The future of war: Globalism or Imperialism?

A recurring question that concerns many members of wsn and psn is how capital flows and economic processes will express themselves politically and militarily. Since I subscribe to both lists, I thought I might help kick off the start of the new school year with some comments to both lists in hopes of generating some discussions, debates, new information, insights, etc. from othehrs. For those of you (like me) who are both lists, here's an advance apology for subjecting you to this twice. The following are some thoughts, not definitive conclusions.

Germany (fairly large population, powerful economic engine, efficient, modern industry, strategic political-military location, but weak militarily and somewhat vulnerable in terms of natural resources); and maybe

Furthermore, while one can envision a possible world power alliance being carved out of various political-Islam nationalists from Libya to Iran to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia, the reality is that there is great competition and hostility within that group as well.

That leads one to conclude that the growing power of the U.S.-based empire will be unchallenged, and the combination of U.S. military strength and the ability of the U.S. banks/businesses to simply buy up or merge with other enterprises will lead to vast economic empires that will make nationalism irrelevant. On the other hand, at the opposite extreme, there are those who emphasize the growing nationalism, especially religious/ethno-nationalism as evidence that there will continue to be a great deal of military conflict.

What these seemingly opposite views have in common is a separating of nationalism as an ideology from the forces of economic development (imperialism). One side says that the economic processes will make the ideology of nationalism less relevant while the other side says that the ideology of nationalism will continue to grow in response to the ideology of hegemony. But both sides see the nationalism as an ideology, rather than as something that develops naturally from the processes of internationalist-imperialism.

Here's some philosophical speculation, or "theory-modelling" . It does NOT prove anything. It is offered as a way to possibly think more flexibly about how international relations will develop. A theoretical model that some people are using sees the growth of international capital as an uninterrupted pattern, except perhaps for a few strongholds of resistance here and there. The rapid internationalization of capital, the creation of a labor market that seems to be without borders, the various free trade agreements, and the seemingly unchallenged force of the U.S. militarily does certainly constitute a pattern that seems to be developing without serious resistance. A major aspect of "good science" is investigating processes and phenomena in order to determine what kinds of patterns exist.

But patterns don't just go on forever. There are "lumps in the gravy" or better, there are fundamental contradictions in any situation. And as certain processes reach limits, the intensity of those contradictions can sharpen and the whole situation can change radically. One doesn't have to accept the premises of "Post-Modernism" (whatever they are) in order to challenge "mechanistic-linear thinking" (although interestingly, some of the post-modernists seem to agree with the mechanistic-optimists that we are at the end of history (or that history never had an end or beginning, which amounts in practice to the same thing.) There are other ways of grasping how processes change when they reach limits. The language of dialectics can be useful, or one could express these developments never once even using any rhetoric commonly associated with dialectics.

Here's another example of what I mean. Marxism (as well as optimistic-procapitalist theory) might seem to imply that capitalism will create equality of the various race-ethnic groups. Optimistic-capitalism by saying that racism stands in the way of development, and Marxism by saying that all workers will be ground into a kind of undifferentiated dust. But inside of that basic process are other contradictory processes. The capitalists fight among themselves. This is a crucial concept. It is this battling that creates other kinds of splits on the one hand, and alliances on the other that are not so apparent if one only looks at the basic process in an abstract way. Segmented labor markets INTENSIFY in late capitalism; nationalist (and racist) rhetoric INTENSIFY in late capitalism, and in times of crisis, various power groups pragmatically seek alliances with whomever can help them, regardless of whether or not they agree philosophically. Within a given country, this leads to the kind of fascism that is particularly ferocious.

Internationally, the prospect of a U.S.- led international capitalist ruling class appears to be on the horizon. Like the period after World War II, which left the U.S. unchallenged and able to grow very strong economically, the collapse of the USSR bloc similarly, BUT ON A VERY MUCH SMALLER SCALE, has give U.S. capitalism more breathing room, both as U.S. capital seeks to invest in Eastern Europe and also as various local capitalists around the world can't leverage USSR strength against the U.S. to try to challenge U.S. capitalism either economically or militarily.

But there are contradictions. Things change. A Japanese or German nationalist born in 1960, who will be fifty years old in 2010, won't necessarily feel obligated to adhere to a treaty signed 65 years before! Population pressures can create situations in India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Mexico where political volatility can seriously threaten a New World Order. Capitalist crises of overproduction WILL create tremendous instability in many industries, causing serious dislocation of hundreds of millions around the world AND in the U.S. Various nationalists can and probably will form new alliances. In the immediate future, we will probably mainly see brushfire conflicts and perhaps some regional conflicts. But I would not not rule out new major alliances developing. (Lenin, of course, adopted aspects of this analysis. But rather than debate whether Lenin was right or wrong, good or bad, it is more useful to struggle to analyze developments in the world today, without dogmatically accepting OR REJECTING something just because Lenin said it.)

On the optimistic side, (from my point of view) is the belief that the final collapse of the USSR will open up the opportunities for a new Marxist-egalitarian movement ("Communist in Marx' meaning of the word). It seems improbable. It seemed improbable in 1915, after 30 years of despair for revolutionaries as liberal socialists sold out the workers throughout Europe.

But irrespective of whether or not you agree with the last paragraph, the point of this post is to provoke us into thinking more flexibly about how these processes can unfold. I did not offer much data, much evidence in this post. Metaphors about "limits" don't PROVE anything, since without specifying some kind of time frame, one could agree and say that this will happen in 15,000 years. So I don't offer the above ideas as positive proof of some prediction of World War 3 in the next five years. But I hope that it will stimulate and provoke others to gather more concrete evidence about what is happening, including the growth of various kinds of consciousness, and also to think more critically about other abstract metaphors, such as "uninterrupted growth" that may also be interfering with our ability to see and analyze all the phenomena and processes at work.

In the end, humans do make decisions about our history. Our decisions may be framed and influenced by forces outside the control of any of us individually, but consciousness is a factor that is part of the mix.

3) Causality and Chance in Modern Physics, by David Bohm (hard to read -- not really. It does not deal at all with economics, politics, etc., but is very useful. In his later years Bohm got involved in some theories that I consider almost mystical, but this work can really help one overcome tradictional "vulgar" mechanistic thinking AND anti-mechanistic thinking that is really just mechanistic thinking on an abstract, idealized level.)

The future of war: Globalism or Imperialism?

by Spectors

26 August 1999 15:08 UTC