Full Spectrum Dominance
Not all interventions are directly tied to US
investments, however (although some are). The United States also
seeks what planners
call "full spectrum dominance," which the pentagon's "Joint Vision
2020"
defines as "the defeat of any adversary or control of any situation
across the full range of military operations." The United
States seeks to maintain and expand its power over as much of the world
as possible. As the Bush administration's "National Security
Strategy of
the United States" (NSS), published in September 2002, put it:
"our military must ... dissuade future military
competition; deter threats against U.S. interests, allies, and friends;
and decisively defeat any adversary if deterrence fails. ... the United
States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe
and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the
long-distance deployment of U.S. forces. ... Our forces will be strong
enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military
build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United
States. ... America will act against such emerging threats before they
are fully formed. ... We must deter and defend against the threat
before it is unleashed. ... We cannot let our enemies strike first. ...
To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the
United States will, if necessary, act preemptively. ... Policies that
further strengthen market incentives and market institutions are
relevant for all economies—industrialized countries, emerging markets,
and the developing world. ... Improving stability in emerging markets
is also key ... Our long-term objective should be a world in which all
countries have investment-grade credit ratings that allow them access
to international capital markets and to invest in their future. ...
Free markets and free trade are key priorities of our national security
strategy."
This is a public and prominent document that
repeatedly emphasizes that all this is done in order to defend "freedom
and democracy" and to fight terrorism. The numerous references to
terrorism are misleading, however, because the document clearly was not
inspired by the events of September 11th, 2001. It has its
precursor in a document titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (RAD)
published in September 2003 by the Project for a New American Century,
a conservative think tank whose members include Dick Cheney, Paul
Wolfowitz and many other members of the Bush administration. RAD
reads like a blueprint for the Bush administration's defense
policy. More then a few ideas laid out in it have been
implemented, including the invasion of Iraq, repudiating anti-ballistic
missile treaties in favor of building a missile defense system,
increasing military spending, the doctrine of preemptive war and the
ideas spelled out in the NSS. RAD called for a "Pax Americana"
and argued that, "At present the United States faces no global
rival. America's grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend
this advantageous position as far into the future as possible."
It further claimed that:
"the United States as an unprecedented strategic opportunity. It
faces no immediate great-power challenge; it is blessed with wealthy,
powerful and democratic allies in every part of the world; it is in the
midst of the longest economic expansion in its history; and its
political and economic principles are almost universally embraced. At
no time in history has the international security order been as
conducive to American interests and ideals. The challenge for the
coming century is to preserve and enhance this 'American peace.'"
RAD directly acknowledges its debt to an earlier
document, the "Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years
1994-1999," drafted in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, then under secretary of
defense for policy
(the third highest ranking civilian in the Pentagon). This
document is still classified but excerpts of it were leaked, some of
which say:
"Our first objective is to prevent the
re-emergence of
a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or
elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by
the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new
regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any
hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under
consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. ... we
must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial
nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking
to overturn the established political and economic order. ... we must
maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even
aspiring to a larger regional or global role. ... Our strategy must now
refocus on precluding the emergence
of any potential future global competitor. ... In the Middle East and
Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant
outside
power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the
region's oil."
At the time the power elite was still new to the post-USSR world and
most were not willing to pursue a policy as aggressive as this.
Wolfowitz was forced to revise the document and it was subsequently
buried. Eight years later RAD stated,
"New Circumstances make
us think that the report might have a more receptive audience now than
in recent years" but that,
"the process of transformation, even
if it brings revolutionary [sic]
change, is likely to be a
long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new
Pearl
Harbor." That "new pearl harbor" was 9-11, which further
shifted
the spectrum towards the hawkish end by reducing domestic opposition to
expansionism and providing a potent pretext for imperialism.
In short, the United States intends to dominate the world by force.
The policy of maintaining and expanding American power is not new, but
the policy of applying this to the whole world is. In order to
protect American investments it is necessary to project an "umbrella of
power" within which countries are mostly obedient. Today that
"umbrella"
extends over most of the world, in the past it has been smaller.
If
the US has insufficient power it may be unable to protect American
investments
and subordinate other countries to US corporate needs. This
sometimes
leads the US to undertake interventions in other countries which,
although
not directly necessary to protect US investments, are needed to protect
American
power.
The Threat of a Good Example
In order to maintain the American empire it is necessary to combat what
is sometimes called the "threat of a good example." If a section
of the empire can break off, becomes independent and prosperous it can
potentially be very damaging to the Empire, even if it's a small
unimportant area. If a part of the empire breaks off and prospers
it could serve as an inspiration for other regions to become
independent as well, leading to the loss of large areas of the
Empire. This is true even of tiny, poor countries because if a
tiny, poor country
can become independent and bring a better life to the populace then
people in bigger and wealthier regions will tend to come to the
conclusion that if even a tiny, poor country can do it then certainly
larger, wealthier ones can. It is therefore necessary to insure
that no country provides such an example. If you’re going to
maintain a global empire you
can't just let pieces of it float off. As such, the United States
frequently intervenes in places which otherwise are not terribly
important for the purpose of preventing the threat of a good
example. The most obvious way to prevent this is to make sure no
country becomes independent, but if that cannot be done then it is
necessary to devastate the country. If life in the independent
country is no better then what it was as part of the American Empire,
then it will not provide much of an example to
other countries. By devastating an independent country the United
States ensures that this will not happen, thereby stopping the threat
of a good example. There are various means of doing this -
bombing,
invasion, sanctions, destruction of infrastructure, etc.
There are many examples of this in action. For example, in 1970
Salvador Allende, a Democratic Socialist, won the Presidential election
in Chile. Once in power he increased civil liberties,
nationalized many companies (Allende believed in a mixed economy),
instituted programs of agrarian reform and increased spending on
housing, education, sanitation and health. In his first year
unemployment dropped to 4.8% from its previous 8.4%, inflation dropped
12.7% and worker income rose by 50%. The net effect of Allende's
policies was to redistribute income towards poorer groups and to move
Chile in the direction of economic independence. The United
States reacted extremely negatively to this
and placed sanctions on Chile, hurting the economy. The CIA
funded
opposition groups and promoted instability within Chile. On
September
11, 1973 the CIA launched a coup that deposed Allende and installed a
military
dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Prior to this Chile
had been South America's oldest functioning representative
democracy. Pinochet created at lest six concentration camps,
slaughtered thousands of dissidents, reversed Allende's reforms and
implemented an extreme neoliberal capitalist economic program.
The former Nazi Colonel Walter Rauff, who supervised the extermination
of Jews at Auschwitz, was employed to help the Junta exterminate its
enemies. Chile has many natural resources and Allende's policies
were not favorable to US investors, who controlled much of the copper
industry, but the US economy wasn't in great danger if Chile became
independent. The real threat was that Chile would serve as a
model to inspire other countries to become independent as well.
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called Chile a "virus" which would
"infect" the region with effects around the world. Thus it had to
be destroyed. (Keen/Wasserman, p. 334 - 341; Blum, p. 206-215)
In the late 70s the Somozas, a US puppet dictatorship in Nicaragua,
were overthrown by a group called the Sandinistas. They proceeded
to establish an independent government and began to implement various
social reforms, which were not favorable to US investment. The
United States funded terrorists called the Contras to wage a brutal war
against the Sandinistas with the goal of restoring a US puppet
government. In addition to attacking military targets the contras
were also trained to hit "soft targets" - civilians, health centers,
schools, etc. The contras succeeded in destroying whatever
improvements the Sandanistas could make and eventually devastated
Nicaragua enough that the Nicaraguans allowed US puppets to return to
power. In 1979 Nicaragua was not that important to the US
economy; the country could vanish and few US investors would
notice. But the Sandinistas threatened to inspire rebellions in
other
countries, and so had to be smashed. (Blum, p. 290-305)
The Vietnam War arose out of this. The Vietnamese were unwilling
to go along with US plans for the region and so had to be
crushed. Partially the war was motivated by the rice, tin and
rubber in Vietnam but the more important motivation was that
independent development in Vietnam could serve as a dangerous example
to other
peoples in the region. If Vietnam could do it then people in
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries might try it and that
would lead to the loss of large areas of the Empire.
