{"id":944,"date":"2019-03-10T13:58:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T13:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=944"},"modified":"2019-10-21T00:48:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T23:48:31","slug":"son-of-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/son-of-star-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Son of Star Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (March 2001), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George Bush sets out his intent for a new approach to U.S.A. foreign\npolicy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rarely have Americans elected to office a president as impetuous, \ncallous and as indifferent to the well-being of others as George W Bush,\n who even as a presidential candidate, signing more death warrants than \nany Governor in history, made no secret of his hawkish ambitions, \ndetermined to forge ahead with the “Son of Star Wars” National Missile \nDefence\n(N.M.D.) system and to propel the world into another arms race and all \nthe old cold war hostilities that accompany it and, indeed, perhaps \nsigning the future death warrants of hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent Pentagon report Proliferation: Threat and Response<\/em> \ncame as a godsend for the Bush camp, anxious to rationalise a planned \n$60 billion increase in defence spending, inclusive of investment in the\nN.M.D. programme which would deploy thousands of air defence missiles to\n intercept intercontinental ballistic weapons fired by the proverbial \n“rogue states”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report would have it that the threat to mainland America is as \ngreat now as during the Cold War era and that apocalypse is just over \nthe horizon, discerning a credible threat from North Korea within 10 \nyears, Iran within 15 years and Iraq within 20 years. The report is \ncritical of China for its continuing use of arms sales to “advance its \nstrategic and economic interests”, but is silent on the\nU.S. domination of the global arms market and its related hegemonic \naspirations. Likewise, the amnesiacs who compiled the report lambast \nIraq for its “pursuit of regional hegemony”, Syria for its excessive $1 \nbillion defence budget (the\nU.S. defence budget is currently $300 billion) and North Korea for its \nstockpiling of chemical weapons (when the\nU.S. has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons on the planet). At \nevery turn, it seems, there’s a rogue state just itching to lob a \nnuclear or biological weapon at the defender of global peace and \ndemocracy, and it is this warped logic that informs the hawkish stance \nin Washington. No mention is made of the fact that even without\nN.M.D., any state stupid enough to throw anything bigger than a grenade \nat the U.S.\nwould be bombed back into the Stone Age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, it is talk that is demanding a $60 billion increase in \nU.S. defence spending (which is actually China’s total military budget),\n and rhetoric that the cold warriors Bush has given cabinet posts to are\n more than familiar with. Once a critic of\nN.M.D., Colin Powell, of Gulf War fame (a man who came to prominence \ncovering up the My Lai massacre and later up to his neck in the arms for\n hostages scandal and the illegal supplying of arms to the Contras) is \nnow Secretary of State and the Pentagon’s top\nN.M.D. salesperson. Other cabinet posts have gone to other Reaganite \nhawks such as Richard Armitage, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and \nCandaleezza Rice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas Bush sees N.M.D. as a “constitutional and moral requisite” \n(he incidentally also believes humans and fish can coexist peacefully)\nU.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld agrees that “it is in many \nrespects a moral issue”, that\nN.M.D. is essential to counter “the raw and random violence of the \noutlaw regime or the rogue state armed with missiles of mass \ndestruction”, that\nN.M.D. would make the U.S. “less isolationist”, “less vulnerable and \nmore prepared to help its allies”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a defence conference in Munich in early February, at which the \nimplications of\nN.M.D. were discussed, concern was raised that N.M.D. would undoubtedly \nspark an arms race. Rumsfeld declared that\nN.M.D. would not destroy arms control agreements including the 1972 \nAnti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but later suggested the 1972 treaty was \n“ancient history”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arms race<\/strong>\n<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sergei Ivanov, head of the Russian National Security Council told the\n conference that “the destruction of the 1972\nA.B.M. Treaty will result in annihilation of the whole structure of \nstrategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race”. As \nmuch, and more, was hinted at back in late 1999 when Republican hawks \ncelebrated a Senate vote not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty\n and announced their intention to scupper the 1972\nA.B.M. Treaty which outlawed Star Wars’ missiles systems capable of \nintercepting incoming missiles. For it was then that Russian Defence \nMinister Nikolai Mikolov, acknowledging Russia could not match\nU.S. technology, declared Russia would simply deploy more warheads \ncapable of overwhelming the\nU.S. nuclear umbrella system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November last year the Kremlin announced plans to cut its number \nof men under arms by 360,000 and to shift the emphasis from nuclear \nweapons to conventional arms. This decision has since been shelved and \nwill be reconsidered in March at the earliest. Meanwhile, in direct \nresponse to Washington’s announcement that the\nU.S. intends to go