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From: "Marx Laboratory" <[email protected]>
Date: Sep 11, 2014 6:49 PM
Subject: new essay by petras - The US and Global Wars: Empire or Vampire?
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*The US and Global Wars: Empire or Vampire?*
*James Petras*
*Introduction*
To the growing army of critics of US military intervention, who
also reject the mendacious claims by American officials and their
apologists of 'world leadership', Washington is engaged in
'empire-building".
But the notion that the US is building an *empire*, by engaging
in wars to exploit and plunder countries' markets, resources and labor,
defies the realities of the past two decades. US wars, including
invasions, bombings, occupations, sanctions, coups and clandestine
operations have not *resulted* in the expansion of markets, greater control
and exploitation of resources or the ability to exploit cheap labor.
Instead US wars have destroyed enterprises, reduced access to raw
materials, killed, wounded or displaced productive workers around the
world, and limited access to lucrative investment sites and markets via
sanctions.
In other words, US global military interventions and wars have
done the exact opposite of what all previous empires have pursued:
Washington has exploited (and depleted) the *domestic* economy to expand
militarily abroad instead of enriching it.
Why and how the US global wars differ from those of previous
empires requires us to examine (1) the *forces *driving overseas expansion;
(2) the *political conceptions* accompanying the conquest, the displacement
of incumbent rulers and the seizure of power and; (3) the *reorganization*
of the conquered states and the accompanying economic and social structures
to sustain long-term neo-colonial relations.
*Empire Building: The Past*
Europe built durable, profitable and extensive empires, which
enriched the 'mother country', stimulated local industry, reduced
unemployment and 'trickled down' wealth in the form of better wages to
privileged sectors of the working class. Imperial military expeditions
were *preceded *by the entry of major trade enterprises (British East India
Company) and *followed* by large-scale manufacturing, banking and
commercial firms. Military invasions and political takeovers were driven
by competition with economic rivals in Europe, and later, by the US and
Japan.
The goal of military interventions was to monopolize control
over the most lucrative economic resources and markets in the colonized
regions. Imperial repression was directed at creating a docile low wage
labor force and buttressing subordinate local collaborators or
client-rulers who facilitated the flow of profits, debt payments, taxes and
export revenues back to the empire.
Imperial wars were the *beginning,* not the end, of 'empire
building'. What followed these wars of conquest was the *incorporation* of
*pre-existing* elites into subordinate positions in the *administration of
the empire.* The 'sharing of revenues', between the imperial economic
enterprises and pre-existing elites, was a crucial part of 'empire
building'. The imperial powers sought to 'instrumentalize' existing
religious, political, and economic elites' and *harness* them to the *new
imperial-centered division of labor*. Pre-existing economic activity,
including local manufacturers and agricultural producers, which competed
with imperial industrial exporters, were destroyed and replaced by
malleable local traders and importers (compradors). In summary, the
military dimensions of empire building were informed by economic interests
in the mother country. The occupation was pre-eminently concerned with
preserving local collaborative powers and, above all, restoring and
expanding the intensive and extensive exploitation of local resources and
labor, as well as the capture and saturation of local markets with goods
from the imperial center.
*"Empire-building" Today*
The results of contemporary US military interventions and
invasions stand in stark contrast with those of past imperial powers. The
targets of military aggression are selected on the basis of *ideological
and political criteria*. Military action does not *follow* the lead of
'pioneer' economic entrepreneurs - like the British East India Company.
Military action is not *accompanied* by large-scale, long-term capitalist
enterprises. Multi-national construction companies of the empire, which
build great military bases are a drain on the imperial treasury.
Contemporary US intervention does *not* seek to secure and take
over the existing military and civilian state apparatus; instead the
invaders fragment the conquered state, decimate its cadres, professionals
and experts at all levels, thus providing an entry for the most retrograde
ethno-religious, regional, tribal and clan leaders to engage in
intra-ethnic, sectarian wars against each other, in other words - chaos.
