23.09.2009

Expensive bunch of nothing

Imperialism - with the US being the absolute hegemon - threatens to annihilate civilisation, writes Eddie Ford

So son of Star Wars is dead - or at least its European scion is. Representing a shift in US foreign policy, Barack Obama announced last week that he has decided to ditch plans to station an anti-ballistic (or ‘interceptor’) missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic - that is, right on Russia’s doorstep.

Of course, Obama’s decision hardly came as a stunning bolt from the blue, given the proposal’s self-evident technological and military flaws - not to mention the political hornet’s nest it stirred up. Though this hardly means that US imperialism has turned peacenik on us - far from it - it nevertheless represents a partial retreat from the out-and-out military and strategic belligerency of the George Bush years.

Under the original scheme hatched by Bush, there were to have been 130 ship-based interceptor missiles - plus 44 more ground-based ones in Alaska (40) and California (4). No doubt using super-sophisticated radar technology beamed to them from Alaska, California, Greenland and the UK (Fylingdales), at the mere touch of a button (if that) these incredibly advanced weapons would in a split second majestically glide into the air and ‘knock out’ the incoming enemy missiles.

Leave aside the extraordinarily remote chances of a successful hit: there was a slight problem - or so the reasoning went - what about the European theatre? A strike or threat from North Korea could supposedly be ‘neutralised’ by these various sea-based missiles. However, we were informed there was another potential threat from sudden attack by a ‘rogue’ state like Iran, whose Shahab-3 missiles were believed to have a range of up to 2,000 kilometres.

Therefore to help plug this ‘gap’ that allegedly existed in US imperialism’s ‘defence’ strategy, Bush and his minions wanted to install 10 more interceptor silos in Poland and move a radar station currently based in the Micronesian Republic (Marshall Islands) to Brdy in the Czech Republic. In this way, the Bushites claimed, US imperialism could sleep safely at night - and so a deal was signed with both Poland and the Czech Republic in August 2008, both of which were eager to receive US largesse. For its part the US was eager to lock in Poland and the Czech Republic into Nato - not only against Russia, but against the German-French axis too.

But upon his inauguration this January, Obama immediately ordered a defence review - as do all US presidents, of course. The report-back stated Iran had not concentrated on developing long-range ballistic missiles, “as had been expected”, but was instead focusing its energies on building shorter-range ones. Thus the review concluded that there was now “no need” to deploy an interceptor system in Europe, but rather to use the current naval and land-based systems already close to the Persian Gulf in order to counter any possible menace from the mullahs in Tehran.

In other words, Bush’s military and strategic orientation was totally cock-eyed, if not semi-fraudulent - and represented a colossal misdirection of military expenditure. Money and resources which US imperialism, no doubt, could be wasting elsewhere.

Obama has strenuously denied that his shelving of the European anti-missile missile proposals had anything to do with violent Russian objections - to the effect that the placing of US-controlled missiles on Polish soil would be tantamount to an “act of war” and dealt with accordingly. Thus he told CBS television that the Russians “don’t make determinations about what our defence posture is” - absolutely not. But perchance, he added, if it just so happened that a “by-product” of his announcement was that it made the Russians “feel a little less paranoid” - then this would be a “bonus”, especially if the Russians suddenly found themselves “willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran”.

Writing in the Telegraph online, rightwing blogger Nils Gardiner declared that Obama must think that the US public “were born yesterday” if he believes they will buy into his “claim that last week’s missile defence surrender had nothing to do with Russian pressure”. Gardiner may have a point here. He also luridly writes that upon hearing Obama talk, he felt as “if the ghost of Neville Chamberlain had reappeared” - seeing how the president’s “shameful betrayal” of his American allies in central and eastern Europe was “appeasement on a grand scale”, the likes of which “have not been witnessed” since the late 1930s. “Little wonder”, Gardiner bitterly concludes, that Vladimir Putin “has been smiling like a Cheshire cat ever since”.¹

Predictably then, certain conservative or neo-con circles in the United States, as well as cold war warriors like Gardiner, sniff betrayal. First Obama’s ‘socialistic’ putative healthcare reforms; now a backsliding from the hawkish unilateralism - and yearning for ‘full spectrum dominance’ - that so characterised the Bush administration. In a reference to such elements, US defence secretary Robert Gates - who also served under Bush during his final years - has stated that the decision to drop the European plan was a purely “pragmatic” one, criticising those having a “view bordering on theology” with regards to certain missile defence systems that were “unworkable, prohibitively expensive and could never be practically deployed.”

