ΕΠΙΛΕΓΜΕΝΑ ΞΕΝΟΓΛΩΣΣΑ ΚΕΙΜΕΝΑ

Panic of the Plutocrats

2011-10-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Του Paul Krugman , Νομπελίστα οικονομολόγου και Καθηγητή Οικονομίας και Διεθνών Σχέσεων στο Πανεπιστήμιο Princeton .

Αναδημοσιεύεται από την ιστοσελίδα της αμερικανικής εφημερίδας New York Times , http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB .

It remains to be seen whether the Occupy Wall Street protests will change America’s direction. Yet the protests have already elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent.

And this reaction tells you something important — namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called “economic royalists,” not the people camping in Zuccotti Park.

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police — confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction — but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to “take the jobs away from people working in this city,” a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement’s actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters “let their freak flags fly,” and are “aligned with Lenin.”

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes — well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical — it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”

What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny — and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

IS THE WORLD TOO BIG TO FAIL ?

2011-10-09T16:24:00.000-07:00

Του Noam Chomsky , Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy .

Αναδημοσιεύεται από την ιστοσελίδα του αραβικού ειδησεογραφικού δικτύου Al Jazeera , http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192514364490977.html .

The democracy uprising in the Arab world has been a spectacular display of courage, dedication, and commitment by popular forces - coinciding, fortuitously, with a remarkable uprising of tens of thousands in support of working people and democracy in Madison, Wisconsin, and other US cities. If the trajectories of revolt in Cairo and Madison intersected, however, they were headed in opposite directions: in Cairo toward gaining elementary rights denied by the dictatorship, in Madison towards defending rights that had been won in long and hard struggles and are now under severe attack.

Each is a microcosm of tendencies in global society, following varied courses. There are sure to be far-reaching consequences of what is taking place both in the decaying industrial heartland of the richest and most powerful country in human history, and in what President Dwight Eisenhower called "the most strategically important area in the world" - "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "probably the richest economic prize in the world in the field of foreign investment," in the words of the State Department in the 1940s, a prize that the US intended to keep for itself and its allies in the unfolding New World Order of that day.

Despite all the changes since, there is every reason to suppose that today's policy-makers basically adhere to the judgment of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's influential advisor A.A. Berle that control of the incomparable energy reserves of the Middle East would yield "substantial control of the world." And correspondingly, that loss of control would threaten the project of global dominance that was clearly articulated during World War II, and that has been sustained in the face of major changes in world order since that day.

'Grand Area'

From the outset of the war in 1939, Washington anticipated that it would end with the US in a position of overwhelming power. High-level State Department officials and foreign policy specialists met through the wartime years to lay out plans for the postwar world. They delineated a "Grand Area" that the US was to dominate, including the Western hemisphere, the Far East, and the former British empire, with its Middle East energy resources. As Russia began to grind down Nazi armies after Stalingrad, Grand Area goals extended to as much of Eurasia as possible, at least its economic core in Western Europe. Within the Grand Area, the US would maintain "unquestioned power," with "military and economic supremacy," while ensuring the "limitation of any exercise of sovereignty" by states that might interfere with its global designs. The careful wartime plans were soon implemented.

It was always recognised that Europe might choose to follow an independent course. NATO was partially intended to counter this threat. As soon as the official pretext for NATO dissolved in 1989, NATO was expanded to the East in violation of verbal pledges to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It has since become a US-run intervention force, with far-ranging scope, spelled out by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who informed a NATO conference that "NATO troops have to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed for the West," and more generally to protect sea routes used by tankers and other "crucial infrastructure" of the energy system.

Grand Area doctrines clearly license military intervention at will. That conclusion was articulated clearly by the Clinton administration, which declared that the US has the right to use military force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources," and must maintain huge military forces "forward deployed" in Europe and Asia "in order to shape people's opinions about us" and "to shape events that will affect our livelihood and our security."

The same principles governed the invasion of Iraq. As the US failure to impose its will in Iraq was becoming unmistakable, the actual goals of the invasion could no longer be concealed behind pretty rhetoric. In November 2007, the White House issued a Declaration of Principles demanding that US forces must remain indefinitely in Iraq and committing Iraq to privilege American investors. Two months later, President Bush informed Congress that he would reject legislation that might limit the permanent stationing of US Armed Forces in Iraq or "United States control of the oil resources of Iraq" - demands that the US had to abandon shortly after in the face of Iraqi resistance.

In Tunisia and Egypt, the recent popular uprisings have won impressive victories, but as the Carnegie Endowment reported, while names have changed, the regimes remain: "A change in ruling elites and system of governance is still a distant goal." The report discusses internal barriers to democracy, but ignores the external ones, which as always are significant.

The US and its Western allies are sure to do whatever they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world. To understand why, it is only necessary to look at the studies of Arab opinion conducted by US polling agencies. Though barely reported, they are certainly known to planners. They reveal that by overwhelming majorities, Arabs regard the US and Israel as the major threats they face: the US is so regarded by 90 per cent of Egyptians, in the region generally by over 75 per cent. Some Arabs regard Iran as a threat: 10 per cent. Opposition to US policy is so strong that a majority believes that security would be improved if Iran had nuclear weapons - in Egypt, 80 per cent. Other figures are similar. If public opinion were to influence policy, the US not only would not control the region, but would be expelled from it, along with its allies, undermining fundamental principles of global dominance.

The invisible hand of power

Support for democracy is the province of ideologists and propagandists. In the real world, elite dislike of democracy is the norm. The evidence is overwhelming that democracy is supported insofar as it contributes to social and economic objectives, a conclusion reluctantly conceded by the more serious scholarship.

Elite contempt for democracy was revealed dramatically in the reaction to the WikiLeaks exposures. Those that received most attention, with euphoric commentary, were cables reporting that Arabs support the US stand on Iran. The reference was to the ruling dictators. The attitudes of the public were unmentioned. The guiding principle was articulated clearly by Carnegie Endowment Middle East specialist Marwan Muasher, formerly a high official of the Jordanian government: "There is nothing wrong, everything is under control." In short, if the dictators support us, what else could matter?

The Muasher doctrine is rational and venerable. To mention just one case that is highly relevant today, in internal discussion in 1958, president Eisenhower expressed concern about "the campaign of hatred" against us in the Arab world, not by governments, but by the people. The National Security Council (NSC) explained that there is a perception in the Arab world that the US supports dictatorships and blocks democracy and development so as to ensure control over the resources of the region. Furthermore, the perception is basically accurate, the NSC concluded, and that is what we should be doing, relying on the Muasher doctrine. Pentagon studies conducted after 9/11 confirmed that the same holds today.

It is normal for the victors to consign history to the trash can, and for victims to take it seriously. Perhaps a few brief observations on this important matter may be useful. Today is not the first occasion when Egypt and the US are facing similar problems, and moving in opposite directions. That was also true in the early nineteenth century.

Economic historians have argued that Egypt was well-placed to undertake rapid economic development at the same time that the US was. Both had rich agriculture, including cotton, the fuel of the early industrial revolution - though unlike Egypt, the US had to develop cotton production and a work force by conquest, extermination, and slavery, with consequences that are evident right now in the reservations for the survivors and the prisons that have rapidly expanded since the Reagan years to house the superfluous population left by deindustrialisation.

One fundamental difference was that the US had gained independence and was therefore free to ignore the prescriptions of economic theory, delivered at the time by Adam Smith in terms rather like those preached to developing societies today. Smith urged the liberated colonies to produce primary products for export and to import superior British manufactures, and certainly not to attempt to monopolise crucial goods, particularly cotton. Any other path, Smith warned, "would retard instead of accelerating the further increase in the value of their annual produce, and would obstruct instead of promoting the progress of their country towards real wealth and greatness."

Having gained their independence, the colonies were free to ignore his advice and to follow England's course of independent state-guided development, with high tariffs to protect industry from British exports, first textiles, later steel and others, and to adopt numerous other devices to accelerate industrial development. The independent Republic also sought to gain a monopoly of cotton so as to "place all other nations at our feet," particularly the British enemy, as the Jacksonian presidents announced when conquering Texas and half of Mexico.

For Egypt, a comparable course was barred by British power. Lord Palmerston declared that "no ideas of fairness [toward Egypt] ought to stand in the way of such great and paramount interests" of Britain as preserving its economic and political hegemony, expressing his "hate" for the "ignorant barbarian" Muhammed Ali who dared to seek an independent course, and deploying Britain's fleet and financial power to terminate Egypt's quest for independence and economic development.

After World War II, when the US displaced Britain as global hegemon, Washington adopted the same stand, making it clear that the US would provide no aid to Egypt unless it adhered to the standard rules for the weak - which the US continued to violate, imposing high tariffs to bar Egyptian cotton and causing a debilitating dollar shortage. The usual interpretation of market principles.

It is small wonder that the "campaign of hatred" against the US that concerned Eisenhower was based on the recognition that the US supports dictators and blocks democracy and development, as do its allies.

In Adam Smith's defence, it should be added that he recognised what would happen if Britain followed the rules of sound economics, now called "neoliberalism." He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. But he felt that they would be guided by a home bias, so as if by an invisible hand England would be spared the ravages of economic rationality.

The passage is hard to miss. It is the one occurrence of the famous phrase "invisible hand" in The Wealth of Nations. The other leading founder of classical economics, David Ricardo, drew similar conclusions, hoping that home bias would lead men of property to "be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations," feelings that, he added, "I should be sorry to see weakened." Their predictions aside, the instincts of the classical economists were sound.

The Iranian and Chinese 'threats'

The democracy uprising in the Arab world is sometimes compared to Eastern Europe in 1989, but on dubious grounds. In 1989, the democracy uprising was tolerated by the Russians, and supported by western power in accord with standard doctrine: it plainly conformed to economic and strategic objectives, and was therefore a noble achievement, greatly honoured, unlike the struggles at the same time "to defend the people's fundamental human rights" in Central America, in the words of the assassinated Archbishop of El Salvador, one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of the military forces armed and trained by Washington. There was no Gorbachev in the West throughout these horrendous years, and there is none today. And Western power remains hostile to democracy in the Arab world for good reasons.

Grand Area doctrines continue to apply to contemporary crises and confrontations. In Western policy-making circles and political commentary the Iranian threat is considered to pose the greatest danger to world order and hence must be the primary focus of US foreign policy, with Europe trailing along politely.

What exactly is the Iranian threat? An authoritative answer is provided by the Pentagon and US intelligence. Reporting on global security last year, they make it clear that the threat is not military. Iran's military spending is "relatively low compared to the rest of the region," they conclude. Its military doctrine is strictly "defensive, designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities." Iran has only "a limited capability to project force beyond its borders." With regard to the nuclear option, "Iran's nuclear programme and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy." All quotes.

The brutal clerical regime is doubtless a threat to its own people, though it hardly outranks US allies in that regard. But the threat lies elsewhere, and is ominous indeed. One element is Iran's potential deterrent capacity, an illegitimate exercise of sovereignty that might interfere with US freedom of action in the region. It is glaringly obvious why Iran would seek a deterrent capacity; a look at the military bases and nuclear forces in the region suffices to explain.

Seven years ago, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld wrote that "The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy," particularly when they are under constant threat of attack in violation of the UN Charter. Whether they are doing so remains an open question, but perhaps so.

But Iran's threat goes beyond deterrence. It is also seeking to expand its influence in neighbouring countries, the Pentagon and US intelligence emphasise, and in this way to "destabilise" the region (in the technical terms of foreign policy discourse). The US invasion and military occupation of Iran's neighbours is "stabilisation." Iran's efforts to extend its influence to them are "destabilisation," hence plainly illegitimate.

Such usage is routine. Thus the prominent foreign policy analyst James Chace was properly using the term "stability" in its technical sense when he explained that in order to achieve "stability" in Chile it was necessary to "destabilise" the country (by overthrowing the elected government of Salvador Allende and installing the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet). Other concerns about Iran are equally interesting to explore, but perhaps this is enough to reveal the guiding principles and their status in imperial culture. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt's planners emphasised at the dawn of the contemporary world system, the US cannot tolerate "any exercise of sovereignty" that interferes with its global designs.

The US and Europe are united in punishing Iran for its threat to stability, but it is useful to recall how isolated they are. The nonaligned countries have vigorously supported Iran's right to enrich uranium. In the region, Arab public opinion even strongly favours Iranian nuclear weapons. The major regional power, Turkey, voted against the latest US-initiated sanctions motion in the Security Council, along with Brazil, the most admired country of the South. Their disobedience led to sharp censure, not for the first time: Turkey had been bitterly condemned in 2003 when the government followed the will of 95 per cent of the population and refused to participate in the invasion of Iraq, thus demonstrating its weak grasp of democracy, western-style.

After its Security Council misdeed last year, Turkey was warned by Obama's top diplomat on European affairs, Philip Gordon, that it must "demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West." A scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations asked, "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?" - following orders like good democrats. Brazil's Lula was admonished in a New York Times headline that his effort with Turkey to provide a solution to the uranium enrichment issue outside of the framework of US power was a "Spot on Brazilian Leader's Legacy." In brief, do what we say, or else.

An interesting sidelight, effectively suppressed, is that the Iran-Turkey-Brazil deal was approved in advance by Obama, presumably on the assumption that it would fail, providing an ideological weapon against Iran. When it succeeded, the approval turned to censure, and Washington rammed through a Security Council resolution so weak that China readily signed - and is now chastised for living up to the letter of the resolution but not Washington's unilateral directives - in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, for example.

While the US can tolerate Turkish disobedience, though with dismay, China is harder to ignore. The press warns that "China's investors and traders are now filling a vacuum in Iran as businesses from many other nations, especially in Europe, pull out," and in particular, is expanding its dominant role in Iran's energy industries. Washington is reacting with a touch of desperation. The State Department warned China that if it wants to be accepted in the international community - a technical term referring to the US and whoever happens to agree with it - then it must not "skirt and evade international responsibilities, [which] are clear": namely, follow US orders. China is unlikely to be impressed.

There is also much concern about the growing Chinese military threat. A recent Pentagon study warned that China's military budget is approaching "one-fifth of what the Pentagon spent to operate and carry out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," a fraction of the US military budget, of course. China's expansion of military forces might "deny the ability of American warships to operate in international waters off its coast," the New York Times added.

Off the coast of China, that is; it has yet to be proposed that the US should eliminate military forces that deny the Caribbean to Chinese warships. China's lack of understanding of rules of international civility is illustrated further by its objections to plans for the advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington to join naval exercises a few miles off China's coast, with alleged capacity to strike Beijing.

In contrast, the West understands that such US operations are all undertaken to defend stability and its own security. The liberal New Republic expresses its concern that "China sent ten warships through international waters just off the Japanese island of Okinawa." That is indeed a provocation - unlike the fact, unmentioned, that Washington has converted the island into a major military base in defiance of vehement protests by the people of Okinawa. That is not a provocation, on the standard principle that we own the world.

Deep-seated imperial doctrine aside, there is good reason for China's neighbours to be concerned about its growing military and commercial power. And though Arab opinion supports an Iranian nuclear weapons programme, we certainly should not do so. The foreign policy literature is full of proposals as to how to counter the threat. One obvious way is rarely discussed: work to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the region. The issue arose (again) at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference at United Nations headquarters last May. Egypt, as chair of the 118 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, called for negotiations on a Middle East NWFZ, as had been agreed by the West, including the US, at the 1995 review conference on the NPT.

International support is so overwhelming that Obama formally agreed. It is a fine idea, Washington informed the conference, but not now. Furthermore, the US made clear that Israel must be exempted: no proposal can call for Israel's nuclear programme to be placed under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency or for the release of information about "Israeli nuclear facilities and activities." So much for this method of dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.

Privatising the planet

While Grand Area doctrine still prevails, the capacity to implement it has declined. The peak of US power was after World War II, when it had literally half the world's wealth. But that naturally declined, as other industrial economies recovered from the devastation of the war and decolonisation took its agonising course. By the early 1970s, the US share of global wealth had declined to about 25 per cent, and the industrial world had become tripolar: North America, Europe, and East Asia (then Japan-based).

There was also a sharp change in the US economy in the 1970s, towards financialisation and export of production. A variety of factors converged to create a vicious cycle of radical concentration of wealth, primarily in the top fraction of 1 per cent of the population - mostly CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and the like. That leads to the concentration of political power, hence state policies to increase economic concentration: fiscal policies, rules of corporate governance, deregulation, and much more. Meanwhile the costs of electoral campaigns skyrocketed, driving the parties into the pockets of concentrated capital, increasingly financial: the Republicans reflexively, the Democrats - by now what used to be moderate Republicans - not far behind.

Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2bn, mostly in corporate funding. Small wonder that Obama is selecting business leaders for top positions. The public is angry and frustrated, but as long as the Muasher principle prevails, that doesn't matter.

While wealth and power have narrowly concentrated, for most of the population real incomes have stagnated and people have been getting by with increased work hours, debt, and asset inflation, regularly destroyed by the financial crises that began as the regulatory apparatus was dismantled starting in the 1980s.

None of this is problematic for the very wealthy, who benefit from a government insurance policy called "too big to fail." The banks and investment firms can make risky transactions, with rich rewards, and when the system inevitably crashes, they can run to the nanny state for a taxpayer bailout, clutching their copies of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

That has been the regular process since the Reagan years, each crisis more extreme than the last - for the public population, that is. Right now, real unemployment is at Depression levels for much of the population, while Goldman Sachs, one of the main architects of the current crisis, is richer than ever. It has just quietly announced $17.5bn in compensation for last year, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6m bonus while his base salary more than triples.

It wouldn't do to focus attention on such facts as these. Accordingly, propaganda must seek to blame others, in the past few months, public sector workers, their fat salaries, exorbitant pensions, and so on: all fantasy, on the model of Reaganite imagery of black mothers being driven in their limousines to pick up welfare checks - and other models that need not be mentioned. We all must tighten our belts; almost all, that is.

Teachers are a particularly good target, as part of the deliberate effort to destroy the public education system from kindergarten through the universities by privatisation - again, good for the wealthy, but a disaster for the population, as well as the long-term health of the economy, but that is one of the externalities that is put to the side insofar as market principles prevail.

Another fine target, always, is immigrants. That has been true throughout US history, even more so at times of economic crisis, exacerbated now by a sense that our country is being taken away from us: the white population will soon become a minority. One can understand the anger of aggrieved individuals, but the cruelty of the policy is shocking.

Targeting immigrants

Who are the immigrants targeted? In Eastern Massachusetts, where I live, many are Mayans fleeing genocide in the Guatemalan highlands carried out by Reagan's favourite killers. Others are Mexican victims of Clinton's NAFTA, one of those rare government agreements that managed to harm working people in all three of the participating countries. As NAFTA was rammed through Congress over popular objection in 1994, Clinton also initiated the militarisation of the US-Mexican border, previously fairly open. It was understood that Mexican campesinos cannot compete with highly subsidised US agribusiness, and that Mexican businesses would not survive competition with US multinationals, which must be granted "national treatment" under the mislabeled free trade agreements, a privilege granted only to corporate persons, not those of flesh and blood. Not surprisingly, these measures led to a flood of desperate refugees, and to rising anti-immigrant hysteria by the victims of state-corporate policies at home.

Much the same appears to be happening in Europe, where racism is probably more rampant than in the US One can only watch with wonder as Italy complains about the flow of refugees from Libya, the scene of the first post-World War I genocide, in the now-liberated East, at the hands of Italy's Fascist government. Or when France, still today the main protector of the brutal dictatorships in its former colonies, manages to overlook its hideous atrocities in Africa, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy warns grimly of the "flood of immigrants" and Marine Le Pen objects that he is doing nothing to prevent it. I need not mention Belgium, which may win the prize for what Adam Smith called "the savage injustice of the Europeans."

The rise of neo-fascist parties in much of Europe would be a frightening phenomenon even if we were not to recall what happened on the continent in the recent past. Just imagine the reaction if Jews were being expelled from France to misery and oppression, and then witness the non-reaction when that is happening to Roma, also victims of the Holocaust and Europe's most brutalised population.

In Hungary, the neo-fascist party Jobbik gained 17 per cent of the vote in national elections, perhaps unsurprising when three-quarters of the population feels that they are worse off than under Communist rule. We might be relieved that in Austria the ultra-right Jörg Haider won only 10 per cent of the vote in 2008 - were it not for the fact that the new Freedom Party, outflanking him from the far right, won more than 17 per cent. It is chilling to recall that, in 1928, the Nazis won less than 3 per cent of the vote in Germany.

In England the British National Party and the English Defence League, on the ultra-racist right, are major forces. (What is happening in Holland you know all too well.) In Germany, Thilo Sarrazin's lament that immigrants are destroying the country was a runaway best-seller, while Chancellor Angela Merkel, though condemning the book, declared that multiculturalism had "utterly failed": the Turks imported to do the dirty work in Germany are failing to become blond and blue-eyed, true Aryans.

Those with a sense of irony may recall that Benjamin Franklin, one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, warned that the newly liberated colonies should be wary of allowing Germans to immigrate, because they were too swarthy; Swedes as well. Into the twentieth century, ludicrous myths of Anglo-Saxon purity were common in the US, including among presidents and other leading figures. Racism in the literary culture has been a rank obscenity; far worse in practice, needless to say. It is much easier to eradicate polio than this horrifying plague, which regularly becomes more virulent in times of economic distress.

I do not want to end without mentioning another externality that is dismissed in market systems: the fate of the species. Systemic risk in the financial system can be remedied by the taxpayer, but no one will come to the rescue if the environment is destroyed. That it must be destroyed is close to an institutional imperative. Business leaders who are conducting propaganda campaigns to convince the population that anthropogenic global warming is a liberal hoax understand full well how grave is the threat, but they must maximize short-term profit and market share. If they don't, someone else will.

This vicious cycle could well turn out to be lethal. To see how grave the danger is, simply have a look at the new Congress in the US, propelled into power by business funding and propaganda. Almost all are climate deniers. They have already begun to cut funding for measures that might mitigate environmental catastrophe. Worse, some are true believers; for example, the new head of a subcommittee on the environment who explained that global warming cannot be a problem because God promised Noah that there will not be another flood.

If such things were happening in some small and remote country, we might laugh. Not when they are happening in the richest and most powerful country in the world. And before we laugh, we might also bear in mind that the current economic crisis is traceable in no small measure to the fanatic faith in such dogmas as the efficient market hypothesis, and in general to what Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 15 years ago, called the "religion" that markets know best - which prevented the central bank and the economics profession from taking notice of an $8tn housing bubble that had no basis at all in economic fundamentals, and that devastated the economy when it burst.

All of this, and much more, can proceed as long as the Muashar doctrine prevails. As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

2011-07-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

Του Alfred W. McCoy , Καθηγητή Ιστορίας στο Πανεπιστήμιο Wisconsin-Madison .

Αναδημοσιεύεται από τον ιστότοπο του αμερικανικού περιοδικού 'The Nation' , http://www.thenation.com/article/156851/decline-and-fall-american-empire .

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003. Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare. But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest. Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to US global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030. Significantly, in 2008, the US National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited “the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history,” as the primary factor in the decline of the “United States' relative strength—even in the military realm.” Like many in Washington, however, the Council’s analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the US would long “retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally” for decades to come. No such luck. Under current projections, the United States will find itself in second place behind China (already the world's second largest economy) in economic output around 2026, and behind India by 2050. Similarly, Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America's current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation. By 2020, according to current plans, the Pentagon will throw a military Hail Mary pass for a dying empire. It will launch a lethal triple canopy of advanced aerospace robotics that represents Washington's last best hope of retaining global power despite its waning economic influence. By that year, however, China's global network of communications satellites, backed by the world's most powerful supercomputers, will also be fully operational, providing Beijing with an independent platform for the weaponization of space and a powerful communications system for missile- or cyber-strikes into every quadrant of the globe. Wrapped in imperial hubris, like Whitehall or Quai d'Orsay before it, the White House still seems to imagine that American decline will be gradual, gentle, and partial. In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offered the reassurance that “I do not accept second place for the United States of America.” A few days later, Vice President Biden ridiculed the very idea that “we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended.” Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing “misleading metaphors of organic decline” and denying that any deterioration in US global power was underway. Ordinary Americans, watching their jobs head overseas, have a more realistic view than their cosseted leaders. An opinion poll in August 2010 found that 65% of Americans believed the country was now “in a state of decline.” Already, Australia and Turkey, traditional US military allies, are using their American-manufactured weapons for joint air and naval maneuvers with China. Already, America's closest economic partners are backing away from Washington's opposition to China's rigged currency rates. As the president flew back from his Asian tour last month, a gloomy New York Times headline summed the moment up this way: “Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage, China, Britain and Germany Challenge US, Trade Talks With Seoul Fail, Too.” Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be. In place of Washington's wishful thinking, let’s use the National Intelligence Council's own futuristic methodology to suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, US global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today). The future scenarios include: economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, and World War III. While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future.

Economic Decline: Present Situation

Today, three main threats exist to America’s dominant position in the global economy: loss of economic clout thanks to a shrinking share of world trade, the decline of American technological innovation, and the end of the dollar's privileged status as the global reserve currency.

By 2008, the United States had already fallen to number three in global merchandise exports, with just 11% of them compared to 12% for China and 16% for the European Union. There is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse itself.

Similarly, American leadership in technological innovation is on the wane. In 2008, the US was still number two behind Japan in worldwide patent applications with 232,000, but China was closing fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400% increase since 2000. A harbinger of further decline: in 2009 the US hit rock bottom in ranking among the 40 nations surveyed by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation when it came to “change” in “global innovation-based competitiveness” during the previous decade. Adding substance to these statistics, in October China's Defense Ministry unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A, so powerful, said one US expert, that it “blows away the existing No. 1 machine” in America.

Add to this clear evidence that the US education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sank to 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the US are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.

Such negative trends are encouraging increasingly sharp criticism of the dollar's role as the world’s reserve currency. “Other countries are no longer willing to buy into the idea that the US knows best on economic policy,” observed Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. In mid-2009, with the world's central banks holding an astronomical $4 trillion in US Treasury notes, Russian president Dimitri Medvedev insisted that it was time to end “the artificially maintained unipolar system” based on “one formerly strong reserve currency.”

Simultaneously, China's central bank governor suggested that the future might lie with a global reserve currency “disconnected from individual nations” (that is, the US dollar). Take these as signposts of a world to come, and of a possible attempt, as economist Michael Hudson has argued , “to hasten the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order.”

Economic Decline: Scenario 2020

After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the US dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, Washington slowly pulls US forces back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter. By now, however, it is far too late.

Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying the bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers, great and regional, provocatively challenge US dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace. Meanwhile, amid soaring prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in real wages, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and divisive debates, often over remarkably irrelevant issues. Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal. The world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.

Oil Shock: Present Situation

One casualty of America's waning economic power has been its lock on global oil supplies. Speeding by America's gas-guzzling economy in the passing lane, China became the world's number one energy consumer this summer, a position the US had held for over a century. Energy specialist Michael Klare has argued that this change means China will “set the pace in shaping our global future.”

By 2025, Iran and Russia will control almost half of the world's natural gas supply, which will potentially give them enormous leverage over energy-starved Europe. Add petroleum reserves to the mix and, as the National Intelligence Council has warned , in just 15 years two countries, Russia and Iran, could “emerge as energy kingpins.”

Despite remarkable ingenuity, the major oil powers are now draining the big basins of petroleum reserves that are amenable to easy, cheap extraction. The real lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was not BP's sloppy safety standards, but the simple fact everyone saw on “spillcam”: one of the corporate energy giants had little choice but to search for what Klare calls “tough oil” miles beneath the surface of the ocean to keep its profits up.

Compounding the problem, the Chinese and Indians have suddenly become far heavier energy consumers. Even if fossil fuel supplies were to remain constant (which they won’t), demand, and so costs, are almost certain to rise—and sharply at that. Other developed nations are meeting this threat aggressively by plunging into experimental programs to develop alternative energy sources. The United States has taken a different path, doing far too little to develop alternative sources while, in the last three decades, doubling its dependence on foreign oil imports. Between 1973 and 2007, oil imports have risen from 36% of energy consumed in the US to 66% .

Oil Shock: Scenario 2025

The United States remains so dependent upon foreign oil that a few adverse developments in the global energy market in 2025 spark an oil shock. By comparison, it makes the 1973 oil shock (when prices quadrupled in just months) look like the proverbial molehill. Angered at the dollar's plummeting value, OPEC oil ministers, meeting in Riyadh, demand future energy payments in a “basket” of Yen, Yuan, and Euros. That only hikes the cost of US oil imports further. At the same moment, while signing a new series of long-term delivery contracts with China, the Saudis stabilize their own foreign exchange reserves by switching to the Yuan. Meanwhile, China pours countless billions into building a massive trans-Asia pipeline and funding Iran's exploitation of the world largest natural gas field at South Pars in the Persian Gulf.

Concerned that the US Navy might no longer be able to protect the oil tankers traveling from the Persian Gulf to fuel East Asia, a coalition of Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi form an unexpected new Gulf alliance and affirm that China's new fleet of swift aircraft carriers will henceforth patrol the Persian Gulf from a base on the Gulf of Oman. Under heavy economic pressure, London agrees to cancel the US lease on its Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, while Canberra, pressured by the Chinese, informs Washington that the Seventh Fleet is no longer welcome to use Fremantle as a homeport, effectively evicting the US Navy from the Indian Ocean.

With just a few strokes of the pen and some terse announcements, the 'Carter Doctrine' by which US military power was to eternally protect the Persian Gulf, is laid to rest in 2025. All the elements that long assured the United States limitless supplies of low-cost oil from that region—logistics, exchange rates, and naval power—evaporate. At this point, the US can still cover only an insignificant 12% of its energy needs from its nascent alternative energy industry, and remains dependent on imported oil for half of its energy consumption.

The oil shock that follows hits the country like a hurricane, sending prices to startling heights, making travel a staggeringly expensive proposition, putting real wages (which had long been declining) into freefall, and rendering non-competitive whatever American exports remained. With thermostats dropping, gas prices climbing through the roof, and dollars flowing overseas in return for costly oil, the American economy is paralyzed. With long-fraying alliances at an end and fiscal pressures mounting, US military forces finally begin a staged withdrawal from their overseas bases.

Within a few years, the US is functionally bankrupt and the clock is ticking toward midnight on the American Century.

Military Misadventure: Present Situation

Counterintuitively, as their power wanes, empires often plunge into ill-advised military misadventures. This phenomenon is known among historians of empire as “micro-militarism” and seems to involve psychologically compensatory efforts to salve the sting of retreat or defeat by occupying new territories, however briefly and catastrophically. These operations, irrational even from an imperial point of view, often yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the loss of power.

Embattled empires through the ages suffer an arrogance that drives them to plunge ever deeper into military misadventures until defeat becomes debacle. In 413 BCE, a weakened Athens sent 200 ships to be slaughtered in Sicily. In 1921, a dying imperial Spain dispatched 20,000 soldiers to be massacred by Berber guerrillas in Morocco. In 1956, a fading British Empire destroyed its prestige by attacking Suez. And in 2001 and 2003, the US occupied Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. With the hubris that marks empires over the millennia, Washington has increased its troops in Afghanistan to 100,000, expanded the war into Pakistan, and extended its commitment to 2014 and beyond, courting disasters large and small in this guerilla-infested, nuclear-armed graveyard of empires.

Military Misadventure: Scenario 2014

So irrational, so unpredictable is “micro-militarism” that seemingly fanciful scenarios are soon outdone by actual events. With the US military stretched thin from Somalia to the Philippines and tensions rising in Israel, Iran, and Korea, possible combinations for a disastrous military crisis abroad are multifold.

It’s mid-summer 2014 and a drawn-down US garrison in embattled Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is suddenly, unexpectedly overrun by Taliban guerrillas, while US aircraft are grounded by a blinding sandstorm. Heavy loses are taken and in retaliation, an embarrassed American war commander looses B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters to demolish whole neighborhoods of the city that are believed to be under Taliban control, while AC-130U “Spooky” gunships rake the rubble with devastating cannon fire.

Soon, mullahs are preaching jihad from mosques throughout the region, and Afghan Army units, long trained by American forces to turn the tide of the war, begin to desert en masse. Taliban fighters then launch a series of remarkably sophisticated strikes aimed at US garrisons across the country, sending American casualties soaring. In scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, US helicopters rescue American soldiers and civilians from rooftops in Kabul and Kandahar.

Meanwhile, angry at the endless, decades-long stalemate over Palestine, OPEC’s leaders impose a new oil embargo on the US to protest its backing of Israel as well as the killing of untold numbers of Muslim civilians in its ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East. With gas prices soaring and refineries running dry, Washington makes its move, sending in Special Operations forces to seize oil ports in the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, sparks a rash of suicide attacks and the sabotage of pipelines and oil wells. As black clouds billow skyward and diplomats rise at the UN to bitterly denounce American actions, commentators worldwide reach back into history to brand this “America's Suez,” a telling reference to the 1956 debacle that marked the end of the British Empire.

World War III: Present Situation

In the summer of 2010, military tensions between the US and China began to rise in the western Pacific, once considered an American “lake.” Even a year earlier no one would have predicted such a development. As Washington played upon its alliance with London to appropriate much of Britain's global power after World War II, so China is now using the profits from its export trade with the US to fund what is likely to become a military challenge to American dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.

With its growing resources, Beijing is claiming a vast maritime arc from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the US Navy. In August, after Washington expressed a “national interest” in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce that claim, Beijing's official Global Times responded angrily , saying, “The US-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be.”

Amid growing tensions, the Pentagon reported that Beijing now holds “the capability to attack… [US] aircraft carriers in the western Pacific Ocean” and target “nuclear forces throughout… the continental United States.” By developing “offensive nuclear, space, and cyberwarfare capabilities,” China seems determined to vie for dominance of what the Pentagon calls “the information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace.” With ongoing development of the powerful Long March V booster rocket, as well as the launch of two satellites in January 2010 and another in July, for a total of five, Beijing signaled that the country was making rapid strides toward an “independent” network of 35 satellites for global positioning, communications, and reconnaissance capabilities by 2020.

To check China and extend its military position globally, Washington is intent on building a new digital network of air and space robotics, advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, and electronic surveillance. Military planners expect this integrated system to envelop the Earth in a cyber-grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield or taking out a single terrorist in field or favela. By 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will launch a three-tiered shield of space drones—reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, and operated through total telescopic surveillance.

Last April, the Pentagon made history. It extended drone operations into the exosphere by quietly launching the X-37B unmanned space shuttle into a low orbit 255 miles above the planet. The X-37B is the first in a new generation of unmanned vehicles that will mark the full weaponization of space, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before.

World War III: Scenario 2025

The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new and untested that even the most outlandish scenarios may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. If we simply employ the sort of scenarios that the Air Force itself used in its 2009 Future Capabilities Game, however, we can gain “a better understanding of how air, space and cyberspace overlap in warfare,” and so begin to imagine how the next world war might actually be fought.

It’s 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2025. While cyber-shoppers pound the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest home electronics from China, US Air Force technicians at the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) on Maui choke on their coffee as their panoramic screens suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the US CyberCommand's operations center in Texas, cyberwarriors soon detect malicious binaries that, though fired anonymously, show the distinctive digital fingertips of China's People's Liberation Army.

The first overt strike is one nobody predicted. Chinese “malware” seizes control of the robotics aboard an unmanned solar-powered US 'Vulture' drone as it flies at 70,000 feet over the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan. It suddenly fires all the rocket pods beneath its enormous 400-foot wingspan, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the Yellow Sea, effectively disarming this formidable weapon.

Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident that its F-6 “Fractionated, Free-Flying” satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to the flotilla of X-37B space drones orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, ordering them to launch their 'Triple Terminator' missiles at China's 35 satellites. Zero response. In near panic, the Air Force launches its Falkon Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle into an arc 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and then, just 20 minutes later, sends the computer codes to fire missiles at seven Chinese satellites in nearby orbits. The launch codes are suddenly inoperative.

As the Chinese virus spreads uncontrollably through the F-6 satellite architecture, while those second-rate US supercomputers fail to crack the malware's devilishly complex code, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of US ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised. Carrier fleets begin steaming in circles in the mid-Pacific. Fighter squadrons are grounded. Reaper drones fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. Suddenly, the United States loses what the US Air Force has long called “the ultimate high ground”: space. Within hours, the military power that had dominated the globe for nearly a century has been defeated in World War III without a single human casualty.

A New World Order?

Even if future events prove duller than these four scenarios suggest, every significant trend points toward a far more striking decline in American global power by 2025 than anything Washington now seems to be envisioning.

As allies worldwide begin to realign their policies to take cognizance of rising Asian powers, the cost of maintaining 800 or more overseas military bases will simply become unsustainable, finally forcing a staged withdrawal on a still-unwilling Washington. With both the US and China in a race to weaponize space and cyberspace, tensions between the two powers are bound to rise, making military conflict by 2025 at least feasible, if hardly guaranteed.

Complicating matters even more, the economic, military, and technological trends outlined above will not operate in tidy isolation. As happened to European empires after World War II, such negative forces will undoubtedly prove synergistic. They will combine in thoroughly unexpected ways, create crises for which Americans are remarkably unprepared, and threaten to spin the economy into a sudden downward spiral, consigning this country to a generation or more of economic misery.

