Publication: Race and Class
Publication Date: 01-OCT-03
Format: Online - approximately 5935 words
Delivery: Immediate Online Access
Author: Harris, Jerry
Article Excerpt
After the second world war, the US had unquestioned hegemony throughout the capitalist world. But in the early 1970s, US power began to ebb, particularly as the economies in Europe and Japan recovered. Nevertheless, the confrontation with the Soviet Union allowed the US to maintain leadership by providing military security for the West. However, the collapse of the USSR created a crisis. US military might was no longer needed and its economic hegemony had passed its peak.
Alongside this strategic change came the emerging revolution in information technology. As information capitalism became firmly rooted in all the advanced countries, a system of economic and political globalisation rapidly developed. These changing world conditions presented two choices to the US ruling class: either the US had to integrate fully into a globalised system of world capitalism or reassert hegemony through military power and war.
Globalisation was the choice of consensus; it was backed by the rapidly growing transnational corporations, the immense power of speculative finance, a surge in cross-cultural exchanges and a technological boom that pointed to a new economy. But beneath the new global system, there remained a powerful nationalist faction within the US capitalist class. The elements that comprised this faction retained a solid base of support in the military/industrial complex, the structural heart of US superpower status. Ideologically, the hegemonists grouped around a circle of neo-conservatives and geopolitical realists that included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Their views began to take shape during the first Bush administration, at which time they occupied a minority position within the government. But after the election of George W. Bush, the new president filled his Administration--including all key positions in the Pentagon--with neo-conservatives. This led to major policy shifts, in which the globalists who had dominated Washington since the Reagan years were displaced. At first the globalist/hegemonist split was covered over by their initial unity in the post-September 11 period. However, as hegemonist strategy unfolded, the internal class consensus began to fray and differences crystallised over the war with Iraq.
For most economic and political leaders in the West, the Soviet collapse created the conditions for building a multilateral system of global capital. But hegemonists held a different viewpoint--that the defeat of the USSR created an opportunity for a unilateral US empire. This strategy was laid out in a pivotal policy paper published in 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank, Project for the New American Century, and signed up to by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and other top White House advisors. As the paper reads:
Having led the West to victory America faces an opportunity and a challenge ... Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests? What is required is a military that is strong ... a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United State's global responsibilities ... At present the United States faces no global rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible.
Such dominance rests on 'a secure foundation [of] unquestioned US military pre-eminence'; a pre-eminence that will not 'allow others an opportunity to shape the world in ways antithetical to American interests'. In turn, military pre-eminence rests on the application of information technology to warfare, or what the Pentagon terms the 'revolution in military affairs (RMA)'. The ultimate aim is to build 'a global security order that is uniquely friendly to American principles and prosperity'. (1) This political vision drives US policy today.
RMA is the key to Washington's strategic aims because such an extended empire is virtually impossible under the physical constraints of traditional military organisation. Establishing a strong presence in countries extending from the Horn of Africa to Indonesia, with the spread of possible armed conflicts, would simply overtax US military manpower if these occupations were carried out under the 'overwhelming force' doctrine of Colin Powell. This doctrine argues that the US should only engage when its vital interests are at stake but then do so with such overwhelming initial force that resistance quickly proves futile. The 'overwhelming force' doctrine has widespread support inside the Pentagon because it is an approach that protects big weapon systems, large troop sizes and the budgets and careers of numerous top officers; in addition, it provides an employment base in many congressional districts.
But according to the aggressive pre-emptive doctrine favoured by Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cadre of neo-conservatives, RMA makes military pre-eminence achievable. A high-tech military creates smaller forces, at less risk and with the speed and flexibility to roam the world. With less troops and heavy equipment, this ensures that both political and economic costs are lowered to an acceptable level at home, while the effectiveness of special forces and precision weapons means that they leave a smaller footprint, thus lowering the social and political costs of occupation. As pointed out by the Naval Post-graduate School:
RMA proponents argue the United States should take advantage of its current technological edge to accelerate a revolution in warfare that will sustain US power and leadership into the future and can be exploited in U.S. foreign policy to build an international system to the nation's liking. (2)
These two doctrines, RMA and overwhelming force, with all their strategic political and economic implications, have caused the swirling controversies that have swept through the Pentagon over the invasion of Iraq. Iraq was...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.
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