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Since George W. Bush told the United Nations that you are
either "with us or against us in this fight against terrorists," the
post-9/11 world has entered an uncharted era of conflict and tension. The reality of war may well parallel the history
of human civilization, but in an age of global military dominance, indefinite
reliance on nuclear weapons and the threat of preemptive wars in the name of
security, the future of humanity has never hung so precariously.
Expansion, Power and
Resources
Although corporate media coverage obfuscates the deeper
causes and reasons for war, many of the core issues are popularly known and
debated. History is in many ways defined
by the evolution of mercantilism, colonialism and imperialism, or the ‘plunder
by trade' of stronger countries that impelled the conquest of less developed
nations. All empires since the Roman era
were based on the expansion of societies through financial, technical, and
military superiority in order to control more of the earth's wealth and
technology. Less popularly reasoned is
the ongoing parallel with today's distribution of world resources. The unequal trading relationship of
resource-poor wealthy nations with resource-rich impoverished nations, characterized
by competition over scarce resources and economic dominance through
militarization, remains central to an understanding of heightening global warfare.
The main ingredients of global conflict in the modern-day
equation involve U.S. imperialism and oil.
As reflected in Alan Greenspan's infamous statement in his memoirs that "the
Iraq war is largely about oil", the need for a vigorous U.S. military role in
protecting energy assets abroad has been a presiding theme in American foreign
policy since 1945. The United States,
who account for 46 percent of the world total on military expenditure, services
well over 700 military bases abroad at a cost of at least $127 billion annually,
a sum larger than the gross domestic product of most countries. Since 1990 and the ending of the Cold War,
however, almost every major government has assigned a greater strategic
significance to national economic security.
The result, in the words of Professor Michael T. Klare, is the
"economization of internal security affairs", and a global landscape in which
competition over vital resources is becoming "the governing principle behind
the disposition and use of military power."
The Military-Industrial Complex
It was President Eisenhower, in his final address to the
nation in 1961, who coined the phrase ‘military-industrial complex' to forewarn
of an overbearing relationship between the economy, big business and war. Some commentators now use the expression ‘military-industrial-congressional
complex' to reference the interplay of large military corporations and politics
in the phenomenal war machine of America, and even if no serious economist
would hold the view that war is good for the economy, the U.S. is tellingly the
largest military producer, spender, employer, and the leading exporter of arms
to the developing world. This corporate dimension
to conflict in the twenty-first century is fundamentally different to wars fought
before the ending of the Cold War, leading to an invisible yet powerful bastion
of commercial forces who now dominate the policies of major governments - in
particular the G8 - and push society towards increased foreign aggression and
military adventurism.
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 is the preeminent example
of corporate involvement in war. Within
months, private military contractors penetrated western warfare so deeply that
they became the second biggest contributor to coalition forces after the
Pentagon. The private sector, often
involved in the most controversial aspects of warfare such as the Abu Ghraib prisoner
abuse scandal, is now deemed indispensable to U.S. military might. Another causal factor essential to resource
control and hegemony is consistently refuted by government leaders and
spokesmen - namely the opening of new markets to foreign-owned multinational
companies, what the journalist Naomi Klein described as straight-forward
"economic colonization". Iraq has been treated
as a blank slate on which "the most ideological Washington neoliberals can
design their dream economy," she wrote: "fully privatized, foreign-owned and
open for business."
The Economics of War
Economic globalization and neoliberal theory is therefore a
final and presiding ideological factor in today's most serious conflicts. With governments now openly viewing economic
and security interests as "inextricably linked", the strongest economies are
forced to continually expand and generate the products required to maintain
competitiveness in global markets. A
steady and reliable flow of vital resources is central to this process, leading
to increased competition over natural wealth and the inevitable prospect of further
tension and increased militarization.
The growing gulf between rich and poor in both developed and
developing nations (a phenomenon largely ascribed to economic globalization),
with the average purchasing power of the bottom 10 percent of Americans remaining
higher than two-thirds of the rest of the world's population, is arguably a
decisive reason for the growth in demagogues, fundamentalists and extremists who
threaten mass terrorism in developed countries.
Add to this mix the volatile international relations caused by the
so-called ‘Bush doctrine' or self-justification for war whenever the President
chooses, and the geo-politics of the new millennium foreshadows a grave threat
to human civilization.
The Cost of War
The reality of global conflicts, currently estimated at 42
major struggles including 4 major wars, highlights the impasse of the world
situation more than any other. The human
costs of war, with the needless deaths of half a million people each year and
the forced migration of untold thousands, likewise forbids any gainsaying. Skewed world priorities are also widely cited
and reported, such as the 54 percent of the U.S. budget allocated to defense,
for example, compared to 6.2 percent for education and 5.3 percent for
healthcare, or the fact that $40 bn could eliminate most forms of poverty in
the world - a figure representing 5 percent of the money spent on arms each
year.
But the unanswered questions demand an allied governmental enquiry
into the structural arrangements necessary to redesign a grossly unequal world,
and the form of international institutions required to distribute resources
more equally, thereby acknowledging the underlying cause of major conflict. Almost any war, armed struggle or sectarian
clash can be traced to its economic roots.
The choice facing humanity in the twenty-first century is thus the denouement
of an imperial and warring past: to continue along the road of intensified
resource competition, leading to an inevitable global war, or to share world resources
in a cooperative fashion that secures universal basic needs, lessens
international tension, and engenders greater trust between nations.
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