The general thesis of this article is that the U.S.
attack on Afghanistan is an effort to reverse the relative decline
of U.S. empire and to re-establish its domination in conflictual
regions. The war in Afghanistan is only part of a general imperial
counter-offensive which has several components (1) to re-establish
the subordination of Europe to Washington (2) to reassert its
total control in the mid-East and Gulf region (3) to deepen and
extend military penetration in Latin America and Asia (4) to increase
military warfare in Colombia and project power throughout the
rest of the continent (5) to restrict and repress protest and
opposition against the multi-national corporation (MNC) and international
financial institutions (IFI) like the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization by replacing democratic
rights with dictatorial powers (6) to use state spending on weapons
and subsidies for near bankrupt MNCs (airlines, insurance, tourist
agencies) and regressive tax reductions to halt a deepening recession,
which would undermine public support for the empire-building project.
The second thesis is that the preparations for the imperial counter-offensive
followed a planned three part sequence:
Phase 1 Sept. 11-Oct. 6 - A massive propaganda effort which magnified
and distorted the nature of the attack on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon in order to secure world political support. The
anti-terrorism campaign created the appearance of a "world
consensus" in favor of Washington.
Phase 2: Oct. 7-to the present - A massive military attack was
launched, actively supported by the hard core of U.S. supporters
(England, Turkey, Pakistan, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, etc.).
Political, psychological and legal barriers to involvement in
the war were demolished in the U.S., Japan and Germany. This set
the stage for new military interventions, heightened domestic
repression and increased profiteering, under the pretext of "permanent
war" conditions.
Phase 3: Involves a general military offensive against real or
potential adversaries and
critics, using intimidation (the threat of massive bombing as
in Afghanistan) and increased military presence to extend and
deepen control in crises regions like Columbia.
The third thesis is that there are three "international
crises", (1) Military-Political Crises: The open-ended war
declared by Washington which seeks to unilaterally restore its
power, by imposing new client states; (2) Economic crises: The
decline and challenge to Euro-American imperial power derived
from the world recession (and possible depression) and the growing
opposition movements in and out of the imperial states; (3) The
crises of the Left Opposition. The U.S. counter-offensive has
forced a new set of issues before the popular movements: greater
repression, increased militarization, a monolithic and massive
propaganda effort and general fear/and anger.
The imperial new order creates many challenges, dangers and opportunities
for resistence, if the Left can overcome its current disorientation.
This triple international crises that affects both the empire
and the opposition poses several possible outcomes which grow
out of their respective contradictions.
The logic of this essay will proceed by first identifying the
context for the imperial counter-offensive, namely the relative
decline of U.S. power. We will then examine the imperial advantages
of extended open-ended war (as a solution to political-economic
crises) and its contradictions.
Finally we will look at the war as part of the crises and its
impact on popular opposition as well as the potentialities for
a new resurgence of popular power.
Relative Decline of Empire and "the Need for a New Imperialism"
The commonly heard expression, "After September 11, 2001
the world has changed," has been given many different meanings.
The most frequent sense explicitly stated by Washington, echoed
by the European Union, and amplified by the mass media is that
as a result of September 11, a whole new era is ushered in, a
new "historical period" in which a new set of priorities,
alliance and political relations are "established."
Washington's perspective of periodicizing a new historical era
from September 11, however reflects its own losses and vulnerabilities.
>From the perspective of the Third World (and perhaps beyond)
the "new era" starts on October 7, 2001, the date of
the massive U.S. intervention and carpet bombing of Afghanistan.
October 7 is important because it signals the start of a major
world wide offensive against adversaries of the U.S. under a very
elastic and loose definitions of "terrorism", "terrorist
havens", and "terrorist sympathizers". It clearly
marks a new military offensive against opponents and competitors
to U.S. imperial power, including domestic dissent.
It is important to understand the meaning of the term "new
epoch" because, much of what is happening is not new but
rather a continuation and deepening of ongoing imperial military
aggression which precedes September 11, and October 7. Likewise
the popular liberation struggles in many parts of the world continue
unabated despite September 11 and October 7, despite some significant
changes in context.
In brief while September 11 and October 7 are significant events,
it is an open question whether the events following these dates
mark a qualitatively new historical period.
I would argue that it is more useful to analyze the inter-relationship
between events and historical processes before October 7 and after,
in order to separate what is new and significant from what is
ephemeral or established.
