Empire or Republic?

American Global Power and Domestic Decay

James Petras, Morris Morley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780415910651
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136043260
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Economic Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Empire or Republic? makes the necessary, but much overlooked, link between our nation's international policies and the domestic situation. The authors contend that the Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations have all focused on global leadership to the detriment of pressing social, economic and political problems at home.

1

REVIVING THE WORLD OF THE 1950s? THE U.S. AND ASCENDING GLOBAL POWER IN THE 1990s

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and its empire, European cooperation in the U.S.-orchestrated military intervention in the Gulf, the embrace by many Third World regimes of pro-U.S. economic and foreign policy positions, and Washington’s aggressive pursuit of free-trade agreements that expand the scope of U.S. market penetration and political influence, are all powerful indicators of the renewed ascendancy of the U.S. in global politics. In this chapter, we discuss these and other relevant factors but simultaneously argue that Washington’s capacity to exploit and turn them into long-term conditions for global ascendancy depends on the strength (political, economic, military, ideological) of its imperial institutions. Also highlighted is the emphasis in U.S. strategy on bolstering its ability to compete with new imperial rivals—Europe and Japan. Insofar as we consider the issue of whether the United States is a declining or rising political power, the major focus is on one aspect of this debate: the forces and events propelling global ascendancy.

PROJECTING AMERICAN POWER: A “NEW-OLD” WORLD ORDER

Since the early 1980s, the U.S. has wielded unprecedented political, military, and ideological power at the global level. In the military realm, the U.S. is de facto the world’s only nuclear superpower. NATO has received a new lease; its functions have been extended to “policing” non-European regions and intervening in intra-European conflicts. Washington intervenes in Africa and the Middle East with impunity. It has been equally successful in promoting electoral transitions in Latin America and Asia (Philippines) that preserve the coercive institutions of existing states—thus retaining the allegiances of strategic clients. Moreover, under the aegis of “fighting the drug war,” the Pentagon has established military bases and garrisons in the South American heartland that provide the wherewithal for directly intervening on the side of client regimes in their conflicts with guerrillas, peasant organizations, or popular movements. Indeed, several governments, notably those of Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, have accepted the principle of a permanent U.S. military presence, ostensibly to eliminate the major sources of cocaine and other narcotics production—in the process severely compromising their national sovereignty. Last, but not least, the Reagan/Bush use of military force to solve perceived political problems, especially in Central America and the Caribbean, provoked only token regional opposition, in effect amounting to tacit complicity in these unilateral interventions in the internal affairs of supposedly independent states.

This era of prolonged counterrevolution—both cause and consequence of the revival of U.S. global power—also found expression in the ascendancy of Washington-sponsored, neo-liberal, economic doctrines as well as the subordination of former adversary regimes to the imperial state’s political tutelage. This resurgent hegemony went hand in hand with declining living standards in target regions as newly elected clients rushed headlong to implement the free-market, deregulated policies favored by the Reagan and Bush administrations. In Latin America, for instance, the so-called lost decade of the 1980s was a catastrophe for the region’s population; wages, employment, health, education, and other indices of living standards plummeted as the numbers falling below the poverty line reached historically high levels. But for American investors, traders, and bankers this was an era of booming profits in the hemisphere: over $200 billion in principal and interest payments flowed into the coffers of U.S. private banks while part of region’s debt was converted into the takeover of profitable domestic assets at bargain basement prices; previously closed markets were opened up by the democratic, neo-liberal regimes to U.S. commerce; public enterprises were privatized and sold off at less than their true current value; and U.S. corporate investors moved south to take advantage of cheap labor, especially in Central America and the Caribbean.

In Latin America, Washington has never had an alignment of political regimes so favorable to its economic agenda or so desirous of establishing “stronger links” with the region’s hegemonic power.¹ Neo-liberal policies, freeing markets, and the opening up of resource exploitation to foreign investors are the order of the day throughout the continent; labor costs have declined and national regulations and social legislation is at its weakest in over half a century. The transfer of lucrative public firms to overseas multinational enterprises and private banking through debt swaps and an accelerated privatization process is dramatically changing the balance of power between national and foreign capital, between public and private enterprise. In Canada and Mexico, free-trade agreements have opened up huge unfettered markets for American goods and financial services while deepening imperial investors’ access to a huge labor market. The governments of Brian Mulroney and Carlos Salinas, and the export elites that supported them, accommodated Washington’s desire to expand exports and appropriate national resources historically subject to public sector regulation.

