), *Anisa Virji (AFSC, Washington), Emira Woods (IPS), *Chong-Ae Yu (Cornell University). * members of drafting committee

Summary
On March 21^st, 2008, a group of scholars, activists, and policy professionals gathered to discuss the structure, content and implementation of a document calling for a freeze in the military spending of the countries in the Six Party Talks (United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, North Korea). Provisionally called the Pacific Freeze, the campaign draws inspiration from the Nuclear Freeze of the 1980s.

The group raised various concerns over the substance and framing of the draft Call to Action. By the end of the meeting, a drafting committee was formed to come up with a new Call to Action based on this discussion.

We also came up with a rough time line:

• Early April: The new Call will go out to the larger group of participants.
• Late April: The AFSC delegation will go to China and Japan and discuss campaign with counterparts
• May 30 or 31: A second meeting in Washington to discuss next steps
• June 30: Possible discussion with the PSI conference working group
• October 24-25: International gathering in Kwangju, sponsored by South Korean peace groups

Issues Raised at the Meeting

1. Defining the terms

Defining the terms used in the Call to Action is an important first step. As noted in the initial draft of the document, the “six parties” refers to governments participating in the Six Party Talks: North Korea, South Korea, America, Russia, China and Japan. “Pacific” refers to the region. The issue was raised as to whether or not other to include other countries – either in the Pacific region, such as Guam, or elsewhere. However, the panel seemed to agree that the countries of the Six Party Talks comprised a good initial target, as they are already assembled for matters relating to regional security and have all committed rhetorically to exploring a new peace and stability mechanism for the region. It will be important, however, to make space in the document for other people in the Pacific who are concerned about these issues but don’t live in the six countries.

The issue of China provoked discussion. The six-party framework offers an alternative way to address the growing military standoff between China and the U.S. While unlikely to instigate dialogue between U.S. and China alone, the Freeze presents a framework for the larger issue of nuclear disarmament, achieved through regional consensus. It is also possible that China might see this movement as a good opportunity to freeze military build-up on the part of the U.S.

The group considered tying the initiative to the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for Asia as well as the proposed ban on all weapons in space.

Use of the word ‘freeze’ was also debated. As the word ‘pacific’ is a derivation of the Latin word for ‘peace’, the name ‘Pacific Peace Campaign’ could be effective (or perhaps redundant). ‘Peace’ is also less military and more people-centered.

2. Military Spending and the Arms Race

The group discussed the challenge of calling for a freeze on military spending when the United States has a disproportionate military lead over all other countries. Why should countries with varying amounts of military assets agree to a flat-out freeze, leaving some countries with arsenals inferior to others?

The panel posited a solution to this problem. If the arms race in the region in fact increases the gaps in military capability, then a freeze can offer a first step toward greater equity at lower levels. For this to happen, the freeze campaign must also addresses the larger issues of military spending and arms exports, while supporting demilitarization as part of its platform. The freeze insists that only by leveling the playing field can we dismantle the entire game.

So if ‘winning’ a freeze implies eventual disarmament, then the campaign should easily amass support from citizens and policy makers inclined toward peace. Harnessing these peaceful inclinations can be done by addressing the measurable damage that a military build-up yields, such as the enormous cost of maintaining military spending and the strain it places on the resources of the U.S. economy. A freeze will free up funds for other projects, such as education, improvement of civic facilities, etc. The conversion of the military-industrial complex can be used as grounding vision in which the role of the United States is the primary problem, making a freeze, and eventual demilitarization, the solution.

Of course, there will be loopholes and counter strategies to the freeze. One involves the United States as a source of military aid to regional surrogates. It will be difficult to enforce a freeze if the U.S. – or any other country – continues supplying its military allies. Should this happen, the playing field can never truly be leveled.

3. Audience

The freeze must be made a pertinent issue to all governments, starting with the United States. First, the document should make reference to the FY2009 military budget request from the Bush administration. This will provide a base for the argument of military over-spending. Next, the freeze should enter the foreign policy dialogue of the 2008 elections, for instance by generating a list of five questions related to the freeze to pose to the candidates. Finally, this document should be presented to the 2009 East Asia Desk at the State Department, and its progress monitored.

