| SHARED SACRIFICE THE JOURNAL OF PROGRESSIVE THOUGHT 19 FEBRUARY 2009 |
DEFANG AMERICA
19 February 2009
by T.E. Jacobsen
There exists a bipartisan consensus that preserving, and in some cases expanding, US
conventional and nuclear capability is the most prudent response to the threats arising on
the periphery, especially in the case of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Who
among the US policy elite, for instance, even dares to contemplate the possibility that Iranian
elites perceive a threat from the US or Israel that merits developing their own nuclear
deterrent, despite the fact hardly a week goes by without some American or Israeli leader
openly contemplating an attack on Iran. Even though US policy bears a large measure of
responsibility for global proliferation and the increasing technological sophistication of Third
World forces, these same threats are routinely used to justify the very policies creating these
risks in the first place. It is a deadly symbiosis. The need for the aggressive demilitarization
of America has never been greater.
I argued in an earlier piece in Shared Sacrifice that progressives should not anticipate that
the new Obama administration will implement substantial changes in US defense and foreign
policy. I argued that those policies have their roots in the ingrained structures of the
American political economy. I also pointed to Obama’s foreign policy team and his own
pronouncements for evidence of his fealty to long-standing policy. We need to step back in
time a short while to understand where we are today, otherwise we will fall prey to the
“change of course” rhetoric elites such as Obama use to mask the continuity of policy.
With the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the world stage, American military planners were
confronted with a pressing need to construct new enemies to intimidate the public into
supporting ongoing policies of global domination. As observed by Michael Klare, Director of
the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies explained, members of
military-industrial complex did, in fact, "discover a new enemy" for public consumption:
"emerging Third World powers equipped with large, modern conventional forces and the
rudiments of a nuclear/chemical/missile capability." The influential Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) at observed in their 1990 report Conventional Combat Priorities:
An Approach for the New Strategic Era, that these threats will "provide a key justification for
military budgets during the 1990's and will establish most of the threats against which US
forces are sized, trained, and equipped." During the Clinton administration, the military was
increasingly oriented to these challenges and the Bush reaped in Iraq the seeds sewn by his
predecessor.
19 February 2009
by T.E. Jacobsen
There exists a bipartisan consensus that preserving, and in some cases expanding, US
conventional and nuclear capability is the most prudent response to the threats arising on
the periphery, especially in the case of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Who
among the US policy elite, for instance, even dares to contemplate the possibility that Iranian
elites perceive a threat from the US or Israel that merits developing their own nuclear
deterrent, despite the fact hardly a week goes by without some American or Israeli leader
openly contemplating an attack on Iran. Even though US policy bears a large measure of
responsibility for global proliferation and the increasing technological sophistication of Third
World forces, these same threats are routinely used to justify the very policies creating these
risks in the first place. It is a deadly symbiosis. The need for the aggressive demilitarization
of America has never been greater.
I argued in an earlier piece in Shared Sacrifice that progressives should not anticipate that
the new Obama administration will implement substantial changes in US defense and foreign
policy. I argued that those policies have their roots in the ingrained structures of the
American political economy. I also pointed to Obama’s foreign policy team and his own
pronouncements for evidence of his fealty to long-standing policy. We need to step back in
time a short while to understand where we are today, otherwise we will fall prey to the
“change of course” rhetoric elites such as Obama use to mask the continuity of policy.
With the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the world stage, American military planners were
confronted with a pressing need to construct new enemies to intimidate the public into
supporting ongoing policies of global domination. As observed by Michael Klare, Director of
the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies explained, members of
military-industrial complex did, in fact, "discover a new enemy" for public consumption:
"emerging Third World powers equipped with large, modern conventional forces and the
rudiments of a nuclear/chemical/missile capability." The influential Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) at observed in their 1990 report Conventional Combat Priorities:
An Approach for the New Strategic Era, that these threats will "provide a key justification for
military budgets during the 1990's and will establish most of the threats against which US
forces are sized, trained, and equipped." During the Clinton administration, the military was
increasingly oriented to these challenges and the Bush reaped in Iraq the seeds sewn by his
predecessor.
