War and Propaganda
What Causes Wars? The Economy Stupid!
Abstract
Since 1946, tax payers have been asked to contribute more than a trillion dollars for national securiiy. Each year the Federal government spends more than 70 cents of every budget dollar on past, present and future wars.Today all that is forgotten, and to remember it is unpatriotic.
© 2003 Freely distribute
Contents Updated: Thursday, 10 April 2003, Friday, 2 October 2009
Theories of the Cause of Wars
According to a study by the Swiss scholar Jean Jacques Babel, the past 5,500 years have witnessed 15,000 wars, which took a toll of more than 3,500 million lives. What are the causes of these social disasters that have brought humanity so much grief and suffering?
A variety of “theories” have been suggested. Some say war is inherent in human nature, that it is caused by “natural” causes. The seventeenth century English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, believed that rivalry, mutual distrust and ambition impelled men to war with one another. According to him, “war of all against all” was natural to man. Kant claimed that war needed no special motives, since it appeared to be inbuilt in human nature. Freud thought everyone carries in their subconscious the instincts of hate and destruction, a subconscious “death wish”, an ineradicable aggressive urge.
Towards the end of last century there emerged the theory of “social Darwinism” contending that war was a form of natural selection, a matter of the survival of the fittest. Nationalists argued that nations were bound to fight one another to survive. Racism declared war a means of the self assertion of the “higher race”, “the chosen people”, as more fitted to exist, and biologically “superior” to the “lower races”. Robert Ardrey claimed we all had a “territorial imperative”. The US scholar Charles Yost said the greatest impediment to a peaceful world is “human behaviour” pure and simple! Professor Ralph K White, of George Washington University, contends:
In the modern world the majority of men involved in the decisions that lead to war—followers as well as leaders—make war not because they want it, or because they are exceptionally evil, but for other psychological reasons that urgently need analysis.
What are these “psychological reasons?”
Each side is highly unrealistic in perceiving—empathizing with—what is in the minds of those on the other side.
It is true, but implies wars are justb caused by such as “lack of understanding”. The US President “does not understand” the real intentions of the Arab people, simply categorizing them as the new evil empire, and the Arabs certainly do not understand the President of the USA. White has a term for this “non-understanding”—“misperception”. According to his argument, the degree of “misperception” varies. Some are apt to blunder more than others.
The amount of misperception is not the same or even similar on both sides of any conflict. It is consistent with this central idea to say that one side is often more dogmatic, more fanatical, more deluded and hence more likely to be directly responsible for war than the other.
The dogmatic, fanatical and deluded side now is meant to be the Arabs, Iranians or Koreans, but, oddly enough, it is the other side, the US, that is directly responsible for the war because they started it. This theory is not a promising one.
Analogous, ideas have been propounded by other American writers. Prominent among them is Profestor Stoessinger, who holds that the causes of armed conflicts between states have no relation whatsoever to the nature of their socio-political systems but stem from some mythical natural rivalry or competition.
A Blatant and Wilful Aggressor
Whatever the subjective intentions the authors of all these “theories”, in effect they muddy the real causes of wars. Professor Whites idea of the greater or lesser responsibility for a war is meant to justify an aggressor. For how, in the war waged against the Iraqi people, can the people being subject to massive bombing with no possibility of stopping it without surrendering be more responsible for causing it? They did not want it.
The responsibility rests wholly on the aggressor, on the state who initiated war against a country that was disarming, and had indeed disarmed to such an extent that the aggresors thought the war would be over in a week! The US, whatever the average redneck might believe in the propaganda he is soaked in, cannot deny against the plain facts of history that the US has been the blatant and wilful aggressor in all too many cases of warfare in the last fifty years.
No aggressor attacks its victim without having first weighed the chances of victory. Usually the chances have to be overwhelmingly in favour of the victory. Even so invaders have often miscalculated. Such miscalculation cannot be qualified as a mistake in assessing the intentions of the country subjected to aggression. The intentions of most of the people devastated by the abuse of US military power by US leaders was merely to wish to govern themselves. The US have consistently refused them this right and have imposed brutal monsters over poor puppet regimes worldwide. Saddam is only one example, and the US leaders were saying to the Iraqis:
We, the good guys, shall save you from his clutches. Too bad youll be in smithereens. Take comfort from the fact that we shall look after your oil!