In return for opening up their economies and markets, these countries were promised reciprocity in the form of equivalent U.S. concessions regarding market access and new large-scale inflows of development capital. The reality has been otherwise: having deregulated their economies at Washington’s bidding, these U.S. clients, except Mexico, have been denied much in the way of new capital resources or market opportunities. Reciprocity has been subordinated to short-term profits and economic pillage that is perceived by U.S. officials as a springboard for regaining global economic power; through regional bloc advantages, Washington hopes to offset its competitive economic disadvantages vis-a-vis Japan and Germany.

Successful U.S. military interventions also hastened the expansion of ideological hegemony as adjoining states buckled under and “redefined” the parameters of their action. In the ideological-cultural realm, U.S. success can be measured by the diminished influence of Marxist and nationalist ideologies and the increasing circulation of its own hegemonic formulas: in Latin America, interdependency and integration replaced imperialism and dependence; social contracts (concertación) substituted for class conflicts; “democracy” characterized elitist technocratic regimes cohabiting with terrorist state institutions and their death-squad allies. Many Latin intellectuals embraced free trade, regional integration schemes, debt payments, and debt swaps as the new “realism” and “pragmatism.” Further testifying to the ascendancy of U.S. cultural hegemony in the region was the incorporation of many former leftist intellectuals into the neo-liberal governments, readily articulating the case for closer working relations with the dominant imperial power.

At the juridical level, the United States has codified its capacity to project power and act with impunity by declaring that American laws have international jurisdiction (the doctrine of “extraterritoriality”). Between 1987 and 1990, U.S. political, economic, and military warfare against Panama systematically violated international law.² This adherence to the doctrine of “extraterritoriality” culminated in the arrest, extradition (despite the absence of any bilateral treaty), and trial of Panamanian head of state, General Manuel Noriega. In June 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that Washington had no obligation to respect international law and established extradition treaties. In a case involving a Mexican doctor spirited to the United States by American agents, it ruled that it was perfectly legal to kidnap criminal suspects from foreign countries for trial in the imperial state.³ This decision gives virtually unlimited authority to U.S. intelligence agencies and armed forces around the world to apprehend the national of any country if Washington deems such action necessary. Later the same year, President Bush signed into law a bill making it illegal for overseas subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals to trade with Cuba—once more showing a total disregard for national sovereignty.

In the Middle East, the United States displayed the full range of its global political and military power: it intervened with unprecedented force against a local adversary (Iraq), in the process defining the nature of the political debate and creating new alliances. Formerly described “terrorist” states (Iran, Syria) cooperated in the war against Saddam Hussein; allied armies agreed to fight under American leadership; allied governments agreed to fund a large part of the war effort; the Soviet Union lined up behind Washington following the unceremonious rejection of its plan for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. The U.S. air war (saturation bombing) maximized the visibility of the imperial state, assured the loyalty of regional clients, and emphasized both the capacity and willingness of the Bush administration to use weapons of mass destruction to instill fear into, and intimidate, would-be enemies—backed by a pliant United Nations that had succumbed to White House pressure to legitimate the use of overwhelming force against Iraq. In a thinly veiled threat to replicate this projection of military power if deemed necessary in the future, President Bush repeatedly stressed America’s responsibility for maintaining global stability.

The U.S. war in the Persian Gulf was an attempt to reaffirm Washington’s role as global policeman; to resubordinate economic competitors (Japan, Europe) to military power; to convert rising economic hegemons into docile bankers of U.S. military conquests; to disaggregate European alliances in favor of U.S.-centered coalitions; to both trade Third World debt payments for agreement to participate in the U.S.-commanded multinational military force and simultaneously intimidate the Third World into submission. The extraordinary military buildup, the pressure on clients, allies, and neutrals to collaborate, the vast economic expenditures, and the intensity of the air war was, in its most profound sense, an attempt to change the rules of global power, to reverse all of the world historic trends that were relegating the United States to the status of a second-class hegemon. The war was meant to define a new military-centered global order in which markets, income, and resource shares were defined not by technological-market power but by political-military dominance. Under these rules, Washington’s global supremacy would be assured.