As US power recedes, the past offers a spectrum of possibilities for a future world order. At one end of this spectrum, the rise of a new global superpower, however unlikely, cannot be ruled out. Yet both China and Russia evince self-referential cultures, recondite non-roman scripts, regional defense strategies, and underdeveloped legal systems, denying them key instruments for global dominion. At the moment then, no single superpower seems to be on the horizon likely to succeed the US.

In a dark, dystopian version of our global future, a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral forces like NATO, and an international financial elite could conceivably forge a single, possibly unstable, supra-national nexus that would make it no longer meaningful to speak of national empires at all. While denationalized corporations and multinational elites would assumedly rule such a world from secure urban enclaves, the multitudes would be relegated to urban and rural wastelands.

In Planet of Slums , Mike Davis offers at least a partial vision of such a world from the bottom up. He argues that the billion people already packed into fetid favela-style slums worldwide (rising to two billion by 2030) will make “the 'feral, failed cities' of the Third World… the distinctive battlespace of the twenty-first century.” As darkness settles over some future super-favela, “the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression” as “hornet-like helicopter gun-ships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts… Every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and eloquent explosions.”

At a midpoint on the spectrum of possible futures, a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2040, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

Another possibility: the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated before modern empires took shape. In this neo-Westphalian world order, with its endless vistas of micro-violence and unchecked exploitation, each hegemon would dominate its immediate region—Brasilia in South America, Washington in North America, Pretoria in southern Africa, and so on. Space, cyberspace, and the maritime deeps, removed from the control of the former planetary “policeman,” the United States, might even become a new global commons, controlled through an expanded UN Security Council or some ad hoc body.

All of these scenarios extrapolate existing trends into the future on the assumption that Americans, blinded by the arrogance of decades of historically unparalleled power, cannot or will not take steps to manage the unchecked erosion of their global position.

If America's decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.

If only 15 years remain, the odds of frittering them all away still remain high. Congress and the president are now in gridlock; the American system is flooded with corporate money meant to jam up the works; and there is little suggestion that any issues of significance, including our wars, our bloated national security state, our starved education system, and our antiquated energy supplies, will be addressed with sufficient seriousness to assure the sort of soft landing that might maximize our country's role and prosperity in a changing world.

Europe's empires are gone and America's imperium is going. It seems increasingly doubtful that the United States will have anything like Britain's success in shaping a succeeding world order that protects its interests, preserves its prosperity, and bears the imprint of its best values.

Analyzing Political Islam : A Critique of Traditional Historical Materialist Analytic

2011-04-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

Του Tariq Amin-Khan , Επίκουρου Καθηγητή στο Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης του Ryerson University στην πόλη Τορόντο του Καναδά .

Αναδημοσιεύεται από την ιστοσελίδα του επιστημονικού περιοδικού σοσιαλιστικής κατεύθυνσης Monthly Review , http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/analyzing-political-islam

Political, (1) more so, militant Islam has become an influential religious and social force in many post-colonial states. (2) The militants face very little by way of real political opposition within Muslim-majority societies, but they are now targeted and attacked militarily by the United States, other Western imperial interests, and client post-colonial states. In the context of the war in Iraq, the occupation of Afghanistan, and the “war on terror,” much has been written by people on the left. But, there is little by way of understanding political Islam from a historical materialist perspective. Some months back, however, Samir Amin offered his traditional historical materialist analysis of political Islam (Monthly Review, December 2007) and very briefly touched on a range of issues, such as modernity, secularism and imperialism. Amin has been generally dismissive of political Islam and unambiguous in saying that Islamists have been in the “service of imperialism.”

The concern with such a dismissal is its inability to provide a critical grasp of political Islam as an ideological phenomenon, and the current role of U.S. imperialism in targeting militant Islam and in controlling political outcomes in Muslim-majority states. (3) Such a view is also unhelpful for small left-wing and secular forces in these states to develop even a modest strategic initiative to contest political and militant Islam’s claims—an initiative that moves away from Western and Orientalist characterization of political and militant Islam, and begins to challenge the latter’s social base of support in Muslim-majority states. This social base, it must be clarified, underscores popular anger against U.S. military occupations of Muslim lands and the perception that the imperial onslaught as such is against Muslims. The popular anger against the United States can be gleaned from the expression of unfavorable sentiment by 78 percent of the population in Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan which, paradoxically, are all U.S. client states. (4) However, there is also easy slippage in interpreting this anger against the United States as an endorsement for militant Islam’s obscurantist vision of society, on which more is said below.

Amin’s piece does not deal with the role of larger social and economic issues (including the impact of capitalist globalism) in Muslim-majority states—issues that may partly explain why the abysmally poor join the ranks of militant Islam. More significant, Amin suggests that political Islam is “lined up behind the dominant powers on the world scale” (p. 3), but does little to explain how this has come about given that militant Islam is now also confronting the United States and its imperialist occupation of and forays into Muslim-majority states. This new reality of military confrontation between former collaborators is not to suggest that political Islam’s actions are anti-imperialist. Rather, my concern here is to advance a critical historical materialist understanding of political Islam that is partly in agreement but also in collegial disagreement with some of Amin’s analysis. An understanding that problematizes Eurocentrism embedded in the treatment of militant Islam and the notion of modernity, while distinguishing my work from an orthodox materialist outlook. The critical materialist analysis employed here is also mindful of the oppressive practices of political Islam’s followers, especially concerning the treatment of women. The obscurantist mullahs have denied even the simplest pleasures of song and celebration, while the self-righteous patriarchal stranglehold of this tendency within Islam has been extremely debilitating for women and for much of society. However, militant Islam today is also a powerful social reality that is influencing and altering culture, language, and social and political policy in Muslim-majority states and in the Muslim diaspora of Europe and North America. Regretfully, this reality is not given much attention by many on the left in Western and even some in Muslim-majority states.

A related tendency on the left is to dismiss political Islam as reactionary. This tendency undergirds an uncritical embrace of Enlightenment modernity, and appears to conflate political Islamists with the followers of Islam (Muslims in general)—a conflation that is indeed integral to the dominant narrative in Western societies of “the Muslim” as violent, as oppressor of women, and as a medieval aberration against modernity. I will address below this issue of modernity and the characterization of Muslims in general. However, I will begin by touching on areas where there is agreement with Amin’s analysis.

As a starting point, there cannot be any quarrel with the view that political Islam has historically collaborated with U.S. imperialism throughout the period of the Cold War. This began very early in the 1950s with support for Ikhwanul-Muslimeen (Muslim Brotherhood) and ended when the Afghan mujahideen felt they were left in the lurch with the closing of the tap of U.S. arms flow, Saudi financial support, and Pakistan’s military training and assistance following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. However, just as this collaboration ended, around the early 1990s, the demonization of Islam and the civilizational clash thesis was quickly developed by the likes of Bernard Lewis (later picked up by Samuel Huntington in his infamous The Clash of Civilizations), which reflected the post-Cold War shift of U.S. foreign policy, whose framework no longer needed political Islam’s support.

The one significant continuity between the Cold War era’s targeting of Marxist and leftists and the current attacks on political/militant Islam is United States’ continued reliance on culturalism to promote its imperial dominance. Western political leaders and the media, and liberal capitalist state’s organic intellectuals have been steeped in culturalism since the heydays of post-1945 era and the launching of Modernization theory—creating binaries between “traditional” and “modern” cultures, and “freedom” and “totalitarianism” to contrast the “free enterprise” Western capitalist culture broadly as a superior culturalist paradigm than other preceding or prevailing non-Euro/American cultures. However, this imperial strategy, more recently, has run into bad weather because the Islamists have been even more effective in using the culturalist terrain to mobilize their base of support against what they claim is U.S. “evil design” on Muslims and “Muslim values.” This culturalism of political Islam conceals the social and economic disfigurement caused by capitalist globalism and redirects political questions on to the terrain of culture. Thus, I am in agreement with Amin that culturalism has to be opposed, but the bigger question is: Who will mobilize people against culturalism of militant Islam in Muslim-majority states?

Also, I am in agreement with Amin that if the left is to be viable again in post-colonial societies, it just cannot gain credibility by making alliances with political or militant Islam. Such alliances are counterproductive and will hurt progressive forces in the long run. In this context, Amin claims that political Islam defends property relations and “aligns itself with the camp of dependent capitalism and dominant imperialism” (p. 1). However, I disagree with the sweep of his claim. Undoubtedly, political Islam is neither anticapitalist nor against property relations, but in the current conjuncture it is also not “an invaluable ally” of imperialism—although the two feed off each other. In other words, imperialist occupation is the oxygen for militant Islam’s survival, and more coherence is needed to understand how U.S. imperialism and client Muslim-majority states perpetuate the rise of political/militant Islam. Given that I am getting into my disagreements with Amin, I will expound on areas of concern in Amin’s historical materialist analysis.

I will first deal with Amin’s interpretation of modernity and secularism, and his claim that “perhaps even democracy” may need to “adapt to the strong presence of Islam” (p. 4). Such a view is fairly prevalent in Western mainstream thought and even in many left circles. This view belies that political Islam is a modern manifestation, albeit as modernity not grounded on the Enlightenment principles. As a corollary, such a perspective also then slips into an Orientalist understanding of political and militant Islam, viewing these phenomena as medieval aberrations—as appears to be the tendency of Western mainstream media, politicians, and others.

Now there is no denying, as Amin rightly points out, that modernity represents “a rupture in world history” following two significant developments—the emergence of the Enlightenment ideas and the rise of industrial capitalism—whose unfolding in close proximity of each other shaped the course of Western economic and societal transformation. But even within this understanding, there were two parallel trajectories: one based on the notion of progress as the progress of technology and economic development, and the other, based on the French Revolution slogan of liberté, egalité, fraternité. However, given the domination of capitalism, “development” as progress has become the dominant motif of modernity, while the latter ideas have taken a backseat to the drift of “instrumental reason” and a formal notion of democracy. Even the “rupture” that Amin speaks of was violent and effacing of preceding social traditions and outlook. In this sense, the notion of modernity has become closely associated with the ideas of Euro/American liberalism and congealed as a “mode of consciousness,” whereby modernity’s historical significance, as Philip Lawrence argues, lies in the manner in which “it self-consciously cut its links with all that had gone before.” (5) As a result, rationalism and modernity “unleashed forces which were able to vanquish the past and… [the] less technologically powerful cultures”—which meant that the Enlightenment project cut its links with its own historical past and with the “non-European world,” and this was done with “extreme violence.” (6) This violence of modernity and the erasure of the high points of other cultures, which European colonial powers were able to dominate and treat as “backward” or “barbaric,” also meant that the Eurocentric worldview would be privileged and universalized over the supposedly historyless and cultureless non-European world. It is this erasure of the non-European that gives the project of Enlightenment modernity its strong Eurocentric impulse: shaping empire-building projects on the one hand, while on the other, inferiorizing the colonized elite to a point wherein they have internalized the ideas of modernity, especially the notion of the “normal” nation-state (7)—the edifice that enabled colonial empires and current dominant Western states to tame colonial and post-colonial societies. This imperialist thrust of the past and the present has severely undermined and restructured the economic and political dimension, compartmentalizing thought and action, and displacing social upliftment ideas of Third Worldism and autarky with neoliberal restructuring and the re-imposition of the social and cultural legacies of the colonial state.

In being inattentive to this analytical complexity, and not recognizing the double-edged blade of modernity—issues not unknown to Amin—the irony is that he takes a similarly narrow view in discussing secularism. He dismisses as reactionary the claim of political Islamists that there is no separation between politics and religion—assuming that all forms of separation or the privileging of science is ipso facto progressive. How is this view in Islam any more reactionary from the contrived separation of religion in the secular fundamentalist thought of Dawkins and Hitchens? It would be more helpful to discuss how harm may result if the two remain unseparated, and whether not separating politics and religion in Islam is more harmful in comparison to other non-Muslim religions that also advocate for their unity? In tackling this question, it can be said that Islamic religious parties and political Islam generally have historically used the notion of Islamic revivalism to return the era of the caliphate, when the political and the scared were first merged. Islamic revivalism attempts to reclaim the medieval era’s “golden period” of Islam’s formation, and political Islamists harken back to the period of the caliphate in order to reintroduce sharia in the contemporary period. However, this harkening back is a political tool of mobilization—albeit along very narrow patriarchal and conservative lines—and also a way to posit a distinct identity for political Islam, one that is separate from the project of Western secular separation between church and state. In this context, Islamic revivalism is at best a late nineteenth century development, and the actions of political Islamists have formed in the period when Western modernity had its greatest influence in the colonies—that is, both are articulated in the spread of Western education, the propagation of the ideology of nationalism, and the emergence of anticolonial movements. As such, political Islam and its militant tendency should be seen as a contemporary political response to a “moral decline” that is perceived to have accompanied Western modernity. This is a powerful argument for the recruitment of potential foot soldiers of militant Islam. This argument is also a challenge to the European paradigm of modernity and cannot be dismissed as just a medieval aberration. The political Islamist position is as much a “modern” manifestation—albeit not within a Eurocentric notion of capitalist modernity.

On this issue of “moral decline,” there is no question that militant Islam’s position is deeply troubling, effacing and violent. This response is historically part of just one among a range of manifestations—reactionary at one end and mildly progressive at the other—which has unfolded since the late colonial era of the 1920s as Muslim religious groups and parties began to insert themselves in the more powerful secular-oriented anticolonial movements, such as in colonial Algeria, Indonesia, India and other states. By examining this history, one becomes aware that the larger aim of such Islamist anti-colonial movements historically had little to do with the right to self-determination of nations and more with enlarging an impositional pan-Muslim nationalism for which the separation of politics and religion made little sense. But this pan-Islamist drift continues to have a strong potential to harm weaker and smaller subnational groups by denying them the right of self-determination, examples of which abound in multiethnic/multinational Muslim-majority states. However, the harmful effects of pan-Islamic nationalism have been rarely taken up by the Western left or even by secular and national or subnational groups in Muslim-majority states.

On this issue of harm, it needs to be said that one often overlooks how the Enlightenment notion of modernity has also had debilitating and harmful consequences for the former colonized. Social and economic harm was done in universalizing the narrow conception of Western capitalist modernity as a ‘superior’ culturalist paradigm in relation to traditional societies, which have been treated as ‘backward’ and needed to be ‘civilized’. This rationale was implemented in the colonies once the charter companies (the British and Dutch East India companies) were dissolved and the colonial state was formally established—for instance, in parts of Asia since the mid 1800s. This issue of modernity’s universalization also concerned Fanon, and he was keenly aware of the impact of this cultural imposition on the former colonized and now the imperialized. He recognized much earlier from a more materialist understanding (than the current postcolonial theorists) that the colonized began to internalize the colonizer’s culture and the racism embedded in it as power and colonial domination was asserted to take hold of the cultural terrain in the colony. In speaking about the adoption-abandonment binary—the adoption of the colonizer’s culture and the abandonment of the culture of the colonized (8)—Fanon is also conscious, unlike the current postcolonial theorists, that the lost culture cannot be retrieved and that culturalism can also be a trap. However, the psycho-social and economic harm to the colonized is something that has endured well into the post-colonial era.

Moving from issues of modernity and secularism, a critical historical materialist understanding also needs to assess the nature of political Islam’s social base of support in Muslim-majority societies. On this issue, Amin claims that in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the upper classes are the main supporters of political Islam. Now, this assumption may be valid for Saudi Arabia, (9) but it is definitely not true for Pakistan. There are other inaccuracies about Pakistan in Amin’s piece, but I will not get into them here. The support for political and militant Islam in Pakistan comes from the middle class and religious political parties, with the upper classes taking strategic decisions in defense of or opposition to political Islam depending on policy or ideological shifts within the post-colonial state. However, the foot soldiers of militant Islam are the dreadfully poor who have relied on the madrassahs for their very survival, and have been politicized and radicalized to pick up the gun in defense of what their indoctrination tells them: Islam is under threat from a non-Muslim, Judeo-Christian axis. Before this, it was “godless” Communism that was painted as a threat to these true believers, and as is now the case, eager recruits who have nothing save the shirts on their backs been willing to wage jihad in order to “save Islam.” The purveyors of this logic are not confined to Afghanistan or Pakistan, but are busy in the poor forgotten settlements and the terrible squalor that is the reality of urban and rural life of most Muslim-majority states, as also of largely the Third World. So the Islamist sales pitch provides a very small dose of material and a large vial of moral support that rekindles hope in these new recruits. However, the power brokers of client post-colonial states—in furthering their feudal and capitalist class interests as well as the civilian and military bureaucratic elite’s auxiliary class interests—have never given a damn about the poor despite the populist parties’ promises of roti, kapra aur makan (food, clothing and shelter). As a result, these classes remain callous and inept to match the zeal and commitment or the organizational abilities of militant Islam’s recruiters. Consequently, the chasm between the middle class (the rich become a whole other comparator) and the desperately poor continues to widen, and more people have fallen through this gap and into the madrassahs of militant Islam. In this context, political/militant Islam is also a big beneficiary of neoliberal capitalist globalism. Alongside, the United States uses the social and economic dislocations caused by neoliberalism to supplant its imperial militarist moves in Muslim-majority countries by enlisting the support of its client governments in these states. Such a deliberate move to enlist support further fan the flames of hatred against the United States and these client governments, and strengthens the social base of militant Islam’s support. I say deliberate because as many informed writers have pointed out, the “war on terror” is really the “Long War” for access to Central Asian and Middle Eastern energy resources and the consolidation of the military-industrial complex, and now the security-industrial complex (10)—and political and militant Islam have become the perfect foil for the maintenance of this heightened state of U.S. militarism and the national security state to safeguard its long term objective.

This larger objective is driving U.S. military planners to maintain a long term military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan—although it is becoming abundantly clear that militant Islam cannot be defeated militarily. Thus, the burden shifts on the people in client Muslim-majority states to force their governments to change course so that the twin scourge of U.S. imperialism and militant Islam can be removed.

For a country like Pakistan where there is a phenomenal disconnect between the aspirations of its people and the clientalism of the ruling classes, a lazy reading of the country’s social and political dynamics can lead to very misleading results. This, given that the downtrodden people in Pakistan have struggled hard for the maintenance of national sovereignty, almost never giving the religious parties more than 8 percent of the popular vote, (11) while also fighting to introduce the rule of law, and trying to keep Islam within the private and personal realm. But all this effort goes unacknowledged if the analysis is mainly focused on the upper classes, which then makes it convenient to lump Pakistan with Saudi Arabia. Pakistan is now fast becoming central to a revised U.S. strategy for the “defeat” of the Taliban and generally militant Islam. The current civilian government is not very different from the previous military dictators in prostrating before the United States and its demands. This, in the face of imperial arrogance that involves almost daily violations of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty by U.S. drones that rain Hellfire missiles on largely women and children.

Therefore, in summarily dismissing political Islam, its larger project is obscured. This project has been spelled out very clearly by both political and militant Islamists, which is to capture state power. As a way to advance this objective, the mullahs and the Amirs lull their followers into believing that once state power is captured, the enforcement of shariawill end exploitation and bring a “just Islamic welfare society” in operation. Such fairy tales can be effectively countered if there is an organized left in Muslim-majority states. But the left in these states has been so hounded and beaten in the past 50 years of repression that reorganizing and regrouping them from the ground up seems to be a Herculean task. More important, if the Western left’s dismissive attitude toward political and militant Islam is also adopted by secular and miniscule left-wing forces, such as in Pakistan, they will not have even an outside possibility of organizing an alternative to these regressive religious forces. Militant Islam’s violent and often brutal actions are the material reality of existence in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. So, if the progressive and secular groups are to have even an outside chance of confronting political Islam, there will be no substitute for a critical understanding of this social phenomenon.

On Islamophobia, Amin says that it needs to be opposed, but then also blames the followers of political Islam for their “reactionary anti-Western discourse” which, in his view, gives rise to Islamophobic racism in the first place. In effect, he sees Islamophobia and anti-Western “discourse” as two reactionary campaigns that feed off each other.

Islamophobia is a critical issue on which Amin seems to have missed the boat. He appears to be blaming the victim, which is unfortunate given how events have unfolded in the United States and Europe as well as in Canada, where virulent racist attacks (verbal, physical, and in print) against Muslims have become a common occurrence. The moves at the level of the European states toward an underlying racist assimilation—for instance, in the development of the concepts of “community cohesion” and “civic integration” in Britain and the Netherlands, respectively—have meant the specific targeting of Muslim communities. At the institution in Toronto where I teach, which has probably one of the most diverse student body in the world, white supremacist groups have emerged, calling themselves a “white minority.” This and other groups are not just targeting Muslims, but also Black and Indigenous people. As Indigenous people have started to assert their treaty rights to land, a torrent of racist attacks have been unleashed on them. What this means is that Muslim-bashing may have been the trigger for the assertion of white supremacy, but it is now on the rise and affecting other communities. Therefore, one needs to be extremely careful in dismissing Islamophobia in a cavalier manner.

Finally, an important aspect of historical materialism is a keen attentiveness to history, a characteristic that has eluded Amin’s gaze. As an example, Amin has viewed political Islam mainly as a post-colonial development. Such a view disregards the colonial era origins of political Islam, an era that was very different from the current dominant tendency of Wahabi/Salafi/Deobandi political Islam. For instance, there has been an anticolonial component of political Islam reflected in the movements in colonial India and colonial Algeria. Also, while there is much that is obscurantist, antiwomen, and demeaning in the current tendencies of political/militant Islam, there have been and continue to be more “modernist” impulses among upper-class Muslims in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, and other states with a significant Muslim population. Alongside, there have been other Muslim political thinkers and philosophers who have not accepted the Enlightenment notions of modernity, and have engaged with modernism (Mohammed Iqbal), (12) while Islamic currents and inclusivist tendencies, such as syncretism among South Asian Muslims and Hindus for instance have been prevalent since the precolonial period of Mughal rule in India. This has extended in the colonial era, and towards a Muslim orientation of anticolonial movements (Abul Kalam Azad). Mentioning these tendencies of political Islam is not to disregard the large body of literature from Iranian Muslim philosophers, such as Ali Shariati and others, and their engagement (problematic as it may be) with Marxism and modernism.

However, if this history informs a critical historical materialist analytic, then the Saudi Wahabi-imperialist nexus of the current project of political Islam can be clearly separated from other currents of political Islam. These other currents have weakened in the face of the enormous imperialist and client Muslim-majority states’ earlier support—enabling the rise of the dominant Wahabi political/militant Islam and the spread of jihad and the proliferation of the madrassahs.

Conclusion

The point is that if the left is ever to become serious in challenging militant/political Islam, it has to move past and dump its heavy baggage of Eurocentrism and the careless analysis of political Islam. The current wave of militant Islam is a force to reckon with, and dismissing it as reactionary—true as it may be—is unhelpful. Yes, militant Islam has an extremely narrow ideological view of Islam, and an exceedingly oppressive vision of societal change, especially concerning the treatment of women. This vision is not shared by the vast majority of Muslims in Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, and even India. That being said, this dominant obscurantist current of political Islam in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan is also locked in military/guerilla combat with U.S. imperial power and client states in the region. But here’s the rub, militant Islam is also supported by people in these respective regions not, as mentioned earlier, because they support its vision of a Muslim “welfare state” rather, the support is because the United States is seen as ruthless, anti-Islam imperial occupier. Alongside, people in these states are also very tired of the tactics of Islamists, especially as they terrorize and target unarmed and uninvolved people. Overwhelming numbers in Muslim-majority states would like the Islamists to disappear, just as they would also wish the same for U.S. imperial presence and the client regimes that rule over them. If this complexity could be grasped, it may enable people on the left as well Western political leaders and the media to desist from homogenizing the makeup of entire Muslim-majority societies as reactionary or obscurantist. Similarly, the popular anti-imperialist sentiment in Muslim majority states should not be confused with the actions of militant Islamists, which are not anti-imperialist. Militant Islam is conceived and imagined in the present, current context. It is, therefore, a “modern” manifestation that posits its own version of the Islamic “welfare state” for the current conjuncture to rival the Western capitalist state and Enlightenment notions of modernity. Understanding militant Islam in its current context will only enable the development of a coherent strategy of opposition and an alternative non-Eurocentric vision of society.

EndNotes:

(1) In distinguishing between political and militant Islam, the former can be seen as having a doctrinaire understanding of Muslim religious texts interpreted largely by an educated urban middle class group of ideologues whose ideological project is to capture state power and impose a narrow version of sharia.Political Islam’s rank and file is made up of students, and some members of the urban working class, rural workers and the peasantry. Political Islamists, ever since decolonization, have relied on the patronage of authoritarian rulers and petty bourgeois merchants, and on the limited use of violence for political mobilization and to influence state policy in Muslim-majority states. Militant Islamists, in contrast, recruit their foot soldiers from the urban and rural poor and its ideological diehards from the petty-bourgeoisie, working class and students. In some cases, rural/tribal heads may also lead a militant group. Militant Islamists are armed as trained guerilla units capable of doing battle with the state and even imperialist powers, while also willing to use terror tactics in order to attain their ideological and political ends. The objective of political Islam are the same as militant Islam, but the means of achieving state power differ between them: the former largely tread the constitutional/legal terrain, while the latter relies on the extra-constitutional path to achieve its ends.

(2) The term “post-colonial” state is used here to periodize from the colonial era the decolonization and formation of states in Africa and Asia. Also, since these African and Asian states were decolonized after World War II, they are distinguished from Latin American states that were decolonized 60 to more than 100 years prior to that war. The hyphenated form of the term is meant to highlight this periodization and to also suggest that the post-colonial state remains the key instrument of the South’s subordination—both internally, in undermining civil society, and as the facilitator of external domination.

(3) I have argued elsewhere that the Pentagon has claimed the “war on terror” is the “Long War” and the United States is in this for the long haul because of various reasons: access to energy resources of the Middle East and Central Asia, the unprecedented expansion of the military-industrial complex, and to intensify the synergy between Big Oil, military, and the corporate establishment. See Tariq Amin-Khan, “The Rise of Militant Islam and the Security State in the Era of the ‘Long War,’” Third World Quarterly (forthcoming).

(4) The figure was mentioned on CNN’s program, The Next President: A World of Challenges, September 20, 2008.

(5) Philip K. Lawrence, “Enlightenment, Modernity and War,” History of the Human Sciences vol. 12, no. 1 (1999): 3–4.

(6) Lawrence, “Enlightenment,” 4.

(7) The internalization of the “normal” nation-state by the former colonized elite in post-colonial societies tries to mimic state formation on the model of European nation-states without much concern for state-building and nation-building by way of respectively removing the legacies of the colonial state and resolving ethnic and national questions. This internalization issue is discussed in Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat, eds., States of Imagination: Ethnographical Exploration of the Postcolonial State (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 8–27.

(8) Frantz Fanon, “Racism as Culture,” in Toward the African Revolution (Political Essays) (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967), 29–44.

(9) In the context of the claim of support for political Islam from upper classes in countries like Saudi Arabia, it is the upper class and the Saudi state that have together actively promoted—initially with the tacit support and now a grudging acceptance of the United States—the promotion of the Wahabi version of Islam within its society and in many Muslim-majority states.

(10) Jim Holt, “It’s the Oil,” London Review of Books, October 18, 2007, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/holt01_.html.

(11) The one exception was when General Musharraf decided to support Bush’s “war on terror” and put the country and military at the United States’ disposal. As a result, in the ensuing 2002 elections, a coalition of religious parties was able form a majority government in the North-West Frontier Province, which also became the main opposition at the federal level. However, in the ensuing February 2008 election, the religious parties were routed and received much less than the “normal” 8 percent level of votes that they have been receiving historically.

(12) Mohammed Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (Islamabad: Alhamra, 2002).

Nation-building Interventions and National Security : An Australian Perspective

2011-03-30T15:58:00.000-07:00

Άρθρο των Michael G. Smith και Rebecca Shrimpton στo επιστημονικό περιοδικό Prism (Vol. 2 - No. 2 , Μάρτιος 2011 , Σελ. 101-114) του National Defense University , http://www.ndu.edu/ .

In their compelling book Fixing Failed States,(1) Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart offer a sobering prognosis for global stability and human security. They assert that “[f]orty to sixty states, home to nearly two billion people, are either sliding backward and teetering on the brink of implosion, or have already collapsed.” (2) This reality has profound implications for the future of foreign interventions for the purpose of nation-building. What might this entail for Australia? And what is involved in nation-building in failed or failing states? According to Ghani and Lockhart, the situation “is at the heart of a worldwide systemic crisis that constitutes the most serious challenge to global stability in the new millennium.”(3) Such questions imply that nation-building interventions have a past, and arguably a present, in international politics. But as the current debate on international objectives in Afghanistan shows, nation-building is a contestable notion, meaning different things to different actors. History suggests that states undertake foreign interventions primarily in pursuit of national security interests rather than through a desire to build capacity for independent and competent governance in other countries per se. That said, nation-building does occur as a result of international interventions, even if this outcome is not always the intervention’s primary objective, and successful nationbuilding demands a long-term commitment of considerable resources by donor states, as well as from organizations such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Bank. If interventions are to occur in the future—a given if we accept the picture of global stability and security painted by Ghani and Lockhart—to what extent could they be driven by proactive and preconflict nationbuilding strategies, rather than ad hoc formulations as a response to conflict or war? And to what extent might nation-building be incorporated into the formal national security policies of Australia in the years ahead? Could the “3D Approach” for stabilization interventions—diplomacy, development, and defense—be applied in a coordinated preconflict manner to enhance security, governance, and sustainable development, rather than waiting for stabilization in a postconflict environment? This article contends that Australia should consider nation-building as an important pillar in conflict prevention and as an integral component of its national security strategy, and addresses four related questions:
- What are nation-building interventions?
- What is meant by nation-building, and can it be measured?
- What is the relationship between nation-building and international military interventions?
- What is the future for nation-building interventions in which Australia might be involved?

Nation-building and National Security

Conflict prevention and preventive diplomacy have been consistent themes in Australia’s foreign and defense policies for many years. More recently, conflict prevention was emphasized in Australia’s first National Security Statement in December 2008, when then–Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that Australia’s approach to regional engagement should be one “that develops a culture of security policy cooperation rather than defaults to any assumption that conflict is somehow inevitable.” Rudd also saw utility in “creative middle power diplomacy . . . capable of identifying opportunities to promote [Australia’s] security and to otherwise prevent, reduce or delay the emergence of national security challenges.”(4) Australia’s policy roadmap for conflict prevention, however, is yet to be articulated clearly. There are sound arguments that the next National Security Statement (and arguably a first National Security Policy document) should incorporate Australia’s contribution to coherent and coordinated nation-building strategies for fragile states, particularly those in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Such an approach would go beyond intervention to effect regime change, to achieve a military victory, to kickstart stabilization and reconstruction following conflict, or even to achieve the important Millennium Development Goals— goals currently lagging in the Pacific region.(5) Positive nation-building policies would enhance Australia’s long-term security by helping to strengthen the resilience of the Asia-Pacific region to conflict, natural and man-made disasters, and political and economic setbacks. To be effective, however, this nation-building approach would require Australia to continue to strengthen its commitment to whole-of-government (and whole-of-nation) civil-military (6) analysis, planning, and project coordination. This would demand the development of efficient mechanisms, and a cadre of trained personnel, to work collegially with host governments and international and regional organizations. Importantly, government departments and agencies would need to contribute to nation-building strategies in a collaborative way to achieve objectives agreed to by Australia and the governments of host nations. In practical terms, from Australia’s perspective, this would require enhanced synergy between the programs of leading agencies—principally the Australian Agency for International Development, Defence, the Australian Federal Police, and the Attorney-General’s Department—to develop country strategies that assigned responsibilities and priorities in concert with those of the host nation. Focused nation-building policies of this kind offer an opportunity to provide the assistance necessary to arrest a fragile state’s slide toward collapse before it reaches the critical tipping point—to strengthen a state’s capacity to govern and provide security for its citizens. Such policies look to address the root causes of the systemic crisis described by Ghani and Lockhart to help turn the tide of a state’s deterioration. Security policies can often link regional instability with national insecurity in a negative manner. More useful is a focus on building regional stability to enhance national security under a positive nation-building approach. The implications of moving the locus of effort from perceived threats to existential opportunities are significant. Implementing an opportunity-based approach is more cost-effective over the long term than having to respond to conflicts when they occur. As well, such an approach accentuates a focus on the following:
- identification of positive influences and forces that can be harnessed (as opposed to negative forces which must be defeated or countered)
- empowerment of local actors (as opposed to replacement with international actors), and support for local solutions (rather than importation of foreign solutions)
- a clear paradigm of local ownership with the host nation central to the process
- a long-term commitment based on mutual trust and interests.

By contrast, international postconflict stabilization responses risk weakening the host nation’s authority and central responsibility (or even temporarily replacing it), potentially resulting in dependency and a delay in the restoration of state functions by local authorities. A coordinated nation-building approach, beyond the efforts of individual departments and agencies, would not replace Australia’s current threat-based approach to national security, but provide a complementary preventive mechanism to enhance regional security. Such nation-building policies would offer a suite of options for international engagement that address root causes of violence and conflict, not just the violence itself. Positive nation-building policies have the potential to neutralize threats before they arise. Within the Asia-Pacific region, future competition between China and the United States for power and influence is a distinct yet parallel possibility to the problem of failed and failing states. Australia’s dilemma will be to structure and balance its national capabilities for possible great power (and their proxy) conflicts with the ability to respond to instability within a region comprising fragile states. History and geography confirm that instability in its immediate region become conflicts of necessity rather than choice for Australia, demonstrated not only by World War II but more recently by Australia’s commitments to Bougainville (an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea), Timor-Leste, and the Solomon Islands. A preemptive, coordinated, and longterm nation-building approach by Australia to regional fragile states would not only help reduce the prospects of serious conflict and great power rivalry, but also contribute to sustainable development by helping empower people to avert the human indignity of poverty and the impact of natural disasters. This is a bold strategy, and one that would contribute purposefully to the Australia-U.S. alliance in a meaningful way beyond providing assets to more distant conflict and postconflict situations, as important as such contributions will continue to be. Australia’s commitment to greater responsibility in its immediate region would be in line with the longstanding quest of the United States for “burden-sharing,” now even more important given the impact of the global financial crisis and soaring national debt of the United States.(7) Over the longer term, such a nationbuilding approach by Australia would be more cost-effective than accepting the inevitability of having to respond to regional instability through expensive military operations (in human, platform, and dollar terms as well as opportunity costs). In shifting the policy emphasis from a conflict response–based model to a conflict prevention–based one, the capability requirement becomes more civilianized, more purposeful, less expensive, less overt, and less disruptive. Or, as the former Chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, noted recently, it provides “more security through less defence.”(8)

Interventions

The importance of strengthening state resilience has become a central feature of approaches to international peace and security over the past two decades. “Nation-building” (or its associated but more narrowly focused sibling, “state-building”) is generally recognized as an essential tool in addressing the causes of conflict, as well as in bridging the divide between the traditional state-centric concept of power politics and the contested concept of human security as advocated predominantly by nonstate actors. Not all international security analysts may agree with Ghani and Lockhart’s assessment of state failure, but there is general consensus concerning the difficulties in implementing effective intervention strategies that lead to state resilience—strategies that in recent years have proved contestable or, at best, only partially successful. Paul Collier points out that one-sixth of the world’s population is currently caught in a poverty trap from which escape is problematic. He notes that the ultimate negative impact of such poverty will have far-reaching effects on global security, as well as having immediate and protracted local humanitarian consequences.(9) In December 2008, U.S. strategist Patrick Cronin highlighted the growing significance of “fragile and ungoverned spaces,” listing this as one of eight global security challenges facing the then new Obama administration. Cronin commented: “There is no surefire way to build effective states. And there are too many weak states to address them at once or to consider investing everything in a solitary problem. . . . While weak states are not automatically threats, fragile states may aid and abet a host of other problems, from piracy to trafficking to incubating terrorism and pandemics.”(10) The Fund for Peace, in its Failed State Index for 2010, highlights significant concern at the poor state of global governance.(11) This situation seems unlikely to improve markedly, given the slow recovery from the global financial crisis, coupled with the potential for increased intensity in the number of megadisasters resulting from climate change. The findings of the Failed State Index also indicate that Australia’s immediate geopolitical region requires closer policy attention and that more “heavy lifting” will be required of Australia in the years ahead.(12) There is a strategic choice to be made in Canberra about the nature of such heavy lifting, with a balance needing to be struck, weighted toward either responsive/ reactive or preventive/proactive policies. The United Nations and World Bank have also highlighted the importance of nationbuilding in contributing to global stability. The UN blueprint for reform—the Brahimi Report of 2000—links peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding strategies to better enable states emerging from conflict to avert a return to fighting through the development of effective governance structures based on open communication with their citizens.(13) The World Bank has increasingly related its development responsibilities to security sector reform and the rule of law, to the extent that the working title of its forthcoming World Development Report 2011 (WDR11) is “Conflict, Security and Development.” Although not stated as such, WDR11 is quintessential nation-building, tying the responsibilities of the state to the needs of its local communities, while at the same time recognizing the need for coordinated international support.(14) Individually and collectively, states and coalitions engaged in expeditionary interventions since the end of the Cold War have sought to achieve a more coherent, comprehensive, and whole-of-government approach to their endeavors, employing the 3D Approach. But in these undertakings, nation-building has been a product rather than a reason for intervention, and the product has demanded significantly more focus than anticipated to reach the standard required for stability.