Several significant factors establish the parameters and content
for our discussion. The first is the relative decline in U.S.
political and economic power throughout the 1990s in key areas
of the world, particularly in the mid-East/Gulf region, Latin
America, Asia, and Europe accompanied by an increase in U.S. influence
in the less important Balkan states of Kosova, Macedonia and Serbia.
The second factor is the vast expansion of U.S. economic interests
via its multinational corporations and banks into the Third World
and the gradual weakening of the client regimes supporting that
expansion. Clearly the international financial institutions (IFI)
like the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
had so drained the wealth of local economies via their structural
adjustment policies, free trade doctrines and privatization directives
that the client states were fragmenting and weakening and rife
with corruption as private sector elites and politicians pillaged
the treasury. The weakening of the imperial "control structure"
meant that the traditional almost exclusive dependence on the
IFIs for surplus extraction was becoming inadequate. The decline
of "indirect" imperial control over the impoverished
and devastated Third World states required a "new imperialism",
according to Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf (FT, Oct.
10, 2001, p. 13). In laconic terms bombs and marines supplemented
IMF functionaries and SAP in "restructuring" economies
and ensuring the subordination of Third World States. As Wolf
argues "To tackle the challenge of the failed [pillaged and
depleted] state what is needed is not pious aspirations but an
honest and organized coercive force." In other words imperial
wars, like in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia etc., must be accompanied
by new imperialist conquests - recolonization is the "new
imperialism", a process already underway in Latin American
air, land and sea space.
From the end of the Gulf War and the Bush (Senior) Presidency
to October 7, 2001, the U.S. won military conflicts in the Balkans
and Central America (peripheral regions) and suffered a serious
loss of influence in strategic regions. Similarly the U.S. economy
went through a miniature speculative boomlet between 1995-1999
and then suffered a deepening recession entering the new Millenium.
The combined peripheral victories and speculative bubble hid the
deepening structural weakness.
The losses in U.S. influence can be briefly summarized. In the
Middle East, the U.S. strategy of overthrowing or isolating the
Iranian government and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was
a total failure. The regimes not only survived but effectively
broke the U.S. boycott. U.S. sanctions against Iran were, de facto,
broken by most of U.S. "allies" including Japan, EU,
the Arab states etc. Iran was accepted among the revitalized OPEC
countries and signed nuclear power agreements with Russia, oil
contracts with Japan. Iran signed investment and trade agreements
with every major country except the U.S. and even there U.S.,
MNCs, working through third parties became involved in Iranian
trade.
Iraq was reintegrated into OPEC, was accepted as a member at
meetings of the Gulf States, at Arab summits and international
Islamic conferences. Iraq sold million of "clandestine"
barrels of oil via 'contrabandists' through Turkey and Syria,
clearly with the foreknowledge of the 'transit regimes' and the
Western European consumers.
The Palestinian uprising and the unanimous support it received
from Arab regimes (including U.S. clients) isolated the U.S. which
remained closely tied to the Israeli state. In North Africa, Libya
developed strong economic ties with EU and their oil companies,
particularly with Italy and diplomatic relations with many NATO
countries.
Thus three strategic oil producing countries labeled as prime
targets of U.S. policy, increased their influence and ties with
the rest of the world, thus weakening the U.S. stranglehold in
the region immediately following the Gulf War. Clearly Bush Senior's
"New World Order" was in shambles, reduced to mini-fiefdoms,
in the backward, mafia infested Albanian provinces in the Balkans.
Another major sign of declining U.S. power was found in the massive
growth of trade surpluses accumulated in Asia and the EU at U.S.
expense. In the year 2000 the U.S. ran up a $430 billion trade
deficit. Western Europe's 350 million consumers increasingly purchased
European-made goods - over 2/3 of EU trade was inter-European.
In Latin America, European MNCs, particularly, the Spanish outbid
U.S. competitors in buying up lucrative privatized enterprises.
Politically, especially in Latin America, the U.S. dominance
was being severely tested particularly by the formidable guerrilla
movements in Colombia, by Venezuela's President Chavez and the
mass movements in Ecuador, Brazil and elsewhere. The collapse
of the Argentine economy, the general economic crises in the rest
of the Continent and the significant loss of legitimacy of U.S.
client regimes were other indicators of a weakening of U.S. power
in its neo-colonized provinces.
The massive growth of the "anti-globalization movement"
particularly its "anti-capitalist" sectors throughout
Western Europe, North America and elsewhere challenged the power
of Washington to impose imperial friendly new investment and trading
rules.