Even the Nazis, in their expansion phase, chose to rule through local
collaborator elites and maintained established administrative structures at
all levels.
With US invasions, entire existing socio-economic structures
are undermined, *not* 'taken over': all productive activity is subject to
the military priorities of leaders bent on permanently crippling the
conquered state and its advanced economic, administrative, educational,
cultural and social sectors. While this is militarily successful in the
short-run, the medium and long-term results are non-functioning states, not
a sustained inflow of plunder and expanding market for an empire. Instead
what we have is a chain of US military bases surrounded by a sea of
hostile, largely unemployed populations and warring ethno-religious groups
in decimated economies.
The US claims to 'world leadership' is based exclusively
on *failed-state
empire building*. Nevertheless, the dynamic for continuing to expand into
new regions, to militarily and politically intervene and establish new
client entities continues. *And,* most importantly, this *expansionist
dynamic *further *undermines* domestic economic interests, which,
theoretically and historically, form the basis for empire. We, therefore,
have *imperialism without empire*, a *vampire state* preying on the
vulnerable and devouring its own in the process.
*Empire or Vampire: The Results of US Global Warfare*
Empires, throughout history, have violently seized political
power and exploited the riches and resources (both material and human) of
the targeted regions. Over time, they would *consolidate* a 'working
relation', insuring the ever-increasing flow of wealth into the mother
country and the *expanding presence* of imperial enterprises in the
colony. Contemporary US military interventions have had the *opposite *effect
after every recent major military conquest and occupation.
*Iraq: Vampires Pillage*
Under Saddam Hussein, the Republic of Iraq was a major oil
producer and profitable partner for major US oil companies, as well as a
lucrative market for US exports. It was a stable, unified secular state.
The first Gulf War in the 1990's led to the first phase of its
fragmentation with the de facto establishment of a Kurdish mini-state in
the north under US protection. The US withdrew its military forces but
imposed brutal economic sanctions limiting economic reconstruction from the
devastation of the first Gulf War. The second US-led invasion and
full-scale occupation in 2003 devastated the economy and dismantled the
state dismissing tens of thousands of experienced civil servants, teachers
and police. This led to utter social collapse and fomented ethno-religious
warfare leading to the killing, wounding or displacement of millions of
Iraqis. The result of GW Bush's conquest of Baghdad was a 'failed state'.
US oil and energy companies lost billions of dollars in trade and
investment and the US economy was pushed into recession.
*Afghanistan: Endless Wars, Endless Losses*
The US war against Afghanistan began with the arming, financing
and political support of Islamist jihadi-fundamentalists in 1979. They
succeeded in destroying and dismantling a secular, national government.
With the decision to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 the US became an
occupier in Southwest Asia. For the next thirteen years, the US-puppet
regime of Hamad Karzai and the 'NATO coalition' occupation forces proved
incapable of defeating the Taliban guerrilla army. Billions of dollars
were spent devastating the economy and impoverishing the vast majority of
Afghans. Only the opium trade flourished. The effort to create an army
loyal to the puppet regime failed. The forced retreat of US armed forces
beginning in 2014 signals the bitter demise of US 'empire building' in
Southwest Asia.
*Libya: From Lucrative Trading Partner to Failed State*
Libya, under President Gadhafi, was evolving into a major US
and European trading partner and influential power in Africa. The regime
signed large-scale, long-term contracts with major international oil
companies which were backed by a stable secular government. The
relationship with the US and EU was profitable. The US opted to impose a
'regime change' through massive US-EU missile and bombing strikes and the
arming of a motley collection of Islamist terrorists, ex-pat neo-liberals
and tribal militias. While these attacks succeeded in killing President
Gadhafi and most of his family (including many of his grandchildren) and
dismantling the secular Libyan government and administrative
infrastructure, the country was ripped apart by tribal war-lord conflicts,
political disintegration and the utter destruction of the economy. Oil
investors fled. Over one million Libyans and immigrant workers were
displaced. The US and EU 'partners-in-regime-change' have even fled their
own embassies in Tripoli - while the Libyan 'parliament' operates off-shore
from a casino boat. None of this devastation would have been possible
under President Gadhafi. The US vampire bled its new prize, Libya, but
certainly could *not incorporate* it into a profitable 'empire'. Not only
were its oil resources denied to the empire, but even oil exports
disappeared. Not even an imperial military base has been secured in North
Africa!