Definition and Measurement

Nation-building should not be confused with humanitarian intervention, which focuses on the immediate provision of lifesupport services. The ultimate goal of successful nation-building is a resilient, viable, and politically stable society supported by a responsive and accountable state apparatus. The concept of nation-building can be applied to strategies for both postconflict reconstruction and conflict prevention. Since the 1990s, however, Australian nation-building efforts have principally been responses to conflict situations, concentrating on stabilization and reconstruction. Far less attention has been given to important civil-military opportunities for conflict prevention, security sector reform, political reconciliation, and strengthening government accountability to local communities as part of holistic nationbuilding and poverty reduction programs. The terms nation-building and state-building are often used interchangeably, although there can be important differences between the two. Nation-building represents the broad process of constructing a national identity and linking it to the authority of the state. It involves unifying the majority of the population within the state—despite ethnic, social, cultural, and/ or religious diversity—and fostering a national identity that is reflected in the character and authority of the state. State-building is narrower in its focus, referring to the functioning of a state from the consolidation of its territory to the development of effective institutions, processes, specialized personnel, and a monopoly over violence. State-building involves improving the architecture and effectiveness of government instrumentalities in a nontotalitarian manner that is representative of the people it serves. Nation-building requires the establishment of ongoing dialogue and mechanisms for effective and safe interaction between the people and the state as opposed to building institutional frameworks and mechanisms. A focus on state-building alone can lead to the establishment of inappropriate governments for longer term stability. Without an accurate and appropriate understanding of what unifies (or conversely divides) a population, the potential exists to measure success based on short-term inputs and costs rather than longer term outcomes and processes. The reality is that international interventions are unlikely to be successful in the long term unless they are committed to nation-building. Measuring the effectiveness of nationbuilding is a complex undertaking. The task requires looking beyond the easily quantifiable and tangible metrics of dollars spent, training provided, militants demobilized, police and civil servants recruited, and growth in the private sector. It involves complementing quantitative data with qualitative analysis to provide an accurate appraisal of the accessibility, responsiveness, credibility, and legitimacy of the government, community perceptions of security and justice, and the effective and efficient delivery of basic services to the population. Strong and decisive political leadership is critical, and the process should result in a conflict-sensitive, locally owned, bottom-up popular investment in a host government and its national institutions. A range of political checks and balances on government action cannot be limited to a single milestone of free and fair elections. A strong sense of national identity can and should shape the development of government institutions to be responsive, appropriate, legitimate, and credible to the host population. Optimal nation-building, therefore, is a dynamic interaction between a state and its people, supported and facilitated by international intervention providing resources, advice, and expertise. Such an ideal does not incorporate regime change through intervention, although regime change may sometimes occur as an important step in the nation-building process. Isolating the elements for successful nation-building further adds to the complexity of measuring its effectiveness. Each situation is unique, and solutions defy simple templating or transplanting. Building on the Brahimi Report of 2000, and reviewing peace interventions in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Timor- Leste, and Afghanistan, an important Kings College study in 2003 identified five key areas for effective peacebuilding in postconflict environments: planning and process; public administration and governance; rule of law and postconflict justice; the security sector; and the humanitarian-peacekeeping-development interface.(15) If each is developed in a manner that appropriately accounts for the unique history and culture of a host nation, these areas could represent the pillars of a nation-building strategy. But the relevance of these pillars can be applied equally to the viability of conflict prevention strategies as international assistance to nation-building is likely to be more effective in a preconflict environment. Various organs of the United Nations, such as the United Nations Development Programme, Peacebuilding Commission, and UN Secretariat’s Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Political Affairs, have expended considerable effort in improving capacity in postconflict reconstruction, usually with limited resources and in situations of fragile peace. In such circumstances the Security Council has increasingly mandated missions with tasks that are akin to nation-building. Ghani and Lockhart’s “Ten Functions of a State” (see table) provide a useful guide in helping to measure effectiveness in nation-building.

These functions, however, are not a prescription for success and must be contextualized within an individual nation’s history and culture. What seems clear, however, is that countries that appear most at risk on the Failed State Index tend to display poor progress in these functions. Two significant historical examples of nation-building are the post–World War II economic and political reconstructions of Western Europe and Japan. These triumphs of nation-building, nonetheless, were fundamentally based on U.S. and Western national security interests that arose in response to intense ideological, political, and military competition with the Soviet Union. As such, nation-building was a strategy for containing communism, rather than a commitment to build strong and stable societies per se, supporting the earlier claim that nation-building policies complement more realist and conventional defense policies. The rebuilding of Western Europe and Japan, and later South Korea following the Korean War stalemate, were interventions for the long haul, and focused on a deliberate civil-military approach that remained subordinate to civilian authority. Subsequent interventions have failed to replicate the size and success of these three nation-building enterprises. Aspirational aspects of this model, however, can perhaps be seen in the UN’s modern integrated peacekeeping approach, although with a less clear political overlay and generally without the commitment of sufficient resources by member states. In Australia’s immediate region there are also examples of nation-building efforts that have had varying degrees of success, such as in Bougainville, Timor-Leste, and the Solomon Islands. Despite substantial differences in the political and security genesis of each of these interventions, each has required civil-military and multidimensional responses (even those that were originally more narrowly conceived as primarily military operations). These three different examples continue to be works in progress, despite the success achieved to date; the withdrawal or downsizing of foreign military and police forces does not necessarily correspond with or equate to a robust peace or signify sustainable nation-building. This becomes apparent when such forces are required to return to reclaim peace and stability as another start-point for nation-building, as was the case in Timor-Leste in 2006.(16) Much remains to be done in each of these countries for nation-building to prove successful, and emphasis needs to be given to conflict prevention strategies. The interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq evolved differently from those that led to the rebuilding of Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea, which occurred over an extended period as part of a deliberate Cold War strategy. The former have been based on short-term planning horizons, respectively aimed at disrupting terrorist safe havens (Afghanistan) and neutralizing weapons of mass destruction (Iraq). These interventions commenced while lacking coordinated and coherent civil-military planning, and they have morphed repeatedly, without clear long-term visions and without promises of long-term commitments. Nation-building has neither been promised nor applied in earnest, yet the 3D Approach has the trappings of nation-building. Operationally, the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions have been only partially successful in gaining the overall support of the local population, and in providing for their protection. In this modern and complex 3D environment, strategic priorities have oscillated between enhancing global security through countering terrorism and assisting host states in their nation-building efforts. A confluence of these two (sometimes contradictory) priorities has not been uniformly achieved between interveners and host states alike, particularly when regime change has been perceived as the prime motive for intervention. Nation-building in postwar Europe, Japan, and South Korea had a central focus on building democracies. The more recent interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been more focused on military objectives, with the political imperative of fostering democracy a secondary concern. In these interventions the first principle of war, the selection and maintenance of the aim, has proved difficult and rubbery, and long-term commitments to nation-building have been avoided by, and uncoordinated among, contributing coalition partners. The Christian Science Monitor recently noted that “helping faltering regimes defend themselves because they supposedly face a terrorism problem, which may somehow morph into a threat to the United States [and by implication other countries], will often just mean assisting repressive governments defend themselves against their own people.”(17) Such action clearly does not constitute effective nationbuilding. Rather than being used as examples for future nation-building strategies, or as reasons for not undertaking nation-building, Afghanistan and Iraq should be consigned to the category of “exception” rather than of “rule.”

Relationships

The nation-building agendas of the international community and host states are fundamentally political in nature, but the political underpinnings of crises and national political dynamics are not always well understood by international actors. Based on practical experience gained in a host of operational crises from Angola to Afghanistan, James Kunder has emphasized that there is a consistent lack of understanding of “the deep-rootedness of the underlying political conflict” that spawns a complex crisis. (18) Not all interventions respond to conflict or are military in nature. Interventions based primarily on long-term economic aid and development occur by mutual agreement between sovereign states, even if in some instances the receiving country may be dependent on foreign aid and have limited practical room for political autonomy and maneuver. The relationship between Australia and countries such as Papua New Guinea and Nauru are sometimes cast in this light. Such aid and development interventions may be necessary for the economic survival of the receiving nation, but they do not always have a positive impact on nation-building. A challenge for donors such as Australia is how to channel aid and development into meaningful nation-building strategies, including at the community grassroots level, rather than creating situations of budgetary dependence. If fragile states are to prosper and escape the traps of poverty and insecurity, they and their donors will require strategies beyond the meeting of the expenditure targets of the Millennium Development Goals. Foreign interventions that include the use of force for nation-building, on the other hand, must accord with international law, which rests on the principle of state sovereignty and the norm of nonintervention. Other than acting in self-defense or under specific mandate of the United Nations, no state can interfere in the domestic affairs of another (article 2[4] of the UN Charter). A recent exception to this principle, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), was unanimously agreed upon by world leaders in 2005 as a new norm. R2P encompasses the notion that sovereignty is a responsibility and not a privilege, and that when a state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens the international community has a responsibility to intervene when sanctioned by the Security Council. R2P, however, is yet to be invoked in practice. The rise of militant nonstate actors has challenged the efficacy of international law between states. While irregular forces have been accommodated under international humanitarian law through the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions, international law has not always proved useful in managing asymmetric conflict between state and nonstate actors. To allow for nation-building in contested environments, old principles of irregular and counterinsurgency warfare have been dusted off and relearned. Principally, this requires the subordination of military forces to civilian authority in theater. But this has proved difficult to achieve in practice, particularly when host governments have been ineffective or corrupt, and when those intervening lack the necessary pool of well-trained civilian diplomats, mentors, change agents, administrators, development specialists, police, and technocrats. Last-minute calls in such interventions for a “civilian surge,” capable of understanding the cultural requirements of different fragile states, cannot be accommodated quickly as such elements require years of preparation. In this light, Australia’s recent initiative to establish an Australian Civilian Corps (ACC) is sensible. Rather than short-term responses to conflicts and disasters, however, the ACC’s long-term utility may ultimately rest on its assistance to unstable and fragile states as part of conflict prevention through an understanding of the culture, history, politics, and language of the people in locations where they may need to be deployed frequently. The lessons from nation-building interventions in nonpermissive environments such as Afghanistan, Timor-Leste, and the Solomon Islands are yet to be codified, while old lessons are relearned and misapplied. Nevertheless, some preconditions for success in such environments warrant repetition. These include:
- no intervention without strategy
- a political commitment for the long haul
- coordinated civil-military analysis, planning, and execution—the 3D Approach to security, governance, and development
- a supportive and receptive host government, relatively corruption-free and leading the change
- sufficient resources to ensure public security and to isolate insurgents and spoilers
- primacy of political objectives—civilian leadership and military subordination to a capable civil authority
- population respect for, and confidence in, the security forces of intervening states
- a genuine local and international commitment to governance and the rule of law
- effective mechanisms for population protection
- early and effective communications and information strategies
- a coordinated national development plan.

It is likely that the international community’s experience in Iraq and Afghanistan will curb the appetite of many countries for nation-building interventions in the near future. Ambition may have run well ahead of capability in these interventions, and mistakes made are likely to result in justifiable caution in future expeditionary endeavors. While it is not impossible to achieve success in such situations, the costs are significant and may be disproportionate to the benefits without a clear understanding of the context, the task, and a capacity to apply the right tools to the right problems. Nation-building in hostile environments is a highly complex and political undertaking that is both resource- and timeintensive. The relearning of this long-known but ultimately forgotten lesson by the international community in Iraq and Afghanistan has been an unforgiving process. Yet much wisdom has emerged from recent experience and care should be taken to catalogue and institutionalize these civil-military lessons.

Future Interventions for Australia

The prognosis for effective nation-building interventions by Australia in the future is not clear. For major conflicts such as Afghanistan, the time horizons seem ridiculously short for nation-building to be effective, and contributions by Australia (while important in Oruzgan Province) will have minimal impact on Afghanistan’s overall nation-building outcome. In tough economic times, and acknowledging that the conflict has become increasingly unpopular among the populations of some coalition countries, the strategic focus has shifted to limiting public expectations of success and contemplating withdrawal timelines. Current NATO strategy does not represent a consolidated plan for building the nation-state of Afghanistan. Australia must honor its commitment in Afghanistan, but equally it needs to consider and plan its future approach to nation-building beyond Afghanistan, and the priority of nation-building as a component in national security strategy. Post-Afghanistan, the priority for Australia’s nation-building efforts should concentrate on the archipelagic and maritime environment of its immediate region, incorporating strategically important countries in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Rather than focusing on responses to conflicts and natural disasters, priority should be given to strategies for conflict prevention and disaster risk reduction. Comprehensive civil-military nationbuilding strategies will be required over the long term, with an emphasis on identifying opportunities to strengthen physical security, economic development, governance, and the rule of law. This is a mammoth task, but, compared with many other continents and regions, it should be possible to reduce the current level of fragility and to contribute to a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful region. Such an approach will require Australia to work closely with host governments and multilateral agencies, and to harmonize expectations and programs into less stovepiped and more coherent nation-building strategies. Through these efforts, and by working to achieve a careful and effective balance in emphasis between proactive nation-building strategies and the enduring traditional defense policies for conventional threats, Australia will enhance its own security and be respected as a regional middle power “punching to its weight.” Such a strategy, if implemented effectively, would make an important contribution to strengthening the Australia-U.S. alliance, and would be consistent with the U.S. goal of burden-sharing its global responsibilities, particularly as the balance of power between the United States and China continues to evolve. Optimizing peace and security in the important maritime environment of the Indian and Pacific Oceans proximate to Australia is an important contribution to global security. Australia is a small but respected middle power in the global context. Contributions to global peace, security, and development will be optimized through purposeful engagement with the United Nations and the Bretton Woods economic institutions. Increased multiagency engagement by Australia will contribute positively to the UN’s capacity and reform program, and enable Australia to learn important global lessons for potential application in regional nation-building strategies. For example, Australia has much to learn from Africa, the global epicenter of security and development case studies that dominate the UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding agenda.

Conclusion

Australia’s national security can be enhanced through proactive and long-term civil-military nation-building strategies based on conflict prevention and disaster risk reduction, principally focusing on Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. More work is required by policymakers if Australia’s immediate region is to be peaceful, prosperous, and secure. These efforts should be complemented by support to multinational agencies in the global arena—principally the United Nations and the World Bank Group. By contrast, nation-building efforts focused on stabilization and postconflict reconstruction, particularly in more distant locations, are likely to be more costly and less successful. Such interventions should be considered by exception. Australia’s experience in regional nationbuilding interventions has shown greater success than ventures farther afield. A national security strategy with increased emphasis on regional conflict prevention through coherent nation-building strategies will help strengthen Australia’s contribution to the Australia- U.S. alliance. This alliance is likely to remain the cornerstone of Australia’s security policy even as the balance of power continues to evolve in the Asia-Pacific region.

ENDNOTES
(1) Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3, 4.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Kevin Rudd, “The First National Security Statement to the Parliament: Address by the Prime Minister of Australia,” December 4, 2008. Kevin Rudd is currently Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
(5) Lowy Institute for International Policy, Advancing Innovative Development and Aid Strategies in the Asia- Pacific: Accelerating the Millennium Development Goals: Final Conference Report, July 2010, available at .
(6) The civil component is broad, including all nonmilitary functions such as policing.
(7) The quest for alliance burden-sharing commenced with President Richard Nixon’s Guam Doctrine in 1968. It has been estimated that by 2017 the annual interest payments on the U.S. national debt will exceed the defense budget.
(8) Peter Leahy, “Shifting Priorities in National Security: More Security Less Defence,” Security Challenges 6, no. 2 (Winter 2010). Retired Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, Officer of the Order of Australia, is a former Chief of the Australian Army and foundation Director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra.
(9) Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
(10) Patrick M. Cronin, “Barack Obama Faces 8 Global National Security Challenges,” U.S. News & World Report, December 15, 2008, available at .
(11) See Fund for Peace, Failed State Index, available at .
(12) Ibid. According to the Fund for Peace, Failed State Index, of 177 countries listed, 37 were in the “alert” (red) category, including Burma (16) and Timor-Leste (18). Regional countries in the “warning” (amber) category (from 38–129) included the Solomon Islands (43), the Philippines (51), Papua New Guinea (56), Indonesia (61), Fiji (74), Thailand (81), and Samoa (107). Not all smaller countries in the region were listed, such as Nauru and Tonga. A further 34 countries were included in the “moderate” (yellow) category, including Singapore and the United States. Only 13 countries were included in the “sustainable” (green) category, including Australia and New Zealand.
(13) See United Nations Comprehensive Review of the Whole Question of Peacekeeping Operations in All Their Aspects: Report of the Panel on UN Peacekeeping Operations, UN document A/55/305-S/2000/809, August 21, 2000, referred to as the “Brahimi Report.”
(14) This assessment is based on the draft “Concept Note” for WDR11, dated January 7, 2010.
(15) Nicola Dahrendorf, A Review of Peace Operations: A Case for Change (London: Kings College, March 2003).
(16) The International Crisis Group series of reports provides an account of, and important insights into, the crisis in Timor-Leste in 2006: International Crisis Group (ICG), Resolving Timor-Leste’s Crisis, Asia Report No. 120, October 10, 2006; ICG, Timor-Leste’s Parliamentary Elections, Asia Briefing No. 65, Dili/Brussels, June 13, 2007; ICG, Timor-Leste: Security Sector Reform, Asia Report No. 143, January 17, 2008; ICG, Timor-Leste’s Displacement Crisis, Asia Report No. 148, March 31, 2008; ICG, Timor-Leste: No Time for Complacency, Asia Briefing No. 87, Dili/Brussels, February 9, 2009; ICG, Handing Back Responsibility to Timor-Leste’s Police, Asia Report No. 180, December 3, 2009.
(17) Dennis C. Jett, “US Military Support for Troubled States: A Dangerous Doctrine Returns,” Christian Science Monitor, August 20, 2010.
(18) James Kunder, “The Politics of Complex Operations,” in Commanding Heights: Strategic Lessons from Complex Operations, ed. Michael Miklaucic (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, May 2010), 80.

Alliance Fatigue amid Asymmetrical Interdependence : Sino-North Korean Relations in Flux

2011-03-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Του Sukhee Han , Επίκουρου Καθηγητή Κινεζικών Σπουδών στο Πανεπιστήμιο Yonsei και διευθυντή του Κέντρου Κινεζικών Μελετών του East Asia Institute (http://www.eai.or.kr/english/index.asp) . Αναδημοσιεύεται από τη Korean Journal of Defense Analysis , Vol. XVI - No. 1 , Spring 2004 , Σελ. 155-179 .

Abstract : For more than four decades, China has been commonly recognized as North Korea’s closest patron—it has served as a conduit for communication between the major regional powers and the “Hermit Kingdom,” a political and diplomatic protector of the neighboring socialist brethren, and an indispensable source of economic support. But the more important strategic glue binding the two countries has been the “Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance” of 1961. However, since its reform and open-door policy in 1978, China has pursued a different set of strategies and directions for its national development, only to witness an ever-widening gap between its national interests and North Korea. The Sino-North Korean alliance has been redefined from a traditional alliance of “lips-to-teeth” to an alliance of asymmetrical interdependence. Unambiguous signs of future changes in their relationship include: China’s active and immediate diplomatic involvement in dealing with North Korea’s renewed nuclear threat since 2003; its unusually public academic arguments for the redefinition of the Sino-North Korean alliance; and its intentional redeployment of the People’s Liberation Army for sealing the Sino-North Korean border.

Introduction

For more than a half century China has been commonly recognized as North Korea’s closest patron state. China has served as a conduit for communication between the major regional powers and the “Hermit Kingdom,” a political and diplomatic protector of the neighboring socialist, yet beleaguered bre t h ren, and an indispensable economic supporter to that famine-stricken country. Recently, the significance of the bilateral relationship has taken on a new relevance as China’s role in the ongoing North Korean nuclear controversy has amply demonstrated. Underlying their so-called “lips-to-teeth” relationship has been the strategic glue of the July 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.(1) As a buttress of the bilateral military alliance, the treaty has confirmed the traditional strategic interd ependence— stipulating the strategic commitment to assist each other in case either one of them is engaged in active military conflict with another power or other powers. Although recent regional strategic settings as well as domestic conditions of both states have thus far been evolving remarkably away from those of the Cold War structure, the Sino-North Korean alliance has been sustained, leaving its terms and articles intact. However, beneath the surface of the nominal mutual obligations, Sino-North Korean relations have undergone significant changes in ideological, economic, and strategic aspects.(2) Since the beginning of Beijing’s reform and open-door policy in 1978, in particular, China has pursued a set of wide-ranging yet consistent objectives and strategies for its national development—only to witness an ever-widening gap between its national interests and those of North Korea. On the other hand, North Korea has largely maintained the autarchic economy and “ deterrence by instability.” In brief, North Korea is a failed state whose future is increasingly tied to its military muscle—especially its nuclear and missile capability—and to economic assistance and aid from the international community. Less clear, yet equally consequential, is the future evolution of China’s relationship with North Korea and its strategic implications for the region. This paper intends to shed some light on this important, yet little understood, relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang. After benefiting from the theoretical insights and historical analogies of their bilateral ties, it analyzes the major developments and emerging patterns that have largely defined their current ties. Finally, it addresses the future evolution of their relationship, which remains uncertain, uneasy and unpre dictable . The major arguments of this study are that the Sino-North Kore a n alliance is now experiencing its own “alliance fatigue,” mainly because of the decade-long asymmetrical interdependence between the two states. While it stands to reason that under the asymmetrical interd ependence China does hold a certain level of economic and diplomatic leverage over North Korea, it does not necessarily mean that China is willing to use its leverage, or that it wants to see the Pyongyang regime suffer from outside pressure—as North Korea retains strategic value to China’s security. Therefore, North Korea knows this and utilizes it to its own advantage. Finally, unless a catalyst arises that could drive their relationship toward hostility, it is far more likely that China would attempt to prolong this asymmetrical interdependence for a while, as it is conducive to its primary goal regarding the Korean Peninsula: namely, stability.

Theoretical Insights into the Beijing-Pyongyang Alliance

In the Cold War international structure, a state, regardless of its prowess and ideology, had to rely very much on either “internal balancing”— independent arms build-up—or “external balancing”—forming a formal alliance with outside power(s)—or both, to ensure its national survival and national interests .(3) Each option has relative costs and benefits. A state determines the best option based on a rational calculation directed toward the most cost-effective alternative. Given the Cold War circumstances, a state’s foreign policy and external relations tended to be determined by the course of the development of its relationship ( s ) with its allied state(s). In a world characterized by divisions based on ideology, values, and political systems, states had to cluster into camps, for they perceived a need to fit their states’ fate and direction of development on the basis of the same criteria. It is for this perception and judgment that an alliance was supposed to be—at least in theory— mutually beneficial, reciprocal, and equally-based in its operation.(4) However, the reality was that it was a cluster by consequential choices. That is, smaller and weaker nations had to seek a source of protection against a variety of forms of nemesis, with bigger and stronger states inducing strategically valuable states to their own cause for the struggle in the bipolar global structure. Against this background, the alliance relationships fostered during the Cold War were naturally shaped to form “patron-client” relationships. While the greater powers would fully support the smaller ones in economic and security areas, it was usually at the cost of their autonomy in the foreign policy decisionmaking process and, to a certain extent, their sovereignty. Alliances, however, are not permanent security mechanisms. Their fate is often subject to the changes occurring in both the domestic and international milieu of the patron and client states. In other words, an alliance is usually followed by adjustments when and if a significant change arises in their situation. This adjustment does not imply renunciation or nullification of the alliance relationship as long as the fundamental objectives and goals are perceived and shared by the states concerned. While the allied states may be bound by common goals and objectives, however, their relationship may not necessarily be so, because the client state’s strategic value in the patron’s strategic calculation may vary in accordance with changes in their situations. Under the circumstances, although the backbone of the alliance may remain unchanged, the relationships among allied states may sometimes seem to naturally drift apart or come together: an alliance is a symbol of a relationship, and a relationship entails realistic approaches toward its mechanism and operation.(5) Seen from the perspective of the alliance theory, the Sino-North Korean alliance has undergone a fundamental change in its nature and characteristics. Once described as “lips-to-teeth,” the alliance was much m o re balanced in terms of sustaining its purposes and objectives. To fend off the perceived military and security threat posed by South K o rea and its ally, the two countries formed a military alliance.(6) Depending on the view, however, there might be some confusion about which country is the “lips” to protect which country’s “teeth.” From the Chinese perspective, as the patron state and protector of the North, as demonstrated during the Korean War in the early 1950s, China is the lips protecting the teeth. From North Korea’s perspective, however, for its geostrategic location, it is the lips guarding the teeth of the Chinese as long as it remains a buffer zone for Chinese strategic interests .(7) Thus , the relationship between China and North Korea not only evolves a round the military pact they signed in 1961, but also has developed on rather mutually beneficial and reciprocal terms as shown in economic cooperation and trade, as well as in political and diplomatic realms . The economic and trade collaboration between the two nations was not conducted in the way it is today. As shown in Table 1, two-way trade in particular maintained a reciprocal trend .(8)
It was not until the early 1990s that North Korea became a unilateral recipient of Chinese aid and support in the form of the material needs for survival.(9) In the political realm, the number of mutual visits by leaders and their support for each other’s regimes has been remarkably well-balanced. The pattern of their visits, at least, shows a great degree of consistency in terms of reciprocity.(10) In the diplomatic area and international society, similar signs were easily detected in their mutual and reciprocal support for all the issues concerning each ally’s fate and national interests. Such support was clearly reflected in China’s voting behavior in particular(1 1) and North Korea’s support for China’s anti-imperialism and anti-hegemonism campaign efforts. In return, up until the early 1990s, China was in full support of North Korea’s foreign policy, including its policy toward South Korea, as well as its unification policy. On the other hand, the more or less balanced relationship between the two nations began to see an increasing tilt toward China, thereby transforming the structure into an asymmetrical one, particularly in their treatment of one another. Despite the fact that the backbone of the alliance is still maintained by the 1961 treaty, the alliance began to notice a transformation toward compliance with the end of the Cold War. With the rise of globalization, ever-deepening interdependence in the international economic realm, and increasing demand for cooperation in solving international conflicts, China adopted a policy to pursue the path of becoming a normal member of the international community, and became much more adaptive to such developments in world a ffairs. It was then in the early 1990s when China began to change its position with respect to handling its alliance relationship with North Korea . China’s intention first manifested itself in the political and diplomatic sphere. Beginning with its approval of the joint admission of South and North Korea to membership of the United Nations in September 1991, it subsequently fully supported the joint statement by the two Koreas on the “Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression and Exchanges and Cooperation between the South and the North” in December 1991 and the “Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” in January 1992.(12) A much more dramatic change in China’s position with regard to Korean Peninsula affairs was soon evident in its new assessment and evaluation of the American military presence on the Peninsula. It publicly stated that the U.S. military presence was beneficial and constructive to peace and stability on the Peninsula, for it prevents Japan from remilitarizing itself.(13) Thus, in political and diplomatic perspectives, the structure of the Sino-North Korea alliance lost its inherent balance. In a retrospective sense, it is now asymmetrical. An asymmetric trend began to surface in the economic realm due to a combination of factors, including the discontinuation of Soviet assistance, China’s reform policies, and a series of natural disasters in North Korea .(14) The failed recovery from the natural disasters apparently deepened North Korea’s dependence on China, and to some extent, on South Korea for assistance and humanitarian aid until the breakout of the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993–94. In the midst of the crisis, South Korea withdrew itself from supporting the North, leaving China to assume the sole “life- supporter” role. Despite its sporadic demands for repayment of loans and goods to be traded with hard currency,(15) China still remains the largest provider of grant-type aid to the North. In this respect, asymmetric interdependence in Sino-North Korean relations has become an established pattern of its own. However, whether their reciprocal military commitment still remains balanced, or shows a drift t oward asymmetry, requires further observation.

Historical Evolution of the Chinese-North Korean Military Alliance

In order to analyze the current status of the Sino-North Korean military alliance, it is necessary to carefully examine the vicissitude of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between China and North Korea, concluded in July 1961. For China, the major impetus for the conclusion of the treaty was its strategic interest in the K o rean Peninsula in general and in North Korea’s strategic importance in particular, especially when the future of Sino-Soviet relations was so uncertain. Traditionally, China perceived the Korean Peninsula as a strategic pivot that exerted direct influence over the security of China proper. In order to protect this security linchpin, China was involved in three military confrontations, including the Sino-Japanese Wars in 1592 and in 1895, and its military involvement in the Korean War against the perceived U.S. expansion in 1950.(16) Given that its sphere of influence was limited to the northern half of the Peninsula after the end of the Korean War in 1953, China’s policy toward North Korea had been shaped along with a variety of power politics competition and alignments among the United States, Russia, and Japan in regional politics, which was the major rationale for the conclusion of the Sino-North Korean treaty. The first motivation came from the U.S.-Japanese revision of their security treaty in 1960. Their major objective of the strategic binding was to further solidify their anticommunist military containment system in the Asian-Pacific region .(17) China, which regarded it as a serious security threat, struggled to reinforce its frontline security. Second, a series of disruptive events in South Korea, in particular the anti-government student uprising in April 1960 and Park Chung Hee’s military coup d’etat in May 1961, increased Chinese concern of potential instability and uncertainty on the Korean Peninsula. Third, a more important impetus was the growing Sino-Soviet rift, which Kim Il Sung managed to manipulate in the interests of North Korea’s security. In order to secure their strategic influence over North Korea, China and the Soviet Union had competed to provide economic and military resources and political support for the Kim Il Sung regime.(18) Hence the Chinese regarded this new treaty as an important instrument to counterbalance not only the assertive U.S. military presence in South Korea, but also the Soviet Union’s potential military ambitions in North Korea . In particular, Article II of the treaty serves as an important legal basis to bind China and North Korea as strategic allies: “The Contracting Parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to prevent aggression against either of the Contracting Parties by any state. In the event of one of the Contracting Parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other Contracting Party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal.”(19) The major source of the Sino-North Korean military alliance included an automatic military intervention clause to defend each other, just in case one of the contracting parties was subject to an armed attack by other state(s). Both China and North Korea committed themselves to immediate assistance by all means at their disposal, which was evaluated as “a more direct and categorical commitment” than that of the Soviet-North Korean treaty and that of the U.S.-South Korean treaty.(20) Over the years, however, the Chinese adjusted to new domestic and international conditions, and as a result the Sino-North Kore a n alliance lost its original strategic importance in the implementation of security commitment. The initial steps stemmed from China’s détente diplomacy. Given the definition of alliance as “a formal or informal relationship of security cooperation between two or more sovereign states,” it usually expects reciprocal support in disputes or wars with particular common adversaries.(21) Following the general tendencies of the alliance, China and North Korea also established their exclusive alliance against specific adversaries. As signified in the joint statement issued by Liu Shaoqi (Chairman of the People’s Republic of China) and Choe Yong Kun (President of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly) on June 23, 1963,(22) their common adversaries included Soviet “ revisionists,” U.S. “imperialists,” Japanese “militarists,” and South K o rean “fascists.”(23) Moreover, in contrast to North Korea’s pursuit of its reclusive “Hermit Kingdom,” China has embarked upon the so-called “normalization diplomacy” since the early 1970s—including the Sino-Japanese normalization in 1972, the Sino-U.S. normalization in 1979, the Sino- Soviet detente in the 1980s, and the Sino-South Korean normalization in 1992. Lacking common specific adversaries, China and North Korea faced growing difficulties and anomalies in maintaining the bilateral military alliance. Second, and more pertinently, the Sino-South Korean normalization was a serious challenge to the Sino-North Korean alliance. Article III of the Sino-North Korean alliance reads, “Neither Contracting Party shall conclude any alliance directed against the other Contracting Party or take part in any bloc or in any action or measure directed against the other Contracting Party. ”(24) Although the Sino-South Korean normalization was technically viewed as neither terminating the alliance nor forming a bloc against North Korea, China’s formation of diplomatic relations with an adversary of its ally, South Korea, could be tantamount to Chinese negligence in respecting the Sino-North Korean alliance .(25) Furthermore, China’s strategic shift from the traditional “ one - K orea” policy to a “two-Korea” policy provided China with a higher bargaining position vis-à-vis North Korea—which enabled China to exercise stronger influence in dealing with North-South dialogue, North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship, and the potential Korean unification process . At the same time, however, the Sino-North Korean alliance still remains as a legal basis and a political symbol for the continuity of the bilateral relationship. Two explanations can be put forward for the longevity of the bilateral treaty. First, it is neither easy nor simple for China to revise or abolish the treaty. According to Article VII of the Sino-North Korean treaty,(26) China cannot legally revise or terminate the treaty without prior mutual agreement. As a matter of fact, the Sino- North Korean treaty was signed five days after the conclusion of the Soviet-North Korean treaty of 1961. Given the growing intensity of the Sino-Soviet rift, China was under severe security pressure when it signed the treaty, and for this reason China apparently hastened to integrate North Korea to its side by securing a more compelling clause in the treaty. China’s successful insertion of the “amendment by mutual agreement” clause in the treaty enabled China to promote a greater sense of permanency and stability in its military relations with North Korea . Four decades later, however, China and North Korea’s attitudes toward the treaty have been completely reversed. China no longer struggles to hold onto North Korea, referring to the amendment only by mutual agreement clause, while North Korea, taking advantage of the clause, strived to consolidate the traditional legal binding between China and itself.(27) Second, given North Korea’s current situation including its sagging economy, its international isolation, and its internal rigidity, China’s revision or abolition of the existing Sino-North Korean alliance would trigger or even precipitate North Korea’s implosion or explosion— which could in turn undermine China’s pursuit of the peaceful and stable regional environment necessary to its national goal of economic development .(28) In particular, without any viable alternative to escape from its plight, North Korea cannot but cling to the nuclear development program. Similarly, considering China’s unique position to influence or persuade North Korea to continue the nuclear negotiation process, China’s severance or at least modification of the bilateral alliance would also undermine its diplomatic leverage vis-à-vis North Korea, which would make Northeast Asian security increasingly uncertain .(29) To summarize, the Sino-North Korean alliance is still legally valid, leaving its terms and regulations unchanged. But in terms of its actual implementation and operation, China’s attitude toward North Korea has changed remarkably compared with the past. China’s new emphasis on national development and its ensuing projection of modernization diplomacy has significantly reduced the shared range of bilateral common interests. As the gap in their national interests has widened, North Korea has turned out to be more of a strategic burden than a strategic buffer to protect China’s security. From this perspective, the Sino-North Korean relationship is no longer bound by a military alliance conducive to mutual security, but an alliance of asymmetrical intedependence .

Analyzing North Korea’s Growing Dependence and Its Leverage

The major reason why North Korea increasingly depends on China’s patronage is the instability of its regime. Three factors should be considered in explaining North Korea’s structural problems. The first factor is the end of the Cold War. Since the early 1990s, the worldwide collapse of the socialist states, including the Soviet Union and a number of Eastern European states, proved the invalidity of the socialist systems in the age of globalization, economic prowess, and interdependence. As a staunch socialist regime, North Korea has faced a formidable external threat to its regime survival. Second, adhering to the anachronistic self-reliance on the basis of juche ideology, North Korea has pursued a reclusive and isolationist foreign policy. Fearing the possible destabilizing effect that external influences can have on regime stability, North Korea has remained a “Hermit Kingdom,” refusing to open up in a meaningful way to the international community. North Korea’s refusal to join the world trend of globalization has left it further isolated from the mainstream international community.(30) Third, and the most determining, factor is North Korea’s chronic economic plight. Repeated failures in its economic development programs, coupled with a series of natural calamities since the mid-1990s have pushed the North Korean economy toward virtual collapse. Hund reds of thousands, if not millions, of North Korean civilians have died of starvation as a result. Foreign trade has declined precipitously and the country’s gross domestic product has recorded negative growth each year throughout the 1990s.(31) In addition, tens of thousands of North Korea’s hungry refugees crossed the Sino-North Korean border in search for food. Given the gravity of starvation and economic degradation, North Korea’s economic quandary has been so severe as to pose a major threat to the North’s regime stability.(32) To overcome the economic impasse and to sustain the regime , North Korea, unlike most other transitional states, relied instead on atypical measures—nuclear programs and China’s economic aid— rather than on a self-serving economic development program. Since the end of the Cold War, China has provided over 20 percent of the food and over 70 percent of fuel that North Korea needs as a form of aid.(33) Although international humanitarian aid was temporarily delivered to relieve the nationwide famine during the mid-1990s, when natural calamities wreaked havoc upon the North, China’s economic aid has consistently served as a major source of supply for the survival of North Korea’s citizens. In fact, Beijing’s grant for aid was designed to reduce the flow of North Korea’s refugees to China’s northeastern region, to delay a potential regime collapse in Pyongyang, and to enhance China’s voice for introducing a Chinese-style reform process and open-door policy to North Korea’s moribund regime .(34) Therefore , North Korea’s growing dependence on China’s aid should be translated as China’s growing leverage vis-à-vis North Korea. Reviewing North Korea’s international behavior, on the other hand, North Korea’s geographical importance in China’s security consideration still left North Korea not completely powerless in the Sino-North Kore a n alliance of asymmetrical interdependence .(35) Regardless of China’s wishes, the North Korean regime has maintained relatively independent foreign policies. The major source of the North’s recalcitrant behavior was its clear understanding of China’s rationale for rendering aid to North Korea. China’s aid policy toward North Korea largely stemmed from its self-interest: maintaining regional peace and stability for its economic development. Thus, the last scenario that China wants to be faced with is North Korean regime - collapse, whether in the form of an implosion or explosion. China has struggled to extend the longevity of the Pyongyang regime in the short term, while continuously recommending that the North regime embark upon a comprehensive and substantial reform and open-door policy in the long-term. Nevertheless, China’s support has been irrelevant in shaping North Korea’s international behavior. Taking advantage of its strategic position, North Korea has continued to pursue its own program for survival without serious consideration of Chinese wishes. North Korea’s relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons is in clear opposition to China’s interests. China has long emphasized a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. In fact, China has recommended and encouraged North Korea to undertake pragmatic economic reform and implement an open-door policy as the only alternative to escape from its perennial economic predicaments .(36) Contrary to China’s advice, however, North Korea has continued its nuclear development programs and used them as a medium to ensure its regime survival. But North Korea’s nuclear diplomacy cannot succeed without China’s diplomatic, political and economic patronage . More often than not, North Korea has practiced diplomatic brinkmanship in its negotiations with the regional powers, which is a dangerous tactic to begin with. Since North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship is not a real suicidal measure, but a high-pitched rhetoric bordering on “deterrence by instability” for securing a stronger negotiating position, North Korea must depend on China for its own security fro m unwanted sanctions or military confrontations .(37) For example, when North Korea declared its intention to withdraw from the IAEA and the NPT in March 1993, the United States considered imposing sanctions on North Korea. But this strategy could not be implemented, because they believed that China would not be cooperative in imposing sanctions on North Korea in the UN Security Counc i l .(38) As a result, China’s threat of a veto on any draft sanctions resolution in the Security Council enabled Pyongyang to arrange bilateral negotiations with the United States. A series of high-level talks between the two states in New York and Geneva culminated in the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework on Oct. 21, 1994.(39) As witnessed in the 1994 Agreed Framework, the security of North Korea and its success of nuclear diplomacy were all dependent upon the role of China. Although the North’s security is still heavily dependent on China, the North Korean regime’s continued pursuit of nuclear brinkmanship, instead of China’s preferred option of economic reform, is seriously undermining the alliance.