This approach has not and will not reduce security risks around the world. It is probably not
designed to, in as much as such threats are required to maintain the power and privilege of
US elites, much as the inflated fear of crime justifies ever-more repressive police forces at
home. Elites perceive no other acceptable policy options. But the movements for peace and
social justice must articulate, defend, and promote alternative policy options, rooted in a
revolutionary vision of a future society.
For many planners the "success" of the first war against Iraq is the example that proves the
validity of their approach. Consider that those in the foreign policy establishment point to the
“success” of Gulf War I on contrast to W’s bungling over the last five years. The much hyped
threat of a "nuclear Saddam" was then nipped in the bud, they say, by the judicious
application of American force. The lesson they learned was not of the dangers of aggressive
US interventionism, but only of the need to more carefully and competently carry it out. But
the rest of the world drew different lessons from the first Iraq war: "The Persian Gulf war,"
argued Marquette professor Raju Thomas in its wake, "reinforced the message [that] military
might still counts in the politics among nations. This message contains ominous implications
for the proliferation of various weapons, including high-technology precision guided
munitions, ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear weapons." For
one of the nuclear arms races widely believed to be the likeliest trigger for nuclear
Armageddon, the Gulf War "provided just enough additional incentives for India and Pakistan
to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs." Frank Barnaby, the former Director of the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute wrote at the time that "Third World
countries will conclude that...their security can only be assured by the acquisition of nuclear
weapons, without which, they will be unable to effectively deter [US] attack." US policy directly
exacerbated the risks of proliferation and militarization in other ways as well. The Gulf War,
sold in part as a method of controlling aggression and militarism in the region, heightened the
risk of future conflict by paving the way for massive arms sales which, by the spring of 1992,
were "at an all time high," according to Joe Stork, relying on congressional data.
This most recent attack against Iraq has only served to underscore this perception; it widely
reported that Iran repeated efforts at compromise given US rejectionism and the threatening
example of US action in Iraq. North Korea drew the same lesson and appears to have
developed its own small nuclear capacity.
When the small time despots of the world look around, they can only conclude, with a
combination of sick admiration and fear, that they must arm themselves to compete with the
global enforcer, the "Godfather" of the world, preserving its racket with "super-aggression," in
the apt words of University of Pennsylvania professor Edward Herman. The world has not
forgotten that it was the most powerful nation on earth that first used nuclear weapons, and
against civilians. Leaders of the world understand that the US has long pursued a policy of
nuclear first-use, an option it maintains to the present day against non-nuclear Third World
states. For decades, war planners have engineered the political and technical infrastructure
for a nuclear first strike and the US continues to refuse to eschew such an option.
In a perceptive essay in Beyond Survival, Michael Albert argued that a systemic approach to
the problems of American militarism is needed we are to address their root causes. He
writes: "At least a rudimentary analysis of society as a whole must complement a more
detailed analysis of war to help us understand what is necessary to end war. The structures
of the system and the system itself are the problem." This advice is as valuable today as the
day it was written over two decades ago in the period leading up to the massive 1982 anti-
nuclear protest.
designed to, in as much as such threats are required to maintain the power and privilege of
US elites, much as the inflated fear of crime justifies ever-more repressive police forces at
home. Elites perceive no other acceptable policy options. But the movements for peace and
social justice must articulate, defend, and promote alternative policy options, rooted in a
revolutionary vision of a future society.
For many planners the "success" of the first war against Iraq is the example that proves the
validity of their approach. Consider that those in the foreign policy establishment point to the
“success” of Gulf War I on contrast to W’s bungling over the last five years. The much hyped
threat of a "nuclear Saddam" was then nipped in the bud, they say, by the judicious
application of American force. The lesson they learned was not of the dangers of aggressive
US interventionism, but only of the need to more carefully and competently carry it out. But
the rest of the world drew different lessons from the first Iraq war: "The Persian Gulf war,"
argued Marquette professor Raju Thomas in its wake, "reinforced the message [that] military
might still counts in the politics among nations. This message contains ominous implications
for the proliferation of various weapons, including high-technology precision guided
munitions, ballistic missiles, chemical and biological weapons, and nuclear weapons." For
one of the nuclear arms races widely believed to be the likeliest trigger for nuclear
Armageddon, the Gulf War "provided just enough additional incentives for India and Pakistan
to accelerate their nuclear weapons programs." Frank Barnaby, the former Director of the
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute wrote at the time that "Third World
countries will conclude that...their security can only be assured by the acquisition of nuclear
weapons, without which, they will be unable to effectively deter [US] attack." US policy directly
exacerbated the risks of proliferation and militarization in other ways as well. The Gulf War,
sold in part as a method of controlling aggression and militarism in the region, heightened the
risk of future conflict by paving the way for massive arms sales which, by the spring of 1992,
were "at an all time high," according to Joe Stork, relying on congressional data.
