Anachronistic stubbornness

By Eduardo Reyes Cartagena

After World War II, one of the main USA features as a World’s great power was to be born together with another great power: the USSR. Both powers used to have each other as a really important enemy all along the Cold War. The whole USA war structure was (and is) conceived in relation to a powerful enemy not to be directly attacked. Policy was to accumulate a serious arsenal to keep the enemy at bay, avoiding a direct attack. Also, indirect participation in conflicts was promoted by supporting certain governments to prevent the so called “Iron Curtain” advance.

But the Fall of the Berlin Wall marked the start of a new era. First of all, there is no identifiable ideology enemy: communism is practically dead. The USA is alone. On the other side, globalization has provoked that the first great power enemy is not really a nation or group of states, such as the USSR. However, it seems that the USA has not learned to relate with the world in a different way, now without the opposing partner that was there, as a real and powerful presence. 

After the communism collapse, the American military structure needed a justification. There was no specific enemy, so it was necessary to create one: the terrorism. However, its creation was not immediate. After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the first war conflict for the USA was the Iraq “Desert Storm” war and the new enemy was not perfectly defined yet, nor there was an ideology set up in order to justify the military interventions. The excuse of that war was the Iraqi invasion to Kuwait. It is not until September 11, 2001 when terrorism occupies the main place as a national security issue for the USA. From then on, a new doctrine —that is, an ideology— is created to justify their military interventions. It is then when the “preventive war” concept arises: it is the justification to invade any State promoting, protecting or financing terrorist organizations. The new enemy was not a specific nation, it could be any, so the Afghanistan invasion and the later Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein overthrow, occurred.

It is odd that there is not a sole country with the military capacity to oppose the USA. Which government can be a threat to the USA, as the USSR used to be? Who could be considered a real enemy? Maybe not even a united Europe could be a considerable menace. But it was necessary to wage and promote war: there is a powerful American industry depending on it. It was unimportant if inventing enemies was required. But any of them would be mere shadows projected not by the real enemies, but by the American government itself.

After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, is the USA fighting its own shadows? If there is no enemy, it is mandatory to invent it, and as shocking as this phrase might sound, the American elite groups that are benefited by war, have plenty of reasons to promote it.

The need of a new world order, with new domination relationships demands a dramatic change of the so far manipulated vision in which the Cold War was sustained. War as an instrument for the State domination over others will still be the main tool when required. However, not all domination ways include war as the main instrument. How to dominate without losing the military hegemony? Dominate for what? Will the main domination tool for the following decades be war or harsh policies —in the Cold War style?

One could say these kinds of policies are required with openly opposite governments, but what about the rest of the countries, mainly those which are still too underdeveloped to be unconditional USA partners? Most of the times, the developed world is devoted to the Washington line. The problem is the developed world is too small. The underdeveloped countries were (and still are) prevented from growing, otherwise there was the risk of turning against the USA. The current advantage is that there is no opposite side anymore. Domination can be reached by attacking, by subjugating, by sacking. Is it possible to dominate by convincing, to dominate by promoting economical and social development, and to dominate by educating? And not losing the military domain? An immediate response is Japan.

When the biggest Ancient Empire had no enemies left, it invented the Roman pax concept. Has the moment for an American pax invention arrived? But to implement it, Americans should be open and start a deep transformation of the neoliberal scheme. For instance, their health care system: there are many developed —and even underdeveloped— countries with a system better than the American’s. But they are stubborn; they defend private property at all costs because they live distressed by the communism shadow. Gentlemen, there is no one projecting that shadow: your own imagination is doing it. Now, the absence of communism does not mean absence of radical liberalism criticism, from the very liberalism principles.

Talking about a new world order, a new relationship between the USA and the rest of the world was foolish in the sixties. Maybe that is why one of the most important American leaders, Kennedy, paid it with his life. Kennedy was not wrong, he was simply ahead of his own time, he should have ruled after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. His speech was inappropriate because the Cold War was on its pick. Something similar happens to the current USA leaders: their speeches are inappropriate because the Cold War is over; they are in the wrong time, they are trapped on the 70’s and 80’s.

The USA requires a personality, even more, a speech, and yet more, a policy such as Kennedy aspired. Sometimes one wins a lot more with methods different from the disqualifying negation and the harsh line.