Future Evolution of the Asymmetrical Interdependence

Recently, Pyongyang’s growing dependence on Beijing for its economic and political survival has served as an emotional breeding ground for mutual distrust and resentment. Tired of North Korea ’ s incessant requests for economic aid, its diehard pursuit of nuclear weapons, and its continuing inflows of refugees, China has seriously considered redefining Sino-North Korean relations .(40) The unexpected revival of Pyongyang’s nuclear blackmail in October 2002 was one of the most serious developments to annoy China. Although China demonstrated its continued diplomatic support for North Korea by arranging the Three-Party Talks in March 2003 and the Six-Party Dialogue in August 2003 and argued for the peaceful resolution of the North’s nuclear issue, Beijing was covertly expressing its annoyance over North Korea’s continued refusal to adhere to its advice by manipulating North Korea in an assertive manner. China’s initial change of attitude toward North Korea was evident in its management of the renewed North Korean nuclear issue. In dealing with the 2003 North Korean nuclear crisis, Hu Jintao, the newlyinaugurated leader of China, reportedly sent three dignitaries to Pyongyang as messengers,(41) conveying his three suggestions for future guidelines. First, North Korea should exert efforts to launch self-supporting economic development. Second, North Korea’s reform and open-door policy should be modeled after the Chinese experience. Third, North Korea should improve its relations with regional states by halting its development program for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) .(42) Beijing’s blunt and clear message to Pyongyang is said to have prompted North Korea’s participation in the Six-Party Dialogue in August 2003. China’s active involvement in the 2003 nuclear issue was a far cry from its behavior in 1993–94, when it was reluctant to engage in nuclear negotiations. China’s changed North Korea policy was reflective of not only the growing emotional cleavages in the Sino-North Korean traditional alliance, but also China’s growing strategic leverage in the Sino-North Korean alliance of asymmetrical interdependence . More unequivocal signs of China’s alienation from North Kore a came to the frontline of public debates in Chinese academic circles. As You Ji analyzed in his article, the Chinese government strictly restrained the public debates on North Korea - related issues, including the North Korean refugee problem, Korean unification prospects, and Sino-North Korean relations .(43) From this perspective, two Chinese academics’ unusual comments on Sino-North Korean relations are worthy of note. Shi Inhong of Renmin University—while claiming that China’s involvement in the Korean War in 1950 exerted only political, military, and economic disadvantages to China—insisted that China should not get involved in potential military confrontations between the United States and North Korea .(44) Echoing his position, Shen Jiru, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and Politics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), argued that Article 2 of the 1961 Sino-North Korean treaty, signing the mutual automatic intervention commitment, should be deleted from the treaty. He emphasized that China’s resolute message of no military assistance would preclude North Korea from the potential miscalculation of waging a war on the Peninsula.(45) Considering China’s unique system of social operation, their arguments serve as valuable insights to assume that its attitude toward North Korea is moving in a direction, largely unfavorable to Kim Jong- Il’s regime. Reflecting You Ji’s analysis, government officials and scholars have to control their comments to foreigners on sensitive issues, in particular North Korean issues. Most Chinese government officials and scholars tend to be reluctant to comment on North Korean issues, and if they do comment, their opinions should be in accordance with the official lines on the issue. Reviewing the background of Shi and Shen, a plausible assumption of the close relationship between their personal comments and tacit changes in the government’s position toward North Korea is even more vindicated. Although a professor of Renmin University, Professor Shi’s opinion is well-known in Chinese academia to be very conducive to China’s official position. As a researcher at the government sponsored research institute, Shen’s publication would have passed the government censorship before the publication. Another sign of China’s uncomfortable relationship with North Korea was its “reported” deployment of a part of its Shenyang military troops to the border between China and North Korea .(46) In response to China’s redeployment of its troops near North Korea, a variety of interpretations of the Chinese move proliferated in the media. Some arg u e d that China’s action was an indication of its pressure on the North’s regime to give up its nuclear development; while others claim that the major objective of China’s action was limited to the management of the ever- growing flood of North Korean refugees; and yet others insist that this is not only for the purpose of stopping North Korean refugees from crossing the border, but also for preventing them from committing crimes in the northeast border area of China.(47) Although Beijing officially denied the various reasons offered by the international media, it however at least confirmed that China’s military has replaced the armed police in the region. Regardless of the specific reasons, China’s unusual military redeployment, especially during a sensitive time and in a sensitive region, underscores the fact that the Sino-North Korean alliance has been undergoing dramatic changes.(48) Analyzing the Sino-North Korean relationship is always a challenging task. As socialist brethrens, both China and North Korea, at least in principle, still pursue the benefits of preventing outflows of information. Although China, aware of the sensitivity of the issue, has consistently struggled to conceal its policy toward North Korea, the decades-long divergence between China’s pragmatic pursuit of national development and North Korea’s erratic moves toward the “great leap backward” has created a political, economic, and cultural cleavage too wide to keep the Sino-North Korean alliance intact. The new bilateral adjustment, following the end of the Cold War, has resulted in an alliance of asymmetrical interdependence. Retaining its strategic value to China’s goal of peace and stability in the region, North Korea has steadily yet surely increased its political, economic, and security dependence on China. China, in fear of a potential collapse of the North Korean regime, has admitted to providing political, economic, and diplomatic aid to North Korea, even without enhancing its leverage over the moribund dynasty. Even with limited leverage, China has consistently recommended to North Korea that it introduce a program for national development— amounting, to some extent, to a program for survival following the Chinese model of reform and open-door policy. However, China’s patient hospitality has frequently been reciprocated with blatant annoyance. Despite China’s declared opposition, North Korea has even tenaciously pursued its nuclear development programs. For North Korea, the nuclear development program is a means not only for securing regime survival but also for providing economic resources. Therefore, the North regime believes that there is no alternative to the pursuit of nuclear procurement, regardless of China’s wishes. Given the situation of a cul-de-sac, the only way for China to support the North’s regime survival and persuade Pyongyang to forfeit its nuclear development program, is to deliver a warning to the North that China is implementing a more hard-line policy. From this perspective, it seems that China’s recent behavior reflects its internal perceptional changes of North Korea. China’s active and immediate diplomatic involvement in dealing with North Korea’ s renewed nuclear threat of 2003, its unusually public academic arguments for redefining the Sino-North Korean alliance, and its deliberate redeployment of the People’s Liberation Army for the purpose of sealing the Sino-North Korean border, can be interpreted as unambiguous signs of future changes in their relationship. It is entirely possible that the current Sino-North Korean alliance relationship will continue to evolve and develop within the context of asymmetrical interdependence. But the context itself is also undergoing change. This, in short, constitutes China’s longer-term strategic dilemma regarding the North Korean question.

ENDNOTES :
(1) For a full text of the treaty in English, see Appendix at the end of this paper.
The source of the appendix is Peking Review, Vol. 4, No. 28 (July 1961), p. 5. For
a detailed background of the conclusion of the treaty, see Chae-Jin Lee, C h i n a
and Korea: Dynamic Relations (Stanford, CA: Hoover Press, 1996), pp. 55–68.
(2) For a recent analysis of the Sino-North Korean relationship, see You Ji, “China
and North Korea: a Fragile Relationship of Strategic Convenience,” Journal of
Contemporary China, Vol. 10, No. 28 (2001), pp. 387–98.
(3) For an in-depth theoretical analysis of the alliance, see G. H. Snyder, “Alliance
Theory: A Neo-realist First Cut,” Journal of International Affairs, No. 44 (1990),
pp. 104–105.
(4) As for the requirements for the formation of the alliance, see Jonathan D. Pollack
and Young Koo Cha, A New Alliance: for the Next Century (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 1995), p. 11.
(5) Regarding the qualitative changes in the alliance among the allies on the basis
of costs and benefits, see Snyder, “Alliance Theory: A Neo-realist First Cut,”
pp. 109–110.
(6) Eric A. McVadon, “China’s Goals and Strategies for the Korean Peninsula,” in
Henry D. Sokolsky, ed., Planning for a Peaceful Korea (Carlisle: Strategic Studies
Institute, 2001), pp. 131–36.
(7) Interviews with Chinese international relations experts and scholars, December
2 0 0 2 .
(8) In the past, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s when the Chinese economy
was devastated by successive bad economic policies during its experiences
with the Great Leap Forward Movement and Cultural Revolution, North
Korea “proved to be an important trade partner (to China).” Hong Yung Lee,
“China’s Changing Relationship with North Korea,” in Doug Joon Kim, ed.,
Foreign Relations of North Korea: During Kim Il Sung’s Last Days (Seoul: The Sejong Institute, 1994), p. 277.
(9) According to a Korean scholar’s finding, while North Korea received both
grants (US$ 330.6 million) and credit assistance (US$ 172.5 million) from China in
the 1950s, in the 1960s North Korea did not receive grants but credit assistance
of US$ 105 million from China. See Cheon-ki Eun, North Korea’s Foreign Policy
toward China and the Soviet Union (Seoul: Namji Press Company, 1994), p. 164,
Table 5–1.
(10) For a detailed list of reciprocal visits by the leaders, delegations, and military
personnel of China and North Korea from 1949 to 1985, see the Appendix in
Eun, Cheon-ki, North Korea’s Foreign Policy on China and the Soviet Union ( S e o u l :
Namji Press Company, 1994), pp. 307–35.
(11) For the first time, on Feb. 13, 2003 when the general meeting of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was held to vote on a resolution on
North Korea’s nuclear crisis for the United Nations Security Council, China did not abstain nor veto, and voted for the resolution. Moonhwa Ilbo [Moonhwa
Daily], Feb.13, 2003. However, in 1993 during the course of the first North
Korean nuclear crisis, China did not support sanctions against North Korea
and it consequently prevented the United States from taking North Korea
noncompliance to the United Nations Security Council for action. Alvin Y. So,
“Prospects for North Korea-China Relations,” Asia Perspective, Vol. 25, No. 2
(2001), p. 55; Victor D. Cha, “Engaging China: Seoul-Beijing Detente and Korean
Security,” S u r v i v a l, Vol. 41, No. 1 (1999), fn. 3, p. 93. For China’s consistent verbal
support for North Korea during the first nuclear crisis in 1993-94, see
Yongho Kim, “Forty Years of the Sino-North Korean Alliance: Beijing’s Declining
Credibility and Pyongyang’s Bandwagonning with Washington,” Issues &
S t u d i e s, Vol. 37, No. 2 (March/April, 2001), p. 166, Table 4.
(12) Dong Sung Kim, “North Korea’s China Policy,” in Yang Seong Chul and Kang Sung Hak, eds., North Korea’s Foreign Policy (Seoul: Seoul Press, 1995), p. 248.
(13) Such views are now shared by both American and Chinese observers of the
Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian affairs. See, for examples, Fei-Ling
Wang, “Tacit Acceptance and Watchful Eyes: Beijing’s Views about the U.S.-
ROK Alliance,” Monograph (Carlise: Strategic Studies Institute, 1997), pp. 4-5
and pp. 8–12; Fei-Ling Wang, “China and Korean Unification: A Policy of Status
Quo,” Korea and World Affairs, Vol. 22. No. 2 (1998), pp. 189–190; Eric A.
McVadon, “China’s Goals and Strategies for the Korean Peninsula,” pp. 170–
172 and 183–185.
(14) Chinese assistance and aid to North Korea throughout the 1990s ranged from
crude oil, rice, fertilizer, food, and coal. For details, please refer to Larry M.
Wortzel, “China’s Goals and Strategies for the Korean Peninsula: A Critical
Assessment,” Planning for a Peaceful Korea, pp. 217–19.
(15) One salient example was China’s demand for conditional payment of 25 percent
for its total supply of grain, crude oil, and coal in hard currency, which
was made in July 1996. China insisted on payment, and warned that it would
cut off the supply of goods. Maeil Shinmun, July 18, 1996.
(16) Hong Yung Lee, “China and the Two Koreas: New Emerging Triangle,” in
Young Whan Kihl, ed., Korea and the World: Beyond the Cold War (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1994), pp. 97–98.
(17) For a brief background explanation of the 1960 U.S.-Japanese treaty, see Akira
Iriye, China and Japan in the Global Setting (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1992), pp. 113–15.
(18) Regarding the Sino-Soviet Disputes, see John W Garver, Foreign Relations of the
People’s Republic of China (Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993), pp. 32–69. For a
detailed analysis of the Sino-Soviet disputes and its impact on North Korea,
see Chin O. Chung, Pyongyang between Peking and Moscow: North Korea’s
Involvement in the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1958–1975 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of
Alabama Press, 1978). Hong Yung Lee ascribed the major rationale for the
conclusion of the Sino-North Korea treaty to the Sino-Soviet rift. See his “Chin
and the Two Koreas: New Emerging Triangle,” p. 99.
(19) See the Appendix.
(20) See Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations, p. 59.
(21) For the definition of alliance, see Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 1, footnote 1; Snyder, “Alliance
Theory: A Neo-realist First Cut,” pp. 103–123.
(22) The statement says, “In order to foster the forces of Japanese militarism and
turn them into a ‘shock brigade’ for its aggression in Asia, U.S. imperialism is
pressing for an early conclusion of the ‘ROK-Japan talks’ and knocking together
an aggressive Northeast Asia military alliance. . .. The U.S. imperialists are
incessantly carrying out criminal schemes in southern Korea to provoke a new
war and thereby aggravate the tension, and are intensifying their barbarous
fascist suppression of the people there.” See the text of the joint statement in
Peking Review, June 28, 1963, pp. 8–12.
(23) See Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations, p. 61.
(24) See the Appendix for treaty text.
(25) For a detailed analysis of Beijing’s decision to normalize relations with South
Korea and its impact on Sino-North Korean relations, see Samuel S. Kim, “The
Making of China’s Korea Policy in the Era of Reform,” in David M. Lampton,
ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform ( Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), pp. 371–408.
(26) Article VII says, “The present Treaty will remain in force until the Contracting
Parties agree on its amendment or termination.” See Appendix in this paper.
(27) See Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations, p. 60.
(28) From this perspective, the Korean Peninsula is categorized as the core problem
(hexin wenti) in China’s foreign policy community. See Song Dexing, “Lengzhan
hou Dongbeiya anquan xingshe de bianhua [Changes in the Northeast Asian
Security Situation after the Cold War],” Xiandai guoji guanxi [Contemporary
International Relations], No. 9 (1998), p. 35.
(29) For a detailed analysis of China’s North Korean policy, see David Shambaugh,
“China and the Korean Peninsula: Playing for the Long Term,” The Washington
Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Spring 2003), pp. 43–56.
(30) For an insightful analysis of North Korea’s domestic predicaments, see Kongdan
Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea through the Looking Glass ( Washington ,
DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000).
(31) For a statistical analysis of Sino-North Korean trade, see Samuel S. Kim and
Tai Hwan Lee, “Chinese-North Korea Relations: Managing Asymmetrical
Interdependence,” pp. 124–28.
(32) For a comprehensive research study on North Korea’s post-Cold War economic
situation , see Nicholas Eberstadt, “Famine, Economy and Society in North
Korea,” in Samuel S. Kim, ed., North Korean System in the Post-Cold War Era
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
(33) See JoongAng Ilbo [Korea’s Central Daily], Dec. 26, 2001; and The Economist, Dec.
5, 2002.
(34) Scott Snyder, “North Korea’s Challenge of Regime Survival: Internal Problems
and Implications for the Future,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Winter 2000/
2001), pp. 529–31.
(35) Regarding the inefficiency of China’s leverage over North Korea, see John
Tkacik, “China’s Korea Conundrum,” Asian Wall Street Journal, Dec. 2, 2002;
Philip Pan, “China Treads Carefully around North Korea,” Washington Post,
Jan. 10, 2003; Jasper Becker, “China’s Influence is Limited,” International Herald
Tribune, Jan.10, 2003.
(36) Shambaugh classified the priority of China’s policy calculus toward North
Korea and first two are North Korea’s regime survival and North Korea’s
regime reform. It is very interesting that he puts the issue of North Korea’s
comprehensive WMD programs at the bottom, see David Shambaugh, “China
and the Korean Peninsula: Playing for the Long Term,” pp. 44–45.
(37) For recent research on North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship, see Michael
O’Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki, “Toward a Grand Bargain with North
Korea,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Autumn 2003), pp. 7–18.
(38) For a detailed analysis of North Korea’s nuclear deals in the early and mid
1990s, see Leon V. Sigal, Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North
Korea (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 150–55.
(39) For the 1994 Agreed Framework, see Leon V. Sigal, “How to End the North
Korean Missile Threat,” in Chung-in Moon, Masao Okonogi, and Mitchell B.
Reiss, eds., The Perry Report, the Missile Quagmire, and the North Korean Question:
The Quest for New Alternatives (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2000), pp. 25–36.
(40) An interview with a Korea expert in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
July 10–11, 2003.
(41) Three messengers include Wang Yi and Dai Bingguo, deputy ministers of
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Xu Caihou, Secretary of PLA’s Commissions
for Discipline.
(42) JoongAng Ilbo (in subscription of CNN), Aug. 26, 2003. One impetus for Hu’s
attitudinal change toward North Korea is attributed to the generational
changes in the Chinese leadership. With no personal bondage with North
Korea’s Kim Jung-il, Hu is freer than his predecessors in dealing with North
Korea. For China’s generational transition, see Joseph Fewsmith, “China’s Generational Transition,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Autumn
2002), pp. 23–35.
(43) You Ji pointed out the government restriction that Chinese officials should not
comment on North Korean affairs in the presence of foreigners, see You Ji,
“China and North Korea: A Fragile Relationship of Strategic Convenience,”
pp. 389–90.
(44) Shi emphasized that China’s military intervention in the Korean War in 1950
hardly contributed to China’s subsequent development, not only in terms of
economy, but also in terms of national unification. He ascribed both China’s
economic predicaments during the late 1950s and its delayed unification with
Taiwan to China’s relentless involvement in the Korean War. For his comment
on North Korea, see his interview in South China Morning Post, Aug. 27, 2003.
(45) Shen argues that the North Korean nuclear crisis should be resolved by peaceful
measures. In his article, Shen emphasizes that the amendment of the Sino-
North Korean treaty contributes to the peaceful resolution of the crisis and
also urges that South Korea and Japan should dissuade the United States from
using military force against North Korea. See Shen Jiru, “youhu dongbeiya
anquande danwuzhiwei: zhizhi chaohewentishangde weixianboyi [Urgent
Mission to maintain Northeast Asian Security: Control the risk from North
Korean nuclear brinkmanship], Xhijiejingji yu Zhengzhi [World Economy and
Politics] No. 9 (2003), pp. 53–58.
(46) The Economist, Sept. 18, 2003.
(47) Washington Post, Sept. 16, 2003; JoongAng Ilbo, Sept. 16, 2003; and Daily Telegraph, Sept. 16, 2003.
(48) New York Times, Sept. 16, 2003.

APPENDIX

Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China and the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, determined, in accordance with Marxism-Leninism and the principle of proletarian internationalism and on the basis of mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and mutual assistance and support, to make every e ffort to further strengthen and develop the fraternal relations of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to jointly guard the security of the two peoples, and to safeguard and consolidate the peace of Asia and the world, and deeply convinced that the development and strengthening of the relations of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance between the two countries accord not only with the fundamental interests of the two peoples but also with the interests of the peoples all over the world, have decided for this purpose to conclude the present Treaty and appointed as their respective plenipotentiaries : The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China: Chou En-lai, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. The Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: Kim Il Sung, Premier of the Cabinet of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , Who, having examined each other’s full powers and found them in good and due form, have agreed upon the following:

Article I : The Contracting Parties will continue to make every effort to safeguard the peace of Asia and the world and the security of all peoples.
Article II : The Contracting Parties undertake jointly to adopt all measures to p revent aggression against either of the Contracting Parties by any state. In the event of one of the Contracting Parties being subjected to the armed attack by any state or several states jointly and thus being involved in a state of war, the other Contracting Party shall immediately render military and other assistance by all means at its disposal.
Article III : Neither Contracting Party shall conclude any alliance directed against the other Contracting Party or take part in any bloc or in any action or measure directed against the other Contracting Party.
Article IV : The Contracting Parties will continue to consult with each other on all important international questions of common interest to the two countries .
Article V : The Contracting Parties, on the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and in the spirit of friendly co-operation, will continue to render each other every possible economic and technical aid in the cause of socialist construction of the two countries and will continue to consolidate and develop economic, cultural, and scientific and technical co-operation between the two countries.
Article VI : The Contracting Parties hold that the unification of Korea must be realized along peaceful and democratic lines and that such a solution accords exactly with the national interests of the Korean people and the aim of preserving peace in the Far East.
Article VII : The present Treaty is subject to ratification and shall come into force on the day of exchange of instruments of ratification, which will take place in Pyongyang. The present Treaty will remain in force until the Contracting Parties agree on its amendment or termination. Done in duplicate in Peking on the eleventh day of July, nineteen sixty-one, in the Chinese and Korean languages, both texts being equally authentic .
(Signed) CHOU EN-LAI , Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China
(Signed) KIM IL SUNG , Plenipotentiary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

The Jewish People as the Classic Diaspora: A Political Analysis

2011-03-10T00:25:00.000-08:00

Του Daniel J. Elazar (1934–1999) , καθηγητή στο Πανεπιστήμιο Bar-Ilan του Ισραήλ .

There is little doubt that the Jewish people represents the classic diaspora phenomenon of all time. Indeed, it seems that the term "diaspora" itself originated to describe the Jewish condition.¹ The Jewish diaspora has existed for at least 2,600 years and, if certain local traditions are accurate, perhaps even longer. It has existed alongside a functioning Jewish state and, for almost precisely 2,000 years, without any state recognized as politically independent. Moreover, for 1,500 years the Jewish people existed without an effective political center in their national territory, that is to say, exclusively as a diaspora community, so much so that the institutions of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel were themselves modeled after those of the diaspora and the Jews functioned as a diaspora community within their own land.² Nevertheless, the Jewish people not only preserved their integrity as an ethnoreligious community, but continued to function as a polity throughout their long history through the various conditions of state and diaspora.

Approaching the Jewish Diaspora

Most analyses of diaspora phenomena focus on the diaspora group as a sociological category, whether it is considered an ethnic group, a religious group, or both. Political analyses of this sociological phenomenon will go a step further to examine the impact of this sociological category on the host societies in which the diaspora group finds itself. These are certainly important dimensions of the diaspora experience for Jews as well as for every other group. Jewish self-preservation through religious and cultural differentiation and endogamy are without doubt worthy of examination from a sociological perspective. For example, the way in which the Jews as a diaspora community created a way of life of their own, involving a calendar of daily specificity which established a separate rhythm of Jewish life, setting them apart from their neighbors, is worthy of the closest study. In a parallel way, it is possible to study the nature of Jewish exclusion from Christian and Muslim societies through a combination of anti-Jewish attitudes and measures on the one hand, and the mutually acceptable principle that the Jews were a nation in exile and hence deserving of corporate autonomy, on the other.

A focus on either of these, however, would be essentially historical, since both have undergone great changes in the modern epoch and to the extent that they survive at all, survive only as remnants in the postmodern epoch. Thus, while halakhah (Jewish law) still specifies a completely separate rhythm of life for Jews, no more than five percent of Jews in the diaspora today live so fully in accordance with that rhythm that they separate themselves from the society around them, and perhaps another 10 percent live sufficiently according to that rhythm to be considered fully part of it. Other Jews are touched by that rhythm to varying degrees depending on the extent of their connection to Jewish life. In every case it is a voluntary matter since with the rise of the modern nation-state, the notion of the Jews as a separate nation in exile was abandoned, first by the state builders and then by most diaspora Jews as they accepted the terms of emancipation.³ Similarly, the anti-Jewish attitudes of Christians and Muslims which developed in an age when religion was at the center of life, were transformed into modern anti-Semitism.⁴ The latter remains a factor in shaping the Jewish diaspora, certainly one that is high in the consciousness of Jews everywhere. It substantially diminished as an active force in the aftermath of the Holocaust and is only now beginning to reappear in certain circles as a legitimate form of expression.

It would be more useful to examine the role of the Jews as an ethnoreligious community within the societies of which they are a part. In most of these societies they play the role of a catalytic minority, making a contribution far in excess of their percentage of the total population, in a variety of fields, especially those at the cutting edge of social activity.⁵

One marked characteristic of the Jews as a group in their relationship with the rest of the world is their strong tendency to gravitate to the center of whatever universal communications network exists at any particular time and place. According to the best opinion of the historians of the ancient world the first Jews, symbolized by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were already involved as nomads in the trading patterns of the Fertile Crescent. Their settlement in Canaan put them at the very center of that network with its two anchors in Egypt and Mesopotamia.⁶ Subsequent generations of Jews have continued that tradition. Thus Jews have always gravitated to the capital cities of the world, and have been able to make their influence, as individuals and as a group, felt disproportionately. Not only that, Jews have always been involved in communication-related enterprises; whether communicating religious ideas, as in their earliest history -- ultimately to half of mankind -- or in radio, motion pictures, and television in the twentieth century, communicating new lifestyles worldwide.

This phenomenon has left the Jews exposed as well as influential, and Jews have paid the price for that exposure. In other words, Jews have played a very dangerous game as a small group of extraordinary importance and centrality in world affairs. As such, they have generated both strong positive and negative images and expectations, which have led to periodic efforts to cultivate them and equally frequent attacks upon them -- outbreaks of persecution which have at the very least culminated in expulsion and at the worst, in massacres and the Holocaust.

As a result of these pushes and pulls, the Jewish diaspora is different from other diasporas except, perhaps, the Gypsies, because it has been a diaspora in constant movement.

The conventional view of Jewish history is that of shifting centers of Jewish life, so that the Jews themselves have the self-image of a people on the move. These constant migrations were, on the one hand, disrupting, but, on the other, they offered the Jews as a group opportunities to renew life and to adapt to new conditions. In other words, they served the same purpose as Frederick Jackson Turner and his school have suggested that the land frontier served in the history of the United States -- enabling life repeatedly to begin anew, willy-nilly if not by choice (and it was a mixture of both, since Jews often chose to migrate to new areas and were not simply forced to do so), which offered new opportunities for adaptation and change.⁷

At the same time, the constant migrations generated a religious culture based upon time rather than space, upon the shared expressions of a common temporal rhythm rather than rootedness in a common land.⁸ Every civilization must somehow combine the spatial and the temporal; it must be located geohistorically. Particularly in premodern times, most emphasized the spatial over the temporal, existing and functioning because of deep-rootedness to a particular land and relatively unaware of the changes wrought by time. The accelerated pace of change since the opening of the modern epoch, and even somewhat before, has made people aware of time and its passage in ways that did not obtain earlier.⁹ For most, however, the emphasis on space over time has remained, transformed by the rise of the modern state with its emphasis on territoriality and sovereignty within particular territories as the guiding principle in the organization of civilization.

The Jews remained the anomaly in all this. Not having a functioning territorial state of their own and not even being concentrated in a particular territory, the Jews emphasized the temporal and organized time in the service of Jewish survival and self-expression. Halakhah (literally, the way) emphasizes the organization of time, the rhythm of its passage and the obligations of Jews to sanctify those rhythms -- in daily prayers and study, the weekly Sabbath, and through holy days, festivals, and celebrations at representative seasons.

On the other hand, the Jews were not unconcerned about space -- that would have made them unidimensional. The Land of Israel remained a vitally important space for them, one to which they expected to be restored at the right time and in which they sought to maintain organized Jewish life at all times, through regular reinforcements from the diaspora even when things were at their worst.¹⁰ Ultimately, modern Jews took matters into their own hands rather than wait for the restoration only in messianic times. Through the Zionist movement they reestablished first an autonomous Jewish community and then a Jewish state in the Land.¹¹

Despite the success of Zionism, for two-thirds of world Jewry the State of Israel still remains "over there." They are devoted to it, but do not seek to make it the state of their citizenship or residence. So, just as moderns transformed the premodern commitment to space over time into a more modern commitment through the modern state system so did modern Jews or, more accurately, postmodern Jews, transform the particular Jewish relationship between time and space formed in premodern times into a more contemporary expression of the same.

This new relationship is at the heart of the new forms of Jewish diaspora political expression vis-a-vis the external world. Working on behalf of Israel has become a principal expression of Jewishness in the postmodern epoch whose secular character has served to diminish further the religious dimension of Jewish identification.¹² The existence of Israel has stimulated a sense of political efficacy among diaspora Jews as well as among those in the Jewish state, which not only manifests itself in Jewish lobbies for Israel but also in Jewish political self-assertion in other matters which Jews perceive as affecting the Jewish people as a group.

The definition of what Jews see as affecting them as a group can also be examined extensively. In the latter half of the modern epoch, Jewish self-interest came to be considered almost totally coincident with liberalism and even left-liberalism, since the liberals and the left were the principal advocates of Jewish emancipation while the conservatives and the right, in their support for the ancien regime, implicitly if not explicitly denied Jews full entry into the larger society.¹³ Certainly by the latter half of the nineteenth century the vast majority of all Jews, traditional or modern, accepted the liberal outlook if only because they had no other choice. This convergence of interest was so great that Jews came to believe that it had always been so, whereas, in fact, in premodern times the interests of diaspora Jews converged at least as frequently -- and usually more -- with the conservatives and guardians of the status quo as with those seeking change, often at Jewish expense.

This overwhelming Jewish identification with liberalism had a latent functional utility in providing a unifying ideology for Jews at a time when traditional Jewish society was breaking down and Jews were losing the traditional bonds which had united them. The reestablishment of the Jewish state and the shifting goals of left-liberalism have led to the gradual breakdown of that automatic convergence, at the same time as the Jews found another rallying point around which to coalesce. Today, faithfulness to liberalism is no longer a requisite for the maintenance of common Jewish ties in the diaspora. Israel now serves that purpose, even for those who may be critical of the policies of a particular Israeli government.

Viewing the Jewish People as a Polity

These lines of analysis can be pursued and deserve to be. The remainder of this chapter, however, will focus upon the Jewish people as a polity, especially as seen from the inside.

The suggestion that it is possible to talk about a world Jewish polity is based upon a combination of factors. In part, it rests upon the persistence of the sense of common fate among Jews all over the world, the sense of which was reactivated as a result of the events of this century. This sense has led to concrete efforts to work together to influence the shape of that fate wherever Jews have settled, particularly whenever they have required the assistance of their brethren. This, in turn, has led to the development of institutionalized frameworks for cooperation in a variety of contexts, in our times increasingly revolving around the State of Israel for self-evident reasons.

Finally, the entire effort has acquired a certain legitimacy in the eyes of Jews and non-Jews alike as a result of the emerging redefinition of what constitutes the proper context for political linkage and action, namely, the recognition--in the Western world, at least -- that there are other forms of political relationship than those embraced within the nation-state, that polity is a far more complex condition than statehood, and that it can involve multiple relationships, not all of which are territorially based. In many respects, this represents a rediscovery of what had been an accepted phenomenon in the Western world until the modern era.

In short, we are beginning to recognize that all polities are not states. The Greeks, as usual, had a word for it. The Hellenistic world coined the term politeuma to describe phenomena such as the worldwide Jewish polity of that age in which Jews simultaneously maintained strong political links, including citizenship, with their respective territorial polities, the Hellenistic cities, and with one another across lands and seas.

A Historical Survey

Jewish tradition has it that the Jews were born as a diaspora people, although a central aspect of their birth was identification with the land which became known to them as Eretz Israel -- the Land of Israel. According to the Bible, the first Jew was Abraham, son of Terah, who was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, located in southern Mesopotamia near the Persian Gulf, and migrated with his family to Haran, now in northern Syria. On God's instructions, Abraham migrated to the land of Canaan (now Israel) which he subsequently left briefly because of a famine, but to which he soon returned.

Of Abraham's immediate descendants, only his son Isaac never left Canaan. His grandson Jacob (renamed Israel) sojourned for 20 years in Aram (now Syria) as a young man, returned to the land, and then spent his final days in Egypt. Abraham's great-grandson, Joseph, was forcibly taken to Egypt but remained there, later bringing his whole family which expanded from an extended family into a league of tribes while in Egypt.

The B'nai Israel (Children of Israel or Jacob) left Egypt as a people in a dramatic exodus led by a charismatic figure, Moses. In the course of the immediate exodus, Moses, as God's spokesman, established the basis for citizenship, promulgated a common law for the tribes immediately following the passage through the waters, and organized a full-blown polity at the foot of Sinai within seven weeks, through a national covenant and the introduction of a more regularized judicial structure and political organization.¹⁴ Whether the traditional account is historically accurate is far less important than what that account teaches us about the origins of the Jewish people and how it has shaped the Jews' self-perception over at least three and perhaps closer to four millennia. As a people who perceives itself to have been born in exile, as it were, diaspora is not an abnormal condition even if it is not a desired one. The people's political, social, and religious institutions were, from the first, organized so that they were portable and did not need to be attached to the national soil in order to function.

No doubt as a consequence of these experiences, the basic form of Jewish organization was designed to accommodate migration as well as concentration in a national state. Since the beginning of political science, all political theory has converged on one or another of three basic forms of political founding, organization, and development: hierarchical, organic, and covenantal.¹⁵ Hierarchical forms, which usually are the result of some initial conquest leading to the establishment of a political order, require a high concentration of power within a power pyramid, a more or less orderly structure, with a clear chain of command. Hierarchical forms are particularly useful for the governance of peoples concentrated within a single structure and clearly subject to the authority of those who dominate it. This kind of government went against the grain of Jewish political culture from earliest times, even when the Jews were concentrated in one land. Once they were scattered, and without any state whatsoever, this form of political organization was utterly impractical.

The organic form presumes a gradual and continuous development of political institutions serving a population rooted in one place, into a political system which can continue to function as long as the population is so rooted, but which once detached no longer has the wherewithal to survive. Obviously for the Jews this was equally impractical.

The covenantal form of political organization emerges out of agreements among equals, or at least equals for the purposes of the agreement, to form partnerships for purposes of political organization. It does not presuppose a territory, a clear chain of command, or organic development in a particular place. On the contrary, it is flexible in form, it can be territorial or aterritorial as the case may be, and it is capable of binding people who cannot be bound by force or by custom because they are not bound to a particular territory.

The Jewish people opted for the covenantal form no later than the exodus from Egypt and so organized themselves during their formative generation in the desert. Granted, the tribes themselves had an organic dimension in the sense that the members of each claimed to be descended from a common ancestor. In that sense, the Jewish people has always tried to combine kinship and consent, the organic with the covenantal dimension, to secure its unity.¹⁶ As a result, the Jews have been able to function as an ethnic group based upon primordial ties of kinship, a religious group based upon acceptance of the responsibilities of the Jewish religion, and a polity which rests upon the combination of both kinship and consent.

