Dr Barendse's Comments

Hi everyone,

Like Dr Barendse I agree that the debate about Chris Chase Dunn's book is 
very good.  I too get very cheesed off with the vast amount blurb and 
endless discussion of odd details and theoretical knitpicking that lands in 
the mail box, but its not all bad and I don't really think getting annoyed 
really solves the problem of the quality of what is on WSN, which, to be 
true, does seem to have dropped in recent months.

The problem is that the level of academic debate has dropped because fewer 
people are contributing, including C C Dunn, A G Frank or Wallerstein and 
the rest of the World System All Stars, who don't seem to send much in 
anymore.  This may be because people are very busy.  Maybe many good 
contributors have got fed up with WSN, I don't know.  But it's no good just 
moaning about the quality of the contributions and "in crowds".  Perhaps 
what we need is more stuff like Dunn's book, discussions about work in 
progress, perhaps Frank on the sequal to REOrient, if there is one, 
Wallerstein on World Systems V, if it exists, and Dr. R.J. Barendse, either 
another excelent contribution like his last one, or maybe an essay on what 
can be learnt from the relaxed social attitudes of the Dutch.

Yours

M.J.Pratt MA,MA (Marxist/Undogmatic)





>From: "Dr. R.J. Barendse" <r.barendse@worldonline.nl>
>Reply-To: r.barendse@worldonline.nl
>To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Further comments on Chris Chase Dunn
>Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 17:38:55 +0100
>
>     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
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