Further comments on Chris Chase Dunn

    Thanks - Arno Tausch and Chase Dunn here's finally an interesting
discussion on this list, which - I'm loath to say to the small incrowd
presently only writing on this list - has been filled with utter rubbish
postings recently, or like the Bangladeshi posting is written in such
torturous jargon that I have no idea what the writer is trying to express.

    To turn to Chase Dunn's piece and forthcoming book, the problems with
Chase Dunn's positions are IMHO many but these certainly ARE topics we
should discuss and once upon a time indeed discussed.

    The basic problem is of course that by squeezing the `irrefutable'
historic facts enough you can derive virtually any position and any historic
prediction from them. A historic case being, for example, the conviction -
apparently firmly based upon the entire historic record since 1066 - of
members of the British elite (like the duke of Wellington) from 1815 right
up to the Crimean war and even after of a nearby future confrontation with
France. One reason why the idea of a channel-tunnel which was discussed in
France from 1780 onward was never considered in Britain. It would merely
pave the way for a French invasion. Again, the modern torpedo-boat was
invented by the French navy in the 1880's to fight British battleships
during the coming  war!

    However, even to start making such predictions one does first have to
have one's facts right and here I come up against at least two major
problems in Chase Dunn's contribution.

    First (and here I can speak with SOME authority since I have at least
seen thousands and thousands of pages of Dutch diplomatic correspondence and
the others on this list or elsewhere have not) I have never understood the
idea of Dutch hegemony in the world-systems whether in Braudel's original or
in Wallerstein's or in Chase Dunn's / Tausch's later incarnations and the
notion of Dutch imperial over-extension I understand even less - the latter
seems merely a mechanic extension of Paul Kennedy to a totally different
context. As I understand it - and in this case this is not opinion but
fact - Dutch power in the mid-seventeenth century was very unequal - it's
absolutely not comparable to either the global position of Britain around
1830, let alone of the US in 1945, which, historically was a very unique
situation. Though American elites did not perceive it like that.

    The Dutch fleets were very powerful in the Baltic but Sweden was the
main land-power there. In the North Sea the English and Dutch fleets more or
less balanced each other out. In Flanders Dutch were far overshadowed by the
French land-armies; as to the - still very important - Mediterranean: in the
western Mediterranean the Dutch were much weaker than France, while in the
Eastern Mediterranean they were merely humble supplicants at the Ottoman
supreme porte and far out-ranged by the Marseille trade.

    Outside of Europe the massive trade of Brasil and Spanish America was
still totally dominated by the Iberian powers and the Dutch merely
interlopers while the Dutch were also not much more than interlopers in the
Caribbean. - The growth of a true Dutch Caribbean is a phenomenon of that so
much condemned `wig-period' (as you call it in Dutch): of the eighteenth
century -. In West Africa the Dutch dominated the Gold Coast but the - then
far more substantial - slave trade of Angola was a Portuguese affair and the
Portuguese still carried on a substantial gold trade in West Africa (from
Cacheu) too. As to Asia in the seventeenth century the power of the East
India company - VOC - was confined to a few islands in Insulinde and the VOC
was not more than a supplicant at the Mughal, Tokugawa, Safavid or Manchu
court; the VOC was certainly strong at sea but if we consider Portuguese
private shipping VOC and Portuguese power in Asia were around 1650 about
equal.

    The VOC did eventually grow into a major territorial and military power
in BOTH India and Indonesia but that again is a development taking place
during that much maligned `wig-period'.

    In sum, what I find the more interesting the more I ponder about it is
how well the Dutch were able to consolidate themselves during their supposed
period of decline in the eighteenth century. By 1780 the Dutch Republic had
flourishing colonies in the Caribbean; a secure territorial hold over the
vast riches of Java; dominated the Gold Coast, still dominated the Baltic
trade and even still conducted busy commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Now - the reason why the Dutch were able to thus consolidate themselves was
precisely because the Dutch regenten `plutocracy' did NOT fall into the trap
of imperial overstretch pace Kennedy. If a colony or branch of trade was
threatening to become unprofitable they wisely withdrew. On a small scale -
which I happen to have studied in detail - that's true for the Dutch
withdrawal from the unprofitable colony of Maurice, on a very large scale
that's true for the Dutch strategic withdrawal from Brasil and North
America.

    Yes, my dear US-colleagues New York/New Amsterdam was badly guarded and
in turmoil in 1672 and could well have been conquered by coup de main by the
Dutch fleet. And, yes, my American colleagues the Dutch had the power to
hold out in New York in which case the US might well not have existed -
ponder on that for a moment. Yet the Estates General chose not to stage an
expedition to New York in order to achieve a future lasting peace with the
English.

