You and I are seeing this matter very differently! Perhaps the difference is how we define the word "militaristic". I'm defining it as an innate (or even cultural) tendency to aggression and I'm bearing the ordinary American in mind. I don't think that the average American is any more prone to being aggressive than any other. Certainly at the present time US army recruiting sergeants are having a hard time even when they're given entrance to schools where the boys probably have no other prospect of a well-paid job. (In this respect, the American reluctance to join the army is no different from all the other developed countries.) In the sense that America has been using the might of its military power (and usually now by distance methods of delivery so it doesn't affect the sensibilities of the pilots, gunners, etc) then, yes, it has been highly militaristic. I'm not so sure, though, that America has been militarily active for any longer than, say, France, Germany, Britain, Austria,, Russia, etc since, say, about 1750.
If you read "Armageddon" by Max Hastings -- an account of the last year or two of WWII -- it is very clear that the Germans were far more aggressive than the Americans. The Americans won through sheer weight of numbers (about 3:1)and equipment (about 10:1).
A few more comments:
At 10:51 09/07/2005 -0400, you wrote:
Keith, I would argue that Americans are more militaristic than most other cultures. There are several reasons for believing this. One is that militarism figures very prominently in American history - the war for independence, the civil war, the wars against Indians on the frontier, taking Texas and other parts of the southwest away from the Mexicans, etc. Another is that they have a very special view of how the world should organized itself, a view that much of the world doesn't really want to buy into unless it is forced to. The world should practice "freedom and democracy" American style, even if it is necessary to make it do so at the point of a gun.
Yes, I agree with you completely here.
Yet another reason is America's huge need for global resources. The US, with about 5% of the world's population, consumes about 25% of the world's resources. Foreign oil, the reason for the war on Iraq, is a very important part of this.
Yes -- as I wrote somewhere else sometime today, America is actually very desperate now.
Must rush now. I have my marching orders.
Keith
Increasingly, China is becoming a major competitor for what oil is left. While there may not be actual conflict between the US and China, you can bet that there will be a lot of posturing and gesturing. Thinkers like Andrew Bacevich, a graduate of West Point, a Vietnam veteran, a conservative Catholic and now director of international studies at Boston University, see all of this adding up to an ominous trend. US culture is becoming increasingly militarized. As Tony Judt, director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, puts it in reviewing Bacevich's most recent book: "Among democracies, only in America do soldiers and other uniformed servicemen figure ubiquitously in political photo ops and popular movies. ... In a country no longer supreme in most other fields of human endeavor, war and warriors have become the last, enduring symbols of American dominance and the American way of life."
I agree with you on Africa. To make aid effective will require reorganizing how the aid is received and handled. It will require an end to European and American agricultural subsidies which keep African produce out of world markets. It will require a more compassionate, less orchestrated response from the people of the rich world. While Live 8 may have been useful, in the eyes of some African intellectuals it does not appear to have been a convincing or impressive response. The following, by Ken Wiwa, appeared in a commentary in this morning's Globe&Mail:
Ken Wiwa is the son of Ken Saro Wiwa, the writer, who was hanged in 1995 on trumped up charges by the Nigerian military government of General Sani Abacha.
- I was unlucky enough to attend the London Live 8. While you have to admire the organizers for drawing fashionable attention to unfashionable causes, it was clear from my straw poll of concert-goers that most were there only for the music and the drink.
- As I walked into Hyde Park, navigating a labyrinth of fences that controlled, herded and segregated the crowds, I wondered at how protest has become so choreographed. Entering the inner sanctum, where some had paid as much as $1,000 (U.S.) for admission, I noticed large signs reminding everyone that the event was "generously supported by" Nokia Nseries and AOL.com. I started hyperventilating after I spotted the champagne, wine and beer stall with the corporate flag of Moët and Chandon fluttering above. That must have been around the time that I started ranting that the Live 8 symbol looked suspiciously like a dollar sign. I left soon after the concert began. I had to catch a plane to Edinburgh and I was chased out of the park by bored security guards after I leapt over a fence to take a shortcut out.
- The musicians in Hyde Park had expressly been warned not to criticize George Bush or the U.S. for fear of upsetting the G8 consensus. Bianca Jagger, with whom I shared a platform at the alternative G8 conference in Edinburgh, told me this. She also said that Live 8 had been a success for the G8 because as long as protest is conducted within boundaries the authorities are comfortable with, it will never effect profound change.
Ed
I've ordered one of the books that the review article discusses, Andrew Bacevich's "The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War".
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Ed Weick
- Cc: [email protected]
- Sent: Saturday, July 09, 2005 2:18 AM
- Subject: Re: [Futurework] Priorities anyone?
- Ed,
- Sorry if I mistook the slant of your posting. However, I would deny that Americans are any more militaristic than most, if not all, other cultures. Yes, they have more military power -- much more -- but that is a result of being the most prosperous country in the world by a long chalk all through the last century. This, of course, is due to (1) cheap oil, both their own for the early part of the century and Saudi oil theraafter; (2) being able to recruit the cleverest scientific minds from Europe and then Asia. This is no longer so. On count (1) this is now largely finished for good; on count (2) the cleverest young scientists are now going into genetic research and this science, unlike most others, doesn't need huge technical resources and the result is that this research is now more evenly spread around the world. If anything -- and thanks to Bush's reactionary attitude -- Asia is now probably in the lead. (It isn't lack of federal funding which is the real problem. It is that American research scientists have a real fear that their research -- and their careers -- will be brought to a full stop by future legislation, and indeed that some researchers may be personally suable. This to some extent has been palliated by Congress' recent anti-Bush decision to support stem cell research, but the growing anti-science atmosphere in America still prevails.) As for "straight" science and engineering, one third of Chinese graduates are scientists and engineers, completely swamping America's output.
- It's no use talking about aid to Africa when it's completely overwhelmed by the tariff barriers of the rich nations against its huge food-growing potential -- Africa's best method of getting itself on its feet. They don't need aid, just fair trade and practical help at village level. It is now widely agreed that something like 80-90% of all governmental aid to Africa in the last 20 years has ended up in the hands of politicians and officialdom. Have we any evidence that the recent aid announced from Gleneagles is going to be more efficiently delivered? Not a mention so far. From this point of view, although I deplore America's parsimony, its level of aid is more realistic than the bue sky policy of Blair. (However, his world-wide and European ambitions are going to overshadowed by problems at home from now onwards!)
- Keith
- At 15:48 08/07/2005 -0400, you wrote:
- Keith, the only point I was trying to make is that there is a huge gap between the global expenditure on militarism on the one hand and aid to poor countries on the other. I'd suggest that, when it comes to military expenditures, much more is spent that is officially reported. But it is the militarily driven mentality that is really the issue. The US has become obsessed with war. Helping poor countries overcome their problems and issues like climate change simply don't figure. A review article in the Current New York Review of Books contains the following paragraph:
- Why does the US Department of Defense currently maintain 725 official US military bases outside the country and 969 at home (not to mention numerous secret bases)? Why does the US spend more on "defense" than all the rest of the world put together? After all, it has no present or likely enemies of the kind who could be intimidated or defeated by "star wars" missile defense or bunker-busting "nukes." And yet this country is obsessed with war: rumors of war, images of war, "preemptive" war, "preventive" war, "surgical" war, "prophylactic" war, "permanent" war. As President Bush explained at a news conference on April 13, 2004, "This country must go on the offense and stay on the offense."
Ed
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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