through with the Son of Star Wars anti-missile \nprogramme, whatever shape this may be (air-based, sea-based, \nspace-based) and regardless of any objections, Russia has announced it \nwill seek an\nanti-U.S. diplomatic alliance with China, North Korea and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as Russia, both India and China have expressed concern about \nthe N.M.D., fearing it will very much provoke an arms race and force \nthem to expand their own nuclear weapons programmes. Whist France and \nGermany are wholly opposed to\nN.M.D., the British government is currently playing its cards close to \nits chest. Though the\nBrisish Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office claim they are “not \nconvinced of the merits” of\nN.M.D., Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon, asked if the U.S. would be \nallowed to upgrade their early warning system at Fylingdales in \nYorkshire replied: “We share of course\nU.S. concerns about emerging threats. The U.S. is our closest ally”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Tony Blair’s part, whilst it is felt he is bending towards the \nidea, keen to placate his\nU.S. cronies, his government is under no pressure to make a decision \nfor several months, which suits New Labour down to the ground. It should\n also be remembered that Blair is facing a general election this year so\n has no intentions of losing votes as a result of arguments with \nanti-nuclear protestors. It is, however, a safe bet that Blair will \nindeed see an election victory as his mandate to commit Britain to \nBush’s wider game plan for global\nU.S. domination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a fair guess that there is more behind N.M.D. than Washington \nlets on. For instance, the moment you begin installing a sophisticated \nmissile defence shield is the moment your adversaries begin seeking ways\n around it. Whilst\nN.M.D. may well take out the incoming missile, what of the biological or\n nuclear bomb in the suitcase or the suicide bomber?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A more likely explanation lies in the fears of the Republican right \nthat the only discernible threat to\nU.S. hegemony in the 21st Century will come from China as it develops \ninto the economic giant many think it capable of\u2014a serious challenger \nfor\nU.S. profits. What better way to curtail China’s economic ambitions than\n to compel it to channel more money into defence and away from other \nsocial programmes, economically hamstringing it? A similar tactic had \nbeen employed against the former Soviet Union during the Reagan \nadministration in the late eighties, forcing state capitalism into an \nearly grave as it found itself unable to meet the costly demands of an \nescalating arms race weighted heavily in the favour of the\nU.S..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is poignantly ironic that George W Bush is preparing to raise the \nglobal security stakes when just over ten years ago his father George \nBush, as president, announced to the world the benefits of the coming \n“peace dividend” in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the \n“collapse of communism”; a world in which there would no longer be the \nneed for countries to invest heavily in military hardware now the \nbogeyman had been exorcised\u2014that money was now to be used for health, \neducation and other social programmes. But there again, George senior \ndid announce at his inauguration that the 20th Century had been the \n“American Century” and that he’d be doing his damnedest to ensure the \n21st was also an American century. So maybe George junior is simply \nfollowing out his father’s promises. Ensuring the 21st century will also\n be ruled by force and woe betides any one silly enough to mess with\nU.S. interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing is sure. The U.S. is deadly serious about possible threats \nto its strategic and economic interests in the 21st century and has \nalready toyed with a future confrontation with a possible rising \nsuperpower. In January, the\nU.S. air force, along with 250 military and civilian “experts”, \ncompleted its first major war games in space at the Space Warfare Centre\n in Colorado, rehearsing a conflict set in 2017 between China and the\nU.S.. It is no great leap of the imagination to envisage the projected \nwinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we have announced several times in the past year, if we are to \nprevent the 21st century becoming a more violent re-run of the 20th, \nthat witnessed two world wars, the first use of nuclear weapons and many\n hundreds of smaller conflicts\u2014all in the name of profit\u2014it is essential\n we, the victims, the cannon fodder, the class that has the biggest \nprice to pay to satisfy the whims of the mighty, begin to organise now; \nnot tomorrow when\nN.M.D. is in place, nor in years to come when the sirens are screaming. \nWe as a class have suffered too much and have too much to lose to leave \ndecisions regarding the future of our planet in the hands of group of \narrogant, conceited and profit-crazed individuals. Let’s really organise\n to take their power away, before it is too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: J.B.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to Politics page<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (March 2001), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great Britain George Bush sets out his intent for a new approach to U.S.A. foreign policy. Rarely have Americans elected to office a president as impetuous, callous and as indifferent to the well-being of others as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-944","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2615,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/944\/revisions\/2615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}