*Syria: Wars on Behalf of Terrorists not Empire*
Washington and its EU allies backed an armed uprising in Syria
hoping to install a puppet regime and bring Damascus into their "empire".
The mercenary assaults have caused the deaths of nearly 200,000 Syrians,
the displacement of over 30% of the population and the seizure of the
Syrian oil fields by the Sunni extremist army, ISIS. ISIS has decimated
the pro-US mercenary army, recruiting and arming thousands of terrorists
from around the world It invaded neighboring Iraq conquering the northern
third of that country. This was the ultimate result of the deliberate US
dismantling of the Iraqi state in 2003.
The US strategy, once again, is to arm Islamist extremists to overthrow the
secular Bashar Assad regime in Damascus and then to discard them for a more
pliable client. The strategy 'boomeranged' on Washington. ISIS
devastated the ineffective Iraqi armed forces of the Maliki regime in
Baghdad and America's much over-rated Peshmerga proxy 'fighters' in Iraqi
'Kurdistan'. Washington's mercenary war in Syria didn't expand the
'empire'; indeed it undermined existing imperial outposts.
*The Ukrainian Power Grab, Russian Sanctions and Empire Building*
In the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, the US and EU
incorporated the Baltic, Eastern European and Balkan ex-communist countries
into their orbit. This clearly violated major agreements with Russia,
by incorporating most of the neo-liberal regimes into NATO and bringing
NATO forces to the very border of Russia. During the corrupt regime of
Boris Yeltsin, the 'West' absolutely looted the Russian economy in
co-operation with local gangster - oligarchs, who took up EU or Israeli
citizenship to recycle their pillaged wealth. The demise of the vassal
Yeltsin regime and the ascent and recovery of Russia under Vladimir Putin
led the US and EU to formulate a strategy to deepen and extend its 'empire'
by seizing power in the Caucuses and the Ukraine. A power and land grab by
the puppet regime in Georgia attacking Russian forces in Ossetia in 2012
was decisively beaten back. This was a mere dress rehearsal for the coup
in Kiev. In late 2013-early 2014, the US financed a violent rightwing
putsch ousting the elected government and imposing a hand-picked pro-NATO
client to assume power in Kiev.
The new pro-US regime moved quickly to purge all independent,
democratic, federalist, bilingual and anti-NATO voices especially among the
bi-lingual citizens concentrated in the South-Eastern Ukraine. The coup
and the subsequent purge provoked a major armed uprising in the southeast,
which successfully resisted the invading NATO-backed neo-fascist armed
forces and private armies of the oligarchs. The failure of the Kiev regime
to subdue the resistence fighters of the Donbass region resulted in a
multi-pronged US-EU intervention designed to isolate, weaken and undermine
the resistance. First and foremost they attempted to pressure Russia to
close its borders on the eastern front where hundreds of thousands of
Ukrainian civilians eventually fled the bombardment. Secondly, the US and
EU applied economic sanctions on Russia to abandon its political support
for the southeast region's democratic and federalist demands. Thirdly, it
sought to use the Ukraine conflict as a pretext for a major military
build-up on Russia's borders, expanding NATO missile sites and organizing
an elite rapid interventionist military force capable of *bolstering* a
faltering puppet regime or backing a future NATO sponsored putsch against
any adversary.