Faced with its declining influence in strategic regions, a growing
economic crises at home, the end of the speculative (IT, biotech,
fiber optic) bubble, Washington decided to begin militarizing
its foreign policy (via Plan Columbia) and to aggressively pursue
comparative advantages via unilateral state decisions: abrogating
treaty agreements (ABM missile agreement with Russia, Kyoto Agreement,
the International Human Rights Court, anti-biological warfare
and anti-personnel/mining agreements, etc.) Unilateral action
was seen as a way of reversing the relative decline, combining
regional military action and economic pressure. To counter the
decline of U.S. influence in Latin America and increase its control,
Washington pushed the Latin American Free Trade Agreement (ALCA
in Spanish) to limit European competition and increase U.S. dominance.
However opposition was strong in four of the five key countries
in the region; Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina.
September 11, (following the bombing of the U.S. battleship Cole
in Yemen, the attacks on the Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and
the previous attempt to bomb the World Trade Center) was another
indication of the relative decline in U.S. power, this time of
Washington's incapacity to defend the centers of financial and
military power within the empire.
September 11 is and is not a significant date. It is not because
it continued to mark the relative decline of U.S. influence. It
is because it becomes the turning point for a major counter-offensive
to reverse the decline and reconstruct a U.S. centered "New
World Order".
The Counter Offensive: October 7
Washington's declaration of war against Afghanistan has two important
phases: the engineering of a U.S. dominated broad alliance based
on opposition to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, and later the conversion of this anti-terrorist
front into a political instrument to support the U.S. military
intervention in Afghanistan and beyond. The clear intent of the
Bush Administration was to launch a worldwide crusade against
opponents of U.S. power, and in the process, reverse the decline
in order to rebuild a new imperial order. From the onset, the
massive bombing attacks and the invasion by hundreds of Special
Forces, on kill and destroy missions, were intended to obliterate
domestic objections to future ground wars and new military interventions.
Equally important the massive slaughter and displacement of millions
of civilians served the explicit purpose of political intimidation
directed at forcing real or imagined state adversaries to accept
U.S. dominance and control over their foreign and domestic policies,
as well as to threaten social movements that the same violence
could be directed against them.
In a word the declining effectiveness of the IFI as instruments
of U.S. hegemony has led Washington to increasingly rely on raw
military force and high intensity violence. The overt threat of
a series of military assaults is explicitly contained in the Administrations
referral to Afghanistan Invasion as phase one, with the clear
implication that other imperial wars will follow. Most prominent
is Washington's threat to launch another full scale military assault
against Iraq, and other "safe-havens" for "terrorists."
The so-called "anti-terrorist alliance" has been melded
into a War Alliance (including all the major NATO countries).
All the major military and political decisions down to the tactical
level are taken exclusively and without the least consultation
by Washington. In other words, the War Alliance is a continuation
of Washington's previous unilateralism, only now they have successfully
re-asserted dominance over the EU countries. While Tony Blair's
hyper-kinetic activity on behalf of Washington's war has elicited
praise from the President and the U.S. mass media, it has not
in the least led to any sharing of decision-making power.
At least in this first phase of the U.S. counter-offensive, Washington
has reasserted its domination over Europe. Taking maximum advantage
of its strongest card in the inter-state system, military power,
Washington has sought to militarize political-economic realities.
By making "anti-terrorism" the dominant theme in every
international and regional forum (APEC, UN, OAS) Washington hopes
to undermine horizontal divisions between rich and poor countries
and classes and replace it with a vertical ideological-military
polarization between those who support or resist U.S. defined
"terrorist" adversaries and military intervention.
Many regimes have already seized upon this military definition
of socio-economic realities to repress popular and left movements
and liberation organizations in the Middle East, Latin American
and Central Asia. The multiplication of "anti-terrorist"
purges by several client regimes serves Washington's policy perfectly,
as long as the newly labeled terrorist movements also oppose U.S.
policy and as long as their authoritarian clients accept the New
Imperial Order.
Washington's threat of indefinite and extended wars of imperial
conquest has been predictably accompanied by repressive legislation
which in effect confer dictatorial powers to the President. All
Constitutional guarantees are suspended and all foreign born terrorist
suspects become subject to military tribunals in the U.S. - no
matter what their particular geographical location. There is a
broad consensus that the war-making powers assumed by the Executive
violate the letter and intent of the Constitution and the norms
of a democratic regime. The argument by the defenders of authoritarianism
that these clearly dictatorial measures are temporary is not convincing
given the President's position that we are in for a long and extended
period of warfare.
