World Affairs

Vol. 6, Number 4 (October-December 2002)

Some Memos for the American Century?
J C Kapur

From 'the land of the brave and the home of the free' have emerged many memos for the first decade of the American century. And it would appear that the unipolar superpower has now assumed for itself, and declared the divine right to provide for the entire world, its own definitions for democracy, human rights and culture. It has also proclaimed the limitlessness of its own interests, and declared its intentions to enforce these with all the instruments—informational, economic, and military—at its command. And thus ensure universal obedience to the American leadership.

Events of 'nine-eleven' have also provided the unipolar power system with the logic and an opportunity to consolidate its hold over the socio-politico- techno-economic commanding heights of the international system. There is a growing belief worldwide that the fight against terrorism is only a euphemism for justifying a war in Iraq and to pre-empt the energy resources of this and other targetted countries, and to direct their economic and security policies to serve the superpower's interests.

The systematic fragmentation of nations, peoples and cultures and the attempted globalisation of the fragmented entities with threats of the use of overwhelming force, is catalysing the emergence of new alignments and power centres, as a safeguard against the wild, and hegemonic actions of the increasingly alienated unipolar system. This has in fact accelerated the no-holds-barred proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction not only amongst small and marginal nations, but also amongst organised terror networks. The compulsive desire by some nations to dominate, and the spirit of revenge of the terrorist groups have catalysed a reign of terror in many countries.

With the growing uncertainties and grave threats to international peace, agreements have been negotiated for creating a framework for the phased de-nuclearisation of weapons of mass destruction. As an expression of the might of the superpower to further enhance its control over the world system, these agreements now stand abrogated. And now we are faced with the potential for a major conflict with unpredictable consequences both in human and economic terms. The unipolar system, on the pretext of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, an unverified assertion, is threatening to let loose a conflagration which has at once placed the entire world on alert, and the American people under siege.

A memo in the form of a National Security Document-2002 challenges the right of other nations or group of nations, together to out-perform the American economy or outpace its arsenal of weapons. It is thus implied, that henceforth the human evolutionary processes will not be governed by democratic processes or sovereignty of nations, but by the will of the superpower. Not only have they declared their supremacy over all nations, peoples, and cultures, but at the same time they want to assure that this remains a permanent situation. In perpetual motion of the cosmic universe of which we are an infinitesimal integral part, such mental infirmity and arrogance have no parallel in human history. Many great empires of the past, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and British, collapsed because of similar illusions. And this attack on human freedom, and the rights of other nations and peoples is in reality an expression of the desperation in the face of the historically uncontrolled evolutionary shifts in the world environment. The future alone can tell what will be the consequences of such an attempt at disrupting natural and human processes.

Reckless development of an 'armament protected consumerist system' have disrupted the heat and energy balances within the earth's life support system. Launched on this path of annihilation of the human civilisation, concerned people and nations have, from time to time raised alarm and sought solutions to and actions on these problems. Some preventive actions on the accelerated deterioration of the bio-system were proposed and agreed to by the world community at Kyoto. But now, we are the recipients of another memo which abrogates the Kyoto accord on environment, and accelerates the race towards Armageddon.

But perhaps, the most important of the memos in terms of the human future comes in the forms of threats to marginalise the United Nations, a structure built for peace with the blood of millions of the youth of many countries including those of the unipolar power system. Now, for many years, the United Nations has been used for the projection of the economic, political and security interests of the unipolar system. While some kind of peace prevailed internationally and the world was saved from major wars, hundreds of smaller conflicts, many of these instigated, continue to displace and destroy the lives of millions of people. And now under the shadow of 'nine-eleven', and of the fight against terrorism, the dominant interests have become so blatant and obvious that a message is reaching out to all corners of the globe, that under the cover of fighting terror, the entire world system is being destabilised and pushed towards chaos. The consequences of these policies are damaging the interests of many countries, particularly in the developing world, and further, it has now begun to hurt the international financial structure and the interests of the oligarchies within the unipolar power system. It is only in this context that the recent events in the Middle-East can be viewed.

Another memo issued recently on 'Home Land Security' in its practical ramifications curtails and endangers the basic liberties of the citizens of the United States. This is also becoming an unpleasant prospect for those who wish to visit or trade with the United States. While even more diabolical laws are in the making, this act provides the power to intrude on the privacy and to intimidate all the citizens by intelligence agencies of the State. So what we are witnessing today is a sustained series of actions to curb dissent within the country and to dominate and control the globalised world as a field of operation of the oligarchies. Through these instruments the latter's acts cannot be challenged by any one within the United States.

It is not for us to determine what laws any nation adopts for the protection of its own economic and security interests. It is also our wish that God may give all the capacity to serve their own interests well. But these acts should not impinge on the rights of others to realise their own material, cultural, and spiritual destinies. Under the excuse of promoting gross consumerism no nation or group, however powerful, has the right to trivialise and demean the diverse flowering of human visions, traditions, attributes and sensitivities. Subversion of cultural diversity, waste of resources, and destruction of the environment, are part of a process of self-immolation.

In order to highlight some of the basic issues at the source of grave insecurities within the international system, we invited some scholars to reflect on them. Côme Carpentier has analysed some of the risks incurred by the State of Israel and tried to predict the likely fallout from the Iraq conflict, while Soyam Lokendrajit Singh defines a 'terrorist'. Satyavir Singh provides insights into 'terrorism and counter terrorism in South Asia'. Maheshwar Singh explicates the effects of ethnic conflict on international security, while Neil Winn focuses on the impact of the enlargement of the Brussels institutions and policies; Smita Yadav provides some insights on the issues of sovereignty in the international system. We hope that these presentations will throw some light on the aggregating crises in the world.