US Imperialism

The Changing Dynamics of Global Power

James Petras

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000576627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Globalisation
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers a broad and deep examination of the dynamics of US imperialism. Petras analyzes imperialism not only as economic domination, showing that its impact in the world takes many forms, including cultural, political and historical. He points to the disruptive effects it has on other world regional economies and cultures. Capitalism and imperialism take diverse forms but both are intimately tied to the projection of state power in the service of capital—a strategy designed to advance the geopolitical and economic interests of the US economic elite and ruling class—interests that are equated with the 'US national interest'.

Part I

Historical Background

Chapter 1

US Global Power in the 21st Century

Military or Economic Imperialism?

Despite vast amounts of imperial data to the contrary, the great majority of writers on imperialism continue to describe and analyze US imperialism strictly in economic terms—that is, as an expansion of capital accumulation, accumulation on a world scale.

In fact, the major and minor US imperial wars have more to do with capital dis-accumulation, in the sense that trillion-dollar flows have gone out from the US, hundreds of billions of dollars in profits from resource sites have been undermined, markets for exports have been severely weakened, and exploitable productive industry has been uprooted. At the same time that the US imperialist state dis-accumulates capital, multinational corporations, especially in the extractive sector, are expanding, accumulating capital throughout Latin America and other areas of the world system.

This new configuration of power, the conflicting and complementary nature of 21st-century US imperialism, requires that we anchor our analysis in the real, existing behaviour of imperial state and extractive capitalist policymakers. The basic premise informing this essay is that there are two increasingly divergent forms of imperialism: military-driven intervention, occupation, and domination; and economic expansion and exploitation of resources and markets by invitation of the host country.

We will proceed by examining, in a historical-comparative framework, the choices of imperial strategy and the alternatives that were selected or rejected. Through an analysis of the practical decisions taken regarding ‘imperial expansion’ we can obtain insights into the real nature of US imperialism. The study of imperial strategic choices, past and present, state and corporate, requires three levels of analysis: global, national, and sectoral.

Global Strategies: The US Imperial State and Multinational Corporations

The US imperial state invested trillions of dollars in military expenditures, sent hundreds of thousands of military personnel in wars in the Middle East (Iraq, Yemen, and Syria), North and East Africa (Libya, Somalia), South Asia (Afghanistan), and imposed sanctions on Iran that cost the US hundreds of billions in capital dis-accumulation.

The US corporate elite, driven out of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and other places where US military imperialism was engaged, chose to invest in manufacturing in China and extractive sectors throughout Latin America. In other words, the imperial state strategists either chose to expand in relatively backward areas (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen) or imposed under-development by destroying or sanctioning lucrative extractive economies (Iraq, Libya, Iran).

In contrast, multinational corporations (MNCs) chose the most dynamic expanding zones where militarist imperialism was least engaged: China and Latin America. In other words, capital did not ‘follow the flag’; it avoided it.

Moreover, the zones where extractive capital was most successful in terms of access, profits, and stability were those where their penetration was based on negotiated contracts between sovereign nations and CEOs—economic imperialism by invitation.

In contrast, in the priority areas of expansion chosen by imperial state strategists, entry and domination was by force, leading to the destruction of the means of production and loss of access to the principal sites of extractive exploitation. US military-driven imperialism undermined energy companies’ agreements in Iraq and Libya. Imperial state sanctions in Iran designed to weaken its nuclear and defense capabilities undercut US corporate extractive, public-private contracts with the Iranian state oil corporations. The drop in production and supply of oil in Iraq, Iran, and Libya raised energy prices and had a negative impact on the ‘accumulation of capital on a world scale’.

If imperial state decision-makers had followed the direction of economic rather than military driven policymakers they would have pivoted to Asia and Latin America rather than the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. They would have channelled funds into economic imperialist strategies, including joint ventures, high and medium-tech trade agreements, and expanded exports by the high-end manufacturing sector, instead of financing 700 military bases, destabilization campaigns and costly military exercises.

Twentieth century military imperialism stands in stark contrast to late twentieth century economic imperialism. In the mid 1960s the US announced a vast new economic program in Latin America—the Alliance for Progress that was designed to finance economic opportunities in Latin America via joint ventures, agrarian reform and investments in the extractive sector. The imperial state’s military policies and interventionist policies were designed to secure US business control over mines, banks, factories and agro-business. US backing for the coups in Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and Peru led to the privatization of key resource sectors and the imposition of the neoliberal economic model.