The Gulf War was the culmination of a series of political and military victories that bolstered the U.S. global position: the reversal of revolutionary and nationalist regimes in southern Africa, Central America, and Asia; the creation of a new, pro-U.S. coalition including Russia, China, and a cluster of Arab and previously “neutral” Third World states; the steady disintegration of the nonaligned movement which signalled the end of calls for a New International Economic Order to be replaced by Washington’s announcement of a New World Order; and a United Nations increasingly receptive to U.S. wishes. One Security Council diplomat characterized Bush administration pressure on the members of the international body to vote with it during 1991-92 as “more forceful than ever.”⁴

U.S. global power received an enormous boost as a consequence of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its empire in Eastern Europe. First, these developments have eliminated any significant counterweight to U.S. hegemonic aspirations; the United States can now project its power into most areas of the world without having to calculate the effects of a superpower response. Second, given Washington’s new ability to act unilaterally, regimes seeking to pursue alternative economic and political strategies now face substantially increased costs in terms of both U.S. hostility and having to depend more on internal resources to defend and implement such programs. The result has been a tendency to reshape political and economic agendas to accommodate U.S. concerns, thus effectively acknowledging its hegemonic power. Third, Washington’s position of strength is manifested in the new Russian elite’s acceptance of U.S. -designed political and economic “reforms”—capturing the quasi-clientele relationship that has emerged. Fourth, Eastern Europe has also subordinated itself to U.S. hegemonic influence. Its new rulers, seeking to curry favor even when it adversely affects longstanding economic interests, have petitioned to join the U.S.-dominated NATO alliance, supported U.S. military initiatives in the Near East, implemented IMF austerity reforms in return for promised economic assistance, and ruptured a number of preexisting trade ties with Cuba. The region’s willingness to adhere to the trade boycott with Iraq was perhaps most emblematic of this preparedness to make economic sacrifices in order to achieve “loyal follower” status in the U.S.-centered New World Order.

In addition to its growing global political and military power, Washington’s ideological influence has never been stronger. One measure of its hegemony in this sphere is its capacity to secure large-scale support for its human rights double bookkeeping: the support for political purges of state institutions in Eastern Europe and the protection of longstanding military and police allies in Latin America. In the East, the rhetoric of unregulated capitalism (“free markets”) has gained support from the great majority of intellectuals and the mass media. Such uncritical worship of U.S. imperial supremacy coincides with the idealization of authoritarian prerevolutionary elites and the obliteration and/or falsification of the intervening complex and contradictory histories of these countries. In the South, imperial investment and market takeovers have been described as “interdependence” and “integration,” though the movements of capital are practically unidirectional.

American consumer patterns, cultural habits, and expressions increasingly displace national productions: in films and theater, videos, newspapers, radio, and advertisements, nationally oriented producers are left out and glossy, violent, sexually explicit, mindless mass production has gained sway. Interpretations of past histories, assessments of previous nationalist regimes’ socioeconomic experiments reflect the same one-sided doctrinairism of Western academic ideologues. This projection of U.S. ideological hegemony in the East and South testifies to its new global authority—in a world where there are few effective competitors.

THE STRUCTURES OF AMERICAN GLOBAL POWER

Anchoring the growth of U.S. hegemony on a world scale is a structure of power built around interrelated sets of institutions: a military, navy, and airforce with far reaching interventionary capacity; extensive clandestine intelligence networks capable of undermining adversaries and bolstering clients; an enormous array of public and private mass media outlets around the world capable of projecting American definitions of international political and economic reality; and multiple collaborator classes, especially in the Third World, linked to informal (private) and formal (public) U.S. institutions. These components of U.S. global power are mutually reinforcing and their cumulative impact over time has far exceeded their separate activities in promoting and reinforcing U.S. aspirations abroad. Dependent on the U.S. state’s ability to channel resources from the domestic economy and the national budget, these institutions underpinning American hegemony worldwide need to continually create those opportune moments and political rhetoric that justify their actions and the diversion of resources from the national economy.

In order to reconstruct the U.S. global military/clandestine apparatus in the post-Vietnam period, it rapidly became clear to American policymakers that this goal could only be accomplished by diverting public attention from “low politics” serving domestic social needs to the “high politics” of the state’s international “responsibilities.” In the late 1970s, the Carter administration’s decision to jettison its human rights emphasis in favor of a renewed global covert and military buildup was justified by growing unrest and instability in the Third World, especially in the Middle East, the so-called hostage crisis in Iran and, most importantly, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This shift toward a more interventionary foreign policy was taken over and vastly expanded by a Republican-dominated White House during th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1. Reviving the World of the 1950s? The U.S. and Ascending Global Power in the 1990s
• 2. The Decline of U.S. Economic Power at Home and Abroad
• 3. External Expansion and Internal Decay: The Dialectics of Global Power
• Epilogue The Clinton Administration: Global Leadership vs. Domestic Recovery
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Index