The US first backed the French invasion of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (DRV), which had declared independence in 1945, and their
attempt to impose a puppet government. By the time the French
withdrew the US was providing 78% of the funds for the invasion and
engaging in all sorts of covert actions against the Vietnamese.
The 1954 Geneva peace accords between the Vietnamese and French
put the DRV in control of the north and the French puppet government in
control of the south. Elections were to be held to reunite the
country but the US intervened to sabotage them because they (correctly)
believed the Communists (who had played a leading role in the movement
for independence) would win the election. The South Vietnamese
government (GVN) was transformed into an American puppet dictatorship
and launched US-backed a reign of terror. (Blum, p. 122-127)
In the late '50s popular rebellions erupted against the puppet
dictatorship. The DRV initially refused to back these rebellions
because it did not want to get involved in another war, but eventually
changed its position. These rebellions lead to the formation of
the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF), which opponents
called the Vietcong. Unlike the GVN and the DRV, both of which
advocated the unification of Vietnam under their rule, the NLF called
for a state socialist South Vietnam independent of outside control.
This rebellion began to undermine the GVN and so the United
States sent the military in. In 1962 a mainly aerial assault was
launched on the South. In 1964 the United States fabricated a DRV
attack on an American spy ship in the Gulf of Tonkin as a pretext to
launch a full-fledged invasion of the South and bombings of the North
the next year. By the time the US was forced to withdraw it had
pulverized the southern resistance, enabling the North to have more
influence over post-war Vietnam. The US government & media,
as is standard, systemically misrepresented the conflict in favor of US
interests. It was claimed that the rebellions in the late '50s
constituted northern
aggression against the south, but the north originally opposed those
uprisings
(though it did come to dominate the southern rebels later in the war)
and
even disregarding that "South Vietnam" was an American puppet
government
imposed by foreign forces. Attempting to destroy it is no more
"aggression" than the French resistance's attempts to destroy the Vichy
government (Nazi puppet state) during World War Two. It was also
claimed
that the forces the US was fighting against an attempt by Chinese
puppets
to take over the country, but the war began prior to the Marxist
revolution
in China and the DRV & NLF had genuine nationalist roots among the
populace. The Vietnam war was a subset of a larger regional war
including
Cambodia and Laos in which US motives were largely the same as in
Vietnam,
preventing the threat of a good example. (Zepezaur, p. 40-41;
Wolf,
p. 159-210; Chomsky Reader, p. 221-302; Chomsky, The Washington
Connection,
p.300-336; Heman, Manufacturing Consent, p. 169-296)
Even though the Vietnamese eventually did drive the United States out,
it was not entirely a defeat for the US. The war utterly
devastated the country. A million Vietnamese have cancer because
of the Agent Orange used in the war and their economy was
crushed. There is no chance that successful independent economic
and social development will occur or that Vietnam will provide any kind
of inspiration to separate from the Empire. The US succeeded in
stopping the threat of a
good example by destroying the country.
There are many other examples of US interventions for this
reason - in Indonesia, Guatemala, Zaire, Grenada, Laos and other
places. The official version of the "threat of a good example,"
the version used in public, takes many forms. Today it is
sometimes called "credibility," in the past it used to be called the
domino theory. The official version of the domino theory portrays
the forces seeking independence as aggressors and a victory by them as
their first step on the road to conquering the world or a good chunk of
it. If Vietnam is allowed to become independent Ho Chi Min will
get on a canoe and invade California. This is obviously a bunch
of nonsense, none of the countries attacked in
this way are even remotely capable of attacking the United
States. But by scaring the domestic population into believing
there is threat to them domestic elites can rally them behind the
war. The use of the fear of a foreign enemy to control the
population is a very old technique, which the United States is only the
latest to use. Portraying one's own aggression as self-defense is
also quite old, going back at least as far as the Romans. The
operative meaning of the domino theory (and "credibility"), how it is
actually implemented, is not the threat that
an independent country will invade the American homeland but that the
"good example" might weaken the empire. From the perspective of
the
elite the difference isn't that great, both a military threat and the
threat
of a good example could lead to the loss of parts (or all) of the
empire,
but from the perspective of the empire's subjects there is a big
difference.
Neocolonialism
The American Empire is based on neocolonialism. Neocolonialism is
a social relation in which an imperialist nation economically exploits
subordinate nation(s) that are formally independent. The
subordinate nation is officially independent with its own nation-state
but is
economically dependant on an imperialist nation which exploits
it.
An indigenous elite controls the state but the means of production
are still (mostly) controlled by foreign capitalists. This is
a form of economic imperialism. This is different from
old-fashioned
formal (traditional) colonialism in which the subordinated countries do
not have political independence. Generally neocolonialism means
that multinational corporations from the imperialist nation control a
substantial portion of the economy of the subordinate nation(s).
An example of neocolonialism is Brazil. Brazil is very rich in
natural resources and has a substantial amount of industrial
development; if you go by natural resources it should be one of the
richest countries in the world. In 1964 a US-backed coup
overthrew the elected
government and installed a military dictatorship. This
dictatorship
was sometimes called "Colonial Fascism" because of its combination of
extreme repression (including torture and mass murder) with economic
dependence on the United States. Although there were elements
of neocolonialism prior to this period they became much larger as a
result
of the policies implemented by the new regime. Its policies
greatly
favored foreign capital, including free export of profits and reduced
taxes
on the income of foreign firms. Essentially, they sold off most
of
the country's economy to foreign (mostly US) companies. As a
result by 1968 foreign companies controlled 62 percent of Brazil's
foreign trade, 40 percent of the capital market, 77 percent of overseas
air transport,
82 percent of its maritime transport, more than 80 percent of its
pharmaceutical industry, 90 percent of its cement industry, 100 percent
of its motor
vehicle production and 100 percent of its tire production. The
majority
of these foreign companies were American. These policies
simultaneously brought about immense poverty for the majority of
Brazilians (Keen/Wasserman,
p. 361-375). This foreign domination of Brazil's economy
(and
many other countries' economies) continues today and is an example of
neocolonialism.
Those countries that practice neocolonialism against other countries
are called the core countries; sometimes they are also referred to as
the "first world" or the "global north." Those countries that are
victims of neocolonialism, which are subordinated to the core
countries, are called the periphery countries or the "third world" or
the "global south." The United States is the main, but not only,
country to practice neocolonialism. Other countries core
countries include Western Europe and Japan. Most of the world is
part of the periphery or semi-periphery including all of Africa, all of
South America, parts of Oceania, and a large part of Asia. The
"first world" is rich because the "third world" is poor; the core robs
the periphery.
Two significant institutions that implement neocolonialism are the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). Both
institutions use the large third world debt as a means of control to
make periphery countries implement policies favorable to foreign
capital. Third-world governments in the decades after world war
two who borrowed from the World Bank and private investors created this
debt. This money was meant for "development" to build up the
country's infrastructure and as a bribe to keep them on the American
side in the cold war. In many cases these countries at the time
were under US-backed dictatorships that were completely unresponsive to
their own population. Brazil borrowed heavily during its period
of "Colonial Fascism." Much of the money loaned was simply stolen
by corrupt US-backed dictators. Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator
of the Philippines, and his family/friends are estimated to have taken
a third of all World Bank loans to his country for his own personal
fortune. There are no records of where 80% of the
money loaned to Argentina during its military dictatorship went.