US policy in Asia under Nixon was directed first and foremost to opening economic relations with China, expanding trade agreements with Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. The pivot from war to free trade led to a boom in US exports as well as imports, in private investments and lucrative profits. Military expenditures declined even as the US engaged in covert operations in Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Imperial intervention combined military and economic expansion, with the latter dictating policy priorities and the allocation of resources.

The reversal set in with the US military backing of the jihadist extremists in Afghanistan and the demise of the USSR. The former set the stage for the rise to power of the Taliban and the emergence of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization. The latter led US imperial strategists to pursue wars of conquest with impunity—for example, Yugoslavia and Iraq during the 1990s.

Easy military conquests and visions of a ‘unipolar’ world dominated by US military supremacy encouraged and fostered the emergence of a new breed of imperial strategists—neo-conservative militarists with closer ties to Israel and its military priorities than to the US extractive petrol capitalists in the Middle East.

Military Versus Economic Imperialism at the National Level

In the post-Cold War period, the competition between the two variants of imperialism was played out in all the nations subject to US intervention.

During the first Iraq war the balance between militarists and economic imperialists was in play. The US defeated Iraq but did not shred the state or bomb the oil fields. Sanctions were imposed but did not paralyze oil deals. The US did not occupy Iraq; it partitioned the north—so-called ‘Kurdish’ Iraq—but left the secular state intact. Extractive capital was actively in competition with the militarist neo-conservatives over the future direction of imperial policy.

The launch of the second Iraq war and the invasion of Afghanistan marked a decisive shift toward military imperialism: the US ignored all economic considerations. Iraq’s secular state was destroyed; civil society was pulverized; ethno-religious, tribal and clan warfare was encouraged. US colonial officials ruled by military fiat; top policymakers with links to Israel replaced oil-connected officials. The militarist ‘war on terror’ ideology replaced free market, free trade imperialism. Afghanistan killing fields replaced the China market as the center of US imperial policy. Billions were spent chasing evasive guerrillas in the mountains of a backward economy while US lost competitive advantages in the most dynamic Asian markets.

In Iraq, imperial policymakers chose to align with sectarian warlords over extractive technocrats. In Afghanistan they chose loyal ex-pat puppets over influential Taliban leaders capable of pacifying the country.

Extractive Versus Military Imperialism in Latin America

Latin American neoliberalism went from boom to bust in the 1990s. By the early 2000s crises enveloped the region. By the turn of the century, US-backed rulers were being replaced by popular nationalist leaders. US policymakers stuck by their neoliberal clients in decline and failed to adapt to the new rulers who pursued modified socially inclusive extractivism. The US military imperialists longed for a return of the neoliberal backers of the ‘war on terrorism’. In contrast, multinational extractive corporations were realists—and adapted to the new regimes.

On a global scale, at the beginning of the new millennium two divergent tendencies emerged. US military imperialism expanded throughout the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and the Caucuses, while Latin American regimes turned in the opposite direction—toward moderate nationalism and populism, with a strong emphasis on poverty reduction via economic development in association with imperial extractive capital.

In the face of these divergent and conflicting trends, the major US extractive multinational corporations chose to adapt to the new political realities in Latin America. While Washington, the imperial state, expressed hostility and dismay toward the new regimes’ refusal to back the ‘war on terror’ (military imperialism), the major MNCs’ robust embrace of economic imperialism took advantage of the investment opportunities opened by these regimes’ adoption of a new extractivist model to pour billions into the mining, energy and agricultural sectors.

The Specificities of Extractive Imperialism in the Post-neoliberal Era

Extractive imperialism in Latin America has several specific characteristics that sharply demarcate it from earlier forms of agro-mineral imperialism.

First, extractive capital is not dominated by a single imperial country as it was by the Spanish in the 18th century, the British in the 19th century or the US in the 20th century. Imperial extractive capital is very diverse: Canadian, US, Chinese, Brazilian, Australian, Spanish, Indian and other MNCs are deeply involved.

Second, the imperial states of the diverse MNC do not engage in ‘gun boat diplomacy’ (with the exception of the US). The imperial states provide economic financing and diplomatic support but are not actively involved in subverting Latin American regimes.

Third, the relative weight of US MNCs in the new imperial extractivism is much less than it was a half-century earlier. The rise of diverse extractive MNCs and the dynamism of China’s commodity market and deep financial pockets have displaced the US, IMF and WB and established new terms of trade with Latin America.