Over the centuries the Jews have refined this form of polity building. After the founding covenant at Sinai, the Israelite tribes renewed that covenant in the plains of Moab just before entering the land and then renewed it again at Shekhem under Joshua at the time of the conquest of Canaan.¹⁷ When Israel changed its regime to add a king to the tribal federation, the first strictly national-political covenant was made between the tribes and David.¹⁸ Much later, after David's kingdom had been divided and the northern kingdom conquered by Assyria, the regime was reconstituted under King Hezekiah through another covenant.¹⁹ When the exiles returned from Babylonia after the first diaspora, they covenanted once again to reestablish the state of Judea within the framework of the Persian Empire.²⁰ Finally, in the last reconstitution of the Jewish polity within the Land of Israel until our own times, Simon the Hasmonean reconstituted an independent Jewish state through a covenant with the representatives of the people and the other institutions of the community.²¹

Subsequent to the exile, when it was no longer possible to use covenants in state building, they were transformed into instruments for community building with any ten men able to constitute themselves as a community and as a court of law within the context of the Torah through an appropriate covenant.²² Finally, in our own times the reestablishment of the State of Israel rested on a series of covenants, culminating in the Declaration of Independence, referred to in Hebrew as the "Scroll of Independence," which was accepted, witnessed, and signed by a wall-to-wall coalition of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel at the time as at least a quasi-covenantal document, and has been so treated by the courts.²³

Beyond the fact of communal survival, consent has remained the essential basis for the shaping of the Jewish polity. Jews in different localities consented (and consent) together to form congregations and communities -- the terms are often used synonymously.²⁴ They did (and do) this formally through articles of agreement, charters, covenants, and constitutions. The traditional Sephardi term for such articles of congregational-communal agreement, askamot (articles of agreement), conveys this meaning exactly. The local communities were (and are) then bound by further consensual arrangements, ranging from formal federations to the tacit recognition of a particular halakhic authority, shtadlan, or supralocal body as authoritative.²⁵ When conditions were propitious, the de facto confederation of Jewish communities extended to wherever Jews lived. When this level of political existence was impossible, the binding force of Jewish law served to keep the federal bonds from being severed.

Thus, over the course of many centuries a very distinctive kind of polity has developed as the organized expression of Jewish communal life. While it has undergone many permutations and adaptations, an unbroken thread of institutions and ideas has run through the entire course of Jewish political life to give the Jewish people meaningful continuity.

It is important to emphasize this covenantal device, because of the way in which it made possible organized Jewish life in the diaspora beyond the merely religious sphere. Covenanting was only one of a range of complementary devices developed by the Jewish people to maintain their collective integrity even in the diaspora, with or without a center in the Land of Israel. In premodern times, when the Jewish community was all-embracing, whether in the state or the diaspora, these devices formed a framework within which all or virtually all Jews functioned. After the autonomous Jewish community had given way to the integration of individual Jews into the states in which they lived, this framework had to be readapted to a voluntaristic situation in which it provided a core, or magnet, around which those Jews who wished to could coalesce -- rather than a framework embracing Jews whether they wanted to be included or not.²⁶ But the basic instruments have survived the transition and continue to offer the opportunity to do so under these new circumstances.

In sum, the Jewish people has the distinction of being the longest-lasting and most widespread "organization" in the history of the world. Its closest rival to that title is the Catholic church. Curiously -- and perhaps significantly -- the two are organized on radically opposed principles. The Catholic church is built on hierarchical principles from first to last and gains its survival power by their careful and intelligent manipulation.²⁷ The Jewish people is organized on covenantal or federal (from the Latin foedus, i.e., covenant) principles from first to last and enhances its survival power by applying them almost instinctively in changing situations. The contrasting characteristics of these two modes of organization are intrinsically worthy of political and social investigation. So, too, is the role of the Jewish polity in the development and extension of federal principles, institutions, and processes.²⁸

Heterogeneity of the Jewish Diaspora

Sometime in the thirteenth century B.C.E. the Israelite tribes crossed the Jordan into Canaan and began an unbroken period in what was renamed Eretz Israel. For seven and a half centuries the Jews remained concentrated in their land under independent governments of their own. This is the classic period of Jewish history as described in the Bible. During that period there may have been temporary settlements of Jews outside of the country and there are traditions of permanent Jewish settlements in such places as Yemen, although there is no corroborative evidence of this. But, in fact, ninety-nine percent of the Jewish people were located in the Land of Israel.

In 721-22 B.C.E. the northern kingdom, comprising 10 of the 12 original tribes, was conquered by Assyria and a major if undetermined portion of its population exiled to other parts of the Assyrian Empire, apparently in northern Mesopotamia. Popular legend has it that these exiles disappeared by assimilating into the local populations but there are traditions among the Jews of northern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan that they are descended from those exiles. Some historians hypothesize that at least a segment later merged with the subsequent infusions of the Jews from Judea who were exiled from their country after the conquest of the southern kingdom by the neo-Babylonians in the first decades of the sixth century B.C.E.²⁹

Whether this was the first diaspora or not, it is clear that the recognized Jewish diaspora begins with the Babylonian captivity. It was then that organized communities of Jewish exiles were established in Babylonia and Egypt. They quickly developed institutions to accommodate their corporate needs in the diaspora, including the Bet Knesset which has come to be known to us in its Greek translation as the synagogue and which, in fact, means house of assembly, a kind of town hall, where Jews could undertake all their public functions, especially governance, study, and worship. Indeed the Hebrew term knesset (assembly) comes from the Aramaic kanishta which in turn is a translation of edah, the original Hebrew term describing the Jewish polity, the assembly or congregation of the entire people. Hence, the bet knesset was a miniature version of that larger assembly -- one which could be established anywhere.³⁰ Thus the framework established over 2,500 years ago has remained the basic framework for diaspora Jewish organization ever since.

It should be noted that the bet knesset is a product of the Babylonian exile; Jews who left Eretz Israel for Egypt tried to develop another framework around a temple constructed as a surrogate for that in Jerusalem, a system which required territorial permanence and did not gain acceptance outside of Egypt.³¹ Even there it was replaced by the Babylonian system some 400 years later, precisely because of the portability of the bet knesset and the possibility of establishing synagogues wherever ten Jewish men gathered.

Seventy years after the destruction of Jerusalem in 537 B.C.E., Cyrus the Great conquered the neo-Babylonian Empire and, following his policy of the conciliation of minority peoples through the granting of cultural autonomy, allowed the Jews to return to Judea to rebuild their Temple. In fact, only a relatively small number of Jews chose to do so and while they and subsequent migrations, culminating in the great reconstitution of Ezra and Nehemiah approximately a century later, did succeed in reestablishing Eretz Israel as the center of Jewish life, a large diaspora community remained in Babylonia and, indeed, under Persian rule, spread throughout the Persian Empire. It was paralleled by a somewhat smaller but still significant diaspora in Egypt which spread into other parts of northern Africa, Cyprus, and Asia Minor.

For the next millennium the Jewish people were organized in a point-counterpoint arrangement. The Jewish concentration in the Land claimed and usually exercised hegemony within the Jewish polity, but with a substantial population, perhaps consistently a majority, scattered in diaspora communities throughout the civilized world at that time. Until its destruction in 70 C.E., the Temple in Jerusalem served as the focal point for both, with the Temple tax uniting Jews in the land and outside of it.

The principal institutions of the edah -- the Jewish people as a whole -- were located on the Temple Mount. New institutional arrangements were developed to provide representation for diaspora Jewry in those institutions, the first of which was known as the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah (men of the great assembly) which later gave way to a successor institution, the Sanhedrin, which is a corruption of the Hebrew corruption of the Greek term for assembly. But given the problems of transportation and communication in that period, there were difficulties in providing diaspora Jews continuous access and representation in those common institutions.³²

In the diaspora itself two patterns developed, each a response to the particular host civilization in which Jews found themselves. In most of western Asia, where the Persians and their successors ruled, the Jews tended to be concentrated in particular areas and could organize their public life on a quasi-territorial basis, with regional as well as local institutions. Out of this evolved the "Babylonian" Jewish community, which was concentrated in what is today the heartland of Mesopotamia. By the second century C.E. it had an extensive political structure headed by a resh galuta (exilarch) whose powers were those of a protected king -- for Jews a constitutional monarch who was recognized as being a descendant of the House of David. The resh galuta shared his powers with two great yeshivot (another Hebrew term for assembly) which had custody of the teaching and interpretation of the Torah. Together these institutions governed the collectivity of local Jewish communities within the empire.³³ This framework persisted until the eleventh century, even after the seventh-century Arab conquest which transformed the language, culture, and religion of western Asia. Until the fifth century C.E., it was at least formally subordinate to the equivalent polity in Eretz Israel which had a similar structure, but after the elimination of that polity the resh galuta and the yeshivot extended their control over virtually the entire Jewish world.

This was facilitated by the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries that brought over 95 percent of all Jews under the rule of the Muslim caliphate, which empowered the resh galuta and the yeshivot to represent the Jewish community as their predecessors had. It was only with the breakup of the original Muslim empire and the development of independent successor states that the Jews lost this common, well-nigh worldwide diaspora structure.³⁴

Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean world, where Hellenistic civilization held sway and first the Greek and then the Roman empires provided a common political structure, the Jews were concentrated in cities. (The exception here was Egypt, which also had a wider territorial concentration for several centuries). There they formed a part of the polis organization developed for each city as part of its Hellenization after the Alexandrian conquests of the fourth century B.C.E.

It was in those cities that Jews formed autonomous communities within each polis, for which the Greek term politeuma was invented. Each of the politeumata represented a separate structure with connections to Jerusalem but with no formal linkages between one another. Thus the Jewish communities in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds were far more fragmented. The institutions within each politeuma were based on Jewish models influenced by Greek practices and often bearing Greek names, but each was autonomous even when the Jews had citizenship within the polis itself.³⁵ Most of these politeumata were destroyed during the uprising of the Hellenistic diaspora against the Romans in the years 115-117 C.E. The communities reconstituted subsequent to that event had more limited rights. It was only after the Arab conquest that regional organizations of communities were established in those countries linked to the resh galuta and yeshivot in Babylonia, which was also the seat of the caliphate.

Both forms of diaspora organization were linked to Jerusalem when an independent Jewish state was reborn in the middle of the second century B.C.E. That state survived for less than a century, then went through a period of upheavals for the next 200 years until the failure of the Bar Kokhba rebellion (132-135 C.E.) led the Jews to abandon major efforts to rebel against Rome and rather reconstitute themselves along the model of the diaspora communities within their own land. The nesiut (patriarchate) and Sanhedrin which formed the new structure of the community of Eretz Israel also functioned as prima inter parus in the governance and religious leadership of the Jewish people, until those institutions were abolished in the middle of the fifth century, after which Jewish communal organization in Eretz Israel became even more diaspora-like in character, undergoing changes under different rulers from then until the reestablishment of the Jewish state in 1948 some 1,500 years later.³⁶

Thus the diaspora became the moving force in Jewish life. For 600 years the Babylonian center predominated. In the eleventh century there was increased Jewish migration to both southern and northern Europe which led to the transfer of power to the Jewish centers in Spain and, to a lesser extent, northern France and the Rhineland. The Iberian Peninsula and west central Europe remained the centers of Jewish life until the fifteenth century, when expulsions on the one hand, and attractive offers of refuge on the other, led the Jews from both centers to move back eastward: Iberian Jewry forming new concentrations in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the Balkans, and central European Jewry concentrating in Poland. These two regions remained the principal centers of Jewish life until the nineteenth century.³⁷

At first, Spanish Jewry -- the Sephardim -- followed the Babylonian pattern of regional organization, with local communities subordinate to the regional leadership. Under Christian rule, the local communities rose to predominance and the regional organization was limited to confederal arrangements. That pattern was later preserved in the Ottoman Empire where every congregation was autonomous and even within the same city congregations were often no more than confederated. The Jews of west central Europe -- the Ashkenazim -- developed local autonomy from the first, with loose leagues or confederations of communities providing whatever unification there was. But once they moved eastward to Poland they formed regional structures culminating in the Vaad Arba Aratzot (Council of the Four Lands), a fully-articulated federation of the Jewish communities of Poland, and its parallels in Lithuania, Bohemia, and Moravia.

Worldwide, the Jewish people lost any common political structure after the middle of the eleventh century but remained tied together by a common constitutional-legal system (the halakhah), which was kept dynamic by a system of rabbinic decision-making that was communicated to Jews wherever they happened to be through an elaborate network of responsa -- formal written questions posed to leading Jewish legal authorities which produced formal written responses that came to constitute a body of case law. This was possible because 1,500 years earlier, at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Jews had developed a legal system parallel to their political structure which translated the original constitutional materials of the Torah into an elaborate edifice designed to enable every Jew to conduct his entire life within the framework of Jewish law, no matter where he happened to reside.³⁸

The legal system that emerged became, in effect, a portable state. The halakhah's avowed purpose was to transform each individual Jew into a person concerned with holiness. Hence it was not designed with a political purpose in the usual sense; yet this very concern for individual and collective holiness in a larger sense became a political end which served to provide a basis for the unity of Jewry, even in exile, as long as there was a general commitment to this end or at the very least to living under Jewish law as distinct from any other law.

While it is clear that not every Jew had the same commitment to holiness as an ultimate end, or to the particular path to holiness developed by the halakhah, in the centuries immediately following the destruction of the Temple this legal system gained normative status among Jews so that even those who were not highly motivated by its ultimate goals but who wanted to stay within the framework of the Jewish community felt the necessity to conform. Because of its attention to minute detail, every aspect of life, public and private, civil and criminal, religious and "secular" (a category which did not exist within the Jewish vocabulary), the halakhah was able to become all-embracing. The political structures developed by the Jews to conduct their public affairs were authorized by the halakhah and rooted in it, and a major task of Jewish communities was to enforce halakhic regulations.

The opening of the modern epoch in the middle of the seventeenth century slowly eroded this comprehensive framework, in waves rolling from west to east. Jewish autonomy was the first casualty in western Europe as the new nation-states dismantled medieval corporatism, a system which had protected Jewish communal separatism. At first, Jews became people without civic status in the new states and without the possibility of maintaining their own states within the state. This led them to demand emancipation and citizenship as individuals, which they ultimately gained after a struggle sometimes taking two centuries.³⁹ Finally, in the nineteenth century, the elimination of Jewish autonomy and then emancipation moved eastward to engulf the major concentrations of Jews in eastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, although it was not until the twentieth century that emancipation was completed in either region.⁴⁰

While these changes were taking shape, a two-pronged demographic shift of great importance began. In the first place, the live birth and survival rate among Jews rose rapidly, causing the number of Jews in the world to soar. In the second, the Jews began to migrate at an accelerating pace to the lands on the Western world's great frontier: the Western hemisphere, southern Africa, and Australia in particular, but also in smaller numbers to East Asia, thus initiating a shift in the balance of Jewish settlement in the world.⁴¹

Medieval corporatism never gained a foothold in the New World and the Jews who migrated to those lands entered into their host societies as individuals.⁴² Hence all Jewish life was voluntary in character from the first.

While the majority of Jews readily abandoned communal separatism for the advantages of modern society, only a minority were ready to give up fully their Jewish ties in return. Most wanted to find some way to remain within the Jewish fold even while participating as individuals in the civil societies in which they found themselves or to which they migrated. Hence they were faced with the task of adapting Jewish institutions to a new kind of diaspora existence.

Once again the great flexibility of covenantal institutions proved itself. The Jews transformed their kehillot (communities) into voluntary structures. In the Western world, where pluralism was tolerated principally in the religious sphere, the Jews transformed the bet knesset into the synagogue as we know it, whose manifest purposes were avowedly religious and whose central functions revolved around public worship, but which was able to embrace within it the various ethnic, social, educational, and welfare functions which the Jewish community sought to preserve, principally on a supplementary basis.

In eastern Europe, where modernization frequently meant secularization, new forms of Jewish association developed, primarily cultural and political, utilizing similar principles and, with the exception of the public worship dimension which was absent from them, devoted to the same ethnic, social, educational, and welfare purposes, only on a more extensive basis because Jews remained nationally separate in that part of the world. By and large, Jews in the Arab world followed the Western pattern when they began to modernize, but within a framework in which their separate ethnic identity was clearly recognized by one and all, and in which they preserved a certain legal authority over the community members by virtue of their continued control of personal status laws involving marriage, divorce, and inheritance.⁴³

Nevertheless, the new voluntarism did make it very difficult, if not impossible, to provide a comprehensive framework for the maintenance of Jewish culture and civilization. It rapidly became clear that the open society would lead to the assimilation of many of the most talented members of the Jewish community who saw greater opportunities outside of the Jewish fold. It was in response to this as well as to anti-Semitism that the Jewish national movement developed, which made as its goal the restoration of Jewish statehood in Eretz Israel. This movement, known as Zionism, was initially organized on the same covenantal principles as every other such Jewish endeavor, developing first through local societies and then, in a massive leap forward represented by the First Zionist Congress in 1897, through the World Zionist Organization established at that congress. In 50 years the WZO succeeded in bringing about the establishment of a Jewish state.⁴⁴

Zionism from the first embodied two conflicting goals. There were those who were Zionists because, while they wanted the Jewish people to survive, they wanted them to become normalized like other nations. They believed that if the Jewish people or some substantial segment of them were to return to their own land, they could live like the French, the Italians, the Czechs, the Poles, etc. The other trend in the Zionist movement regarded Zionism as a means of restoring the vitality of Jewish civilization, which would retain its uniqueness but be better able to survive under modern conditions by being rooted in a land and state where Jews formed a majority.

The first approach more or less negated the continued existence of a diaspora once a Jewish state was established. According to it, those Jews who wanted to remain Jews would settle in the state where they would live increasingly normalized lives, interacting with the rest of the world as nationals of any state interact with nationals of any other. The rest of the Jews would assimilate as individuals into their countries of residence, no longer needing to preserve their Jewishness. Many of those who embraced the second view also wished to negate the diaspora in the sense that they wanted all Jews to settle in Israel. But they did not see diaspora existence as impossible per se. Rather, the Jewish state could become the focal point of the renewed Jewish people, whether living in the state or in the diaspora.⁴⁵

Reality forced the issue. The state was established; even after an initial mass migration of Jews from Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, only about 20 percent of the Jewish people were concentrated within it (the figure is now one-third). Moreover, despite assimilatory tendencies, the great bulk of the Jews outside the state showed every inclination of wanting to remain Jews. Consequently, a new interplay between state and diaspora began to emerge. In this, the second generation since the establishment of the state, it is still evolving.⁴⁶

The Contemporary Situation

World War II marked the culmination of all the trends and tendencies of the modern era and the end of the era itself for all mankind. (The dates 1945-1948 encompass the benchmark of the transition from the modern to the postmodern era.) For the Jewish people, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel provided the decisive events that marked the crossing into the postmodern world. In the process, the focus of Jewish life shifted and virtually every organized Jewish community was reconstituted in some way.

Central to the reconstitution was the reestablishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Israel. The restoration of a politically independent Jewish state created a new focus of Jewish energy and concern precisely at the moment when the older foci had almost ceased to attract a majority of Jews. As the 1967 and subsequent crises demonstrated decisively, Israel was not simply another Jewish community in the constellation but the center of the world for Jews.

The Jewry that greeted the new state was no longer an expanding one which was gaining population even in the face of the attrition of intermarriage and assimilation. On the contrary, it was a decimated one (even worse, for decimated means the loss of one in ten, whereas the Jews lost one in three); a Jewry whose very physical survival had been in grave jeopardy and whose rate of loss from defections came close to equaling its birth-rate. Moreover, the traditional strongholds of Jewish communal life in Europe (which were also areas with a high Jewish reproduction rate) were those that had been wiped out.

At the end of the 1940s, the centers of Jewish life had shifted decisively away from Europe to Israel and North America. By then, continental Europe as a whole ranked behind Latin America, North Africa, and Great Britain as a force in Jewish life. In fact, its Jews were almost entirely dependent upon financial and technical assistance from the United States and Israel. Except for those in the Muslim countries that were soon virtually to disappear, the major functioning Jewish communities had all become sufficiently large to be significant factors on the Jewish scene only within the previous two generations. Indeed, the shapers of those communities were still alive, and in many cases were still the actual community leaders. The Jewish world had been thrown back willy-nilly to a pioneering stage.

This new epoch is still in its early years, into its second generation; hence its character is still in its formative stages. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 the Jewish polity began a constitutional change of revolutionary proportions, inaugurating a new epoch in Jewish constitutional history. For the first time in almost two millennia, the majority of the Jewish people were presented with the opportunity to attain citizenship in their own state. Indeed, Israel's very first law (Hok Hashevut -- the Law of Return) specified that citizenship would be granted to any Jew-qua-Jew wishing to live within the country. In fact, the Law of Return is more complex than that. In an effort to show the Nazis that the Jewish people survived after all, the Knesset adopted many of the standards for defining who is a Jew included in the Nuremburg laws. At the same time, to accommodate Jewish tradition, the law provides for non-Jews to be converted to Judaism, presumably in a halakhic manner, although that is not exactly specified in the law, in order to qualify. Finally, the Israel Supreme Court has held (the Brother Daniel case is the leading decision) that a person will not be recognized as a Jew if he has converted or embraced another religion, although that is equivocal from a halakhic point of view. Jewish sensibilities including the sensibilities of traditional Jews have always accepted that limitation.

The reestablishment of a Jewish state has restored a sense of political involvement among Jews and shaped a new institutional framework within which the business of the Jewish people is conducted.

The virtual disappearance of the remaining legal or even social or cultural barriers to individual free choice in all but a handful of countries has made free association the dominant characteristic of Jewish life in the postmodern era. Consequently, the first task of each Jewish community has been to learn to deal with the particular local manifestation of this freedom.

The new voluntarism extends itself into the internal life of the Jewish community as well, generating pluralism even in previously free but relatively homogeneous community structures. This pluralism is increased by the breakdown of the traditional reasons for being Jewish and the rise of new incentives for Jewish association. At the same time, the possibilities for organizing a pluralistic Jewish community have also been enhanced by these new incentives. What has emerged is a matrix of institutions and individuals linked through a unique communications network; a set of interacting institutions which, while preserving their own structural integrity and filling their own functional roles, are informed by shared patterns of culture, activated by a shared system of organization, and governed by shared leadership cadres.

The character of the matrix which has emerged and its communications network varies from community to community. In some communities, the network is connected through a common center which serves as the major (but rarely, if ever, the exclusive) channel for communication. In others, the network forms a matrix without any center, with the lines of communication crisscrossing in all directions. In all cases, the boundaries of the community are revealed only when the pattern of the network is uncovered and this in turn happens only when both of its components are revealed--namely, its institutions and organizations with their respective roles and the way in which communications are passed between them.

The pattern itself is inevitably a dynamic one. That is to say, there is rarely a fixed division of authority and influence but, rather, one that varies from time to time and usually from issue to issue, with different elements in the matrix taking on different "loads" at different times and relative to different issues. Since the community is a voluntary one, persuasion rather than compulsion, influence rather than power, are the only tools available for making and executing policies. This, too, works to strengthen its character as a communications network since the character, quality, and relevance of what is communicated and the way in which it is communicated frequently determine the extent of the authority and influence of the parties.

The structure of the contemporary Jewish polity is that of a network of single and multipurpose functional authorities, no single one of which encompasses the entire gamut of Jewish political interests, although several have attempted to do so in specific areas:

"national institutions" -- e.g., Jewish Agency, World Zionist Organization, Jewish National Fund;
multicountry associations -- e.g., ORT, World Jewish Congress;
educational institutions defined as under the auspices of the entire Jewish people -- e.g., the universities in Israel;
organizations under more specific local sponsorship whose defined sphere of activity is multicountry -- e.g., the Joint Distribution Committee.

Another way of grouping the multicountry associations is by their principal goals। Here are the broad categories, with prominent examples for each.

The political associations listed here as "general" are those concerned with the status of the Jewish people as a whole; in this they are both outer-directed to the non-Jewish world and inner-directed to the Jewish community. Although defacto the Israeli government can largely preempt political activity on the world scene if it chooses (other Jewish bodies normally acquiesce if Israel wants to do so), it has not explicitly claimed to act as the diplomatic agent for the Jewish people beyond its borders. This leaves some room for diplomatic activity by the Jewish nongovernmental organizations, especially where Israel is not represented or is particularly limited in its access.⁴⁷

Jewish Communities in the New Epoch

Jews are known to reside in 135 countries, 97 of which have been permanent organized communities.⁴⁸ At least three and perhaps as many as twelve others are remnant communities where a handful of Jews have custody of the few institutions that have survived in the wake of the emigration of the majority of the Jewish population. Fourteen more are transient communities where American or Israeli Jews temporarily stationed in some Asian or African country create such basic Jewish institutions (e.g., religious services, schools) as they need. Only 21 countries with known Jewish residents have no organized Jewish life. Some 94 percent of all Jews reside in ten countries. In 1993, the largest communities were:

United States - 5.6 million
Israel - 4.2 million
France - 530,000
Russia - 415,000
Canada - 365,000
Ukraine - 276,000
United Kingdom - 298,000
Argentina - 211,000
Brazil - 100,000
South Africa - 100,000
Australia - 90,000

In the late 1940s and the 1950s the reconstruction and the reconstitution of existing communities, and the founding of new ones, were the order of the day throughout the Jewish world. The Jewish communities of continental Europe all underwent periods of reconstruction or reconstitution in the wake of wartime losses, changes in the formal status of religious communities in their host countries, emigration to Israel, internal European migrations, and the introduction of new, especially Communist regimes. Those communities in Muslim countries were transformed in response to the convergence of two factors: the establishment of Israel and the anticolonial revolutions in Asia and Africa. The greater portion of the Jewish population in those countries was transferred to Israel, and organized Jewish life, beyond the maintenance of local congregations, virtually came to an end in all of these countries except Iran, Morocco, and Tunisia.

English-speaking Jewry and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Jews of Latin America were faced with the more complex task of adapting their organizational structures to three new purposes: to assume the responsibility passed to them as a result of the destruction of European Jewry, to play a major role in supporting Israel, and to accommodate the internal changes of communities still in the process of acculturation. Many of the transient Jewish communities in Asia and Africa were actually founded or shaped in this period, while others, consisting in the main of transient merchants or refugees, were abandoned.

The collapse of the USSR and its Communist empire which had the last major concentration of Jews in Europe led to another spurt of community-building in the years immediately after 1989. Demonstrating the Jewish talent for self-organization, organized Jewish communities rapidly appeared throughout the former Soviet Union, first local communities, then countrywide. While many of those who led in the establishment of these communities later emigrated to Israel, the communities have continued to exist. Thus, after seventy years of being denied the right to organize as Jews, with very few exceptions, every significant Jewish population concentration once again had an organized community.

At first, the pattern of Jewish communal organization followed that of the modern epoch with some modifications, but as the postmodern epoch leaves its own imprint, the differences in status and structure are diminishing. A common pattern of organizations is emerging, consisting of certain basic elements, including:

1. Governmentlike institutions, whether umbrella organizations or separate institutions serving discrete functions, that play roles and provide services at all levels (countrywide, local, and, where used, intermediate) which, under other conditions, would be played, provided, or controlled, whether predominantly or exclusively, by governmental authorities (for instance, services such as external relations, defense, education, social welfare, and public, that is, communal, finance), specifically:
-- a more or less comprehensive fundraising and social planning body;
-- a representative body for external relations;
-- a Jewish education service agency;
-- a vehicle or vehicles for assisting Israel and other Jewish communities;
-- various health and welfare institutions.

2. Local institutions and organizations that provide a means for attracting people to Jewish life on the basis of their most immediate and personal interests and needs, specifically:
-- congregations organized into one or more synagogue unions, federations, or confederations;
-- local cultural and recreational centers, often federated or confederated with one another.

3. General purpose mass-based organizations, operating countrywide at all levels, that function to: (a) articulate community values, attitudes, and policies; (b) provide the energy and motive force for crystallizing the communal consensus that grows out of those values, attitudes, and policies; and (c) maintain institutionalized channels of communication between the community's leaders and "actives" ("cosmopolitans") and the broad base of the affiliated Jewish population ("locals") for dealing with the problems facing the community, specifically:
-- a Zionist federation and its constituent organizations;
-- fraternal organizations.

4. Special interest organizations which, by serving specialized interests in the community on all planes, function to mobilize concern and support for the various programs conducted by the community and to apply pressure for their expansion, modification, and improvement. The resultant model is presented in schematic form in figure 2.

UNITED STATES

The United States, with over half of all the Jews in the diaspora, stands in a class by itself. The situation of a very large, fully modern society, established from the first on individualistic principles, pluralistic in the full sense of the word, settled by several significantly different waves of very adventurous Jewish immigrants who shared a common commitment in seeking new lives as individuals, was not conducive to the development of sufficient homogeneity to permit the formation of a neat communal structure.⁴⁹

The organized American Jewish community is entirely built upon an associational base. That is to say, not only is there no inescapable compulsion, external or internal, to affiliate with organized Jewry, but all connections with organized Jewish life are based on voluntary association with some particular organization or institution, whether in the form of synagogue membership, contribution to the local Jewish Welfare Fund (which is considered to be an act of joining as well as contributing), or affiliation with a B'nai B'rith lodge or Hadassah chapter. Indeed, the usual pattern for affiliated Jews is one of multiple association with memberships in different kinds of associations that reinforce one another and create an interlocking network of Jewish ties that bind the individual more firmly to the community. Without the associational base, there would be no organized Jewish community at all; with it, the Jewish community attains social, and even a certain legal, status that enables it to fit well into the larger society of which it is a part.

The associational basis of American Jewish life is manifested in a wide variety of local and countrywide organizations designed to suit every Jewish taste. While these organizations may be confined to specific localities or may reflect specific interests, classes, or types on a strictly supralocal basis, the most successful ones develop both countrywide and local facets. It is no accident that B'nai B'rith, a countrywide (even worldwide) federation of multistate districts and local lodges, and Hadassah, a countrywide organization that emphasizes the role of its local chapters (which are further divided almost into neighborhood groups), are the two most successful mass Jewish organizations in the United States. The key to their success is that they provide both an overall purpose attuned to the highest aims of Jewish life as well as local attachment based on the immediate social needs of the individual Jew in such a way as to allow people to be members for either reason. Sooner or later, all large countrywide Jewish organizations have found that their survival is contingent upon developing some sort of serious local dimension to accommodate the very powerful combination of American and Jewish penchant for organizational arrangements on federal principles.

While certain of its organizations sometimes succeeded in developing from the top down, the institutions of the American Jewish community are essentially local and, at most, loosely federated with one another for very limited purposes. The three great synagogue movements, for example, are essentially confederations of highly independent local congregations, linked by relatively vague persuasional ties and a need for certain technical services. The confederations function to provide the requisite emotional reinforcement of those ties and the services desired by their member units. As in the case of the other countrywide organizations, they combine countrywide identification with essentially local attachments. With the exception of a few institutions of higher education (and, once upon a time, a few specialized hospitals, now nonsectarian), all Jewish social, welfare, and educational institutions are local in name and, in fact, some loosely confederated on a supralocal basis.

The demands placed upon the American Jewish community beginning in the late 1930s led to a growing recognition of the need to reconstitute the community's organizational structure at least to the extent of rationalizing the major interinstitutional relationships and generally tightening the matrix. These efforts at reconstitution received added impetus from the changes in American society as a whole (and the Jews' position in it) after 1945. They signaled the abandonment of earlier chimerical efforts to create a more orthodox organizational structure in imitation of foreign patterns which, given the character of American society as a whole, would have been quite out of place.

What has emerged to unite all these highly independent associations is a number of overlapping local and supralocal federations designed for different purposes. The most powerful among them are the local federations of Jewish agencies and their countrywide confederation, the Council of Jewish Federations (CJF), which have become the framing institutions of American Jewry and its local communities. They are the only ones able to claim near-universal membership and all-embracing purposes, though not even the CJF has the formal status of an overall countrywide umbrella organization. Other federal arrangements tend to be limited to single functions and their general organizations rarely have more than a consultative role or power of accreditation.

This unity on a confederative basis, which characterizes American Jewry, is very different from unity on a hierarchical one; what emerges is not a single pyramidal structure, nor even one in which the "bottom" rules the "top" (as in the case of most of the communities with representative boards), but a matrix consisting of many institutions and organizations tied together by a crisscrossing of memberships, shared purposes, and common interests, whose roles and powers vary according to situation and issue.

JEWRIES OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH

While there are variations among them, characteristic of all of the Jewish communities whose origin is in the British Commonwealth is an ambivalence in defining their Jewishness. On the one hand, there is the sense on the part of both the community and the larger society of which it is a part that Jewish attachment is a form of "religious affiliation" and that every individual has free choice in the matter. On the other, there is an equally strong feeling that somehow Jews stand apart from the majority "Anglo-Saxon" population and can never bridge that gap. Regardless of the intensity of their Jewish attachments, the overwhelming majority of Jews in these countries have culturally assimilated into the wider society's way of life. Thus the associational aspects of Jewish affiliation are far more important than the organic ones, however real the latter may be, and the community structure is built around associational premises from top to bottom.⁵⁰

The communities themselves have no special status in public law. At most, there is an umbrella organization which is formally or tacitly accepted as the "address" of the Jewish community for certain limited purposes, and subsidiary institutions which are occasionally accorded government support (along with similar non-Jewish institutions) for specific functions. Nor do the communities have any strong tradition of communal self-government to call upon. All are entirely products of the modern era, hence their founders were either post-emancipation Jews or Jews seeking the benefits of emancipation and desirous of throwing off the burdens of an all-encompassing corporate Jewish life.

The larger communities in this category, at least, were created by successive waves of immigration, the greatest of which arrived in the past 100 years; hence the history of their present communal patterns does not go back more than three or four generations, if that. Most of their present leaders are sons of immigrants, if not immigrants themselves.

Boards of Deputies: Eleven of these communities have representative boards, usually called "Boards of Deputies," as their principal spokesmen. These representative boards in most cases formally embrace virtually all the other Jewish institutions and organizations in the community. Those other organizations, however, while nominally associated with the Board are, for all practical purposes, independent of and even equal to it in stature and influence. Fundraising, religious life, and social services tend to be under other auspices. The Board tends to be pushed in the direction of becoming the ambassador of the Jewish community to the outside world rather than its governing body. This tendency has been accelerated since World War II by the "coming of age" of the last great wave of immigrants and the consequent diminution of the monolithic character of most of the communities. The increase in competing interests, the decline in religious interest, and the growth of assimilatory tendencies have all contributed to this change.

Communities with representative boards are also constructed on federal lines. At the very least, the Boards become federations of institutions and organizations. In federal or quasi-federal countries, they become territorial federations as well.

LATIN AMERICA

The Eastern European Jews who migrated to Latin America in the twentieth century established replicas of the European kehillah, without official status but tacitly recognized by Jews and non-Jews alike as the organized Jewish community. The central institutions of these communities have a distinct public character but no special recognition in public law. Founded in the main by secularists, these communities were built in the mold of secular diaspora nationalism as it developed in Eastern Europe and emphasize the secular side of Jewish life. Since they function in an environment that provides neither the cultural nor the legal framework for a European-model kehillah, they must rely on the voluntary attachment of their members. The Latin American communities were relatively successful in maintaining this corporate pattern until recently because the great social and cultural gap between Jews and their neighbors aided in giving the Jews the self-image of a special and distinct group, but it has become increasingly difficult to maintain this as the gap disappears.

Ashkenazim and Sephardim organized their separate communities, in some cases by country or city of origin. Just as Jewish immigrants did not assimilate into their host countries, so, too, they did not assimilate among themselves. In the course of time, these communities loosely confederated with one another to deal with common problems that emerged in their relations with their external environment, essentially problems of immigration, anti-Semitism and Israel. At the same time, each country-of-origin community retains substantial, if not complete, autonomy in internal matters and control over its own institutions.

In three of the larger Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil and Colombia) the indigenous federal or quasi-federal structure of the countries themselves influenced the Jews to create countrywide confederations based on territorial divisions (officially uniting state or provincial communities which are, in fact, local communities concentrated in the state or provincial capitals). In the other countries, the local community containing the overwhelming majority of the Jewish population itself became the countrywide unit, usually by designating its federation as the "council of communities." The community councils of the six Central American countries (total Jewish population 7,800) have organized the Federation of Central American Jewish Communities to pool resources and provide common services.

None of these tacitly recognized communal structures has been in existence for more than three generations, and the communities themselves originated no more than four generations ago. Most of the smaller ones are just now entering their third generation, since they were created by the refugees of the 1930s and 1940s. Consequently, many, if not most, are still in the process of developing an appropriate and accepted communal character.

The great postwar adjustment that has faced the Latin American communities centers on the emergence of a native-born majority. This new generation has far less attachment to the "old country" way of life with its emphasis on ideological and country-of-origin ties, hence the whole community structure is less relevant to them.

Moreover, most of the 625,000 Jews living in Latin America are located in unstable environments that do not necessarily encourage pluralism. Many of them are already beginning to assimilate into their countries, or at least into the local radical movements, in familiar Jewish ways. For an increasing number of Jews, the deportivo, or Jewish community recreation center, often seems the most relevant form of Jewish association and the building block for Jewish organizational life. The rise of these new institutions may foreshadow a new communal structure, based on local territorial divisions, that is emerging in these communities, with its accompanying substructure of associational activities whose participants are drawn in on the basis of common interest rather than of common descent.⁵¹

EUROPE

In the wake of the destruction in World War II and subsequent communal reconstruction, the Jews in this region have developed new forms of communal association while at the same time retaining the formal structures of governance of the previous epoch. This is most obvious in the case of those communities which in the modern epoch had exhibited either the characteristics of a Kultusgemeinde (comprehensive state-recognized communal structure) or a consistoire (state-recognized or semiofficial religious structure).

Kehillot, or state-recognized communal structures, were to be found in Central Europe, or areas influenced by Central European culture, before World War I. In recent years these communities have, by and large, lost their power to compel all Jews to be members and must now build their membership on a consensual basis. This usually means that all known Jews are automatically listed on the community's rolls but have the right to opt out if they choose to do so.