In
most cases the individuals who took out these loans are no longer in
power
and have run off with their fortunes but the people living in these
countries,
who had little or no say in taking out the loans, are now expected to
pay
off the debt. When Richard Nixon ended the gold standard and
devalued
the dollar this further increased the debt since most of the loans were
taken out in US dollars. The standard justification for charging
interest
on loans is that the lender takes a risk and the interest is payment
for
that risk. There are many problems with this reasoning, the most
obvious
being that it doesn't apply to real life. Whenever investors lose
large amounts of money the state steps in to rescue them; there is no
significant
risk. This happened with the third world debt in the late 70s and
80s
when it became obvious that these periphery countries would not be able
to pay off their debts and that some very bad investments had been
made.
The World Bank stepped in and bought up the portion of the debt owed to
private
interests. This debt is so large that it will never be paid off;
it
is simply a means of controlling the periphery.
When periphery countries are unable to make the payments on their debt
they turn to the IMF for help. The IMF offers loans so that they
can make their payments. In exchange the periphery must implement
what are called Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which
essentially means handing over their economic policy to the control of
the IMF. Both the IMF and World Bank are controlled by "first
world" governments, with the US in the dominant role, and so not
surprisingly the policies they implement favor those countries.
SAPs mean cutting education, healthcare and other social services,
privatization of state assets (which often includes things like water),
making it easier for foreign companies to take over the economy and
orienting the victim's economy towards exports (usually to "first
world" countries), rather than domestic needs. In many cases
countries must charge user fees for
things like going to school or basic healthcare. Officially these
SAPs are supposed to help the economy and get the government out of
debt,
but they never do that in practice. Virtually every country where
it is implemented eventually goes into a depression. Argentina,
which for a time was the IMF's star pupil, has plunged into a deep
depression
as a result. Many other countries have had their economies ruined
by these policies - Indonesia, Russia, Thailand and many more.
Debt
has only grown. Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize
in
economics and former chief economist for the world bank, said,
"a
student
who turned in the IMF's answer to the test question 'What should be the
fiscal
stance of Thailand, facing an economic downturn?' would have gotten an
F.
... Not only was the IMF not restoring economic confidence in East
Asia,
it was undermining the region's social fabric. ... All the IMF did was
make
East Asia's recessions deeper, longer, and harder. Indeed, Thailand,
which
followed the IMF's prescriptions the most closely, has performed worse
than
Malaysia and South Korea, which followed more independent courses."
(Stiglitz, "What I Learned at the World Economic Crisis")
These
policies may ruin the economies of countries on the periphery, but they
enrich the owners of "first world" multi-national corporations and, to
a
lesser extent, "third world" elites.
What is called "free trade" is also a form of neocolonialism.
Imperialist nations implement so-called "free trade" policies so as to
open up the economies of periphery countries to exploitation by
companies from the core countries. Multinational corporations can
then invest and sell their products in periphery countries, enabling
them to run less developed periphery companies out of business and
dominate their economy. Those industries from powerful nations
that can't compete with weaker nations' industries are protected by the
state so as to ensure that they can out-compete "third world"
industries. For example,
when the US steel industry faced troubles in 2002 the Bush
administration
(a big proponent of free trade) implemented tariffs so as to protect US
industries. Free trade prevents periphery countries from doing
the
same thing to protect their industries. The only areas of the
economy
that are liberalized are those in which the dominant countries can out
compete their opponents, in other areas state protection reigns.
American industries which are the most competitive internationally are
also highly subsidized - biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness,
high-tech industry, etc. These subsidized industries are then
able to out-compete unsubsidized competitors in the periphery.
For historical reasons in the US this subsidy is done largely through
the military. The state pays for research & development and
if the results of
that research (such as the internet) prove profitable the private
sector
takes it over and reaps the profit. The public pays the cost, a
small group of capitalists reap the benefits. Free trade means
state
protection and subsidies for the rich & powerful but market
discipline
for everyone else. As Thomas Friedman, a pro-capitalist
pro-interventionist
columnist for the New York Times, put it,
"The hidden hand of the
market
will never work without a hidden fist -- McDonald's cannot flourish
without
McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that
keeps
the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United
States
Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."
Countries on the periphery often go along with these neocolonial
policies because the domestic "third world" elites that control the
government profit from them. Neocolonial policies hurt most
people in the periphery, but not all people. These "third world"
elites act as collaborators, helping "first world" countries exploit
the population and make their own personal fortunes while doing
so. Ferdinand
Marcos made billions as a result of his collaboration with
neocolonialism. In addition, the United States uses various
mechanisms of control to
ensure that periphery elites do not stray too far from the neocolonial
path and the ensure that elites who will go along with neocolonial
policies
are in power.
Mechanisms of Control
The United States has established what are called client states
throughout the world. A client state is a government that is
dominated by another (imperialist) government; it is controlled by a
foreign
state. It is dependant on the economic or military support of
a more powerful country. Other names for client states include
satellite state, puppet government and vassal state. The degree
to which the imperialist government controls the client state obviously
varies quite a bit. In some cases the client state is completely
controlled by the imperialist state, in others it has a considerable
degree
of independence. The fact that Poland and Romania didn't always
go
along with absolutely everything Moscow wanted doesn't change the fact
that
they were Soviet client states, the same is true of American client
states.
There are also a variety of different ways that can be used to insure
that client states are obedient.
As with imperialism in general, the use of client states is not
something the American Empire invented. The system of client
states most familiar to the majority of Americans was the system used
by the Soviet Empire to maintain control over Eastern Europe and a few
other countries. This is not a new phenomenon. Nazi Germany
set up several client states during World War Two and the Roman Empire
relied extensively on client states. Napoleon also set up client
states in Europe; he set one up in Spain when he invaded the country,
deposed the king,
and made his brother the new king. The United States has done the
same thing around the world.
The United States uses many different means to maintain control of its
client states and dominate the globe. This includes military
force, proxy militaries, enforcer states, CIA terrorism, foreign
aid, coups, sanctions and subverting elections.
Military Intervention The military has been the backbone of
empires ever since they were first formed many millennia ago. It
is the spear of imperialism. If an imperialist state's military
is strong enough it can simply force its will upon any weaker
country. This is true of the American Empire as well as past
empires.
After the second world war the United States declared itself the
"global
policeman" willing to use military force anywhere in the globe should
its interests require it. After the defeat in Vietnam the empire
altered so as to rely less on the US military. As a result of
that
defeat military planners had to deal with what they called the "Vietnam
syndrome." Unrest in the homeland would rise quite rapidly in
any lengthy military intervention, especially if it resulted in the
loss of significant amounts of American lives. In response,
military
strategy has been altered. When US military intervention is used
they send in an overwhelming amount of force to insure that they
rapidly and decisively defeat their enemy with few casualties on the
American side. In addition the US relies extensively on air power
because doing so minimizes US casualties and allows the US to attack an
enemy for long periods of time without suffering significant
losses. This insures that a large
anti-war movement cannot develop and interfere with the operations of
the empire. If the military cannot rapidly and decisively defeat
their opponent with few casualties then some other mechanism of control
is usually used.
Proxy Forces Often when military force is needed the United
States will use proxy forces instead of its own military. This
involves supporting and funding armed groups that attack whatever enemy
the empire has targeted. These proxies can be rebel armies,
terrorist networks, paid mercenaries, other nation-states or any other
armed organization. In addition to funding such groups the US
often provides other forms of assistance such as sending military
advisors to help plan strategy, CIA assistance, attacks on enemy
targets and sharing intelligence. Examples of the use of proxy
forces by the empire include the use of the contras against Nicaragua,
the Islamic Fundamentalists during the 80s and late 70s against the
Soviet's Afghan puppet government, UNITA against Angola and Iraq
against Iran (during the Iran-Iraq war). Proxy
forces are often used in situations where combat will be long and
bloody
or greatly stress the resources of the empire. Because of the
"Vietnam
syndrome" the US military cannot be used in these situations so proxy
forces
are used instead. Sometimes proxy forces are combined with the US
military. One common strategy is to use the US air force to
pulverize
the target country while a proxy army takes over the ground.