In other words, authoritarianism and engagement in aggressive
imperialist wars go together, obliterating the democratic republican
vision of the U.S. revolution.
History teaches us that imperial wars are always costly, the
economic benefits are unequally distributed and the burdens are
borne by the wage and salaried workers. The authoritarian measures
serve to repress or intimidate, those who question the patriotic
rhetoric: who begin to interpellate the war slogan United We Stand
by adding Divided We Benefit.
The resurgence of empire building at a time of deepening economic
recession is a problematic strategy. While the Administration
slashes taxes for the rich, the war increases expenditures - putting
deep strains on the budget and mass of taxpayers. Military Keynesianism
may stimulate a few sectors of the economy but will not reverse
the sharp decline in profits for the capitalist sector as a whole.
Moreover, stretching the repressive apparatus of client regimes
to secure their acquiescence with the global empire building project
will not expand overseas markets for U.S. exports. In fact, overseas
conflicts will shrink markets deepening the negative external
accounts of the U.S. economy.
More significantly the current military approach to empire building
in the post Afghan period (phase 2) threatens to destabilize the
economies of Europe, Japan and the U.S.'s mid-East states. A military
attack and occupation of Iraq will certainly disrupt the flow
of oil to Europe and Japan, destabilize domestic politics in Saudi
Arabia and other Gulf and Middle-Eastern countries. Fear of the
destabilizing effects of phase two of empire building has already
led to dissent even among Washington's most servile European followers
in England. Nevertheless, given Washington's imperial vision,
unilateral approach and its access to alternative sources of oil
(Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, Alaska, Canada, etc.) a military
attack on Iraq could serve two strategic objectives - weaken European
competitors and eliminate Iraq as a potential regional rival.
Bombing Iraq would damage EU economies and alienate its two major
Arab clients (Saudi Arabia and Egypt) but Washington has demonstrated
it can brush off European objections and still secure their acquiescence.
A new U.S. war however could create uncertainty among investors
world-wide, and the weakening of Europe would repercute negatively
against the U.S. economy at a time of negative growth. A war induced
European decline might improve the relative position of the U.S.,
but its economy would decline in absolute terms.
In focusing exclusively on pursuing a handful of supposed terrorists,
President Bush strains at gnats and swallows camels. The overall
damage to both EU and the U.S. economies resulting from a new
war far exceeds any possible losses resulting from terrorists.
The imposition of the Bush Administration's military definition
on the political-economic conflicts in the Third World resonates
with the state terrorist policies of the Israel (against the Palestinians)
Algeria (against the Berbers) and Turkey (against the Kurds) in
the Middle East and North Africa and no one else.
The Ariel Sharons in Washington (advocates of permanent war for
empire building) have given virtually no thought to the economic
consequences of military intervention in the Middle East. The
collapse of the financial architecture and energy supplies of
imperial states can bring down an empire far more quickly and
with greater certainty than any real or imagined terrorist network.
The Counter-Offensive: Latin America
The imperial counter-offensive is world-wide. In the hierarchy
of regions to reconquer Latin America stands out as second, after
the Middle East. It is the region that has provided the U.S. with
its only favorable trade balances. Its ruling and affluent classes
have drained hundreds of billions in illegal transfers to U.S.
banks, and the U.S. economy has received almost a trillion dollars
in profits, interest payments, royalties and other transfers over
the last decade. Latin American's client regimes usually servilely
follow U.S. positions in international forums and provide nominal
military forces in its interventionary forays thus providing a
fig leaf for what are in effect unilateral actions.
Washington identified the Colombian peasant based guerrilla movements
(the FARC/ELN), the most powerful challenge to its dominance in
the Hemisphere as a "terrorist" group. Controlling or
influential in over fifty percent of the country municipalities
by the mid-1990s, the advance of the FARC/ELN, together with the
independent foreign policy of Chavez regime in Venezuela, and
the revolutionary government in Cuba represent an alternative
pole to the servile Peon Presidents of the Continent serving the
empire.