This most recent attack against Iraq has only served to underscore this perception; it widely
reported that Iran repeated efforts at compromise given US rejectionism and the threatening
example of US action in Iraq. North Korea drew the same lesson and appears to have
developed its own small nuclear capacity.
When the small time despots of the world look around, they can only conclude, with a
combination of sick admiration and fear, that they must arm themselves to compete with the
global enforcer, the "Godfather" of the world, preserving its racket with "super-aggression," in
the apt words of University of Pennsylvania professor Edward Herman. The world has not
forgotten that it was the most powerful nation on earth that first used nuclear weapons, and
against civilians. Leaders of the world understand that the US has long pursued a policy of
nuclear first-use, an option it maintains to the present day against non-nuclear Third World
states. For decades, war planners have engineered the political and technical infrastructure
for a nuclear first strike and the US continues to refuse to eschew such an option.
In a perceptive essay in Beyond Survival, Michael Albert argued that a systemic approach to
the problems of American militarism is needed we are to address their root causes. He
writes: "At least a rudimentary analysis of society as a whole must complement a more
detailed analysis of war to help us understand what is necessary to end war. The structures
of the system and the system itself are the problem." This advice is as valuable today as the
day it was written over two decades ago in the period leading up to the massive 1982 anti-
nuclear protest.
What social movements, including student movements, for peace and justice must realize, is
that both short-term and long-term considerations must be addressed adequately if there is
to be hope for the future. The nature of US militarism is connected, intimately, to the
structures of American capitalism, racism, sexism and heterosexism. To succeed in our goal
of defanging America, permanently, we must focus on transforming these structures,
concerns which should be pursued for their own merits, apart from the role they play in
sustaining militarism. But these movements should also attempt to reorient public discussion
about military issues, and attempt to use public opposition to the Pentagon and American
imperialism, more widely held in disrepute than the deeper structures that must ultimately be
overcome, as building blocks for the larger revolutionary projects.
What follows are possible foci for organizers, with the aim of using more immediate victories
as the foundation for a more thoroughgoing transformation of society.
1. Focus on strategic victories addressing the root of the nuclear problem. As Indian rights
activist Ward Churchill explains, "there is a long-standing crucial defect in the US anti-nuclear
movement...[which has] focused all but exclusively on the very final stages of the nuclear
cycle." Limiting opposition to this nuclear plant or that nuclear weapons system, even in
success, guarantees too little over the long term, because developers will construct plants
elsewhere and the military will build other nuclear weapons. Movements have focused too
much on the production of nuclear weapons systems, and not enough on the system of
nuclear weapons production. Because nearly all the uranium America uses to fuel its war
machine, and all the land used for weapons testing, belongs to indigenous peoples, anti-
nuclear and environmental activists should enter into a logical strategic alliance with
advocates of Indian self-determination. As Churchill notes:
2. Focus on local manifestations of the nuclearism/militarism connection. I briefly mention
two examples.
Since their inception, universities have been readily enrolled in service to the Empire,
providing crucial support for technological and policy innovation and fostering faith in the
major national illusions among millions of middle and upper-class Americans. Efforts to
democratize campus to excise the cancer of militarism therefore occur at points of strategic
system vulnerability. Investigation into our university's ties to the Military-Industrial-Academic
complex, accompanied by a multicultural transformation of curricula and campus social life
can "make universities part of an overall process of converting our war economy and
ideology to a peaceful alternative...by targeting the school's institutional structures," thereby
"weakening the warfare state's supporting pillars," argues campus activist Ami Chen Mills.