Using
only the air force makes large casualties much less likely, thereby
avoiding
the "Vietnam syndrome." This was used during the war with
Yugoslavia
when the US used the Kosovo Liberation Army as a proxy ground force
while
simultaneously bombing Yugoslavia. Another example of this was
during
the war in Afghanistan with the Taliban. The US air force bombed
the Taliban while a proxy army, the Northern Alliance, did the bulk of
the ground fighting. Once the Taliban's back had been broken the
US army helped clean up the remaining Taliban forces. In other
cases
proxy forces are used to assist full-fledged military intervention as
was done in Vietnam, the Iraq war and elsewhere.
Enforcer States The US sometimes uses one client state to
control other client states. It acts as a regional enforcer to
keep the other countries in line. Often this means acting as a
proxy force to beat on disobedient countries. Sometimes these
client
states will have there own client states and practice neocolonialism in
them. In addition to non-US "first-world" countries, there is a
semi-periphery of states that exists between the periphery and the core
that is subordinated to the core and part of the "third world" but also
acts as enforcer states and exploits other "third world"
countries. The semi-periphery is the better off section of the
"third world," they are economically more dominant and regionally more
powerful as compared to other "third world" countries. They act
so as to keep other periphery countries in line and to maintain the
empire. Enforcer states include Britain, France, South Africa,
Iran under the Shah, Australia and Israel.
The CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a key component
in the American Empire. Generally, the CIA attempts to put into
power and keep in power groups who will go along with US neocolonial
policies and overthrow those who will not. In addition to
gathering information the CIA also conducts various covert activities
designed to defend and expand the empire. This includes
assassinations, inciting unrest, torture, raising private armies, coup
d'etats, rigging elections and assorted other terrorist
activities. The CIA has assassinated and attempted to assassinate
numerous government officials and opponents of the empire. Often
this is done through a proxy; they hire someone to do it for
them. The agency has attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro over
two dozen times. While Allende was in office in Chile they
carried out assassinations
of government officials, including General Rene Schneider, in the hopes
of getting anti-Allende people who would carry out a coup into higher
positions in the military. One of the worst terrorist attacks in
Middle Eastern history was a car bomb detonated in Lebanon by CIA
proxies. The
CIA is the largest terrorist organization on the planet.
Foreign Aid Foreign aid is essentially a bribe to keep the
countries receiving it in line. If they get too far out of line
foreign aid is reduced or cut off entirely. In addition foreign
aid can also be given to help a country do something that helps US
imperial
interests, such as attacking one of America's enemies or suppressing
rebellions by groups that threaten corporate profits. That aid
can
help them achieve whatever goal they had, which can help the
empire.
This money is frequently used to buy weapons from US arms manufacturers
and therefore, in addition to making other countries dependant on the
US,
subsidizes US arms corporations. Military aid can also help the
US
control other countries and implement neocolonialism by establishing
links
with other countries' militaries. If you can get the military on
your
side they may overthrow the government for you. That's why the US
sometimes sells weapons and military aid to countries which are
otherwise
hostile (such as Iran or Chile under Allende).
Coup D'etats A coup is the overthrow of the government by people
in a position of authority, usually by military officers. The
United States has supported, instigated and directly organized many
coups against governments with policies it did not like. The CIA
has often played a key role in these coups. Guatemala is a well
documented example of this. In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz was elected
president of Guatemala by a landslide in a free election. He said
his goal was,
"to
convert Guatemala from a dependant nation with a semi-colonial economy
to an economically independent country; second, to transform our nation
from a backward nation with a predominantly feudal economy to a modern
capitalist country; and third, to accomplish this transformation in a
manner that brings the greatest possible elevation of the living
standard of the great masses of the people." (quoted on
Keen/Wasserman, p.
439) This goal conflicted with the US-based United Fruit Company,
which dominated Guatemala's economy. The various social reforms
Arbenz implemented, especially his agrarian reform, threatened their
profits.
In addition, Guatemala could potentially threaten to serve as a good
example
towards those seeking independence. As one state department
official
noted,
"Guatemala has become an increasing threat to the stability
of Honduras and El Salvador. Its agrarian reform is a powerful
propaganda
weapon; its broad social program of aiding the workers and peasants in
a victorious struggle against the upper classes and large foreign
enterprises
has a strong appeal to the populations of Central American neighbors
where similar conditions prevail." (quoted on Chomsky, What Uncle
Sam
Really Wants, p. 25) So the CIA decided to overthrow this
capitalist
democracy. The CIA hired 300 mercenaries and flew in unmarked
planes
to overthrow the government with the help of reactionary sections of
the
Guatemalan military. Arbenz was forced out of power and a
military
dictatorship initially led by Castillo Armas was installed. The
dictatorship
immediately launched a reign of terror against opponents of the regime,
killing around 100,000 people over the next 40 years. Arbenz's
reforms
were undone and neocolonial policies favoring the oligarchy and foreign
companies (like the United Fruit Company) implemented.
Sanctions Placing embargos and sanctions on disobedient
countries can be an effective means of punishing them for their
disobedience. Sanctions can often ruin, or at least hurt, the
economy of whichever country they are directed at. This can prove
very effective in neutralizing the threat of a good example; if their
economy is ruined they will not be providing a very good example of
independent development to anyone. This has been used effectively
against Cuba to harm
their economy so that they provide less of a good example (although
it's
probably not as harmful as many of Castro's supporters make it out to
be). Sanctions were also placed on Nicaragua during the period of
Sandinista rule for similar reasons. When Allende was in power
the
US placed sanctions on Chile to "make the economy scream" (in Nixon's
words), which played a significant role in undermining Allende's
rule.
Usually sanctions are used in combination with some other mechanism of
control. A country under sanctions for a long enough period of
time
will see its economy weaken and thus be much easier to attack either
with
the US military, proxy forces or through CIA terrorism and coups.
The conquest of Iraq in 2003 by the US military was made much easier by
the preceding 12 years of sanctions and semi-regular bombing which
weakened
their military and infrastructure.
Subverting Elections Another means of controlling other
countries is through subverted elections. Basically, if the
US can insure that the section of the elite who will implement the
policies the US wants wins the elections then it will help the US
maintain
control over that country. This involves funding pro-US groups,
spreading propaganda denouncing whichever group(s) the US is opposed
to and sometimes using violence against those groups. In the past
the CIA has spearheaded these efforts but today the National Endowment
for Democracy has taken over that role. In addition the US
sometimes
threatens to cut off aid or use force against the country if the voters
vote the wrong way, effectively putting a gun to their head.
Subverting
elections only works if the military & state bureaucracy already
has
some degree of loyalty to the empire, otherwise they can overthrow the
US-backed candidate should s/he win the election. Subverting
elections
is preferable to the empire than overthrowing an elected government
because
it is less risky but such an overthrow will be attempted if the
elections
go the wrong way. This was done to Italy in the 1948
elections. The very first National Security Council Memorandum
was about planning
for this. The CIA feared the victory of leftists in the election
instead of those Washington favored (mostly leftover brown shirt thugs
from Mussolini's days) and so spent millions of dollars on propaganda
and
payoffs to ensure Washington's candidates won. Just in case it
didn't
work, they also organized a secret paramilitary army with hidden
stockpiles
of weapons and explosives that would overthrow the government, with the
help of the US military, if the wrong people won the election.
Washington's
candidates won, they successfully subverted the election, and the use
of
their secret army proved unnecessary.
The Homeland
This is the heart of the empire - all 50 states ruled by a
federal government. This is obviously on of the most important
parts of the empire. The headquarters of the government and most
of the various agencies that enforce the rule of the empire is located
here. The US military is recruited from the homeland and a
significant
amount of production is done in the homeland. There are also many
natural resources. The US elite rules directly, rather then
through
a client state as in most countries. Most of the homeland was
originally
conquered and the native inhabitants mostly exterminated.