In terms of civic communities, the panel agreed that the Asian-American community, while not the only relevant group to this discussion, is nonetheless an important voice in the debate of peace in the Pacific region. There is certainly a segment of the Korean-American community that is involved in peace issues. But there is not necessarily a lot of cross-organizing on peace issues within the Asian-American community. And there isn’t much of a focus in the peace movement on Asian issues. The Pacific Freeze could offer a strategy to get Asian issues onto the peace movement agenda and also serve as a platform for intra-Asian-American community organizing.

Other crucial players include budget priority people (taxpayers, WAND, etc); larger religious denominations (e.g., Catholics in Japan, Methodists and Presbyterians in ROK – and U.S. counterparts with strong ties to the region); and elected and non-elected public officials. One challenge will be to make the average American care about East Asia. One way to do this is by demonstrating that this is a key region, that we should be concerned about the arms race there, and that the countries involved represent a disproportionate amount of global military spending. This region, in other words, is the place to start if we are to ever begin drawing down the global military industrial complex.

The group also explored the relationship of the freeze to the Peace Movement, at home and abroad, and how to connect this issue to the work of NGOs, to the anti-war movement, and to other military-related issues such as AFRICOM, etc. By looking at the drivers of military spending, the freeze initiative brings peace movements on board up to a point: the arms trade shifts weapons from A to B, usually from the United States to other countries, and this is exactly how to relate the freeze to other issues in the Peace Movement. That said, this campaign is not a linchpin for the Peace Movement but an instigator for the other issues and movements.

Closer to the source of conflict, peace groups in South Korea and Japan have expressed interest in the Pacific Freeze. In Japan, Peace Boat would work on the campaign through the issue of the Japanese constitution (and preserving Article 9, the pacifism clause). Peace Depot, which focuses on a nuclear freeze zone in the region, has also been enthusiastic. The Peace Network in South Korea would like to hold an international meeting of those working on the Pacific Freeze in late October.

4. Structure and Strategy

The structure of this document should incorporate the aforementioned points and definitions; to be determined is whether this document will serve as tool or model for a larger movement.

Participants also stressed the importance of several other key issues, such as the arms trade, foreign military financing, and the withdrawal of foreign bases from the region. Additional issues by which to frame the campaign include climate change/resource depletion, which relates to U.S. domestic issues; and the conversion of the military complex, which relates to matters of economy and security. The panel suggested supporting facts with percentage reduction and mathematical models, and using an “inverted triangle” model, offering a global to regional view, with prescriptions at the end.

It is key here to separate out policy prescriptions from a call to action to civil society. Although the document will make recommendations and demands of policy makers, it must also speak to ordinary people. A “freeze” should therefore be a simple concept that people can embrace – but not the final goal. Moreover, the document must be focused but visionary, playing on hope and not fear, with the added impact of economic factors inherent in military spending.

In terms of strategy, the group agreed that the freeze should run parallel to the issue of the military budget on the agenda of the next administration. Part of ‘winning’ will be making military spending a key public issue, much as the Nuclear Freeze movement achieved a great deal by raising the issue of nuclear weapons even though it never met its goal of enacting a freeze. A simple document, plus satellite documents, can further disseminate the message, although the group did not confirm when these satellite documents will be written and distributed. What is clear is that the primary document will present two sides: first the rationale for a freeze; then the prescriptions and their legislative implications.

The narrower the focus, the harder it is to get a lot of diverse people on board, which is why the group agreed that the message must call far and wide. This starts by gathering feedback from regional and domestic groups alike. The drafting committee will submit the 2^nd draft to Chinese and Japanese groups for feedback, then to U.S. organizations for more feedback. The goal here is to present an articulated understanding of what the process means for all countries in the region, and how they can relate to the freeze initiative.

Placing the debate in the public sphere is crucial. At the intellectual level, this means getting civil society in six countries to go on record with priorities, and persuading opinion leaders in six countries to write coordinated op-eds. On the frontline, YouTube and other social networking outlets present ample opportunity for getting the message out.