    So, Dutch hegemony was at the very least a very patchy affair and really
existed by the force of the previous exhaustion of a truly global Empire.
Namely the Habsburg Empire Spain, Austria and their whelter of colonies,
allies and possessions. For in 1600, unlike Dutch power, Spanish/Austrian
power WAS truly global. If you look at the deliberations of the council of
state in Madrid you'll find the councilors discussing matters ranging from
Hamburg to Buenos Aires, from Rio de Janeiro to Prague, from the Persian
Gulf to Florida, from Guam to Flanders, from Vienna to the Gold Coast.
However, you'll also find - and here I come to my second main objection -
that the central foreign policy concern of the councilors is - up to 1618 -
not with the `local' Flanders-troubles (as they called it) but is with the
OTHER global power of the sixteenth century namely the Ottoman Empire.
Logically enough for the Spanish possessions in Sicily, Calabria or the
Baleares were only a few hours or days sailing from the Ottoman Empire. (And
in 1600 `Ottoman' corsairs were a severe threat to settlements from Iceland
to Sicily). And, of course, Vienna was perhaps two days removed from the
Ottoman border.

    Thus, my second main objection is that rather than being truly global
Wallerstein, Chase Dunn, Boswell, Tausch, or what other `grand
theoreticians' have you, mistake what is really only a very small segment of
even the European world-system (really only Northwestern Europe, not even
the Mediterranean, not even Eastern Europe) for `global dominance'. It seems
Boris Porshnev or Korpetter for the sixteenth century, Ingram for the
eighteenth/nineteenth century have written totally in vain (and of course
none of them are ever quoted).

    For what the first two writers bring out for the late sixteenth/early
seventeenth century is that the `Flanders troubles' and the Thirty Years'
war are really part of a vast struggle between a shifting Habsburg-led
coalition on the one hand (encompassing powers as different as the Ethiopian
Empire, Safavid Persia, Austria and Mataram - Java - as much as Venice and
the Pope with Muscovy as a lose associate) as against an
anti-Habsburg/Ottoman/French coalition (encompassing powers as different as
Bohemia, the Crimea Khanate, the Uzbek Khanate, the Gallas of Ethiopia,
Mingrelia, Atjeh or the city-state of Mogadishu.) Now, that these latter
names are not very familiar is because the anti-Habsburg coalition initially
lost the struggle, but at the price of the total exhaustion of the means of
both Spain and Portugal by 1600 allowing the Dutch and the English to move
into their vacated territory in Asia and to some extent the Mediterranean.
And this mainly because Spain and Portugal concentrated on keeping their
all-important positions in America. While the Ottoman Empire after 1600 gave
up its Mediterranean positions to concentrate on keeping its all-important
Arab possessions against Persian attacks. Now, all of this is surely totally
new to Chase Dunn, Boswell c.s. - ever heard of Mingrelia? - but it merely
proves that the `facts' are not so `certain' as they seem because as Gunder
would say Dunn c.s. prefer to stay under the European streetlight.

    Again, Ingram appears to have written totally in vain on the British
Empire - for what is still habitually overlooked by our `grand
theoreticians' is that British power and diplomacy had two legs: Britain AND
INDIA. The `second British Empire' was first and foremost India based and,
therefore, any explanation of the rise of the British Empire after ca. 1780
should also, first and foremost, consider the situation in India and by
extension the Middle East and Central Asia. But this is as yet totally
ignored by the grand theory.

    Yet for Whitehall in 1790 the internal politics of Mysore, Afghanistan
or Hyderabad were as important a consideration as those of Hannover and
France. In 1806 with Napoleon at Boulogne the bulk of the British army was
IN INDIA and the major land-battles by the British army in the revolutionary
wars were - Waterloo excepted - in India (and many naval fights in the
Caribbean). Thus, as Frank puts it the `decline of the east' preceded the
`rise of the west' (the British, French and Dutch Empire in Asia) though -
in India and Java - this was not an economic decline  but a crisis of the
state brought about precisely BY rapid economic growth. (I support Gunder's
intent but am not a `dogmatic Frankian' I guess.)

    Precisely because of this overwhelming importance of India for the whole
existence of the British Empire Britain perceived Russia, France and even
the Kingdom of the Netherlands as potential threats. The last may seem very
odd nowadays but dear readers in Australia remember, for example, that the
first British settlement in northern Australia was mainly intended to
forestall the establishment of a possible Dutch settlement there during the
diplomatic tensions between the two states in the 1820's regarding
Indonesia. And, because of its Indian interests throughout the nineteenth
century Britain was deeply involved in the obscure politics of Afghanistan,
Iraq and Iran (even Bukhara !) to forestall Russian influence there. A
policy the British - as some of you may know - called the Great Game. The
great game was not nearly all fancy - as it sometimes seems nowadays - but
was instead quite vital to British imperial strategy. That the Great Game
may seem an odd sideshow for `grand theorist' from Kennedy to Chase Dunn is
merely because they continue to study `global politics' only from a European
angle. If India is perceived as vital instead we get a very different
perspective on British foreign politics in which the Middle East or
Afghanistan are as important as Helgoland or Schleswig Holstein.