Most Western natural scientists maintain that man’s biological, physiological nature has nothing to do with the genesis of wars. The Congress of the American Anthropological Association unanimously declared there was no connexion between mans inherent psychological traits and the outbreak of wars.
Aggression is traceable not to psychological blunders but to sober and cynical calculation of economic and political ends. It is these ends that must be borne in mind in examining the root causes of war.
Military Industrial Complex
Publication of books exposing the predominance of militarism in the United States was a minor industry at the time of the Vietnam war 30 years ago, but today all that is forgotten, and to remember it is frowned on as unpatriotic. In the 70s, Any bookstore in New York offered dozens of books on the US military industrial complex and its impact on US policy, economy and culture, especially, at that time, of course, in relation to the disgrace of the Vietnam war.
Members of the US scientific world came out against the war hysteria and the all pervasive militarization of social life. US scientists Richard J Barnet (The Economy of Death) and Ralph E Lapp (Arms Beyond Doubt. The Tyranny of Weapons Technology) published their protests and evidence against militarism. Both authors showed the disastrous influence of the military industrial complex on the economy and policy of the United States and the corrupting effect of the militarization of American society as a whole. Barnet wrote:
Since 1946, tax payers have been asked to contribute more than a trillion dollars for national securiiy. Each year the Federal government spends more than 70 cents of every budget dollar on past, present and future wars.
Plus ça change! Barnet emphatically rejected the Pentagon propaganda claim that nuclear stockpiling, the expansion of military research in all branches of science end technology, and the American “military presence” abroad strengthened national security. Ralph Lapp also took a critical view of the US “military effort”.
We dedicate our most sophisticated science to the fashioning ef new instruments of war. We burden our economy and overtax ourselves in the mass production of weapons. I maintain that we have overreached ourselves in our quest for security and that by so doing we have led to an escalation of the arms race.
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Both authors proceeded from the fact that a substantial part of US military expenditure had nothing to do with “defence” needs, but was in the interests of the military industrial complex, described by Barnet as “a set of integrated institutions that act to maximize their collective power”. It is not only the Pentagon, but also the “militarists in business suits”, the many politicians, government officials and businessmen benefiting from war production. Barnet wrote
Much of the pressure for new weapons systems comes from the 100 largest defence contractors.
Lapp noted that 22,000 firms were engaged in military production—the chief suppliers of the Pentagon in 76 branches of industry. About 10 per cent of the entire labour force in the US was working for the Pentagon.
Lapp gave an apt description of the military industrial complex. He saw it as “a geometrical figure, a triangle whose sides are represented by the Pentagon and by industry and whose base is the US Congress. Enclosed within this triangle are the defence personnel and industrial employees in the defence-based business”.
The difference between the two books is in their conclusions. While noting that the increase in military spending is dictated, by the selfish interests of the military and the war industry tycoons, Barnet and Lapp remained classical nonpartisan scholars. Both authors reduced the problem of militarization to an abstract rapid, inordinate swelling of the military budget. While Barnet pinned his hopes on Congress restricting the inflating military budget, by “redistributing appropriations”, Lapp thought the majority of American legislators are part of the military industrial complex itself. Lapp noted that the Pentagon “felt confident in its defences against a Senate attack”.
Arms oriented Senators populate the critical armed services and defence appropriations committees.
The Pentagon could “count on many Senators to come to its rescue”. Yes indeed! Both authors ignore the root of the militarization of the United States in the traditional excuse of a menacing “evil empire” that had to be faced and beaten. The evil empire changed from era to era, but the militarization always went on for “homeland security!”
As for their recommendations, neither Barnet nor Lapp had any solution to offer. Both mainly confined themselves to presentating facts. Barnet says:
The central task of American society is to free ourselves from the economy of death.
But how this is to be accomplished, neither author says.