Beginning in the late Clinton's Presidency and deepening during
the Bush Administration, the U.S. declared total war on the popular
insurgency. Plan Colombia and later the Andean Initiative were
essentially war strategies which preceded the Afghan War but served
to highlight the new imperial counter-offensive. Washington allocated
1.5 billion in military aid to the Colombian military and its
paramilitary surrogates. Hundreds of special Forces were sent
to direct operations in the field. U.S. mercenary pilots were
subcontracted from private firms to engage in chemical warfare
in the poppy fields of Colombia. Paramilitary forces multiplied
under the protection and promotion of the military command. Air
space, sea coasts and river estuaries were colonized by U.S. armed
forces. Military bases were established in El Salvador, Ecuador
and Peru to provide logistical support. U.S. officials established
a direct operational presence in the Defense Ministry in Bogota.
The world-wide counter-offensive of October 7 deepened the militarization
process in Colombia. Under U.S. direction the Colombian air force
violates the airspace over the demilitarized zone where the FARC
and the Pastrana regime negotiate. Illegal cross border forays
into the zone led to conflicts. The State Department labeling
the FARC/ELN as "terrorists" puts them on the list of
targets to be assaulted by the U.S. military machine. Under the
Bush-Rumsfeld Doctrine, half of Colombia is a haven for terrorists
and thus subject to total war.
The imperial war fever caused the State Department to send an
official delegation to Venezuela to bludgeon the Chavez government
to support the imperial offensive. According to officials in the
Venezuela Foreign Ministry when Chavez condemned terrorism and
the U.S. war, the State Department threatened the government with
reprisals in the best traditions of Mafia Dons.
The key dimension of Washington's empire building project in
Latin America is the proposed Latin America Free Trade Agreement.
This proposal will give U.S. MNCs and banks unrestrained access
to markets, raw materials and labor while limiting European and
Japanese entry and protect U.S. markets. This neo-mercantilist
imperialist system is another unilateral initiative, taken in
agreement with the satellite regimes in the region, without any
popular consultation. Given the high levels of discontent already
in the region, under the neo-liberal regimes, the imposition of
neo-mercantilist imperialism will likely lead to explosive social
conditions and the re-emergence of nationalist and socialist alternatives.
Washington's anti-terrorist military doctrine, with its threats
of violent interventions and its active and direct military presence,
serves as a useful ideological weapon to impose the neo-mercantilist
empire.
Latin America is today half colonized: its bankers, politicians,
generals and most of its bishops stand by and for the Empire.
They want deeper "integration". The other half of Latin
America, the vast majority of its workers, peasants, indians,
lower middle class public employees and above all its tens of
millions of unemployed who are exploited by the empire reject
and resist it. The imperial counter-offensive is directed at intervening,
in order to sustain its colonial clients and to cower the other
half of Latin America - that owns no property but represents the
historical interests of the region.
We are entering a period of intensified warfare, constant military
threats, savage bombings, wholesale massacres, and tens of millions
of displaced persons. The sites of violent social conflict are
no longer confined to the Third World, though that is where the
people will pay the heaviest price. Will this period of war also
be a period of revolutions - as in the past? Can the U.S. economy
sustain a sequence of wars, without undermining its own economy?
Can it survive by destabilizing its European and Japanese competitors
but also its trading and investment partners?
Centrality of the Imperial State
There are clear indications that the economic bases of the U.S.
empire are weakening for economic and political reasons. Economically
the U.S. manufacturing sector has been in recession for 18 months
and continuing into 2002. Hundreds of billions of dollars invested
in information technology, fiber optics and biotech ventures have
been lost. As revenues plummet thousands of firms go bankrupt.
Both the "old" and "new" economies are in
deep and prolonged crises. The financial and speculative stock
market sectors are heavily dependent on volatile political-psychological
circumstances in the U.S. and in the world economy. The vertical
decline in the stock market following September 11, and the sharp
recovery following October 7, reflect the volatility. More specifically,
U.S. stock and bond markets depend heavily on overseas investors,
as well as local speculators. These wealthy investors as well
as their U.S. counterparts, invest in the U.S. as much for political
as for economic reasons: they seek safe and stable havens for
their private fortunes. September 11, shook their confidence,
because it demonstrated that the very centers of economic and
military power were vulnerable to attack and destruction. Hence
the massive flight.
The October 7 attack, the massive world-wide counter-offensive
of the Empire, and the destruction of Afghanistan, restored investor
confidence and led to a significant influx of capital and the
temporary recovery of the stock market. The total war strategy
adopted by the Pentagon was as much to restore investor confidence
about the invincibility and security of imperial power as it was
for any political reason or even future oil pipeline. Stock market
behavior, particularly large scale, long term foreign investors
in the U.S. stock and bond market, seem to be influenced as much
by "security and safety reasons as the actual performance
of the U.S. economy. Hence the paradox of the inverse relation
between the stock market and the real economy: while all the economic
indicators of the real economy decline, toward negative growth,
the stock market temporarily recovered its pre-September 11 levels.