There exists what President Eisenhower called the "military industrial
complex" which provides another impetus towards militarism and
imperialism. There are many government bureaucracies who gain
greater budgets and power from militaristic policies, such as the
pentagon and CIA. There are also many corporations who make a
considerable amount of money by manufacturing weapons and other
equipment used for imperialism. Both have a vested interest in
maintaining a large military budget and have significant power in the
United states. This creates a powerful pressure in favor of
militarism and imperialism. The main driving forces behind
American imperialism are neocolonialism, domination and the military
industrial complex. Of these, the military industrial complex is
the least
important. American imperialism predates it by at least a
century,
but it can influence the forms imperialism takes.
The government maintains control of the population through several
means and in ways different from most other parts of the empire.
As in all parts of the empire there is a fair amount of force
used. The US homeland has more people in prison, measured both as
a percentage of the population and in absolute numbers, then any other
country on
Earth. The FBI and other armed agencies also use force to insure
that dissent and resistance do not get out of hand (COINTELPRO is a
classic
example of this kind of repression).
Despite the use of force to occasionally suppress dissent the regime
does not rule the homeland with the same amount of force used in the
periphery. Control of the homeland relies extensively on
ideological means of control. The average American is taught a
series of myths and propaganda designed to justify US foreign policy
and state-capitalism in general. From 1945 until the late 80s the
Cold War served as the primary myth around which the justification for
US foreign policy was made. In reality, the cold war was
essentially a three-sided conflict.
The American empire fought the Soviet Empire and both of them also
fought
against the "third world." The Soviet and American empires not
only fought each other but the peoples they subjugated to their
empire.
Each empire used the other side's (quite real) atrocities to justify
its
own atrocities, using fear of the official enemy to control their
domestic populations. In the Soviet Union dissidents were
demonized as "anti-Soviet" and supporters of the American empire,
regardless of their actual political views. The was done in the
United States, where dissidents were
also demonized as "anti-American" and accused of being supporters of
the
rival empire. Criticisms of the American empire are dismissed
with
meaningless catch phrases like "support our troops" or accusations of
"anti-Americanism" or "blaming America first." These kinds of
labels
are just a way of dismissing an argument without thinking about it or
refuting
it.
In practice anyone who believed that the government has direct
responsibility for the welfare of the people it rules was labeled
"communist" by the US. Virtually anyone the US government (and
by extension the media) didn't like was labeled "communist" and then
considered legitimate prey. This was true even in cases where
the victims explicitly opposed communism - as was the case with the US
overthrow of the capitalist democracy in Guatemala. As Guatemalan
Foreign Minister Toriello said shortly before the 1954 CIA coup, US
policy amounted to
"cataloguing as `Communism' every manifestation of nationalism or
economic independence, any desire for social progress, any intellectual
curiosity, and any interest in progressive or liberal reforms... any
Latin American government that exerts itself to bring about a truly
national program which affects the interests of the powerful foreign
companies, in whose hands the wealth and the basic resources in large
part repose in Latin America, will be pointed out as Communist; it will
be accused of
being a threat to continental security and making a breach in
continental solidarity, and so will be threatened with foreign
intervention."
The collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war forced a
change in this. In order for the military-industrial complex to
justify itself and to manufacture support for the military
interventions necessary to maintain the empire some new pretext was
needed
to justify US foreign policy. Instead of constantly scarring
people
with the threat of communism they had to find some other boogey
man.
Starting in the 1980s, when the cold war was coming to an end, an
endless
stream of boogeymen were used to frighten the public and thereby
justify
US foreign policy. Every couple of years a new "Hitler" is
discovered
and used to frighten the public into submission. There's been
Gadaffi, Noreiga, Milosevic, Khomeini, Hussein and numerous other petty
thugs that have been demonized so as to control the public.
Demonizing them
is usually helped by the fact that they often are nasty characters, but
none of them are the kind of threat to the American people they're made
out to be. The military-industrial complex needs to have a
constant
stream of enemies in order to justify its existence and so any thug (no
matter how minor) can be singled out as the "next Hitler." In
addition
to this constant stream of "Hitlers" other pretexts were used to
justify
US militarism. They tried the "war on drugs" for a while, using
it
as justifications for interventions in Panama and Columbia. They
also toyed with using "human rights" as a justification for imperialist
adventures (as was done in Yugoslavia), which is pretty contradictory
considering that dropping bombs on people makes their human rights a
moot point.
On September 11th, 2001 a new overarching pretext to replace the cold
war was created. Another "war on terrorism" was declared (the
first "war on terrorism" was declared under Reagan and forgotten
by the time Clinton was in office). Virtually all intervention
in other countries affairs is now justified as an attempt to fight
"terrorism." Any country the US doesn't like is accused of
sponsoring terrorism and of having links to Al-Qaeda. This is
done even in cases where the country is openly hostile to Al-Qeada,
such as Iraq and Iran. This was used as justification for the US
conquest of Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Iraq to
Al-Qaeda. This pretext for the
invasion of Iraq shows how extremely effective the American system of
thought control is. By the time the US invaded Iraq 42% of
Americans
believed that Iraq did 9-11 and the majority believed that Iraq was
supporting
Al-Qaeda. Most Americans were fooled into thinking Iraq was
a threat to them, even though its military wasn't even capable of
reaching
the western hemisphere. The United States is actually one of the
biggest sponsors of terrorism in the world. Its goal is not to
stop
terrorism; "terrorism" is just a pretext to justify US imperialism.
Latin America
Like the rest of the "third world" Latin America serves primarily as a
source of raw material and cheap labor. Client states in this
region are expected to keep labor week and markets open to US
corporations. This was the first area outside of the homeland to
come under US control. The US has been pursuing imperialist aims
in Latin America since the first part of the 19th century. The
northern third of Mexico was conquered in the 1840s and made a part of
the homeland. By the
1940s Mexico had evolved into a US client state due to a combination of
repeated US military interventions and the Mexican elite deciding it
was in their best interests to be a US client. Most expansion
into
Latin America occurred during the late 19th and early 20th
century.
The US had to defeat not only native resistance but also European
imperialists
who were attempting to control this area, included Spain. This
competition lead to the Spanish-American war in 1898. The US
defeated
the Spanish empire and took over most of its territory in the Western
Hemisphere. This included Puerto Rico, where the US continues to
practice formal (old-fashioned) colonialism to this day. Cuba was
also taken from the Spanish and the US imposed one of its first client
states there. Other empires were eventually muscled out and the
entire region came under the control of the United States. In the
process of taking over the region many countries were directly occupied
by the US military. This included the Dominican Republic
(1916-1924), Cuba (1898-1902), Haiti (1915-1934) and Nicaragua
(1912-1925 and 1926-1933).
Starting in the mid-19th century the US military has repeatedly
intervened in Columbia and what would later become Panama in order to
protect US investments. In 1903 the US backed an uprising in
Panama (which had previously been part of Columbia), that established a
US puppet government. To ensure US control of the country the US
military
occupied Panama from 1903-1914. The purpose of this intervention
was to build a canal, under US control, connecting the Pacific and
Atlantic
oceans. The US has repeatedly used military force in Panama to
insure
that the US continues to control the country. The most recent
invasion
was in 1989. The pretext used to justify this invasion was that
its
ruler, Manuel Noriega, was an evil dictator involved in drug smuggling
and other nefarious deeds (the Cold War was ending so they couldn't
just
call him a Communist). It's true that Noriega was an evil
dictator
involved in numerous nefarious activities, but he was doing all of
those
things from the time he came to power (1983) until the US invasion
deposed
him. At the same time they deposed him they were also backing
many
other dictators, like Saddam Hussein, who were just as bad.
During this time the US government supported him and they raised no
complaints
about him. Noriega had been on the CIA payroll since at least the
1970s; he was involved in drug trafficking by at least 1972 (possibly
earlier).
