Re: STATEMENT BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (fwd)

At 02:13 PM 5/12/99 -0400, you wrote:


>Pat Gunning asks:

>>Why in the world would NATO or the U.S. want to provoke China?

>

>Bill Clinton would not want to provoke China. But what about those

>elements in the Pentagon and the CIA who are bemoaning the demise of
the

>Cold War. it is hard to get your hands on a huge chunk of the US
federal

>government revenues in a world with no credible boogeyman.  And what

>about the intellectual tendency represented by Political Scientist Sam

>Huntington, whose Clash of Civilizations posits a new world divide

>between the rational and democratic defenders of the European

>Enlightenment and the anti-European Chinese and Moslems.

>

>Maybe this is too paranoid. But the consequence of the "mistake" seems

>to be the creation of a coalition in the Security Council between the

>Chinese and the Russians. Now that could be a plausible boogeyman.

>

>    I am hoping something good can come of all this in the way of a

>reformation of the United Nations that can deal in a just and
legitimate

>way with problems of state violence and violations of human rights. In

>the mean time STOP THE BOMBING.

>

>chris chase-dunn

>

>

>


Professor Chase-Dunn:


I'm skeptical of these sorts of "military industrial complex" arguments
as they apply to Kosovo.  From where I sit, it looks to me like the
military itself has been at best a reluctant participant in U.S.
involvement in Yugoslavia.  Note Gen. Colin Powell's (1992) publicly
expressed concerns about the difficulties of any available military
strategy (_Atlanta Journal and Constitution_  Oct. 2, 1992). 
Furthermore, individuals like former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger
and rather conservative think-tanks that I would expect to be associated
with the "military industrial complex" have been either ambivalent or
downright critical of the administration's policy (cf. Weinberger 1999;
Center for Security Policy 1999).


As for Samuel P. Huntington's "intellectual tendency," is it logical that
believers in a "clash of civilizations" would engage in a war in support
of Albanian and Bosnian Muslims who are fighting Orthodox Christians in
the first place?


<center>

REFERENCES

</center>

"Bosnia is Not Vietnam."  _Atlanta Journal and Constitution_, Oct. 2,
1992, p. 12.


Center for Security Policy.  "What Are We Fighting for in Serbia?" 
_Decision Brief_ No. 99-D 42, April 12, 1999.  Available online at
http://www.security-policy.org/papers/1999/99-D42.html


Weinberger, Caspar W.  "Losing Track of the Main Objective of War."  _New
York Times_, April 19, 1999.  Available online at
http://www.security-policy.org/papers/1999/99-D42at.html