There are limits however to this political bases of investment.
Prolonged negative growth and declining profits (or increasing
losses) will most certainly eventually end the recovery and produce
a sharp decline in the stock market.
The theoretical point is that as the economic foundations of
empire weaken, the role of the imperial state increases. The empire
becomes even more dependent on state intervention, revealing the
close ties between the imperial state and investors, including
the MNCs. Equally significant the military components of the imperial
state play an increasingly dominant role in re-establishing "investor
confidence", by smashing and intimidating adversaries, buttressing
faltering neo-colonial regimes, imposing favorable economic accords
(LAFTA) for U.S. investors and prejudicial to Euro-Japanese competitors
(by military action in the Gulf and Middle East).
The old imperialism of the 1980-90s that depended more on the
IFI's (WB and IMF) is being supplanted and/or complemented by
the new imperialism of military action: the Green Berets replace
the bow tie functionaries of the IMF/WB.
Washington led NATO extends its dominion from the Baltic client
states to the Balkan satellites, and beyond Turkey and Israel
to the Central and Southern Asian (ex-Soviet) Republics. The missing
link in this imperial chain is the strategically important Gulf
states: Iran and Iraq. While this imperial chain is militarily
significant it is more a cost to empire than a source of revenue:
it borders great riches but does not produce them, at least as
yet. This is clear to the Bush Administration which is more interested
in destroying regional powers than in large scale investments
in building colonial states, as is seen in the meager resources
invested in the Balkans, Central Asia and is likely to be the
case in Afghanistan.
The centrality of the imperial state in conquering and expanding
U.S. power has refuted the assumptions of those leading theoreticians
of the anti-globalization movement like Susan George, Tony Negri,
Ignacio Ramonet, Robert Korten, etc. who think in terms of the
"autonomy of global corporations". Their emphasis on
the central role of the world market in creating poverty, dominance
and inequality is in the present context an anachronism. As the
Euro American imperial states send troops to conquer and occupy
more countries, destroy, displace and impoverish millions, there
is a great need to shift from anti-globalization to anti-imperialist
movements, from the false assumptions of autonomous MNC dominated
"superstates" to the reality of multinational corporations
tied to imperial states.
The worldwide counteroffensive led and directed by the U.S. imperial
state has as its goal the reconstruction of the failed "New
World Order" of the post?Gulf War period. Today in the face
of economic crisis and growing popular resistance, the multinationals
do not have the will or resources to act "autonomously"
via market forces. The new imperialism is based on military intervention
(Afghanistan/Balkans), colonization (military bases), terror (Colombia).
From the wars in Iraq, the Balkans, to Afghanistan, the imperial
juggernaut advances, each more horrendous human catastrophe justified
by an even greater barrage of propaganda of humanitarian missions.
The imperial offensive after October 7 is based on strategic
and economic imperatives and has nothing to do with the "clash
of civilizations". The U.S. empire includes Muslim states
(Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco, Bosnia, Albania,
etc.), Jewish states (Israel), as well as secular, nominally Christian,
regimes. What defines the U.S. imperial offensive is not permanent
allies (of one religion/civilization or another), but permanent
interests. In the Balkans and earlier in Palestine and Afghanistan,
Washington promoted fundamentalist Muslims and drug traffickers
against secular nationalists and socialists. Yesterday's Muslim
clients (Taliban) are, in some places, today's enemies. The thread
that unifies these changing alliances is the need to defend imperial
spheres of domination. The apparent "hypocrisy" or "double
standard" of the imperial elites is only in the eyes of the
beholder who mistakenly believed in the original propaganda of
the empire and now feel "betrayed" by the switch in
imperial clients.
The U.S. military advances in Afghanistan is preparing the way
for new wars. The military alliance in Afghanistan is built around
rival tribal warlords, who live off of contraband, drug trafficking
and the pillaging of booty from local wars. Elsewhere severe structural
contradictions and crises are looming on the horizon.