We should organize to end the presence of the ROTC, the CIA, and military recruiters on our
campuses. We must aim to sever links to the war machine in our sciences and social
sciences
Over 200 American communities, representing more than 20 million citizens have declared
themselves Nuclear Free Zones (NFZ's), involving the residents of these communities in
actively confronting the war system, changing powerlessness and obedience into empowered
radicalism. Long-time anarchist George Benello argued that the process of designing,
implementing, and enforcing NFZ's reveals the "motives and attitudes" perpetuating local
"manifestations of the military-industrial complex," culminating in a community declaration
"which flies directly in the face of official federal [nuclear and economic] policy; it is a
declaration of local independence." Ideally, lessons from this struggle would promote the
further democratization of production, countering the basis of elite power, and creating new
models of local decision-making and social organization.
3. Oppose every intervention by US forces on both pragmatic and ethical grounds. As
scholar Stephen Shalom argued in Imperial Alibis, global "suffering on a massive scale...is
perpetuated by the interventions on behalf of the status quo on the part of the United States
and other rich nations. An end to these interventions will not suddenly eliminate global
poverty. But it would create the space within which popular movements throughout the world
could confront the systemic roots of that poverty." The "Vietnam Syndrome", which Bush the
Elder proudly pronounced dead following Gulf War I and which made possible his sons’
misadventures, must be reinforced in the wake of Gulf War II.
4. Work to make apparent the connection between militarism and a declining economy at
home. Elites clearly profit, and handsomely, from militarism, but most Americans are
increasingly immiserated and derive few if any benefits from massive military spending. It will
not be possible to address the current economic crisis and fund the kinds of programs sorely
needed by the American people without tapping the bloated military budget. Promoting a
vision of economic conversion will not receive support from the major established policy
elites. That does not mean we can't agitate for politicians who are more supportive of
defense conversion. Activists must exploit the power of a potential coupling of anti-militarism
and the promise of economic revitalization. There are even (small) signs of dissension in
elite circles to the ruinous policies of large military spending. Some business elites are
beginning to question the wisdom of these policies, on strictly instrumental grounds, to be
sure. This split may become more evident as the costs of the current policy mount; activists
should prepare to take advantage of such opportunities as arise from divisions among the
elite.
As former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Ron Dellums, now mayor of
Oakland called years ago for halving the defense budget to fund social and economic
reconstruction programs, arguing that by reducing our arms expenditures and aggressive
orientation toward the world, America could better achieve non-proliferation objectives and
enhance global and regional stability." Dellums added a cautionary note that remains true
today as we articulate a progressive foreign policy in this post 9-11 world:
Peace activists must make this point forcefully. Where militarists point to the need for a
strong military to confront emerging threats they perceive as inevitable, we must advance the
view that of the major global threats, from nuclear proliferation and regional arms races to
economic injustice and the trampling of human rights, from the destabilization attending mass
refugee flows, to the deterioration of the global environment, none can be addressed
militarily or unilaterally. While an aggressive program of nuclear disarmament,
demilitarization and economic conversion is not without strategic risks, the current US policy
of forward deployment, rapid military response, and the preservation and refinement of the
nuclear arsenal is, on balance, when considering the full range of global threats, the most
risky course of all. For such an approach will surely augur the end of civilization with much
suffering and bloodshed along the way. Only the gradual disarmament and demilitarization
of the most powerful nation in the world offers any hope of realistically addressing the major
global crises of our time. The alternative is certain suicide.
To the degree social movements are successful in defanging the US, to that degree will the
prospects for global justice and survival be improved. The US is responsible for the much of
the world's misery, and success here in demilitarizing will provide the unique, the necessary,
and the sufficient spark allowing policies for peace, development, and dignity the world over.
In working to this end, we must not allow ourselves to become pessimists. As co-founder of
the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies Marcus Raskin argued, the "United States
is a protean organism; it can change its shape and purpose. And it can assist in giving birth
to a cooperative world civilization that recognizes the importance of cultures and nations
outside Europe".
We have a lot of work to do. Let’s get busy.