The Military Establishment
These books showed the concern of millions of Americans at the militarization of all government institutions and all aspects of public life. Another such book was The Military Establishment: Its Impact on American Society. The author, Adam Yarmolinsky, knew the military industrial complex well. He was a close aide of former Defence Secretary Robert McNamara. He argued:
The United States military establishment is the largest institutional complex within the United States government. It is so much larger than all the other institutions of government that its operations, and its impacts—on economy, on class and national minorities, on science and research, on higher education. on the legal system of justice, on the national scheme of values—are literally of another order of magnitude.
Despite the chronic ailments suffered by the American economy, the lion’s share of budget allocations were to the Pentagon. At that time, 35 per cent of the federal budget, the author wrote, was spent for direct military purposes. And with the amounts allocated through other channels, the overall military spending exceeded half the total budget. And this while only 6 per cent of the funds were earmarked for public health and 3 per cent for housing. It would be interesting to have todays figures for comparison.
And, even so, the chiefs of the military industrial complex continued to clamour for more allocations and the escalation of the arms drive.
The natural inclination of the military establishment, is to seek an expansion of the nuclear arsenal.
How did they keep up this huge distortion of the economy?
The actual size and shape of the arsenal is probably still determined by the political exploitation of irrational fears, and by the pressures from within the military establishment.
Dwelling at length on the baneful influence exerted by the military industrial complex on Washingtons foreign policy, the author pointed out:
In substance and in character US foreign policy has become substantially militarized… As the military establishment has grown, the relative strength of the State Department and the Pentagon has shifted. Defence is now usually dominant.
And it is not only that the military industrial complex takes a most active part in the adoption of major foreign policy decisions in Washington but also that the Pentagons “plenipotentiaries” abroad are very often in a position to pursue on the spot the policies that suit the Pentagon. There are American military bases in dozens of countries and American military missions in dozens more. The author also wrote of the traditional role played by the American military in suppressing civil disorders at home.
Yarmolinsky noted the scope of the propaganda conducted by the military industrial complex to influence public opinion towards the military. The Pentagon supplied propaganda material to the commercial television studios and well over a thousand newspapers and periodicals.
Yarmolinskys book gave a wealth of data pertinent to the time, now, of course, outdated, but although his conclusions were attenuated, as they have to be in the US when criticizing its institutions, they were scary. Today we can note that he said:
The size and impact of the military establishment is likely to remain a special problem in America for the foreseeable future.
The author frankly condemned this and urged a revision of US national policy, hopefully seeing the Congress as having the power to restrict the influence of the military. Yet he himself notes that Congressmen are dependent on the war industry, and are closely associated with the military. Nothing has been clearer than the way Congress has disappeared up its own navel to keep in the footsteps of the unelected warmonger that leads the US. Congress is as independent of the military establishment as a dung beetle is independent of dung!
The Economics of War
If the leaders of the US military industrial complex “want” war (and Professor White did not deny this), they do so not because of “misperception” but because of their economic interests, which outweigh all other factors and lead to armed conflicts. Wars between states are economically motivated. History proves it. The victorious nation benefits financially, usually through controlling an important resource. The benefits, however, do not go equally to every citizen of the victorious nation, and nor do the hardships necessary in the winning of the war. The hardships are born by the poor, and the benefits are unfairly apprehended by the rich. A caste of clever manipulators are recruited by various pressure groups among the wealthy corporations, and wield governmental power to use both force and deception to trick the whole of society to approve the wars it hatches. War is a continuation of politics by other means—through naked armed violence—whereas normal politics are deception and mendacity.
Wars are inseparable from the political systems that engender them. They depend on how wealth is calculated and apportioned in society. In feudal times, wealth depended on ownership of land and the population of serfs and burghers it supported. Wars were fought simply to control territory, and small principalities, counties and dukedoms enlarged by war and heredity until they became nation states controlled by a king and a caste of nobles.
Now wealth depends upon ownership of corporations and resources. Wars are therefore fought by greedy men determined to increase the power of these corporations and grab control of the worlds resources. That is just what we see today in the invasion of Iraq. It has nothing to do with saving Iraqis from a monster. When the monster was at his most monstrous, the white knights of the US administration had no moral compulsion to save Iraqis. The monster then was a US puppet doing their dirty work for them.
