Pg 4 Mar 2001
America is back---with a vengeance.
Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, American geopolitical strategy has been consciously focusing on how to take advantage of the fact that in military and economic terms it is now the world's only superpower. We offer below 4 relevant texts on this intent. But first a little history.
America was born in 1776, the same year that Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, the foundation scripture for capitalism. The U.S. was thus born capitalist, in the time of capitalism's great creative burst. And it was possessed of infinite "resources" besides, once the indigenous "savage" population could be displaced from the land. The biblical scriptures seemed fulfilled for a second time. There had been a new exodus from "Egypt" (Europe), a new covenant with God, a new and abounding "promised land." Americans were the New Adam, innocent and unspoiled, busy constructing under God the New Jerusalem, the "city set on a hill." "God is making the American," one of their leaders proclaimed. That is how the American arose into history: righteous, innocent, chosen by God, and determined to fix the world's wrongs while doing good to himself.
Therefore in 1945 when the rest of the the industrialized world emerged exhausted and devastated by World War II, American messianism and idealism constructed the Marshall Plan and offered itself as the home of the United Nations. (Of course the payback was always very good.) But as early as 1948 the darker side of American messianic purpose began to show.
Text #1 : "We [Americans] have 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task is to devise a pattern of relationships ... to maintain that position." (U.S. Sate Dept. document PPS/23, in1948, under the direction of George Kennan.)
As America's global corporations began, from 1980 on, to fulfil this task, American military power under Reagan, Bush and Clinton was expanded to give backup to the economic conquest. After the Soviet collapse, the U.S. no longer had a military opponent, but it would use its awesome military power to demonstrate what Uncle Sam can do when he means business. Demonstration wars were held in Iraq (1991) and Yugoslavia (1999). In late 1990 the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress blatantly argued that the U.S. should make war on Iraq in order to find out how much they could bend the world to their purpose. The war would show :
[Text# 2 :]
1. Whether we can or cannot still call on force to achieve our goals abroad.
2. Whether we can or cannot use the United Nations to
achieve our goals.
3. Who we can work with in the future and how.
General Colin Powell, Commander in Chief of the U.S.
Armed Forces in the Gulf War, and now Secretary of State under President Bush (note this conflation of military and foreign affairs in one person), recently prescribed how the U.S. will henceforth take action in the world. There will be
[Text# 3:]
1. Clarity of objective.
2. Massive use of force (from above, with zero risk).
3. Certainty of victory.
4. An "exit" strategy ( U.S. personnel removed from any subsequent responsibility in the situation)
.
Finally, the same General Powell has openly told the world (January 2001) what we may expect in general from the Bush government:
Text # 4: "We will defend our interest from a position of strength. That strength comes to us from the power of our... free enterprise system...our economic power....With military power, we're the best on the face of the Earth and we are going to keep it that way."
America will save the world by force--but first of all for Americans.
This explains why the U.S. will plunge ahead with the immensely costly New Missile Defence system, even though evidence is that it will not work and that it will threaten the peace by breaking several international treaties. The NMD is for show (and for subsidizing corporations).
And this explains also why the U.S. has developed a whole cupboard full of frightening new weapons---chemical, germ, biotech, laser, microwave and other grisly instruments that enable them to fight "wars without blood" ( they call them "soft-kill weapons"). These weapons are particularly adapted for use against civilian populations. The message is, "There is no horror that we are not prepared to commit to protect the world as it is, with us on top."
Brave new world.
- Carl Ridd
