Dennis Robert Redmond:
> Of course it can. Why aren't the various EU nations at war with each
> other? Why does Japan trade electronics with China instead of artillery
> rounds? The state provides education, medical care and many other fine
> things which the market has never (and will never) provide by itself.
>
> Fetishizing the violence of the state misses the point that the
> world-market itself inflicts the most atrocious violence of them all.
First of all, every state is at war with its own subjects to preserve and effect its class system. Part of that war is the authoritarian sequestration of certain important knowledge and practices, such as learning and healing. Under conditions of freedom, these would be provided communistically. Instead, under State power, they are a monopoly or oligopoly of the ruling class, functioning to support their power and repute. Instead of war with guns, we have war with, so to speak, fountain pens (and stethoscopes); but the result is ultimately the same, the rule of the many by the few under principles of repression and exploitation.
In terms of explicit, conventional war, the custom of the last several hundred years seems to be that a few states make war, perhaps go on rampages of conquest, while others try to stay out of the way, exploit the situation, or merely submit to the bidding of the warmakers, according to their power. In recent centuries, states that are now lying low or acting as satellites: Sweden, Germany, Britain, France, China, Japan, and many others, were all famous rampagers. Now they wait to see what will fall out of the American (and Israeli) rampages. (Even poor little old Iraq had its moments of conquest!) As long as the U.S. ruling class is in rampage mode, that is, probably, until the state it rules is ruined and destitute, which seems to be the most common outcome of this sort of bender, I believe it will have to find further and greater wars. Once ruin ensues, some other states will take the lead and the U.S. (or its remnant successors) will submit, lie low, and watch for its chances with Lithuania and Togo (assuming someone doesn't tip the wagon over and kill _everybody_.)
-- Gordon