P r e s s I n f o # 6 6
N A T O ' s W A R -- B O O M E R A N G
A G A I N S T T H E W E S T ( P a r t B )
April 30, 1999
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16. However, the weapons manufacturers may thrive
There are at least two very influential groups who may see their interests satisfied. First, it's those operating within the military-industrial-scientific complexes in the West and their arms dealers. Second, there are the transnational corporations and others in favour of spreading capitalism to every corner of the world. The interests of the former is obvious. New NATO members now adapt to Western military standards, NATO operability etc. They want to modernize by buying the most sophisticated (and expensive) military equipment from leading Western nations. A war is an opportunity to test weapons and tactical and strategic concepts as well as to gain practical, rather than simulated, experience. It's a 'live' chance to train international co-operation also with newcomers. It's a drilling and disciplining opportunity. And with all the weapons and ammunition that is destroyed, replacement must be manufactured and sold. Furthermore, newly independent states will acquire their own military 'national defence' afterwards.
17. --- and so may capitalism cum globalization
It must be remembered that capitalism's essential problem, or contradiction, is overcapacity, overproduction, surplus capital in relation to the global base of consumption. The system's ability to churn out more goods and services than is in demand - and people worldwide can pay for - is periodically out of sync. Thus, capital has to be destroyed to halt the in-built propensity to dump commodities at unprofitable prices. Wars and military production are opportunities for such 'waste' production. The military market is monopsonistic, it has basically one buyer, the government. Thus it is outside the normal market and serve to absorb surplus capacity. War is a destruction of already produced commodities - and increases the demand when countries must be re-built. This demand increases overall prices and rub off on the civilian markets worldwide - that is, if the war is 'big enough.' Just think of tremendous resources, goods and services, that will be needed to rebuild FRY and perhaps other countries after months or years of systematic destruction. So, wars may help to periodically balance and calibrate global capitalism - which is not to say that it is the root cause of NATO's aggression now. This war comes in the midst of the most serious world economic crisis since the 1930s. Even with commodities dumped at ridiculously low prices in, say, Japan, consumers worldwide are hesitant to buy and world investments lack behind. Insecurity and fear are the catchwords. Although war also creates fear, a major war with cycles of destruction and re-construction of capital could be perceived as coming in handy from that point of view and peace-building serves to bring the devastated region into globalization and assign to it a role in the global economic division of labour. In addition, when an area has been devastated - by itself and/or by outside forces - it can be taken over by the IMF and leading Western countries; marketization and privatization etc. can be introduced as 'conditions' for obtaining loans, entering finance institutions and, eventually, the EU. So, to be re-created you have to be destroyed first. Do you think this is far-fetched? Well, that is presumably only because this type of factors are never touched upon in the media, some of which are controlled by transnational military and civilian corporations. Concretely, ask yourself why it is laid down in Bosnia's constitution that it shall be a market economy and why the Rambouillet Dictate stipulated the same for Kosovo.
Says Dr. Oberg, "Look at the 15 first points above. It does not HAVE to go that wrong. But it looks to me as if we are approaching a dangerous 'chicken game' between the United States and NATO on the one hand and Yugoslavia and its leadership on the other. They are like two car drivers racing against each other on the middle of a narrow road, hoping the other will pull the steering wheel last minute to avoid a a deadly collision. Before they started they both drank quite a lot of whisky and one of them (NATO) has already signalled its defiance by throwing the steering wheel out of the window...
With each bomb that falls on civilian and on military targets, the above-mentioned consequences become more likely, more pronounced and more costly. First and foremost, of course, we must be deeply concerned about the human costs in the region. But my sense is that this crisis is so serious that it will increasingly hit back as a boomerang on the West itself. That has not been highlighted in our media and debates.
I fail to see why citizens in NATO countries should allow that to happen. The governments of NATO countries, not the military, have made a very serious bombing blunder in the Balkans. To hide that - which is a human thing to try to do - they will tend to wildly exaggerate the problems and the 'evilness' of the Yugoslav leadership. This helps them deny (also to themselves) that in order to save NATO's face and their own individual leadership, fundamental elements of Western civilization must be put at risk. And, thus, we are on slippery slope: the war itself becomes more important than what it was to be fought for in the first place.
TFF's director concludes, "I think the best type of damage limitation we can do now to the Balkans and to ourselves is to appeal to common sense and genuine humanity among citizens, to actively demonstrate solidarity with all who suffer in all of the Balkans - for instance, by going there - and persuade our leaders to stop the bombing for a number of days to begin with and thus open a space for politics and a time for reflection."
© TFF 1999
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