Structurally, the kehillah communities remain all-embracing. All legitimate institutions or organizations function within their overall framework, except where the state has allowed secessionist groups to exist. As countrywide communities, they are generally organized along conventional federal lines with either "national" and "local," or "national," "provincial," and "local," bodies, each chosen through formal elections and linked constitutionally to one another with a relatively clear division of power. In some cases, authority remains in the local community, perhaps with some loose confederal relationships uniting the various localities. The greatest source of strength of the state-recognized communities lies in their power to tax or to receive automatically a portion of their members' regular taxes from the authorities.

The state-recognized community, once the basis of Jewish life, is losing ground in size and importance in the Jewish world at the same time as it is losing its compulsory character. Most are declining communities, decimated by war, emigration, and assimilation. Moreover, an increasing number of Jews within those communities may be opting out of community membership (and the taxes that go with it). In 1980, 150,000 Jews lived in such communities.⁵²

Despite its importance during the nineteenth century, only a remnant of the consistoire pattern still exists in France. Somewhat more faithful models are to be found in those countries within the orbit of French culture in Europe and Africa. In some, the consistoire has a certain legal status as a religious body and its officials are usually supported by government funds, but affiliation with it is entirely voluntary. It is distinguished by its emphasis on the exclusively religious nature of Judaism and its centralized character.

The consistoire is a casualty of the growing pluralism within the Jewish community. The refugees from Eastern Europe and, later, North Africa, who became major, if not the dominant, forces in many of the consistoire communities after World War II rejected its exclusively sacerdotal emphasis, while the growth of secularism made Jewish identification via a state-recognized religious structure increasingly incongruous. The new ultra-Orthodox congregations created by certain of the refugees rejected the laxity of the official "orthodoxy" of the consistoire, and the tasks of communal reconstruction in the aftermath of the war proved too much for the consistorial bodies to handle alone. Above all, the rise of Israel generated demands for mobilization of diaspora resources that went beyond the capabilities of the consistoire structure, necessitating more appropriate organizational arrangements. In a broader sense, the times themselves conspired against the old system, as committed Jews the world over rediscovered the national-political aspects of Jewish existence.

New, entirely voluntary organizations began to emerge with a civil orientation to reach those elements which were otherwise not part of the official community. In the process, they began to assume the functions of umbrella organizations to the extent that their local situation encouraged such organizations within the context of an emerging pluralism in Jewish communal life. Consistorial bodies survive, but without the centrality they once had in Jewish life.⁵³

THE FORMER EASTERN BLOC

The communities located in the formerly Communist countries of Eastern Europe are basically remnant communities, most of whose earlier residents either died in the Holocaust or emigrated to Israel. Under Communist rule they were subjugated in the way that all potential rivals for the citizens' interests are curbed in totalitarian societies. Since the collapse of Communist rule, they have been revived, usually in the form they had acquiesced before World War II. The communities in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania actually have a formal status similar to that of their sister communities in other continental European countries and function through state-recognized communal or religious structures. The communities of Bulgaria and Poland are organized under what were originally Communist-imposed structures.

THE FORMER SOVIET UNION

Soviet Jewry, subjugated after World War I, lost the last remnants of its organized communal life in the Stalin purges that came in the aftermath of World War II. As glasnost and perestroika spread in the USSR of the 1980s, Jews in local communities across the Soviet Union began raising their heads to establish free Jewish universities, cultural circles, or theater groups as nuclei of new community organizations. In 1989 these were expanded to include the normal institutions of an organized Jewish community and by 1991 the phenomenon had spread throughout the by-then dying USSR.⁵⁴ While the USSR existed, there was a national body that claimed to speak for all Soviet Jews that had been established by a convention of representatives from all the local communities. Now that the USSR has broken apart, similar or appropriate organizations were established in the newly independent republics.

THE MUSLIM WORLD

The communities located in the Islamic countries of the Middle East are the remnants of what were, until the rise of Israel, flourishing traditional kehillot. Their present state of subjugation or dissolution dates from their host countries' attainment of independence or from the establishment of Israel, and therefore reflects another kind of postwar reconstitution. The character of the subjugation varies from virtually complete suppression of all communal and private Jewish activities (Iraq) to government appointment of pliable leadership to manage the community's limited affairs (Tunisia). Only Morocco and Turkey have allowed their Jewish communities to continue to function with a minimum of disturbance, albeit under close government supervision.

In every case, the Jews' situation has deteriorated after each Israeli victory and the number of Jews remaining in the communities has decreased. Since emigration from the larger ones is not impossible, it seems clear that they, too, are fated to disappear or to become no more than very small remnant communities in the near future. In the meantime, communal life continues, as much as possible. This usually means some form of religious life, increasingly limited opportunities to provide children with a Jewish education, and a few limited social services.⁵⁵ Iran, the last major concentration of Jews in the Muslim world, watched its Jewish community flee after the fall of the Shah who had been the Jews' protector, and the establishment of the Islamic republic. In Morocco, where the king continues to protect the Jews, the exodus has been more gradual. Each of those communities today has approximately 13,000 Jews. In Morocco, the future looks promising as a result of the Israel-Arab peace process, while in Iran it seems quite gloomy. Today Turkish Jewry remains the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world. While the Jews in Turkey are essentially free and protected, they are also closely supervised by the government, which does so with a velvet rather than an iron hand.

Considerations

What can be learned about diaspora existence from the Jewish experience which is new and unique? Four points can be made in particular.

1. Long-term diasporas seem to be an Asian phenomenon, in that the peoples who seem to be able to produce and sustain diasporas are overwhelmingly Asian or emerged from Asia. European יmigrיs to new territories break off into fragments of their original cultures, as Louis Hartz has pointed out in The Founding of New Societies, and then become separate peoples in their own right.⁵⁶ Traditional African cultures remained tribal, even in the case of the great tribal empires, and handled migration within Africa through the breakoff of families or clans and their reconstitution as new tribes. Africans who migrated outside of Africa did so on a forced basis as slaves and hence were given no chance to establish a diaspora. Although in recent times there has been some effort to impose a diaspora-style context on American Blacks, it has not succeeded. It seems that the nature of peoplehood in Asia and its relationship to statehood -- whereby peoples are far more enduring than states -- is an essential condition for the creation of diasporas. The Jews are a prime example of an Asian people who carried their diaspora first into North Africa, then Europe, and then into the New World, but they never lost this Asian dimension of their being.

2. A second point is that the Jewish experience is the quintessential example of how diasporas can be state-initiators. The history of the reestablishment of the State of Israel may be the classic of its kind, but it is not the only such example. It was the Norwegian diaspora in the United States which initiated the separation of Norway from Sweden, which led to Norwegian independence in 1905, and the Czech diaspora which initiated the establishment of Czechoslovakia after World War I. At any given time there may be a number of diasporas that are actively trying to establish states, such as the Armenians, for example. This is an important dimension in the reciprocal state-diaspora relationship.⁵⁷

3. A third point is that the nature of interflows between state and diaspora and segments of the diaspora needs to be more fully examined. This article has suggested some of those interflows in the contemporary Jewish world. Elsewhere, I have mapped the shifting nature of such flows and the different institutional frameworks for them in different epochs of Jewish history.⁵⁸ One would expect that this would be useful to do in connection with other diasporas as well.

What has been characteristic of the Jews is that at times they have had highly visible frameworks for such interflows. We have already noted how, in the days of the Second Temple, Jews throughout the world made pilgrimage and paid an annual Temple tax as well as accepted the authority of the Sanhedrin, which sat in the Temple. Several hundred years later, the resh galuta and yeshivot in Babylonia exercised authority over 97 percent of the Jews of the world who happened to be within the Arab caliphate.

At other times, the institutional structure was articulated but not quite as apparent to most Jews, even if they were influenced by it. That is the condition today regarding the various authorities which link Israel and the diaspora and the various diaspora communities with one another. What is becoming clear to those involved is that the reconstituted Jewish Agency for Israel and its constituent organizations are beginning to play a similar role on a voluntary basis.

Finally, there were situations in which external conditions prevented any visible institutional framework other than the institutions of local decision-making, whereby halakhic authorities from all parts of the Jewish world were in correspondence with one another and turned to one another for decisions binding on the entire Jewish people. The communications among these authorities helped maintain the formal constitutional structure of the Jewish people, which helped keep the Jewish constitutional framework intact even when Jews had no political institutions to unite them. This formal legal framework was supplemented by the continuing movement of travelers and migrants among most, if not all, of the communities of the Jewish world at any given time, which served to preserve the ethnic as well as the constitutional ties uniting the Jewish people.

4. Finally, any proper study of diasporas should consider the role of technology in making possible the maintenance of links between diaspora and state or one diaspora community and another. At the beginning of the Jewish diaspora, 2,500 years ago or more, it is very likely that Jews who spread beyond the limits of ongoing communication with their brethren (such as the Jews who settled in China), given the technologies of the time, disappeared as Jews. No doubt, the fact that first the Persians and then the Romans emphasized roadbuilding to facilitate communication among the far-flung reaches of their respective empires had a vital impact on the Jews' efforts in maintaining their links.

Later, in medieval times, the relative ease of water communication in the Mediterranean world held the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean Basin together while Jews who moved north of the Alps, though not out of communication with the rest of the Jewish world, developed a subculture of their own. The two subcultures persist to this day in the form of Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

In our own times, it is clear that the possibility of reviving common institutions for the Jewish people has been strengthened by the availability of such instruments as the telephone and the jet plane. Certainly, technology has served to heighten diaspora consciousness among other peoples. It would be worth investigating whether this has also helped foster links between other groups in the way it has with the Jews.

Because of the rapid changes in transportation and communications technology, the increased mobility of individuals across state lines, and the greater interdependence of states throughout the world, it may be that diaspora and the state-diaspora relation as they were known in the past will themselves undergo a sea-change. While the trend will continue to be for diasporas to grow as it has been the end of World War II, there will also be a situation in which significant populations will not be identifiable as living either in their state or in its diaspora. That is to say, they will live in both places, spending part of the year in one and part in the other, or traveling back and forth with great frequency. Maintaining their homes in one and their business interests in the other will be a common feature. Thus the whole idea of what is a diaspora will have to shift to accommodate new trends.

Notes

1. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term diaspora originates from the Septuagint, Deuteronomy 28:25, "thou shalt be a diaspora in all kingdoms of the earth" (1897 Ed. p. 321).

2. See, S. W . Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973); Yehezkel Kaufman, Gola V'Nechar (Diaspora and Exile) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1958); Raphael Patai, The Tents of Jacob: The Diaspora Yesterday and Today (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1971); A. Tartakower, Hahevra Hayehudit (Jewish Society) (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1959).

3. See, Daniel J. Elazar, Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976, pp. 70-77), and People and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of Post-Modern Jewry (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989).

4. Cf. James William Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (New York: Atheneum, 1969), and The Jew and His Neighbour (London: Student Christian Movement, 1930).

5. See, S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jewish, esp. Volume XII; W. P. Zener Jewish Retainers as Power Brokers in Traditional Societies. Paper presented at the 74th meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San francisco, December 4, 1975.

6. See, W. F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra (New York: Harper and Row, 1963); J. Bright, A History of Israel, Third Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981); Harry M. Orlinsky, Ancient Israel, Second edition (Cornell University Press, 1967).

7. See F. J. Burner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, 1920); R. A. Billington, Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (New York: Macmillan, 1949); W. P. Webb, The Great Frontier (London: Secker and Warburg, 1953).

8. See A. J. Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1969).

9. See, Daniel J. Elazar, Cities of the Prairie (New York: Basic Books, 1970, pp. 7-10); J. Goody, "Time" in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 16, page 30, et. seq., esp. pp. 39-41.

10. See, Isidore Epstein, Judaism: A Historical Presentation (England: Penguin, Middlesex, 1974); B. Halpern, The Idea of a Jewish State, Second Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969); J. W. Parkes, A History of Palestine from 135 A.D. to Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949).

11. See, W. A. Laqueur, A History of Zionism (New York: Shocken Books, 1976); D. Vital, The Origins of Zionism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).

12. See, Steven M. Cohen, American Modernity and Jewish Identity (New York: Tavistock, 1983), Daniel J. Elazar, "Renewable Identity", Midstream, January 1981; Peter Y. Medding, "Toward a General Theory of Jewish Political Interests and Behaviour in the Contemporary World," in Daniel J. Elazar (ed.) Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses (Ramat Gan, Israel: Turtledove, 1981).

13. See, L. H. Fuchs, The Political Behaviour of American Jews, (Illinois: Free Press, 1956); M. Himmelfarb, The Jewish of Modernity (New York: Basic Books, 1973); Stephen Isaacs, Jews and American Politics (New York: Doubleday, 1974); Charles S. Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973); P. Y. Medding, "Patterns of Political Organization and Leadership in Contemporary Jewish Communities," in Daniel J. Elazar (ed.) Kinship and Consent; M. Sklare, The Jew in American Society (New York: Behrman House, 1974); J. Weyl, The Jew in American Politics (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1968).

14. See, W. F. Albright, The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra; Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity (BLoomington: Indiana Press, 1984).

15. I have elaborated this thesis more fully in "Covenant and Freedom in the Jewish Political Tradition," Annual Sol Feinstone Lecture, Gratz College, March 15, 1981.

16. See, Daniel J. Elazar, "Covenant as the Basis of the Jewish Political tradition," Jewish Journal of Sociology, No. 20, June 1978, pp. 5-37; G. Freeman, "Rabbinic Conceptions of Covenant," in Daniel J. Elazar (ed.) Kinship and Consent; D. R. Hiller, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1969).

17. Deuteronomy 34:1-4; Josh. 24:1-25.

18. II Samuel 5:1.

19. II Kings 18.

20. Ezra 1:2; Nehemia 8:1-8.

21. I Maccabees 8:1-9.

22. Cf. G. Blidstein, "Individual and Community in the Middle Ages," and M. Elon, "On Power and Authority: Halachic Stance of the Traditional Community and Its Contemporary Implications," both in Daniel J. Elazar (ed.) Kinship and Consent; M. Elon, (ed.) The Principles of Jewish Law (Jerusalem: Institute for Research in Jewish Law Publications, 1975).

23. Cf. Y. Aricha Megilat Haazmaut - Chazon Vemetsiut (Declaration of Independence - Vison and Reality), Faculty of Political Science, Bar Ilan University (Unpublished); H. M. Kallen Utopians at Bay (New York: Theodor Herzl Foundation, 1958); Amnon Rubinstein Hamishpat Hakonstituzioni shel Medinat Yisrael (The Constitutional Law of the State of Israel) (Jerusalem: Shocken Books, 1979).

24. Leo Baeck discusses this phenomenon in This People Israel (Philadelphia, 1965). See also Daniel J. Elazar, "The Quest for Community: Selections from the Literature of Jewish Public Affairs, 1965-1966," American Jewish Yearbook, Volume 68, 1967 (New York and philadelphia: American Jewish Committee and Jewish Publications Society, 1967).

25. See, for example, C. Finkelstein, Jewish Self-Government in the Middle Ages, Second Edition (New York: Feldheim, 1964); and H. H. Ben-Sasson, Perakim Betoldot Hayehudim Beyamei Habaynayim (Chapters in the History of jewish in the Middle Ages) (Tel Aviv, 1969).

26. See Daniel J. Elazar, Community & Polity; M. Himmelfarb, The Jews of Modernity; C. S. Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew; H. M. Sachar, The Course of Modern Jewish History (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1958).

27. See, for example, E. Samuel, "The Administrator of the Catholic Church," in Public Administration in Israel and Abroad, 1966 (Jerusalem, 1967) one of the few such studies available.

28. A few historians and social scientists have taken note of the covenant community as a distinct sociopolitical phenomenon from this perspective. Margaret Mead, for example, suggests that the Jewish polity and other covenant communities deserve special exploration; see her "Introduction" to M. Zborowski, and E. Herzog, Life is with People (New York, 1952). For an eloquent evocation of the spirit and character of the covenant community, see Page Smith, As a City Upon a Hill (New York, 1967).

29. See, A. Malamat, "Assyrian Exile," in Encyclopedia Judaica, Volume 6, p. 1034; I. Ephal, "Israel: Fall and Exile" in A. Malamat and I. Ephal (eds.), The World History of the Jewish People (Jerusalem: Massada Press, 1979), Volume Four, Chapter 8; H. H. Ben-Sasson (ed.) A History of the Jewish People (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, Chapter 9).

30. See, L. Baeck, This People Israel: The Meaning of Jewish Existence (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1965), S. W. Baron, The Jewish Community: Its History and Structure to the American Revolution (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1972); Isaac Levy, (London: Valentine Mitchell, 1963).

31. See, B. Porten, Archives from Elephantine (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1960), Chapter 4.

32. See, S. Hoenig, The Great Sanhedrin (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1953); H. Mantel, Studies in the History of the Great Sanhedrin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961).

33. See, M. Baer, Rashut Hagolah B'Bavel Bimei HaMishna VhaTalmud (Leadership and Authority in the Times of the Mishna and the Talmud) (Tel Aviv, 1967); J. Neusner, There We Sat Down: Talmudic Judaism in the Making (New York, Ktav, 1978).

34. See, Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity.

35. See, S. W. Baron, The Jewish Community.

36. Albeck, Batei Hadin Bimei HaTalmud (Courts of the Talmudic Period); G. Along, The Jewish in Their Land in the Talmudic Age (70-640 CE), Translated and Edited by G. Levi, Jerusalem 1980, Volume One; M. Avi-Yonah, The Jewish of Palestine: A Political History from the Bar Kochba War to the Arab Conquest (Oxford, 1976); A. I. Baumgarten, "The Akiban Opposition," Hebrew Union College Annual 50 (1974) pp. 179-197; E. Goldenberg, "Darko Shel Yehuda Hanasi," (In the Arrangement of the Mishna) Tarbitz 28 (1959), pp. 260-269.

37. S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume X, Chapter 45, and Volume 16; M. Elon, Principles of Jewish Law.

38. See, S. Assaf, Tekufat Hagaonim Vesifruta (The Period of the Sages and Its Literature) (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1955); Boaz Cohen, Law and Ethics in the Light of the Jewish Tradition (New York: Ktav, 1947), and Law & Tradition in Judaism (New York: Katav, 1969); M. Elon, The Principles of Jewish Law; S. B. Freehof, The Responsa Literature (New York: Ktav, 1973); L. Ginsberg, On Jewish Law and Lore (New York: Atheneum, 1970); C. H. Tchernowitz, Toledoth Hahalacha (The History of Halacha) (New York: Vaad Hayovel, 1953).

39. See, S. W. Baron, A Social and Relilgious History of the Jews; H. M. Sacha, The Course of Modern Jewish History.

40. See, H. P. Friedenrich, The Jews of Yugoslavia (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society of America, 1979); J. Datz, Tradition and Crisis (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 1974) and Out of the Ghetto (Cambridge: Harvard, 1976); N. Katzburg, Hungary and the Jews (Ramat Gan, Israel, 1981); J. Levitats, The Jewish Community in Russia, 1772-1844, (New York, 1943); E. Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars, (Bloomington, IN, 1983); B. D. Weinreib, The Jews of Poland (Philadelphia, 1972) M. Wilenski, Hasidim Umitnagdim (Jerusalem, 1970).

41. See, A. Altman, Moses Mendelsohn: A Biographical Study; S. W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume XV; S. Ettinger, "The Modern Age" in H. H. Ben-Sasson (ed), A History of the Jewish People, Part III (Cambridge, MA, 1976); A. Hertzberg, The French Enlightenment and the Jews, (New York, 1968) J. Reinharz, Fatherland of Promised Land: The Dilemma of the German Jews, 1893-1914 (Ann Arbor, 1975); C. Roth, History of the Jews in England, Third Edition (Oxford, 1964).

42. See, Daniel J. Elazar, Community and Polity and People and Polity; with P. Medding, Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies (London and New York: Holmes and Meir, 1983.

43. See, Daniel J. Elazar, "The Reconstitution of Jewish Communities in the Post-War Period," Jewish Journal of Sociology, Volume XI, No. 2 (December, 1969).

44. See, W. A. Laqueur, A History of Zionism; D. Vita, The Origins of Zionism.

45. See, A. Herzberg, The Zionist Idea (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1975).

46. See the series HaChug L'Yediyat Am Yisrael B'Tfutzot B'Beit Nasi Hamedina (Study Circle on World Jewry in the Home of the President of Israel), Shagar Library, Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, especially, B. Halpern and I. Kolatt, "Amadot Mishtanot B'Yehesai Medinat Yisrael VeHatefutsot" (Changing Relations Between Israel and the Diaspora), Third Series, No. 607 (1970-1971); E. Schweid, "HaKarat HaAm HaYehudi B'Hinuch B'Yisrael" (Identification with the Jewish People in Israeli Education) Sixth Series, No. 6 (1972-1973); N. Rotenreich, Z. Abromov, and Y. Bauer, "Achrayuta Shel Medinat Yisrael Latfutzot" (Israel's Responsibility to the Diaspora) Ninth Series, No. 7 (1977-1978).

47. Cf. Daniel J. Elazar and A . M. Dortort (eds), Understanding the Jewish Agency: A Handbook (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1984); E. Stock, "Jewish Multi-Country Association" in American Jewish Yearbook 1994 (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1994).

48. See, Daniel J. Elazar, "The Reconstitution of Jewish Communities in the Post-War Period," Jewish Journal of Sociology; Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity.

49. See, L. Hartz, The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, and Australia (New York: Harcourt, Bruce & World, 1964).

50. See, Daniel J. Elazar, People and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of World Jewry (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989) Chapter 11.

51. Ibid, Chapter 13.

52. Ibid., Chapter 15.

53. Ibid., Chapter 14.

54. See, Zvi Gittelman, "Former Soviet Union" American Jewish Yearbook 1994, op cit. pp. 337-345; Betsy Gidwitz, "Post-Soviet Jewry at Mid-Decade," Parts One and Two, Jerusalem Letter No 309, 15 February 1995, and No. 310, 1 March 1995; Irwin Cotler, "Revolutionary Times in the Soviet Union" in Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints, No. 93, 2 October, 1989.

55. See, George E. Gruen, "Jewish in the Middle East and North Africa' American Jewish Yearbook 1994 (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1994).

56. Hartz. op. cit.

57. See, B. Azkin, State and Nation (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1964).

58. See, Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity: Jewish Political Organization from Biblical Times to the Present (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985).

War and Foreign Policy , American-Style

2009-08-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Written by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski , U.S. National Security Adviser during the Carter administration , professor of U.S. foreign policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies .

Δημοσιεύτηκε στην ιστοσελίδα του μη κυβερνητικού , ερευνητικού ινστιτούτου 'Commonwealth Institute' (http://www.comw.org/) , από όπου και αναδημοσιεύεται . Το εν λόγω άρθρο παρουσιάστηκε σε έντυπη μορφή στο Τεύχος 11.1 (Volume 11 , Number 1 , Pages 172-178) του επιστημονικού περιοδικού 'Journal of Democracy' (http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/) , τον Ιανουάριο του 2000 .

The central question in world affairs today can be encapsulated in a parody of an old pacifist slogan: Can America make war while loving peace? The fact is that American power--including the presumption in special circumstances of its coercive application--provides the indispensable basis for global stability. The only real alternative to it is global anarchy.

The fundamental truth of the foregoing proposition--however offensive it may be to those who resent the prevailing international reality--can be easily tested. Just consider the likely consequences of a Congressional vote mandating the prompt withdrawal of all U.S. forces from South Korea, the Persian Gulf, and Europe. Inevitably and almost immediately, a massive outbreak of violence around the world would follow. No similar scenario can even be envisioned in regard to any other existing power. Like it or not, America is--and will probably remain for a generation or so--the linchpin of global stability. (1)

This reality places a premium on America's capacity to use its current preponderance of power responsibly and strategically (while it still lasts) to promote the gradual sharing of global responsibilities with willing regional powers, preferably ones that share America's democratic vocation. The effective pursuit of this task, however, requires an America that has the ability both to employ skillful diplomacy and to impose - if necessary - decisive dominance. And because America is a democracy, that ability must be sustained by the political culture from which America's international conduct is derived.

It is in this context that I turn to Tocqueville's reflections on the American democracy's capacity to wage war and to make peace. This observant Frenchman showed an extraordinary ability to grasp the novel character of the American experience and to anticipate its universal relevance to the emerging democratic age. Yet upon reading his observations with the recent Kosovo military operation still fresh in my mind and with the wars in Vietnam and Korea registered in my memory, I am also struck by his curious mixture of brilliantly enduring insights and dogmatic misjudgments.

Tocqueville's comments on the character and role of the military in a democracy were especially skewed. Never fearful of sweeping generalizations, he placed particular emphasis on what he perceived to be the basic contradiction between the central values of a democratic society and the imperatives of a martial spirit. In a democracy, he asserted, "military ambition is indulged only when no other is possible. Hence arises a circle of cause and consequence from which it is difficult to escape: the best part of the nation shuns the military profession because that profession is not honored, and the profession is not honored because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it" (II, 267).

That observation, most applicable in recent times to the antimilitary atmosphere that prevailed in America during the Vietnam War and perhaps also the interlude between the two World Wars, led him to the far-reaching conclusion that democratic armies "are constantly drawn to war and revolutions" as a means of accelerating the social advancement of their officer corps. He minced no words: "A restless and turbulent spirit is an evil inherent in the very constitution of democratic armies and beyond hope of cure" (II, 269). While suspicious of the personal ambitions of the officer caste, he reserved his most scathing comments for the noncommissioned officers (NCOs), perceiving them to be congenital enemies of the democratic constitutional order, "bent on war, on war always and at any cost; but if war be denied them, then they desire revolutions" (II, 274). Lest readers conclude that his observations were derived from his encounters with the American military and hence applicable particularly to America, Tocqueville added categorically: "It would be an error to suppose that these various characteristics of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men belong to any particular time or country; they will always occur at all times and among all democratic nations" (II, 274).

The American experience, in fact, collides with Tocqueville's generalizations. The U.S. military--whether in times of universal military service or when staffed primarily by professional soldiers--has internalized the notion of the constitutional legitimacy of civilian control to a degree unmatched until very recent times by any other state, democratic or not. Even as recently as World War II, "ministers of war" in most foreign cabinets were senior military officers, at best reluctantly respectful of civilian authority and even then preferably only from a distance. By contrast, in America military challenges to civilian supremacy have been rare. Hence the very few exceptions to the rule, such as General MacArthur's somewhat ambiguous recalcitrance in 1951, are vividly remembered. (2)

The several U.S. military academies have played an especially important role in constitutional indoctrination, a mission that Tocqueville had not anticipated. They have shaped generation after generation of military commanders to be unswervingly loyal to the democratic system while also imbuing in them a commitment to the highest standards of military professionalism. Indeed, the U.S. military academies (and in more recent years, an entire spectrum of more advanced "war colleges") have been remarkable in their ability to instill in their graduates a dedication to political democracy, a respect for the professionally specialized military vocation, and a sophisticated appreciation of the technological dimensions of warfare, all at the same time. Much the same can be said of American NCOs, whose record of performance and uniquely high level of operational responsibility have become the envy of other nations' armies.

The American Way of War

Tocqueville came closer to the mark when discussing the larger issues of peacemaking and war-waging. He correctly noted the inherent resilience of the democratic system when faced with external adversity--thereby anticipating the performance of the British in 1940 and the Americans in 1941. As he put it, "When a democratic people engages in war after a long peace, it incurs much more risk of defeat than any other nation" (II, 277). That initial risk arises, in his view, because in peacetime the democratic population has little respect for the military and the military tends to become progressively demoralized. Once an external threat has arisen, however, "there is a secret connection between the military character and the character of democracies, which war brings to light" (II, 278). A democracy at war then enjoys the benefits of truly popular passion, reinforced by a revolutionary spirit that "allows extraordinary men to rise above the common level" (II, 278), providing the needed innovative leadership in combat and making the necessary sacrifices. In the end, therefore, democracy prevails.

Of course, Tocqueville could not have anticipated the novel combination of ideology and technology that gave twentieth-century wars their unique and dramatically changing cast. He could not have foreseen either the evolution of war into conflicts of nearly total extinction or the even more recent tendency to recast wars into more limited quasi-police actions. Yet that has been the central experience of warmaking in the twentieth century--an experience to which the U.S. military adapted but also one that, to some extent, the American way of war prompted.

The American military, particularly in the light of its experience in the Civil War, has customarily placed enormous emphasis on firepower and on logistics, adapting the latest technological innovations to these ends. The result has been an American warmaking tradition that, on the whole, has been tactically cautious in combat and more solicitous than most other armies of its own soldiers' lives (allocating a higher proportion of the military budget than any other state to first aid on the battlefield). At the same time, it has placed greater emphasis on inflicting heavy destruction on the enemy than on daring maneuvers to disrupt his operations. (3)

The evolution of warfare in the twentieth century has tended to reinforce these American propensities. Ideologies--in the first instance, of populist nationalism, and then of the Nazi and communist varieties--stimulated mass mobilization for combat, and that mobilization in turn was facilitated by technological innovations that strengthened the grip of political power. At the same time, the technology of war vastly increased the military's capability to inflict truly massive slaughter on combatants, as was seen on the battlefields of World War I. Lethality was further enhanced during World War II, especially for noncombatants, with conflicts waged until the "unconditional surrender" of the vanquished.

During World War II, the American way of war made its own technological contribution to that evolution through the "Flying Fortresses" and eventually through the two atomic bombs, which both were dropped on essentially civilian concentrations. To state that fact is not to cast moral aspersions on the American military but rather to note that the technological evolution of warfare actually played to the tactical and organizational strengths of the American military tradition.

While winning a total victory, America led the world into the nuclear age. After losing its monopoly over atomic weapons, America pioneered in the formulation of the strategic doctrine of deterrence, which stipulated that maximum force should be employed only as a last resort. In other words, the availability of virtually total destructive power meant that its actual exploitation should be kept to a minimum and used primarily as a threat to deter its use by an enemy. Real war thus became rare and more restrained.

To be sure, the half-century-long Cold War was punctuated by military clashes. The world did come "to the brink," so to speak, more than once. But the truly novel aspect of that era was the degree to which America, the preponderant nuclear power for much of the Cold War, carefully abstained from waging all-out military campaigns to destroy its opponents. Instead, in the Korean War, the United States settled for the status quo ante; in the Vietnam War, the United States avoided attacking the aggressor forcefully; and in the Gulf War, the United States refrained from matching its military success with a political triumph. In all three cases, the opponent was incomparably weaker than the United States, but the risks of seeking a total victory were prudently viewed as too high. Pressing harder could have risked precipitating wider international conflicts, thereby threatening (especially in the first two cases) the delicate structure of nuclear deterrence.

This American restraint was a rational reaction to the dangerous realities of the atomic age. It also reflected a gradual change that occurred in the dominant American culture, especially over the last three decades. In terms of public attitudes, to put it in a nutshell, crusading was down and consuming was up; self-sacrifice was down and self-satisfaction was up; passion was down and caution was up. Among the political elite itself, military service became increasingly rare and was certainly no precondition for attaining public office at the highest level.

In the changed international and domestic context, all-out wars have come to be supplanted by military operations increasingly similar to police actions. As a matter of fact, the Korean, Gulf, and Kosovo conflicts were so described and defined by the United States. They were designed to cope with a specific evil but not to root it out. Like most police actions, they were limited by concern for the wider political and social environment and focused only on the specific transgression. Not surprisingly, they produced no sense of popular engagement nor, even when successful, of national triumph. Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur, who were hailed as victors over Germany and Japan, respectively, found no counterparts in Korea, in Vietnam, or in Kosovo. Only wars are perceived as having been won by heroic commanders; police successes are viewed more routinely.

The Future of American Engagement

But can American democracy sustain a serious global engagement when its use of force is increasingly applied in remote police actions that the public does not perceive as responding to a direct threat or motivated by a grand cause? So far, the answer appears to be a very qualified "yes." The Korean War became a focus of contention during the 1952 presidential elections. The Vietnam War generated the most intense antiwar sentiments. The Gulf War was approved in the Senate by a very small majority; only after the sweeping and surprisingly swift military success did public sentiment become more favorable. Yet even then the president did not dare to turn the police action into a politically focused war.

The recently concluded NATO action in Kosovo provides further grounds for concern regarding the prospect of public support for a sustained American global police role. While the public generally supported the Kosovo action, the U.S. role became the subject of rancorous and very partisan debate in the Congress. Even more revealing was the U.S. political leadership's obsessive fear of casualties, which betrayed its deep mistrust of the depth of public support, while conveying the impression that the cause (which the Clinton Administration proclaimed to be just and moral) was not worth risking the life of a single professional warrior.

Indeed, some aspects of the military operation in Kosovo were suggestively similar to the conduct of the police response to the school slayings in Littleton, Colorado. Even though a wounded victim there was left bleeding to death in the school area where most of the shootings occurred, the police refrained for several hours from penetrating the building lest hostile fire be encountered. In brief, police actions, viewed as routine even when necessary, do not invoke the passionate commitment--and the willingness to run risks--typical of wars waged on behalf of a compelling ideal or in response to a collectively perceived threat. Antiseptic professional combat has little in common with warfare motivated by principle.

Tocqueville was distinctly pessimistic about a democracy's capacity to conduct a rational foreign policy. Noting "the propensity that induces democracies to obey impulse rather than prudence" (I, 235), he argued that "foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which are peculiar to a democracy" (I, 234). He concluded that "almost all the nations that have exercised a powerful influence upon the destinies of the world, by conceiving, following out, and executing vast designs, from the Romans to the English, have been governed by aristocratic institutions" (I, 236).

He may well be right, but America is and will remain a democracy, and its global engagement must therefore ultimately be inspired by some ideal and some commitment. By contrast, a policy of narrow national interest eventually is likely to produce some form of isolationism. Inevitably people will ask, "Why bother about some distant foreign crisis?" Reliance on antiseptic police operations might work for a time, provided they are relatively painless. But will this always be the case? A purely "realistic" foreign policy focused on a narrow definition of the national interest (for example, limited only to direct personal security or prosperity) will not keep America involved. It would not have provided even the limited support that the casualty-free military operation in Kosovo enjoyed nor sustained the more extensive support that it took to wage the Cold War. In both instances, "the right thing to do" enjoyed popular support because something larger--freedom and human rights--was perceived to be at stake.

Given that America is above all a democracy, it cannot practice Tocqueville's notion of aristocratic foreign policy. Thus the only basis for sustaining the commitment of the American people to global engagement, including the occasional use of military force, is the policy that Presidents Wilson, Truman, Carter, and Reagan all have tried to pursue - combining reliance on power with a commitment to principle. These presidents recognized that the American national interest is linked to the persistent--even if prudent--promotion of democracy. In the post-Cold War era of more contained warfare, global stability depends on an America that continues to hold to this course.

Notes :

(1) I address the geostrategic implications of the foregoing more fully in my book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), which--not surprisingly--provoked the strongest reactions in France, Germany, Russia, and China.

(2) In fairness to Tocqueville, it should be noted that he also argued that "the least warlike and also the least revolutionary part of the democratic army will always be its chief commanders" (II, 273). He ascribed such pacifist inclinations to the complacent desire of the socially promoted generals to preserve--and not to jeopardize--their positions.

(3) Not surprisingly, the epitome of the American field commander has been General Omar N. Bradley, not General George S. Patton.

From Military Keynesianism to Global-Neoliberal Militarism

2009-07-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

Written by James M. Cypher , Professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas (Mexico) .

Δημοσιεύτηκε στην ιστοσελίδα του διεπιστημονικού περιοδικού 'Monthly Review' (http://monthlyreview.org/) , από όπου και αναδημοσιεύεται . Το εν λόγω άρθρο παρουσιάστηκε σε έντυπη μορφή στο Τεύχος 59.2 (Volume 59 , Number 2) του 'Monthly Review' , τον Ιούνιο του 2007 .

The New Militarism

In mid-summer of 2006 a Harris Opinion poll revealed that roughly 50 percent of the U.S. public believed that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) had been found in Iraq by U.S. forces and nearly two-thirds of those polled thought that the Iraqi regime had been collaborating with al-Qaeda forces prior to the Washington invasion in the spring of 2003. All this, of course, stood in stark contrast to the facts as they were then known and grudgingly acknowledged by U.S. policymakers. At the same time, a large majority of the population believed that the invasion had been a mistake and favored significant troop withdrawals in the near future.

Psychologists might interpret these discordant results as indications of mass cognitive dissonance. That it is, but it is much more: The U.S. public in general has a very long and deep, and largely positive, association with things military. This peculiar relationship owes much to experiences during the Second World War. Although the United States suffered significant losses in terms of death and injury to its fighting forces, the economy boomed during the war, the Depression faded, and the fight was “over there.” Furthermore, in the early 1940s the U.S. military promulgated a new doctrine of “forward defense,” meaning that after the Second World War Washington would stage much of its firepower throughout the globe, essentially spending next to nothing to defend the territory of the United States itself. The destruction of war was felt most by the hundreds of millions of people in other lands who experienced imperial wars and interventions in their national territories. This unique positive U.S. relationship between economic recovery and heavy bouts of military spending (if not war) has remained up to the present.