T.E. Jacobsen is a writer, researcher, and activist living in Detroit. References omitted in the
interest of easy reading. Direct requests for references to the editors of Shared Sacrifice.
that both short-term and long-term considerations must be addressed adequately if there is
to be hope for the future. The nature of US militarism is connected, intimately, to the
structures of American capitalism, racism, sexism and heterosexism. To succeed in our goal
of defanging America, permanently, we must focus on transforming these structures,
concerns which should be pursued for their own merits, apart from the role they play in
sustaining militarism. But these movements should also attempt to reorient public discussion
about military issues, and attempt to use public opposition to the Pentagon and American
imperialism, more widely held in disrepute than the deeper structures that must ultimately be
overcome, as building blocks for the larger revolutionary projects.
What follows are possible foci for organizers, with the aim of using more immediate victories
as the foundation for a more thoroughgoing transformation of society.
1. Focus on strategic victories addressing the root of the nuclear problem. As Indian rights
activist Ward Churchill explains, "there is a long-standing crucial defect in the US anti-nuclear
movement...[which has] focused all but exclusively on the very final stages of the nuclear
cycle." Limiting opposition to this nuclear plant or that nuclear weapons system, even in
success, guarantees too little over the long term, because developers will construct plants
elsewhere and the military will build other nuclear weapons. Movements have focused too
much on the production of nuclear weapons systems, and not enough on the system of
nuclear weapons production. Because nearly all the uranium America uses to fuel its war
machine, and all the land used for weapons testing, belongs to indigenous peoples, anti-
nuclear and environmental activists should enter into a logical strategic alliance with
advocates of Indian self-determination. As Churchill notes:
Ultimately, stopping the processes of uranium extraction in Indian Country, and consequent nuclear
proliferation elsewhere, will be impossible so long as the structure of colonial domination of
reservations is maintained...A first priority- probably the first priority- for the anti-nuclear movement,
the broader environmental movement, and for North American progressivism in general, must be
the decolonization of Native North America. To accomplish this, indigenous liberation groups like
the American Indian Movement must be accorded a central role in the setting the agenda for and
defining the priorities of radical social change on this continent...Either Native North America will be
liberated, or liberation will be foreclosed for everyone, once and for all. The fight will either be waged
on Indians land, for Indian lives, or it will be lost before it really begins. We must take our stand,
together. And we are all running out of time in which to finally come to grips with this fact.
2. Focus on local manifestations of the nuclearism/militarism connection. I briefly mention
two examples.
Since their inception, universities have been readily enrolled in service to the Empire,
providing crucial support for technological and policy innovation and fostering faith in the
major national illusions among millions of middle and upper-class Americans. Efforts to
democratize campus to excise the cancer of militarism therefore occur at points of strategic
system vulnerability. Investigation into our university's ties to the Military-Industrial-Academic
complex, accompanied by a multicultural transformation of curricula and campus social life
can "make universities part of an overall process of converting our war economy and
ideology to a peaceful alternative...by targeting the school's institutional structures," thereby
"weakening the warfare state's supporting pillars," argues campus activist Ami Chen Mills.
We should organize to end the presence of the ROTC, the CIA, and military recruiters on our
campuses. We must aim to sever links to the war machine in our sciences and social
sciences
Over 200 American communities, representing more than 20 million citizens have declared
themselves Nuclear Free Zones (NFZ's), involving the residents of these communities in
actively confronting the war system, changing powerlessness and obedience into empowered
radicalism. Long-time anarchist George Benello argued that the process of designing,
implementing, and enforcing NFZ's reveals the "motives and attitudes" perpetuating local
"manifestations of the military-industrial complex," culminating in a community declaration
"which flies directly in the face of official federal [nuclear and economic] policy; it is a
declaration of local independence." Ideally, lessons from this struggle would promote the
further democratization of production, countering the basis of elite power, and creating new
models of local decision-making and social organization.
