Targeting Asia: US geospatial intelligence strategy since 1945

Abstract

One of the defining features of US geopolitical-economic strategy since World War II has been the drive to maintain hegemony over (aka to ‘secure’ or ‘contain’) East Asia. The political dimensions of this strategy have been brilliantly exposed by critical scholars – Chomsky, Kolko, Cumings, et al. – yet, to generalize, the insights of this literature have not been absorbed into studies of the rise of East Asian economies. For instance, US military and intelligence activities are largely absent from mainstream studies of East Asian economies; as Glassman and Choi’s recent work shows, this is a fundamental problem for the developmental state narrative. This paper contributes to this critical research by examining the role of US geospatial intelligence (aka ‘GEOINT’) in East Asian geopolitical economy, focusing on two moments: [1] the US JANIS project in Korea, executed shortly before the division of the peninsula, and [2] the place of China in contemporary US GEOINT strategy. Through a reading of texts from the military, intelligence and surveillance community – i.e., drawing mainly from ‘grey’ literature – we argue that the growing emphasis in the US on military-intelligence work in human geography was anticipated in Korea and (despite the constant refrain about ‘Islamic terrorists’ and the recent expeditions in Mesoamerica) is largely intended to ‘contain China’s rise’. US geospatial intelligence is a significant factor in global change; hence we must consider our conjuncture in light of US-led ‘surveillance capitalism’.