He was their puppet dictator; the real reason for the invasion was that
Noriega was becoming too independent and the US needed a reliable
client
to control the Panama Canal. So the US invaded, killing thousands
(many of them innocent civilians who hated Noriega) and imposed a
subservient white oligarchy. Both Washington and the US media
pointed out his
many horrible atrocities when he was a US enemy yet when he was
following
US orders both the government and media were silent about his
atrocities. Tyrants go from admirable friends to "villainous
scum" when they cross
the line and become too independent.
In 1958 the US client state in Cuba was overthrown and a Leninist
dictatorship under Fidel Castro implemented. The US reacted
negatively and attempted to crush the revolution. A failed
invasion, the Bay of Pigs, by US proxies was launched in the hopes of
toppling Castro. They also used sanctions, assassinations and
other terrorist acts to attempt to destroy the revolution. The
purpose of this was partly to defend US investments in the island but
also to stop the threat of a good example. If Cuba could actually
improve the lives of the people living there it would inspire
rebellions throughout Latin America - not something the US
wanted. The sanctions and other US attacks on Cuba have partially
succeeded in damaging Cuba enough that it would not
provide inspiration for anyone, but not entirely. Many quality of
life statistics show Cuba is doing slightly better then most of its
neighbors and they would probably be higher without US sanctions and
hostility. It shows how much of a hell the US has made the rest
of Latin America that a police state like Cuba could actually do
better.
Many Leninist guerilla wars in Latin America, attempting to imitate the
Cuban revolution, were formed as a result of its inspiration. The
US succeeded in destroying all but one of these movements. The
last guerillas inspired by the Cuban revolution are in Colombia where
they have been fighting a civil war with the domestic oligarchy
(another US client state) for decades. The US has helped the
local oligarchy fight the guerillas by providing them with money and
arms and have also used the CIA, air force and Special Forces units
against the guerillas. Originally the pretext for this
intervention was the Cold War and the fight against Communism.
After the cold war ended the pretext changed so that now it was part of
the war on drugs (both sides are involved in narcotics
trafficking). After 9-11 the pretext changed again, now it's part
of the "war on terrorism" (both sides have committed terrorist
acts). The actual reason for the intervention is to prevent the
threat of a good example and to maintain control of Colombia's oil.
During the 1960s and 70s the US imposed a series of military
dictatorships on much of South America. Sometimes the CIA
directly organized the coups that brought them to power, other times
they were less direct (though still backed by the US). South
America had
seen military dictatorships before but these were exceptionally
brutal. The military Junta in Argentina slaughtered thousands of
dissidents
in its "dirty war" with implicit US approval. The primary reason
for this was to crush popular reform movements against neocolonialism
that were becoming powerful. Most of these were not
communist/Leninist, but they had to be smashed because they threatened
US investments and domination of the region. Most wanted either
some form of democratic socialism or a reformed capitalism independent
of foreign powers. They were all labeled communist by Washington,
because this happened
during the cold war when almost all enemies were labeled
communist. The dictatorships often increased the popularity of
the Leninist guerilla movements, at least in the short term, because
the reform movements were
destroyed and violent revolution appeared to be the only way to change
things. Eventually both the reform movements and the guerillas
were destroyed. US control and neocolonialism was kept firmly in
place. Once the
movements opposing the US were smashed the US allowed the military
dictatorships
to fall so long as the new civilian-run government was also a US client
state.
Many of these dictators and their henchmen were trained in
the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly
known as the School of the Americas), a terrorist training camp
currently
located in Georgia. Whisc graduates have led terrorist
operations,
military coups and are responsible for massacres of thousands of
people. Graduates are responsible for the Uraba massacre in
Colombia, the El
Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador, the assassination of
Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Jesuit massacre in El Salvador, the La
Cantuta massacre in Peru, the torture and murder of a UN worker in
Chile, and hundreds
of other terrorist actions designed to maintain US power in Latin
America.
East Asia
The first territory the American empire acquired in East Asia was the
Philippines. This group of islands was conquered from the Spanish
empire in 1898 and made a colonial possession. No client state
was set up; formal colonialism was practiced instead. The
inhabitants wanted to be independent, not go from being oppressed by
the Spanish to being oppressed by the Americans. A rebellion
against American rule erupted as guerilla fighters attempted to drive
the US from their country. The US responded by setting up
concentration camps and slaughtering thousands of people, which
eventually succeeded in defeating the rebels. After world war two
the United States
suppressed another nationalist guerilla war (this one had got its start
as
a rebellion against the Japanese, who had conquered the islands during
world
war two) and then set up a client state. The islands have been
ruled
by a series of US client states ever since.
US control over East Asia expanded greatly as a result of world war two
and the resulting destruction of the Japanese empire. Most of
what used to be the Japanese empire came under US control. Japan
is a de-facto one-party state; the Liberal Democratic Party has held
power almost continuously since 1955, except for a brief period from
1993 to
1994. There's a lot of propaganda about how the fact that Japan
again became an industrial power after WW2 proves how honorable and
great
America's rulers are (building up their own enemies etc.). The
truth
is that there were basically two choices: keep out of the area and let
Japan
and the rest of Asia follow their own course or rebuild Japan's empire
under American control. The former was obviously out of the
question so the later was pursued. The basic economic patterns in
the area are
mostly the same (with some modifications) as they were under the
Japanese empire. Japan is at the center of a regional economic
bloc, what used
to be called the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" before the
Americans
took it over, with their former colonies on the periphery. Japan
practices
neocolonialism against other countries and, although subordinated to
the
US, is part of the core nations. The US has no problem with Japan
exploiting
other countries, so long as it is done under their overarching control.
Japan and South Korea serve as important weapons producers. In
the period immediately after the defeat of Japan few in the US
considered Japan a possible competitor in the foreseeable future.
Its recovery was due primarily to the production and sale of weapons
for use by
the American empire in the Korean and Vietnamese war. South
Korea's economic development was also fueled by weapons
production. When the Japanese empire fell Korea briefly became
independent. In
many places factories & land were taken over by workers &
peasants and libertarian socialism implemented. In Seoul a
provisional independent government was set up, although it was quite
weak (much of
the country was in near-anarchy). The American and Soviet empires
shut this down and divided the country between them. The Soviets
set up a client state in the North (which has now become independent)
and the US set up a client state in the south. South Korea serves
primarily as a weapons production center. There are also many US
forces stationed in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan because they are near
independent states and these forces help the US control the region.
Southwest Asia / Middle East
The primary function of Southwest Asia, which has more oil
then any other part of the world is, to provide oil for the
empire.
Oil is important not only as fuel but also because of its use as an
energy source, in food production (petrochemicals) and construction
(plastic). The US seeks to dominate the world's oil for several
reasons. The first is normal neocolonialism. The US wants
to insure that its
companies are the ones making the profits from pumping, shipping and
selling
the oil. This is true of most valuable resources. The
second
is that most of the world's economy, especially the industrialized
countries, is dependant on oil to fuel their economy. By
controlling the oil supply the US puts itself in a position of great
power. Should Japan or Europe experience a Communist revolution
or otherwise get too far out
of line, the US could cut off their oil and ruin their economy.
After World War One west European empires, mainly Britain,
took over the Middle East. Britain decided to maintain control
of the Middle East by setting up a system of satellite states
subordinated to their empire. This is where most of the present
borders and governments in the region originate. They installed
puppet monarchies that were extremely repressive towards their own
people. This both destroyed resistance to British rule and caused
the population to hate the monarchies. As a result the monarchies
became dependant on the British for weapons
and support, without which they would be overthrown. This insured
that the British could continue to control them.
After World War Two the British Empire declined and the US
inherited this system of client states. Many monarchies turned
to the US for support in order to maintain their own position, becoming
new US client states. This included Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain and
Saudi Arabia. The US modified the system the British had
established
to add another layer of "enforcer client states" between the US and the
other states. The US has used Turkey, Iran, Israel and Iraq as
enforcer states at one time or another. In the 1940s the US
offered
the Saudi monarchy protection in exchange for control of its oil.