Fourth, probably the most significant aspect of the new imperial extractivism is that its entry and expansion is by invitation. The Latin American regimes and the extractive MNCs negotiate contracts: MNC entry is not unilaterally imposed by an imperial state. Yet the ‘contracts’ may result in unequal returns; they provide substantial revenues and profits to the MNC; they grant large multi-million-acre tracts of land for mining or agriculture exploitation; they obligate the national state to dispossess local communities and police/repress the displaced. But they have also allowed the post-neoliberal states to expand their social spending, increase their foreign reserves, eschew relations with the IMF, and diversify their markets and trading partners.

In regional terms extractive imperialism in Latin America has accumulated capital by diverging from the military imperialism practiced by the US in other macro-regions of the world system. Over the past decade and a half, extractive capital has been allied with and relied on both post-neoliberal and neoliberal regimes against petty commodity producers, indigenous communities and other anti-extractive resistance movements. Extractive imperialists do not rely on ‘their’ imperial state to quell resistance; they turn to their national political partners.

Extractive imperialism by invitation also diverges from the military imperial state in its view toward regional organizations. US military imperialism placed all its bets on US-centered economic integration that Washington could leverage to political, military and economic advantage. Extractive capital, in the great diversity of its ‘national identity’, welcomed Latin American-centered integration that did not privilege US markets and investors.

However, the predominance of economic imperialism, in particular the extractive version, needs to be qualified by several caveats.

US military imperialism has been present in several forms. The US backed the military coup in Honduras overthrowing the post-neoliberal Zelaya government; likewise it supported an ‘institutional coup’ in Paraguay.

Second, even as Multinational Corporations (MNCs) poured capital into Bolivian mining and energy sectors, the US imperial state fomented destabilization activities to undermine the MAS government. But the US was defeated and the agencies and operatives were expelled from the country. The crucial issue here, as well as in other instances, was the unwillingness of the MNCs to join forces with the military imperialists via boycotts, trade embargoes or disinvestment. Clearly, the stability and profitability of long-term contracts between the Bolivian regime and extractive MNCs counted for more than ties to the US imperial state.

US military imperialism has expanded its military bases and increased joint military exercises with most Latin American armed forces. Indoctrinated military officials could still be formidable potential allies in any future ‘coup’, if and when the US pivots from the Middle East to Latin America.

US military imperialism in its manifest multiple forms, from bankrolling non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in destabilization and street riots in Venezuela to its political support of financial speculators in Argentina and right-wing parties and personalities in Brazil, has a continuous presence alongside extractive imperialism. The success of the latter and eclipse of the former is based in part on two contingent circumstances. The US’s serial wars in the Middle East divert attention from Latin America; and the commodity boom fuels the growth of extractive capital. The economic slowdown in China and the decline of commodity prices may weaken regimes in opposition to US military imperialism.

Paradoxically, the weakening of ties between the post-neoliberal regimes and extractive imperialism resulting from the decline of commodity prices is strengthening the neoliberal sociopolitical forces allied with US military imperialism.

Latin America’s Right Turn: The Cohabitation of Extractive and Military Imperialism?

Throughout Latin America the post-neoliberal regimes that have ruled for the better part of a decade and a half face serious challenges—from consequential social opposition at the micro-level and aggressive political-economic elites at the macro-level. It is worthwhile surveying the prospects for a return to power of neoliberal regimes allied with military imperialism in several key countries.

Several factors are working in favour of a return to power of political parties and leaders who seek to reverse the independent and inclusive policies of the post-neoliberal power bloc.

First, the post-neoliberal regimes’ development strategy of depending on foreign extractive capital perpetuated and strengthened the economic basis of imperialism: ‘colonial style’ trade relations, exporting primary commodities and importing finished goods, allowed the agro-mineral elites to occupy key positions in the politico-social structure. With the decline in commodity prices, some post-neoliberal regimes are experiencing fiscal and balance of payments shortfalls. Inflation and cuts in social expenditures adversely affect the capacity of the post-neoliberal regimes to retain popular and middle-class electoral support.

The divergence between post-neoliberals and economic imperialism are accentuated by the return of the neoliberal right. The agro-mineral sectors perceive an opportunity to rid themselves of their power and revenue-sharing agreements with the state and secure even more lucrative arrangements with the advance of the neoliberal right, which promises tax and royalty reductions, deregulation and lower wage and pension payments.

Second, the post-neoliberal regimes’ alliances with the building, construction and other bourgeois sectors was accompanied by corruption involving pay-offs, bribes and other illicit financial transactions designed to finance their mass media-based electoral c...