> At 7:19 PM -0700 10/4/02, Alec Ramsdell wrote:
> >The implication I get from Doug's question is that
> War
> >in the sense of Great War no longer fits global
> >geopolitical coordinates. Doesn't what you,
> Yoshie,
> >describe here be more accurately called police
> action?
> > "War" in this case is both a kind of blustery
> >sloganeering and semiotic detritus.
>
> Most imperial uses of military force to which the US
> government
> resorted before and after World Wars 1 & 2 wouldn't
> fit into your
> image of "Great Wars." Think, for instance, of the
> Mexican War
> (1846-1848), the Spanish-American War, the
> Philippines campaign to
> suppress nationalist insurgents, the dispatches of
> US Marines to
> crush the Boxers Rebellion, the occupation of Haiti,
> the occupation
> of the Dominican Republic, etc., etc. Were they
> wars or police
> actions or both?
Well, to start one could toe the H&N line and say police action aims at maintaining an internal order; war, at either an order's imperial encroachment (the Mexican War) or, as in the Great Wars, politics carried on by other means between the Great Powers. Of course, H&N would I argue that all we have now are great powers.
> See, that's the sort of war -- in the past, present,
> and future --
> that the US power elite have in their minds -- wars
> waged on little
> nations, often with a view to gaining advantages
> vis-a-vis other
> great powers.
What advantage would war on Iraq bring the US over other great powers? Which powers? John G.'s and Chris D.'s previous post is relevant here, suggesting the opportunities afforded by the "war on terror."
What Hardt & Negri have us think of
> as a novel
> development of post-USSR history is in fact quite
> old.
I wouldn't say there are no frontiers left at imperialism's reach. Though. The flexible movements of global capital make the imperialism of the Mexican War seem a bit old-fashioned.
Alec
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