The US has trained its military and police forces and also helped
repress revolts against the monarchy. As a result many opponents
of the
Monarchy have a launched terrorist attacks against the United
States.
The majority of people who allegedly committed 9-11 were from Saudi
Arabia, as is Bin Laden. In some places the monarchies the
British installed were overthrown. This happened in Iraq, Egypt
and elsewhere. The US has attempted to combat this and to install
new client states in places where the old ones were overthrown.
The British have often helped with this, hoping to maintain what they
can of their fallen empire. In Egypt, now the second largest
recipient of US foreign aid, the US was eventually successful in
reinstalling a new client state.
In 1953 another of the CIA's infamous coups ousted the parliamentary
democracy in Iran, which had committed the sin of nationalizing Iran’s
oil, and installed a puppet monarchy, the Shah. The Shah
slaughtered dissidents inside Iran and acted as an enforcer state by
attacking
countries in the region that disobeyed the United States. The
Shah was overthrown by a revolution in 1979 and an independent
theocratic
republic was established. The US responded to this by supporting
an invasion of Iran by Iraq, which was then ruled by Saddam
Hussein.
The US sold Iraq many weapons, including weapons of mass destruction,
and intervened militarily to try to give Iraq the upper hand.
After
eight bloody years the war came to an end in a stalemate but the US
continued
to support Saddam after the war was over.
In 1990 there was a border dispute between Kuwait and Iraq over an
oil field, leading Saddam to conquer Kuwait. The US government
has no real objection to invading other countries, so long as it's done
on their terms and for their benefit. They have invaded many
countries and also supported many other invasions (US in Panama,
Indonesia in East Timor, Israel in Lebanon, etc.). However, if
the US intends to maintain its authority (or "credibility" as it is
often called) the US cannot just allow countries to disobey it.
Iraq was becoming a major regional power, was never
as obediant as the US would like and had it been allowed to continue on
the
same course might have become a threat to US power in the region.
As such the US launched a massive military attack on Iraq, quickly
driving them from Kuwait while devastating their military and
infrastructure. The first gulf war was waged to put the dictator
of Kuwait (a US client
state) back in power. The US laid siege to Iraq for the next
twelve
years with sanctions and bombings. In 2003, after Iraq was
effectively
crippled by a decade of siege and sanctions, the US invaded and
occupied
the country.
Israel is one of the main enforcer states in the Middle East and
essentially an outpost of the American empire. Israel has
helped the empire by defeating radical nationalists in Lebanon, Yemen
and Palestine itself. It has attacked US enemies like Syria,
which
is currently independent but used to be a soviet client state.
Israel also serves as a conduit through which the US can support
unpopular
groups (like the Contras and apartheid South Africa) covertly.
Israel receives more foreign aid from the US then any other
country.
Most of this aid is used to buy weapons from US corporations that are
then used to kill Israel's enemies, which are mostly US enemies
too.
Funding to Israel started climbing in 1967 in the wake of the six days
war in which Israel defeated Syria and Egypt, both enemies of the US at
the time (this was before Egypt evolved into a US client state), and
occupied
parts of their territory. The US started funding Israel because
it
was beating on US enemies and had proven itself capable of defeating
them.
Funding went up again after the Shah fell when the US transferred
Iran's
role as enforcer to Israel.
Europe
Most of Western Europe became part of the American empire as a result
of World War two. The German empire was defeated and its
territory divided between the American and Soviet empires, which
both set up client states. The US suppressed anti-fascist groups
which opposed being subordinated to the US and put people in power who
would go along with US designs. In some cases they manipulated
elections to insure that their candidates won. In Belgium,
France, West Germany and other countries secret paramilitary armies
were established just
in case the wrong people managed to come to power. In some cases
former SS officers and Nazi officials who had cut a deal with the US
at the end of the war organized these. There were many Nazi
officials
who had agreed to help the United States at the end of the war in
exchange
for escaping war crimes trials (others were put on trial in
Nuremberg). One of them was General Reinhard Gehlen, who was
Hitler's intelligence chief on the Eastern Front. He traded the
Nazi's intelligence files on East Europe to the United States and
helped America establish a spy
network that later evolved into West Germany's intelligence
service.
The US also gave supplies to remnants of Nazi armies operating in the
Soviet empire and employed many other Nazi war criminals to help
establish US
rule. These war criminals included SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny,
Claus
Barbie ("the butcher of Lyon"), Colonel Walter Rauff and Otto von
Bolschwing.
Some of these war criminals were later used in Latin America to help
US-backed military dictatorships. (Blum, p. 34-39, 55-64, 104-108;
Zepezaur, p. 6-9; Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, p. 8-9;
Chomsky, Secrets, lies and Democracy p. 87-91; Alvarez, New York Post,
9/24/00; Simpson, Blowback;
Silverstein, "Our Nazi Allies")
Western Europe serves as both an an industrial production center,
consumption center and a means of keeping the rest of the world under
control. After World War Two the US instituted the Marshall Plan
to rebuild the state-capitalist economies of the European territories
they had recently taken over. This was effectively a giant
subsidy for US corporations since most of the Marshall was spent on US
exports. If US companies want to make money they need a place to
sell their
goods; the Marshall plan ensured that US exporters would have a place
to sell them. Europe and the rest of the "first world" is where
they sell those goods - made largely from "third world"
resources.
The Marshall plan also helped enhance US control over the region by
making
Communist revolution less likely (the bad economy made people more
likely
to turn to socialism and to want to overthrow the old system) and
transferring
Europe away from coal and to oil as their primary energy source.
Most west European states are also enforcer states that practice
neocolonialism in other parts of the world. Often they do this in
areas that used to be a part of their formal colonial empires such as
parts of Africa and the Middle East. As the European empires
collapsed in the wake of world war two the US attempted to take these
regions over and was often (but not always) successful. The
former
colonial powers are sometimes used as "attack dogs" to help the US keep
control of their former empire, in exchange they get a higher position
in the hierarchy of the American empire. Britain is a good
example
of this. As a result of world war two the British Empire declined
and was not able to maintain control of areas within its
influence.
Greece after world war two fell into a civil war between the British
client
state (run by former fascist collaborators) and Marxist rebels.
The
British were unable to maintain control of the country and so the
Americans moved in. They helped the Greek government slaughter
tens of thousands of people, set up "re-education camps," break labor
unions and torture
dissidents. MI6 assisted with the CIA coup in Iran (MI6 is
Britain's version of the CIA) and also had the effect of transferring
40% of Iran's oil fields from Britain to the US. Britain got to
keep a portion of her imperial power in exchange for helping the US
take over the declining British Empire. Britain thus gradually
went from being an independent empire to being America's attack dog,
the top enforcer state. Similar processes happened with many
other west European states, although not
always to the same extent.
After the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991 the US began taking over
Eastern Europe, which had formerly been subordinated to the Soviet
Union. Former Soviet satellite states are in the process of
becoming American satellite states subordinated to both the US and
western Europe. This involves the opening up of their economies
to neocolonialism and their integration into western international
structures like NATO and the EU. In some cases intervention has
been unnecessary, the local elites have joined the empire without much
of a fuss. Often this can benefit the elites, although it doesn't
do much for ordinary people. In a few cases the elites did not go
along and various mechanisms of control have been used to attempt to
bring them within the empire. Belarus continues to refuse to open
its economy up to the neocolonialists and
so the US funded pro-western opposition groups during the 2001 election
in hopes of subverting the election. This did not work;
Washington's candidates did not win. There have also been
attempts to subvert the elections of other east European countries.
Yugoslavia was also reluctant to join the empire so the US &
Western Europe broke it up into small western puppet governments.