So we can see that the US ruling class is divided amongst itself as to the immediate way forward for American imperialism - a fact communists welcome and a process we hope to see intensified over the coming years. But, on the other hand, the dropping of the European interceptor system and the moves towards some sort of détente with Russia - if indeed that is what it is - come at a price: the steady tightening of the military noose around Iran, which is being encircled by US imperialism.

Furthermore, the dreams of a missile ‘shield’ live on - even if not perched over Europe any more. But in fact the very idea of such a shield is tantamount to madness on just about whatever ground you care to name - technologically, military, economically.

Of course, such fantasies have their origins in Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, as first outlined in 1983. Reagan wanted - or at least claimed he did - to use ground and space-based systems to protect the US from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. In terms of formal military doctrine, the SDI’s focus on strategic defence marked a divergence from the previous long-standing strategic concept of ‘mutually assured destruction’, or MAD.

Reagan’s SDI quickly became dubbed ‘Star Wars’ by its legion of critics - as it was obviously based on a combination of totally bogus science, delusional ideas picked up from a certain type of populist science fiction and a good dose of imperial hubris. In response, the American Physics Society in 1987 flatly declared that the notion of a Star Wars global shield was “impossible” with existing technology, perhaps with any level of vaguely feasible technological development - and, of course. prohibitively expensive as well, outside of intervention by generously minded extraterrestrials. A sentiment amply reflected in the song ‘Star Wars won’t work’ by the American musician/composer, Frank Zappa, who tells us: “Star Wars won’t work/ The gas still gets through/ It can get right on you / And what about those germs now/ Star Wars won’t work/ It’s a piece of shit/ Why are they even talkin’ about it any more/ It’s just an expensive bunch of nothing”.²

But, of course, none of that prevented the US ‘military-industrial complex’ from spending well over $100 billion on Star Wars and similar follow-on programmes (not including the classified off-budget ‘black projects’). It goes without saying that US imperialism holds a totally dominating lead over all current or potential future adversaries in the realm of space technology/warfare. Forget China. The vast majority of this expenditure has been ploughed into basic research conducted by all manner of laboratories and universities, and to this day these programmes continue to be a key source of funding for research scientists in the fields of high-energy physics, supercomputing/computation, advanced materials, etc. Funding, of course, which feeds into the economy as a whole and acts as an indirect subsidy to many sections of US capital.

By such an invidious process, militarism - thanks to the power of the cash nexus - spreads into every nook and cranny of US public life, and into the minds and culture of the society. Yes, “an expensive bunch of nothing” - but one that serves a very useful function for US capitalism and imperialism.

Naturally, under certain carefully controlled and highly optimised experimental conditions - or using various computer simulations and models - one can imagine, or invent, a scenario where interceptor missiles have some sort of operational effectiveness. But if it came to the reality of war, as anyone with even a slither of scientific, technological or military knowledge knows full well, such anti-missile technology would prove to be as good as useless - you would be lucky to ‘intercept’ one percent of the incoming enemy missiles.

No, the straightforward, brutal fact remains that to win a major war or conflagration - whether it be regional, continental or worldwide - there is only one way to effectively and efficiently proceed: bomb the crap out of them. Better still, of course, nuke them - it’s cheap, easy and guaranteed to work. Unlike the costly fantasies of Star Wars and interceptor defence/military systems. In this way, imperialism - with the US being the absolute hegemon - threatens to annihilate civilisation and bring barbarism to the planet.