Contradictions of Empire
The U.S. imperial offensive faces two types of contradictions
which are conjunctural and structural. In the present context
the Afghan War polarized the Muslim states between their pro?empire
leaders and the mass of sympathizers for the Afghan people and
Osama Bin Laden. This polarization has not yet produced any serious
organizational challenge to the client rulers, though the key
Saudi monarchy is most vulnerable. The military victory of the
U.S. and its client "Northern Alliance" and the resultant
Muslim coalition regime could dissipate the purely Muslim amorphous
mass opposition. The opposition of the EU and Arab states will
only be activated if Washington extends its war to Iraq and destabilizes
the European oil suppliers. These and other secondary conjunctural
contradictions will not undermine Washington's imperial drive,
though it may isolate it diplomatically, particularly in some
international venues.
The more profound long?term structural contradictions of the
"New Imperialism" are found in the military expansion
in a time of deepening economic recession, both locally and worldwide.
Military Keynianism - increased war spending ?? has not and will
not reverse the recession, as few sectors of the economy are affected
and the industries which may receive some stimulus ?? aerospace
are hard hit by the recession in the civilian airline market.
While the military machinery of the imperial state promotes and
defends the interests of U.S. MNC's, it is not the most cost?efficient
service provider. The multi?billion dollar overseas expenditures
far exceed the immediate benefits to the MNC's and do not reverse
the declining rate of profits nor open new markets, particularly
in the regions of maximum military engagement. Military intervention
expands the regions of colonization without increasing the returns
to capital. The net result is that imperial wars, in their current
form, undermine non?speculative capitalist investment, even as
it symbolically assures overseas investors.
As in Central America, the Balkans and now in Afghanistan and
Colombia, the U.S. is more interested in destroying adversaries
and establishing client regimes than in large?scale, long?term
investments in "reconstruction". After high military
spending for conquest, budget priorities shift to subsidizing
U.S. MNC's, and lowering taxes for the wealthy ?? there are no
more "Marshall Plans". Washington leaves it to Europe
and Japan to "clean up the human wreckage" after U.S.
military victories. Post?war reconstruction does not intimidate
possible adversaries, B?52 carpet bombing does. The military victor
in the present conjuncture leaves unsettled the consolidation
of a pro?imperial client regime. Just as the U.S. financed and
armed the fundamentalist victory over the secular nationalist
Afghan regime in 1990 and then withdrew, leading to the ascendancy
of the anti?western Taliban regime, today's victory and withdrawal
is likely to have similar results within the next decade. The
gap between the high war?making capacity of the imperial state
and the weakness of its capacity to revitalize the economies of
the conquered nations is a major contradiction.
An even more serious contradiction is found in the aggressive
effort to impose neo?liberal regimes and policies especially when
the export markets which they were designed to service are collapsing
and external flows of capital are drying up.
The deepening recession in the U.S., Japan and the EU has severely
damaged the most loyal and subservient neo?liberal client?states,
particularly in Latin America. The prices of the "specialized"
exports which drive the neo?liberal regimes have collapsed: exports
of coffee, petrol, metals, sugar, as well as textiles, clothes
and other manufactured goods elaborated in the "free trade
zones" have suffered from sharp drops in prices and glutted
markets. The imperial powers have responded by pressing for greater
"liberalism" in the South while raising protective tariffs
at home and increasing subsidies for exports. Tariffs in the imperial
countries on imports from the Third World are four times higher
than those on imports from other imperial countries, according
to the World Bank (Global Economic Prospects and the Developing
Countries 2002, www.worldbank.org). Support to agricultural MNC
in the imperial countries was $245 billion in 2000 (F.T., Nov.
21, 2001, p. 13). As the World Bank Report points out, "the
share of subsidized exports has even increased [over the past
decade] for many products of export interest to developing countries."
The neo?liberal doctrine of the Old Imperialism is giving way
to the neo?mercantile practice of the New Imperialism. State policies
dictate and direct economic exchanges and limit the markets' role
to a subsidiary role - all to the benefit of the imperial economy.
The highly restrictive nature of neo?mercantilist policies in
the past and in the present polarize the economy between local
producers and the imperial state backed monopolies. The decline
and collapse of overseas markets prejudice 'neo?liberal' export
sectors. The highly visible role of the imperial state in imposing
the neo?mercantilist system politicizes the growing army of unemployed
and poorly paid workers, peasants and public employees. The collapse
of overseas markets means that less foreign exchange can be earned
to pay foreign debts. Less exports sold, means less capacity to
import essential foodstuffs and capital goods to sustain production.
In Latin America the export strategy upon which the whole imperial
edifice is built is crumbling. Unable to import, Latin America
will be forced to produce locally or do without. However, the
definitive rupture with the export strategy and subordination
to empire will not come about because of internal contradictions
- it requires political intervention.