During 1945–89, Washington engaged in six large-scale military actions. In the 1989–2003 period the United States carried out nine such actions. With the onset of the Persian Gulf War of 1991, a new factor was thrown into the relationship—high-tech, “precision-guided” weaponry would make combat antiseptic. War would become its antithesis—thanks to American ingenuity. A childish and disengaged language also began to circulate in this period. There were “good guys” and “bad guys.” High-tech war would eliminate the bad guys—not innocent civilians whose deaths had been compartmentalized heretofore as collateral damage. As the tempo of intervention rose, so did much of the U.S. population’s fascination with technowar and all things military.

The presentation of war as entertainment during the 1991 Gulf War was designed to beat back the Vietnam Syndrome—what conservatives saw as a pathology regarding the U.S. population’s increased reluctance to support interventions in the third world. It succeeded. The war in Kosovo in the late 1990s echoed this theme as the United States/NATO pounded the former Yugoslavia from the air—suffering no casualties.

The post-Vietnam formula was simple: go in and get out fast. The public will support military adventurism, but it will not sustain high human costs of war in the United States. Death and injury rupture the delusion of the antiseptic, high-tech, precision-guided technowar. So, the polling data cited above fit nicely into what would logically appear to be a contradiction: A large portion of the U.S. public is drawn to support the military and military adventurism in the abstract, and they want to believe—as they are constantly being told—that the United States has only engaged in just wars and in justifiable levels of military buildup, and that the U.S. exercise of force is overwhelming and righteous. Conversely, once the public is confronted with the inevitable reality of these policies, its enthusiasm for such belligerent actions wanes.

Integral Hegemony versus Minimal Hegemony

There is a well-known and all too little used term for a society that has a predilection for deference to all things military—militarism. In the United States militarism is and has been since the late 1940s a hegemonic societal perception—the prism through which global political events and U.S. foreign policy are interpreted. Shaping and responding to such events is the function of grand strategy, which is about the strategic application of military force or threat of force to change the surrounding world environment so as to achieve an end. These ends are defined by the power elite and propounded by “defense intellectuals” (often operating from key foundations and research centers) and state managers. Once formulated, policy is disseminated via Pentagon national security documents, presidential speeches, and State Department pronouncements to the underlying population.

Joseph V. Femia describes hegemony as a state in which “one concept of reality is dominant, informing with its spirit all modes of thought and behavior.” As James Martin tells us, “a successful hegemony will seek to render itself incontestable.”(1) Like other taboo words, militarism is often disallowed as inapplicable because its form has evolved while the terminology is seemingly locked in historical place. One does not need a military caste or a Prussian-style political system replete with swaggering, medal-bedecked generals to maintain that militarism is the dominant concept of reality informing all modes of thought and behavior with regard to the forcible actions of the state. A civilian-led military establishment achieved a certain level of autonomy as a result of and in the aftermath of the Second World War—particularly due to the rise of the Cold War.

But, militarism’s hegemony in the organization of the U.S. state and the conduct of foreign policy is fragile. It is not what followers of Antonio Gramsci’s concept would term “integral hegemony” based upon a very broad level of consent. Consent has had to be constructed and reconstructed: The Cold War construct—a battle between good and evil according to the Manichean view of President Reagan—was all but incontestable until deep protest and analysis broke through the hegemonic barriers that had circumscribed critical analysis of the precepts of the Cold War during the Vietnam era. In the late 1940s, when the U.S. leviathan began to string its military bases around the globe (numbering over three thousand small-to-large facilities by the late 1960s) serious voices of dissent were heard from 1949 on—particularly in Monthly Review and Monthly Review Press where Paul Baran and I. F. Stone fearlessly challenged mainstream distortions.(2)

But, this had limited effect at the time. Later, of course, the Monthly Review analysis of U.S. militarism was fundamental in the late 1960s—particularly the work of Harry Magdoff—providing a theoretical starting point.(3) As a result of the war in Vietnam, Cold War militarism fell apart, giving way to what conservatives called the Vietnam Syndrome. No one knew this better than the professional military.

Getting U.S. militarism back to a level of incontestable, integral ideological hegemony has been a long sought goal that appeared well in reach after 9/11. The shock and awe unleashed on Iraq in 2003 was to restore U.S. militarism as the premier ideological construct. Behind this construct U.S. power could fluidly unfold, as the world’s only superpower demonstrated that no form of nationalist defiance would go unpunished. A new era of neoliberal militarism was consolidating, according to the architects of the new model—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld (among others).

From time to time some critical or restraining voices were to be heard, most particularly within the Pentagon, but also in the CIA and other intelligence agencies, and at the State Department where the fantasies of antiseptic high-tech warfare were understood as delusional. Nonetheless, long before 9/11, as we now know, the architects of neoliberal militarism were intent upon making Iraq a showcase of their resolve. Preemption of any form of defiance would yield long-term benefits as other nations curbed their nationalist impulses lest they suffer the consequences of U.S. destabilization or invasion. Meanwhile, a very substantial part of the U.S. public, confident in the righteousness of U.S. military power, could be counted on to consent—offering their tax dollars, their allegiance, and their enthusiasm to the application, expansion, and maintenance of revitalized militarism.

But, it just did not work out that way: Instead of reconstructing an integral and incontestable hegemony, the actual application of U.S. military power slowly revealed again something the public had been conditioned for decades to forget: As Karl von Clausewitz—perhaps the most renowned student of war—understood, the fog of war frequently makes the application of military force an unusable and sometimes perverse instrument. And, slowly at first and then gaining rocket-like speed, the situation in Iraq, post-invasion, has unraveled to the point where by the fall of 2006, the top of the U.S. military command were openly pointing to a civil war scenario, while the insurgency seemed to gain strength. The “high-tech–no-tech” war (asymmetrical warfare) was going backward in Iraq. Meanwhile, the military situation in Afghanistan—five years on—had seriously eroded. Supplying the world with 87 percent of its opium, the dissidents in Afghanistan have plenty of money and time to make life very uncomfortable for those who projected U.S. military power in that nation.

The long effort to beat the Vietnam Syndrome had pushed the U.S. public to a point well short of the achievement of integral, incontestable hegemony for U.S. militarism. The bellicose architects and their many supporters in the Senate and House of Representatives—many dumbstruck by 9/11—could count on the money, allegiance, enthusiasm, trust, (press-led) jingoism, and short attention span of the U.S. citizenry—but they were much less able to spill the blood of combatants from working-class backgrounds.

In Iraq the death toll of U.S. soldiers exceeded 3,000 (with additional deaths of U.S. non-military security forces/contractors unpublished). A multiple of that number have been maimed and injured to a degree not seen in previous battles. That is, unprecedented medical intervention has saved thousands of combatants whose injuries are catastrophic and lifelong. Unfortunately but predictably, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi war victims, overwhelmingly civilians, simply are not part of the calculus. This vital element of the ideology of militarism—deaths of opponents are, if not entirely irrelevant, better not mentioned—remains well-entrenched.

Consent for U.S. militarism cannot, since Vietnam, be sustained in the face of significant levels of U.S. combat deaths. Support for the Iraq War has steadily withered as the death toll has climbed. Thus, rather than engendering integral hegemony, militarism has achieved at best minimal hegemony. That is, in the deployment of force by the U.S. state, the level of consent to be extracted from the underlying population is weak and conditional.

Military Keynesianism and Global-Neoliberal Militarism

After the Second World War the leading lights of the economics profession anticipated that the U.S. economy would fall back into depression. But, pent-up demand from the days of rationing during the Second World War actually led to a significant expansion of the economy, for a while. Then, in 1948–49 the economy seemed to falter and the dreaded stagnation hypothesis—the notion that the closing of the frontiers, lack of major technological changes to follow the automobile, slowing population growth, and other factors would all lead to an economic slowdown and rising levels of unemployment/underemployment—was much in evidence. At the same time in the political, strategic, and geopolitical realms a great deal of change was occurring, foremost among them the explosion of a nuclear device by the Soviet Union and the final triumph of Mao’s forces in China, both in 1949. A recession broke out in mid-1949, suggesting to many that depression was imminent. Meanwhile, the U.S. military and its civilian advisors at the State Department were convinced that Washington could and should build an extremely costly super weapon, the hydrogen bomb, to trump the Soviets and create a permanent military edge of superiority.

Hence, with the participation of the Departments of Defense and State, the United States embarked on a series of high-level secret studies to determine what should be U.S. military posture in the face of these (and other) new contingencies that were viewed with great alarm by President Truman and the bipartisan political elite. Under the heading of National Security Document-68 (NSC-68), the Magna Carta of the Cold War era was gradually pounded out. Secret, but widely known for its conclusions until published in 1975, NSC-68 made the then novel argument that the U.S. economy had excess capacity and that high levels of military spending on a permanent basis would act as a stimulant to the economy—creating multiplier effects on employment and spending by absorbing the unemployed and the untapped production capabilities of U.S. industry. In its sheer breadth and comprehensiveness—both in terms of the creation and use of military power and in its focus on the economy—it is safe to argue that nothing like it has been produced since. Pale were the efforts of various groups in the 1990s, including the Project for a New American Century and the U.S. Government’s Commission on National Security/21st Century, to emulate NSC-68.(4)

NSC-68 distilled the views of the military-civilian policymaking elite that had recently acquired control of the state within the state—the National Security State. In the testy climate of 1947 dominated by the heady Truman Doctrine, the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Department of Defense (DoD), the CIA, the National Security Agency, and other new national security entities gave form to a new constellation of governmental agencies, bureaus, and empowered personnel. The shell of the National Security State was there and NSC-68 provided the ideological and theoretical structure to fuel the military-industrial “iron triangle” which has merged the interests of manufacturing and high-tech industries, the political apparatus of the state, the civilian Pentagon leadership, and the professional military.

In June 1950, the Korean War began and the race to pump up the military sector was on. Truman along with the political elite and the corporate leaders of the manufacturing sector became convinced, apparently, that the military Keynesian policy of high levels of government spending—even if occasionally financed through deficits—could boost the economy and keep it on an even keel. The Keynesian aspect of the policy related to the issue of full employment and rising wages. Within the new economic paradigm there was room for unions, with virtually all major military contractors and subcontractors operating with the cooperation of union workers in a high-wage, labor-intensive environment. Many contracts were cost-plus so rising wage payments were not an issue. Other contracts tended to allow for cost overruns or gold plating and the military services were indifferent to costs, since their only real focus was on the performance of weapons systems.

Periodically boosting military spending turned out to be a convenient way to combat recessions and slowdowns and to sidestep the conservative ideology that counter-cyclical additions to the public debt would undermine the integrity of the economy. To be sure, increased military spending in the late 1960s—towards the end of what had then been the longest consecutive period of economic expansion—led to a so-called overheated economy rife with inflationary pressures. But, setting aside that period, military spending has played a significant role in all economic recoveries save that of the early 1990s when extremely high levels of recently accumulated deficits combined with the winding-down of the Cold War precluded the adoption of the military spending tactic. This is the long legacy of NSC-68.

One part of that legacy, however, was jettisoned during the trying years of the 1970s: slowly but steadily the frontal onslaught on U.S. labor gained force and momentum as a principal means to reverse the then falling rate of profit. By 2006 the most successful of all unions, the United Auto Workers, was pushed into what seemed to be a death spiral. Military spending continues to play a major role, albeit a lesser one than it did in the 1950–73 period, but the link between military spending and job creation and wage enhancement for the U.S. working class has long been broken. Military contractors today generally pay scant attention to their unions and strive to relocate to right-to-work states and/or directly attack unions. At one time the unions were an important part of the iron triangle using their political weight to support the contracts that their employers sought. The climate at the base of the iron triangle has changed because the corporate elite and the state managers abandoned the Keynesian capital-labor accord in the 1970s.

The new era of global-neoliberal militarism, following the debacle in Vietnam, began in the 1980s, not coincidentally with the onset of the Reagan/Thatcher era. In the United States, the objectives of global-neoliberal militarism are served by military spending, which boosts the profit rate of large corporations, creates new technologies such as the Internet, and contributes to policies that confront the onset of recessions. The objectives of lowering the unemployment rate, raising wages, and contributing to workers’ economic security are no longer a consideration, as they were in the days of military Keynesianism.

Part of the neoliberal ideology is to destroy the state, except insofar as it defends the institutions of business ownership and the ability to project military power. But even military functions are to be privatized to whatever degree possible. Any conceivable activity in which the military sector engages is analyzed in terms of its potential to generate profit for the private sector. Hence, if potato peeling can be done at a profit, then this activity will be turned over to the private sector—assuming that such a change will not have a negative impact on the ability of military personnel to perform their functions. Even in the Keynesian era many operations and maintenance activities were spun-off to private contractors, but in the new era the search for possible privatizations has reached new heights. The logic of the privatization model is rather straightforward—for every billion dollars of expenditure on the military apparatus a larger percentage of these funds will circulate in the private sector where profit can be taken. Meals will be served, prisoners guarded, bases built, etc., but at a higher cost, and/or at lower wage and benefit levels, such that an impressive margin of profit can be extracted.

Neoliberals believe, a priori, that all public sector activities are inefficient and that (thanks to the regulating role of the free market) private sector activities are a model of efficiency. Hence, get the military out of every sort of activity to the fullest degree possible. This model is now in place in Iraq, where private contractors (operating an unofficial army with over a hundred thousand employees) have apparently enjoyed unrestrained opportunities to amass quick profits. As a result, a new addition to the military-industrial complex—a vast constellation of contractors employing a shadow military with a vested interest in higher levels of military spending, particularly in the high-profit intervention/reconstruction business—has been created over the last fifteen years.

Abroad, global-neoliberal militarism can be distinguished from military Keynesianism in terms of projects for the structural adjustment of defiant nations. According to the president’s 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States, nations remade by the United States will have borders open to trade and investment and will also conform to the neoliberal dictates of the IMF in terms of monetary and fiscal policies, labor policies (particularly flexibility programs that eliminate labor and obliterate any institutions of economic security and stability for workers), and tax policies (which shift the fiscal burden from capital to labor). An independent, democratic country cannot take control of its national resources and use them as it sees fit—such as nationalizing its transportation system or health system, or maintaining sovereign control over oil, gas, and minerals via nationally owned companies.

Meanwhile, in the nation-building exercise in Iraq, Washington is constructing at least four superbases, along with ten enduring bases or contingency bases where massive amounts of military material can be forward-staged for quick use in the Middle East, South Central Asia, and North Africa. Currently, the United States operates as one of its four superbases the Balad Air Base, a fifteen-square-mile facility near Baghdad, where the level of air traffic is second only to London’s Heathrow airport. At the same time, the United States is building a $592 million embassy in Baghdad that is the biggest ever constructed worldwide.(5) Thus, in Iraq as elsewhere, a “democratic” regime has been stripped of the essence of autonomy, is compelled to follow a rigid neoliberal economic model in domestic and international arenas, and, furthermore, yields to the permanent basing of U.S. military forces, while an overweening embassy duly keeps notes on the degree of conformity with the new model of global-neoliberal militarism.

The Macroeconomics of Militarism

During the era of military Keynesianism the Soviet “threat” was the pretext for runaway outlays on the military. Threat inflation kept the wheels of the military-industrial complex greased with profits for the private sector, jobs for union workers, and new gizmos of destruction for the military. After a brief period of disorientation when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989–91, threat inflation is once again the prime device facilitating runaway outlays on the military—this time with the military receiving the new gizmos the contractors happily provide, but without the same pressure to raise wages and create jobs for the U.S. working class. The director of MIT’s Security Studies Program, Harvey Saplosky, refers to the current bout of threat inflation as being driven by what he terms “You Never Know(ism)”:

You Never Knowism is the guiding ethos of U.S. national security. National security planning documents are rife with it. They evoke a world of swirling uncertainty and rising complexity, a time of unprecedented change, where predictions are impossible but dangers great. They claim that the simple Soviet threat has been replaced by more various and irrational ones, which require capabilities-based planning—building military forces with no particular foe in mind.

The Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the defense planning document drafted every four years to guide U.S. defense spending, is only the latest example. Following the National Security Strategy (2002), the National Military Strategy (2004), and the National Defense Strategy (2005), the Review, released in February [2006], states that the United States now faces a hostile mix of terrorists, failed states that we must order, insurgencies, rogue states with missiles, and large militaries like China’s.

Like these prior strategy documents, the QDR does not bother to estimate how probable these threats are and decide to focus on one or another on that basis. It contends simply that “managing risks” compels us to prepare for all of them.(6)

Because of 9/11 the marketing of fear resonates with the U.S. public even more perhaps than did such attempts in the 1950s when it was not possible to point to any form of Soviet military intervention in U.S. territory. Yet, as the specialists in security studies at MIT maintain, in relative terms the widespread fear of terrorist attack has little basis in reality—while serving to drive military expenditures higher and higher:

The dirty secret of American national security politics is that we are safe. Americans might be the most secure people in history. But we worry. We are told that our enemies may be organizing our destruction in pockets of disorder, which are growing. We are taught that the world is chaotic, awash in civil war and terrorism, which could strike us “any place, with virtually any weapon.” We hear that our satellites are ripe for attack, that pirates prey on our shipping, that Iran’s nuclear weapons portend disaster, and that China is a growing threat. At base, however, most arguments claiming America’s insecurity rely on implausible scenarios. The futures these arguments fear are not probable but possible. It is possibility that justifies the defenses they advocate.(7)

With the public largely in a receptive and uncritical mood regarding military spending, the expansion of the military budget that began in 1999 has continued. According to data compiled by the U.S. government’s Office of Management and Budget, the current ten years (fiscal years 1999 through 2008) of sequentially rising arms spending, measured in inflation adjusted expenditures, is now longer than that of the Vietnam era (six years of real rising outlays) and Korea (four years). In relative terms, real Department of Defense outlays in the Vietnam era rose by 35.7 percent during 1963–68, while during 1999–2006 real outlays soared by 56 percent.(8) For 2008, overall basic military spending is slated to leap by 11 percent, following a strong estimated increase in 2007. Some of this is driven by the boots-on-the-ground philosophy of the Bush administration, with army and marine forces scheduled to rise from the 2006 level of 694,000 to 749,000 in 2011.

Moreover, the actual level of funding for all military related outlays is much larger than what is encompassed by direct DoD outlays. Determining precisely how much larger is not really possible. Nonetheless, making some reasonable assumptions regarding various items in the U.S. budget, it is possible to demonstrate that overall military expenditures amount to roughly 80 percent more than the public believes, based on press releases of the Pentagon. The following formula roughly accounts for the total annual outlay for all military related expenditures (MilReEx):

MilReEx = DoD* + Int Aff x .5 + Science & Space + Vets + Net Interest x .81 + Homeland + Other Def
Where:
DoD*includes basic DoD outlays + atomic energy related outlays
Int Aff x .5 attributes 50% of State Department and aid outlays to military purposes
Science and Space includes research & development for space weapons and systems
Vets includes all expenditures by the Veterans Administration
Net Interest x .81 attributes 81% of the annual interest payments on the federal debt to past wars and periods of military build-up(9)
Homeland includes all outlays for Homeland Security not in DoD*
Other Def includes a variety of civilian outlays due to military spending such as military retirement

In 2003, for example, basic DoD outlays were $387 billion, or about $41.7 million per hour, while the total outlays, or MilReEx, amounted to $686.3 billion.(10) For 2006, the Office of Management and Budget records estimated DoD outlays at $512 billion while estimated MilReEx amount to $929.8 billion. On this basis, and adjusting for inflation (using year 2000 constant dollars) MilReEx jumped from 5.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product to 7.1 percent from 1999 to 2006—far from the 3–4 percent range commonly assumed by pundits and economists. What this means, among other things, is that MilReEx have been a leading sector since 1999, and were particularly important when they soared precisely as the economy turned downward and slowly recovered in the 2001–03 period, while serving as a vital prop to the otherwise relatively weak economy since then.

Ironically, one of the major factors slowing MilReEx was the decline in net interest payments during the current round of arms buildup primarily due to the aggressive cutting of the interest rate by the Federal Reserve beginning in May 2000. Viewed in another way, as interest rates have risen to a more historically established level since November 2005, the burden of past bouts of DoD outlays financed by deficits have increased. Net interest outlays fell from $234 billion in 1999 to $144 billion in 2003, climbing to an estimated $192 billion in 2006.(11) Not only did the burden of interest payments fall by 48 percent in real terms, but the drop in net interest payments meant that a much greater portion of MilReEx circulated within the U.S. economy since the reduction in the net interest component meant that a smaller portion of military expenditures was shifted abroad to pay foreign owners of the U.S. national debt. Thus, MilReEx had more of a stimulating impact on a recessed economy in the 2000–03 period than one might surmise viewing only the jump in the MilReEx/GDP ratio.

While the above calculations are rough estimates of MilReEx, in one important area the figures could be too low by perhaps as much as $50 billion or more: The United States has fifteen intelligence services, including the giant National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. The amount budgeted to these agencies is a national security secret, although prior to the current long buildup it was common to encounter annual outlay estimates in the $30 billion range. It is commonly assumed that this budget is hidden in one or more of the categories relating to MilReEx. But it would be more consistent with the general obfuscation of the real cost of global-neoliberal militarism to hypothesize the burial of the intelligence budget outside of the categories mentioned above. Thus, as large as the numbers cited above are for MilReEx, and as far from the conventional wisdom regarding DoD costs as they are, they are likely to prove to be an underestimate of total MilReEx due to

1. possible untracked intelligence expenditures, and

2. foreign arms sales of which only a portion is included in the international affairs item—the rest being private sector arms exports unsupported by government funding.

Structuralist versus Neoliberal-Unilateralist Views on the Arms Boom

What is behind the big jump in arms spending? Here a serious debate seems to loom. It is possible to encapsulate this debate by dividing analysts into two camps, those who hold to either the “structuralist” or the “neoliberal-unilateralist” view. The structuralists find basic continuities in U.S. strategic policy from at least the 1940s, if not earlier, to the present—marked by periods of vast military buildup and by periods of stasis and limited decline.(12) Some structuralists, such as Gabriel Kolko, trace this to the larger geopolitics and global political economy of the United States—or to basic tendencies within capitalism, modified in various phases (e.g., monopoly capitalism and the recent neoliberal financialization phase), as in the case of Harry Magdoff and authors associated with Monthly Review.(13) Within the structuralist framework central recognition in analyzing militarism is given to the rather broad range of strategic visions that have existed regarding power projection and forward defense. Thus, during the high-points of tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, there were high-level civilian and military strategists who urged preemptive war, and spending rose. Rollback and first strike were seriously entertained within the higher circles of power, but were set aside in favor of more indirect forms of confrontation. Quirky presidents and belligerent “preventive war” advisors have existed long before the George W. Bush administration began to flout their ideas of the unrestrained use power. In this view the concept of the United States as the world’s only superpower constitutes a change of limited substance. The emphasis here is on continuity where the United States is viewed as a nation dominated in Kolko’s interpretation by structuralist tendencies coupled with the volunteeristic use of power—guided not by a viable strategic doctrine but by wishful thinking and self delusion. Thus according to Kolko, with respect to the United States:

Its grand military strategy always contained an important element of wishful thinking; but as it became more ambitious, the unexpected surprises increased. Its defeat in Vietnam revealed that although the United States had a great deal of firepower, it utterly lacked the essential political understanding needed to avoid more failures....What the United States does best is spend money as if weapons provide solutions to political and social problems, and because it is so rich it has not learned anything fundamental from its past errors.(14)

While the Bush administration harped on its unilateral power, the world is becoming more multipolar—a new phase in international relations has emerged since 1999. In this new phase:

[T]he US impulse to intervene virtually everywhere in the world had led to an incoherent foreign policy that confronted many more challenges than it could resolve....[T]he way the United States viewed the world and its commanding role in it, along with its core assumptions about the means and institutions it possessed for attaining its goals were seriously confused....The dilemma was not only its persistent definition of global priorities that exceeded its military and political resources, but also the fact that many of the places in which the United States had intervened in the past remained continuing obligations, leaving an accumulation of troublesome legacies to potentially challenge the future.(15)

For structuralists like Kolko the problem is to some degree reducible to the fact that the United States has always believed its role was one of predestination, leading to a global mission that would altruistically impose “democratic” rules and institutions upon much of the rest of the world. In this context the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the current possibilities of conflict with Iran are not exceptional, but merely recent examples of self-delusion and wishful thinking regarding the potential use of military power.

In the neoliberal-unilateralists’ perspective, U.S. foreign policy and military strategy have been seized through a neoconservative policy “coup.” This has its origins in organizations such as the Project for a New American Century, which urged a vast increase in military spending and war on Iraq during the Clinton administration, and the Congressional Policy Advisory Board, formed in 1998, in which the same neoconservative zealots urged a much more aggressive use of U.S. military capabilities. Perhaps the best treatment of this perspective is to be found in James Mann’s The Rise of the Vulcans, but the idea of a fundamental discontinuity in the projection of U.S. power is also to be found in Ron Suskind’s One Percent Solution and in Kevin Phillip’s American Theocracy, which takes up the discussion from the standpoint of the rise of religious fundamentalism and its advocacy of a muscular foreign policy.(16)

One aspect of the neoliberal-unilateralist perspective, arguing that U.S. policy has fundamentally changed—now being more volatile and aggressive than in the past—is open to structuralist criticism. Advocates of the aggressive use of military power, such as Donald Rumsfeld, are often not newcomers to the arena of political power—many date back to the early days to the first Reagan administration, others to the Nixon era and are not neoconservatives. Yet, it is possible to argue that these personalities have been gradually pulled over to the worldview of the neoconservatives as the power structure of Washington has shifted toward the more rightist think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute, among others.

The neoliberal economic offensive against workers that began in the 1970s has proceeded unabated; the rightist onslaught has fragmented the working class, accelerated outsourcing, raised the rate of profit, and dropped taxes precipitously for the affluent and particularly for the rich. These discontinuities between the 1945–70 period and the current era have seemingly been matched by discontinuities in the exercise of U.S. power projection. The postwar presidential administrations until the rise of the Reagan/Thatcher era of neoliberalism, while sometimes influenced by extreme advocates of first strike and roll back—threatening a preemptive war with the Soviet Union—were generally guided by plodding “realists” such as George Kennan, or more recently Brent Scowcroft.

Today “realists” have been pushed out of policy making and strategic circles, replaced by neoconservatives such as Elliot Abrams, who since 2002 has been senior director at the National Security Council. There is no doubt that President Bush’s failure to go along with the 2006 Iraq Study Group Report, which was largely the product of his father’s secretary of state, James Baker, considered a consummate realist, is an indication of the neoconservative weight in the framing of U.S. military/foreign policy.

Even Kolko seems to have adopted the view that there has been a discontinuity in the exercise of power projection and military strategy:

The Bush administration made foreign policy proposals that were breathtaking and open-ended, painfully and obviously vague projects and commitments whose ultimate consequence in most cases could scarcely be predicted....The studiously vague US war on terror introduced an element of irrationality in the international order that did not exist until the mid-1990s.(17)

Nonetheless, he argues elsewhere that while it has been brasher than previous administrations, the substantive difference is one of capability, with the Bush administration “consummately inept in almost everything it did.”(18)

Putting to rest this debate is beyond the scope of this article. But although evidence would seem to suggest that structures are important and continuities can be found in U.S. power projection, Washington has now embarked on a form of global militarism that stretches beyond the precedents established in the postwar era. Where but in the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy of the United States and similar documents is to be found open-ended, threatening language such as this?: “While we do not seek to dictate to other states the choices they make, we do seek to influence the calculations on which these choices are made. We also must hedge appropriately in case states choose unwisely....we must be prepared to act alone, if necessary.”(19)

The Bush doctrine of self-justificatory preemptive war and permanent military superiority as stated in 2002 and 2003 arose from a long struggle by neoconservative elements to dominate the definitions and uses of U.S. military power. The neoconservatives, in the 1964–95 period, sought to take over the conservative political space, using a fierce combative style to resurrect U.S. military assertiveness and strategies of global dominance in the aftermath of Vietnam. Vietnam suggested that force was not a viable means of policy, while the neoconservatives believed the contrary. With the unexpected end of the Cold War some neoconservatives believed the “imperial moment” had come for the resurrection on a far larger scale of the “American Century,” while others were unsure and undirected.

By 1995 a new generation of neoconservatives began to emerge: They envisioned “military power as an instrument for transforming the international system and cementing American primacy.” The neoconservatives held to “the certainty that American global dominion is, in fact, benign and that other nations necessarily see it as such.” A major tenet of the neoconservatives of the second generation is “nothing works like force.” Peace occurs only as an outcome of war. “[P]romoting the assertive use of American military power became central to the imperial self-definition devised by second-generation neoconservatives.”(20) Thus, the buildup of military power became central to their focus and the realist assumption that all nations face limits in their ability to act became a heresy when applied to the United States. Armed force was the best means, probably the unique means, to project American values—this is Wilsonianism on steroids.

Defining Interests

A balanced approach would suggest that neither the structuralist nor the neoliberal-unilateralist theses are entirely wrong, and that in this most recent phase of U.S. global-neoliberal militarism is a product of the two. The elements of continuity in U.S. military policy and doctrine and the fact that Democrats as well as Republicans—the economic interests of Silicon Valley as well as the oil interests of West Texas—supported the new phase of U.S. militarism suggests that the dominant class forces taken as a whole were generally consenting in the expeditionary military buildup after 9/11. Nonetheless, the management of the wars, due to the makeup of the Bush administration itself, was spearheaded by neoconservative Vulcans, creating conflicts within the elites of the U.S. body-politic, exemplified in the “realist” Iraq Study Group critique of the Bush Doctrine. In that sense the “neoliberal-unilateralist” thesis, though crude, and often misleading, has something to teach us. It may indeed reflect the evolution of a whole new age of U.S. imperial strategizing and military power projection, in which structural forces too are pointing toward greater adventurism.

According to neoconservative ideology, U.S. intervention is values based—imposing “a single sustainable model for national success: democracy, and free enterprise” in the words of the 2003 version of the National Security Strategy of the United States. Lurking behind such conceptions is the much denied question of interest-based use of force characteristic of capitalism: To access resources, to control resources, to dominate markets, and to ensure stability of relationships that facilitate the functioning of the U.S. economy.

In this context, the U.S. intervention in the Persian Gulf should not be seen as all about oil but also, and more importantly, about capitalism and geopolitical domination—that is, accumulation, militarism, and (informal) empire. Oil is a strategic resource”—the single most important energy resource—and its control has long been central to U.S. strategic policy. But the pluses of intervention for the power structure go far beyond that.

From the standpoint of the neoconservatives now dominating the state within the state, interventionist actions will:

1. produce a surge of support for the White House thereby enabling it to accomplish other objectives;

2. defeat defiant nations and by extension demonstrate to other nations that defiance will result in destruction of their regimes;

3. realign resources and market access relationships;

4. allow for the repositioning of U.S. military bases and forward staging facilities;

5. restructure geopolitical relationships;

6. show the “will to power” of U.S. leaders, creating shock and awe abroad and further cementing the ideology of militarism within the psyche of the underlying U.S. population. From the standpoint of the iron triangle of the military-industrial complex (a crucial aspect of the overall system), military intervention and war can sell weapons and boost MilReEx in general, leading to major innovations in new weapons and creating technological spin-offs into the private sector. It can serve to elevate further the esteem of the military, creating fast promotions for military officers.

Nevertheless, the fog of war remains. Such blitzkrieg policies can also go terribly wrong from the perspective of the policy planners and strategists, revealing—as Kolko has maintained—the delusional, wishful nature of U.S. power projection. In the final analysis facts and events can be known and analyzed, but motive(s) can only normally be attributed—members of the power elite very rarely reveal their motives, speaking rather in an elite code of ideological obfuscation to which their own understandings are often prey. It is likely that they act on structural imperatives that they may not fully articulate, or even understand. As Kolko concludes: if the United States “continues as it has over the past half-century, attempting to satisfy its vainglorious but irrational ambition to run the world, then there will be even deeper crises and it will inflict wars and turmoil on many nations as well as on its own people. And it will fail again....”(21)

Rather than constituting something entirely new, the current neoconservative thrust of U.S. grand strategy has tragically accelerated dangerous belligerent tendencies built into the structure of the U.S. political economy. Blowback effects from earlier phases of intervention (in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan) have now combined with the new superpower illusions creating a vortex of runaway forces, that seemingly justify a ten-year escalation in military spending—most of which has nothing to do with the Middle East and Southwest Asia.

Yet, such forces were beaten back in the context of the Vietnam War—as they must be once again.

Notes :
(1) Joseph V. Femia, Gramsci’s Political Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 24; James Martin, “The Political Logic of Discourse,” History of European Ideas 28, (2002), 25.
(2) The 3,000+ base figure is taken from Harry Magdoff (see the following note). For an early attempt at analysis on the strategy of “forward defense” that undergirds the global bases policy see George Marion, Bases and Empire, 3rd ed.(New York: Fairplay Press, 1949). For a recent review of the same issue see Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004). The editors of Monthly Review, in a recent study, put the number of U.S. bases overseas at the end of the Cold War at around eight hundred, The Editors, “U.S. Military Bases and Empire” Monthly Review 53, no. 10 (2002): 1–14.
(3) Magdoff’s brilliant essay “Militarism and Imperialism,” was widely read at the time and warrants rereading today: see Harry Magdoff, Imperialism: From the Colonial Age to the Present (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978), 198–212.
(4) Fred Block’s “Economic Instability and Military Strength,” Politics and Society 10, no. 1 (1980): 35–58, remains the best introduction to NSC-68. On the Project see, James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans (New York: Viking, 2004), 238, 243, 285. On the commission see, James Cypher, “Return of the Iron Triangle,” Dollars and Sense (January–February 2002), 16–19, 37–38.
(5) Michael Hirsh, “Stuck in the Hot Zone” Newsweek, May 1, 2006, 1–4, http://msnbc.com.
(6) Benjamin H. Friedman and Harvey Saplosky, “You Never Know(ism),” Breakthroughs xv, no. 1, (Spring 2006): 4.
(7) Friedman and Saplosky, “You Never Know(ism),” 3.
(8) Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables: Budget of the United States, http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov. The Korean War era buildup was much larger—a 221 percent increase in real DoD outlays, but this was partly due to the much smaller base.
(9) Robert Higgs, “The Defense Budget is Bigger than you Think,” San Francisco Chronicle (January 18, 2004).
(10) Office of Management and Budget, The Budget for Fiscal Year 2007, Historical Tables, 59–60, 77–78, http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov.
(11) Office of Management and Budget, The Budget for Fiscal Year 2007, Historical Tables, 147–48, http://origin.www.gpoaccess.gov.
(12) The most articulate advocate for this view is Gabriel Kolko whose research on the limits of U.S. power is vast. See Gabriel Kolko, Another Century of War? (New York: The Free Press, 2002) and especially The Age of War (Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2006).
(13) See Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, Monopoly Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966); Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy, Stagnation and the Financial Explosion (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987); Fred Magdoff, “The Explosion of Debt and Speculation” Monthly Review 58, no. 6 (November 2006): 1–23.
(14) Kolko, Age of War, 91.
(15) Kolko, Age of War, 88–89.
(16) James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans (New York: Viking, 2004); Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine; Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy (New York: Viking, 2006).
(17) Kolko, Age of War, 105, 108.
(18) Kolko, Age of War, 120.
(19) President of the United States, National Security Strategy of the United States (2006),36–37,http://www.defenselink.mil.
(20) Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 83, 84, 86.
(21) Kolko, Age of War, 178.

Benevolent Global Hegemony : William Kristol and the Politics of American Empire

2009-07-17T03:25:00.000-07:00

Written by Gary Dorrien , Parfet Distinguished Professor at Kalamazoo College (Michigan , USA) .

Δημοσιεύτηκε στην ιστοσελίδα του διεπιστημονικού περιοδικού 'Logos' του Τμήματος Πολιτικής Επιστήμης του William Paterson University (http://www.logosjournal.com/) , στις 11 Ιουλίου 2008 , από όπου και αναδημοσιεύεται . Το εν λόγω άρθρο παρουσιάστηκε σε έντυπη μορφή στο Τεύχος 3.2 του 'Logos: A Journal of Modern Society & Culture' , την άνοιξη του 2004 .

Near the end of the Cold War a group of neo-conservative intellectuals and policy makers began to argue that instead of cutting back on America's vast military system, the United States needed to use its unmatched power to create a global Pax Americana. Some of them called it the unipolarist imperative. The goal of American foreign policy, they argued, should be to maintain and extend America's unrivaled global dominance.

The early advocates of unipolar dominance were familiar figures: Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Charles Krauthammer, Paul Wolfowitz, Joshua Muravchik, and Ben Wattenberg. Their ranks did not include the godfather of neo-conservatism, Irving Kristol, who had no interest in global police work or crusading for world democracy. Though he later clarified that he was all for enhancing America's economic and military preeminence, Irving Kristol thought that America's overseas commitments should be determined by a classically realist calculus. His son William Kristol had a greater ambition for America, which he called 'benevolent global hegemony'.

In 1992, the New York Times revealed that Wolfowitz, then an undersecretary for defense, was drafting a new policy plan for the Pentagon that sought to prevent any nation or group of nations from challenging America's global supremacy. President George Bush disavowed the controversial plan, and for the rest of the 1990s establishment Republicans did not speak of grand new strategies. But the neo-cons continued to argue for 'American Greatness', founded new institutions, and made alliances with hard-line conservatives such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. By the time that George W. Bush won the presidency, neo-cons were the strongest foreign policy faction in the Republican party. More than twenty of them swept into office with Bush. Cheney was the key to the neo-cons' windfall of appointments, but the key ideologist and builder of the new neo-conservatism was William Kristol.

