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by István Mészáros All material copyright © 2001 by Monthly Review Press |
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May 2001 |
Chapter 2.7 The onset of capital's structural crisis in the 1970s has produced important changes in the posture of imperialism. This is what made it necessary to adopt an increasingly more aggressive and adventurist stand, despite the rhetoric of conciliation, and later even the absurd propaganda notion of the “new world order,” with its never maintained promise of a “peace dividend.” It would be quite wrong to attribute these changes to the implosion of the Soviet system, although it is undoubtedly true that the Cold War and the presumed Soviet military threat was very successfully used in the past for justifying the unbridled expansion of what General Eisenhower, toward the end of his presidency, called “the military-industrial complex.” The challenges calling for the adoption of a more aggressive—and ultimately adventurist—stand were there well before the collapse of the Soviet system. I described them in 1983 (eight years before the Soviet implosion) as follows:
What has changed after the collapse of the Soviet system was the need to justify the increasingly more aggressive posture of United States imperialism in different parts of the world. This became especially urgent after the disappointments encountered in trying to revitalize Western capital through the economically sustainable restoration of capitalism—in contrast to the relative but still unstable successes in manipulating the state political machinery through Western “aid”—in the former Soviet Union. The “desperately dangerous substitute strategies implemented directly or by proxy” became prominent in the years preceding and following the Soviet implosion. But the appearance of such dangerous adventurist strategies could not be attributed, as some people think, to the fateful weakening of the Cold War adversary. Rather, the Soviet collapse itself is intelligible only as an integral part of the ongoing structural crisis of the capital system as such. The Shah as an American proxy—as well as a presumed guarantor against the danger of a new Mossadeq—served his purpose by ruthlessly controlling his people and by buying massive quantities of arms from the West as the means to do so. Once he was gone, another proxy had to be found in order to destroy the antagonist who was talking about the “American Satan.” Saddam Hussein's Iraq seemed to fit the bill, armed to the teeth by the United States and other Western countries. But Iraq had failed to destroy Iran and became disposable as an element of instability in a most unstable region of the world from the point of view of US imperialist strategy. Moreover, Saddam Hussein as the former US proxy could now serve a greater purpose. He was promoted to the status of the mythical all-powerful enemy who represents not only the danger attributed in Cold War days to the Soviet Union, but much more than that, someone who threatens with chemical and biological warfare—and also with a nuclear holocaust—the whole of the Western world. Given this mythical enemy, we were expected to justify not only the Gulf War, but also several major military interventions in Iraq since then, as well as the callous killing of one million of its children through the sanctions imposed on the country as a result of US dictates, shamefully accepted by our “great democracies” which continue to boast about their “ethical foreign policies.” But all this is not enough to scratch the surface of the chronic instability even in the region of the Middle East, let alone in the rest of the world. Those who think that present-day imperialism does not require territorial occupation should think again. Military occupation for an indefinite length of time is already in evidence in parts of the Balkans (also admitted to be an “indefinite commitment”), and who can show any reason why similar military territorial occupations should not follow in the future in other parts of the world? The ongoing trends are ominous and the deepening crisis of the system can only make them worse. In the past we have witnessed two extremely dangerous developments in the ideology and organizational framework of US imperialism. First, NATO has not only expanded significantly toward the east, which may be considered by the Russian authorities a threat, if not today then some time in the future. Even more importantly, the aims and objectives of NATO have been radically redefined, in conflict with international law, transforming it from what used to be a supposedly purely defensive military association into a potentially most aggressive offensive alliance, which can do what it pleases without any reference to lawful authority—or, rather, it can do what the United States pleases and orders it to do. At the April 1999 NATO summit in Washington the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, under American pressure, “adopted a new strategic concept, by which they said they can resort to military action even outside the NATO area, without caring about the sovereignty of other countries and in disregard of the United Nations.”2 What is also highly significant in this respect is that the ideological justification of the new, unmistakably aggressive, posture—offered in the form of twenty-four “risk factors”—is transparently shaky. It has even been admitted that “out of the twenty-four risk factors only five can be considered to represent real military danger.”3 The second recent development, which is especially dangerous, concerns the new Japan-US Security Treaty. This treaty has been characteristically railroaded through the Japanese houses of parliament (the Diet and the upper house of Counsellors). It has been almost completely ignored in the West, sadly even on the left.4 In this case too, the new developments cynically defy international law, and also violate the Japanese constitution. As an important Japanese political leader, Tetsuzo Fuwa, commented: “The dangerous nature of the Japan-US Security Treaty has evolved to the extent of possibly dragging Japan into US wars, challenging the Japanese Constitution which renounces war. Behind this is the extremely dangerous US preventive strike strategy by which the United States will interfere in another country and arbitrarily attack any country it dislikes.”5 It goes without saying that the role assigned to Japan in the “preventive strike strategy,” in which the orders emanate from Washington, is that of “cannon fodder.” At the same time Japan is expected to contribute generously to the financial costs of military operations, as they were compelled to do also in the case of the Gulf War.6 One of the most sinister aspects of these developments came to light recently when Japanese Vice Defense Minister Shingo Nishimura was forced to resign for “jumping the gun” and aggressively advocating that Japan should arm itself with nuclear weapons. And he went even further, projecting in an interview the use of military force, with reference to the disputed Senkaku Islands. He declared “Should diplomacy fail to settle the dispute, the Defence Agency will tackle it.” As an editorial article of the journal Akahata pointed out: The real problem here is that a politician who openly argued for the nuclear armament of Japan and the use of military force as means to solve international disputes was given a cabinet seat. It is natural that other Asian nations have expressed grave concern over the matter. What is more, under a secret agreement with the US government, LDP governments have gutted the three non-nuclear principles (not to possess, manufacture, or allow nuclear weapons to be brought into Japan). Moreover, the recent “emergency legislation” is aimed at giving military operations by the US forces and the SDF [Self-Defense Force] priority in the event of war by mobilizing for war cooperation, commandeering commodities, land sites, buildings, and controlling ships, aircraft and electric waves. Such legislation will undermine the Constitution.7 Naturally, the new aggressive posture of the Japan-US Security Treaty is justified in the name of the necessities of Japanese defense. In truth, however, the “Common Defense” claimed in the legitimating report (quoted in note 5) has nothing to do with “defending Japan” against a fictitious aggressor, but everything to do with the protection and enhancement of US imperialist interests. The US uses bases in Japan, including those in Okinawa, to carry out military intervention in politically unstable situations in South East Asian countries, including Indonesia. In May last year, when the Suharto regime went down in Indonesia, US Army Special Forces units suddenly returned to the US Torii Station in Yomitan village, Okinawa, via US Kadena Base in Okinawa. They had trained the special forces of the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) which suppressed demonstrations in the country. The sudden return of the US Army Special units Forces indicated the secret activity that US Green Beret units in Okinawa had engaged in Indonesia.8 These dangerous policies and practices are imposed on the countries whose “democratic” governments meekly submit to all US dictates. As a rule the changes are not even discussed in the respective parliaments, bypassing them instead through secret treaties and protocols. And in the same spirit of cynical evasion, when for some reason they appear on the parliamentary agenda, they are bulldozed through, dismissing all opposition in the most authoritarian fashion. The politicians who in this way continue to “sow dragon seeds” seem to be oblivious to the danger of real dragons appearing on the historical stage in due course. Nor do they seem to understand or admit that the devastating flame of the nuclear dragons is not confined to a given locality—the Middle East or Far East, for instance—but can engulf absolutely everything on this planet, including the United States and Europe. NOTES
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