Opportunities and Challenges for the Left
In the short run ("conjuncture") the left faces the
full thrust of Washington's imperial counter?offensive, with all
that implies in terms of increased bellicosity, threats and greater
subservience from ruling client elites. Nevertheless, while this
new military?led imperialist effort at "re-conquest"
is underway, it faces serious practical, ideological and political
obstacles.
For one thing, the offensive takes place in the face of a major
political resurgence of the left in various strategic countries
and a serious decline in the neo?liberal economies. In Colombia,
Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia, powerful socio?political
movements have emerged and have consolidated influence over important
popular constituencies, while the incumbent client regimes are
deeply discredited, in many cases with single digit popularity
ratings.
This situation presents dangers and opportunities. Dangers from
the increasingly militarized and repressive response pushed by
Washington and echoed by its Latin client regimes, as witnessed
by the Ibero?American Conference Declaration in November 23, 2001
on Terrorism (La Jornada, Nov. 24, 2001). Opportunities from the
fact that the resurgent left has not suffered a major defeat in
this period (comparable to 1972?76) and is in a strong position
to make the leap from protest to power. Neo?liberal regimes have
failed to find overseas markets, in order to sustain domestic
production or locate new flows of capital to compensate for the
vast outflows in debt payments, profit remittances, etc. The prolonged
depression in Argentina is emblematic of the direction in which
all of Latin America is heading.
The current crisis is systemic, in that it not only affects workers
and unemployed ?? by increasing poverty, unemployment and inequalities
?? but the very mechanisms of capital accumulation. What capital
is accumulated in Latin America is stored in overseas accounts
as "dead wealth". It is evident to any but the most
willfully blind academics ?? of which there are not a few ?? that
neo?liberalism is dead and that the new neo?mercantilist imperial
system offers no room for 'market choices'.
In this perspective, what is essential for converting these objective
opportunities into substantial structural changes is political
power. The social movements have mobilized millions, they have
realized innumerable changes at the local level, they have created
a new and promising level of social consciousness and in some
cases they control or influence local governments and have secured
concessions via mass pressure from the dominant classes. However
there are several as yet unresolved issues before these movements
can be said to pre?figure a political alternative to state power.
First, politically the movements espouse a series of programmatic
demands and alternatives -which are positive and important - but
lack a theoretical understanding of the nature of the evolving
imperial system, its contradictions and the nature of the crisis.
Secondly, there is disunity, uneven development between urban
and rural movements, between the interior and the coast, and within
some of the movements rivalries based on personalities, tactics,
etc. The aggregate existing movements, if unified in a coherent
single movement, would be significantly closer to challenging
for state power.
Thirdly, many of the movements engage in militant tactics and
articulate radical programs, but in practice engage in constant
negotiation to secure very limited concessions, thus reducing
their movements to pressure groups within the system rather than
protagonists to overthrow the regime. The challenge is how to
develop a transition program adapted to the immediate demands
of the people but which put in the center of the struggle in the
construction of a socialist alternative. The growing authoritarianism
of the imperial directed client regimes requires the building
of mass democratic and anti-imperialist movements.
The U.S. imperial strategy of militarization to impose a neo?mercantilist
empire requires greater capacity for incorporating new allies
and the need to prepare for diverse forms of struggle. The imperial
strategists have selected Colombia as the testing ground for the
"New Imperialism" because it is Colombia where they
face their greatest politico?military challenge. All the reactionary
forces in the hemisphere have been mobilized against the guerrilla
armies as well as the growing mass movements. All the peon presidents
of the hemisphere have signed onto the anti?terrorist crusade
and the FARC/ELN are designated by the empire as terrorists. Military
success in Colombia will accelerate and encourage the military
conquest and colonization of Latin America, just as the U.S. directed
military coup in Brazil (1964) was followed by invasions (Dominican
Republic 1965) and subsequent military coups in Bolivia (1971),
Uruguay (1972), Chile (1973) and Argentina (1976).
A victory or prolonged war by the guerrillas in Colombia will
provide breathing room for the rest of the left. Thus it is essential
that maximum support and solidarity be extended to the Colombian
struggle. Internationalism is not only the solidarity network
against the new imperial military offensive, in general, but in
support of the Colombian peasants and workers organized in their
'Peoples Army'.
These are dangerous and hopeful times - dangers which cut both
ways: for the Empire and for the left. The struggle continues.
James Petras
Department of Sociology - Binghamton University
|