Bill Kristol had made a name for himself during the George Bush presidency as Vice President Dan Quayle's chief of staff; reporters called him 'Dan Quayle's brain'. After Bush lost the presidency, Kristol set up his own Washington advocacy operation, the Project for the Republican Future, and supplied Republicans with hard-edged policy advice. He played a leading role in the fight against Hillary Clinton's health care plan, supported Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, and became a fixture on television news programs.

In 1995, Kristol launched an upstart right-wing magazine, The Weekly Standard, that called Republicans to dream of an American-shaped new world order. Like many neo-con enterprises, the Weekly Standard was founded with Rupert Murdoch's money. The following year Kristol and his ideological comrade Robert Kagan issued a manifesto, 'Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy', that urged Americans to dump Clinton's nannyish multilateralism for a policy of global dominion. The year after that Kristol launched a think tank, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), that defended and amplified the Wolfowitz plan, called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and spelled out the particulars of a global empire strategy. The time had come to redeem Wolfowitz's global vision, the PNAC neo-cons urged. America did best for itself and the world when it aggressively pursued its own interests and prevented all nations from challenging its power in every region of the world.

Many of the neo-cons supported John McCain in the Republican primaries. Kristol's group admired McCain's courage as a soldier in Vietnam, his maverick eagerness to take on the establishment, and his pledge to extend 'the unipolar moment . . . for as long as we possibly can'. George W. Bush, by contrast, had no inspiring biography and rarely spoke about foreign policy. He pledged to sustain America's global preeminence, but zigged and zagged between the party's isolationist and unipolarist wings. That smacked of another muddled-realist Bush administration. After the meaningful primaries ended, the neo-cons went to work on Bush.

The Defense Department had to fulfill four missions, they argued: defend the homeland, prepare to fight and win multiple large wars at the same time, perform the 'constabulary duties' of a global superpower, and transform the U.S. armed forces. In September 2000, Kristol and the PNAC unipolarists explained that 'the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars and also to be able to respond to unanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces'. This resembled Colin Powell's two-war standard, but the neo-cons believed that the Powell Doctrine had to be updated to deal with multiple simultaneous conflicts. Moreover, the so-called 'revolution in military affairs' 'employing advanced technologies' was a mission in itself, on a par with defending the homeland, fighting simultaneous wars, and maintaining the global order. The U.S. needed a major increase in its East Asian military presence, a more confrontational policy toward China, and a permanent force in the Persian Gulf. The neo-cons sadly observed that it might take 'a new Pearl Harbor' for Americans to face up to the need for an expanded military.

They cheered candidate Bush's commitment to missile defense and liked his occasional words on behalf of American preeminence. But Bush's positions didn't add up to an aggressive unipolarist policy. He didn't advocate the increases in defense spending or reconfigurations of force structure that the PNAC detailed. Kristol and Kagan were not assured by private assurances from campaign officials that Bush would significantly increase defense spending beyond Clinton's 2001 budget increase. Condoleezza Rice was fond of saying that when Bush became president, the U.S. would no longer be the world's '911'. Kagan surmised that the U.S. would be the world's busy signal. Rice assured reporters that it didn't matter if Bush didn't know much about foreign affairs, because 'it's a whole team of people who are going to get things done'. Kristol and Kagan worried that much of the Bush team would consist of real-politikers from the previous Bush presidency.

Right up to the election Kristol and Kagan complained that Bush downplayed America's military crisis and distastefully trolled for isolationist votes, denigrating Clinton's wars against Slobodan Milosevic in Bosnia and Kosovo. Bush suggested that American troops should be withdrawn from the Balkans; Cheney groused that Milosevic's electoral defeat on September 24, 2000, did not vindicate Clinton's decision to fight in Kosovo; Kristol and Kagan replied that it certainly did. The triumph of democracy in Serbia was Clinton's greatest foreign policy victory.

Kristol later recalled that he felt 'moderately unhappy' about the Bush/Cheney team throughout the 2000 campaign. Though neo-cons wrote some of Bush's speeches, he gave other speeches in which he said, 'We have to be humble. We're over-extended. We don't need to spend much more on the military'. Besides Bush's advocacy of missile defense and his rhetorical commitment to American supremacy, he didn t seem like a good unipolarist. Kristol remarked: 'I wouldn't say that if you read Wolfowitz's Defense Planning Guidance from 1992, and read most of Bush's campaign speeches and his statements in the debates, you would say, 'Hey, Bush has really adopted Wolfowitz's worldview. Though Rice and Wolfowitz were Bush's chief foreign policy advisors, Rice was much closer to him, and she kept her distance from neo-cons: She was skeptical about a lot of these claims that the U.S. really had to shape a new world order, that we had to engage in nation-building, that we might have to intervene in several places at once'. Sixteen months after 9/11, Kristol concluded: 'She was much more, I think, kind of a cautious realist than she is today'.

Cheney and Wolfowitz had worked together in the first Bush administration, where they hatched the first unipolarist blueprint, and in the 1990s Cheney strengthened his ties with neo-cons at the American Enterprise Institute. A charter member of the Project for the New American Century, Cheney embraced its imperial ambitions. Rumsfeld was also a charter PNAC associate, and unlike Cheney, had signed its letter to Clinton in 1998 that called for the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein.

Powell was too important not to get a top position, and Rice was the obvious choice for national security advisor, but Bush and Cheney didn't want Powell to determine their administration's foreign policy. Someone of equal stature and forcefulness to Powell was needed; thus Cheney reached out to his former mentor Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz settled for the number two slot at Defense and was backed up by a more aggressive ideological twin, Douglas Feith, at number three. Thus the vice-president, defense secretary, and deputy defense secretary were all associates of the Project for the New American Century, while Secretary of State Powell and his top appointee, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage - also a PNAC associate - represented a realist unipolarism that accented diplomatic cooperation.

From there the unipolarist appointments went all the way down. Of the eighteen figures who signed the PNAC's 1998 letter to Clinton calling for regime change in Iraq, eleven took positions in the Bush administration. In addition to Armitage, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, they were Elliot Abrahms (senior director for near east, southwest Asian and North African affairs on the National Security Council); John Bolton (undersecretary, Arms Control and International Security); Paula Dobriansky (undersecretary of state for global affairs); Zalmay Khalilzad (president's special envoy to Afghanistan and ambassador-at-large for Free Iraqis); Richard Perle (chair of the Pentagon's semi-autonomous Defense Policy Board); Peter W. Rodman (assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs); William Schneider, Jr. (chair of the Pentagon's Defense Science Board); and Robert B. Zoellick (U.S. trade representative). Other PNAC associates and/or prominent unipolarists who landed high-ranking positions included Stephen Cambone (director of the Pentagon Office of Program, Analysis and Evaluation); Eliot Cohen (Defense Policy Board); Devon Gaffney Cross (Defense Policy Board); I. Lewis Libby (Vice President Cheney's chief of staff), William Luti and Abram Shulsky (eventually, directors of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans), James Woolsey (Defense Policy Board), and David Wurmser (special assistant to the undersecretary of state for arms control). Libby served as assistant to the president and national security adviser to the vice-president in addition to being Cheney's chief of staff, an unprecedented trifecta of positions that amplified Cheney's influence.

By all appearances this extraordinary harvest of appointments put the neo-cons in the driver's seat of the new administration. But for eight months, until 9/11, they didn't feel that way. They worried about Powell's influence over the president, Rice was hard to read, and Bush had other priorities. The complaining began very early. Shortly before Bush's inauguration, Kagan declared that the incoming administration had an obvious split between its leading hawks (Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) and doves (Powell and Rice), and that even Bush's commitment to missile defense was jeopardized by it. Powell, a longtime skeptic about missile defense, had wanted the defense post to go to his friend, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a missile defense opponent. Rice's viewpoint was not well defined, or at least not known, but she appeared to share the skepticism of her former boss and mentor, Brent Scowcroft. Kagan warned: 'Whether the hawks or the doves prevail depends on the president, of course, but the president's judgment will depend on whom he's listening to. So far Bush's missile defense briefings would seem to have come exclusively from the doves'.

On the latter issue he was in a position to know. Bulging with connections to the new administration, he and Kristol doled out inside dope that reflected the frustrations of their friends, and their own. Bush campaigned as an Eisenhower, they judged, not a Reagan, but America desperately needed a Reaganite president who fought for America's interests and scared people. Unfortunately, 'Bush's campaign from the beginning was designed not to scare anyone, anywhere, on any issue'. They judged that it would take six months to know whether Bush had the neo-con spirit. Their ray of hope was that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz would be running the Pentagon.

But on the mother of all issues, the Pentagon budget, Bush stunned his neo-con supporters by announcing that he would live with Clinton's defense budgets for 2001 and 2002. Informed by a 'well-placed administration official' that Rumsfeld was blindsided by this decision, Kagan fumed at Bush's 'first broken campaign promise'. Bush's constant railing against America's declining military strength had led Americans to expect something very different, Kristol and Kagan protested. Kagan caustically remarked that he certainly never said, 'If elected, I promise to enact Bill Clinton's defense budget'.

How could Bush and Cheney now claim that Clinton's defense budget was good enough? How could they promise that 'help is on the way' and then dare to say, 'never mind?' Kagan judged that Bush cared more about his tax cut than national security; repeatedly he and Kristol observed that the budget decision was made by political aides and Office of Management and Budget bean counters, not those who knew the military situation. They also protested that Bush continued or even weakened Clinton's foreign policy. The Weekly Standard neo-cons didn't know that Bush targeted Iraq at his first National Security Council meeting, or that Rumsfeld announced at the second NSC meeting that 'what we really want to think about is going after Saddam'. Kristol and Kagan bitterly complained that in place of Clinton's broad economic sanctions against Iraq, Bush retreated to a dumb and spineless idea of Powell's called 'smart sanctions', which targeted materials that might be used for weapons construction. Worse yet, instead of aggressively supporting the Iraqi opposition, the Bush team, 'led by Powell', backed away from Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Bush gave piddling donations to the INC, 'just as the Clinton administration did', and Chalabi was spurned by the State Department, National Security Council, and CIA. Incredibly, the Bush policy was a weak version of the Clinton policy.

In the spirit of the 'let Reagan be Reagan' protests of the 1980s, Kristol and Kagan detected a fateful pattern in the early Bush administration. Bush would offer a strong immediate reaction to a problem, then back down after Powell, Rice, the bean counters, or political guru Karl Rove prevailed upon him. At the same time they gave praise where it was due, from a neo-con perspective. Bush's unipolarism was half-baked, but he had its unilateralist spirit. Kristol appreciated that Bush dared to scare people on the ABM Treaty and Kyoto Protocol. In June, the Weekly Standard celebrated what it called 'the new American unilateralism', running a cover story by Krauthammer on the Bush Doctrine. According to Krauthammer, Bush accepted that the first and foremost purpose of American foreign policy was to maintain America's preeminence. Though many Americans strangely desired 'a diminished America and a world reverted to multipolarity', Bush understood that the best world order would occur 'under a single hegemon' and that America was a new kind of imperial power, one that promoted democracy and freedom.

But unipolarism on the cheap was a contradiction in terms. Writing in the Weekly Standard, PNAC deputy director Tom Donnelly reported that the White House blindsided even Cheney when it stuck with Clinton's defense budgets. Donnelly came close to charging betrayal. Having condemned Clinton for cheating the military, Bush did the same thing.

So many members of the Project for the New American Century had taken positions in the Bush administration that the PNAC had to recruit a whole new group of associates. Yet the Bush administration was hardly any better than the derided Clinton liberals, because the bean counters and political spin-masters were running the Bush administration. By July, Kristol and Kagan were so exasperated that they advised 'two old friends', Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, to resign in protest. The 'best service they could perform for their country' was to ring the alarm by resigning. Rumsfeld had recently requested an additional $35 billion for fiscal year 2002, Kristol and Kagan observed, but for the third time in six months he 'had his head handed to him by the White House'.

The campaign rhetoric of 2000 seemed long forgotten. A missile shield wouldn't deter anyone if America lost its capacity to project force abroad. In mid-July, Wolfowitz told Congress that it was 'reckless' for the administration to 'press our luck or gamble with our children's future' by spending only three percent of the gross domestic product on defense. Kristol and Kagan replied, 'All honor to Wolfowitz for telling the truth about his own administration's 'reckless' defense budget'. Asking Cheney to intervene, they warned that if Bush did not soon reverse course, he would go down in history as the president who squandered America's preeminence, 'the president who fiddled with tax cuts while the military burned'. Kagan added that Bush's Clintonesque approach to the military probably explained his Clintonesque Iraq policy; Bush feared that he couldn't afford to fight Saddam, 'or, to be more precise, he doesn't want to afford it'.

Right up to 9/11, the Weekly Standard blasted Bush's 'soft' positions on China, Iraq, the Middle East in general, and defense spending. Not coincidentally it confirmed popular suspicions that Karl Rove, a campaign consultant, was running the country. As long as Bush had to worry about the anti-interventionism of soccer moms and the political trade-offs between cutting taxes and hiking the military budget, the Weekly Standard had one cheer for Karl Rove.

Eight days before 9/11, the Weekly Standard spelled out its solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict: a devastating war of invasion, seizure, destruction, separation, and evacuation. Kristol and Kagan implored the Bush administration to 'give Israel a green light' to settle the Israel/Palestine dispute. Krauthammer explained that the green light was for a full-scale war of antiterrorist obliteration: 'The Israeli strike will have to be massive and overwhelming. And it will have to be quick'. The Arab nations would call for world action through the UN, he observed, and America would feel tremendous pressure. The key was for the U.S. to give Israel a week's worth of unrestrained destruction.

Upon smashing Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority, Krauthammer explained, Israel would leave Palestinian chaos behind, build a wall between it and Israel, abandon Israel's most far-flung settlements, and hope that Palestinian chaos might yield something better: 'Chaos will yield new leadership. That leadership, having seen the devastation and destruction wrought by Israel in response to Arafat's unyielding belligerence, might be inclined to eschew belligerence'. Israel would build a wall that suited its security needs and permitted a livable situation for the Palestinians. Though Israel appeared to have two choices - the status quo or antiterrorist devastation - in fact it had only one. Sooner or later Israel would take it: 'Strike, expel, separate, and evacuate'.

Wanted: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein

The Fiendish Attacks Of September 11, 2001, drove Bush to fully join an administration that already existed. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld wanted the U.S. to wage a global war against terrorism that began with Iraq and Afghanistan. On September 12th, Bush startled counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke and Clarke's assistant Lisa Gordon-Hagerty by pressing them to find a connection between Saddam and the attacks; Gordon-Hagerty surmised that 'Wolfowitz got to him'. The following day Wolfowitz declared at a press conference that instead of destroying only those who attacked the United States, the U.S. had to terminate governments that harbored or otherwise aided terrorists. That declaration earned a public rebuke from Colin Powell, who countered that America's goal was to 'end terrorism', not launch wars upon sovereign states, and that Wolfowitz spoke for himself, not the administration.

But the developing Bush Doctrine led to Wolfowitz's position, not Powell's. Bush, Rice, Powell, and Wolfowitz all worried that the U.S. might get bogged down for months in Afghanistan; to Wolfowitz, this was another reason to attack Iraq immediately. Iraq was a brittle desert dictatorship that might break in a few weeks, he argued; overthrowing Saddam Hussein would give the U.S. an inspiring victory while American troops slogged through the mountains of Afghanistan. Rumsfeld supported Wolfowitz; Powell countered that attacking Iraq without any evidence of Iraqi involvement in September 11 would alienate America's allies. Sharing an eye-roll with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton, Powell exclaimed, 'What the hell, what are these guys thinking about? Can't you get these guys back in the box?' The Pentagon, showing a tin ear for connotations, wanted to call the war 'Operation Infinite Justice', which suggested permanent war and the terrorists' conceit of a holy war between religions.

Bush sided with Powell for the moment, but he told Richard Perle at Camp David that after the U.S. disposed of Afghanistan it would be Iraq's turn. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had already won the argument about the scope and meaning of the war against terrorism; Perle later reflected that Wolfowitz planted the seed. Wolfowitz apologized for raising a public fuss about 'ending states', but on September 16th, Cheney declared, 'If you provide sanctuary to terrorists, you face the full wrath of the United States of America'. Four days later, speaking to Congress, Bush declared war against all terrorist groups and 'every government that supports them'. The war against terrorism began with al Qaeda, he asserted, but 'it does not end there'. It targeted 'every terrorist group of global reach'. Though he made no specific vow to overthrow Saddam, Bush embraced Wolfowitz's global conception of the war against terrorism, including his contention that Saddam had to be overthrown, sooner or later, whether or not he had a connection to 9/11.

Kristol and the neo-cons seized the moment, plugging hard for a world war against terrorism, lifting Saddam above al Qaeda as an immediate threat to America, and defending Wolfowitz against a barrage of Powell-favoring commentary in the prestige media. The Weekly Standard made no pretense of concentrating on the terrorists who actually attacked the U.S., which smacked of mere police action. Even liberals were eager to destroy al Qaeda; from the beginning Kristol and Kagan hunted bigger game, urging that al Qaeda was just the beginning of the war against terrorism and not its most important part. Addressing the NATO ministers meeting in Brussels on September 26th, Wolfowitz declared that 'while we'll try to find every snake in the swamp, the essence of the strategy is draining the swamp'. There was an 'alarming coincidence' between the states that sheltered terrorists and those that sought weapons of mass destruction, he warned. Wolfowitz eschewed specifics, but the Weekly Standard adorned its October 1 issue with a poster reading: 'Wanted: Osama bin Laden [and] Saddam Hussein'. Even that suggested more symmetry than they had in mind, however. Citing the president's vow to destroy 'every terrorist group of global reach', Kristol and Kagan declared: 'We trust these words will reverberate far beyond Kabul, in Tehran, Damascus, Khartoum, and above all, in Baghdad'.

Iraq was the prize. Afghanistan was a wasteland and geo-political nothing, they argued, but Iraq was the key to the Middle East: 'Saddam Hussein, because of his strategic position in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, surely represents a more potent challenge to the United States and its interests and principles than the weak, isolated, and we trust, soon-to-be crushed Taliban'. Al Qaeda had no weapons of mass destruction and was about to lose its sanctuary in Afghanistan, but Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, a nuclear weapons program, and a powerful state apparatus at his disposal. To Kristol and Kagan, it was inconceivable that the U.S. would destroy al Qaeda's Taliban base without overthrowing Saddam. They lauded Bush's September 20th address to Congress for establishing 'that taking decisive action against Saddam does not require absolute proof linking Iraq to last week's attack'. That was absolutely crucial, they contended; 9/11 opened the door to a worldwide American war against terrorism, not merely a police-action response to 9/11.

Kristol and Kagan admonished their unipolarist friends in the Bush administration to remember who they were. In 1998 they had urged Clinton to remove Saddam Hussein from power; now it was their job to do it: 'The signatories of that 1998 letter are today a Who's Who of senior ranking officials in this administration: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of State John Bolton, Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman, and National Security Council senior officials Elliot Abrahms and Zalmay Khalilzad. If those Bush administration officials believed it was essential to bring about a change of regime in Iraq three years ago, they must believe it is even more essential today. Last week we lost more than 6,000 Americans to terrorism. How many more could we lose in a world where Saddam Hussein continues to thrive and continues his quest for weapons of mass destruction?'

Recycling Kristol's talking points, the Project for the New American Century sent a new letter to the president on September 20th. Like the Weekly Standard, PNAC took a two-sentence pass at al Qaeda, emphasized Iraq, and called for anti-terrorist action against Hezbollah and the Palestinian Authority. In addition to providing 'full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition', it urged, American forces had to be ready 'to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means', a euphemism for invasion. The PNAC also reminded Bush that global war is expensive and that America needed to show 'no hesitation' to spend whatever it took to prevail. New PNAC signatories included Krauthammer, former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, New Republic publisher Martin Peretz and New Republic writer Leon Wieseltier.

Just days before 9/11, Time magazine had asked where Powell had gone; he seemed to disappear during the administration's first eight months. Kristol and Kagan never felt that Powell was invisible; they detected his influence over the cautious, underfunded, and overly diplomatic foreign policy they disliked. But after 9/11 they ardently wished he had disappeared. Powell spoke constantly on television, tried to steer Bush away from crusading rhetoric, assembled a pro-American coalition for the war on terrorism, and sought help from Iran and Syria. Kristol and Kagan were appalled. Fighting terrorism meant destroying Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Hezbollah, they argued, not cutting deals with them.

Worse yet, Powell's coalition-building led straight to UN nonsense about the existence of a 'peace process' between Israel and the Palestinians. In October, Bush declared that he favored a Palestinian state. Kristol and Kagan noted that Bush had previously said nothing about a Palestinian state; his new-found conviction on the subject was obviously a ploy 'to appease the so-called 'Arab street'.' Besides being pathetic, they protested, this piece of pandering told the Arab street that terrorism works. To the Palestinians and Arabs who cheered the terrorist assault on America, 'Bush's statement told them they were right to celebrate. Kill enough Americans, and the Americans give ground. Bush's statement last week was thus not a blow against terrorism. It was a reward for terrorism'.

Disastrously, Powell was willing to be led by allies; even worse, he was eager to make alliances with terrorists to destroy other terrorists. Kristol and Kagan warned that if the U.S. made Phase One deals with Hezbollah and the Iranian government it would never get to the Phase Two work of destroying them. A month after 9/11, the Weekly Standard featured a cover article by Max Boot titled 'The Case for American Empire'. Boot argued that imperialist realism was America's most realistic option; 9/11 was a wake-up call for the United States to unambiguously embrace its imperial responsibilities. America felt conflicted in its imperial role, he explained, which emboldened its enemies. Now America had to deflate its enemies by aggressively using its overwhelming power.

Neo-cons Krauthammer, Angelo Codevilla, David Frum, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen, Laurent Murawiec, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, and others called for offensive wars of destruction against several regimes. Iraq, Syria, North Korea and the Palestinian Authority were named most often, in addition to Hezbollah; some lists included Cuba, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Sudan. Kristol and Kagan emphasized Iraq, Iran, and Hezbollah. 'This war will not end in Afghanistan', they vowed in October 2001. 'It could well require the use of American military power in multiple places simultaneously. It is going to resemble the clash of civilizations that everyone has hoped to avoid. And it is going to put enormous and perhaps unbearable strain on parts of an international coalition that today basks in contented consensus'.

In January 2002, while American forces mopped up in Afghanistan, Kristol and Kagan urged Bush to get on with the real business. It was true that the U.S. needed to capture bin Laden, destroy al Qaeda, and build a functional government in Afghanistan, they acknowledged, but overthrowing Iraq was more important and urgent. The Iraqi threat got bigger every day 'and it can't wait until we finish tying up all the 'loose ends'. ' Iraq was the supreme test of America's global hegemony. 'Whether or not we remove Saddam Hussein from power will shape the contours of the emerging world order, perhaps for decades to come', they explained. To merely contain Saddam Hussein would ensure that thugs of his kind would be tolerated. Thus the question of Iraq was 'the supreme test of whether we as a nation have learned the lesson of September 11'.

They brushed aside objections that invading Iraq would divert attention from destroying al Qaeda, or that the cure of war and occupation would be worse than the disease. A civil war would be unfortunate, but not as bad as 'the disease of Saddam with weapons of mass destruction'. And the diversion argument was a red herring. America fought Japan and Germany at the same time, and it was far more powerful in 2002. As for unilateralism versus multilateralism, they hoped that other nations would support the U.S. and share its burdens, but that was up to them. There was too much at stake to be slowed or deterred by anybody's objections.

The neo-cons often said that Bush became one of them on 9/11, but they only trusted it was true after he declared in his 2002 State of the Union Address that Iraq, Iran, and North Korea were an 'axis of evil'. The Weekly Standard, while wishing that Bush included China, Syria, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Authority in the axis of evil, enthused that he had become 'a full-blown war president' who surprisingly fulfilled the dreams of his neo-con appointees. To Kristol and Kagan, the war on terrorism had nothing to do with adjudicating Arab or Muslim grievances. Bush did very well when he kept it simple and invoked a single anti-terrorist standard, they judged; when he performed poorly, as on the Palestinian problem, Powell was usually involved.

By January 2003, the Bush administration spoke with one voice on Iraq, and the following month, Powell made its showcase brief for war at the United Nations. Kristol's pro-war primer, however, The War Over Iraq, co-authored with New Republic Senior Editor Lawrence F. Kaplan, contained some anti-Powell holdovers. For the entire second half of 2002, Powell had cautioned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq might provoke its Sunni establishment to plunge the country into chaos. Kristol and Kaplan countered that Powell had made the same warning about Afghanistan, where the ethnic Pashtuns played the Iraqi Sunni role. They assured that Iraq's Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish populations all wanted a unified nation and that the best way to do it was to build a federated system consisting of a central government in Baghdad and limited powers of self-government for each ethnic community.

More important than the precise model of the next Iraqi government was America's commitment to Iraq. Kagan worried that the Bush team seemed reluctant to plan for a long occupation or even think about what came after the war; Kristol and Kaplan, filling the vacuum, explained that Americans had to prepare for a lengthy occupation of Iraq, an occupation force of 75,000 troops, and a cost of about $16 billion per year. Against the objection that democracy cannot be imposed by military force, they pointed to Japan, Germany, Austria, Italy, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. Against the objection that Iraq made a poor candidate for American-style democracy, they contended that its high literacy rates and urbanized middle class made the country 'ripe for democracy'. If Iraq became a pro-American democracy, they argued, America would be able to stop coddling Saudi Arabia and other miserable Arab regimes. Iraq was the key to the political transformation of the Middle East. Realism was about coping with problems, but aggressive American internationalism was about solving problems.

It was true that Bush-style neo-imperialism might engender a countervailing threat, they allowed, but America had to cope with this possibility no matter what it did. Even a polite America would still be resented because of its power, but if America became too polite, it would lose its dominant position and the world would be much worse off.

Just after American forces marched into Baghdad, Kristol announced that Iran had to be next, along with North Korea. The battle for Iraq was 'the end of the beginning' of a larger war for the world, he explained, and the 'next great battle' was for Iran: 'We are already in a death struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq. The theocrats ruling Iran understand that the stakes are now double or nothing'. If Iran's Shiite rulers did not subvert America's victory in Iraq, their own regime would die; conversely, if the U.S. did not get a change of regime in Iran, its victory in Iraq would be lost. The U.S. could not afford to choose between Iran and North Korea, or delay on both while mopping up in Iraq. The fate of Iraq was inextricably bound up with that of Iran, North Korea couldn't wait, and Syria was a major problem too. America needed to turn Iraq into a 'decent, democratic' society, but more importantly, Americans had to understand that there were other battles to fight, some of which affected Iraq. Kristol observed: 'President Bush understands that we are engaged in a larger war. His opponents, on the whole, do not, and this accounts in large measure for the yawning gulf between the supporters and critics of the Bush Doctrine'.

But the aftermath of the war against Iraq proved more absorbing than Kristol and the Bush administration had counted on, and the administration was deeply conflicted about how to manage the occupation. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wanted to establish a pro-American provisional government, but the State Department worried that such a nakedly imperialist strategy would ignite an anti-American rebellion, if not a civil war. After the rebellion occurred anyway, the Pentagon eventually opted for accelerated Iraqification, and the State Department favored a strong role for the UN. Kristol and Kaplan sharply told the administration to face up to its imperial responsibilities. It was too late to evade the 'taint of imperialism', Kaplan chided, and Bush officials were embarrassing themselves by squirming to avoid it. Kristol urged the administration to send more troops to Iraq and apply overwhelming force - at the same time that it moved against North Korea and Iran.

Having begun the occupation with the fantasy of a rapid pro-American regime change, the Bush administration sowed expectations of a quickie democracy, reverted to a longer occupation leading to a constitution, banked on an international bail-out, gave up on the constitutional model, resorted to a quasi-democratic caucus process, and finally begged the UN to broker a revision of the original Iraqification strategy. From November 2003 to February 2004, the plan was to yield sovereignty to a quasi-democratic patchwork of elites, but that was universally rejected in Iraq, Shiite leader Ayatollah Sistani refused to deal directly with the U.S. and demanded that any constitutional process had to be democratic, and America's hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council had no support either. The Weekly Standard protested that Bush officials learned nothing from the occupation and substituted an exit strategy for a victory strategy. 'The Pentagon wants to get out', Kristol and Kagan observed in November 2003. 'The stunning victory in the war to remove Saddam has been followed by an almost equally stunning lack of seriousness about winning the peace, despite the vital importance of creating a stable, secure, and democratic Iraq'. The U.S. reverted to fast nation building, but that was even more pathetic and dangerous than reverting to the United Nations. American Greatness required something else: 'Not blowing out the bad regime and then leaving others to pick up the pieces, but staying long enough to ensure that a good regime can take its place'. It was absurd for the Pentagon to deny that America needed a major escalation of troops in Iraq; it was doubly absurd to reduce American troops in the face of escalating violence.

But how was an overstretched American military supposed to pacify Iraq at the same time that it brought North Korea, Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria to their knees? Kristol replied that that was exactly what his group had been screaming about for years. America lacked the force structure that it needed to be itself. The U.S. had to get a bigger military and a larger idea of its global mission: 'We need to err on the side of being strong. And if people want to say we're an imperial power, fine'.

He prized his influence on the Bush administration, while playing it down when asked about it. Before the 2000 election Kristol predicted that Gore would win, prompting Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer to inform him that his words had been 'duly noted'. Two years later Kristol was still not invited to White House schmoozes with conservative journalists. 'The Bush people aren't big on constructive criticism', he explained. But the administration was loaded with his friends, he counted Cheney and Rumsfeld as ideological allies, he met regularly with Rice to talk policy, and Bush made a fence-mending speech in honor of Kristol's father. 'Look, these guys made up their own minds', Kristol said. 'I would hope that we have induced some of them to think about these things in a new way'. During the Iraq war, a White House official remarked of Kristol: 'People appreciate what he's doing. But there's still hesitation and trepidation about where Bill would stand if our interests weren't mutual'.

When Kristol founded the Weekly Standard and the PNAC, his causes were on the fringe of the Republican party. The neo-cons made them respectable, and then politically powerful, in remarkably little time. Just as Irving Kristol's generation of neo-cons believed they could do great things if they advocated the right ideas, and the New York intellectuals of the 1930s believed it before them, Bill Kristol exuded the neo-con belief in the power of ideas, backed by the Right's mighty Wurlitzer of foundations, think tanks, magazines, and media networks.

Kristol took pride that his ideas about global supremacy, regime change, preemptive war, democratic globalism, and weapons of mass destruction became the causes of a popular Republican administration. 'We at the Weekly Standard and the Project for the New American Century' and many other people, Wolfowitz way back in 1992 'had articulated chunks and parts of what later became the Bush Doctrine', he observed. 'Certainly there was a lot out there that could be stitched together into the Bush Doctrine. But certainly, even people like me were kind of amazed by the speed and decisiveness with which the Bush administration, post-9/11, moved to pull these different arguments together'.

He loved Bush's line from his September 20, 2001, address to Congress, that 'in our anger and in our grief, we have found our mission and our moment'. That was exactly right, Kristol believed; Bush spoke for America and himself in claiming the war on terrorism as the cause of the present age. Bush was not as militant on China, North Korea, and the Middle East as his neo-con allies, but to a remarkable extent he championed the neo-con vision of global Americanism. And every Monday Cheney sent a currier to pick up thirty copies of the Weekly Standard.

Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Society ?

2009-07-17T02:58:00.000-07:00

Global Geopolitics Net / IPS correspondent Michael Deibert interviews Frances Stewart , Oxford University Professor of Development Economics and Director of the Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) .

Δημοσιεύτηκε στην ιστοσελίδα ειδησεογραφικού χαρακτήρα-γεωπολιτικών αναλύσεων 'Global Geopolitics Net' (http://globalgeopolitics.net/) , στις 28 Ιουνίου 2008 , από όπου και αναδημοσιεύεται .

The Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) would seem to have its work cut out for it in a world racked by brutal and enduring conflict. The centre's goal is to explore the links between ethnicity, inequality and conflict in order to identify policies that could lead to more inclusive multi-ethnic societies.

A first book-length publication 'Horizontal Inequalities and Conflict: Understanding Group Violence in Multi-Ethnic Societies' from CRISE is slated for a July release, the fruit of the institution's recent years of research into conflict and its causes.

To find out more about that research, IPS correspondent Michael Deibert spoke to CRISE Director Frances Stewart.

IPS: Can you explain the concept of horizontal inequalities?

Frances Stewart: Horizontal inequalities put people into groups and look at how unequal those groups are.

For example, black and white in the United States, or ethnic groups such as the Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, religious groups such as Muslims and Christians in many countries. Essentially, these groups are ways in which people see themselves, ways which are very important to people.

As a result, if there are big inequalities between the groups, for example between Muslims and Christians in a country like Nigeria, this can be very politically powerful because people mobilize behind. This mobilization can sometimes take a political, peaceful form, but it can sometimes take a violent form.

The other point to be made about horizontal inequalities is that they are multi-dimensional... This should be true of all measures of inequality, but most measures of inequality are confined to income, or perhaps consumption.

Horizontal inequalities have political, economic, social and cultural dimensions... Inequalities in political power, which are very important, where one group may have total dominance of the political system, and another group does not have any access, which is the situation more or less in Sri Lanka.

Then you have inequalities in religious or cultural status, so one group may have its religion or its language recognized and another group's may not be recognized. Then of course there are the obvious economic differences in land and assets, and there are differences to social access, education and so on.

So essentially, horizontal inequalities are inequalities between culturally defined groups, and they are multi-dimensional.

IPS: The book covers a fairly wide geographic range -- from Asia to Africa to Latin America -- and I was wondering what were some of the similarities that were found that existed in the situations in these regions?

FS: There are obviously differences in the way people view themselves. For example, in Africa we have ethnic groups, sometimes called tribes, being a very important difference among people, and also religion. Interestingly, Indonesia is very similar in that respect to Nigeria, which also has many ethnicities and in addition has the religious divide between Muslims and Christians.

But in contrast, if we think about Latin America, in the countries that we looked at, the big difference is between the indigenous people and the white settlers, and of course the big mixed population.

This is rather different from the ethnic divisions that you find in Africa. Though within the indigenous communities themselves there are quite a number of groups with different languages and so on.

Then, if we turn to Malaysia, which is another country we were looking at, the racial divide is the big divide: Chinese, local Malays and then Indians and a religious difference, as well...

In each case, these horizontal inequalities are extremely important, thought not always recognized to be as important as they are. They are more explicit in some areas than in others.

IPS: It seems like the incidence of conflict in poor countries remain high. Is that a fair assessment?

FS: It is certainly fair. It's certainly true that the incidence of conflict within countries -- civil wars -- is significantly higher in poor countries than it is in middle-income or rich countries.

Still we should note that it has been declining recently. It rose quite sharply when the Cold War ended, but recently there has been some decline. But it does remain a significant problem. Probably the majority of very poor countries have experienced some sort of conflict over the last quarter of a century.

IPS: Does the spike in conflicts that we saw after the Cold War now seem to be stabilizing?

FS: Definitely, there has been some reduction, and people have different explanations for that. Partly, there was an explosion after the Cold War because there was a transition, people were sorting out exactly how they wanted to live and with whom and so on à There had been conflicts before but they had been suppressed, by the Russians, in particular...

Why have they declined? Some people would say that the active intervention of the international community, and the United Nations in particular, has been quite important, but obviously not all of them...

In Afghanistan, the war is raging, the war is raging in Iraq, very serious wars still continue... The Congo war isn't really over, there's conflict going on in Niger. But I think the level is a little bit less than it was 10 years ago.

IPS: After reviewing this research, what steps can be taken by governments and international institutions to address these inequalities and prevent conflict in the future?

FS: This issue has been surpassingly neglected by the international community. If you look at the normal policies that we advocate, such as democracy, saying that countries have to be democratic and they have to have many parties, we don't think about the implications between groups.

Democracy can lead to quite a dangerous situation in a multi-ethnic society unless you accompany it with policies to protect groups. If you have one group that is in a majority, they can really suppress the freedoms of a minority group.

On the political side, what it requires is recognition of the importance of distributing power across groups and not having exclusive power.

That means all sorts of constraints on the democratic system. Some of these are already in place in some countries. It could mean that political parties cannot be mono-ethnic and only located in one part of the country... There are restrictions on political parties in Ghana and Nigeria of that sort, to try and induce multi-ethnic political parties. There is a big tendency in multi-ethnic countries for political parties to become single ethnic parties.

You can also have restrictions on the political system at many other levels so that you must have representation from different groups in all sorts of politically important positions. Sometimes these restrictions can be formal, such as in Nigeria, or they can be informal... What one needs is a recognition on the political side of the need for incorporation of all major groups in the political power and then a variety of ways in which one might do it.

On economics, the issue has also been greatly neglected in the international arena. Most of the World Bank policies, for example -- macroeconomic adjustment policies, strategy papers -- simply ignore the issue...

What you need is an explicit recognition that you need fair distribution of economic and social resources. You need to have systems of monitoring it... Incorporate it into a variety of economic policies, for example public expenditure policies, tax policies, government employment policies and so on.

Although the international bodies have neglected this, national policy makers in multi-ethnic societies often recognise this because they have to live with the consequences...

We didn't have to invent the new policies, we could simply look around the countries that had put them into effect.