1. Bush's failure to march on Baghdad was not driven by casualty considerations but by the realpolitik consideration that Baath party rule in Baghdad was not considered a bad thing--then or now, as long as it didn't "cross over the line" namely the post WWI boundaries.
2. Wallerstein like many Marxists (there is always a classical influence in the Marxist reasoning) argues that the maintenance of a military machine is a net cost to the American economy and that therefore Europe and Japan will fare better because they don't have to pay for such unproductive investment.
A case can be made that the economic performance of the US would be enhanced if the multi-hundred billion dollar defense budget were converted instead to more shuttles and R & D on computers and automation. Call this "moral Keynesianism". You can add a significant redistributive component if you wish (building universities, welfare etc.).
Nonetheless, in the real capitalist world, the choice is usually between military stimulus and no stimulus or very limited stimulus. Europe has higher unemployment than the US which represents a drag on output. There are arguments that Japan's "real unemployment rate" is quite high but I'm not qualified to comment, haven't read enough about it. To the extent that miltary spending boosts aggregate income in the US it is not, in fact, a drag, except to the extent that there is a moral opportunity cost in choosing military Keynesianism over moral or redstributive Keynesianism. But in terms of eocnomic growth and output either kind of Keynesianism will get your further than unemployment.
I have a great deal of respect for Wallerstein's general international model, in particular its emphasis on downward pressure on wages exerted by "peripheries." But I do note that his model shares, along with other Marxist approaches (though some of the mid-20th century Marxists like Baran & Sweezy had a heavy Keynesian influience) a general inattention to the demand side. This extends even to Marx, who, for example, banishes to Holland (and therefore leaves unexamined) the demand stimulus which drove the initial sheep-eating-men enclosure movement.
I consider demand effects to be an insufficient component both of usual historical approaches (to capitalism generally, in any period) and of Wallerstein's world-economy model, and also to be sorely lacking in his own post on US hegemony c. 1998. (I would aslo think that Prof. Wallerstein might wish to meditate on demand effects on a more personal level, since the *paperback* versions of some his books are now getting close to $50.)
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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