They played different ethnic groups within Yugoslavia against each
other (the Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, etc.), which created a series of
civil wars and genocide that tore Yugoslavia apart. The US even
shipped Islamist terrorists from Afghanistan into Bosnia (Aldrich,
Guardian, 4/22/02), which further destabilized the country. One
of the last stages in this process was the war over Kosovo, a province
in what was Yugoslavia. The CIA funded a terrorist group called
the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to attack Yugoslav targets in the name
of an independent Kosovo. The Yugoslav government responded with
a crack down that the US called "ethnic cleansing" and used as an
excuse to bomb Yugoslavia. This "ethnic cleansing" was just
another pretext; the US was simultaneous funding ethnic cleansing by
Turkey
against the Kurds. The bombing of Yugoslavia killed more people
then the so-called "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo. Yugoslavia was
devastated and forced to accept NATO occupation. Not long
afterwards the Yugoslav government was overthrown and groups funded by
the US & west Europe
came to power. What was left of Yugoslavia was dissolved.
US control over Europe is not as tight as it used to be. Partly
this is due to the fact that they no longer rely on the US but also
because they are becoming an economic power as big as the United
States. This is a part of the "trilateralization" of the global
economy and the emergence of a global ruling class.
Africa
Like the rest of the "third world" Africa is primarily a source of
natural resources and cheap labor. It is not as important to the
US as some other areas of the world and control over the region is
often relatively light and left to west European enforcer states.
As elsewhere, the US has imposed many puppet dictatorships when
necessary. In 1960 Congo gained its independence from Belgium and
Patrice Lumumba became its first prime minister. He was an
African nationalist who opposed neocolonialism and refused to take
sides in the cold war, preferring to build a strong Congo independent
of the empires. This was obviously unacceptable to the US, so
the CIA organized a coup, killed Lumumba and installed Mobutu See Seko
as their puppet dictator. Mobutu changed the name of the country
to Zaire. In the 1990s Laurence Kabila led a rebellion that
unseated Mobutu just before he died of cancer and installed himself as
the new
dictator. He changed the name again to the Democratic Republic of
the Congo. Initially it looked like Kabila was going to go along
with the US and defend neocolonial interests but he eventually decided
against it so the US backed a rebellion and invasion by several other
countries. This turned into a large regional war that killed
thousands of people and Kabila himself.
In 1965 Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana, published a book titled Neo-Colonialism:
The Last Stage of Imperialism which claimed that, despite official
decolonization, old colonial powers were still dominating the "third
world"
through less formal means. He said the CIA was behind many
of Africa's problems and that:
"In place of colonialism as the main instrument of imperialism we
have today neocolonialism. The essence of neocolonialism is that
the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all
the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its
economic system
and thus its political policy is directed from outside. ... in an
extreme
case the troops of the. imperial power may garrison the territory of
the
neo-colonial State and control the government of it. More often,
however,
neo-colonialist control is exercised through economic or monetary
means.
The neo-colonial State may be obliged to take the manufactured products
of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products from
elsewhere.
Control over government policy in the neo-colonial State may be secured
by payments towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of
civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by
monetary
control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking
system
controlled by the imperial power. ... The result of new-colonialism is
that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the
development
of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under
neo-colonialism
increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and the poor
countries
of the world."
Four months after publishing this book Nkrumah was overthrown by a
CIA coup.
The US has repeatedly used South Africa as an enforcer state against
other states that get out of line. This was especially true when
it was under apartheid. One example of this use is the war in
Angola, which was a battle ground between Soviet-backed and
American-backed
forces. The US backed the terrorist organization UNITA and also
backed an invasion of Angola by South Africa. All brought about a
civil war that only recently ended and ruined Angola.
Oceania
Australia (and New Zealand) serves functions similar to Western Europe
and Japan. The rest of Oceania is part of the periphery and
serves the same function as the rest of the "third world" - a source of
cheap labor and raw materials. Australia acts as the junior
partner of US Imperialism in the region, as its "regional
lieutenant." Australia has sent troops to defend imperial
interests in Vietnam and elsewhere. They also practice
neocolonialism in many surrounding countries. Australia has been
doing this as a de-facto US client state
since the 1950s. In 1972 Gough Whitlam, leader of the Australian
Labor party, was elected prime minister of Australia. He
implemented a number of social reforms and changed Australian foreign
policy so as not
to serve the American empire. He withdrew Australian troops from
Vietnam
and refused to go along with various CIA operations. This was
obviously
unacceptable to the US so the CIA allied with domestic opposition
groups
to sabotage his regime and throw it into crisis. They
successfully pressured Governor-General John Kerr to launch a
"constitutional coup" - applying a rarely used legal clause to dismiss
the government and install a more CIA-friendly one, thus returning
Australia to its role as a US client state.
Prior to 1965 President Sukarno ruled Indonesia. He was a
nationalist and a strong supporter of the non-aligned movement, seeking
to build an Indonesia that was independent of both the Soviet and
American empires. This obviously conflicted with US interests,
not only
because of the potential threat of a good example it could set but also
because of Indonesia's many resources. In the late '50s the CIA
organized a revolt to try and topple him but it was defeated. The
CIA didn't give up, though, and in 1965 another of their classic coups
installed General Suharto in power. Suharto kept the country in
the US camp
and slaughtered between 500,000 - 1,000,000 people with the assistance
of
the CIA in the aftermath of the coup.
In 1975 Indonesia, still under the rule of Suharto's dictatorship,
invaded the neighboring East Timor and annexed it. They
slaughtered between a fourth and a third of the population. In
terms of percentage
of population this was one of the worst genocides in history, worse
then
Pol Pot. The US continued to support Suharto throughout this
period
of genocide, providing him with weapons to slaughter even more
people. The US only condemns genocide when official enemies are
doing it. When allies/client states do it the US either looks the
other way or
actively supports it.
Central Asia
This is the most recent region to join the empire, most of it was part
of the Soviet empire before it collapsed. It contains many energy
resources, especially oil and natural gas (much of which
is in the Caspian). On Jul 3 1979 the United States began to aid
the Mujahideen, Muslim Fundamentalist terrorists in Afghanistan.
Osama Bin Laden would join them in the mid-80s. Afghanistan was
right on the border of the Soviet Union and US aid to these terrorists
prompted them to invade. After the Soviets invaded US aid to the
Mujahideen was made public and the US claimed that it was started in
response
to the Soviet invasion. This was a lie - US aid began prior to
the
Soviet invasion and was intended to bait them into invading.
President
Carter's National Security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinsk, admitted this
in
an interview with Le Nouvel Observator in 1998. He said:
"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the
Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet
army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly
guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979
that
President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the
opponents
of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to
the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid
was
going to induce a Soviet military intervention. ... We didn't push the
Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that
they
would. ... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the
effect
of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap ... The day that the
Soviets
officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have
the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for
almost
10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government,
a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the
breakup
of the Soviet empire. ... What is most important to the history of the
world?
The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up
Moslems
or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?"
US funding of the Mujahideen would greatly strengthen the Islamic
fundamentalist movement and eventually lead to the creation of the
Taliban and Al-Qaeda. One of the terrorists involved in the
Mujahideen was Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arabian. After
the Gulf War he would turn against the United States due to the
presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia after the end of the war.
The US launched an attack on Afghanistan in October of 2001. The
US used the Northern Alliance, an armed faction opposed to the
Taliban (the government over most of Afghanistan), as proxy forces and
successfully drove the Taliban out of power. The US installed a
puppet
government with Hamid Karzai as head of state. Most surrounding
countries
were brought into the US Empire without a fight and the US established
bases
throughout the region. None of these countries are remotely
democratic,
most are ruled by one-party states. The move into central Asia
was
officially justified as a response to 9-11, however the decision to
invade Afghanistan in mid-October (at the latest) had already been made
prior to 9-11. The US even told the Taliban about this,
threatening
them if they did not go along with US demands. It is possible
that
9-11 was a pre-emptive strike. The real motivation was to take
over territory that had formerly been part of the Soviet empire and to
secure control over the oil & natural gas reserves of the area.