The Kiev regime is economically bankrupt. Its war against its
own civilians in the southeast has devastated Ukraine's economy. Hundreds
of thousands of skilled professionals, workers and their families have fled
to Russia. Kiev's embrace of the EU has resulted in the breakdown of vital
gas and oil agreements with Russia, undermining the Ukraine's principle
source of energy and heating with winter only months away. Kiev cannot pay
its debts and faces default. The rivalries between neo-fascists and
neo-liberals in Kiev will further erode the regime. In sum, the US-EU
power grab in the Ukraine has not led to the effective 'expansion of
empire'; rather it has ushered in the total destruction of an emerging
economy and precipitated a sharp reversal of financial, trade and
investment relations with Russia and Ukraine. The economic sanctions
against Russia exacerbate the EU current economic crisis. The belligerent
posture of military confrontation toward Russia will result in an increase
in military spending among the EU states and further divert scarce economic
resources form job creation and social programs. The loss by significant
sectors of the EU of agricultural export markets, as well as the loss of
several billion-dollar military-industrial contracts with Russia, certainly
weakens, rather than expands, the 'empire' as an economic force
*Iran: 100 Billion Dollar Punitive Sanctions Don't Build Empires*
The US-EU sanctions on Iran carry a very high political,
economic and political price tag. They do not strengthen empire, if we
understand 'empire' to mean the expansion of multi-national corporations,
and increasing access to oil and gas resources to ensure stable, cheap
energy for strategic economic sectors within the imperial center.
The economic war on Iran has been at the behest of US allies,
including the Gulf Monarchies and especially Israel. These are dubious
'allies' for US 'empire' . . . widely reviled potentates and a racist
regime which manage to exact tribute from the imperial center!
In Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, Iran has demonstrated its
willingness to *co-operate* in *power sharing agreements* with US global
interest. However, Iran is a regional power, which will not submit to
becoming a vassal state of the US. The sanctions policy has not provoked
an uprising among the Iranian masses nor has it led to regime change.
Sanctions have not weakened Iran to the extent of making it an easy
military target. While sanctions have weakened Iran's economy, they has
also worked against any kind of long-range empire building strategy,
because Iran has strengthened its economic and diplomatic ties with the US'
rivals, Russia and China.
*Conclusion*
As this brief survey indicates, US-EU wars have not been
instruments of empire-building in the conventional or historical sense. At
most they have destroyed some adversaries of empire. But these have been
pyrrhic victories. Along with the overthrow of a target regime, the
systematic break-up of the state has unleashed powerful chaotic forces,
which have doomed any possibility of creating stable neo-colonial regimes
capable of controlling their societies and securing opportunities for
imperialist enrichment via economic exploitation.
At most the US overseas wars have secured military outposts,
foreign islands in seas of desperate and hostile populations. Imperial
wars have provoked continuous underground resistance movements, ethnic
civil wars and violent terrorist organizations which threaten 'blowback' on
the imperial center.
The US and EU's easy annexations of the ex-communist countries,
usually via the stage-managed ballot-box or 'color revolutions', led to the
take-over of great national wealth and skilled labor. However,
Euro-American empires bloody campaigns to invade and conquer the Middle
East, South Asia, North Africa and the Caucuses have created nightmarish
'failed states' - continuously draining imperial coffers and leading to a
state of permanent occupation and warfare.
The bloodless takeover of the Eastern European satellites with
their accommodating, corrupt elites has ended. The 21st century reliance on
militarist strategies contrasts sharply with the successful multi-pronged
colonial expansions of the 19th - 20th century, where economic penetration
and large scale economic development accompanied military intervention and
political change. Today's imperial wars cause economic decay and misery
within the domestic economy, as well as perpetual wars abroad, an
unsustainable drain.
The current US/EU military expansion into Ukraine, the
encirclement of Russia, NATO missiles aimed at the very heart of a major
nuclear power and the economic sanctions may lead to a global nuclear war,
which may indeed put an end to militarist empire-building... and the rest of
humanity.
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