    Now - since, briefly, the deposition of Musadeq in Iran and the Suez
crisis in 1956 the position of Britain as prime conductor of the `Great
Game' with Russia (and since the 1960's increasingly China) has been assumed
by the USA. The difference being merely that from India the interest has
shifted to the Persian Gulf. My point is that if we perceive the US-policy
from the Persian Gulf rather than from Europe we get a very different
perspective, just as in the case of British and Dutch `hegemony'.

    Basically US-policy was until 1980 to build up - as the British before
them - a complex of buffer-states between the Persian Gulf and America's
paramount ally - Saudi Arabia - namely Turkey, Iran and Pakistan - involving
the USA in a kind of Great Game in miniature with India -.This buffer
collapsed in the eighties because of three developments: the Iranian
revolution, the failure of the intended US-policy to build up Iraq as a
reliable new buffer with the invasion of Kuwait and, first and foremost, the
collapse of the Soviet Union.

    It is often stated that the `Cold War' was merely window-dressing. This
may be true or Europe but the US/Russian Great Game of the 1970-80's  was a
horrible reality in the Middle East/Central Asia with upto 2 million people
killed in Afghanistan, at least 500.000 in the `first' Gulf war, up to
100.000 in the second. While the `Cold War' was to an extent `rhetoric' in
Europe, it was a very hot war outside of Europe in which more people were
killed than in World War I and in the Middle East, Central Asia (and Korea)
the `cold war'; never ended and the Great Game in Central Asia and the
Caucasus is now again a very hot war.

    For since the collapse of the USSR the `great game' has entered a new
phase - somewhat comparable to the most romantic initial phase of the
Anglo/British rivalry of the early nineteenth century - upto about 1840 -
when any commander in Peshawar or Teheran could completely decide his own
policy.

    Responsibility has now again shifted from states and governments to the
`men on the spot' and fronts are now no longer fixed. And this in a very
literal sense for the border of the USSR in the Caucasus was the most
heavily guarded one of the whole USSR and the USSR had up to 600.000
soldiers there, precisely because the USSR - rightly - feared subversion
from both Turkey and Iran. With the collapse of that heavily fortified
border, any local Russian commander can decide his own policy. Thus the
Russian army in Ossetia four years ago or the colonels of the garrisons in
Tajikistan two years ago - yes, there are still sizeable Russian armed
forces present in Central Asia and the Caucasus, since, for example,
Tajikistan has delegated the guarding of its borders to the Russian army.
And it is probably likewise for officials of the CIA; I suspect not even the
CIA headoffice has any idea what their `men on the spot' are doing or who is
linked to whom in the Central Asian quagmire.

    Likewise the collapse of the borders has given unrivalled opportunities
for smuggle giving rise - in the true traditional central Asian pattern
since 2000 B.C. - to new political or rather tribal formations. The Taliban,
for example, really arose as exploiters and armed protectors for the
smuggle of heroine through Russia and Iran to the West. The rebels in
Tajikistan are mainly heroine-smugglers, while the struggle in Chechnya is
IMHO mainly about whom controls the oil-pipeline to Russia and is to control
the proposed new pipeline from Baku through Turkey. I think the Chechen
invasion of Dagestan was intended as a `warning sign' to put forward a stake
of the Chechens on the protection-racket on the pipeline through Dagestan.

    Now - contrary to any pious declaration of president and State
Department, but I frankly think Clinton or Gore are unaware or prefer to be
unaware of what their own Intelligence Agency is doing - US-policy in
Central Asia and the Middle East - totally unlike in Europe where it is in
the USA's best interest to strengthen Russia - has had two components. (And
here the parallels with the British policy in the nineteenth century
emerges - for Britain had one policy in Europe, another in the Middle East
and the Balkans too and policy was very much decided by `men on the spot'
rather than by Simla, let alone Whitehall).