The servitors and apologists of the corporate bosses gloss over the causes of wars to conceal the fact that they are engendered by the selfish interests of a greedy minority. Another US professor, Seymour Melman, maintained that criticism of the Vietnam war by US Establishment organs like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times proved war did not serve the interest of private finance and industry. The fact that US business newspapers eventually criticized the US war in Vietnam does not prove they were always against it. The eventual criticism merely reflected differences over the conduct of the war—differences sharpened above all by military defeats.
War is one way of ensuring full employment in industry, and keeping the economic pulse beating by producing purely for waste. History has an abundance of proof of the value of militarizing the economy. The US researcher, Richard Barnet, mentioned already, writes that World War II convinced US business that militarism was to its advantage. Before the war, the economy stagnated and even the new deal was not working fast enough. During the war, the capacity of US industry increased by nearly 40 per cent, productivity of labour by 25 per cent, and the volume of industrial output by 120 per cent.
After World War II, US businesses were anxious to maintain a wartime level of business activity, and this was an important reason for the cold war. US military spending curve in the fifties and sixties shows it. In 1949 the figure stood at $l4 billion, in 1954 at $43 billion, in 1960 at $45 billion, in 1968 at $81 billion, and in 1971 it was $80 billion. The Vietnam war alone swallowed up well over $100 billion. Typically, the cost of that war exceeded education spending tenfold and housing construction spending 33 times over.
Military spending by US administrations kept the whole of the US economy buoyant and was a gold mine for arms and military hardware dealers. The evidence is plentiful. The British researcher, S Lilley, has shown that the Korean war was a relief to American industrialists. Wall Street stock prices fell every time it seemed there might be peace.
The US business magazine, Journal of Commerce, put it bluntly:
On balance, the war provides numerous stimulants to the economy, by creating a new demand for transportation equipment, military planes, ships, and large reserve supplies of all kinds, in warehouses in Vietnam as well as in the US.
A frank admission. Who then is willing to deny that greedy business sharks cause wars. Already the US is carving up Iraq, and the country will not be ruled democratically, despite all the propaganda about Saddam. It will be run by the US.
Appraising US foreign policy, John Swomley concedes in his American Empire: Political Ethics of Twentieth Century Conquest that the essential thing for the US is the danger of social changes which might lead to the expropriation or serious restriction of US business. The war in Vietnam, he stressed, has shown the world the aims pursued by the US, and the ruthlessness with which the US pursues them. The western Saddams that rule the roost in Washington are far more powerful and no less ruthless than Saddam. Their conduct of the Vietnam war proves it, and should never have been forgotten, although it plainly has been after only 30 years.
Lust for profit yesterday and today and not some mysterious “misperception” or tender care for oppressed minorities is the undelying cause of US militarism. As the British historian, Arnold Toynbee, hardly a communist, rightly observed:
America is today the leader of a world wide anti revolutionary movement in defence of vested interests.
Having disposed of the supposed reason for US militarism over the half century since WW II—the alleged threat of communism—the US has immediately found an alternative “evil empire”—the Moslems. It claimed the new enemy was global terrorism, and 9/11 was proof, but Bush has not wrapped up the terrorist organization behind it, evidently a Saudi inspired plot since most of the participants were Saudis, but has attacked a Moslem country that previous US administrations had spent years sponsoring, and made 9/11 the excuse for it as the Washington Post made evident. It makes every effort to persuade the world that the US wants peace, then starts mercilessly bombing Arab cities utterly defenceless against US air power. Why the US people are taken in by their leaders, despite the evidence that has appeared of their callous disregard for moral scruples, is hard to see. They willingly accept plain lies as the truth.
The discourses of US academic apologists about supposed inherent flaws of human nature which allegedly lead to war are as unconvincing as they are dangerous. It can hardly be said that the US leadership suffers from congenital blindness and lack of common sense. They know and can clearly see what they are doing. It is that too many of the US people are gulled by them. Killing people in the name of peace and a God of love could hardly be more hypocritical, yet that is what the Washington ruling caste get away with, time after time. The way to restrain the US war parties is to build a world peace movement that will repeatedly demonstrate as it has done, and refuse to be ruled by hypocrites and two-timers like Bush and Blair.