3. Oppose every intervention by US forces on both pragmatic and ethical grounds. As
scholar Stephen Shalom argued in Imperial Alibis, global "suffering on a massive scale...is
perpetuated by the interventions on behalf of the status quo on the part of the United States
and other rich nations. An end to these interventions will not suddenly eliminate global
poverty. But it would create the space within which popular movements throughout the world
could confront the systemic roots of that poverty." The "Vietnam Syndrome", which Bush the
Elder proudly pronounced dead following Gulf War I and which made possible his sons’
misadventures, must be reinforced in the wake of Gulf War II.
4. Work to make apparent the connection between militarism and a declining economy at
home. Elites clearly profit, and handsomely, from militarism, but most Americans are
increasingly immiserated and derive few if any benefits from massive military spending. It will
not be possible to address the current economic crisis and fund the kinds of programs sorely
needed by the American people without tapping the bloated military budget. Promoting a
vision of economic conversion will not receive support from the major established policy
elites. That does not mean we can't agitate for politicians who are more supportive of
defense conversion. Activists must exploit the power of a potential coupling of anti-militarism
and the promise of economic revitalization. There are even (small) signs of dissension in
elite circles to the ruinous policies of large military spending. Some business elites are
beginning to question the wisdom of these policies, on strictly instrumental grounds, to be
sure. This split may become more evident as the costs of the current policy mount; activists
should prepare to take advantage of such opportunities as arise from divisions among the
elite.
As former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Ron Dellums, now mayor of
Oakland called years ago for halving the defense budget to fund social and economic
reconstruction programs, arguing that by reducing our arms expenditures and aggressive
orientation toward the world, America could better achieve non-proliferation objectives and
enhance global and regional stability." Dellums added a cautionary note that remains true
today as we articulate a progressive foreign policy in this post 9-11 world:
- we cannot easily attain any of these goals if we maintain military forces in excess of US needs for
national security and US participation in international efforts at crisis prevention and stabilization.
The same is true if we pursue an excessive weapons-acquisition program. We must recognize that
other nations will react to our force structure and procurement plans- however benign we may intend
them to be and will resist calls for actions and agreements that would reduce both strategic and
regional armament levels. This would aggravate potential regional instabilities and generate threats
that may emerge or spin out of control.
Peace activists must make this point forcefully. Where militarists point to the need for a
strong military to confront emerging threats they perceive as inevitable, we must advance the
view that of the major global threats, from nuclear proliferation and regional arms races to
economic injustice and the trampling of human rights, from the destabilization attending mass
refugee flows, to the deterioration of the global environment, none can be addressed
militarily or unilaterally. While an aggressive program of nuclear disarmament,
demilitarization and economic conversion is not without strategic risks, the current US policy
of forward deployment, rapid military response, and the preservation and refinement of the
nuclear arsenal is, on balance, when considering the full range of global threats, the most
risky course of all. For such an approach will surely augur the end of civilization with much
suffering and bloodshed along the way. Only the gradual disarmament and demilitarization
of the most powerful nation in the world offers any hope of realistically addressing the major
global crises of our time. The alternative is certain suicide.
To the degree social movements are successful in defanging the US, to that degree will the
prospects for global justice and survival be improved. The US is responsible for the much of
the world's misery, and success here in demilitarizing will provide the unique, the necessary,
and the sufficient spark allowing policies for peace, development, and dignity the world over.
In working to this end, we must not allow ourselves to become pessimists. As co-founder of
the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies Marcus Raskin argued, the "United States
is a protean organism; it can change its shape and purpose. And it can assist in giving birth
to a cooperative world civilization that recognizes the importance of cultures and nations
outside Europe".
We have a lot of work to do. Let’s get busy.
T.E. Jacobsen is a writer, researcher, and activist living in Detroit. References omitted in the
interest of easy reading. Direct requests for references to the editors of Shared Sacrifice.
| Since their inception, universities have been readily enrolled in service to the Empire, providing crucial support for technological and policy innovation and fostering faith in the major national illusions among millions of middle and upper-class Americans. Efforts to democratize campus to excise the cancer of militarism therefore occur at points of strategic system vulnerability. |
| Elites perceive no other acceptable policy options. But the movements for peace and social justice must articulate, defend, and promote alternative policy options, rooted in a revolutionary vision of a future society. |
| radicalgraphics.org |
Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
 | |  | |  |