    Component one is to get control of the Caspian oil reserves (a big price
for conceivably they are the largest of the world). Component two - and
here's where things get really difficult - is to weaken Russia. Of course,
this is perfectly in the national interest of the USA. But the Clinton and
Bush administration have always been denying their own factual policy. For,
again, this is not in the US-interest in Europe but it IS in Asia. They are
doing that, not only by building up buffer states (and defusing the old
Syria/Israel conflicts) - up to that far the State Department is perfectly
willing to acknowledge its own policy - but also (and here's where the State
Department prefers NOT to be informed) the `men on the spot' are doing that
by building up subversive movements within Russia. I know everybody in the
US-administration prefers not to be informed about this and denies it but
the Chechens have the most modern of weapons and communication-devices upto
Stinger-missiles - how in God's name do you obtain sophisticated weapons
like that in a landlocked, dirt-poor, mountain enclave without aid from some
direction? It is more clear the Taliban (and hence the Tajik rebels) have -
until very recently - consistently been armed and supported  by Pakistan and
Pakistan can do very little without US-blessing. So have the Kashmir rebels
which again is perceived as a threat by India. Now, Russia is perfectly
aware of this and I think the activities of the US-men on the spot are an
important factor contributing to the successive deterioration of the
US/Russian
relations recently. Is Russia to believe US acts or US words ? It's much
like Westminster was also constantly pushed into trouble with Russia because
of the `men on the spot' in India, Afghanistan
and Persia, leading to real fighting between Russian and Indian troops in
Afghanistan in 1886. Westminster then commonly denied any knowledge much
like Washington
does nowadays.

    So, basically, what I'm trying to say is that the Cold War has only
ended in Europe and after Kossovo has reemerged in Europe too.  Now, the US
may tamper with the GNP-statistics, to comfort itself, as much as it may
like in order to prove Russia is not a great power anymore but sadly there
are lies, there are big lies and there are statistics. Does the US really
think Russia's massive industries, mineral resources and armed forces -
which made the USSR into a super-power in the first place - have somehow
suddenly miraculously disappeared off the face of the earth if they don't
show up in statistics? Of course not - the US has made itself appear more
powerful than it is by a statistical trick in which Russia dropped from
second industrial power of the world to twenty-fifth but, statistics or not,
Russia's productive capacity, brainpower and armed forces are simply still
there.

    And, furthermore, Russia is in some ways stronger now than it was in the
1970's. For, first, even apart from `strong' allies like Mengishtu's
Ethiopia even its European allies (GDR perhaps excepted) weakened rather
than strengthened the USSR. After all in COMECON the USSR was to `exchange'
to a favorable rate its valuable oil with shoddy products from Eastern
Europe. The USSR netly made a loss on its satellites. The same is true for
the republics (Ukraine, Kazakhstan and sometimes the Baltic states excepted)
which had to be heavily subsidized from Russia. Since most republics have
nowhere to go but Russia in the future instead of the `losing' Union of
Socialist Republics we will probably witness a more profitable
`neo-colonial' arrangement in which Russia only invests in the republics if
it's profitable and in a few republics - notably Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan - who really cares for Kirgizistan or Tajikistan ? As the
Russian say: "What has Asia ever done for US ?". Second, in the 1960's the
USSR was faced with a hostile 1 billion Chinese on its southern border -
this situation has meanwhile changed completely. Since both Russia and China
(not to speak of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) rightly fear US- and so called
Muslim terrorist subversion (But in substance that's not really `Muslim
fundamentalism' but armed smuggle which is why equally fundamentalist Iran
has concentrated almost 300.000 soldiers on the Afghan border). Both
have to collaborate if only to safeguard their southern/western border. A
common threat has united
them. Thus - although it was not considered `news' in the media -
immediately after Kossovo (mind you !) Russia and China staged military
maneuvers together for the first time.

    Long term trends notwithstanding we can not predict the distant future
for there are simply too many imponderable factors and then - as I wrote
before - Germany may very well again emerge as a rival to the US. For the
foreseeable future though - partly as a result of Kossovo but more because
of
Middle Eastern and Central Asian entanglements, which are perhaps rightly
perceived as a threat by both Russia and China  -
the `Cold War' between the US and Russia/China has recommenced. A Cold War
in which the favorable factors to some extent compensate for unfavorable
changes to Russia in the last decade. Russia is certainly much weaker but it
has much less to protect too. For example, just today I read Poland
expulsed half the staff of the Russian embassy in Warsaw for spying on which
even Dutch radio commented it pretty much seemed like good old cold war
redividus. It is always possible this may lead to an all-out war but the
more likely prospect
are further regional conflagrations, which still - because of the extreme
destructive power of even a modern submachine gun - will  involve millions
of casualties.

    By the way, speaking to the present incrowd of this list: many World
System theorists are avowedly perhaps `progressives' but not Marxists, let
alone Leninists, so I'm not even sure all this
Maoist/Marxist/Leninist/Gramscian/Althusserian/Spivakian/what other
generally `Marxisant' folklore have you belongs on this list at all.

R.J. Barendse

Amsterdam/Netherlands