US imperialism is no different from earlier imperialisms in its aims or methods. But in late-stage capitalism, wealth and power are hugely concentrated. Technologies have reached a pinnacle of advancement. Disinformation and propaganda are sophisticated to an unprecedented degree. Surveillance is intrusive and aggressive, if well concealed. Capitalism's destructive potential is unlimited. But even so, war's appeal is not diminished.
As ever, wars allow for the capture and control of resources. Fossil fuels promise future growth, even if of the short-term, unsustainable kind.
Wars require the state to invest its money in the horrendously expensive and destructive products of the "defense" industries, from fighter planes to bombs, justifying the transfer of yet more public resources into private hands.
The lobbies associated with these "defense" industries have every incentive to push for aggressive foreign (and domestic) policies to justify more investment, greater expansion of "defensive" capabilities, and the use of weapons on the battlefield so that they need replenishing.
Whether public or covert, wars provide an opportunity to remake poorly defended, resistant societies -- such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria -- in ways that allow for resources to be seized, markets to be expanded and the reach of the corporate elite to be extended.
War is the ultimate growth industry, limited only by our ability to be persuaded of new enemies and new threats.
Fog of warFor the political class, the benefits of war are not simply economic. In a time of environmental collapse, war offers a temporary "Get out of jail" card. During wars, the public is encouraged to assent to new, ever greater sacrifices that allow public wealth to be transferred to the elite. War is the corporate world's ultimate Ponzi scheme.
The "fog of war" does not just describe the difficulty of knowing what is happening in the immediate heat of battle. It is also the fear, generated by claims of an existential threat, that sets aside normal thinking, normal caution, normal scepticism. It is the invoking of a phantasmagorical enemy towards which public resentments can be directed, shielding from view the real culprits -- the corporations and their political cronies at home.
The "fog of war" engineers the disruption of established systems of control and protocol to cope with the national emergency, shrouding and rationalizing the accumulation by corporations of more wealth and power and the further capture of organs of the state. It is the license provided for "exceptional" changes to the rules that quickly become normalized. It is the disinformation that passes for national responsibility and patriotism.
Permanent austerityAll of which explains why Boris Johnson, Britain's prime minister, has just pledged an extra  �16.5 billion in "defense" spending at a time when the UK is struggling to control a pandemic and when, faced by disease, Brexit and a new round of winter floods, the British economy is facing "systemic crisis," according to a new Cabinet Office report. Figures released this week show the biggest economic contraction in the UK in three centuries.
If the British public is to stomach yet more cuts, to surrender to permanent austerity as the economy tanks, Johnson, ever the populist, knows he needs a good cover story. And that will involve further embellishment of existing, fear-mongering narratives about Russia, Iran and China.
To make those narratives plausible, Johnson has to act as if the threats are real, which means massive spending on "defense." Such expenditure, wholly counter-productive when the current challenge is sustainability, will line the pockets of the very corporations that help Johnson and his pals stay in power, not least by cheerleading him via their media arms.
New salesman neededThe cynical way this works was underscored in a classified 2010 CIA memorandum, known as "Red Cell," leaked to Wikileaks, as the journalist Glenn Greenwald reminded us this week. The CIA memo addressed the fear in Washington that European publics were demonstrating little appetite for the US-led "war on terror" that followed 9/11. That, in turn, risked limiting the ability of European allies to support the US as it exercised its divine right to wage war.
The memo notes that European support for US wars after 9/11 had chiefly relied on "public apathy" -- the fact that Europeans were kept largely ignorant by their own media of what those wars entailed. But with a rising tide of anti-war sentiment, the concern was that this might change. There was an urgent need to further manipulate public opinion more decisively in favor of war.
The US intelligence agency decided its wars needed a facelift. George W Bush, with his Texan, cowboy swagger, had proved a poor salesman. So the CIA turned to identity politics and faux "humanitarianism", which they believed would play better with European publics.
Part of the solution was to accentuate the suffering of Afghan women to justify war. But the other part was to use President Barack Obama as the face of a new, "caring" approach to war. He had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize -- even though he had done nothing for peace, and would go on to expand US wars -- very possibly as part of this same effort to reinvent the "war on terror." Polls showed support for existing wars increased markedly among Europeans when they were reminded that Obama backed these wars.
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